[Report] FCG vs. a large metagame

[jCoKn]

This past Friday, I went to my local hangout for my weekly dose of T1 action, sporting Jason Zheng's (top-6 @ TMD Open) version of FCG. I had run my own FCG style beforehand, but have been slaughtered by the all the stereotypical decks. I thought Jason's version added a little more consistency to the deck, so I gave it a try: only I metagamed my sideboard a little. BTW, for a little future sight... I won.

Jason Zheng with Food Chain Goblins:
4 Food Chain
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Recruiter
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Piledriver
2 Mirri's Guile
2 Skirk Propector
3 Seige Gang Commander
3 Goblin Matron
3 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin Tinkerer
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Taiga
6 Mountain
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring

SB:
2 Null Rod
4 Tormod's Crypt
2 Naturalize
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Blood Moon


Here's how it all went down:

Round 1 - Win vs. Jimmy and U/Oath

Game 1 A first turn Lotus-Mox-Tinker into a Colossus somewhat hurt. Dead 2 turns later.

Game 2 I side in 3 Null Rods/4 Blood Moons but I'm still not sure what he's playing. It proves to be a good investment, as he could never find a green source to drop the Oath and I comboed out 4th turn.

Game 3 He got mana screwed. 1st turn he Flooded Strand into a Trop but I go and waste it (don't ask me why I did this.... just a gut instinct I was afraid of something I didn't quite know of). He topdecks a Mox Emerald, plays it, but has no other land in hand, or in the next 6-7 cards on top of his library. Gobbo beatdown ensues.

1-0 / 2-1
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Round 2 - Loss vs. Doug and Dragon

Game 1 I knew was over for me, and I just played it as any other player would : depressed

Game 2 he went off on his 1st and went off 1st turn. Yay.

1-1 / 2-3

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Round 3 vs Dave (my friend) and Burn

Burn is very uninteresting to report about...

Game 1 I lost to Firecats

Game 2 I comboed out 3rd turn

Game 3 I played gobbo beatdown

2-1 / 4-4

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Round 4 vs Luke and Rector Tendrils

Game 1 I kept a underpar hand and regretted it when all that was good itn it (Food Chain) was raped by a flashbacked Therapy 3rd turn, when he proceeds to go combo the following turn.

Game 2 I side in 3 Null Rod, 4 Blood Moon and proves very helpful when I go land-chrome mox-null rod... he shows me his hand of Rector, Therapy, lotus, emerald, pearl, and more... he sighs and takes the beating of warchief- double piledriver.

Game 3 Went similarly. I mully a hand with a lotus, but no other dirt, and draw into 6 with.... a lotus again. AND a blood moon. I go mountain-lackey then lotus-blood moon and things look bad for the 4 color deck yet again.

3-1 / 6-5

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So I enter the final 4 as 4th seed and go up against Rob, who I have much respect for and who is an excellent player)

Semis vs Rob and B/G Void

Game 1 I luckily didn't see a Void, because that mosy certainly would have raped a goblin deck. I had problems with Factories, but were dealt with via Gempalm and wastes. Gobbo beatdown ensued.

Game 2 once again no Voids, and I comboed 4th turn. I was impressed by the fact that he was extremely patient, and he wrote down each and every card I stacked. He didnt throw his hand down in disgust when he sees me drawing hands of God and his not getting Void, and he played respectfully and professionally. Given the right hand, this deck should have beaten me. The only way I kept his deck at bey was via wastes and strips, keeping him under 4 mana (no Dark Rits either!)

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So it's me and Doug in the finals and we had already joked around before that if we were in the finals together that we'd split... but NOW we actually were in the finals and NOW that he beat me the first time, he thought he could pull off another one. After a little intimidation (I'm a scary person, you know... especially to the likes of Doug... a football player of about 260 pounds) we ended up splitting the box. He got the goods, and I got the crap foil rares. Whoopie.

I was just extremely impressed about the deck's ability to adapt and mold to any new situation, no matter if it's supposed t obe a "good" matchup or not. You can't say that FCG should rightly beat Void ? Granted, I didn't come u pagainst Madness, Tog, MUD, or Slaver (some decks I wanted to play)... The other thing I was impressed by was it's consistency and speed . Well let me know what you think, and as this is my first report, let me know what I should change/delete. Thanks all!

