I need a quick hand with FCG

[Frappie]

I will post a list tommorow but here is the idea.
At the SCG event I went 6-2 finished 11th. I have come to the crossroads with the deck. Food Chain is a marginal card for the deck and further testing proved that the average amount of times that the actual combo goes off is 1 out of 20 or 5%. I also boarded out Food Chain every game.
With that in mind when I cut Food Chain I have three roads to go as I see it.

The first.
Take out the 4x Food Chain and replace with 4x red cards, cutting the tiaga's for mountains and therefore making my deck less suceptible to wasteland. (the only targets left will be sac-lands and wastelands). Also 7/10 will not hurt me as badly as it did. Thanks doug.

The Second.
Take out 4x Food Chain and replace with 4x Chains of Mephistophles(Kowal is that spelling right?). This was suggested to me by Matrix. After thinking about it I believe that it deserves play testing. However it does little to hurt most of the decks in the format as any good player knows to start gassing up a big Yawg Will or start making the Welder get some overtime hours. This would also entail replacing the Taiga's with Badland's, and the Emerald with Jet.

The Third.
Replace the 4x Food Chain with Berserk. This idea is straight out of the blue style. With Piledriver easily hitting 7-9 power berserk could be pretty strong.

All three suggestions are possible. I will probably playtest all of them but I wanted to check if I had missed anything.

[Magi]

Maybe Null Rod in a combo-heavy metagame?

all 3 suggestions are pretty interesting I must say.

[Frappie]

The board runs four null rods. They unfortunetly do little against the TNT style decks that are popular now.

[TheFram]

If you want to go mono red, you could do the

-4 Food Chain
+4 Goblin Charbelcher

thing to retain your combo out.

Also, without food chain you dont really need as many of the more marginal goblins like matron and ringleader. You could cut one of each and play some faster beats.
 
-Avi

[Dr. Sylvan]

What were your matchups at SCG?

[Klep]

Also, without food chain you dont really need as many of the more marginal goblins like matron and ringleader. You could cut one of each and play some faster beats.
-Avi

To be brutally honest, cutting Ringleader is one of the stupidest suggestions I've heard made for this deck.  Ringleader is your draw engine.  Without it, you have no way of generating card advantage.  It and Food Chain are the core of the deck.  If you cut them, the deck just becomes pure aggro, which just isn't viable.

[goober]

Pyrostatic Pillar and Price of Progress might be worth considering.  Pillar is probably a SB card because it is very bad against Workshop decks.  Price is just amazing burn (as JP will agree).

I disagree very strongly with the idea that Charbelcher is good.  This will deal a good amount of damage, but it will be late.  Also with Null Rod and artifact destruction all over the place I don't think it is that good.

I would say lose Matron and Food Chain for 4 PoP and 4 Chains of Meph.  I am not sure if the dual lands are worth it, but it can be increadible.

[Vegeta2711]

1. I guess if you expect to play vs. 4c control all day long, it's reasonable to simply board the FC's and run 4 MD PoP.

2. You are only running 4 Taiga, that doesn't mean enemy Wastes/Titan should be doing much anyways. Esp. if you don't just fetch Taiga's all the time.

3.

Also, without food chain you dont really need as many of the more marginal goblins like matron and ringleader. You could cut one of each and play some faster beats.

You have to be kidding me. Ringleader marginal? God no. It's the entire draw engine and 4 for sure. Matron is much more reasonable to toss, but you'll be hard-pressed to find better goblins usually.

Oh yeah anyways, as for Berserk... if Food Chain isn't good enough, I can't see how in hell Berserk is.  

The Chains idea is decent, but I can't imagine running black in the deck (You lose most of your SB options) and just like Food Chain will be countered by control. The difference is, Chains hurts them if it resolves. But  Food Chain will put them on notice, as a variety of cards in your deck can cause you to just win the game then.

[NastyNate]

Perhaps it's just me, but why would you cut the combo element from this deck? I understand that against control decks food chain is almost always the numer one target for counterspells. I am also quite aware that the combo isn't needed in order to win, but when playing against any deck other than fish, 4C Control, or hulk isn't the ability to combo out key?

On another note, cutting green for black seriously hampers your side board options. Playing chains of mephistopholes will cause problems for control decks, but it will negatively impact match-ups with workshop decks (packing welders) or U/G madness. The ability to go food chain crazy is what gives this deck it's A game vs all other forms of aggro.

So the end result would be about even. Some match-ups would improve, and others would suffer; the loss of green mana however, would eliminate sideboard options like oxidize, artifact mutation, naturalize, and ground seal. Black will offer you board options like plaguebearer, and duress, but little else.

