[Deck] Belcher

[Rush]

Well, I hadn't actually seen a list in awhile, but most of the one's I'm seeing now do not run them. It's kind of odd in my opinion. They are fantastic cards for the deck.

[DeathwingZERO]

Welder is a terrible choice if there's any instant speed cheap removal in your metagame. The reliance on his abilities becomes too central for the deck concept that people will keep bad hands that tend to die to StP or Pithing Needle, when they should be looking for hands that will drop a Belcher or Wish -> Victory condition X (Tendrils or EtW). The only time Welder really shines is when you've gotten crucial spells countered anyways, and that battle typically runs the risk of them packing removal in addition to counters.

And I still live (and die) by Spoils. Statistics be damned, I'll take my supposed 1 in 10 loss to speed up the deck to packing turn 1 kills more often. It's also the cheapest and most effective way to dig for anything, being a core black and instant speed. The deck is nothing but a suicide run to pop a nuke on your opponents face anyways, where's the victory dance if there wasn't a risk involved?

Also, I'm very tempted to look into that Tombstalker tech. Seems pretty good when a majority of the spells go to the yard, and getting rid of them for a 5/5 flyer and a smaller Goyf on the other side of the table seems pretty good. I'll look into that next time I work on this build.

[Pulp_Fiction]

Neither of those are really needed but it depends on your meta. Welder is still fantastic in this deck against counter-based control strategies. I remember a while ago someone slaughtered a nearly all Thresh top 8 with R/G Belcher with 2x Pyroblast, 2x REB, and 2x Magus of the Moon in the main. The list was never really heard from again. No one developed it any further, I built it but found it inconsistent. Truthfully as we try and develop Belcher further people just tend to revert to the proven lists because they really are the best. The only debates about Belcher that really matters today is Bayou inclusion, Spoils inclusion, and Manamorphose inclusion. This is one of my original lists with a heavily modified SB that I always run when I want to play Belcher. I swear by the list and SB, I have done a top 4 split with this build quite a few times:

3x Spoils of the Vault
4x Lotus Petal
4x Desperate Ritual
4x Lion’s Eye Diamond
4x Land Grant
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Dark Ritual
4x Rite of Flame
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Burning Wish
4x Chrome Mox
4x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Tinder Wall
4x Seething Song
3x Empty the Warrens
1x Taiga
1x Bayou

Sideboard

1x Diminishing Returns
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Shattering Spree
1x Reverent Silence
1x Pyroclasm
3x Thoughtseize
3x Duress
4x Tombstalker

EDIT: Deathwing just posted before I got a chance to see what he said. I also support Spoils to the end in Belcher. The only better card for Belcher would be Demonic Consultation, but since that can't be run, Spoils it is.

[badjuju]

@Pulp Fiction

I tried to push the development of the list a while back. Once again, that kind of deck truly depends on what forecasting you have of your metagame. I really, really like the Magus tech, so as BreathWeapon suggested I might just move it to the SB. I'm not sure if I'd want Bloodmoon in there too, just because Bloodmoon doesn't actually swing.

Here's the list I had:

// Lands
1 [R] Taiga

// Creatures
4 [PLC] Simian Spirit Guide
4 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide
2 [GP] Wild Cantor
4 [IA] Tinder Wall
2 [FUT] Magus of the Moon

// Spells
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MR] Seething Song
4 [CHK] Desperate Ritual
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
4 [MR] Goblin Charbelcher
4 [MM] Land Grant
3 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
4 [JU] Burning Wish
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
2 [B] Red Elemental Blast
2 [IA] Pyroblast

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [FUT] Magus of the Moon
SB: 1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 [SC] Goblin War Strike
SB: 1 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
SB: 2 [5E] Pyroblast
SB: 1 [NE] Reverent Silence
SB: 1 [PT] Pyroclasm
SB: 2 [R] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [6E] Diminishing Returns
SB: 1 [MM] Cave-In

Might be a bit out-dated, but worked for me. Note that the other guy's list had 2 Taigas. I could definitely see running 2 Taigas in a version like this, especially if you're expecting a lot of blue-based opponents. It seems like there are still enough multi-color decks running around that Magus would be good, but I'm not sure about the 4x blasts main. I've never been a big fan of them. Anyone else want to chime in on the list?


EDIT:
On another note, I also play the exact same version of Belcher as you, Pulp, except I've been using Infernal Tutors instead of Spoils. I'll admit that they're a lot weaker, but that isn't the problem I have with the deck. Without Wild Cantors, I have trouble finding ways to produce black consistently...and that seems to be the only bane of that decklist.

