I've been trying to figure this out for awhile. I feel like right now is the best time to showcase this deck.
Pro: NEVER EVER BE MANA FLOODED.
Con: Will always be Mana screwed.
I feel the pros outweighs the cons.
So probably have some explaining to do...
Win cons are the Goblin Cannon and the Spy Oracle combination. These are achievable turn 4 by suspending Moxes and Blooms. Use reshape to turn a Mox into a lotus to get an extra Mana.
Turn 4 you want to unsuspend 2 lotuses and a mox cast cannon... Win.
Turn 4 unsuspend a lotus and a Mox. Sac the Mox for 3 blue. Tap Mox for a blue. Reshape the Mox into a lotus to give you 5 Mana. Remove SSG to make it 6 to combo off with spy and oracle.
But what about disruption?
Leyline stops hand attacks.
Thalia? Exile reshape to a Shoal. After boarding you can remove SSG to cast Force of Despair.
What about 3feri? That's what the Selkies are all about. Exile 1 of them to pay for Shoal.
What about aggro? Gaining 10 life should buy you enough time. After board you bring in Force of Despair, Street Wraiths, Conflux to make sure you have all the time you need.
Counter spells? You can fight a counter war with no problems. You have Pacts, Forces, Shoals to battle against them. If you have to you can always stack the triggers to lose the game, Mox, Mox, lotus and then let the first 3 resolve and play Grace.
Another trick you can do if you want to make sure they can't do anything is to stack your triggers lotuses then Mox. They may let the Mox resolve. Cast silence to shut them out the game. They can fight over that if they want but you protect your lotuses.
What about Bloodmoon or Ponza? ๐๐๐
The flip spells/lands from zendikar rising will give this deck real shot.
I would recommend 4 balustrade spy + 4 undercity informer instead of the charbelcher, and only 1 thassa's oracle and a dread return with narcomoeba to get the milled oracle into play.
Then play all of the zendikar rising spell/lands that produces black and go up to 20/24 with the ones that comes into play untapped. Maybe with enough blue sources this deck could play serum vision + opt.
The flip spells/lands from zendikar rising will give this deck real shot.
I would recommend 4 balustrade spy + 4 undercity informer instead of the charbelcher, and only 1 thassa's oracle and a dread return with narcomoeba to get the milled oracle into play.
Then play all of the zendikar rising spell/lands that produces black and go up to 20/24 with the ones that comes into play untapped. Maybe with enough blue sources this deck could play serum vision + opt.
Goblin Charbelcher behaves like a 4-mana creature that can't block but that OTKs the opponent the turn after it ETB. It gets to effectively have haste if I have 7 mana...which I basically have never reached so far.
Grim Tutor's speed is sometimes appreciated. The 3 life loss definitely hurts, though. Sometimes, I wonder how Karn, the Great Creator would do in Grim Tutor's slot. Sometimes, I realize that this deck's mana base is mostly taplands, Grim Tutor costs 1 mana less, the card Grim Tutor has tutored for the second most often is Assassin's Trophy (to kill opposing Karn GC), and I've even tried tutoring for "lands".
The draw engine is Lurrus of the Dream-Den + Mishra's Bauble because this deck's average CMC is way too high for Bob.
I suspect that Fatal Push sucks at killing 3+-drops in this deck, so Bloodchief's Thirst gets to be the 1-mana maindeck removal spell that tries to kill some things cheaply and painlessly and that scales better in this deck.
Inscription of Ruin tested well in Jund and RB Prowess but hasn't tested quite as well here. It does do a decent impression of both Liliana of the Veil and Unearth, though.
I'm not quite hopeful about how competitive this BG Rock build is. Belcher swings some slower match-ups in this deck's favour, such as that newfangled GW Creature Ramp deck with 4 Elvish Reclaimer, but the tempo loss from all those taplands often bites it in the butt in other match-ups such as Tron, other BGx Midrange decks, and control decks. The RB Prowess match-up wasn't as bad as I thought, though.
