2 turns made of "play land, pass" isn't how I like playing norin. not even when the result is ramping without using red or artifacts.
I agree. Tried it for a bit thinking it was going to be good and ended up cutting it. ETB tapped lands really have to be stellar to hold a spot in norin, we have so many things we'd rather be doing with that mana every turn. I'm not willing to basically give up both T2 and T3 just to get a single extra land for T4.
I think it depends on how cutthroat the group is. For most groups, Myriad Landscape is a great budget alternative to the fetchlands, and I've found it quite useful myself.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
the budget alternative to the fetchlands are the cipt fetchlands, or even the panoramas. myriad landscape is worse than those except for the fact that it ramps.
and for the record: (snow) mountains are better than all of the above. unless you have some interesting interactions (my favourite is fetches->madblind mountain->scroll rack, which is more on the side of cute rather than powerful) the deck doesn't need fetches at all.
by all means, try it out. the one time you won't be able to t5 confusion in the ranks will be enough to convince you to cut it, guaranteed.
Terrain Generator is better in this deck because of the multiple wheel effects. It enters untapped, taps for mana, and can ramp later on. With Valakut (the only real CIPT land worth playing IMO), you can also get 2 triggers on the same turn (including 1 at instant speed).
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.
@the_offspring:
I've moved away from goblins a year ago and never regret it. It was not only for powerlevel purposes (I think the deck is stronger without goblins), but also because I felt, that the goblin part is simply boring to play and needs a lot of slots to be working.
I've tried moving into Myrs and deep into the artifact theme, with cards like Clock of Omens, but that was too deep. I don't like Myr Matrix or Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient. I've simply used my slots on a lot of good stuff. and have problems finding cutable cards.
@Everyone:
Now that Hangarback Walker made it into T2, I'm actually considering it, aswell. A lot of the matches tend to go very long and in that cases, this could be very good. It also works good with and against massremoval, aswell as sac outlets.
You know, if we did go deep into abusing artifacts we might also be able to play Sneak Attack.
Sneak attack has always had potential due to its ability to turn ETB creatures into one mana instants. The downside of finding creatures with ETBs for all your utility is that normally you can only use them at sorcery speed. Sneak attack fixes that. But the catch is you can't use it to build a board presence, your guys will die at the end of the turn. Norin likes ETBs but he also likes permanents that last and build up.
Enter artifact recursion theme. If we can get more into abusing artifacts and using our graveyard as a resource then suddenly we can completely mitigate the second part. It's like looting on crack - we basically evoke them and pull them back into play after they die, getting 2 ETB triggers instead of one. And we can still turn all our ETB guys into instants as well.
I really like this idea but I don't yet see how we'd totally replace the goblins. We're starting to get a good collection of artificers and artifacts that make thopters, myrs and other artifact guys so we could start to swap over the token producers. But we don't really have an equivalent to the utility package that goblins give us. We've got solid contingent of goblins which provide card filtering and various forms of disruption, all of which can be found immediately with Goblin Matron and after a turn with Moggcatcher and Goblin Recruiter. I don't think there's any other way to get that kind of creature toolbox in red. I mean there are plenty of other non-goblin utility creatures but if they aren't goblins only the recruiter can find them for us.
Maybe we just pull out the token producers and recruiter and leave the core toolbox along with matron and moggcatcher? We could pull out the moggcatcher too I suppose but he is pretty great with the toolbox since he lets us use our guys at instant speed too. And who knows, with less goblins people might actually let us use him instead of shooting him on sight! Probably wishful thinking though lol.
Pulling out gobos is a mistake. We do not have better replacements for their abilities.
If someone is taunting you that you play a gobo deck,who the eff cares? (12 year olds generally) Play the best cards you can; at the moment the abilities gobos bring to the deck are not replaced by anything better in my opinion.
Pulling out gobis is a mistake. We do not have better replacements dor their abilities.
If someone is taunting you that you play a gobo deck,who the eff cares? (12 years generally) Play the best cards you can; at the moment the abilities gobos bring to the deck are not replaced by anything better in my opinion.
Couldn't agree more. If you can find a better red creature than Goblin Welder, Krenko and Kiki-Jiki, I'm all ears. In the meantime, those 3 are good enough by themselves in a color with a lack of tutor to make both Moggcatcher and Goblin Matron worth playing, which themselves make toolbox cards like Settler and Scrapper worth playing too. Assassin has a pretty unique effect with Siege-Gang Commander being one of the best token producer in mono-red.
If you are playing all of these, you may as well play Chieftain to make Moggcatcher a win condition by itself, considering it's a good creature for the deck (P/T boost are always good in Norin) and the only better creature than Welder is an haste Welder. And there you go, 10 goblin-oriented cards. Mini-tribe subtheme.
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.
Given the amount of back-and-forth on this, I made a google doc compiling all the goblins that seemed potentially worthwhile. Comments or other cards that I missed can be added as desired.
@Al_Z_Heiner: Krenko doesn't need any support, he produces a token every turn for free. Or more and more if your opponents don't deal with it. Goblin Assassin is one of the really rare and tutorable red creature card to deal with Avacyn. I'm all ears if you have better suggestions.
I know we will never really agree anyway, you say Krenko is bad, while I think he's most of the times better than Kiki-Jiki and Welder (both these cards need a specific board situations to work, Krenko does not).
Moggcatcher is a win by itself assuming you are playing the auto-include goblins (even without Chieftain).
@osieorb18: well, Chieftain can be win-more, so can be Gauntlets. +1/+1s are usually good in Norin. Haste is good with Krenko. It all depends on what you play. I don't exactly consider Squee good by himself and I think the 4-CMC bad Mogg War Marshal is everything but good when you have so many better options available, but when you add Chandra, looters or Helm of Possession, suddenly Squee gets better. Gaka plays Conjurer's Closet and I can fairly understand why he plays the 4-CMC Mogg War Marshal only because of that.
