[discussion] Food Chain Goblins

[Freelancer]

I would like to bring up some points that I noticed during playtesting FCG and hope to get some information from people that have more experience with it than me...

1) What do you sideboard in/out against control slaver? Do you sideboard out all off your prospector's/food chains?

2) Would you keep these hands:
Wasteland, mana crypt, lotus petal, mountain, piledriver, lackey (matchup unknown, on the draw)
taiga, prospector, piledriver, lotus petal, food chain, food chain, siege-gang commander (unkown matchup, on the play)

3) What are good sideboard cards against combo? and what do you sideboard out against combo?

4) In what metagame is food chain goblins best?

5) I have had some troubles with the manabase especially R seems quite scars at times...any suggestions?

Decklist: (thanks to SCG guide to vintage 5-proxie decks by Josh Silvestri)
Mana:
6x mountain
4x taiga
4x wooded foothills
4x wasteland
1x strip mine
1x chrome mox
1x mana crypt
1x lotus petal
2x elvish spirit guide
1x ancient tomb

Creatures:
1x goblin sharpshooter
4x goblin recruiter
4x goblin piledriver
4x goblin lackey
2x skirk prospector
2x goblin matron
2x siege-gang commander
4x goblin warchief
4x gempalm incinerator
4x goblin ringleader

Spells:
4x food chain

Sideboard:
4x Red elemental blast
4x Artifact mutation
3x Null rod
4x Pyrostatic pillar

Any help on the sideboard would also be appreciated...


Ps. Thanks in advance for your help it is greatly appreciated...

[E Face]

1) What do you sideboard in/out against control slaver? Do you sideboard out all off your prospector's/food chains?

I think that Lava Darts and Null Rods could come in against slaver. Ground Seal is a possibility, it also helps against any other Welder based strategies such as CA, 5/3, Stax, etc. REB thier Thirst for Knowledge and Intuition all day long, and your match up is favorable. Maybe take out some Goblin Matrons, Skirk Prospectors, and a few Gempalms.. (gempalm is still necessary to remove Plat Angel though) 4 Goblin Warchief dont seem entirely necessary either post-board.

3) What are good sideboard cards against combo? and what do you sideboard out against combo?

Null Rods again can shine here, and Pyrostatic Pillar is good as well. REB can shoot down key draw spells to allow you time to combo out. Again Matrons, Prosepectors, and Gempalms come immediatley to mind when siding out. Gempalms should probably be first to go because you will more than likely not need removal.

4) In what metagame is food chain goblins best?

FCG is an excellent choice IMHO in workshop heavy enviroments. A FCG deck made the Top 8 at the past SCGP9 tourney in richmond, a metagame notorious for its heavy workshop use. I personally prefer Rack and Ruin over Artifact Mutation, but both cards swing the game in your favor nonetheless. Under Trinisphere RnR is probably superior though. FCG also shines in control heavy metagames, and in a CS heavy enviroment, the sideboard can be tweaked a bit to give you heavy advantages.

[Freelancer]

 I think that Lava Darts and Null Rods could come in against slaver. Ground Seal is a possibility, it also helps against any other Welder based strategies such as CA, 5/3, Stax, etc. REB thier Thirst for Knowledge and Intuition all day long, and your match up is favorable. Maybe take out some Goblin Matrons, Skirk Prospectors, and a few Gempalms.. (gempalm is still necessary to remove Plat Angel though) 4 Goblin Warchief dont seem entirely necessary either post-board.

Isn't gempalm a thousand times better than lava dart? since gempalm if cycled will always kill a welder, is uncounterable and is also always card advantage...Also do you think that the combo should stay in? since if the opponent has no real way to wreck you with slaver, and you can keep the big creatures/welder off the table you should be able to win with REB standing by your side...

[Gabethebabe]

2)
Keep hand 1
Mulligan hand 2

That´s what I would do.

FCG just won a tourney of 66 participants in Barcelona, check out the tournament forum if you are interested in the decklist

[Freelancer]

Why would you keep hand 1? do you hope to draw more action?

