MTG Salvation

Tested today vs. Pod, Scapeshift, U Tron and Soul Sisters.

Feels good Tron and Scapeshift was a good matchup, i have been faster sometimes and both Decks had trouble when i dropped a lot of Gobs Turn after Turn.
Pod was not that easy. Deceiver Exarch got me a lot of problems, but also Finks and other Cards give me headaches. What is our boarding plan?
Soul Sisters was bad again

I think that the new Goblin Kaboomist has a lot of potential, specially in Lord-based kind of decks (for example, Mad Auntie, Chieftain and Gob King). That plus Goblin Grenades and the new reprinted Shrapnel Blast + Kuldotha rebirth as a second choice seems awesome to me. Even more so if you are producing a new tamed-Shock each turn.

Deceiving card, I see a lot of uses in it.

I have been playing around with the Goblin Kaboomist concept. What do you think about this? (Yeah I know 63 cards)

4 Memnite
4 Goblin Kaboomist
4 Rebirth of Kuldotha
4 Shrapnel Blast
4 Goblin Grenade
4 Adaptive Automaton
4 Goblin Chieftain
3 Goblin King
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Aether Vial
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Cavern of Souls
12 Mountains

Quote from The_cobra »

@Ernest you have some details on how the match against birthing pod went? I have troubel against that deck so I'd like to know how you handle it.

You don't want to go for the aggro kill against pod.
I don't, at least.
What I do is toss in hand control(4 Thoughtseize, 3 Duress), 4 Extirpate, 2 Tuktuk Scrapper and 2 Earwig Squad.
Basically, I use my whole sideboard, dropping out what I feel is useless against whatever pod deck I happen to be playing.
Tear out their hand and start spitting goblins all over the place while Extirpating the threats.

So what you are essentially proposing is to have a different sideboard for a heavy pod meta. Yet another proof that Rb goblins are the way to go (whether you choose a more lord base mainboard or the hastey aggro approach). I've been thinking for a while to drop in Thoughtseize in my own sideboard, what is your general experience with it?

Well, yes and no.

I changed up my sideboard completely because there wasn't any sort of storm deck being played.
I'm positive that Thoughtseize and Duress are going to stay so I can have superior control over spot removal and other cards that could pose as a problem for me during a game(Birthing Pod).

I chose Duress because I'm not too worried about other creatures. If I need to, I can pull out my Siege-gang Commander and blast them away. I'd rather be able to target cards that I don't have answers to. What would my deck do if I went up against an enchantment based lockdown deck? How can I deal with Blood Moon if it hits the board when I'm not ready for it to be there?

Those are some of the questions I asked myself when I was putting together my control scheme. Targeted discard is so nasty because it eliminates the threat before it has a chance to do anything other than sit in their hand to wait for the perfect time to play it. It lets me deal with threats before I have to even worry about them, and Extirpate is some nice icing on the discard cake.

Gambling today at a small FNM i got 1:2

Round 1 - Tarmo Twin
1st match i dropped a lot of Gobs and finally killed him with 2 Token^^ I boarded Terminate and combust, but T4 he was able to combo off and killed me. Afterwards i boarded Earwig Squad and Rakdos Charm in. He saw it and boarded Splinter Twin out. 3rd match i had a T1 Vial which was Ancient Grudge'd. I stucked on 1 Land for about 3 or 4 turns and got rushed by goyf in the end.

Round 2 - 4C Reanimator
Unspectacular. Match 1 i wsa damned slow and he got Angel of Serenity which was enough to hit me. Match 2 and 3 i flooded him with Gobs, only interrupted by Boros Reckoner, but that couldn't stop me

Round 3 - Tarmo Twin
How excited i was...not. He gave up T3 and showed me a only land hand. Match 2 he was able to constantly keep Gobs off the table with Flame Slash and Bolts.
Goyf did the rest. Match 3 was annoying. I mulliganed to 4 and couldn't keep up the pressure. Goyf ran over me.

Dammit, the SB needs fixing, also the SB-strategy is not familiar to me. Especially Earwig Squad is not the "knock-em-out" card against every combo deck out there.

I stepped into Modern with this mono-red goblin deck:

I know that my sideboard needs improvements like Blood Moon, Shattering Spree and something else. However, I do think my mainboard needs help as well. I just don't know should I brew this into BR goblins for Spike Jester and more overall utility or stay mono-red and try to add Goblin King and even mb Blood Moon.

I had two good runs with this deck: 2-2 and 3-1. But last Wendesday Modern tournament at our LGS went 0-2 and I dropped after that. Bad matchups so far has been Bogles, Fairies and Jund. Our LGS meta is full of finalized tier 1 decks so I am really in a bad situation. Can I improve this deck somehow to get consistent 3-1 or should I just start to look for other decks that might have better answers against our really competitive LGS meta?

I started with mono red too, and I've recently just added crypts, blackcleave cliffs, and some arid mesas for spike jester alone and he is possibly the best card in the deck. I recommend black for jester if nothing else. I believe its relevant that you can also put earwig squad in your board for combo decks, gain rakdos charm which has application in a lot of matchups, and can cast dismember for less pain (not sure how much that matters).

Boggles seems very tough for this deck, I mean you can put some kind of sacrifice effect like cruel edict in once you have black, but that's a card without much application in any other matchup.

Warren Weirding is a decent answer to Bogles. It can make them sacrifice but it also doubles as a Krenkos Command.

I've been having a bit of trouble dealing with Wurmcoil Engines recently. Is Shattering Blow the only decent option or is there anything good in black that will work?

