This is an "all-in" combo deck which tries to be as fast as possible. Belcher wants to win on turn 1 or 2.
Belcher's win conditions are the namesake Goblin Charbelcher (with only one land in the deck) and a back-up storm strategy using three mainboard Empty the Warrens with another in the wishboard to be tutored for with Burning Wish.
To power out the combo as fast as possible, the deck's other cards are entirely "fast mana" cards.
As of shortly after the release of M11, the "stock" Belcher list consists of the following:
Business:
4 Goblin Charbelcher
Our goal in most games is to win on turn 1 or 2 by playing and activating this artifact using our fast mana. A Charbelcher activation will almost always be lethal.
3 Empty the Warrens
Another win condition. Here we want to drive up the storm count and produce about a dozen 1/1 Goblin tokens we can use to beat down our opponent quickly. The fourth copy of this card goes into the wishboard.
4 Burning Wish
This versatile tutor is usually used as Empty the Warrens 4-7, but can act in a number of other roles as well. More on the wishboard below.
Enabler:
4 Land Grant Land Grant serves the important role of removing the land from our deck to significantly reduce our chances of "whiffing" on a Charbelcher activation. It also drives up our storm count when necessary, or provides a mana source we need to go off either by fetching the land or by being imprinted on a Chrome Mox.
Fast mana:
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
These provide the mana necessary to activate a Goblin Charbelcher. We don't care too much about discarding our hand, since we hope to win on the same turn we play our LED.
4 Rite of Flame
Our third red ritual. Two red mana for the price of one, with a potential to become more efficient if used in multiples.
4 Tinder Wall
A ritual on a stick. This one filters green mana into red mana, as well.
4 Chrome Mox
Turns a dead card into mana, or drives up our storm count for free (since we can simply elect not to imprint a card on it).
Utility:
4 Manamorphose
This filters our mana, and draws us a card, which may be relevant in an emergency.
4 Gitaxian Probe
This draws us a card, shows us our opponent's hand, and adds one to the storm count without costing us any mana.
Land:
1 Taiga
Red and green mana. We're not too worried about revealing this with a Charbelcher activation, since it has the land type Mountain, and thus will double the damage the Goblin Charbelcher deals.
SIDEBOARD
As always, our sideboard will vary depending on our local metagame. Consider the following cards in some mix.
Sideboard proper:
4 Xantid Swarm
A great way to combat Force of Will and Daze: cast one of these on turn one, then swing in on turn two to protect an attempt to go off.
1 Empty the Warrens
And here's our fourth copy of our back-up win condition.
1 Diminishing Returns
Lets us refill for another attempt to combo off, when necessary. We can also use this to get greedy with Empty the Warrens.
1 Hull Breach
Destroys any artifact or enchantment (or both!) that's protecting our opponent from a Charbelcher activation, like a Trinisphere or Leyline of Sanctity.
1 Pyroclasm
Kills an army of dorks when necessary. We don't have any creatures we want to stick around on the battlefield unless we've already gone off with Empty the Warrens, so this won't normally hurt us at all.
1 Shattering Spree
Another way to deal with problem artifacts. This can also be a one-sided board wipe against Affinity.
Belcher tends to do well against creature-based aggro decks and other combo decks. It does poorly against decks packing a lot of counters, especially those which can mulligan aggressively into Force of Will. Here is an article by Carsten Kotter which describes this and other problems with Belcher.
Here are some statistics from SCG - Baltimore, courtesy of Jared Sylva:
# in field: 5, % of field: 2.15, average finish: 139.80, W: 11, L:18, D: 0, win %: 37.93
END NOTE: (Copied from other primers)
This primer is still a work in progress. Feel free to add to discussion whatever you feel is missing or whatever needs adjusting. I will try to update this primer whenever we as a community (more or less) agrees to something that will either improve this archetype and/or primer. Anything from card choices, updated deck lists, deck strategies, and match-up analysis.
2-land Belcher should have 4xPyroblast or 4x Red Elemental Blast in the sideboard (or MD if yo' crazy) to counter FoW.
