Burning Belcher

[madmanmike25]

That's funny, two days ago I randomly decided to build a Belcher deck with SSG.  And now I see this decklist.  Anywho, here is my version of Belcher:

*Free* mana: 23
4 ESG
4 SSG
5 moxen
1 Black lotus
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Taiga

Acceleration:9
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Grim Monolith
2 Tinder Wall
4 Dark Ritual

The Spells: 19
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Yawgmoths Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoths Bargain
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Tinker
1 Windfall
1 Time Twister
1 Memory Jar
1 Channel

Win:3
2 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Tendrils of Agony/Empty the Warrens

Resilience:6
3 Xantid Swarm(you can mix Goblin Welder/Xantid)
3 Ancient Grudge

So far it has tested freakin' awesome in goldfish mode.  You do have to accept that its a combo deck and therefore might mull a tad more than others.  When I build this deck, I asked myself, 'what is the main card that wrecks this deck?'.  And that is Chalice set @ 0 or 1.  Grudge pwns chalice and is easy to cast and creates a psuedo card advantage by taking out another artifact if needed.

If you have never played with Chromatic Star AND Chromatic Sphere, you should try it.  With the inclusion of SSG(simian spririt guide) they are awsome.  With all 8, Channel is the shiznit. Period.  They highly reduce the chance you ever get color screwed.  I usually end up converting to blue or black mana.  It makes Vamp Tutor pretty good when you have two of these out.  You get the mana AND draw the card at the same time out of Sphere, so you need two unless you already have B in your mana pool.

Cards I didn't put in:
LED- Everytime I had it I NEEDED to cast something in my hand.  Its great IF Belcher resolves though.
Mystical Tutor- No room.  It's Blue and I already have 4 blue spells.
Living Wish-Tolarian Academy would be in the SB as would City of Brass and City of Traitors.  Not to mention Xantid #4 and Goblin Welder.  Again, what to cut?
Necropotence- No way.  Not with only 4 Dark Rituals.  I believe you need at least 3 Cabal Rituals (in addition) to make this worthwhile.

With FoW in every blue deck, I think that Xantid > Welder.  This is because they don't always counter your Belcher, sometimes they counter your draw spell and leave you dead in the water.

Also, this IS a combo deck.  I am of the firm belief that 3 win conditions or less are best.  If you don't lose to an activated Jester's Cap, it's not a real combo deck :lol:  Grudges help this matter though.


Questions:
1.  With so few Black mana sources(Dark Ritual isn't free), How are you able to cast Duress???
2.  Anyone else ever think about swapping the Taiga for a Tropical Island?  Most times I'd rather have that blue mana over the red mana.

I'm going to test your deck with the red acceleration and see which is faster/more resilient, but so far I'm quite pleased with my list.  Plus, I'm not so crazy about so many win conditions.  Chalice and Force of Will are in almost EVERY deck, you have to maindeck accordingly.

[GrandpaBelcher]

Four colors... a bold move.

I like the look of the 8 Chromatic artifacts, but aren't they a bit of a mana hog without Channel?  You might be more reliant on them with the addition of the blue bombs.  The above lists mostly just have to make red.

This and its addition of blue and more draw-7s seems a lot closer to the original 2-Land Belcher versions, which did run Tropical Island over Taiga, than later versions.  Do you regularly get enough mana to play and fire Belcher in one turn?  It looks like you're really counting on drawing into more with Twister, Windfall, etc.  Taiga was determined to be a boon because if you find that with the Charbelcher you hit for double damage since it's a Mountain.

Duress is sometimes a burden, but usually it's pretty good.  Finding black mana is far from impossible.  And I'm not quite sure about your dropping Goblin Welder.  Welder can also answer Chalice and Null Rod repeatedly, and Duress can pluck either of them before they hit.  I save Xantid Swarms for the sideboard.

Necropotence is extremely hard to cast with only 4 Dark Rituals and has since been cut from mine and I think OfficeShredder's lists.

If you don't lose to an activated Jester's Cap, it's not a real combo deck  :lol:

Uhh... okay... I guess Demonic Consultation is enough risk for me (I'm a wuss).  No sense putting all my eggs in one basket when five or six other, smaller baskets will work.  Plus, Empty the Warrens gets around Force of Will, and Welder gets Charbelcher back.

