[Discussion]Which cards/gobbos in FCG?

[MatzeXXL]

Hei, this is my current FCG:

4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Recruiter
4 Goblin Piledriver
2 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Goblin Lackey
1 Goblin Prospector
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
2 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Goblin Warchief
1 Goblin Tinkerer
3 Goblin Matron                  --> 29 Gobbos

1 Wheel of Fortune
4 Food Chain                      --->5 Other

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Chrome Mox
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Ancient Tomb
6 Mountain                          ---->26 Mana


I would like to discuss some cards to make it more effective, especially to make it not depend too much on the combo.
I know, FCG isnt dependant on the combo, but if the combo doesnt resolve it is actually not as strong as other aggro decks imo.

1.Is the Sharpshooter really necessary ? Why not replace him with a 3rd Incinerator?
2.Why 2 SGC? Isnt 1 enough?

3.What could i do to make the deck faster (which would mean more cheaper creatures and less expensive?

4.Would you play Aggro gobbos like Goon or this "2/1 changes controller if blocks or is blocked" goblin? Or even Mogg Fanatic?

Vandals?

[Nantuko Rice]

I play 24 mana in my build. I would cut ancient tomb and chrome mox. Chrome mox is a bad accelerant for type 1 IMO because you lose a card. Mox Diamond is better because you lose a land card which basically means you just played a 2nd land in the same turn. (but do not play mox diamond in FCG)

Wheel of Fortune. Bad. Your opponent gets to draw 7 and the card isn't needed.

If the combo doesn't resolve, FCG is still a really good aggro deck. I don't know what you'rr talking about. I only combo out about 25% of the time and I've won/placed well in alot of tournaments.

Try to play 3 gang commanders although I only play 2. The more you play with, the more chances you have to lackey them out on turn 2. But I believe the correct number to play with is 2.

Goblin Matron is very nice because it thins your deck and does all sorts of cool stuff, but I believe the correct number is 2.

FCG is a hard deck to manipulate and metagame with because every card is needed. There's so many 4-of's that you need maindecked to play consistent aggro.

Peoeple play the sharpshooter because they are afraid of moat. Sharpshooter lets you deal the extra damage with gang commander and prospector out. But the truth is, by the time they get a moat out, they should be dead already. Also, since Keeper is seldom played, I don't think Moat is something people need to worry about. The only other thing it does is kill soldiers, but any white deck is going to be packing swords to plowshares anyway.

My reccomended changes:
-1 chrome mox
-1 ancient tomb
-1 wheel of fortune
-1 matron
-1 sharpshooter
+1 warchief
+2 incinerator
+1 tinkerer
+1 prospector

This would make your build very similar to mine, except that in the build I won Waterbury with, I ran 0 prospectors and in their place, 2 vandals.

I was anticipating alot of artifacts, but I never saw any. Nor did I see any welders which is what the incinerators are for. Incinerator has "I pwn welder" written all over it.

The 4th warchief is to be more consistent with the aggro-perspective of the deck.

The prospectors allow for "mini-combo's" without a Food Chain in play.

FCG, very strong aggro deck with the bonus of being able to combo. What do you mean by "it is not as strong as other aggro." You don't think FCG can beat O.Stompy?

[MatzeXXL]

--->What do you mean by "it is not as strong as other aggro."

Hi nantuko

thanks for your reply.

I think your points make sense (changes in the deck).
Wheel of Fortune is considered as the 5th Ringleader you are right it is a card risky to play but it has (in the few games i tested the deck, i am not a tournament player) worked very nice because:

-if you have some power in the starting hand just put it out and play Wheel in the first round refreshing your hand
-if you cast an early Recruiter but dont have Food Chain out the Wheel helps you to get a full hand of goblins which can be game
-If the enemy has played some turns and tutored a bit you can guess that he tries to get the important cards in his hand to be played in lategame so if you cast WoF the right time he will be very confused with his random refreshed hand

I think this card works fine in the deck and also provides some control.

The SCG are extremely nice if the come by lackeying but how often does this happen....the StP kills the Lackey and I have a cc5 creature to hardcast in my hand.
2 is the maximum for me. You can also put out a Ringleader by Lackey which is also a good thing....

