2-Land Belcher

[Tobi]

The first appearance of 2-land Belcher I know of was this one:
http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=110

The blue cards in this deck are obviously very good, and I was very surprised to see a version without blue now. Then again, I was even more surprised to see a version without one copy of Tendrils as alternative kill. With all the Rituals, Tendrils should be quite good...

[Luiggi]

I agree with the Tendrils, and I think it should probably be somewhere in the maindeck or in the SB to be brought in for the relevant matches. The only problem I see with it is that sometimes it's not as good as in builds that run Blue and give you access to draw-7s like Timetwister and Windfall, as well as Ancestral/Mystical Tutor/Brainstorm to find them. Having said that, though, I still think it'd be a worthwhile card to try. What to cut, though...

After reading JD's report, I'm definitely going to try his revised build and see if I like it. As I said before, I can see Living Wish giving you a lot of versatility. I also think JD's done a great job fixing the SB, since I agree that Carpet of Flowers just wasn't optimal if we already have Xantid Swarms. I'll try to get some testing done soon, so as to give a more informed opinion, .

EDIT: I know that when Portal becomes legal Imperial Seal will be maiing its way into this deck, but what about Grim Tutor? Is it something that'll be worth trying out? We've got Dark/Cabal Ritual to cast it faster, but the question is whether it's 3cc makes it prohibitively expensive for a tutor in this deck. Thoughts?

Luiggi

[Komatteru]

The first appearance of 2-land Belcher I know of was this one:
http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=110

The blue cards in this deck are obviously very good, and I was very surprised to see a version without blue now. Then again, I was even more surprised to see a version without one copy of Tendrils as alternative kill. With all the Rituals, Tendrils should be quite good...

Jeez, Simister played it at a Columbus tournament back in February 2004, so that's no where near the first appearance of the deck.

[Tobi]

Jeez, Simister played it at a Columbus tournament back in February 2004, so that's no where near the first appearance of the deck.

That's why I said "The first appearance of 2-land Belcher I know of was this one:". 

Btw: March 2004 ist not as far from February 2004 as you may think 

[PopFenton]

Two words for Drain and Pithing Needle: Joblin Welder.

I won a round at Vroman's through first turn Needle all three games.

He's right I was the one who played those Needles, and they didn't do a whole lot to slow him down. The deck is incredible and with the new addition of Living Wish has alot of versatility.

[Klep]

The blue cards in this deck are obviously very good, and I was very surprised to see a version without blue now. Then again, I was even more surprised to see a version without one copy of Tendrils as alternative kill. With all the Rituals, Tendrils should be quite good...

Here's the deal with Tendrils in JDizzle's build.  It's hard to find.  Yes it is easily possible for you to ramp up a high storm count with the deck.  Yes it is easy for you to have 2BB available afterwards.  However, there is no guarantee that you will have or be able to get Tendrils along with that.  I've had goldfishes where I've had a hard time finding Belcher, and there are 4 of those!

The reason Tendrils used to be run in Belcher is because in older builds, there was a greater emphasis on running blue and the myriad draw-7's that allowed.  As a result, you tended to cycle through your deck pretty damn quickly and finding any given card was not that difficult.  This build can't go through as many cards (I believe Flores might say it has less 'velocity'), and thus cannot dependably use a single copy of Tendrils.  For Tendrils to be a viable alternative kill in this build, you need to find multiple slots for it, and this can be difficult.  In a deck with already questionable stability, you'd likely have to sacrifice additional stability in the form of search, welders, or maindeck disruption to add at least 2 copies of Tendrils.  Stability is one thing this deck cannot afford to lose any more of.

At any rate, what is having an alternate combo kill really going to do for you?  You already have a combo kill, and this deck is designed to utilize that kill as fast as possible, before sufficient hate can make it an unviable path to the win.  This deck only needs one path to victory because if whatever path it chooses doesn't work it is very likely going to lose anyway.  The only reason Phyrexian Negator works as a sideboard card is because right now the format is exceedingly creature removal-light, and decks going up against Belcher are probably going to board what little they have out.  In addition, the card that gets Negator also can get other things to help along your combo (more land or creature-based artifact removal), whereas Burning Wish can get.... Tendrils.

Ultimately, while it might be nice to have a Tendrils available, it's really just that: a nice idea.  There simply isn't anything in the deck that you can cut to justify its inclusion.  Even going back to the blue-based build that would allow you to get away with only 1 copy is an unjustifiable loss of stability created by the randomness of the new hands you get.  In a deck where mulling to 5 is already something you have to regularly consider, stability is just something you can't afford to sacrifice any more of.

[policehq]

You pointed out the difficulty in finding Goblin Charbelcher already; how isn't it obvious, then, that Tendrils of Agony provides more stability in finding a win condition? The deck can play very much like Meandeck Tendrils if it needs to, but again, I play Pentad Prisms for Tinker/Ancestral Recall/Timetwister.

