[Deck] Belcher

[Secretly.A.Bee]

Good article. I love playing Belcher, and I've gotten pretty good with it over the past 6 months of some fairly intense testing. I've been messing around with Infernal Tutors a lot in the MB, I like 2 along with a full set of Wishes, but I don't run the second land. I cut back a bit on the EtW by one, with 2 in the MD and 2 in the side. I would like to point out that Desperate Ritual is better than Pyretic for the simple fact of Arcane on a 4-of in a list. It is actually relevant sometimes, and that makes it better in my opinion. The art sucks, but what ya gonna do?

I also occasionally run a Tendrils in the sideboard, along with an IGG or two, and a 3rd IT in the sb as well. Black is certainly worth looking into if the "classic" build is getting a little boring or is too straightforward, not enough bend in it's resilency.

--ABC

[sperry023]

Hey all -- I'm just getting into Legacy and currently live in a Legacy-free area. I've been lurking around the site for a month or so reading discussions on a lot of decks to get a feel for the format, and I'm in the process of building several decks to get other people into the format.

I'm a huge combo junky and I love how unfair Belcher can be. Since I'm not really able to test, the best I can do is goldfish and crunch some numbers for other people to use. For those who haven't done this, the way you figure out your probability of drawing a certain card (or type of card) in a specified number of draws is to find the probability that it is NOT your next card and multiply by the probability of it NOT being the following card, remembering that your deck is now one card less. Then do that a number of times equal to the number of cards you want to draw for the test. That will give you probably of NOT drawing the card (call this x), so the percentage of drawing the card is (1-x)*100.

First I wanted to see the probably of winning with Belcher with Taiga still in the deck (playing the 1 land version). Since revealing 10 non-Taiga cards will give 20 damage, I calculated the odds of not revealing Taiga in the top 10 cards. If you are able to activate it with 53 cards remaining in the deck:
(52 / 53) * (51 / 52) * (50 / 51) * (49 / 50) * (48 / 49) * (47 / 48) * (46 / 47) * (45 / 46) * (44 / 45) * (43 / 44) = 0.811320755
or to go a couple cards deeper:
*(42/43)=.79245283
*(41/42)=.773584906
*(40/41)=.754716981
*(39/40)=.735849057

So if you have drawn 7 cards (including Belcher) with no Taiga or Land Grant, the chance you will deal 20 with Belcher is 81.1%.
8 cards = 79.2%
9 cards = 77.4%
10 cards = 75.5%
11 cards = 73.6%

The other thing I wanted to test was the probably of drawing a kill spell (4 Burning Wish, 4 Belcher, 3 Empty the Warrens) if you don’t have one in your opening 7 (I realize that the general recommendation is to toss the hand back if you don’t have the kill, but I was curious of the numbers). I figured that the minimum requirement was to draw one in your next 3 cards, which can mean several different turns depending on whether you play or draw and whether or not your hand has one or more Manamorphose. Starting with 7 cards in hand, the chance of NOT drawing a kill in the following three cards is:
(42 / 53) * (41 / 52) * (40 / 51) = 0.490053786
and to go a little farther:
*(39/50)=.382241953
*(38/49)=.296432535
So you will find a kill in the top 3 cards 51% of the time, top 4 61.8% of the time, and top 5 70.4% of the time.

edit: The chances of NOT drawing a kill card in your opening 7 is 22% and the chances of not drawing a kill in 6 is 28%.

Next is the chances of topdecking a “free” mana of a specific color to start a ritual chain, say you need a green for Tinder Wall or a red for Rite of Flame. In this case your “live” cards are 1 Taiga, 4 Land Grant, 4 of the appropriate Spirit Guide, 4 Lotus Petal, and if you have an extra card of the color you need, 4 Chrome Mox.
Without a card in hand to pitch to Chrome Mox:
(40/53)=.754716981
*(39/52)=.566037736
*(38/51)=.421753607

So you will topdeck the appropriate mana in 1 card 24.5%, in 2 cards 43.4%, in 3 cards 57.8%.

