[Deck] Food Chain Goblins

[Vegeta2711]

//NAME: Goblin Chains (Budget)
// Mana
      1 Strip Mine
      4 Wasteland
      1 Chrome Mox
      1 Sol Ring
      1 Mana Crypt
      1 Lotus Petal  
      2 Ancient Tomb
      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
      4 Goblin Ringleader
      4 Goblin Warchief
      4 Goblin Recruiter
      4 Goblin Piledriver
      4 Skirk Prospector  
      4 Goblin Lackey
// Sideboard  
SB:  4 REB / Chalice of the Void
SB:  4 Naturalize
SB:  3 Artifact Mutation
SB:  3 Tormod's Crypt
SB:  1 Gempalm Incinerator

The basic combo

Use Recruiter to stack your library, putting Ringleaders every 4th card and then play Ringleaders to put about 13 other goblins in your hand.

Use Food Chain to sac. Recruiter to power the first Ringleader into play and then keep saccing the old Ringleader to play the new one. Then do various tricks with your Goblins and Food Chain to drop various amounts of critters into play and swing. The result is usually is between 50-200 points of damage that can still get through despite multiple fire/plows/etc.

Even stuff like Moat and cycled Decree tokens can be worked around thanks to SGC and Goblin Sharpshooter. You can straight up shoot your opponent for 20-30 points of damage after comboing out.

Modifications to the deck

Adding some burn
You’ll notice Gempalm Incinerator has been added to deck as a 3 of, simply put the deck needed some removal with aggro coming back in force. This little guy was simply the best option available to the deck. For two mana you get to burn an opponents creature away, draw a card, it’s uncounterable and it’s another goblin. Sparksmith was a permanent and could be used more than once, but could be easily killed. Mogg Fanatic, though good, only dealt one point of damage at the most.

And Incinerator is very good at wiping out larger creatures like Mongrel, Arrogant Wurm, Su-Chi, Juggernaut, Dryad, etc. the same with Welders which hide behind Sphere’s and counters in many decks. Also as a result you now have 4 tutorable ways to remove annoying critters in your path. (Sharpshooter and Incinerator)

Mods to the Mana Base
I found 4 Ancient Tomb were too many and I was simply taking too much pain from them for little effect. Plus w/o Chrome Mox for oncolor mana they weren't as useful as they used to be. Right now there's still 2 of them and it may go back up to 3, but that's a def. maybe. Even though I’ve lost being able to run 4 Chrome Mox, I’ve chosen not to replace them with ESG.

I’ve also added 5 Strips to the deck to help disrupt my opponent and make my backup plan of being a normal goblin beatdown deck all the more effective. If I can slow my opponent down a bit, it gives me more time to finish setting up my combo anyways.

Changes to make if you have power
Obviously you can make some changes if you have some of the P9 on you. A Mox Ruby and Emerald would make their way into the deck, as well as Black Lotus. Interestingly enough you can choose to run all the SoLoMoxen and simply cut Ancient Tomb entirely and a Warchief for the extra 3 Moxen. I haven’t tested this sort of build really, since I’ve mostly focused on the budget and the Ruby/Emerald/Lotus version.

The main differences mind you, are you'll go off a little faster then you normally would. And Lotus espically helps, as it's like running a better Mana Crypt in the deck. 1st turn Food Chain is good times.

Sideboard Changes
Run Chalice if you seen combo or run REB for help in the control match. If you see 0 Dragon you can cut Crypt’s and run both and with the increasing hate for Dragon, you may not see the deck around much longer. The last Gempalm Incinerator has also been placed there against the resurgence of aggro green and TnT decks. Though your main option is still to combo them out, sometimes this is unfeasible and the removal really helps out.

Anyone have any questions or comments? About specific match-up’s, any questions I’ll try to answer to the best of my ability.

EDIT: And of course I hadn't notticed that FCG came in 5th at the last Dulmen. The build looks pretty standard, but the reduction of Skirk Prospectors to just 1 is intresting and something worth trying. Though again I don't think 4 Tomb's are really necessary.  

[kirdape3]

I'd assume that Keeper would be a pretty difficult matchup, especially if they maindecked Stifle.  Also, they have a 2-mana Wrath and a bunch of acceleration to hit some big spells on the way out.  What do you feel about your chances of resolving Food Chain or having the first Ringleader Stifled on the way out?

The various prison matchups should come down to who's more silly with what.  If they ever get off a Mindslaver on you, you die instantly (they'll combo, then shoot you with all the goblins through the Siege-Gang).  Also, a Sphere is really game since now you can't ramp up your mana properly through the Food Chain.  However, you can just do the traditional Lackey-Siege-Gang-Piledriver thing and have enough stuff to maul them with before they lock you.

Your combo matchups seem pretty poor as well.  Storm decks, those brave and brilliant souls who still play them well, are just faster and unless you have a masterful hand you're not going to win either game.  Dragon game one is just faster than you are, and they can win on turn 2 as much as you win turn 3.  Game two is only a little more interesting, since your hate for them is not as strong as other decks are bringing (therefore their countermeasures will be much better).

It is a good deck for a slower format like 1.5, but in this faster format where people play much more degenerate things I would not feel comfortable playing this deck even over R/b Goblins.

[Vegeta2711]

Actually Keeper so far has been one of my easier control match-ups, though I suspect that's because my opponents just aren't that great with the deck.

Against Control I throw Food Chain out as bait usually, I don't really care if it resolves. This comes from my experinces in that it's been very difficult to combo a prepared opponent. Because even if I get all the combo pieces to resolve I've seen times where I've been hit with Stifle/LD/etc. and screwed me up for a while.

On the plus side of things I actually have mid game cards since Recruiter even w/o FC or Ringleader can be used to set-up optimal draws for the next 3-5 turns and Ringleader actually is decent card advantage if he resolves. (Don't walk him into a Mana Drain, ok? Thanks) I still mostly rely on the classic Lackey = SGC + Piledriver + Wastes to win a lot against control.

Oh and I don't mind Balance actually. It wrath's the board yes, but I can usually dump my hand very quickly and Mind Twist them as a result. Also if Sharpshooter or SGC is down I can ping them for quite a bit in response anyways.

Your pretty much right with the Workshop match-up, though a note about the Sphere. You can set it up so you play your Warchief or SGC's out (3 extra mana from each, so use it to play Piledrivers or a Warchief to negate Sphere) and then you can still power out enough of the combo to win. Plus Artifact Mutations after SB are still the bane of Stax/WelderMUD's existence.

Combo. Eh. Aggro always loses to combo.   You've got slightly better odds than most aggro since you can run Chalice in the SB w/o maiming yourself and even Root Maze if you expected to run into enough of it. Plus there's the ever lucky turn 2 kill draw where your as fast as everyone else.