yeah, so in case people are still playing red in tog

[Mixing Mike]

FCG needs Food Chain in play to work as you all speak of.  Otherwise it's just a gobbie deck, aka any other aggro deck.  It's just like Eastman control.  Counter Food Chain/Chains or proceed to lose.  If you do win the counter war, then you treat it like regular aggro/control.  That's not to hard to deal with, right?

[Ric_Flair]

JP I hoped you learned your lesson.  Innovation is strictly forbidden in the Open Forum.  The traditional ideas of card advantage and year old decklists are sacrosanct.  Don't forget that.  While your at it, also never forget that actual playtesting is entirely unnecessary.  Users in the Open forum have the power to intuit all possible strategies and matchups without even playing with "real" cards in real life.  I learned my lesson a while ago.  It is a shame that those of us trying to look at the metagame from a different perspective are always a priori wrong.  What is wrong with us?

PS:  This post STINKS with sarcasm.

[Saucemaster]

...does Tog really have a bad matchup against a deck that doesn't autolose the rest of the field?  I can't think of one, really.  Wish for Berserk is really good.

Slaver.

[kirdape3]

It's even.  Tog goes first, it'll get to UU first, it'll win.  Slaver goes first, and it'll break something out annoying, then get Slaver with backup, then it'll win.  If you're particularly annoyed by it, board in something amazing like Artifact Mutation or even Null Rod (omg the beatz) and crush your enemies.

[jpmeyer]

FCG is at least a turn faster than Tog.

He's not losing sight of his role. Against FCG, and, to a certain extent, Fish, Tog has to play as a control deck with a 1-turn kill. That's why Firestorm is worth considering.

Exactly.  Tog can kill at the fastest, turn 4, usually not till turn 5.  The days of turn 3 and constant turn 4 kills went away with restricted Gush.  FCG can kill turn 3 without a Food Chain or a Recruiter through Goblin Lackey.  FCG has a guaranteed turn 4 kill with any hand with a Recruiter and 4 mana.

It's also hard to beat down on Fish because if Fish tries to fight you over draw, you end up way short on having lethal damage because of pitching cards to Force of Will and whatnot.  If you need to Force of Will back, that costs you 5.5 damage with Berserk.  Note that this is also one of the reasons why I'm not so afraid of someone who fights a counter war to get their Xantid Swarm to resolve early on in the mirror.

[Vegeta2711]

FCG needs Food Chain in play to work as you all speak of.  Otherwise it's just a gobbie deck, aka any other aggro deck.  It's just like Eastman control.  Counter Food Chain/Chains or proceed to lose.  If you do win the counter war, then you treat it like regular aggro/control.  That's not to hard to deal with, right?

Right, because we all know Food Chain doesn't run Goblin Recruiter or Ringleader, both of which tend to win the game when they resolve. FCG can flat out race Tog barring Time Walk stupidity, they simply don't have enough time unless the FCG player kept a lousy hand. And of course god forbid Food Chain actually resolved, have fun against that.

Firestorm is insanely annoying against a FCG player. Losing Piledrivers/Siege Gang/Warchief is bad times, since those are the cards that are going to end up swinging/shooting at the Tog guy in the end. Basically thank you for now making Tog a bad match and I hate you...

<3 JP

[Androstanolone]

Allow me to make a quick analysis of the situation.  You are concerned because FCG can simply win or gain unrecoverable board position by turn 3 against you, through both fow and mana drain.  To remedy this, you want something you can cunning wish for on turn 3 and subsequently cast as an instant on that same turn, that will wipe the opposite side of the board.  For this you are assuming you have 4 mana on turn 3.  

So, if I am playing tog, and I see mountains, taigas, or god forbid food chain and lackeys, it's pretty easy to know the matchup by turn 2.  So, assuming you have 3 mana on turn 2, save your counters (except in the case of a food chain) and wish for starstorm.  On turn 3, the turn you purport that they are able to win on, you play starstorm with your 4 mana and blow up 2-3 weenies (or more).  Thus gaining card advantage, board position, and saving counters.  Why trash resources and take negative card advantage?  Even if you hit 3-4 creatures, firestorm puts you in a losing position simply because he will have more things to drop next turn, and you won't.  As the control deck, you'll be sitting around for several turns trying to get back in the game, while the goblin deck is more than happy to cast their recruiters, ringleaders, siege-gangs, warchiefs, etc. into a nearly empty (and counter-free) hand and roll over you.  If you were lucky enough to get tog out turn 2 you can buy time, but driver is pro-tog and goblins can quickly get him a few buddies to start dealing lethal.  Firestorm simply isn't the answer.  



