[Deck] Charbelcher Combo 2004

[bebe]

Actually in this deck you might regret having a Brainstorm rather than a Scrying. I started with three and went down to two because I occasionally had no Blue mana source with the Brainstorm. I will as often Grant for Bayou as Tropical depending on my opening hand.
I had no Mox Pearl. I did not miss it. I never lost to mana screw. I lost to counters, stifles, disks, fows, null rods, shamans, et all. And this with the possibility of turn one and two Belchers

[Lucentspirit]

Bebe,
    Was that the build you ran at the tournament or does the deck you just listed have changes you made since then? If you did change it between the tounament and posting.... what did you change? Also, how oftan did your opponents use mana from the vinyards?

[bebe]

The list is changed from the tournament.

main deck
- 1 Badlands
- 1 Death Wish
- 1 Memory Jar

+ 1 Xantid Swarm
+ 2 Oxidize

SB:
- 1 Oxidize
- 1 Hunting Pack
- 1 Xantid Swarm

+ 1  Mishra's Workshop
+ 2  Tendril's of Agony

By far control is the toughest match up but I have to say I had some terrible luck. My second round opponent started with three Fow in hand. FoW Land Grant one and two hurts first turn. This was followed by a turn two Null Rod. Yes. That bad. My whole day went that way. Sometimes it is not meant to be.
So I would take a few more main deck precautions now. In dropped a land because I once Belched for seventeen and lost next round. One less land and it would have been game ( i had granted out two lands by turn two). I lost turn four to a disk.
Still, I maintain that in a control heavy environment a oure combo deck will not often win unless very lucky - Dragon actiually won the tournament but he got some amazing draws and his opponents did not have Stifles and FoWs every game turn one.
Vineyards hurt me once and helped me at least three times. I say worth the gamble. You just need to read your opponent well - something I had real trouble with this time out. In fact this is the worst I've played in a year. I read everything wrong.  One of those days.

[LucienStormcrow]

So I would take a few more main deck precautions now. In dropped a land because I once Belched for seventeen and lost next round. One less land and it would have been game ( i had granted out two lands by turn two). I lost turn four to a disk.

If you land granted for two lands, and your lands were Bayou, Tropical, and Badlands, you would have gotten Bayou and Tropical.  Thus leaving Badlands as the only land you could belch for.  It is impossible to do seventeen damage since you could only do even damage by belching with a mountain.  Were you cheated out of this win, or maybe misposted.  

Either way this often happens to me with only two lands.  I was play testing last night after I dropped a Tourny, and one only one game against control, but often belched for 15-19 points of damage and lost the next round.

[bebe]

He had fetched a land for a point of damage prior to the Belch. Sorry if that confused you.

Belcher beat the control decks turn one every match, BTW. It is game two and three where the smart player mulligans to their nhate that you lose. The deck is fragile. Early disruption hurts if they bhave time to attack your resources. I was even mind twisted once or twice practicing against a Keeper deck prior to the tournament start. Keeper was not an easy match at all.  

At this point it seems that Unmasks or Therapies might have to considered to protect the combo. Xantids and Welders might not be the best route.

[carlossb]

What about trying the ManaSeverance route?

We could try speeding up the deck with workshops and protect the combo with force of wills...
(something like the slaver deck, there is a combo version, and a control version)

[Lucentspirit]

I don't think mana severence would play well in the deck. It requires you cast one more thing before you can go off, it will slow the deck down, and if your running multiples of it in the deck it becomes a dead card after casting the first one.  Not to mention putting in mana severence along with more land means replacing other cards in the deck which are probaly going to be more usefull in a majority of your matchups. Finally, if you never draw a mana severence you will be stuck trying to use a belcher with a deck full of land.

[frimble]

What excites me about the deck is that it is a "one card" combo.  I write it like that because it sure helps to get the Land Grant, too.  That's why Tendrils decks work so well.  In the case of Belcher decks, we only have to resolve a Belcher or a Welder.  Getting one spell resolved is a lot easier than two.

