I tested his list a bit to see how it piloted. I like the maindeck removal and think the deck can be good enough in a super durdly metagame. But god is this deck slow. It's also obscenely fragile to almost every imaginable kind of disruption. I abstractly like the idea of combining the Belcher gameplan with something else to try and increase redundancy, but Elves was not the way to go. When you combine two Tier 5 decks you aren't likely to produce a Tier 4 deck. You probably just invent another Tier 5 (or worse) one.
As for the lack of citations given, it's kind of whatever. I'm just a bit disappointed because I know he knows about this thread and I am unwilling to believe (even if I can't prove it) that he was not in any way inspired by work here. In my field, we give credit where it's due even if you take an idea and develop it beyond its initial stages. I'm just disappointed to see that isn't the case here.
I tested his list a bit to see how it piloted. I like the maindeck removal and think the deck can be good enough in a super durdly metagame. But god is this deck slow. It's also obscenely fragile to almost every imaginable kind of disruption. I abstractly like the idea of combining the Belcher gameplan with something else to try and increase redundancy, but Elves was not the way to go. When you combine two Tier 5 decks you aren't likely to produce a Tier 4 deck. You probably just invent another Tier 5 (or worse) one.
As for the lack of citations given, it's kind of whatever. I'm just a bit disappointed because I know he knows about this thread and I am unwilling to believe (even if I can't prove it) that he was not in any way inspired by work here. In my field, we give credit where it's due even if you take an idea and develop it beyond its initial stages. I'm just disappointed to see that isn't the case here.
I really dislike Travis. Not only has he copied multiple decks from MTG Salvation and claimed them as his own, there was also that incident when he responded individually to each detractor in the Ninja Bear Delver thread that was saying that the deck was bad to tell them that they were wrong and that we don't understand how to play Magic as well as he does, and then he completely forgot about it when his deck turned out to be terrible.
For reference, my newest list is now in the OP. The biggest change is +3 Bolt to the maindeck. That extra interaction can make a world of difference in this metagame, especially against Infect, Burn, Twin, and Affinity. Bolt is really nasty if you don't even have Stomping Ground out; people don't really register the Sprawl set to red, or a BoP, and how that can disrupt their carefully planned combat phase. Also fun with SSG, although you probably want to save SSG for more explosive plays.
This deck has been very strong against Junk in my testing. It was weaker against Jund because Bolt traded so efficiently with Bird and because Jund typically had a faster clock. But Junk is so lazy in its gameplay that this often isn't an issue. Path against Wurmcoil is an issue that we didn't have to deal with before, which is one reason I have switched to a 2/3 split between Wurm and BSkull for now.
ktken, what came out for the bolts? 2x Rampant Growth 1x Search for Tomorrow?
Does it make you search for the stomping grounds more often than before? Does that make you miss kills where you prematurely pull Belcher?
I ditched 2 Growth and 1 SSG from a previous list to make room for 3 Bolt. Then I ditched 1 Search for Tomorrow to go +1 Recross. This has slightly affected Belcher kills in that there are games where you have to wait a turn to guarantee the lethal damage, but I think this is worth it because it can prevent autolosses to Infect, Burn, and Affinity in game 1.
Of all the splashes we can support, I think that red is the best right now. Black is too suicidal in this metagame and doesn't give us tempo efficient removal. Blue is very solid but is too slow. White might be another option, with strong removal and amazing sideboard cards, but red feels better because of SSG. If we are already running that card for other reasons, using it with red is just an added bonus (especially with Moon out of the board).
Hi, I am an occasional Legacy Belcher player, and after seeing Twoo's posts in Channel Fireball I started to get excited about the possibility of Modern Belcher. Thanks to the person who linked this thread in the comments to his last article!
Has Seal of Primordium been discussed here? (Sorry, I haven't yet read all of the previous pages) Would that be a decent SB option that wouldn't be subject to discard (except on the first turn)?
Hi, I am an occasional Legacy Belcher player, and after seeing Twoo's posts in Channel Fireball I started to get excited about the possibility of Modern Belcher. Thanks to the person who linked this thread in the comments to his last article!