- Androstan

Edit:  I didn't mean jp was losing sight of his role, but more losing sight of tog's goal/mission.  Weenies shouldn't deter him from wishing for zerk and winning.  If the scenario he presents is that much of a problem, then firestorm simply isn't the answer because, though it fulfills part of tog's goal in clearing the board, it throws tog out of game for several turns while tog must TD.

[Matt]

you play starstorm with your 4 mana

The biggest problem with Starstorm is the double-red. Good luck getting that by turn four - with as little mana as Tog decks run these days, you'll be lucky to get four mana, period, by turn four (without Drain). FCG also runs a full complement of Wastelands. There's just no way to get RR when you need it.

You also speak as if one good Force of Will will shut Goblins down, and that's not true in the slightest. The deck is incredibly resilient.

[jpmeyer]

Here's the problem with Starstorm in this situation.  If you're running Starstorm, you are required to get it turn 2.  If you don't get it now and you would need it later, you're out of luck.  It might turn out that you don't need the Starstorm to stop an insane start.  Also, if your opponent isn't stupid, he'll play around the Starstorm that he now knows is in your hand instead of pointlessly blowing his load.  

The other thing is, you probably don't want to get it on turn 2.  On turn 2 you really want to go for Psychatog, Mana Drain, or Intuition.  Now, I'll assume that they don't play stupidly and walk right into a Drain something like Food Chain or Goblin Warchief here.  If they bait you with 2 different Goblins here, you're receiving instead of serving if you go for Starstorm EOT.  They can sandbag other Goblins and force you to tap out for your Starstorm, which puts you on Force of Will.  They also know that you're representing Starstorm and not Berserk, so they can play more cautiously to avoid losing to Drain.

With Firestorm, you can go for whatever you want to do on turn 2.  Casting Tog here, provided they don't have their library stacked from Recruiter, is the best play.  If they combo now, they can't kill you until next turn.  Therefore, if you need to Wish for your Firestorm next turn to avoid dying you can do so, wipe their board out, and have the potential to kill if you get an Intuition to reload on cards (since they're probably down about 4 life from your Firestorm combined with Ancient Tomb damage.)

[cssamerican]

Whow, It is nice to see that now the mighty Tog decks are a little scared
When I play FCG even when I combo out I don't put more Goblins into play than I need to, so I hardly think Firestorm or any other removal spell is going to help you.

With Food Chain in play
I have 8 Goblins in play two of which are Goblin Pildrivers. I attack you cast Firestorm dump your hand then in response I sac my Goblins in play to Food Chain and put a whole new set into play. You bought yourself a turn, but you are not going to recover because you dumped your hand.

Without Food Chain in play
You kill a few goblins I cast recruiter if I already haven't, then I topdeck much better than you.

[Moxlotus]

With Food Chain in play
I have 8 Goblins in play two of which are Goblin Pildrivers. I attack you cast Firestorm dump your hand then in response I sac my Goblins in play to Food Chain and put a whole new set into play. You bought yourself a turn, but you are not going to recover because you dumped your hand.

You will burn for lots because of the mana you gave yourself during your attack phase.  That is assuming the tog player waited until during your attack phase to Firestorm

[Androstanolone]

yeah saccing your gobbos to cast more ir isn't a good strategy...  but yeah starstorm isn't really viable in tog, and neither is firestorm.

[darkh0rse]

I have run Firestorm in Tog in two tournaments, once it was horrible as I never needed it facing nothing but control decks and the other time it was house as I faced multiple aggro decks (mainly Goblins and Sui).  So like every other card whether or not it makes the sideboard depends on your expected metagame.  Would I play it at Origins or another similar large tournament|? No.  Would I play it in local tournaments where I expect more aggro?  Without a doubt.

[kirdape3]

If he does it during your attack step (which he should), there's no removing of creatures to put a new set down - you can't cast creatures during that phase.

[cssamerican]

Ok...I really didn't think that through, but even if they are removed, next turn you can still use Food Chain to ramp up your mana and drop a new set of Goblins and attack. So my point is it will only buy you a turn, and you would have dumped all your cards. I just don't see it as a very effective solution.

The other thing is if the FCG player played all of his goblins couldn't he kill you with the Sharpshooter combo before the attack phase. Firestorm becomes worthless when the last cards played are the Sharpshooter and a Goblin Warchief. Because if you cast it before the Sharpshooter hits play than you have to go after the Piledrivers, this will leave the Skirk Prospectors which will allow for the Sharpshooter combo. If you wait for the the Sharpshooter to hit play then you have lost because at least one Goblin Warchief will be in play already. If am making another mistake please let me know.

