There are few cards that have been printed in the last few years that I’ve loved as much as Goblin Guide. Goblin Guide is the kind of creature that invites excitement. He’s this potent little force that grins at everyone around him when he knocks over the vase. He smiles and shrugs when he stabs the opponent in the gut, and he grins when he accidentally leads the opponent just to that place they were hoping to go.
For my money, Goblin Guide shines as probably one of the best one-drops of all time*. I remember when he came out, Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa was one of the first people I remember nay-saying him, predicting he would “not be very good” in an article, and dissing him more loudly in forums. Paulo is one of those guys, I think, who likes to be doing unfair things. Bitterblossom is unfair. Seismic Swans is unfair. Goblin Guide can be unfair, but it’s his grinning happiness to help everyone that I think makes Paulo not care for him. I don’t mean to put words into Paulo’s mouth here — I don’t know Paulo at all well, it’s just the impression he’s given me of his attitude towards the game over the years.
I like to think of Goblin Guide the way that Dan Paskins coined it: it’s not just that he is a 2/2 with haste for one, he has a special ability too: “you get to find out what their next card is!”
Exactly!
Spending the time collecting my requisite Goblin Guides was easy enough, and I managed it nearly immediately, right about the time that I was building up my MTGO collection to something approaching useful (it’s still a far cry from where it needs to be). Goblin Guides allowed me to play Standard and Block and Extended, pretty much immediately, with only a little bit of help from other people to fill out the details like rare lands and the like.
Kargan Dragonlord and friend showed up in Rise of the Eldrazi and really shifted the way I thought about a lot of these cards, a lot, within the context of the metagame. Wall of Omens was real, and so were a lot of other cards. Playing the old version of Red just didn’t feel right. I shifted to this:
Creatures (19)
Lands (26)
Spells (15)
And it made me contemplate this:
4 Goblin Guide
4 Plated Geopede
4 Kargan Dragonlord
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Hell’s Thunder
4 Ball Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Searing Blaze
2 Earthquake
4 Teetering Peaks
4 Smoldering Spires
10 Mountain
Of course, good ol’ Ding Leong was out there, playing away with Red (splashing Black), and challenging a lot of my expectations. I started to think about the value of the Black cards, and, as before, remained, essentially unexcited about them. What was interesting was seeing the feature match between StarCityGames.com own Sam Black and Ding Leong. It confirmed for me that good ‘ol Ball Lightning would be a reasonable card to be playing with. Jund isn’t just real, but it is still a substantial portion of the meta, and Ball Lightning is one of your best weapons there. Leong’s deck’s creatures were a throwback to the concepts of haste as the best weapon in that matchup, just mounting up the damage as best as you can kick it in. A lot of games end in top decks, but nearly every top deck can be a killer.
A lot of people had immediately jumped onto the Staggershock bandwagon, and I had been among them. Eventually, though, it just began, more and more, to strike me as another Burst Lightning: a card that I like when it does the best job it can do, but by which I was often deeply underwhelmed.
Even Kargan Dragonlord was becoming disappointing in testing. I started out with four, simply out of respect for the sheer power that he can accomplish. Unfortunately, though, Dragonlord was just a huge liability against Jund; he was the guy that could just have a target on his head that you couldn’t really do much about. At the same time, he could give you a big return when he went unanswered. I dropped to three. I was contemplating going to two, when I looked at the results from the StarCityGames.com Standard Open in Seattle.
Creatures (18)
Lands (24)
Spells (18)
This was really close to the direction that I’d been heading. I didn’t like a few things about the list. 4 Burst Lightning and Staggershock also struck me as wrong, since both cards were cards I didn’t dream of seeing in my hand. Forked Bolt I liked a lot, but I wanted Earthquake even more. The land was particularly problematic: 24 land just doesn’t strike me as near enough, and there were no sack-lands — almost certainly a mistake in a Searing Blaze deck.
