I was trying to understand,. but most of what I'm hearing is, "GG is amazing in this terrible deck" which isn't really doing much to sing its praises.
Goblin Guide is not utter trash because it is the best first turn play of a certain type of deck that has actual success as a predator in certain established competitive metagmes. This sort of deck is built to make the extra draws from Goblin Guide into a non-issue by keeping the opponent in the early game with disruption and/or playing enough redundant pieces that most of an opponent's cheap cards don't match up well against them (I think that the only time I would be upset about Goblin Guide is if I was on the draw, played Guide and gave my opponent a land, it ate a Swords to Plowshares or a Lightning Bolt before dealing any damage, and I wasn't playing counterspells).
Goblin Guide is a very good card in the right deck. You're free to think that the right deck is terrible because it aims to execute a shaky gameplan (and I think a good number of people would agree with you); however, "The decks Goblin Guide goes into are bad" isn't necessarily the same as "Goblin Guide is bad" since there are currently no cards that can do better what a turn one Goblin Guide can accomplish in the sort of deck that wants the card.
I'd pretty much let my opponent start out with two extra cards any day of the week if they would start the game out at 18 life with a chance of making them lose an extra two each turn for no additional investment on my part; we don't have much of a chance either way against the decks that can actually utilize those cards effectively (combo decks because they use their cards to kill you before you kill them).
And to those who smugly assume i'd cast DC or Sylvan against a burn deck, I wouldn't; you already cast it for me by laying down Goblin Guide.
Are you implying that you wouldn't ever play a Dark Confidant from your hand when you already have one in play, too?
If anyone is assuming that you'd cast Confidant and Sylvan Library against a Burn deck, it is because that is in line with your beliefs as you have conveyed them. You seem to be pretty adamant about "Cards over everything." Since the arguments you have been making against Goblin Guide indicate that you value the ability to see/draw extra cards more than you value your life total in a game of Magic, it seems obvious that you would certainly choose drawing more cards in order to have more answers against your opponent; it actually undermines the stance you're taking to then state that you would choose not to follow lines of play that offer you extra cards. If the effect is the same (you draw extra cards and you lose life for drawing them), why are you suddenly refusing to take the cards when you have the option to? If it is foolish to give your opponent extra cards, is it not equally foolish to deprive yourself of extra cards when you have the opportunity to draw them?
Except this isn't a theory question. You're not theorizing that there's a better card out there, you're saying the card is just plain terrible and ignoring the countless arguments that it isn't, so obviously something better exists. Play anything that you know is a decent red aggressive 1 drop (Lavamancer, Rakdos Cackler, etc.) and show off your superior deck.
Maybe giving a hypothetical match example might explain why it's good.
Let's say you're on the play against jund. You lead with goblin guide and attack him to 18; he gets a land. The other guy plays a land, a deathrite shaman he just drew thanks to your guide. and passes. You play another guide, attack him to 14, bolt his shaman and pass. The other guy passes for turn. You attack with both on turn 3; he abrupt decays 1 in response to the guide triggers, sees a goyf, and goes to 12. You cast flame rift, he's at 8 and you're at 16. On his third turn he plays a 3/4 goyf and casts inquisition of kozilek; you bolt him to the face and discard your last card.
Now, you're in need of some luck because you've got one overmatched creature and no hand against a strong deck. But he's at 5 life. Playing a fetch means that he dies to a topdecked flame rift. Playing dark confidant is suicide. He needs two more creatures in play before he can attack or he risks getting hit by a topdecked guide. If he waits too long without playing and untapping with a deathrite shaman he'll die to a pair of topdecked burn spells. The jund guy can still win but he's definitely hurting, and this is with a pretty solid start. He got a good extra card due to guide but it didn't matter much since he can only play so many cards at a time.
Compare that to if you do go with, say, jackal pup. You lead with pup, your opponent plays a land and passes. You play another pup and attack him to 18. He plays a land and passes. You swing with both and one is decayed, you play flame rift and your opponent is at 12. On his turn the opponent plays a 3/4 goyf and the deathrite shaman he didn't get to draw earlier, which you bolt. You untap, play lava dart and suspend rift bolt, and pass. On his turn he plays inquisition on your last card, and has another goyf. He attacks for 3 and you're at 13.