[monkeyfeelers]

here in the middle of nowhere (Montana)
We have had a great deal of success with a very similar build to the one posted above. However we came to the conclusion that the deck had reached the critical mass of mana acceleration and storm enablers so we decided to raise the threat count up so that we could always do something on turn one or two

threats
4 charbelcher
4 burning wish
3 Empty the warrens
4 Blood moon

We opted for bloodmoon over magus since swords to plowshares is relatively common and easy to cast even under magus. A similar problem arises with the prevalence of korosan grip on bloodmoon but that is generally two turns slower. Turn one bloodmoon often buys you plenty of time to win, where magus of the moon can win all by himself but I see no reason why this deck should not win faster than attacking for 2 a turn.

To make room for the bloodmoons we cut what we found to be the weakest mana/storm producers- Wild Cantor. I never really liked this card as it never produces a serious affect right now, which is the whole point of the deck.

On a final note a lot of people are splitting their blasts two and two. I see no reason for this aside from meddling mage and cabal therapy both of which have much better targets against you than your blasts. Therefor I suggest 4 pyroblast as you can cast them on non blue targets for storm while comboing.

// Lands
1 [R] Taiga

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

// Spells
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MR] Seething Song
4 [CHK] Desperate Ritual
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
4 [MR] Goblin Charbelcher
4 [MM] Land Grant
3 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
4 [JU] Burning Wish
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [IA] Pyroblast

The side board changes depending on the expected meta game but should include
1 Empty the warrens
1 Reverent Silence
1 Infernal tutor
1 Shattering spree
1 Simplify
1 Hull Breach
1 Diminishing returns
1 Tendrils of agony(never seen this used)
1 Goblin war strike
1 cave-in/pyroclasm(or both)
The rest of the slots should be dedicated to whatever decks you fear most in your meta.

[badjuju]

We opted for bloodmoon over magus since swords to plowshares is relatively common and easy to cast even under magus. A similar problem arises with the prevalence of korosan grip on bloodmoon but that is generally two turns slower. Turn one bloodmoon often buys you plenty of time to win, where magus of the moon can win all by himself but I see no reason why this deck should not win faster than attacking for 2 a turn.

To make room for the bloodmoons we cut what we found to be the weakest mana/storm producers- Wild Cantor. I never really liked this card as it never produces a serious affect right now, which is the whole point of the deck.

On a final note a lot of people are splitting their blasts two and two. I see no reason for this aside from meddling mage and cabal therapy both of which have much better targets against you than your blasts. Therefor I suggest 4 pyroblast as you can cast them on non blue targets for storm while comboing.

The side board changes depending on the expected meta game but should include
1 Empty the warrens
1 Reverent Silence
1 Infernal tutor
1 Shattering spree
1 Simplify
1 Hull Breach
1 Diminishing returns
1 Tendrils of agony(never seen this used)
1 Goblin war strike
1 cave-in/pyroclasm(or both)
The rest of the slots should be dedicated to whatever decks you fear most in your meta.

Your reasons for the decklist are sound.

-I too found it kinda dumb that people ran splits. I had already changed my list to 4 Pyroblast like 5 minutes after I posted my old list. Nobody is going to name REB on you, and the +1 storm count is relevant enough to just go ahead and run Pyroblast.

-In a lot of ways I guess you are right about Bloodmoon (the fact that cheap removal can't handle it). The thing is, if you resolve a Magus of the Moon against most decks that pack StP, they probably won't be able to cast it anyway. (Don't quote me on that, I understand there are decks like Angel Stompy and whatever, but against those you should just be able to combo off. At the same time, however, I have no idea how many basic lands people are running nowadays just to fight against Dragon Stompy.)

-4 Bloodmoon is kinda heavy. Have you ever found it to be clunky? Even running the 4 Belcher / 4 Wish / 3 Warrens / 3 Infernal Tutor I've found that I often have 2 win conditions in my hand. In some ways that's good, in some bad, but unless your metagame is infested with nonbasics, running 4 might be a bit too many?

-Wild Cantor is pretty much just filler in R/G lists. Your conclusion to cut it is fine.

[kilukru]

Quick question, is this deck playable without the Chrome mox?

If not counting the mox's im about 5$ close to building this deck but i dont have the cashflow to get them? What do you think?

[badjuju]

Quick question, is this deck playable without the Chrome mox?

If not counting the mox's im about 5$ close to building this deck but i dont have the cashflow to get them? What do you think?

