No Land Belcher

I have mentioned this variant of the Charbelcher archetype a couple of times recently but don't think I have ever done any sort of list for one. Disclaimer time, these decks do have lands, just very very few. So much so it seems as if they might as well not have any lands hence the name. I think you could go full no land but it would be a lot worse than  these for the job. It is one of those decks that is not tier one and also uses a lot of awkward cards. The reason to build and play something like this is that they offer a unique play experience. Extreme combo decks are just very different and that makes them fun and novel even if they are not insane. Even variants of the same archetype can play in wildly different ways and this is such a deck. There are in fact two subtle variants on this archetypal variant. The plan is simply to play very few lands so that is it very easy to remove them from the deck such that any Belcher activation should be fatal when you get to do it. Compared to the Severence Belcher decks which is a two card combo deck these are more like a single card engine combo deck.

Either you run only Forests or you run only artifact lands as these can easily be plucked from the deck with the right support cards. In both lists you run about four lands. The Forests route is more consistent with a larger number of tools to pluck them from the deck. It also has a huge advantage in that it can play Mountains (that are also Forests) which means you can leave a land or two in the deck and still have a decent shot of a fatal Belch. The artifacts route has more synergy with Mox Opal, Thoughtcast and that sort of jazz.


One thing that may well make this archetype a whole lot more viable is the introduction of Dramatic Reversal. With so many appropriate tutors, non-land mana producers and a general combo shell the Isochron Scepter Dramatic Reversal combo seems like it would fit pretty well into this deck. I am not sure what you would use as the finisher or mana sink when you went off but even if it was otherwise a blank card in the deck you can likely afford 3 slots to double up on your combos. Dramatic Reversal itself if quite potent in going off along the Belcher route. Any way, I am going to keep this about pure no-land-Belcher combo so as to best express the archetype.

The Forest Version

36 Spells

Mox Opal
Chrome Mox
Lotus Petal
Lion's Eye Diamond

Lotus Bloom

Mana Vault
Tinder Wall
Elixir of Immortality
Birds of Paradise

Goblin Welder
Expedition Map
Chromatic Star
Faithless Looting


Gitaxian Probe
Preordain
Conjurer's Bauble

5x Talisman
Simic Signet

Demonic Tutor
Land Grant
Spellskite*
Nature's Lore

Balance*

Tinker
Intuition
Elvish Spirit Guide
Simian Spirit Guide

Thirst for Knowledge

Goblin Charbelcher
Daretti, Scrap Savant

Thoughtcast

Chancellor of the Tangle

4 Land

Breeding Pool
Stomping Ground
Taiga
Tropical Island

I think you want about two non-combo disruption cards in the deck which can be a wide array of things. I have included Spellskite and Balance for their power and synergy with the deck but a more simple Pact of Negation and Duress might be better, if less exotic. You could even fit the mighty Upheaval into this archetype if you wanted that kind of disruption. There are plenty of other cards allowing for useful tweaks in certain directions should you chose. Murmuring Bosk can replace the Breeding Pool if you like for added black and white consistency.

To fetch out your lands you have Land Grant, Nature's Lore, Expedition Map and Intuition. In certain situations the Intuition also doubles up as a tutor for the Belcher. Other good options include all the same sorts of things. Gifts Ungiven and Realms Uncharted are the big hitters if you want to go heavier on lands and play six or more. Sylvan Scrying, Crop Rotation and Farseek and even Wood Elves are all considerations. While many of these are better than the Expedition Map I chose to play they don't have much utility in the deck beyond getting lands which the Map does.

The deck has every single (legal) card that produces mana for nothing that it can viably play. It wouldn't take many more lands for me to want to throw in Mox Diamond! You just have to, you cannot rely on more than one land in your starting hand, you are going to see way more hands with less than one land than you are hands with more! The deck is fine once it has two mana but you need to get to that point and so you just have to play a lot of low powered ramp effects. Mana Vault is good because it lets you get going with just one mana. It is a rare case of Grim Monolith being significantly less exciting. In the nut draw Monolith might speed you up but in most cases you want to cast stuff and somewhat curve and in that case Talisman and Signets are substantially better. There are some dodgy mana battery style cards you can use, Jeweled Amulet, Wild Cantor, Pentad Prism, all of which have some merit in the deck but don't help you out at the start of your chain and as such are a lot less important than the Spirit Guide style cards. You can also go the ritual route but this suffers much the same problem as the mana bettery effects. They don't well start you off nor do they let you cast much other stuff in the lead up to your finishing blow. Tinder Wall being both a ritual and a mana battery effect as you need is the clear best of the bunch.

You want a good amount of card draw as your cards like Lotus Petal and the Spirit Guides really hurt your hand size. So much so that looting becomes a very painful way to dig into your library and loses value. I would be very temped to try and run a Wheel of Fortune or Memory Jar in the deck as a way. One issue with drawing too much is that your library gets smaller than 20 cards and makes your combo a lot slower and weaker. You have some tools for this as well in Elixir of Immortality and Conjurer's Bauble. Generally these are cheap artifacts you throw down early to power up metalcraft effects, cycle or loot away. Sometimes however they totally bail you without ever being much of a cost. Both can get back your key Belcher should it find itself in the graveyard with no way to return it to hand or play. Both also help restock the library. Elixir does the whole load and should reliably give you 20+ to kill people with. Bauble is slow but has the advantage of being able to put a mountain on the bottom and ensure a kill with very few cards.

The Welder and Daretti package is a bit too valuable to miss. There is a lot of useful things you can do with a Welder in the deck. They make Intuition a potential Belcher tutor. They allow you to be less concerned about having your Belcher countered or destroyed. They can get you mana value or card value and ultimately both can help filter your cards. It does make you want to throw in a misers Wurmcoil Engine or something though!

The card I miss most for the deck is Tezzeret the Seeker. He is just awsome all round and would be a great inclusion as Belcher number two and alternate win condition. He is a lot more painful to cast than anything else and would likely need some significant changes to sensibly house. Being both 5 mana and double blue is a tall order for the deck with 4 lands! I think you could pretty reasonably trim my list as it is to 3 lands. Trade a little consistency for a bit of speed.



The Artifact Version

36 Spells

Mox Opal
Chrome Mox
Lotus Petal
Lion's Eye Diamond

Lotus Bloom


Mana Vault
Tinder Wall
Elixir of Immortality
Birds of Paradise

Goblin Welder
Expedition Map
Chromatic Star
Gitaxian Probe

Ancient Stirrings
Terrarion

5x Talisman

Simic Signet
Demonic Tutor
Artificer's Intuition
Spellskite*

Tinker
Intuition
Elvish Spirit Guide
Simian Spirit Guide

Thirst for Knowledge
Trinket Mage

Goblin Charbelcher
Daretti, Scrap Savant
Khalni Gem

Thoughtcast
Tezzeret the Seeker

Chancellor of the Tangle

4 Land

Tree of Tales
Seat of the Synod
Vault of Whispers
Great Furnace

I think this version is a little weaker mostly due to not having mountains. This makes it really important to remove your lands from the deck before bothering to go off. The artifact version certainly has way more options on things you can jam in from Tangle Wire to Glint-Nest Crane to Memory Jar. I have kept these two lists fairly similar but you could reduce the green component further and lose the Birds of Paradise in favour of even more artifact stuff. The main strength of the artifact deck is that it competes with very few decks for cards. Getting the ideal dual lands alone for the first list is going to be tough so in a rotisserie style draft the artifact version may be a touch safer. More options that are less contested is a lot to gain for a very small cost in power.