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.
Goblin Settler: It's Ok, but most people wouldn't play it without other goblins.
Moggcatcher: Tap abilities are mainly bad in multiplayer commander, because you need to wait and hope for every other player not to kill it, before you can use it even once.
So there are actually a whole lot of people, that play a huge amount of bad-terrible goblins just to enable borderline goblins.
@dnLL: Avacyn, Angel of Hope is definitly a corner case and we are talking about multiplayer (at least I thought we do). There are other players who can easily deal with Avacyn and if not, the owner of Avacyn will most likely be the focus of all other players.
If this is the only card you are really worried about, play Karn Liberated, Perilous Vault or Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. All of these are playable anyway (while every kind of massremoval is a nonbo with goblins anyway).
Krenko, Mob Boss is pretty terrible on it's own. Are the no massremoval spells in your meta at all? Because that is the only way I can see Krenko beeing good at all.
I disagree with your assessment of Stingscourger, Tuktuk Scrapper, and Outrage Shaman because they all act as removal in some way, and mono-Red lacks effective removal in this format.
Stingscourger - It may not permanently get rid of a creature, but it's a cheap tempo play that's not normally found in red. Paying 2 mana to force an opponent to replay some big creature could buy enough time to win the game. Tuktuk Scrapper - There are only a few cheap red creatures that destroy artifacts on ETB: Keldon Vandals, Manic Vandal, Oxidda Scrapmelter, Tuktuk Scrapper, Yuki-Onna, and an evoked Ingot Chewer. Of these, Manic Vandal and Tuktuk Scrapper are the easiest to tutor for in red, and both are included in Gaka's list. Outrage Shaman - Acts as (admittedly unreliable) creature removal, but it's a useful ETB effect which means it can be abused with the help of other cards and is tutorable with the right package (Moggcatcher, Matron, Imperial and Goblin Recruiter).
Goblin Settler: It's Ok, but most people wouldn't play it without other goblins.
Moggcatcher: Tap abilities are mainly bad in multiplayer commander, because you need to wait and hope for every other player not to kill it, before you can use it even once.
So there are actually a whole lot of people, that play a huge amount of bad-terrible goblins just to enable borderline goblins.
@dnLL: Avacyn, Angel of Hope is definitly a corner case and we are talking about multiplayer (at least I thought we do). There are other players who can easily deal with Avacyn and if not, the owner of Avacyn will most likely be the focus of all other players.
If this is the only card you are really worried about, play Karn Liberated, Perilous Vault or Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. All of these are playable anyway (while every kind of massremoval is a nonbo with goblins anyway).
Krenko, Mob Boss is pretty terrible on it's own. Are the no massremoval spells in your meta at all? Because that is the only way I can see Krenko beeing good at all.
Mostly agree, might make a couple tweaks: Squee, Goblin Nabob - If he's borderline, he's the very top of borderline. He's good with more than a few. He's an awesome chump blocker in a pinch, he's the best thing to loot ever (which we do a lot), he's the ultimate thing to sac to Helm of Possession or anything else, he comes back on all the wheels, can be pitched freely to Liliana of the Veil or any other discard, etc. His goblin-ness just feels like a bonus that makes him more tutorable. He's not an all-star but he's solid. Goblin Settler and Tuktuk Scrapper - they aren't great cost wise. But our utility loses its value if it can't be found on demand. If we have Goblin Matron and Imperial Recruiter I want my utility to be tutorable by both of them to increase my chances of getting it when I need it. Scrapper also has the added benefit of being a amazing thing to clone when that occasionally comes up. Mogg War Marshal - I feel like this guy at least deserves borderline. That's a lot of guys for a 2 mana dude. If you don't pay the echo you still are left with 2 goblins. And the rare times you do pay the echo its because the situation is usually worth it - you have some way to abuse his ETB. In a deck already chocked full of ETB triggers for norin firing 3 ETBs and leaving 2 creatures that stick around for 2 mana has value. His mana to dude ratio is better than Siege-gang commander - 4 guys for 5 mana.
Other notes: Goblin Assassin - I was actually totally with you in hating this guy's guts until just recently. I barely ever played him and when I did the coin flips never went in my favor. Last two games I played he was super clutch in turning around a terrible board in my favor. But it is all luck and if we start dropping goblins his value will plummet.
I do see a lot of Avacyn too. But assassin is a pretty poor answer to her. Usually the decks with her have plenty of other creatures and tokens that become indestructible as well. Helm of Possession and Confusion in the Ranks are far better answer to her than assassin could ever hope to be.
Tuktuk Scrapper - There are only a few cheap red creatures that destroy artifacts on ETB
And why exaclty does it have to be a creature with etb? Because it's tutorable? Red has a lot of the best artifact destruction spells of all colors. First of all Shattering Spree and Vandalblast, but also Shattering Pulse, Aftershock, Fissure Vent, Gorilla Shaman, Hoard-Smelter Dragon, Rack and Ruin, Smash and Viashino Heretic. The Heretic even made it into the Top 25 red creatures (Link). Each of these cards is better or way better than Manic Vandal and a lot of the upsides are way better than any value you could get out of a 2/2 Vanilla.
Artifacts are definitly not a problem for red and artifact hate is not something situative, that you need to tutor in commander. Everyone plays Signets, Talismans, Lightning Greaves, Gilded Lotuses or whatever.