No, not really. I mean you could try, but really the deck needs all the +1 mana sources available in the format. Chrome Mox is a +1 for 0, or in other words, an initial mana source (to start your Dark Ritual/Rite of Flame/Tinder Wall/etc.).

[Pulp_Fiction]

This is one of the many cards in the deck for which there is no substitute. The rituals are all interchangeable based on preference but Chrome Mox is Vital. You can get away with running 3, A Legend only ran 3 and his list was quite successful. But they are so vital against something like Dragon Stompy its insane. After SB against something like Thresh you will be very glad you have a permanent mana source in play. Of course you can play the deck without them, there is no argument there, throw in Wild Cantor or Manamorpose or Serum Powder or something in its place but don't expect the deck to perform very well pre-SB and post SB the deck will encounter some serious problems.

[yawg07]

Hey, just thought I'd post it here.
On the MTG Salvation Tourney #7
I went 5-1 and made it to Top 8 (then lost to Swan Thresh) playing Belcher.


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

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

// Spells
3 [SHM] Manamorphose
3 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
4 [MM] Land Grant
4 [CHK] Desperate Ritual
4 [MR] Seething Song
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [MR] Goblin Charbelcher
4 [JU] Burning Wish
4 [B] Dark Ritual

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [TSP] Empty the Warrens
SB: 3 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [SC] Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 [NE] Reverent Silence
SB: 1 [DS] Oxidize
SB: 2 [B] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 [DIS] Infernal Tutor
SB: 1 [LRW] Thoughtseize
SB: 3 [SC] Xantid Swarm
SB: 1 [IA] Pyroblast

[Pulp_Fiction]

How did you like the Xantid Swarms in the deck? Everytime I decide to put the Swarm in the SB they just get StPed when they are actually played. Do you like them more than additional hand disruption/blasts?

[Deirex]

I realize this is my first post here so it won't suprise me if I don't get much attention with this post, but I just thought I´d post my list here which has been doing well recently.


CREATURES (16)
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Street Wraith

SORCERIES (15)
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Land Grant
4 Rite of Flame

INSTANTS (12)
4 Manamorphose
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Seething Song

ARTIFACTS (16)
4 Chrome Mox
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

LANDS (1)
1 Taiga

SIDEBOARD
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Pact of Negation
3 Shattering Spree
1 Reverent Silence
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Empty the Warrens

As you can see it´s kind of a Balls to the wall version of the deck. I realize how bad 4 maindeck Manamorphose and 4 Street Wraith might be but the aggro decks in my meta regularly kill you turn 3 so I´ve decided to try and go of as early as possible. Not that Aggro is usually a problem but still speed is what this deck is about imo.


I´ve only participated in 2 serious tournaments with this deck and the results have been good so far.

I´ve also been in a couple of small tournaments with 10-18 ppl but they´re too small to take serious and people usually just bring jank decks for them anyway.

4-1 At Wizard-Games Champion of Merfolk tournament 08 (24 ppl) 4th place. (played 2-lands with 3 Storm Entity maindeck).
Won against: MonoW-Stax, Pox, BG-Survival, UW-ScepterChant.
Lost to: Landstill.

4-1 At Alcon-08 (30+ ppl) 5th place.
Won against: Keeper(landstill), Goblins, BG-Loam, Landstill.
Lost to: Landstill.

[Pulp_Fiction]

Alright, this is interesting as hell, crazy new take on Belcher. I was looking around on deckcheck and found this:
creature [15]

3 Elvish Spirit Guide

4 Simian Spirit Guide

4 Street Wraith

4 Tinder Wall

instant [19]

4 Dark Ritual

3 Desperate Ritual

4 Manamorphose

4 Seething Song

4 Spoils of the Vault

sorcery [12]

4 Empty the Warrens

4 Land Grant

4 Rite of Flame

artifact [12]

4 Goblin Charbelcher

4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Lotus Petal

land [2]

1 Bayou

1 Taiga

This is actually not a new take at all, its more an old take, it looks like one of the original builds of the deck only updated. This list looks like it has potential. Get rid of Manamorphose for Chrome Mox and cut Street Wraith for 1x ESG, 1x Desperate Ritual, and 2x Infernal Tutor and this might be an awesome fit in the current meta. You can find a link to the deck here:
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=22399

Maybe this deserves a little developing, it looks very promising. Burning Wish was always my least favorite card in the deck cause I hate busting that LED and asking if they have FoW. This opens up a lot of new SB possibilities as well since you don't run wish targets and the blast plan is not so effective against blue otherwise this deck would be more widely played. He ran Ancient Grudge in the SB which is a very interesting call, possibly better than Spree in this build? I have no idea but it looks very interesting to say the least. Maybe it is finally time to start sticking Cabal Ritual into Belcher?

