Food Chain Goblins Primer
(Note: The bracketed sections at the end of each line are marks you can
use the ‘Find’ command to go immediately too. It makes finding a specific part
of the primer easier.)
Sections:
1. The history of Food Chain Goblins
1.1 - The roots of GobVantage [A1]
1.2 - GobVantage makes the scene
[A2]
1.3 - Food Chain Goblins and Seething Gobvantage come out [A3]
1.4 - Food Chain is converted into T1 play and the current version [A4]
2. Combo workings, proper stacking and general strategy
2.1 - Why play the deck? [B1]
2.2 - How the combo works [B2]
2.3 - Various stacks with recruiter [B3]
2.4 - General strategy [B4]
3. Card Choices
3.1 - Creatures
[C1]
3.2 - Spells
[C2]
3.3 - Mana [C3]
3.4 - Variants
[C4]
3.5 - Sideboard [C5]
4. Aggro Match-up’s
4.1 - TnT [D1]
4.2 - Madness/ Oshawa Stompy
[D2]
4.3 - Mask
[D3]
4.4 - Fish
[D4]
5. Control Match-up’s
5.1 - Keeper [E1]
5.2 - Tog [E2]
5.3 - Landstill
[E3]
6. Combo Match-up’s
6.1 - Dragon
[F1]
6.2 - Long/TPS [F2]
7. Workshop Match-up’s
7.1 - Slavery
[G1]
7.2 - Trinistax
[G2]
8. Conclusions
8.1 - The End
[H1]
9. Credits
9.1 - Thanks
[I1]
The history of Food Chain Goblins
The roots of GobVantage [A1]
Circus created and played by Mons Johnson – Jan. 2003
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg Fanatic
2 Grim Lavamancer
1 Mogg Raider
4 Goblin Piledriver
2 Mogg Flunkies
4 Goblin Recruiter
1 Sparksmith
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Goblin Ringleader
4 Seal of Fire
2 Goblin Bombardment
4 Terminate
6 Mountain
2 Swamp
4 Sulfurous Spring
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Shadowblood Ridge
4 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port
This was the first publicized version of a goblin deck using the Goblin
Recruiter / Goblin Ringleader engine. Originally created by Mons Johnson (Yes
the same Mons from Mons Goblin Raiders) this was played to three Top 8 finishes
in the 2002-2003 1.x season, before finally winning one of the PTQ’s and
qualifying.
The original listing isn’t much to look at, but it was effective as
evidenced by PTQ top 8’s and win. And also if you look at the decks back then,
some of the odder card choices make sense.
GobVantage makes the scene [A2]
Gobvantage played by Tsuyoshi Ikeda – Aug. 2003
Creatures
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Recruiter
4 Goblin Piledriver
3 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Goblin Warchief
3 Goblin Ringleader
3 Goblin Matron
3 Skirk Prospector
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Sparksmith
Spells
3 Rites of Initiation
Land
20 Mountain
2 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
This deck was played at Worlds 2003 by seven players either on the
Japanese team Fireball Pro or friends of the team. Gobvantage was originally
designed by Tooru Maegawa for the Venice PTQ season and further developed by
Jun Nobashita. Pre-Scourge GobVantage was a bust, failing to make any impact at
the Yokohama Masters Gateway.
Post Scourge however with Goblin Warchief and Siege-Gang Commander,
Tsuyoshi Ikeda convinced his teammates to alter and retest the deck, with very
pleasing results. The Japanese team and friends played the deck at worlds with
every player going 4-2 or better, with the sole exception of Tsuyoshi Ikeda,
who had to leave the event early for family reasons.
The main concept of this early deck was simple, beatdown quickly with
goblins or use the R&R combo to assemble a top deck of 3 Piledriver’s and a
Warchief.
Itaru Ishida was the first to compare Goblin Recruiter to Necropotence and
made the claim that it was the best goblin ever printed. Despite this
endorsement, Goblin Lackey was seen as the only problem and subsequently banned
from 1.x play after Worlds. The release of Mirrodin soon brought another
incarnation of the deck, as well as another deck powered by a long forgotten
card. Both of these decks would soon prove Ishida correct in his assessment of
the recruiter.
Food Chain Goblins and Seething Gobvantage come out
[A3]
Seething Gobvantage played by Akira Asahara –
10th place at PT:NO – Nov. 2003
Land
4 Ancient Tomb
17 Mountain
Creatures
2 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Recruiter
3 Goblin Ringleader
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Goblin Warchief
2 Siege-Gang Commander
3 Skirk Prospector
Spells
4 Chrome Mox
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Seething Song
Food Chain Goblins played by Tom Guevin -
48th at PTNO – Nov. 2003
Land
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Brass
1 Forest
4 Karplusan Forest
9 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills
Creatures
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Recruiter
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Mogg Fanatic
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Skirk Prospector
Spells
4 Chrome Mox
4 Food Chain
4 Seal of Fire
Both of these decks took Pro Tour: New Orleans by storm, along with the
Tinker decks. Both decks were widely played throughout the season and showed
the power of Recruiter. Food Chain abused the Recruiter / Ringleader engine
even further than the original deck, by allowing not three, but thirteen
goblins be placed into play through sacrificing Recruiter and Ringleaders for
additional mana to continue the chain. Seething Gobvantage simply stacked the
deck with 20+ goblins and then activated Goblin Charbelcher for the kill. If
you’d like to read about the full story of how Food Chain was paired with
Gobvantage, read here: http://www.yourmovegames.com/news/ThestoryofFoodChain.shtml
It’s telling that Recruiter was played in three different high powered
decks though Worlds and the 1.x season before finally being banned in 1.x on
the next B/R announcement.
