You know, I never really considered how much Hope of Ghirapur could mess with Modern combo/control decks until now. Have you playtested it any? How has it worked out?
And I just had to do another one and wound up only going 2-3 this time around. Lot of flipping Tron out there in various varieties. In two matches I won game 1 but then they dominated games 2 and 3. I've got to find some way of keeping them off Tron. Maybe I just have to go 17 Mountains plus 4 Ghost Quarter main deck to try to keep them off Tron for a turn or two.
Did some playtesting in Open Play on MTGO and quickly verified that what BlazingRagnarok said about Smuggler's Copter was true. I hated having it in my opening hand and wound up cutting them. Decided to try to make the deck hyper agressive and cut one land and put four Simian Spirit Guide in instead. Played in a Competitive MTGO Modern League this weekend and went 3-2 with the following:
Here are my rough notes. I lost the two matches that I lost because I made some poor decisions with mulligans and also some play mistakes. I think my sideboard could be a little better, too.
Match 1: Won 2-0 vs. U/B Delver
Explosive Monastery Swiftspear draws both games. Kept a 1 land draw game 1 but had a Titan's Strength which got me the 2nd land. Turn 3 kill game 1. Game 2 went about the same except I got greedy and went for the turn 3 kill again and he had a Fatal Push. I was almost out of gas but managed to kill him by turn 5. I guess he was mana screwed both games. If so then why did he keep?
Game 2: I side in 4 Smash to Smithereens and 2 Blinding Flare. I side out Lightning Bolt and a couple of random dudes. I mulligan a hand with three land and then keep a questionable one land hand because I'm scared to mulligan again. He got Cranial Plating on Vault Skirge and there was no overcoming that.
Game 3: I keep a decent hand with a Smash to Smithereens which I wind up targeting an Arcbound Ravager with. He sacs an Ornithopter to the Ravager and then the Ravaqer to itself to put two counters on a Vault Skirge which would normally be a problem but when I swing he blocks and a surprise Mutagenic Growth on a first striker (Thanks Legion Loyalist!) takes the Skirge down. He's low on life and despite him having an Etched Champion too many little red dudes and a Goblin Bushwhacker closes the deal.
Feeling pretty good at this point. Proceed to get rolled the next two matches.
Match 3: Lost 1-2 vs MonoGreen Tron (if it was G/r Tron I never saw the red.)
I ran over him in game one but in games two and three he stabilizes at 1 life and and 3 life respectively. I learned a lot from this match. Game two my only two creatures were Legion Loyalists. I had a lot of pump but I think I should have mulliganed. You want Goblin Guide or Akroan Crusader or Monastery Swiftspear in your opening hand if you can get it. If you can't get it then you have to have a Goblin Bushwhacker. Legion Loyalist and Bomat Courier are strong role players but they do not bring the beats.
This was the one match where I never really felt like I was in it either game. He had a much easier time stabilizing than the Tron guy did. And I even Smashed his Amulet of Vigor in game two but he drew two Engineered Explosives and I didn't have enough gas. This is another matchup where Blood Moon, Damping Matrix and/or Pithing Needle would have gone a long way.
Match 5: Won 2-0 vs Lantern Control
Have never played against Lantern Control before was didn't quite know what to expect. Game 1 I'm just too fast for him and he never really gets set up. Game 2 I kept a hand with three land which is too many but it does have Smash to Smithereens. He promptly makes me discard it with Inquisition of Kozilek. My beats are kind of slow and he has time to draw into and cast Ensnaring Bridge HOWEVER he does have one card in hand. See the attachment for the board state. He's at 8 life and I have in play:
And I have a Mountain in hand and draw a USELESS Bushwhacker because if I kick him then I won't be able to attack. So I swing with my 1/1 dudes (Bomat now has FOUR cards) and sacrifice the Courier and draw into a Brute Force *and* a Mutagenic Growth which technically I didn't need since Brute Force alone pumps the Swiftspears just enough for lethal damage. So Bomat Courier proved itself to be an all-star in that game.
So, I feel pretty good about it all things considered. Sideboard needs to be adjusted. I don't have Blood Moons online but I have them in real life. I know that DQs it from being a budget deck but I want to do well this weekend at my LGS. I need to tighten up my play as well, especially making better mulligans.
