[Deck] Belcher

[dlevsApiJ]

Song doesnt look so good in the side,, its a instant.. ;)

RoF also isnt good,, you only get more mana when you have 2 of them in the grave,, cause Wish cost 2.. And when you play 3 main,, its hard to get 2 of them in your grave...

Mvg

[asdljas]

Yeah, my bad on the Seething Song. The only sorcery ritual effects I can think of are Channel the Suns (which only gives you +1 mana when you spent 2 to Burning Wish), and the Rite of Flame. I really want a +2 ritual effect in the board, or something that doubles as such.

What do you guys think about the Land Grant question? Should we go down to three if we're running only one Taiga?

[Bongo]

I've been testing Storm Entity as a minor win-condition in Belcher:

1 Taiga
4 Land Grant
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide

4 Rite of Flame
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Seething Song
4 Tinder Wall

4 Pyroblast

4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens

4 Storm Entity


SB:
1 Empty the Warrens
4 Shattering Spree
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Cave-In
1 Hull Breach
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Simplify
1 Grapeshot


While I can't say anything conclusive yet, Storm Entity has been surprisingly useful as a Plan B.
You can catch opponents offguard if they board out their creature removal and you circumvent stuff like Pyroclasm, Engineered Explosives which would normally be very good against EtW tokens.

If anybody else is testing this, let me know how it does for you.

[Soto]

Won't you mana burn like crazy from Storm Entity?

[Slay]

Mana burn doesn't matter, but why would you put the Storm Entitys in the maindeck, when the time they're at their best is when you get to avoid creaturekill?
-Slay

[meanee]

Storm entity is very much better in the sideboard. It has to come as a surprise, otherwise, it is way too easy to kill for your opponent. The very best for a belcherplayer is to kill turn 1 or 2 with the charbelcher, and then the next round board in things like storm entity, and hope to catch your opponent off guard.

For reference, here is the list me and my (danish) team has developed. It is very aggressive, and after the meta has shifted towards a lot of force of will decks, it is not very good anymore.

THe kill:
4 belcher
4 empty the warrens
The critters:
8 spirit guides
4 tinder wall
4 Street wraith
The others:
3 pyroblast
4 serum powder
4 land grant
THe mana:
4 seething song
4 desperate ritual
4 rite of flame
4 lotus petal
4 chrome mox
4 lion's eye diamond
1 taiga

The sideboard is something like:
4 storm entity
4 red elemental blast
3-4 shattering spree
3-4 something...

Anyway, that's how we play the belcher. There is no need for the second taiga, or land in general...

- meanee

[Iranon]

Storm Entity has been a solid maindeck card for me, generally being a credible win condition if the opponent is countering mana sources all over the place. Even though it'll die quite often, I think it improves some unfavourable match-ups.

[Wallace]

For reference, here is the list me and my (danish) team has developed. It is very aggressive, and after the meta has shifted towards a lot of force of will decks, it is not very good anymore.

Anyway, that's how we play the belcher. There is no need for the second taiga, or land in general...
- meanee

I see you have cut burning wish and the wish board, how consistant can this deck be only running 8 win conditions insted of 11?

[meanee]

You're right, that sometimes you simply have to muligan just because you don't have any win-conditions in your starting 7. BUT. And there is a but, i'd say. If you exclude the wish, and wishboard from the deck, you can go off a lot faster. Up til about a .5 turns earlier...

In a thresh fow-in-generel meta I wouldn't play my list anymore. It has simply no way of fighting through a hand full of fow, daze, stifle and the like (even though one of my teammates fought through 4 counters when going off, but that seems to be a rare case :))

Anyway. All in all I like to play my list better than the wish-lists. Mine is very very aggressive, but, as I just said, it is also a lot more vulnerable... Unfortunately...

- meanee

[badjuju]

If anyone has seen the latest list (or cares anyway), CRET Belcher won a 75-man tournament...filled with blue in the top 8. Now most people wouldn't advocate playing this deck in a blue-filled environment (and for the most part, such is still true), but this guy definitely proved us wrong. The card that won him these matches was Magus of the Moon. At first, I sorta dismissed the creature since it didn't make any sense in the deck. But as I imagined the plays, Magus of the Moon really puts the other decks (especially the tri-color aggro-control decks) in a jam. Backed by MB REB effects, resolving a Magus isn't as bad as people would think.

Secondly, the general consensus in Europe is still to run 2 Taigas. I honestly haven't found any particular advantage, but at the same time they're still running Wild Cantors and such. The deck might be a bit slower or inconsistent with Belches, but do you guys think it is worth it to stick to 2 lands?

Lastly, this isn't the first time I've seen 3x Rite of Flame MB and 1x SB. The chances that you'll have yarded a Rite of Flame (or two) while casting a Burning wish for something other than a win condition is very narrow. I still think 4x Rite of Flame is the correct number MB to maintain the explosiveness of the deck.