I smooshed my deck to more closely conform to Kendall’s. I ended up at this:
Creatures (18)
Lands (25)
Spells (17)
I returned to the Quenchable Fire build that I’d been playing in the past. While it is nothing more than a dedicated sideboard slot for Jund, I think that such cards have returned into having a relevant spot for the deck. The other slot that had been there, Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs, was certainly a card I missed, and perhaps I should work on finding the room to put him back in the deck once more.
We had 201 people for the Sunday PTQ. It was Jund that eventually knocked me out, with me spending five turns looking for the third mana I needed to kill him before he beat me in one of our games, and me double mulling for my other loss. I’ve since played a lot of Jund matchups to retest the matchup, and found that it is more than satisfactory, at about 65%. Alas, that still means you can lose, just like any other match of Magic.
I’m actually really pleased with this list. I think it has a good amount of game against most of the meta, though it is certainly giving up a lot against Blue/White variants. Personally I don’t think that is a big loss in the moment, though; Blue/White(/X) has been heavily on the decline, basically given the what-for by Next Level Bant and Mythic Conscription. If things continue in this vein, I’d probably maintain the exact same maindeck, but reconfigure the board to the following:
3 Basilisk Collar
4 Cunning Sparkmage
4 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
2 Quenchable Fire
I expect to be playing a lot of Goblin Guides in the coming weeks. As I was thinking about how M11 might be impacting the decks I’ve been working on, I realized, suddenly, that Goblin Guide was going to be a card I’ll be able to play for a while longer, since he was only printed in Zendikar. I couldn’t help it; I cracked the biggest grin at the thought.
Cheers everyone!
PS. Congratulations to Miles Rodriguez who managed, amazingly,
to place both 6th and 7th place in the PTQ in Edison playing Devastating Red and Next Level Bant. It’s not everyday that a person finish in the Top 8 twice in the same event. (In all seriousness, though, I deeply appreciate his build of Devastating Red.)
Bonus!
*The Best [Blank]-Drop of All Time Game!
I was first introduced to this game at Randy Buehler old house in Ohio during the crazy Magic Road Trip I had with Patrick Chapin and Nate Heiss after the three of us had great success at the Pro Tour and just decided to drive around and visit Magic players for a few days. It was glorious.
There are basically two usual approaches to play the Best [Blank]-Drop of All Time Game. Way one is to remove all of the cards from their context in the history of the game, and only consider things based on what you perceive their power is. There is still some context, in that you are considering them in the total card pool of the game today. The other way is to consider them within their respective contexts, historically. There are pros and cons to both methods. My own approach is to make sure to contextualize the cards somewhat, but still try to have the measure be over the span of history into today.
Let’s go!
ONE drops:
10th — Xantid Swarm — Less potent than his friends, Xantid Swarm has the unique ability of casting City of Solitude every time he attacks, making him an incredible weapon for certain combo decks.
9th — Quirion Ranger — A lot of people forget how insane it is to have a mana accelerant that is an elf. Yet another creature that pushes the mana envelop and makes the Elf tribe scary.
8th — Goblin Guide — Here, the beloved Guide finally shows up. Attacking from turn 1 with a reasonably potent creature is deeply significant. Many decks just can’t deal with the quick bursts of damage that Goblin Guide can produce, though as decks get more and more powerful, Guide becomes more and more underwhelming, as their speed makes his speed less relevant.
7th — Noble Hierarch — Yet another mana creature, this one’s Exalted keyword comes into play a lot, and it is nearly as good as a Bird of Paradise at making mana. Even a lot of decks that don’t run White or Blue play him over their other options, giving you a sense at how much Exalted actually can matter.
6th — Grim Lavamancer — Single-handedly owning the table for Zoo, this guy might as well be called the Zookeeper, since he’s usually one of the only non-beasts in the deck. A card-advantage engine of epic proportions, this guy is incredibly frustrating to face when you are a creature deck.