Do what works for you, but keep in mind speed is key to this deck's success. IMHO FCG is not the budget deck to play if you want to win a large tournament, but Chains of Mephistopholes Goblins isn't much better.

[Toad]

Using an heavy Black component would allow you to use Living Death as a sideboard tech against Aggro. It is really strong.

[Frappie]

"Oh yeah anyways, as for Berserk... if Food Chain isn't good enough, I can't see how in hell Berserk is.  " {Vegeta2711}

Berserk and Food Chain do completely different things. Berserk allows a game win faster while Food Chain provides a marginal combo at best.  Pile driver can easily have 5+ attack power on turn 3/4 and with berserk the game is just that much closer to over, also it runs as another shoddy removal against welder.

"Perhaps it's just me, but why would you cut the combo element from this deck? I understand that against control decks food chain is almost always the numer one target for counterspells. I am also quite aware that the combo isn't needed in order to win, but when playing against any deck other than fish, 4C Control, or hulk isn't the ability to combo out key?" {NastyNate}

Unfortunetly Nate people are beginning to realize that food chain does little while its in play and that its actually the ringleaders that create the problems. Usually the ringleaders are getting the drain/force. The amount of countering that the control decks do currently are too much for the combo to handle. The ringleader is a great drain target, and I think Marc (PTW) stifled a ringleader ability against me. With many decks running disruption that stops the combo short why run the combo? The key to beating 4cc is to kill before turn 6. If you haven't there is little chance of squeaking out a victory.

"Do what works for you, but keep in mind speed is key to this deck's success. IMHO FCG is not the budget deck to play if you want to win a large tournament, but Chains of Mephistopholes Goblins isn't much better." {NastyNate}

My deck is far from budget. It runs Black Lotus, Mox Emerald, and Mox Ruby. The way that food chain is run now it is near impossible to run budget FCG and go anywhere. Unless by budget you mean within the five proxy limit of most T1 events.

"Using an heavy Black component would allow you to use Living Death as a sideboard tech against Aggro. It is really strong." {Toad}

Toad, the suggestion is noted, however the Living Death does not fit the curve at all. I am currently looking for something in the 1-3 mana so that the curve dosn't need to much work. I hate curve math/math in general thats why I play goblins.

"I would say lose Matron and Food Chain for 4 PoP and 4 Chains of Meph. I am not sure if the dual lands are worth it, but it can be increadible."
{goober}

Goober I only run one matron. The list will be up around 8 pm EST. Currently I am at work, but not working. Hehe hope andystok does not see this. As for more than one matron, the card just does not fit the curve well enough and is not even aggro enough for me to consider more then 2X.

"To be brutally honest, cutting Ringleader is one of the stupidest suggestions I've heard made for this deck. Ringleader is your draw engine. Without it, you have no way of generating card advantage. It and Food Chain are the core of the deck. If you cut them, the deck just becomes pure aggro, which just isn't viable." {Klep}

Klep I completely agree with the non-removal of ringleader, however a pure aggro deck against a control laden format is supposed to work if I remember the formula correctly Aggro>Control, Control>Combo, Combo>Aggro.

With draw-7/dragon being the only combo decks I have played against them both and FCG's has limited options for dealing with Draw-7 (I.E. Lose game one board in 2x null rod and 4x REB and start praying against Draw-7). Dragon requires a Blood Moon, and your wastelands doing some dirty work.

"What were your matchups at SCG?" {Dr. Sylvan}

I can't remember that many but here goes
Round 1
Blecher
2-1 (third game turn one null rod and he scooped)

Round 2 Match record at start [1-0]
WelderMUD
2-0

Round 3 Match record at start [2-0]
Control Slaver
2-1

Round 4 Match record at start [3-0]
Fish (Run by Marc Perez, a.k.a. Phantom Tape Worm)
0-2

Round 5 Match record at start [3-1]
Sui (yeah the deck that jpmeyer lost to)
2-0 (he did not know what any of the goblins. So he read all of them except for lackey and piledriver. Game 2 involved 23 damage on turn four.)

Round 6 Match record at start [4-1]
Purple Hat's Deck ( I talked with Hale at length and he is unsure whether he will post what it is or not so I wont even hint at it.)
2-1

Round 7 Match record at start [5-1]
7/10 (run by Doug Linn)
0-2 (game one I opened up a hand of 4x food chain and three lands. I sent it back and got another awful hand and just went down to five cards. Thats why that junk is coming out, that and I boarded it out every match.)

Round 8 Match record at start [5-2]
Slaver
2-0 (His heart wasn't really into it, we were pretty sure we were not going to make top 8, but I drove ten hours to play so I'm going to put my heart into every game.)