If people are afraid of Moat so the SGC should do it. I dont really understand why Sharpshooter should be an anti-Maot card (it doesnt untap without the SGC or the Prospectors.....)

I think that FCG without the Chain out is worse than the normal aggro decks because it lacks of DD and the creatures arent as powerful as in a normal Gobbo Deck. Sure, the Ringleaders and Recruiters provide some power, refill the hand etc. but its a bit slower than the normal aggros.
The creatures are simply weaker.

When Food Chain doesnt come out a deck with Goblin Grenade, 2/1 goblins, Lightning Bolt, Vandals etc. will win the game, i remember that a goblin deck like this made place 1 in a recent tournament in Germany.......

[wuaffiliate]

Chrome mox accelerates your kill, you run many goblins, losing one goblin is insignifigant.

Mox Diamond in a deck with LITTLE mana? its far worst than Chrome Mox.

Wheel of fortune isnt needed imo, it can basically be FC #5 but ive shyed away from running it.

The keeper player will swords piledrivers or lackeys before sharpshooter. sharpshooter is NEEDED because it is another easy avenue to winning. it works with the theme of the deck, and doesnt waste space. Skirk prospector is a very good goblin, he accelerates out food chains, and helps speed up when recruited without FC.

I still run this critter base, and its solid.

4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Recruiter
4 Goblin Piledriver
2 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Prospector
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Goblin Warchief
2 Goblin Matron

[MatzeXXL]

Please explain me why Shaprshooter should be in a FCG I dont get it.
It only untaps when a creature goes into grave from play.
It doesnt kill creatures with more toughness then 1, sure there are some tricks like blocking, own creature dies, sharpshooter untaps so you can do 2 additional damage.... (2 from sshooter) but why should I run them over Incinerator or SGC????
SGC does the job much faster when there is a moat.

I have never needed the Sharpshooter....

Against which deck should he be good? Elves? Dragon?

[Justinsane]

sharpshooter is good cause it is an alternate win condition.  I don't know the exact combo, but if you have a prospector and SGC and Sshooter you can do a significant amount of damage.  It provides away to win without attacking.

[BreathWeapon]

People just include the Sharp Shooter because its cool in theory, after about 30 games I never used him for an alternate win condition once. He isn't necessary, and i'm not sure why people insist on using him at all. He is awesome vs Goblin Welders tho'.

[Vegeta2711]

1. Sharpshooter is very good, if you play him normally he generally does 3-5 points of damage to the opponent by himself. He also tends to own Welders, Fish and various other little little to medium sized guys. (If playing against aggro, people will obv. die in combat and you can make it very uncomfortable for your opponent attempting any favorable trades) And of course the already obvious reason everyone else mentioned.

2. 1 Isn't enough since you can't drop it with Lackey nearly ever then. Hell if you draw one while you have FC, Warchief or Prospector out you can get them out pretty fast anyways. You don't want them clogging up your hand all the time, but you need to draw 1 at least sometimes.

3. You can't make the deck any faster.

4. Fanatic would be the only thing I could imagine running.

Heh, nice to see Rice is basically steering his build back towards a more normal one. I did get one useful point out of trying out some of these 1 Propsector builds though and that was I only really needed 2-3 to make the deck function well.

Oh I wouldn't bother running Wheel either, not fun with so many Welders around.

[wuaffiliate]

People just include the Sharp Shooter because its cool in theory, after about 30 games I never used him for an alternate win condition once. He isn't necessary, and i'm not sure why people insist on using him at all. He is awesome vs Goblin Welders tho'.

you can chose to think of it as an insignifigant theory card. but in reality it works quite well if you know how and do set it up.

[Chiz]

Sharpshooter is good because you sometime need to attack with your Lackey to drop your Ringleader to combo out. In that case, the sharpshooter allows you to win a turn faster than if you don't play him. Having 1 in your deck is a must.

