[Deck] Rabid Wombat - Mono-White Control

Against solidarity, you want to Chant after the first Tide. Otherwise you give them too many options with all that mana and your spells are liable to sit on the stack until you die. I swear.. Nothing is more frustrating than having your Chant Twincast-ed back at you and then Remand-ed, so you're sitting there with a Chant in hand and your thumb up your ass.

Against TES, it depends. If you suspect EtW, then sooner is usually better, as in Mox, Petal, Rit... now is a good time since the next play could be EtW for 8. Otherwise, waiting it out for IGG, Diminishing Returns is usually ok. Especially if you have WoG to cover the Goblin tokens.

Against IGG, umm.. you can usually wait alittle longer. I'm not sure, there's alot of different IGG decks I've seen. It's best to be familiar with how these decks work, so play them so you know how to beat them.

I've been thinking about the Goblin MU. Typically, if I lose to Goblins, it's been due to SCG throwing 4-5 Gobs at me or just continually tossing them at me after I've dropped Moat. Perhaps Cursed Totem is worth considering. It stops SCG, Fanatic, Lackey and it helps greatly in other MU. Survival it shuts off Rofellos, QRanger, Tradewind. And it shuts off alot of other random pesky stuff. Lavamancer, Nantuko Shade, Werebear mana?!

I'm working with something like this right now:

2x Enlightened Tutor
1x Moat
1x Cursed Totem
3x Phyrexian Furnace
1x Ivory Mask <- for combo, burn & SCG (normally I think it too slow but I want to be able to Tutor for something in each MU so Tutor isn't dead)


In the SB:
x1 Sacred Ground
x1 Pithing Needle
x2 Disempower

Any suggestions? (other than E.Tutor = card disadvantage, plz)

{Edit: Oooh. How bout a Null Rod in the board vs Affinity and more importantly IGG/TES/Charlbecher combo}

Chalice is probably better than Null Rod against fast storm combo because it comes down turn 1 and lets you keep Chant mana open.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by torgar

Perhaps Cursed Totem is worth considering. It stops SCG, Fanatic, Lackey and it helps greatly in other MU.

---

It doesn't stop Lackey. It only stops activated abilities, not triggered ones. I do like it anyway though. At 2 mana you can pretty well shut down Survival (the inability to do this is why Damping Matrix is bad) and it hits a couple other decks as well (Ravager comes to mind.)

However, it stops neither Orangtuan, nor Survival.

Totem hurts alot of Survival's enablers, like BoP, Rofellos, etc. But I also included the Scrabbling Claws/Furnace to help that MU.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by torgar

Totem hurts alot of Survival's enablers, like BoP, Rofellos, etc. But I also included the Scrabbling Claws/Furnace to help that MU.

---

I know I've said this before, but it should be obvious...Humility...

I just won a small 8 person tourney with this. 6-0 (12-0) Admittedly, the field was somewhat subpar. The only game I was in serious danger of losing was against a weird RGW angel+fires. He cast Waylay with two Fires of Yavimaya in play. I savagely ripped a Shards off a blind Bandage. The only difference to the deck was there was a Jotun Grunt and a Cursed Totem in MD and Scepter in the side. But with Chant, Abeyance, GLight, StP, and even Bandage floating around in the deck, I realized I love the one Scepter main with the Etoolbox. It just hoses some MUs.

I liked it w/o Angels. But I haven't been playing against combo recently. They might make in the side.



18 Plains
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Darksteel Citadel

4 Eternal Dragon
2 Decree of Justice

4 Abeyance
4 Wing Shards
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Bandage

2 Akroma's Vengeance
3 Orim's Chant

4 Wrath of God
4 Renewed Faith

1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Moat
1 Isochron Scepter
1 Rune of Protection: Red

// Sideboard:
SB: 1 Orim's Chant
SB: 2 True Believer
SB: 3 Gilded Light
SB: 4 Glowrider
SB: 1 Sacred Ground
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Humility
SB: 1 Seal of Cleansing
SB: 1 Ivory Mask

My second anti-Storm slot (after 4 Glowriders) would probably go to Sphere of Resistance, which unlike Chalice and Trinisphere cumulates its effect with Glowriders'.