Your rift bolt can bring him to 6, but you're almost out of time. If he cracks a fetch-which would still mean you need two burn spells to win- you're on a two turn clock. Topdecked pups, without haste, are worthless. You need to topdeck two straight burn spells or you lose. Even though he had one less draw, the fact that he had more turns with which to cast spells meant that he got to take his hits and still put himself in a winning position. Drawn cards are only valuable if you have enough turns to play them all, and goblin guide is one of the best ways to make sure an opponent doesn't. It's not a perfect strategy, or even really a tier one strategy, but it can be a really strong strategy, and goblin guide is one of the main reasons why.
You don't bolt the drs if you play burn, creatures shouldn't be going to the bin to give him the life gain option you just bolt his face and he's on 2.
let me just sum it up like this. I play Modern Burn. before i got GG a reasonable Modern deck could beat me. here is where it is relevant to Legacy, I got Guide, gained the ability to deal damage after emptying my hand and topdecking a land. I can now beat Legacy decks, I have beaten Legacy Jund, Merfolk, Miracles, and Death and Taxes, Guide helps get in a chunk of damage on each of these. Merfolk is really easy. If Modern can do it, Legacy is probably even faster and if Guide did not work it would not get played, that simple
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I was trying to understand,. but most of what I'm hearing is, "GG is amazing in this terrible deck" which isn't really doing much to sing its praises.
UR Delver is not a terrible deck. It gets strong finishes on a reasonably regular basis. Straight Burn, while not as strong, is still not terrible either.
You seem to be completely missing the point on numerous counts.
For starters, you can disagree with the fact that many competitive decks play lots of fetchlands and low land counts if you'd like to, but you are simply wrong. And even if you werent wrong, its still the way things are, and cards are evaluated within the metagame that exists.
Secondly what are these cards you are afraid of? Who the heck is casting Thragtusk or a Leyline? Burn takes advantage of the fact that people cant afford sideboard slots for one fringe match-up. How many people seriously carry around silver bullets for Burn that they are going to draw into?
In the Jackal Pup comparison you are completely overlooking the fact that Jackal Pup gives your opponent an entire free turn when you cast him. Goblin Guide just sometimes gives them a card if they get lucky. If Jackal Pup had haste this would be a completely different conversation.
And lastly, you are just completely failing to even understand Burn as a concept. Of course Burn doesnt have a mid-game. Thats the friggin point. Goblin Guide is the best card for doing what it does. Burn is the deck that wants to do it.
I'm not disagreeing with the fact that competitive decks play lots of fetch, because they clearly do. I was ceding that point in GG's favor. I was just commenting that the amount of fetch is a little greater than it perhaps should be (9 fetch in a deck with 5 fetchable land is a little ridiculous).
Nic Fit is casting thragtusk. I pulled leyline out of my ass. Replace with Batterskull if you want. or jitte. Both of those require the burn to be diverted to creatures or the life gain becomes too great to overcome. Diverting the burn to creatures means more time to stabilize. How bout the show & tell they're looking for?
ok, ignoring the fact that having only 4 creatures opens you up to every piece of creature hate the opponent has to give, GG is played in izzet delver, as well as zoo (effectively defunct). I asked for a link to effective GG playing and didn't see a response, so I'm still unsure of why it's good in a more mid-range deck.
Ignoring that Nic Fit is a fringe deck, the earliest it will normally get a Thragtusk out is turn 4. It can get it out on turn 3, but as they run only one copy, you really need to have the Green Sun's Zenith (making it cost an extra mana and an extra turn) to get it out. And all of that is if they managed to use Veteran Explorer to ramp them.
Batterskull and Jitte take a while to be able to use. Even with a Stoneforge, the earliest you can do anything with either is turn 4, by which time the Burn deck wants to have won anyway.
And I'm not sure when anyone ever said Goblin Guide was good in a more midrange deck, unless you're talking about UR Delver which isn't midrange at all. It's basically a Burn deck with a Blue splash for Delver.
And to those who smugly assume i'd cast DC or Sylvan against a burn deck, I wouldn't; you already cast it for me by laying down Goblin Guide.
Congratulations on missing the point entirely! The point was that Dark Confidant is a bad card against a Burn deck, which is why Goblin Guide is good in a burn deck. Although an opponent having a Goblin Guide is worse for you than you having a Dark Confidant because Dark Confidant will generally draw you more cards for less life than Goblin Guide.
Congratulations on missing the point entirely! The point was that Dark Confidant is a bad card against a Burn deck, which is why Goblin Guide is good in a burn deck. Although an opponent having a Goblin Guide is worse for you than you having a Dark Confidant because Dark Confidant will generally draw you more cards for less life than Goblin Guide.
fair enough, though I have to (repeatedly) point out that in this comparison, you're already up 2 cards and 3 mana; the Confidant you didn't have to cast and the goblin guide that they did have to cast.
