Seventeen Belches As Compliments to the Chef

Belcher.

Sigh.

Belcher, Belcher, Belcher.

Belcher will always be one of those fringe decks. And that’s a shame. It’s powerful enough to be a first turn killer with the same frequency as something like Long or Flash, but people will reject it as being fragile and inconsistent. Plus, who runs decks without blue or Yawgmoth’s Will?

Well, I guess I do.

I think that, properly played, Belcher is at least as consistent and resilient as Long, especially now. There are so many cool thing that go into Belcher now, not the least of which are Street Wraith and Serum Powder. It’s like playing with 52 cards!

4x Serum Powder
4x Street Wraith
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Memory Jar

4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
4x Rite of Flame
4x Tinder Wall
4x Land Grant
5x Mox
1x Chrome Mox
1x Black Lotus
1x Lotus Petal
1x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Sol Ring
1x Taiga
1x Channel

3x Empty the Warrens
2x Living Wish
4x Goblin Charbelcher

2x Pyroblast
2x Red Elemental Blast
3x Goblin Welder

Looks pretty good, right? I’m pleased with it.

Those people playing Ichorid were really on the ball about Serum Powder. In this deck, it seriously is like a free Wheel of Fortune for only yourself. And it’s even better when Powders chain into each other; you get rid of some lesser acceleration and are left with just win conditions and pure heat. It’s never automatic, and it’s not always great, but it’s still totally worth it.

I played 16 goldfishes with the recommended paths and contingency plans, and better yet, I took notes. I won’t be talking in theoretical anymore!

These are not cherry-picked. They’re 16 actual games in a row. Though the sample isn’t large enough to be completely accurate, I can say that they are fairly representative of what I’ve seen before and expect to see in the future.

Actually, I generally get bored with this kind of writing, but I’ve had enough people ask me about Belcher and have discussed it with enough different people that I think it’s worthwhile. If you aren’t interested and get bored, just do what I do and tune in next week.

Game 1

Land Grant, Land Grant, Street Wraith, Street Wraith, Goblin Charbelcher, Mox Pearl, Elvish Spirit Guide. This doesn’t have enough mana in it yet to play a first turn Belcher, but redundant Land Grants will resolve, so once you have Belcher in play you’ll be one mana away from activating. It’s a keeper, albeit a slow one.

Land Grant into Taiga and pitch Street Wraiths to get Simian Spirit Guide and Wheel of Fortune. You have four mana available, so you might consider playing Wheel of Fortune with Taiga untapped. My play though would be to cast Charbelcher immediately and save Wheel of Fortune as a backup since it’s cheaper. So you play turn one Belcher and draw Tinder Wall on turn two for the win.

Had Belcher gotten countered, Tinder Wall would also have let me play Wheel of Fortune on turn three into Street Wraith, Rite of Flame, Tinder Wall, Pyroblast, Living Wish, Sol Ring, Red Elemental Blast. Street Wraith drew me Mox Ruby.

In another turn, you could have made that into Ruby, Ring, Rite of Flame, Living Wish for Storm Entity as a 5/5. It’s not huge, but it gives your opponent only three turns to find an answer or win the game. Hopefully your Wheel screwed your opponent instead of fuelling him up.

Result – Belcher fired turn two with Wheel of Forutne backup.

Game 2

Street Wraith, REB, SSG, Land Grant, Memory Jar, Pyroblast, Tinder Wall. Another keeper, but another slower hand. It’s the SSG and Blasts that make this keepable. If you know you’re playing against something that will stop your Memory Jar or kill you quickly, though, you probably mulligan.

Land Grant on your first turn since you have Red Force backup. Street Wraith draws Mox Ruby. Taiga, Mox Ruby, Tinder Wall, pass. Draw Welder for turn two and play him. You have Blast backup for all of this. Figuring you still have SSG, you can play Memory Jar next turn, now with Welder backup.

If your opponent’s win seems imminent, you can break the Jar immediately, otherwise I’d wait to draw the extra card.