Tinker/Darksteel Colossus is also important as a third win condition. Especially for the time being, when people are testing out Pithing Needle (and please don't try to tell me you can weld it out; very few aggro decks are sacrificing or discarding artifacts), as many alternate paths you can take provide for more consistency.

[Luiggi]

You pointed out the difficulty in finding Goblin Charbelcher already; how isn't it obvious, then, that Tendrils of Agony provides more stability in finding a win condition? The deck can play very much like Meandeck Tendrils if it needs to, but again, I play Pentad Prisms for Tinker/Ancestral Recall/Timetwister.

By adding a lone Tendrils of Agony but no Draw-7s to help find it faster and give you more spells to ramp up your storm count, you're not really adding an effective win condition. If you were running Timetwister, Windfall, etc. then a Tendrils would make sense, as Klep was saying, because those Draw-7s give you the other elements that you need for a Tendrils kill: lots of other spells, and good search capabilities.

Tinker/Darksteel Colossus is also important as a third win condition. Especially for the time being, when people are testing out Pithing Needle (and please don't try to tell me you can weld it out; very few aggro decks are sacrificing or discarding artifacts), as many alternate paths you can take provide for more consistency.

I can see more reasons to add Tinker and DSC to the deck than the lone Tendrils, but again, I don't know that JD's excellent results or my own testing have shown it to be necessary for the deck to be good. If you're running Pentad Prisms to have additional Blue sources than it's less of a problem, obviously, but the deck can't reliably cast Blue spells. Heck, sometimes I have a grip FULL of Dark Rituals, bombs like Necro, DT, etc., but no initial Black mana to start making mana!

Luiggi

[Komatteru]

Here's the deal with Tendrils in JDizzle's build.  It's hard to find.  Yes it is easily possible for you to ramp up a high storm count with the deck.  Yes it is easy for you to have 2BB available afterwards.  However, there is no guarantee that you will have or be able to get Tendrils along with that.  I've had goldfishes where I've had a hard time finding Belcher, and there are 4 of those!

The reason Tendrils used to be run in Belcher is because in older builds, there was a greater emphasis on running blue and the myriad draw-7's that allowed.  As a result, you tended to cycle through your deck pretty damn quickly and finding any given card was not that difficult.  This build can't go through as many cards (I believe Flores might say it has less 'velocity'), and thus cannot dependably use a single copy of Tendrils.  For Tendrils to be a viable alternative kill in this build, you need to find multiple slots for it, and this can be difficult.  In a deck with already questionable stability, you'd likely have to sacrifice additional stability in the form of search, welders, or maindeck disruption to add at least 2 copies of Tendrils.  Stability is one thing this deck cannot afford to lose any more of.

At any rate, what is having an alternate combo kill really going to do for you?  You already have a combo kill, and this deck is designed to utilize that kill as fast as possible, before sufficient hate can make it an unviable path to the win.  This deck only needs one path to victory because if whatever path it chooses doesn't work it is very likely going to lose anyway.  The only reason Phyrexian Negator works as a sideboard card is because right now the format is exceedingly creature removal-light, and decks going up against Belcher are probably going to board what little they have out.  In addition, the card that gets Negator also can get other things to help along your combo (more land or creature-based artifact removal), whereas Burning Wish can get.... Tendrils.

Ultimately, while it might be nice to have a Tendrils available, it's really just that: a nice idea.  There simply isn't anything in the deck that you can cut to justify its inclusion.  Even going back to the blue-based build that would allow you to get away with only 1 copy is an unjustifiable loss of stability created by the randomness of the new hands you get.  In a deck where mulling to 5 is already something you have to regularly consider, stability is just something you can't afford to sacrifice any more of.

This is all correct.  The fact is, you can't hold Moxes and stuff back these days, with Chalices and Spheres of Resistance running around all over the place.  You  just want to put all your mana on the table before you can't play it.  Once you've done that (likely on turn 1), you won't be storming past like 4 any more, so drawing Tendrils is going to be pretty lame.  Tendrils is lame in general against Stax anyway, since like I said, you need to be putting mana on the table whenever you can.  When SoR is down, you can't storm very high, but you can certainly build up a manabase over 2 turns that lets you play the Blecher and win.

Also, on the blue draw7s and such, none of those cards actually put the Belcher into play or help pay to activate it.  They can find it, but in the process gobble up mana and time doing so.  One card that demonstrates what a complete waste of time blue is Mystical Tutor.  MT doesn't find Belcher.  It finds cards that attempt to go look for Belcher.  Why do I want to play with a card that doesn't really help me accomplish my primary objective, especially if I sacrifice a lot of consistency in the process?

[policehq]

Hm, I guess I'll just post my list, since I'm not having any trouble getting any of the 3 kills.

