Before the tournament, the silence was a completely different reason. I was withholding tech.
If any of you have been following the Burning Belcher thread I started at TMD about a month ago, you might have guessed what I was working on. The thread has garnered quiet attention over that month, reaching more than 2,000 views in just over 30 actual comments.
Anyway, most Belcher lists, the good ones, like Justin Droba’s from summer and fall 2005, run pretty much red and black with a green splash for Tinder Walls (which are effectively red color-fixers) and Living Wishes. Blue is nowhere to be found because, although its cards are broken, they’re not broken enough to make it worth splashing for and disrupting the manabase. Black is good for Yawgmoth’s Will (obviously) and at least two tutors (usually Demonic Tutor and Consultation), and for Duress.
So I started there and added some of the new cards that inspired me to start building Belcher again: Simian Spirit Guide, Rite of Flame, and in light of the extra red mana, Burning Wish over Living Wish. It was pretty sassy. I even added Empty the Warrens maindeck because it was so easy to play for eight or ten tokens on turn one, uncounterably too if people were counting on stopping the Belcher.
Unfortunately, between having only a few permanent black sources and the fact that Yawgmoth’s Will is surprisingly weak in the deck (not enough tutors and substandard acceleration), I started cutting black. First to go was Necropotence because I couldn’t cast it without Dark Ritual. Then I found I couldn’t cast Duress before going off because I needed black mana for Duress and then red mana for Rite of Flame. After that it took just a little bit of goading to push me straight into two colors.
Black came out, and I started playing this last Wednesday:
4x Goblin Charbelcher
4x Empty the Warrens
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Rite of Flame
4x Tinder Wall
4x Land Grant
3x Seething Song
4x Chromatic Star
3x Goblin Welder
2x Red Elemental Blast
2x Pyroblast
2x Living Wish
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Memory Jar
1x Lotus Petal
1x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Mana Vault
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Crypt
1x Channel
1x Chrome Mox
1x Black Lotus
5x Moxen
1x Taiga
Sideboard
4x Xantid Swarm
1x Bazaar of Baghdad
1x Mishra's Workshop
1x Tolarian Academy
1x Tin Street Hooligan
1x Uktabi Orangutan
1x Ancient Grudge
2x Shattering Spree
1x Gorilla Shaman
1x Goblin Welder
1x Taiga
Well, not quite. I kept Burning Wish in initially and was testing Regrowth as an additional threat, but they soon went for the double Living Wish on Thursday, though I didn’t build the sideboard until Friday night.
Red Elemental Blast was the biggest and best change. Duress is awesome, no doubt, but it was there mostly to stop Force of Will. So when I dropped black, I put in Xantid Swarms first—they protect spells pretty well, right? Unfortunately, they were a turn too slow, if not more. Red Elemental Blast does just as well as Duress, and it’s so in color it’s not funny. With Simian Spirit Guide, it’s amazing. Ask Mark Trogdon.
The last important facet of course, was the sideboard. The Burning Wish wishboard contained plenty of artifact destruction, some creature and extra win conditions in Tendrils. Of course, with black gone, Tendrils was pretty much crap. And with Tendrils being crap, Burning Wish was suddenly not so hot either.
Living Wish has been in Belcher for a while. It gets a lot of interesting answers to the hate that Belcher generally faces and can even be a facilitator of combo by being a mana accelerator getting Mishra’s Workshop or Tolarian Academy and by being a card draw machine getting Bazaar of Baghdad and Dark Confidant (if you’re playing black, anyway). In testing, Living Wish was okay, so I left it in over the Burning Wish. So the important part was the artifact hating creatures, especially Humping Monkeys, and the lands. It ended up being way easier than I thought.
So that’s the story of how 2-Land Burning Belcher became 1-Land RG Belcher.
And on the morn of the tournament, I had the perfect soundtrack for my new deck:
When all the land is in ruinUnfortunately, I realized that’s some other deck's actual soundtrack. So luckily, through the entire day, I had one Ben Folds lyric going through my head:
And burnination has forsaken the countryside
Only one guy will remain
My money's on
TROGDOR!