I plan to play a few more rounds of League this week. I will post results here if anybody is interested in them. For the next round I am probably cutting out the four Simian Spirit Guides and added two Mountains and two something else. And I will tinker with the sideboard some.
These kinds of strategies really need good ways to push through damage when your opponent establishes a board state. Take the more proven, similarly priced 8-Whack (which shares many cards with your brew), for instance.
Thanks for the feedback! Didn't know 8-Whack was even a thing. Googled it and found this article:
Needed to build a cheap (relatively speaking) deck for a Modern tournament at my LGS on Dec. 16th and this is what I'm going with. It's a Modern version of 'Boss Sligh' which gets quite a few upgrades with the expanded card pool. It's very fast goldfishing. An Akroan Crusader plus a Monastery Swiftspear with the right 'Giant Growth' effects is just nuts.
I haven't done any meaningful playtesting yet but I have the deck built on MTGO and will get a good bit of practicing in over the weekend. It's super cheap on MTGO ($33.94) and for Modern fairly cheap in real life ($116.09).
Thoughts on the deck pre-playtesting:
The 2cmc slot is the one I agonized over the most. Young Pyromancer is not the correct call. I decided I liked Smuggler's Copter best because of the obvious reasons. It:
Gives you some card draw. Lets you filter out excess lands.
Yes, Anger of the Gods ruins your day. Although you can play around it.
Haven't given much thought to match ups. Kind of scared of Boros Burn which there will be a lot of at my LGS. Post sideboarding they will likely have 3-4 Kor Firewalker, 2 Deflecting Palm and maybe even 2 Anger of the Gods and they already have Lightning Helix maindeck as well. They just go into control mode and I think it becomes a tough game.
So I hope to report back in couple of days with some playtesting results. If anyone else would be willing to playtest the deck and report back as well then that would be awesome!
Not kidding... I just wanted to pick four up cheap for a goofy non-competitive deck and I can't find one from any bot on MTGO. Not sure if someone is speculating or if this is maybe somebody's idea of a prank. Not sure how much supply their demand can keep up with but someone has bought a lot of the darn things.
Ah... I just playtested it some on MODO and realized that Poisonous does not work like Infect. So the slivers would deal both normal damage and give poison counters. In that respect it's superior to infect.
Random question: How does Virulent Sliver work in the deck? It seems like it would be bad if you've already dealt a bunch of normal damage to your opponent and then have to turn around and do it again with poison counters. Kind of like giving them a free Phyrexian Unlife. Is it there strictly to deal with obvnoxious lifegain decks? At least it does stack if you have multiples.
Forgive me for not reading through the whole thread but I was just curious if anyone has tried Shared Animosity in Modern Slivers. Some of the Goblin players like it as maybe a three of.
Yeah, sorry about that. But do let me say that I really like the primer and have had fun tinkering around with goblins. The deck is going to mature over time as new sets are released.
So, this may be a dumb question but how many non-white slots are you willing to run in the deck? Is three too many? Is slipping three Scavenging Ooze in here a horrible idea?
4 Akroan Crusader
4 Bomat Courier
4 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Goblin Guide
4 Legion Loyalist
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Brute Force
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Mutagenic Growth
4 Titan's Strength
Others (4)
4 Simian Spirit Guides
Lands (16)
16 Mountain
2 Blinding Flare
3 Relic of Progenitus
4 Dragon's Claw
2 Skullcrack
4 Smash to Smithereens
Match 1: Won 2-0 vs. U/B Delver
Explosive Monastery Swiftspear draws both games. Kept a 1 land draw game 1 but had a Titan's Strength which got me the 2nd land. Turn 3 kill game 1. Game 2 went about the same except I got greedy and went for the turn 3 kill again and he had a Fatal Push. I was almost out of gas but managed to kill him by turn 5. I guess he was mana screwed both games. If so then why did he keep?
Match 2: Won 2-1 vs. Affinity
Game 1: Not goldfishing this time. He has removal in Galvanic Blast and gets a fat Master of Etherium on the board. He gets Signal Pest + Inkmoth Nexus going and starts giving me infect counters. I win the race though with Goblin Bushwhacker and a bunch of little dudes.
Game 2: I side in 4 Smash to Smithereens and 2 Blinding Flare. I side out Lightning Bolt and a couple of random dudes. I mulligan a hand with three land and then keep a questionable one land hand because I'm scared to mulligan again. He got Cranial Plating on Vault Skirge and there was no overcoming that.