Being a creature means it's easier to "abuse," too. Kiki-Jiki and Cloudstone Curio let you get extra mileage out of creatures, as does Conjurer's Closet if your list runs it. If you need to get political, an opponent can reanimate the creature to destroy a problem artifact, too.
Instant- and sorcery-based artifact removal definitely can't be reused without additional support. Anything with CMC > 3 makes Gorilla Shaman very costly to use for the inability to hit artifact creatures, and Hoard-Smelter Dragon can be extremely difficult to play + activate in a single turn if need be.
I can definitely get behind Viashino Heretic, though. I run in in my Rakdos deck and I know it can pull its weight, but I also know that it becomes a very big target for removal once you start blowing up mana rocks and utility artifacts. It really needs to be given haste because your playgroup will quickly learn to kill it on site, so if you can do that consistently, I say run the hell out of it.
All right, I'm honestly off, I'm just going to unsubscribe from this thread because it's becoming frustrating for me to read how BAD are Goblin Assassin, Krenko, Scrapper, Stingscourger and many more. I've been winning with these cards for years now, they all proven to be really great, Gaka has been playing a couple of them for years too. Mogg War Marshal is seriously solid in this deck depending on the package you play.
We definitely have completely different ways to play this format and I'm not willing to waste time anymore defending all the games I've been winning with these cards (I don't really see how I would win otherwise, plan A is Norin, but you need a plan B, especially now that they printed cards like Containement Priest).
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.
All right, I'm honestly off, I'm just going to unsubscribe from this thread because it's becoming frustrating for me to read how BAD are Goblin Assassin, Krenko, Scrapper, Stingscourger and many more. I've been winning with these cards for years now, they all proven to be really great, Gaka has been playing a couple of them for years too. Mogg War Marshal is seriously solid in this deck depending on the package you play.
We definitely have completely different ways to play this format and I'm not willing to waste time anymore defending all the games I've been winning with these cards (I don't really see how I would win otherwise, plan A is Norin, but you need a plan B, especially now that they printed cards like Containement Priest).
You're pulling out the context. No one is saying krenko is outright bad, they are saying he's bad in a vacuum. If you play krenko outright and assumed nothing about any other cards you had in hand or in play he's not that great. You get a 3/3 for 4 that will probably make you total of 3 goblins over the next 2 turns. Not great.
Goblin assassin is the same deal. No assumptions about any other cards you get a 2/2 for 5 that triggers on ETB to make everyone (including you) have a 50/50 shot of sacrificing one creature. Pretty bad alone.
Stingscourger - not exactly the same deal. If he was not a goblin or if you didn't have a goblin package you would not play this guy. His cost, his echo, his ability, the fact that it can only bounce opponents things, its just not that great. The only value of this guy is being part of the goblin swarm with a potentially relevant ETB. He's definitely terri-bad by himself.
That's the point of this discussion. There's a growing number of good by themselves artificers, artifacts and more that we want to play. There's also some seriously good synergistic pieces around them, quite a few of which we already have in the deck. But the more goblins we pull out for them the worse all the goblins collectively become. Their value is in their synergy, once you start to pull them out you have to start to think about "which ones are good by themselves and which ones are good only in the presence of all the other ones"? Because IF (still an if btw) we decide to start pulling out goblins we'll probably have to pull out at least all the ones in the terri-bad by themselves group and potentially all the ones in the borderline group as well. But to do that we'd need to find effective replacements for all of them, and preferrably ones that don't just turn the deck we love into a pile of artifact good-stuff daretti deck.
Cards like containment priest are also kind of a major reason why we're talking about this I think. There are a lot of cheap playable cards, especially in white, that are extremely splashable and just outright hose our strategies. Not to mention all the existing problems that we already have to deal with. Cycling Decree of Pain is very definitely a thing that's not going away any time soon either and neither are all the other many many board wipes of EDH. Throwing more goblins isn't really a solution to any of those problems, building a more resilient strategy around better cards would be. But personally I would want to do so in a way that still maintains the slightly chaotic form of control that makes norin so fun.
I think the gobos should stay in the deck, because they help making it more consistent, especially Goblin Matron and Goblin Recruiter, and if sone goblins are removed, they become less stronger. But it would also be great to get more tokens support, and I think Hellrider could be good to use in the deck to get more damage out of the small tokens we can produce. Here are some other cards I would like to get your advice on:
I think the gobos should stay in the deck, because they help making it more consistent, especially Goblin Matron and Goblin Recruiter, and if sone goblins are removed, they become less stronger. But it would also be great to get more tokens support, and I think Hellrider could be good to use in the deck to get more damage out of the small tokens we can produce. Here are some other cards I would like to get your advice on:
I mean if you're going to go down the token swarm route, why not start with the king? Márton Stromgald. All the other guys are basically WOTC's attempts at making a fixed version of Márton that's not so ridiculous. He's also recruitable unlike hero and hellrider. Now there's a plan B wincon.
I think the gobos should stay in the deck, because they help making it more consistent, especially Goblin Matron and Goblin Recruiter, and if sone goblins are removed, they become less stronger. But it would also be great to get more tokens support, and I think Hellrider could be good to use in the deck to get more damage out of the small tokens we can produce. Here are some other cards I would like to get your advice on:
I think the gobos should stay in the deck, because they help making it more consistent, especially Goblin Matron and Goblin Recruiter, and if sone goblins are removed, they become less stronger. But it would also be great to get more tokens support, and I think Hellrider could be good to use in the deck to get more damage out of the small tokens we can produce. Here are some other cards I would like to get your advice on:
We, at least I, don't win through damage. We win through troll. I have had the vast majority of my wins come from people scooping.
Winning via Troll is how I usually won. I'd break the game so much that people would scoop just to start another game. I sometimes found myself not attacking, even with a mountain of Gobbos waiting to be unleashed.
