That's what we call a no-****ter. The issue is obviously not how to play around sweepers. The issue is what mana accelerators should we be using to balance maximized speed and long-run consistency. This is particularly important in matchups where speed matters and we can't afford to screw around by holding back dorks. If I'm facing down RG Tron's turn 3 Karn, or even a turn 4 Karn on the draw, then the last thing I want to do is worry about Pyroclasm. I want to play my Belcher and either take out Karn, if I don't have enough lands out of my deck to guarantee lethal, or just go straight for the kill. But if I'm heavy on dorks, I might not be able to get the mana needed to cast Belcher, unless I have multiple guys on the field. Or have the mana needed to access our 3 mana spells. The fear is that with 8+ dorks, I will have to extend into the Pyro to race a deck like Tron. Going lighter on dorks and heavier on Sprawl and similar cards keeps our speed without having to worry about sweepers as much in race games. The tradeoff is potentially consistent opening hands, which can be made worse if we go 4 Sprawl and can't drop it on a land.
Currently, I'm on 4 Birds, 2 Elves, and 3 Sprawl. This feels right because I rarely have situations where I need to have 2 dorks in play.
Let's just put a fork in this turkey and carve it up.
It's a consistent T5 deck with inconsistent T4 wins. The only way to change that scenario is adding R to the situation and puking out a creature like Satyr Hedonist, which I am not a fan of.
Sprawl isn't the answer for consistency without losing tempo. I really don't know what is. It's true that enchantments are harder to remove than creatures.
Let's get really far outside the box and try Magus of the Vineyard or Overgrown Battlement which might actually be the trick with the Gatecreeper Vines. Wall of Roots. It is less likely that your opponent will want to blow away the Magus unless they are Mono R or something because there is added benefit to both parties.
The question is: Could we capitalize on that faster than our opponent?
See, that first hand you listed had a Lay of the Land in it. That's a keeper. If the mana dork was a Sprawl instead you could just as well have enchanted one of your lands, netting the same advantage. I was referring to hands without any Lay/Quest/Vigil or lands - "nonland, nontutor".
For your second hand, the best play is Creeper, play land, cast dork. Again, if the dork was a Sprawl it'd be better.
One other big advantage Sprawl has over a mana dork is that Sprawl has "haste" if you have at least 2 lands. Consider the following scenario:
It's turn 2.
1 land on the battlefield
1 Forest in hand
1 Rampant Growth in hand
1 Utopia Sprawl in hand
some other irrelevant cards in hand
The most efficient play is: play Forest, cast Sprawl on the other land, tap Sprawled land for 2 mana, cast Rampant Growth.
Now if Sprawl was a mana dork instead, the best you can muster is play Forest, Rampant Growth.
If you really need more convincing, just goldfish the deck a few times and ask yourself, whenever you draw a mana dork, "Would I be better off if that dork was a Sprawl instead?" If you find yourself saying "yes" frequently then it's time to make the switch.
I've been goldfishing with Sprawl, and you make some interesting points. I still don't believe it's strictly better though. I think the ability to chump is really important, but Sprawl certainly has it's advantages. It's certainly not as bad as Arbor Elf. I assume you are running 4 dorks and 4 Sprawl?
Interesting list. How's Simian Spirit Guide working out for you? I'm also curious about Gitaxian Probe, are you having a problem paying the life? Especially with so few blockers
Don't feel discouraged about the mill, it's a very rough match for us, but it's pretty uncommon in the meta.
I would prefer Guttural Response, it can hit, bounce spells etc?
Guttural Response can also protect spells like harrow. Nothing is corse than having harrow countered. Pact can only be used to protect belcher because we HAVE to win right then or we lose the game.
Sprawl isn't the answer for consistency without losing tempo. I really don't know what is. It's true that enchantments are harder to remove than creatures.
The only scenario where Sprawl is worse than a dork is in hands with no lands and no 1 CMC land searchers. Then Sprawl can't stick to anything off Chancellor and you have to mulligan an otherwise playable hand. But so long as you have either a land or a chancellor and a land-to-hander, then Sprawl is just as good. In corner cases where you have either 2 Chancellors and 1 Lay/Quest/Vigil or 1 land + 1 Chancellor, Sprawl is even better than a dork. In those situations, you can drop it on a recently played land and immediately have access to Steve or Creeper.
In the dozens of goldfish games I have played, plus my ongoing BG Rock tests, a 3 Sprawl/6 Dork or 4 Sprawl/5 Dork setup seems right. I'd be hesitant to go too heavy on either of these cards because they don't thin the deck even if they do accelerate. Topdecking them when you need to be topdecking Belcher/Recross/Abundance, or Reach/Cultivate/Harrow, is a big disappointment. But we do want at least 1 or 2 in our opening hand, and 9 gives us a 75% chance of having at least 1.
Let's get really far outside the box and try Magus of the Vineyard or Overgrown Battlement which might actually be the trick with the Gatecreeper Vines. Wall of Roots. It is less likely that your opponent will want to blow away the Magus unless they are Mono R or something because there is added benefit to both parties.
I'm leery of the 2 CMC accelerators because the most important part of the deck is getting from 1 to 2 mana. All of the cards that get us from 1 to 2 mana will also get us from 2 to 3 mana. But the cards that get us from 2 to 3 mana will not necessarily get us from 1 to 2 on the first two turns.
Magus is a guy I keep trying to find a home for; I tested him in a more manaless, ritual heavy Belcher way at the beginning of the format, but ended up pitching him because he often enabled my opponent to both kill the Magus and advance their own gameplan. Against BG Rock, for example, he would allow a free Goyf or Scooze on top of a Decay/Dismember. Decks like Affinity might not be able to reliably handle him, but Modern has too many decks that could capitalize on the mana and then kill the Magus. Or, in the case of a deck like Pod or Tron, capitalize on the mana and then win outright. So even if he sticks, he isn't necessarily something we can abuse more than our opponent. And unlike the other supposed answer-or-die creatures (e.g. Electromancer), Magus directly facilitates his own death. So I am also, like you, worried about using him.
Interesting list. How's Simian Spirit Guide working out for you? I'm also curious about Gitaxian Probe, are you having a problem paying the life? Especially with so few blockers
Probe seems bad because this deck is opening hand dependent, and Probe makes it hard to read what's really in our opening hand. We can keep stuff that ends up being bad if our Probe doesn't cycle into something we can use. That said, it would be nice to know if our opponent is holding on to Pulse in the Jund matchup, so we can know whether to hold the Belcher back for 7 mana, or play it to avoid a topdecked TS. But I am still worried about how Probe affects our delicate opening hands.
SSG might be playable just because he jump us from 1 to 2 mana on the first turn, or even 2 to 3 mana on the first turn. I wouldn't want to go over 3 copies of the ape because he doesn't actually allow us to cast any of our 16+ 1 mana spells. He's only good if you have the mana source (Chancellor or Land) in addition to the 2/3 CMC card. He's worth testing, but I don't know what I would cut. Probably some dorks and maybe some creepers? Not sure.
Also, SSG on the draw opens us up to big blowouts from IoK. If we keep a hand that is dependent on an SSG explosive start into something at 2 or 3 mana, an early discard can wreck our first few turns. In the current iteration of the deck, our hands are so redundant that discard rarely matters. The more combo-focused we make our acceleration, the more we open ourselves to discard.