Turn three upkeep, Jar into ESG, Empty the Warrens, Belcher, Living Wish, Mox Pearl and Jet, Belcher, Street Wraith. Street Wraith becomes ESG. Pretty good since it lets you win right now. Living Wish for Tolarian Academy, play your moxen, play Belcher, and activate. If they counter Belcher, you have Welder and win anyway. If they stop everything, you can weld in Jar and try again with mana floating.

Result – Third turn, but it’s so redundant that if they let you get this far, you definitely win.

Game 3

EtW, Jar, Wraith, Taiga, Channel, Rite, Wish. Slow and ugly. Mulligan.

Wraith, Wall, Rite of Flame, LED, REB, Jet. Mull again (heh), but this is really good if you feel like you have some time. You can’t count on Street Wraith to find you a win condition, unfortunately.

Wall, REB, Pyro, Belcher, SSG – No mana, but I wouldn’t generally mull past five, and this does have a Win condtion. Hopefully they walk into Red Force and you get to recover.

Draw Welder, pass.

Draw Empty the Warrens, pass.

Draw Serum Powder, weep.

Draw Street Wraith, turn it into Mox Ruby. Don’t think that’s quite got the distance. If you haven’t lost yet, you probably should have.

Result – Bad times for Belcher, but that happens when a lot of decks mull to five.

Game 4

SW, SW, Land Grant, Rite, Wall, Lotus, Powder. There are too many mystery cards and not enough wins. I hate pitching Lotus, but… Powder.

ESG, Wheel, Emerald, Taiga, Blast, Pearl, Welder. You can’t do much better than that without a Belcher. Keep.

Play Taiga and Welder and pass. This is an attempt to draw out a counter. If you’re holding a Belcher, their counter won’t do much good with a Welder on the table.

Draw Empty the Warrens. If you want, you can play it for six li’l green dudes. I’d recommend Wheeling with a green mana floating, though.

Wheel into Ruby, LED, Chrome, Wraith, Channel, Jar, SSG. Wow! If this had a red blast it would be amazing. Wraith becomes ESG. Neat!

Play Channel then Jar then Chrome Mox imprinting SSG (it’s like drawing SSG every turn!) then Ruby and LED. Since you have lots of mana, you can crack the Jar now rather than waiting.

Jar into Land Grant, Belcher, Belcher, Vault, Rite, Wraith, REB. You’re down to 13 life, by the way, and cycling Street Wraith into Serum Powder takes you to 11.

You should have Ruby, Chrome, and LED untapped, as well as a Welder. Channel is active and you have two Belchers and a REB in hand. I don’t see how it’s possible to lose. The best choice is to attempt a Belcher, counter what they do and Mana Vault for the win. If they somehow stop you, you can weld in and win. At 11 life, you can even hardast both Belchers off of Channel.

Results – You win second turn with so much power. If you got the Channel and the Jar through (Jar with Welder backup, remember) you couldn’t possibly lose.

Game 5

Pyroblast, Living Wish, Lotus, SSG, Belcher, Belcher, Empty the Warrens. Not too bad. There are a lot of options to choose from here—first turn Belcher, Empty the Warrens for four guys (six if you have Ancient Tomb to Wish for), Living Wish for a 3/3 Storm Entity. The strongest of those is clearly a first turn Belcher.

With Red Force backup, drop Lotus and Wish for Mishra’s Workshop. Play Belcher with the Shop and the remaining Green, pass. If ony Workshop made useable mana.

Draw ESG. Not terribly exciting, but you’re one mana away from active Belcher if you haven’t had to pitch SSG to Red Force.

Draw Street Wraith and cycle for Chrome Mox. If you haven’t had to counter and so still have the SSG, play Chrome Mox imprinting EtW and win. If you have to wait, keep waiting.

Draw Serum Powder. I never said there weren’t drawbacks to this card. Hopefully you won last turn so you didn’t have to see this.

Draw Jet. You either win now or you’ve already lost.

Result – Turn four fire at the latest, but you have a first turn Belcher. (This is why permanent mana sources are such a premium.) Not great, but if you use Red Force right and stay patient you could pull this one out.

Game 6

Belcher, SW, SW, Emerald, Sapphire, Vault, Pyro. Already really good. Let’s see what the Street Wraith drags in…

Lion’s Eye Diamond and Taiga! Holy Cow!

