Beast Within was in my original sideboard for testing on MTGO just so that I could answer anything without having to put any thought into developing the sideboard. But it's not a very good answer to anything; just a decent answer to everything, which makes it great for a first pass, but not great for a sideboard that actually knows what kind of metagame it's going up against.
Did anyone ever trying added 8x Eggs to the versions of the decks with Ancient Stirrings? On the surface they sound like a lot of do-nothings, but they would give you 8 more chances to hit something with Stirrings rather than nothing.
Heck, if you had 8 eggs, and you played the Lotus Bloom version of the deck, you could get Charbelcher off of Reshape. But now I get the feeling I'm starting to theorycraft something that looks entirely different to what we've been doing so far...
It sounds plausible but it's a very different deck. Maybe come up with a list but I'd recommend starting from scratch to make it, don't try and shoehorn that tech into the lists here.
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I'm a control player, because I like to reserve the right to say no.
Did anyone ever trying added 8x Eggs to the versions of the decks with Ancient Stirrings? On the surface they sound like a lot of do-nothings, but they would give you 8 more chances to hit something with Stirrings rather than nothing.
Heck, if you had 8 eggs, and you played the Lotus Bloom version of the deck, you could get Charbelcher off of Reshape. But now I get the feeling I'm starting to theorycraft something that looks entirely different to what we've been doing so far...
Interestingly enough it sounds like the colorless version that was the precursor to this deck. It was fun but I could never get it efficient enough. If you can do it though I'd love to see it.
I think it would be different enough to warrant it's own thread but I'd happily toss a link to it from the OP.
How do you feel about Hurkyl's Recall vs Affinity? To me it feels like it would be an improvement on Fog, because it stops two turns worth of damage (the turn you bounce everything and the next turn that everything has summoning sickness).
About the SB:
My sideboard is influenced by Storm and Eggs. Eggs played 4 Silence (2 main and 2 side), so I have 4 Autumn's Veil. The 2 Creeping Corrosions are adopted from Storm - Storm decks usually have 2-3 Shatterstorm SB solely for Affinity.
Nature's Claim and Dismember are your versions of Echoing Truth. They are narrower, but cost only 1 mana each.
Spellskite draws removal from Belcher and slows down random decks like Twin, Infect and Bogle. You usually want them in against aggro, since they can block stuff and protect Belcher (most aggro = red, red = artifact removal).
General SB tips:
Don't bring in more than 4 cards.
When in doubt, take out Simian Spirit Guide.
If you're bringing in cards without colorless in their mana costs, take out a SSG.
Against decks that you have to race, keep in some SSGs.
If you don't want to take out SSG, remove a ramp spell.
Some specific SB plans:
Jund
-3 Simian Spirit Guide
+3 Spellskite
Cards to expect: Ancient Grudge, Rakdos Charm, Maelstrom Pulse, discard
I had planned on testing out either the RG Tron or the Twin matchup next, but given the online prevalence of Affinity and its status as the format's only really successful aggro deck, I figured it was a better next step in the gauntlet. For reference, I used the Affinity list played by Justin Robb at GP Brisbane to a 1st place finish. For Forest Belcher, I used the following list and sideboard:
This list incorporated a few points that we had talked about over the last week. The biggest change is the removal of Ancient Stirrings, a card that was at best a necessary evil and, at worst, just plain bad. It adds in Fabricate in its place as our Belchers 5-6 on top of our Recrosses. The list also totally ditches the Harrow/Cultivate/Kodama's Reach spells in favor of the leaner 2 CMC Growth effects. Finally, it adds in Simian Spirit Guide for some explosiveness.
As with my other tests, deck pilots started by familiarizing themselves with the lists, running 5 game 1s and 5 games 2/3s before recording results. Belcher also got at least 50 goldfishes just so we understood how the newest list played and mulliganed. 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 Affinity experience for Affinity, 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
Forest Belcher isn't consistently fast enough to compete with Affinity in game 1, which often comes down to who goes first and whether or not Affinity has a below-average start. But game 2 the matchup is dead even, with our sideboard cards being much more effective than those of Affinity. Overall it's a very fun and interactive matchup with a lot of subtleties.
Game 1 win rate: 40% (12/30) Average game 1 win turn: 4.75
Games 2/3 win rate: 50% (15/15) Average game 2 win turn: 4.75
The Affinity matchup revolves around 3 things. The first is speed, unsurprisingly, which is why game 1 is tougher than game 1. We are pretty much banking on being on the play and getting a decent hand. Or hoping that Affinity gets a below average one. We are fast enough to race Affinity, sort of, if some of those conditions are met. But on the draw, or against a very strong Affinity hand, don't expect it. In game 2 and 3 it's quite a bit better because our sideboard cards help out with stalling until that critical turn 4 (or 5).
The second important part of the Affinity matchup is the almighty Birds of Paradise. This card is invaluable against Affinity and there are times where I wish I had 4 instead of 3. He's our only chump blocker that can save us from an Inkmoth or a Plating-equipped Skirge. Affinity only plays 4 removal spells and the chances of them drawing the removal and drawing the killer Ravager/Inkmoth or Plating/Skirge (or Plating/Inkmoth) combo is much lower than our chances of drawing a Bird.
Finally, the Affinity post-board matchup is all about Fog. This card is nuts against Affinity and is often just a flat out Time Walk if used intelligently.
GAME 1 DISCUSSION
Don't expect to win game 1, especially if you are on the draw, and especially if you mulligan on top of being on the draw. You need an above-average hand to beat Affinity, and the key is often going to be dropping the turn 3 Belcher into a turn 4 Activation.
Game 1 win rate: 40% (12/18) Game 1 win rate on the play: 47% (7/15) Game 1 win rate on the draw: 33% (5/15) Game 1 mulligan rate: 17% (5/30) Average Belcher win turn: 4.75 Average Affinity win turn: 4.5
The numbers above just show how bad it is to be on the draw against Affinity. That's probably true of any deck, but it's particularly true for us because we don't have strong tools to hold the line against Affinity. Almost the entire Affinity deck flies, so our Elder and Wall just aren't as good as blockers. We also have no removal in game 1 so the Affinity player can be a lot more aggressive with Ravager and Inkmoth.
The speed of the matchup dictates a lot of different play trees and decisions you have to make. All of these issues might also arise against slower decks but, because Affinity is so fast, you often have less time to deal with them here. So here are some tips and situations that came up in our games:
Belching a creature vs. an opponent
Against slower decks, it's almost always a better idea to Belch a player than a creature. That's true even if you think you might miss on your activation (if, say, you have 2 lands left in your deck). But against Affinity, there's no room for error. If your Belcher activation doesn't kill an opponent, chances are good that their next attack will kill you. The good news is that Belcher, if aimed at a creature, can often buy you another turn to get a few more deckthins out. But you have to weigh that against the chance that an opponent can win even if you Belch his key creature. For example, if you Belch the big Inkmoth but then he instant speed reattaches Plating to something else, you might lose anyway. Or maybe he topdecks another Ravager and puts the counters on his 2nd Inkmoth and wins with that. It's a complex probability calculation you have to do on the fly, but its integral to winning this matchup.
Vault Skirge gains a lot of life in not a lot of time. Make sure you account for that when Belching. It's easy to think "Well I only have 1 land left in my deck so that will probably be lethal" and ignore the fact that your opponent has 32 life.
BoP is your go-to blocker
BoP is your mini-fog in game 1, so you need to make sure that the birdy sticks around until you need it. Sometimes that means holding back a BoP in your hand just to tempt your opponent into wasting burn on an Arbor Elf or Wall. Other times that means not using BoP to cast one more spell in order to save him as a blocker. The key in all situations is trying to predict what the Affinity player has in his hand or what he will draw. Affinity can explode out of nowhere with a topdecked Ravager or Plating or Thoughtcast into either of those two cards, so make sure your Bird is ready for that at all times.
Gamble on speedy topdecks
There are a lot of cases where you can cast a turn 2 Fabricate for Belcher but then maybe not have the mana to play it on turn 3. But if you wait to Fabricate for the Belcher until turn 3, you can't cast and activate it until turn 4 because you don't have enough mana either. At that point, you might as well have Fabricated on turn 2. If you topdecked an SSG or Land or Sprawl and you had an Arbor Elf out, then you can cast Belcher right away. And if not, then you are still casting Belcher on turn 4 which is exactly what you would have done if you played it cautiously. Except, against Affinity, slow play leads to game losses, especially if you are on the draw. So when in doubt, set yourself up to use your land/SSG topdecks.
GAMES 2/3 DISCUSSION
These games were a lot better because of one card: Fog. Affinity really doesn't have a lot of great options against Fog short of Thoughtseize out of the board. As long as you are playing stuff on the turn before you are fogging, the card is great. Nature's Claim is also awesome here because Affinity needs to play aggressively to win, which means putting lots of resources into tight plays. Claim can break those plays wide open, especially when aiming at a Plating or Inkmoth. And if the Affinity player plays more cautiously, then you can win on turn 5 inevitability alone.
Whipflare is obnoxious and makes our Arbors a lot worse. Thoughtseize is strong but, because Affinity doesn't have the full 4 like BGx decks, it isn't nearly as scary. Grudge is the scariest card of the lot because it basically prevents us from a) playing Belcher without the mana to activate it or b) using a single Belcher multiple times. This changes how you play the deck, but it doesn't outweigh the impact of Fog in this game.
Games 2/3 win rate: 50% (15/15) Games 2/3 win rate on the play: 60% (9/15) Games 2/3 win rate on the draw: 40% (6/15) Games 2/3 mulligan rate: 23% (7/30) Average Belcher win turn: 4.75 Average Affinity win turn: 5
Everything got better in games 2 and 3, which suggests to me that we gain more from our sideboard than Affinity does from theirs. Fog is just so strong in this matchup because we have so many ways of getting Belcher by turn 5 and we just need to hold out until then. Fog buys us one turn on its own. BoP can buy us a second if used correctly. On the play, that means we will have a pretty good chance of winning so long as we have the Fog ready to go by turn 4. On the draw it's not as strong because we need to be ready to Fog on our turn 3 in preparation for our pending turn 4, and sometimes that isn't enough to win.