5th — Disciple of the Vault — Some people have forgotten how absurd Disciple/Ravager is. Turning Affinity into a quasi-combo deck aside, this card was so potent that it was never unbanned in Standard.
4th — Birds of Paradise — Noble Hierarch is seeing a lot of love in favor of Birds lately, but this is largely because of the aggressive nature of the Standard format. Birds is still the true, original unrestricted semi-Mox.
3rd — Goblin Welder — Another effective mana-cheating card, Goblin Welder could allow you to cheat ridiculous cards into play, pseudo-Tinkering every turn. He hasn’t seen much play as of late, but that doesn’t keep Welder from being a sleeping giant.
2nd — Wild Nacatl — The cat is such an incredible beatdown card, it basically threw Kird Ape under the bus and laughed at him when the Ape bragged about how he “used to be banned, you know.”
1st — Goblin Lackey — What happens when you get hit by a Goblin Lackey is so ludicrously unfair, it is basically like a mix of Xantid Swarm and some number of Birds of Paradise doing their work. Crazy.
TWO drops:
This is a hard category. There are so many potent two-drops, partly because Wizards can think of these cards as “late” enough in the game to begin to experiment with really powerful powers. Sometimes those experiments go through the roof, and then you get cards that just feel like they could be at that point where they’ve successfully approached “incredible.” (There was a time when River Boa easily would have made this list — but that was a lifetime ago, it seems.)
10th — Dwarven Blastminer — Even with one less toughness, it’s probably reasonable to claim that Dwarven Blastminer is better than Dwarven Miner — playing him face down as a Morph can be very, very valuable. The relentless destruction that Miners can wreak is such that, in the matchups where it is called for, it can be so devastating that even dealing with him doesn’t mean you can recover from the damage he has wrought.
9th — Spellstutter Sprite — In Extended, we learned that Spellstutter Sprite was good enough, even when we didn’t have Bitterblossom hanging around to make it all the more insane. Two mana (semi-conditional) counters are usually a solid place to start. Once we start recursing them, however, they can get out of hand. Even the littlest bit of help makes Spellstutter Sprite fantastic, and on its own, it’s still good.
8th — Sakura-Tribe Elder — The quiet, unassuming member of the bunch, Sakura-Tribe Elder doesn’t look nearly as powerful as it really is. Another M10 combat rules casualty, Sakura-Tribe Elder doesn’t care nearly as much, simply because most of the time it wasn’t able to kill anything anyway. The “chump-accelerate” job of the Sakura-Tribe Elder made it ideal for any number of combo decks, as well as midrange control or more pure control decks, just looking to get a little closer to the end game while preserving their life total.
7th — Arcbound Ravager — Affinity has fallen down a wee bit with the M10 combat rules, but it is still no slouch. Even without its comrade-in-arms, Disciple of the Vault, Arcbound Ravager was the kind of monster that was all-too-frustrating to deal with. Capable of ridiculous fast kills, even killing a Ravager usually only served to empower someone else, almost as if it weren’t killed at all. It would be higher up on the list, but the competition has grown so fierce, even Ravager struggles to keep up.
6th — Priest of Titiana — For those of you who have found love for Elvish Archdruid, you would do well to remember the days when this card came down a turn faster. The amounts of mana that could be produced quickly and consistently by Priest of Titiana make it a card that might currently not have a competitive home, but will always be there, waiting for one.
5th — Narcomoeba — Narcomoeba isn’t actually all that scary, at first glance: a 1/1 flier that maybe is free. But as a part of an engine, this card, more than any other, is such a lynchpin that it drives the whole Dredge deck into overdrive. Free spells tend to have that risk of being over powerful..
4th — Tarmogoyf — With the two-drops, the question really becomes “Brute Force” or “Raw Power.” These two things sound similar, but they are quite different. Tarmogoyf is the brute force answer to the equation, basically cudgeling the opponent to death.
3rd — Dark Confidant — Dark Confidant has more raw power than his rivals, and is quite simply one of the hardest cards to sit across from without killing and feel like the game is at all fair.