Jon

[Ruinn]

Yes, that third game (round 1) I thought it would be a good idea to keep a hand with force, lotus, ancestral, brainstorm, ak, trop, demonic tutor..... after digging 7 cards and only finding that emerald as a mana source + having my trop wasted, it was downhill from there.  

Good to see you did well with such a fun deck though.  I want your lotus though because it finds opening hands more often then all my moxen combined.

[Nantuko Rice]

lolololol

someone is actually playing my version of FCG?

it was sort of suppose to be a joke with the mirri's guiles....

did they prove to be of any use? in my experience, not much except in the right circumstances.

i did some testing today against a slaver build (the workshop contro lversion) and found that it was going about 50-50 in most cases without sideboard.

i've also added some slight changes since then from your current list...

-1 food chain
-1 matron
+1 incinerator
+1 goblin vandal

also currently looking at ways to get more vandals in the deck.

also, i didn't come in top 6... only top 8, then lost and got 8th place prize.

[jCoKn]

Haha yeah Jimmy I saw a lot of Lotus this tourney, which can never be a bad thing... but you saw your fair share of lotus as well... and by the way... I'll give you my lotus (it's proxied lol)

Edit: to reply to you, Jason... Mirri's Guile is God.

Check it out: you have a Wooded Foothills in play, but don't use it just yet. At the beginning of next upkeep, look at top 3 cards and rearrange them as you see fit. If you don't like any of those 3, pop the Foothills, shuffle, and then you can still look at the top 3 and rearrange them. Do it again with Matron or another sac land lol ! And yeah I like how you slimmed the land count and put in a 4th warchief and extra matron. Nice job... Question: at Waterbury, how did you do against Tog/Gay/Keeper/or Slaver?

Also, how can you take out a Food Chain? It's probably the most important combo piece (and there are 7 recruiters thanx to matron) and I think your decision to bump out Food Chain for a Gempalm is ridiculous,  mainly because Gempalm is the 1st to go come sideboard time.

[Vegeta2711]

Where to begin... Mirri's Guile sucks, cutting a Food Chain doesn't seem very bright and finally Vandals are medicore at best.

[Morphelin]

Why are Vandals mediocre?

[Androstanolone]

about the funnest thing to do with a vandal is make juggernauts look funny ^_^.  It's pretty underhanded.  Vandals are solid but don't really go in FCG because FCG is a hyper aggressive aggro combo deck that doesn't need the extra removal/control.  I can see a couple skirks getting taken out for vandals though, the only reason I've ever used skirks is the sharpshooter combo, never as normal acceleration cuz it sucks to sac a goblin just for a mana when I'd rather have it around to boost a piledriver or make my gempalm ready for a fattie.  So you really only need the bare minimum of 1 skirk for the combo but you may want 2 for insurance against counters or removal.  Vandal slides into his slot nicely as another R cc goblin who can get rid of scary artifacts, like mindslaver, gilded lotus maybe, etc.  He's a good utility goblin, especially if you see scepters as they can be troublesome when imprinted with orim's chant, stp, fire/ice, etc.  



- Androstan

[Morphelin]

Against $taks, the Vandals are very useful, without it, the deck can't beat Workshop's decks.

[Toad]

Why do you want to kill an artifact when you can simply kill your opponent ?

[KrauserKrauser]

I can defintely see the use of vandal in a workshop heavy meta.  I mean first turn Trisnisphere will more than likely give the game to the Workshop player.  But with a first turn Vandal lets you break that lock.

[DEA]

speaking from experience
i've seen turn 1 vandals when playing workshop decks
i usually won't play a trinisphere when he has that opening  
solemns or workers are a better idea
i only dump out a 3sphere when i have another, or when i can dump a turn 2 bomb id est triskelion
he'll have to waste R to blow the 3sphere, and he loses momentum
suffice it to say it's not the gamebreaker we think it to be
viashino heretics, however......

[jazzykat]

To me I see the most excellent play as mountain: lackey.
Second turn: mountain: attack, drop from lackey: siege gang! Now you have plenty of perms, can shoot welders and metalworkers with just the siege gang and saccing a gobbo
Turn 3 beat face rinse repeat!

Maybe I am wrong but it seems that if the wee men get going in a hurry that most decks and especially stax, without any removal(trike?) besides smokestack is in a bit of trouble.

[jpmeyer]

To me I see the most excellent play as mountain: lackey.
Second turn: mountain: attack, drop from lackey: siege gang! Now you have plenty of perms, can shoot welders and metalworkers with just the siege gang and saccing a gobbo
Turn 3 beat face rinse repeat!

