So we had a vintage tournament on Sunday here in the UK.... gotinput was kind enough to loan me a deck, and I decided to try belcher since the first place prize was just sinkholes anyway. Here's the decklist I was running
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
3 Goblin Welder
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Seething Song
3 Chromatic Star
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Memory Jar
1 Burning Wish
3 Goblin Charbelcher
2 Empty the Warrens
4 Land Grant
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
5x Mox
1 Black Lotus
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Channel
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
4 Duress
1 Vampiric Tutor
SB:
1 Goblin Welder
1 Goblin Charbelcher
2 Empty the Warrens
2 Shattering Spree
2 Pyroblast
2 Ancient Grudge
3 Xantid Swarm
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Chromatic Star
Round one: janky artifact combo deck (no storm, no yawg will)
Basically, the person running the deck doesn't like storm, and doesn't like yawgmoth's will, so he made a deck without either. This was a pretty fast matchup.... he had no way to reliably kill or stop kills by turn three, and I had turn two kills both games (tendrils one game, belcher another). I sideboarded in one pyroblast for a chrome mox on the theory that if I had to draw one or the other, pyroblast would be the choice. This becomes a recurrent theme throughout the tournament
Round two: Psychatog
Game one: He thinks long and hard before deciding to keep his hand... before I take my turn, he says he's either going to win or lose depending on how fast my deck is. How convenient, I think.... land grant for bayou, duress and take a merchant scroll, seeing two intuitions and another merchant scroll. He sees my hand, and practically concedes on the spot, as I proceed to cast memory jar. His turn is draw, land pass, I crack the jar. I have to decide between casting ETW or goblin charbelcher after playing the rest of my hand.... thinking back, I make the wrong move and choose ETW for 16 tokens. I knew I had one turn to attack or activate charbelcher while he merchant scrolled for a solution, and knew that ETW would put him at one. On the other hand, I was thinking, he might not have echoing truth maindeck, and he could find a bounce for my charbelcher if I didn't kill him on the one activation. Of course, with only a taiga left, killing would be extremely likely, but I didn't think it through fully. So I ETW, he gets echoing truth, I swing, get truthed, and make 8 more tokens on my next turn to win.
SB (I don't really know what he's playing here, I thought it was drain tendrils maybe; I did know he had lots of ways to get countermagic): -1 chrome mox, -1 demonic consultation, 2 xantid swarm
Game two: I'm going second, so when I see a hand with six accelerants and a goblin welder, I'm thinking I have a pretty good shot. My welder gets countered, and I draw more mana for a couple turns before getting smashed in the face with a huge tog
SB: -2 xantid swarm, +2 pyroblast
Game three: Turn one I go mox, sol ring, mana crypt, mana vault, chromatic star, goblin charbelcher. Turn two I tutor for my bayou and kill him
Round three: Fish
Game one: Turn one I go black lotus.... he thinks. If it gets countered, I'm pretty much dead in the water, so when he lets it resolve I'm ecstatic. Dark ritual, dark ritual, chromatic star, seething song, mana crypt, burning wish.... burning wish gets countered! Luckily, I also have ETW in my hand, so I get enough goblin tokens to take him to school on turn two
SB: -1 chrome mox, -1 demonic consultation, -1 ETW, +1 goblin charbelcher +2 pyroblast. Pyroblast kills FOW and meddling mage, so it's good. I swap out an ETW for a charbelcher hoping he'll bring in anti-ETW tech.
Game two:
He goes null rod, wasteland, wasteland. I can't tap for mana, so I lose
SB: -1 goblin charbelcher, -1 Channel, +2 Ancient Grudge
Game three: He double mulligans, so I'm thinking my hand of lotus petal and 3x rite of flame with a burning wish is looking pretty good. Worst case scenario, I figure, I still have 15+ outs to topdeck. Rite of flame gets countered, I topdeck like an ass, and lose the game. Ouch
Round four: Grim Long
An excellent combo v. combo matchup
Game one: I go turn one duress, take his tinker and go for a 12 token ETW on turn two. Things get hairy because he still has dark ritual and grim tutor in his hand, but he doesn't have enough mana to use them effectively. Of course, he also has a necropotence on top of his deck, but he doesn't have any gas on the top five cards to save him
Game two: He goes broken while I'm holding a decent hand. I probably should have mulliganed since I didn't have duress or a turn two kill
Game three: I get a turn one charbelcher, and get the land from my deck. He mulliganed, so I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a turn one kill..... shows what I know. Lotus, ritual, timetwister shenannigans, and I get turn one owned.
It was only four rounds of swiss, then cut to the top four... I barely miss out at 2-2 (there were 11 players
), so I'm relegated to the not playing anymore table.
So at the end of the tournament, here are my thoughts:
1.) Xantid Swarm really was useless. I had high hopes of bringing him in against heavy countermagic decks like oath of druids, but of course there weren't any (someone's gonna say "Playing creatures against oath?", so I'll let them know to just be quiet right now).
2.) Pyroblast can be 4x in the sideboard. With only two, I never saw them, which was a little unfortunate, though I'm not sure it hurt me too badly.
3.) Chrome Mox and Demonic Consultation might need some cutting. Those were my go to guys for sideboarding; if anything maindeck is getting changed, it's those. They're just not that exciting. On the other hand, I wouldn't want main deck pyroblasts or anything like that right now, so unless there is anything better, they're still in for now.
Luckily for me, and for you too, the TO had extra MM packs, and decided as a little add-on for prize support to let the top 8 draft MM block for free (everyone else had to pay a little to draft). So here's my MM block draft analysis:
This format sucks balls. There's no removal, no fast creatures, tons of artifact hate with no relevant targets... fortunately, only two people drafted green, so I get a pretty solid green deck with some blue and red splash for two burn spells and some evasion/bounce. Even when I was dominating, I was still waiting for my opponent to cast something relevant to kill me, because dominating meant I had spidersilk armor, coastal hornclaw and skyshroud cutter in play. Thankfully, everyone else was drafting the same chaffe, so that was nice. I got my first energy flux, which was probably the most valuable card in the draft
Money rares, MM ain't got.