// Lands
    1 Taiga
    1 Bayou

// Creatures
    4 Elvish Spirit Guide
    4 Tinder Wall
    1 Darksteel Colossus
    4 Goblin Welder

// Spells
    4 Goblin Charbelcher
    3 Cabal Ritual
    1 Demonic Consultation
    1 Chrome Mox
    1 Mana Vault
    2 Gamble
    1 Tinker
    1 Mox Pearl
    4 Dark Ritual
    4 Land Grant
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Tendrils of Agony
    1 Channel
    1 Mox Emerald
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Mana Crypt
    1 Mox Ruby
    1 Mox Sapphire
    1 Necropotence
    1 Yawgmoth's Will
    1 Lotus Petal
    1 Black Lotus
    1 Lion's Eye Diamond
    1 Wheel of Fortune
    1 Grim Monolith
    1 Sol Ring
    1 Spoils of the Vault
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Timetwister
    4 Pentad Prism

// Sideboard
SB: 4 Xantid Swarm
SB: 2 Oxidize
SB: 2 Artifact Mutation
SB: 1 Mishra's Workshop
SB: 1 Crop Rotation
SB: 1 Rack and Ruin
SB: 3 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Tropical Island

I personally have found it infinitely harder to cast some of the spells in JDizzle's deck like Yawgmoth's Bargain and Memory Jar than to win with Tendrils of Agony and/or Darksteel Colossus. Colossus is a metagame call, most likely, but when you're worried about an early hate card, you can play him rather quickly.

[Luiggi]

Here are the differences between your build and JDizzle's:

Yours                                   
1 Darksteel Colossus                         
1 Tinker                                         
2 Gamble
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Spoils of the Vault
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Chrome Mox
4 Pentad Prism

JDizzle's
1 Memory Jar
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Tainted Pact
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Living Wish
3 Duress
4 Chromatic Sphere

While I guess I can understand some of your changes, cutting Memory Jar, Vampiric Tutor and Yawgmoth's Bargain don't make sense to me...

Bargain shouldn't be that difficult to play, usually needing just one Dark/Cabal Ritual, since it's safe to assume that you'll have seen a Mox or some other acceleration. Bargain just flat out wins the game the turn it comes down, or at the very worst the turn after it comes down. Since this deck really doesn't do damage to itself (other than with Vampiric Tutor), Bargain can give you a LOT of cards, .

Memory Jar is another bomb, and its main selling point to me over something like Timetwister or Windfall is that it's reusable with Goblin Welders, that comes up quite often. This alone makes me want to run it, and again, 5cc shouldn't be that unmanageable, with over half your deck being mana.

Running Spoils of the Vault over Vampiric Tutor also doesn't make sense to me, though I guess it's more justifiable in your build since you don't have Chromatic Sphere to cantrip into your Vamped card. But still, you can't Spoils for a restricted card (unless it's your only out), and I know you wouldn't want to Gamble for a Yawgmoth's Will, only to have it end up in the bin, . I dunno, Vampiric Tutor is just plain better, even if you can't always get the card before your next turn. At the very least I'd run Tainted Pact over the Spoils, since it really is amazing with so many restricted cards in the deck. I believe it was JD who said that Tainted Pact is amazing, because you can randomly end up with a Channell, a Yawgmoth's Will, a Black Lotus, etc., and if you end up having to take something that was flipped over twice, that means you got rid of stuff you probably didn't need.

I can see the synergy of Gambling for a Goblin Charbelcher and having it discarded, since you can Weld it back in, but is the risk of losing something more important worth it?

Pentad Prism is clearly faster than Chromatic Sphere, since the turn after you play it it'll accelerate you, but Chromatic Sphere draws you a card as well as fixing your mana, and it's even reusable with Welders. I've drawn out of a bad situation many times by just Welding Chromatic Spheres back in and cantripping. Yes, you'll be losing stuff like Moxes, Crypt, Vault, etc., but if it helps you win that's what counts, right?

How have you been liking the deck without Duress? It seems to me that having some form of disruption or way to clear the path for one of our bombs to resolve is pretty nifty, especially one that can be played off a Dark Ritual. I really like them in the deck, though I can see why JD went down to only 3.

Of all the changes you made, the one I could potentially see running is Tinker + DSC, but it has the problems that JD has already addressed in his latest tournament report: you have no reliable way to generate Blue mana (other than mising your Sapphire), so Tinker always ends up costing you 2 artifacts: a Mox and a Chromatic Sphere. While it's not the end of the world, I don't know that it's optimal. What about having those two cards in the SB and bringing them in in certain matchups? If that's the case, what would those matchups be?

I don't see the Tendrils as being necessary, for the reasons Klep, JD and I have been mentioning, and because having 3 separate kill conditions in the deck is just overkill.

Luiggi

[policehq]

Bargain shouldn't be that difficult to play, usually needing just one Dark/Cabal Ritual, since it's safe to assume that you'll have seen a Mox or some other acceleration.

Personally, that just isn't adding up for me. Dark Ritual gives you BBB, and a Mox gives you (1). I've had too many opening hands that couldn't cast Yawgmoth's Bargain (or if it could, for only one more mana it could cast and activate Goblin Charbelcher) for it to be useful.