[madmanmike25]

Well, the blue spells are just sooooo powerful, I can't cut them.  The inclusion of those spells is worth the risk and with 8 spheres, it's not that bad.  I probably have less of a hard time getting that once in a while U mana than you do of getting B mana.  With 4 ESG and 4 SSG with the 8 spheres, it really isn't that much of an issue.

I might swap the Tendrils for EtW though, sometimes the storm just isn't enough and I don't think too many people have maindeck answers for EtW.

And no, I don't always get to cast AND activate Belcher the same turn.  Just like sometimes I don't always have enough mana for Yawgs Bargain but it's still insane when I do.

Uhh... okay... I guess Demonic Consultation is enough risk for me (I'm a wuss).  No sense putting all my eggs in one basket when five or six other, smaller baskets will work.  Plus, Empty the Warrens gets around Force of Will, and Welder gets Charbelcher back.

But TRUE combo is supposed to put most of it's eggs all in one basket.  Or else it would run Mana Drains/Counter Magic and more bounce/resilience.....but then it would turn into a Gifts deck.  Demonic Consultation isn't that big of a risk if you run 4+ win cards, it won't work in my deck though.

I realize that Welder gets Belcher back, but it sucks to have a Ritual or other Acceleration countered that you were going to use to get it into play and be stuck in topdeck mode.  Most Belcher decks have always had the Tendrils backup plan.  I'm just more in favor of fewer win conditions and more ways to get them. 

But like I said, I will try your deck in the next few days(I dont have MWS so I will have to build it out) and will see which is faster and at what cost.  Like I said, so far my list is testing just fine but I'll try your version with more Belchers.  If you get a chance try the 8 spheres, it reminds you again why Channel is restricted.  Don't think as the spheres NEEDING Channel, but just making a broken card even more so.

Btw what do you prefer: Tinder Wall or Rite of Flame???  The 4 Land Grants would have me believe that it's easier to find G mana.  If you DO decide to run both, which are you more happy to see?

Don't forget about Desperate Ritual, It's a Cabal Ritual without the threshold.  It might go in a deck that uses 4 Belchers and needs to get to 7 mana fast.

[madmanmike25]

OK Lochinvar, I built your deck out last night and played it qute a few times.  16 games I simply goldfished to see how fast it was.  I had to mulligan 8 of those times because I couldn't keep the hand.  3 games I won first turn with an activated Belcher though.

When I played against Mono R Stax I found out that Chalice @ 1 bends the deck over and screws it in a very uncomfortable place(like the back of a volkswagon).  It's almost as bad as a first turn Trinisphere.

Welder didn't do jack against Chalice/Null Rod.  Welder is in there for resilience, and he is only that when the opponent counters one card.  Goblin Charbelcher.  That's kinda narrow.

Necropotence has got to go unless you add 2 Cabal Rituals.  I NEVER had a Dark Ritual and Necro in the same opening hand.  And yes, sometimes I didn't get B mana due to only the 4 Stars for conversion.  I can't really see Duress working out unless you swap out your black spells and that's a no-no.

I'm not trying to play "my version is better than yours" because the shell of the decks are very similar, as all 2 land Belcher decks should be.  I just think that my deck has more bombs in the form of Draw 7's.  Not to mention Tinker can be used to find Belcher, not just Memory Jar.  3 maindeck ancient grudge takes out 2x chalice/sphere/null rod.  I like the instant speed of it too.  I will tweak my list some more tonight and post it in the Vintage Open forum maybe tomorrow.  I'm sure they will rip it to shreds and just tell me to go play GrimLong, but I'm sure someone will have a useful suggestion there for Belcher decks.  And if it turns out that the deck is indeed unviable, then so be it, at least we will know.

[OfficeShredder]

Has anyone tried helm of awakening in a belcher deck?  It might be the absolute crap-sack of a card choice, but on the other hand it's got synergy with seething song and chromatic star in the form of kickstarting your combo when you'd otherwise be stuck one mana short of playing your rituals/draw 7.  Just something I thought of a little while ago, I haven't actually tried it yet.

[GrandpaBelcher]

I have some experience with Helm in some combo decks (Easter Tendrils).  The problem is that you have have have to win that turn.  Otherwise you have a chance of hearing "land, Null Rod, go" or "land, Chalice for 1, go."   And that will make you upset.  Basically, it benefits both players to some degree, and you're not really taking too much more advantage of it than your opponent is.

