[Deck] Belcher

[kicks_422]

Hey, that's almost my exact build that I posted (post #22)... With 3 Infernal Tutors MD and 1 in the SB instead, and I run Desperate Rituals between those 3 choices.

[ReAnimated]

So.............are there any major changes in the deck , anyone find any tech or something?

[tylerwylie]

What does CRET stand for?

[b4r0n]

Now that Future Sight is legal, has there been any thought of adding Street Wraiths to the deck? I'm not sure what they would replace, or whether it would work any better than the current build, but it certainly seems like a viable possibility.

[NANTUKO_SHADY]

Now that Future Sight is legal, has there been any thought of adding Street Wraiths to the deck? I'm not sure what they would replace, or whether it would work any better than the current build, but it certainly seems like a viable possibility.

I would either cut 4x Chrome Mox or cut 2x Desperate Ritual and 2x Wild Cantor.


It's tough to cut something in this deck, but that's what I would take out if I had to add 4x Street Wraith.

[revenge_inc]

What does CRET stand for?

It was team CRET who arguably started the Belcher craze when 4 members of their team piloted it in a Legacy GPT in Montréal. All running the same list they came 1st, 2nd, 9th and ?th place. Ewokslayer kept the name CRET when he split in the finals at Kadis III and since then the "CRET" has stuck.

Now that Future Sight is legal, has there been any thought of adding Street Wraiths to the deck?

I've been thinking the idea of Street Wraith's over and I think it may not be the best idea to include them. "gasp". Here me out people:

Advantage:
-You are now in effect running a 56 card deck, maximizing your chance of comboing out in a broken fashion.

Disadvantages:
-You loose 2 life (not a biggy-99% of the time you won't give a fuck)

-What happens when you get Street Wraiths in your opening hand? (The more you have in your opening hand, the more relevent this argument becomes). Sure, you can pitch it/them to draw a card but when deciding to mulligan or to keep your opening grip, you don't know what a Wraith will effectively replace. The Wraiths then add an element of uncertainty.

If you draw a borderline 5 card hand + 2 Wraiths, do you mulligan? If you "new" the other 2 cards you might or you might not. Whatever your decision with the Wraith hand, you're taking a risk.

[Bane of the Living]

It was team CRET who arguably started the Belcher craze when 4 members of their team piloted it in a Legacy GPT in Montréal. All running the same list they came 1st, 2nd, 9th and ?th place. Ewokslayer kept the name CRET when he split in the finals at Kadis III and since then the "CRET" has stuck.



I've been thinking the idea of Street Wraith's over and I think it may not be the best idea to include them. "gasp". Here me out people:

Advantage:
-You are now in effect running a 56 card deck, maximizing your chance of comboing out in a broken fashion.

Disadvantages:
-You loose 2 life (not a biggy-99% of the time you won't give a fuck)

-What happens when you get Street Wraiths in your opening hand? (The more you have in your opening hand, the more relevent this argument becomes). Sure, you can pitch it/them to draw a card but when deciding to mulligan or to keep your opening grip, you don't know what a Wraith will effectively replace. The Wraiths then add an element of uncertainty.

If you draw a borderline 5 card hand + 2 Wraiths, do you mulligan? If you "new" the other 2 cards you might or you might not. Whatever your decision with the Wraith hand, you're taking a risk.

This is an interesting pov on Street Wraith and everyones pretty much saying that same thing. I realize there are decks this card does and doesnt belong in and the opening hand senario is the determining factor.

When you know what your going to draw, its fine. Its that simple right?
This is why you can play the card in burn easiest. Your going to draw land, or burn. If you have a hand of 5 burn, 1 land, 1 sw you should probably mulligan because you need it to be a land. If you have a hand of 2 land, 4 burn, 1 sw you keep that shit.

The same principle applies here..
1) Mana
This is obviously what he's replacing since thats the bulk of your deck.
2) Business
Wish, EtW, Belcher

So if you have an opening hand of 4 mana, 2 business, 1 sw your probably all set. If you see an opening hand that consists of 3 mana, 3 business, 1 sw Id say your still pretty good here taking a chance he'll gonna be a mana source.
If your opening hand is 5 mana, 1 business, 1 sw you should mull.

You just need to actually try it and use common sense. Its easy to speculate a card being bad till it beats your face in. You laugh your ass off at the purple one eye'd monster till they untap and kill you with it. Shit I just leaked my secret sb tech!

[BreathWeapon]

Why would you mull a hand with 5 mana, 1 business and a street wraith? Most people would keep a hand with just 5 mana, 1 business on the mull to 6, so that doesn't make any sense. I think you're really only obligated to mull a hand with street wraith when you don't have any business.

[Kilz88]

Why don't you guys try wraith in dark rituals place and turn the bayou into a 2nd taiga? Its much better. Dark ritual is uneccicery and burning wish is indeed better than infernal tutor.