We, at least I, don't win through damage. We win through troll. I have had the vast majority of my wins come from people scooping.
Winning via Troll is how I usually won. I'd break the game so much that people would scoop just to start another game. I sometimes found myself not attacking, even with a mountain of Gobbos waiting to be unleashed.
Exactly!! This is the troll deck that started it all. I don't even bother keeping track of my opponents life.
Although I'm very curious about replacing the Gobbo's, I honestly don't think there are ways to replace some of them. For example, there really aren't any red or colorless cards that can match what Kiki-Jiki, Squee or Welder does. There's really no real argument about that I guess. Now I'm probably going to try and replace the less unique effects like Stingscourger's. Also, Goblin Assassin is, although pretty unique, replacable.
We, at least I, don't win through damage. We win through troll. I have had the vast majority of my wins come from people scooping.
Winning via Troll is how I usually won. I'd break the game so much that people would scoop just to start another game. I sometimes found myself not attacking, even with a mountain of Gobbos waiting to be unleashed.
Exactly!! This is the troll deck that started it all. I don't even bother keeping track of my opponents life.
is very very true.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A hobby is by defenition something you're not any good at - otherwise it'd have been your work. Magic is my biggest hobby so I mustn't be very good at it.
Goblin Settler: It's Ok, but most people wouldn't play it without other goblins.
Moggcatcher: Tap abilities are mainly bad in multiplayer commander, because you need to wait and hope for every other player not to kill it, before you can use it even once.
So there are actually a whole lot of people, that play a huge amount of bad-terrible goblins just to enable borderline goblins.
Mostly agree, might make a couple tweaks: Squee, Goblin Nabob - If he's borderline, he's the very top of borderline. He's good with more than a few. He's an awesome chump blocker in a pinch, he's the best thing to loot ever (which we do a lot), he's the ultimate thing to sac to Helm of Possession or anything else, he comes back on all the wheels, can be pitched freely to Liliana of the Veil or any other discard, etc. His goblin-ness just feels like a bonus that makes him more tutorable. He's not an all-star but he's solid. Goblin Settler and Tuktuk Scrapper - they aren't great cost wise. But our utility loses its value if it can't be found on demand. If we have Goblin Matron and Imperial Recruiter I want my utility to be tutorable by both of them to increase my chances of getting it when I need it. Scrapper also has the added benefit of being a amazing thing to clone when that occasionally comes up. Mogg War Marshal - I feel like this guy at least deserves borderline. That's a lot of guys for a 2 mana dude. If you don't pay the echo you still are left with 2 goblins. And the rare times you do pay the echo its because the situation is usually worth it - you have some way to abuse his ETB. In a deck already chocked full of ETB triggers for norin firing 3 ETBs and leaving 2 creatures that stick around for 2 mana has value. His mana to dude ratio is better than Siege-gang commander - 4 guys for 5 mana.
First, all of the goblins got better with the addition of Feldon of the Third Path. Now, Stingscourger and Tuktuk Scrapper are better by default. At the same time, they can both be underwhelming, especially Stingscourger, but they are also being kept simply because they can be tutored with other goblin tutors. This is useful because you can tutor to get win-con goblins or tutor to get toolbox goblins, then once they die can maybe get them back with Feldon, or use blink effects like Conjurer's Closet or Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or Cloudstone Curio. The same goes for Outrage Shaman, sometimes he's not good, especially against decks that consistently counter or remove Norin's board state since he won't do much. But he is good for pinging one large creature.
Squee, Goblin Nabob is a fantastic card in this deck. He has great synergy with any and all looting effects like Rummaging Goblin, Daretti, Scrap Savant, Faithless Looting, Chandra Ablaze, and probably another I forgot, as well as against forced discard like Nath of the Gilt-Leaf, he can be played as a chump blocker, he can be sac'ed for Helm of Possession or to prevent other creatures from being sac'ed to generals like Shattergang Brothers. He's also tutorable, which is situational at best but it can be nice. He is a very useful card, but he does not change the board or win the game by himself.
The deck does not run a lot of instant win cards, aside from Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Zealous Conscripts. Other than that, the deck needs a few cards together to generate a lot of damage and is probably just going to sit in a multiplayer game until the end where it can deal 5 or 10 damage to finish off the game. Sure, you can play Pandemonium as soon as you draw it, but it will only deal a small amount of damage before getting removed, especially in multiplayer. Overextending good cards before their time to shine is a sure-fire way to make this deck play poorly. In multiplayer, if you have a draw/loot engine online then protect it with a card of chaos and sit on your hand until the chaos is removed. Often in multiplayer, I will play Grip of Chaos or Planar Chaos and then wait until it is removed to play more cards. This is useful to buy time until you can generate a good boardstate or it can be played at the end of a turn after achieving a good boardstate. Planar Chaos is icing on the cake after playing Pandemonium and Norin, the Wary or Conjurer's Closet and Beetleback Chief. You get the idea, but the point of this is that Planar Chaos is bad on its own without a purpose as well as Pandemonium and Beetleback Chief. Playing any of these cards willy-nilly is doing yourself a disservice. Pandemonium is probably the best on its own, but at the same time pinging a couple of creatures for 2 damage or the opponent for a few turns without a way to turn it into something deadly is a waste of how good the card is. In that sense, Pandemonium is just the same as Beetleback Chief.
I agree with the previous poster that removing goblins is a mistake, there are lots of reasons why goblins should stay. One is that they are tutorable, which red can't do very well. Another is that they synergize with themselves as a tribe nicely and also synergize with other cards in the deck as I previously mentioned. Sure you can play a better token generator but it won't be tutorable like Mogg War Marshal which can help when you have a hand of Cloudstone Curio, Beetleback Chief, Warstorm Surge, and Goblin Matron.
