7 Forests, 4 Belchers, T1 Stirrings:
70.357% chance of hitting either
I do not recommend playing Stirrings on the first turn because there is always a possibility that you'll whiff. I view Stirrings solely as a last-ditch option to grab Belcher. Cast it only when there's absolutely nothing else you can do, i.e. you've taken all the lands out of your library, or you have no other 1-drops to play.
8 lands, 4 Chancellors, starting hand:
38.139% chance of exactly 1-land/Chancellor
80.935% chance of at least 1-land/Chancellor
Hate to ask more math questions, but what are the odds have having 2 or more Forest in starting hand? What about 3 or more? Flooding never seems to happen, but I usually don't like a hand with two Chancellor of the Tangle in my opening hand, especially if it's also with two lands.
I like Ancient Stirrings before turn 4 though, because the longer the game goes, the more likely it will whiff.
That article was written for Pokemon but the answers are the same.
I actually like hands with two Chancellors and a land, because I can cast a ramp spell and another 1-drop (mana dork, Search for Tomorrow, land tutor) on turn 1.
So you always crack Sakura-Tribe Elder before your next turn? Like you wouldn't wait to crack him until someone swings, like if they didn't have any creatures out on turn 2, would you still play him and crack him?
I also never know exactly what I should be doing with Recross the Paths. Should we hold onto it to tutor for Charbelcher later, or should I use it for ramp even when I don't have a second one or a Charbelcher in hand?
If you can Belch for 20 before you die, why not? Combo decks aren't just about extracting the absolute maximum value out of your cards - e.g. "Steve can block, so I MUST chump block with him before saccing" - nope. If you think saccing Steve (+1 land) outweighs not having a chump blocker (-??? life), go ahead and do it.
Generally, I find a good first 4 turns would go like this:
T1: Land, Elf OR Chancellor, Lay, Land, Elf
ending with: Land, Elf
T2: Lay, Land, Ramp
ending with: 3 lands, Elf
T3: (Lay, Land,) Belcher
ending with: 3-4 lands, Elf, Belcher
T4: (cast as many spells as you can,) Belch.
If all the pieces are in place, I have no qualms about saccing Steve on T2 for ramp.
Of course, if they don't have any creatures, and you have Rampant Growth/Into the North, you'd play those before Steve.
So you aren't worried about them blowing up your Belcher early? I try not to cast Belcher early unless I have a back up Belcher in hand, I just focus on ramping and fetching and going off on turn 5. The card that's the best accelerator has to be Harrow. It's pretty insane, and I love seeing it in my opening hand.
Yeah, honestly the math looks pretty good for us on opening hand.
On another note, could Noxious Revival be interesting technology for this deck? Basically it would function as an instant speed tutor for free provided we already used a card. It would allow us to reuse some of our better cards like Sakura-Tribe Elder and Recross The Paths. It seems like it could be worth testing.
Been testing Noxious Revival, it's defiantly a thing. Reusing Ancient Stirring is really hot along with re using Sakura-Tribe Elder as a chump blocker. Taking out a couple or all of the Healing Leaves is what I've been doing, but I find that against match ups like Zoo and burn the Healing Leaves are necessary.
Explore: Nope. This deck has a land theme, but "land theme" in this case means "playing fewer lands than usual", not "more".
Harmonize: Also no. The only thing you really need help in drawing is Belcher, and Stirrings fixes that. Or at least, it's the best spell in green for the job. 4 mana to draw 3 is slow when you have a 1-mana spell that digs 5 cards deep.
Magus: It's really unlikely that you can use his second effect, so he's just a Boreal Druid that costs GG. This guy is nothing like the actual Library - with Library (the land), you can be on the draw, drop it T1 and draw immediately. No such shenanigans with Magus.
Elder: Not Modern-legal, unfortunately. Even if he was, I wouldn't play him.
Wall: Also not Modern-legal.
I'm interested in this deck. Not building it. Since I've got enough decks in paper. But I'm interested in automating it. I've got a bunch on my plate right now but I'll be coming back to this. Hopefully we get to a more optimal list I can work off when I do kick it off.
No problem for sharing the list, I hope it helps. Yeah, if you Recross the Paths when you have no lands left in the deck, you can stack the deck however you want. So you can put a bunch of Goblin Charbelcher at the top.
