Hello everyone! It's been a while since my last article. I had to move to a new house and transferring my internet connection took plenty of time. Of course I wasn't able to play on MTGO ( or any MTG at all, for what matters). When I last left Rise of the Eldrazi was still slowly being spoiled by the guys at MTG SAlvation and I was playing Vampires in block constructed. It took me a while but I was finally able to find a list I liked and I was destroying the white/x allies deck that everyone was running in the two man queues.

When I finally had my internet connection back I was ready to jump in the block two man queues again to snatch a few games but my enthusiasm was quickly stopped by the ads on the loading screen:

"Rise of the Eldrazi Pre-release Event, NOW"

Now, don't get me wrong, I love when a new set it's released on MTGO but I don't like how the online pre-releases are managed: they are too pricey and the prize support ain't worth it in my opinion. It looks like most of the MTGO players share my opinion as the card availability it's so scarce that even uncommons reach the two tickets price tag, and I don't like paying premium for cards that will in a week deflate more than 150% of their value. Still, neither I can join the queues with a deck tuned for the old metagame, as I will probably get crushed by everyone that does not share my opinion and bought his Gideon Jura's for 40 tickets a piece.

So I simply have to sit and wait for another week? Well, no. Exactly at every pre-release comes the time when you're grateful that you spent your money on eternal formats as, thanks to the wide card pool, those are the format least impacted by new cards. Pauper is an eternal format and also the "entry fee" to the format is extremely cheap. I decided to trade for the cards I was missing for one competitive deck and play with it for the rest of the week, achieving my goal with the minimum expenditure. That was the original plan, what happened in reality was that I bought the cards I needed for Goblins for the hefty price of ten tickets, then started winning in the two mans, winning back not only the ten tickets I had to spend for the deck but also achieving a small profit. Most importantly, playing the deck was a blast and I really had a good time. Why not continue then?     

Pauper Goblins

 

Creatures 4 Goblin Sledder 4 Mogg Conscripts 3 Jackal Familiar 4 Mogg Flunkies 4 Mogg War Marshal 3 Sparksmith 22 cards Other Spells 4 Mogg Raider 4 Golin Cohort 4 Goblin Bushwacker 2 Dragon Fodder 4 Lighning Bolt 3 Chain Lighning 2 cards

Lands 17 Mountain 17 cards Sideboard 4 Pyroblast 3 Seismic Shudder 2 Martyr of Ashes 2 Death Spark 4 Gorilla Shaman 15 cards

The deck is an aggro deck at it's core, it tries to win the game by, literally, filling the board with cheap efficient attackers. Goblin Cohort,Mogg Conscripts,Jackal Familiar and Mogg Flunkies are the deck undercosted beaters. Since the deck packs thirty-four creature cards the drawbacks of these cards are almost nullified (well, sometimes, you will still curse for drawing a land for the turn when you need a creature =P ).

Goblin Sledder and Mogg Raider are the "smart" beaters of the deck, their simple ability becomes useful an amazing number of times. Initially they earned their spot in the deck because they could fizzle the most feared removal spells, aka Tendrils of Corruption and Corrupt. Nowadays those spells see less play but it's still something to keep in mind. They also do a great job for alpha strike purposes, turning blocked and summoning sick creatures into additional damage. Without them the deck would suffer greatly against a resolved mass removal spell, which in pauper means Crypt Rats, Holy Light, Nausea and such. Last but not least they simply screw combat math for the opponent, making blocking impossible or unfavorable (sure, I'll trade a goblin token for your Aven Riftwatcher).  

Goblin Bushwhacker is the card that really pushes the deck power level to the stars. His ability really creates a lot of damage out of nowhere in a deck like this that fills the board with creatures and tokens.

Mogg War Marshal and Dragon Fodder are, again, efficient beaters, provide some much needed card advantage and provide fuel for Goblin Sledder, Mogg Raider and (Goblin Bushwacker).

Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning are the best removal spells that red can offer, when needed they can also be directed at the opponent head to finish him off. If you can manage to keep a Sparksmith on the board winning should be easy against any creature based deck. 
   

The deck manabase is as simple as it gets, consisting of only seventeen Mountains. With such a low number of lands the deck cannot afford cards with casting cost of three or more, even if that number offers powerful options with (Hissing Higuanar) and Goblin Matron. Casting those card with actual manabase it's too unreliable and adding more lands to the deck diminishes the consistence of the deck in the late game with more dead draws. I also saw some players running Teetering Peaks but I dislike the idea as it creates some awkward hands when it comes to mulliganing.

I'll talk about the sideboard later.