With a card in hand for Chrome Mox:
(36/53)=.679245283
(35/52)=.457184325
(34/51)=.30478955

So you will topdeck the appropriate mana in 1 card 32.1%, in 2 cards 54.3%, in 3 cards 69.5%.

Do with this what you will -- it was just fun to look at the numbers.

[tangram]

Great number crunching. Much appreciated. Thanks mate ;)

[Mikeleroi]

Nobody wrote about it so... What about the new free spells? Maybe blue one deserves a try, substitute for street wraith?

+1 storm for free:

Gitaxian Probe
Sorcery - Common
Look at target player's hand.
Draw a card.

[Infinitium]

Shame that the information part of it is almost useless seeing as Belcher rarely have the luxury of adapting its playstyle. The possibility of running up to 12 free cantrips does make me want to dust off Recross the Paths again though.

[michaelq]

I picked up Belcher off the internet - someone had already built and sleeved the deck, so all I had to do was learn how to play it. I gold fished for a few hours and had a long phone call with my friend Bryce who shared with me a number of insights on playing Belcher - most importantly, 1) under what circumstances to mulligan and 2) when to hold back for fear of countermagic.

After disseminating some clever misinformation on our google group that I was going to be playing Merfolk (Mwa-ha-ha), I sat down across from Steven, who was playing Merfolk. He joked that I was probably playing Belcher and just dissemination some clever misinformation that I was going to be playing Merfolk. This was confirmed when I took more than 20 seconds to decide whether to keep my opening hand.

Say what you will about Spell Pierce and Force of Will, in my opinion the absolute worst thing about the Merfolk matchup is Cursecatcher. He provides the extra, cheap and persistent countermagic that really makes this Belcher’s nightmare matchup.

After some initial countermagic, I was able to storm out and empty the warrens for 8 or 10 tokens, but they were not enough to get past Steven’s mounting army of fish.

Game two, I boarded in 4 Xantid Swarm (Throughout the day, I always board out Manamorphos, by the way, since that’s my flex slot). Game two, I stuck a Xantid Swarm, then the following turn, went off with protection (keeping an extra mana in my pool at all times for his Cursecatcher). He was overwhelmed by Goblin Tokens.

Game three, I kept a hand without a win condition because I had Xantid Swarm. Normally all keepable hands have both a win condition and an initial mana source (a Lotus Petal, Taiga or Spirit Guide). Xantid Swarm came down and Stephen had no removal, so I was able to attack, then play out Tinder Walls, Burning Wish, and other set-up spells without fear of countermagic. By the time, I had a win condition, however, Stephen had 4 fish out, and even with 12 tokens, I was unable to get through. I decided to hang back, blocking with tokens. His Coralhelm Commander took to the sky, and as my life dwindled I was forced to block with Xantid Swarm. Had I had an extra turn or two, I might have ripped a Charbelcher, but I imagine by then he would have had countermagic. Anyway, I was thrilled to have won even one of these games.

0-1

Round 2: Versus Kevin with Landstill (Pernicious Deed version)

Game 1: Kevin may have underestimated the speed of Belcher in keeping his opening hand. I went off turn two with 12 goblin tokens, and he had no immediate recourse and scooped.