Has Seal of Primordium been discussed here? (Sorry, I haven't yet read all of the previous pages) Would that be a decent SB option that wouldn't be subject to discard (except on the first turn)?
Seal is definitely viable in this deck, especially in a metagame that has lots of Abzan. Stony Silence is pretty brutal when it lands, and I prefer not to rely on Claim to handle it reactively. The only issue with Seal is that it's worse against Affinity than Claim, which puts us in the ages-old Modern challenge of diversifying our sideboard without sacrificing powerful cards. Seal also isn't an automatic out against stuff like Silence because it can still fall prey to Decay. As for other matchups, Seal works against Twin players who rely on countermagic to defend their combo (Dispel), but not against Spellskite. So it's a mixed bag.
Thanks for the quick reply! I will now try to read over the entire thread to get a feel for the history of the deck -- I am thinking now that I would like to run 3-4 Blood Moons in the SB, as there seem to be a number of decks that will fold to a T1 or T2 Moon. I will put the deck together on MTGO and see how it runs.
Thanks for the quick reply! I will now try to read over the entire thread to get a feel for the history of the deck -- I am thinking now that I would like to run 3-4 Blood Moons in the SB, as there seem to be a number of decks that will fold to a T1 or T2 Moon. I will put the deck together on MTGO and see how it runs.
Any and all test reports/feedback/criticism is welcome!
I think I'm at 3 Moons in the sideboard. I had been at more but there aren't enough decks right now that autofold to them and I'd rather have the more diversified sideboard. But 4 could be strong if you expect lots of non-Twin, Burn, and Affinity decks.
So, I put together both the enchantment and elf based builds for some play testing. The elf build can be explosive, but it is a lot more work when it isn't. I'm not nearly as happy with the rush of elves as an alt win vs wurmcoil/batterskull. The RG build from the primer is pretty consistent in finding a wincon and getting to cast it. Solid fun deck. It is pretty funny to go affinity style and barf out your hand on turn one (nearly) with elves.
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Thanks to this thread I've been experiencing with this deck as my first modern deck for two months now. I've had some great fun so far.
But I'm often at lost at what to remove and what to keep during sideboarding games though. What are you guys overall priorities/rules about what to remove and what to keep against this or that matchup? Feels like almost everything in the main is vital to me and I'm at a disadvantage no matter what I remove.
Personally the first things I take out are the slower land search spells like Rampant Growth and Sakura-Tribe Elder. After that if I still need more space I will take out Recross the Paths. It really all depends on what deck I am playing against though...
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ive got a long list of people to give credit to, starting with my mom and dad and cant forget wizards of the coast for printing magic the gathering, want to thank sameer merchant for his wood elves / skullclamp "elf clamp" deck that took over US nationals one year, shoutout to LSV for winning the Pro Tour with elf combo!!!, shoutout to Matt Nass who took me down en route to winning GP oakland to show me the power of Elvish Archdruid, thanks to all my opponents in the PTQ I top 8ed with Ezuri Elf combo, thanks to Zen Takahashi of Australia for winning a ptq with that Ezuri deck, wow gotta throw back to Aether Vial goblins, really have a long list of thanks en route to winning my first PTQ and for aether vial inspiration of the 10,000 decks I've played it in, including my testing parterns for Aether Vial Zubera. thanks to Kyle Duncan and Sammy T for showing me how powerful Path to Exile was as a removal spell and a ramp spell for Scapseshift, Sam top 16ing GP Houston and Kyle losing in the PTQ finals. thanks to Gerry T for opening my eyes to Wargate as a mana ramper that can find your combo piece. thanks to Peter Brozek super pro Aggro player who showed me how fast Chancellor of the Tangle could start things, thanks Legacy Belcher for being a thing and people pushing the archetype in that format. thanks to Larry Swasey for pioneering Modern mono white Belcher during Dark Depths meta. thanks to LSV for featuring a Belcher list on daily mtg, thanks to MTGsalvation for having a modern belcher thread, we appreciate your work.