Maybe I am wrong but it seems that if the wee men get going in a hurry that most decks and especially stax, without any removal(trike?) besides smokestack is in a bit of trouble.

Exactly.  Why dick around when you can win?  Winning is a much better answer to a Smokestack than a Vandal.

[jCoKn]

Vandal really has no place in the deck, or the sideboard. Even a 3sphere is painful, yes, but is still possible to go ape on him in one turn. All you really need is the FC, then combo and drop like 1 warchief, 2 piledrivers and after 2 turns he's dead. Vandal is just plain slow, boring, and defeats the main purpose of the deck: speed and face-bashing.

I like jazzykat's perspective on the deck: a first turn lackey is just game !
(assuming no rootwalla on the other side or something...) I've literally seen people go out of their way to get rid of the lackey in whatever way possible; I've even seen a time walk ditched to a FoW. People hate lackey, therefore, he's awesome.

[Arrg]

Jazzykat is 150% right. In all the games I've played with FCG I prefer winning now to dicking around and giving them time to possibly recover, and win. If I am going first and know I'm playing against Workshop.dec I will take a mulligan to get a Lackey unless I have some insane hand. So Vandal has no place IMO.

[Vegeta2711]

Against $taks, the Vandals are very useful, without it, the deck can't beat Workshop's decks.

Replace Vandal with Lackey in this statement and it would be true, Jazzykat and Toad basically hit the nail on the head here.

[Nantuko Rice]

I use Mirri's Guile in that way, fetching and looking and whatnot but people still say it sucks.

I wanted to cut the 4th food chain because I didn't see/play against alot of aggro decks. It's like stompy vanished. If there were plenty stompy I would play the 4th food chain. the reason i wanted to play 4 incinerators is because goblin welders are in 50% of the decks at any tourney and incinerator owns welder. decks with welder run no stifles.

"Question: at Waterbury (you mean Newington i think), how did you do against Tog/Gay/Keeper/or Slaver?"

I didn't play against fish but I practiced with a few friends. 80% of the time I beat them. Didn't get to against any keeper. I lost to Gro-A-Tog (the guy mana drained my recruiter, then my food chain, then my ringleader, then my piledriver... 4 turns in a row). I didn't get any explosive draws against them him though.

Against workshop decks... I played against many. Trinisphere doesn't hurt FCG as much as people think (unless it was the first turn drop). Aggressively mulliganing towards a lackey isn't awalys that great either as they can drop first turn Metalworker (why must it be a 1/2.... grrr). Control slaver is probably the hardest matchup to play against because it has force of wills & fire and ices.

"Why do you want to kill an artifact when you can simply kill your opponent?"

Because maybe I don't have the lackey in my hand? If i had lackey and vandal in my hand, the lackey would obviously get played first no matter what. The problem is I can't play with 8 lackeys in my deck. So if I can't win, I can still dick around and cause problems.

[jCoKn]

If I were going to a larger metagame tournament, I'd even run 2-3 Pyrokinesis in the SB. How's paying 0 mana to kill many of the following:

1)rootwallas
2)welders
3)mongrels
4)soldier tokens
5)an early-stage dryad
6)juggs
7)firecats and ball lightnings
9)mirror match: 2 piledrivers!!!
10) and the list goes on and on

In days of yore this card was abused alot... And come to think about it I'm going to start abusing it myself!

This solves most of the problems presented by most of the mainstream tier-1 decks nowadays.A whole bunch of little dudes with awesome abilities... all for the cost of a gobbo removed from the game...

[Bauerkrieg]

I like the deck. I have won a T1.5 tourney with a version of FCG. I think that artifact mutation is missing though. It recks house when you can remove the metalworker and get three tokens to smash face or power FC.
 :lol:

[Vegeta2711]

To quote M. Flores.

...here is an "anti" deck the great bschneid once gave me, along with the following instructions:

1. Don't ask any questions.

2. Don't change any cards.

(Insert 1999 Suicide black)

But bschneid, didn't Sligh just win the GP last weekend?
What is instruction #1?

That's what I feel like right now. I outline like everything and am even around to anwser questions, but all I see is valuable cards getting cut for subpar, medicore or outright bad card choices. Please at least really get to know the deck before screwing around with some of the more improtant stuff so much.