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Here are the little self-imposed guidelines I'm working with for the multiplayer decks I've been building:
• Must be cheap. Total price tag < $100, preferably < $50. Ideally ~$30. No one card greater than about ~$6
• Format: Modern (makes getting the cards somewhat easier for the play group, and almost all my cards are Modern-legal)
• Must be relatively interesting in 1:1 games. I don't need to win against Splinter Twin, but I should be able to play duels now and then
• Avoid instant-win combos; they only serve to make me target #1, and then the deck is worse than useless because I get killed first, every time
• Must have a funny name!
fair enough, though I have to (repeatedly) point out that in this comparison, you're already up 2 cards and 3 mana; the Confidant you didn't have to cast and the goblin guide that they did have to cast.
The problem I'm having with the argument you are trying to make is that I think it handles game concepts in theory, but not in practice. Extra cards and mana only represent an increased number of potential choices, but they don't amount to much when the choices they represent are bad or are only available after you've reached a point in the game where you're so behind on another resource that you're basically dead anyway.
So you're up two cards and three mana on turn two of your game against Burn--now how are you spending those cards and mana this turn to win the game or stop your opponent from killing you with Lightning Bolts? I don't know why you're so high on being up on cards when they're cards like Dark Confidant that you should feel horrible about casting since they don't interact well against your opponent's game plan of not caring about anything other than your life total: your removal is situationally weak because it is only amazing before a Goblin Guide has done its job of dealing you some damage, and the utility of your removal spells decreases dramatically after that; most other disruption comes in the form of counters or discard and they aren't very strong when your opponent's deck is filled with cards that all do the same thing; playing your own creatures as defenders only makes Goblin Guide a regular card instead of an amazing one, and playing your creatures as threats also isn't strong because they aren't going to beat a bunch of Bolts every turn in a race; if you play cantrips, they don't stop the opponent from blitzing you in the early turns and they're likely drawing you to any of the above cards.
This isn't to say that Burn is amazing, and there are certainly some cards that are crippling against Burn, but I don't think they're played enough in enough numbers to make it smart for Burn players to be afraid of them. Many of the cards that people have available in their decks to try to force a Burn player to stumble are ill-equipped to fight Burn because most players in Legacy have their decks constructed to fight a different sort of deck where attrition and/or removing key threats is a stronger countermeasure. I've even heard some pro players comment that they have no qualms choosing decks that have literally no game against Burn because they start events with enough byes that they think Burn decks will weed themselves out from just not drawing enough hands that can count to 20 to keep them up near the X-0 bracket.
Basically, the cards that an opponent is drawing vary wildly in effectiveness against a Burn deck, with the super-effective cards being so low in number that playing Goblin Guide to trade cards for damage seems fine because there is a high chance that the extra cards the opponent receives are cards that do next to nothing. Your arguments about how good it feels to have extra cards don't account for the fact that your cards on the whole will likely match up poorly against an opponent who only draws cards that are meant to interact with your life total.
I still see Goblin Guide as 2/3 - peek at next card or 1/3 - give the opponent a land (I dont see GG drawing a card for an opponent each turn - it's only a 1/3 of a chance to draw). The sweet thing about Goblin Guide in a burn deck is: First turn Goblin Guide (attack) second turn Goblin Guide attack and then play 2 bolts (and we are looking at 10 damage on turn 2).
Maybe you don't know how to play red properly, or maybe you are an amazing player who knows something that everyone else doesn't. Goblin Guide is the best aggro one drop of all time and one of the best red creatures ever printed, for my money the best. I've been playing with him since he came out. The card wouldn't be played in every format it's legal in (besides Type 1) if it was as bad as you think it is in your head.
This reminds me of when vexing devil came out, in the spoiler thread nearly everyone was saying how terrible it is because it allows your opponents to make decisions. Everyone was trying to be some SCG Channel Fireball guy and stick their nose up and an obviously powerful card because it was pure aggro and not a UW control card. Now it is played in nearly every red aggro deck it is legal in.
Maybe you don't know how to play red properly, or maybe you are an amazing player who knows something that everyone else doesn't. Goblin Guide is the best aggro one drop of all time and one of the best red creatures ever printed, for my money the best. I've been playing with him since he came out. The card wouldn't be played in every format it's legal in (besides Type 1) if it was as bad as you think it is in your head.