Game 2 he opened with Leyline of Sanctity, blanking my Goblin Charbelcher (which I win with about 33% of the time). I had to mulligan, but my hand had an initial mana source, Empty the Warrens and Xantid Swarm. I dropped a Chrome Mox, then brought out the Xantid Swarm. As I’d hoped, Kevin had boarded out all of his targeted removal, and though he may have had countermagic in hand, he decided not to use it. In retrospect, this was the critical play of the game. I was, over several turns, build up a hand of mana sources. He played Pernicious Deed, which is an absolute house against Belcher (pop it for zero and you kill all mana sources and goblin tokens). I had burning wish in my hand, and at this point had to wish for enchantment removal. I attacked with Swarm, then safely started casting accelerants. With barely enough mana, I cast Burning Wish and grabbed Hull Breach (I couldn’t grab Reverent Silence because I didn’t have a forest in play – Kevin had Spell Snared my hand-revealing Land Grant). I targeted Pernicious Deed with Hull Breach, forcing him to pop it for 1, wiping my board. I had 4 mana left, and was able to Empty The Warrens for 10 tokens. I passed. To my great relief, he did not have another Pernicious Deed. He activated Mishras to chump my tokens and stay alive an extra turn, but was unable to find an answer. This was definitely the most exciting game of the afternoon for me.

1-1

Round 3: Versus Chris with Death and Taxes

Game 1: I empty turn two, and he’s unable to stem the tide, though he makes a valiant effort with Mother of Runes and Umezawa’s Jitte.

Game 2: I mull once or twice and he opens with Aether Vial. I can’t go off, so I simply pass the turn with an empty board. He drops a pithing needle, naming Belcher. I again pass with no plays.

At this point, Chris has a critical mass of creatures on the board, and I do something very novice. I have 10 mana either in hand or on the board, belcher and burning wish in hand. I probably had at least one or two turns of him beating in before I’d run out of time. The smart play would have been to wait for Mana #11, that way I could ritual out, cast Belcher drop my Lion’s Eye Diamonds, crack them before resolving Burning Wish, get Hull Breach, blow up the Pithing Needle and activate Belcher for lethal. Instead, I simply wished for Empty the warrens, believe that 12 goblin tokens could get through Jotun Grunt, Mother of Runes and a Serra’s Avenger. Had I done the math, I probably would have realized this unlikely, but I didn’t. Anyway, my hand committed, he slowly flew Serra Avenger over my tokens and killed me.

Game 3: I turn-one. Chris shrugs, then casts Enlightened Tutor. “What are those goblins called? ‘Goblin Token’?” and he reaches for Runed Halo. Lucky for me, you can’t Halo naming tokens. He didn’t have an out and failed to find, then dropped a Mother of Runes and resigned himself to blocking.

2-1

Round 4: Versus Jon with GW Aggro

This was actually a great round, despite GW being pretty weak against combo decks.

Game 1: I slow roll it since I know he has a relatively slow clock. I play a mox and fetch my land, then Burning Wish for Empty the Warrens. When I look through my sideboard, I see that it isn’t there. In my excitement, I had neglected to de-board. I tell Chris that I’ failed to deboard and say I know it’s technically a game loss. I scoop and learn that he had maindeck Gaddock Teeg coming down next turn, which would have stopped me from emptying after I’d already used my Burning Wish (I have Pyroclasm in my board for Gaddock Teeg, Meddling Mage, Ethersworn Canonist and Phrexian Revoker).

Game 2: I recall having a critical turn-one him.

Game 3: Another really exciting game. I have a killer opener on the draw. I slowly and deliberately ritual up toward Charbelcher mana (with Burning Wish in hand). From 8 cards I go Simian Spirit Guide, Rite of Flame, Pyretic Ritual, Seething song – CHANT! My mana pool of 5 drains, as does the color from my face. The good news is I still have 4 cards in hand, including two win cons and a Lion’s Eye Diamond. Jon builds up his army of hate bears, sticking an Ethersworn Canonist. My hand reaches 8 cards, so I drop a LED and continue to build up cards. He plays one of the Leonin cards and takes away my LED. I play another one. At this point, I topdeck the Ingot Chewer I need to kill his canonist, then cast charbelcher and belch (he didn’t have Orim’s Chant). It was a very hard-fought victory, and Jon definitely had the best combo hate available GW has available.

3-1

Round 5: Versus David (first place) with TES (for fun)

Game 1: I open with 14 tokens and David immediately laments not having Pyroclasm in his sideboard.

