the obvious belcher list

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

I’ve been testing belcher sporadically since reforge the soul was spoiled.  The testing has been primarily via the internet against randoms, I’m coming up on finals and dedicating  a chunk of time to sit down against a couple of player that I know for certain aren’t awful is next to impossible.

4 Reforge the Soul
4 Rite of Flame
4 Seething Song
3 Pyretic Ritual
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
3 Chrome Mox
2 Mox Opal
1 Memory Jar
4 Land Grant
2 Taiga
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Tinder Wall
1 Wheel of Fortune

SB: 1 Taiga
SB: 3 Tarmogoyf (this sounds ridiculous, but I’m thinking about putting some porcelain legionaries in this slot to stare down lodestones till I resolve some grudges)
SB: 4 Ancient Grudge
SB: 4 Wooded Foothills
SB: 3 Dismember

Obviously there are a few questionable things going on here, especially in the sb most notably the goyfs, but I figure you’re going to board out spot removal against rg belcher. The entire sb is devoted to beating shops; anyone here who knows me personally knows 12+ cards for shop is pretty typical of my combo lists. Dismember has been pretty good at killing lodestones and teegs, as well as buying a few draws by killing a goyf. Ancient grudge is pretty good against MUD and null rod, but I’m messing around with nature’s claims to get the enchantment null rod, but in that scenario I might just opt for ritual into etw (I could use any info on this that anyone has).

I’ve got some minimal notes on the main deck:
1.   There is no past in flames; it’s just not as good as having more wheels, and it creates a few too many choke points in your mana for your opponent to exploit.
2.   There’s no lotus petal, this might just be a mistake but the permanence of moxen is pretty important for repeated threats, and the spirit guides are pretty good against shops.
3.   No manamorphose. I like this card a lot; I played it a lot in grim long a while back. In rg belcher the color fixing isn’t needed, its awful against shop, you can’t do top deck tutor stuff, it can choke point your mana more than you need to.
4.   No channel. Getting gg can be tricky and you really don’t have issues making a bunch of mana to spend as colorless.
5.   I’ve yet to miracle a wheel, but hard casting it is just as easy as we all thought it would be
6.    The 3/2 chrome opal split is FANTASTIC.
7.   Playing around misstep is pretty easy. They hit a ritual, you drop a mox and spirit guide into another one. Occasionally you will have to wait a turn to activate belcher because of misstep, assuming you had to go belcher and not etw.
8.   Running 4x belcher is pretty good, a lot of times a player leans pretty had on fluster storming your etw. Again sometimes this causes you to wait a turn to belch; this is can be really nerve racking game 2.
9.   Probe is insane. A little short on mana and wondering if you should be playing against misstep, fluster storm, or force of will? Just take a peek!
10.   Against the blue match up, brute force cast belcher/wheel/ETW turn after turn still works pretty well into mid game. Just think about when you’re wheeling.

The win rate isn’t where I’d like it to be, but it’s better than a lot of the list I initially start with. This list is pretty much the most obvious one possible as a starting point, if anyone is working on anything similar feel free to share.

[Hulkwc2]

Hello!

I've been working on different variations of Belcher and I'm glad to have run into your post, because I had not considered Reforge the Soul yet! After giving it some thought and running some tests, here is the list I have arrived at:

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Tinder Wall
4 Rite of Flame
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Seething Song
1 Lotus Petal
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Desperate Ritual
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
3 Mox Opal
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
2 Manamorphose
2 Chrome Mox
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Memory Jar
4 Reforge the Soul
SB: 4 Leyline of Anticipation

Some explanations:

1. As you can see, this is a 0-land Belcher, which I find preferable if we can get away with it! Like I said, I'm playing with different versions. I find that with so many draw-7, might as well go 0-land and maximize the turn 1 combo as well as eliminate the chance to fail the Belcher.

2. 2/3 Chrome/Opal. I feel like Mox Opal is better than Chrome because of the card disadvantage of Chrome. With 3 copies it is extremely rare to run into 2 of them, and even if you do, you can still play both for the storm count. Having 2 Chrome in your hand is just as bad as 2 Opal. So might as well tilt the scale towards the stronger card. Finally, in the untimely event you draw all 3, Opal is strictly better than Chrome in this scenario. I'm sure you have considered different numbers, but this is my view.

3. Sideboard Leyline: 0-land allows us to run Leyline of Anticipation in the side against Stax. This train of thought simply accepts that Stax is a bad matchup. Instead of dedicating the entire sideboard to this match, we use only 4 slots, and we try to combo on the play. If we are on the draw, we sideboard in Leyline and try to win in response to their 1st spell. Or at least we get our moxes into play on their turn if we have a weak hand. This would depend on your metagame. If the meta is Stax heavy then maybe playing Belcher is a bad idea in the 1st place!