[honz]

i have played around with pact of negation, infernal tutor, and plunge into darkness in burning wish's spot (with a compliment of cabal rituals). This has made it very apparent that burning wish is by far the best card for the job, and i would have it no other way. I suggest you just play a few games with the different choices, and you will understand; the only card that comes close is infernal tutor, but even that lacks the versatility that wish provides.

Speaking of wish, i was never entirely happy with the wish-board. I made some changes that i think are best for the deck. My board looks like this:
1 Empty the warrens
1 Simplify
1 Pyroclasm
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Duress
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Infernal Tutor
4 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
3 Shattering Spree

explanation of changes:
Goblin War Strike - Cave-in was weak, at best. If you have a red card in your hand, it is probly a ritual, which will allow you to get enough mana for pyroclasm. Also, cave-in doesnt work with the common: burning wish, LED in response play. Goblin war strike offers late-game win, if your gobbos get outsized before they finish the job.

Cabal Therapy - This is very situational; however it becomes very strong post-board. You can recur this, to deal with any infest, ghostly prison..etc that you find. I think it is worth it.

also, 4 pyroblast, as they can be cast on non-blue spells to up your storm count.



Street wraith doesnt belong. If you put wraith in dark ritual's spot, then you have no need for wild cantor, and that card becomes even worse that it already is (and vice-versa). Also wraith doesnt allow you to judge your hand as well as you could without it, making you ultimately go off slower.

Deceptively powerful is a good summary of Street Wraith

[Moczoc]

Why don't you guys try wraith in dark rituals place and turn the bayou into a 2nd taiga? Its much better. Dark ritual is uneccicery and burning wish is indeed better than infernal tutor.

Yes, that is the direction the deck has to go.
I'm testing this version for a long time now and I can say it is in fact superior to the Ritual version, simply because you don't get thost crappy Bayou-shots with Belcher. (which made me lose many games)

@bane: Witch-Maw Nephilim was my first thought, but it looks completly different oO

@honz: War strike sounds great, i'll include it for testing


here is my most recent list:



Creatures
4 Tinder Wall
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Wild Cantor
4 Street Wraith

Spells
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Seething Song
4 Lotus Petal
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Chrome Mox
4 Land Grant
4 Rite of Flame
4 Desperate Ritual
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Burning Wish

Lands
2 Taiga


Sideboard
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Pyroclasm
1 Simplify
4 Shattering Spree
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Deconstruct
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Duress

[BreathWeapon]

Is there any reason you guys aren't using Diminishing Returns in the SB? You get to either generate 10+ storm for Empty the Warrens or switch from an Empty Warrens kill to a Goblin Charbelcher kill on demand.

Goblin War Strike is awesome tech for TES, thanks. Portal commons for the win!

[laststepdown]

Other than LED, Wild Cantors, and Lotus Petal there's no way to get UU reliably, permanent source or not.

[Kronicler]

@ laststepdown: That's why you play Dim. Returns in the SB where you will only Burning Wish for it, and only when you can crack an LED in response for the UU needed. It's just increased versatility.

@ BreathWeapon: You mean Scourge commons? It was in both Scourge and Portal 2.

Kronicler

[Moczoc]

When I testet Diminishing Returns, it either got countered (what couldn't have happened to EtW) or the 7 cards I drew didn't contain a win condition and I lost the game

[Ewokslayer]

This is an interesting pov on Street Wraith and everyones pretty much saying that same thing. I realize there are decks this card does and doesnt belong in and the opening hand senario is the determining factor.

When you know what your going to draw, its fine. Its that simple right?
This is why you can play the card in burn easiest. Your going to draw land, or burn. If you have a hand of 5 burn, 1 land, 1 sw you should probably mulligan because you need it to be a land. If you have a hand of 2 land, 4 burn, 1 sw you keep that shit.

The same principle applies here..
1) Mana
This is obviously what he's replacing since thats the bulk of your deck.
2) Business
Wish, EtW, Belcher

So if you have an opening hand of 4 mana, 2 business, 1 sw your probably all set. If you see an opening hand that consists of 3 mana, 3 business, 1 sw Id say your still pretty good here taking a chance he'll gonna be a mana source.
If your opening hand is 5 mana, 1 business, 1 sw you should mull.

You just need to actually try it and use common sense. Its easy to speculate a card being bad till it beats your face in. You laugh your ass off at the purple one eye'd monster till they untap and kill you with it. Shit I just leaked my secret sb tech!

The problem with your analysis is that most of it is wrong.
Yes Belcher is made up of two types of cards Mana and Kill (the deck has no "business spells" The deck does two things, make mana and kill).
However not all mana sources in the deck are created equal.
There are Mana Sources that go from 0 to 1
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
Mana Sources that add one Mana
3 Tinder Walls
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Rite of Flame (1st one)
Mana Sources that add two Mana
4 Dark Ritual
4 Seething Song
Rite of Flame (2nd)
Mana Sources that aren't really
4 Wild Cantor
4 LED
So, with that out of the way lets look at your "sample" hands

opening hand of 4 mana, 2 business, 1 sw your probably all set.

