Sultai Belcher

Overview

Charbelcher decks have been viable in Timeless & Historic on MTGA, and even in older eternal formats such as Modern & Legacy. These decks are proactive combo decks who aim to generate a total of 7 mana to cast and activate their namesake card, Goblin Charbelcher once. With the Modal Dual-face land cards (MDFCs) that have been printed over the years, and type-checking abilities only caring about the front half of said cards, we are able to achieve a deck with zero lands that causes a single Charbelcher activation to be lethal.

Win Conditions

The trivial way to get a Belcher win is to play Charbelcher, pass the turn and activate the following turn. Free or mana-positive spells such as Chrome Mox or Dark Ritual can allow a reliable turn 2 Belcher followed by a turn 3 activation.

However, the quickest belcher wins are sometimes thwarted as we cannot pay for our interaction. Depending on the matchup we may develop, looking to find protection, or wait till the opponent taps out to go for our proactive win. In these situations, the deck needs to count to around 7 mana, while looking for a few important combo pieces.

Here are a few assorted lines to victory:

• Goblin Charbelcher + activate (7 mana)
• Beseech the Mirror cast for Bargain, finding Belcher + activation (4BBB)
• With Charbelcher in hand, Beseech the Mirror for Irencrag Feat, cast and activate Belcher. (1BBB)

Pilot Notes

The newer MDFC lands can enter untapped for 3 life. This is sometimes an issue against aggressive strategies. Identifying the opponent's strategy allows you to comfortably take setup turns toward a protected combo, or manage your life total against a fast aggro gameplan.

With a healthy amount of tutors, this deck can usually map out kills from far away. Consider your A+B combos available and then work backwards to find your route.

Control matchups are difficult. If you identify you have to deal with countermagic, consider firing off tutors to bait countermagic, or, if they let them resolve, find Veil of Summer or Thoughtseize to shove your combo through.