[JACO]

This looks like a very interesting deck, that unfortunately gets rocked by Null Rod. I have never played this deck, but I am looking over these lists and have a question for the developers who have shared their decklists thus far (LucienStormcrow, LucentSpirit, bebe). Why are your 1 or 2 lands not red-based (as in, say, 1 Taiga and 1 Bayou)?

From the Oracle:

,{Tap}: Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a land card. ~this~ deals damage equal to the number of nonland cards revealed this way to target creature or player. If the revealed land card was a Mountain, ~this~ deals double that damage instead. Put the revealed cards on the bottom of your library in any order.

Does the deck just not care if it hits that one land? It just seems that it would be better served if there was a Taiga in there, rather than a Tropical, for example, in case you are trying to just raw-dog a Belcher kill and happen to stumble upon a land. If it's a Mountain/Taiga, you are doubling the amount of damage automatically.

[Wollblad]

@JACO
When I played the deck, I had a Taiga also just to ensure the access to red mana, often, even against control, the few lands you have are out of the deck before Charbelcher is resolved. If you try to leave the Taiga left as often as possible, you will most often kill your opponent by one activation, but once every tenth match you will hit land too early. In my experience, the extra stability granted by the extra Taiga is far more important than the drawback with hitting land is hindering.

In general, I see that poeple seems to refuse disruption. The first decks used both duress and Unmask. Now there are 3 Xantid Swarm at most. Isn't that just to weak? I would like to see something like 4 Xantid Swarm (it is too slow to wish for them) along with 2 or three Duress or isn't it worth the spots.

[bebe]

In general, I see that poeple seems to refuse disruption.

It is just that early in testing it seemed that a Xantid was more of a permanent solution to control, backed up by the Welders. After playing the deck I am beginning to reconsider my position on this. My Xantid or Welder was always disposed of rather quickly. I have been testing four Cabal Therapies with BoPs in place of the Vineyards. This allows for a lot of disruption if needed. It does not slow the deck down more than a turn and seems to play the control match up much better. I also added two Oxidize main deck. You are correct. Null rod sucks. That with the Wishes should help shore up the deck's weaknesses. I'm sure this configuration would have worked much better last Saturday. I am dropping the Xantids and Welders from the main deck to accomodate the changes. If I need a Welder I'll wish it in and I will use a more active approach with the Therapies to resolve my control problems.

Why are your 1 or 2 lands not red-based (as in, say, 1 Taiga and 1 Bayou)?

Taigas just are not needed. The deck plays very little red but blue and black are important. I can get red from the Tinder Walls if needed. As I mentioned earlier, two lands seem best to me. With Grants it should not be a problem going off - worst case it will take two activations.

What excites me about the deck is that it is a "one card" combo. I write it like that because it sure helps to get the Land Grant, too. That's why Tendrils decks work so well. In the case of Belcher decks, we only have to resolve a Belcher or a Welder. Getting one spell resolved is a lot easier than two.

In fact a Welder is not at all essential as it serves as a back up only and can be wished for if needed. I love the concept of a one card combo as well. It is also a colorless combo ( this is important ) and does not use the graveyard. So Null rods are really its worst threat followed by counters. I hope that speed, Oxidizes and Therapies will solve this. When I played B/g Dragon it was Therapies and Duresses that saved my ass and Mask players have found this to be true as well. This deck has a lot of potential and I feel it can become a force in Type 1 with some tweaking and tuning.

[Lucentspirit]

I hadn't considered Necro for my original build. My original reasoning was that it wasn't likely to be played unless accomponied by a dark ritual and it took and extra turn before it's effects would be felt. I've added cabal ritual to my deck since then and I think that necro may deserve another look.

[frimble]

I played in a small all-proxy tournament today.  There were 9 players.  It was certainly NOT a strong metagame.
The decks finished in this order:
1 4-color Belcher (me) identical to Lucentspirit's, as we built it together)
1 Mono-Blue control
1 Forgotten Ancient gro
1 Rock
1 Spoils Belcher
1 Rectal Agony
1 Brain Freeze combo
1 Black/Red beats and burn
1 other?