TROGDOR!
Every body knowsYeah. That was my jam.
It hurts to blow up.
I rolled into the parking lot of the Soldiery, hopped out of my car, and ambled on in. I didn’t register because registering is for chumps and I didn’t have to for this one. I immediately threw two extra Belchers and two extra Lotuses in my deck.
Just kidding, the list above was what I played. For real. Would I lie?
Some of you may recognize parts of this report from the Mana Drain. Just think of this as the extended version with director’s commentary.
Round 1 – JR Goldman – Nights Whisper Tendrils
JR’s pretty cool. He and I played once before in Sandusky (me with Fish, him with Bomberman), and since I won, we both figured he’s got a score to settle. Well not today, sir. Not today. I’ll see you at Thurman’s after the match.
Game one, I played Mox, Mox, Chrome Mox, Lotus, Empty the Warrens for 10 tokens, all with Pyroblast backup. Pretty good. He was surprised when I countered his Timetwister with the aforementioned Pyroblast and won the game with Goblins.
Justin Droba says in his Belcher threads that the best way to have a good tournament is to have a first turn kill in your first game of the day. I’m not sure how a third turn goblin stompin’ works into that, but I’ll take it.
Next game JR Duressed me and took the mana I needed to win but left me with Simian Spirit Guide and REB, which I used to counter Timetwister again since he wanted to get it out of the way anyway. I was waiting for another win condition and he was waiting for another bomb, but mine came first: Living Wish for Taiga, Rite of Flame, Seething Song, Seething Song, Belcher for 56 or so. And for everything after the first Seething Song I had REB backup.
Nah. JR, I, and everyone else knows that on any regular day, I lose to him twice and pack it up quick. I was just lucky enough to have better countermagic in hand against combo than I ever got with Fish. Red Elemental Blast is really good against decks with blue in them. If you want to see something really bizarre, read on…
Match – 1-0-0
Games – 2-0-0
Round 2 – Brian Demars – Slaver
So, Brian Demars is pretty good. My success in the last round was encouraging, but I fully expected to lose two in a row, starting right here. You can see his account of the events here, but the important thing to recognize is that he kept a terrible hand in game one (which would have been really good had I been trying to win with Belcher and had I not had countermagic of my own), and he mulliganed twice in game two. Bad luck.
In game one, he mulliganned and surprised me by passing without even playing a land, but he Forced my first turn Land Grant. I countered his Brainstorm while I waited for mana. Finally, I cast Living Wish for Mishra's Workshop, cast the Memory Jar in my hand with REB backup, and the Warrens Emptied for 12 tokens. He had already pitched Echoing Truth to Force of Will, so he scooped.
Next game he mulliganned twice and played land-go. I Emptied the Warrens for 8 tokens on my first turn. He dug for Echoing Truth or a way to get it over the next two turns. With one card left in hand, he played Thirst for Knowledge. I was worried about the remaining card in his hand being Echoing Truth and was trying to decide whether to use Red Force on the Thirst or save it for the actual Echoing Truth. I probably would have saved it because he wouldn't have drawn Echoing Truth and the countermagic to back it up. He conceded anyway.
The Truth? Nat Tram can handle the Truth! Or at least I was fully prepared to.
Yeah, anyway, either I’m better at Magic than I think, or I just lucked a win out of another round. My guess is it’s the latter, but we’ll see from the rest of the tournament.
Match – 2-0-0
Games – 4-0-0
Round 3 – Mark Trogdon – The Wumpus Deck
This was a bad round. My matches with Trogdon go one of two ways, either I beat him, or he totally throws the rest of my day off. This time he was playing monored with maindeck Stone Rains, Raze, Crack the Earth, and his own Red Forces. Oh yeah, and Null Rod. It's a crazy deck. In fact, it was the one he played against me between rounds in Sandusky that I was so in awe with. Plus, because Vintage decks are so weak at the manabase, it works surprisingly well.
