Going to be playtesting Howling Mine as more draw. I don't really want to run Reforge the Soul in addition to the Wheel of Fortune I already run because I've always had bad luck being able to use its Miracle cost, and I really only want to Wheel as a last resort, since it can end up giving my opponent's so many answers.

I think Howling Mine is a good alternative because of how quickly it starts working (compared to say Outpost Siege or Vanquisher's Banner), and even though it is symmetrical it gives opponents fuel a lot more slowly. The political aspect is also something I like, as opponents are just a little less likely to attack if it means losing that extra card each turn. Not attacking me for one turn is often all I need to seal a win.

Hi Liquidbeaver. When I saw your deck list here, it reminded me of Defensive Formation. While you cannot play that card with this deck, it might be worthwhile trying Outmaneuver within this list, provided that the rules allow stacking Outmaneuver's effect so it resolves first before Ib Halfheart, Goblin Tactician's "on block, sacrifice creature" trigger.

Good to see Ib is getting some love as a commander, even though he only has half a heart.

I love this deck and I love your humor, the only thing I would say is... I'd work on consolidating your deck description it is incredibly long and I feel like it's a bit repetitive. I also think you should put the reasons to play and not play closer to the top I audibly laughed out loud reading that at work.

DrkNinja: Thanks for the compliment! While I don't think I want to make the primer any shorter (it's the only one for Ib after all), I can definitely reorganize it so it doesn't feel as long, and clean up any redundancy.

First up, I think moving the Reasons list up near the top is a great suggestion, thanks for letting Ib claim it as his own idea!

Woolly1: I've desperately wanted Outmaneuver to work for this deck, but unfortunately the exploding goblins don't do combat damage. The explosion damage is dealt during the Declare Blockers step, and not during the Combat Damage step, so it can't be redirected (at least not that way). Outmaneuver as an effect would be perfect, and is awesome thematically as well, but sadly Ib can't take advantage of it.

I've also checked to see if I could double-dip the damage, and have the explosions still hit the blockers, but have the power/toughness damage be Outmaneuvered to the player, and that can't be done either. The errata'd card text on Gatherer helps clarify where the hang up is. In order to send any damage to the player, combat damage has to first be created, and since it can only be created during the Combat Damage step, there's no damage to even "target" because none of the blocked Goblins exist anymore. Sad!

Very nice build and very impressive description. +1

I havent read it all (horrible ADD) but curious why no generic tribal stuff like Mutavault, Metallic Mimic, Stoneforge Masterwork, Obelisk of Urd, Door of Destinies. Also perhaps Caged Sun to further turn tokens into threats outside of fodder. I like Swiftfoot Boots to complement Lightning Greaves since Ib so critical to strategy, and Elixir of Immortality in case your Crucible gets exiled or stolen.

Very nice.

I just wanted to let you know I finally finished ordering this deck. I love goblins, I love the idea of my enemy being afraid of blocking a 3/3 or less maybe more. Amazing job on the deck. I will let you know how this plays out...

Jimmy_Chinchila: Thanks Jimmy!

I will go through the suggestions one by one, but most of the answers are because of CMC.

Mutavault - I run very, very few non-basic lands because part of the deck is trying to punish the decks that run a lot of them. Even when I ran 20 nonbasic lands I ran into a lot of problems with not having enough mountains to sacrifice to Ib, which also makes it hard to cast a Price of Progress without killing myself, you get a lot of bad interactions with Blood Moon and Blood Sun, and I just can't capitalize on an extra 2/2, it just makes it a land that is easier to hit with spot removal.

Metallic Mimic - While it wouldn't be a bad card at all, I try really hard to keep my Goblins under 2/2 as much as possible, so that I can take advantage of Raid Bombardment and Shared Animosity at the same time. Also, the bigger the individual Goblins get, the closer they are to doing reduced damage when blocked if they are above a 4/4, or not being blocked at all which makes it harder for me to use a lot of the blocking tricks that I have. You also look like less of a threat (temporarily) when you only have a table full of 1/1's.