This doesn't mean I'll never use Recross the Paths to find a Forest. But if I don't have Goblin Charbelcher in my hand and I only have one Recross the Paths in my hand it'll be more of a last resort. The cool thing about Recross the Paths is that the clashing not only helps us get closer to the cards we need to find, but also because we run very few lands and high CMC cards like Goblin Charbelcher and Chancellor of the Tangle, we have a good chance of winning the clash. This allows us to recast Recross the Paths again, oftentimes within the same turn!
When you use the land fetches and get all the 8 lands out of the deck, you can Recross the Paths (some of us also use Abundance as Recross #5 and 6, yay me for finding it :D) and since you have no lands left you can organize your entire library however you want.
Normally, I do Chancellor, Belcher, Belcher, Belcher, Belcher, and the rest of the deck. That way, I clash from Recross (if you used Abundance, just stack the Belchers on top) and after the clash I can put the Chancellor at the bottom and keep Recross (or you can just stack 4 Belchers and lose the clash sometimes, you can still put the Belcher back on top but then the people who haven't caught on yet will know to expect it).
I was actually looking to draw power. The only real notible ones are Explore and Harmonize. I was really tired at 3 AM so that's why I said Yavimaya Elder and Wall of Blossoms, forgetting that they are not in Modern.
And even then, those 2 arent really good. Sometimes Explore puts us 1 turn ahead of where we woulod normally be, but that's a little situational.
Forget searching for belcher with stirrings, just play dungrove.
Also, forget mana dorks and three mana spells that arnt cultivate or kodamas, I would rather load up on caravan vigil type effects as they make hands keepable
Forget searching for belcher with stirrings, just play dungrove.
Also, forget mana dorks and three mana spells that arnt cultivate or kodamas, I would rather load up on caravan vigil type effects as they make hands keepable
We actually tend to search up Belcher with the Recross the Paths effect, but sometimes Ancient Stirrings does double duty. It either looks for land, or for Belcher.
I do agree with that last part. I find that too many hands are unkeepable as we sometimes have one Forest, a mana dork, and a bunch of 3 mana cost cards.
I'll try Search for Tomorrow in place of Reach/Cultivate. I'm pretty sure the Caravan effects will be tested by someone else. (speed-Belcher)
I know realms uncharted was brought up before, but I was wondering for some more detail on why it got shot down? Making half your forests snow covered gets you to 2 names, and it doesn't seem that bad to have 2-3 green shocks if you're running the full 4 safewrights.
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I primarily play limited, so most of my spoiler season comments view cards through that lens.
I'm interested in this deck. Not building it. Since I've got enough decks in paper. But I'm interested in automating it. I've got a bunch on my plate right now but I'll be coming back to this. Hopefully we get to a more optimal list I can work off when I do kick it off.
You are the perfect guy for the job.
Basically what I am having trouble with is figuring out how many 1 mana fetches we would need in the deck to average 2-3 per opener. My supposition is that 16-20 would be ideal.
In that way we would have typical opener of:
1-2 Mana sources
2-3 Tutors
3-4 Additional utility spells.
This means that you'd likely have by turn 3 removed anywhere from 3-5 lands from the deck, not to mention any ramp you can get out.
This means a deck composition of:
12 Mana Sources (8 lands, 4 chancellor)
16-20,1 CMC tutors
4 Belchers
24-28 Other Spells (ramp, removal, life gain, mana dorks etc...)
I know realms uncharted was brought up before, but I was wondering for some more detail on why it got shot down? Making half your forests snow covered gets you to 2 names, and it doesn't seem that bad to have 2-3 green shocks if you're running the full 4 safewrights.
If we put 2 lands in the grave, we'll only have 6 land, and we can't play and pop Belcher with it. Yes, mana dorks are there for a reason, but sometimes people have Pyroclasm.
Also, they don't put the lands into the battlefield, they go to your hand. So you need to wait 2 turns to get your lands instead of one like Kodama's Reach or Cultivate or 0 turns for Harrow and Search for Tomorrow.
I know realms uncharted was brought up before, but I was wondering for some more detail on why it got shot down? Making half your forests snow covered gets you to 2 names, and it doesn't seem that bad to have 2-3 green shocks if you're running the full 4 safewrights.
It means you can literally only get to 6 lands in play. 4 Lands if you do it twice. 7 lands let's you land and activate Belcher. That's why.
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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
Those both assume 8 lands total. As I understand it, 8 is convenient for right now, having to do with the power of the land reducing cards we run. Realms Uncharted is the most powerful land reducing card, so going to 9 in a Realms Uncharted version doesn't seem unreasonable (heck, the math isn't fully in yet, maybe the normal version wants 9). Yeah, second copies are dead, and it's worse than cultivate variants in terms of land. I was thinking of it more as a worse, on color Mana Severence, to get to the belching/recrossing stage quicker. Is that something which just doesn't really come up in practice?