Game one, I kept seven on the draw because all I needed is one more mana and it would be insane. In two turns, passing and discarding REBs, I got it. I had a combination of cards that let me play Empty the Warrens for 12 tokens and Wheel of Fortune with no mana floating, so I did it. He still had six cards left in hand, so if he does have a maindeck answer to EtW (which he probably does because it's Trogdon), the chances of him having it in this hand are about as good as him having it in the Wheel. His eighth card down (i.e. we Wheeled, he drew) was Pyroclasm. He played Null Rod and I took 10 turns of damage from Mana Vault before he finished me off with, no lie, Shivan Wumpus.
Game two, I mulled to four, though I probably should have kept at seven because it had a win condition and some artifact destruction and just needed a bit more mana, which is exactly what my deck contains. He got, no lie, Slith Firewalker on board and proceeded to beat me while I drew nothing useful. Extra damage I took was from Pyrostatic Pillar.
Crap, what a beating, and if I hadn’t Wheeled in game one, I might have won. Oh well. Still, if I won either of the next two rounds, I could probably draw into the Top 8. I'll tell you more about Trogdon's deck later. I think it's pretty saucy, especially in a Drains environment.
Match – 2-1-0
Games – 4-2-0
Round 4 – Nam Tran – Monobrown Mud
So Nam and I squared off again as the two most confusingly named people in Vintage, apparently. This was our third meeting: he won first, I took the second. If we were setting up a tradition here, he would due.
He won the die roll game one and played Sphere of Resistance. That slowed me down, but I eventually played Empty the Warrens for 10 tokens through the 2sphere. It was something like Spirit Guide, Land Grant, Chrome Mox. Next turn Rite of Flame, Rite of Flame, Spirit Guide for Seething Song, Empty the Warrens? I'm missing a storm in there somewhere, but I know the first Rite was used solely to pay for the second Rite. I was pretty happy I played it out because EtW for 10 under pressure seemed pretty decent. Anyway, between Metalworker blocks, Tanglewire, and Smokestacks, his Ancient Tombs did more damage to him than my goblins, which hit him for three. I lost under artifact lockdown to Metalworker Beats.
Next game was awesome. First turn, I played a bunch of mana, then Welder, then Wheel (sending Memory Jar to the graveyard) with a red floating, then I play more mana, Gorilla Shaman, and Empty the Warrens for 24 tokens. Seemed good. He plays Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. I saved five creatures and attacked with four (holding the Welder) for two turns to get him to twelve. Then I Welded in the Jar at end of turn, broke it during my upkeep, played Seething Song to save five creatures at a discount price, and won with Belcher after welding in an untapped Pearl for a tapped Emerald for the activation. Welder is really good against artifacts, and Nam admitted it.
Game three was bad. He opened with Sphere of Resistance and Pithing Needle but I had Shattering Spree in my hand. If only I could have used it! Basically, every time, the turn before I would be able to Shattering Spree or Welder myself out of my situation, he played something to trump it. Eventually there were three Spheres of Resistance, Trinisphere, and a Pithing Needle on Belcher so I was obviously dead in the water, but he couldn't win either, so we drew. Whee.
I hung onto game two as a fun first turn and a ray of hope in these dismal later games.
Match – 2-1-1
Games – 5-3-1
Round 5 – Chris Sargent – Meandeck Gifts
Chris was apparently a newcomer to the Vintage Magic scene. I’d never seen him before, and he said later that this was his first Vintage tournament. Must be nice making an eventual Top 4 appearance in your first Vintage tournament.
In game one, he started out in typical Gifts fashion by playing land, Mox, Scroll for Ancestral. I played Empty the Warrens for eight tokens on my turn. He played Ancestral and Gifts twice—once for mana, once for brokenness (except for Will, which he had in his hand). I attacked for eight but died to Tendrils the next turn. Well, actually two turns, because he Time Walked too. That’s the problem with EtW; it doesn’t win immediately. I suspect he didn’t have counters in this game, so if I’d played Belcher, I would have won.