Memory Jar is another bomb, and its main selling point to me over something like Timetwister or Windfall is that it's reusable with Goblin Welders, that comes up quite often. This alone makes me want to run it, and again, 5cc shouldn't be that unmanageable, with over half your deck being mana.

Chromatic Sphere draws you a card as well as fixing your mana, and it's even reusable with Welders. I've drawn out of a bad situation many times by just Welding Chromatic Spheres back in and cantripping.

In my meta, using Goblin Welder for anything but Goblin Charbelcher (or a mana accelerant to help activate Goblin Charbelcher) is too slow. Paying two mana for one on-colored mana and drawing a card is okay, but to plan on re-using it in a deck like this is a mistake.
I've never found that casting more than one draw-7 is necessary for the accumulation of mana and activating Goblin Charbelcher.

I can see the synergy of Gambling for a Goblin Charbelcher and having it discarded, since you can Weld it back in, but is the risk of losing something more important worth it?

Exactly what would be more important than that? I'm assuming you mean, "when I cast Gamble and don't have an empty hand and Goblin Welder, is it worth losing an important setup card to help you get a winning Goblin Charbelcher?" Gamble is a very easy card to time correctly, and it's also easy, with a hand full of cards, to have back-up plans.

It seems to me that having some form of disruption or way to clear the path for one of our bombs to resolve is pretty nifty,

Between casting Goblin Welder and Goblin Charbelcher consistently on turn 1, lone Force of Will's in opponents' hands are not an issue.

I could see Tainted Pact being better than Spoils of the Vault, even at a higher casting cost, but Vampiric Tutor is too slow, in my opinion. I'll test Pact.

[Klep]

Yours                                   
1 Darksteel Colossus                         
1 Tinker                                         
2 Gamble
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Spoils of the Vault
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Chrome Mox
4 Pentad Prism

JDizzle's
1 Memory Jar
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Tainted Pact
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Living Wish
3 Duress
4 Chromatic Sphere

This is a perfect example of what I was talking about in my post.  You have sacrificed a great deal of stability in order to add an additional couple of win conditions.  Of course you need DSC to avoid hate! You have no way to deal with it anymore after cutting the Duresses and Living Wishes that would allow you to.  Gamble is the very definition of instability, and you've stretched the manabase to include another color, which adds further instability. 

Pentad Prism tries to make up for the additional color, but you sacrifice further stability in not getting the card draw Chromasphere has.  Furthermore, you sacrifice one of the most broken cards in the game, Bargain.  The few times you can't readily cast it do not justify cutting it.

Lastly, Tainted Pact is far better than Spoils, for reasons JZDizzle already mentioned in the report he last linked, and I won't repeat them as I have to get to class.

Forget about doing cool things and focus on the deck's true purpose.  Winning the game with Belcher before your opponent gets a turn.

[policehq]

I've NEVER found Living Wish an acceptable answer to hate. The one time JDizzle won a game with it in an entire tourney is hardly an excuse to run it for Phyrexian Negator, and for anything else, like lands, it's too slow. Not to mention he didn't even necessarily need the Phyrexian Negator in that game.

I could see putting Memory Jar in the mainboard as a Tinker target and Darksteel Colossus in the side, but adding blue is NOT sacrificing stability. Look at the blue cards in the list, and try to tell me that they don't always lead to brokenness.

Also, the overall casting costs of the cards in my deck are significantly lower, which, in a deck with two lands, adds more stability.

Gamble is often a turn two tutor that makes Goblin Charbelcher + activation cost R3 instead of (7). It helps even when you have Goblin Charbelcher in your hand but not the mana to cast and activate it that turn. The cards you Gamble for are meant to go to the graveyard; you can dump your hand very often on the first turn. Need a card in graveyard, cast Gamble. Get it, discard it. Unstable??

I already said I'm making the switch to Pact instead of Spoils.

[Jacob Orlove]

If the whole point of Gamble is to dump a Belcher in the yard, why not bypass the randomness and just run Entomb? Like Gamble, it can also pull a land out of your deck, just in case.

[policehq]

If the whole point of Gamble is to dump a Belcher in the yard, why not bypass the randomness and just run Entomb? Like Gamble, it can also pull a land out of your deck, just in case.

You know that Gamble has a lot more versatility than Entomb in this deck.

[Komatteru]

Memory Jar is the most broken draw7 ever printed and by far the most powerful and abusive card in this deck outside of Channel.  I would NEVER EVER run a combo deck without Memory Jar.  It's just plain outrageous.  The fact that you can recur it with Joblin Welders makes it the most ridiculous thing like ever (outside of being able to pay GG to get 19 mana).  Memory Jar is combo's go-to Draw7, as it doesn't have the chance to give you a terrible hand and your opponent an amazing one, and wreck you, since all the cards go away EOT.

I had considered and tried Entomb as well.  It was too limited to make the deck, as outside of finding a land, it needs Welder to be good.

In that game with the Negator, my hand was: 3x ESG, Bayou, Cabal Rit, Living Wish.  Either you throw that back and go to 5 (which you did game 1, and got stomped), summon an ESG, or Wish for Negator.  Tell me which of those is best.

