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Infinite via Pauper- Goblins, Part II

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Temporal Fissure and Cloudpost are banned in Pauper

While the bannings of Invigorate, Empty the Warrens and Grapeshot in Pauper left me sad and confused, the most recent update to the ban list has me extremely excited. It seems obvious that the banning of Temporal Fissure will increase the relative power of Delver decks, the banning of Fissure in conjunction with the banning of Cloudpost opens up a lot of space in the format to play slower, more controlling decks. The best deck no longer stops you from playing the game around turn four and thereā€™s no longer a default best start for the manabase of control decks.

These bannings will obviously have a lot of impact on my exploration into the Pauper format. I had some notes from a few dailies with Goblins recorded, but a good percentage of the matches I played were against decks that wonā€™t survive the ban or will see some serious change post-banning. Perhaps most importantly, I believe that my list is in need of a good amount of change itself.

A fairly dramatic shift in the metagame is all but guaranteed, which impacts how one must think about deck and card selection. With Cloudpost out of the question and known combo decks out of the picture, I would wager that removal spells, while already good in the format, will gain a lot of stock. The only place where theyā€™re weak is against the hexproof deck, which if popular will invite Edicts into the format which will likely prevent hexproof from ever actually being the best deck. Not to mention that Counterspells out of Delver are tough for hexproof as well.

If removal-heavy decks become better, as I predict they will, this bodes poorly for Goblins. While working on the deck I encountered a few Burn and Monoblack decks and the matchups have felt close to unwinnable.

That said, the purpose of this exercise isnā€™t to say whatā€™s playable and whatā€™s not. Itā€™s to try new things and offer some insight. Since my last column Iā€™ve adopted the 4x Kruin Striker build of Goblins, eschewing Goblin Matron, which didnā€™t add as much to the deck as I had hoped. I believe that the Striker Version will be the best version of the deck going forward, as Goblin Matron really doesnā€™t really help the deck grind anybody out (it is, after all, a 1/1) and Striker leads to the deckā€™s fastest, most consistent wins.

Skirk Prospector usually shows up alongside any list with four Strikers, but the card has proven completely underwhelming to me. The idea behind it is that you can use it to generate a lot of Kruin Striker/Foundry Street Denizen triggers without a lot of lands, but Iā€™ve found that this will only win you a very small percentage of games that you wouldnā€™t win otherwise while leaving you with a pretty unimpressive 1/1 the rest of the time.

Two cards that Iā€™ve been experimenting with are Mutagenic Growth and Mogg Fanatic. Growth has treated me very poorly and Fanatic has tested pretty well. The rationale behind Growth was that it helps fight removal, such as Electrickery, and to push through Kruin Striker. In practice, I boarded it out in basically every matchup. This deck just wants to play a creature every turn, attack, and play a small number of burn spells. Growth was off-plan, weak to bounce spells and at best a wash in a racing scenario.

Mogg Fanatic might not look like the most impressive option, and itā€™s certainly a much worse card than it once was, but it helps the Delver matchup quite a lot and plays remarkably well with Death Spark. Being a removal spell that enables Mogg Cohort is a pretty big game. Most lists play Goblin Arsonist if they want this sort of effect at all, but I find that the ability to shoot something whenever you want without needing to draw a Goblin Sledder is a relevant upside.

This is the 75 that I would recommend for week one of new Pauper:

The set of Mogg Fanatics come at about a dime apiece, so the cost of the maindeck doesnā€™t really change. The Gorilla Shaman in the sideboard, on the other hand, is an outrageous six tickets, which will increase the decks cost from around 35 to 37 considering that I cut a Pyroblast, which is less relevant in the format. Truth be told, the Shaman is just a stand-in until I can figure out exactly where the format is going, and a card that hates on Affinity and opposing Viridian Longbows seemed okay for the time being.

Depending on how the meta shakes up and the deckā€™s new position in the metagame I could easily see playing some number of Martyr of Ashes in the sideboard. Itā€™s already a fairly common sideboard choice, and it does something that none of your other cards come close to doing against decks that are better at swarming than you are.

Closing Thoughts on the Deck

I played some variant of Goblins in over a dozen dailies, and cashed right around half of them. Cashing one in three dailies leaves you about even, if slightly positive, so half put me up some tickets. That said, I never managed a single 4-0 with the deck, and the deckā€™s bad matchups are not only abysmal, but likely to become more prevalent. The cost of the deck is a little high for something that I donā€™t really see as being able of pulling off many 4-0s.

Itā€™s possible that Iā€™m just missing something, but Iā€™ve spent a good amount of time trying to come up with a good sideboard strategy against removal heavy decks, but it just seems like they either stumble hard or kill you easily. As I said, I predict an increase in popularity of such decks, and I would make coming up with a solution to this problem that is better than ā€œignore itā€ a prerequisite to picking up Goblins.

The only important note on playing the deck that I havenā€™t covered is to make sure to manage your Death Sparks well. I tend to have some kind of video going on my other screen while I MODO and Iā€™ve unwittingly ended up with a Lightning Bolt directly on top of my Death Spark more than once. If played correctly, Death Spark can crush the mirror, Delver, Elves and any other deck with a significant amount of x/1s, but it takes smart play to do so!

If anybody has any questions on the Goblins deck, any thoughts on what Pauper will look like going forward, or any feedback on how I go about analyzing decks for this series, as always, comments are encouraged!

Thanks for reading.

-Ryan Overturf
@RyanOverdrive on Twitter

6 thoughts on “Infinite via Pauper- Goblins, Part II

  1. Any thoughts on Affinity and mono black control? I’ve speculated in the past on lightly printed cards from these archetypes (like Gorilla Shaman and Crypt Rats) and was wondering if these decks might step up in the metagame following the bannings.

    1. Affinity is good currently, and I don’t see these bannings stopping that. Delver of Secrets specifically is basically the only way that the blue decks beat it, and it has the largest threats for the lowest rate in the format. I see it as a very consistent 3-1 deck. As for the card Gorilla Shaman specifically, I can’t see many players justify dropping six tickets on him. He’s not just game over against Affinity, and often is less relevant than a mundane old Flame Slash.

      Mono black is a little tougher. It’s extremely good against aggressive decks but blue decks just laugh at it. I think the biggest question is going to be how much of the metagame is going to be Delver. I’m predicting that Delver will be a sizable portion of the metagame, but monoblack will definitely be strong if you can beat everything else. UB Trinket control is also a deck that utilizes Crypt Rats, and I imagine that it will be very strong when the bans come into effect.

        1. Given the availability of the card, somewhere in the 4-6 ticket range is the price I imagine it SHOULD settle at. It hit 10+ or however high it went because it was both in the best and second best deck when the best deck was not only difficult to interact with, but also pushed decks good against the second best deck out of the format.

          From a quick search on MTGO it looks like you already lost a good amount of value from holding onto them this long, and given that Delver is MUCH easier to hate out than Fissure Post, I could easily see the card dropping further despite being in what is abstractly the best deck.

  2. I’ve picked up your goblin deck from the first article and had some success with it, but I must agree that ever since the new bans I’ve been seeing a lot more mono black and it’s been pretty tough to deal with.

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