Echoing Ruin is pretty good.
Fury Charm is another good one.
Molten Frame could tear up Wurmcoil, and give you draw power if you don't need it when you draw it.
Smash is great late-game artifact hate.
I'm pretty sure Shatterstorm is modern, but that's best against affinity.

I use Tuktuk Scrapper because I can search him out if I ever need him for anything serious.

What do people think about the kaboomist? I don't think many has catched up on this, but it may be a decent answer to kor firewalker, etched champion and other problematic creatures with prot red, especially in builds running æther vial.

Blipblop: Thank you for the tips. I will definetely add Krenko's command to my deck. Also I am going to use your tips on the land base as well.

I used Boggart Ram-gang as a three drop as a drop during turn 5 or 6 when my opponent could hold off my early game aggro. 3/3 (or 4/4 with Chieftain) and wither is great, but it might be too slow for what we are trying to achieve.

Mogg Fanatic has been additional one drops for me that could kill 1 toughness things. I usually sideboarded it out for game two.

How do people feel about Shared animosity? I used to play it, but then replaced couple of them with ram-gang because I felt it was doing nothing when I had a bad board state, and was "win more" when I had board full of goblins. I might think that Goblin King would be better for that slot.

I like shared animosity. sometime when I need to punch through a wall, or race for the win, it helps. especially with merfolk, they get big fast. I will say just play up to 3 shared animosity is enough. I am also playing 2x krenko, mob boss mainboard. it helps a lot if I am boardwiped. it combo off well with shared animosity as well. It might be a bit slower than the BR version in a bit but it allow me to play till mid range.current list I am playing
2x Krenko, Mob Boss
4x Goblin hieftain
4x Mogg Warmarshal
3x Goblin Instigator
4x Legion Loyalist
4x Mogg fanatic
4x Goblin Bushwhacker
4x Foundry- Street denizen
3x Shared Animosity
4x Goblin Grenade
4x Lightning Bolt
16x Mountain
4x Carvern of Souls
Have not decide on sideboard yet. I think certain cards will largely depends on your local meta.

While the spike jester vs krenko's command logic kind of makes sense, you have to remember the jester is starting you out with +3 damage a lot of the time (haste), and then always dealing 4 with a lord while the tokens... also deal 4.

I thought I needed to lean on mogg war marshall because of foundry street denizen and goblin grenade, plus the advantage of tokens wiht bushwhacker/chieftan, but really the only time the tokens are significantly better is with a shared animosity and some other guys out - which doesn't happen very often.

Quote from Blipblop »

Regarding matchups: Faerie should not be a hard matchup if you play Cavern of souls and Legion loyalist. I did not test this matchup a lot, but it does not seem to me really difficult to beat. I played just 2 times aginst it and i won 2-0 both games. Boggles of course is a bad matchup, but not the worse one, which is Martyr. Jund should be better after Deathrite shaman's ban, but I did not test it already.

^This is a pretty big assumption.^

What if you don't get a cavern? Can't rely one one card to get you through a counter control deck, that's for sure. As soon as I see a Cavern while I'm playing with my faeries, I blow it up or bounce it back to their hand.

Legion Loyalist won't beat faeries, either. He'd get Peppersmoked as soon as he hit the board.

Your lords and vials won't be in your hand because of Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize.

Your lands will get tapped down during late game due to Mistbind Clique.

I don't think you really understand how beast faeries are. They've got answers for everything in our deck, which makes it one of the most frustrating matchups for goblins that are out there.

Quote from The_cobra »

In my opinion you are never allowed to say 'when I have a lord out...' those things are the only cards really worth killing so be sure they will die a lot. I would ad King for sure as it solves the Jund problem easely and just so many decks running red... A surplus is that it is an extra lord, that never hurts

This is how a good magic player thinks, right here. Never rely on a certain card to stick around so you can win, especially when you're running an aggro-rush deck.

Quote from The_cobra »

Jund should not be a problem, it should be one of your best matchups, maybe you need to practice it more?? Boggles... I don't see how this is a big problem as I recall correctly thier clock is the same as yours, but they can block only 1 goblin. So they need at least an evasion enchantment. Haven't played a lot against that deck, but the only time I did I never had a single feeling of being in trouble. Faeries is uncharted terain, nobody plays that deck that I know of. But cavern, insitigator, vial, haste, explosiveness together seems like something that deck isn't to happy with.

TRON (wurmcoils) is a match that you must practice a lot. But with the RDW deck when they get a wurmcoil out you probably already lost on the spot. The only out you have is legion loyalist and kill them on the first strike.

Faeries love taking on the rush. Cryptic Command your attack by bouncing your cavern(if you played a land this turn) and tapping all your creatures.
Then they'd pass turn. Or play a Damnation.
If they didnt play a damnation, they'd flash in Mistbind Clique during your upkeep to tap all your lands.

When it comes to Wurmcoil, why not just tutor up a Tuktuk Scrapper and take it out that way?

Quote from KongNito »

What do people think about the kaboomist? I don't think many has catched up on this, but it may be a decent answer to kor firewalker, etched champion and other problematic creatures with prot red, especially in builds running æther vial.

Completely agree with you, and you actually point out something i didnt notice at first regarding protection. It might seem clunky, but I think it is a beautiful deceiving card. That's why I was building him around lords... when you build a tad more toughness, 2 damage can be overcome.

Kaboomist mines just targets attacking creatures, cant target Kor Firewalker if dont attack

Here's my rough draft, got a modern event coming up.



Blood moon and king are there because of the amount of nonbasic lands I believe I will see.

How do you guys feel about the spoiled black card Stain the Mind.
Is it a better alternative for Earwig Squad in faster goblin decks?