Yeah I saw the decklist, not much suprising stuff in it, the only thing that struck me was 3x matron and 3x gempalm (I run 2/4) since gempalm is quite essential in todays metagame...

That leads me to another question (wich should probably be in the rules forum) can you still kill a pro-red creature with gempalm incinerator?

[Joblin Velder]

Nope, you can't. Gempalm is still the source of the ability. So if you run into any pro-goblin creatures, he's useless, too.

Definitely leave the combo in against slaver. You need it to get a fast win before a lock. The worst that happens is you have an early recruiter in hand and he piles a bunch of 4cc stuff on top. It doesn't happen that often.

[Freelancer]

I was more thinking in the direction off foodchain and prospectors, since these two would devastate your hand when you get slaved...

Usually slaver has a pretty hard time dealing with straight aggro, so if we go back to simple goblin rush this 'should' improve the matchup...Its not like any recruiters will resolve against a competent player (so it won't happen to often that you can combo them out)...
This is all just theorizing though...(wich is also the main reason I need your help )

[gothcracker]

one sideboard card that wrecks control, is blood moon. i run it in my FCG. and i saw workshop scoop to it. as well as control slaver.

[Joblin Velder]

Blood Moon isn't so awesome against control slaver. In fact, some builds run it.

[Freelancer]

That must have been real bad versions off both decks, since control slaver is rarely even bothered with blood moon since they are essentially two colours Ur...They often even run blood moon in the side/maindeck themselfs...:O
Workshop has more troubles with it but it certainly won't scoop to it...o_0

Also what control are you talking about? If you mean 4cc than yes there is a chance that a resolved blood moon will be game, but there are very full true control decks that still run a complete non-basic mana base...

It just isnt the bomb it used to be...stupid crucilock...

[Mark_Story]

Your hate against slaver, is your maindeck incinerators and artifact removal, And REB's, targetting their draw spells.  Thirst is very important to REB if you can, Burn all the welders, and try to bait drains with low CC goblins and not Ringleaders.

If you fear the slave, I would side out all the prospectors and the sharpshooter.  If you get slaved, the worst they can do is combo you out and remove all your men from the game.  Which is pretty bad.  But at least you didn't die to sharpshooter.  If you find that you are getting slaved and comboed out remove the foodchains.  

I would keep the first hand, and mull the second.  Go first turn piledriver then, the lackey (still on first turn)  Resolving lackey is more important than a piledriver.  with the number of goblins in the deck you should topdeck one and then lackey is gold.  If both piledriver and lackey resolved, you have a really good board advantage at that point. Plus you are on the draw.  You could top deck something totally savage like a seige-gang or a warchief, or another mana source, which also wouldn't be bad.

The second hand has no first turn business spells, double food chain.  that a good Goblin hand does not make.  In general this hand doesn't have a lot of options.

Foodchains shines in a random aggro/workshop environment.  It also totally owns fish.  It's bad matchups are other combo decks, and oath.  

Good sideboard cards against combo: Pyrostatic pillar and null rod.  I side out my maindeck mutations for rods/pillars, and I take out a matron, (I only play one) and the sharpshooter.  they are not really going to do much in this match.

As mentioned above, blood moon is amazing against 4cc or tog, landstill.  They can't handle the attack to their mana base.  So if you're seeing some of that, then bring them in.  Blood moon is good if there are lots of non-basics around.

FCG is a great deck right now, and if played well can take you far in a tournament.  Farther than random jank/hate usually will

[gothcracker]

ok yes, more decks are running basic land. but the few decks that FCG has a problem with run non-basic. Oath gets hurt from it. Workshop gets slowed down. if u get bloodmoon out early enough on slaver if dampers there fun a great deal not being able to fetch for the few basics it runs.

[Freelancer]

Yes indeed it stops there fetches but than it needs to be dropped turn 1/2 (most slaver players will pop the fetches early on for brainstorm awesomess) wich is quite hard for FCG, also the meandeck oath has indeed quite a lot off trouble with blood moon but only if you manage to; 1) resolve it (wich is a pain for a 3 mana card against a deck that runs 10-12 counters) 2) resolve it BEFORE a oath can be dropped

A much better card against oath would be ensnaring bridge since it stops any oath and than you have the time to build up for a couple off turns and swarm them...It's also quite good against 5/3 and the man show...