[Shawon]

I second cutting Street Wraith. Not good with Spoils at all. It also makes mulligans more confusing.

Maybe it is finally time to start sticking Cabal Ritual into Belcher?

As a former Belcher player, I never liked Cabal Ritual. You realistically never get Threshold. Red rituals (song too) are better.

[SuperBean]

I've been playing quite a bit of Belcher recently, and here's my list I've been using.

Creatures:

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

Instants:

4 Dark Ritual
4 Seething Song
3 Manamorphose


Sorceries:

4 Land Grant
4 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens
2 Infernal Tutor

Artifacts:

4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox

Land:

1 Bayou

Sideboard:

3 Pyroblast
3 Vexing Shusher
3 Shattering Spree
2 Pithing Needle
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Grapeshot

--------------------------------

The first thing that you will notice about this version is that it plays NO maindeck protection whatsoever. It is very available in the board with 3x Pyroblasts and 3x Vexing Shushers.

Aside from that I've done quite well in the tournaments that I've played it in. The most recent time I played against the following: Dragon Stompy, Poxless-Pox (Splashed green for pernicious deed), Another Black-White Poxless-Pox, and eventually lost to White-Black Poxless-Pox in the Final 4 due to massive discard and vindicating my Belcher then following that up with a Tombstalker.

So I ended up going 4 Wins - 0 Ties - and 1 Loss

[GreenOne]

The first thing that you will notice about this version is that it plays NO maindeck protection whatsoever.

The first thing I notice is that it plays no taiga maindeck. Is that bayou really needed for those 6 black spells in the deck?

[Dark_Cynic87]

Well, 4x of those black spells are D. Rits. If you look, there's 8x Spirit Guides, as well as Tinder Walls and Wild Cantors, and Petals. All of these are capable of starting out your mana chain if you have red accel., but only the cantors and petals can start off a black accel chain. I think that's the basis of having a Bayou as opposed to a Taiga. Chrome mox isn't all that handy in this situation since there are in fact only 10 black spells.

Pce,

--DC

[bowvamp]

OK, so although this may be my first post, do not disregard it... (I've been playing competitively since the end of scourge)

I have recently started playing Legacy Belcher ( Combo has always been my archetype) and have realized that if the opponent disrupts your plan in any way, you are often relying on the TD. This is not good. Also, there is a clear hit and miss on the opening hand and while this isn't bad, it can make you mull to levels that you would like to avoid. From these two oft-discovered discoveries, I concluded that Belcher needs a one card drawing power house.

Sylvan Library...

With this one card a well tuned belcher starts to become more resilient while still not loosing it's edge. Belcher still retains it's clear bombshell hands, but loses the need to TD quite so often... please tell me what you think

oh yeah... the list I've been running...
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Manamorphose
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Land Grant
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
2 Taiga
4 Chrome Mox
3 Burning Wish
4 Tinder Wall
4 Street Wraith
4 Sylvan Library

it's actually not tuned at all... just the pure and simple belcher...
I don't have a SB yet...

[DeathwingZERO]

I'm still honestly curious why people are opting to take black out of the equation completely, when combining the fact that it's the fastest accelerations, best (re: only reliable) tutor effects, and disruption in the form of Thoughtseize or Duress all in one.

It only takes one Bayou and swapping out the Tinder Wall, cutting back on Seething Song (slow and inconsistent as hell in opening hands), and the choice of running full sets of storm wins or Burning Wish to make up slots for Dark Ritual, Spoils, and Cabal Ritual (which I'd probably still run 2-3), or protection.

As for Street Wraith, I like it, but in order to maximize it's draw without risking losing to Spoils I'd suggest cutting Spoils back to a 2 or 3 of, and using Infernal and Street Wraith as dig instead. I really don't like Infernal much either, as the deck rarely runs out of cards without LED discard, so maybe 4 Wraith, 3 Infernal, 2-3 Spoils. Tweaking the list might be dependent on how often you think you're actually going to kill yourself.

I'll take a list I was working on a while back and post it on here, so people interested in the BRG list can see what I was working with. Playing against mono red Goblins, I was actually racing them pretty much every game, short of bad draws on Manamorphose and one or two games where Spoils put me in SGC's fling range. I say if it can beat the fastest aggro deck in the format (since you have little ways of disrupting their attacks), it's got a good start for tuning.

[kicks_422]

Beating Goblins with Belcher should be a given. That's not really a good measuring stick for any Belcher build.