I wish I had my breakers they were definetly the highest breakers I had ever seen as far as 6-2 goes. (Hinting at jpmeyer hooking me up with my breaker info.)

Could someone explain why this was moved to the Newbie forum. I thought I was making a good case for it to stay in the Tournament forum, but I could be biased. Was it because it involved direct deck editing and not the normal tournament report?

[Klep]

"Oh yeah anyways, as for Berserk... if Food Chain isn't good enough, I can't see how in hell Berserk is.  " {Vegeta2711}

Berserk and Food Chain do completely different things. Berserk allows a game win faster while Food Chain provides a marginal combo at best.  Pile driver can easily have 5+ attack power on turn 3/4 and with berserk the game is just that much closer to over, also it runs as another shoddy removal against welder.

No, they do exactly the same thing, which is allow you to win faster.  Food Chain just does a much better job because you win RIGHT NOW instead of when your Piledriver can get big enough.

Klep I completely agree with the non-removal of ringleader, however a pure aggro deck against a control laden format is supposed to work if I remember the formula correctly Aggro>Control, Control>Combo, Combo>Aggro.

That metagame structure is terribly out of date, and you would do well to forget it.  It has since been replaced by Smmenen's 5-axis metagame, which is itself several months out of date.  Aggro and Control don't exist anymore.

[TheFram]

Without food chain, is ringleader really that strong? I only suggested running 1 fewer of matron and ringleader to ease the mana curve. The poster already suggested cutting food chain itself. Additionally, my suggestion was predicated by the posters apparent desire to cut green. With belcher as the combo card, ringleader is not needed to combo out. I dont see how cutting one can be as foolish as you make it to be.

Please react to the entirety of my initial post. don't go taking it out of context Klep.

[Klep]

Without food chain, is ringleader really that strong? I only suggested running 1 fewer of matron and ringleader to ease the mana curve.

Up to 4 cards and a 2/2 body for 4 mana sounds pretty strong to me, particularly when it makes my combo awesome.

[Vegeta2711]

What part of why are you cutting part of the draw engine that makes the deck not suck like all the old goblin decks, are you not understanding? And to be specfic, even if you cut green and ran Belcher or nothing as a combo kill, you can still pull off the old manual version of the combo (Which appearently only like 3 people seem to remember) and is another warm body for the deck.

[TheFram]

I understand that Vegeta, but you dont need 4 of a 4 mana goblin in  straight aggro deck in that scenario. If it is purely a manual combo card, then it just needs to be there to chain w/ recruiter. I'm sorry if I offended. My experience w/ FCG is minimal, but it seems to me that 4 mana is alot for a goblin deck, and without recruiter your really only fishing for more goblins randomly.

Sorry if im not seeing something here, but i dont see what was wrong with my suggestion to cut 1 ringleader.

[Klep]

I understand that Vegeta, but you dont need 4 of a 4 mana goblin in  straight aggro deck in that scenario. If it is purely a manual combo card, then it just needs to be there to chain w/ recruiter. I'm sorry if I offended. My experience w/ FCG is minimal, but it seems to me that 4 mana is alot for a goblin deck, and without recruiter your really only fishing for more goblins randomly.

Sorry if im not seeing something here, but i dont see what was wrong with my suggestion to cut 1 ringleader.

Straight aggro decks suck.  That's why FCG isn't straight aggro.  What's wrong with your suggestion to cut 1 Ringleader is that YOU'RE CUTTING A RINGLEADER.  Ringleader is absolutely vital to the deck in order for it to function any better than a pure aggro deck.  Would you suggest that GAT play only 3 Gush?  That BBS play only 4 FoF?  That Hulk play only 3 AK's? That 7/10 play only 3 Thirsts?  Of course not, because such suggestions are stupid, just like this one.  There is no reason whatsoever for weakening this deck's only source of card advantage.

[Vegeta2711]

Understand that my tone mainly sounds derisive, because I feel I've throughly anwsered all these questions before.  I'll try to make this as clear as possible.

Ringleader is what seperates this class of goblin decks from the older ones. It is by far the best engine available to it. The majority of the time you are -not- going to win before you can start casting Ringleaders. It's what keeps the deck from running out of gas and hence worthy of being a 4-of on that fact alone. Then add the fact that it doesn't just draw cards, but is also fetchable via Recruiter and Matron, made cheaper by Warchief and can combo.

As Klep said:

Up to 4 cards and a 2/2 body for 4 mana sounds pretty strong to me

I don't see what you could possibly replace a Ringleader with that's even equal in power, let alone stronger.

[Purple Hat]

There is no reason whatsoever for weakening this deck's only source of card advantage.

sure there is.  If he weakens the card advantage he won't beat me next time.

