Thanks for the link, Jaco. I love belcher reports.
R1: Killed him, he had FOW;killed me, killed him.Originally Posted by OurSerratedDust
R2: FOW, killed him, FOW
R3: Killed him, killed him.
R4: FOW both games, killed me x2
R5: Killed him, Killed him.
How's that? :D
"Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted." - John Lennon
Concise, hilarious, and factual. I like it.
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
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Expect me or die. I play SI.
Exactly. Belcher is just like that you win or loose fastly even if your opo has FoW you are not condemned to loose he MUST to use it very wisely for not be smashed!
How ever i'm not agree about cutting Burning Wish.
I tried boarding out my wishes and some LEDs against blue, and it has been extremely solid for me. Burning wish is terrible against blue, and without it, LEDs aren't THAT good anyways. I'm not sure I'm ready to try getting rid of them all together though.
So just curious what a SB for that Wish-less build might look like, anyone got some ideas?
I ran Belcher at a small tourney a few weeks ago. I played the No- Wish MD, and I played the following SB:
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Burning Wish
1 Hull Breach
1 Shattering Spree
1 Goblin War Strike
1 Pyroclasm
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Red Elemental Blast
It worked really well. I brought in the Burning Wish against decks I figured would side in permanent-based hate and I had a micro Wish-board in there. Then I had Xantid and REB for FoW. Really simple. Just don't do what I did and actually remember to side out 1 Empty the Warrens when you side in the Wishes.
I tried playing 4 maindeck Reforge the Soul with 2 post-board Mirri's Guile. It wasn't bad cause you can use Mirri's Guile to find your post-board protection spells, as well as set up a Miracle line of play. Honestly, I think that this version of Belcher needs to be explored more. For example...
Business:
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Belcher
3 Reforge the Soul
With that kind of business, you can avoid playing Burning Wish, which honestly is a good business spell but it takes up so much space in your board that you can't effectively do anything against blue decks except hope you get lucky and they don't get lucky. If they draw 2 counterspells, your single protection spell isn't going to do shit. Post-board you could play something like this
SB
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Autumn's Veil
2 REB
2 Blood Moon
2 Mirri's Guile
1 Reforge the Soul
With this board, you have 6 protection spells, which I think is the right amount. Carpet helps you to have IMS so that you can board some of them out to play these other cards. Honestly, I'd board out Seething Song post-board if you have Carpet simply because Song is what they usually go for with their counter and then you lose the rest of your hand. Also, Chrome Mox and 4 Land Grants isn't enough to play any sort of grind game. Carpet ensures that you can explode out of no where. Mirri's Guile helps you to set up kinda like a different version of Carpet. It will help you find one of your protection spells, acceleration, business, IMS, etc. whatever you need, and will synergize with Land Grants to make them better than useless after you've already played your Taiga with one of them. Veil protects the whole turn and is easily the best protection spell this deck can play because you can play it early to make them turn on your Carpet, play it in response to a counterspell forcing them to waste 2 countermagic else you have an entire protected turn. Its also quite good with Reforge the Soul as they will draw a new 7. Also, Reforge should be nuts in the post-board with Mirri's Guile. Blood Moon helps you to grind against them, though its not too good with Carpet of Flowers. Perhaps +2 Blood Moon effects and a +2 other cards might be better (perhaps Recross the Paths). Either way, I think that none BW lists don't get nearly enough attention. BW saps all of your post-board potential with situations that rarely happen. BW usually grabs EtW, 9 times out of 10. The other 1/10 of the time, how much better is that BW line of play then what you might play in the post-board to fight against blue?
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
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Expect me or die. I play SI.
thanks for the list, I was thinking something along the same lines. So what is the 4th LeD for, just when you crack a Wish?
One thing that may or may not be of note, in a "wishless" build, like the one that ran 15 island lol, the deck was essentially 48 cards, via 4 manamorphose, 4 street wraith, 4 gitaxian probe as the last 12.