Other good cards: Wild Cantor can mana fix if you need it. Pyretic Ritual...I don't play this, but I've heard of people cutting black out completely now and using this.
I've also heard of using Pact of Negation in hand to shut down a Stifle or counter in order to get the win. I'm not sure if I have the guts for that yet, though. I guess in theory, if you're going that route, you could add in 4 FoW, but that'd be even riskier. Or you could just play Xantid Swarm which does the same thing.
I run a G/R build and it's been great with Storm Entity as an additional win condition. Also there was some talk a while back on the Source about this deck on using Recross the Paths in the deck. I toyed with it and it was actually pretty good in the right build. The idea of Doomsday stacks in Belcher was actually pretty hilarious.
Storm entity, if it had shroud, would be viable. As it stands, it is a belcher that can get pathed, stped, or removed by any removal spell in the format really save burn spells like lightning bolt. And at best it will be a 7/7, making it a 3 turn clock unless you live the dream of playing and drawing all 3 or 4 manamorphose's at which point you ask yourself "Do I play storm entity or this other win condition I just drew?"
I'm a fan of the RG only lists since charbelcher is less likely to fizzle if you don't land grant or draw a land. Sure EtW is the primary win condition since you run 7 copies but charbelcher is the best win condition typically since goblin tokens are answered more easily (sweepers like clasm and firespout wreck them).
Overall nice job with the thread though.
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Storm Entity was run as a 2 of in my list since I wanted more win cons as that was all I could squeeze in was 2. I noticed that for some strange reason I always had many games where I wanted another win condition. With it I'm noticing better consistency in my turn 2 kills since it is usually cast with Empty the Warrens (that extra swing on turn 1 really matters). I've also had a few hands where the double Entity just ended the game by turn 2. As for the point about removal, I agree that they could be a problem, but people aren't always going to have those dreaded 1 mana spot removal spells that happen at instant speed. Them using it is essentially like your Belcher getting Forced or Pithing Needled after you expend your hand.
They are in fact useful when played alongside EtW on the same turn for the turn 2 kill but how likely is that to happen? If you BW for EtW you likely don't have enough mana to play both. Drawing 1 of the 3 MD EtW consistently is risky. And you open yourself up to lands mazing your dude you're relying on to win so maze is essentially FoW in that it wrecks you.
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First of all, in the second sample hand it's better just to play the second turn like this: ...
I agree that this is better. I'll edit the paragraph in question accordingly.
Second, I didn't see Diminishing Returns in the Primer.
I feel like the blue-intensive cost makes this a dead card in the deck. If someone could convince me otherwise, I'll add it into the Variations section.
You should at least include the 1-land belcher as one of the variations and don't name the primer 2-land belcher, but just belcher in general.
I do mention 1-Land as a variation already. I'll add your list in the Deck Samples section. (In the future, please make sure to capitalize and spell card names correctly.) I'll consider changing the primer title, as well.
why doesnt any list here run tendrils maindeck? i can see where it would just outright win some games... and then i guess u can sideboard it out for hate afterwards
Besides, Diminishing Returns is only pickable with Burning wish when you are able to crack LED.
I'm not sure what you mean here. If you get a Diminishing Returns with Burning Wish, it will go into your hand. Lion's Eye Diamond's mana ability can only be played at instant-speed, so I don't think you can ever use the mana from it to cast Diminishing Returns.
Combo decks, including belcher, usually crack LED, when burning wish or infernal tutor is on the stack. I think the one who writes primer should know it ;).
Ah, right. I was just being dull. So what do people think about Diminishing Returns? Good enough for me to add in as a variation?
Most wishboards I see always run diminishing returns. The reason being is because we can usually cast it off of LED mana in response to wish or in that rare corner case we can crack 2 petals for UU and use 2 left over in our pool to cast it. Another possible play of casting it is using manamorphose to get UU if you run manamorphose.
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Most wishboards I see always run diminishing returns. The reason being is because we can usually cast it off of LED mana in response to wish or in that rare corner case we can crack 2 petals for UU and use 2 left over in our pool to cast it. Another possible play of casting it is using manamorphose to get UU if you run manamorphose.