I like what you are doing, EXCEPT the idea of this deck is literally run 0 lands. Maybe a few at most to be able to pay the 1 Mana tax to kill Thalia and ease the turn 4 win turn. If that is the case I'd wager that playing a white one like Skyclave Cleric or a 3 Mana blue one would be the only options. The blue one is only to be able to pitch to shoal to prevent a threeferi, since they didn't make a 3 Mana white flip land, while the white one could be used to play silence or grace.
That said I can see the advantages of having 1 or 2 fliplands out so you don't have to necessarily have either 6 or 7 Mana come online turn 4.
The first reply suggested dropping cannon for Undercity Informer. This seems like a bad idea as it eliminates 1 of the win conditions. Both Spy and Informer require the Oracle to be able to get the win. You won't always have Oracle and having another backup win con is a really good thing. Even if it requires 1 more Mana.
The idea of the deck is to mull and powder until you can get effectively a 6 Mana hand. Then use the free disruption and lifegain to buy you time until you can go off. Lotus is the main thing you want but a good hand could be a few Mox and spirit guides. Also keep in mind that a lot of matchups don't necessarily require you to win turn 4. You can board in sweepers and removal to suspend everything turn 2 or 3 and go for the win on turn 5 or 6. Sometimes, like against control you can do it much much slower. You want to have a stock hand of silences and counters before attempting it. The main thing you need to be able to do is have a good grasp of the opponents clock to know when to set it up as it takes awhile to be able to win. Think about it as though you are playing a bunch of little guys. They take a few turns of attacking before they are able to reduce the opponent to 0 life. Same concept here. You have to wait 3 turns and then suddenly your opponent loses the game on the spot. Often times your life total is going to be really low. Especially against blitz and storm style decks. Removing a 10/10 to the green Shoal can easily get you back in the game.
Basic strategies:
Against burn/prowess: board in Conflux, Street Wraiths, Force of Despair... Possibly Grace
Ux control: Pack, and Selkie, possibly Grace come in.
Tron: no board unless eldrazi then do Conflux and Force.
Uro ramp: I wouldn't board heavily here. Just some Forces should be enough.
Mono white Tokens: Force, Conflux, and Street Wraiths should come in.
Goblins: Typically they can't kill that fast unless they combo off. So I'd board in Conflux and Force. Alternatively you could just board in Grace on the play if you want to streamline your chances. If playing online you can probably doop them with the green Shoal. Playing in paper they can just say I make 10,000 of these snoops. Online I don't see them making 10 more than your life total. But Black Force really gets them online. Let them go through the entire combo wasting time then when they copy the harbinger the second time to get gang or fanatic is when you cut all the new guys out.
Bloodmoon or Ponza: I'd board in Wraith, and Force. You have all the time in the world to beat them. Just need to stop any large threat which Force does very well.
8+ Rack: No board necessary. Just mull and Powder until you have a Leyline. Also green Force can considerably lengthen your time in the game.
Any other matchup just let me know. It's a pretty good SB that covers most things in a large meta field.
Reasons for certain cards.
I know the Cantor looks really weird. He's in here for bogles and other decks that attack very fast. Remove a SSG and then cast him. This gives you the chance to block, cast Silence, or cast Grace.
Selkie is another oddball. This is used to gain a little life against aggro decks that could also play 3feri as he completely invalidates the deck.
Reshape is used with a lotus and a mox. Tap lotus for Mana, tap Mox for Mana. This gives you 4 Mana. Cast reshape on the Mox for another lotus. This brings you to 5 Mana. All you need is SSG or another mox to be able to get to 6 or 7 to win. I did consider a few Tormod's Crypt to fight against Dredge and also as another Reshape target to help make more Mana for the win turn. I'm still on the fence for this change.
Force of Vigor could go down in numbers but It is the only defense against a lot of hate cards. White Leyline, Orb, Rule of Law, Red Eidolon, etc.
Silence: anytime you see this card you know there is not going to be a fair game plan.
