I was reading through JP's article (the one where he tells us how he lost to suicide and "He reveals his other two cards in hand - two Guerilla Tactics.") when I saw near the end of the article "And the probably vanishing of FCG".
I was going to post this in a reply to his topic but everyone else seamed more focus on Chains of Meph.
Why FCG? Why? We hardly knew ye. Even with all the high place finishes in Europe and even here, why is FCG vanishing? Honestly, even with all the high finishes and prizes FCG got me , with "suboptimal" builds, I don't and wouldn't reccomend playing FCG anymore, or at least for now.
The Deck:The only Aggro-Combo deck out there. Combo's out on turns 3-4 and doesn't die to null rod. Basically goblin beats with green for Food Chain.
FCG Card Choices:I'm not touching the core cards, only weird cards that were in/not in my decks.Mirri's Guile: Stop netdecking my Newington deck and stop running this card. This card was a joke! I wasn't suppose to place high and people weren't suppose to see my deck and copy it by the masses. No it's not secret tech or whatever, it's horrible. The Joke: Ok, you know how blue mages like to brainstorm and fetch? I thought it would be funny if I did that. So there you have it. Stop diluting the FCG builds and stop running this card. Please!
Goblin Tinkerer/Vandals: These are cards that I really like but very little room is available to squeeze them in. The tinkerer moreso than the vandal. These should be run more of in artifact heavy environments. If artifacts are not present, I would probably run one or two tinkerer. He gets to eat alot of factories before peoplel earn that he's not a mox monkey. I tested these guys out (by cutting prospector slots) as a "null rod." Vandals could hit and eat moxes. Or at the worse case, force your opponent to keep his moxes in hand.
Goblin Sharpshooter: Landstil is still dead, Keeper is back running decrees, and there's more fish than ever. I ran none of these at Waterbury but they need to come back.
Gempalm Incinerator: For every welder there is an incinerator. Except there's fewer welders now but more fish. I would still run these as 4 of's as they cantrip and FCG has very little draw (and don't start talking about the Guile).
Prospector: Eh? Mini combo with a prospector out when you don't have a Food Chain? Pfffffft. I never even knew this thing existed (whoops) until after my big Waterbury tournament win. I've never even gone for this mini-combo and I still don't like it.
FCG Matchup Analysis: Aggro (Oshawa): Wins 95% of the time.
Workshop (Slaver and Aggro): Trinisphere doesn't hurt as bad as Sphere of Resistance did. Artifact Mutation and Rack and Ruins from the side.
Control (Keeper, Tog, GAT): Easier to beat Tog due to sideboard hate (crypt) and a lack of removal spells. Keeper has to much removal to answer Lackey. GAT is just to good.
Combo (Draw7, Dragon): FCG usually loses to faster combo. FCG lacks the ability to draw into it's combo peices so FCG's combo needs to be in hand. The problem is those other combo decks run force and FCG doesn't. The random REB against Timetwister can win and Dragon sees Crypt.
Fish (that popular deck): Fish supposedly loses to pure aggro strategies. Maybe it loses to Oshawa but not FCG. FCG likes to get incredibly lucking in it's fish matchups where the Fish player overextends and plays Standstill while FCG still has tricks up it's sleeve. Fish, when played by the better players, should beat FCG nearly all the time (If you're playing my build of Fish with the 3 stifle, 3 fire, 3 daze).
The Decline and Success: Some stuff already mentioned that I'll bring up again.(1) Surprise. Back in the day, no one knew how to play against FCG. To beat FCG, all you have to do is one thing, play the deck yourself. Well, that's how you beat every deck actually. Understand how your opponent's deck works by playing it yourself. People would Mindslaver Tog and have Tog kill itself, but when people slavered FCG, they didn't know what to do. Now they do. FCG has lost it's surprise value.
(2) Aggro-Combo. Worked well when everyone played Oshawa, and even a little time after that due to it's surprise value.
(3) To many netdeckers. Stop netdecking my bad versions of FCG. I win because I am lucky. There are to many diluted versions of FCG.
(4) Player skills. Netdeckers... are stereotypically those that netdeck budget decks and play without playtesting and such. They also do not have as much playing skills as other players. If some of the "type 1 pro players" would start playing more FCG and less fish.
(5) Lack of Growth. Interestingly, Fish and FCG are in the same boat. I doubt there will be new cards printed that will go into Fish and FCG. Goblins have probably reached their power potential in Onslaught, I doubt Wizards R&D will answer my dream and print a new Goblin Piledriver with Pro Blue & White. However, Fish continues to be a success while FCG... hasn't been recently. Fish doesn't need the surprise value.
(6) Adaptability. Fish can play many different configurations of stifles and dazes and such. All of them screw up your opponent. FCG doesn't. FCG's build is very "locked" and there is very little room to change stuff. The only disruption it has are 5 strips. (Dwarven Blastminer and Blood Moon sucks.)
(7) Card Obtainability. With more people being attracted to type 1 and Onslaught being rotated out of standard, you would think FCG is the optimal deck to build. But it's not because FCG cards will always go in FCG. Fish's FoW can always go to another deck when you want to change. Every type 2 player who's going into type 1, I ask them "So what are you building?" I skim through their binder and see Biddings and Piledrivers and Clamps, and they always reply "Fish. Do you have any cloud of faeries?"
(8) Decline of Aggro. Rise of control and aggro-control. (Basically a rise of better decks that can handle FCG).
FCG was like the typewriter. It beat the crap out of paper and pencil but then the computer comes along. Will FCG be back in the future? I hope so, because Aggro decks are nice and simple to play. Who wants to sit there and think. Yuck.
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And... those are some of my thoughts and yes I am aware I am a bad writer. If anyone wants, I'll post a list of my FCG (if I still played it) and I could post my Fish list too. However, I'm currently not playing any of those decks. I'm currently trying to learn how to play with a control deck. Apparently third turn morph with no counter backup whatsoever is a bad plan. It was a good plan when it was a warchief.
