In Part 1, I presented why I’ve been playing more Belcher than pretty much any other deck in any other format of Magic, as well as provided a list and some common mulligan decisions. This time I’d like to go deeper in how to optimally play the deck. You may think you can just throw your hand on the table and watch your opponent concede in the face of mana and sadness… and you’re probably right most of the time, but plenty of situations come up where you can increase your win percentage if you know the proper line.

Sequencing

Given the option game one against an unknown opponent, cast Empty the Warrens over Goblin Charbelcher. It plays around Force of Will and will usually be enough to win game one against most decks.

It’s worth knowing what decks can beat a pile of Goblins game 1 and what cards to look out for in case you Probe your opponent. Lands – Tabernacle of Several Thousand Dollars or a way to get it like Crop Rotation or Gamble. Reanimator – A way to get Griselbrand or Elesh Norn early. Death & Taxes – Turn 2 Stoneforge Mystic into Turn 3 Batterskull can beat a low amount of Goblins, many more if you are on the draw. Miracles – Terminus Storm/Sneak and Show/Elves/Turbo Depths/Other Combo – Ability to combo off early, but against these your best bet is to go for it anyway because otherwise you just lose.

If your plan is to win with Goblin Charbelcher against a Blue or unknown player, try to get to your fourth mana using a ritual. They will most likely counter the ritual to prevent you from casting Empty the Warrens, this keeps your win condition in hand to potentially try again in a later turn.

If your plan is to win with Empty the Warrens against a Blue or unknown player, Use rituals early and save Spirit Guides or zero cost mana producers to use right before the Empty. This forces (hah…) the blue player to use their counters early otherwise they won’t be able to stop your win condition.

Wait til the last possible moment to use Land Grant, revealing your hand is a significant cost as your opponent can calculate what the correct card to use their Force of Will on to deal maximum damage to you. I will Gitaxian Probe before casting Land Grant, and yes, I have been punished and drawn the Taiga off the Probe.

You’re at three mana with a hand of Empty the Warrens, Pyretic Ritual, Land Grant. Cast the Land Grant, if your opponent counters it you can still cast the ritual to get to four mana, if they don’t leave the ritual in your hand and cast the Empty.

Manamorphose usually should make a red and a green. If you have a Tinder Wall in hand with no other green sources then it should make double green. If you hope to Burning Wish for a black or a blue card then make those colors respectively, but remember to have excess mana for rituals.

Don’t forget Tinder Wall’s ability to deal two damage to a creature it is blocking. It seldom comes up but if an opponent with a Gaddock slips up be prepared to punish them.

Don’t be afraid to put Gitaxian Probe or Manamorphose under a Chrome Mox if you need the mana, don’t risk drawing an Artifact and fizzling out.

Sometimes you just need to play Spirit Guides and beat down. I mean I have yet to win a game this way unless they were played in addition to a pile of Goblins but don’t let my failures discourage you.

You have to hold priority to use Lion’s Eye Diamond with Burning Wish on the stack. This lets you use the mana on whatever spell you wish for. It is simple in paper to say hold priority but online it is easier and more punishing to forget. You have to hold the Ctrl key through the entire process of casting Burning Wish.

If there is a chance your opponent has Artifact removal, cast Lion’s Eye Diamond right before your Goblin Charbelcher. Once LED resolves you will have priority to cast Belcher and similar to Burning Wish, hold priority with Belcher on the stack and sacrifice the LED. Because of the way LED works its ability uses the stack and your opponent would have an opportunity to destroy your Belcher before you have a chance to use the ability.