[Waikiki]

Where can I find the decklist? I wonder what goes out for the magus

[Wallace]

If anyone has seen the latest list (or cares anyway), CRET Belcher won a 75-man tournament...filled with blue in the top 8. Now most people wouldn't advocate playing this deck in a blue-filled environment (and for the most part, such is still true), but this guy definitely proved us wrong. The card that won him these matches was Magus of the Moon. At first, I sorta dismissed the creature since it didn't make any sense in the deck. But as I imagined the plays, Magus of the Moon really puts the other decks (especially the tri-color aggro-control decks) in a jam. Backed by MB REB effects, resolving a Magus isn't as bad as people would think.

Secondly, the general consensus in Europe is still to run 2 Taigas. I honestly haven't found any particular advantage, but at the same time they're still running Wild Cantors and such. The deck might be a bit slower or inconsistent with Belches, but do you guys think it is worth it to stick to 2 lands?

Lastly, this isn't the first time I've seen 3x Rite of Flame MB and 1x SB. The chances that you'll have yarded a Rite of Flame (or two) while casting a Burning wish for something other than a win condition is very narrow. I still think 4x Rite of Flame is the correct number MB to maintain the explosiveness of the deck.

Do you have a deck list or the name of the tournament so we can see the top 8?

[Jules]

http://www.planetmtg.de/articles/artikel.html?id=3408

[asdljas]

Okay, I'm not so sure about the Magus of the Moon tech, but it seems to be popular. Even the worlds lists had one deck with the Moonman in the board. Does anyone have test results with this? Also, two of the three lists at Worlds were running Xantid Swarm in the board.

[Filipinho]

I really like Paul Borocyk's list. From my playing, it's playing really well. Pretty smooth.
I like being striclty red and green, with black I had a lot more problem with consistency, being mana screwed a few times.
I like playing 2x Taiga's to maximize Belcher effect. With 2x lands you can get yours via Land Grand or draw and keep a land in the deck for a huge Belcher. I like improving the chances of an instant kill.
I like the Street Wraith, it makes your deck have 56 cards. More chance to draw whatever you want.
I like having REB's MD, it's a metagame slot, but tendency is that every meta will have lots of counters. At worlds was a good call.
What I'm not sure is the wish board and side boarding techniques. Could you help me?

[Wallace]

I really like Paul Borocyk's list. From my playing, it's playing really well. Pretty smooth.
I like being striclty red and green, with black I had a lot more problem with consistency, being mana screwed a few times.
I like playing 2x Taiga's to maximize Belcher effect. With 2x lands you can get yours via Land Grand or draw and keep a land in the deck for a huge Belcher. I like improving the chances of an instant kill.
I like the Street Wraith, it makes your deck have 56 cards. More chance to draw whatever you want.
I like having REB's MD, it's a metagame slot, but tendency is that every meta will have lots of counters. At worlds was a good call.
What I'm not sure is the wish board and side boarding techniques. Could you help me?

Running 2 Taiga's doesn't maximize belcher, running 1 does however. If you hit no land off of a Belcer activation you will do damage equal to the number of cards left in your deck. I would rather run one Taiga and fetch it with a Land Grant, leaving zero land in my deck which,would guaruntee that I kill my opponent, then run two lands and chane revealing a land to early.

Another thing is you want to run main board Pyroblasts not REB. Pyroblast can target any color spell, addiing to storm count if needed, while REB can only target blue spells. If this was just a typo then just ignor this last paragraph.

[Filipinho]

Sorry. I knew about pyroblast x REB.

But I thought you had to reveal a land for belcher to work... being new to the deck has these things.

[JDunkin00]

I have played belcher many times and perfer the wishes there is too much hate maindeck (explosive, p needle) if the win the die roll. I also like cantor cause sometime you just have to beat in just ask tacosnape.

[Tacosnape]

I have played belcher many times and perfer the wishes there is too much hate maindeck (explosive, p needle) if the win the die roll. I also like cantor cause sometime you just have to beat in just ask tacosnape.

Yeah, that game was ridiculous.:P

I mostly agree, though. Cantor's still pretty good. What Wild Cantor allows you to do even in R/G is, much like Tinder Wall, stagger your combo when you're short on mana. Taiga/Mox, Cantor, go, leaves you only needing a net mana of +2 next turn to hit either a Belcher or a Warrens.

While this isn't a great strategy and the slot would be better served as a genuine mana accelerant, the obvious problem is that there isn't one. Without going into three colors, which hurts consistency.

[JDunkin00]

Yeah, that game was ridiculous.:P

I mostly agree, though. Cantor's still pretty good. What Wild Cantor allows you to do even in R/G is, much like Tinder Wall, stagger your combo when you're short on mana. Taiga/Mox, Cantor, go, leaves you only needing a net mana of +2 next turn to hit either a Belcher or a Warrens.

While this isn't a great strategy and the slot would be better served as a genuine mana accelerant, the obvious problem is that there isn't one. Without going into three colors, which hurts consistency.

Thanks for backing me up on that. Also while less consistant in theory I still have a small black splash of Infernal tutor. It's so good with LED and nice to pick up extra Rites to go off next turn with warrens+ or extra S Song to go off with belcher. Just 2 tutors main and one for the wish makes a big difference. I will try out these 1 taiga builds and see which I prefer.