Alright, so me and my friends finished our tests against BGw Rock (BG Souls) the other day. For reference, we used the 2nd place BGw Rock list from GP Brisbane. For our Belcher list, we used the one below. The most controversial part of this list will probably be the 7 lands instead of 8, which decreases the chance of having at least one mana source in our opening hand from roughly 81% to only 78%. In exchange, we get to thin quicker, use Recross/Abundance earlier, and have a lethal Belcher more often.
The sideboard was picked to give us answers against the widest range of decks in the metagame. Nature's Claim was given the nod over Deglamer, Naturalize, or Quiet Disrepair because it is so cheap. It means that we often have the mana needed to both cast Belcher and kill a Stony Silence (more on Silence later...). It's not set in stone but it's a good starting point.
TEST PARAMETERS
Deck pilots ran 5 game 1s and 5 games 2/3s before recording results, just to familiarize themselves with the decks. Belcher also got 20 goldfishes just so we understood how the deck mulliganed and how its decision tree worked out. Players were experienced Magic slingers with extensive tournament and Modern experience.
For Game 1, preboard, we ran 15 games on the play and 15 on the draw, selecting the player with the most Jund experience for BG Souls, and the most combo experience for Belcher. For the sake of speed, all 30 games for game 1 were done in Magic Workstation instead of paper; it is much quicker to shuffle in that program, and Belcher has a LOT of shuffle effects. Although this may introduce some odd randomization elements, it is probably no different than the paper matchups (And almost certainly no different from the MTGO ones).
For Game 2, postboard, we also ran 15 games on the play and 15 on the draw. Before we started the postboard games, we played a few sample rounds just to see what cards would be important and how best to sideboard. Our sideboard substitutions are discussed below.
OVERALL RESULTS
Thin Belcher has a very strong game 1 against BG Souls, but a very weak games 2 and 3.
Game 1 win rate: 76% (23/30) Average game 1 win turn: Turn 5
Game 2 win rate: 40% (12/30) Average game 2 win turn: Turn 5
In game 1, BG Souls has a tough time interacting with our game plan. Edge doesn't hit our lands. Most of our creatures aren't worth removing (Steve, Gatecreeper) or are too redundant to matter (dorks). Discard hurts, but Recross/Abundance lets us hide cards on top of our deck for use on the next turn. Souls also doesn't play enough Pulses to kill a resolved Belcher. The big fear in game 1 is a turn 2 Lilly, especially on the draw, which quickly threatens her ultimate. But for the most part, this is an easy game.
Then comes games 2 and 3; not favorable for the Belcher pilot. This is almost entirely due to one card in the sideboard of the Souls deck: Stony Silence. As I will talk about later, the BG Souls player resolved Silence in 10 of the 30 games. Belcher won exactly 0 of the games in which Stony resolved; stated another way, Belcher lost 100% of games where the Souls player resolved Silence. Add that to the additional pressures of Souls and you have a recipe for disaster.
GAME 1 DISCUSSION
The key to game 1 is that many Souls spells just aren't very good against our deck. Decay hits our mana acceleration, but almost all of it costs 1 mana, so the 2 mana removal spell is rarely a favorable trade for an opponent. Same with Dismember and Throat. IoK is similarly pretty bad against us because it doesn't hit Belcher (nor does Decay). TS is always a strong card, but Recross/Abundance lets us hide cards on top of our deck.
Game 1 win rate: 76% (23/30) Game 1 mulligan rate: 30% (9/30) Average mulligan: 5.5 Win rate when mulliganing? 56% (5/9) # of games when IoK'd or TS'd: 15/30 Win rate when IoK'd/TS'd: 87% (13/15)
Even with 7 lands, I wasn't mulling a lot. And when I did mull, I was still winning; I won a game after mulling to 4 with a topdecked Belcher on turn 4. I also ate a discard spell in half of my games (maybe more if we forget to make a note of it), but it didn't affect my win rate at all. If anything, the discard spell was something I could easily ignore, so it ended up being worse for my opponent to keep hands with it.
Almost all of my losses were to turn 2 Lillys or turn 3 Lillys with Souls on the play. If you get a slow start and can't race her to 6 loyalty, then you are going to lose. I managed to win 2 games that I should have lost to her ult by deciding to fire a Belcher at her instead of at the opponent. In both games, my deck wasn't thinned enough to guarantee lethal, but a Lilly ult would definitely spell game over.
Here are some quick notes on game 1:
Holding vs. playing Belcher
If your opponent already fired a TS, then it doesn't matter whether you hold or play Belcher; most Souls lists pack 3 TS and 2-3 Pulse, leaning towards 2. But if your opponent has not fired a TS, then never keep it in your hand. The chances of them drawing a TS are higher than those of drawing a Pulse.
Only block 4+ power Goyfs
Don't waste your chump blockers on chump damage, especially if it adds creatures to the yard. If you block a 3 power Goyf on turn 3 and prevent 3 damage to you, Goyf could tick up to 4 power next turn. Then you take 8 damage over the next 2 turns. If instead you let that Goyf slip through twice, you are still only down 6 damage and can now block the third attack to be ahead.
Swing at Lilly to keep her off 6 loyalty
If Lilly ults, we lose. In both games 1 and 2/3, I lost 100% of games where Lilly ulted. If Steve or Llanowar Elves can poke her and keep her off loyalty, that is often better than directly thinning your deck for land. Obviously, don't attack suicidally. But turn 2 Lilly can often be attacked by something, as can turn 3 Lilly.
Try and save Recross to tutor
In the 7 land version, you can often use Recross on turn 4 as a tutor, or even on turn 3 with some hands. Try and save it for that purpose even if it means wasting a single turn waiting for another land searcher. We only have 4 Recross in the deck. We have about 25+ other thinners. Wait for the thinner and use Recross to find your win. You can also gamble on a Recross Clash because our average mana cost is much higher than that of an opponents (we only play 7 lands).
CHANCELLOR BEATZ
I won two games in game 1 because of Chancellor either beating down or serving as a blocker. 6/7 is absolutely massive and he can kill all but the scariest Goyf. Vigilance lets him pressure an opponent and keep you alive, and Reach lets him swat Souls tokens. If your opponent has Confidant online, in addition to TS/Fetch/Shock damage, he can't afford to let this guy connect.
GAMES 2/3 DISCUSSION
This game revolved entirely around Stony Silence. If it resolved, I lost. If it didn't resolve, I probably won. The big issue here is that Silence is a permanent, proactive answer to Belcher. The other big issue is that all of our ways of killing it (Claim and Beast) need to stick around in our hand to be relevant. Remember our relative immunity to IoK and TS in game 1? It's gone. Now we are majorly at the mercy of those cards.
Games 2/3 win rate: 40% (12/30) Games 2/3 mulligan rate: 27% (8/30) Average mulligan: 5 Win rate when mulliganing? 25% (2/8) Stony Silence games: 10/30 Stony Silence game win rate: 0% (0/10) Non-Stony Silence game win rate: 60% (12/20)
Stony Silence sucks. I hate that card. Because we don't have any hand disruption in our own deck, the BG Souls player can just hold it back until turn 3 and trick us into thinking a win is in sight. Killing Silence is easy in theory, but in practice it forces us to rely on holding cards in hand over many turns, which opens us up to targeted discard.