It doesn't help with Rite of Flame, Moxen, Dark Ritual, Welder, or Duress either, which is sad.

So, yeah, just win that turn and it's good.

[Kieranwolf]

I find these lists interesting. I always like Two-land Belcher, though it's generally nearly as hard to play in tournaments as Meandeck Tendrils (or at least a distant second).

I was wondering if Skirk Prospector might be a helpful card if you were running 4 ETW and multiple Belchers in there. In that case, ETW would become a mana accelerant, but I was mostly thinking the Skirk would be a win-more card if there ever was one in the deck. Not something that's probably worth a slow in the MD or SB, but still interesting.

I actually had a fun R/B ETW combo deck going for a little while, but my hope of making it competitive was short-lived. Skirk Prospector did help build up storm, though.

[GrandpaBelcher]

"I didn't see what he was playing until now.  I'm glad he had the balls to play it."
- Stephen Menendian

4x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Empty the Warrens

4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Rite of Flame
4x Tinder Wall
4x Land Grant
3x Seething Song
4x Chromatic Star

3x Goblin Welder
2x Red Elemental Blast
2x Pyroblast
2x Living Wish

1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Memory Jar
1x Lotus Petal
1x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Mana Vault
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt
1x Channel
1x Chrome Mox
1x Black Lotus
5x Moxen
1x Taiga

Sideboard
4x Xantid Swarm
1x Bazaar of Baghdad
1x Mishra's Workshop
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Tin Street Hooligan
1x Uktabi Orangutan
1x Ancient Grudge
2x Shattering Spree
1x Gorilla Shaman
1x Goblin Welder
1x Taiga

So, yeah, that's the list I played on Sunday.  It's pretty good.  I like it; the only change I would make, maybe is to switch one Chromatic Star for the fourth Welder maindeck.  And I might drop down to two or three Xantid Swarms in the board because they really slow the deck down when all four of them are in and are really slow anyways.  Actually, I've had two tips now about Skirk Prospector, so those will probably take some testing as well.

I cut black from the original list because I was starting to hate it.  Necropotence was half of a restricted two-card combo with Dark Ritual, so it never got played, so it was first to go.  Yawgmoth's Will is subpar because you don't have the tutoring and black mana available to make it really good.  And Duress, Dark Ritual, and the tutors weren't cutting it because there were times where they'd end up clogging my hand as I couldn't find black mana or the black mana I had wouldn't cast Rite of Flame for Belcher.  Hence, 1-Land Belcher, red and green make Taiga.  Most things have an analog in red: Duresses became REB and Pyro straight up.  Tutors became more Empty the Warrens and Belcher.  And, uh, Yawgmoth's Will became, uh, Living... Wish... because it also has colorless and colored mana in its casting cost.

By the way, Belcher hardly ever misfires in this deck.

Long story short, I went 2-2-1 at a 21 person tournament in Columbus, but if I hadn't started playing like a total noob in the final three round.  Honestly, I would have done much better had I not start keeping terrible hands, and just one more win would have gotten me into the top 8.

Also, REB + SSG = Red Force.  It's really good and people don't expect it.  I loved having it and would rather play that than Duress or Xantid Swarm in this deck.

Here's a quick summary of the games; I'll have more later either here or on my blog.

Round 1 - Nights Whisper Tendrils

I go Mox, Mox, Chrome Mox, Lotus, Empty the Warrens for 10 tokens, all with Pyroblast backup.  Pretty good.  I counter his Timetwister and win the game with Goblins.

Next game he Duresses me and takes the mana I need to win but leaves me with Simian Spirit Guide and REB, which I use to counter Timetwister again.  I'm waiting for another win condition and he's waiting for another bomb, but mine comes first:  Living Wish for Taiga, Rite of Flame, Seething Song, Seething Song, Belcher for 56 or so.  And for everything after the first Seething Song I had REB backup.

Round 2 - Slaver

He mulligans and passes without doing anything, but he Forces my first turn Land Grant.  I counter his Brainstorm while I wait for mana (Living Wishing for Mishra's Workshop), cast the Memory Jar in my hand with REB backup, and  the Warrens Empty for 12 tokens.  He had already pitched Echoing Truth to Force of Will, so he scoops.