Taiga for Pyro backup. Mox, Mox, Vault, LED, Belcher off of Vault. Sac LED and Fire!

Result – Turn one that wins through Force. Excellent! These are the games you play Belcher for.

Game 7

Ruby, Powder, Powder, SSG, REB, Jet, Wraith. Gassy, but no win so we Powder.
Crypt, Rite, SSG, Sapphire, Wall, Wraith, Lotus Petal. Again, all gas with nothing to fuel. No Powder either, so we Paris. (Wraith would have been EtW, by the way, and for 12 dudes. Even better if we could bait a counter with Mana Crypt. Still, there are no guarantees on topdecks like that.)

The hand of six is Belcher, Land Grant, Lotus, Rite, Rite, Living Wish. Hoohoo! It’s all in, but it wins first turn if they counter nothing.

Lead with Lotus as bait since you don’t need it. Then Land Grant. Cast both Rites off of Taiga. Crack Lotus and fire!

If they save the counter for Belcher, you should win soon enough as long as Taiga stays in play. My next two draws were ESG and Tinder Wall, for example, but there are lots of ways to get those last two mana.

Result – A turn one win or a likely first turn Belcher. Nothing to cry about there.

Game 8

Taiga, ESG, SSG, SSG, Jar, Welder, Ring. Keep. The Taiga and Sol Ring are really reliable mana, and the Welder-Jar pair are gold in the pocket. It’s slow but steady.

Taiga, Welder, pass.

Draw Empty the Warrens. It’s a terrible card with so many Spirit Guides right now. Oh well, pitch ESG for Sol Ring and pitch the rest of the Spirit Guides to play Memory Jar with Welder backup. Pass.

Jar on upkeep into Belcher, Belcher, Rite, Ruby, ESG, Pyro, Petal. Solid! Not that you have a choice. It should be hard to lose with an active Welder since you’ll discard any Belchers you don’t play when Jar finishes resolving. Draw Rite for turn.

With Pyro backup play Ruby, Rite, Rite, Belcher. Pitch ESG and tap Ring to Fire!

Result – Another turn two victory with lots of backups. Unless they Forced Welder and Jarred into another Force, you win easily.

Game 9

Taiga, Emerald, Pearl, Rite, Belcher, SW, Powder. This is one of those hands that you keep despite the Powder; it’s a first turn Belcher with mana to activate next turn. Plus, who knows what SW will be?

Turns out it’s Black Lotus!

Lotus as bait. Taiga, Rite, Mox, Mox, Belcher. Fire! If they countered Lotus, just win on your next upkeep with both Moxes and a Taiga in play.

Result – It’s great! Unless they let Lotus through and counter the Belcher instead. That’s four really good draws in a row, in case you hadn’t noticed.

Game 10

REB, Wall, Wall, ESG, ESG, Vault, Rite. Mull. It’s unfortunate because there’s so much mana there.

Wish, Wall, Jar, EtW, Jet, ESG. It ain’t pretty, but it might just work.

Pass—yes, sometimes you pass without doing anything on your first turn. Your hand was good enough to not go to five, but you didn’t have any really good first turn plays.

Draw Taiga. Hm…

Play Taiga to feign Red Blast backup. ESG into Tinder Wall. Sac the wall and tap the Taiga to play Wish for Storm Entity. Drop the Jet and play Storm Entity at 4/4. Weak, but oh well. Swing with the four turn clock.

Alternately, it’s EtW for 6, but that’s not much better.

Draw Tinder Wall. Enemy goes to 12.

Draw EtW. Enemy goes to 8.

Draw Rite. Enemy goes to 4. Tinder Wall, Rite of Flame, EtW for six gobbos now. Win next turn. It’s real weak, winning on turn five.

Let’s try a theoretical second mulligan.

EST, REB, SSG, SSG, SW. This has a lot of initials and decent acceleration and protection. For a mull to five it’s decent. Street Wraith becomes Tinder Wall. Okay…

Pass. Hope for a game breaking Red Force. Your other option is a first turn monkey to attack with!

Draw Belcher! Huzzah! You could play it now, but you might be better off passing until you have Red Force backup, or at least some permanent mana to activate with.