Here are some of my important notes from games 2/3:
Don't cast Belcher until you can activate it
The chances of your Affinity opponent having Grudge and/or Wear in their hand are higher than their chances of having TS in their hand. Assuming they boarded in all 4, they have a 40% of having at least one removal spell in their opening hand alone. In many senses, it's the equivalent of a Fog; we have to delay playing Belcher until we are sure we can activate it, and we are sure we can win with it. But in a deck that, in effect, runs 10 Belchers between all of our tutors, this is easy for us to play around, because we can almost always find a Belcher by turn 4 for a turn 5 cast/activation. The big exception to this is if you have 2+ Belchers and can cast one to force the Affinity player to spend mana to kill it.
Don't overextend into Whipflare
It's easy to remember not to overextend blockers into RG Tron because everyone knows about Pyroclasm. Whipflare is the sort of card you might forget, so watch out for it. Remember that a Wall of Roots can get killed by a post-combat mainphase Whipflare if he blocks a big enough guy.
Fog is our strongest card in this matchup. Any opening hand with a Fog that is semi-playable is totally keepable. Why? Fog buys you a turn and this deck can do a lot with just one more turn. As a sort of obvious tip, make sure you aren't using Fog to prevent anything short of a lethal attack. You want to save it as long as possible. Also, remember that you can tap out and still cast Fog as long as you also have a Wall of Roots active. Just be careful for an EOT Galvanic on the Wall.
CONCLUSIONS
The deck performed very well over the course of our testing and I am excited to see where it goes next. Fog was so unbelievably strong against Affinity in games 2/3 that I am tempted to increase the count in the board to 4. My guess is that this card will be just as gamebreaking against all the other aggro decks except probably Burn. Claim was also strong against Affinity. I would be hesitant to run 2 CMC answers to Affinity (e.g. Hurkyll's Recall because their price tag generally prohibits us from maximizing our intervening turns. Also, spells like that are generally easy for Affinity to recover from, especially with Opal and Drum and all their other acceleration.
Fabricate was mostly a strong card except in the 3 games where I didn't have the blue mana to cast it and it sat around awkwardly in my hand. I really wish that there was a tutor in this format that could get Belcher for 2 mana instead of 3, but all of the black options (Spoils and Plunge) just cost too much life. They would have been worthless against Affinity. It's a damn shame that a card like Diabolic Intent isn't legal in Modern. All that said, it's still miles better than Stirrings.
Simian Spirit Guide is awesome in this deck. He powers out a lot of plays ahead of the curve, including turn 1 Wall of Roots, turn 2 Belcher, turn 3 Chancellor, and a whole bunch of other stuff. He's also hard to predict for an opponent so he can mess with their math. 4 copies would be too many and 3 seems a little high, but 2 would probably be too few. There was only one game of my 60 total where I had too many SSGs and it was a problem.
Wall of Roots is probably the best mana producer in the deck solely because of its ability to cheat out Belcher and activate it ahead of schedule. This was invaluable against Affinity, especially when I was aiming a Belcher at an opponent's creatures and not necessarily at an opponent. If you combine that with Walls chump blocking power, its synergy with SSG for a turn 1 Wall, and the nuttiness of multiple Walls with Belcher, you have a deck staple.
Not sure what deck is next in the gauntlet. My guess is probably Twin because that matchup seems terrible.
I apologize if this has already been mentioned, but I haven't noticed it anywhere.
When you stack your deck with Recross the Paths, you then clash and can put that card at the bottom. Generally, you should put a Chancellor of the Tangle on top, and then below that have the deck stacked however you want. You are practically guaranteed to win the clash with 7cmc. You might not need that Recross again, but then again you just might want it.
We might need to go back to maindeck Pithing Needle. It's fetchable off of Fabricate and solves a lot of issues in game 1. The biggest 2 that I am encountering now are Twin activations (Needle naming Pestermite) and, way more problematic, Spellskite. Spellskite is a serious problem for us, especially in a deck like Melira Pod that can recur it with Witness/Reveilark, fetch it with Pod, or fetch it at instant speed with Chord of Calling. Needle gives us a maindeck solution to all of those issues along with the standard menaces of Karn, Lilly, Pod itself, Plating, Inkmoth, etc.
I am not sure why you guys have shyed away from Ancient Stirrings. It's a good card.
Aside from counter Protection via Autumn's Veil and maybe Nature's Claim (which is better than Creeping Corrosion IMHO) a heavier artifact based Sideboard is likely where you want to be.
It makes Stirrings much better post board.
Yes it is hit or miss preboard, but I am perfectly fine with that. Not all the cards we run can be winners all the time.
It also appears you guys are setting yourselves up for paying the Dredge Tax by not having any Yard hate like Relic. Bad move.
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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
Generally, when I'm bringing in my creature package, I go -4 Recross the Paths -2 Search for Tomorrow -3 Goblin Charbelcher +9 creatures. Any ideas for better creatures? I tried to go for a mixture of straight big creatures and utility with Thrun. G2 against blue, tapping out turn 3 into a Mistcutter or a Thrun is always funny.
I am not sure why you guys have shyed away from Ancient Stirrings. It's a good card.
Aside from counter Protection via Autumn's Veil and maybe Nature's Claim (which is better than Creeping Corrosion IMHO) a heavier artifact based Sideboard is likely where you want to be.
It makes Stirrings much better post board.
Yes it is hit or miss preboard, but I am perfectly fine with that. Not all the cards we run can be winners all the time.
It's not just "hit or miss" preboard. It's "hit or miss or miss or miss" preboard. You just don't have a good chance of seeing anything with Stirrings, let alone a Belcher, and let alone a second Belcher if your first one got killed or discarded or countered. We could maybe justify that in games 2 and 3 if we knew we were digging for an artifact that would completely dominate our post-board game. But most of the artifacts we could dig for are just temporary solutions to larger problems. Fog is also a temporary solution to a larger problem, but we don't need to build around it for it to be strong. In most cases, Fabricate is going to be better, even if it's more expensive. That's particularly true if we add a singleton Needle to the maindeck.
It also appears you guys are setting yourselves up for paying the Dredge Tax by not having any Yard hate like Relic. Bad move.
Well, my board isn't even close to finalized. The only slots I am pretty sold on are 3-4 Fog and 3 Claim. Everything else is up in the air because I haven't tested any other matchups in any depth. I'm sure 2 Relic can get in there, especially with Fabricate in the main.
Generally, when I'm bringing in my creature package, I go -4 Recross the Paths -2 Search for Tomorrow -3 Goblin Charbelcher +9 creatures. Any ideas for better creatures? I tried to go for a mixture of straight big creatures and utility with Thrun. G2 against blue, tapping out turn 3 into a Mistcutter or a Thrun is always funny.
I really don't think that Mistcutter is a strong card for our sideboard. He's just too vulnerable to removal, even against the blue decks. Thrun is much less vulnerable, but he doesn't hit very hard and a lot of decks can play around him (and Lilly just laughs at him). I think that the best creature for our transformational board, if we wanted to use it, would be something like Wurmcoil Engine. He's big, he wins games, he's very hard to remove, and we can get him off Fabricate. My worry with Wurmcoil is that he's an artifact, so all the spot artifact removal that an opponent brings in against Belcher is also going to hit Wurmcoil. But the stuff like Stony Silence or Leyline of Sanctity won't.
I like the idea of Wurmcoil, but I'm shying away from the 6 mana. The deck is set to get to 4 quickly, but often times I've only got 4 or 5 with a couple more lands in my hand and no way to play a 6-drop. I do need to change my creature base a bit (don't know about 3 Thrun, with him being Legendary I've been stuck with extras in my hand before) but I'm not sure Wurmcoil is the answer.
Lili may laugh at Thrun when he's the Last Troll, but when he's standing side by side with a BoP or Llanowar Elf then she promptly shuts her face.
The more I test with it, the more I realize that 7 lands is DEFINITELY the way to go. And the Stomping Ground is soooo necessary. Generally, going off with 'belcher, we've got just over 40 cards left in our deck. If you still have a land stuck in your library, you've got about a 50% chance of killing your opponent. If that 1 land is a Stomping Ground, your odds go up to 75%. Also, don't underestimate the ability to cast a Simian Spirit Guide. Sometimes, chump blockers save lives.
ktkenshinx, interesting write up against the Affinity match up, I'm really looking forward to seeing more posts about how the deck fairs against other match ups, they are very helpful.
So, everyone seems to be cutting the 3 CMC spells like Cultivate and Harrow. I really am not sure why. for 1 card, you get 2 lands out of your deck, and you get to ramp. Why isn't that good enough? The deck can consistently play 3 CMC spells on turn 2, and in some cases on turn 1.
I just don't see why Rampant Growth is better than Harrow. You can play Harrow on turn 2 AND play Steve. I'm running 8 spells that are CMC 3, 4 Cultivate and 4 Harrow, with great success, I might cut a couple of them, but I'm not set on cutting them all.
Also, I'm not totally sold on Stomping Ground, if we Recross The Paths into it, or have it in our opening hand, we'll have to pay 2 life we wouldn't have had to pay. I sort of like the Breeding Pool for Fabricate idea though.
Rampant Growth > Harrow because it costs 2 mana instead of 3. On turn 1, you can go land + Chancellor or land + SSG into Rampant Growth. You can't do that with 3-mana ramp.
The main problem with 3-mana ramp is that if you have tons of 1-mana land tutors and 2-mana Rampant Growth effects, then you have enough redundancy that you don't need 3-mana ramp. However, if you have lots of 3-mana ramp, then your deck won't be fast enough to get to the point where it can cast a 3-mana spell before getting killed. That counts double if your 3-mana ramp puts the lands into play tapped.
