Premium Article: So Many Insane Plays: Probasco Gifts v. RG Belcher

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=300429

I ran a series of five pre-board games.  I'll get to the postboard matchup next week. 

Comments, criticisms, spare change?

[dicemanx]

http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=300429

I ran a series of five pre-board games.  I'll get to the postboard matchup next week. 

Comments, criticisms, spare change?

Articles featuring match-ups with detailed commentary are always appreciated Steve.

Just out of curiosity, why did you select Probasco Gifts? other than the fact that it won Waterbury, it seemed that you were quite annoyed by the build and the resources that it was lacking in this match-up. Either way, I would much rather be on the Gifts' side of the match than Belcher's side. Belcher seems like it is based a little too much on the "one big play" that can be easily disrupted and has difficulty recovering if it is stopped as the only cards it will draw are via the natural draw phase or cycling through its mana filter artifacts. I cant imagine it getting any better post SB either.

[Klep]

I noticed you basically dismissed my recommendation of black over blue without actually addressing my reasoning.  The reason black is superior to blue is not because of the acceleration (although the acceleration is certainly excellent).  Like I said in response to your previous article, Belcher suffers from a problem of needing specific cards, not a greater quantity of cards.  Due to Belcher's need for speed in order to win matches, it cannot run a classical draw engine, and is thus highly dependent on the cards in its opening hand.  But since it only has a few win conditions (8 in this build), it frequently is missing one from its opening hand.  Other times it is missing a critical accelerant.  Some times it needs a third permanent mana source so it can activate the Belcher on the next turn.

For example, you give a hand at the end of your article which misses a win condition, but you say you would keep it, especially on the draw, because it would let you see 3 more cards.  But the odds of seeing a win condition, Wheel of Fortune, or Memory Jar in those 3 cards is less than 60%.  Frankly, that's not a number I'm comfortable with, particularly given that you have to blow most of your hand to get that 60%.

Because it so often needs a specific card, mere card draw is insufficient.  Sure, Ancestral draws 3 cards, but it's entirely possible for none of those 3 cards to be what you need.  Draw-7's seem good at first glance, but they also give your opponent more chances to find answers, and that is something you want to avoid.  They still may not even get what you needed in the first place.  By contrast, the tutors available in black will get precisely the card you need, and don't give your opponent more opportunities.

[DoubleDrain]

In game 2, belcher mulls into a hand which includes 2x memory jar!

clearly an oversight, but just wanted to bring it up.

in all, a very nice article. high five.

[Vegeta2711]

So you basically brush off why Black shouldn't be in the deck again and then give us a couple of gems.

"With Belcher's newly expanded suite of turn 1 threats, mulliganing with Belcher is actually somewhat mechanical. If you have Empty the Warrens, Belcher, or a turn 1 Draw7 – you probably have a keepable hand. If not, you probably don't."

"Similarly, the Belcher player has to think about where its bottlenecks are and yet keep hands that add early pressure but hopefully don't fold to turn 1 Force of Will."

So you're telling me it's complicated, but not. There are bottlenecks I should look for and be concerned about, but if it has a win condition I can probably keep the hand. Like this is confusing at best and useless at worst. Either the deck's mulligans are important and should be addressed or they're mechanical and usually simple to make.

Also all the errors in the match-up reports kind of threw off the flow for that part of the article. This was a better effort than the last article, but it seems like it could've been proof-read a couple of times first. Also basically just ignoring tutors and not explaining why drawing random cards is better than finding one of your win conditions (Which seems to be a main point that you base your mull decisions on) seems odd.

[Smmenen]

All the points raised - apologize to Klep in particular - deserve a fuller response.    Unfortunately, I was writing this on a plane and on an airport.  I was at a conference in Boston all weekend and had little time to reference the arguments already raised in a substantive way, nor proof read.   I promise to address them more specifically as soon as I have some more time to really do them justice, or at least - present the arguments for why I think the way I do at the moment. 