Food Chain is converted into T1 play and the current version
[A4]
Goblin Chains (Budget) 2003 Pre B/R –
Joshua Silvestri (Vegeta2711) – Dec. 2003
// Mana
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lotus Petal
2 Mountain
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Karplusan Forest
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Chrome Mox
// Combo Card
4 Food Chain
// Creatures
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
2 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Recruiter
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Skirk Prospector
4 Goblin Vandal
4 Goblin Lackey
This was my original pre 2003 restriction version of Food Chain Goblins
with 4 Chrome Mox. After a few helpful suggestions to the deck (Mana Crypt from
JPmeyer) it was basically complete at the time. Soon though the decks mana base
had to be remade after December rolled around and I went about beginning the
process of testing the deck against a gauntlet. Eventually after the addition
of a few overlooked goblins and the addition of Wasteland I had the current
version of FCG.
Food Chain Goblins - Oliver Deams – Dülmen
11.01.2004
Spells:
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
4 Food Chain
Creatures:
1 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Recruiter
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
3 Mogg Fanatic
1 Skirk Prospector
Lands:
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Bloodstained Mire
7 Mountain
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
This is one of the recent Food Chain decks that have popped up and made
top 8 at a recent Dülmen. You’ll notice in follows the main decree of FCG decks
in not including non goblin, Food Chain or mana cards. Also note the 4 Ancient
Tomb and Goblin Matron’s, Bebe and I both believe these are holdovers from
Seething Gobvantage decks and should not be considered the norm. Though it’s
good to keep the deck results in mind.
//NAME: Goblin Chains - Joshua Silvestri
(Vegeta2711) - Jan. 2004
// Mana
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Chrome Mox
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
5 Mountain
// Combo Card
4 Food Chain
// Creatures
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
2 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Goblin Matron
3 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Recruiter
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Skirk Prospector
4 Goblin Lackey
Yes there is also a budget version, but for the main
listing I’ve chosen to use the powered version. The Mox Ruby can be swapped for
a basic Mountain, and the Black Lotus, Mox Emerald, and even Chrome Mox can
each be replaced with Elvish Spirit Guides, if necessary. There is also a
strip-less version and that is covered under variants and can also be noticed
in the European build listed earlier. This is where the deck stands today. As
for a budget build, the only thing that needs to change is the mana base. So
here’s my budget mana base.
Goblin Chains Budget
// Mana
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Lotus Petal
2 ESG
1 Chrome Mox (If you lack Mox I run a Ancient Tomb, but Godzilla suggests
a 3rd ESG)
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
6 Mountain
Why play the deck, Combo workings, proper stacking and general strategy
Why play the deck? [B1]
Now you may be asking yourself why should I play this over anything else?
There are four main reasons for playing FCG I’d like to go over.
1. You destroy all aggro decks. You have the advantage over every single
one of them and every time you draw a combo hand, you win.
2. You still keep a decent game against control and workshop decks.
Despite having a combo built in, you can play this like a normal aggro deck and
do very well. This is why your control and workshop matches don’t suffer,
despite being partially a combo deck.
3. It’s cheap. Dirt cheap. As in the most expensive cards in the deck for
a budget version are Piledriver and Taiga cheap.
4. The deck has proven itself with three T8’s in European metagame’s in
January, with budget builds no less. This shows the deck is fully viable and
isn’t just theory here.
How the combo works [B2]
Use Recruiter to stack your library
full of goblins, putting a Ringleader as the first and fourth card. You then
use Food Chain to sacrifice Recruiter and use one other mana to power the first
Ringleader into play. Then keep saccing the old Ringleader to Food
Chain to play the new one. Then play and sacrifice cheaper goblins to Food
Chain to drop various amounts of the guys into play and attack with all of them
(Including a few very large Piledriver’s) for the win.
You can also kill your opponent with direct damage between Goblin
Sharpshooter and Siege-Gang Commander. This is done by using 13 total goblins
with 1 Sharpshooter, SGC and Prospector specifically. You sacrifice two goblins
to Prospector, shoot twice with Sharpshooter, then sacrifice a third to
Siege-Gang Commander and shoot again with Sharpshooter. This adds up to five
damage for every three goblins. Simply make sure you don’t sacrifice
Sharpshooter, Siege-Gang Commander or Goblin Warchief till the end and you can
deal 20 or more damage like this. Remember sacrificing does not work with Food
Chain, because Food Chain will remove the creatures from the game instead of
sending them to the graveyard and because Food Chain mana can only be used for
casting creatures. You’ll need to use Skirk Prospector to sacrifice creatures
and untap the Sharpshooter.
Also note this is the same reason why something like Caller of the Claw
wouldn’t work well in this deck, unlike some of it’s uses now suggested in
dragon.
Various stacks with recruiter [B3]
Note: The following assumes you have Food Chain on the table.
A normal stack with Goblin Recruiter against aggro will look something
like this
Normal Stack.
Ringleader
Goblin Warchief
Siege-Gang Commander
Goblin Piledriver
Ringleader #2
Goblin Piledriver
Goblin Piledriver
Goblin Piledriver
Ringleader #3
Goblin Sharpshooter
Skirk Prospector
Warchief #2
Ringleader #4
Siege-Gang Commander #2
Gempalm Incinerator
Gempalm Incinerator
Gempalm Incinerator
This allows you to drop a Warchief, SGC, Sharpshooter, Prospector and all
4 Piledriver’s into play. It also gives you leeway to sacrifice Siege-Gang
tokens to Skirk Prospector, which will allow you to cycle Incinerator’s and use
Sharpshooter’s ability freely to clear the board.