He mulligans twice and plays land-go.  I Empty the Warrens for 8 tokens on my first turn.  He digs for Echoing Truth or a way to get it over the next two turns.  With one card left in hand, he plays Thirst for Knowledge.  I worry about whether that last remaining card is Echoing Truth and try to decide whether to use Red Force on the Thirst or save it.  I probably would have saved it.  He concedes anyway.

Round 3 - Mark Trogdon, Trogdon Land Destruction (you wouldn't understand)

This was a bad round.  My matches with Trogdon go one of two ways, either I beat him, or he totally throws the rest of my day off.  This time it was the latter.

Game one, I keep seven on the draw because all I need is one more mana and it's insane.  In two turns, I get it.  I have a combination of cards that lets me play Empty the Warrens for 12 tokens and Wheel of Fortune with no mana floating, so I do it.  He still has 6 cards left in hand, so if he does have a maindeck answer to EtW (which he probably does because it's Trogdon), the chances of him having it in this hand are about as good as him having it in the Wheel.  His eighth card down (i.e. we Wheeled, he drew) was Pyroclasm.  He plays Null Rod and I take 10 turns of damage from Mana Vault before he finishes me off with, no lie, Shivan Wumpus.

Game two, I mull to four, though I probably should have kept at seven because it had a win condition and some artifact destruction and just needed a lot more mana.  He gets, no lie, Slith Firewalker on board and proceeds to beat me.  Extra damage I took was from Pyrostatic Pillar.

Round 4 - Monobrown Mud

He wins the die roll and plays Sphere of Resistance.  That slows me down, but I eventually play Empty the Warrens for 10 tokens through the 2sphere.  It was something like Spirit Guide, Land Grant, Chrome Mox.  Next turn Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Spirit Guide for Seething Song, Empty the Warrens?  I'm missing a storm in there somewhere, but I know the first Rite was used solely to pay for the second Rite.  I was pretty happy I played it out because EtW for 10 under pressure is pretty decent.  Anyway, between Metalworker blocks, Tanglewire, and Smokestacks, his Ancient Tombs did more damage to him than my goblins, which hit him for three.

Next game was awesome.  First turn, I play a bunch of mana, then Welder, then Wheel (sending Memory Jar to the graveyard) with a red floating, then I play more mana, Gorilla Shaman, and Empty the Warrens for 24 tokens.  Seems good.  He plays Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale.  I save five creatures and attack with four (holding the Welder) for two turns to get him to twelve.  Then I Weld in the Jar at end of turn, break it during my upkeep, play Seething Song to save 5 creatures at a discount price.  And win with Belcher after welding in an untapped Pearl for a tapped Emerald for the activation.

Game three was bad.  He opens with Sphere of Resistance and Pithing Needle but I have Shattering Spree in my hand. If only I could use it!  Basically, the turn before I would be able to Shattering Spree or Welder myself out of my situation, he plays something to trump it.  Eventually there are 3 Spheres of Resistance, Trinisphere, and a Pithing Needle on Belcher, but he can't win either, so we draw.

Round 5 - Gifts

He plays land, mox, Scroll for Ancestral.  I play Empty the Warrens for 8 tokens.
He plays Ancestral and Gifts twice--once for mana, once for brokenness (except for Will, which he had in his hand).  I attack for 8 but die to Tendrils the next turn.  Well, actually two turns, because he Time Walked too.

Game two, I Empty the Warrens for 14 dudes on my first turn: Mox, Mana Vault, Chrome Mox, Tinder Wall, Rite of Flame, Land Grant for nothing (Taiga had been in my hand), Empty the Warrens.  Okay.  He gets two draw steps but doesn't get Echoing Truth or the means to find it and concedes at 6 life.

Game three is my major bonk of the tournament.  Even though I have to win this to move on and be a hero to Belcher players everywhere, I keep a hand of Xantid, Xantid, Land Grant, Land Grant, ESG, Welder, something else.  Why?  I don't know.  I think I was trying to make the cool play rather than the good one.  Needless to say, I don't find a win condition so I lose.