Personnaly I disagree with the 4 Prospectors. I plays only 2. Here are the times I want a prospector:

- When I combo out, but cannot attack with my Pildrivers and need to go with plan B (SGC/Prospectors/Sharpshooter combo)
- When I cast a Recruiter with less than 4 lands
- When I'm mana screw in my first 2-3 turns
- When I want to cast a 2e turn Food Chain with at least 1 recruiter in my hand.

In the first 2 situations, you will simply search for a Prospector, so having 1 or more won't make a difference. In the 3rd situation, you should take a mulligan. You shouldn't be affraid to take 1-3 mulligans with FCG if you need to. The 4th situation is the only one I see to run more than 1 prospector in this deck. I don't find this to be happening so often. I played with 3 prospectors, but cut it down to 2 for this reason. You don't draw to have 2 prospectors, since the 2nd one add nothing to your game (but another goblin would).

I personnaly run 4 Matrons. Matrons are really good, they can tutor anything except Food Chain. They help for the combo part of this deck alot and I didn't find them hurting to much the aggro part of this deck. With a Warchief out and 3 mana, casting a Marton (searching for a Piledriver) and casting the Piledriver is a really good move. You attack for at least 8! Matron has a good synergy with lackey too! 4 Matrons is really good.

There is the goblins I play in my build of FCG:
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Recruiter
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
2 Siege Gang Commander
2 Goblin Prospector
2 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin Tinkerer
1 Goblin Sharpshooter

Wheel of Fortune isn't a good idea in Food Chain, I think. You usually don't need to draw that much and you will propably help your opponent more than you since you will loose almost a turn casting your Wheel.

[defector]

Another point for sharpshooter, it also works on platinum angel which can be a headache for a deck with little removal.
defector

[Sandster]

Another point for sharpshooter, it also works on platinum angel which can be a headache for a deck with little removal.
defector

Which is why Incinerators are around.  They're also great against welders.

[defector]

Fair enough, I guess I'd want to run a build that ahd both Incinerators and Sharpshooters, altwin+more chance to remove creatures.
defector

[SpencerForHire]

You will generally use Sharpshooter more in a matchup where you are locked tight.  This includes but is not limited to: Moat, Crawlspace, Platinum Angel, and it is really nice versus Welders and other powerful one drops.
I have gone down to three prospectors only because I run wheel of fortune.  Many people take out the incinerator instead but I have my reasoning.  1) I like the ability of incinerator to help dig down even if its 1 card into your deck.  2) Incinerator is creature hate that gets AROUND standstill and spheres.  
Incinerator has also helped me go off turn two before which is absolutely helarious IMO.

Don't bother running vandals and such,  if I had the choice between playing a vandal to blast an artifact or win.  I'm pretty sure I'd rather just win.

[Negator]

And Skullclamp?

[wuaffiliate]

why?

[MatzeXXL]

My current decklist:


4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Recruiter
4 Goblin Piledriver
2 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Goblin Lackey
2 Goblin Prospector
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
2 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Goblin Warchief
1 Goblin Tinkerer
2 Goblin Matron

2 Skullclamp

4 Food Chain

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Chrome Mox
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
6 Mountain

[ArdvarKing]

i have been testing FCG, for a while and have the same general build however, had never took into consideration the posible inclusion of Skull Clamp. While in a deck like this it seems unnesiary at first b/c of the Ringleader/Recuiter to find the goblins you need. But i think skullclamp deserves some very serious thoughts, considering i havnt seen it included in any T8s. The nessisary importance lies in the fact that without the exception of posibly incinerator, goblins, and morespecificly aggro, dosnt have any good drawing engines that help us dig deeper into our deck, and this provides the most benifit to FCG because of the ability to find Food Chain and combo out.

[MatzeXXL]

Jep, it helps digging and can help you kill 1 turn earlier because you can sacrifice the Recruiter and draw the stacked Ringleader the same turn you stacked.

You will more likely get the Food Chain and the combo can be played in a lighter version with Prospector and Skullclamp out (sacrifice eqiuped Goblin->get 1 Mana->equip again, sacrifice->get 1 Mana......)