Harrow is borderline playable. I avoid it because:
1) Dis-synergy with Utopia Sprawl
2) Blowout if it gets countered/Shadow of Doubted (you're down 1 land)
3) Having only a maximum of 6 lands in play at any time (deck has 7, -1 to Harrow = max 6) means that you NEED a SSG/mana dork/Sprawl to cast & activate Belcher on the same turn, or even just to cast Chancellor.
Stomping Ground is fine. It randomly contributes to blind Belcher activations with >1 land in your deck hitting for lethal. Life loss is negligible, considering that this deck doesn't even play fetches, unlike 90% of decks out there, and you have Wall of Roots and Steve to block with.
The biggest downside of Stomping Ground is that Quest/Recross are the only ways of getting it out of the deck, and for the latter, only if it's the last land. However, if all the basic Forests are out of your library, a Belcher will more often that not just kill your opponent.
With SG sometimes you have to plan ahead. For example: if you have 1 basic Forest and SG in your deck, and a Quest in hand, use the Quest to grab SG. The reasoning behind this is that if you draw a land tutor/ramp spell later, it can take the last basic Forest out. If you used Quest to grab the Forest instead, the newly-drawn tutor/ramp will be useless.
I like the idea of Wurmcoil, but I'm shying away from the 6 mana. The deck is set to get to 4 quickly, but often times I've only got 4 or 5 with a couple more lands in my hand and no way to play a 6-drop. I do need to change my creature base a bit (don't know about 3 Thrun, with him being Legendary I've been stuck with extras in my hand before) but I'm not sure Wurmcoil is the answer.
Lili may laugh at Thrun when he's the Last Troll, but when he's standing side by side with a BoP or Llanowar Elf then she promptly shuts her face.
The problem with Thrun is that the average Goyf at 4/5 just blocks him all day long. Dungrove Elder is probably better than Thrun in most cases, to be honest, because he's going to almost always by a 6/6 or 7/7 with Hexproof and the regeneration won't matter as much.
Another option is Chameleon Colossus, which can't be hit by most of BGx's spot removal and can't be effectively blocked by a Goyf. It's also 4 mana so we can almost always drop it on turn 3. Polukranos, World Eater can also come down on turn 3 and immediately threaten an X=2 monstrosity on turn 4. If we went white instead of blue, we could use the awesome Sigard, Host of Herons who is basically unkillable, but I don't think it's worth the color shift.
Overall, I am also hesitant of using 6 CMC alternate win conditions because I don't have that kind of mana until turn 4/5 with any consistency.
The more I test with it, the more I realize that 7 lands is DEFINITELY the way to go. And the Stomping Ground is soooo necessary. Generally, going off with 'belcher, we've got just over 40 cards left in our deck. If you still have a land stuck in your library, you've got about a 50% chance of killing your opponent. If that 1 land is a Stomping Ground, your odds go up to 75%. Also, don't underestimate the ability to cast a Simian Spirit Guide. Sometimes, chump blockers save lives.
But Fabricate is so much better than that improved chance of killing an opponent. It's particularly strong once we sideboard and need to find things like Needle or Spellskite, or when we lose our first Belcher to countermagic/discard/removal. It really is Belchers 5-6 in the deck, and because we are essentially a 1 card combo, we need to maximize our chance of getting that card (or getting another copy if we lose the first).
As to the probability question, let's assume that it's turn 4 and you were on the draw. You have drawn an opening hand of 7 cards, have thinned out 6 of your 7 lands, and drawn a total of 4 cards. This leaves 42 cards left in your deck. If that last, 7th land is a Pool, you have a 52% chance of flipping 20 cards to deal lethal. If you only need to do 17 damage, it's a 59% chance. If 15 damage, it's a 64% chance. But if that last land is a Ground, you have a 76% chance of flipping 10 cards to deal lethal. If you only need to do 17 damage, it's a 79% chance, and for 15 damage, it's an 81% chance. So the odds of a lethal Belcher are definitely improved with Ground.
But if we remove Fabricate, what are the odds of even getting a Belcher?
In our opening hand, with just 4 Belcher, we have a 40% chance of drawing at least 1. For 6 Belchers (counting Fabricate as a Belcher), it goes up to 54%. If we mulligan to 6, our chance of getting one Belcher in the 4 Belcher deck is just 35%. For mulling to 5, it's down to 30%. If we have 6 Belcher, all those numbers improve. For the 6 hand, it's up to 48%. For the 5 hand, it's 42%. Stated differently, if we run 6 Belcher, we have a better chance of drawing one copy in a hand mulled to 5 than we do if we have 4 and don't mull at all. So for our opening grip, having the 6 Belchers is definitely better than the 4.
I was trying to calculate the chances of drawing subsequent Belchers if one gets killed, but it's more complicated than I first thought so I need to get back on that one. One issue is whether or not to count Recross as Belchers 7-10 and under what circumstances they should be counted as such.
So, everyone seems to be cutting the 3 CMC spells like Cultivate and Harrow. I really am not sure why. for 1 card, you get 2 lands out of your deck, and you get to ramp. Why isn't that good enough? The deck can consistently play 3 CMC spells on turn 2, and in some cases on turn 1.
I just don't see why Rampant Growth is better than Harrow. You can play Harrow on turn 2 AND play Steve. I'm running 8 spells that are CMC 3, 4 Cultivate and 4 Harrow, with great success, I might cut a couple of them, but I'm not set on cutting them all.
Izzetmage gave the big 3 reasons why you really shouldn't run Harrow, and I agree with all of them:
Harrow is borderline playable. I avoid it because:
1) Dis-synergy with Utopia Sprawl
2) Blowout if it gets countered/Shadow of Doubted (you're down 1 land)
3) Having only a maximum of 6 lands in play at any time (deck has 7, -1 to Harrow = max 6) means that you NEED a SSG/mana dork/Sprawl to cast & activate Belcher on the same turn, or even just to cast Chancellor.
Rampant Growth and Into the North are better than Cultivate and Kodama's Reach because they increase the chances of having a playable opening hand. That's especially true if we are running SSG which only adds 1 mana. Combined with Chancellor or a land, that can lead to a turn 1 Growth/North. But Cultivate/Reach won't go online until turn 2 except in truly above average hands. Also, the additional thinning is rarely something you couldn't have otherwise accomplished just by playing another card with that 3rd mana.
i would add knight of the reliquary and +1 ghost quarter. it seems like your deck can play him turn 2 and with fetch lands and the knight you can really remove a lot of the lands from your deck
Totally disagree on Ghost Quarter. Except for Recross, you can't get it out of the deck. It's also not really a land when you draw it because it doesn't produce green. Finally, it has a similar problem to Harrow in that it kills one of your lands to get another one. This means that you are relying on SSG, a dork, or a Sprawl to cast and activate Belcher on the same turn. That's a bad gambit against BGx decks with lots of disruption and removal. Also, Quarter is trying to solve a problem (deck thinning) that I rarely have issues with. The deck's biggest issue is getting consistently playable hands that are functional on turns 1 and 2, or an speedily casting and activating Belcher. Quarter interferes with that.
Knight is interesting but not castable without splashing for Temple Garden instead of Breeding Pool. And sadly, white doesn't give us any means of getting our actual win condition, so I don't really want to use that color. Also, as Kibler has said on the knight before, he's just not great in this format because of all the efficient removal.
EDIT: Also, with Knight, he suffers from the same problem as Harrow. He thins lands out of our deck too quickly and doesn't leave us with anything to cast Belcher. He's also just too vulnerable to DRS picking the lands out of the yard, and we have no removal to challenge DRS (or Scooze for that matter). So I don't think this is going to be our guy.
Been playing a lot lately, testing a new build, mostly against the same decks I was playing against earlier, but I have a new deck list and analysis that might be a little controversial but should provide some insight.
Running 8 mana dorks is more important than running Utopia Sprawl. Against aggro we need all the mid game chump blockers we can get. The elves can also poke for damage in some instances, especially against turn 2 Liliana of the Veil. Birds of Paradise are excellent blockers in the affinity match up. Lightning Bolt shouldn't scare you away from playing dorks on turn one. The majority of proven and establish decks don't even run Lightning Bolt, and for the ones that do, odds are they won't even have it in their opening hand, especially if they aren't running the full playset. Path To Exile is more ubiquitous in the format, and no one is going to Path To Exile our mana dorks on turn 1. Utopia Sprawl is tempting because of the tricks it provides with Arbor Elf, but staying alive in a combo deck is very important and the mana dorks help us do that. Utopia Sprawl also allows us to get 2 for 1'd with Ghost Quarter.
7 lands is the magic number. Running 7 lands instead of 8 hardly makes the deck less consistent but definitely makes it easier to remove all the lands from the deck. I tried running 6, but it wasn't happening.
Splashing a color isn't necessary. Fabricate is very nice, but the deck runs enough cards without Fabricate to ensure we almost always draw Goblin Charbelcher before turn 5. Stomping Ground has good synergy with Goblin Charbelcher, but it's mostly win more. With 1 land remaining in the deck, odds are we'll kill the opponent anyway, and with zero left it's inevitable. The shock lands are also harder to tutor outside of the deck, and if encountered early (i.e. opening hand) we'll just have to burn 2 life we would have had anyway.
Running the full play set of Lay of the Land, Caravan Vigil, and Safewright Quest is crucial. We always want a couple of these in our opening hand to ensure we won't have to mulligan. Remember, consistency in a combo deck is very important.
Cultivate and Harrow are still worth running, even if it's not the full play sets. With exceptional opening hands, these cards put us so ahead, it's not even funny. Even on turn 2, Harrow provides so much advantage, it becomes very difficult to look past. Top drawing either of these cards mid to late game when we have 5 lands out is excellent. At the same time, we don't want to ever really double Harrow, so running the full playset of these guys is a no go.