I think the points about the effects on the sideboard are questionable.  It seems that you lose artifact mutation and gain the option to add some interesting black stuff, echoing decay is good against welder decks and smother could be a good choice.  I really like the Chains idea.  Chains is just better in the current meta then Food Chain IMO.

Hale

[Vegeta2711]

echoing decay is good against welder decks and smother could be a good choice

Except that Gempalm Incinerator already does the job 100x better than Decay or Smother and is still only a 3-of. One would expect someone to at least play something on-color as the fourth.  

Black is just so weak.

[Purple Hat]

fair, but chains is just SO savage.

I really think that cutting the food chains is a good idea.  trying to be a combo deck just isn't working in the current meta.  I feel like food chain is the ultimate timmy play right now.  it's cool when it goes off, but it just isn't gonna happen that often.

Green offers some board options but most of those holes can be adaquately filled by red.  So if you cut the green from the main you can probably get by without it in the side.

Once you do that you look at your problem matchups (combo) and chains is a great solution here.  I saw matrix go off under chains, but it was still a hard game for him.  Chains solves a problem and is good against almost everything.

Hale

[Frappie]

Here is the deck list.

Critters
4 Goblin Recruiter
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Piledriver (a.k.a. The Truck Driver)
3 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Skirk Prospector
4 Goblin Lackey
2 Siege-Gang Commander

Land
4 Wooded Foothills
5 Mountains
1 Strip Mine
4 Taiga
4 Wasteland

Bad Combo Pieces
4 Food Chain

Artifact Mana
1 Chrome Mox
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Black Lotus

Sideboard
2 Goblin Vandal
4 Null Rod
3 Blood Moon
4 REB
2 Artifact Mutation

So that is the deck list. Tell me what you think of it. With the way the current format is heading I think that whatever replaces Food Chain will be 3x instead of 4, so that I can dedicate a slot to either another incinerator or a goblin sharpshooter. The slots are open and I will be testing the Berserk first followed by maybe chains.

Klep what I meant by Berserk and Food Chain being different is the way they work. Food Chain enables a combo once in a while, however Berserk allows extra damage and is ok to draw multiple in a game. I used Piledriver as an example to it. Other possibilities include turn two lackey swing into welder, dropping a big goblin into play all crazy style.

[Klep]

Klep what I meant by Berserk and Food Chain being different is the way they work. Food Chain enables a combo once in a while, however Berserk allows extra damage and is ok to draw multiple in a game. I used Piledriver as an example to it. Other possibilities include turn two lackey swing into welder, dropping a big goblin into play all crazy style.

I know what you meant, and what I'm saying is that the differences are irrelevant because they ultimately serve the exact same purpose: winning sooner than otherwise possible.  The reason Food Chain is better is because it lets you win NOW instead of maybe in a couple of turns when you have a big enough goblin.  What the hell are you doing in the late game with this deck anyway?  You should win by turn 5.

[Frappie]

Klep, I understand what your saying but food chain dosn't allow an instant win everytime, heck not even half the time, food chain is the most inconsistant card in the deck and because of this I think it needs to be removed. Currently I am testing Chains of Mephistophles. Will let everybody know what happens with it. Thanks for the help all.

[Klep]

Klep, I understand what your saying but food chain dosn't allow an instant win everytime, heck not even half the time, food chain is the most inconsistant card in the deck and because of this I think it needs to be removed. Currently I am testing Chains of Mephistophles. Will let everybody know what happens with it. Thanks for the help all.

Well I certainly don't know what deck you're playing then because all of my testing against the deck with 4CC showed me that a resolved Food Chain is Big Trouble almost immediately.  Either that or you spelled "consistent" wrong.

[Frappie]

Klep anybody who counters Food Chain when they are playing 4cc should be drawn and quartered. Food Chain is not a threat its the goblin ringleader that is the threat. Playing 100 matches against 4cc taught both BlenderMonkey and myself that.

[Klep]

Klep anybody who counters Food Chain when they are playing 4cc should be drawn and quartered. Food Chain is not a threat its the goblin ringleader that is the threat. Playing 100 matches against 4cc taught both BlenderMonkey and myself that.

There are 3 threats to 4CC in that deck.  Goblin Lacky, Goblin Ringleader, and Food Chain.  Just because I say letting one resolve is Big Trouble does not mean the others aren't as well.

[Frappie]

Alright Klep, just so that we get it straight, you think that food chain goblins needs to keep the goblins fed and I think that those skinny green men should stay skinny. The way that we are starting to go I will probably flame you at some point so I'm just going to test the ideas and if they do not make the deck any better then I will probably just end up with Food Chain.