Set-up against Control
Ringleader
Warchief
SGC
Piledriver
Ringleader #2
Piledriver
Piledriver
Piledriver
Ringleader #3
Goblin Sharpshooter
Skirk Prospector
SGC or Warchief #2
Ringleader #4
Skirk Prospector
Skirk Prospector
Skirk Prospector
SGC or Warchief #2
This order is specifically chosen to maximize odds of winning if the combo
is disrupted. Warchief will make all future goblins cheaper if Food Chain was
destroyed in response and sets up for the next draw which is SGC. After that
Piledriver after Piledriver with the 2nd Ringleader. I feel this gives me the
best chance of coming back with cheap and effective threats.
The specialized stuff comes in after Ringleader 3, because it's only
really relevant in the off chance they have Moat or a fog effect of some kind.
Basically the stuff isn't that useful if drawn without being able to combo off
fully. The 4th Ringleader is all dirt cheap stuff in case of spot removal, in
which case you want to sac the least amount of goblins to Food Chain for the
maximum return.
Godzilla has also suggested another way of stacking against control, where
if you fear counters, you stack 3-4 Ringleaders on the top of your library so
you can continually play one after another. This plan has some merits as well
and so I leave it up to you to decide which stack order is best to use, given
your board position and open options.
Where as against control it really mattered how you stack, against combo
it really won't matter what you stack or in what order. Just set it up like you
would an aggro match-up, because 200 Piledriver is game anyways.
Workshop follows the road of the aggro and combo matches stack wise,
unless they have a Sphere of Resistance or Pyrostatic Pillar on the table. In
which case you will have to change your order depending on the circumstances.
Here’s a sample order for a Sphere though.
Set-up against Workshop, assuming a Sphere on the table.
Ringleader
SGC
Warchief
SGC #2
Ringleader #2
Piledriver
Piledriver
Piledriver
Ringleader #3
Piledriver
Goblin Sharpshooter
Skirk Prospector
Ringleader #4
Skirk Prospector
Skirk Prospector
Gempalm Incinerator
Gempalm Incinerator
The order you play it out in.
Sacrifice Recruiter for 3 mana
Pay 2 more to cast Ringleader
Sac Ringleader for 5
Pay one more, then play SGC
Sac SGC for 6 mana and play Warchief
Use the 2 mana remaining and sac 2 of the goblin tokens that came into
play from SGC to play the next Ringleader. (Warchief negates the extra 1 cost)
Combo out normally from here.
This assumes you have three mana on the table your able to use. Hence
under Tangle Wire this may be unfeasible and you’ll have to come up with your
own solution. Against a Pillar, simply measure out how much life you’ll lose
against how many cheap goblins you’ll have to play. It shouldn’t have any
effect on you, unless your below 10 life to begin with. Even then it’s not too
hard to play three to four Piledriver’s as your only creatures under three
mana.
And since Trinisphere is getting pretty popular in most
Workshop decks.
Set-up against Workshop, assuming a Trinisphere on
the table.
Ringleader
Ringleader #2
Ringleader #3
Ringleader #4
Warchief
SGC
SGC #2
Warchief #2
Warchief #3
Piledriver
Piledriver
Piledriver
Piledriver
The order you play it out in.
Get 4 mana to cast Goblin Ringleader #1
Sac Ringleader for 5 mana and play Ringleader #2
Repeat the sacrifice process with all of them
----8 Mana
Play Warchief and Warchief#2
Sac one of the Warchief
---6 Mana
Play Warchief #3
Play SGC #1
Sac SGC #1 and all 3 tokens
---8 Mana
Play SGC#2
Sac one goblin token
---6 Mana
Play 2 Goblin Piledriver
---0 Mana
Attack for 30.
Now for a normal game, if you don’t have Food Chain out, but have 4 mana
and go to stack the deck. This is generally one of the most common set-ups that
comes to mind.
Ringleader
Warchief
Piledriver
Piledriver
Piledriver
Piledriver
General strategy [B4]
General strategy for the deck is rather simple. If against aggro or combo
and you feel you have proper combo pieces, immediately go for the combo win.
Against control and aggro-control it’s generally safer to play out threats
slowly and bait combo pieces into counters and destroy resources with strips.
Workshop is a neutral match for the most part, because you can sometimes combo
out, but other times it would be impossible or undesirable. One of the key’s
for the Workshop match is knowing when to simply beatdown instead of trying to
set up a literal chain of cards for the win.
Remember a turn one Goblin Lackey is always a good threat, let alone
counting when you have Siege-Gang and/or strips in hand to back it up with.
Piledriver and Warchief have also made a potent combination for many months now
as shown in 1.x, block and T2. You need to keep in mind playing this like a
straight goblin deck is a fine plan in any match-up except perhaps combo.
Card Choices
Creatures [C1]
Let me start this section by saying in the current card pool, no
non-goblin card (With the exception of Food Chain and possibly Wheel of
Fortune) should belong maindeck in FCG. This is a common issue that comes up
time and time again, so I'll explain. Every goblin in the deck works
synergistically with each other goblin. All your threats can be searched for
with Recruiter or Matron, can be played for free with Lackey, drawn with
Ringleader, help to pump your Piledriver’s, can be sacrificed to Prospector or
Siege-Gang Commander, etc. This is extremely important to the deck's function
and in order to break the "non-goblin rule", the card would have to
be very good.
Goblin Lackey
The best one drop this or any other goblin deck has. He allows for a turn
two Siege-Gang Commander which is always very good and helps to accelerate your
deck against anything. It functions as one of the best threats against control
and workshop you have available. Consider aggressively mulliganing towards a
lackey, especially game one against control.