Also, you've contradicted yourself.  If you can afford to get an active Welder to use Gamble, why can't you afford to use Welder to recur Memory Jar?  Most of the time you won't need to recur the Jar, but you certainly can.  Control sure as hell isn't going to beat you before you can get a Welder active.  Is your metagame like all combo or something?  That's the only sort of meta I can see where getting Welder active is not reliable.  In such a metagame, Control Slaver wouldn't even be viable.

Getting 6 mana for Bargain is seldom hard.  It costs 1 less than playing and activating a Belcher.  If you can do that, how can you not cast Bargain?

[Luiggi]

[EDIT: there might be some overlap between JDizzle's post and mine, since we were clearly writing them at the same time.]

I've NEVER found Living Wish an acceptable answer to hate. The one time JDizzle won a game with it in an entire tourney is hardly an excuse to run it for Phyrexian Negator, and for anything else, like lands, it's too slow. Not to mention he didn't even necessarily need the Phyrexian Negator in that game.

You're assuming that as soon as the hate comes down the game will end, which is just not true. If a deck lays a Chalice or a Sphere of Resistance, or has a grip full of counters, it's not like we can't win, it'll just take longer. We can continue to do things to set up and get ready to win during the turn we're able to do something about the hate. Also remember that sometimes an opponent is forced to blow resources to get their hate into play as fast as possible, and they don't always have a follow-up, giving us time to escape the hate. It's in situations like these that Living Wish is particularly useful, whether it's for finding a source of Black mana (Forbidden Orchard), accelerating our mana base (Tolarian Academy + Ancient Tomb), finding an answer to counterspells (Xantid Swarm), finding an answer to Chalice (Hearth Kami), getting back a broken card from our graveyard (Eternal Witness), or finding an alternate win condition (Phyrexian Negator).

If everything's going according to plan in a game then we won't need to use a Living Wish, but it's nice to know that we have the option of doing something about the hate, even in Game 1. Gamble isn't any better than Living Wish is in the games that are going according to plan, but it is signifcantly worse in the games that aren't going according to plan, because we can potentially Gamble up an answer, but run the risk of losing it to the discard effect, since, as you say:

The cards you Gamble for are meant to go to the graveyard; you can dump your hand very often on the first turn. Need a card in graveyard, cast Gamble. Get it, discard it.

That reason alone is enough to justify Living Wish in my head, since it is actually a direct tutor for answer cards, usually Xantid Swarm and Hearth Kami, rather than a less-than-100%-tutor, like Gamble. Phyrexian Negator might be unnecessary in the SB, and there might in fact be better options, but that doesn't automatically mean that the rest of the Living Wish SB isn't good, .

Look at the blue cards in the list, and try to tell me that they don't always lead to brokenness.

So do Memory Jar, Yawgmoth's Bargain and Vampiric Tutor. You've simply chosen to replace them with off-color brokenness in the form of Ancestral Recall, Tinker and Timetwister, .

And again, the casting costs have never been a big issue for me. With some combination of Moxes, Rituals and lands you should have no problems playing the Bargain or Memory Jar, and that's assuming you haven't drawn/tutored for Black Lotus. Yes, there is a small percentage of games where you will draw your Bargain and not be able to cast it, but there is also a larger percentage of games where you might not be able to cast your Tinker/Recall/Twister because you don't have a Blue mana source, especially since you're not running Tropical Island. Yes, you have Pentad Prism, but you won't always see one. By running Bargain, Jar and Vampiric Tutor you're getting three broken cards that can be cast with the on-color mana the deck has available, and that's huge.

Going back to this for a minute:

The cards you Gamble for are meant to go to the graveyard; you can dump your hand very often on the first turn. Need a card in graveyard, cast Gamble. Get it, discard it.

Yes, they're "meant" to go to the graveyard, assuming we're Gambling for a Belcher, but unless Gamble is the only card in your hand then you can be 100% sure the tutored-for card will end up in the bin, and even if it does it's not much help unless you have an active Welder, which doesn't always show up to play.

Luiggi

[Klep]

I've NEVER found Living Wish an acceptable answer to hate. The one time JDizzle won a game with it in an entire tourney is hardly an excuse to run it for Phyrexian Negator, and for anything else, like lands, it's too slow. Not to mention he didn't even necessarily need the Phyrexian Negator in that game.

As Luiggi said, the game doesn't end when hate hits the board.  Having Living Wish at your disposal gives you an out against hate.  Furthermore, you didn't even address the fact that you cut Duresses, not that I can blame you. There really is no excuse for that.

I could see putting Memory Jar in the mainboard as a Tinker target and Darksteel Colossus in the side, but adding blue is NOT sacrificing stability. Look at the blue cards in the list, and try to tell me that they don't always lead to brokenness.