The getting to 7 issue is also less of a problem if Noxious Revival ends up being used.
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Sometimes you only have one shot at landing Belcher and activating for the kill.
I'm not really sure what this means. Anyway, the deck looks pretty cheap, so I'm going to build it on MODO and I'll probably test some Realms.
Edit: On a more practical note, isn't utopia sprawl just a way better mana elf? It goes on all our lands, is much harder to kill, and has pseudo-haste.
Edit 2: Ah, doesn't work with the chancellor+1cmc ramp+no forest+no lay variant hands. How common are those? Are they keepable in the dark anyway? Such a hand folds to bolt and seems to get off the ground very slowly.
70.357% chance of hitting either
I do not recommend playing Stirrings on the first turn because there is always a possibility that you'll whiff. I view Stirrings solely as a last-ditch option to grab Belcher. Cast it only when there's absolutely nothing else you can do, i.e. you've taken all the lands out of your library, or you have no other 1-drops to play.
8 lands, 4 Chancellors, starting hand:
38.139% chance of exactly 1-land/Chancellor
80.935% chance of at least 1-land/Chancellor
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Hate to ask more math questions, but what are the odds have having 2 or more Forest in starting hand? What about 3 or more? Flooding never seems to happen, but I usually don't like a hand with two Chancellor of the Tangle in my opening hand, especially if it's also with two lands.
I like Ancient Stirrings before turn 4 though, because the longer the game goes, the more likely it will whiff.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
That article was written for Pokemon but the answers are the same.
I actually like hands with two Chancellors and a land, because I can cast a ramp spell and another 1-drop (mana dork, Search for Tomorrow, land tutor) on turn 1.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
I also never know exactly what I should be doing with Recross the Paths. Should we hold onto it to tutor for Charbelcher later, or should I use it for ramp even when I don't have a second one or a Charbelcher in hand?
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
Generally, I find a good first 4 turns would go like this:
T1: Land, Elf OR Chancellor, Lay, Land, Elf
ending with: Land, Elf
T2: Lay, Land, Ramp
ending with: 3 lands, Elf
T3: (Lay, Land,) Belcher
ending with: 3-4 lands, Elf, Belcher
T4: (cast as many spells as you can,) Belch.
If all the pieces are in place, I have no qualms about saccing Steve on T2 for ramp.
Of course, if they don't have any creatures, and you have Rampant Growth/Into the North, you'd play those before Steve.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
Indeed, it appears they changed the site layout. Try this link.
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
You really only get one decent shot at a mulligan, after that you are basically flipping a coin.
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
On another note, could Noxious Revival be interesting technology for this deck? Basically it would function as an instant speed tutor for free provided we already used a card. It would allow us to reuse some of our better cards like Sakura-Tribe Elder and Recross The Paths. It seems like it could be worth testing.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
Explore
Harmonize
Magus of the Library
Yavimaya Elder
Wall of Blossoms
I'll be testing these.
Modern: Top Control -- UWx Titan -- Loam Pox -- Footsteps Hulk
Legacy: Doomsday -- Death and Taxes -- UR Stasis -- Sylvan Plug
Pauper: UB Teachings -- UR Nivix Control
Harmonize: Also no. The only thing you really need help in drawing is Belcher, and Stirrings fixes that. Or at least, it's the best spell in green for the job. 4 mana to draw 3 is slow when you have a 1-mana spell that digs 5 cards deep.
Magus: It's really unlikely that you can use his second effect, so he's just a Boreal Druid that costs GG. This guy is nothing like the actual Library - with Library (the land), you can be on the draw, drop it T1 and draw immediately. No such shenanigans with Magus.
Elder: Not Modern-legal, unfortunately. Even if he was, I wouldn't play him.
Wall: Also not Modern-legal.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
I don't see how you aren't finding Goblin Charbelcher, we are running 4 of them, plus 4 Ancient Stirrings, plus 4 Recross the Paths.
This is the list I'm running now.
4x Caravan Vigil
4x Lay of the Land
1x Safewright Quest
4x Chancellor of the Tangle
4x Cultivate
4x Harrow
4x Recross the Paths
4x Gatecreeper Vine
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Sakura-Tribe Elder
4x Ancient Stirrings
4x Goblin Charbelcher
3x Healing Leaves
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
This doesn't mean I'll never use Recross the Paths to find a Forest. But if I don't have Goblin Charbelcher in my hand and I only have one Recross the Paths in my hand it'll be more of a last resort. The cool thing about Recross the Paths is that the clashing not only helps us get closer to the cards we need to find, but also because we run very few lands and high CMC cards like Goblin Charbelcher and Chancellor of the Tangle, we have a good chance of winning the clash. This allows us to recast Recross the Paths again, oftentimes within the same turn!