4. I am also working without Channel throughout many of my lists, as I find the card to be very circumstantial and more generic things fill the slot better.

5. Manamorphose is here more to fill the slots. It occasionally helps to cast Tinder Wall off red mana.

Questions:
A. No LED? No Petal? Are you sure you can get enough artifacts to tap Opal?
B. What do you think of Faithless Looting?
C. Isn't Desperate Ritual strictly better than Pyretic Ritual?
D. If we are on the play, and we draw Reforge with Gitaxian Probe, can it be played for Miracle cost? Or does the initial hand draw negate Miracle?

[meadbert]

Can someone explain Gitaxian Probe?

In my experience this card is terrible in Belcher because the mulligan is so important.  Having Gitaxian Probe in my opening hand means I must make a mulligan decision knowing only 6 cards instead of 7 and that makes my deck worse.  For this reason I do not even run Manamorphose, but at least Manamorphose fixes mana.

Also Sylvan Library is good in Belcher in general and has some synergy with Reforge the Soul since you can put it on top to use it for 2 the next turn.

It also has dissynergy since I do not want to draw a Library after a draw 7.

Also the problem with Reforge the Soul is it is hard to make the most of its alternate ability when so many of your mana sources are Sorcery speed.
Even if you are lucky enough to top deck it during your draw phase, you end up discarding a bunch of Seething Song and other sorcery speed spells.

I think the idea will mostly be to pay 5 To Wheel which is still good in a Belcher List, but it makes me terrified of counter magic.  With Warrens you are sort of uncounterable because of Storm and with Belcher you might have Welders to recur it if it is countered.  I hated having Wheel countered when I payed 3, but it was still obviously worth it, but paying 5 to have it countered is a bit scarier

[GrandpaBelcher]

Can someone explain Gitaxian Probe?

In my experience this card is terrible in Belcher because the mulligan is so important.  Having Gitaxian Probe in my opening hand means I must make a mulligan decision knowing only 6 cards instead of 7 and that makes my deck worse.  For this reason I do not even run Manamorphose, but at least Manamorphose fixes mana.

Also Sylvan Library is good in Belcher in general and has some synergy with Reforge the Soul since you can put it on top to use it for 2 the next turn.

It also has dissynergy since I do not want to draw a Library after a draw 7.

Also the problem with Reforge the Soul is it is hard to make the most of its alternate ability when so many of your mana sources are Sorcery speed.
Even if you are lucky enough to top deck it during your draw phase, you end up discarding a bunch of Seething Song and other sorcery speed spells.

I think the idea will mostly be to pay 5 To Wheel which is still good in a Belcher List, but it makes me terrified of counter magic.  With Warrens you are sort of uncounterable because of Storm and with Belcher you might have Welders to recur it if it is countered.  I hated having Wheel countered when I payed 3, but it was still obviously worth it, but paying 5 to have it countered is a bit scarier

I think Gitaxian Probe is one of the few things that would make Belcher playable right now. There are a lot of Flusterstorms and Mental Missteps running around, and it very much helps to know how best to play around them. Gitaxian Probe usually counts as a mana source in your opening hand. You just have to believe in the heart of the cards.

On the other hand, I don't think Reforge the Soul is that good. I don't want to pay five for a draw-7 in my opening hand. I want to pay four for Belcher or four for Empty the Warrens. I would also consider paying five for Memory Jar or three for Wheel of Fortune. I consistently cut cards that aren't good in the opening hand from Belcher lists (e.g. Yawgmoth's Will), and Reforge the Soul is one of them.

Also, why are people cutting Channel? That card IS good in opening hands. It's probably a top five mana producer in Belcher and is even better with cards like Mox Opal that don't go away when you use them.

[Hulkwc2]

After a lot of goldfishing, I've revised my list. It is very consistent at comboing. YES, it will have a hard time against countermagic:

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Rite of Flame
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Seething Song
1 Lotus Petal
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Desperate Ritual
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
2 Mox Opal
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
3 Chrome Mox
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Memory Jar
4 Reforge the Soul
4 Land Grant
2 Taiga

As you can see it is very similar to the initially proposed list except for an important change in Tinder Wall. I find this card to cause some inconsistent plays for lack of green mana. The slots are better served for Lotus Petal, LED, 4th ESG and 4th Ritual.

[Hulkwc2]

I am having mixed feeling about Memory Jar in this list. Its much inferior to the other draw-7, since it can't imprint Chrome Mox, and if you don't draw what you want you lose your hand. Not to mention Null Rod. Would really like to cut it out. Channel?

[Ozymandias]

No goblin welders seems like a bad idea.

[Hulkwc2]

No goblin welders seems like a bad idea.

How many Welders are recommended?