Hi all,
there aren't a lot of people that can argue about seeing me playing something different from Drain.decs, but sometimes...oh, well, it can happen even to me!
I decided that I want to play
short but intense games
I decided to revamp my old 2LandBelcher ( the one with blue and other power cards, un-assembled since an year )
I decided that JDizzle did a good work on it until now.
I decided to abuse of it.
I tested hard the deck during the December's month.
Having a little part-time work in a MtG shop helped me a lot on finding time to do it.
I played up to 30-40 intense games during all those working days.
I pulled out my Cannons against AggroControl decks, against Other combo decks and against powerful control decks.
The deck performed as well as I expected, but I
had to put so much attention during the "pre-games", that sometimes, playing against me seemed TOO BORING, especially from the opponent's point of view...
...Double pile shuffling every game and heavy mulliganing into new hands, reduced a lot of games to nothing more than
preparing the deck to play rather than really
playing with it interacting games.
The word "interaction" sounds strange and distorted when referring to 2LandBelcher...
The Belcher ability to minimize the opponent's answers to his attacks, frequently obliged me to show my hand to my opponent with the porpouse of helping/discussing with him about finding a solid solution to my inevitable wins.
Retrospectively speaking, I find myself in the losing side of the table not as much frequently as I could think, so I decided to bring this deck to a serious competition. Aside with my brain of course...
I was sure about:
-Fish could wreck your board, but you can win before his Rods.
-Controls could open your goblin-ass with ease, but you play with a couple of "tricks" ( Duresses and Welders ) to protect your Belcher.
-TPS and Dragons can combo you out quickly but not so much frequently.
-Slavery, Gifts and other Drain.dec
without Duresses are almost a Non-Issue, excluding the few matches where they hold active Drains and FoWs during his first turn
-MW.decs are the ones that force you to think about changing the ENTIRE deck's strategy, but winning the dice roll and mulliganing slow hands into new ones, can transform a deadly matchup into a good one. My entire sideboard take into account this problem.
-Belcher is all about Math, Shuffling and Mulliganing, not necessarily in this order.
With the sweet idea of playing AT LEAST quick matches, I arrived at the gaming place ( 200km far from my house
)
I played JDizzle's list with those sideboard's changes:
+1 Deconstruct
+1 Mishra's Workshop
+1 Fetchland
-1 Artifact Mutation
-1 City of Traitors
-1 City of Brass
Turn 1 - UBAzaaR ( vroman monored version )
Game 1I lose the dice roll and he played Emerald, Pearl, Stripmine, Trinisphere.
Retrospectively speaking, I have kept a possible turn 1 kill with double Ritual, Land Grant and a couple of Accelerations to feed and activate the Belcher in my hand. I started waiting for the lands and the ESG. Not a comfortably thought especially after he played turn 2 CoW + Wasteland and turn 3 Uba Mask and Bazaar.
I conceded soon after.
Game 2I sided in Naturalizes, Deconstruct and Oxidize. I swapped the Living Wishes for Orangutang and Scrapper. I added the lands too. I sided out Cabal Rituals and Duresses. This route reproposed itself at least twice during the tourney.
I drew an hand without any one of those sideboard's cards, but with taiga, a welder, some accelerations and Consultation. I dropped all my hand into the board, at least thinking about being able to
play in the next few turns. I played Welder, mana ( no Walls or ESG but only artifacts' mana ) and I Consulted for Belcher. I resolved it and passed the turn. He Wasted my land and played Null Rod off a Sol Ring. This left me completely out of the game, lost into a sea of discomfort...
I waited a lot of turns while he played his game nearly undisturbed with me waiting for spells that never come out..
0-0-1
Turn 2 - T1-Atog
Game 1I kept and hand with Land Grant, Duress, Welder and mana plus a Chromatic Sphere.
He Duressed me once, Brainstormed a couple of times, resolving Walk and Ancestral too. He managed to resolve a quick Y. Will during his third turn of play to balance his possible loss after a single Welder activation that would occur in my subsequent turn. During this process, he C. Wished for Darkblast and crushed my 1/1; he played his broken cards again and won the game. In the end, I have desperetely consulted for Belcher too. I ended up the process with 8 cards into my grimoire. Three of them were Belchers...