Serum powder is awful and I see no reason to run it. In a build with goblin welders sure serum powder might have merit since you can weld out the serum powder for a charbelcher in the GY. But most builds don't run welder except out of the board as a surprise tactic against blue as a "So you countered my charbelcher eh well I'll play goblin welder and I'll exchange LED in play for belcher in GY, sacking the LED in response. Activate the belcher. Win." The same can be done with grim monolith, petal, and chrome mox. That is 16 cards because LED, monolith, petal, and mox are all 4 ofs in some lists.
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I just finished assembling this deck and I see so many different sideboards. I mean, yeah... there are staples that I see in almost every sideboard, but a lot of the time I see different choices. Anyone care to elaborate on various sideboard/mainboard choices?
I also think I'm going to use street wraith over dark rit. Does anyone dislike or have a good reason for not using street?
dv: The problem I have with street wraith is that cards like this tend to give you a false since of security( I guess that's how I'd explain it?). With cards like that, I feel that in your opening hand if you see it then it could swing whether you'd mulligan or not in the wrong direction. You might see the wraith and be like "well if I wraith into another pyretic ritual, I'll be fine," and then that turns out to not be the case. This is most likely the way I think, and not other people, but that's how I feel about the card.
Running dark rit is wrong because it means having 2 lands in the deck. 1 land belcher is the most consistent version because when you charbelcher blind you are very likely to kill the opponent whereas with 2 land if you still have a bayou in the deck it lowers the chance of killing the opponent drastically. This is the list I would run if I went to a tournament tomorrow:
Along with some other random SB slots for either wishing or siding in against blue.
Very straightforward no manamorphose or street wraith just hard cards so what you see is what you get in your opening hand. The problem with street wraith and morphose is that it could be any card in the deck from accel to business. So if you really need say a pyretic ritual off of morphose but instead get charbelcher you're gonna have to wait a turn to go off at minimum.
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Running dark rit is wrong because it means having 2 lands in the deck. 1 land belcher is the most consistent version because when you charbelcher blind you are very likely to kill the opponent whereas with 2 land if you still have a bayou in the deck it lowers the chance of killing the opponent drastically. This is the list I would run if I went to a tournament tomorrow:
Along with some other random SB slots for either wishing or siding in against blue.
Very straightforward no manamorphose or street wraith just hard cards so what you see is what you get in your opening hand. The problem with street wraith and morphose is that it could be any card in the deck from accel to business. So if you really need say a pyretic ritual off of morphose but instead get charbelcher you're gonna have to wait a turn to go off at minimum.
pro's for 2 land belcher: 2 duals in a deck are more awesome than 1. that's about it.
The Bayou lets you run Dark Ritual in the main and Duress in the board. (You can still cast these on a Lotus Petal or a Manamorphose without the Bayou, but it's harder.) It's up to you to figure out if that makes you more or less consistent. Cedric Phillips and Bob Maher both seem to like the Bayou.
How do you sideboard with belcher? Most of the sideboard is a wishboard, so do you ever actually take something out of the main and side something in? If so, what do you take out and what do you put in? Let's use the 2 land usual deck listed in the primer, and some examples of what you take out and put in against some of the most common decks(merfolk, goblins, ANT, enchantress, lands, zoo, and so on).
DECK STRATEGY:
Belcher's win conditions are the namesake Goblin Charbelcher (with only one land in the deck) and a back-up storm strategy using three mainboard Empty the Warrens with another in the wishboard to be tutored for with Burning Wish.
To power out the combo as fast as possible, the deck's other cards are entirely "fast mana" cards.