2nd — Goblin Recruiter — Tutoring effects have always been solid. Tutoring for any number of Goblins is ludicrous. Rightfully and thankfully banned in Legacy.
1st — Hermit Druid — Essentially, a one-card kill with Reanimator decks, thank goodness that this card is banned in Legacy as well. Even in more “fair” uses, this card was absurd. Other than ante cards, these two guys are the banned creatures in Legacy, and for good reason!
THREE drops:
Once you get to the three-drop, you’re basically at the point where you’re going to have to overcome the context of the one- and two-drops. This means that role-players have a lot more value.
10th — Elvish Spirit Guide — Free mana can be incredibly powerful when you’re ready to abuse it. I once put this card into a deck (the original Squandered Stasis, co-designed with Craig Sivils) and was shocked at how insane it was (turn one Howling Mine, anyone?). As a backup, it can be cast, but usually, this card is for doing things that are abusive.
9th — Eternal Witness — Regrowth on legs? For only an additional Green, plus the added possibilities of recursion, Eternal Witness is one of those cards that often crops up as a Wish target, but then sometimes shows up in decks as a part of an insurance policy or for abuse. Strong to begin with, but then having a sky-high limit makes this squeak in towards the end of the three-drops.
8th — Kitchen Finks — WWGGG1 nonsense aside (too vague?), Kitchen Finks is just an incredible role-player. Whether doing a Sakura-Tribe Elder’s kind of work, or providing a resilient beatdown, Finks manages to be versatile in its use.
7th — Vendilion Clique — An instant semi-Thoughtseize, Vendilion Clique manages to have the extra ability of a three-power guy. Whether just checking to see if the coast is clear, or potentially killing a creature, or both, Vendilion Clique is great at establishing control. When it comes to killing an opponent, an instant-speed evading Bolt every turn ain’t bad either.
6th — Magus of the Moon — Shutting down entire strategies is always a good thing. So many decks really do try to stretch their mana into unfair ways — unfair in the sense that the poor basic Mountain gets jealous. But thankfully, the spiteful Magus of the Moon is there to keep everyone equal.
5th – Psychatog – One of the first creatures to put the Phage question to the opponent: can you survive him hitting you? While the Tog is still around, he’s fallen out of favor as of late, but only because brute force options like Tarmogoyf are around to pick up the slack. Certainly an all-time Awesome Monster.
4th — Simian Spirit Guide — Like Elvish Spirit Guide before it, Simian Spirit Guide is just a simple mana cheat card, allowing you to do things sooner than you should be able to by a full turn. Unlike its Elven kin, it supplies Red mana (which, truth be told, is better than Green mana — ask everyone).
3rd — Stinkweed Imp — Like Narcomoeba, the Imp is an engine card more than anything else. And like Narcomoeba (or, more generally, with Narcomoeba), Stinkweed Imp is often there just to supply a Plan B when the graveyard plans go amuck. On defense, Stinkweed Imp has this annoying ability to kill nearly anything it fights. All in all, a surprisingly potent card, given what it is actually doing out of context.
2nd — Terravore — Even bigger than the 1st place monster, Terravore isn’t a creature prone to utility so much as beatdown. When combined with Devastating Dreams, Loam Engines, or random graveyard filling, Terravore is often so big that opposing creatures just look like gnats in its presence. And then it tramples.
1st — Knight of the Reliquary — In a lot of formats, the value you get from being able to activate Knight of the Reliquary means so much that games can just end. Jund, for example, oftentimes fold when a single Knight of the Reliquary becomes active, unless the game is already over. Without much work, he’s a big creature to start, and can make himself bigger, as well as playing incredible potential as a utility creature.
FOUR drops:
We’ve now entered the territory where the cards need to be doing something pretty special in order for us to pay attention to them. There are a lot of powerful creatures in the history of the game, and the four-drop is about the spot where they are out of reach enough to cast that Wizards doesn’t expect us to be able to get them in play before turn three, if we’re really trying.