Goblin Piledriver
It smashes face. Really that’s all this card does, nothing fancy involved,
it just brutally hits the opponent for forty or so damage when you combo out.
Even when played normally, on average he’ll be swinging for five or so a turn.
Your main kill condition if there ever could be one for goblin decks and with
protection to blue a continual pain in the ass for Tog and Fish.
Goblin Warchief
Warchief serves two main purposes in this deck.
1. It hastes all your goblins, which makes every future goblin drop more
dangerous and means you won't have to wait a turn to swing after you drop the
combo.
2. If normally played not only makes all future drops cheaper and can be
used with Skirk Prospector to power out less explosive versions of the combo.
And besides other than that, he’s a 2/2 hasted guy for only three mana,
how can you go wrong?
Goblin Recruiter
If you read the combo section you know why this guy is here. He stacks
your deck for the combo to work and is effective at stacking even without the
combo pieces.
Goblin Ringleader
If you read the combo section you know why this guy is here. Another core
piece of the combo and a card advantage machine, he’s good alone, but insane
with Recruiter.
Skirk Prospector
They aren't great, but can allow you to pull of turn 2/3 combo kills more
often. They can also be used in conjunction with the R&R combo for a old,
but not quite as explosive version of the combo. Other than that they basically
turn all your useless goblins into Lotus Petals.
Goblin Matron
It allows you to search out a Recruiter easier, can fetch a Piledriver to
go with a Warchief and on occasion match a Siege-Gang up for a Lackey attack.
It’s like a more expensive Demonic Tutor in the deck. They aren’t always
useful, but good enough to have at least one or two in the deck.
Goblin Sharpshooter
It shoots things… a lot of them, he absolutely destroys weenie aggro and
he’s important to the combo shooting kill. That’s about all there is to say on
him.
Siege-Gang Commander
Not only a huge tempo booster when combined with lackey, but a effective
creature at full price as well. He also helps with the combo shooting kill.
Mogg Fanatic
If you see a lot of aggro and really feel the need for another one drop,
he might be considered, but after dropping him from the first build I’ve never
looked back. In almost all circumstances, Gempalm Incinerator is simply better
and more versatile. Because we all know drawing a card > being dead in a
match.
Goblin Vandal
Even if you see a LOT of workshops, I probably wouldn’t play these guys.
They just don’t give enough bang for your buck. Plus from the board you’ve
already got Artifact Mutation.
Sparksmith
I hate this guy. He seems like he would be a perfect fit in the deck, but
he just can’t compare to the other two creature removal creatures.
Drawbacks: Can’t be used multiple times per turn, can’t damage players,
damages you for every use and doesn’t draw you a card when he’s used. This
makes him worse than Sharpshooter and Incinerator by a long shot. The only real
plus side he has is against Dragon. Just don’t bother running him.
Spells [C2]
Food Chain
The name of the deck for a reason, this card allows you to complete the
full goblin chain combo. It also gives you the option to accelerate out some of
your larger creatures by trading up on the scale. Sometimes it’s simply
worthwhile saccing a Skirk Prospector or Recruiter to play a Siege-Gang
Commander or something. Anyways run four in your deck and love it.
Wheel of Fortune
The only non goblin, Food Chain or mana source considered for inclusion in
the deck. This lovely Draw-7 practically is a auto win when cast with Food
Chain on the table. On the downside it’s not overly useful without FC and of
course inconsistent (Drawing total garbage off a Draw-7 is never fun.). The
Europeans seem to like it more than people on this side of the world, but it’s
a worthy consideration for placement in the deck over say… a Matron or
Incinerator. It’s left up to you if you want to run this risky, but powerful
card in your deck.
Mana [C3]
Strip Mine
It kills any land. Period. (Ok with the exception of Darksteel Citadel)
Wasteland
Smashes nonbasic land dead and is crucial for helping with the secondary
plan which is goblin beatdown. Though Wasteland-less variants exist, I
personally would use them in any mixed metagame.
Ancient Tomb
An effective mana accelerator, the amount of these you need go up with the
amount of power your missing from the deck. If you have full power, you don’t
need any, but otherwise 1-2 seem like the best numbers for the deck. The exact
amount coming from the amount of power you can collect. After all these were
banned in 1.x for a reason.
Mountain
Five Mountains seem to work best with the 4 Taiga and 4 Fetchlands. They
outnumber the amount of fetches and provide some consistency against non basic
hate. (Sounds odd for a red deck to worry about non basic hate.)
Wooded Foothills
They add a miniscule thinning effect to the deck, fetch your Taiga’s and
provide Waste protection. You can’t ask for much more. I personally only run
four, because I’m always scared of some random Stifle mana screwing me. Also
the extra life loss, though minimal, if you run six to eight fetchlands can
affect you every few games.
Lotus Petal
Meet power replacement #1! It’s actually quite a decent little mana
producer. It accelerates your three mana spells and is better than ESG by
producing red mana as well as green.
Chrome Mox
They make a good addition as a second on-color Mox. If you could run four
of these again some would probably find their way back into the deck as a 4-of,
but as it stands they merely make another decent accelerant. Oh and this is
pretty useful for you unpowered folks for some more on color acceleration.
Elvish Spirit Guide
Though a effective mana producer in the 1.5 versions, the thing is only a
one shot single green mana producer. Simply put it’s outclassed by the various
power and other mana artifacts you can run. However they can be used to replace
Black Lotus, Mox Emerald, or Chrome Mox in a budget build.