Draw Street Wraith into Land Grant. Now you’re harder to stop. Land Grant, then play Belcher. Leave yourself with Red Force if you don’t have to use it.

Draw Lotus. Well dang. I guess you win. Turn 3 with backup.

Result – The mulligan to five turned out much better than the mull to six did. Neither was especially good, though, and lots could have gone wrong.

Game 11

Chrome, SSG, ESG, Emerald, Vault, Ruby, EtW. Oh, if only EtW was a Belcher. Keep nonetheless.

Emerald. Ruby. Vault off of Emerald. Chrome imprinting ESG. Ten goblins rush from their teeming warrens. Pass.

You hold up SSG in case you draw Red Force.

Draw Living Wish. Swing 10.

Some might argue that you could Wish for Skirk Prospector to protect your dudes from Echoing Truth and power you up if you happen to draw a Belcher. You could also Living Wish for a 2/2 Storm Entity. I’d hold on to it myself.

Draw Street Wraith and turn it into Pyroblast. What did I say about Red Force? I guess you have untapped Ruby too, now. Swing 10. That seems like it should be 20 damage, and you probably win the game.

Result – This is only the first game I’ve won with Empty the Warrens, which I think is a lot better than winning most of them that way, as I was before. It was strong.

Game 12

Wish, Welder, Rite, REB, Grant, Wraith, Powder. Not quite good enough. Powder.

Belcher, Jet, Ring, Crypt, Wall, ESG, Pyroblast – Whoo! Gassy.

ESG into Wall so you have Pyro backup. (Who counters Tinder Wall anyway?) Jet, Ring, Crypt, Belcher. Pass.

Win on upkeep.

Result – Really, really good. Permanent mana enough to win on upkeep with Pyroblast backup. This pretty much only loses to Null Rod and Pithing Needle. Also, I should point out that if your opponent seems like he’s digging for an answer, go ahead and Pyroblast their Brainstorm. Give no quarter!

Game 13

Powder, Powder, Wraith, Wraith, Wheel, Grant, Rite. Wow. Those Street Wraiths and the promise of a first turn Wheel really make me want to keep, but with two Powders, I’m pretty sure you mull.

Wall, Grant, Belcher, SSG, ESG, Petal, Vault. Better!

No red blasts this time, but ESG into Tinder Wall. Tinder Wall into Mana Vault into Belcher.

If they don’t counter, you’ve probably won. Play Petal, Land Grant, and SSG. Fire!

Result – You mulled to six and won the game. Pretty darn good. You’re even left with some mana to recover in case they counter your Belcher.

Game 14

Living Wish, Chrome Mox, Wall, Wall, SSG, REB, Wheel. Keep. You can Wheel with lots of leftover mana. It’s shaky, though, especially that Chrome Mox.

Speaking of… play Chrome Mox and imprint Living Wish, pass.

Draw Sapphire and play it and the second Wall. Break the Wall and pitch SSG to Wheel with REB backup, a Tinder Wall intact, and a floating red mana.

Wheel into Pearl, ESG, Welder, Wish, Rite, Channel, Pyro. Hmm… Drop Pearl and pitch ESG to Wish for Storm Entity. Break Wall. Play Rite. Storm Entity for 7/7 with Pyro backup. If that goes through, play Welder. Swing seven.

Alternately, you could play the Welder first and swing eight, but they know you have the Storm Entity when you wish for it, so there’s really no secrets that would make them counter the Welder instead of the Entity. Better to protect the Storm Entity, especially since you don’t have anything to weld. Also 7/7 and 8/8 are pretty much equivalent when you only have to do 20 damage.

Draw Street Wraith and cycle into Land Grant. Swing seven.

Draw Jet. Swing seven.

Win on turn four with Storm Entity and Channel in hand

Result – It was okay. Storm Entity is a strong win condition against Fish and similar decks because it can be hard for them to deal with. Against other decks, this is just a matter of winning before they do. Still, 7/7 is a big elemental.

Game 15

Pyro, REB, Grant, Jar, ESG, Welder, Rite. Yuck. I’d want to play Jar, but the best way to do that would be to draw and discard to Weld it. Nope. No starter mana.

Wraith, Wraith, Wraith (?!), EtW, Grant, Powder. Powder? I believe I will, thanks.