Last edited by feline; 08-12-2012 at 05:59 PM.
Primary legacy deck High Tide primer
Oh no, it's of pretty big note.
Yep. 4 LED don't really do anything except build storm and activate Belcher in the MD, so there's not much reason to play a 4th MD. Bring in the 4th when you bring in Wishes (should probably be 4 Wishes too, I just couldn't find my 4th the day of that tourney).
@Vacrix
I'm intrigued by your Reforge the Soul build for Belcher w/o Burning Wish. Mostly, it's the transformational sideboard against Blue that makes it appealing. Can you share your list? I'd like to put it together for a gauntlet this week.
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I put down the list due to finals but I'll do some testing today and fine tune the list I already had. Its pretty standard though if you think about it. Most of the parts of Belcher are not modular. The business count is often 11 so..
4 Belcher
4 Empty the Warrens
3 Reforge the Soul
And then the rest of the deck is classic Belcher. The thing, though, is that this version of Belcher might actually be better with 12 business spells. Reforge the Soul requires you to draw a business spell off the top 7 so its a little bit more demanding in terms of business; you can't just mulligan your 7 til you find a business spell. In that sense, I'm going to mostly test 11 vs. 12 business spells.
Also, its worth noting that LED still works with Reforge the Soul so LED doesn't necessarily get weaker by dropping Burning Wish. Also, Burning Wish makes any business spell automatically cost +2 so you go from your avg. business spells being
Belcher --> 7 (or 4 to cast, and wait on the activation for pass the turn plays)
Empty the Warrens --> 4 (though you are often floating more mana than you need)
Burning Wish --> 6 (often you are just playing Empty the Warrens)
So with:
4 Belcher (7)
4 Burning Wish (6)
3 Empty the Warrens (4)
ie. the Classic Belcher business suite, you avg. business mana investment is 5.81 mana.
With my suggested BW-less variation business suite:
4 Belcher (7)
4 Empty the Warrens (4)
3 Reforge the Soul (5)
The avg. business investment is 5.3 mana. So its a bit less.
Also, 4 maindeck Empty the Warrens is a bit safer against control and Reforge the Soul allows you to rebuild from nothing rather quickly, especially if you can utilize Mirri's Guile. Granted, I'm porting a lot of this SB strategy from Pact Spanish Inquisition, but I think that post-board Blood Moons gives you more business spells for the grind game. Also, if the opponent wants to play around that, they are going to want to fetch basic Islands. If they don't, then Carpet might not work, but they have no mana to work with. So no Spell Pierce, no Flusterstorm, no Daze, no Counterspell. PulpFiction played MAINDECK Bloodmoon like a boss a while back and did quite well if I recall. Pulled from the storm boards:
EDIT:
On the topic of 11 vs 12 business suite in the Reforge lists. More copies of Reforge also means more "LOL MIRACLES" wins.
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
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Expect me or die. I play SI.
LED should be left alone in a wishless/RtS build. 3 Extra mana on that new seven could be very useful.
I'd also like to point out that when running Reforge the Soul, Tendrils of Agony becomes a viable kill condition again for a wish board as you should have an easier time getting to a spell count of 10+. Maybe with a kill condition setup like 4xBelcher 4xWish 4xRtS. Pre or Post board. In theory that setup should allow for the most t1-2 kills, reducing your opponents options he has against you when relying on the horde of 1/1's over a few turns.
I might even go as far as to modify an old Belcher list like this.