This reminds me of when vexing devil came out, in the spoiler thread nearly everyone was saying how terrible it is because it allows your opponents to make decisions. Everyone was trying to be some SCG Channel Fireball guy and stick their nose up and an obviously powerful card because it was pure aggro and not a UW control card. Now it is played in nearly every red aggro deck it is legal in.
lol (I agree about the original critics on Vexing Devil) I picked up a playset of Vexing Devils week it was spoiled. the guy is a 4/3 creature for 1 mana and it's downside is the opponent decides to suck in the 4 damage (Win Win in my book)
Goblin Guides are so awesome that some of my friends cannot believe it's cost only 1 red mana.
Maybe you don't know how to play red properly, or maybe you are an amazing player who knows something that everyone else doesn't.
I definitely know how to play red properly, but I've come to realize that the decks Goblin Guide does well in are single-minded decks that have more in common with combo decks than "fair" decks (certainly burn has very little in common with original sligh and red deck wins, 2 decks i'm very familiar with). I don't claim to know things that everyone else doesn't, but I am a long-time deck theorist who has developed several competent rogue strategies (I turned mindless automaton into an mvp that won me tournaments in 2 different decks when it was standard-legal). I think about the game differently because I'm always alert for weaknesses in groupthink.
I realize now that a disproportionate number of my testing games have come from decks that misuse the guide (he's terrible in zoo [one of my proxy decks I found a "winning" list for] and jund [a local player plays this build]) so the underperformance there has skewed him into "unplayable" in my mind. I'll look more closely at burn and izzet delver and re-evaluate my impression.
Thanks for all the civil replies (and no thanks for all the snarky ones).
Here are the little self-imposed guidelines I'm working with for the multiplayer decks I've been building:
• Must be cheap. Total price tag < $100, preferably < $50. Ideally ~$30. No one card greater than about ~$6
• Format: Modern (makes getting the cards somewhat easier for the play group, and almost all my cards are Modern-legal)
• Must be relatively interesting in 1:1 games. I don't need to win against Splinter Twin, but I should be able to play duels now and then
• Avoid instant-win combos; they only serve to make me target #1, and then the deck is worse than useless because I get killed first, every time
• Must have a funny name!
There was a character from a different TCG that had a similar argument. It was able to give itself +1/+0 by discarding the top 2 cards of your deck (and the deck size was 40 at the time). It could do this up to 3 times per turn. People at first said "it's not worth it you'll deck yourself out" or "you're just helping your opponent by getting rid of your own cards".
After the first round of tournament results after he was printed, people started to realize - the cost doesn't matter. You're gaining an advantage and not actually paying anything for it (because those cards come from your deck, and not a finite resource such as your hand).
Goblin Guide is the same thing. You deal a lot of damage, and it does not cost you anything from a finite pool of resources. Sure, the opponent gets things which is a "cost" of sorts, but when considering that the golden standard for red is 1 card/1 mana = 3 damage and goblin guide often gets in for 4+, you'll understand that goblin guide is ahead of the curve in terms of card/cost efficiency. Red doesn't care if you have lands. Red only cares if you have Life. And with a Goblin Guide on turn 1, when you're on the play, you won't for very long.
But you seem pretty convinced it's a terrible card and people who play it just "don't get it" so there's really no point in arguing it.
Ah, good ol Naruto Uzumaki (Control of Power). The reason that card was considered so powerful is because while injured he could take two BRs himself, which is gross for a zero-drop.
OT: Not sure what to say. I have to assume the OPs deck is 50% lands and 50% Magical Christmas Land.
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"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
OT: Not sure what to say. I have to assume the OPs deck is 50% lands and 50% Magical Christmas Land.
Or you could read my recent posts and not just glibly insult me like a jerk.
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Here are the little self-imposed guidelines I'm working with for the multiplayer decks I've been building:
• Must be cheap. Total price tag < $100, preferably < $50. Ideally ~$30. No one card greater than about ~$6
• Format: Modern (makes getting the cards somewhat easier for the play group, and almost all my cards are Modern-legal)
• Must be relatively interesting in 1:1 games. I don't need to win against Splinter Twin, but I should be able to play duels now and then
• Avoid instant-win combos; they only serve to make me target #1, and then the deck is worse than useless because I get killed first, every time
• Must have a funny name!
Considering how dismissive and confrontational you have been with posters who are very experienced with the game I don't think you should go around calling people jerks.
Considering how dismissive and confrontational you have been with posters who are very experienced with the game I don't think you should go around calling people jerks.