Stoneforge Masterwork - I had this in the deck at one point, but it has the same problem that Reckless One and Battle Squadron have, that they might be a 40/40, but if they are blocked when Ib is out they only do 4 damage. It is a pretty good form of protection to put on Ib himself, but I would rather give him hexproof or shroud instead. I can do a fair bit of toughness buffing with Goblin Sledder when needed.

Obelisk of Urd - Same as Mutavault, I don't really want to buff the individual Goblins up. The Convoke is a great selling point though, so this could be a meta choice for someone building the deck.

Door of Destinies - This card is great if two things happens: You get it down early, and you actually cast a lot of your creatures. I've never gotten this card down early in my other tribal decks, and it has no impact if you draw it late game. I would look more towards Coat of Arms and waiting as long as possible to play it, so that it has a profound effect the instant it gets played, instead of just speeding up the whole game if other tribal decks are at the table. Second, I don't cast more than two or three Goblins per game on average, so that would be a lot of work for a little buff. That's why I only have kind of a bare bones of either Goblin token generators, or utility Goblins, so no matter what I draw into I can build something out of it. It's why I don't have any Goblins that I actually attack with, outside of Goblin Lackey and Warren Instigator, the rest are mostly meant to sit there and provide a buff or a combat tweak. I have a few friends that play tribal decks with Door and have a lot of success with it, it's just never performed that well for me.

Caged Sun - I don't need the mana doubler for anything (I always have extra, it's cards in hand that I need), so I would be paying the 6 CMC only for the +1/+1. Definitely a tribal staple, but I have a hard time with anything over 4 mana when I am trying to keep the Average CMC of the deck as low as possible to help make rebuilding after a wipe a lot faster.

Swiftfoot Boots - I've actually been thinking about this for a little more targetted haste, and protection for Ib/Krenko/King/Warchief/Feldon etc...Adding this to the sideboard until I can find a spot for it.

Elixir of Immortality - While mono-red definitely suffers from lack of recursion, I haven't been able to get Elixir to work how I wanted. I generally spend all game trying to get all of my lands out of my library, so that I am only drawing into spells or creatures, but if I sacrifice a bunch of lands and then sac the Elixir, I'll be drawing a bunch of lands late game, which would be like starting the game over for me, but no one else at the table. I do want to see if I can play around it on purpose though (like how I use Surveyor's Scope to great effect now), and not just use it as an Emergency Button, in which case I would put it in place of Feldon of the Third Path because that is the job he is trying to do, but has a hard time with.

Thanks a lot for your suggestions!

Thegru3some2some: That is so awesome! I read your comment last night and it made me very happy that you are building out the deck, I'm so glad people are enjoying the deck enough to want to build it themselves.

Please do let me know how it performs in your meta, and what your meta is like. I've added and cut 200 cards from this deck since I first built it because I didn't need them in my meta, so I can probably help tweak your deck for yours if you want any help.

I hope you have a lot of fun with it!!!

While doing research for a Modern deck I came across Soul-Scar Mage, and it looks like a wonderful addition to Ib!

All of the damage dealt by Goblins that are explo-sacrificed to Ib is noncombat damage, so having a passive way to add removal for Indestructible creatures is amazing, and at just 1 CMC too!

It is unfortunately a non-bo with Repercussion, but the Mage is easy enough to kill when I don't want it out anymore. It does, however, have the added benefit of making the following things more versatile:

Skirk Fire Marshal

Blasphemous Act

Mizzium Mortars

Goblin Bombardment

Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

Rolling Earthquake

Not bad at all for R.

In my opinion, Chaosphere is better than Gravity Sphere. Cheaper too.

midget_overlord: I like them both, but it depends on how someone structures the rest of their deck.

Gravity Sphere allows spells like Subterranean Tremors,Earthquake, etc... to hit flying creatures, and you can still take advantage of Nemesis Mask, Invasion Plans, and all of Basilisk Collar.