wow I totally forgot GOBLIN RECRUITER / Goblin Charbelcher combo, that deck was sweeeeet, my first favorite belcher deck from what, 2002?? gotta give credit to my brother EWoo testing partner for the initial Belcher list at the time. im sure I forgot to mention some names in here but its hard when the experiences and ideas and cards come from so many places over the years. i think i am content not when i am given credit but when someone i respect has a similar idea to me. thats enough for me to share an idea with someone i respect.
oh ya for Chris Dodson for belching me in the Junior Super Series. we both played mono red land destruction, ours finishing with fatties his finishing with belcher off chrome mox. man i just took a road trip down some great memories. great game! thanks for the invitation to join the conversation
lol while im back here gotta shout out the two euro pros who top 8ed the pro tour with SEVERANCE BELCHER! only belcher players to top 8 a pro tour I think, both in the same pro tour. cant remember their names right now but thats a big game for belcher players everywhere
Thanks to this thread I've been experiencing with this deck as my first modern deck for two months now. I've had some great fun so far.
But I'm often at lost at what to remove and what to keep during sideboarding games though. What are you guys overall priorities/rules about what to remove and what to keep against this or that matchup? Feels like almost everything in the main is vital to me and I'm at a disadvantage no matter what I remove.
As you said, it's very matchup dependent. Good candidates for cutting (-3 or -4) or shaving (-1 or -2) include Elder, Growth, Recross, and BoP. Against fast decks, Recross is your first cut, followed by Growth/Search, followed by Elders. You can cut the Elders earlier if it's a deck that doesn't really care about blockers, like Affinity or Infect. Against slower decks, I trim down on Elder and BoP, particularly if they have a lot of efficient burn spells that can just wipe out the Birdy. This is also true of faster decks like UWR Midrange and URx Delver.
Against decks with low creature counts (UWR Control) or creatures you can't interact with anyway (Bogles), Bolt is a good card to take out. Just be cautious that you aren't setting yourself up for game 2/3 sideboard creatures like Thalia, Mindcensor, Pridemage, etc.
Hey guys look Travis Woo is not so bad, he did go ahead and give us credit in the comments on his tips and tricks page:
Yikes. I actually defended this guy once, in the comment section of a similar article, because I thought he was basically a decent dude. But between this and the reddit thread that popped up, I see that defense might have been misplaced.
I can say one thing, I get more responses of "what a cheap win" with belcher than anything else. Like it's any more cheap than twin or scapeshift. I'd rather get belched than gifts>unburial rites>fatty.
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I have been testing this deck every now and then and I have been struggling with aggro and control match ups. Aggro is usually too fast and if you don't have turn 3 wurmcoil or batterskull you just lose. And even if you land those you may lose anyway because artifact hate in games 2 and 3 is just too cheap and strong. In control match ups they just wait for our win cons to get them countered because they are so few and we don't usually have any disruption to get rid off the counters.
I have been brewing alternate angle and chose the elves to give a try because I saw it when this thread started. I didn't like Woo's list but took a few points from it. Here is a list that
I agree that there are some aggro challenges here, although Bolt has been a help in that regard (especially against Burn, where Bolting an early Guide or Swiftspear can easily buy you 6 life and 2 turns. Infect and Affinity, however, remain challenges. So I'm all for trying to figure out ways to improve those matchups.
I have two big problems with Elf Belcher and none of the lists I see address them. The fist is that these lists don't actually solve the aggro problem. Burn definitely improves because you have blockers, but Infect and Affinity would be just as bad because we still don't have ways to interact with their flyers and unblockables. Your testing even suggests that with a 65/35 matchup, which is actually worse than the Affinity matchup I tested with the current list.
My second problem with Elf Belcher is that Elves isn't a good deck itself. It's not like we are gaining some huge, metagame-relevant edge by adding in the little green men. Sure, you could think of Elf Belcher as an evolution of the two decks, not just a mishmash of both of them, but I just haven't seen it in my testing or in the lists/games I have seen online.
