For as long as the idea has existed, a friend in my playgroup has had a Belcher deck available to play in paper. Over the years the deck has been passed around as if we were bestowing a great honor to one another. One of us even managed to top 32 a Grand Prix with the deck. For the longest time I had only played the deck at FNM level events on a whim, but about a year ago I was struck with a strange bit of inspiration. Our very own Erik, who streams with somewhat regularity, usually plays RUG Delver in Legacy. Despite being weak to Deathrite Shaman, he loves beating down with Nimble Mongoose. For a certain streak I noticed he had played against a lot of fair non-blue decks like Death and Taxes and Maverick, which are traditionally bad match-ups for him. It makes sense; blue dual-lands and Force of Wills are the biggest barrier to entry for Legacy both in paper and online, but was there a way I could take advantage of this?

Belcher is quite a unique deck; it only plays one land, and the only reason it doesn’t play zero is because fetching the land for free with Land Grant is quite good. If the deck were more popular it could possibly unseat Dredge for the prestigious award of “Deck That Doesn’t Play Real Magic.” There was a lot that appealed to me though. It is a pretty cheap Legacy deck to build (I already had the Lion’s Eye Diamonds, the most expensive card at the time), it has favorable match-ups against all the fair non-blue decks I was seeing, and it won and lost incredibly fast. Tracked over 70 leagues in the past year my average time spent in a league is around an hour (which includes time waiting to be paired). An hour! I could spend most of the day pretending to be a productive member of society and still get five matches of Magic in. If I could consistently 3-2 or better with the deck I’d be able to go infinite on Magic Online which would allow me to build my collection, and I wouldn’t have to spend a soul crushing amount of time doing it.

After building the deck and firing up a league I was immediately rewarded with a trophy for going 5-0. Not only that, but I was completing entire leagues in the same time my aforementioned Mongoose buddy above would finish two matches. Did I discover a secret treasure trove no one else had thought of? Ehh not quite; while I have had plenty of hot streaks that have fattened my MTGO wallet, the deck has its downswings like any other. Overall it has been a successful experiment, but not something to jump in to without some knowledge of the deck and the format. Here is the current list:

Belcher: Legacy

Creatures: 12

4 Simian Spirit Guide

4 Elvish Spirit Guide

4 Tinder Wall Land: 1

1 Taiga Spells: 47

4 Goblin Charbelcher

3 Empty the Warrens

4 Burning Wish

4 Chrome Mox

4 Lion’s Eye Diamond

4 Lotus Petal

4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Rite of Flame

4 Desperate Ritual

1 Pyretic Ritual

4 Land Grant

3 Manamorphose

4 Seething Song Sideboard: 15

4 Xantid Swarm

1 Diminishing Returns

1 Telemin Performance

1 Tendrils of Agony

1 Goblin War Strike

1 Shattering Spree

1 Pyroclasm

1 Trash for Treasure

1 Empty the Warrens

1 Reverent Silence

1 Hull Breach

1 Chain Lightning

For those who aren’t familiar with how the deck works, the goal is to cast a bunch of rituals to get enough mana on turn one to cast one of your win conditions: Empty the Warrens, Burning Wish, or of course Goblin Charbelcher. Empty will usually make eight to twelve Goblins while Belcher deals lethal damage if the Taiga is out of your deck and has a high chance of dealing lethal even with it in the deck. There are very few flex slots in the deck, but they are worth talking about.

Chrome Mox/Land Grant: These can be miserable to draw multiples of, but they are necessary to meet a threshold of zero drops to get your mana started. Some lists cut one of either or both to help prevent drawing multiples, but I actually like drawing multiple Chrome Moxes in Force of Will match-ups, as having permanent mana can help you win games after a good top-deck. Additionally, multiple Land Grants can always go under a Chrome Mox or fluff your storm count.

These can be miserable to draw multiples of, but they are necessary to meet a threshold of zero drops to get your mana started. Some lists cut one of either or both to help prevent drawing multiples, but I actually like drawing multiple Chrome Moxes in Force of Will match-ups, as having permanent mana can help you win games after a good top-deck. Additionally, multiple Land Grants can always go under a Chrome Mox or fluff your storm count. Manamorphose: I’ve seen lists cut this card completely, usually in favor of more Pyretic Rituals. It makes sense because there are a lot of times you have to go for it blind and hope your Manamorphose draws a mana source, and if it doesn’t you’ve potentially wasted up to three cards. The other side of the coin is it is a crucial redraw when facing lethal and you desperately need a win-con. It also enables more of your sideboard cards instead of relying on LED or two Lotus Petals.

Mulliganing

I won’t go over very specific hands but I will go over some common scenarios you’ll likely see with the deck.

Any hand with six mana sources and a win con is an obvious keep.

I tend to keep hands with a win-con but no zero-cost mana sources. There are 21 hits in the deck so you are likely to draw one but it is still possible to fizzle.

Any seven card hand with no win con is an auto mulligan. I’ve kept enough Probe+Manamorphose+Mana source hands to know it seldom works out for you, just try again with six.

I will keep a hand with six mana sources on a mulligan, at that point you’re best to just trust your deck then go to five. Scry any non-Probe or non-win-con to the bottom.

Hands with 3 or more win cons probably don’t have enough mana to actually play any of them. These need to be evaluated on a case by case basis, because if the hand also has a Land Grant and a Chrome Mox, that might be enough permanent mana to be worth trying.

Luckily, Belcher is a good deck to goldfish with because you usually don’t care about what your opponent is doing anyway. If you do pick the deck up I recommend getting some practice on Magic Online to get a feel for what hands are keeps and which ones fizzle out. Of course, any dingus can tell you to look at a hand and see if the mana adds up to 7.

Next time I’ll go more in depth into the sequencing of the cards you’re playing, and common scenarios you find yourself in.