Introduction: So the first and foremost question is why play this deck? Or as many people phrase it, "why not just play burn?" The main answer to both of these questions is the same: Goblin Grenade; more on that later. Aside from Grenade I believe this deck is a better choice than burn because it does a better job of playing around Leyline of Sanctity and incidental life gain. This deck isn't burn. This deck is throttle down, foot on the throat fast aggression. This deck is pray you have Anger of the Gods then pray again I don't have a hand full of burn spells, but I do. This deck is wrack your brain deciding what to take with Thoughtseize because there is no right choice; every card will kill you. This deck is goblins, and it's fast.
Card choices: I'm going to explain each spot in the deck using my philosophy salt-inducing no-mercy unrelenting face beating. I know you're reading these words in print, but I hope they can speak to you. Reach into your soul: if it feels like a dormant ember of rage and recklessness you better put on some oven-mits and get ready for it to be set ablaze.
Creatures: These guys! These are the guys. Notice the name of the deck, and then notice no three-drops. Well, they are all too slow. Trading a whole turn three to have your lord/rabblemaster bolted is so gutwrenchingly awful I tossed them out. Do you even aggro, lords? Didn't think so, get outta here.
4
Foundry Street Denizen
- This guy is the best turn one play you can make. If the deck isn't a piledriver deck then it's certainly a FSD deck. This guy's flavor text should be a written apology to your opponents face for how hard he's gonna smash it.
4
Vexing Devil
- Devil is the turn one play you want to make if you don't have an FSD. Ever since I tried this guy out I love him so much. He just works so well turn two behind a turn one FSD. I started with two, then went to three, and settled on four. He just represents so much damage that other goblin, or non-goblin, one drops can't. Even if he sticks your opponent will never have enough removal for him and everything else. Just make sure you're sniffing out anger of the gods if they seem happy he's around.
4
Goblin Guide
- Still a 2/2 with haste. Still a boss. He's not as good as FSD turn one, unless you have a silly hand with two or three of him. He sure is good turn two with FSD. Use his 'downside' to know what you need to play around, and what you should sideboard for after you stomp them game one.
4
Goblin Bushwhacker
- By a mile the most objectively powerful creature card in the deck. This guy makes the deck a threat to win turn three. This guy punishes tapped out opponents hard. This guy makes your opponents feel silly for thinking letting you have vexing devil for a turn was a good idea.
4
Legion Loyalist
- This dude's battalion effect acts as an amazing sorcery in this deck. Did I also mention he's a creature? Did I also also mention he has haste? Did I also also also mention he triggers FSD? I don't think this guy could be any better. Just kidding, try kicking a Bushwhacker behind him.
4
Fanatical Firebrand
- I didn't know how badly I wanted
Mogg Fanatic
to have haste until I started playing firebrand. His ability is a little worse than mogg's, but the more I play with firebrand the less it seems to matter. It's become apparent much better having haste is despite the small trade off in utility.
4
Tin Street Dodger
- The last guy invited to the party. Turns out haste is a better keyword than what the rest of the goblin crew can bring to the table for R.
2-
Grim Lavamancer
- This guy has great synergy with the way my deck is because it is built on the premise that, all spot removal is bad against me; no body isn't expendable. My creatures die. A lot. My graveyard is always full, and lavamancer will always have fuel for his brand of magic. P.S. he triggers FSD, triggers loyalist, and beats.
Spells: This deck is all creatures and burn spells; I give you, the burn spells.
4
Goblin Grenade
- Goblins is a religion, and goblin grenade is it's scripture. This card is the reason to play this deck, and that reason is: it wins games. This card lucksacks us turn three wins. This card is what gives the deck the ability to overpower decks when they stabilize the board with creatures. This card wins out of nowhere. This card keeps you young, and makes your opponent age. This card will aid your poor sleep. This card will cook you dinner. This card will gently let down that guy who thought your date went more well than it did. This card wins.
4
Lightning Bolt
- The best spell in modern? Probably.