Okay, I've been playing this deck for a while, and I've come to a few observations:

First: Chalice is absolutely amazing. everyone needs 4 in their boards at all times. If you can stick one against Threshold it's stupidly effective and cuts off their card advantage, which seems to be the key to the threshold matchup.

Against combo, I'll mull to 4 to find Chalice because it's that good. I know it doesn't win games, but TES can beat you if you give it a turn uninhibited. If you don't have this in your board you're playing an inferior deck.

Second: Mind Stone is TITS. It enables third turn Wraths which means it's an extra out against Lackey, and it nullifies a Rishadan Port. This makes the Goblins game way better.

Third: Jotun Grunt sucks. It looks awesome on paper, you get to kill their graveyard while dealing them damage/defending yourself. But it's never important when you need it to be. Against aggro decks, they'll have no graveyard, so you can pay the upkeep once, max. Which means it's a two turn fog, and that's only really effective against 10-land stompy. Against control decks, they can just wait the upkeep out and then start attackign again. Or kill it. Meanwhile they're building card advantage and you're guaranteed to lose card advantage since Jotun Grunt does not draw you cards. Against combo it's basically an 8-damage burn spell, which sucks because you don't care about burning them, you care about them not dealing you 20 to the face. Shitty there too. Overall I've never been happy to see a Grunt unless I already have Chalices on the board and Chant effects in hand. And against Solidarity, it's like a Gaea's Blessing that they can bounce. Terrible.

Fourth: Bandage and Festival are crap. Don't play them. They can easily lead to mana screw if you keep a questionable hand, and don't kill shit. That makes them bad, and pisses me off when I draw one midgame or lategame. I needed a land, not a cantrip into a land, that just gives me the same amount of mana as last turn, which means I don't get to cast my cool spell which means I die. Bad cards. Play real cards instead.

That's all for right now.

I agree, Chalice is nasty. It's especially nice since it works around Xantid Swarm quite nicely. Additionally, it proves useful in other MUs. Setting it a one vs Burn/Elves/other randomness can be a real shot to the nuts. Setting it for two against Loam decks is great too.. so I've started using it again.

And I've cut Bandage/Festival. I agree I wasn't finding them as useful and just put the Gilded Lights back in.

I think something which is worth considering though, is Martyr of the Sands. I know he was discussed earlier but this guy is really amazing. He provides another answer to Lackey and gaining 15-18 life on turn 2 is really just amazing against most decks. He helps in ALOT of MUs.

Advantages:
TES/IGG.. this will give you a big advantages, espec with the anti-combo configuration. also can buy you enough time to Wrath away EtW tokens.
Goblins.. blocker + 2.5-3 hardcasted Renewed Faiths (which I've cut for Martyr). Need I say more?
Thresh- Life is good! And he stops pecking Mongeese early game.
Anything that tries to kill you via dmg !!!

Disadvantages..
Solidarity.. well... he IS a beater...
You have to reveal your hand.. This is not as bad as it usually seems.. since, first of all, I don't sac Martyr unless I need to or they waste removal on him. The only real forseeable problem would be against Meddling Mage, but I've already had some problems with him. And sometimes, you lose suprise on the Wing Shards.. but if you're worried about that.. just DON'T reveal the Shards.. You don't have to.

Oh, and that one Scepter is really really good too. It's literally another win condition. Alot of decks scoop to Chant-lock.

(Oh, and I like Mind Stone but I have no room for it.)

After lots of test games agains goblins I come to the conclusion, that this Matchup is still bad for us. Yes on the paper we cant lose, but please play some test games and you will see, that this matchup ist not 80:20 for you, its 80:20 for the gobbo player, because of one card: RINGLEADER. It please nearly no role how good you are drawing: You will ever see the 4 Ringleaders on his side, because you have nothing to handel him. He draws just more and more goblins and you cant handel all, even if you play 100% removal!