The problem with Stony is that the Souls player drops it and then advances on with their game plan. We have to stop everything to remove the card, which turns our deck from a 1 card combo into a 2 card combo with fewer ways of finding the removal half of the combo. All it takes then is 1 Goyf plus a DRS to clock us to 0 in 4-5 turns (And DRS never has any shortage of pinging fuel).
Adding in the 5 removal spells from the board also made me a bit less explosive, so there were games when I couldn't answer a turn 3 Lilly ticking up to her ult. It was nice to have additional answers to Arenas when they resolved, but my removal was often either discarded by targeted spells or pitched to Lilly +1 to keep better cards in my hand.
Here are some notes from games 2/3:
Never hold Belcher
Souls players will probably board in their additional TS in games 2 and 3, especially if they anticipate our removal being brought in to handle Silence. But that's additional vulnerability for our Belchers in hand. So as soon as you get one, play it. Moreover, we need to maximize our mana; if you ever draw a removal spell to kill an active Stony, you need to be able to activate the Belcher immediately because you were already probably on the clock.
Try and play Chancellor
The Souls player will almost definitely board out a bunch of creature removal in games 2 and 3, which makes Chancellor even better. We tend to have enough random dudes on our board to keep Chancellor safe from Lilly, and even if they chump it with Goyf/Confidant/Scooze and Dismember, we are still up a card from that exchange. Chancellor also doesn't give a crap about Stony Silence (Even if the thing in the picture looks like it could be related).
When making Recross stacks, alternate Belcher/Removal/Belcher/etc.
In most games against Souls, the Souls player had out either Bob or Arena. That's a lot of card draw and the Souls player will tend to get Pulse/Silence by the time you get Belcher. In anticipation of either threat, make sure your Recross tutoring will alternate Belcher and removal, maximizing your chances of punching through whatever the Souls player throws at you. If you stack 2 Belchers and they Silence, you just double timewalked yourself. If you stack 2 removal with no belcher, you have no win condition if they are just holding pulse.
Don't mulligan aggressively
If your hand looks semi-playable, then play it. Even if it doesnt have removal or Belchers, it's better than a grip of 6 or 5 with only one of those cards. Why? Lilly and the other discard spells. It's almost always better to maximize your hand and thin through your deck than focus on specific cards. If Lilly puts you behind too early, then you won't recover from a mull to 6, especially if backed up with IoK/TS.
CONCLUSIONS
This deck has a lot more potential than some people are giving it credit. It's very hard to interact with in game 1 and surprisingly resilient to all but the most dedicated sideboard cards in games 2/3 (and even then, 40% win rate isn't that terrible). Based on my experience with BG Souls, here are the changes I would make to the deck:
-4 Birds of Paradise
+4 Elvish Mystic OR +1/2 Mystic/+3/2 Arbor Elves
Birds are probably there to enable some splashed hate in the board, like Grudge or Decay or something similar. But because we don't have a reliable way of finding the lands to cast those cards, I would advise against it. Once we don't have BoP, then we want some 1 power dudes in this deck. Why? Pinging Lilly and chumping Bob. This can buy us a solid 1-3 turns against Souls /Jund/Junk/Rock lists. If we find a more elegant/consistent way of getting out something like Stomping Ground or Overgrown Tomb, then we can keep the Birds to enable cards like Grudge/Decay/TS in the board. But if not, then the 1 power on the Elves is going to be better.
The rationale for adding Arbor would be the combo with Sprawl, but we also don't want Arbor if we don't also have a Forest. So a 1/3 split between Mystic/Arbor is probably better, or 2/2.
Transformational board?
When facing a card like Stony Silence, maybe we don't want to screw around trying to remove it. I failed at that in 10 of my 10 games facing it. Chancellor was a much more viable win route, even if he ended up losing for lack of real evasion or trample. Instead of going all-in on Belcher in games 2/3, maybe we should try and pump out a serious threat with our mana acceleration and win off of that. Dungrove Elder is an option, but his lack of evasion makes me hesitant to use him. Wurmcoil wouldn't be too terrible here. Maybe even Khalni Hydra, which we can definitely resolve around turn 4. Just some random thoughts. We can also use Recross to find Belcher if we want to win with that instead (keeping 1-2 copies in the deck).
7 vs. 8 lands
When you have 7 lands, you mulligan in 4% more games than if you have 8. Your Harrow is also a little riskier. In exchange, you guarantee lethal Belcher in more games, and you can Recross as a tutor a turn earlier on average. I'm not sure which is better because there is a complex mix of probability and non-probability factors at work here. 7 worked out fine for me in game 1 of my Souls series, but the additional mulls were problems in games 2/3. For reference, the chance of having at least 1 mana source in your opening 7 is around 81% with 8 lands and 4 Chancellor, and 78% for 7 lands and 4 Chancellor.
Let me know any questions or reflections you all have!
Why the hell is BG (The Rock) running Stony Silence in the sideboard? It isn't even on colour. The only way they can muster that out is with DRS?
Did you click on the list? It's BG Rock + Souls (i.e. BGw Souls). I just called it "Rock" because I don't want to get into the whole Junk vs. Rock debate here. It was just BG Rock for months, even with a Souls addition. I switched all the terms in case it's unclear.
Great analysis ktkenshinx, please keep up the good work. Before I respond to it I did want to post a response to your previous post. I agree with you about Gitaxian Probe, it's not a card we really want early game, and it's not necessary, although in the BG Rock match up, the information could have been useful. I wouldn't waste space for it in my 75 though. The same goes with mana rocks, which I don't think have a place at all here.
As for your analysis it was very extensive. Gosh I freaking hate turn 2 Lily with a passion. It's got to be one of the most derp derp plays in Modern right now. Stony Silence does really suck for us. I'm a little surprised you didn't board in Noxious Revival, to help deal with some of the discard.
I'm not entirely sure I agree with your analysis of Elvish Mystic being better than Birds of Paradise, it probably is in this match up. But there are probably match ups where the ability to chump block fliers matters.
7 lands, man that's low. Very interesting that your data shows it hardly makes a difference. It's worth testing, although like you mentioned, it makes Harrow even tricker. I think with 7 lands, 4 Harrow is out of the question, 3 might even be too many.
Were you ever chumping with the dorks? How often were Bob and Goyf swinging? You mentioned attacking with Sakura-Tribe Elder, how often did that occur, do you usually wait to crack him until someone swings into him, or do you crack him right away?
The transformation board seems tempting, but I like your board, because I feel other match ups, particularly blue control, can be handled more easily. By the way, I would love to see more analyses like these some time in the future, perhaps for match ups like Merfolk, Soul Sisters, and other Proven and Established decks.
Overall, this seems like a near even match up post board, but favorable pre board. If you had to take a guess, what decks would also have a near even match up? What would be some better match ups for us? Worse ones?
P.S. Newb question, is Steve Sakura-Tribal Elder? If so, can you tell me a little bit about the origin of that name?
As for your analysis it was very extensive. Gosh I freaking hate turn 2 Lily with a passion. It's got to be one of the most derp derp plays in Modern right now. Stony Silence does really suck for us. I'm a little surprised you didn't board in Noxious Revival, to help deal with some of the discard.