Game 2: David has a sick opening, Dark Ritual’ing twice, then casting Ad Nauseum, flipping all 4 of his Duresses and plenty of lotus petals. While he can’t win immediately, he is able to destroy my hand, which had burning wish, two belchers and an LED. He’s able to keep a hand full of business, and I don’t even have a first turn play, so I scoop.

Game 3: I show him my hand to Land Grant, and as he flips through it and does the calculations, he realizes I have a first turn Belcher win, and he has no turn-zero out.

All in all, it was great to play with Belcher. I played Spanish Inquisition many years ago, and frankly SI has nothing on Belcher. Though Belcher doesn’t pack much disruption other than Xantid Swarm, it is far more consistant than Spanish Inquisition (SI has flashback-aliscious Cabal Therapy). Though both routinely go off turn one, the great thing about Belcher is it is WYSIWYG. There are far fewer unknowns. Assuming you will go off turn one (which is possible about 60 – 80% of the time depending on your skill level and whether you’re on the play or on the draw), all the cards you will need are already in your hand – not unknowns on top of your deck.

What’s more, I see it only gaining from the release of New Phyrexian. The Phyrexian alternate-cost Peek card, Gitaxian Probe, will definitely make the deck stronger – it boosts storm and sniffs out counter magic. Mental Misstep only hits eight maindeck cards – Tinder Wall and Rite of Flame – far fewer 1-drops than most combo archetypes.

Finally, its speed, resiliency, and the flexibility afforded it by Burning Wish have definitely convinced me this is the top combo deck going forward.

Thanks for reading my report!

[Beatusnox]

Just started building Belcher, been playing it on MWS for a while now, and I am finally decided to shell out the cash to build it in paper magic ^^.

[Beatusnox]

Sorry for double post but I have a question, In the build I am running I use both Desperate and Pyretic Ritual. I was wondering if you all thought that dropping one of those, in order to play Burning Wish to have a denser threat base could be a good idea.

[Infinitium]

Wait, you don't run Wish? Mathematically you have the greatest chance of seeing exactly one win condition in your opening 7 (the rest being mana) if you run 11 cards dedicated to the slot, meaning that most (GR) Belcher lists start with 4 Belcher 4 BW 3 EtW for fun and profit (with the 4th EtW in the sideboard to be wished for).

[Beatusnox]

I was running the list that Requiems article had in it. Which had no Wishes. Though the more I play, the more I am noticing that the wishes are a necessity. The only thing I have noticed is that going the Wish route requires two extra mana. Though it is very doable.

[Parax]

Are people now playing gitaxian probe instead of Street Wraith? Why not as it bumps your storm count.

[Sims]

I was running the list that Requiems article had in it. Which had no Wishes. Though the more I play, the more I am noticing that the wishes are a necessity. The only thing I have noticed is that going the Wish route requires two extra mana. Though it is very doable.

Might be 2 extra mana but it's 2 extra goblins, which can make a difference, ontop of being extra wincons or utility as needed.

[Beatusnox]

Might be 2 extra mana but it's 2 extra goblins, which can make a difference, ontop of being extra wincons or utility as needed.

That was my thought, but I wanted to ask opinions on it before making myself look like a jackass and face planting piloting the deck.

Also, as for Gitaxian probe, I am definitely considering it over Street Wrath, The Ability to draw a card, and have knowledge of the existence of counter spells can be decision making. One question I have, why do so many blue players insist on dazing if I have the mana to pay when I try to go off with Empty the Warrens, it just adds to my spell count =/

[Dark Ritual]

Because the blue player is bad? Really, especially if you land granted, and the blue player is smart, they should know when to daze you. But yeah if they daze you and you have the mana to pay and still cast EtW there's something wrong with that player.

[Beatusnox]

So my list for post NPH, Would love advice on it.