Sol Ring
Accelerates out Food Chain, Ringleader and two or three goblins played at
the same time. It’s a great addition.
Mana Crypt
A awesome way to enable turn 1 Food Chain or turn 2 Ringleader. It provides
enough mana to accelerate out your better spells, but unlike Vault it provides
the correct amount of mana (2 and not 3). It’s drawback is negligible as your
opponent should be dead before it has any chance of killing you.
Mox Emerald, Mox Ruby, Black Lotus
They all accelerate the deck and they’re great to run if you own them.
Variants [C4]
Variants of the deck include Seething Gobvantage (As shown above) and
strip lacking versions of FCG. Seething Gobvantage is advisable.... nowhere,
it’s pretty much inferior to FCG in every way and straight up Goblins is better
in a very heavy control meta. The strip less version will buy you some more
consistency in your draws, but the distinct lack of power in Wasteland and
Strip Mine.
Sideboard [C5]
You’ll notice the lack of sideboard mention up until now, so here’s what I
personally run as a board.
General Metagame
4x Artifact Mutation
4x Tormod’s Crypt
4x Red Elemental Blast
3x Blood Moon
Basically that solves the whole general metagame deal. You’ll notice most
of my sideboard have open slots available for some personalization to the
board. Note you may want to change Artifact Mutation to Naturalize if
you see few artifact decks, but I prefer the sheer power of Artifact Mutation
against Workshop.
Aggro Metagame
4x Tormod’s Crypt
3x Naturalize
3x Pyrokinesis
3x Artifact Mutation
1x Goblin Sharpshooter
1x Gempalm Incinerator
Pyrokinesis and the extra creature kill goblins will generally take care
of heavy amounts of aggro (usually of the budget/scrubbish variety) quite well.
Control Metagame
4x Blood Moon
4x Red Elemental Blast
4x Pyroblast
3x Naturalize
For very heavy control fields, if you’ve chosen not to go with normal
Goblins or Fish, then I recommend taking the old 8 blast plan out of
retirement. Forcing through Ringleader, Blood Moon and other useful critters is
always a good way to tip the odds even more in your favor.
Those of you who know what these cards do and hence why they are here, can
skip to the next section. Everyone else can read my one sentence blurbs.
Naturalize
Green disenchant, though versatile it lacks brute force. You might want to
run this if you see a lot of random enchantments like Humility, Worship, etc.
in your metagame.
REB
One mana counter against blue spells.
Pyroblast
See above.
Pyrostatic Pillar / Chalice of the Void
Both are storm combo hate, Chalice screws up early acceleration or tutors
while Pillar can kill them if they play anything less than perfect.
Artifact Mutation
Kills an artifact and gives you a miniature army, basically hoses
Workshop.dec.
Mogg Salvage
Bebe tech against Slavery and Stax decks.
Ground Seal / Tormod’s Crypt / Gaea’s Blessing
Three different forms of Dragon hate. Crypt seems to be the most effectual
for the speed in which it comes out and significant disruptive capabilities.
Mind you these can all be worked around by Dragon, but I suggest Crypt
personally. Though Blessing is funny, because if you resolve Goblin
Sharpshooter and have a Blessing in your deck, the Dragon player can’t beat
you.. (If they mill you, your library comes back and they’ll be shot dead long
before they can hit you w/ Ancestral as well. And Sharpshooter slaughters all
tokens)
Root Maze
Combo and control mana denial, worthwhile if you focus on the beats side
of the deck.
Flaring Pain
Good if you see a lot of Parfait or any other deck packing
Story Circle, Cop: Red and the like. Basically it’s useful if you see a lot of
white cards.
Xantid Swarm
These are very potent SB cards and for a while occupied
slots in my test boards. There are two main reasons why I eventually decided to
cut them for REB returning.
1. I won't always have green mana on turns 1-3. This makes
Xantid Swarm very dead to me.
2. It competes with Lackey. I didn't think this would be a big issue, but
it's happened enough where I have to mention it. I simply hate dropping Swarm
before Lackey, because it gives them more time to deal with it then they
would’ve had normally. (By turn 3 when they both can attack, I'll Fire both of
them on you're upkeep.) And I hate dropping Lackey before Swarm, because then
if they remove it Swarm didn't do anything.
Aether Vial
These things are just a little too slow for me personally, I dislike giving up
my first turn plays to drop them. And if you don’t drop them first turn the
Vial’s are just really slow to do anything. Though you might want to consider
their power in slipping guys under a counter wall for control heavy metagame’s.
My full testing hasn’t been completed on them, but right now I would run them
if I felt the 8 Blast plan wasn’t going to be effective.
Aggro Match-ups
Aggro in general falls to FCG, because they cannot stop a combo kill with
any regularity. Also the goblins retain they’re swarm attack method from T2
with Piledriver, which was very effective to begin with. And then to top it off
we run MD creature removal. Basically against all aggro decks you definitely
have the advantage.
TnT [D1]
Barring a combo kill from you, which should happen about 40-50% of the
time. The basic strategy is just to attack early when you can, then build up
threats and then swarm when you feel the time is right. Remember they can only
really support searching and dropping one critter a turn if they get the engine
online. So if you build up until they do, you can use Incinerators to clear the
worst threats and then attack full force.
TnT’s threats are simply too slow to be effective in this match and their
engine comes out around the time you’d be comboing them out. Juggernaut and
Su-Chi simply aren’t equipped to deal with large swarms of goblins and even
Triskelion will be hard pressed to kill off enough goblins to matter. First
turn Goblin Lackey is of course a great threat, because it forces them to
respond with a first turn creature or prepare for a Ringleader/SGC/whatever to
come down and ruin their day. After boarding you gain Artifact Mutation to ruin
their day.