Run the cards that interact with the opponent in the sideboard. Healing Leaves, Fog, Autumn's VeilPithing Needle and Beast Within are all solid cards in this deck but for many decks we don't need them and they only slow us down. For many decks they don't accomplish anything so it is best to side them in later when we actually need them. Failing to interact with the opponent may seem counter intuitive, but this is a combo deck that is faster than the majority of the decks in the meta.
An interactive side board is better than a transformation one. With cards like Autumn's Veil, Nourish and Pithing Needle we can really turn almost any rough match up into our favor. We don't need gimmicks that change the entire deck into a mediocre green beater deck.
and no one is going to Path To Exile our mana dorks on turn 1.
If they did we could give them a very heartfelt thankyou, since it wouldn't put us behind on mana and it would help thin our deck, and give us an unboltable mana source.
Sort of two for 1'd just like with Path to Exile we get a replacement for Utopia Sprawl out of it. And a free thin. It hurts, but I don't think it hurts enough that they'd try it again next game, especially if we give them the same thank you, that's one of the glories of playing a rogue/fringe deck your opponent doesn't always know when they hurt you.
I really can't see any sense in dropping Ancient Stirrings from a mono-green build. Even when it's bad it really is better than it feels, if it whiffs you are still 5 closer. If you have two in a row you are hitting something or drawing next turn.
I'm telling you if you want to win the match against Tron you need Pithing Needle main deck, besides it does such good work against almost every deck, especially our biggest threats (Twin Affinity Tron).
An interactive side board is better than a transformation one. With cards like Autumn's Veil, Nourish and Pithing Needle we can really turn almost any rough match up into our favor. We don't need gimmicks that change the entire deck into a mediocre green beater deck.
I suppose all the common answers to our deck are Enchantments/Artifacts (Stony SilencePithing NeedleLeyline of Sanctity) or Counterspells. But I've really caught people off guard with a trans-formative Sideboard. And the Hydra one is surprisingly beastly. I'm torn on this one, but I think in general interactive side board is better.
Running 8 mana dorks is more important than running Utopia Sprawl. Against aggro we need all the mid game chump blockers we can get. The elves can also poke for damage in some instances, especially against turn 2 Liliana of the Veil. Birds of Paradise are excellent blockers in the affinity match up. Lightning Bolt shouldn't scare you away from playing dorks on turn one. The majority of proven and establish decks don't even run Lightning Bolt, and for the ones that do, odds are they won't even have it in their opening hand, especially if they aren't running the full playset. Path To Exile is more ubiquitous in the format, and no one is going to Path To Exile our mana dorks on turn 1. Utopia Sprawl is tempting because of the tricks it provides with Arbor Elf, but staying alive in a combo deck is very important and the mana dorks help us do that. Utopia Sprawl also allows us to get 2 for 1'd with Ghost Quarter.
Sort of two for 1'd just like with Path to Exile we get a replacement for Utopia Sprawl out of it. And a free thin. It hurts, but I don't think it hurts enough that they'd try it again next game, especially if we give them the same thank you, that's one of the glories of playing a rogue/fringe deck your opponent doesn't always know when they hurt you.
Completely disagree with HB on Sprawl. The only time Sprawl is worse than a dork is if your opening hand has one Chancellor (not a land), at least one Sprawl, AND no Lay/Vigil/Quest. That situation happens in 3% of all games. But you also need to ignore hands that have 2+ Chancellors and a Growth/Elder effect, or 1 Chancellor and 1+ SSG and a Growth/Elder effect. Taking all those into account and looking only at the games in which you absolutely cannot drop Sprawl on a forest at all, we are looking at about 1% of all games.
On the other hand, Sprawl is amazing in basically every other case. Sprawl + unanswered Arbor Elf leads to turn 2 Belchers or turn 3 Fabricate into a Belcher. Sprawl on its own can't be removed by anything that can't also hit a dork, and tons of stuff that his dorks totally misses Sprawl. Sprawl also doesn't have summoning sickness if it's placed on an untapped land with another mana source, so you can more aggressively use mana on the turn you play it. Overall, ditching Sprawl is an absolute no-no for me.
And as Illusionist points out, the damage of Ghost Quarter on Sprawl is way, way, way less common or less problematic than a Bolt/Decay/Electrolyze/etc. on our dorks.
As for the dork count itself, I'd run no more than 6. There's just too much removal to justify it. Basically every tier 1 deck in the format, except Affinity, is running a lot of removal and/or sweepers. It's especially bad now that Twin has taken to running Grim Lavamancer in the maindeck.
7 lands is the magic number. Running 7 lands instead of 8 hardly makes the deck less consistent but definitely makes it easier to remove all the lands from the deck. I tried running 6, but it wasn't happening.
Splashing a color isn't necessary. Fabricate is very nice, but the deck runs enough cards without Fabricate to ensure we almost always draw Goblin Charbelcher before turn 5. Stomping Ground has good synergy with Goblin Charbelcher, but it's mostly win more. With 1 land remaining in the deck, odds are we'll kill the opponent anyway, and with zero left it's inevitable. The shock lands are also harder to tutor outside of the deck, and if encountered early (i.e. opening hand) we'll just have to burn 2 life we would have had anyway.
The issue is not drawing a Belcher. The issue is drawing a second Belcher if you lose the first one. BGx has Pulse and TS in the maindeck. Twin has Izzet Charm and Cryptic Command. Tron has Karn and O-Stone. UWR Control has Leak and Command. With just 4 Belchers, we have a decent shot of getting one in our hand by turn 4. But once you lose that one, you are in trouble. Fabricate lets you recover by giving you two extra Belchers in the deck.
Also, Fabricate is critical in games 2/3 against decks like Tron or Twin, where you absolutely need to get your Needle and Spellskite online to survive the match. It's also important because games 2 and 3 are the games where you are most likely to lose your first Belcher, whether to a Thoughtseize or a Grudge or whatever other removal/disruption your opponent brings in.
As for Stomping Ground, it's only worth it if you are mono-green. If you ditch Fabricate then definitely run Ground. But it's a mistake to ditch Fabricate in this metagame.
Running the full play set of Lay of the Land, Caravan Vigil, and Safewright Quest is crucial. We always want a couple of these in our opening hand to ensure we won't have to mulligan. Remember, consistency in a combo deck is very important.
Run the cards that interact with the opponent in the sideboard. Healing Leaves, Fog, Autumn's VeilPithing Needle and Beast Within are all solid cards in this deck but for many decks we don't need them and they only slow us down. For many decks they don't accomplish anything so it is best to side them in later when we actually need them. Failing to interact with the opponent may seem counter intuitive, but this is a combo deck that is faster than the majority of the decks in the meta.
Agreed in all cases but one. The exception to this is, I think, Pithing Needle. Without Needle, we have a really hard time beating Melira Pod, Kiki Pod, Twin, and Tron in game 1. That's a huge segment of the metagame right there that we are effectively tossing game 1 to. Both of the Pods bring in Pridemage and Spellskite, two cards that completely wreck this deck. Twin just wins too quickly and can ignore us, especially with countermagic stalling and on the play. Tron will just blow us out with the turn 3-4 Karn. Needle, which we effectively run 3 of with Fabricate, gives us game 1 options in these machups that will otherwise be hard to win.
More testing will be needed to confirm or reject this theory, but so far, it's definitely my suspicion.
So I propose that there is universal agreement on these two points:
1. 7 is the correct number of lands for this deck.
2. 12 is the correct number of Lay of the Land variants in this deck.
yes, i like 8 better, as not mulliganing your starting hand is very imprortant.
Also, 7 mana is very important, that is the threshold for which you can cast/activate belcher, and also the mana needed to chancellor. playing 8 lands gives you one freebee.
yes, i like 8 better, as not mulliganing your starting hand is very imprortant.
Also, 7 mana is very important, that is the threshold for which you can cast/activate belcher, and also the mana needed to chancellor. playing 8 lands gives you one freebee.
By this logic 8 just gives you one extra that you have to thin out. Making you more consistent to 7 but slowing you down slightly.
So I propose that there is universal agreement on these two points:
1. 7 is the correct number of lands for this deck.
2. 12 is the correct number of Lay of the Land variants in this deck.
Any objections?
I think there are still (weak) arguments to be made in favor of 8 lands. As I mentioned a few pages back, adding that extra land improves your chance of having a playable opening hand from 77.75% to 81%, with a similar 3% difference on all subsequent mulligans.
We can also look at the cumulative mulligan probabilities. Running 12 "lands" means you have a 19% chance of mulling once in any given game, a 6% chance of mulling twice, and a 2% chance of mulling three times. That is also to say, in a Belcher deck with 8 lands, you will mull to 6 in 19% of games, mull to 5 in 6% of games, and mull to 4 in 2% of games.
For 11 "lands", you have a 22% chance of mulling once, a 4.5% chance of mulling twice, and a 1.5% chance of mulling three times in that same game. Again, that means you mull to 6 in 22% of games, mull to 5 in 4.5% of games, and mull to 4 in 1.5% of games. At each mulligan, adding the 8th land improves your chances by 3%, 1.5%, and .5% points. It's a tiny bump in consistency.
But unfortunately, you lose a lot in exchange for that consistency. On average, this deck can pretty easily thin out 5-6 lands by turn 4, which tends to leave 2-1 lands in your deck. Let's assume we had a good hand and thinned out 6 lands by turn 4 when we activate Belcher. In addition to the 6 thinned lands, we also drew either 3 or 4 cards depending on whether or not we were on the play. So that's 10 cards out of our deck in addition to our starting 7, leaving 43 cards in the deck (1 of which is our land).
