Belcher does not have a problem of not having enough win-cons. Belcher consists of 11 wincons, 1 Land, 44 mana accelerators and 4 cantrips (gitaxian probe). I goldfished belcher quite a bit and you play it in a way to basically always go off turn 1. Sometimes you keep a hand which has a very high chance of going off with 1 draw step.Originally Posted by GexxX
Having more protection and having a “sure” kill and not “just” some tokens can be an argument. (Altough the storm mechanic’s strength forcing the opponent to use FoW on the “2nd ritual” is also a strong argument, whereas FoW can just be used on the wincon against this deck causing you to loose afterwards almost certainly).
But before arguing about the advantage of the kill or having protection this deck needs to proof to go off T1 90+%. Looking at the results from people goldfishing with something like ~30% T1, 30% t2, 20% t3, 20% T4+ does not make the deck viable. This are viable stats for a deck playing lands, cantrips and protection like storm or show&tell. Belcher and this deck cannot give the opponent a couple of turns where you do nothing except drawing, playing chrome mox, lotus petal and maybe a cabal therapy. If you do that you will just loose to a brainstorm into FoW, a thalia or a deathrite shaman.
I would love if this decks becomes viable – even if it is “worse” than belcher it can be viable for the “unknown & surprise factor”. But I am critical on the work done so far (maybe not enough has been shared) because as I said imo the T1% has to be super high, which is a challenge given the % to start with 1 of your 9 dead cards is 70% and in 28% of the times you start with virtually 5 cards. That might be ok because if you use summoners pact (free tutor) you basically only have to bring up 3B and 1 out of 12 wincons.
Currently playing: Elves
Hi, this is my first post on The Source. I was following the discussion and decided to join in. I like your list. Mine is similar except does not run LEDs or Infernal Tutors (although I have the cards). Instead, runs Manamorphoses and Rite of Flame, and I also have one Chancellor of the Tangle left in there (was building from Carsten Kotter's list on StarCityGames). Chancellor is interesting. If you want to mulligan a lot to find your 7-8 spies, he is nice for an extra mana source, and with Chrome Mox he gives you 2 mana from one card, which is excellent. But I think you need more than 8 spies, so a tutor is necessary, and thus some Chancellors got cut. Also, my kill condition is different (using The Mimeoplasm kill because that guy is really cool, although if I expected to run into Leyline of Sanctity I might switch. But I think style points count too, at least when there isn't a big tournament. Plus, you can side into Mimeoplasm plus Ball Lightning and kill that way if you want to dodge some hate and play into other hate. That's my style I think).
The only other thing I wanted to add was to discuss Signal the Clans (from Gatecrash, a card which no one has yet mentioned). At first I misread it, and thought that I could search for 3 Balustrade Spies and put one in my hand, so it was pretty nuts. Then I re-read the card. It's worse than I thought, since you have to search for 3 creatures with different names for it to do anything at all. But it is not that bad even so. Search for one spy of each name and a Wild Cantor. 2/3 times you get what you want. 1/3 of the time you get a Cantor and recoup one of the two mana spent to play the spell. So not bad. Keep in mind that if Wizards ever prints a third functional duplicate of these guys, you can get that one too, meaning you could play up to 16 of them in that case. This card may not be the best here, after testing, but it is better than Gamble, as that will usually yield only a 50% success rate vs. 2/3. Infernal Tutor may just be better for an in deck tutor, but I have not tested that one here yet. Definitely if you plan to Charbelcher out of the board, then Signal the Clans won't be that useful.
Regarding the percentages:
(a) I think current lists are a bit faster than the numbers I posted, but also I'm the only one who's posted numbers. I'm still learning to play the deck (of course), so I've been experimenting with what's keepable, meaning you can expect maybe a 5-10% bump in the hands of an experienced pilot. So I'd estimate that t1 win % is 40, maybe 50%.