Ps. trie not to double post...

[oldbsturgeon]

its funny, i have been playing FCG for some time and i find that my hand doesnt get low really fast, in fact it only does right when im about to go off. while im not sure what would be a substitue for the bridge, i dont believe it maximizes it effect. it might be good against 5/3, but i find that match to be okay already. the best deck it would be for would be oath and with its cost of 3 you may find yourself needing that mana for some men or foodchain, etc.
i do have to agree that blood moon is becoming less affective in the current meta and should be replaced

[Freelancer]

Most off oath's creatures have a power off 6 anyway and I find myself usually with 5/6 cards in hand...So if you drop a extra goblin and change your playstyle a bit it would be feasible to run it...That said I've been playing FCG for about 2/3 days so there's a reasonble chance that i'm doing a bunch off things wrong...^_^

Do you have any other idea's what to bring in against oath?

[Vegeta2711]

I would like to bring up some points that I noticed during playtesting FCG and hope to get some information from people that have more experience with it than me...

1) What do you sideboard in/out against control slaver? Do you sideboard out all off your prospector's/food chains?

I board out the Prospectors, Matrons and usually Sharpshooter and then singletons of other goblin cards depending on the exact build of the CS.

Null Rod and REB come in against Goth Slaver. Artifact Mutation and Null Rod come in against CS traditionally. It depends.

2) Would you keep these hands:
Wasteland, mana crypt, lotus petal, mountain, piledriver, lackey (matchup unknown, on the draw)

taiga, prospector, piledriver, lotus petal, food chain, food chain, siege-gang commander (unkown matchup, on the play)

Hand 1 you're already down to 6 cards and the ability to go 1st turn Lackey, Wasteland or Lackey + Driver is good. Plus your drawing so you have good odds on it being another guy. Your fine with that hand.

Hand 2 is awful. You only have ONE land, which is NONBASIC to boot! You also have 2 essentially dead cards in Food Chain's (Since no Ringleader, Matron or Recruiter is in sight) and SGC is mostly dead. So you have a hand of 4 relevant cards. That's a mulligan.

3) What are good sideboard cards against combo? and what do you sideboard out against combo?

Incinerators -> Pillar
Something -> REB / Null Rod (Pick whichever one will have more impact)

4) In what metagame is food chain goblins best?

Workshop heavy metas w/ a decent amount of CS.

5) I have had some troubles with the manabase especially R seems quite scars at times...any suggestions?

If you don't screw up with fetching properly, there shouldn't be an issue.

[Mark_Story]

Your only effective tech against oath is naturalize, or to be more tech emerald charm.  I haven't tried ensnaring bridge but it might work, I'll have to test that out.  Once their fat gets out, you have to race them like no one's business.  

Oath is probably the worst matchup for goblins I think.  I find the stax matchup difficult.  There are only a few stax players in toronto, but they are excellent players, so my luck against stax has been less than stellar.  I'm  finding that mutation is very difficult to pull off against stax, due to needing Green.  And that rack and ruin or pulverize might work better.

With the increasing number of basics in the metagame what are peoples opinions on playing more ancient tombs (2-3) in place of some wastelands?  this helps against workshop decks, and stax, and makes rack and ruin castable off two land (or a prospector and a tomb).  I'm just finding that the few decks that do have plentiful wasteland targets are usually decks abusing crucible. There is tog, and 4CC that don't use crucible, but i'm finding the added acceleration from tombs helps compensate, and that tog/4CC make up a very small part of the metagame as it stands.

[WilD]

How is Emerald Charm tech? IMO Naturalise is better, as you can side it in against Stax etc. Have you considered adding blue into the sideboard for those problematic combo matchups? Pitch counters (FOW, Misd) might even it up a little in our favour.