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
Normally, I do Chancellor, Belcher, Belcher, Belcher, Belcher, and the rest of the deck. That way, I clash from Recross (if you used Abundance, just stack the Belchers on top) and after the clash I can put the Chancellor at the bottom and keep Recross (or you can just stack 4 Belchers and lose the clash sometimes, you can still put the Belcher back on top but then the people who haven't caught on yet will know to expect it).
I was actually looking to draw power. The only real notible ones are Explore and Harmonize. I was really tired at 3 AM so that's why I said Yavimaya Elder and Wall of Blossoms, forgetting that they are not in Modern.
And even then, those 2 arent really good. Sometimes Explore puts us 1 turn ahead of where we woulod normally be, but that's a little situational.
@Honor, One turn I Recrossed 4 times cus value
Modern: Top Control -- UWx Titan -- Loam Pox -- Footsteps Hulk
Legacy: Doomsday -- Death and Taxes -- UR Stasis -- Sylvan Plug
Pauper: UB Teachings -- UR Nivix Control
Also, forget mana dorks and three mana spells that arnt cultivate or kodamas, I would rather load up on caravan vigil type effects as they make hands keepable
We actually tend to search up Belcher with the Recross the Paths effect, but sometimes Ancient Stirrings does double duty. It either looks for land, or for Belcher.
I do agree with that last part. I find that too many hands are unkeepable as we sometimes have one Forest, a mana dork, and a bunch of 3 mana cost cards.
I'll try Search for Tomorrow in place of Reach/Cultivate. I'm pretty sure the Caravan effects will be tested by someone else. (speed-Belcher)
Modern: Top Control -- UWx Titan -- Loam Pox -- Footsteps Hulk
Legacy: Doomsday -- Death and Taxes -- UR Stasis -- Sylvan Plug
Pauper: UB Teachings -- UR Nivix Control
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
My Cube:Cardinal Custom Cube
A custom version of a third modern masters: MM2019
(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).
You are the perfect guy for the job.
Basically what I am having trouble with is figuring out how many 1 mana fetches we would need in the deck to average 2-3 per opener. My supposition is that 16-20 would be ideal.
In that way we would have typical opener of:
1-2 Mana sources
2-3 Tutors
3-4 Additional utility spells.
This means that you'd likely have by turn 3 removed anywhere from 3-5 lands from the deck, not to mention any ramp you can get out.
This means a deck composition of:
12 Mana Sources (8 lands, 4 chancellor)
16-20,1 CMC tutors
4 Belchers
24-28 Other Spells (ramp, removal, life gain, mana dorks etc...)
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
If we put 2 lands in the grave, we'll only have 6 land, and we can't play and pop Belcher with it. Yes, mana dorks are there for a reason, but sometimes people have Pyroclasm.
Also, they don't put the lands into the battlefield, they go to your hand. So you need to wait 2 turns to get your lands instead of one like Kodama's Reach or Cultivate or 0 turns for Harrow and Search for Tomorrow.
Modern: Top Control -- UWx Titan -- Loam Pox -- Footsteps Hulk
Legacy: Doomsday -- Death and Taxes -- UR Stasis -- Sylvan Plug
Pauper: UB Teachings -- UR Nivix Control
It means you can literally only get to 6 lands in play. 4 Lands if you do it twice. 7 lands let's you land and activate Belcher. That's why.
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
The getting to 7 issue is also less of a problem if Noxious Revival ends up being used.
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
My Cube:Cardinal Custom Cube
A custom version of a third modern masters: MM2019
(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).
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
I'm not really sure what this means. Anyway, the deck looks pretty cheap, so I'm going to build it on MODO and I'll probably test some Realms.
Edit: On a more practical note, isn't utopia sprawl just a way better mana elf? It goes on all our lands, is much harder to kill, and has pseudo-haste.
Edit 2: Ah, doesn't work with the chancellor+1cmc ramp+no forest+no lay variant hands. How common are those? Are they keepable in the dark anyway? Such a hand folds to bolt and seems to get off the ground very slowly.
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
My Cube:Cardinal Custom Cube
A custom version of a third modern masters: MM2019
(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).