[Vegeta2711]

3 Reasons you don't want to run Skullclamp.
1. Saccing threats that aren't immediately replaceable is not a good thing.
2. Not a goblin so it lacks synergy with the rest of the deck and in of itself, is not a threat.
3. Artifact hate is everywhere... so running artifacts is not the greatest idea.

I know Godzilla had a mono red version of goblins using Skullclamp, you might want to hit the list up from him.

[ArdvarKing]

3 Reasons you don't want to run Skullclamp.
1. Saccing threats that aren't immediately replaceable is not a good thing.
2. Not a goblin so it lacks synergy with the rest of the deck and in of itself, is not a threat.
3. Artifact hate is everywhere... so running artifacts is not the greatest idea.

I know Godzilla had a mono red version of goblins using Skullclamp, you might want to hit the list up from him.

While I do agre with you to some extent, i think that Skullclamp is what FCG could use. I dont think that by any means this is a MUST for any FCG deck, but belive that because FCG has no draw, not to mention a prety solid 1/1 base, with, prospecter: which i belive if you were to run clamps should be 3 or 4, recuiter, even lacky(yes i am saying that you would kill your own lacky) however many times i find it is hard to combo out b/c you cant search for FoodChain and the drawing will defintly help speed out a combo hand that might be missing a foodChain seeing how easy it is to Find your combo Goblins between Matron, Recuiter, and Ringleader.

Again i think that skullclamp deserves serious testing.

[Vegeta2711]

Well for one thing, Ringleader -is- draw.

however many times i find it is hard to combo out b/c you cant search for FoodChain and the drawing will defintly help speed out a combo hand that might be missing a foodChain

I believe your relying too heavily on trying to use the Food Chain part of the deck. If you have a combo hand, awesome, some games I might even consider aggresively mulling towards one. But you shouldn't be trying to rely on finding a Food Chain, even with Skullclamp.

Oh and I have tested it, this isn't a new idea by any stretch of the imagination. If you want, feel free to try it out and let me know how it works for you, but I feel you don't need Skullclamp in the deck.

[Nantuko Rice]

guys. skullclamp is for type 2. type 1 we want stuff like ancestral recalls.

alot of good points have already been brought up by other people so i wont reiterate.

skullclamp is good in type 2 because it's used in goblin bidding. you'll get your goblins back. this is fcg. you don't have as much 1 drop 1/1's as type 2 goblin does. even in type 2 goblin bidding, i was running clamps. it is a slow draw engine compared to type 1 games. i was dieing to affinity in 3-5 turns (equivalent to losing to hulk).

you can stack your deck and also cycle incinerator to draw a card to. you don't need skullclamp.

skullclamp is only useful late game in fcg. as far as i understand/am concerned with, lategame doesn't really exist in fcg/type 1 (currently it doesnt exist in type 2 either).

skullclamp = bad. although i did see that mono-red build with clamps in it. it looks interesting and would probably work in a scrub metagame. but then why not just play fcg?

[ArdvarKing]

I myself have not done any testing invoving Skullclamp and have made only speculations, I do, find seeing your arguments against skullclamp to be valid. This brings up another concern however because I do belive that while depending hevily upon the Combo is ill advised i think that the ability to Fend off other Aggro decks, which by nature are at a disadvantage against Combo, is important in FCG. FCG puts up a solid aggro game that will, the majority of the time be able to overpower a largly Control meta.

However i think that without changing the premice of the deck, that more reliabilty in terms off comboing out is nessisary, and i think if not skull clamp, other options should be explored. I know that some builds run....(cant remember name) (Enchantment, G, Begining of Upkeep look at top 3 cards and rearange.) and this could also provide a posible answer. I could be wrong, but in my testing FCG doesnt combo out consistantly, and while in many matchups its undesirable to combo out, rather just bait out combo peices, however there certainly are times where with the coming of more aggro decks, that being able to combo out is far more desirable than playing a strait foward goblin attack. And as it is now FCG does not provide enough consistancy in being able to go off.

[MooSE]

Has anyone tested using off-color moxen in FCG?  Is it even a remotely good idea?  Also, what do sideboards for FCG look like?  I only ask because i have been looking into building a FCG deck and these are some questions i haven't fully answered to myself.