In the 7 land case where 1 is left in the deck, here are our chances of flipping a certain number of cards and dealing a certain number of damage:
7 LANDS TOTAL, ONE LEFT IN A DECK OF 43 CARDS: BELCHER DAMAGE CHANCES 2 damage: 95% 4 damage: 90% 6 damage: 86% 8 damage: 81% 10 damage: 77% 12 damage: 72% 14 damage: 67% 16 damage: 63% 18 damage: 58% 20 damage: 53%
Now let's look at those numbers assuming we have 2 lands left in our deck. Again, because we can only realistically have 6 thinned out by turn 4, having 2 lands in the deck is a likely consequence of running 8 total.
8 LANDS TOTAL, TWO LEFT IN A DECK OF 43 CARDS: BELCHER DAMAGE CHANCES 2 damage: 91% 4 damage: 82% 6 damage: 74% 8 damage: 66% 10 damage: 58% 12 damage: 52% 14 damage: 45% 16 damage: 39% 18 damage: 33% 20 damage: 26%
That's a huge drop in our chances of killing an opponent. In the 7 land case, with just 1 left in our deck, we have just over a 50% chance of dealing 20. Once we go up to 8 lands, now we have a 50% chance of dealing just 12 damage. Our chance of a one shot kill is down to about 30% or so.
Now, this doesn't count the case where you go up to 8 lands but one of them is Stomping Ground. That's a much harder calculation, and I suspect it would be somewhere between the two scenarios (closer to the 7 land one).
I was wary about only running 7 lands, but if you run all 12 CMC 1 land searches, you really won't have to worry about mulliganing more frequently.
Pithing Needle is really good against certain match ups like Tron, but it's a total dead draw against a lot of powerful decks such as Burn, Soul Sisters and Zoo. Many of these match ups aren't easy for us, and we really may not be able to afford any dead draws.
I think ktkenshinx makes some interesting points about Sprawl, but I'm just not buying that it's strictly better than the dorks. Perhaps it's because my meta is a little more creature oriented and aggro based, but the chump blocking should not be underestimated. Also like I said before, the odds of seeing a turn one Lightning Bolt hit your dork is actually quite low. Electrolyze doesn't matter, because by turn 3, we don't really care what happens to our dorks most of the time.
ktkenshinx, is your theory is if you are running mono green, it would be foolish not to run Stomping Ground? What about the idea that with 1 land remaining in the deck, odds are we'll kill the opponent anyway, and with zero left it's inevitable. The shock lands are also harder to tutor outside of the deck (Steve, Rampant Growth, Lay of the Land, Harrow and Caravan Vigil all can't find Stomping Ground), and if encountered early (i.e. opening hand) we'll just have to burn 2 life we would have had anyway.
Pithing Needle is really good against certain match ups like Tron, but it's a total dead draw against a lot of powerful decks such as Burn, Soul Sisters and Zoo. Many of these match ups aren't easy for us, and we really may not be able to afford any dead draws.
For me, this deck is all about the probabilities. With just 1 lone Needle in the deck, you will literally never see it in over 80% of games unless you are tutoring for it. Those 20% of games where you do see it might be against decks where you want Needle (e.g. Tron, Pod, Twin, Affinity), or against decks where you don't want Needle (e.g. Gruul Zoo, Soul Sisters, Merfolk, Bogles). Against the decks you don't want Needle, you won't see it most of the time. Against the decks where you do want Needle, you have the option of tutoring for it so you aren't basically autolosing a game. Also, the matchups where Needle is good (Tron, Pod, Twin, Affinity, BGx) are the common ones. Those are the all the most played decks in the format, and we should be okay if we hedge our bets against them.
I think ktkenshinx makes some interesting points about Sprawl, but I'm just not buying that it's strictly better than the dorks. Perhaps it's because my meta is a little more creature oriented and aggro based, but the chump blocking should not be underestimated. Also like I said before, the odds of seeing a turn one Lightning Bolt hit your dork is actually quite low. Electrolyze doesn't matter, because by turn 3, we don't really care what happens to our dorks most of the time.
There aren't a lot of metagames where dorks are better than Sprawl. The overwhelming majority of decks where you would want chump blockers are also decks that pack lots of removal. Soul Sisters and Merfolk are exceptions to this, as is Affinity (the big one). But RBG Jund, BGx Rock/Junk, UWR Midrange, Delver, Gruul Zoo, and a bunch of other decks all pack a ton of removal. And any deck that is even playing Electrolyze is a deck that justifies going to Sprawl instead of dorks.
ktkenshinx, is your theory is if you are running mono green, it would be foolish not to run Stomping Ground? What about the idea that with 1 land remaining in the deck, odds are we'll kill the opponent anyway, and with zero left it's inevitable.
If you are mono-green, then your 7th land should absolutely be a Stomping Ground. It might be harder to get that last land out of your deck if its a Ground instead of a basic, but you have basically a 50% better chance of belching for lethal if that last land is a Ground. Also for mono green, you should be using Stirrings because it's better to have Stirrings digging for Belcher than have nothing at all.
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It sounds plausible but it's a very different deck. Maybe come up with a list but I'd recommend starting from scratch to make it, don't try and shoehorn that tech into the lists here.
Interestingly enough it sounds like the colorless version that was the precursor to this deck. It was fun but I could never get it efficient enough. If you can do it though I'd love to see it.
I think it would be different enough to warrant it's own thread but I'd happily toss a link to it from the OP.
Keep those ideas flowing.
GModern Belcher
GGreen Deck Wins
3I'm the King
RBlazeTron
How do you feel about Hurkyl's Recall vs Affinity? To me it feels like it would be an improvement on Fog, because it stops two turns worth of damage (the turn you bounce everything and the next turn that everything has summoning sickness).
GModern Belcher
GGreen Deck Wins
3I'm the King
RBlazeTron
1 Stomping Ground
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
3 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Safewright Quest
4 Caravan Vigil
4 Lay of the Land
2 Arbor Elf
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Into the North
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Wall of Roots
4 Recross the Paths
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Autumn's Veil
3 Nature's Claim
3 Dismember
3 Spellskite
2 Creeping Corrosion
About the SB:
My sideboard is influenced by Storm and Eggs. Eggs played 4 Silence (2 main and 2 side), so I have 4 Autumn's Veil. The 2 Creeping Corrosions are adopted from Storm - Storm decks usually have 2-3 Shatterstorm SB solely for Affinity.
Nature's Claim and Dismember are your versions of Echoing Truth. They are narrower, but cost only 1 mana each.
Spellskite draws removal from Belcher and slows down random decks like Twin, Infect and Bogle. You usually want them in against aggro, since they can block stuff and protect Belcher (most aggro = red, red = artifact removal).
General SB tips:
Don't bring in more than 4 cards.
When in doubt, take out Simian Spirit Guide.
If you're bringing in cards without colorless in their mana costs, take out a SSG.
Against decks that you have to race, keep in some SSGs.
If you don't want to take out SSG, remove a ramp spell.
Some specific SB plans:
-3 Simian Spirit Guide
+3 Spellskite
Cards to expect: Ancient Grudge, Rakdos Charm, Maelstrom Pulse, discard
Rock/Junk
-3 Simian Spirit Guide
+3 Nature's Claim
Cards to expect: Stony Silence, Maelstrom Pulse, discard
Pod (Kiki/Melira)
-3 Simian Spirit Guide
-1 Search for Tomorrow
+2 Dismember
+2 Nature's Claim
Cards to expect:
(Kiki: ) Glen Elendra Archmage, Qasali Pridemage, Harmonic Sliver, Ancient Grudge, Aven Mindcensor, Negate
(Melira: ) Qasali Pridemage, Aven Mindcensor
Affinity
-1 Simian Spirit Guide
-2 Search for Tomorrow
+2 Creeping Corrosion
+1 Nature's Claim
Cards to expect: Spell Pierce, Thoughtseize, Ancient Grudge
Burn/RDW
-1 Simian Spirit Guide
-2 Search for Tomorrow
+3 Spellskite
Cards to expect: Smash to Smithereens, Rakdos Charm
UWR Control
-3 Simian Spirit Guide
-1 Search for Tomorrow
+4 Autumn's Veil
Cards to expect: Wear/Tear, Stony Silence, counterspells
Scapeshift
-3 Simian Spirit Guide
-1 Search for Tomorrow
+4 Autumn's Veil
Cards to expect: Nature's Claim, counterspells
RG Tron
-1 Simian Spirit Guide
-2 Search for Tomorrow
+3 Spellskite
Cards to expect: Karn Liberated, Nature's Claim
Twin
-3 Simian Spirit Guide
-1 Search for Tomorrow
+3 Spellskite
+1 Dismember
Cards to expect: Ancient Grudge, counterspells
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
6 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Breeding Pool
Creatures: 20
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Arbor Elf
3 Birds of Paradise
4 Wall of Roots
3 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Caravan Vigil
4 Lay of the Land
4 Safewright Quest
4 Recross the Paths
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Rampant Growth
2 Into the North
2 Fabricate
1 Pithing Needle
2 Spellskite
3 Fog
2 Noxious Revival
3 Nature's Claim
3 Defense Grid
1 Autumn's Veil
This list incorporated a few points that we had talked about over the last week. The biggest change is the removal of Ancient Stirrings, a card that was at best a necessary evil and, at worst, just plain bad. It adds in Fabricate in its place as our Belchers 5-6 on top of our Recrosses. The list also totally ditches the Harrow/Cultivate/Kodama's Reach spells in favor of the leaner 2 CMC Growth effects. Finally, it adds in Simian Spirit Guide for some explosiveness.
Previous test: BG Souls vs. Forest Belcher
TEST PARAMETERS
For Game 1, preboard, we ran 15 games on the play and 15 on the draw, selecting the player with the most Affinity experience for Affinity, 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
Forest Belcher isn't consistently fast enough to compete with Affinity in game 1, which often comes down to who goes first and whether or not Affinity has a below-average start. But game 2 the matchup is dead even, with our sideboard cards being much more effective than those of Affinity. Overall it's a very fun and interactive matchup with a lot of subtleties.
