|
Lord of Water
|
 |
« on: March 31, 2004, 11:58:14 am » |
|
Food Chain - 2G Enchantment
Remove a creature you control from the game: add mana of any color equal to that creature's converted mana cost plus one to your mana pool. This mana can only be used to play creature spells.
Many Goblin Food Chain decks run 4 of these cards maindeck. The primary reason, of course, is that it increases your chance of drawing a "combo hand" with Goblin Recruiter and Food Chain, in which you set up a literal chain of goblins in your deck which you draw using Goblin Ringleaders, play, and attack with for the win.
However, in light of Workshop.deq and its many incarnations in Workshop Slaver, TnT, Stax, MUD, and others, the Goblin Food Chains combo is often impossible or undesirable. Other stacks with the Recruiter and Ringleader are often more desirable because of the lock pieces these artifact decks use to shut down combos like the one Goblin Food Chains prefers to win with.
In artifact matchups, hands that aren't particularly explosive force the GFC player into Aggro-mode. This isn't a bad thing, since Gobilns are great at aggro, but in this situation Food Chain is next to being a dead draw. Because Trinispheres, Spheres of Resistance, Chalices of the Void, and Tangle Wires are so popular, I believe the goblin beatdown side of the deck should be emphasized in the maindeck.
First, I tried cutting the Goblin Matrons. Sphere of Resistance makes this card simply unplayable; it is more expensive, the mana artifacts that accellerate it are more expensive, and the card it fetches is more expensive to boot. This leaves 1-3 slots open in many FCG decks. I never regretted cutting the matrons.
Then, I tried cutting Food Chain and Skirk Prospector cards. I went down to 2 Food Chain and 3 Skirk Prospector rather than 4 of each. This was mainly a decision based on the huge number of Mindslavers being activated- with a mindslaver in play, your opponent can turn your game-winning combo into an autoloss that draws every single goblin in your deck, plays it, and sacrifices it or removes it from the game. It was also nice not to draw so many 1-drop Prospectors with a Trinisphere in play. However, as is easily predictable, this significantly weakened its other non-Slaver, non-Workshop matches. Obviously, I thought, those key cards should not be cut.
However, I believe I found a solution that helps solve the Slaver problem and lessens the dead draws during Workshop/Slaver matches. I moved a Food Chain to the sideboard. It's a simple plan, but it really helps.
Moving the Food Chain so the sideboard and cutting both Goblin Matrons left 3 slots open in my deck. I filled those slots with a Goblin Vandal, another Gempalm Incinerator, and an important third Siege-Gang Commander. I believe that these small changes to the deck made it more consistant and stronger, elliminated some dead draws, and improved its matchup against Slaver somewhat.
I would like to hear some discussion on what other Goblin Food Chains players have done to improve workshop/slaver matchups and how their ideas turned out. Most importantly, I'd like opinions on moving one Food Chain to the sideboard. Thanks for your time in reading, and may you always draw your combo hand when your opponent plays Illusionary Masks.
|