Win Cons: '11'
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Burning Wish
3 Empty the Warrens

Card Draw:4
4 Gitaxian Probe

Gas:40
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Manamorphose
4 Seething Song
4 Tinder Wall
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Chrome Mox
4 Rite of Flame

Land: 5
4 Land Grant
1 Taiga


Sideboard:15
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Empty the Warrens
2 Slagstorm/Pyroclasm
3 Krosan Grip
3 Tormods Crypt
2 Pithing Needle


I havent decided if I want Pyroclasm or Slagstorm, I am leaning towards Slagstorm because it does hit harder.
the sideboard needs a lot of help I think, I am unsure of the meta I will be playing in so I tried to make a varied sideboard.

For the main deck I was wondering if Dropping wraith for Probe is the right idea, or if running both could be better.

[evanmartyr]

While I was initially very excited about Gitaxian Probe, I'm having more and more trouble finding a spot for it in the deck outside of the Manamorphose slots. Are you guys assuming that that's where it goes? I don't want to drop any more acceleration, since while running Burning Wish is necessary, you'd lose a decent amount of your ability to reach the required mana for Wish->EtW if you started filling the deck with cantrips.

I proxied up the standard list with no Wraiths, no Probes, and 4x Manamorphose, and ran it for a while (I could have sworn I had Burning Wishes, apparently not :P) in preparation for a Legacy tournament this evening. A few things I noticed that may be worth noting in the primer.

While MMS hits very few targets in our list (Rite of Flame, Tinder Wall, possibly Gitaxian Probe) those targets are almost all muy importante. Usually a hand doesn't include more than one spell to "jump" you to the next CC level. So, while an average hand may be something like:

Chrome Mox
Lotus Petal
Elvish Spirit Guide
Tinder Wall
Desperate Ritual
Seething Song
Burning Wish

or something, a MMS won't keep you from going off entirely , but it will keep you off 6 mana that turn. Essentially, against any deck that you know is running MMS, it's devestating to us because it's at least a time walk. At worst, it's more than a time walk. And because MMS hits pretty much everyone and everything with varying degrees of severity, it's a nearly perfect catch-all sideboard card, which means we'll likely see a lot of it.

I'm really not sure how the deck's going to handle this; it won't annihilate your chances, but I don't see how it won't lower your percentages against every other deck. As counter intuitive as it may seem, it may be time to start exploring Goblin Welder or a more stable version of the deck. Really, what the deck needs is a MD-able win condition that doesn't require 6+ mana, or just more storm-ey mana sources. An artifact-heavy version of the deck that potentially runs Mox Opal might be a better call too, since you can play Welder in that situation. Although the more "permanent" mana sources you run, the more you'll have to rely on Charbelcher or some other win condition, and the worse win conditions that require storm counts get.

Maybe just play MMS yourself and pray.

Looking around for some options to make it a more "grind you out" sort of combo deck, and I found a couple cool things.

Eladamri's Vineyard/Magus of the Vineyard: Shitty, since your opponent gets to use it first, but assuming you can parlay this into a turn 2-3 win, I'm not sure you'd care. This also doesn't really get you around MMS so much, but if you can increase the density of 1cc accelerants, you rely on individual ones less.

Braid of Fire: I. Love. This. Card. It's crap, but I don't care, it's also awesome. There's got to be a way to break the hell out of this. Perhaps not in this deck the way it is, but possibly in a modified version, since it's like a Grim Monolith that doesn't accelerate that turn, but lets you be more consistent the rest of the game.

Steel Hellkite: The obvious vulnerability to Swords, Path, Dismember, etc keeps this somewhat mediocre, but it's something to keep in mind, since it may as well be a Charbelcher activation against crap like Goblins and other creature-based decks, which tend to have a beter chance than most against swarms of Goblin tokens.

Deus of Calamity: I've seen this in SBs in some Belcher lists, but it may be worth considering for the maindeck in some metagames. I really like that opponents kind of have to block it but it still tramples over, and it shares an aspect of Steel Hellkite in that using stuff like extra Spirit Guides to make up the mana cost doesn't matter re: storm count. It's also one less mana than Empty the Warrens, which can make a big difference. Perhaps people should be boarding this in to avoid getting blown out by crap like Pyroclasm, in place of Burning Wishes?

