[Deck] Belcher

[GoldenCid]

True! Misstep is a great addition for the side and requires no colour splash!

[thefoxman88]

What are your thoughts on 2 land vs 1 land? Did you ever whiff on a belcher? I thought the main reason (besides dark rit of course) to go 2 land was to play some protection in the main (duress, etc). Was thoughtseize in the board any better than say REB would've been? Did you ever tendrils for the win? Anyways, I don't think there will ever be a way for this to not mull like crap until they unban wheel of fortune. I guess that's what you get for playing the most broken deck in the format.

Here is how I see it, I might be way off the mark but i'll have a shot. The list I played was one I found in a primer without any tweaks or tech, this build was for me to learn the deck before changing it around.

2-Land vs 1-Land:
- Can splash for Thoughtseize and sometimes you get the nuts Dark Ritual into Dark Ritual type draws.
- Saves them weird match's when you draw/mull into double Land Grant and no Chrome Mox to hide it under.
Other then that, it sometimes a pain.

The whole argument over REB vs Xantid Swarm vs Thoughtseize is all these answer get blown out by misstep, clear and simple, and its no very offten you got the mana to REB and go off in the same turn. So I like Xantid Swarm, and can work as a blocker if in a tight spot. But then again, if they keep a Misstep + Force back-up type hand your in a bad spot anyway.

I have had a few games were I did wif on Belcher due to having Bayou, but them games I atleast had a chrome mox on the board, so the rebuild didn't take to long to try again.

Winning with tendrils? Only time it was useful was during testing against ANT/TES going for a weak tendrils with storm of 5, leaves them in a bad spot to Ad Nauseam themselves to death.

[HokusSchmokus]

I am going to take Belcher to the German Nationals next Sunday.

The list I plan to play is:

1 Taiga
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Manamorphose
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Burning Wish
4 Tinder Wall
4 Land Grant
4 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Empty the Warrens

SB: 4 Xantid Swam
4 Pyroblast
1 Reverent Silence
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Shattering Spree
1 Pyroclasm
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Goblin War Strike

Any suggestions for improvement?
What are the benefits of the 12-Cantrip version over 8 Cantrips?Or should I even cut Probe?Also, even though I am very happy with my SB the card I miss is Diminishing Returns. Maybe cut a War strike? Thing is, this sweet little card helps so much with racing Batterskulls.

[K1w1]

Hey HokusSchmokus,

first, are you going to Iserlohn?
If yes, i will see you there :)

Second, I'm running the exactly list like you. And i have to say Gitaxian Probe is nice.
You can use it first turn and cut the storm count if you want.

War Strike is a + to the Tokens. Iwouldnt cut it.

K1w1

[HokusSchmokus]

Iserlohn for sure! Are there any other German Nationals?:P

I was just thinking that maybe Mental Misstep instead of Red Blasts are worth considering. They do not get Force but all other relevant stuff. Plus chances are you won't be blowing up that many blue permanents anyway.

[K1w1]

Nice :)
I thought rly much about MM and Red elemental/Pyroblast.
I think the blast is better then MM, because they are using FoW for sure.
Ok, you can pay 2 life with MM to counter the other MM but in some cases are FoW and youcant counter it with MM.

K1w1

[HokusSchmokus]

Yeah i most likely will still use the Blast. From where are you going to IS?

[K1w1]

From Remscheid and i think you from Dortmund :)

I'm there at Friday/Saturday/Sunday i think.

But i dont know all these days because i have to go every day new from Remscheid - Iserlohn.

[rupus]

Street wraith is lame. 8 cantrips is fine. In the board you could probably cut infernal tutor or tendrils for returns. I never liked tendrils or tutor in belcher. Another card to consider is flame slash because it kills bears and batterskull. I always liked hull breach and carpet of flowers too but IDK how necessary they are. What's you're boarding plan vs blue? You have 8 cards to bring in so what are you taking out? Anyways, good luck at nationals!

[HokusSchmokus]

I think I will only cut tendrils. Tutor can be useful some times I think, especially g2-3.
Vs Blue I obviously put in Blasts + Swarms
I am not sure what to take out bc I don't have any practise in this deck aside from mws, but I went ok with
-1 Rite
-1 EtW
-2 Seething Song
-1 Mox
-1 Land Grant
-1 Petal
-1 X, probably Tinder Wall. I do this rather intuitive, worked out for me this far.

[rupus]

That seems reasonable. Take this with a grain of salt because I am awful at boarding but I think you want to leave in mix and land grant because having permanent mana sources is very important against blue. Also, I don't like cutting rites because you want multiples. Seething song I'm not sure about because it's one of the only cards that gives you +2 mana, but it does leave you more open to blowouts. I've heard people have success taking out the cantrips but I would probably leave the probes in at least.

One more thing. You probably know this but if you have a belcher and an led play the led first and if belcher resolves you get priority back so you can crack the led and activate belcher before they can k grip you. The same goes for if you have 7 mana floating + a belcher. Don't give away wins by letting people pull that crap.