1 [B] Taiga
1 [B] Bayou
3 [IA] Tinder Wall
4 [AL] Elvish Spirit Guide
4 [PLC] Simian Spirit Guide
4 [MR] Goblin Charbelcher
4 [AVR] Reforge the Soul
4 [JU] Burning Wish
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [CHK] Desperate Ritual
4 [CS] Rite of Flame
4 [B] Dark Ritual
4 [MM] Land Grant
4 [NPH] Gitaxian Probe
4 [SHM] Manamorphose
Sideboard:
EtW, Tendrils, etc
I just posted this list to help be constructive. It may not be the direction the deck needs to go. In fact modifying the classic list I used as a base with some of the modern flavors wasn't as easy as I hoped. I wanted to include Wild Cantor for additional mana fixing for black, but Manamorphose should be enough of a replacement. I had to cut Street Wraith as well. This is 61 cards. A RtS could go to the board as a wish target, but I tend to agree with Vacrix that when using RtS, playing 4 would be more optimal so as not to get hosed as often by not drawing into something. Even without splashing for black with bayou and and Dark Ritual, a more common modern list may be able to sustain a Tendrils kill just fine with Petals, LEDs and Manamorphose.
Anyway. I like seeing this deck with more options available now. It could help it's versatility against hate, and in turn increase its populatiry.
I don't think Reforge the Soul should replace Burning Wish in Belcher. I think it should replace a couple Goblin Charbelcher and Empty the Warrens. Reforge the Soul makes it possible to somewhat reliably Wish for Tendrils of Agony with high enough storm, which is a trick we couldn't really do before. I've been testing the following:
Business:
4 Burning Wish
3 Reforge the Soul
2 Goblin Charbelcher
2 Empty the Warrens
Mana:
4 Land Grant
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Tinder Wall
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Seething Song
4 Rite of Flame
4 Manamorphose
Land
1 Taiga
Sideboard
4 Xantid Swarm
2 Empty the Warrens
2 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Grapeshot
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Pyroclasm
1 Hull Breach
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shattering Spree
I don't even think I had Xantid Swarm in the SB, I just can't remember what I was running there. Basically, with the old Belcher list, I never found that siding in Swarms and REBs did anything. I figured that I'd have to side out Reforge the Soul against control so as not to give them a new hand, and my plan was to transform back to old Belcher and try to race. Manamorphose, Lion's Eye Diamond, and Lotus Petal were enough to reliably get BB when I wanted to go for a Tendrils of Agony win.
I will mention three things I noticed when testing this version of Belcher:
1) I still think 11 business is the right number. 11 maximizes the probability of having exactly 1 business in the opening hand (12 has a slightly lower chance of exactly 1 and a slightly higher chance of exactly 2). With Reforge the Soul, you really don't want to see any other business in your opening hand; it would greatly reduce the chance of hitting business when you case Reforge. (Also, any other business in your hand is not mana in your hand, and you want to have some mana floating when you Reforge.)
2) You have to play slightly differently to maximize your chances of actually Miracle-ing Reforge. E.g., with the old list, if I had a Gitaxian Probe in hand, it was always my leading play. There was never any reason to hold it back, and it gave me the most possible information to go forward. But with Reforge in the deck, it might be more correct to play out non-instant mana sources first, just in case a Probe (or Manamorphose, or a Reforge that is in your starting 7) hits a Miracle Reforge.
3) This is obviously rare, but if you cast Reforge from your opening 7 and Miracle topdeck a second Reforge:
a) The Miracle trigger goes on the stack.
b) You finish drawing 7 from the first Reforge.
c) You can respond to the trigger with any instant-speed mana you drew.
d) Then you can choose to pay for the new Reforge.
So it doesn't completely waste the 7 you drew from the first Reforge, and it probably sets you up for something bonkers with a third set of 7 cards.
Ok, so I ran this deck at last night's Legacy tourney. Basically the same list that top-8ed Columbus (only with a real sideboard) -
Artifacts
4 Chrome Mox
4 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
Creatures
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Street Wraith
4 Tinder Wall
Instants
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Manamorphose
4 Pyretic Ritual
Sorceries
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Land Grant
4 Rite of Flame
Lands
1 Taiga
My Sideboard:
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Pyroblast
1 ReB
3 Cave-In
3 I can't recall what I did here
Report :
Round 1 vs Elf-Combo:
Game 1 - I wasn't too super concerned about this matchup, until my deck started being stupid. I kept a hand with 2 Probes and a Wraith thinking I could draw into some business but did not. I finally pulled off a lethal Belch on something like turn 6 since he was floundering about almost as badly as me. Note to self, think harder about your opening 7.