That said, I like the idea of combining strategies to try and make something more successful than the stock list. Just off the top of my head, here are some ideas that I think would be way more successful and relevant in this metagame:
1. RG Tron cards: Add Pyroclasm. On the one hand, Pyroclasm has absolutely zero synergy with Birds (Firespout COULD theoretically do it, but it's so hard to not cast that card with green mana). But Clasm is very strong against the hyper non-interactive cards in this metagame. It kills Guide and Eidolon, it kills GElf, Agent, Hierarch, and it kills all of Affinity's little dudes. We already have some RG Tron elements (Stirrings, Engine), so this is another step in that direction. Maybe run Clasm alongside Sylvan Caryatid, another great anti-Burn card? Or just ditch the dorks entirely for Search or something similar.
2. Big green cards: Thragtusk, Obstinate Baloth. We can cast these as early as turn 2 in some hands (turn 3 should be guaranteed in most). They totally ruin Burn's day, are relevant against Abzan, and are fine enough against Affinity. But they are pretty bad against Infect and really aren't THAT spectacular against Affinity and its flying/infecting win routes.
3. Affinity Belcher: Add Mox Opal and a ton of Affinity cards. This is an interesting one. We are already Stirrings to find Belcher, lands, and win conditions, so maybe add some other decent artifacts. Opal is a great accelerator and a lot of Affinity creatures don't even care about mana costs. So maybe this would look like Memnite/Thopter/Pest/Skirge for some kind of super swarm aggro route. Lots of ways we could go with artifacts though, especially as Stirrings is already so strong in this deck.
I think that any of those ideas would be at least as good as an Elf route and probably better.
I've happily run both Thragtusk and Pyroclasm in the board, I could see an argument for them main if the meta you expect is really heavily pushed that way, I mean trading a BoP for the whole of Affinity's board is a good deal
I've tried a brown version of this deck a few times and can never get it to work its never quite consistant enough to make it worth it.
One last point worth mentioning, if your meta is really skewed to infect sideboarding a Melira, Sylvok Outcast isn't the end of the world, the card isn't just a combo piece
So I'm just getting back into Magic, and with that, Modern mainly. I love this deck and have every part but the Ancient Stirrings, something my LGS ran out of. I play Monday, is there any hope for a substitute in the meantime? If I can't find any?
In my non elf list I run 2 obstinate baloth, in part to address the burn aggro issue and in part because I don't own multiple wurmcoils/batterskulls. They are highly functional, not just for the life gain but a 4/4 is still a threat and if someone wants to make me discard...well it's free.
Two things could help address the affinity and infect matchups. Against affinity you could board in a sweeper as mentioned, or something like ghostly prison which also neuters tokens and twin. With birds of paradise, utopia sprawl, or a noble heirarch white is easy enough. Against infect (this is narrow tech) there's melira, sylvok outcast, favor of the mighty, and spellskite. Melira could help against affinity too and their inkmoth plan.
Arcadence: you could splash blue, it's not hard with a breeding pool, and run fabricate to go find belcher.
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In sort of unrelated news I'm thinking of making some videos of this deck on XMage (I've been enjoying the rules implementation but they don't have Recross the Paths ). A) is this something people might actually like to see and B) does anyone want to play a gauntlet against me?
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http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/elf-belcher-tips-and-tricks/
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
I tested his list a bit to see how it piloted. I like the maindeck removal and think the deck can be good enough in a super durdly metagame. But god is this deck slow. It's also obscenely fragile to almost every imaginable kind of disruption. I abstractly like the idea of combining the Belcher gameplan with something else to try and increase redundancy, but Elves was not the way to go. When you combine two Tier 5 decks you aren't likely to produce a Tier 4 deck. You probably just invent another Tier 5 (or worse) one.
As for the lack of citations given, it's kind of whatever. I'm just a bit disappointed because I know he knows about this thread and I am unwilling to believe (even if I can't prove it) that he was not in any way inspired by work here. In my field, we give credit where it's due even if you take an idea and develop it beyond its initial stages. I'm just disappointed to see that isn't the case here.
