[Deck] Belcher

[Bovinious]

That list shouldn't even be in the CRET Belcher thread, this is just like Belcher circa 2004 with ETW and Wraith...

There are so many problems here, you cant support 4 Unmask and 4 Chrome Mox on 20 blacks cards that all actually want to cast/cycle. All this deck did was turn Belcher into BG rather than RG, Cabal Rit = Desperate rit, Dark rit = Rite of Flame, Spoils = Burning Wish, Unmask apparently for Seething Song. I don't think this is very smart though because this makes the Spirit Guides worse, Tinder Wall worse, and ETW harder to cast. I guess Spoils basically makes it like your running 8 Belcher 4 ETW rather than 4 Belcher 7 ETW, except sometimes youll have to cast Belcher and sit on it, and the life loss from Spoils can make it so people can actually kill you before you get the mana to activate Belcher. It seems to me that you fear ETW removal WAY too much, it seems like your trying to sacrifice some speed for protection with this deck which is a bad idea. If you go Unmask removing Black Card and miss, you just Hymned yourself and prolly have to wait to go off. Even if you hit, you still cant go off yet w/ 5 cards in hand, and if they are playing Counters they prolly have cantrips too in order to dig for more. Belcher is good because it FORCES them to have it in their starting hand or lose, and they still have to play it at the right time. Your deck is also much worse in topdeck mode if it does get stopped, 4 Powder 4 Unmask are dead topdecks, along with all the Spirit Guides and Tinder Walls that dont help you cast your mana spells.

Also do something about the 61 cards, its a huge double standard to want to run Powder and Wraith to play less cards but then play more than the min. total.

[BreathWeapon]

@Bane of the Living,

http://www.trader-online.de/turniere/siegerdecks.htm

That should be more useful than Morphling.de if their database is still intact.

@Bovinius

That's an over simplification, the difference between Dark Ritual and Right of Flame and Spoils of the Vault and Burning Wish are tremendous, because Dark Ritual draws the Force of Will and Spoils of the Vault is a more efficient tutor for either win condition and can be used to fix mana, generate storm and accelerate. Seething Song is a god awful top deck, so replacing it with Unmask isn't a significant down grade, and Unmask prevents the deck from going into top deck mode in the first place. The deck can support Unmask and Chrome Mox because Unmask and Chrome Mox aren't RFGing the same cards to begin with and Unmask can be RFGed to Chrome Mox.

As I said, 61 cards was an over sight caused from replacing Burning Wish for Spoils of the Vault and returning the 4th Empty the Warrens to the MD, you can cut a Street Wraith because that card slot is only used as a place holder.

This shell is the right shell, it's the mana base that needs to be dealt with, and I think I've figured out how to do it. To be honest, this list was just intended as a segway into the next list that I'll post tomorrow, after all of the goldfishing is done. I think there's a legitimate reason to return to black that will be so obvious once you see the tech.

@Anwar101

Blasts don't protect against removal, I'll address the other points later.

[Bovinious]

So Dark Ritual is good because it gets countered? I recognize 3 mana for 1 mana is good and Dark Rit is a good card so much so that original CRET splashed it but that statement made no sense. Spoils wouldnt need to fix mana if you werent playing black to begin with, Cabal Ritual is the same as desperate ritual and Rite of Flame is synonymous to Dark ritual, and is mre useful because it can actually be used to cast ETW, your win con, or a Wish to find and cast your win con. Unmask and Song are about equally bad topdecks but you run Powder as well for 8 bad topdecks, just seems like youd have a harder time coming back when you get answered or after Hymning yourself with Unmask. Mox will want to RFG a black card about half the time it looks like from ur list, since you want to be able to cast Dark Rit and apparently Spoils, 20 black cards just seems low to me for Unmask and Mox especially when you need those black cards to actually win the game. The manabase does need some kind of fixing if your going to stay in black but to fix Id just go back to RG.

I agree w/ Anwar in that Pyroblast just seems better than Unmask, ESP in your new list that apparently is scared to cast ETW and is willing to use Spoils to find Belcher. If your using Powder and Spoils to find Belcher I think you should be more worried about them countering your Belcher than them Sandstorming or whatever cards you fear your ETW tokens which you would rather not create. You could probably support the Pyroblasts if you put in Rite of Flame rather than Tinder Wall, added a Taiga, and possibly Wild Cantors. Something like -4 Wraith -4 Unmask -4 Tinder Wall +1 Taiga +2 Wild Cantor +4 Pyroblast +4 Rite of Flame, with the the last Wraith removed cutting to 60 cards. All of this seems like a lot of work just to cast Belcher a little bit more of the time but thats prolly the best way to do it.

[BreathWeapon]

Here's an example,

Turn one Chrome Mox imprinting red card, Right of Flame, Desperate Ritual and now the opponent must Force of Will the Desperate Ritual or risk SG generating a 4th mana and casting Empty the Warrens.

Net loss, 2 cards and 3 storm.