10th — Serendib Djinn — A 5/6 Flier for four mana is pretty ridiculous, even with a hefty drawback. “Fish again?” is its upkeep cry for some old-school geeks. Dealing with a huge flier like this usually requires a hefty drawback at four mana, if only because other creatures often can’t interact with it once it hits the table. Get your hands on one for nostalgia purposes — sadly as powerful as this creature is, it doesn’t really have a home in Constructed right now.
9th — Vengevine — Welcome to the party, Vengevine! All-but-immune to counters, particularly over a long haul, its hasty body just makes it all the more scary. Many decks don’t even bother trying to cast Vengevine, but if you do, he starts out solid, and just becomes fabulously frustrating for opponents trying to deal with this creature “fairly.”
8th — Frogmite — Yes, he’s only a vanilla 2/2, but he’s also a vanilla 2/2 that can come down as early as turn 1 and 2, fits with a potent modular theme in Affinity, and makes the engine work. Usually, he costs 0 mana (or 1) to cast, and that’s pretty fabulous for a four-drop, which is otherwise often having to spend some time waiting.
7th — Mistbind Clique — Often a virtual Time Walk, and sometimes with Nekrataal powers thrown in, Mistbind Clique manages to be one of the most annoying creatures to play against of all time, though still a risky one if you’re not packing Bitterblossom.
6th — Skyshroud Poacher — Richard Feldman and Zac Hill reminded everyone of this guys existence a few years back, though many of us will never forget. A constant Deranged Hermit summoner, Skyshroud Poacher’s ability becomes mana acceleration if you have Gaea’s Cradle in play. Truly unfair.
5th — Magnivore — Another one-hit kill, most of the time, Magnivore’s haste ability could make it come out of nowhere for huge amounts of damage. Most people don’t miss the ‘Vore decks of old, which would Boomerang and Stone Rain endlessly until dropping Magnivore to wrap things up.
4th — Flametongue Kavu — This card was so powerful when it came out that it invalidates about 90% of creatures that would have otherwise been tournament-worthy. It simply wasn’t worth your time to play any creature that an FTK could kill unless it was cheap enough to warrant the risk. Definitely the most scary Nekrataal critter of all time.
3rd — Bloodbraid Elf — Spin the wheel, make a deal! Bloodbraid Elf could be different in any number of ways and be significantly less frightening. Lower either its power or toughness by one, remove its haste. Any single one of those changes would make Bloodbraid Elf feel fair. The best way to consider his cost is to imagine the cards you get as the initial spell, and then think about the extra mana you’re getting for a 3/2 Haster that plays that spell for free. Maelstrom Pulse, Blightning, Sprouting Thrinax, even Lightning Bolt — simply staying in current Standard shows just how little you’re usually paying for him without even losing the card.
2nd — Academy Rector — While not simply a means to summon Yawgmoth’s Bargain into play, that is typically the primary use. Academy Rector often simply says, “Moat, plus keep him alive or die to a combo.” Yikes!
1st — Goblin Ringleader — Watching practiced Goblins players play this card, my mouth has sometimes gone agape. I still clearly remember Owen Turtenwald casting this card off Warchiefs for R1, getting four goblins, including a Matron, casting the Matron for a Ringleader and casting it for three more goblins, including a Skirk Prospector, and then just basically going off. His hand was empty before that, and he was staring down superior forces with two Warchiefs. Whoops!
FIVE drops:
This is the moment where the character of the cards changes. Five-drops either tend to utterly alter the character of a game that is underway or are a part of a combo that ends the game quickly (or both).
10th — Arc-Slogger — Few cards can be popped out onto the table and control the board as easily as an Arc-Slogger can. For real fun, try it in a format with larger libraries, like Prismatic, Five-Color, and others.
9th — Deus of Calamity — If you’re going to rush out a creature, Deus of Calamity is one of the best ones to choose. Its power, combined with its natural fast clock, works to lock out any game in which it isn’t answered.