(b) The "t2", "t3" numbers really just mean 1 draw step, 2 draw steps, etc. So your argument that Belcher pilots will often keep a hand that's likely to win with 1 draw step if they've mulliganed is non-unique. This deck draws pretty live. Much like Belcher, though, sometimes you mulligan to 4 and have to hope to mise.
(c) There's no deck that has a 90% chance to go off turn 1. More realistic numbers I've heard are 50-60% for Belcher, 60% for SI.
(d) The dead cards can definitely be frustrating, but the difference between 4 and 7 is massive (when you don't draw LED), especially when you get to play Dark Ritual. You just need fewer cards.
The Informer - welcome to The Source! However, instead of regaling us with the details of your list, why don't you try to explain why the design choices you mention (like no LED) make sense despite the findings of multiple people on this thread.
Languages and dates for every set. For all you true pimps.
You are right. The go off% of belcher is lower that 90% and of course the actual "win%" of the turn is even lower. However what I meant with "go off" is not winning, but either getting some goblins or casting belcher without activation (Belcher usually can't be dealt with so you have time to draw for the mana). Getting a hand which is able to "go off" by that definition is keepable. If you are missing only 1 mana you can keep it as well since the chance is around 70% to get there with 1 draw step. To achieve this state of "wincon + mana (incl. 1 draw step for a missing mana") is done pretty consistently by belcher.
It also does happen that belcher mulligans to oblivion and/or takes a draw step missing doing nothing until turn 3 (which basically means loosing to itself by my definition of a glass cannon) but this percentage is very low. In my testing with Undercity I often ended up with a hand doing nothing and my chances to draw what I need were pretty bad - so I mull and mull and from what I saw the deck looses a lot more to itself than belcher. Not to mention that taking 1-2 draw steps hurts this deck more than belcher because there are 9 dead cards in the deck, deathrite is common and should not be active and giving the opponent time to find FoW hurts more.
Looking foward to be proven wrong. :)
Currently playing: Elves
Signal the Clans is super terrible. If you want to tutor creatures, Eldrami's Call is what you want. WG, tutor a creature into your hand. No muss, no fuss. In this deck, though, generating WG seems like a pretty big problem. I don't see it.
Catmint, I'd highly suggest that when making mulliganing decisions with this deck, you mull to black mana. It's a lot easier to find a threat in this deck than it is to assemble the mana, (I know, broken record, but it bears repeating.) I also find that this deck mulls well. T1 wins off mulls to 5 and six are not uncommons. Recently, I managed a T4 Goldfish on the draw after I mulled to 3. I know, goldfishing isn't the same as playing actual magic, but I think its significant that this deck can race burn, even after mulling nearly to oblivion.
I'm running this thing through a gauntlet with friends this weekend, and will share my results once I've finished. Out of curiosity, is anyone going to battle with this at SCG Atlanta? (I am taking this bad boy to Edison).
I have done many solitaire open hands win (7 cards, first turn) testing with different builds for this deck. Basically I do 50 tests for one build on MWS, then switch to another one.
The result is actually rather similar (and disappointing) that I got approximately 50% 1st turn win from 7 cards hand for all of them. However I do get some insights from the testing:
1) Wild Cantor > Manamorphose: There are plenty of times I stuck with 1 spirit guide, 2 ritual and a MANAMORPHOSE in open hand. I start to ask my self Card advantage or I win, which one do I want?
2) Gitaxian Probe / Street Wraith: Since the decks has 50% 1st turn win ratio w/o them and they make mulligan decision harder, do not include them.
3) Infernal Tutor + Living Wish: about 5% chance (2~3 out of 50) they do matter. There are plenty of time I could win if they are an extra mana source or color fixer. Such as Chancellor of the Tangle, Wild Cantor. Need more testing for sure.
