[Deck] Belcher

[Vacrix]

how has goblin welder worked out for belcher? i think that it wud be a nice side in against control because its essentially another LED/belcher.

the build in my play group runs 4 of them mainboard with success. it wud be better anyway to put them in 2 prepare for the control match-up since that is your main problem. and you can get rid of chalice's and trinispheres with them too if ur opponent plays lotus petals.

[NQN]

obv every staxx/dragonstompy plays 4 lotus petal. worst argument ever -.-

[Brehn]

Who the hell plays Trinisphere and Lotus Petals in the same deck?

[StarkTheBloody]

Who the hell plays Trinisphere and Lotus Petals in the same deck?

Uh, no one. Might get lucky and get a Mox Diamond or stax in the graveyard to weld out chalice, but not too likely.

[lavafrogg]

The deck started green black and green black red but with the printing of of empty the warrens and the inclusion of burning wish made the deck not lose to itself.
Plunge into darkness has a potential to miss and the original spoils of the vault had the potential to kill you.
The deck has moved from the find a LED to win to have a FOW or lose.

[Vacrix]

lol plzz i wasnt arguing that welder should be included because some people play petals in stax/stompy. its because if ur belcher gets forced you are kind of fucked. it would be nice to have another way to get it into play once its in ur grave. i mean i know that the deck has other avenues of play if ur belcher is forced, like ETW but the deck if u can belch ftw then why not?

in fact you can even play the welder, LED, pass the turn. next turn, break the LED, discarding belcher, and then weld in the belcher, if u have another artifact to pitch to it that is.

and that is usually the reason you would play welder at all. the other reasons were just things i thought of off the top of my head when i was writing that.

and ya u r more likely to see mox diamond than lotus petal. i overlooked that..

[Pulp_Fiction]

Although I think it is pointless to say this because all people are going to say is "well it kills you, no point endangering yourself even more, Spoils isnt good cause you die to often" but to be honest Spoils of the Vault/Plunge into Darkness is better than Welder in this deck in that if Spoils resolves you will 99.8% of the time win that turn thats why I like it better than Plunge into Darkness and Welder probably won't survive long enough to do anything. But playing Spoils makes it so you are essentially playing 14-15 Kill sources as opposed to 11 and fetches out acceleration when you are in need. I recommend playing 3x because seeing it in multiples blows and you only want to cast 1x a game, not several. Recently on deckcheck.net 2x belcher decks top4ed running Spoils. So please, no comments on how it can kill you, you are playing a combo deck that is all or nothing and Spoils is that kind of card and helps the deck maintain it's speed which is essential and also makes the deck more resiliant to hand destruction.

[GreenOne]

if Spoils resolves you will 99.8% of the time win that turn

You might find this interesting:

I thought that somebody might find this interesting. As far as spoils of the vault goes and assuming that you are at 20 life.

If you have 53 cards left in the deck, spoils has a:
(49!*(53-20)!)/(53!*(49-20)!) = 13.97% of killing you searching for a 4 of.

If you have 52, (48!*(52-20)!)/(52!*(48-20)!) = 13.28%
If 51, (47!*(51-20)!)/(51!*(47-20)!) = 12.59%
If 50, (46!*(50-20)!)/(50!*(46-20)!) = 11.90%

I don't think that it is often that you would take more than 10 cards out of your library before you are looking at dipping below 20 life in legacy, whereas spoils is a bad idea anyway unless you are desperate.

Looks like the 99,8% is more like a 87%.
Also, you don't win that turn if not going for the belcher kill. This means you need at least 8 manas instead of 4 (ETW), 6 (Burning wish) or 7 (Belcher + activation).
Also, this math is done with 20 life at disposal when searching for a 4 of. This is not always the case: the opponent could have a Lightning Bolt or Mogg Fanatic to decrease your life, you could have a Belcher in hand that you need to discard to LED and tutor for another one, a Blecher can get discarded etc.

Yeah, if Spoils resolves AND you're still alive you can be in good shape, but it's useless in multiples (I'd play a 1 or 2x if I had to), and it makes you lose >=13% of the games you play it. This doesn't help consistency IMO. I'd better play Manamorphose or Street Wraith that (without using off-color mana, or even mana at all) gives me a 20% probability (11/53) of drawing a win condition if i don't have it in hand (which is unlikely).

[Vacrix]

ya i agree with GreenOne. it doesnt really improve your game that much. if you are losing more and winning more than the consistency just seems alil shaky to me.

welder isnt necessarily a mainboard, but rather a side in. most likely your opponent will remove their removal like StP, bolt, etc once they see that you are playing belcher, unless of course they expect welder. spoils isnt really something that your opponent is going to force. welder on the other hand seems much more dangerous if it hits the field. especially if you slow play it because then if your opp has no removal you jus need to wait for a lion's eye and/or a belcher, or some other combination to go off.

[DeathwingZERO]

The most common versions of Belcher from a while back were maindecking both Spoils and Welder to great degree. As far as search goes, nothing beats Spoils. It's a 1 mana instant speed investment that only suicides 10% of the time. I can't say I can see any better use for 4 slots.