Stingscourger is underwhelming a lot of the time, but he can remove creatures and commanders, especially the decks that create and abuse counters. He's really nice with Teferi's Puzzle Box or a wheel effect. I find that I can use him every game I draw him, but I can only really get rid of a creature permanently if I try to get somebody else to make them discard or wheel the bounced creature.
TL;DR: Many cards in the decklist don't win the game by themselves or change the boardstate, but that doesn't make them bad. They just require another card or two for synergy. It's a combo deck, but it isn't ruthless like Kiki or Krenko decks or other decks outside of red. Norin plays a fickle game, I don't think every card has to shake the entire board or win the game. Furthermore, the deck doesn't exist in a vacuum, there are lots of situations where the utility is useful and lots where it isn't, but it depends on your particular playgroup.
I just want to share the crazy turn I managed to get off yesterday.
I played against a Rafiq of the Many hatebears deck and against a Horde of Notions 5-color fatty deck. I was left alone for the early turns, because I couldn't really get anything on board. Midgame I managed to steal a Sphinx of the steel wind with Helm of Possession and was safe for a few more turns and later sacced the sphinx away to get Academy Rector instead. Shortly after that the 5-color deck put down Omniscience and wrathed the board in fear of Rafiq the tokens I asssembled. And now the madness begins. Academy Rector dies and I get to search for Confusion in the Ranks. Thanks for that Omniscience!
The board was pretty empty because of the Wrath effect and what I had in hand was pretty underwhelming, mainly lands, but there where also a Memory Jar! Play that for free and let the wheels start turning! Play Tuktuk Scrapper, Beetleback Chief, Goblin Matron, Kiki-Jiki, Krenko and stuff for free and then sac something into Trading Post to get Memory Jar back. Play the jar (for free!), break it and let's see what we get next. Put down some more dudes and also Daretti, Scrap Savant... guess I take another look into the jar. Chandra Ablaze, but nothing else interesting... So I guess I minus Chandra and we draw some more cards! Play this, play that and I still have a Buried Ruin! So why don't we take another free dip into our memories? At that point the guy who owned the Omniscience was out, because he couldn't draw any more cards, but I still had a bunch of mana, thanks to my Gauntlet of Power. And while it was unnecessary at that point, I played Reforge the Soul and copied it with Dualcaster Mage, just for the fun of it.
I ended my turn, and the Rafiq player looked at his top card, it's not a wrath, so that's it and he scoops.
TL;DR: I stole an Omniscience and had 7 Wheel effects in one turn and a bunch of stuff I could play for free. Decked one player in the process.
i guess the players were a bit distracted, or didn't know the deck. i can't really think of playing academy rector as a smart move when helm of possession is in play; the same goes with playing omniscience AND killing the academy rector.
that said, good times, good times.
Replacing expensive ones with cheap ones obviously and their combo piece, such as the sensing top and the nonbasic snowland as well as replacing fetch lands with basic ones. The current cost is 95.85euro without porto, but i would like to push that below 50euro. Any help would be appreciated Including guides, card replacement, a suggestion of another deck that is cheap but also have a noobish face but still pack a fun punch or simply a link to one other the 100+ pages where this already has been answered.
I agree. Tried it for a bit thinking it was going to be good and ended up cutting it. ETB tapped lands really have to be stellar to hold a spot in norin, we have so many things we'd rather be doing with that mana every turn. I'm not willing to basically give up both T2 and T3 just to get a single extra land for T4.
and for the record: (snow) mountains are better than all of the above. unless you have some interesting interactions (my favourite is fetches->madblind mountain->scroll rack, which is more on the side of cute rather than powerful) the deck doesn't need fetches at all.
by all means, try it out. the one time you won't be able to t5 confusion in the ranks will be enough to convince you to cut it, guaranteed.
Rules Advisor
Pauper decks: Weenie Tokens — Zombies
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.
You know, if we did go deep into abusing artifacts we might also be able to play Sneak Attack.
Sneak attack has always had potential due to its ability to turn ETB creatures into one mana instants. The downside of finding creatures with ETBs for all your utility is that normally you can only use them at sorcery speed. Sneak attack fixes that. But the catch is you can't use it to build a board presence, your guys will die at the end of the turn. Norin likes ETBs but he also likes permanents that last and build up.
Enter artifact recursion theme. If we can get more into abusing artifacts and using our graveyard as a resource then suddenly we can completely mitigate the second part. It's like looting on crack - we basically evoke them and pull them back into play after they die, getting 2 ETB triggers instead of one. And we can still turn all our ETB guys into instants as well.
I really like this idea but I don't yet see how we'd totally replace the goblins. We're starting to get a good collection of artificers and artifacts that make thopters, myrs and other artifact guys so we could start to swap over the token producers. But we don't really have an equivalent to the utility package that goblins give us. We've got solid contingent of goblins which provide card filtering and various forms of disruption, all of which can be found immediately with Goblin Matron and after a turn with Moggcatcher and Goblin Recruiter. I don't think there's any other way to get that kind of creature toolbox in red. I mean there are plenty of other non-goblin utility creatures but if they aren't goblins only the recruiter can find them for us.
Maybe we just pull out the token producers and recruiter and leave the core toolbox along with matron and moggcatcher? We could pull out the moggcatcher too I suppose but he is pretty great with the toolbox since he lets us use our guys at instant speed too. And who knows, with less goblins people might actually let us use him instead of shooting him on sight! Probably wishful thinking though lol.
If someone is taunting you that you play a gobo deck,who the eff cares? (12 year olds generally) Play the best cards you can; at the moment the abilities gobos bring to the deck are not replaced by anything better in my opinion.