I was worried about Revival because of DRS and Scooze. Although DRS couldn't remove Belcher, it could exile our Claims/Beasts/Recross/Stirrings. There were definitely times where I would have liked to draw it, but for the most part, DRS would have made it ineffective on anything but Belcher.
I'm not entirely sure I agree with your analysis of Elvish Mystic being better than Birds of Paradise, it probably is in this match up. But there are probably match ups where the ability to chump block fliers matters.
The clear issue here is Affinity with Inkmoth and Ornithopter. If I was worried about Affinity, then I would run Birds. But in a metagame with more BGx, my 1 power elves are going to be way more valuable. Right now, BGx decks (Junk, Jund, Ajundi, Rock, Souls) make up about 22% of the MTGO metagame, with Affinity only making up 10%. To me, that's clear reason to go with the 1 power dorks.
7 lands, man that's low. Very interesting that your data shows it hardly makes a difference. It's worth testing, although like you mentioned, it makes Harrow even tricker. I think with 7 lands, 4 Harrow is out of the question, 3 might even be too many.
Yeah, I'm still totally undecided on the 7 or 8 lands. I might cut down to 2 Harrow and add in another Abundance or Cultivate instead, at least if I stick with 7 lands. 8 lands is probably a tad more consistent but I found myself unable to cast turn 4 Recross as a tutor with 8 lands in the deck. 7 lands let me do it pretty consistently on turn 4 or even 3.
Were you ever chumping with the dorks? How often were Bob and Goyf swinging? You mentioned attacking with Sakura-Tribe Elder, how often did that occur, do you usually wait to crack him until someone swings into him, or do you crack him right away?
I didn't keep track of the number of attacks. My guess is that Bob swung in every game where he landed, so probably about 50% of games. Goyf and/or Scooze were swinging in another 70% (nonexclusive of the 50%). So the vast majority of games saw either Bob or Goyf/Scooze swinging at me.
I cracked Steve if the +1 mana would enable me to play 1 more card than I otherwise would. So if I had 3 mana on turn 2 and cracked Steve for 4 on turn 3 with no land dropped, I could potentially have 5 mana available then which opens up a lot of play trees. But if the +1 land wouldn't let me do anything extra (say, if I had a Cultivate and Recross and could only cast one anyway), then I would keep him around. I would also keep him around if my opponent had a Goyf already at 3+ power.
The exception to all of this is if you already have Belcher. Drop that baby on turn 3 and never look back. The overwhelming majority of BGx decks are running 2 Pulse or even 1, whereas they are also running 3 or even 4 Thoughtseize. So resolving the turn 3 Belcher is generally safer than keeping it in your hand. It also lets you threaten lethal earlier, or if you can't rely on lethal, threaten to blow up Lilly before she can ult. If Steve can facilitate this, then I'm cracking him.
The transformation board seems tempting, but I like your board, because I feel other match ups, particularly blue control, can be handled more easily. By the way, I would love to see more analyses like these some time in the future, perhaps for match ups like Merfolk, Soul Sisters, and other Proven and Established decks.
I generally dislike most of the Proven and Established decks, sadly. It's the combo brews that get me excited (See Cheerios for an example).
Overall, this seems like a near even match up post board, but favorable pre board. If you had to take a guess, what decks would also have a near even match up? What would be some better match ups for us? Worse ones?
Affinity is going to be a noninteractive race. If we have Birds, we should be slightly favorable because we can chump the scariest stuff. Postboard it will still be slightly favorable because our sideboard cards are more helpful than theirs.
Twin is going to be ugly because we can't interact with their plan in game 1, and we can barely race them with the best hands. Add in Remand, Cryptic, and Bolt, and that seems pretty darn unfavorable. Postboard it will be only slightly unfavorable.
Game 1 vs. UWR Control should be strong. We hit 7-8 mana quickly and then they need to counter all 4 Belchers to stay alive. Most of their removal is active but not particularly effective against us. Because it isn't a race, we can play conservatively. Games 2/3 will be crappy with the added countermagic, Stony Silence, and artifact removal.
Not sure about Tron or Pod. I'll probably test out RG Tron next because it seems the most interesting of the matchups.
P.S. Newb question, is Steve Sakura-Tribal Elder? If so, can you tell me a little bit about the origin of that name?
Sakura-Tribe Elder. Add the "ve" and you get STEve. At least, that was always my understanding of the moniker.
Did you click on the list? It's BG Rock + Souls (i.e. BGw Souls). I just called it "Rock" because I don't want to get into the whole Junk vs. Rock debate here. It was just BG Rock for months, even with a Souls addition. I switched all the terms in case it's unclear.
Yeah, I wouldn't call that list Junk either. It's missing a few critical elements. The sideboard plan for that list is quite a bit different from the typical Rock builds. As such I wouldn't say it is indicative of BG builds.
A better indicator would be to check the Meta for which decks actually pack in Stony Silence as an almost Auto-include to combat weaknesses inherent in that decks strategy.
As a heads up to people playing this, game 1 Affinity is going to be a nightmare. Affinity is a consistent turn 4 deck with some turn 3s and a few unlucky turn 5 wins. We are a consistent turn 5 deck with a few lucky turn 4s and a few average turn 6 wins. On the draw, we are going to have major problems outracing them. On the play, it's doable, but we still need a strong opening and some luck.
Also, I am strongly considering swapping out some number of Gatecreepers for some number of Wanderer's Twig or Traveler's Amulet. Gatecreeper is 2 mana for a creature that brings the land to your hand. Twig/Amulet is 1 mana for a noncreature that can activate for 1 to bring the land to your hand. For one, Twig lets you spread your mana out over a few turns and is more synergistic with Belcher itself; you can activate Twig for 1 mana, thin out a land, and still have mana left for Belcher. Moreover, Twig can be found off Stirrings so your Stirrings whiff less often.
On the negative side, you can't block with a Twig. So if you find yourself in races against non-evasion creatures, then Gatecreeper can buy you a turn. But the other benefits of Twig might outweigh its inability to block.
You and I are combo players through and through, but we like winning with Janky stuff.
Jank combo decks are love, jank combo decks are life. <3 (Cherri0s and Top Control for me)
You know what feels good? When you ramp ahead of your opponent and drop a Plow Under against something like Pod or Splinter Twin on turn 4.
Against decks like Splinter Twin and Affinity, we don't have many ways to interact or outrace them. I think the key is either tempo or land destruction (ring ring, Beast Within). Of course, these cards will be sideboard.
I feel like Melira Pod isn't a problem as long as you get a turn 5 Belcher play-and-activate on your turn. There's no way to stop it with permanent based or spell based removal after that. Melira Pod is traditionally slower than our deck.
I was looking the thread and there is a lot of discuss about an alternative win con.
Most of then are suggest playing a green creatures ( such as Dungrove Elder, etc ).
Wouldn't it be better if we play a colorless creature, since you can grab with Ancient Strirrings?
We've got a couple of them to choose: Myr Battlesphere ,Wurmcoil Engine , Steel Hellkite ,Triskelion ,Platinum Angel ,Platinum Emperion ,Batterskull ,etc.