Is the deck tournament viable?  I say yes.  You've got win conditions that are multiple and varied, lots of redundancy (which makes for great mulligans, which is why I should have mulliganed in game three round five for sure, if not many times earlier as well), and lots of outs should you find yourself in a jam.  Plus, I'm not naturally a combo player; I play Fish.  With someone who actually knows what they're doing, this deck could be really good.  That said, it's pretty easy.  Mulligan till you find a win condition and play it and win.  If you don't win.  Move on.  I didn't throw away a lot of hands that had Empty the Warrens and four mana because it's so easy to get to 6 or 8 goblins and a three turn clock.

I'll have more on this later, but I plan on playing the deck again.  It was only play mistakes holding me back, I think.  With more practice, it could be really good.

[Harlequin]

@ Helm of Awakening

Any thought about Lockets of Yesterday?  It seems like it would be fairly terrible, but it only costs and it doesn't effect your opponenet - so it seems better then helm at least.

[bebe]

Lochinvar81

I've played Belcher since early days and I think you are going in the right direction. I've been toying with a similar build - no blue or black.
I've also been testing a few main deck copies of Gamble for Welder tricks. I play a bit different package for ptotection as well ( EE, Blasts an Sprees ) but these are all tweaks to essentially the same deck and very meta dependent ( we jhave a lot of Stax and Fish along with Gifts here).
Here are a few questions though -
Living vs. Burning - Being able to wish for Meltdown, Primitive Justice or Pyroclasm is nice. With Living Wishes I almost always ended up Wishing for a Mishra's and nothing else.
Channel - I often found the two mana cost prohibitive early game unless running a few more Sphers or Stars which, IMHO, are much more conditional in this build.

With four Belcher/EtW main deck you usually will draw into a win condition quite early so the deck plays out quite well with the single taiga and absence of black. I think there is potential here.

[GrandpaBelcher]

Bebe, thanks for the comments.

I like my list a lot.  I've been testing it recently and it performed well with no previous "real" experience on Sunday.  Black is always a temptation, but I haven't found the absolute need for it yet--there's just some cards that would be nice to have (namely Dark Confidant and tutors).  I haven't tested again with black.

For right now, I think I'm sticking with Living Wish.  When I played Belcher before, I always found it really limiting because, yes, I pretty much tutored for either Workshop or Academy, depending on which one would be better at the moment.  Burning Wish does have much better artifact destruction options, but it won't ever get me mana.  And Living Wish is no slouch in the artifact destruction category either.  Tin Street Hooligan is really good, as are the usual suspects: Goblin Welder if it's not maindecked, Uktabi Orangutan, Xantid Swarm, and to a lesser degree Scavenger Folk.  In the long run, I feel like I can only board for one of the two Wishes, and Living Wish wins because it's more flexible.

Channel will stay.  It's one of the big outs against Stax because you suddenly have all the mana you could need, and as I think OfficeShredder said before, the only time it's dead is when I could win without it.

The number of win conditions is awesome.  I feel like I can mulligan to five and still have a legitimate shot of ending up with one opening hand.  Oddly enough, I win most of my games with EtW just because I see it more often even though I should see it about the same amount of times as I do Belcher.  I'm sure that's just statistics being weird, though.

I'm going to keep testing 1-Land Belcher for a while.

[madmanmike25]

Oddly enough, I win most of my games with EtW just because I see it more often even though I should see it about the same amount of times as I do Belcher.  I'm sure that's just statistics being weird, though.

I have been noticing the same thing in my 4c Belcher.  I run 3 Belchers and 3 EtW and more often than not, find myself using the attack phase to win.  So far it seems that Belchers are kinda like a secondary win condition for me.  I'm gonna test Timewalk sometime soon in my build.  Someone on the other thread suggested Final Fortune, it's a thought vs Tendrils decks that can win faster than you.

[bebe]

The problem I have wishing for creatures is that they take a turn to be useful which can be a turn too long - artifact destruction can often be played the same turn I wish for it.
As for Channell, it is dead when you can mwin without it and it is dead when you have no win condition in hand ... I generally have not found mana production a problem in this build but hey ... if its working for you keep it. As I said our bulds are quite similar and I believe that one land belcher is the route to go now. EtW has added so much to the deck that we can now race other combo, not fear aggro at all, have outs against Stax, etc.
Belcher is not Gifts but at least its an alternative to what's being played -I'm tired of the stale old decks and happy that my belcher is at least viable once again. I did try shoving EtW into a goblin core but 'dirty kitty' type decks just are not Vintage ready.