Now I am working on the mulligan ones. Such as 6 cards and 5 cards 1st turn win for different builds. The one I tested with 4 Chancellor + 4 Wild Cantor and no Tutor/Wish build so far is:
7 cards: 25/50 = 50%
6 cards: 18/50 = 36%
5 cards: 8/50 = 16%
The probability of getting 1st turn win = 1 - (50% * 64% * 84%) = 73%
Not great but there are plenty of rooms for improvement. If this deck gets to above 80% 1st turn kill that would be pretty cool.
In order to make the number of win-cons the same as belcher (11), I've removed the infernal tutors and now have the following list:
http://deckstats.net/deck-1885565-65...644d64f8d.html
I tested the deck 25 times and got the following results:
T1 kill: 14, 56%
T2 kill: 3, 12%
T3 kill: 4, 16%
T4+ kill: 4, 16%
Though I didn't keep track, a few of those games I was able to play cabal therapy off a chrome mox as well. Thus, I think the deck has a lot of potential once tweaked further. Granted, deathrite shaman is a thing so those T1/T2 kill rates need to improve. I think reducing infernal tutors really helps too because my hand is not as cluttered.
Thanks, welcome to the Source! Mimeoplasm kill is totally fine (he's actually my edh general) in my opinion. However, one of the benefits of running maniac is you can side out angel and azami since your opponent will be taking out all his removal spells anyways and you have cabal therapy flashback just in case. As pointed out, I don't think signal the clans helps but out-of-box thinking is what this is all about so suggestions are welcomed haha.
Can we please start calling this deck "Black Jack"
Nudon, I'm curious about your decision to cut the Infernal Tutors. In gold fishing I've found them to be essential in fetching win cons, especially when paired with LED. I also like it that they can find you Belcher if you need to win through GY hate and that it provides black for Chrome Mox. Still, if its working well for you, I may experiment with cutting them as well.
Also, here is my current SB:
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Pact of Negation
2 Dismember
2 Nature's Claim
1 Swamp
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Undercity Informer
I still like undercity spy but black jack is cool too. :)
http://deckstats.net/deck-1886312-35...03aa3ce25.html
Originally I cut infernal tutor to make a better comparison with belcher. After some testing, I'm going to keep this change because I realized infernal tutor is always achieving hellbent in ANT/TES but has trouble in our deck thanks to so many combo pieces. However, our deck plays out like belcher so I think we should be fine with 11 win-cons too as long as we mulligan aggressively into a win-con (down to 3/4 if necessary though it'll probably be a loss).
The next change I made was adding chancellor of tangle (thanks to The Informer). It is essentially elvish spirit guide #9-12 (pact is 5-8) and has been working much better than I anticipated. It's a terrible top-deck but a lot of the cards in our deck are so this deck tries to maximize going off turn 1. I think this is especially necessary due to metagame (i.e. deathrite shaman).
Post board, you can board out the chancellors for more therapies and unmask/pact of negation.
I tested my list 50 times and got the following results:
T1 kill: 29, 58%
T2 kill: 5, 10%
T3 kill: 8, 16%
T4+ kill: 8, 16% (auto-loss)
I agree. Getting to 6 mana seems very optimistic and with 8 creatures & 4 pact you have 12 wincons. Multiple pacts are not bad fetching up wild cantor wheras multiple 2 mana tutors can only be chrome moxed. Since the initial black mana is an issue as well as getting up to 4 mana I agree that more acceleration and fixing should have priority over wincon 13-16. I like the chancellor a lot netting 2 mana with crome mox.
Btw.: the numbers you posted would make the deck viable imo... I hope this was no variance or you cheating to yourself. :) Mind posting the list you got up to 70% T1 kills?
Currently playing: Elves
Why are Pacts wincons? Don't you mean Living Wishes, as the Pact cannot search for black creatures?
my bad - i was wondering why people don't play it.
I guess pact can then only fix mana with cantor and accelerate with tinder wall. So we need to include a at least 1 tutor for sure. Being able to cast living wish with green is an advantage, but with infernal tutor you can play the full 8 creatures maindeck and get a 1of Belcher if the GY route is blocked.