Compare that to,

Turn one Chrome Mox imprinting black card, Dark Ritual "see above"

Net loss, 1 card and 2 storm.

Yes, Dark Ritual is the best ritual because of B for BBB, but it also affects the opponent's Force of Will options to serve as pseudo disruption. The reason this isn't the case in CRETBelcher is because the deck can't count on Dark Ritual with out losing a Wild Cantor or a Lotus Petal to cast it in the process.

Yes, Spoils of the Vault has to be used to fix mana sometimes, but other times it's a tutor for a win condition or an accelerant.

20 black cards is more than enough to support Unmask and Chrome Mox, AfFOWnity used 16 cards to support Force of Will and Chrome Mox, and this deck can just imprint Unmask to Chrome Mox or just use the Chrome Mox to imprint a Spirit Guide for permanent mana, a second win condition, a second Land Grant, a Spoils of the Vault or a Spirit Guide for permanent mana. Unmask is easier to support on the draw, but if need be the deck can pass the turn to fish for another black card against control. You also seem to be forgetting that the Blasts will cost the deck two cards to use as well, all of the mana is one time mana and the mana for the Blast had to be made up elsewhere.

I'll post the updated versions of the deck in another thread, because they are just too far gone from CRETBelcher or R/gBelcher to be in here. You can expect them to be up in the early hours of the morning.

[zulander]

I haven't read all the posts so please exuse me if I'm asking something that has been discussed already. I've been playing belcher in vintage and I'm running 4 Pact of Negation in the main along with 3 goblin welders for the late game. Has anyone tested Pact in 1.5? It's amazing when you're comboing and your opponent disrupts you going off, you respond with pact if you know you can win on your next upkeep. Stack the pact trigger then in response tap 3 and belcher and win.

As for welder he's been amazing welding in an LED or belcher into play after you've activated an LED. How many times have you had an LED + 1 artifact and a belcher in your hand? With welder in play just use the LED then weld in belcher ftw. It's worked numerous times in vintage, I wouldn't know how well it would work in legacy though.

Just my $0.02

[Nihil Credo]

Pact of Negation has horrible synergy with Empty the Warrens. It could be a consideration in Breathweapon's build, which lessens the focus on EtW, but that version already runs Unmask for pretty much the same effect, and with a lesser drawback.

Welder was seen in old Belcher lists (long before EtW was printed), until people noticed that in Legacy, a 1/1 Goblin with a powerful ability cannot seriously expect to untap alive.

[Bovinious]

Pact of Negation seems like a really bad protection option, worse than Pyroblast and probably even Unmask. You cant use it if your planning on using an ETW kill and it loses you the game if you flip the land with Belcher.

I think Welder is better in Vintage because you have all the SoloMoxen and Sol Ring/Vault/Crypt etc. as permanent artifact mana sources to sac to Welder, that in addition to there being more creature removal in Legacy, so Welder likely wouldn't live to do his job if he would even have the opportunity to do it.

[TestMonkey]

Could we shift discussing to optimizing the sideboard of Ewokslayer's posted deck? I find it to be the most consistantly explosive. Sure a misplaced FoW or early Pyroclasm can ruin your day but you got to remember we are playing combo. These things happen.

What is your guys' opinions on adding Life from the Loam to the sideboard? In my testing it's incredible in rebuilding your hand if your opponent hoses your first kill condition. Also, while highly unlikely, you theoretically can pump out a storm count of up to 10 by wishing for LotL with an EtW in your hand and choice mana acceleration in the yard.

How about Grapeshot for those last points of damage to your opponent's dome and random spot removal?

[Jak]

How does Loam rebuild your hand? I think you are reading the card wrong. Just reread it and get back to us.

I do like the idea of putting a chain lightning in the board. I always hated getting to 17 or 18 and pulling a fucking land off the top.

[Shugyosha]

I do like the idea of putting a chain lightning in the board. I always hated getting to 17 or 18 and pulling a fucking land off the top.

We already have Cave-In in the board for the last two damage. I used it several times and almost always I pitch a red card into it with no mana left (not even one for Chain Lightning).

For a finisher that takes more than two life Demonfire seems to be good. You can wish it on one turn and cast it later when you have more mana accel, or with LED mana (cracked in response to the wish). With hellbent its should be pretty bad news for counter heavy decks.

Another SB card I would like to test some time is the red Akroma. It comes in for game 2&3 (3 or 4 copies instead of Pyroblast) to give you another win condition against Fish, Threshold, etc. Sure its difficult to hardcast it but these decks usually have no answer to it and the card can't be discarded with Duress. If you decide to win another way the angel can always be imprinted into a chrome mox or pitched into Cave-In.

[Hummingbird TG]

How often do you get 8 mana? From my limited testing, not many, but then again i might be wrong...

[Bovinious]

I agree that we need to try and optimize the SB, I've seen a lot of variation within lists some of which being very puzzling.

I think there are about 12/13 cards that most people can agree belong SB, then the rest of the slots can vary:

4 Pyroblast (unless these are MD for some reason, in this case prolly REBs here)
4 Shattering Spree
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Pyroclasm
1 Cave-In
1 Simplify

I've pretty much always seen those 13 ran, except sometimes not the IT.