EDIT: spelling/typo corrections
Couldn't agree more. If you can find a better red creature than Goblin Welder, Krenko and Kiki-Jiki, I'm all ears. In the meantime, those 3 are good enough by themselves in a color with a lack of tutor to make both Moggcatcher and Goblin Matron worth playing, which themselves make toolbox cards like Settler and Scrapper worth playing too. Assassin has a pretty unique effect with Siege-Gang Commander being one of the best token producer in mono-red.
If you are playing all of these, you may as well play Chieftain to make Moggcatcher a win condition by itself, considering it's a good creature for the deck (P/T boost are always good in Norin) and the only better creature than Welder is an haste Welder. And there you go, 10 goblin-oriented cards. Mini-tribe subtheme.
Rules Advisor
Pauper decks: Weenie Tokens — Zombies
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.
Here it is.
I know we will never really agree anyway, you say Krenko is bad, while I think he's most of the times better than Kiki-Jiki and Welder (both these cards need a specific board situations to work, Krenko does not).
Moggcatcher is a win by itself assuming you are playing the auto-include goblins (even without Chieftain).
@osieorb18: well, Chieftain can be win-more, so can be Gauntlets. +1/+1s are usually good in Norin. Haste is good with Krenko. It all depends on what you play. I don't exactly consider Squee good by himself and I think the 4-CMC bad Mogg War Marshal is everything but good when you have so many better options available, but when you add Chandra, looters or Helm of Possession, suddenly Squee gets better. Gaka plays Conjurer's Closet and I can fairly understand why he plays the 4-CMC Mogg War Marshal only because of that.
Rules Advisor
Pauper decks: Weenie Tokens — Zombies
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.
I disagree with your assessment of Stingscourger, Tuktuk Scrapper, and Outrage Shaman because they all act as removal in some way, and mono-Red lacks effective removal in this format.
Stingscourger - It may not permanently get rid of a creature, but it's a cheap tempo play that's not normally found in red. Paying 2 mana to force an opponent to replay some big creature could buy enough time to win the game.
Tuktuk Scrapper - There are only a few cheap red creatures that destroy artifacts on ETB: Keldon Vandals, Manic Vandal, Oxidda Scrapmelter, Tuktuk Scrapper, Yuki-Onna, and an evoked Ingot Chewer. Of these, Manic Vandal and Tuktuk Scrapper are the easiest to tutor for in red, and both are included in Gaka's list.
Outrage Shaman - Acts as (admittedly unreliable) creature removal, but it's a useful ETB effect which means it can be abused with the help of other cards and is tutorable with the right package (Moggcatcher, Matron, Imperial and Goblin Recruiter).
Also, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon can't get rid of Avacyn, Angel of Hope until at least the following turn.
Mostly agree, might make a couple tweaks:
Squee, Goblin Nabob - If he's borderline, he's the very top of borderline. He's good with more than a few. He's an awesome chump blocker in a pinch, he's the best thing to loot ever (which we do a lot), he's the ultimate thing to sac to Helm of Possession or anything else, he comes back on all the wheels, can be pitched freely to Liliana of the Veil or any other discard, etc. His goblin-ness just feels like a bonus that makes him more tutorable. He's not an all-star but he's solid.
Goblin Settler and Tuktuk Scrapper - they aren't great cost wise. But our utility loses its value if it can't be found on demand. If we have Goblin Matron and Imperial Recruiter I want my utility to be tutorable by both of them to increase my chances of getting it when I need it. Scrapper also has the added benefit of being a amazing thing to clone when that occasionally comes up.
Mogg War Marshal - I feel like this guy at least deserves borderline. That's a lot of guys for a 2 mana dude. If you don't pay the echo you still are left with 2 goblins. And the rare times you do pay the echo its because the situation is usually worth it - you have some way to abuse his ETB. In a deck already chocked full of ETB triggers for norin firing 3 ETBs and leaving 2 creatures that stick around for 2 mana has value. His mana to dude ratio is better than Siege-gang commander - 4 guys for 5 mana.
Other notes:
Goblin Assassin - I was actually totally with you in hating this guy's guts until just recently. I barely ever played him and when I did the coin flips never went in my favor. Last two games I played he was super clutch in turning around a terrible board in my favor. But it is all luck and if we start dropping goblins his value will plummet.
I do see a lot of Avacyn too. But assassin is a pretty poor answer to her. Usually the decks with her have plenty of other creatures and tokens that become indestructible as well. Helm of Possession and Confusion in the Ranks are far better answer to her than assassin could ever hope to be.
Being a creature means it's easier to "abuse," too. Kiki-Jiki and Cloudstone Curio let you get extra mileage out of creatures, as does Conjurer's Closet if your list runs it. If you need to get political, an opponent can reanimate the creature to destroy a problem artifact, too.
Instant- and sorcery-based artifact removal definitely can't be reused without additional support. Anything with CMC > 3 makes Gorilla Shaman very costly to use for the inability to hit artifact creatures, and Hoard-Smelter Dragon can be extremely difficult to play + activate in a single turn if need be.
I can definitely get behind Viashino Heretic, though. I run in in my Rakdos deck and I know it can pull its weight, but I also know that it becomes a very big target for removal once you start blowing up mana rocks and utility artifacts. It really needs to be given haste because your playgroup will quickly learn to kill it on site, so if you can do that consistently, I say run the hell out of it.
So Krenko is bad.
All right, I'm honestly off, I'm just going to unsubscribe from this thread because it's becoming frustrating for me to read how BAD are Goblin Assassin, Krenko, Scrapper, Stingscourger and many more. I've been winning with these cards for years now, they all proven to be really great, Gaka has been playing a couple of them for years too. Mogg War Marshal is seriously solid in this deck depending on the package you play.
