I appreciate the thoughts on mana and such because it gets to a core matter of importance to this type of deck: the balance between initial mana, bigger mana, payoffs, lands that are amazing as uncounterable rituals but bad to draw in multiples when you want storm spells, and rituals that are amazing for storm count and ramp but need starting mana.
I like your idea to compare the initial red sources to recent Belcher lists (neither deck can do anything without it). My deck has 17 atm: 1 Mountain, 4 MDFC, 4 Mox, 4 Petal, 4 SSG.
This is the Belcher build that's had the most recent success. I would consider it to have ~18.5 initial red sources. It has 4 SSG, 4 Land Grant, 4 Mox, 4 Petal, and 1 Taiga. It has 4 SSG but those are only the initial red source if you also draw Tinder Wall, and the odds of that also being in your remaining 6 cards are 30-something percent, so I'll say it's 1.5 red sources. I think that way of counting the SSG green mana makes sense.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5366375
This is another recent Belcher placing. I'd consider it to have ~14 initial red sources: 4 SSG, 3 Mox, 4 Petal, and this time 4 SSG and 4 Turntimber Symbiosis, which I'll apply the same math to, as they're only initial red mana if you also have Tinder Wall.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/5267605
Things get more complicated with Echo re-draws. They also get more complicated when discussing the starters beyond the initial mana, like Rite of Flame, because I have things like, initial red mana plus sol land into 3-drop, or sol lands into Monolith.
The numbers are definitely not in stone (assuming it's not a doomed 2-3 league idea in the first place), but I'll give some reasons for my current numbers:
In testing, 2-drop rituals are super important for going up the ladder, from initial mana, to 3-drops like Seething Song and Jeska's Will. It's a big reason why I added a couple of Monoliths, in addition to the multi-turn line into Elemental Eruption.
Sandstone is really interesting. Adding it to the considering section on the deck page. I confess that I don't like the idea of it coming into play tapped. I haven't wanted more lands (Cities got trimmed), because you essentially fizzle as you have or Relay into too many lands that can't all be played in the same turn. So then it would be a question of what existing land it replaces. The most likely candidate would have to be City, because I'm not cutting any red lands, but I do like that 5th untapped sol land acceleration. Will have to test it at some point.
It is nice that Needle an uncounterable ritual, and you can just wait a turn like with Monolith, but at least Monolith is always at a minimum mana positive in that turn.
Apart from the lower reliability that you mentioned, because of the lands, Belcher quickly got the axe for a few reasons, at least in the conceptual frame that I'm going for: a.) Really focusing on mostly-uncounterable payoffs, unlike Belcher, and Echo and Burning Wish, if you want to group them in there b.) LED doesn't make sense as the build stands c.) In a general sense, mana intensive and susceptible to things like FoN.
Originally Posted by Scott
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