[policehq]

I think the storm mechanic of Empty the Warrens helps blue draw be better than it was in the days of Goblin Charbelcher being the only win condition. One of the positive notes of playing Belcher over Long, in the days of Belcher being a metagame choice against Stax (instead of Long versus Drains) was that you could commit to playing your mana resources before it was too late (Sphere of Resistance, Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void).

Timetwister, Windfall, etc. would allow you to play your resources in the same way without forfeiting the potential of Empty the Warrens. It is terrible to draw Empty the Warrens on turn 3 when things have not gone your way.

That said, I still don't like Empty the Warrens any more than a supplemental asset to your opening hands. I play 4 Empty the Warrens and the 4 black tutors, and still some Wheel of Fortune and Memory Jar hands absolutely suck.

-hq

[Anusien]

I'd like to see more discussion of this hand:

In the end, Belcher mulligans into:
Land Grant
Memory Jar
Tinder Wall
Elvish Spirit Guide
Seething Song
Memory Jar

What is that second Memory Jar?  Based on future plays it seems to be a Mox.  You have the Gifts player Forcing Seething Song which seems wrong.  If you want to counter, I'd think you either counter Land Grant and leave him with only ESG for mana sources, or you counter Memory Jar because his entire hand is empty.  Gifts has seen his hand, so there's no reason to counter Seething Song there.  If you force Land Grant it's better if he draws Wlder, and if you Force Jar it's better if he draws mana sources.
An interesting point was brought up; do you counter at all?  You can Brainstorm the Force of Will to the Jar hand in case he goes off there; it's likely that he gets an improved situation based on Jarring, but it's worth mentioning.

[zeus-online]

Depending on what the last card is, i'd probably counter the land grant - That leaves the belcher player at the mercy of the top of his deck, as he will need to draw on-color mana to get going.

/Zeus

[Smmenen]

I noticed you basically dismissed my recommendation of black over blue without actually addressing my reasoning.  The reason black is superior to blue is not because of the acceleration (although the acceleration is certainly excellent).  Like I said in response to your previous article, Belcher suffers from a problem of needing specific cards, not a greater quantity of cards.  Due to Belcher's need for speed in order to win matches, it cannot run a classical draw engine, and is thus highly dependent on the cards in its opening hand.  But since it only has a few win conditions (8 in this build), it frequently is missing one from its opening hand.  Other times it is missing a critical accelerant.  Some times it needs a third permanent mana source so it can activate the Belcher on the next turn.

For example, you give a hand at the end of your article which misses a win condition, but you say you would keep it, especially on the draw, because it would let you see 3 more cards.  But the odds of seeing a win condition, Wheel of Fortune, or Memory Jar in those 3 cards is less than 60%.  Frankly, that's not a number I'm comfortable with, particularly given that you have to blow most of your hand to get that 60%.

Because it so often needs a specific card, mere card draw is insufficient.  Sure, Ancestral draws 3 cards, but it's entirely possible for none of those 3 cards to be what you need.  Draw-7's seem good at first glance, but they also give your opponent more chances to find answers, and that is something you want to avoid.  They still may not even get what you needed in the first place.  By contrast, the tutors available in black will get precisely the card you need, and don't give your opponent more opportunities.

What do you consider to be the best Belcher list right now?   

[BreathWeapon]

I've tested all of the versions of Belcher I've come across in both of the Eternal formats and this is the best build I have seen in Vintage so far,

B/r

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

4 Shadowblood 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

Being able to Unmask lets the deck fight against Force of Will, Pithing Needle, Meddling Mage, Stifle and Null Rod and all of the tutors give the deck an answer to Duress on the draw.

FYI, the SB has to have Leyline of the Void if it wants to be able to beat Ichorid consistently.

[Klep]

What do you consider to be the best Belcher list right now?   