SB: -2 Goblin Matron, Skirk Prospector
+4 Artifact Mutation
Madness/ Oshawa Stompy [D2]
Whereas TnT's threats came out far slower, against this deck you could be
facing down an army very quickly. 1st turn Wild Mongrel followed up by a 2nd
Rootwalla and Fiery Temper is not a fun thing to be up against with a non combo
draw. It comes down to the Madness player trying to race you, while you combo
them out or swarm them. Swinging with small amounts of goblins is rather
unreliable, so just create as many as you can over the first few turns and then
attack when given the opportunity. Use the strips to your advantage and constantly
attack off colors or Bazaar. Remember they can’t play control against you,
since the more time they give you, the better the chance you’ll draw into combo
pieces.
Still, this is one of the few aggro decks actually fast enough to race you
game 1, so be wary of that if you don’t think you can combo out when you draw a
slower opening hand. There isn’t a whole lot to board for games 2 and 3, just
add in Blood Moon and Crypts if you really feel you need them. BM hoses their
already unstable mana base and Crypt will take care of those nasty
Incarnations. Personally I haven’t felt Crypt necessary, but I don’t see Wonder
much anymore.
I’ve combined the two sections, because the strategy against Oshawa Stompy
is similar enough to Madness as to warrant it. The main differences between the
two matches are Oshawa Stompy is considerably slower than Madness, but they
pack 5 strips like you and possibly MD Root Maze. Their best chance to beat you
is attacking your mana base, so keep track of your resources at all times. Also
note a turn 1 Goblin Lackey is a lot better against this deck than Madness and
you don’t have to deal with any burn. Out of the board you really don’t bring
in much of anything. Blood Moon doesn’t really hurt them and they have no
Incarnations to get rid of. Overall Oshawa Stompy is an easier match than
Madness, it just presents a different problem.
Against Madness SB: -2 Goblin Matron, -1 Skirk Prospector
+3 Blood Moon
Against Oshawa Stompy: -2 Goblin Matron, -2 Skirk Prospector
+4 Tormod’s Crypt
Mask [D3]
This match-up is pretty simple, it can be broken down to a simple things.
Do you have a combo win hand?
Does your hand allow you to create a large army to swing with by turn 3?
If you answered no to both of these questions, mulligan. Your opponent’s
only real chance in this match-up is a turn 1 or 2 Dreadnought. And that’s not
good enough without Duress or Unmask to stop you from comboing out. Even
without comboing, if they have a slow hand you can swarm them easily. After
board bring in Artifact Mutation.
SB: -3 Gempalm Incinerator, -1 Goblin Sharpshooter
+4 Artifact Mutation
Fish [D4]
They are too slow to put any real pressure on you, Piledriver can’t be
blocked by anything except a factory and a single Ringleader basically draws as
much as any Standstill will. The only thing you need to worry about is the mana
denial component. Between 5 strips, Stifle and Null Rod there is a chance you
may lose to mana screw. So with that warning, be careful when keeping Moxen or
fetch heavy hands..
After boarding bring in REB and have fun having a 1 mana removal spell
against they’re entire deck.
SB: -2 Goblin Matron, Skirk Prospector
+4 REB
Control Match-ups
Keeper [E1]
This is one of your easiest matches and yet one of the most difficult.
There are times where you can completely roll them with turn 1 Goblin Lackey,
turn 2 Wasteland and that’ll be game before there even was a game. Other times
you’ll see Lackeys taking up farming, large hordes being taken down by soldier
tokens and Ringleaders being Mana Drained.
Now that you see that the match basically splits 50-50, let’s get down to
why that is. Keeper won’t always have early answers for your threats and even
if they do, you have Goblin Ringleader which is just a kick to the nuts against
any control deck. This is also probably the only control deck I’d say you can
regularly get away with comboing out if your opponent isn’t too good. The key
cards to watch out for are as follows: Balance, Humility, Decree of Justice,
Mind Twist and Mana Drain.
Mana Drain is annoying because it prevents you from casting 3cc spells or
bigger, until you're reasonably sure they can get by. Oh and if you cast a
Goblin Ringleader into a Drain, unless you had no other options and were doomed
anyways, you’re an idiot.
Balance is much easier to work around, but still worth mentioning for its
sheer power. It will erase all your creatures from the board, but on the plus
side, if you lost three to five goblins, that usually means you had a close to
empty or empty hand. Which of course means the Keeper player just Mind Twisted
himself. Still you don’t want to regularly get into top deck wars and this card
alone is why its bad so swarm attack keeper.
Humility is just evil, and if it resolves and you don’t have an army out,
scoop. Remember this card stops coming into play effects, so you can’t combo
out with it on the table! Just like Balance though, it has a built in weakness.
Humility is 2WW to cast, which means with careful Wasteland use you can cut the
double color off.
Decree of Justice is not only Keeper’s kill condition, but a nasty bit of
spot removal. Be wary of swinging Piledriver and Warchief into empty boards if
the Keeper player shows 6-7 mana untapped. Remember Sharpshooter can annihilate
all the soldier tokens though, so be wary if you think he can slide by a
counter wall.
Mind Twist is up there with Humility for ‘I scoop’ cards. Get hit by a
decent sized Mind Twist early in the game and you pack it up and go home. You
have no defense here other than being happy its a restricted card.
With FCG you mostly want to keep constant pressure on the Keeper opponent.
