The Little Red Things in Type 2

By Chase

Well, I’m in the writing spirit and felt like writing something. So I wanted to write about how I believe Goblins fare in the current Type 2 environment. For those that are confused as of this writing, mid February, there are six sets allowed in Type 2. They are: 8^th edition, Onslaught, Legions, Scourge, Mirrodin and Darksteel.

Currently, some of the top decks in Type 2 include: Affinity, Mono Black Control, Aggro Green, Slide, Goblins and White Weenie. (I know I’ve left out some. Forgive me.) Now, there are many spinoffs of these decks where only one card can change the whole archetype. For this article, I’ll be talking about Goblins.

Sligh variants have always been extraordinarily fast playing cheap, efficient creatures and multiple burn spells. This has allowed Sligh to dominate virtually every Constructed format, at one time or another, by killing turn 5 or earlier fairly easily. Sligh is still a major contender in Type 1, Type 1.5, Extended, and Type 2. Today’s Type 2 Sligh decks are little more goblin focused, as they get more benefits from focusing their deck around goblins. Goblins have been with us from the beginning. But they have never been Tier 1 mainly due to the fact that there weren’t too many of them (in formats where they had a chance of dominating, read not Type 1) and because the effects that they created in numbers weren’t strong.

Then came Onslaught and that totally changed. Decks rewarded you for playing 20 plus creatures with the creature type goblin. So now, without further ado, I present my decklist[s].

Mono Red (note, if you don’t know what any of these cards do you can look them up at Chris’s store: www.shuffleandcut.com) (Also, I am thinking of trying Skull)

4x Goblin Sledder               

4x Skirk Prospector        

4x Sparksmith 

4xGoblin   Piledriver        

4x Goblin Warchief

3x Goblin Sharpshooter

3x Goblin Goon

3x Clickslither

4x Siege-gang Commander

4x Electrostatic Bolt

3x Goblin Charbelcher

20x Mountain

Sideboard:

3x Shatter

3x Gempalm Incinerator

3x Sulfuric Vortex

3x Stabilizer

3x Blistering Firecat

Here’s why the deck works:

Goblin Sledder: He’s a turn 1 drop and he can sac himself or any other goblin to save one of your creatures from silly burn spells. Also good with Goblin Sharpshooter.

Skirk Prospector: He gives you mana acceleration. He allows you to play stuff a turn earlier if you don’t get the warchief and allows for a turn 2 warchief.

Sparksmith: A lot of people are intimidated by this card. I was at first. I was talking to my friend on the phone about adding this to my deck and said: "Chase, that card sucks." I don’t know why people think that currently. (Now, we both agree that it is one of the best cards in the deck.) Unless you’re going to kill yourself with the damage you might as well kill any threat on their side of the table: it will only allow you to kill them faster and therefore insure your victory.

Goblin Piledriver: This card is no brainer for this deck. It pumps pretty quickly, it has 2 toughness and it has pro blue. Laugh all you crazy blue mages!

Goblin Sharpshooter: Kills any and all of the 1 toughness creatures on any side of the board. You can also sac this and everything to Sledder to ping your opponent to death, then attack with this guy.

Goblin Warchief: Probably one of the greatest cards in this deck. The warchief is what makes this deck one of the top decks. It gives everything haste and makes them come down a turn earlier. Good times.

Goblin Goon: Possibly turn 3 hasty 6/6 is a no brainer for this deck. It kills everything in the early game and kills a creature each turn basically.

Clickslither: It’s really quite good. He basically can’t be killed by burn or by blocking and he can deal trample damage.

Siege gang Commander: This is definitely the greatest card in this deck. You can throw away goblins for shocks after damage goes on the stack. And he brings 3 little buddies with him.

The burn is a no brainer except for the Charbelcher which I main deck because of all of the Cop: reds and pro red creatures running around. (This is colorless damage and is therefore not prevented by Cop: red.)

 

Now I want to present a different deck that is very similar to the one above:

Goblin Bidding

4x Goblin Sledder

4x Skirk Prospector

3x Gempalm Incinerator

4x Goblin Piledriver

4x Goblin Warchief

3x Goblin Goon

4x Siege gang Commander

3x Patriarch’s Bidding

2x Diabolic Tutor

3x Dark Banishing

2x Swamp

4x Bloodstained Mire

4x Urborg Volcano

16x Mountain

 

This deck subs burn for Patriarch’s Bidding and Dark Banishing. It’s generally worth it, except against a mirror match. (Now I know I’m going to get yelled at for not putting in one card [that one card is usually Clickslither] but I just prefer Goon.)

Now I wanted to say my feelings of how Goblins fare in this environment. The first is against the most popular deck: Affinity.

The deck has a decent chance and should win, as it will be able to kill off the threats (Enforcer) and it will be ready incase it gets hit by an Override. It will be a good idea to drop a bunch of creatures as soon as possible, preferably a Sledder and a Warchief. Affinity loves to bounce and burn stuff. If you don’t get a Sledder early, go for an immediate kill and hope they don’t drop anything that bad. This deck should be able to beat Aggro and Control affinity as it should be able to totally swarm the deck.

Slide: This deck does ok against slide until they get out Exalted Angel. If this deck can’t kill the angel within two turns, it’s over, as they’ll just slide out angel after burn. Even if you do get turn 2 Stabilizer, they can play Damping Matrix and/or Akroma’s Vengeance. Hope for fast draws.

MBC: This deck should lose to MBC fairly consistently as it should have enough removal and/or hand disruption to make this deck useless. Bidding stands a better chance, but only if the player playing Bidding can hide it from discard until they can use it.

White Weenie: Not very favorable, especially if they get Worship on the board. Worship + Silver/White Knight + Cop: Red = game over for Gobbos.

Elves: kills.

Aggro Green: It should do ok, though if this deck has low tempo, it will be bad as they will get out Ascetic and various other cards. If this deck plays at its normal speed, it should win, but bad things happen.

Although the analysis of Gobbos above makes it look bad, it really isn’t as Affinity is so popular. I think that gobbos should stand a good chance at big Type 2 tourneys. Even if they don’t become a huge force, the threat will be there for the next few months. After all, there’s nothing like slapping that Piledriver on the board with a warchief and siege gang.

Till we meet again (or meet for the first time!),

Chase

Secret Squirrel on Message Boards

You can reach Chase can at: pojochase@yahoo.com

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