[Nastaboi]

Has anyone tried Elvish or Druid Lyrist vs. Oath? I side couple in my madness build and they can be slept under counter wall more easily than reactive instants. And they beat for one while your opponent struggles finding Oath. Being proactive never hurts, uh?

[wonkey_donkey]

How is Emerald Charm tech? IMO Naturalise is better, as you can side it in against Stax etc. Have you considered adding blue into the sideboard for those problematic combo matchups? Pitch counters (FOW, Misd) might even it up a little in our favour.

Not if you want to combo out with any kind of regularity. On top of that, you're going to need at the very least a miracle to have a pitch counter AND a blue card AND a servicable hand. It's not happening any time soon.

Tom

[Freelancer]

This is fantastic thanks for all off your help...  

Some more questions (yes MORE ):

Is artifact mutation specificly for there fat creatures or do you also use it against random mana acc.?

I recently inserted 'training weels' by adding another mountain in place off the elvish spirit guide...This gives me a bit more space with fetching non-basics and generally means I'm less mana screwed...Also how good is sol ring in here?

I have also really liked the tombs in here because they provide permanent acc. (especially because I owe NO power what so ever), I might switch the extra mountain for another tomb going up to 2x tombs seems benifical against for instance stax/anything with trinisphere and will allow me to combo a bit faster than usual...

My last two matchups I won against oath by using a bit awkward strategy against them...I first attempted to bait as many counters (keeping back recruiters) as I could (if he didn't counter I would go beatdown and win that way) and than attempt to resolve a food chain after wich I would remove all off my creatures from the game and start trowing recruiters at him, when one resolves you just go for ringleader-ringleader-ringleader-ringleader-other goblins and combo him out...Is this a good strategy? what is your game plan against oath?

Wich card is better against stax, artifact mutation or R&R? (with 2x tomb main) wich card is better against other deck?


Ps. I know this are a lot off questions and that I can get the answer by platesting a lot...But I don't have the time to playtest, so I have to do it this way...

[Mark_Story]

About mutation.  Mutating, a mox, is lame..  You want to mutate whatever scaryness the mox helps make.  Whether that be a juggie, memory jar(savage play if they leave the jar up on your turn)  Crucible, any lock component in stax, even mutating something like pentavus or slaver is a decent play.

A resolved food chain is a decent threat against oath, you can remove the tokens and take burn after attacking.  Eventually you'll have enough goblins in hand that you can force something important to the table, and hopefully win off that.

Against stax, I think both mutation and R&R are excellent threats, I feel that rack has a slight upper hand, because it gets by the deadly chalice for 2, which mutation does not.  Furthermore, under 3sphere, mutation costs three as well.  If you have tombs, then R&R might work best.  I can't tell you for sure as I haven't tested that out.  Actually that is something that I'm very interested in knowing as well, due to my dismal ability to beat stax.

@WilD: Emerald charm is tech, because it can hit a first turn oath..  Naturalize can only go online 1st turn if you're lucky, 2nd turn is normal.  And by then her majesty of mechanics is beating your face for 6.  Plus with mutations and/or Rack and ruin in the side, why do you need another off colour artifact destruct spell.

Pitch counters are a really good way to make the deck suck.  Blue weakens everything.  You need at least 12-15 blue cards to reliably have a card to pitch to a pitch counter.  So your whole side has to be blue.  And what are you supposed to do with these blue cards when you have no counters?  Cast them? with what mana?  Even adding blue for ancestral/walk, is honestly not worth the havoc that those few cards will cause your mana base.  You need tons of red mana for this deck to work.  You need tons of goblins for this deck to work.  Adding blue furthers neither of those goals, and therefore it is not worth diluting the decks core strategy to include the oft chance that you might get to counter something.

[Freelancer]

Yeah about 1-2 minutes after I posted the mutation question I realized how silly it was lol...You beat me to it pointing it out though...

I will probably run with the 4x R&R in the sideboard and no mutations...although I am quite unsure how good R&R is in the slaver matchup...The biggest benifit off R&R is that I can cast it without the need to fetch non-basics under a trinisphere so I can avoid stupid wastelands...