+1, especially since many have tried to be helpful and some of those who snapped back were in response to the OP's attitude. But hey if its raining heavy and dozens of people pull out umbrellas and one person still wont acknowledge that its raining well you cant force someone to change what they see no matter how much you try to show them.
I've only read maybe half of this thread, but it is painfully clear this OP is an ignorant know-it-all that refuses to listen to others, and is himself not experienced enough with MTG to understand the card in question. This post title should not be "help me understand....blah blah". It should be "I think I am so smart and I found something that proves it. You are all wrong, and I am right" (where in fact, he is just too noob to know he is wrong).
Just stop responding to it and stop trying to help someone that does not actually want to be helped. At some point, you just have to give up on trying to help people.
I've only read maybe half of this thread, but it is painfully clear this OP is an ignorant know-it-all that refuses to listen to others, and is himself not experienced enough with MTG to understand the card in question. This post title should not be "help me understand....blah blah". It should be "I think I am so smart and I found something that proves it. You are all wrong, and I am right" (where in fact, he is just too noob to know he is wrong).
Just stop responding to it and stop trying to help someone that does not actually want to be helped. At some point, you just have to give up on trying to help people.
I think the deal is the OP has a mind set that the next card is 'always' going to be a land; and originally when goblin guide was introduced most of the burn players seemed to think the same. It took a while for the players to realized that not every cards drawn from the goblin guide attack is going to be a land. This is because the deck construction in Type 2 is much more different then in legacy, and what I see is 1/3 lands draw to 2/3 peek at the next card.
I don't think we should result in name calling, even if the OP doesn't want to listen - we know Goblin Guide is good so why must we worry if somebody doesn't... Then again for years I thought Mogg Fanatic overstayed his welcome in Burn - seriously the creature is a 1 mana ping, and I believed that (at the time) Spark Elemental was an upgrade, but nobody took that card seriously... or they saw that mogg can be sacked and kill sparky without any issues, either case by burn theory Sparky was more likely to deal more damage then Mogg Fanatic... sadly nobody played Sparky and today we have far too many cards to pick that are better.
I'm not trying to say we should start to play with sparky, I'm just pointing out that players do have a mindset on cards that they like or don't like and sometimes we cannot change their opinion.
I personally think Goblin Guide is awesome and got my hands on 2 playsets
Maybe you don't know how to play red properly, or maybe you are an amazing player who knows something that everyone else doesn't. Goblin Guide is the best aggro one drop of all time and one of the best red creatures ever printed, for my money the best. I've been playing with him since he came out. The card wouldn't be played in every format it's legal in (besides Type 1) if it was as bad as you think it is in your head.
This reminds me of when vexing devil came out, in the spoiler thread nearly everyone was saying how terrible it is because it allows your opponents to make decisions. Everyone was trying to be some SCG Channel Fireball guy and stick their nose up and an obviously powerful card because it was pure aggro and not a UW control card. Now it is played in nearly every red aggro deck it is legal in.
Uh, what? Vexing Devil is not played in nearly every red aggro deck it's legal in. In fact, really the only deck it sees play in in any format is straight burn. Unless by "red aggro" you mean Burn, and aren't referring to any deck that's aggro and has Red in it.
Even Legacy burn doesn't use it. It's not that good. Against burn you have more removal than they have creatures a lot of the time, so you are fine with turning your removal into extra healing salves.
and I'm specifically ignoring you because it's a *snip* question. The answer is "whatever in the deck can help". If your argument is that no cards in anyone's decks can help against burn, then we're pretty much done.
What most decks need to help against Burn is time. Maybe the extra cards can be used to buy time, but the efficiency of Goblin Guide does more than enough to deprive the opponent of time, resulting in a net loss of time (for that opponent) more often than not.
I'm not sure if your title was disingenuous. Do you want help understanding why Goblin Guide is indeed good, or are you in fact determined that it is not? If you really want help understanding, this is a classic article and one of my favourites:
Guide is run in decks where speed matters more than dealing with answers. In a deck like burn, you have no real care if they find an answer to Guide, you care that they took 4 damage before they did.
Also decks that run Guide normally have fewer things to answer on the table. So against Jund, giving them a chance to find another Abrupt Decay has almost zero impact after they use the first one, because you are not normally playing permanents for them to target. So you end up with a form of card advantage where, yes, he has a full hand. But only 2 cards of it are going to impact the game any so in effect he really only has a 2 card hand.
Goblin Guide. 1/3 chance to draw a card, lose 2 life.
So, it's not the best advantage you could have. I think we need to consider the deck we're playing here, which is burn.