Most of those creatures either wins the game or gives us time to combo. Stony Silence and artifact removal might be an argument to avoid playing artifacts but you can always count on Eldrazis ( Ulamog's Crusher being the cheapeast and the easiest to cast ).
It's remarkable how well this silly-looking deck is positioned against the durdly decks of the format, and more importantly how resilient it can be against them. But the fast decks are just too fast. How can you ever beat Splinter Twin? Affinity also seems like a nightmare. And I can't imagine you can't even beat Burn reliably.
The deck is sweet though. Gotta love janky combos.
Also; FYI if you're testing on MTGO. When resolving Recross the Paths on your entire library, the first card clicked will be the first card you draw.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
It's not your job to win games of Magic where you're mana screwed.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
With Healing Leaves or Nourish from the board, Burn has a very hard time beating us. Twin is tough, but we have enchantment removal. Could creeping corrosion answer affinity?
How would you guys evulate the following match ups with green Belcher, on a percentage scale: 4 colored gifts, soul sisters, mono black control, death and taxes, and blue fish.
I don't think this is a perfect list, and I plan on trying out ktkenshinx's version in the near future. I didn't have the cards for the sideboard on MTGO, so no sideboard tonight. I played the max Caravan Vigils because of how awesome they can be with Steves. Sac. Steve, put land in tapped, Caravan Vigil, put land right into play untapped,... I liked this on paper. In practice it isn't super relevant.
The 8th land was hit and miss. I don't like it. It opened me up to starting the game at 16 health because my hand has both it and probe, and knowing what your opponent has first turn is huge.
I really like having the probes in. Sure you can miss on them, but they are essentially free deck thinning. Belcher can be super had to get if it isn't already in your hand, so having a way of getting that extra card deeper off of the ancient stirrings is maybe worth the slot. Not to mention it lets you check for counter magic before you drop your delver with only 1 additional mana to protect it.
Tron:
Karn out of the RG Tron seems like it will be a big issue for us. When they slam Karn, they can just eat all our win conditions while playing more threats. Getting to 7 mana and hitting Karn, no matter how many lands are still in the deck will be worth considering if you can't win that turn. I also saw a platinum angel hit the board, so killing that with belcher became important quickly.
I am considering running 2 Ghost Quarters in the sideboard o deal with the Tron lands. It also conveniently lets us thin our lands if we don't need it. It lets us blow up some of the more annoying lands beyond Tron too. Colonnades, Inkmoth, etc.
Tested 4 Lotus Bloom in the mana dork slots. So far, I prefer it over mana dorks. It enabled some pretty amazing plays; for example, I could tap out on turn 3, but still generate the full 7 mana to cast & activate Belcher on turn 4.
Firstly, yes, Stirrings grabs Bloom. And no, that is NOT what you want to be doing on turn 1, unless you have absolutely nothing else. If you whiff, you've basically burned 1 mana for nothing, since on the next turn you'll cast a land tutor/ramp spell, shuffling your library.
I find that Bloom just shifts your average win% towards turn 4. Turn 5 onwards, there's not much change.
Abrupt Decay on Bloom as it unsuspends is a blowout, although if your life total can take it, you can just cast Belcher that turn and activate it the next. This scenario is worth keeping in mind.
I'm not sure that Lotus Bloom does the work of a mana dork. A Turn 1 Lotus Bloom doesn't give us a turn 2 Harrow, a turn 3 or later Lotus Bloom might be too late to the party, 3 turns is a lot of turns to wait to be useful when you are only hoping to be around for 4 or 5 turns.
Bloom isn't supposed to do exactly what a mana dork does. Both have their pros and cons, but I find that Bloom is generally better. You can mulligan to 6 or 5, and the hand will still be workable if it has 1 land and a Bloom.
If you draw Bloom late, usually it doesn't matter because you're either close enough to winning that you don't need it, or you're too far behind that the Bloom wouldn't make a difference even if it was a mana dork.
I don't play Harrow (or Cultivate, or Kodama's Reach). 3 mana is way too slow when you have 12 G land tutors and 12 1G ramp spells.
Let's just put a fork in this turkey and carve it up.
It's a consistent T5 deck with inconsistent T4 wins. The only way to change that scenario is adding R to the situation and puking out a creature like Satyr Hedonist, which I am not a fan of.
Sprawl isn't the answer for consistency without losing tempo. I really don't know what is. It's true that enchantments are harder to remove than creatures.
The simplest solution might be to add either Talisman of Impulse or Talisman of Unity. Maybe even some eggs like Tr0n.
Let's get really far outside the box and try Magus of the Vineyard or Overgrown Battlement which might actually be the trick with the Gatecreeper Vines. Wall of Roots. It is less likely that your opponent will want to blow away the Magus unless they are Mono R or something because there is added benefit to both parties.
The question is: Could we capitalize on that faster than our opponent?
Ugh, all of these suck.
My Modern decks:
B/R/G Living End G/R/B
G/R Tron R/G
U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U
R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
I've been goldfishing with Sprawl, and you make some interesting points. I still don't believe it's strictly better though. I think the ability to chump is really important, but Sprawl certainly has it's advantages. It's certainly not as bad as Arbor Elf. I assume you are running 4 dorks and 4 Sprawl?
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
Don't feel discouraged about the mill, it's a very rough match for us, but it's pretty uncommon in the meta.
Has anyone been testing out stuff like Autumn's Veil, Pact of Negation, Gutteral Response, etc. in the sideboard? I'm curious how that stuff is working out.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
All of those are fine with the exception of Pact. Pact is a buyer beware kind of card.
My Modern decks:
B/R/G Living End G/R/B
G/R Tron R/G
U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U
R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
Guttural Response can also protect spells like harrow. Nothing is corse than having harrow countered. Pact can only be used to protect belcher because we HAVE to win right then or we lose the game.
The only scenario where Sprawl is worse than a dork is in hands with no lands and no 1 CMC land searchers. Then Sprawl can't stick to anything off Chancellor and you have to mulligan an otherwise playable hand. But so long as you have either a land or a chancellor and a land-to-hander, then Sprawl is just as good. In corner cases where you have either 2 Chancellors and 1 Lay/Quest/Vigil or 1 land + 1 Chancellor, Sprawl is even better than a dork. In those situations, you can drop it on a recently played land and immediately have access to Steve or Creeper.
In the dozens of goldfish games I have played, plus my ongoing BG Rock tests, a 3 Sprawl/6 Dork or 4 Sprawl/5 Dork setup seems right. I'd be hesitant to go too heavy on either of these cards because they don't thin the deck even if they do accelerate. Topdecking them when you need to be topdecking Belcher/Recross/Abundance, or Reach/Cultivate/Harrow, is a big disappointment. But we do want at least 1 or 2 in our opening hand, and 9 gives us a 75% chance of having at least 1.
I'm leery of the 2 CMC accelerators because the most important part of the deck is getting from 1 to 2 mana. All of the cards that get us from 1 to 2 mana will also get us from 2 to 3 mana. But the cards that get us from 2 to 3 mana will not necessarily get us from 1 to 2 on the first two turns.