Game 2I kept a strange hand with Duress, Xantid and Living Wish, all of them playable during the first two turns of the game thanks to my solid mana acceleration. I Duressed him, discarding an active Tinker and I resolved Xantid Swarm. HE had a slow hand, so I played L. Wish for Dark Confidant on turn 2, starting drawing two cards every turn since turn 3. I L. Wished again for Orangutang during turn 5 to get rid of one of his Needles. In the end, I didn't need to resolve Belcher in order to win. D.Confidant, Swarm, Gorilla and Welders killed him, with me playing the "control" role
Playing "Zoo" sometimes can give you great satisfactions...
Game 3He didn't bluff a Drain during his first turn ( land sapphire go ), but I played both Xantid and Welder. He countered only one of them. My subsequent Duress take away another bomb and after a couple of activations, my Belcher killed him ( I don't have lands in play or Land Grants in hand ).
1-0-1
Turn 3 - Welder-MUD with Ankh of Mishra and Pyrostatic Pillar maindecked
Game 1I started with some one shot mana acceleration ( Monolith and Petal ) and I resolved Belcher thanks to them. I had a Land in hand but I have to topdeck other mana fonts in order to win. He played mana, Tangle Wire, CotV for 0 and Wasted the land stopping a possible win by luckily topdecking. I drew into other mana fonts but into unplayable ones or into other mana fonts that avoided me to have three mana opened during one of the game's phases. Wires have been deadly clunky for me this game.
We both stalled out a bit, with me adding cards to my hand and him playing two other Wires, CotV and Pillars. Two ESG and a single land killed him with the trigger of the Wires in stack during an unspecified Turn "X".
Game 2I boarded in lands and removals again. I swapped them with Duresses and some other overcosted spells.
He played Welder and CotV for 0. Then, in the same turn he resolved Pillar. I dropped my mana, taking a lot of damages. I had Tutor for Belcher but I have to tap out to be able to resolve it. I have to put attention on not letting his Welder to become active on my own threat, discarding artifacts in the grave. He played another CotV for 1 and R&R on two of my mana on table. This spell completely doomed me. I soon became unable to do nothing because of my life total, his Welder and the lack of actual mana on table. Shaman demonstrate to be able to kill myself when he ate my Belcher.
Game 3I resolved a quick Belcher, but, as happened during game 1, I consumed almost all my resources into the process. I have 2 mana on table when he resolved his Wires again, tapping me out without too much to do. During this game, he played both Juggernaut and Welder, but I have no artifact into the grave yet. He had only two MWs in play and a Ruby. He seemed unable to play his possible R&Rs and his mana-screw let me topdeck and use other mana fonts during the next turns. I activate Belcher once, but I encountered the Bayou too soon. I was really low on life, so I have to kill the Juggernaut in order to survive. Naturalize helped me to gain another turn but, luckily for me, it was the only turn that I need to Belch him again to death.
2-0-1
Turn 4 - Goth Slavery
Game 1Those game has been the fastest ones of the entire tourney. I showed him my hand, while he scooped without nothing to do to stop my first turn active Belcher.
Game 2I mulliganed down to 5. I was astonished by this hand. I had Black Lotus, Dark Ritual, Duress, Belcher, LED. . He FoWilled my Lotus and I transmuted this beatiful first turn kill into a first turn loss.
Game 3 I sided in 3 Swarms. I traded his FoW with one of them. Then, I resolved Belcher again on turn 1, killing him during the next one.
3-0-1
Turn 5 - 2LandBelcher ( the version splashed with blue... )
Game 1I feared this mirror match for a couple of reasons. He played Belcher since more time than me and he played the version with the blue cards. They doomed the mirror exactly as my mind was fearing them, while shuffling.
While the first reason didn't show his weight during those two games, the latter forced me to think about the difference and the beauty of our two different version
He won the dice roll, winning half of the entire game. He resolved Belcher on turn 1. I could have done exactly the same thing, but he comboed me out into his next activation.
Game 2I thought hard about which cards should have sided in. Retrospectively speaking, I want both answers for his Belcher and speed for mine. A lot of cards in my deck act reactively and aren't needed into this matchup. Necropotence is slow such as Welders, in the perspective of playing a game long a single turn.
I sided in Naturalize and Oxidize in those slots, leaving all the others slow tools. I mulliganed an hand with 6 mana and a Chormatic Sphere. He mulliganed once too. I kept and hand with a first turn Belcher. I feared his own artifact removals, but I cannot hope to resolve and activate Belcher with 5 cards in my initial hand. He could have mulliganed for a lot of reasons and he could not have hold removals into his new hand.