If left unchecked, most Modern decks can win (or gain overwhelming card advantage, in the case of disruptive decks) around turn 4. If an all-in combo deck can only do that in the best case scenario, that's pretty questionable. Have you tried playtesting with a simulator and seeing how early your deck typically wins?
The first problem I see is that you can't win without Lotus Bloom (the only alternative is double Mox Tantalite + Reshapes). That already caps your win rate at 53% assuming all your other cards are perfect every time. Naturally this will happen if you're trying to cast 6 and 7 mana spells with 12 mana sources. Why not play rituals?
This is related to the second problem. You can't afford to play 22 disruption spells in a combo deck. What's the point of protecting your combo when most of the time you even don't have one?
Rituals were considered, and still are being considered. They do pack a nice punch that will help greatly. Right now I'm a lot more interested in the utility of the free spells that disrupt your opponent's strategy. I can definitely see going down that path in the near future.
This is the best I can figure to get a few more Mana sources in the deck. Beyeen Veil was chosen as it's the only real playable 2 Mana spell that I can see playing that also allows you to pitch for Countering Thalia.
Manamorphose is slightly required for the Spy Oracle combo as the rituals produce only red. 3BUU is hard to achieve without them.
The deck wins on Turn 3 fairly often and on Turn 2 on occasion. (Turn 1 still needs the yet-to-be-achieved god hand.) The deck mulligans OK but not spectacularly. Speed-wise, it's slower but more consistent than Neobrand, and I think it's faster than UR Storm.
Emeria's Call seems better than the 4th Valakut Awakening sometimes and worse than it in others, so jury's still out on it. (I've actually cast Spikefield Hazard more often than Valakut Awakening.) It's currently Emeria's Call so I can pretend I play Silence. Amulet of Vigor has definitely helped me combo off faster at times, though, so I'd rather it stay.
The basic Recross the Paths pile looks something like this, from top to bottom:
Turntimber Symbiosis
Reforge the Soul
7th card (Pact of Negation, Veil of Summer, Shatterskull Smashing, etc.)
Simian Spirit Guide
Simian Spirit Guide
Goblin Charbelcher
Pyretic Ritual/Desperate Ritual
Pyretic Ritual/Desperate Ritual
Irencrag Feat
Recross the Paths
The topmost Turntimber Symbiosis is purely for Clash and should be bottomed in that Clash.
The turn after you cast Recross the Paths, Miracle Reforge the Soul and hit Irencrag Feat mana for Belcher.
If you have 3 mana when you Miracle Reforge, you can afford to replace Irencrag Feat with Desperate Ritual and make sure you put another Desperate Ritual in the Recross pile to still hit 7 mana for Belcher. Doing so lets Pact of Negation truly protect the combo.
In one of my testing games, I ended up with enough mana for the 7th card in my Recross pile to be Wilt, then hit my opponent's hate enchantment with Wilt and comboed off post-Reforge in the same turn. It's moments like this - in Game 1 no less! - that make me feel like this deck can be competitive in Modern.
Against Karn, the Great Creator, you can try Irencrag Feat into Shatterskull Smashing and kill a 5-loyalty Karn GC that way.
Pact of Negation and Guttural Response perform better against Aether Gust, and Guttural Response protects Recross quite well, but Veil of Summer protects Irencrag Feat versions of the combo better and actually does something against targeted discard.
Thundering Rebuke is cheap removal big enough to kill both Eidolon of Rhetoric and decent-sized Karn GCs.
Empty the Warrens is a 15th sideboard card that should help dodge some hate cards.
Your best tactic against Dredge is to combo off before they can kill you with milled Creeping Chills from your Reforge that they Dredge 7 cards from.
The link on top has even more tips for how to pilot this deck.
Pro: NEVER EVER BE MANA FLOODED.
Con: Will always be Mana screwed.
I feel the pros outweighs the cons.