4
Boros Charm
- Until recently I was playing
Atarka's Command
instead of Boros Charm. The switch to Charm was prompted by the printing of
Inspiring Vantage
. Before vantage came out to get consistent white mana I'd have to damage myself with shocklands or painlands. Despite the fact that I'm almost always the aggressor, the burn and other aggro match ups are close enough that I didn't think the benefit of splashing white was worth it. In playing with both spells I can say the damage feels pretty similar on average. The benefit to playing command is the skullcrack mode, and right now I think that mode is less relevant than ever. The most obvious benefit to playing Charm is the sideboard. My sideboard feels better than ever, and so much more complete, where with the green splash I had about 4 spots that always felt, "whatever" because I hardly ever used the cards I had in those spots. The other benefit is that to get to four damage from charm I don't have to attack. Most games play out like this: play guys, do creature damage early in combat, cast burn spells in the later turns to kill opponents. In games in which the ground gets gummed up by blockers Boros charm is always going to be 4; where there are plenty of games where command will only be 3. Attacking later in the game, when I'd be most likely to be playing my burn spells, could lead to my board being in jeopardy; the consequences being that it becomes harder to cast grenade and I have less chump blockers to keep me alive to draw burn spells.
I very often answer why I play No-Lords instead of 8-whack; the parallel between the two decks is broken by the modal spells, which I play over the reckless bushwhackers. Why modal spells over bushwhackers? First of all the modal spells are instant speed. There are a lot more blue decks/control decks out there now, and being able to force action on their turn gives me more options in a game in which they're trying to take options away, and opens up more sorcery speed plays. Secondly playing with modal spells just lets me play a game as a burn deck, and sometimes that's a winning proposition where playing a creature deck isn't. Finally I believe the trap a lot of aggro decks fall into is playing cards that punish opponents when they stumble. Modern decks are very powerful, though; and IMO the problem with punisher cards is that when the deck you play against inevitably succeeds the power level of your deck will fall. I believe reckless bushwhacker is a punisher card. At it's worst bushwhacker is a 2/1 with haste; he can be answered by blockers, removal, counters, etc. On it's worst day a modal spell will be three or four damage to the face with more narrow answers. You could sum it up as I'd prefer a higher floor rather than a higher ceiling.
Lands: I made the splash to R/G for atarka's command, and I love it. I thought I'd hurt my burn match up by splashing, but with only one green spell it's not entirely non-negligible but overall pretty smooth.
9 Fetch lands- "I'm a fetch land girl, in a fetch land world." -Abraham Lincoln. Honest Abe was right. Modern is a fetch land world, and we live in it. Literally any red fetch will work just fine since there's no non-mountain basics in the deck.
4
Inspiring Vantage
- Vantage is the reason the white splash works. Getting your colors painlessly can never be taken for granted in modern. Opponents always have to attack very, and rightfully so, tentatively to avoid dying on the crack back. This makes closing games against my deck a slow process, and getting white for free can be the difference between one, two, or three extra draw-steps to find that lethal burn spell or combination of creatures.
1
Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
- I sometimes make a splash for one black card(
Rain of Gore
) out of the sideboard to help me in my most desperate match-ups, and adding one
Blood Crypt
makes all my fetches into black sources. When I'm not playing Blood Crypt my go to miser land is Shinka. Red utility lands that ETB untapped are few and far between, and Shinka is the best(only) one of them. Upsides include making your opponent think you play
Krenko, Mob Boss
, Breaking Kira, the Great Glass-Spinner's bubble, and not being a mountain if you get got by
Sanctimony
or something.
1
Sacred Foundry
- One can't play fetch lands without something to grab, right? The fixing is good enough that we don't need the full set, and even if we miss green this deck plays as mono red most games anyways. It's not worth the life loss to run more than one or two.
3 Mountain- More fetchable lands that add the most relevant color! And they always come in untapped; overpowered.
So sideboarding: Sideboarding is very tricky with my deck; the trick about it being figuring out what to take out more so than what to put in. It's temping to think, "oh this guy isn't great here" and take out some of the low impact goblins, but doing that throws off the balance of the deck to a degree. The trick is making sure that degree doesn't sway to far from the point of sticking to the original game-plan where you or I would end up overboarded, and lose from a winning position because of drawing a SB card when we needed a winning card. The trap to fall into is taking out goblins for spells. It's fine to cut a goblin or two, but when you cut four or five for all spells the deck is going to be off, run poorly, and maybe even end up a worse 60 to present in the MU. With all of that said I've found that more and more I've been cutting atakra's command. It's the last two mana spell in the deck, besides bushwhacker, and all of my non-creature sideboard cards are two mana, so for the sake of consistency(reducing clunky hands full of twos) atarka's command has been the right pick. The most common way players try to combat my build is with more removal and sweepers, so getting atarka's to be more than a lightning bolt worth of damage is more difficult in post board games. Also atara'ks command is a spell with a lot of utility, but in games two and three we can get that utility from sideboard cards so it's not as necessary despite the power level of it. That's the general theory of it, but I'll post a more in depth explanation of each card.