So what to do? There aren't many ways: 1st: a color splash: I will not do this, because i would play an UW Landstill after this. The secound option is the good old Humility. So 3-4 Humility main would improve this matchup and bring it to the good old 80%. But it will make many other matchup worse, so i play Enlighted Tutors in my current list AGAIN.

The Toolbox effekt allows us some tricky things agains many decks in the midd- and lategame. I just thing over which cards i play in the final toolbox, but here is my current list:

// Lands
9 [CS] Snow-Covered Plains
9 [UNH] Plains
2 [TSP] Flagstones of Trokair

// Creatures
3 [SC] Eternal Dragon
1 [DS] Razor Golem

// Spells
1 [LG] Moat
1 [NE] Seal of Cleansing
1 [5E] Nevinyrral's Disk
1 [MR] Isochron Scepter
1 [TE] Humility
3 [6E] Enlightened Tutor
1 [US] Rune of Protection: Red
3 [SC] Decree of Justice
4 [ON] Renewed Faith
4 [SC] Wing Shards
4 [4E] Swords to Plowshares
4 [WL] Abeyance
4 [SH] Bandage
4 [9E] Wrath of God

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [CS] Jotun Grunt
SB: 1 [9E] Sacred Ground
SB: 1 [WL] Phyrexian Furnace
SB: 1 [MR] Rule of Law
SB: 1 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 4 [PS] Orim's Chant
SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 [SC] Gilded Light

A randomly interesting idea that Parfait used to use that would be very powerful with Enlightened Tutor is running a single Blood Moon backed up by a single Plateau to Dragon for. I might put in an additional white fetch just to be safer. It will be completely unexpected, fairly easy to resolve with all the Chants/Abeyances, and is a card alot of decks really don't want to see.

Choke and Back to Basics are other simialar options, but I prefer Blood Moon because Choke, while it murders Threshold, doesn't affect Landstill or LftL decks nearly as much, and Back to Basics suffers alot from the introduction of fetchlands that mean decks can search out a workable manabase after it is resolved. Blood Moon, while it gives them the same amount of mana, completely colorscrews most opponents as well as shutting down all "fancy" lands.

I wouldn't really consider this a color splash as it's 1 card (2 with the land) that doesn't change any of the purpose of the deck, just gives you another tutorable bomb.

Man...I wish Land Tax was unrestricted heh. Tax-Rack backed up by unrestricted Enlightened would be sweet. It's not like it's broken, it's just good.

Enlightened Tutor is really, really bad. It's maybe good as a 1-of in a combo-heavy meta to fetch out a solo maindecked Chalice or Aura of Silence but after that it's basically worthless.

And, against Predict it's way less than worthless.

The Goblins matchup is winnable by having enough removal to get card advantage, then hardcasting decree and holding the other guy off until you win with flyers. I do this with a combination of Humility and ROP: Red/Renewed Faith. You win against other random zoo decks with spot removal and humility.

Quote:

---

Enlightened Tutor is really, really bad. It's maybe good as a 1-of in a combo-heavy meta to fetch out a solo maindecked Chalice or Aura of Silence but after that it's basically worthless.

And, against Predict it's way less than worthless.

---

Did you even test this card? It gives you the solutions agains Combo and Aggro. Preboard it just wins you many games, because you will not find much Enchantment/Artefact Removal. For shure agains Control ist worthless, but please look at the meta, how many pure controldecks do you see?!

Predict is a weak argument against the tutor. It is just one card which only is played in NQG and the chase, that you play you E-Tutor before he uses his predict is very low!

Quote:

---

The Goblins matchup is winnable by having enough removal to get card advantage, then hardcasting decree and holding the other guy off until you win with flyers.

---

Yearh thats but you will not have such a draw in every game and of course: postboard the matchup is weaker because of Armageddon. For shure every matchup is winnable, but the Ringleaders will destroy you when you have nothing agains them. Just beat the goblin player down after mass removal isnt a good idea, because in the most games he will be just quicker than you, and in the lategame you just dont have all your removal on your hand, because h can make also cardadvantage with Ringleader and just have the advantage, that he can hold most cards of his hand.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheMagicWizard

Did you even test this card? It gives you the solutions agains Combo and Aggro. Preboard it just wins you many games, because you will not find much Enchantment/Artefact Removal. For shure agains Control ist worthless, but please look at the meta, how many pure controldecks do you see?!