Brokenness != stability.  Adding colors to a deck inherently weakens it, as it increases the chances that you will suffer color screw.  Adding off-color brokenness just means that when your deck wins, it does so more spectacularly and loses a lot more games where you're staring at a hand of spells you can't cast.  Remember the danger of doing cool things.  You don't need to win spectacularly when you can just win.  Particularly when ditching the spectacular cards for similar ones in better colors means that your manabase is so much stronger.

Also, the overall casting costs of the cards in my deck are significantly lower, which, in a deck with two lands, adds more stability.

This argument is a red herring, because the high CC cards you cut are the ones that win the game if they hit the table anyway.  Yes, Bargain is expensive, but if you can't draw enough cards to get another 7 mana after it hits, then you don't deserve to win.

Gamble is often a turn two tutor that makes Goblin Charbelcher + activation cost R3 instead of (7). It helps even when you have Goblin Charbelcher in your hand but not the mana to cast and activate it that turn. The cards you Gamble for are meant to go to the graveyard; you can dump your hand very often on the first turn. Need a card in graveyard, cast Gamble. Get it, discard it. Unstable??

I don't want cards in my graveyard, I want them in my hand, so I can cast them.  The only cards I ever really want to see in my graveyard are Belcher and Jar, and those ONLY if I have a Welder in play (excluding the obv. situation of holding Will).  Gamble adds a further element of randomness to a deck that already finds itself mulliganning a hell of a lot.  VT is much better because while it's slower, at least you know exactly what is going to happen.  Gamble is just that, a gamble, and this deck can't afford any more of those.

[Komatteru]

Forgot to mention that while Negator wasn't my ideal solution, I was unable to come up with a more efficient and overall better creature.  If you know what it is, please tell me, because in terms of creatures, 5/5 for three that can be cast off a ritual seems about as efficient as it gets.

[Klep]

Forgot to mention that while Negator wasn't my ideal solution, I was unable to come up with a more efficient and overall better creature.  If you know what it is, please tell me, because in terms of creatures, 5/5 for three that can be cast off a ritual seems about as efficient as it gets.

Obviously you should run BERSERK MURLODONT or, even better, GROZOTH!

But seriously, I can't think of anything at 3cc that would be better. Iif you go to 4 you have options like Juggernaut and Yukora, but being able to drop it straight off a rit is pretty key though, so those probably won't work.

[policehq]

If I thought waiting for an active Goblin Welder was too slow, why would I have four in the deck? Anyway, this is my new list, after tinkering. I put Darksteel Colossus in the sideboard to go against decks with Null Rod or Pithing Needle or what have you, along with Tropical Island and Blue Elemental Blasts. That makes Memory Jar (or simply Goblin Charbelcher, if I have the extra three mana) priority #1 for Tinker game 1.

I still think Tendrils of Agony is important, but I hated getting it in my opening hands, so I dropped it as well.

// Lands
    1 Taiga
    1 Bayou

// Creatures
    4 Elvish Spirit Guide
    4 Tinder Wall
    4 Goblin Welder

// Spells
    4 Goblin Charbelcher
    2 Cabal Ritual
    1 Demonic Consultation
    1 Mana Vault
    1 Gamble
    1 Tinker
    1 Mox Pearl
    4 Dark Ritual
    4 Land Grant
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Channel
    1 Mox Emerald
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Mana Crypt
    1 Mox Ruby
    1 Mox Sapphire
    1 Necropotence
    1 Yawgmoth's Will
    1 Lotus Petal
    1 Black Lotus
    1 Lion's Eye Diamond
    1 Wheel of Fortune
    1 Grim Monolith
    1 Sol Ring
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Timetwister
    4 Pentad Prism
    1 Memory Jar
    4 Chromatic Sphere
    1 Tainted Pact

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Darksteel Colossus
SB: 4 Xantid Swarm
SB: 1 Oxidize
SB: 2 Artifact Mutation
SB: 1 Mishra's Workshop
SB: 1 Crop Rotation
SB: 1 Rack and Ruin
SB: 3 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Tropical Island

I'm very insistent on the blue, and I don't believe that any of it is harder to cast than Yawgmoth's Bargain. Yes, Bargain wins the game, but at a cheaper cost, I could draw the cards I need to win the game anyway. Any argument against blue cards could be directed at Yawgmoth's Bargain in the same manner (the "spectacular finish" remark). Sometimes it's hard, even, to cast Yawgmoth's Will for many spells before the game is over.

I did address not running Duress. Goblin Welder and Goblin Charbelcher are cast early, and it's difficult to counter them both. Post side Xantid Swarms make the control match-up even easier. If it's an issue with Stax that you have, like too many hate cards coming down at once, then you can fix that by playing Gamble and Entomb and weld the Goblin Charbelcher in for the activation.

I also have questions about your sideboards. I've tested Living Wish since the beginning and even though my sideboard still looks like it is a Wish sideboard (parts of it, anyway), Living Wish has always seemed slow. On top of that, there seem to be redundancies in your sideboard that aren't optimal.

-Have you tested Mogg Fanatic to kill Gorilla Shaman and/or Goblin Welder?