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Wild Cantor
4 Serum Powder
4 Force of Negation
4 Progenitus
3 Silence
3 Force of Vigor
3 Nourishing Shoal
3 Disrupting Shoal
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Thassa's Oracle
4 Reshape
4 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Angel's Grace
1 Pact of Negation
3 Wistful Selkie
3 Force of Despair
2 Pact of Negation
2 Street Wraith
3 Conflux
2 Angel's Grace
Won't you help me get Powder and SSG banned?
So probably have some explaining to do...
Win cons are the Goblin Cannon and the Spy Oracle combination. These are achievable turn 4 by suspending Moxes and Blooms. Use reshape to turn a Mox into a lotus to get an extra Mana.
Turn 4 you want to unsuspend 2 lotuses and a mox cast cannon... Win.
Turn 4 unsuspend a lotus and a Mox. Sac the Mox for 3 blue. Tap Mox for a blue. Reshape the Mox into a lotus to give you 5 Mana. Remove SSG to make it 6 to combo off with spy and oracle.
But what about disruption?
Leyline stops hand attacks.
Thalia? Exile reshape to a Shoal. After boarding you can remove SSG to cast Force of Despair.
What about 3feri? That's what the Selkies are all about. Exile 1 of them to pay for Shoal.
What about aggro? Gaining 10 life should buy you enough time. After board you bring in Force of Despair, Street Wraiths, Conflux to make sure you have all the time you need.
Counter spells? You can fight a counter war with no problems. You have Pacts, Forces, Shoals to battle against them. If you have to you can always stack the triggers to lose the game, Mox, Mox, lotus and then let the first 3 resolve and play Grace.
Another trick you can do if you want to make sure they can't do anything is to stack your triggers lotuses then Mox. They may let the Mox resolve. Cast silence to shut them out the game. They can fight over that if they want but you protect your lotuses.
What about Bloodmoon or Ponza? ๐๐๐
I would recommend 4 balustrade spy + 4 undercity informer instead of the charbelcher, and only 1 thassa's oracle and a dread return with narcomoeba to get the milled oracle into play.
Then play all of the zendikar rising spell/lands that produces black and go up to 20/24 with the ones that comes into play untapped. Maybe with enough blue sources this deck could play serum vision + opt.
Dread Return is banned in Modern.
It's possible a post-Zendikar Rising Oops No Lands variant may still want red or green anyway for cards like Valakut Awakening, Bala Ged Recovery, or Tangled Florahedron. Admittedly, is Spy/Informer + Thassa's Oracle faster than Belcher to assemble and have the mana for?
Good catch. It's probably much safer that way haha.
4 Agadeem's Awakening
4 Hagra Mauling
4 Blackbloom Rogue
2 Pelakka Predation
4 Turntimber Symbiosis
3 Tangled Florahedron
2 Bala Ged Recovery
1 Kazandu Mammoth
Creatures
3 Lurrus of the Dream-Den
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Tarmogoyf
4 Hexdrinker
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Mishra's Bauble
2 Grim Tutor
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
4 Assassin's Trophy
1 Bloodchief's Thirst
1 Inscription of Ruin
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Damping Sphere
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Fulminator Mage
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Force of Vigor
1 Dismember
3 Collective Brutality
1 Necromentia
1 Fatal Push
1 Lithoform Blight
Goblin Charbelcher behaves like a 4-mana creature that can't block but that OTKs the opponent the turn after it ETB. It gets to effectively have haste if I have 7 mana...which I basically have never reached so far.
Grim Tutor's speed is sometimes appreciated. The 3 life loss definitely hurts, though. Sometimes, I wonder how Karn, the Great Creator would do in Grim Tutor's slot. Sometimes, I realize that this deck's mana base is mostly taplands, Grim Tutor costs 1 mana less, the card Grim Tutor has tutored for the second most often is Assassin's Trophy (to kill opposing Karn GC), and I've even tried tutoring for "lands".
The draw engine is Lurrus of the Dream-Den + Mishra's Bauble because this deck's average CMC is way too high for Bob.
I suspect that Fatal Push sucks at killing 3+-drops in this deck, so Bloodchief's Thirst gets to be the 1-mana maindeck removal spell that tries to kill some things cheaply and painlessly and that scales better in this deck.