To give 6 damage, you need 2 bolts, that means, 2 cards. GG can give 6 damage alone, which is the same as 2 bolts, 2 cards.
The OP is missing the view of the burn player, because the way you're reading GG is the same as if Lightning Bolt would read: cost 0 - end target player turn, you lose 3 life.
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Goblin Guide is a very good card in the right deck. You're free to think that the right deck is terrible because it aims to execute a shaky gameplan (and I think a good number of people would agree with you); however, "The decks Goblin Guide goes into are bad" isn't necessarily the same as "Goblin Guide is bad" since there are currently no cards that can do better what a turn one Goblin Guide can accomplish in the sort of deck that wants the card.
I'd pretty much let my opponent start out with two extra cards any day of the week if they would start the game out at 18 life with a chance of making them lose an extra two each turn for no additional investment on my part; we don't have much of a chance either way against the decks that can actually utilize those cards effectively (combo decks because they use their cards to kill you before you kill them).
Are you implying that you wouldn't ever play a Dark Confidant from your hand when you already have one in play, too?
If anyone is assuming that you'd cast Confidant and Sylvan Library against a Burn deck, it is because that is in line with your beliefs as you have conveyed them. You seem to be pretty adamant about "Cards over everything." Since the arguments you have been making against Goblin Guide indicate that you value the ability to see/draw extra cards more than you value your life total in a game of Magic, it seems obvious that you would certainly choose drawing more cards in order to have more answers against your opponent; it actually undermines the stance you're taking to then state that you would choose not to follow lines of play that offer you extra cards. If the effect is the same (you draw extra cards and you lose life for drawing them), why are you suddenly refusing to take the cards when you have the option to? If it is foolish to give your opponent extra cards, is it not equally foolish to deprive yourself of extra cards when you have the opportunity to draw them?
Let's say you're on the play against jund. You lead with goblin guide and attack him to 18; he gets a land. The other guy plays a land, a deathrite shaman he just drew thanks to your guide. and passes. You play another guide, attack him to 14, bolt his shaman and pass. The other guy passes for turn. You attack with both on turn 3; he abrupt decays 1 in response to the guide triggers, sees a goyf, and goes to 12. You cast flame rift, he's at 8 and you're at 16. On his third turn he plays a 3/4 goyf and casts inquisition of kozilek; you bolt him to the face and discard your last card.
Now, you're in need of some luck because you've got one overmatched creature and no hand against a strong deck. But he's at 5 life. Playing a fetch means that he dies to a topdecked flame rift. Playing dark confidant is suicide. He needs two more creatures in play before he can attack or he risks getting hit by a topdecked guide. If he waits too long without playing and untapping with a deathrite shaman he'll die to a pair of topdecked burn spells. The jund guy can still win but he's definitely hurting, and this is with a pretty solid start. He got a good extra card due to guide but it didn't matter much since he can only play so many cards at a time.
Compare that to if you do go with, say, jackal pup. You lead with pup, your opponent plays a land and passes. You play another pup and attack him to 18. He plays a land and passes. You swing with both and one is decayed, you play flame rift and your opponent is at 12. On his turn the opponent plays a 3/4 goyf and the deathrite shaman he didn't get to draw earlier, which you bolt. You untap, play lava dart and suspend rift bolt, and pass. On his turn he plays inquisition on your last card, and has another goyf. He attacks for 3 and you're at 13.
Your rift bolt can bring him to 6, but you're almost out of time. If he cracks a fetch-which would still mean you need two burn spells to win- you're on a two turn clock. Topdecked pups, without haste, are worthless. You need to topdeck two straight burn spells or you lose. Even though he had one less draw, the fact that he had more turns with which to cast spells meant that he got to take his hits and still put himself in a winning position. Drawn cards are only valuable if you have enough turns to play them all, and goblin guide is one of the best ways to make sure an opponent doesn't. It's not a perfect strategy, or even really a tier one strategy, but it can be a really strong strategy, and goblin guide is one of the main reasons why.
Warning for flaming/trolling. -Feyd
Ignoring that Nic Fit is a fringe deck, the earliest it will normally get a Thragtusk out is turn 4. It can get it out on turn 3, but as they run only one copy, you really need to have the Green Sun's Zenith (making it cost an extra mana and an extra turn) to get it out. And all of that is if they managed to use Veteran Explorer to ramp them.
Batterskull and Jitte take a while to be able to use. Even with a Stoneforge, the earliest you can do anything with either is turn 4, by which time the Burn deck wants to have won anyway.