My biggest problem with charm is that it is such a narrow card...And only usefull against oath, also don't forget that naturalize is also great against dragon and charm is bleh...(dragon seems to be on the rise again)

I think we now all agree that adding another color to the deck will weaken the mana base and the core off the deck (lotsa gobbo's) to much to be worth it...(unless there is a single card that is SO busted in this deck like food chain is)

[Mark_Story]

I've been going back and forth between naturalize and emerald charm for a while.  If there is dragon in your area, which there doesn't seem to be in my meta, then naturalize is a far more diverse card.

I personally play 3 mutations maindeck, 3 Rack and Ruin in the side. They are never a dead card really.  Everydeck has artifacts and they all need destroying.  Mutation is generally an awsome card in aggro workshop, it blows up fat men.  Even if you destroy some acceleration and only get one or no men, you're slowing them down a bit, and presenting another threat they have to deal with.

My current sideboard looks like this

3 Rack and ruin
3 null rod
3 Red elemental blast
2 Pyrostatic pillar
4 naturalize

My meta has a lot of oath, lot of stax at least at the high tables, some slaver a bit of combo in the form of TPS, madness, random aggro and random control.

I don't know if the 3 of's are the best combination but it works well when removing non-essential goblins, matron, prospector, sharpshooter.  Or I can remove the 3 main deck mutations and leave the rest of the deck the same.  

What are other people's sideboards like in their metagames.  It might be useful to have a small cross-section of sideboards and their metas.

[Freelancer]

My sideboard looks something like this currently:

4x rack and ruin
3x REB
3x null rod
3x ensnaring bridge (currently testing)
2x pyrostatic pillar

My meta: little oath, bunch off slower tendrills decks (TPS), some slaver, a bunch off workshop.dec...

This is obviously the sideboard off a FCG rookie...so don't expect to much off it...


Ps. Is anybody interested in a Magic Workstation play session with me playing FCG against various fully powered decks, just so that you can comment on any playmistakes/playtesting...I really really need it...:-/

[JamesPr]

What is your guy's opinion on Kiki-Jiki Mirror Breaker?  Vegeta had it as a sub for Goblin Matron in his article, and it is pretty nice with Food Chain out.  Copying a Piledriver, or a Siege Gang Commander, or even a Sharpshooter can be really beneficial.  About every Goblin is worth copying in the deck to some extent.  I haven't really tested it however, although it seems powerful.

[Freelancer]

I'm not sure, if vegeta played it it has to be some good...*shrugs*

But from a pure theoretical viewpoint it isn't to great, since it is difficult to hardcast (triple R) without FC/lackey and has essentially the same function as siege-gang (ie. a lot off bang for your buck)...So maybe replacing a single siege-gang for this bad guy and start testing?
But isn't it more like a win more card since if you have a driver/siege-gang and you have enough mana to cast this you should be winning...(remember this is all theoretical) (any other goblin is 'just' a two power or less anyway)

But GOD it would be so sexy to copy a siege-gang each turn...


Do you know why I love this deck? because it is a perfect example off a deck where the sum off it's parts are strong than each on his own (or something like that:P), the synergy's are fucking awesome...
And there is nothing better than swinging with 200+ damage on turn 3...

[oldbsturgeon]

i didnt like it that much, because as you said it became a win more card. with regards to maindecking the mutation, what did you cut to make room for them. i find that most of the deck is necessary and cutting really anything would be tough.
i dont think they warrant a move to the main quite yet. but if they work for your meta, go for it.

[Joblin Velder]

I love Kiki Jiki in this deck so much. He's absolutely amazing. Dropping him early off a lacky is insane.

The last mox tournament I went to saw me EoT copy a recruiter then main phase copy a ringleader for the game. He lets you do some really silly stuff.

Oh, and I think copying a piledriver is pretty good, too.

[Mark_Story]

Making room for the mutation wasn't too bad.  I removed a prospector (down to one) A warchief (down to 3) and a matron (down to one)  I figured they were the most expendable of the goblins.  The warchief was a tough decision.  But every other goblin is more crucial.  You only really need 1 warchief to make it all work.