Inscription of Ruin tested well in Jund and RB Prowess but hasn't tested quite as well here. It does do a decent impression of both Liliana of the Veil and Unearth, though.
I'm not quite hopeful about how competitive this BG Rock build is. Belcher swings some slower match-ups in this deck's favour, such as that newfangled GW Creature Ramp deck with 4 Elvish Reclaimer, but the tempo loss from all those taplands often bites it in the butt in other match-ups such as Tron, other BGx Midrange decks, and control decks. The RB Prowess match-up wasn't as bad as I thought, though.
That said I can see the advantages of having 1 or 2 fliplands out so you don't have to necessarily have either 6 or 7 Mana come online turn 4.
The first reply suggested dropping cannon for Undercity Informer. This seems like a bad idea as it eliminates 1 of the win conditions. Both Spy and Informer require the Oracle to be able to get the win. You won't always have Oracle and having another backup win con is a really good thing. Even if it requires 1 more Mana.
The idea of the deck is to mull and powder until you can get effectively a 6 Mana hand. Then use the free disruption and lifegain to buy you time until you can go off. Lotus is the main thing you want but a good hand could be a few Mox and spirit guides. Also keep in mind that a lot of matchups don't necessarily require you to win turn 4. You can board in sweepers and removal to suspend everything turn 2 or 3 and go for the win on turn 5 or 6. Sometimes, like against control you can do it much much slower. You want to have a stock hand of silences and counters before attempting it. The main thing you need to be able to do is have a good grasp of the opponents clock to know when to set it up as it takes awhile to be able to win. Think about it as though you are playing a bunch of little guys. They take a few turns of attacking before they are able to reduce the opponent to 0 life. Same concept here. You have to wait 3 turns and then suddenly your opponent loses the game on the spot. Often times your life total is going to be really low. Especially against blitz and storm style decks. Removing a 10/10 to the green Shoal can easily get you back in the game.
Basic strategies:
Against burn/prowess: board in Conflux, Street Wraiths, Force of Despair... Possibly Grace
Ux control: Pack, and Selkie, possibly Grace come in.
Tron: no board unless eldrazi then do Conflux and Force.
Uro ramp: I wouldn't board heavily here. Just some Forces should be enough.
Mono white Tokens: Force, Conflux, and Street Wraiths should come in.
Goblins: Typically they can't kill that fast unless they combo off. So I'd board in Conflux and Force. Alternatively you could just board in Grace on the play if you want to streamline your chances. If playing online you can probably doop them with the green Shoal. Playing in paper they can just say I make 10,000 of these snoops. Online I don't see them making 10 more than your life total. But Black Force really gets them online. Let them go through the entire combo wasting time then when they copy the harbinger the second time to get gang or fanatic is when you cut all the new guys out.
Bloodmoon or Ponza: I'd board in Wraith, and Force. You have all the time in the world to beat them. Just need to stop any large threat which Force does very well.
8+ Rack: No board necessary. Just mull and Powder until you have a Leyline. Also green Force can considerably lengthen your time in the game.
Any other matchup just let me know. It's a pretty good SB that covers most things in a large meta field.
Reasons for certain cards.
I know the Cantor looks really weird. He's in here for bogles and other decks that attack very fast. Remove a SSG and then cast him. This gives you the chance to block, cast Silence, or cast Grace.
Selkie is another oddball. This is used to gain a little life against aggro decks that could also play 3feri as he completely invalidates the deck.
Reshape is used with a lotus and a mox. Tap lotus for Mana, tap Mox for Mana. This gives you 4 Mana. Cast reshape on the Mox for another lotus. This brings you to 5 Mana. All you need is SSG or another mox to be able to get to 6 or 7 to win. I did consider a few Tormod's Crypt to fight against Dredge and also as another Reshape target to help make more Mana for the win turn. I'm still on the fence for this change.
Force of Vigor could go down in numbers but It is the only defense against a lot of hate cards. White Leyline, Orb, Rule of Law, Red Eidolon, etc.