And I am not shooting down the idea per say, I just think it can be played around if the FCG player knows what you have the potential to do. Granted the FCG player will have to have a well though out plan when matching up against Hulk Smash as seen by my previously stupid comments. But once this plan is worked out it appears to me that once the Goblin Chain starts the Tog player is pretty much screwed. And I as mentioned before if Food Chain is not in play the Recruiter give the FCG player much better chances if both deck go into top deck mode.

Edited: For clarity and grammer.

[Matt]

Well, you could always kill the Sharpshooter.

[cssamerican]

Matt: How?
If the Sharpshooter hits play with a Warchief and a Skirk Prospector in play already, you can't remove the Sharpshooter before he combos out and puts 20 damage on the stack. Correct?

If you remove the Warcheifs and Piledrivers with the Firestorm then the FCG player can play the Sharpshooter and the other Warchief and combo out. Correct?

And of course if you just remove the Warchiefs and Skirk Prospectors with the Firestorm the FCG player will still play the Sharpshooter and the other Warchief and attack with his Piledrivers. Correct?

I just don't see a winning senario for the Tog player unless of course he has 10 cards in his hand when he play the Firestorm because then he could remove all the Piledrivers, Warchiefs, and Skirk Prospectors in play. Or a combination of a counter and a Firestorm in which he removed the Piledrivers and countered the Sharpshooter.

[Vegeta2711]

Actually that wouldn't work too well, since you can respond with saccing's/tap shots for the rest of your goblins while storm is on the stack. The main point is though, the entire idea behind this, is reliant on a few things.

The main conditions being.
A. Tog didn't go all broken ass and win on turn 3.
B. FCG doesn't resolve Food Chain or Recruiter (At least Recruiter early enough to matter).
C. The Tog player has some compentency so he doesn't get steamrolled in the first place.

The idea of this card is not to stop you once you've comboed out, short of Wing Shards or Starstorm (Both of which can be beaten with enough goblins, thanks to the combo shoot kill), nothing stops you once you actually combo out. It's for the normal game in which you have to beatdown and though you have more options, are still somewhat limited in what you can do. (You can't just wait around for too long or Tog will smash you)

It comes down to this. When you can't combo out, Firestorm destroys your attacking army and leaves you with far fewer resouces to win with than before. The Tog player also loses a signficant amount of resources, but it beats losing and dealt some damage anyways, so it's not a total loss for Tog damage.

Also.

Firestorm becomes worthless when the last cards played are the Sharpshooter and a Goblin Warchief

Not entirely true. If you play Sharpshooter before Warchief, I'll cook that and some Piledrivers and MAYBE I'll live. And if you played the Warchief, in response to you casting Sharpshooter I'll cook the Warchief, which is even worse because then you can't attack or combo kill.

[cssamerican]

Firestorm becomes worthless when the last cards played are the Sharpshooter and a Goblin Warchief

Not entirely true. If you play Sharpshooter before Warchief, I'll cook that and some Piledrivers and MAYBE I'll live. And if you played the Warchief, in response to you casting Sharpshooter I'll cook the Warchief, which is even worse because then you can't attack or combo kill.

What I ment was having a Warchief in play already and holding one back in case they cooked all of them in response to the Sharpsooter being played. If they do cook all the Warchiefs in play in response to you playing the Sharpshooter you could play the Warchief you were holding back and still combo out. Sorry for not being as clear as I should have been.

Edit:
I guess the points I was trying to make is:
1.) If Tog goes nuts and wins on  turn 3 Firestorm is usless in that senario. Cause your winning.
2.) If FCG reolves a Goblin Recruiter Firestorm is less than ideal because the FCG player will top deck better than the Tog player in most cases.
3.) If FCG is comboing out Firestorm is pretty much worthless in most cases.
4.) If FCG doesn't resolve a Goblin Recruiter the Tog player is playing basic goblins minus the burn. In this case the Tog player should have enough time to berserk over the top and win, so Firestorm really isn't needed.
So in every case Firestorm is not really that ideal. Am I wrong in this analysis?

[Vegeta2711]

Well then they're just screwed. Like I said, once you fully combo out, not much stops you.

EDIT:
1.) Right
2.) Not completely. It still wipes your board and buys the Tog player time, but yes it's not great.
3.) Right
4.) Wrong. FCG is fast enough, where if they're countering combo pieces you can still resolve enough normal people to win on turn 3/4 in general. This is where Firestorm shines, by crushing a good chunk of your army and leaving Tog in play.

[Abhorsen105]

There's not much FCG in my area, but there is a lot of Oshawa Stompy. This card is awesome against that deck, and it is a scary-enough matchup to use this.

[Androstanolone]

th row enough goblins at any problem and it'll go away