Game two, I Emptied the Warrens for 14 dudes on my first turn: Mox, Mana Vault, Chromatic Star, Tinder Wall, Rite of Flame, Land Grant for nothing (Taiga had been in my hand), Empty the Warrens. Okay. He got two draw steps but didn't get Echoing Truth or the means to find it and conceded at six life. Unlike last game, this game showed the benefit of Warrens; it’s uncounterable.
Now with great humility and self admonition, I'm pleased to present you with My Major Bonk of the Tournament: Even though I had to win this to move on and be a hero to Belcher players everywhere, I kept a hand of Xantid, Xantid, Land Grant, Land Grant, ESG, Welder, something else. Why? I don't know. There wasn't a damn thing going on in that hand. I think I was trying to make the cool play rather than the good one. My hand could protect itself, but it couldn’t actually do anything but swing with Goblin Welder and Xantid Swarm. Needless to say, I didn't find a win condition so I lost as he cast Ancestral and two Gifts Ungivens with Yawgmoth's Will in hand.
I had at least two good mulligans available for that last hand, and I didn’t take them. Strategy is no good when you don’t stick to it.
So, after such an auspicious start of 4-0, I had a pretty meager finish.
Match – 2-2-1
Games – 6-4-1
Not bad as four of my opponents (Demars, Trogdon, Tran, and Sargent) went on to the Top 8, and three of them (Demars, Trogdon, and Sargent) made Top 4. With one match victory in any of my last three matches, I would have been right there with them. What a heartbreaker.
Still, I consider this tournament a great success. I’m not a combo player, and I still managed to pull out four straight wins and a 66% success rate overall with a new, relatively untested deck.
My feeling is that Belcher is tournament viable. It’s probably not quite as powerful as Grim or PitchLong, but the deck does have its good points. First, it’s got a bunch of four-ofs and win conditions, which means it mulligans really well, even down to five or four cards (which is why my play in game three, match five is even more mind boggling). Second, it’s not much hurt by Chalice for one or zero; sure it’s slowed, but it can win around either. Null Rod and Pithing Needle are pains, but either one is a piece of cake if you were planning on winning with goblins anyway. And Welders and maindeck Red Elemental Blasts make counterspells a treat.
There have been some lists on the Mana Drain lately with black, and they look pretty good. Especially this one. Is black better than red? I honestly don’t know. I’ll have to test that list, though. I love the idea of maindeck Dark Confidants, but I think it might be too slow for Belcher. Wishing for Bob is great because you get another way to recover from problems, but I could see it choking the deck somewhat.
We’ll see. If I go back to black in Belcher, that’s the list I’d start with.
Anyway, the tournament went long because the crew from Northern Ohio had Trogdon and Jeff Blystone in the Top 4 and had to wait for the Drains vs. Drains match between Demars and Sargent to finish up. Demars and Sargent played a barn-burner with misplays from Sargent, more poor hands from Demars, and trash-talking galore. I recommend everyone read Demars’s tournament report and his match report here and here.
(For the record, I don't think Demars was unsportsmanlike during his match with Sargent. He was simply dominant mentally and used his opponent's unfamiliarity with his deck and the format to put him away. It was a great match to watch because the dramatic irony was delicious.)
In the end it was a four-way split between Trogdon, Demars, Blystone, and Paul Mastriano, though I’m not exactly sure why. Long story short, the Soldiery still hasn’t gotten rid of the Mox Pearl everyone’s been trying to win for the past year.
Afterward, everyone headed, to Thurman’s, because it’s awesome. I had the meatloaf sub, which I’d never seen on the menu before. It was pretty good. Next time it’s the Thurman Burger for sure, though, as I haven’t had one in so long. Fun times all around, and I had five root-beers because belching is cool.
All in all, a great day of tournament gaming.
I can’t wait until next weekend: Two-Headed Giants States on Saturday and the wide-open format of Legacy on Sunday. That’s like 48 hours of gaming. Awesome.
Meandeck Legacy
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Registration at 12:30, Round 1 at 1 p.m.
The Soldiery
4256 N. High St.
Columbus, Ohio 43214
Prizes will be based upon attendance, but first is guaranteed $200!
Entry is $15 and it’s sanctioned, so bring your DCI card and no proxies.
See you there!
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