Videos:
Cedric Phillips giving a goldfish demonstration of his SCG - Indianapolis list
Lukas Parson vs Daniel Signorini at SCG Richmond (Game 1)
Lukas Parson vs Daniel Signorini at SCG Richmond (Game 2)
Goldfish demonstration of a Classic Belcher deck on MTGO
Tournament Reports:
Matt Hazard, 2nd place at GenCon 2010
Ben Perry, 8th place at SCG LA
As of shortly after the release of M11, the "stock" Belcher list consists of the following:
Business:
4 Goblin Charbelcher
Our goal in most games is to win on turn 1 or 2 by playing and activating this artifact using our fast mana. A Charbelcher activation will almost always be lethal.
3 Empty the Warrens
Another win condition. Here we want to drive up the storm count and produce about a dozen 1/1 Goblin tokens we can use to beat down our opponent quickly. The fourth copy of this card goes into the wishboard.
4 Burning Wish
This versatile tutor is usually used as Empty the Warrens 4-7, but can act in a number of other roles as well. More on the wishboard below.
Enabler:
4 Land Grant
Land Grant serves the important role of removing the land from our deck to significantly reduce our chances of "whiffing" on a Charbelcher activation. It also drives up our storm count when necessary, or provides a mana source we need to go off either by fetching the land or by being imprinted on a Chrome Mox.
Fast mana:
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
These provide the mana necessary to activate a Goblin Charbelcher. We don't care too much about discarding our hand, since we hope to win on the same turn we play our LED.
4 Lotus Petal
It turns one third of a Black Lotus.
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
One free green mana at the cost of a card.
4 Simian Spirit Guide
Elvish Spirit Guide's red brother.
4 Desperate Ritual
Not as efficient as a Dark Ritual and only marginally better than Pyretic Ritual, but this does give us red mana that can pay for more red rituals, Burning Wish, or Empty the Warrens.
4 Seething Song
A more efficient, but more expensive red ritual. We can pay for it using mana from a Desperate Ritual or Pyretic Ritual.
4 Rite of Flame
Our third red ritual. Two red mana for the price of one, with a potential to become more efficient if used in multiples.
4 Tinder Wall
A ritual on a stick. This one filters green mana into red mana, as well.
4 Chrome Mox
Turns a dead card into mana, or drives up our storm count for free (since we can simply elect not to imprint a card on it).
Utility:
4 Manamorphose
This filters our mana, and draws us a card, which may be relevant in an emergency.
4 Gitaxian Probe
This draws us a card, shows us our opponent's hand, and adds one to the storm count without costing us any mana.
Land:
1 Taiga
Red and green mana. We're not too worried about revealing this with a Charbelcher activation, since it has the land type Mountain, and thus will double the damage the Goblin Charbelcher deals.
As always, our sideboard will vary depending on our local metagame. Consider the following cards in some mix.
Sideboard proper:
4 Xantid Swarm
A great way to combat Force of Will and Daze: cast one of these on turn one, then swing in on turn two to protect an attempt to go off.
4 Pyroblast
Another way for us to avoid scooping to Force of Will decks.
Wishboard:
1 Empty the Warrens
And here's our fourth copy of our back-up win condition.
1 Diminishing Returns
Lets us refill for another attempt to combo off, when necessary. We can also use this to get greedy with Empty the Warrens.
1 Hull Breach
Destroys any artifact or enchantment (or both!) that's protecting our opponent from a Charbelcher activation, like a Trinisphere or Leyline of Sanctity.
1 Pyroclasm
Kills an army of dorks when necessary. We don't have any creatures we want to stick around on the battlefield unless we've already gone off with Empty the Warrens, so this won't normally hurt us at all.
1 Shattering Spree
Another way to deal with problem artifacts. This can also be a one-sided board wipe against Affinity.
1 Infernal Tutor
We can use this powerful tutor to find and activate a Goblin Charbelcher in some situations (often involving multiple Lion's Eye Diamonds.)
1 Past in Flames
Wishing for this can give us a second shot at going off if our business spell gets countered the first time.
Here is a compact list:
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Burning Wish
4 Land Grant
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Seething Song
4 Rite of Flame
4 Tinder Wall
4 Chrome Mox
4 Manamorphose
1 Taiga
4 Pyroblast
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Hull Breach
1 Pyroclasm
1 Shattering Spree
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Past in Flames
Belcher tends to do well against creature-based aggro decks and other combo decks. It does poorly against decks packing a lot of counters, especially those which can mulligan aggressively into Force of Will. Here is an article by Carsten Kotter which describes this and other problems with Belcher.