I really dislike Travis. Not only has he copied multiple decks from MTG Salvation and claimed them as his own, there was also that incident when he responded individually to each detractor in the Ninja Bear Delver thread that was saying that the deck was bad to tell them that they were wrong and that we don't understand how to play Magic as well as he does, and then he completely forgot about it when his deck turned out to be terrible.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
This deck has been very strong against Junk in my testing. It was weaker against Jund because Bolt traded so efficiently with Bird and because Jund typically had a faster clock. But Junk is so lazy in its gameplay that this often isn't an issue. Path against Wurmcoil is an issue that we didn't have to deal with before, which is one reason I have switched to a 2/3 split between Wurm and BSkull for now.
XMage allows you to play against a (very basic) bot. You can give it burn/removal/counter decks to simulate certain tough environments.
Note: Goblin Guide is pretty ridiculous against us
ktken, what came out for the bolts? 2x Rampant Growth 1x Search for Tomorrow?
Does it make you search for the stomping grounds more often than before? Does that make you miss kills where you prematurely pull Belcher?
I ditched 2 Growth and 1 SSG from a previous list to make room for 3 Bolt. Then I ditched 1 Search for Tomorrow to go +1 Recross. This has slightly affected Belcher kills in that there are games where you have to wait a turn to guarantee the lethal damage, but I think this is worth it because it can prevent autolosses to Infect, Burn, and Affinity in game 1.
Of all the splashes we can support, I think that red is the best right now. Black is too suicidal in this metagame and doesn't give us tempo efficient removal. Blue is very solid but is too slow. White might be another option, with strong removal and amazing sideboard cards, but red feels better because of SSG. If we are already running that card for other reasons, using it with red is just an added bonus (especially with Moon out of the board).
Has Seal of Primordium been discussed here? (Sorry, I haven't yet read all of the previous pages) Would that be a decent SB option that wouldn't be subject to discard (except on the first turn)?
Seal is definitely viable in this deck, especially in a metagame that has lots of Abzan. Stony Silence is pretty brutal when it lands, and I prefer not to rely on Claim to handle it reactively. The only issue with Seal is that it's worse against Affinity than Claim, which puts us in the ages-old Modern challenge of diversifying our sideboard without sacrificing powerful cards. Seal also isn't an automatic out against stuff like Silence because it can still fall prey to Decay. As for other matchups, Seal works against Twin players who rely on countermagic to defend their combo (Dispel), but not against Spellskite. So it's a mixed bag.
Any and all test reports/feedback/criticism is welcome!
I think I'm at 3 Moons in the sideboard. I had been at more but there aren't enough decks right now that autofold to them and I'd rather have the more diversified sideboard. But 4 could be strong if you expect lots of non-Twin, Burn, and Affinity decks.
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Thanks to this thread I've been experiencing with this deck as my first modern deck for two months now. I've had some great fun so far.
But I'm often at lost at what to remove and what to keep during sideboarding games though. What are you guys overall priorities/rules about what to remove and what to keep against this or that matchup? Feels like almost everything in the main is vital to me and I'm at a disadvantage no matter what I remove.
GModern Belcher
GGreen Deck Wins
3I'm the King
RBlazeTron
also the new primer looks FANTASTIC! thanks ktkenshinx for all your hard work!
As you said, it's very matchup dependent. Good candidates for cutting (-3 or -4) or shaving (-1 or -2) include Elder, Growth, Recross, and BoP. Against fast decks, Recross is your first cut, followed by Growth/Search, followed by Elders. You can cut the Elders earlier if it's a deck that doesn't really care about blockers, like Affinity or Infect. Against slower decks, I trim down on Elder and BoP, particularly if they have a lot of efficient burn spells that can just wipe out the Birdy. This is also true of faster decks like UWR Midrange and URx Delver.