I played 10 games total in the five rounds of swiss.

My record for the day was 8-1-1
7 wins killing on turn two
1 win on 5th turn against BR burn (I had plenty of time to play slowly)
1 loss to mono-blue (I necro-ed for 1 too many; my play mistake)
1 unfinished game against mono-blue (he laid a turn 2 Null Rod)

Overall, I would say it was a success.  I had no trouble against anything without null rod on turn 1 or 2.  There were no Workshops in the room except the one in my side board so neither Trinispere nor Damping Matrix were present.  I also found that having my Welder get stolen by Control Magic made things very difficult on me, too.

I do find it interesting that as most of the games are hitting their 6th turn I am reporting a 2-0 win.  This gave me plenty of time to trade.

[hellswarm]

i was in calgary last weekend and just my luck my old turnamnet secne was hosting a t1 turnamnet with 5 rounds approx 30 people had shown up to play...unfornetly for me all my stuff was in winnnipeg so i bought and barrowed enough stuff  and build my self a cannon deck bassed off my working list.

heres the list of what i played

4 Duress
4 Unmask
4 dark ritual
4 Spoils of the vault
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic tutor
1 Necropotence
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Yawgmoth's Will

4 Elvish spirit guide
4 Tinderwall
4 Eldamir's Vineyard
4 Land Grant

5 Mox
1 Chrome Mox
1 Black lotus
1 Grim MOnolith
1 Mana Vault
4 Chromatic SPhere
1 Memory Jar
4 Goblin Charbelchers
1 Mana Crypt

1 Tinker
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Burning Wish

1 Bayou

Side board:
4 Oxidize
3 Naturalize
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Tendrils
3 open

i placed third with the above build faceing 5 rounds of varius decks

Round 1: Elves ( random kid playing for the hell of it)
He powers out a bunch of elves pass the turn, i drop out land grand searching for bayou ritaul out mana vault consult for ritaul cast beltch and win
game too is just as fast mull down to 5 cards, spirt guild vinyared mox next turn ritual into cannon kill.

this round was clearly unfair.... i got lots of surprised looks from my deck choice.

Round 2: Iso Keeper
i thought this would have been a seriously tuff match. game one wasn;t all that bad he had no clue what i was playing bayou duress follwed with unmask pitching necro opend enough space for me to tinker out a cannon and beltch for the win off a mana crypt sprit guide on my upkeep.

Game 2 was intresting i side in 4 swarms
unmask swarm gets me the three turns i need to cast and activate the cannon all on one turn. not too hard a bit ass i duressed away the fire/ice.

Round 3: my bad match up.....t4k$s

i power out a large chunk of mana,  he drops out duble sphere of resitance, passes the turn... i play soem search spells. can win next turn but he drops out stacks and wire...i die a few turns later.

Game 2:  i choose not to mull a hand i should have mulled.....all i need was a single mox to win on my first turn.  he just locks the board on me wiht sphere stacks turn 1 and 2.... my duress nails one sphere. buts its too much.

 these is my only loss of the day. i simply goot too cocky and keep some hands i shouldn't have keept and lost from them

Round 4: Sligh
he can't win period, power out fast mana kill turn 2 after removing stuff from his hand.
Game 2 is just as dumb i side in some art hate if he sides in nullrodes and stuff like that but duresss + acceleration seal the deal and i consult and spoils into a two part cannon kill hit for 14 points of damage (thnks to bayou still being in the deck) he doesn't td n e thing to help him win. cannon on the upkeep.  