[GrandpaBelcher]

Hey, I forgot to mention...  There's a few cards that were mentioned to me by Mark Trogdon that people might want to try as well:

Skirk Prospector: He's not a mana source by himself, but he turns every Empty the Warrens into a Storm Ritual for 3RR.  Welders become free mana too, though they're not as expendable.  Plus, he's a 1/1 beatstick.  Mostly it's that first thing, though.  You can Empty on your first or second turn, then even if you get locked down or something, once you draw a Belcher, you sac all your gobbos and win.  It's an intresting idea.

Goblin Bombardment: Obvious synergy with Empty the Warrens that turns it from a three turn win into a two turn win.  It might not be maindecked, but it's a strong idea.  Plus, as enchantments are the least-hated card type in Vintage, it's got that going for it.

Burning Wish: I waffle on this card.  When I first started playing Belcher last summer, I hated Living Wish because it never did enough for me and green mana was surprisingly hard to come by against a deck like Fish or Stax, when you really needed it to kill Null Rod or 2Sphere.  So when I started playing with SSG, I immediately threw in Burning Wish as a way to get Tendrils.  It still has its applications even without Tendrils, obviously--Shattering Spree and Pyroclasm are both pretty good, as is Echoing Ruin.  I'd move an EtW to the board for this and see how it goes, because now I really like Living Wish.  It wasn't in my tournament list, but it might go back in.

By the way, Wishing for creature-based artifact kill is still pretty good.  Scavenger Folk is like a Seal of Cleansing; you can Wish for it preemptively.  Also, Tin Street Hooligan kills an artifact right away for two mana.  Whether he sticks around or not is just an added detail.

[Kieranwolf]

Skirk Prospector: He's not a mana source by himself, but he turns every Empty the Warrens into a Storm Ritual for 3RR.  Welders become free mana too, though they're not as expendable.  Plus, he's a 1/1 beatstick.  Mostly it's that first thing, though.  You can Empty on your first or second turn, then even if you get locked down or something, once you draw a Belcher, you sac all your gobbos and win.  It's an intresting idea.

Sweet. When I made up the decklist for monored storm, Skirk was totally in it. There just wasn't any draw besides the chromatic artifacts and WoF. Plus, I had to use Gamble for tutoring, and I splashed Black for Y. Will and card draw.

Do you think a more black-based build with more rituals, Infernal Contracts, and (probably) a faster kill is possible? I seem to remember having a lot of fun in the olden days playing against a belcher deck that always won on turn two or one. (I think it splashed blue for Tinker/Twister, too, but I can't seem to remember it well).

[nataz]

Hola,

I figure I'll chime in here. I've been playtesting a Red Belcher build for a couple of weeks now, and I've ended up pretty close to Loch's last build. Basic differences are I have black for four rits and demonic, vamp, imp, and consultation in place of the blasts, wish, and tinderwalls. I also run 2x chromatic sphere to help with the CA disadvantage tutors and make black mana.

Other then that, the core of 8 pitch mana, red base, and 8 win conditions are the same.

of note:

- How are people's gifts match-ups with ETW? After some pretty decent testing sessions, I've found ETW to be to slow. It's too easy for gifts to scroll/tutor into an E-truth with out losing that much gas. Even with blast protection (which I was trying for a while), its tough to protect the tokens for more then a turn (which is unfortunate, because anything less then 10 needs 2 turns to win). That is so easy to discover that it suggests conspicuousness or little need for perspicacity in the observer. you can go with a traditional belcher route, but thats not always an option turn 1 when you are looking to mull or not.

- I really want to test a singleton Bazaar in the deck, perhaps in pace of the bayou that I currently run. With 4 welders MD, I can see that being an alt. low mana cost path to victory. Of course, that would imply that I keep black for tutors...so the maybe I need to keep the bayou, or add extra color fixing effects. In addition to the obv. play of welding in belcher, I'm even more attracted to Memory Jar with its zero cost activation -> accel and ETW. 

 

 

[GrandpaBelcher]

@ nataz

So you have Chromatic Spheres and Chromatic Stars?  How many total?  Has the black mana been consistent with you?  Sounds like it could be.  Would you go back to running Duress over REB?  I'd like to see your list.