8th — Meloku the Clouded Mirror — Oh, how the mighty have fallen. There was a time that this may have been much, much higher, but, like Morphling, it is just not as strong given the context of the rest of the cards. That said, it can still hold a fort like nobody’s business.
7th — Karmic Guide — Usually just a means to a reanimation-combo ends, Karmic Guide always feels like it shouldn’t be as good as it ends up being, but the Resurrection power of Karmic Guide is just fabulously potent.
6th — Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker — It’s been a long time since this guy has gotten any love, but that doesn’t make him an absolute monster in a game where he starts doing his work. Copying any creature in play is actually worse than reanimating, but at the same time, being able to do it again and again matters a lot. Retriggering enters-the-battlefield abilities ad nauseam is pretty incredible all on its own, with Pestermite being the newfangled way to go about abusing it.
5th — Demigod of Revenge — Yet another in the “we’re baaack” camp, Demigod of Revenge shrugs off its own death, aside from it being a potent, hasty evader. Clever players can sneak multiple Demigods into the yard through various means, but even when you just play it “fairly,” its power comes into play a shocking amount of times, and to ever more devastating effect. Rorix, eat your heart out.
4th — Reveillark — Another reanimation card, Reveillark has the excited trigger of “leaving the battlefield,” which makes flickering it or other shenanigans particularly effective means of returning your creatures to the battlefield, even if there are limits as to which ones. That limitation makes it less able to bring back the biggest creatures that a Karmic Guide can, but the double reanimation of Reveillark really just puts it on another level.
3rd — Siege-Gang Commander — Dropping five power into play for five mana is a pretty awesome start to being great. But threatening thirteen damage on the next turn ups the ante. Being able to turn that damage all over the place, and tear up the world one goblin at a time, just makes this card on of the all-time greats.
2nd — Golgari Grave-Troll — It isn’t just an engine card for Dredge, though that is why it was included here for consideration. It’s that it can be a solid back-up plan for Dredge decks, consistently showing up as a huge, regenerating beast when it needs to serve that role. If the card had no text, other than “Dredge 6,” it would still be a great card, but the Dredge deck would lose a significant secondary avenue to victory.
1st — Baneslayer Angel — Yes, it’s just a big, huge cudgel, like Tarmogoyf. That didn’t stop Tarmogoyf from being heavily worthy of consideration for the number one slot in its casting cost. Baneslayer Angel has the benefit of not having to compete with banned cards and Dark Confidant.
SIX drops:
>From here on in, the pool of cards worthy of consideration drops down radically. I’m not going to order things any longer, or offer up discussion. Here are some of the cards worth considering, though. A * will be used to indicate which creature of them I think might be the best.
Hellkite Charger
Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
Kokusho, the Evening Star
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Rampaging Baloths
Sovereigns of Lost Alara
Sphinx of Jwar Isle
Sphinx of Magosi
Visara the Dreadful
*Worldgorger Dragon
SEVEN drops:
Angel of Despair
Eternal Dragon
Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund
Krosan Tusker
Memnarch
*Palinchron
Platinum Angel
Protean Hulk
Regal Force
Simic Sky Swallower
EIGHT drops:
Akroma, Angel of Fury
*Akroma, Angel of Wrath
Avatar of Fury
Avatar of Woe
Bogardan Hellkite
Cognivore
Hellkite Overlord
Nicol Bolas
Petradon
Reiver Demon
Scion of Darkness
Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Sundering Titan
Terastodon
Tidespout Tyrant
Tombstalker
Verdant Force
NINE-PLUS drops:
Artisan of Kozilek
Blazing Archon
Bringer of the Black Dawn
Bringer of the Blue Dawn
Bringer of the White Dawn
Broodstar
Draco
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Greater Gargadon
*Iona, Shield of Emeria
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Myojin of Seeing Winds
Progenitus
Reya Dawnbringer
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
Obviously, these reflect my own subjective opinions of the relative worths of all of the cards that are listed above. At the time that I first played this game, I remember Patrick and I strongly arguing with Buehler about the power of Quirion Ranger, and both of them calling me crazy for even beginning to consider Shadow Guildmage. Remember, this was over ten years ago, so a whole slew of the cards that are on my current list weren’t even in print at the time.