-Tolarian Academy and Ancient Tomb seem repetitive. Ancient Tomb helps you through Sphere of Resistance, where Tolarian Academy is useless (but then, Living Wish for Ancient Tomb would probably be hard to cast under Sphere). How often is Tolarian Academy needed and not a "win-more" card? I understand it's the best land in the game, but I want to know what situation you would wish for it over Ancient Tomb and wouldn't already be in a winning situation (or do just as well with Ancient Tomb, since no spells require blue mana).

-Have you tried Gorilla Shaman to kill Chalice of the Void?

EDIT: All I meant about Phyrexian Negator was that you weren't necessarily playing a deck with hate cards requiring you to go aggro. I wasn't saying it was a bad choice. It just didn't win a game that you otherwise would've lost without Living Wish, necessarily.

[Klep]

I'm very insistent on the blue, and I don't believe that any of it is harder to cast than Yawgmoth's Bargain. Yes, Bargain wins the game, but at a cheaper cost, I could draw the cards I need to win the game anyway. Any argument against blue cards could be directed at Yawgmoth's Bargain in the same manner (the "spectacular finish" remark). Sometimes it's hard, even, to cast Yawgmoth's Will for many spells before the game is over.

The difference is that Twister will draw you 7 cards, Bargain will draw you 15 or more.  Bargain is insanely more broken than Timetwister, and has the added benefit of being in your original colors.  The point of my argument was that you shouldn't weaken your manabase to win more spectacularly when you were going to win anyway.

I did address not running Duress. Goblin Welder and Goblin Charbelcher are cast early, and it's difficult to counter them both. Post side Xantid Swarms make the control match-up even easier. If it's an issue with Stax that you have, like too many hate cards coming down at once, then you can fix that by playing Gamble and Entomb and weld the Goblin Charbelcher in for the activation.

Duress is what clears the way for you to generate 5 mana. Maybe they can't counter both Welder and Belcher, but they can counter Dark Ritual and laugh at you.

I also have questions about your sideboards. I've tested Living Wish since the beginning and even though my sideboard still looks like it is a Wish sideboard (parts of it, anyway), Living Wish has always seemed slow. On top of that, there seem to be redundancies in your sideboard that aren't optimal.

It is possible the board could be diversified a bit more, but artifacts are the primary enemy of the deck, so it's not surprising to see multiple options for artifact kill there.

Off to class again.

[Disburden]

I think cutting down to three Cabal Rituals in this deck is a huge mistake. Why would you want to lose any rituals? They pretty much power most of the deck.

A third Cabal Ritual is better than Gamble, Imo.

[Luiggi]

Have you tried Gorilla Shaman to kill Chalice of the Void?

The problem with Gorilla Shaman is that it's quite possible that our opponent will have laid a Chalice for 1, especially if he was on the draw, and that makes Shaman useless. A Chalice for 2, while possible for our opponent to play, does a lot less to us and is thus less likely than a Chalice for 1. Hearth Kami answers Chalice for 0 or 1 nicely, and we also have Uktabi Orangutan, since we know Stax won't usually lay a Chalice for 3, .

Regarding your decklist, I like it better than the previous one, but I think that 4 Pentad Prisms and 4 Chromatic Spheres are overkill, and that you should cut a few of one or the other to add stuff like Vampiric Tutor, which is at the very least better than a Chromatic Sphere. I wouldn't run the Prisms at all, but then again I'm not running Blue.

I also just want to say, one more time, that Bargain = über-broken, and definitely deserves to be in the deck. Glad you added Memory Jar, though.

I think cutting down to three Cabal Rituals in this deck is a huge mistake. Why would you want to lose any rituals? They pretty much power most of the deck.

A third Cabal Ritual is better than Gamble, Imo.

4 Dark Ritual and 4 Cabal Ritual seems like overkill, since over half of our deck is mana. The one reason I can see for adding a fourth Cabal Ritual is that it helps us get around Chalice for 1 more easily. One of the main problems I've noticed is that sometimes we just draw mana and no business spells, and cutting a non-mana-producing card for yet another mana-producer seems like it would exacerbate the problem. I agree that a 3rd Cabal Ritual is better than the lone Gamble, though, .

Luiggi

[policehq]

I think cutting down to three Cabal Rituals in this deck is a huge mistake. Why would you want to lose any rituals? They pretty much power most of the deck.

A third Cabal Ritual is better than Gamble, Imo.

It isn't better, at all, against Trinisphere (rare case) or Sphere of Resistance (more common). Cabal Ritual really isn't that amazing most of the time.

My arguments against Yawgmoth's Bargain are simply that when I test the deck, I find myself less capable of casting Yawgmoth's Bargain than I do blue power and Tinker. While Yawgmoth's Bargain might net me twice the cards with a single spell, Timetwister can ramp up my mana and give me more tutors/draw cards as easily. It works the same way as recurring Memory Jars. Most of the time, you just don't need it, because after one, you can win.