[HokusSchmokus]

I knew this. i take out 1 Rite to have access to them whenever I want. Probably right bout Land Grand and Mox tho.

[rupus]

I knew this. i take out 1 Rite to have access to them whenever I want. Probably right bout Land Grand and Mox tho.

Yeah, I figured you probably did. It just really sucks losing to something like that so I figured I might as well point it out. Taking out the rite actually makes a lot of sense when you put it like that. Maybe you could try 2 manamorphose or 1 morphose 1 probe or 1 morphose and 1 desperate ritual instead of mox and land grant. I'm also not sure about cutting a EtW because you really want to keep up your threat density but I've tried cutting one before and it never really felt like a problem so it's probably ok to take 1 out.

[HokusSchmokus]

I cut ETW bc the control decks nowadays are usually either landstill, who will bring in Explosives regardless or Stoneblade , who can race tokens.
What about the maindeck?

[rupus]

The maindeck seems really solid. I'm not entirely sure if playing 8 cantrips is better than playing 4 cantrips and 4 pyretic rituals but I've never tried. I've played with only 4 cantrips or 8 cantrips but no burning wishes but never 8 cantrips and burning wishes. That being said, probe is a very good card in belcher so I really like the list you have. Do you ever have trouble getting from 2 to 3 mana? If not you're probably set but if you are having trouble you may want to consider something like -1 probe, -1 ESG, +2 pyretic rituals. If it's working don't go screwing it up by taking my questionable advice though.

[HokusSchmokus]

The maindeck seems really solid. I'm not entirely sure if playing 8 cantrips is better than playing 4 cantrips and 4 pyretic rituals but I've never tried. I've played with only 4 cantrips or 8 cantrips but no burning wishes but never 8 cantrips and burning wishes. That being said, probe is a very good card in belcher so I really like the list you have. Do you ever have trouble getting from 2 to 3 mana? If not you're probably set but if you are having trouble you may want to consider something like -1 probe, -1 ESG, +2 pyretic rituals. If it's working don't go screwing it up by taking my questionable advice though.

So far in testing this Issue never came up. Burning Wishes are needed I think, if only because of Goblin War Strike which will be a huge card against Stoneblade.
I think I will write a report if I don't go 1-x-drop on Sunday.

[rupus]

So far in testing this Issue never came up. Burning Wishes are needed I think, if only because of Goblin War Strike which will be a huge card against Stoneblade.
I think I will write a report if I don't go 1-x-drop on Sunday.

Yeah, in my experience the wish versions are infinitely more consistent. 11 win cons vs 8 is a huge difference. Not to mention how powerful the wishboard can be, especially warstrike for mystic decks like you said. I tried goldfishing your list and it played out really smoothly. I think that 8 cantrips and 0 pyretic rituals will become the standard for belcher lists because probe does so much and pyretic rituals was the worst card in the deck anyways. There's also something nice about a deck that's just a big list of 4 ofs.

What's your sideboard look like now? Did you decide to cut the tendrils for diminishing returns? Anyway, I look forward to reading your report.

[HokusSchmokus]

Yes, my Sb is -1 Tendrils +1 DR, but I could not test properly with it yet. Goldfish-wise it works. Funny that my first take on a Belcher list works so good :D

Edith did some testing too, and told me that this deck likes to fizzle via DR a lot. I'm still not too sold on cutting Tendrils for DR. Hard times...all this decisions...=(

Edit2: K1w1 wanna meet up in IS? Little Nerdtalking on how it went on so on? If so, send me a pm how I can find you ;D

[OurSerratedDust]

I'm just finishing up a belcher piloting simulation I'm writing in Java. I still need to add a couple features, but so far I've tuned the deck to get a first turn win ratio almost 10% better than standard belcher lists. Once I fully optimize the deck and bring it to an event, I'll post the list here. Keep your eyes peeled!

[OurSerratedDust]

Posted this on Storm Boards, and thought it might be useful for some of you guys:

Got some interesting statistics from my simulations for Diminshing Returns in a standard RG belcher list. I assume you have five storm (including DR) and my simulation alternates between four situations:
-RFGed Wish and SSG
-RFGed Wish and ESG
-Chrome Mox in play + RFGed Wish and random imprinted card
-RFGed Wish and taiga in play

Results are given as percent of wins off of Diminshing Returns.

Preboard:
With no mana floating - 42.32%
R floating - 62.67%
G floating - 60.46%
RR floating - 70.46%
RG floating - 71.12%
GG floating - 66.15%

Postboard (board in 6-8 Xantid/REB):
With no mana floating - 29.32%
R floating - 52.52%
G floating - 49.77%
RR floating - 65.31%
RG floating - 66.66%
GG floating - 58.52%

The big thing to underline here is that you may need to be more cautious using DR postboard. Also, average storm count with DR is ~11, so using bw->Tendrils seems like a good plan.