Round 5: Venger Mask
turn 1 ritual  dt into channel, spirit guide out  vineyard unmask (picting necro) and pass the turn. next turn channel beltch win.
game 2: similar speed...land grant bayou vineyard go... crypt guide consult into cannon. win turn 2

every game revolved around casting spoils and cunsult for cheep mana spells that had many copies and allowed me to power out henius turn 2 kills.

i had 7 turn 2 kills
one  turn 1
and 2 losses

there wasn;t n e play downs so winner was based off win percentages

3rd for me

i still don't understand how people say that unmask is not critical. onyl dead cards i have found in my build are necropotence and Yawgmoth's bargian (which i replaced already with burning wish to acces stuff) other things i wasn't completly happy with was tendrils by the time i found my slef actually casting that many spells the cannon was on the table doing its thing for the win. necro and bargain by the time i cast and used eiher of these cards i was already winning from other cards i had. i am somewhat happy wiht memory jas as it can be tinkerd for when i still don't have enough mana to kill wiht belcher

things to note while playing the deck, u win in two turns, free spells help get those 2 turns u need to win, if u play first keep unmask or duress hands and remove the threats, force of will chalice and null rods spheres of resistance, all these are a pain in the ass.  things to note is the fact u can dig down further and cheaper then other decks toget the cards u need to win, speed is a factor the quick u cna get it out and active the less cards your oppent has to respond wiht.  thsi works to this decks advantage.

ive noted alot of people saying there isn't too many must counter spells in this deck? that is compleytly wrong assumpltiion there is alot of actice cards that must be stopped or the deck simply hits 7 mana finds the cannon and u die on one turn, yes it apprers u only have to stop the cannon but u have to stop the hd from ripping the 9 carsd u have to play from else its over.

other things that ive found help playing this deck cast and activate the beltcher on the same turn wins more games, less time to remove it slow down and set up some more it helps in some matches, use swarms to your advantage in bad matchups.
its late and im tired...i'll add to this abit later

hellswarm


edit: some points of intrest that could be noted
crop rotation for workshop....

that could be used in here. i find the academy to be inconsitant with the number of none artifact mana speed.

[Razor]

This deck looks as unstable as it is fast.  I won't try 1-Land-'Belcher because it is too susceptible to numerous popular hate cards.

My initial reaction to 'Belcher was: 'Wow, the new Parfait kill card.'  I think 'Belcher is probably better abused in a deck like Parfait because it features numerous maindeck solutions to 'Belcher hate.  Parfait is more stable because it gets to play with lots of land.  Let's face it, basic land is tech.  Basic land is the most stable mana-producer, albeit one of the slowest.  Heck, some of Parfait's lands are even mountains which can double the indemnity during activation.  Parfait gets away with running land in 'Belcher deck by thinning the deck of land mid-game via Land Tax.

Speed comes at the cost of stability.

[frimble]

Excellent point, Razor.  That is, it would be if we would ever go to a mid-game.  The consistant average turn that this deck kills on is turn 2.  This simply cuts down the opposing defenses with a statistical disadvantage.  They must have one of few cards in their opening hands to be able to deal with Belcher.

I do agree with your statement of one land being very unstable.  That's why I play 2 lands .   And side boarded against control-types, I go to 3 often-times.

O the White issue: Green has quite a lot of destruction against Belcher hate including: Oxidize, Naturalize, Viridian Zealot, Uktabi Orangutan, Scavenger Folker, etc.
So does red...

I would expect that the Parfait version would have similar downfalls that regular Parfait does... it is really slow. Stable, perhaps, but way too slow.  Time given to Hulk, Mask, 2-land Belcher, Dragon, Draw-7, MUD, etc. means death nearly every time.

[hellswarm]

Excellent point, Razor. That is, it would be if we would ever go to a mid-game. The consistant average turn that this deck kills on is turn 2. This simply cuts down the opposing defenses with a statistical disadvantage. They must have one of few cards in their opening hands to be able to deal with Belcher.

that is what i noticed playing this deck in turnaments, given the speed of the betcher to come active my oppponets where forced to either mull down till they had a answer in there hand or simply die, this is also an advantage to this deck as cheap/ free discard removes there one answer and statistics simply say they don't have the draws to recover and win.