So for the ohter two slots our options are:

Duress
Goblin War Strike
Hull Breach
Reverent Silence
Tranquility
Diminishing Returns
more REBs

I'm kind of partial to running Diminishing Returns and Hull Breach atm, but really am not sure about those last 2 slots, it may be just a personal preference.

[Shugyosha]

How often do you get 8 mana?

That's the problem with Akroma. You have to build up a bit and multiple Rite of Flame help alot. When boarding it in I would definately board out other win conditions for it as every non-mana card is much more worse in the deck when trying to reach 8 mana instead of 4.

[Bovinious]

You almost never get 8 mana, sometimes if you draw LED LED Wish you can but you can't even Wish for Akroma...seriously I'd much rather play Storm Entity than Akroma.

[Bane of the Living]

You almost never get 8 mana, sometimes if you draw LED LED Wish you can but you can't even Wish for Akroma...seriously I'd much rather play Storm Entity than Akroma.

Maybe Im missing something here but isnt the point to play her morphed then flip her? Shes only 3 mana to play face down and a seething song away from a flip really.

[Bovinious]

I wasn't aware why people were putting such an awful card in their SBs, but I heard people talking about 8 mana, I think the point was you could play it face down then morph it up later but also she was an uncounterable threat at 8 mana. Either way I'd play Storm Entity way before I'd run Akroma and I don't think I'd run Storm Entity.

[Shugyosha]

Maybe Im missing something here but isnt the point to play her morphed then flip her? Shes only 3 mana to play face down and a seething song away from a flip really.

Akroma costs 6 to unmorph but you can use LED for it anyway.

Yes something like the following is possible:

5 cards:
Bayou -> Dark Ritual
LED
LED
Play Morph
Crack LED's -> unmorph

There alot of other possible routes but you can also hardcast it after 2-3 turns of set-up. LED's are also quite nice to pump the angel.

Sure the opponent can still counter your mana spells but he can do this with Belcher and EtW kills, too. In fact he can even counter the Belcher and EtW (via Stifle). Also the other hate boarded like Engineered Plague and Needle for example are not very useful against Akroma, delaying the kill for a turn or two at most.

[Bovinious]

Thats what I was thinking, the only time Akroma can really be brought out quick is via a pair LEDs. Thing is I'd rather Burning Wish ---> Infernal Tutor and get either Belcher or ETW then, those options are just as susceptible to counters as Akroma because they can still Counter the morph. For your example the question I've gotta ask is why are you still running Bayou and Dark Ritual, but I guess thats another issue entirely.

Where did all this Red Akroma business come from? Are people siding out ETW for Akroma in the face of E. Plague? If thats the case, that E. Plague is that prominent for you, I'd suggest Storm Entity instead, itll often be a 6/6 or 7/7 Haste, which is usually a 3 turn clock, and also by 3-4 turns you may draw enough cards to cast a belcher or small ETW. I wouldn't really suggest this in general but if ETW tokens getting swept by E. Plague/Pyroclasm/watever I'd suggest Storm Entity rather than Akroma.

[Shugyosha]

Where did all this Red Akroma business come from? Are people siding out ETW for Akroma in the face of E. Plague? If thats the case, that E. Plague is that prominent for you, I'd suggest Storm Entity instead, itll often be a 6/6 or 7/7 Haste, which is usually a 3 turn clock, and also by 3-4 turns you may draw enough cards to cast a belcher or small ETW.

Several posts earlier I proposed Akroma as a possible sideboard card instead of Pyroblasts. The purpose is to have another kill condition that can bounce most of the hate of decks like Fish and Grow. I would board it against decks that pack alot of counters only.
Nobody wants to play it just because of Engineered Plague and btw. Storm Entity is strictly inferior. It can be chump blocked you can sword it and it can be countered. Every BEB can kill the card as well as Engineered Explosives.

What I said regarding Engineered Plague is that it's another card that isn't useful against Akroma, as well as Pithing Needle, Explosives, Pyroclasm, Stifle, etc. Just to list some cards of the common hate you have to face at the moment.

Besides I never played the version with black but the Street Wraith version. I just tested the Akroma SB in the black version as this deck can shore up more mana with Dark Ritual. I feared that casting it is too difficult but it isn't. I still have to try it in the RG build.

[Bovinious]

I really dont see how your going to get to 8 mana through a wall of counters, especially without Seething Song which is what you should be SBing out against decks with counters, it just begs to get countered. Also whats to stop them from just countering your face down? I'm not advocating Storm Entity over Akroma I think both suck but I'd probably try Storm Entity before Akroma.

By the way you can't say one is strictly worse than the other, they dont even function similarly at all theres no possible way you can say one is strictly better, CRET Belcher even proves you cant say REB is strictly better than Pyroblast because this is one of the few decks where you actually want to be able to waste the 'Blast. Just be careful with statements like that in the future.