We definitely have completely different ways to play this format and I'm not willing to waste time anymore defending all the games I've been winning with these cards (I don't really see how I would win otherwise, plan A is Norin, but you need a plan B, especially now that they printed cards like Containement Priest).
Rules Advisor
Pauper decks: Weenie Tokens — Zombies
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.
You're pulling out the context. No one is saying krenko is outright bad, they are saying he's bad in a vacuum. If you play krenko outright and assumed nothing about any other cards you had in hand or in play he's not that great. You get a 3/3 for 4 that will probably make you total of 3 goblins over the next 2 turns. Not great.
Goblin assassin is the same deal. No assumptions about any other cards you get a 2/2 for 5 that triggers on ETB to make everyone (including you) have a 50/50 shot of sacrificing one creature. Pretty bad alone.
Stingscourger - not exactly the same deal. If he was not a goblin or if you didn't have a goblin package you would not play this guy. His cost, his echo, his ability, the fact that it can only bounce opponents things, its just not that great. The only value of this guy is being part of the goblin swarm with a potentially relevant ETB. He's definitely terri-bad by himself.
That's the point of this discussion. There's a growing number of good by themselves artificers, artifacts and more that we want to play. There's also some seriously good synergistic pieces around them, quite a few of which we already have in the deck. But the more goblins we pull out for them the worse all the goblins collectively become. Their value is in their synergy, once you start to pull them out you have to start to think about "which ones are good by themselves and which ones are good only in the presence of all the other ones"? Because IF (still an if btw) we decide to start pulling out goblins we'll probably have to pull out at least all the ones in the terri-bad by themselves group and potentially all the ones in the borderline group as well. But to do that we'd need to find effective replacements for all of them, and preferrably ones that don't just turn the deck we love into a pile of artifact good-stuff daretti deck.
Cards like containment priest are also kind of a major reason why we're talking about this I think. There are a lot of cheap playable cards, especially in white, that are extremely splashable and just outright hose our strategies. Not to mention all the existing problems that we already have to deal with. Cycling Decree of Pain is very definitely a thing that's not going away any time soon either and neither are all the other many many board wipes of EDH. Throwing more goblins isn't really a solution to any of those problems, building a more resilient strategy around better cards would be. But personally I would want to do so in a way that still maintains the slightly chaotic form of control that makes norin so fun.
I think the gobos should stay in the deck, because they help making it more consistent, especially Goblin Matron and Goblin Recruiter, and if sone goblins are removed, they become less stronger. But it would also be great to get more tokens support, and I think Hellrider could be good to use in the deck to get more damage out of the small tokens we can produce. Here are some other cards I would like to get your advice on:
- Hellrider
- Hero of Oxid Ridge
- Legion Loyalist
I mean if you're going to go down the token swarm route, why not start with the king? Márton Stromgald. All the other guys are basically WOTC's attempts at making a fixed version of Márton that's not so ridiculous. He's also recruitable unlike hero and hellrider. Now there's a plan B wincon.
We, at least I, don't win through damage. We win through troll. I have had the vast majority of my wins come from people scooping.
URGEDH Biovisionary.dec BShirei WBSelenia
The brain is the muscle that pumps stupid through the body
Exactly!! This is the troll deck that started it all. I don't even bother keeping track of my opponents life.
And this:
is very very true.
First, all of the goblins got better with the addition of Feldon of the Third Path. Now, Stingscourger and Tuktuk Scrapper are better by default. At the same time, they can both be underwhelming, especially Stingscourger, but they are also being kept simply because they can be tutored with other goblin tutors. This is useful because you can tutor to get win-con goblins or tutor to get toolbox goblins, then once they die can maybe get them back with Feldon, or use blink effects like Conjurer's Closet or Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or Cloudstone Curio. The same goes for Outrage Shaman, sometimes he's not good, especially against decks that consistently counter or remove Norin's board state since he won't do much. But he is good for pinging one large creature.
This deck wins often by taking Pandemonium, Warstorm Surge or Purphoros, God of the Forge and abusing Norin's blink to get 2 damage a turn to the opponent(s) or creatures. But, he works best when using those cards plus Caged Sun or equivalent and getting 3 damage a turn. And then he gets even better when using Beetleback Chief or Siege-Gang Commander or Mogg War Marshal and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Krenko, Mob Boss, Cloudstone Curio, or Conjurer's Closet to deal massive amounts of damage a turn.
Squee, Goblin Nabob is a fantastic card in this deck. He has great synergy with any and all looting effects like Rummaging Goblin, Daretti, Scrap Savant, Faithless Looting, Chandra Ablaze, and probably another I forgot, as well as against forced discard like Nath of the Gilt-Leaf, he can be played as a chump blocker, he can be sac'ed for Helm of Possession or to prevent other creatures from being sac'ed to generals like Shattergang Brothers. He's also tutorable, which is situational at best but it can be nice. He is a very useful card, but he does not change the board or win the game by himself.