[Lucentspirit]

Ok, I did some number crunching and here is what I can up with...

to start:

average win time for 2 land belcher:

Kills on turn 1 31%
Kills by turn 2 77%
Kills by turn 3 91%

next:

Odds of opponent having a card that can de-rail a belcher deck. This includes cards like duress, Fow, and oxidize that can all be cast on turn 1. keep in mind this assumes they are running 4 in the deck.

with 5 cards 34.5% (if they mull)
with 6 cards 41.7%
with 7 cards 49.1%
with 8 cards 56.6% (after first draw)
with 9 cards 64.3%

This means about a third of the time belcher will simply go off turn 1-3 when the opponent has no way to stop them. the other 65% of the time it's a matter of who can recover faster.

next up: trinistax

This deck is evil and I can forsee it making a huge impact on the metagame. Here's some numbers to digest.

Odds of casting a first turn trinisphere (this includes all combinations of mox, lotus, and land used to cast it) :

24.9% YIKES!  

Odds of casting a 3sphere, sphere of resistance, or tanglewire:

turn 1 52.1%
turn 2 57.9%
turn 3 99.9% This deck scares me!

all I can say is... better win the dice roll.

[Razor]

Excellent point, Razor. That is, it would be if we would ever go to a mid-game. The consistant average turn that this deck kills on is turn 2. This simply cuts down the opposing defenses with a statistical disadvantage. They must have one of few cards in their opening hands to be able to deal with Belcher.

You're right, combo-sized speed is a passive form of disruption unto itself.  It forces slower decks (ie.Control and Aggro) to find answers well before they're ready to.

Parfait's greatest strength is its tendency to keep anti-'Belcher nasties like Null Rod off the table abusing such cards as Seal of Cleansing and Argivian Find.

Null Rods being so popular right now, I initially figured that Parfait was 'Belcher's best chance.  I'm pleasantly surprised here.

[Rico Suave]

Odds of opponent having a card that can de-rail a belcher deck. This includes cards like duress, Fow, and oxidize that can all be cast on turn 1. keep in mind this assumes they are running 4 in the deck.

with 5 cards 34.5% (if they mull)
with 6 cards 41.7%
with 7 cards 49.1%
with 8 cards 56.6% (after first draw)
with 9 cards 64.3%

This means about a third of the time belcher will simply go off turn 1-3 when the opponent has no way to stop them. the other 65% of the time it's a matter of who can recover faster.

You didn't happen to do statistics of things like having Duress and Force of Will in the deck, did you?

That would help to portray things with more realistic numbers.

[Lucentspirit]

Although it's a common deck, Tog is the only deck I know that runs both  4 FoW and Duress. Playtesting has shown this to be a 50% win/loss matchup for belcher.

But since you asked:

Odds of having at least 1 of 8 hate cards (Fow, Duress) in an opening hand.

70.5%

[Hi-Val]

I have been extensively playtesting this against Stax, and the results aren't pretty. We all know about their lock components. I ended up taking out the Living Wishes, they were just too clunky in playtesting. I ended up putting in a Windfall (winning me 3 games already today) and a MD Oxidize.

The Windfall makes up for mulligans that I have to take every now and then, and the Oxidize is neccessary against Stax. I don't know if it should be Annul though. The Oxidize takes out Null Rod, but the Annul is your only hope against Trinisphere, hoping that you can drop Tropical first turn or something that jumps your mana into blue. Maybe there needs to be a slot or two for Unmask, though I am unsure about how much black the deck can afford to throw away.

[Rico Suave]

Although it's a common deck, Tog is the only deck I know that runs both  4 FoW and Duress. Playtesting has shown this to be a 50% win/loss matchup for belcher.

But since you asked:

Odds of having at least 1 of 8 hate cards (Fow, Duress) in an opening hand.

70.5%

Although my point extends to things like decks with Root Maze and Null Rod, or Force and Null Rod, or whatever the case may be.

[Lucentspirit]

Null rod by itself is never very much of a problem. The reason why is that the decks that play null rod usually don't play any form of mana acceleration (like mox's, lotus, or rituals).