Deity of Scars: I would love to suggest this, but it's nearly impossible to cast unless you start relying on black ritual variants.

The second thing I noticed was that occasionally some hands are definitely worth keeping against some decks even if you have to play draw-go for a while, whereas some hands are worth keeping despite being forced to go off asap, usually with a less than ideal number of goblin tokens, simply because waiting to draw more gas gives them too much time to develop a response. MMS is squeezing us somewhat on both fronts, so some specific matchup analysis, taking MMS into consideration, might be a valuable inclusion in the primer.

TL;DR = MMS bad for us. Find a better win condition than EtW (or smoother acceleration) and try that out. Goblin Welder might be worth trying, assuming an artifact-heavy build could work decently without an active welder.`

[Sims]

So, while an average hand may be something like:

Chrome Mox
Lotus Petal
Elvish Spirit Guide
Tinder Wall
Desperate Ritual
Seething Song
Burning Wish

or something, a MMS won't keep you from going off entirely , but it will keep you off 6 mana that turn.

I'm not disagreeing with the sentiment though I haven't played belcher in a very long time, but doesn't this hand in the face of MMS as the only counter still get there?

Play Chrome, imprint Tinder Wall, storm 1
Play Lotus Petal, storm 2
Cast Desperate ritual, storm 3, RRR in pool
Cast song, storm 4, RRRRR in pool
Cast Burning Wish, storm 5, RRR in pool
Remove ESG, RRRG in pool
Cast ETW for 12

Sure a daze in the chain throws it all off, but if MMS is the only counter in their hand and somehow you know this, that hand still gets there.

Edit: Switched the order of removing ESG and casting wish, as there is no LED involved so holding the ESG til you know if Wish resolves makes more sense.

[Beatusnox]

I'm not disagreeing with the sentiment though I haven't played belcher in a very long time, but doesn't this hand in the face of MMS as the only counter still get there?

Play Chrome, imprint Tinder Wall, storm 1
Play Lotus Petal, storm 2
Cast Desperate ritual, storm 3, RRR in pool
Cast song, storm 4, RRRRR in pool
Remove ESG, RRRRRG
Cast Burning Wish, storm 5, RRRR in pool
Cast ETW for 12

Sure a daze in the chain throws it all off, but if MMS is the only counter in their hand and somehow you know this, that hand still gets there.

I do believe your math is right Sims. the only thing in that hand that would get countered by MMS is Tinder Wall and you can just imprint it.

[Infinitium]

Because the blue player is bad? Really, especially if you land granted, and the blue player is smart, they should know when to daze you. But yeah if they daze you and you have the mana to pay and still cast EtW there's something wrong with that player.

Not necessarily. Even if the blue player knows EtW is coming he'll still lose unless he keeps you off enough mana to cast it in the first place (or can dump his hand on the table in short very order to stem the bleeding). Blind Daze on the spell that would put you at 4+ mana is a very reasonable play (unless of course he has information about your hand).

[evanmartyr]

Ok, so it wasn't a very good example hand, but I see MMS buying people time against us, which is precisely the thing we do not want. We do not want them to have the time to get to 2mana to activate an EE set at 0. MMS'ing a single Rite of Flame could easily push us back a turn, or more if we draw things we can't bridge the gap from 0cc (SSG, ESG, Petal, Tinder Wall, Rite of Flame, etc) to 2, which is where we bridge the gap to Seething Song or just generally get to 4+ mana. I'm not saying it's the end of the world, just that it'll make our life harder since we'll have to take it into consideration for every single game 2 we play, and plenty of game 1s.

If anyone cares for a read, here's a crummy little tournament report from tonight's 4 round legacy tournament in Minneapolis.