Keep throwing out the other combo cards as counter bait if you're trying to
sneak a Ringleader or hardcast Siege-Gang Commander on the table. And if a
Recruiter resolves and you have three to four mana sources, seriously consider
stacking Lackey, Warchief and Piledriver for your next 5-7 turns. If you can
continually drain the Keeper player’s resources, they’ll eventually have to
refill and that’s the time you can sneak either a decent sized attack through
or a Ringleader to refill your own hand.
For boarding I’d bring in REB and Blood Moon, you have a lot of open room
with siding out the creature removal.
SB: -3 Gempalm Incinerator, -2 Goblin Matron, -1 Goblin Sharpshooter,
Skirk Prospector
+4 REB, +3 Blood Moon
Tog [E2]
This match is surprisingly simple to play out in comparison to the Keeper
match. The first thing to realize is you’re on a clock, Tog WILL run you over
if you take too much time sitting on your hands trying to build an army. That
or blow it all away with P. Deed, much like Balance does, except without the
advantage of Mind Twisting them as a result. The second thing to realize is
Goblin Piledriver has protection from blue and can walk right through their
‘Moat’. This basically breaks your game plan down to two options.
A. You combo them out within the first four turns since they’re too busy
trying to kill you to take notice. This isn’t likely, but sometimes people will
let Food Chain and Recruiter resolve expecting just to hit the Ringleader. In
this case surprise them by stacking multiple Ringleaders and then go off.
B. You play a bunch of Goblins until it looks like the opponent can either
P. Deed them all away or kill you with a Berserked Tog, in which case attack!
They can’t stop your Piledriver’s once they hit play and can usually only block
one creature. A swarm attack generally can kill them by the time they can pull
their own combo kill on you.
A few things to note, barring a first turn Tog or something random. The
only way they can stop a first turn Goblin Lackey is with FoW. This means
something like turn 1: Lackey, Turn 2: Wasteland, attack, drop Warchief or SGC
is basically game.
But wait you say! What if the Tog player plays control against you and
doesn’t let you swarm his ass? Well then you just attack when you have a
Piledriver and a goblin or two and then when one of your sacrifices gets
blocked, nail the Tog with a Incinerator to take care of him. That’s still 3-7
damage dealt and a little more time to spare, because your opponent isn’t going
to deed away only two critters unless they need too. Why not? Ok you deed and
next turn I drop another two guys, wow that did a lot to the FCG player. Not to
mention they only run ONE Deed in some cases, which severely limits their
removal capabilities.
For boarding I usually feel you still have a decent shot at comboing out
in game two. So I side out the normal set of cards for REB. But I also board
out Gempalm Incinerator and Goblin Sharpshooter, because they’re pretty dead in
the match. (Only one card worth killing and they can’t do it usually.)
SB: -3 Gempalm Incinerator, -2 Goblin Matron, -1 Goblin Sharpshooter,
Skirk Prospector
+4 REB, +3 Blood Moon
Landstill [E3]
This is not a fun match-up by any stretch of the imagination. My advice is
rather simple for this match-up, play creatures and attack. Lightning Bolt,
Fire/Ice, FoW and even Stifle means you can’t ride a Goblin Lackey to victory
and Nevinyrral's Disk screws up swarm plans. The best way to play this match is
to drop a few goblins, attack for as much as possible, strip factories and
Volcanic Islands and hope. The one huge plus-side is it’s possible to run them
out of resources faster than any other control deck. All they have is
Standstill and Ancestral to draw cards with, which means as long as you keep
playing threats you can eventually run them out of answers.
Sounds pretty stupid, huh? Consider this for a moment then: on average,
one resolved Goblin Ringleader will usually give you as many goblins as a
broken Standstill will give your opponent cards. Did you notice the difference
there? All the cards you keep are going to be threats, while your opponent
might of drawn a little land and a good card. One resolved Goblin Recruiter can
stack all four on top of your library in a row. Odds are they can’t stop all
four even if you end up breaking a Standstill. Warchief is also rather
dangerous for them to leave alive, it gives the chance for a next turn hasted
goblin attack if they attempt to tap out for a disk.
One other option if the game goes long is simply going after all their
kill conditions. I wouldn’t recommend this normally, but in some cases between
strips, blocking and Gempalm Incinerators you can kill 4-6 of the Landstill
player’s threats. At that point they will actually have to worry about having
anything left to kill you with. Finally one other note for game one, if your
opponent is unfamiliar with the deck they may let Goblin Recruiters through and
counter Food Chain’s and such. Use this as much to your advantage as possible,
then once they learn, throw out Recruiters when you could care less as counter
bait. A lot of your cards are implied threats, but aren’t really threatening.
After boarding you gain REB and Blood Moon as some real threats against
your opponent. I really wouldn’t recommend keeping the Food Chain’s in against
Landstill. You need the room and the chances of you actually comboing out are
slim to none.
SB: -4 Food Chain, -2 Goblin Matron, -1 Skirk Prospector
+4 REB, +3 Blood Moon
Combo Match-up’s
Dragon [F1]
Against Dragon the main theme of the day is to race them as quickly as
possible. In general you can goldfish as fast as they can, which in general
when you have a combo hand means it’s going 50/50 either way. Without a combo
hand you can still come out of the gates quickly and with Wastelands aimed at
their Bazaars and race them. Add to this that after boarding you have Crypt and
Blood Moon at your disposal and you have some better odds post SB.
A few general notes, remember with Goblin Sharpshooter you can shoot the
opponent each time the WGD comes back into play when comboing. This limits how
much mana they can make, since odds are you’ve dealt some significant damage to
them already. Also note sometimes it’s easier to build up to seven creatures
and simply burn off a Verdant with Incinerator than casually swinging your
creatures into nothingness. Remember Sharpshooter can take out all the tokens
easily, so between these two, they cannot fight you very well with reanimated
Verdant’s.