Game 2 - A bit of the same, we both floundered about a little until I ran out a Belcher on turn 3. I had to wait until turn 4 to activate. His turn 4 took a very long time as he knew his chances were slim if I got to untap, and that's how it played out.
(1-0)
Round 2 vs RUG Delver:
Game 1 - I hate this matchup no matter what I'm playing, it just never goes well for me. This time he led with Volcanic-Delver-Go. I opened up with turn 1 Empty for 12 Goblins, he scooped.
Game 2 - Sideboard the blue hate! I brought in all the Blasts and the Swarms, dropping the Probes, Wraiths and a single Land Grant. My opening 7 was good but no SB cards. He went first with Volcanic-Go. I opened up with turn 1 Belcher and met a FoW. It was all downhill from there.
Game 3 - Again, no SB cards in my opening 7 but a decent draw so I kept. My turn 1 Belcher made the table but I had no activation yet. My turn 2 activation was met with a Stifle, as was my turn 3 activation. I then ran out of mana to activate it, floundered around until his Lavamancer went the distance. Did I mention I hate this matchup?
(1-1)
Round 3 vs High Tide:
Game 1 - Oh boy, more FoWs!My turn 1 Belcher was met by that lovely blue card that says "Die Combo Decks" on it. He then proceeded to counter everything I tried to do until he could combo off.
Game 2 - SB much the same as before, draw no SB cards, lose horribly to many, many counterspells.
(1-2)
Round 4 vs Mono White Thing:
Game 1 - I stuck it out because how else do you get to play the deck? I read somewhere that dropping doesn't allow you to learn how to play better. Besides, this guy didn't have FoWs.He goes first and opens with turn 1 Aether Vial off a Cavern of Souls. I guess he hates counters as much as me (when I'm not playing them).
So I opened up with a turn 1 Belch for lethal. Moving on!
Game 2 - He opens with double Leyline and I flounder a bit until he finally bashes my head in with some little dude and 2 swords on it (1 may have been a Jitte, I don't recall).
Game 3 - I open up on the play with a turn 1 Empty for 10 Goblins. He sadly looks at his Leyline and scoops.
(2-2)
In the end I see just how fragile the deck is. Blue decks pretty much just rolled me. Not drawing ANY of my SB cards wasn't good either. But I'm not convinced it would have mattered anyway. You spend so much effort and cards to do your one thing and a well timed Counterspell just kills you, then it takes too long to reload while they reload more counters waiting on your next attempt.
For what it's worth, if you're playing 8 business and you keep hand with 0 business and 3 cantrips, the probability of not drawing any business in your 3 cantrip draws is approximately 60%. (I haven't taken the time to account for the probability of drawing into more cantrips, but I would guess even then it's worse than a coin flip.) That's why it's hard to judge mulligan decisions when you load up your deck with cantrips instead of business.
A few observations on this build -
I wasn't overly impressed with the Probes and Wraiths to be honest. The Probes seemed pointless since you can't do anything about what you see anyway. So basically they say "Pay two life, draw a card" (just like the Wraiths) on them and I'm not sure that was worth it. I could consider swapping the 4 Probes for Wishes and go that route but if I did that I would drop the Wraiths as well since they wouldn't make much sense alone.
I don't know, in the end I liked my Hive Mind deck much better anyway. I like TES over this one too, so there's that. At least with Hive Mind you have FoW and Blue Pacts and TES has discard and Chant to get around FoW. This deck really seems to have nothing against blue in general. Just my thoughts.
It's not fragile just has high chances to loose against counter walls.
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