Chaosphere is really nice if you are having issues with flying chump blockers, or if you want to be able to chump block flyers yourself. An extra form of evasion on top of Goblin King never hurts either.

Being less than 1/10th the price it would be hard to justify Gravity over Chaos in a lot of situations, I just like the fact that it removes the flying ability completely, not just modifies combat.

Thanks for taking the time to create such a detailed Primer. I enjoy building decks and am a relatively inexperienced player who is just getting back into it. I was building a Krenko deck when I quit playing a few years ago and I recently started retooling it to be played soon.

I have Ib in my current build and it is a card I have had in and out at times. I knew he was good. I also knew (as with many cards) I didnt fully understand how to most efficiently play him. I learned a lot from this thread that will help me play my deck and improve on it. You make great cases for cards I have considered and force me to rethink recent cuts. And now I really want to get my hands on that Soul-Scar Mage

Cheers.

I love the way you describe my favorite goblin, makes me love him more. Have an deck of my own but not this detailed, he is simply awesome. Hail IB, Goblin king and mastermind.

paytongamer: Thanks for the support! Honestly just hearing how much people enjoy it makes spending a lot of time on it all the more worth it, plus it is really fun to play!

Ib was always a chaotic play when used in the 99 of someone's deck, but I always felt like he had room to mess with him and have unique interactions. It's been a little over a year now since I started building this deck, and it is still my favorite to play. All the research for him has also gained me a lot of knowledge about mono-red and how it has to fight the other colors, so if you have any non-Ib questions about red, feel free to ask!

Pipux: Ib Goblin is Best Goblin!

All hail our Glorious Leader!

Great list, +. As you don't run any planeswalkers have you considered running The Immortal Sun?

What a super interesting and fun mono red combo deck!

AcceleratedButchery: Thank you!

While I don't currently run The Immortal Sun, I would definitely recommend it for the budget version of this list, and I believe it is a stronger play than Caged Sun, Gauntlet of Power, and Gauntlet of Might for this type of build where double your mana isn't really needed, but other benefits are.

I don't include many 5+ CMC cards unless I can utilize them the turn they go down. I will admit though, of the ramp/anthem cards like this, Sun is definitely the most appealing one to me. I will probably end up giving it a chance in the future, especially if I see more planeswalkers in my metas.

TurukMakato: Thanks for the compliment! I'm glad you like the deck.

Hi love your deck dude actually gathering the missing pieces to build it myself. I honestly didn't read all the comments but did you try Hoarding Dragon ? Crucible of Worlds is so crucial to the deck that maybe being able to tutor for it could be nice.

Also maybe Buried Ruin to get it back.

Jay3401: That is awesome! I hope you enjoy it, I have a ton of fun with it each time I play it.

I actually had Hoarding Dragon in for a while, but I realized it had the Anger problem, which is no one wants it to die except you. I would say I only successfully got to use it once out of more than a dozen times of casting it. Also, opponents would use exile or bounce based removal on it, so you lose the artifact you tutored for on top of losing the dragon.

Rather than tutor out Crucible of Worlds, I found tutoring out equipment with Godo, Bandit Warlord was a much better use of a high CMC creature, and you have completely control over it. Tutoring up Nemesis Mask, Illusionist's Bracers, Basilisk Collar (sideboarded), or Thornbite Staff (sideboarded) for Krenko was all I needed to win a game sometimes. I would definitely recommend running Godo if it is a more casual meta, or if you end up running more equipment than I do.

As for Buried Ruin, I used to run it, took it out to cut non-basics as low as possible, and once I cut a bunch away and had some flexibility I never put it back. I've been meaning to remove Myriad Landscape, so this is a perfect time to add Buried Ruin back in. Great suggestion!

As for Buried Ruin, I used to run it, took it out to cut non-basics as low as possible, and once I cut a bunch away and had some flexibility I never put it back. I've been meaning to remove Myriad Landscape, so this is a perfect time to add Buried Ruin back in. Great suggestion!