SB: -2 Goblin Matron, Skirk Prospector ,-3 Gempalm Incinerators.
+4 Tormod’s Crypt, +3 Blood Moon
Long/TPS [F2]
You’ve got no chance in this match. Have fun against a deck which can
consistently kill you on turn 2. If you run Chalice or Pillar and REB in the
board, you may have a chance in hell if you get a god hand. Pray your opponent
to mulligan to 4 or 5 or hope you get a god hand, that’s my best advice. After
boarding you can hope for a turn one Blood Moon, but even that might not be
enough.
SB: -2 Goblin Matron, Skirk Prospector ,-3 Gempalm Incinerators.
+4 REB, +3 Blood Moon
Workshop Match-up’s
Slavery [G1]
This also is somewhat dependent on the build. If it’s the more combo-ish
version of Slaver such as shown in Toad’s article on Slavery, then your
generally in for an easier game than the Mana Drain packing control models.
Basically it comes down to you racing their Mindslaver, your not scared of
anything else they might have in the deck. Pentavus and Welders are easy prey
for your removal and you can swarm your way past their few defenses with ease.
Despite this, you still shouldn’t run head long into them, don’t play another
1/1 creature before swinging with Goblin Lackey for example. Them getting a two
for one deal is alright, but only if you’ve dealt some damage with one of the
creatures already. Do not cast Goblin Ringleader or Warchief if you feel they
have a significant chance of nailing it with Mana Drain, you’ll lose too much
tempo and they’ll have a nice big chunk of mana to spend on Mindslaver.
If Mindslaver resolves and you have a turn before the inevitable, take a
look at your board position and hand and ditch all the cards that may hurt you.
This means killing any Goblin Sharpshooter, playing Recruiters out even if you
only stack one card, saccing any Skirk Prospectors and possibly hard casting
any Gempalm Incinerators. God forbid you have Food Chain out, in that case
prepare to lose your whole board and hand. Despite having such a huge bomb
against you and FoW to stop Goblin Lackey, you have a better match here than
against Trinistax.
SB: -2 Goblin Matron, -1 Recruiter, -1 Ringleader
+4 Artifact Mutation
Trinistax [G2]
The difficulty of the match will vary upon the exact build of the deck
your playing against. The main three issues you need to figure out from your
opponents deck construction are as follows.
1. Are they playing Sphere of Resistance, Trinisphere or both?
2. Do they have the full Draw-7 + Thirst engine?
3. Does the deck run black?
These variations will basically change your results against the deck.
The more spheres they have against you, the worse you’ll be doing. Turn
one Trinisphere/Sphere followed by a turn two or three Tangle Wire will be the
most usual source of your losses. This deck is a absolute horror on the play,
your only real chance of winning if they go first is to hope they kept a weaker
hand of mostly mana and draw. It may sound stupid, but you only need to get a
Goblin Lackey or Goblin Warchief down to make a significant dent in how much
they can disrupt you. That’s why the first turn sphere bros are so crippling,
you can’t cast squat into it.
Now when your on the play, things change quite a bit. First turn Goblin
Lackey is still the best weapon you have against them pre or post boarding.
Other than dropping a Goblin Welder (This isn’t even a real way to stop it,
remember you have 3 Gempalm Incinerator and a Goblin Sharpshooter.) or a first
turn Tangle Wire they have no way to stop it before it swings and let’s you
start dropping free goblins. And if your first drop happens to be a SGC off it…
well you can figure it out. Basically the point of this match is just to drop
as much stuff as possible on the table and swing. After boarding you also get
Artifact Mutation, which is huge.
Note the other two questions I asked, determine one other thing. How often
they’ll lose to flat out mana screw. If they run three colors and have a two
strip hand, consider running with it and just hosing their mana sources. The
more draw they pack, the less often you’ll win long drawn out games, but the
more often they’ll end up having opening hands you can race.
General notes for the match:
Losing the flip/roll, will usually result in a loss game one.
If you manage to resolve a Food Chain game one, all your mana problems are
basically solved. But I wouldn’t count on resolving it anytime soon.
Gempalm Incinerators are NOT affected by either Sphere. Cycling is not a
spell based effect and not an alternate casting cost.
Your two best weapons are as follows: Goblin Lackey and Artifact Mutation.
SB: -2 Goblin Matron, -1 Goblin Sharpshooter, -1 Ringleader
+4 Artifact Mutation
Yeah you notice it’s hard to fit in any large amount of hate here without
cutting combo pieces. A lot of your cards are simply too good to drop and you
can’t cut Prospectors because of the mana help they provide.
Conclusion
The End [H1]
I’d just like to take this time to say that this the best budget deck
available to anyone at the moment with the sole exception of Fish for a heavy
control metagame. And for those with power, it just makes this deck even more
competitive. It’s not just a budget deck, it’s a very strong and complex deck
all around. That's the primer for Food Chain Goblins, I hope you’ve learned
something. See you around.
Credits
Thanks [I1]
I’d like to thank the following people.
Bebe - Paul Shriar
Godzilla - Patrick Maeder
For helping optimize the final build of the deck.
Juju - Justin Miousse
Rico Suave - Brad Granberry
Hyperion - Andrew Lambe
Onyx - Mike Corley
For helping me playtest the deck and gathering general data on it.
The Luke - Luke Hope
For proofreading this monster.
Zherbus – Steve O'Connell
For running TheManaDrain.
-Joshua Silvestri (Vegeta2711)