MULLIGANING WITH THE DECK

Deciding what hands you should keep is fairly easy with this deck. Obviously you should mulligan hands with zero lands but, as a rule of thumb, you should also mulligan hands with four lands or more as, for this deck standards, you're already flooded. Carefully consider each hand with three lands, which you should keep only if the four spells are very good. Instead hands with only one land are fine, the deck really needs the second land to fully operate, statistically you should hit the second land drop soon and you can probably afford to miss it a couple of times and still be fine.

After boarding things change a little, most of the sideboard cards require more mana to be efficiently used and, as such, I usually keep hands with three lands and at least one of cards I boarded in. Also keep in mind that too may sideboard cards in the staring hand might not always be a good thing, as it will steam your aggression and give the opponent time to get back from the additional disruption you boarded in.

SIDEBOARDING AND MATCHUPS

Talking about matchups in pauper is a little awkward as pauper is a vast and varied format where you might face plenty of interesting rogue deck alongside the most established tiers. For this reason I'll try to give you hints on sideboarding both against some general archetypes as well as some additional tips against the most established decks decks.

Control

Control is a favorable matchup, the speed of the deck is usually too much for them to handle, but if they manage to stabilize they will probably take the game. With this in mind, remember to mulligan hands without enough early pressure. Play Jackal Familiar and Mogg Flunkies when you have more than one creature down otherwise they can stop your aggression for a full turn with a single removal spell. If in the early turns of the game they have mana open then they're probably holding counterspells, play around those by playing your least important creatures first. After boarding Pyroblast comes in, usually in place of Sparksmith and one Dragon Fodder, to not lower your creature count too much. Some control decks rely on a higher number of creatures, against those keeping Sparksmith in to clear the way for other creatures might be reasonable. In this case I usually board out the (Dragon Fodders) and a couple of Jackal Familiars.

Aggro

The matchup against other aggro decks isn't great, as their creatures are big and troublesome. Managing to stick an early Sparksmith is extremely important and it will often lead to victory. Slivers is usually manageable if you keep the size of their creatures in check bolting the Glorious Anthem slivers while White Weenie is way worse as pretty much all their creatures are good on their own. Remember that both decks play annoying cards like Thrill of the Hunt and Prismatic Strands so play around those and cast your removal when they're tapped out. After the first game Martyr of Ashes comes in from the board and if the opponent does not watch out it can lead to some devastating blowouts. If they do play a lot of creatures susceptible to it, we're mostly talking about the mirror, also board in Death Spark.

Storm Combo
 
Storm Combo is a very powerful deck in pauper. It uses plenty of rituals and card draw to fuel a huge (Into the Warrens) or a double-Grapeshot. Storm Combo is also a matchup that surprised me: it's very though but far from unwinnable as I expected. Game one you should simply aim for their throat as fast as you can, you have no disruption and trying to race is the only option. If you're lucky you can force them to go off a turn earlier, with an higher chance of fizzling that sometimes happens. I use the following sideboarding plan for this matchup:

+4 Pyroblast, +3 Seismic Shudder, +2 Martyr of Ashes
-3 Chain Lightning, -4 (Lighning Bolt), -2 Sparksmith

After boarding the plan changes. First, it is important to mulligan aggressively for the cards boarded in, I usually go down until five cards if I don't have one in my opening hand. Now that I can answer their combo I take a slightly more controllish approach: I drop a bunch of creatures on the first and second turn and then keep mana open for Pyroblast, Shudder or the Martyr activation on the subsequent turns. When they try to go off they usually deplete all their resources so the game is basically over if you manage to survive. Martyr and Shudder are answers to Empty the Warrens. It is important to have mana available during their turn as they might have boarded in their own (Goblin Bushwacker)s. Pyroblast can only counter Ideas Unbound or Ponder. The first is one of the most important spells they play, so you should save your blasts for it but, if they're low on cards, hitting Ponder with it is fine too.

Affinity

I consider Affinity a good matchup. Often the affinity player will spend his early turns playing fixing and card draw with Chromatic Star, Chromatic Sphere and Thoughtcast.A fast start with a lot of 2/2's can punish those draws. Myr Enforcer is the card that Goblins fears the most: if you don't have an active Sparksmith the only way to deal with him is with an unfavorable trade, either by blocking with at least two creatures or with bolt plus combat damage. After boarding Gorilla Shaman comes in, in place of Dragon Fodder and two Jackal Familiars, to wreck havoc on the artifact lands. Surprisingly, I found out that the Shaman is also good when topdecked later in the game, as you usually want to trade you creature for theirs and keep the board mostly empty. They will usually board in Krark-Clan Shaman so do not overextend and try to keep a Sledder/Raider on the board to minimize it's effect.

See you in the 2-man queues.

Thanks for reading.

Fragoel2