Game 1 win rate: 40% (12/30)
Average game 1 win turn: 4.75
Games 2/3 win rate: 50% (15/15)
Average game 2 win turn: 4.75
The Affinity matchup revolves around 3 things. The first is speed, unsurprisingly, which is why game 1 is tougher than game 1. We are pretty much banking on being on the play and getting a decent hand. Or hoping that Affinity gets a below average one. We are fast enough to race Affinity, sort of, if some of those conditions are met. But on the draw, or against a very strong Affinity hand, don't expect it. In game 2 and 3 it's quite a bit better because our sideboard cards help out with stalling until that critical turn 4 (or 5).
The second important part of the Affinity matchup is the almighty Birds of Paradise. This card is invaluable against Affinity and there are times where I wish I had 4 instead of 3. He's our only chump blocker that can save us from an Inkmoth or a Plating-equipped Skirge. Affinity only plays 4 removal spells and the chances of them drawing the removal and drawing the killer Ravager/Inkmoth or Plating/Skirge (or Plating/Inkmoth) combo is much lower than our chances of drawing a Bird.
Finally, the Affinity post-board matchup is all about Fog. This card is nuts against Affinity and is often just a flat out Time Walk if used intelligently.
GAME 1 DISCUSSION
Don't expect to win game 1, especially if you are on the draw, and especially if you mulligan on top of being on the draw. You need an above-average hand to beat Affinity, and the key is often going to be dropping the turn 3 Belcher into a turn 4 Activation.
Game 1 win rate: 40% (12/18)
Game 1 win rate on the play: 47% (7/15)
Game 1 win rate on the draw: 33% (5/15)
Game 1 mulligan rate: 17% (5/30)
Average Belcher win turn: 4.75
Average Affinity win turn: 4.5
The numbers above just show how bad it is to be on the draw against Affinity. That's probably true of any deck, but it's particularly true for us because we don't have strong tools to hold the line against Affinity. Almost the entire Affinity deck flies, so our Elder and Wall just aren't as good as blockers. We also have no removal in game 1 so the Affinity player can be a lot more aggressive with Ravager and Inkmoth.
The speed of the matchup dictates a lot of different play trees and decisions you have to make. All of these issues might also arise against slower decks but, because Affinity is so fast, you often have less time to deal with them here. So here are some tips and situations that came up in our games:
These games were a lot better because of one card: Fog. Affinity really doesn't have a lot of great options against Fog short of Thoughtseize out of the board. As long as you are playing stuff on the turn before you are fogging, the card is great. Nature's Claim is also awesome here because Affinity needs to play aggressively to win, which means putting lots of resources into tight plays. Claim can break those plays wide open, especially when aiming at a Plating or Inkmoth. And if the Affinity player plays more cautiously, then you can win on turn 5 inevitability alone.
Here's how we sideboarded the decks:
Belcher Sideboard:
-2 Elder, -2 Into the North, -1 Arbor Elf
+3 Fog, +2 Nature's Claim
Affinity Sideboard:
-3 Champion, -3 Blast, -2 Overseer
+3 Grudge, +2 Thoughtseize, +2 Whipflare, +1 Wear/Tear
Whipflare is obnoxious and makes our Arbors a lot worse. Thoughtseize is strong but, because Affinity doesn't have the full 4 like BGx decks, it isn't nearly as scary. Grudge is the scariest card of the lot because it basically prevents us from a) playing Belcher without the mana to activate it or b) using a single Belcher multiple times. This changes how you play the deck, but it doesn't outweigh the impact of Fog in this game.
Games 2/3 win rate: 50% (15/15)
Games 2/3 win rate on the play: 60% (9/15)
Games 2/3 win rate on the draw: 40% (6/15)
Games 2/3 mulligan rate: 23% (7/30)
Average Belcher win turn: 4.75
Average Affinity win turn: 5
Everything got better in games 2 and 3, which suggests to me that we gain more from our sideboard than Affinity does from theirs. Fog is just so strong in this matchup because we have so many ways of getting Belcher by turn 5 and we just need to hold out until then. Fog buys us one turn on its own. BoP can buy us a second if used correctly. On the play, that means we will have a pretty good chance of winning so long as we have the Fog ready to go by turn 4. On the draw it's not as strong because we need to be ready to Fog on our turn 3 in preparation for our pending turn 4, and sometimes that isn't enough to win.
Here are some of my important notes from games 2/3:
The deck performed very well over the course of our testing and I am excited to see where it goes next. Fog was so unbelievably strong against Affinity in games 2/3 that I am tempted to increase the count in the board to 4. My guess is that this card will be just as gamebreaking against all the other aggro decks except probably Burn. Claim was also strong against Affinity. I would be hesitant to run 2 CMC answers to Affinity (e.g. Hurkyll's Recall because their price tag generally prohibits us from maximizing our intervening turns. Also, spells like that are generally easy for Affinity to recover from, especially with Opal and Drum and all their other acceleration.
Fabricate was mostly a strong card except in the 3 games where I didn't have the blue mana to cast it and it sat around awkwardly in my hand. I really wish that there was a tutor in this format that could get Belcher for 2 mana instead of 3, but all of the black options (Spoils and Plunge) just cost too much life. They would have been worthless against Affinity. It's a damn shame that a card like Diabolic Intent isn't legal in Modern. All that said, it's still miles better than Stirrings.
Simian Spirit Guide is awesome in this deck. He powers out a lot of plays ahead of the curve, including turn 1 Wall of Roots, turn 2 Belcher, turn 3 Chancellor, and a whole bunch of other stuff. He's also hard to predict for an opponent so he can mess with their math. 4 copies would be too many and 3 seems a little high, but 2 would probably be too few. There was only one game of my 60 total where I had too many SSGs and it was a problem.
Wall of Roots is probably the best mana producer in the deck solely because of its ability to cheat out Belcher and activate it ahead of schedule. This was invaluable against Affinity, especially when I was aiming a Belcher at an opponent's creatures and not necessarily at an opponent. If you combine that with Walls chump blocking power, its synergy with SSG for a turn 1 Wall, and the nuttiness of multiple Walls with Belcher, you have a deck staple.
Not sure what deck is next in the gauntlet. My guess is probably Twin because that matchup seems terrible.
When you stack your deck with Recross the Paths, you then clash and can put that card at the bottom. Generally, you should put a Chancellor of the Tangle on top, and then below that have the deck stacked however you want. You are practically guaranteed to win the clash with 7cmc. You might not need that Recross again, but then again you just might want it.
GModern Belcher
GGreen Deck Wins
3I'm the King
RBlazeTron
Aside from counter Protection via Autumn's Veil and maybe Nature's Claim (which is better than Creeping Corrosion IMHO) a heavier artifact based Sideboard is likely where you want to be.
It makes Stirrings much better post board.
Yes it is hit or miss preboard, but I am perfectly fine with that. Not all the cards we run can be winners all the time.
It also appears you guys are setting yourselves up for paying the Dredge Tax by not having any Yard hate like Relic. Bad move.
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
6 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Stomping Ground
Creatures 21
4 Chancellor of the Tangle
3 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Birds of Paradise
3 Llanowar Elves
4 Wall of Roots
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Lay of the Land
4 Safewright Quest
4 Caravan Vigil
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Rampant Growth
4 Into the North
4 Recross the Paths
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Pithing Needle
2 Naturalize
4 Kalonian Hydra
3 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Mistcutter Hydra
Generally, when I'm bringing in my creature package, I go -4 Recross the Paths -2 Search for Tomorrow -3 Goblin Charbelcher +9 creatures. Any ideas for better creatures? I tried to go for a mixture of straight big creatures and utility with Thrun. G2 against blue, tapping out turn 3 into a Mistcutter or a Thrun is always funny.
It's not just "hit or miss" preboard. It's "hit or miss or miss or miss" preboard. You just don't have a good chance of seeing anything with Stirrings, let alone a Belcher, and let alone a second Belcher if your first one got killed or discarded or countered. We could maybe justify that in games 2 and 3 if we knew we were digging for an artifact that would completely dominate our post-board game. But most of the artifacts we could dig for are just temporary solutions to larger problems. Fog is also a temporary solution to a larger problem, but we don't need to build around it for it to be strong. In most cases, Fabricate is going to be better, even if it's more expensive. That's particularly true if we add a singleton Needle to the maindeck.
Well, my board isn't even close to finalized. The only slots I am pretty sold on are 3-4 Fog and 3 Claim. Everything else is up in the air because I haven't tested any other matchups in any depth. I'm sure 2 Relic can get in there, especially with Fabricate in the main.
I really don't think that Mistcutter is a strong card for our sideboard. He's just too vulnerable to removal, even against the blue decks. Thrun is much less vulnerable, but he doesn't hit very hard and a lot of decks can play around him (and Lilly just laughs at him). I think that the best creature for our transformational board, if we wanted to use it, would be something like Wurmcoil Engine. He's big, he wins games, he's very hard to remove, and we can get him off Fabricate. My worry with Wurmcoil is that he's an artifact, so all the spot artifact removal that an opponent brings in against Belcher is also going to hit Wurmcoil. But the stuff like Stony Silence or Leyline of Sanctity won't.
Lili may laugh at Thrun when he's the Last Troll, but when he's standing side by side with a BoP or Llanowar Elf then she promptly shuts her face.
The more I test with it, the more I realize that 7 lands is DEFINITELY the way to go. And the Stomping Ground is soooo necessary. Generally, going off with 'belcher, we've got just over 40 cards left in our deck. If you still have a land stuck in your library, you've got about a 50% chance of killing your opponent. If that 1 land is a Stomping Ground, your odds go up to 75%. Also, don't underestimate the ability to cast a Simian Spirit Guide. Sometimes, chump blockers save lives.
So, everyone seems to be cutting the 3 CMC spells like Cultivate and Harrow. I really am not sure why. for 1 card, you get 2 lands out of your deck, and you get to ramp. Why isn't that good enough? The deck can consistently play 3 CMC spells on turn 2, and in some cases on turn 1.