Against decks with low creature counts (UWR Control) or creatures you can't interact with anyway (Bogles), Bolt is a good card to take out. Just be cautious that you aren't setting yourself up for game 2/3 sideboard creatures like Thalia, Mindcensor, Pridemage, etc.
Yikes. I actually defended this guy once, in the comment section of a similar article, because I thought he was basically a decent dude. But between this and the reddit thread that popped up, I see that defense might have been misplaced.
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I agree that there are some aggro challenges here, although Bolt has been a help in that regard (especially against Burn, where Bolting an early Guide or Swiftspear can easily buy you 6 life and 2 turns. Infect and Affinity, however, remain challenges. So I'm all for trying to figure out ways to improve those matchups.
I have two big problems with Elf Belcher and none of the lists I see address them. The fist is that these lists don't actually solve the aggro problem. Burn definitely improves because you have blockers, but Infect and Affinity would be just as bad because we still don't have ways to interact with their flyers and unblockables. Your testing even suggests that with a 65/35 matchup, which is actually worse than the Affinity matchup I tested with the current list.
My second problem with Elf Belcher is that Elves isn't a good deck itself. It's not like we are gaining some huge, metagame-relevant edge by adding in the little green men. Sure, you could think of Elf Belcher as an evolution of the two decks, not just a mishmash of both of them, but I just haven't seen it in my testing or in the lists/games I have seen online.
That said, I like the idea of combining strategies to try and make something more successful than the stock list. Just off the top of my head, here are some ideas that I think would be way more successful and relevant in this metagame:
1. RG Tron cards: Add Pyroclasm. On the one hand, Pyroclasm has absolutely zero synergy with Birds (Firespout COULD theoretically do it, but it's so hard to not cast that card with green mana). But Clasm is very strong against the hyper non-interactive cards in this metagame. It kills Guide and Eidolon, it kills GElf, Agent, Hierarch, and it kills all of Affinity's little dudes. We already have some RG Tron elements (Stirrings, Engine), so this is another step in that direction. Maybe run Clasm alongside Sylvan Caryatid, another great anti-Burn card? Or just ditch the dorks entirely for Search or something similar.
2. Big green cards: Thragtusk, Obstinate Baloth. We can cast these as early as turn 2 in some hands (turn 3 should be guaranteed in most). They totally ruin Burn's day, are relevant against Abzan, and are fine enough against Affinity. But they are pretty bad against Infect and really aren't THAT spectacular against Affinity and its flying/infecting win routes.
3. Affinity Belcher: Add Mox Opal and a ton of Affinity cards. This is an interesting one. We are already Stirrings to find Belcher, lands, and win conditions, so maybe add some other decent artifacts. Opal is a great accelerator and a lot of Affinity creatures don't even care about mana costs. So maybe this would look like Memnite/Thopter/Pest/Skirge for some kind of super swarm aggro route. Lots of ways we could go with artifacts though, especially as Stirrings is already so strong in this deck.
I think that any of those ideas would be at least as good as an Elf route and probably better.
I've tried a brown version of this deck a few times and can never get it to work its never quite consistant enough to make it worth it.
One last point worth mentioning, if your meta is really skewed to infect sideboarding a Melira, Sylvok Outcast isn't the end of the world, the card isn't just a combo piece
UR Storm
RBG Dredge
EDH:
UR Mizzix
GB Gitrog
WB Daxos
Two things could help address the affinity and infect matchups. Against affinity you could board in a sweeper as mentioned, or something like ghostly prison which also neuters tokens and twin. With birds of paradise, utopia sprawl, or a noble heirarch white is easy enough. Against infect (this is narrow tech) there's melira, sylvok outcast, favor of the mighty, and spellskite. Melira could help against affinity too and their inkmoth plan.
Arcadence: you could splash blue, it's not hard with a breeding pool, and run fabricate to go find belcher.
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In sort of unrelated news I'm thinking of making some videos of this deck on XMage (I've been enjoying the rules implementation but they don't have Recross the Paths ). A) is this something people might actually like to see and B) does anyone want to play a gauntlet against me?