Well, I can't really say what would be the best Belcher list, since I don't have the time or resources for exhaustive testing.  I can really only say what I would probably play if I was going to go to a tournament tomorrow, which would be very much like the following:

Main Deck:
1 Black Lotus
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Vault
1 Grim Monolith
4 Chromatic Star
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant
4 Dark Ritual
1 Channel
3 Cabal Ritual

1 Bayou
1 Taiga

4 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Empty the Warrens

4 Goblin Welder
3 Xantid Swarm

1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Living Wish
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Memory Jar
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Necropotence

Sideboard:
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Dark Confidant
4 Shattering Spree
2 Seething Song
1 Scavenger Folk
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Xantid Swarm
1 City of Brass
1 Tolarian Academy


This is the more traditional Belcher list, with which I have fairly extensive experience and am thus very comfortable.    I really feel that black is necessary in the deck in order to compensate for the low number of win conditions.  Given that I don't have the testing resources others do, I feel it entirely possible that the best Belcher build is somewhere between this and the straight R/G build, but I am certain that the best build does contain black cards.  Changes I have made in the past couple months (and thus haven't tried out in a tournament setting) are substituting the SSG's for Tinder Walls and Empty the Warrens for Imperial Seal.  Tinder Wall does have advantages over SSG in certain situations, but I'm pretty sure that the majority of the time SSG will turn out to be better.  Imperial Seal I never really liked because of its sorcery speed, but I was willing to run it because it was a 1-mana tutor that could fetch a Belcher.  With Empty the Warrens serving as a fine alternate win condition, I don't see the need to run such a clunky spell anymore.

I don't like the straight R/G's build heavier reliance on Empty the Warrens.  I've long felt that one of Belcher's major advantages is that people tend not to prepare for it, and so can be caught off guard.  With more mainstream decks like Gifts featuring Empty the Warrens as their primary win condition, people are going to be incorporating answers for an early goblin horde into their repetoire, and I don't want Belcher to be caught in the splash damage.

Swarms are interchangeable with a few of the sideboard cards (Sprees and Therapies, to be precise) depending on the metagame.  The sideboard is actually really flexible because the deck doesn't actually utilize it that much, leaving it a lot of room.  The thing you have to remember about Belcher is that because of its speed, it doesn't so much worry about matchups as it does about specific cards (Force, Chalice, Needle, Null Rod, Sphere of Resistance, and Trinisphere) and so any answers it runs need to be more geared towards answering those cards rather than dealing with another deck's gameplan. 

The Seething Songs in the sideboard are something that occurred to me last week as I was mulling over (as I have been for some time) whether Seething Song or Cabal Ritual is better for the deck.  I realized that while the Cabal Rituals are fine for the maindeck, in any game I bring in Shattering Sprees the deck becomes much more reliant on red mana.  Thus, I can now bring in Songs for Cabal Rits in those matchups to compensate.

[policehq]

I don't like the straight R/G's build heavier reliance on Empty the Warrens.  I've long felt that one of Belcher's major advantages is that people tend not to prepare for it, and so can be caught off guard.  With more mainstream decks like Gifts featuring Empty the Warrens as their primary win condition, people are going to be incorporating answers for an early goblin horde into their repetoire, and I don't want Belcher to be caught in the splash damage.

At the same time, I think that the less Empty the Warrens you play, the more likely they are to be dead since you have played your resources toward being able to activate Goblin Charbelcher as soon as possible (before Sphere of Resistance or Chalice of the Void have resolved), and in top-deck mode, Empty the Warrens is almost always dead.

Does it not seem, to anyone else, like a card that deserves either zero slots or at least three?

-hq

[BreathWeapon]

This dude has been savage so far in testing,

Storm Entity, 1R

Creature - Elemental (TS) U

Haste
Storm Entity comes into play with a +1/+1 counter for each other spell played this turn.
1/1

He's on average a two turn clock that can be cast in addition to another threat on the same turn, and he turns into a one turn clock after a Draw7.

I think he's the best non-Ichorid card for Vintage in the set so far.

With Empty the Warrens and now Storm Entity, it's like combo gets to turn into Food Chain Goblins and GroATog at will.