SSG, Welder, SSG, Grant, Taiga, Powder. Hmm… I regret throwing away my one land, but… Powder. I’ve already removed two Land Grants, so the chances of me finding one of those is slim at this point anyway.

ESG, Ring, Vault, Rite, REB, Belcher. Keep.

ESG into Ring into Vault into Belcher. No guts no glory. Right?

Draw Tinder Wall. Hm. If I had waited a turn I could have played Belcher with REB backup. Oh well. No way to have known. Still one mana away from a green light on Belcher.

Draw Living Wish. It’s no good to me now as I still don’t have any green mana.

Draw Lotus. Fire! Actually. You could Lotus into Wall into Wish for Taiga if you feel like giving your opponent more opportunities to counter something and screw you. Really, though, you’re just using the five mana you suddenly have a bit more efficiently.

Result – It’s a first turn Belcher with a turn four firing. Not great by any means, but that will still win you some games periodically.

Game 16

Crypt, Jar, SSG, Rite, Ruby, Wraith, Welder. Nice. It’s got a big threat in Jar, it’s got Welder to go with Jar, and it’s got two permanent sources of mana including Belcher’s best mox.

Street Wraith becomes Sapphire.

Ruby, Rite, Sapphire, Crypt, Jar. If it gets countered, play Welder off of SSG. If it doesn’t, pitch SSG and Jar into Wraith, Wraith, REB, Pearl, ESG, ESG, Channel.

Ick. No wins, yet.

Wraith the first becomes Serum Powder. Sonuva…

Wraith the second becomes Lion’s Eye Diamond.

Play LED, Mox Pearl, and Serum Powder?! Pass. Back to the hand with just a Welder.

Draw REB. Play Welder, hope it’s good.

Upkeep, weld in Jar for, uh, Serum Powder. Jar into Rite, Rite, Rite (whee! that’s all four!), Belcher, Wish, Jet, ESG. Not too shabby. By which I mean, this hand is awesome. Draw Tinder Wall for turn.

Play Ruby and cast Rite of Flame for three. Play Jet and discard ESG for Living Wish into Storm Entity. Rite of Flame for four, giving you six. Rite of Flame for five, giving you 10. (Let’s see Dark Ritual do that!) Play Storm Entity for 6/6 as bait! Play Belcher and Fire!

Results – Eh, turn three. Not too bad. I guess the proper play was to play Jar and Welder on turn one and pass. It would have saved one turn, but you might not have drawn into a key card at the right time. In the end, you have a 6/6 Storm Entity, a Welder, and a Belcher on board with a Memory Jar in the graveyard. Short of losing to combo, you’re winning this game.


So that’s it. Four first turn wins, four second turn wins, five third turn wins, and four post-third-turn wins. I know that adds up to 17, but I counted the extra mull to five on game 10 as well.

What do you think?

Whether I proved anything to anyone else, I think I learned a lot. I’m quite happy with it. When a quarter of your games on turn one, you’re doing okay. Plus, I had lots of games with protection, redundancy, or contingency plans. For the most part, Belcher is a simple deck to play. If you can, you keep red mana handy in case you need to Pyroblast something. Learn the good bait spells (Lotus is by far the best, then probably Welder), and think of how to use your mana as efficiently as possible.

Oh, and don’t tip your hand too often or too soon with Land Grant. If your opponent knows what they’re doing with Belcher, then they know what you’re doing too.

Like I said, these hands and how they play aren’t atypical. That’s just what the deck does. Sometime between turns one and four, you should win the game. Each turn beyond three decreases your chances slightly, though that’s not a guaranteed loss. Most of your matches are quick—moreso if you’re doing well—and that makes it a relatively stress- and thought-free deck.

The one change I would consider is switching the third Empty the Warrens for the fifth red blast. Empty the Warrens seems weak because everyone and their dentist has an answer to a half-dozen goblin tokens. Plus, you still have the same number of win conditions as were in my list pre-Future Sight; you just traded two Empties for two Living Wish into Storm Entity. And Serum Powder and Storm Entity help you find those winners.

And it’s so much fun to play!

I mean... Belch?

It doesn't get better than that.

Good luck. And good mulliganing.