I know that I’ve just spent a long time going through my valuations of all of the creatures of Magic, per casting cost, over time, but I think that it is actually a useful exercise when you’re going through deckbuilding. If, for example, Baneslayer is as potent as I think it is, it is worth remembering that when you’re going through your various deckbuilding choices. At the same time, Baneslayer, like Tarmogoyf, is just a cudgel: it doesn’t do anything other than be big and scary. Sometimes, as Zac Hill said in Valencia, you don’t need a “dude with power and toughness.” Baneslayer is by far the better defender than Goyf, but sometimes it just isn’t what you need. Conversely, the role-playing potential of a Siege-Gang Commander can be incredibly valuable, but what you need is something more specifically directed towards a task, like, for example Deus of Calamity, when you’re thinking about how to cheat a creature into play with Red Dark Rituals.
And so, we get back to our lowly Goblin Guide.
The Goblin Guide is here to serve a singular task: quick reduction of the opponent’s life total, with a real potential cost if the game is protracted. If the Goblin Guide isn’t doing its job, because of life-gain, or Fogs, or endless chump blocking Saprolings, or what-have-you, every subsequent attack is pushing the pendulum a little further in the favor of the Goblin Guide’s opponent, who reaps in all of the benefits of a local guide showing them where all the best hotspots are.
One of the most significant mistakes that I see people make with Goblin Guide is not understanding what their role in the game is, in that moment. Take the Red-on-Red mirror. Attacking with Goblin Guide is a rare action. Most decks are running such copious amounts of elimination that a Goblin Guide’s attack is just serving as an opportunity for the opponent to potentially draw a free land (an actual valuable commodity in the matchup) or select their draw better with a sac-land. As a rule of thumb, in the Red mirror, you should only be attacking with Goblin Guide if you can reasonably expect to get a lethal alpha strike, or you have a multiple Goblin Guide draw and you hope to so overwhelm your opponent that they can’t come back. Goblin Guide serves a far better role as a blocker and a lightning rod, in most situations.
I was talking to legendary former Chicago-area Pro Adam Jansen about his recent return to the game. He had been playing a lot of Red as well, and wasn’t very interesting in playing his version of Devastating Red versus my version of Sligh, largely because he felt that it was either a coin flip or it favored the best player. For my part, I knew that I disagreed about the coin flip element; there are definitely ways in which your configuration makes a huge difference, and I was curious about just how bad the Devastating Red deck was for me; the Devastating Summons package is so potent that it completely trumps what used to be the former key card in the matchup, Hell’s Thunder. The idea was a little boring to him, and we ended up playing my Red as a semi-test deck versus his Black/Red concoction.
Of course, we would end up paired in the PTQ. In a critical moment of the final game, I had dropped him to two, and mopped up the entire board, and I was at 17 from a Searing Blaze from earlier. So, of course, he killed me.
He dropped a Scalding Tarn, sacked it to go to one, cast Devastating Summons for 5, and played two kicked Goblin Bushwhackers. Take 19. Gee-gee.
I was naturally pretty frustrated, but I didn’t particularly mind when all was said and done. We’d had a spectacular match, and neither of us had been screwed during the games. We just played, and played well, and his deck certainly had the edge; Devastating for 5 is often simply too much for another Red deck to deal with, even at the high cost it represents. And I had dropped two cards from my sideboard that were good against Red, deciding, as many decks had decided to, eschew my Red matchup in favor of the Big Three.
Still, there was a real pleasure in playing Sligh that day, and I expect that I’m liable to do it again in the coming weeks. Probably with a list similar to what I posted earlier, above.
Wish me luck!