As far as Welder is concerned though, I don't think it's necessarily good anymore at all. Most control decks would still expect it, seeing as it's LED 5-8 in most cases. At the very least, there's a ton of graveyard hate, a ton of creature hate, and a ton of Needle's and such running around rampant. So in reality, Welder turns ALL of your opponents answers online, at once. Not necessarily the best play.

I'm tweaking up a new list, seeing as I haven't played the deck in about 2 1/2-3 years time. If I find it useful enough, I'll end up playing it at the DLD coming up on Sunday out here in Vancouver.

[GreenOne]

The most common versions of Belcher from a while back were maindecking both Spoils and Welder to great degree. As far as search goes, nothing beats Spoils. It's a 1 mana instant speed investment that only suicides 10% of the time. I can't say I can see any better use for 4 slots.

Yeah, a couple of years ago spoils was hot, because it was the only reliable tutor to get your only win condition (belcher). The card was played by some tendrils deck too (namely Nausea).

Time passed and new cards were printed. With the addition of Empty the Warrens the deck gained some more hot material to work with, changed a lot of the manabase and its win conditions.

Results:
- Spoils is in a very secondary color to the deck.
- The deck already can mulligan into one if its 11 win conditions if it needs to, so a tutor like spoils is unneded
- It can't tutor directly for ETW (well, it can, but the risk becomes higher) so every win condition becomes a costy one. Belcer costs 7B and epty the warrens costs 4RRB.

[m03]

The most common versions of Belcher from a while back were maindecking both Spoils and Welder to great degree. As far as search goes, nothing beats Spoils. It's a 1 mana instant speed investment that only suicides 10% of the time. I can't say I can see any better use for 4 slots.

It's been discussed several times over the last 12 pages or so of replies. I tested heavily with and without Spoils, and came to the conclusion that it didn't make that much of a difference, so it was best to just not run it.

[DeathwingZERO]

My main question to those who don't wish to run Spoils is this:

In a metagame where EtW is not an option, what do you do to get Belcher online ASAP? Spoils is a first turn guaranteed hit for a 4 of, with the risk of a 10% loss due to just bad shuffles.

So you've got 7B to hit Belcher activation counting Spoils for something needed, but the B can be from a first turn Chrome/Land and the 7 on the next turn, it doesn't need to be all at once. This compared to 8B from Infernal Tutor (requiring you to rip your hand via LED or reveal something you need a duplicate of, giving opponents far too much information already, AND would more or less require it to be the same turn you are going off, or a critical piece of accelerant), or the same from Plunge, which has a better chance of whiffing, due to most people not going past say 10 life.

My personal thoughts is with a mixture of the 3, the consistency level of the opening 7 hits a far more acceptable level. The build I am testing on runs those, as well as still being able to fit in Burning Wish and Street Wraith, and still have 39 pieces of mana. While I'm not certain it's going to be amazing with the numbers I have, it's at least a much better deck than it was a few years back.

If I start showing any results over the next week of playtesting for the weekend bash, I'll list the deck and see what people would change. Chances are though it'd be just a few cards, and I'm actually pretty fine with that. Belcher lists have always had personal tweaks in them.

[GreenOne]

My main question to those who don't wish to run Spoils is this:

In a metagame where EtW is not an option, what do you do to get Belcher online ASAP? Spoils is a first turn guaranteed hit for a 4 of, with the risk of a 10% loss due to just bad shuffles.

In a meta where ETW is not an option I'd play another deck. Seriously, if you want a deck That goes balls to the wall and doesn' play ETW, just look for Spanish Inquisition. It runs belcher too and has an amazing turn 1 wins percentage. Belcher without ETW is just clunky and has less game against Force of Will. If you need all those setup spells to tutor for Belcher then you'll probably win on turn 2 because on turn 1 you searching for it. This leaves time for the opponent to play Brainstorm/Ponder/ leave stifle mana open or to play a Pithing Needle postside.

And the loss from spoils are >=13%, not due to bad shuffles. It's mere statistic.

EDIT: I forgot that spanish inquisition existed. Damn, that deck is a blast!

[Bourgeoise]

Just to get the ball rolling on this again and to get some more thoughts on the black splash......

Recently I got back into this deck and have been working on the black splash a lot. The only green card I kept in my version was the Land grant and I dropped the Elvish Spirit Guide completely running 4 Street Wraith in its place, I have found that my problem usually is not getting the mana in my opening hand to start comboing off, but to open with one of my win cons. I tested some with Wild Cantor and the hands that I opened it in I never needed it to fix mana, having 2 free mana and a win con or tutor almost always resulted in comboing off. Having the necessary 2 mana in opening hand also makes the deck I'm running technically a 52 card deck between Street Wraith and Manamorphose. Some ideas in here are from my own personal experiences with the deck and reflect my play style, so please don't bash but constructive criticism is welcome.

