I just love Goblins. My deck in Magic had Goblin Patrol and Goblin War Buggy in it. Those echo cost was a bit clunky but casting them on first and second turns felt really good. These little critters attracted me to become a red player in my early years in the game.
As I’ve noticed, it seemed that Wizards has not left behind Goblins in its Magic sets. You can just find a little crowd of them on each expansion. They were even introduced as a theme tribe during the release of the Onslaught and Lorwyn blocks, in which I made decks during those periods.
Anyhow, what I am introducing today is my latest variation of the Goblins archetype for Innistrad Standard. Here is the list:
With great power comes great risk
of getting yourself killed.
Lands
15 Mountain
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Dragonskull Summit
Creatures
4 Goblin Arsonist
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Stormblood Berserker
4 Goblin Wardriver
4 Goblin Fireslinger
3 Goblin Chieftain
Spells
2 Shock
2 Brimstone Volley
3 Incinerate
2 Arc Trail
2 Gut Shot
4 Shrine of Burning Rage
3 Goblin Grenade
At first it may look like a “meh” typical Rdw list but here is a quick detail of my card choices.
Wardriver and Berserker – the first two turns is very important of your every opening match. Ten one-drops and eight two-drops is your solution for that. Curving into a blood thirsted berserker is a good start. Wardriver’s Battlecry can push additional damage early on.
Three chieftains – Only three? I think it’s the ideal count. You would not want them to clump up in your hand and they die easily. They just act as a pump support in case you’ve curved to turn three.
Brimstone Valley and Goblin Grenade – These two is you ideal burn compo piece. Combined with an arsonist, it can shoot a total of 11 damage in one turn, and pretty much a high percentage of an early kill if you got critters damaging as early as turn two. The other burn choices are based on the rdw list. Also, the shrine is very important to drop on turn 2 so as it is another threat needed to answer with.
Sideboard is basically the card choices to anti your local metagame. Since Standard has not changed much since Worlds, it is best to run generic sideboard components. My choices would look like this:
2 Act of Aggression
1 Arc Trail
2 Dismember
1 Doom Blade
1 Go for the Throat
4 Manic Vandal
4 Vulshok Refugee
2 Dismember, 1 Doom blade, 1 Go for the Throat – the Black splash is for these cards. Specifically to kill the current fatties like Hero of Bladehold, Sphinx, Primeval, Inferno titan, and also removal for the color-hoser Phyrexian Crusader.
Manic Vandals – your generic answer to artifacts. Wurmcoil Engine is pretty much a nuisance in the matchup but the right card combination is your key here.
Arc Trail and Aggression acts – the third Arc Trail is for other red decks, GW tokens, Illusions and other random aggro decks. One use of the acts except for “threatening” fatties’ is to answer Geist of St Traft. Get the Angel token and use it to block the Geist. Problem solved.
Vulshok Refugee – the pro-red against Slagstorm and rdw. Nuff said.
I am trying to experiment Olivia Voldaren on the board, though I’m not sure if the four drop will fit well with the 21 lands in the deck. For now she’ll just be under plan B. This is also the same with Koth, although I think he is quite good against control.
Your comments and suggestions are very much welcome (as always :)) for the improvement of the deck. Just hit it up below.
Until the next post and thanks for reading.