Game 3: I keep a decent hand with a Smash to Smithereens which I wind up targeting an Arcbound Ravager with. He sacs an Ornithopter to the Ravager and then the Ravaqer to itself to put two counters on a Vault Skirge which would normally be a problem but when I swing he blocks and a surprise Mutagenic Growth on a first striker (Thanks Legion Loyalist!) takes the Skirge down. He's low on life and despite him having an Etched Champion too many little red dudes and a Goblin Bushwhacker closes the deal.
Feeling pretty good at this point. Proceed to get rolled the next two matches.
Match 3: Lost 1-2 vs MonoGreen Tron (if it was G/r Tron I never saw the red.)
I ran over him in game one but in games two and three he stabilizes at 1 life and and 3 life respectively. I learned a lot from this match. Game two my only two creatures were Legion Loyalists. I had a lot of pump but I think I should have mulliganed. You want Goblin Guide or Akroan Crusader or Monastery Swiftspear in your opening hand if you can get it. If you can't get it then you have to have a Goblin Bushwhacker. Legion Loyalist and Bomat Courier are strong role players but they do not bring the beats.
I also learned that Smash to Smithereens while good wasn't as good as I needed it. He had too many good artifacts against me: Wurmcoil Engine, Walking Ballista, Oblivion Stone are huge problems once they hit play. I really wish I'd had Blood Moon or Damping Matrix or maybe even Pithing Needle as it would have made games 2 and 3 much easier.
UPDATE: My God, it just hit me! I didn't side in Skullcrack! Had I drawn it, it might have won me a game.
Match 4: Lost 0-2 to Amulet of Vigor/Primeval Titan
This was the one match where I never really felt like I was in it either game. He had a much easier time stabilizing than the Tron guy did. And I even Smashed his Amulet of Vigor in game two but he drew two Engineered Explosives and I didn't have enough gas. This is another matchup where Blood Moon, Damping Matrix and/or Pithing Needle would have gone a long way.
Match 5: Won 2-0 vs Lantern Control
Have never played against Lantern Control before was didn't quite know what to expect. Game 1 I'm just too fast for him and he never really gets set up. Game 2 I kept a hand with three land which is too many but it does have Smash to Smithereens. He promptly makes me discard it with Inquisition of Kozilek. My beats are kind of slow and he has time to draw into and cast Ensnaring Bridge HOWEVER he does have one card in hand. See the attachment for the board state. He's at 8 life and I have in play:
3 Mountains
1 Goblin Bushwhacker (left over from last turn)
1 Bomat Courier with THREE cards underneath
2 Monastery Swiftspear
And I have a Mountain in hand and draw a USELESS Bushwhacker because if I kick him then I won't be able to attack. So I swing with my 1/1 dudes (Bomat now has FOUR cards) and sacrifice the Courier and draw into a Brute Force *and* a Mutagenic Growth which technically I didn't need since Brute Force alone pumps the Swiftspears just enough for lethal damage. So Bomat Courier proved itself to be an all-star in that game.
So, I feel pretty good about it all things considered. Sideboard needs to be adjusted. I don't have Blood Moons online but I have them in real life. I know that DQs it from being a budget deck but I want to do well this weekend at my LGS. I need to tighten up my play as well, especially making better mulligans.
I plan to play a few more rounds of League this week. I will post results here if anybody is interested in them. For the next round I am probably cutting out the four Simian Spirit Guides and added two Mountains and two something else. And I will tinker with the sideboard some.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/budget-magic-66-21-tix-modern-8-whack-goblins
I think I'm obligated to at least test my deck the way I built it. If it comes up short then maybe it will morph into something more 8-Whack like.
4 Bomat Courier
4 Akroan Crusader
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Goblin Guide
4 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Legion Loyalist
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Brute Force
4 Titan's Strength
4 Mutagenic Growth
3 Smuggler's Copter
Land (17)
17 Mountain
Thoughts on the deck pre-playtesting:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/ptsoi/where-modern-goes-from-here-2016-04-24
Would the tournaments run by vendors such as Star City Games provide enough competitive opportunities to drive players to invest in the format?
Yeah, sorry about that. But do let me say that I really like the primer and have had fun tinkering around with goblins. The deck is going to mature over time as new sets are released.
There were only 21 players in this tournament so it wasn't exactly a large one...