And I'm not sure when anyone ever said Goblin Guide was good in a more midrange deck, unless you're talking about UR Delver which isn't midrange at all. It's basically a Burn deck with a Blue splash for Delver.
Congratulations on missing the point entirely! The point was that Dark Confidant is a bad card against a Burn deck, which is why Goblin Guide is good in a burn deck. Although an opponent having a Goblin Guide is worse for you than you having a Dark Confidant because Dark Confidant will generally draw you more cards for less life than Goblin Guide.
fair enough, though I have to (repeatedly) point out that in this comparison, you're already up 2 cards and 3 mana; the Confidant you didn't have to cast and the goblin guide that they did have to cast.
• Must be cheap. Total price tag < $100, preferably < $50. Ideally ~$30. No one card greater than about ~$6
• Format: Modern (makes getting the cards somewhat easier for the play group, and almost all my cards are Modern-legal)
• Must be relatively interesting in 1:1 games. I don't need to win against Splinter Twin, but I should be able to play duels now and then
• Avoid instant-win combos; they only serve to make me target #1, and then the deck is worse than useless because I get killed first, every time
• Must have a funny name!
The problem I'm having with the argument you are trying to make is that I think it handles game concepts in theory, but not in practice. Extra cards and mana only represent an increased number of potential choices, but they don't amount to much when the choices they represent are bad or are only available after you've reached a point in the game where you're so behind on another resource that you're basically dead anyway.
So you're up two cards and three mana on turn two of your game against Burn--now how are you spending those cards and mana this turn to win the game or stop your opponent from killing you with Lightning Bolts? I don't know why you're so high on being up on cards when they're cards like Dark Confidant that you should feel horrible about casting since they don't interact well against your opponent's game plan of not caring about anything other than your life total: your removal is situationally weak because it is only amazing before a Goblin Guide has done its job of dealing you some damage, and the utility of your removal spells decreases dramatically after that; most other disruption comes in the form of counters or discard and they aren't very strong when your opponent's deck is filled with cards that all do the same thing; playing your own creatures as defenders only makes Goblin Guide a regular card instead of an amazing one, and playing your creatures as threats also isn't strong because they aren't going to beat a bunch of Bolts every turn in a race; if you play cantrips, they don't stop the opponent from blitzing you in the early turns and they're likely drawing you to any of the above cards.
This isn't to say that Burn is amazing, and there are certainly some cards that are crippling against Burn, but I don't think they're played enough in enough numbers to make it smart for Burn players to be afraid of them. Many of the cards that people have available in their decks to try to force a Burn player to stumble are ill-equipped to fight Burn because most players in Legacy have their decks constructed to fight a different sort of deck where attrition and/or removing key threats is a stronger countermeasure. I've even heard some pro players comment that they have no qualms choosing decks that have literally no game against Burn because they start events with enough byes that they think Burn decks will weed themselves out from just not drawing enough hands that can count to 20 to keep them up near the X-0 bracket.
Basically, the cards that an opponent is drawing vary wildly in effectiveness against a Burn deck, with the super-effective cards being so low in number that playing Goblin Guide to trade cards for damage seems fine because there is a high chance that the extra cards the opponent receives are cards that do next to nothing. Your arguments about how good it feels to have extra cards don't account for the fact that your cards on the whole will likely match up poorly against an opponent who only draws cards that are meant to interact with your life total.
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
This reminds me of when vexing devil came out, in the spoiler thread nearly everyone was saying how terrible it is because it allows your opponents to make decisions. Everyone was trying to be some SCG Channel Fireball guy and stick their nose up and an obviously powerful card because it was pure aggro and not a UW control card. Now it is played in nearly every red aggro deck it is legal in.
lol (I agree about the original critics on Vexing Devil) I picked up a playset of Vexing Devils week it was spoiled. the guy is a 4/3 creature for 1 mana and it's downside is the opponent decides to suck in the 4 damage (Win Win in my book)
Goblin Guides are so awesome that some of my friends cannot believe it's cost only 1 red mana.
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
I realize now that a disproportionate number of my testing games have come from decks that misuse the guide (he's terrible in zoo [one of my proxy decks I found a "winning" list for] and jund [a local player plays this build]) so the underperformance there has skewed him into "unplayable" in my mind. I'll look more closely at burn and izzet delver and re-evaluate my impression.
Thanks for all the civil replies (and no thanks for all the snarky ones).