The deck does not run a lot of instant win cards, aside from Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Zealous Conscripts. Other than that, the deck needs a few cards together to generate a lot of damage and is probably just going to sit in a multiplayer game until the end where it can deal 5 or 10 damage to finish off the game. Sure, you can play Pandemonium as soon as you draw it, but it will only deal a small amount of damage before getting removed, especially in multiplayer. Overextending good cards before their time to shine is a sure-fire way to make this deck play poorly. In multiplayer, if you have a draw/loot engine online then protect it with a card of chaos and sit on your hand until the chaos is removed. Often in multiplayer, I will play Grip of Chaos or Planar Chaos and then wait until it is removed to play more cards. This is useful to buy time until you can generate a good boardstate or it can be played at the end of a turn after achieving a good boardstate. Planar Chaos is icing on the cake after playing Pandemonium and Norin, the Wary or Conjurer's Closet and Beetleback Chief. You get the idea, but the point of this is that Planar Chaos is bad on its own without a purpose as well as Pandemonium and Beetleback Chief. Playing any of these cards willy-nilly is doing yourself a disservice. Pandemonium is probably the best on its own, but at the same time pinging a couple of creatures for 2 damage or the opponent for a few turns without a way to turn it into something deadly is a waste of how good the card is. In that sense, Pandemonium is just the same as Beetleback Chief.
I agree with the previous poster that removing goblins is a mistake, there are lots of reasons why goblins should stay. One is that they are tutorable, which red can't do very well. Another is that they synergize with themselves as a tribe nicely and also synergize with other cards in the deck as I previously mentioned. Sure you can play a better token generator but it won't be tutorable like Mogg War Marshal which can help when you have a hand of Cloudstone Curio, Beetleback Chief, Warstorm Surge, and Goblin Matron.
Stingscourger is underwhelming a lot of the time, but he can remove creatures and commanders, especially the decks that create and abuse counters. He's really nice with Teferi's Puzzle Box or a wheel effect. I find that I can use him every game I draw him, but I can only really get rid of a creature permanently if I try to get somebody else to make them discard or wheel the bounced creature.
TL;DR: Many cards in the decklist don't win the game by themselves or change the boardstate, but that doesn't make them bad. They just require another card or two for synergy. It's a combo deck, but it isn't ruthless like Kiki or Krenko decks or other decks outside of red. Norin plays a fickle game, I don't think every card has to shake the entire board or win the game. Furthermore, the deck doesn't exist in a vacuum, there are lots of situations where the utility is useful and lots where it isn't, but it depends on your particular playgroup.
I played against a Rafiq of the Many hatebears deck and against a Horde of Notions 5-color fatty deck. I was left alone for the early turns, because I couldn't really get anything on board. Midgame I managed to steal a Sphinx of the steel wind with Helm of Possession and was safe for a few more turns and later sacced the sphinx away to get Academy Rector instead. Shortly after that the 5-color deck put down Omniscience and wrathed the board in fear of Rafiq the tokens I asssembled. And now the madness begins. Academy Rector dies and I get to search for Confusion in the Ranks. Thanks for that Omniscience!
The board was pretty empty because of the Wrath effect and what I had in hand was pretty underwhelming, mainly lands, but there where also a Memory Jar! Play that for free and let the wheels start turning! Play Tuktuk Scrapper, Beetleback Chief, Goblin Matron, Kiki-Jiki, Krenko and stuff for free and then sac something into Trading Post to get Memory Jar back. Play the jar (for free!), break it and let's see what we get next. Put down some more dudes and also Daretti, Scrap Savant... guess I take another look into the jar. Chandra Ablaze, but nothing else interesting... So I guess I minus Chandra and we draw some more cards! Play this, play that and I still have a Buried Ruin! So why don't we take another free dip into our memories? At that point the guy who owned the Omniscience was out, because he couldn't draw any more cards, but I still had a bunch of mana, thanks to my Gauntlet of Power. And while it was unnecessary at that point, I played Reforge the Soul and copied it with Dualcaster Mage, just for the fun of it.
I ended my turn, and the Rafiq player looked at his top card, it's not a wrath, so that's it and he scoops.
TL;DR: I stole an Omniscience and had 7 Wheel effects in one turn and a bunch of stuff I could play for free. Decked one player in the process.
that said, good times, good times.
1 Mana Web
1 Scorched Ruins
1 Helm of Possession
1 Goblin Recruiter
1 Moggcatcher
1 Terrain Generator
1 Steam Vines
1 Planar Chaos
1 Goblin Assassin
1 Genesis Chamber
1 Grip of Chaos
1 Confusion in the Ranks
1 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Honor-Worn Shaku
1 Teferi's Puzzle Box
1 Cloudstone Curio
1 Shattering Spree
1 Browbeat
1 Norin the Wary
1 Mouth of Ronom
1 Sculpting Steel
1 Outrage Shaman
23 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Warp World
1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Chandra Ablaze
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Iron Myr
1 Manic Vandal
1 Stranglehold
1 Zealous Conscripts
1 Ruination
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Duplicant
1 Mind's Eye
1 Stingscourger
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Tangle Wire
1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Conjurer's Closet
1 Kher Keep
1 Warstorm Surge
1 Widespread Panic
1 Springleaf Drum
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Memory Jar
1 Strip Mine
1 Rummaging Goblin
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Ogre Battledriver
1 Beetleback Chief
1 Buried Ruin
1 Burnished Hart
1 Caged Sun
1 Chaos Warp
1 Daretti, Scrap Savant
1 Faithless Looting
1 Feldon of the Third Path
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Goblin Welder
1 Great Furnace
1 Haunted Fengraf
1 Ichor Wellspring
1 Junk Diver
1 Phyrexia's Core
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Mind Stone
1 Goblin Matron
1 Mogg War Marshal
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Mogg Infestation
1 Pandemonium
1 Aftershock
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
Replacing expensive ones with cheap ones obviously and their combo piece, such as the sensing top and the nonbasic snowland as well as replacing fetch lands with basic ones. The current cost is 95.85euro without porto, but i would like to push that below 50euro. Any help would be appreciated Including guides, card replacement, a suggestion of another deck that is cheap but also have a noobish face but still pack a fun punch or simply a link to one other the 100+ pages where this already has been answered.