Magus is a guy I keep trying to find a home for; I tested him in a more manaless, ritual heavy Belcher way at the beginning of the format, but ended up pitching him because he often enabled my opponent to both kill the Magus and advance their own gameplan. Against BG Rock, for example, he would allow a free Goyf or Scooze on top of a Decay/Dismember. Decks like Affinity might not be able to reliably handle him, but Modern has too many decks that could capitalize on the mana and then kill the Magus. Or, in the case of a deck like Pod or Tron, capitalize on the mana and then win outright. So even if he sticks, he isn't necessarily something we can abuse more than our opponent. And unlike the other supposed answer-or-die creatures (e.g. Electromancer), Magus directly facilitates his own death. So I am also, like you, worried about using him.
Probe seems bad because this deck is opening hand dependent, and Probe makes it hard to read what's really in our opening hand. We can keep stuff that ends up being bad if our Probe doesn't cycle into something we can use. That said, it would be nice to know if our opponent is holding on to Pulse in the Jund matchup, so we can know whether to hold the Belcher back for 7 mana, or play it to avoid a topdecked TS. But I am still worried about how Probe affects our delicate opening hands.
SSG might be playable just because he jump us from 1 to 2 mana on the first turn, or even 2 to 3 mana on the first turn. I wouldn't want to go over 3 copies of the ape because he doesn't actually allow us to cast any of our 16+ 1 mana spells. He's only good if you have the mana source (Chancellor or Land) in addition to the 2/3 CMC card. He's worth testing, but I don't know what I would cut. Probably some dorks and maybe some creepers? Not sure.
Also, SSG on the draw opens us up to big blowouts from IoK. If we keep a hand that is dependent on an SSG explosive start into something at 2 or 3 mana, an early discard can wreck our first few turns. In the current iteration of the deck, our hands are so redundant that discard rarely matters. The more combo-focused we make our acceleration, the more we open ourselves to discard.
We are working to tune it, please post your list for testing when you post the goodcards/possible choices. That'd be very helpful.
GModern Belcher
GGreen Deck Wins
3I'm the King
RBlazeTron
7 Forest
Creatures: 18
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Gatecreeper Vine
2 Llanowar Elves
Other Spells: 35
4 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Harrow
1 Abundance
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Caravan Vigil
2 Cultivate
2 Kodama's Reach
4 Lay of the Land
4 Safewright Quest
4 Recross the Paths
3 Utopia Sprawl
3 Fog
3 Autumn's Veil
2 Dismember
2 Noxious Revival
2 Beast Within
3 Nature's Claim
The sideboard was picked to give us answers against the widest range of decks in the metagame. Nature's Claim was given the nod over Deglamer, Naturalize, or Quiet Disrepair because it is so cheap. It means that we often have the mana needed to both cast Belcher and kill a Stony Silence (more on Silence later...). It's not set in stone but it's a good starting point.
TEST PARAMETERS
Deck pilots ran 5 game 1s and 5 games 2/3s before recording results, just to familiarize themselves with the decks. Belcher also got 20 goldfishes just so we understood how the deck mulliganed and how its decision tree worked out. Players were experienced Magic slingers with extensive tournament and Modern experience.
For Game 1, preboard, we ran 15 games on the play and 15 on the draw, selecting the player with the most Jund experience for BG Souls, and the most combo experience for Belcher. For the sake of speed, all 30 games for game 1 were done in Magic Workstation instead of paper; it is much quicker to shuffle in that program, and Belcher has a LOT of shuffle effects. Although this may introduce some odd randomization elements, it is probably no different than the paper matchups (And almost certainly no different from the MTGO ones).
For Game 2, postboard, we also ran 15 games on the play and 15 on the draw. Before we started the postboard games, we played a few sample rounds just to see what cards would be important and how best to sideboard. Our sideboard substitutions are discussed below.
OVERALL RESULTS
Thin Belcher has a very strong game 1 against BG Souls, but a very weak games 2 and 3.
Game 1 win rate: 76% (23/30)
Average game 1 win turn: Turn 5
Game 2 win rate: 40% (12/30)
Average game 2 win turn: Turn 5
In game 1, BG Souls has a tough time interacting with our game plan. Edge doesn't hit our lands. Most of our creatures aren't worth removing (Steve, Gatecreeper) or are too redundant to matter (dorks). Discard hurts, but Recross/Abundance lets us hide cards on top of our deck for use on the next turn. Souls also doesn't play enough Pulses to kill a resolved Belcher. The big fear in game 1 is a turn 2 Lilly, especially on the draw, which quickly threatens her ultimate. But for the most part, this is an easy game.
Then comes games 2 and 3; not favorable for the Belcher pilot. This is almost entirely due to one card in the sideboard of the Souls deck: Stony Silence. As I will talk about later, the BG Souls player resolved Silence in 10 of the 30 games. Belcher won exactly 0 of the games in which Stony resolved; stated another way, Belcher lost 100% of games where the Souls player resolved Silence. Add that to the additional pressures of Souls and you have a recipe for disaster.
GAME 1 DISCUSSION
The key to game 1 is that many Souls spells just aren't very good against our deck. Decay hits our mana acceleration, but almost all of it costs 1 mana, so the 2 mana removal spell is rarely a favorable trade for an opponent. Same with Dismember and Throat. IoK is similarly pretty bad against us because it doesn't hit Belcher (nor does Decay). TS is always a strong card, but Recross/Abundance lets us hide cards on top of our deck.
Game 1 win rate: 76% (23/30)
Game 1 mulligan rate: 30% (9/30)
Average mulligan: 5.5
Win rate when mulliganing? 56% (5/9)
# of games when IoK'd or TS'd: 15/30
Win rate when IoK'd/TS'd: 87% (13/15)
Even with 7 lands, I wasn't mulling a lot. And when I did mull, I was still winning; I won a game after mulling to 4 with a topdecked Belcher on turn 4. I also ate a discard spell in half of my games (maybe more if we forget to make a note of it), but it didn't affect my win rate at all. If anything, the discard spell was something I could easily ignore, so it ended up being worse for my opponent to keep hands with it.
Almost all of my losses were to turn 2 Lillys or turn 3 Lillys with Souls on the play. If you get a slow start and can't race her to 6 loyalty, then you are going to lose. I managed to win 2 games that I should have lost to her ult by deciding to fire a Belcher at her instead of at the opponent. In both games, my deck wasn't thinned enough to guarantee lethal, but a Lilly ult would definitely spell game over.
Here are some quick notes on game 1:
GAMES 2/3 DISCUSSION
This game revolved entirely around Stony Silence. If it resolved, I lost. If it didn't resolve, I probably won. The big issue here is that Silence is a permanent, proactive answer to Belcher. The other big issue is that all of our ways of killing it (Claim and Beast) need to stick around in our hand to be relevant. Remember our relative immunity to IoK and TS in game 1? It's gone. Now we are majorly at the mercy of those cards.