I didn't play a gainst much Gifts (one round of the tournament--I went 1-2 and kept one terrible hand that could have changed everything if I'd mulled), but EtW is definitely a risky venture against them.  The one game I won, I had 14 tokens on turn one.  It's not even necessarily that they'll find Echoing Truth; if you give them three undisrupted turns to work, they're likely just to take the win out from under you with Tendrils.

I don't know about the singleton Bazaar maindeck.  It's nice in the sideboard, but I'd hate to run into it while Belching to victory.  If you're using black too, I can see using tutors just to find Bazaar and get it out of your library since that's three lands maindeck.  If you do testing with it, though, I'd be interested to see how it goes.

Memory Jar and Welder are bff, as far as I'm concerned.  Barring Null Rod, you lose so few games when you get them working together.

[nataz]

Your List as posted in your report
- 1x Channel
- 4x Tinder Wall
- 4x Blast
- 3x Wish

My List w/out Bazaar
+ 4x Dark rit
+ Demonic, Imp Seal, Vamp Tutor, Demonic Consultation
+ 2x Chromatic Sphere
+ 1x Bayou
+ 1x Welder

If I do add Bazaar, I'm not sure what I'll change. I may drop the Bayou and add in more spheres, or I may try out the three land config. That could end up being terrible, we'll see. Bazaar just seems like it could be so good when in recovery mode, or with the right tutors. Perhaps I could add in Living Wish instead, but that kind of defeats the low mana costs idea.

I feel like the deck is on the cusp of playability. ETW adds in a lot of flexability, but at the same time can pidgenhole you into the wrong role if you go for it early.

I like the idea of skirk prospector.

[A.-1.]

I like the list Lochinvar81. I've only goldfished it a handful of times but it seems very consistent.

I was wondering if you have tested it with only 2-3 Land Grants. I realize that you want one Land Grant in your opening hand and with four this helps the odds greatly, but after that the Land Grants are only useful as Imprint on Chrome Mox and to up Storm for Empty the Warrens.

[nataz]

Not sure if anyone is still playing around with this, but you might want to look at this list played at Myriad last week. Rich played the deck, but I believe that its a IAMfishman.dec<tm>

Notable is the lack of Goblin Welder, Only 2 of SSG and ETW.

7th Rich Meyst with Belcher

4x Chromatic Star
4x Goblin Charbelcher
1x Memory Jar
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Emerald
1x Black Lotus
1x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Lotus Petal
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Grim Monolith
1x Bayou
1x Taiga
4x Rite of Flame
2x Empty the Warrens
2x Simian Spirit Guide
1x Wheel of Fortune
4x Xantid Swarm
4x Tinder Wall
4x Land Grant
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
1x Channel
4x Dark Ritual
1x Imperial Seal
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Demonic Consultation
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Necropotence
1x Yawgmoth's Bargain
1x Mana Crypt

Sideboard:
2x Red Elemental Blast
2x Shattering Spree
2x Ancient Grudge
2x Simian Spirit Guide
1x Empty the Warrens
3x Carpet of Flowers
3x Duress

After looking at the list, I have a couple of questions. Rich didn't seem to want to talk to much about the deck, so I figure I'll throw them out here.

The Black Spells. I really like Bargain, but Necro at BBB has always been very hard to cast for me. Will if find to be middling because its hard to stock your GY, and channal, as amazing as it can be, is tough with GG in the casting cost. All of this gets a lot better post board with Carpet of Flowers, but pre-board I've been having mana issues now that we've increased the role of red with Rite of Flames.

I Also want to point out that the SB is very good. Extra SSG against null rod decks. Carpet against anything with blue base, Duress for combo, ETW for fish. The REB's do seem a little out of place however, I still would rather have welders.

[nicofromtokyo]

Actually I have been testing the deck and different lists for several weeks.

Firstable, my thoughts about the differences between GR list and GRB list.
I found the GRB list a lot more powerfull, consistent, polyvalent and faster than the GR list. The deck is really really weak on top-deck mode, and even with Living Wish or more mana stability, tutors are sooo strong when you got countered or when you fizzled that I cannot think about a list without them. Same thing for Dark Ritual, they're stronger than Tinder Wall, and 4 or 5 Chromatic Star-Sphere + 4 Land Grant + Blotus, Petal, Jet allow you to play black.