• Must be cheap. Total price tag < $100, preferably < $50. Ideally ~$30. No one card greater than about ~$6
• Format: Modern (makes getting the cards somewhat easier for the play group, and almost all my cards are Modern-legal)
• Must be relatively interesting in 1:1 games. I don't need to win against Splinter Twin, but I should be able to play duels now and then
• Avoid instant-win combos; they only serve to make me target #1, and then the deck is worse than useless because I get killed first, every time
• Must have a funny name!
Ah, good ol Naruto Uzumaki (Control of Power). The reason that card was considered so powerful is because while injured he could take two BRs himself, which is gross for a zero-drop.
OT: Not sure what to say. I have to assume the OPs deck is 50% lands and 50% Magical Christmas Land.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
• Must be cheap. Total price tag < $100, preferably < $50. Ideally ~$30. No one card greater than about ~$6
• Format: Modern (makes getting the cards somewhat easier for the play group, and almost all my cards are Modern-legal)
• Must be relatively interesting in 1:1 games. I don't need to win against Splinter Twin, but I should be able to play duels now and then
• Avoid instant-win combos; they only serve to make me target #1, and then the deck is worse than useless because I get killed first, every time
• Must have a funny name!
RGoblinsR
RWerewolf StompyR
URU/R DelverRU
RGBelcherGR
BThe GateB
GBLoam PoxBG
WGBNic FitBGW
UHigh TideU
UMerfolkU
UFaerieNinjaStillU
WBUAffinityUBW
GSquirrelsG
UWGSliversGWU
+1, especially since many have tried to be helpful and some of those who snapped back were in response to the OP's attitude. But hey if its raining heavy and dozens of people pull out umbrellas and one person still wont acknowledge that its raining well you cant force someone to change what they see no matter how much you try to show them.
Just stop responding to it and stop trying to help someone that does not actually want to be helped. At some point, you just have to give up on trying to help people.
I think the deal is the OP has a mind set that the next card is 'always' going to be a land; and originally when goblin guide was introduced most of the burn players seemed to think the same. It took a while for the players to realized that not every cards drawn from the goblin guide attack is going to be a land. This is because the deck construction in Type 2 is much more different then in legacy, and what I see is 1/3 lands draw to 2/3 peek at the next card.
I don't think we should result in name calling, even if the OP doesn't want to listen - we know Goblin Guide is good so why must we worry if somebody doesn't... Then again for years I thought Mogg Fanatic overstayed his welcome in Burn - seriously the creature is a 1 mana ping, and I believed that (at the time) Spark Elemental was an upgrade, but nobody took that card seriously... or they saw that mogg can be sacked and kill sparky without any issues, either case by burn theory Sparky was more likely to deal more damage then Mogg Fanatic... sadly nobody played Sparky and today we have far too many cards to pick that are better.
I'm not trying to say we should start to play with sparky, I'm just pointing out that players do have a mindset on cards that they like or don't like and sometimes we cannot change their opinion.
I personally think Goblin Guide is awesome and got my hands on 2 playsets
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
What most decks need to help against Burn is time. Maybe the extra cards can be used to buy time, but the efficiency of Goblin Guide does more than enough to deprive the opponent of time, resulting in a net loss of time (for that opponent) more often than not.
I'm not sure if your title was disingenuous. Do you want help understanding why Goblin Guide is indeed good, or are you in fact determined that it is not? If you really want help understanding, this is a classic article and one of my favourites:
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/3690_Tempo-And-Card-Advantage.html
If you'd rather just continue arguing the card is bad, I don't have much time or interest for that. I say the proof's in the pudding.
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
Also decks that run Guide normally have fewer things to answer on the table. So against Jund, giving them a chance to find another Abrupt Decay has almost zero impact after they use the first one, because you are not normally playing permanents for them to target. So you end up with a form of card advantage where, yes, he has a full hand. But only 2 cards of it are going to impact the game any so in effect he really only has a 2 card hand.
Current decks of choice:
Vintage: Shops.
Legacy: Lands.
Modern: Lantern.
https://twitch.tv/annorax10 (classic retro speedruns & occasional MTGO/MTGA screwaround streams)
https://twitch.tv/SwiftorCasino (yes, my team and I run live dealer games for the baldman using his channel points as chips)
Goblin Guide. 1/3 chance to draw a card, lose 2 life.
So, it's not the best advantage you could have. I think we need to consider the deck we're playing here, which is burn.
To give 6 damage, you need 2 bolts, that means, 2 cards. GG can give 6 damage alone, which is the same as 2 bolts, 2 cards.
The OP is missing the view of the burn player, because the way you're reading GG is the same as if Lightning Bolt would read: cost 0 - end target player turn, you lose 3 life.