Belcher Sideboard:
-1 Cultivate, -1 Reach, -1 Harrow, -1 Gatecreeper, -1 Abundance
+2 Beast Within, +3 Nature's Claim
Souls Sideboard:
-1 Throat, -1 Dismember, -1 Souls, -1 Decay
+2 Stony Silence, +1 Thoughtseize, +1 Phyrexian Arena
Games 2/3 win rate: 40% (12/30)
Games 2/3 mulligan rate: 27% (8/30)
Average mulligan: 5
Win rate when mulliganing? 25% (2/8)
Stony Silence games: 10/30
Stony Silence game win rate: 0% (0/10)
Non-Stony Silence game win rate: 60% (12/20)
Stony Silence sucks. I hate that card. Because we don't have any hand disruption in our own deck, the BG Souls player can just hold it back until turn 3 and trick us into thinking a win is in sight. Killing Silence is easy in theory, but in practice it forces us to rely on holding cards in hand over many turns, which opens us up to targeted discard.
The problem with Stony is that the Souls player drops it and then advances on with their game plan. We have to stop everything to remove the card, which turns our deck from a 1 card combo into a 2 card combo with fewer ways of finding the removal half of the combo. All it takes then is 1 Goyf plus a DRS to clock us to 0 in 4-5 turns (And DRS never has any shortage of pinging fuel).
Adding in the 5 removal spells from the board also made me a bit less explosive, so there were games when I couldn't answer a turn 3 Lilly ticking up to her ult. It was nice to have additional answers to Arenas when they resolved, but my removal was often either discarded by targeted spells or pitched to Lilly +1 to keep better cards in my hand.
Here are some notes from games 2/3:
CONCLUSIONS
This deck has a lot more potential than some people are giving it credit. It's very hard to interact with in game 1 and surprisingly resilient to all but the most dedicated sideboard cards in games 2/3 (and even then, 40% win rate isn't that terrible). Based on my experience with BG Souls, here are the changes I would make to the deck:
-4 Birds of Paradise
+4 Elvish Mystic OR +1/2 Mystic/+3/2 Arbor Elves
Birds are probably there to enable some splashed hate in the board, like Grudge or Decay or something similar. But because we don't have a reliable way of finding the lands to cast those cards, I would advise against it. Once we don't have BoP, then we want some 1 power dudes in this deck. Why? Pinging Lilly and chumping Bob. This can buy us a solid 1-3 turns against Souls /Jund/Junk/Rock lists. If we find a more elegant/consistent way of getting out something like Stomping Ground or Overgrown Tomb, then we can keep the Birds to enable cards like Grudge/Decay/TS in the board. But if not, then the 1 power on the Elves is going to be better.
The rationale for adding Arbor would be the combo with Sprawl, but we also don't want Arbor if we don't also have a Forest. So a 1/3 split between Mystic/Arbor is probably better, or 2/2.
Transformational board?
When facing a card like Stony Silence, maybe we don't want to screw around trying to remove it. I failed at that in 10 of my 10 games facing it. Chancellor was a much more viable win route, even if he ended up losing for lack of real evasion or trample. Instead of going all-in on Belcher in games 2/3, maybe we should try and pump out a serious threat with our mana acceleration and win off of that. Dungrove Elder is an option, but his lack of evasion makes me hesitant to use him. Wurmcoil wouldn't be too terrible here. Maybe even Khalni Hydra, which we can definitely resolve around turn 4. Just some random thoughts. We can also use Recross to find Belcher if we want to win with that instead (keeping 1-2 copies in the deck).
7 vs. 8 lands
When you have 7 lands, you mulligan in 4% more games than if you have 8. Your Harrow is also a little riskier. In exchange, you guarantee lethal Belcher in more games, and you can Recross as a tutor a turn earlier on average. I'm not sure which is better because there is a complex mix of probability and non-probability factors at work here. 7 worked out fine for me in game 1 of my Souls series, but the additional mulls were problems in games 2/3. For reference, the chance of having at least 1 mana source in your opening 7 is around 81% with 8 lands and 4 Chancellor, and 78% for 7 lands and 4 Chancellor.
Let me know any questions or reflections you all have!
My Modern decks:
B/R/G Living End G/R/B
G/R Tron R/G
U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U
R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
Did you click on the list? It's BG Rock + Souls (i.e. BGw Souls). I just called it "Rock" because I don't want to get into the whole Junk vs. Rock debate here. It was just BG Rock for months, even with a Souls addition. I switched all the terms in case it's unclear.
As for your analysis it was very extensive. Gosh I freaking hate turn 2 Lily with a passion. It's got to be one of the most derp derp plays in Modern right now. Stony Silence does really suck for us. I'm a little surprised you didn't board in Noxious Revival, to help deal with some of the discard.
I'm not entirely sure I agree with your analysis of Elvish Mystic being better than Birds of Paradise, it probably is in this match up. But there are probably match ups where the ability to chump block fliers matters.
7 lands, man that's low. Very interesting that your data shows it hardly makes a difference. It's worth testing, although like you mentioned, it makes Harrow even tricker. I think with 7 lands, 4 Harrow is out of the question, 3 might even be too many.
Were you ever chumping with the dorks? How often were Bob and Goyf swinging? You mentioned attacking with Sakura-Tribe Elder, how often did that occur, do you usually wait to crack him until someone swings into him, or do you crack him right away?
The transformation board seems tempting, but I like your board, because I feel other match ups, particularly blue control, can be handled more easily. By the way, I would love to see more analyses like these some time in the future, perhaps for match ups like Merfolk, Soul Sisters, and other Proven and Established decks.
Overall, this seems like a near even match up post board, but favorable pre board. If you had to take a guess, what decks would also have a near even match up? What would be some better match ups for us? Worse ones?
P.S. Newb question, is Steve Sakura-Tribal Elder? If so, can you tell me a little bit about the origin of that name?
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
I was worried about Revival because of DRS and Scooze. Although DRS couldn't remove Belcher, it could exile our Claims/Beasts/Recross/Stirrings. There were definitely times where I would have liked to draw it, but for the most part, DRS would have made it ineffective on anything but Belcher.
The clear issue here is Affinity with Inkmoth and Ornithopter. If I was worried about Affinity, then I would run Birds. But in a metagame with more BGx, my 1 power elves are going to be way more valuable. Right now, BGx decks (Junk, Jund, Ajundi, Rock, Souls) make up about 22% of the MTGO metagame, with Affinity only making up 10%. To me, that's clear reason to go with the 1 power dorks.
Yeah, I'm still totally undecided on the 7 or 8 lands. I might cut down to 2 Harrow and add in another Abundance or Cultivate instead, at least if I stick with 7 lands. 8 lands is probably a tad more consistent but I found myself unable to cast turn 4 Recross as a tutor with 8 lands in the deck. 7 lands let me do it pretty consistently on turn 4 or even 3.
I didn't keep track of the number of attacks. My guess is that Bob swung in every game where he landed, so probably about 50% of games. Goyf and/or Scooze were swinging in another 70% (nonexclusive of the 50%). So the vast majority of games saw either Bob or Goyf/Scooze swinging at me.
I cracked Steve if the +1 mana would enable me to play 1 more card than I otherwise would. So if I had 3 mana on turn 2 and cracked Steve for 4 on turn 3 with no land dropped, I could potentially have 5 mana available then which opens up a lot of play trees. But if the +1 land wouldn't let me do anything extra (say, if I had a Cultivate and Recross and could only cast one anyway), then I would keep him around. I would also keep him around if my opponent had a Goyf already at 3+ power.