Sideboard/Burning Wish

One of the perks of a Wish sideboard is that you usually don’t have to sideboard much in between games. Online, this tends to lead to valuable time spent using the bathroom or grabbing a snack. Heck, if you’re quick you can do so in paper as well. The main purpose of sideboarding in between games for Belcher is to try and improve our win percentage against Force of Will decks. So, after all my testing I’ve found the perfect sideboard strategy right? Not even close! But, I’ve had pretty good results with the following:

Out: 2 Seething Song, 1 Land Grant, 1 Manamorphose

In: 4 Xantid Swarm

Seething Songs are the card most likely to get hit with a Force of Will, so it is back breaking if you are trying to Empty the Warrens and give them a big juicy target. As mentioned previously, Land Grants are terrible in multiples, so if your first win-con is countered you want to reduce the amount of bad top decks. Manamorphose is similarly problematic, as you want to reduce the amount of times you are going for it blind. Spending three cards and bricking yourself (even without the aid of an opponent’s Force of Will) is a surefire way to lose.

I used to run a single Pyroblast as well, and I still see it in some lists. Holding up an extra mana while you are casting rituals is tricky though, and I prefer to just go for it rather than try to sculpt a hand that can use Pyroblast effectively. Spending a bunch of time sculpting gives your opponent time to draw more permission.

I have been experimenting with bringing in artifact destruction for decks with hate pieces, because casting Burning Wish to get it is usually too expensive. Unfortunately, every time I’ve boarded it in so far I either haven’t drawn it or my opponent hasn’t had the lock piece, so the experiment continues.

What we gain in extra time during sideboarding, we make up for with tricky Burning Wish lines. Again, this won’t be a comprehensive list of possibilities, because Magic is hard.

The most common use of Burning Wish is to act as Empty the Warrens 4-7.

If you already have an Empty the Warrens in hand, and are producing at least 6 mana, grab Goblin War Strike. If you can produce the mana the next turn, and it’s a turn 2 kill.

Probe+Manamorphose+6 non-Spirit Guide mana sources is a Tendrils kill. There are obviously other combinations where this works, so make sure to look out for them, and don’t make the mistake of counting your Spirit Guides as spells.

Telemin Performance is an auto-win game one against Storm and Lands, though for sideboarded games they will usually board in creatures to prevent this line. It is also good against Sneak and Show, as Griselbrand or Emrakul will usually win the game for you. Do not use it against Reanimator, they have several misses like Chancellor of the Annex that just get blanked before you can win.

Do not Diminishing Returns against a blue deck unless a Xantid Swarm is triggered. There can be other exceptions if your storm count is too low, or it is late in the game and a bunch of Goblins won’t win the game. Diminishing Returns against non-blue decks is more common because they usually board in more ways to handle a board of goblins.

Pyroclasm is mainly for creatures like Gaddock Teeg, Thalia, and Sanctum Prelate. Sometimes you get into situations where you can clear a board of Elves or Delvers and force your opponent into a top-deck war.

This has been a lot of words about strategy (especially for plebs like us), so let’s answer the nonsense that has been on your minds: why is Chain Lightning in the board? It is a Wish target, but it is admittedly very low impact. Funnily enough, me and a friend came to running Chain Lightning on different conclusions. His idea, which is much more reasonable, is that he wanted a cheaper removal spell for creatures like Thalia and Teeg. I, on the other hand, have run into too many games where I beat my opponent down to 3 or less with Goblins. Due to some string of Deathrite Shamans or other early creatures, they are able to clear my Goblins, and I have no way to deal the final points of damage. Since adding it to my sideboard I have been able to close out a couple of those games, but it is probably still incorrect. My solution is not caring; I’ll keep it anyway to avoid tilting off in the 0.02% of games where I need it.

Belcher has been good to me online. I’m able to get leagues in quickly and am usually able to string together enough wins to build my collection. I was even able to achieve a goal I’ve been working towards for awhile of buying a set of Power and playing Vintage.

I’ll still be playing Belcher as my collection can always grow larger, and there is more to learn from the deck. I’m even at the point where I may consider playing it in a future large event over my usual choice for Legacy, Sneak & Show. If you read this and are inspired to jump in to Legacy with Belcher, note that you’ll probably run into some salty opponents. But, any way to expand the audience of this great format is a win in my book, even if it’s consisting of “oops-I-win” silliness.