Silence: anytime you see this card you know there is not going to be a fair game plan.
The first problem I see is that you can't win without Lotus Bloom (the only alternative is double Mox Tantalite + Reshapes). That already caps your win rate at 53% assuming all your other cards are perfect every time. Naturally this will happen if you're trying to cast 6 and 7 mana spells with 12 mana sources. Why not play rituals?
This is related to the second problem. You can't afford to play 22 disruption spells in a combo deck. What's the point of protecting your combo when most of the time you even don't have one?
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Desperate Ritual
1 Reshape
2 Manamorphose
2 Beyeen Veil
4 Serum Powder
4 Force of Negation
3 Progenitus
2 Silence
2 Force of Vigor
3 Nourishing Shoal
3 Disrupting Shoal
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Thassa's Oracle
4 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Angel's Grace
1 Pact of Negation
3 Wistful Selkie
3 Force of Despair
2 Pact of Negation
2 Street Wraith
3 Conflux
1 Force of Vigor
1 Tormod's Crypt
This is the best I can figure to get a few more Mana sources in the deck. Beyeen Veil was chosen as it's the only real playable 2 Mana spell that I can see playing that also allows you to pitch for Countering Thalia.
Manamorphose is slightly required for the Spy Oracle combo as the rituals produce only red. 3BUU is hard to achieve without them.
4 Shatterskull Smashing
4 Spikefield Hazard
3 Valakut Awakening
4 Turntimber Symbiosis
4 Bala Ged Recovery
1 Emeria's Call
Creatures
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Wild Cantor
Spells
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Recross the Paths
2 Reforge the Soul
4 Desperate Ritual
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Irencrag Feat
4 Manamorphose
2 Chromatic Star
1 Amulet of Vigor
1 Pact of Negation
1 Veil of Summer
1 Wilt
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Veil of Summer
1 Guttural Response
3 Nature's Claim
3 Anger of the Gods
1 Thundering Rebuke
1 Empty the Warrens
The deck wins on Turn 3 fairly often and on Turn 2 on occasion. (Turn 1 still needs the yet-to-be-achieved god hand.) The deck mulligans OK but not spectacularly. Speed-wise, it's slower but more consistent than Neobrand, and I think it's faster than UR Storm.
Emeria's Call seems better than the 4th Valakut Awakening sometimes and worse than it in others, so jury's still out on it. (I've actually cast Spikefield Hazard more often than Valakut Awakening.) It's currently Emeria's Call so I can pretend I play Silence. Amulet of Vigor has definitely helped me combo off faster at times, though, so I'd rather it stay.
The basic Recross the Paths pile looks something like this, from top to bottom:
The turn after you cast Recross the Paths, Miracle Reforge the Soul and hit Irencrag Feat mana for Belcher.
If you have 3 mana when you Miracle Reforge, you can afford to replace Irencrag Feat with Desperate Ritual and make sure you put another Desperate Ritual in the Recross pile to still hit 7 mana for Belcher. Doing so lets Pact of Negation truly protect the combo.
In one of my testing games, I ended up with enough mana for the 7th card in my Recross pile to be Wilt, then hit my opponent's hate enchantment with Wilt and comboed off post-Reforge in the same turn. It's moments like this - in Game 1 no less! - that make me feel like this deck can be competitive in Modern.
Against Karn, the Great Creator, you can try Irencrag Feat into Shatterskull Smashing and kill a 5-loyalty Karn GC that way.
Pact of Negation and Guttural Response perform better against Aether Gust, and Guttural Response protects Recross quite well, but Veil of Summer protects Irencrag Feat versions of the combo better and actually does something against targeted discard.
Thundering Rebuke is cheap removal big enough to kill both Eidolon of Rhetoric and decent-sized Karn GCs.
Empty the Warrens is a 15th sideboard card that should help dodge some hate cards.
Your best tactic against Dredge is to combo off before they can kill you with milled Creeping Chills from your Reforge that they Dredge 7 cards from.
The link on top has even more tips for how to pilot this deck.