4
Goblin Fireslinger
- This guy comes in in a ton of match ups to shore up what raging goblin is bad at: running into blockers, and is usually just a four for four swap. I went real deep into the goblin pool to find fireslinger, and I'm sure even he never thought he'd make in into a constructed deck. I chose this guy over just lava spike or other burn spell because, like I mentioned above, messing up the creature/goblin to spells ratio can really mess me up. A lot of creature decks go just a little bigger than me, so there aren't profitable attacks for me. At the same time my opponent on slighter larger creatures can't attack because they know, or think, that I can kill them on the swingback. Games like this end up playing draw-go for a while with each of us commiting what we can to the board waiting to break the stall. Goblin Fireslinger lets me have the stall breaker without attacking unprofitably or even playing spells. At the same time I don't have to drift too far from my original gameplan because this guy passes all the synergy tests like triggering FSD and allowing me to cast grenade.
Grim Lavamancer
- Lavamancer took the spot of forked bolt in my deck as a spell to maybe kill a couple of blockers, and exceeded my expectations, so he took the spot of the forked bolt/electrickery in my sibeboard too. I'm still running three in the 75, but now have two MB because of what an upgrade he is by being a creature, being repeatable, hitting for two, and having graveyard synergy. I bring this guy in against almost every green deck that could be playing scooze. The way the colon in his ability is placed means I can respond to a scooze activation, but scooze can't respond to him. He also does a pretty good job of making sure goyfs stay about at 3/4 rather than getting any bigger. Lavaman also comes in against other creature deck where I think he can kill a lot of things, and I really want one of the three in my 75. I usually take out a mogg fanatic if he isn't going to be able to kill anything or an FSD if I'm on the draw and don't think he'd get in on my turn two.
2
Path to Exile
- I bring path in as a way to kill pro-red creatures(
Kor Firewalker
). This card is kind of a trap. it's easy to think, "hey, removal, I'll bring it in to kill a creature" and side it in against decks with goyf or angler or something. I don't care about fat guys; if I did I'd just play removal. Be careful not to overboard this card, it's for killing Kor Firewalker.
2
Shattering Spree
- You don't want to be the guy who shows up to a modern tournament with no artifact hate. Spree is my favorite because it's just a
Smelt
when I need a one mana artifact destruction spell, but gets around chalice on one. I bring it in against the obvious decks against which I want to destroy artifacts, and randomly if I run over my opponent if I don't quite know what he's on and don't want to not have an answer to a powerful sideboard card he/she may bring in.
Grafdigger's Cage
- Just a catch all against graveyard decks with the bonus of hindering coco decks. I just play one because I'm already good against dredge, and kind of gave up the coc for finks MU.
2
Harsh Mentor
- I put this guy in over rain of gore for right now. He's good against the coco decks in the same way rain is, but is a creature to trigger FSD. Also can just hose some strategies, or deal some damage against decks that activate a lot of stuff(lantern).
3
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
- The hoser of all hosers. She doesn't come in much, but when she does she wins games. Despite how good she seems in the MU, don't bring her in against burn. She's not fast enough, and clunks me up more than the burn player.
Piloting Goblins: The main #1 thing to know about this deck is that you almost never want to mulligan. The deck is consistent to the point that ok hands are probably going to end up with one or two of the really powerful cards you're looking for. That said if you do mulligan you're 6 is also probably going to be pretty ok, so don't say never if your hand is nasty poo.
Play this deck by dropping your guys, attack, hold your burn to finish your opponents off. Sniff out removal or plays your opponents can make by seeing how aggressively they fetch, what they play or don't play that you've seen off Guide, how they handle vexing devil, and noticing how they squirm under pressure. There isn't much play around potential since most decks are going to outclass you late game. Be careful how you sequence everything. Creatures you play, land drops, fetching, and even your own expressions are all advantages you can make even while playing in a straight line.
Results: Any guy or gal can make up a deck, put it on here, and claim it's great, but without results beyond, "went 4-0 spiked an FNM" how do you know how good a deck can really be? Unfortunately I work weekends, and personally cant put this deck on the map to the same extent as Matthias Hunt did for amulet or Tom Ross did for infect. Of the few events I go to I do manage to put up some spiky results. I placed 3rd at MN spring states 2015 and more recently 13th at the day two modern premier IQ at SCG Milwaukee. Modern is my favorite format, and I'm hoping to do well at some more large events in the near future with goblins.
If you wan't to know anything more comment and I promise I'll get back to ya, thanks for taking a look.