Despite all this reasoning, he removed ESG and Oxidized my Belcher. Then, he proceded to use his mana to Brainstorm into new cards and resolve his own Belcher. I topdecked Naturalize and used it on his winning condition. He drew into Brainstorm again after a Land Grants and smiled to me when he Tinkered up his own Belcher#2. We draw go two turns and then he blindly activated his Belcher for the win.
I would argue about those games more in the end of the report.
We played a lot of games after those ones and his build win more than mine. I don't want to argue about being unlucky or unprepared, mirror matches are intuitive to analyze: More speed = more win. Slow tools = More mulligans.
3-0-2
Turn 6 - Control Slavery with maindeck CotVs
Game 1I lost the dice roll and he started with Land, Sapphire go. I kept a risky but explosive hand with Jet, Land Grant, ESG, Channel and Demonic. As you can easily realize, it was a first turn kill, excluding some counters from his side.
I operate for the win removing ESG, resolving Channel and Demonic for Belcher. He Drained it, stopping me from winning. I feared his counter when he let me resolve Land Grant, but the hand was too intriguing to stop me from trying to win soon.
He resolved cotv for 1 and for 0 during the next two turns. He Intuitioned for AK during his second turn, drawing a pletora of cards during the third. I topdecked nothing playable and lose.
Game 2I kept with a first turn Xantid, mana and a couple of chromatic spheres. He let me resolve Xantid but played cotv for 0 again and wished for darkblast. My only defence was destroyed soon and the chalice shut down some of my subsequents topdecked spells.
Soon, he gained control of the board with Welder and Mindslaver. I autolose drawing 20 cards off my Necropotence.
We played a bit more than 10 games. I loss at least 10 games.
3-0-3
This game obliged me to save some DCI points for the future and I dropped to talk about the deck with other friends.
I fear that it can do a lot against decks such as "standard" controls or "standard" aggro-controls.
Hybrid theories and hybrid archetipes showed their strength against this Belcher build.
I lose to control decks with lock components, against mirror matches with speedy components and against Lock.decs
These are large portions of the field and, retrospectively thinking, deciding to play
this Belcher build seemed too superficial and optimistic.
I abused of my brain to pull out some changes to the initial JDizzle build.
I noticed that adding blue could be an improvement ( more speed and search ).
I noticed that playing with both Welders and Duresses could be a bit overkill while resulting a bit clunky in my hands frequently.
I noticed that adding Cabal Rituals and Bargain, while good in theory, results too mana intensive when playing the deck.
I missed Brainstorms.
Proposed changes
-1 Taiga
+1 Tropical Island
-4 Welders
-3 Duress
-2 Cabal Rituals
-1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
+3 Brainstorm
+3 Xantid
+1 Ancestral Recall
+1 Tinker
+1 Timetwister
+1 Chrome Mox
Loading the miandeck with "minitutors" and additional tools, let me feel safer from being reduced to topdecking spells.
The real draw engine of the JDizzle deck consist of Welders artifacts' recursions and tutors. I propose to use the same number of tutors but adding little and cheap tools to find multiple bombs.
I always won with hands consisting on two bombs and mana.
Adding drawers can fuel this "statistic" point of view. I would see more cards and I would play more threats, luckily all at once.
The lack of Duresses can hurt the control's matchups, but Xantid is usually better than them game 1 because of the lack of specific answers to it.
The lack of Welders can hurt the MW.decs' matchup too because you cannot hope to use their own threats against him. On the other hand, those opponent's always try to shut you up thanks to cotvs and rods. Tey would preserve themselves from throwing artifacts into theirs grave, so they are usually useless. What you always need, are additional tools to circumvent hate, in a faster way or in a different way.
I sided out Bargain any time I was facing good decks and the Cabal Rituals rarely gave me more than 3 mana. Flooding the deck with those spells seemed too redundant to me.
On the other hand, you add a bit more consistency with the usage of blue as secondary color instead of red. You can easily play welders in side ( l.wish can grab them for you during game 1 ) and some duresses can be added too, if needed.
I would recommend the usage of Coretapper in side. It can be OVERHELMING against some artifact.decs that cannot abuse of Rods.
I expect hints and posts about those points from players who can confirm/detract this issues
Maxx