Here's the list:

1x Taiga
1x Bayou
4x Lotus Petal
4x Chrome Mox
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Land Grant

4x Goblin Charbelcher
3x Empty the Warrens
3x Infernal Tutor
1x Burning Wish

4x Manamorphose
4x Street Wraith

4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Rite of Flame
4x Desperate Ritual
3x Seething Song
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual

SB:
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Goblin War Strike
1x Pyroclasm (iffy, cave in does not work here)
1x Infernal Tutor
1x Diminishing Returns
4x Overmaster
3x Magus of the Moon
3x Shattering Spree

In goldfishing it was possible to hit 18 goblin tokens without much difficulty and with a perfect hand you could pump out 20, R/G belcher usually maxed out at 14-16 when I used to play it and I like the possibility of getting to 20 since it gives the opponent one less turn if you end up having to go the goblin route.

Overmaster is a personal favorite over blasts and seems situational but I feel it can be very powerful for what this deck needs because of a tournament I ran r/g belcher in right before I stopped playing the deck. Two games in a row I opened a hand with wish a blast and LED, so I combo off sac the LED in response to my wish and get the wish countered I had extra mana for the blast but had to discard it, Overmaster would have won both games. Most people would rather run blasts probably in order to protect the belcher itself, but against control I usually go for the tokens anyways and this card compliments that game plan very well.

Overmaster can be cast right before the tutor you need to resolve which is where smart players will try to disrupt you anyways. An added bonus is that you draw a card off of it and if it is an artifact accel or land you can just play it before you cast your tutor, and if it is instant speed accel you can cast in response to your tutor.

First turn Magus of the Moon can end games against some decks, but that slot is up for grabs really.

[Michael Keller]

I agree with Overmaster. It cantrips and stops your opponent from countering your win condition - all for one mana.

[Shimster]

Personally, I don't like Overmaster. It doesn't force Belcher through, It doesn't help against Stifle on EtW and the control player normally doesn't have to counter a late Burning Wish.

Pyroblast is way faster - you don't need to cast it, you just have to bluff it. While it counters Force and Stifle, it is also able to blast Counterbalance.

I am currently testing two versions of CRET Belcher: One uses Dark Ritual and Wild Cantor, one is straight RG and uses Street Wraith.

// Lands
1 Taiga

// Creatures
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Street Wraith
4 Tinder Wall

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

// Sideboard
4 Pyroblast
4 Shattering Spree
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Simplify
1 Pyroclasm
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony

vs.

// Lands
1 Taiga

// Creatures
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Wild Cantor

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

// Sideboard
4 Pyroblast
4 Shattering Spree
1 Simplify
1 Thoughtseize
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Pyroclasm
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony

I haven't finished testing yet, but as the RGb list is more explosive, the RG list is more consistent.

[linux-ll-]

I tested this Belcher list and I´m very satisfied.

// Lands
1 [R] Bayou
1 [B] Taiga

// Creatures
4 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide
4 [PLC] Simian Spirit Guide
4 [CST] Tinder Wall

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

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 [CS] Rite of Flame
SB: 1 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
SB: 1 [SC] Goblin War Strike
SB: 1 [NE] Reverent Silence
SB: 2 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [10E] Pyroclasm
SB: 4 [SC] Xantid Swarm
SB: 2 [B] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 [FUT] Pact of Negation

The Sideboard was made for my meta, a lot of Landstill and NQG

[MasterBlaster]

@linux-ll-

The belcher list that I run is almost exactly like your's except I have:

-1 Bayou
-1 Desperate Ritual

+1 Seething Song
+1 Rite of Flame

I'm curious, why do you run a single Desperate Ritual instead of making it a 4-of of Seething Song or Rite of Flame?

[RockOfTheFormat]

You might find this interesting:


Looks like the 99,8% is more like a 87%.
Also, you don't win that turn if not going for the belcher kill. This means you need at least 8 manas instead of 4 (ETW), 6 (Burning wish) or 7 (Belcher + activation).
Also, this math is done with 20 life at disposal when searching for a 4 of. This is not always the case: the opponent could have a Lightning Bolt or Mogg Fanatic to decrease your life, you could have a Belcher in hand that you need to discard to LED and tutor for another one, a Blecher can get discarded etc.

Yeah, if Spoils resolves AND you're still alive you can be in good shape, but it's useless in multiples (I'd play a 1 or 2x if I had to), and it makes you lose >=13% of the games you play it. This doesn't help consistency IMO. I'd better play Manamorphose or Street Wraith that (without using off-color mana, or even mana at all) gives me a 20% probability (11/53) of drawing a win condition if i don't have it in hand (which is unlikely).

I checked the math on this, and I am 100% sure that you spent way too much time figuring this out, and another 73% sure that you need to beer bong a 40 oz. of Old E and then hold your breath als long as you can, just to make sure you are still alive. Math is funny. So many squiggles and crazy symbols, and it all ends up useless when you are face to face with the girl of your dreams. Unless that girl is Leelee Sobiesky, she really likes the nerdy guys.

You're real good at wasting my time. I've decided to ban your IP.

Sincerely,

PR