[Luiggi]

While Yawgmoth's Bargain might net me twice the cards with a single spell, Timetwister can ramp up my mana and give me more tutors/draw cards as easily. It works the same way as recurring Memory Jars. Most of the time, you just don't need it, because after one, you can win.

A problem that can present itself is that Timetwister also gives your opponent 7 new cards, in which something like Force of Will might well make an appearance. Since you don't run Duress to clear their hand after the Timetwister, it's always a risky proposition to cast one of your Draw-7s. The build we're advocating only has Wheel of Fortune as a true Draw-7 (and it even helps us out by letting us put a Belcher into the yard to be Welded back in), and Necropotence and Bargain are something more akin to Draw-Infinites, since we're going nuts on card-draw without giving our opponent any other potential tools to help them beat us. That's why Bargain is so important, because it's essentially Necro #2.

Luiggi

[policehq]

While Yawgmoth's Bargain might net me twice the cards with a single spell, Timetwister can ramp up my mana and give me more tutors/draw cards as easily. It works the same way as recurring Memory Jars. Most of the time, you just don't need it, because after one, you can win.

A problem that can present itself is that Timetwister also gives your opponent 7 new cards, in which something like Force of Will might well make an appearance. Since you don't run Duress to clear their hand after the Timetwister, it's always a risky proposition to cast one of your Draw-7s. The build we're advocating only has Wheel of Fortune as a true Draw-7 (and it even helps us out by letting us put a Belcher into the yard to be Welded back in), and Necropotence and Bargain are something more akin to Draw-Infinites, since we're going nuts on card-draw without giving our opponent any other potential tools to help them beat us. That's why Bargain is so important, because it's essentially Necro #2.

Luiggi

That's a good point; however, I'd rather bring in the Duress before I cut blue, Pentad Prisms, and add Yawgmoth's Bargain.

Pentad Prism serves as next-turn acceleration and as color-fixing. I know the card draw is useful on Chromatic Sphere, but even in a three-color version I'd run a split between Prism and Sphere.

-1 Sphere
-1 Prism
+2 Duress

[Komatteru]

@Klep:

I thought of Yukora.  Paying 4 for a 5/5 isn't as good as paying 3 for it.  I also considered Juggernaut.  Juggernaut is an artifact, and I don't want something that can be Welded out, or die to Rack and Ruin.

Yeah, I put a lot of thought into it.  If someone can come up with something better, I'd be pretty impressed.

It isn't better, at all, against Trinisphere (rare case) or Sphere of Resistance (more common). Cabal Ritual really isn't that amazing most of the time.

My arguments against Yawgmoth's Bargain are simply that when I test the deck, I find myself less capable of casting Yawgmoth's Bargain than I do blue power and Tinker. While Yawgmoth's Bargain might net me twice the cards with a single spell, Timetwister can ramp up my mana and give me more tutors/draw cards as easily. It works the same way as recurring Memory Jars. Most of the time, you just don't need it, because after one, you can win.

Cabal Ritual against Chalice for 1 = nets 1 or 3 mana
Dark Ritual against Chalice for 1 = costs 1 mana to do NOTHING

2 Moxes + Cabal Ritual (pumping to threshold) against Chalice for 0 = nets 3 mana
2 Moxes + Dark Ritual (pumping to threshold) against Chalice for 0 = nets 2 mana

I'll refer you to this: http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=23898.0.  Most people didn't even bother to put Timetwister on their list.  Bargain, however, makes Top 5, easy.

I think there's something seriously wrong if you didn't find Bargain good.  Also, your assessment of Will is completely baseless.  You don't need it to do a lot to be stupidly good.  Try Land Granting, replaying Chromespheres, and Duressing only off a Will and see how outrageouly strong it is.  You aren't likely to lose after doing just that.

Timetwister is a huge risk.  How often do you mulligan?  I mulligan about 50% of my games, I'd say.  Timetwister is likely to give me a hand that has all mana and no action--one that I mulligan.  Meanwhile, it gives my opponent gas, so I lose.  Bargain gives me 10-19 cards, and my opponent 0.  Things just don't go wrong after you cast Bargain.  It is very easy to lose after you cast Timetwister.

[Klep]

My arguments against Yawgmoth's Bargain are simply that when I test the deck, I find myself less capable of casting Yawgmoth's Bargain than I do blue power and Tinker.

That's because you have a weaker manabase and too few rituals.

While Yawgmoth's Bargain might net me twice the cards with a single spell, Timetwister can ramp up my mana and give me more tutors/draw cards as easily. It works the same way as recurring Memory Jars. Most of the time, you just don't need it, because after one, you can win.

Bargain also has the little side benefit of not giving your opponent a full grip. There is no comparing Timetwister and Bargain. Bargain is one of the top 4 most broken cards in the game.  If you are playing combo that has black in it, you run Bargain.  Anything else is just wrong, and running a random draw-7 over it is even moreso, particularly when running that draw-7 requires you to weaken your manabase.  TPS doesn't splash red for Wheel, so why should Belcher splash blue for Twister?