I gave a try to Ancestral Recall + Tinker on the deck, but they annoy you more than they may be broken as long as you don't play Tropical Island, so I dropped them within few games.

They only problem I found to the deck is that even with 8 win conditions on the list, you have to draw one of them to win. You may find that obvious, and think that the probability to draw it is pretty high, but Belcher is the kind of game you do 50 kill turn one at home or on MWS, and will not find a Belcher or a EtW on your starting hand all day long in a tornament. I guess it's a choice to do before playing a tornament with it .

Regarding the list above, I found it very interesting, especially for the mix of Tinder Wall and Dark Ritual, but really don't understand the choice of Xantid Swarm over Welder, and the cuts of SSG and EtW. Xantid are useless against non-counter decks, although Welder is always usefull to get rid of annoying artifacts or create mana. I like Seething song too, because you can cast Memory Jar with it, or Belcher + Welder or something else. Never gave a try to the Necro or Bargain, maybe I should?

Btw, this topic is still called Burning Belcher unless Burning wish has been abandonned for while...

[BreathWeapon]

This list has put up good results,

4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Empty the Warrens

1 Memory Jar
1 Wheel of Fortune

1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Necropotence

4 Unmask

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal

1 Yawgmoth's Will

4 Bloodfire Egg
4 Chromatic Sphere

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual

4 SSG
4 ESG

4 Land Grant
1 Bayou

5 Moxen
1 Blotus
1 Petal
1 LED
1 Sol
1 Vault
1 Crypt

It cuts most of the crap, Grim Monolith, Chrome Mox, Channel, Tinder Wall and Infernal Tutor/Spoils of the Vault in favor of the 8 Sphere configuration in order to ensure the appropriate colored mana and enough black cards to support Unmask. I'd probably cut Yawgmoth's Will as the 61st card, it's been the single most sub-par addition to the deck.

[Cthulhu1975]

Why Chromatic Sphere instead of Chromatic Star?

I agree with you on the removal of Channel and Chrome Mox from the list. Channel is powerful, but it is often difficult to find green mana to cast it.

[BreathWeapon]

No reason, other than I don't own Chromatic Star.

Channel is terrible, and so is Yawgmoth's Will tho' Chrome Mox deserves consideration in the place of a Chromatic Star.

It's solid, but I have a lot of problems with Gifts and Long Misdirecting the Unmask, discarding the Belcher or Warrens and winning in short order, to the point where I would rather go R/g/u for 4 Living Wish, 3 Goblin Welders and the blue Draw 7's and Ancestral Recall (which I could do with out for the same Misdirection reason).

[zeus-online]

I agree on cutting Will from belcher, it's rarely good...but...channel has been the nutz so far, so i just can't see it as cut-able.

/Zeus

[Prometheon]

It's solid, but I have a lot of problems with Gifts and Long Misdirecting the Unmask, discarding the Belcher or Warrens and winning in short order...

If someone Mis-Ds Unmask back to you, you still get to choose which card to lose.

[A.-1.]

If you are not running Goblin Welder than there is no difference between Chromatic Star and Chromatic Sphere.
Also, cutting one Chromatic for a Chrome Mox seems fine.

[nicofromtokyo]

4 Bloodfire Egg

Do you mean Shadowblood Egg? I don't see the point in cutting Rite of Flame for them, you just loose 2/3/4 red mana for one R to "gain" RB for 3.
I found the Taiga + Bayou necessary, as you won't win 100% of the time in the first turn.

[Wise]

I personally think Channel is an excellent card, and there are plenty of ways to cast the beast,  I agree with cutting black, most the black cards while good aren’t great or have red replacements, with no tendrils will doesn’t seem all that potent, and rituals are easily replaced with red colored mana producers, the only down side to not running black I feel is the loss of tutors, can anyone point out how the R/G/u Version is suppose to get a Charbelcher if they don’t draw one? or does it just warrens in these cases? and this might be a bad idea since randomness is never a good idea, but Gamble? Has anyone experimented with this card?

[BreathWeapon]

It's solid, but I have a lot of problems with Gifts and Long Misdirecting the Unmask, discarding the Belcher or Warrens and winning in short order...

If someone Mis-Ds Unmask back to you, you still get to choose which card to lose.

God, the number of games I lose because I can't read ...