Decks like stompy have a chance but only if they can get out a first turn root maze and then follow it directly with a null rod, or use an ESG to get the rod out turn 1.... both plays require the deck draws either one of those combination of cards. To add to that stompy rarely plays a full set of 4 root maze and 4 rods MD.

Sligh decks pack rod these days but just won't get in on the board in time.  

Gay/r/fish/landstill usually packs both Fow and rod which makes this matchup difficult. Once again though, null rod won't come out in time unless the control player has a Fow in his opening hand that can delay the belcher deck. Even if the control deck does have a first turn Fow he still needs to drop a null rod (or get another Fow/counter) before the belcher deck gets back online.  

Just looking at some of the T8 postings in the tournament forum I would say less then half these decks carry more than 4 belcher hate cards if any and most of the time its in the form of Fow's.

So Rico, don't tell me I'm being unrealistic by only doing statistics for 4 hate cards. It's what I saw as most common.
Better yet, Since you feel we could use some more data. Maybe you could do some playtesting/statistical work of your own to post.

[carlossb]

This is the most recent 'winner' list,

No dureses, no force of wills.... :shock:
PURE SPEED.......

Dülmen 07.03.2004
1. Kim Kluck (7-0)
Same deck
8. Carsten Kötter (5-2)

Colourless Mana Sources (17)

1 Black Lotus
4 Chromatic Sphere
1 Chrome Mox
1 Grim Monolith
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

Other Mana Sources (17)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant
4 Tinder Wall
1 Channel

Tutors (6)
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Spoils of the Vault
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Living Wish

I win (9)
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Goblin Welder
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Draw (9)
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Brainstorm
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Memory Jar
1 Windfall
1 Necropotence
1 Wheel of Fortune

Lands (2)

1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
   

Sideboard:

Lands
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Mishra's Workshop
1 Tolarian Academy

Creatures
1 Boneshredder
1 Elvish Lyrist
1 Goblin Welder
4 Phyrexian Negator
1 Scavanger Folk
1 Uktabi Orangutan

Anti-artifact
1 Deconstruct
1 Naturalize
1 Oxidize

[Mathman07]

The odds of getting at least 1 of 8 hate cards in an opening hand is 65%, not 70.5%.

P=1-(52/60*51/59*...*46/54)=.65

[/nitpick]

I just don't see how the Dulmen decks beat, say, fish.  Fish has FOW + Stifle + maybe Daze followed up by Null Rod.  

Most importantly, the Dulmen deck only has 3 artifact destruction on the SB*, so doesn't it just roll over and die to Stax / Trinistax?

*assuming that Uktabi Orangutan + Scavenger Folk are wish targets only.

[Lucentspirit]

I got 70.5% using the MWS deck analysis program running 20,000 sample hands. Using the HYPGEOMDIST funtion on exel I got 65% as well, thanks for the correction.

On another note, I think it's awesome belcher did so well at dulman. Although I can't help but notice a serious lack of tog and other control style decks in their top 8.

[bebe]

The Dulmen decks are very close to what I played in Ontario. Fish and control seemed to have mu number games two and three although I NEVER lost a game one.

Here is what I should have had in the side for control ...
4 Phyrexian Negator

But Fish just rocked the deck.

[jazzykat]

I play in a meta where there is definitely 30%+ control (tog, keeper, control slaver, landstill fish), aggro(beats, tnt, madness, burn?), and very little combo(primarily dargon).
Do you guys think I can push through the disruption as I don't see how I can win if my first belcher is forced or duressed.

[Mathman07]

Since your meta is some 60-65% aggro, I would suggest playing a version with Duress and/or Unmask to fight off the control decks.

One key thing that you didn't tell us was about the presence of prison decks.  Assuming that there are few of them, I would definitely play charbelcher combo - about 70% of your meta is a good matchup for you (combo and aggro).  Just use a transformational sideboard or something.

If, on the other hand, you see a decent amount of stax / trinistax / Wmud, then you would need to play a deck similar to the Dulmen one if you were to play charbelcher at all.  In this case you could just go and play Hulk with deeds or something, but then again its your choice.