Currently playing: Elves
Most importantly, pact is an initial mana source via Elvish Spirit Guide.my bad - i was wondering why people don't play it.
I guess pact can then only fix mana with cantor and accelerate with tinder wall. So we need to include a at least 1 tutor for sure. Being able to cast living wish with green is an advantage, but with infernal tutor you can play the full 8 creatures maindeck and get a 1of Belcher if the GY route is blocked.
http://www.starcitygames.com/article...ll-Spells.html
People should check out the Prosak Article.
I don't like his MD, (as I'm a fan of Tutors and LED in the main) but he has some interesting analysis. The most interesting thing I found about the deck was his spoils of the vault Belcher sideboard, which I'm considering testing out. For my pactless LED Version this would mean.
-4 Narcoameaoba
-1 Angel of Glory's Rise
-1 Laboratory Maniac
-1 Azami Lady of Scrolss
-1 Dread Return
-4 Balustrade Spy
+4 Spoils of the Vault
+3 Goblin Charbelcher
+4 Summoners Pact
+1 Wild Cantor
Wishboard of Swamp, Cavern and Informer Stays the same.
Alternatively, instead of Spoils of the Vault, I'd considering running Rite of Flame in its place.
I think the most important question this deck faces is whether or not it wants a reactionary SB or a transformational one. Winning games 2 and 3 are going to be the big challenge this deck faces, and settling on the optimal path to do this I think is key. Hopefully testing will shed some insight into this.
70% is not great because this is pure glass canon test. Beside 30% auto scoop up, if opponent has a hard counter or has a discard on play, that pretty much means auto lose as well. And thinking about sideboard plan dealing with all sort of threats give me headache. So I will skip that for now and work on getting the best T1 kills ratio.
Okay, here is my deck list for those numbers:
Win cons: 8
4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy
Engines: 12
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
3 Narcomoeba
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
1 Bridge from Below
Mana Source & Fixer: 40
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Summer's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Wild Cantor
Here is the record for the testing, 1 = combo, 0 = nobo.
7 cards: 25/50
0011111010
1100110000
0111101110
1010101101
1000110100
6 cards: 18/50
0001000011
0010001110
1010010100
0000000000
1101110101
5 cards: 8/50
1000001000
0000010010
0000000000
0000000000
0010110100
If you wonder why so many Cabal Therapies, I don't know either. I guess I got lazy from testing different builds before I did this one. A couple of them could be Inferno Tutors for better result. I will cut down a couple Wild Cantors for more tutors in the next version.
Another note, just to clarify I don't count 1st turn Undercity Informer > 2nd turn activation as a win. Many things could happen in one turn, STP, bounce, burn. Thus to keep it straight forward, either now or never.
From the data i felt 50 is the minimum requirement for goldfishing a build. Too often I thought I hit a gold mine by looking the T1 win ratios of a build in the first 10 or 20 hands then hit a nobo string or vice versa. I will definitely do 100 once the deck is more optimized.
Suggesting a 52 card deck shows that he did not really play it imo. Pretty bad...
But I like the sideboard ideas. Beeing transformational was my idea from the beginning, since siding anti-hate looks hopeless to me.
Currently playing: Elves
100% T1 kills on the play wouldn't make this deck viable. Its a combo deck that loses to both countermagic or graveyard hate. The opponent always has something to board in against you. Throw a rock, and the glass house falls apart.
Take a look at Pact SI as a good example. The only reason the deck can justify not playing protection is by having a post-board plan that compliments a dense business suite. This is why Classic Belcher lists might as well just run Islands in their post-board.. SI, on the other hand, has 18-19 business spells to abuse with cards like Carpet of Flowers and Lotus Bloom; taking out the explosive acceleration like Culling the Weak and Summoner's Pact for a slow roll strategy.. as well as protection spells so that you can actually out play an opponent.