How are you all set? Do those 4 mana cards produce 4 mana, 6, 7?
If they only produce four mana, what is the storm when that happens as 10 of your mana cards don't up the storm count. What happens to this hand if Street Wraith becomes a ETW, Burning Wish, or Belcher?

If you see an opening hand that consists of 3 mana, 3 business, 1 sw Id say your still pretty good here taking a chance he'll gonna be a mana source.

Taking a chance he'll be a mana source? WTF. I would rather take a chance that he would be a mana source by him you know actually being a mana source.

If your opening hand is 5 mana, 1 business, 1 sw you should mull.

Why would you mulligan a hand that is almost always going to get you to 4,6,or 7 mana 1st turn to use your kill spell.

While I am all for testing Street Wraith in Belcher I think most people are overlooking or ignoring one very important part of playing this deck.
The only decision to make is weather to mulligan the opening hand or not. Street Wraith makes that decision harder. You are never going to keep a hand with only mana cards, a Street Wraith, and no kill card so basically you are replacing Mana in the deck so you can run Street Wraith so you can cycle Street Wraith to find the Mana that you replaced with it.
Unless you can guarantee that the cycle will find you a Mana card and that Mana card is better than the card Street Wraith is replacing I don't see Street Wraith being good in the deck.
Edit: Though it would be better savage if you could figure out a realistic way to know what Street Wraith will draw and thus use LED mana on more things.

I would either cut 4x Chrome Mox or cut 2x Desperate Ritual and 2x Wild Cantor.


It's tough to cut something in this deck, but that's what I would take out if I had to add 4x Street Wraith.

Cutting Chrome Mox seems awful.

[jamest]

Yes, that is the direction the deck has to go.
I'm testing this version for a long time now and I can say it is in fact superior to the Ritual version, simply because you don't get thost crappy Bayou-shots with Belcher...
2 Taiga

I've also been testing RG Belcher, but why bother with two lands? You're weakening your win condition (Belcher) for the sake of 5 vs 6 lands (counting Land Grants). And it's not like you'll be drawing 2 of 5 lands by turn 2 very often.

[BreathWeapon]

When I testet Diminishing Returns, it either got countered (what couldn't have happened to EtW) or the 7 cards I drew didn't contain a win condition and I lost the game

If you wished for Diminishing Returns against control, you're a bad player, and if your opponent countered the wish target instead of countering the wish, so is he. Not drawing a win condition off of the new hand is just bad luck.

@ Street Wraith, Street Wraith is fine as long as you are counting it as a pseudo mana source, it's really not that difficult to decide on whether or not you should keep a hand with Street Wraith in it. I personally use R/g with 8 Blasts, but I could see Street Wraith and 4 Pyroblasts.

[Illissius]

I think Street Wraith might be a bad idea. Let me explain.

Street Wraith is the top card of your library. This means that it is going to be a mana source approximately five out of six times, and a win condition one out of six. Now, your first thought is that this isn't a bad thing, because running more Belchers and Empties -- even if by just a fraction of a card -- is always nice, and you get to drop your worst mana source to draw better ones. It doesn't work this way. You are unlikely to keep any opening hand which doesn't have a win condition in it. You are going to mulligan a hand with a Wraith and no win conditions, whether or not the top card of your library is in fact one of them, becase you don't know if it is. So the only time you are going to keep a hand with Wraith in it is if you already have a win condition. In this case, you want Wraith to draw a mana source; however, approximately one in six times, it won't. Hence, Wraith should only be run if a mana source which only works five times out of six is still better than whatever you are cutting for it.

[BreathWeapon]

I think Street Wraith might be a bad idea. Let me explain.

Street Wraith is the top card of your library. This means that it is going to be a mana source approximately five out of six times, and a win condition one out of six. Now, your first thought is that this isn't a bad thing, because running more Belchers and Empties -- even if by just a fraction of a card -- is always nice, and you get to drop your worst mana source to draw better ones. It doesn't work this way. You are unlikely to keep any opening hand which doesn't have a win condition in it. You are going to mulligan a hand with a Wraith and no win conditions, whether or not the top card of your library is in fact one of them, becase you don't know if it is. So the only time you are going to keep a hand with Wraith in it is if you already have a win condition. In this case, you want Wraith to draw a mana source; however, approximately one in six times, it won't. Hence, Wraith should only be run if a mana source which only works five times out of six is still better than whatever you are cutting for it.

That's the thing, Street Wraith isn't being cut for a business card in R/g, it's being added as a pseudo mana source when the mana sources are already maxed out. There's no reason to splash black for Dark Ritual and use Wild Cantor, when you can use Street Wraith and get a mana source that can be just as good as Dark Ritual or better than Wild Cantor.

You can always imprint it on Chrome Mox to.