I just don't see why Rampant Growth is better than Harrow. You can play Harrow on turn 2 AND play Steve. I'm running 8 spells that are CMC 3, 4 Cultivate and 4 Harrow, with great success, I might cut a couple of them, but I'm not set on cutting them all.
Also, I'm not totally sold on Stomping Ground, if we Recross The Paths into it, or have it in our opening hand, we'll have to pay 2 life we wouldn't have had to pay. I sort of like the Breeding Pool for Fabricate idea though.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
The main problem with 3-mana ramp is that if you have tons of 1-mana land tutors and 2-mana Rampant Growth effects, then you have enough redundancy that you don't need 3-mana ramp. However, if you have lots of 3-mana ramp, then your deck won't be fast enough to get to the point where it can cast a 3-mana spell before getting killed. That counts double if your 3-mana ramp puts the lands into play tapped.
Harrow is borderline playable. I avoid it because:
1) Dis-synergy with Utopia Sprawl
2) Blowout if it gets countered/Shadow of Doubted (you're down 1 land)
3) Having only a maximum of 6 lands in play at any time (deck has 7, -1 to Harrow = max 6) means that you NEED a SSG/mana dork/Sprawl to cast & activate Belcher on the same turn, or even just to cast Chancellor.
Stomping Ground is fine. It randomly contributes to blind Belcher activations with >1 land in your deck hitting for lethal. Life loss is negligible, considering that this deck doesn't even play fetches, unlike 90% of decks out there, and you have Wall of Roots and Steve to block with.
The biggest downside of Stomping Ground is that Quest/Recross are the only ways of getting it out of the deck, and for the latter, only if it's the last land. However, if all the basic Forests are out of your library, a Belcher will more often that not just kill your opponent.
With SG sometimes you have to plan ahead. For example: if you have 1 basic Forest and SG in your deck, and a Quest in hand, use the Quest to grab SG. The reasoning behind this is that if you draw a land tutor/ramp spell later, it can take the last basic Forest out. If you used Quest to grab the Forest instead, the newly-drawn tutor/ramp will be useless.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
The problem with Thrun is that the average Goyf at 4/5 just blocks him all day long. Dungrove Elder is probably better than Thrun in most cases, to be honest, because he's going to almost always by a 6/6 or 7/7 with Hexproof and the regeneration won't matter as much.
Another option is Chameleon Colossus, which can't be hit by most of BGx's spot removal and can't be effectively blocked by a Goyf. It's also 4 mana so we can almost always drop it on turn 3. Polukranos, World Eater can also come down on turn 3 and immediately threaten an X=2 monstrosity on turn 4. If we went white instead of blue, we could use the awesome Sigard, Host of Herons who is basically unkillable, but I don't think it's worth the color shift.
Overall, I am also hesitant of using 6 CMC alternate win conditions because I don't have that kind of mana until turn 4/5 with any consistency.
But Fabricate is so much better than that improved chance of killing an opponent. It's particularly strong once we sideboard and need to find things like Needle or Spellskite, or when we lose our first Belcher to countermagic/discard/removal. It really is Belchers 5-6 in the deck, and because we are essentially a 1 card combo, we need to maximize our chance of getting that card (or getting another copy if we lose the first).
As to the probability question, let's assume that it's turn 4 and you were on the draw. You have drawn an opening hand of 7 cards, have thinned out 6 of your 7 lands, and drawn a total of 4 cards. This leaves 42 cards left in your deck. If that last, 7th land is a Pool, you have a 52% chance of flipping 20 cards to deal lethal. If you only need to do 17 damage, it's a 59% chance. If 15 damage, it's a 64% chance. But if that last land is a Ground, you have a 76% chance of flipping 10 cards to deal lethal. If you only need to do 17 damage, it's a 79% chance, and for 15 damage, it's an 81% chance. So the odds of a lethal Belcher are definitely improved with Ground.
But if we remove Fabricate, what are the odds of even getting a Belcher?
In our opening hand, with just 4 Belcher, we have a 40% chance of drawing at least 1. For 6 Belchers (counting Fabricate as a Belcher), it goes up to 54%. If we mulligan to 6, our chance of getting one Belcher in the 4 Belcher deck is just 35%. For mulling to 5, it's down to 30%. If we have 6 Belcher, all those numbers improve. For the 6 hand, it's up to 48%. For the 5 hand, it's 42%. Stated differently, if we run 6 Belcher, we have a better chance of drawing one copy in a hand mulled to 5 than we do if we have 4 and don't mull at all. So for our opening grip, having the 6 Belchers is definitely better than the 4.
I was trying to calculate the chances of drawing subsequent Belchers if one gets killed, but it's more complicated than I first thought so I need to get back on that one. One issue is whether or not to count Recross as Belchers 7-10 and under what circumstances they should be counted as such.
Izzetmage gave the big 3 reasons why you really shouldn't run Harrow, and I agree with all of them:
Rampant Growth and Into the North are better than Cultivate and Kodama's Reach because they increase the chances of having a playable opening hand. That's especially true if we are running SSG which only adds 1 mana. Combined with Chancellor or a land, that can lead to a turn 1 Growth/North. But Cultivate/Reach won't go online until turn 2 except in truly above average hands. Also, the additional thinning is rarely something you couldn't have otherwise accomplished just by playing another card with that 3rd mana.
Totally disagree on Ghost Quarter. Except for Recross, you can't get it out of the deck. It's also not really a land when you draw it because it doesn't produce green. Finally, it has a similar problem to Harrow in that it kills one of your lands to get another one. This means that you are relying on SSG, a dork, or a Sprawl to cast and activate Belcher on the same turn. That's a bad gambit against BGx decks with lots of disruption and removal. Also, Quarter is trying to solve a problem (deck thinning) that I rarely have issues with. The deck's biggest issue is getting consistently playable hands that are functional on turns 1 and 2, or an speedily casting and activating Belcher. Quarter interferes with that.
Knight is interesting but not castable without splashing for Temple Garden instead of Breeding Pool. And sadly, white doesn't give us any means of getting our actual win condition, so I don't really want to use that color. Also, as Kibler has said on the knight before, he's just not great in this format because of all the efficient removal.
EDIT: Also, with Knight, he suffers from the same problem as Harrow. He thins lands out of our deck too quickly and doesn't leave us with anything to cast Belcher. He's also just too vulnerable to DRS picking the lands out of the yard, and we have no removal to challenge DRS (or Scooze for that matter). So I don't think this is going to be our guy.
4x Caravan Vigil
4x Lay of the Land
4x Safewright Quest
4x Chancellor of the Tangle
4x Recross the Paths
3x Cultivate
3x Harrow
3x Rampant Growth
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Gatecreeper Vine
4x Sakura-Tribe Elder
4x Ancient Stirrings
4x Goblin Charbelcher
Running 8 mana dorks is more important than running Utopia Sprawl. Against aggro we need all the mid game chump blockers we can get. The elves can also poke for damage in some instances, especially against turn 2 Liliana of the Veil. Birds of Paradise are excellent blockers in the affinity match up. Lightning Bolt shouldn't scare you away from playing dorks on turn one. The majority of proven and establish decks don't even run Lightning Bolt, and for the ones that do, odds are they won't even have it in their opening hand, especially if they aren't running the full playset. Path To Exile is more ubiquitous in the format, and no one is going to Path To Exile our mana dorks on turn 1. Utopia Sprawl is tempting because of the tricks it provides with Arbor Elf, but staying alive in a combo deck is very important and the mana dorks help us do that. Utopia Sprawl also allows us to get 2 for 1'd with Ghost Quarter.
7 lands is the magic number. Running 7 lands instead of 8 hardly makes the deck less consistent but definitely makes it easier to remove all the lands from the deck. I tried running 6, but it wasn't happening.
Splashing a color isn't necessary. Fabricate is very nice, but the deck runs enough cards without Fabricate to ensure we almost always draw Goblin Charbelcher before turn 5. Stomping Ground has good synergy with Goblin Charbelcher, but it's mostly win more. With 1 land remaining in the deck, odds are we'll kill the opponent anyway, and with zero left it's inevitable. The shock lands are also harder to tutor outside of the deck, and if encountered early (i.e. opening hand) we'll just have to burn 2 life we would have had anyway.
Running the full play set of Lay of the Land, Caravan Vigil, and Safewright Quest is crucial. We always want a couple of these in our opening hand to ensure we won't have to mulligan. Remember, consistency in a combo deck is very important.
Cultivate and Harrow are still worth running, even if it's not the full play sets. With exceptional opening hands, these cards put us so ahead, it's not even funny. Even on turn 2, Harrow provides so much advantage, it becomes very difficult to look past. Top drawing either of these cards mid to late game when we have 5 lands out is excellent. At the same time, we don't want to ever really double Harrow, so running the full playset of these guys is a no go.
If you aren't splashing a color, Ancient Stirrings is a must run. It's not an excellent card, but when it hits a Forest of Goblin Charbelcher you feel really good.
Run the cards that interact with the opponent in the sideboard. Healing Leaves, Fog, Autumn's Veil Pithing Needle and Beast Within are all solid cards in this deck but for many decks we don't need them and they only slow us down. For many decks they don't accomplish anything so it is best to side them in later when we actually need them. Failing to interact with the opponent may seem counter intuitive, but this is a combo deck that is faster than the majority of the decks in the meta.
An interactive side board is better than a transformation one. With cards like Autumn's Veil, Nourish and Pithing Needle we can really turn almost any rough match up into our favor. We don't need gimmicks that change the entire deck into a mediocre green beater deck.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
If they did we could give them a very heartfelt thankyou, since it wouldn't put us behind on mana and it would help thin our deck, and give us an unboltable mana source.