[Nastaboi]

I went 4-1 with following on a local tourney:

MAIN DECK

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
1 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
1 Chrome Mox
4 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Memory Jar
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

Creatures
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Goblin Welder
 
Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
3 Seething Song

Sorceries
1 Channel
4 Empty The Warrens
4 Land Grant
4 Rite Of Flame
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Wheel Of Fortune

Lands
1 Taiga
1 Tropical Island


SIDEBOARD

3 Shattering Spree
2 Ancient Grudge
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Pyroclasm
3 Tormod's Crypt

The only match I lost was when my opponent played first turn Arcane Lab on the play - first game. The second game I won, and in the third one I mulled to five and got only Xantid first turn while my opponent played first Chill and then Propaganda to neutal my Swarm as I failed to develop any permament mana sources. Nice one-offs drawn.

About the deck, I dislike Seething Songs and sided out all the time. A couple of them is a necessary evil, but I think they'll get replaced with the new free cycling zombie thing. My SB sucked balls, I should've played some REBs with so many Arcane Labs coming against me. Arcane Lab makes winning even more difficult than Null Rod, but usually you can go off fast enough to make it not matter. Haven't decided yet whether Grudge is better than Spree, and I am going to include Carpet of Flowers in my SB next time.

[BreathWeapon]

Ancient Grudge is better than Shattering Spree in this format, it's easier to cast 1G and then R thru' a counter than it is to find RR most of the time.

[twault]

What do you consider to be the best Belcher list right now?   

Well, I can't really say what would be the best Belcher list, since I don't have the time or resources for exhaustive testing.  I can really only say what I would probably play if I was going to go to a tournament tomorrow, which would be very much like the following:

Main Deck:
1 Black Lotus
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Vault
1 Grim Monolith
4 Chromatic Star
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant
4 Dark Ritual
1 Channel
3 Cabal Ritual

1 Bayou
1 Taiga

4 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Empty the Warrens

4 Goblin Welder
3 Xantid Swarm

1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Living Wish
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Memory Jar
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Necropotence

Sideboard:
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Dark Confidant
4 Shattering Spree
2 Seething Song
1 Scavenger Folk
1 Viridian Shaman
1 Xantid Swarm
1 City of Brass
1 Tolarian Academy

I think that the new cards like Empty the Warrens, Chromatic Star, and Simian Spirit Guide make Belcher much better, but I do think there is an over-reliance on ETW in R/G builds. I think Klep is right, the best build will probably be somewhat similar to the R/B lists posted previously.

My list is R/G/B, and it's similar to what a lot of you are proposing, but I'm having conflicts in a couple of slots.

First Cabal Ritual vs Rite of Flame. Which one is better? If you are running Necro & Bargain, I suppose Cabal Ritual is necessary.

I'm going to try testing without Necro & Bargain this week. I can't believe that I'd even consider it, but after testing over the weekend, I don't think they are very useful slots anymore.

If I get either of these in my opening hand with no win condition, I mull. If I topdeck either one of these, I probably already have a win condition in my hand, and I don't really have a reason to play them.

I think the right time to play one of these is when you open with a win condition, Necro/Bargain, and not enough resources to win. (IE: Belcher, Dark Rit, Land Grant, Tinder Wall, Necropotence, Grim Monolith, Chromatic Star).The reason that I say this is because you'll probably Necro into enough mana sources to cast & activate Belcher in your next turn. However, you can't depend on Bargaining/Necroing  into a win condition. Plus, it becomes a weaker play the longer the game goes, so basically, if you are casting it after the 2nd turn, you're probably in trouble.

Secondly Xantid Swarm vs Tinder Wall. I like the Swarms, but you can Wish for them if you need them. I just don't think they are always useful as a maindeck choice, and you can always use cheap mana acceleration.

Thirdly, I'm still on the fence about YawgWill. Sometimes it wins games, and others it's not necessary. The big thing here is that there is always potential to abuse the graveyard and win. Plus, there really isn't anything that I'd consider putting in it's place that would be more useful. 

EDIT: One more thing: If you are running Dark Rituals and Cabal Rituals, shouldn't at least 1 ETW be swapped for a Tendrils? I think a list running 8 black rituals can handle the 2 black mana strain that Tendrils puts on you. With Empty the Warrens becoming such a popular win condition in several decks, it would be foolish for any deck running bounce not to include Echoing Truth.