[Thug]

I'm a firm believer of off-colour moxen in FCG, since they speed up a the deck a lot, and aside from the warchief there's very little reason for all-coloured mana.

I only play with 3 wastelands in my version since the moxes basicly replace some lands, and some prospecters.

More mana acceleration often speeds up the deck a full turn, both in Combo mode and it beatdown mode.

I even once had a crazy version including Charbelchers, which was quite decent, but in todadays metagame you don't want to rely on any big artifacts.

Koen

[Vegeta2711]

It's not worth it since it hurts the mana consistency as a whole and simply makes dead cards somewhat useful against you.

As for SB's, some combination of REB, Artifact Mutation, Tormod's Crypt, Gorilla Shaman, Null Rod and Naturalize tends to be in FCG player's SB's. My own personal board is something like this:
4x REB
4x Null Rod
4x Artifact Mutation
3x Gorilla Shaman

[MatzeXXL]

What about Mirri's Guile? Fetchies, Matron can shuffle Library.....

[Kaiser von Hugal]

I've enjoyed reading your primer Vageta2711 and I appreciate the work you've put into testing this deck.  Which archtypes would you side in all that artifact hate. Or are there times when it more appropriate to side some of the artifact hate over the other.

[GodzillA]

I'll throw in my two cents here with regards to Skullclamp. When the card was first released, I tested it extensively in FCG. I'm hearing some people say the deck absolutely doesn't need more draw, and others say it absolutely does in order to find Food Chain more consistently. Neither side is strictly correct.

In theory, the deck does want more ways to find Food Chain for a faster combo kill. In practice, Skullclamp does not provide this ability. Vegeta's comments about not wanting to sacrifice resources that cannot be immediately replaced is correct. FCG needs to reserve its resources to sac to Food Chain. If it burns them up looking for Food Chain, it has nothing to do with the Chain once it finds it. Furthermore, and most importantly, Clamp takes up slots that could otherwise be goblins. You'll hear myself and Vegeta and Wuaffiliate and various other people who originally developed the deck for Type 1 say the following over and over again: "If it's not a goblin, and it's not Food Chain, it doesn't belong in FCG." Extensive testing proved that this adage remains accurate with regards to Skullclamp.

However, Skullclamp did provide an unexpected benefit in testing - one which deserves mention. It made the deck stronger against control decks by providing 4 more turn 1 bombs (in addition to Lackeys). One of FCG's bigger problems against control has always been that its card advantage engine costs 4 to play, making it a big Drain target. Skullclamp provides similar utility, but in a much less risky package. That being the case, I set out to build a GobVantage variant that would be specifically tailored to beat a control-heavy meta. The result was a deck called ClampVantage.

ClampVantage is a mono-red variant that drops Food Chains for Clamps, and runs a higher compliment of direct damage goblins (4 Fanatics, 3 SGC, 3 Sharpshooter). Note that the high Sharpshooter count is due to their extremely strong synergy with Skullclamp. Because it's mono-colored, the deck has a more stable manabase, and is more consistent than FCG. It has more first turn threats, making its game against control a much stronger one. However, it lacks FCG's combo kill, which means it loses speed. It also loses green utility from the sideboard.

I wouldn't say that either deck is definitely superior to the other. Testing with ClampVantage has shown that it's extremely robust and versatile. In a control-filled meta it is quite possibly the better deck. In a diverse meta, FCG remains the unquestionably better choice.

For reference, the ClampVantage decklist (now a few months old):

//ClampVantage

// Mana
        13 Mountain
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Chrome Mox
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mana Crypt
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Strip Mine
        4 Wasteland

// Goblins
        4 Goblin Lackey
        4 Skirk Prospector
        4 Mogg Fanatic
        4 Goblin Piledriver
        4 Goblin Recruiter
        3 Goblin Sharpshooter
        3 Goblin Warchief
        4 Goblin Ringleader
        3 Siege-Gang Commander

// Draw
        4 Skullclamp

// Sideboard
SB:  4 Red Elemental Blast
SB:  4 Rack and Ruin
SB:  3 Blood Moon
SB:  4 Tormod's Crypt