Here are some statistics from SCG - Baltimore, courtesy of Jared Sylva:
# in field: 5, % of field: 2.15, average finish: 139.80, W: 11, L:18, D: 0, win %: 37.93
Other good cards:
Wild Cantor can mana fix if you need it.
Pyretic Ritual...I don't play this, but I've heard of people cutting black out completely now and using this.
I've also heard of using Pact of Negation in hand to shut down a Stifle or counter in order to get the win. I'm not sure if I have the guts for that yet, though. I guess in theory, if you're going that route, you could add in 4 FoW, but that'd be even riskier. Or you could just play Xantid Swarm which does the same thing.
I'm a fan of the RG only lists since charbelcher is less likely to fizzle if you don't land grant or draw a land. Sure EtW is the primary win condition since you run 7 copies but charbelcher is the best win condition typically since goblin tokens are answered more easily (sweepers like clasm and firespout wreck them).
Overall nice job with the thread though.
Currently Playing:
Retired
Currently Playing:
Retired
Keep the discussion going, folks. I'll update the original post accordingly.
I feel like the blue-intensive cost makes this a dead card in the deck. If someone could convince me otherwise, I'll add it into the Variations section.
I do mention 1-Land as a variation already. I'll add your list in the Deck Samples section. (In the future, please make sure to capitalize and spell card names correctly.) I'll consider changing the primer title, as well.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=5883948#post5883948
(EDIT: I was being pretty dense here.)
Currently Playing:
Retired
Should I add Serum Powder as well?
Currently Playing:
Retired
Also, I've added some videos from ggslive in a new section, along with someone's goldfish demonstration on MTGO.
I also think I'm going to use street wraith over dark rit. Does anyone dislike or have a good reason for not using street?
Legacy
UBWEsper StonebladUBW
RUGRUG DelverRUG
EDH
GUW Angus MackenzieGUW
RWGisela, Blade of GoldnightRW
UBWGRCromatUBWGR
UBLazav, Dimir MastermindUB
UArcum DagssonU
4 Burning Wish
4 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Empty the Warrens
Accel:
1 Taiga
4 Chrome Mox
4 Land Grant
4 Rite of Flame
4 Tinder Wall
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Seething Song
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Grim Monolith
4 Xantid Swarm
2 Pyroblast
2 Guttural Response
1 Shattering Spree
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Hull breach
Along with some other random SB slots for either wishing or siding in against blue.
Very straightforward no manamorphose or street wraith just hard cards so what you see is what you get in your opening hand. The problem with street wraith and morphose is that it could be any card in the deck from accel to business. So if you really need say a pyretic ritual off of morphose but instead get charbelcher you're gonna have to wait a turn to go off at minimum.
Currently Playing:
Retired
Legacy
UBWEsper StonebladUBW
RUGRUG DelverRUG
EDH
GUW Angus MackenzieGUW
RWGisela, Blade of GoldnightRW
UBWGRCromatUBWGR
UBLazav, Dimir MastermindUB
UArcum DagssonU
2-land = easier to get the mana to cast/activate your combo, but you may turn up that one remaining land too soon.
1-land = harder to get the mana right to cast/activate your comob, but no chance of turning up another lander.
Seems two land is the way to go, as you have one land in 52-53 cards.
Legacy
UBWEsper StonebladUBW
RUGRUG DelverRUG
EDH
GUW Angus MackenzieGUW
RWGisela, Blade of GoldnightRW
UBWGRCromatUBWGR
UBLazav, Dimir MastermindUB
UArcum DagssonU
Legacy
UBWEsper StonebladUBW
RUGRUG DelverRUG
EDH
GUW Angus MackenzieGUW
RWGisela, Blade of GoldnightRW
UBWGRCromatUBWGR
UBLazav, Dimir MastermindUB
UArcum DagssonU