Sort of two for 1'd just like with Path to Exile we get a replacement for Utopia Sprawl out of it. And a free thin. It hurts, but I don't think it hurts enough that they'd try it again next game, especially if we give them the same thank you, that's one of the glories of playing a rogue/fringe deck your opponent doesn't always know when they hurt you.
I hear that.
I really can't see any sense in dropping Ancient Stirrings from a mono-green build. Even when it's bad it really is better than it feels, if it whiffs you are still 5 closer. If you have two in a row you are hitting something or drawing next turn.
I'm telling you if you want to win the match against Tron you need Pithing Needle main deck, besides it does such good work against almost every deck, especially our biggest threats (Twin Affinity Tron).
I suppose all the common answers to our deck are Enchantments/Artifacts (Stony Silence Pithing Needle Leyline of Sanctity) or Counterspells. But I've really caught people off guard with a trans-formative Sideboard. And the Hydra one is surprisingly beastly. I'm torn on this one, but I think in general interactive side board is better.
GModern Belcher
GGreen Deck Wins
3I'm the King
RBlazeTron
Completely disagree with HB on Sprawl. The only time Sprawl is worse than a dork is if your opening hand has one Chancellor (not a land), at least one Sprawl, AND no Lay/Vigil/Quest. That situation happens in 3% of all games. But you also need to ignore hands that have 2+ Chancellors and a Growth/Elder effect, or 1 Chancellor and 1+ SSG and a Growth/Elder effect. Taking all those into account and looking only at the games in which you absolutely cannot drop Sprawl on a forest at all, we are looking at about 1% of all games.
On the other hand, Sprawl is amazing in basically every other case. Sprawl + unanswered Arbor Elf leads to turn 2 Belchers or turn 3 Fabricate into a Belcher. Sprawl on its own can't be removed by anything that can't also hit a dork, and tons of stuff that his dorks totally misses Sprawl. Sprawl also doesn't have summoning sickness if it's placed on an untapped land with another mana source, so you can more aggressively use mana on the turn you play it. Overall, ditching Sprawl is an absolute no-no for me.
And as Illusionist points out, the damage of Ghost Quarter on Sprawl is way, way, way less common or less problematic than a Bolt/Decay/Electrolyze/etc. on our dorks.
As for the dork count itself, I'd run no more than 6. There's just too much removal to justify it. Basically every tier 1 deck in the format, except Affinity, is running a lot of removal and/or sweepers. It's especially bad now that Twin has taken to running Grim Lavamancer in the maindeck.
Agreed!
The issue is not drawing a Belcher. The issue is drawing a second Belcher if you lose the first one. BGx has Pulse and TS in the maindeck. Twin has Izzet Charm and Cryptic Command. Tron has Karn and O-Stone. UWR Control has Leak and Command. With just 4 Belchers, we have a decent shot of getting one in our hand by turn 4. But once you lose that one, you are in trouble. Fabricate lets you recover by giving you two extra Belchers in the deck.
Also, Fabricate is critical in games 2/3 against decks like Tron or Twin, where you absolutely need to get your Needle and Spellskite online to survive the match. It's also important because games 2 and 3 are the games where you are most likely to lose your first Belcher, whether to a Thoughtseize or a Grudge or whatever other removal/disruption your opponent brings in.
As for Stomping Ground, it's only worth it if you are mono-green. If you ditch Fabricate then definitely run Ground. But it's a mistake to ditch Fabricate in this metagame.
Agreed!
Agreed in all cases but one. The exception to this is, I think, Pithing Needle. Without Needle, we have a really hard time beating Melira Pod, Kiki Pod, Twin, and Tron in game 1. That's a huge segment of the metagame right there that we are effectively tossing game 1 to. Both of the Pods bring in Pridemage and Spellskite, two cards that completely wreck this deck. Twin just wins too quickly and can ignore us, especially with countermagic stalling and on the play. Tron will just blow us out with the turn 3-4 Karn. Needle, which we effectively run 3 of with Fabricate, gives us game 1 options in these machups that will otherwise be hard to win.
More testing will be needed to confirm or reject this theory, but so far, it's definitely my suspicion.
1. 7 is the correct number of lands for this deck.
2. 12 is the correct number of Lay of the Land variants in this deck.
Any objections?
GModern Belcher
GGreen Deck Wins
3I'm the King
RBlazeTron
Also, 7 mana is very important, that is the threshold for which you can cast/activate belcher, and also the mana needed to chancellor. playing 8 lands gives you one freebee.
By this logic 8 just gives you one extra that you have to thin out. Making you more consistent to 7 but slowing you down slightly.
I think there are still (weak) arguments to be made in favor of 8 lands. As I mentioned a few pages back, adding that extra land improves your chance of having a playable opening hand from 77.75% to 81%, with a similar 3% difference on all subsequent mulligans.
We can also look at the cumulative mulligan probabilities. Running 12 "lands" means you have a 19% chance of mulling once in any given game, a 6% chance of mulling twice, and a 2% chance of mulling three times. That is also to say, in a Belcher deck with 8 lands, you will mull to 6 in 19% of games, mull to 5 in 6% of games, and mull to 4 in 2% of games.
For 11 "lands", you have a 22% chance of mulling once, a 4.5% chance of mulling twice, and a 1.5% chance of mulling three times in that same game. Again, that means you mull to 6 in 22% of games, mull to 5 in 4.5% of games, and mull to 4 in 1.5% of games. At each mulligan, adding the 8th land improves your chances by 3%, 1.5%, and .5% points. It's a tiny bump in consistency.
But unfortunately, you lose a lot in exchange for that consistency. On average, this deck can pretty easily thin out 5-6 lands by turn 4, which tends to leave 2-1 lands in your deck. Let's assume we had a good hand and thinned out 6 lands by turn 4 when we activate Belcher. In addition to the 6 thinned lands, we also drew either 3 or 4 cards depending on whether or not we were on the play. So that's 10 cards out of our deck in addition to our starting 7, leaving 43 cards in the deck (1 of which is our land).
In the 7 land case where 1 is left in the deck, here are our chances of flipping a certain number of cards and dealing a certain number of damage:
7 LANDS TOTAL, ONE LEFT IN A DECK OF 43 CARDS: BELCHER DAMAGE CHANCES
2 damage: 95%
4 damage: 90%
6 damage: 86%
8 damage: 81%
10 damage: 77%
12 damage: 72%
14 damage: 67%
16 damage: 63%
18 damage: 58%
20 damage: 53%
Now let's look at those numbers assuming we have 2 lands left in our deck. Again, because we can only realistically have 6 thinned out by turn 4, having 2 lands in the deck is a likely consequence of running 8 total.
8 LANDS TOTAL, TWO LEFT IN A DECK OF 43 CARDS: BELCHER DAMAGE CHANCES
2 damage: 91%
4 damage: 82%
6 damage: 74%
8 damage: 66%
10 damage: 58%
12 damage: 52%
14 damage: 45%
16 damage: 39%
18 damage: 33%
20 damage: 26%
That's a huge drop in our chances of killing an opponent. In the 7 land case, with just 1 left in our deck, we have just over a 50% chance of dealing 20. Once we go up to 8 lands, now we have a 50% chance of dealing just 12 damage. Our chance of a one shot kill is down to about 30% or so.
Now, this doesn't count the case where you go up to 8 lands but one of them is Stomping Ground. That's a much harder calculation, and I suspect it would be somewhere between the two scenarios (closer to the 7 land one).
Pithing Needle is really good against certain match ups like Tron, but it's a total dead draw against a lot of powerful decks such as Burn, Soul Sisters and Zoo. Many of these match ups aren't easy for us, and we really may not be able to afford any dead draws.
I think ktkenshinx makes some interesting points about Sprawl, but I'm just not buying that it's strictly better than the dorks. Perhaps it's because my meta is a little more creature oriented and aggro based, but the chump blocking should not be underestimated. Also like I said before, the odds of seeing a turn one Lightning Bolt hit your dork is actually quite low. Electrolyze doesn't matter, because by turn 3, we don't really care what happens to our dorks most of the time.
ktkenshinx, is your theory is if you are running mono green, it would be foolish not to run Stomping Ground? What about the idea that with 1 land remaining in the deck, odds are we'll kill the opponent anyway, and with zero left it's inevitable. The shock lands are also harder to tutor outside of the deck (Steve, Rampant Growth, Lay of the Land, Harrow and Caravan Vigil all can't find Stomping Ground), and if encountered early (i.e. opening hand) we'll just have to burn 2 life we would have had anyway.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
For me, this deck is all about the probabilities. With just 1 lone Needle in the deck, you will literally never see it in over 80% of games unless you are tutoring for it. Those 20% of games where you do see it might be against decks where you want Needle (e.g. Tron, Pod, Twin, Affinity), or against decks where you don't want Needle (e.g. Gruul Zoo, Soul Sisters, Merfolk, Bogles). Against the decks you don't want Needle, you won't see it most of the time. Against the decks where you do want Needle, you have the option of tutoring for it so you aren't basically autolosing a game. Also, the matchups where Needle is good (Tron, Pod, Twin, Affinity, BGx) are the common ones. Those are the all the most played decks in the format, and we should be okay if we hedge our bets against them.
There aren't a lot of metagames where dorks are better than Sprawl. The overwhelming majority of decks where you would want chump blockers are also decks that pack lots of removal. Soul Sisters and Merfolk are exceptions to this, as is Affinity (the big one). But RBG Jund, BGx Rock/Junk, UWR Midrange, Delver, Gruul Zoo, and a bunch of other decks all pack a ton of removal. And any deck that is even playing Electrolyze is a deck that justifies going to Sprawl instead of dorks.
If you are mono-green, then your 7th land should absolutely be a Stomping Ground. It might be harder to get that last land out of your deck if its a Ground instead of a basic, but you have basically a 50% better chance of belching for lethal if that last land is a Ground. Also for mono green, you should be using Stirrings because it's better to have Stirrings digging for Belcher than have nothing at all.