Current lists here are just trying to outrace SI and Belcher for viability.. and thats foolish. This Rogue Hermit deck can probably push as high as 70% turn 1 kills once fully optimized.. but it doesn't matter if you don't have a post-board plan.. and you'll still be worse than Belcher because you also lose to graveyard hate as well as any other semblance of distruption..
The best way to go about building this deck is for a much slower combo. I'd say more along the speeds of Reanimator. Why is everyone trying to run 0 land? You don't have to run 0 land... As Emidln was saying on the first page.. you probably want Mox Opal, and you probably want tallmen to support it.. which means you probably want Culling the Weak and Cabal Therapy. People should try reading my posts, I already talked about a potential direction to take this deck (but I've no time to work on it atm). The current deck designs will not be able to eliminate the 'kill yourself' factor. Even a good PSI pilot will kill himself once in 50 games.. but seeing numbers like 24% loss.. 16% auto loss.. it wouldn't matter if you got 90% T1 kills if you got 10% autoloss.. because of that 90% against a blue deck.. you have a 50% chance of winning the coinflip, which turns on Daze/Pierce/BS. An opponent, lets say RUG which has high blue card count around 26-27 cards, has a good 40% chance of getting both Force/Blue card in hand. In general, glass houses like these only have about a 20% chance of killing a blue player outright. You can't outrace Force.. and even when you aren't playing against Force, you can't outrace a turn 1 basically.. any card they play in their sideboard. Pithing Needle? Graveyard hate? Storm hate? It all works against this deck.
And with a 1 card combo.. why not slow down and secure the kill? Sacrifice multiple creatures ie. tallmen. + Narcomoebas. Also.. the combo kill takes up ALOT of unnecessary space. I'd probably try something simpler.
EDIT:
I've tried to get Recross the Paths to work for years. That article was just shitty. It basically pulled its ideas directly from this thread instead of thinking about how to actually get the deck to work and not be terrible. Recross the Paths doesn't work. Its janky and inconsistent.
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Expect me or die. I play SI.
I tested again with 4 Infernal Tutors:
7 cards: 39/100
10001 00000
01011 01110
00101 00011
10000 00000
00000 10000
01011 11011
11010 00010
01001 00010
11111 10000
01101 10000
6 cards: 33/100
10000 11101
00001 00011
11011 00001
10011 10000
10010 11010
01000 10001
10001 00010
01000 00000
11100 10000
10100 10000
5 cards: 11/100
00100 10000
00000 00110
00000 00000
00000 00000
00100 00100
00000 00000
00000 00000
00000 10100
01000 00100
00000 00010
Even at 100, the result flutuated a lot. The first 50 of 7 card hand hit all time low. 15/50 = 30%. Then the latter 50 goes back to normal T1 win ratio level. 6 cards and 5 cards hand are around average ratios.
1 - (61% * 67% * 89%) = 64%
Not as good as last time but still within reasonable range.
A couple thing I noticed during the test:
1) Infernal tutor did help me achieve about ten T1 wins in 300 games.
2) Plenty of times I am one initial black mana away from winning. Holding 2 rituals, a LED and a win con but no black mana. :(
3) About 6 times, I have only 3 mana to cast Undercity Informer but could wait a turn to untap Chrome Mox in order to go off. I count these as 0 though.
4) About 6 times, I have 2 LED, and a Chancellor in open hand but no win con.
The deck list for this testing:
Win cons: 12
4 Undercity Informer
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Infernal Tutor
Engines: 10
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
3 Narcomoeba
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
1 Bridge from Below
Mana Source & Fixer: 38
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Summer's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
2 Wild Cantor
My current thought on manaless build is to win as fast & consistent as possible 1st game. Then SB some trolls to deal with desperate grave hates and counters, leyline against discard.
Storm hate couldn't stop LED + Spirit Guides kill. Pithing Needle couldn't stop Balustrade Spy. (SB Sutured Ghoul + Dragon Breath in case Needle Azami). So they are fair games.
Perhaps squeeze some Pact of Negation MD to deal with FOW if they are rampant.
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