The exception to all of this is if you already have Belcher. Drop that baby on turn 3 and never look back. The overwhelming majority of BGx decks are running 2 Pulse or even 1, whereas they are also running 3 or even 4 Thoughtseize. So resolving the turn 3 Belcher is generally safer than keeping it in your hand. It also lets you threaten lethal earlier, or if you can't rely on lethal, threaten to blow up Lilly before she can ult. If Steve can facilitate this, then I'm cracking him.
I generally dislike most of the Proven and Established decks, sadly. It's the combo brews that get me excited (See Cheerios for an example).
Affinity is going to be a noninteractive race. If we have Birds, we should be slightly favorable because we can chump the scariest stuff. Postboard it will still be slightly favorable because our sideboard cards are more helpful than theirs.
Twin is going to be ugly because we can't interact with their plan in game 1, and we can barely race them with the best hands. Add in Remand, Cryptic, and Bolt, and that seems pretty darn unfavorable. Postboard it will be only slightly unfavorable.
Game 1 vs. UWR Control should be strong. We hit 7-8 mana quickly and then they need to counter all 4 Belchers to stay alive. Most of their removal is active but not particularly effective against us. Because it isn't a race, we can play conservatively. Games 2/3 will be crappy with the added countermagic, Stony Silence, and artifact removal.
Not sure about Tron or Pod. I'll probably test out RG Tron next because it seems the most interesting of the matchups.
Sakura-Tribe Elder. Add the "ve" and you get STEve. At least, that was always my understanding of the moniker.
Yeah, I wouldn't call that list Junk either. It's missing a few critical elements. The sideboard plan for that list is quite a bit different from the typical Rock builds. As such I wouldn't say it is indicative of BG builds.
A better indicator would be to check the Meta for which decks actually pack in Stony Silence as an almost Auto-include to combat weaknesses inherent in that decks strategy.
You and I are combo players through and through, but we like winning with Janky stuff.
My Modern decks:
B/R/G Living End G/R/B
G/R Tron R/G
U/W/G/R Gargageddon R/G/W/U
R/W/G Naya Burn G/W/R
GModern Belcher
GGreen Deck Wins
3I'm the King
RBlazeTron
Also, I am strongly considering swapping out some number of Gatecreepers for some number of Wanderer's Twig or Traveler's Amulet. Gatecreeper is 2 mana for a creature that brings the land to your hand. Twig/Amulet is 1 mana for a noncreature that can activate for 1 to bring the land to your hand. For one, Twig lets you spread your mana out over a few turns and is more synergistic with Belcher itself; you can activate Twig for 1 mana, thin out a land, and still have mana left for Belcher. Moreover, Twig can be found off Stirrings so your Stirrings whiff less often.
On the negative side, you can't block with a Twig. So if you find yourself in races against non-evasion creatures, then Gatecreeper can buy you a turn. But the other benefits of Twig might outweigh its inability to block.
Jank combo decks are love, jank combo decks are life. <3 (Cherri0s and Top Control for me)
You know what feels good? When you ramp ahead of your opponent and drop a Plow Under against something like Pod or Splinter Twin on turn 4.
Against decks like Splinter Twin and Affinity, we don't have many ways to interact or outrace them. I think the key is either tempo or land destruction (ring ring, Beast Within). Of course, these cards will be sideboard.
I feel like Melira Pod isn't a problem as long as you get a turn 5 Belcher play-and-activate on your turn. There's no way to stop it with permanent based or spell based removal after that. Melira Pod is traditionally slower than our deck.
Modern: Top Control -- UWx Titan -- Loam Pox -- Footsteps Hulk
Legacy: Doomsday -- Death and Taxes -- UR Stasis -- Sylvan Plug
Pauper: UB Teachings -- UR Nivix Control
Most of then are suggest playing a green creatures ( such as Dungrove Elder, etc ).
Wouldn't it be better if we play a colorless creature, since you can grab with Ancient Strirrings?
We've got a couple of them to choose: Myr Battlesphere ,Wurmcoil Engine , Steel Hellkite ,Triskelion ,Platinum Angel ,Platinum Emperion ,Batterskull ,etc.
Most of those creatures either wins the game or gives us time to combo.
Stony Silence and artifact removal might be an argument to avoid playing artifacts but you can always count on Eldrazis ( Ulamog's Crusher being the cheapeast and the easiest to cast ).
The deck is sweet though. Gotta love janky combos.
Also; FYI if you're testing on MTGO. When resolving Recross the Paths on your entire library, the first card clicked will be the first card you draw.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
Modern: Top Control -- UWx Titan -- Loam Pox -- Footsteps Hulk
Legacy: Doomsday -- Death and Taxes -- UR Stasis -- Sylvan Plug
Pauper: UB Teachings -- UR Nivix Control
How would you guys evulate the following match ups with green Belcher, on a percentage scale: 4 colored gifts, soul sisters, mono black control, death and taxes, and blue fish.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
I don't think this is a perfect list, and I plan on trying out ktkenshinx's version in the near future. I didn't have the cards for the sideboard on MTGO, so no sideboard tonight. I played the max Caravan Vigils because of how awesome they can be with Steves. Sac. Steve, put land in tapped, Caravan Vigil, put land right into play untapped,... I liked this on paper. In practice it isn't super relevant.
The 8th land was hit and miss. I don't like it. It opened me up to starting the game at 16 health because my hand has both it and probe, and knowing what your opponent has first turn is huge.
I really like having the probes in. Sure you can miss on them, but they are essentially free deck thinning. Belcher can be super had to get if it isn't already in your hand, so having a way of getting that extra card deeper off of the ancient stirrings is maybe worth the slot. Not to mention it lets you check for counter magic before you drop your delver with only 1 additional mana to protect it.
Tron:
Karn out of the RG Tron seems like it will be a big issue for us. When they slam Karn, they can just eat all our win conditions while playing more threats. Getting to 7 mana and hitting Karn, no matter how many lands are still in the deck will be worth considering if you can't win that turn. I also saw a platinum angel hit the board, so killing that with belcher became important quickly.
I am considering running 2 Ghost Quarters in the sideboard o deal with the Tron lands. It also conveniently lets us thin our lands if we don't need it. It lets us blow up some of the more annoying lands beyond Tron too. Colonnades, Inkmoth, etc.
Firstly, yes, Stirrings grabs Bloom. And no, that is NOT what you want to be doing on turn 1, unless you have absolutely nothing else. If you whiff, you've basically burned 1 mana for nothing, since on the next turn you'll cast a land tutor/ramp spell, shuffling your library.
I find that Bloom just shifts your average win% towards turn 4. Turn 5 onwards, there's not much change.
Abrupt Decay on Bloom as it unsuspends is a blowout, although if your life total can take it, you can just cast Belcher that turn and activate it the next. This scenario is worth keeping in mind.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
GModern Belcher
GGreen Deck Wins
3I'm the King
RBlazeTron
I think this sig is pretty topical when it comes to this deck.
GModern Belcher
GGreen Deck Wins
3I'm the King
RBlazeTron
If you draw Bloom late, usually it doesn't matter because you're either close enough to winning that you don't need it, or you're too far behind that the Bloom wouldn't make a difference even if it was a mana dork.
I don't play Harrow (or Cultivate, or Kodama's Reach). 3 mana is way too slow when you have 12 G land tutors and 12 1G ramp spells.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.