---

Yes, I did test the card. I had it in my deck as a 1-of for a week before I realized it sucked and led to too many losses. Let me break this down for you. Rabid Wombat is ADDICTED to card advantage. If it doesn't have card advantage, it will lose. That's why we don't have Chants maindeck or Isochron Scepters maindeck, despite them being bombtastic cards. Any time you risk giving them card advantage, or even card parity, you stand a chance of losing that game. Going one card down to find somethign which won't give you card advantage is going to lose you more games than you realize. And if they counter or remove the card you're looking for, not only did they get a 2-for-1, but you removed an extra bomb spell from your deck. If that Tutor had been a fourth Humility, you could have casted it, gained card parity by them countering it(or gained Humility advantage by having it in play) while still having the last three as backups. Tutor leads to too many risky situations which only end in disaster.

Quote:

---

Predict is a weak argument against the tutor. It is just one card which only is played in NQG and the chase, that you play you E-Tutor before he uses his predict is very low!

---

I'd rather not have an even weaker game against one of the best and most prevalent decks in the format, thank you very much.

Quote:

---

Yearh thats but you will not have such a draw in every game and of course: postboard the matchup is weaker because of Armageddon. For shure every matchup is winnable, but the Ringleaders will destroy you when you have nothing agains them. Just beat the goblin player down after mass removal isnt a good idea, because in the most games he will be just quicker than you, and in the lategame you just dont have all your removal on your hand, because h can make also cardadvantage with Ringleader and just have the advantage, that he can hold most cards of his hand.

---

You're overrating Ringleader. If he's costing you the game you should consider adding extra Wrath effects and saving them. The strongest way to deal with Goblins is to fight off their initial rush, then get some Angels or a Dragon onto the field, and start beating down while killing all their main Goblins. You'll only really lose to Ringleader if you let them get enough turns to start playing multiples. Don't.
-Slay

Goblins is a much more difficult match than it looks on paper, I agree. The problem with Ringleader, is that it specifically attends to the point about Wombat being so hungry for card advantage. The problem is that Wombat uses X for 1 sweepers like Shards/Wrath to keep Gobbos down. When playing against smart Goblin players with experience against playing against Wombat, I find that my opponent will use two strategies. Either:

(1) the nuts draw backed by Port disruption.. here StP helps save us by takin down a Warchief or Matyr lifts you out of the red zone long enough to stabilize. This is also why I play Chant MAIN. It buys you a turn here, owns combo, and forces through your spells vs Thresh. Although sometimes the nuts draw just owns. Goblins can be that explosive.

(2) The Goblin player plays conservatively enough to negate the CA of our sweepers, rarely emptying his hand for an alpha strike, relying on pecking away for the first several turns. This is how most experienced players play against me. Here Ringleader doubles to negate our CA plan by refilling their hand. It is a nasty problem. The Goblin player knows Dragon will hit Turn 7 the earliest and you'd have to be a fool to tap out for Dragon then because then the alpha strike WILL come. DoJ is the same problem.. Decreed Angels don't save you vs Goblins. You could make one 4/4 on Turn 6, hardly impressive. (Assuming you don't miss a land drop, which can happen often running x20 land) Neither do soldiers. Again, you could cycle to trade with a Matron on Turn 4. (or lackey, but that seems alittle late) If you want to trade with a Piledriver/Warchief, Turn 5, or both Turn 7. You could chump with Soldiers but it's an expensive Chant where dmg still gets through and spells still get played.

This is why I've added Exalted Angel back. It wins games by giving you the opportunity to apply pressure early.. for either the straight up win OR by making the Goblin player scramble. Either by overcommiting or just by forcing a Matron to be wasted on fetching a solution like Gempalm Incinerator. I win these games with CA in different ways. Enlightened Tutor is very, very, VERY good, so don't mistake it for bad CA. While it loses you a card, it makes up for it in terms of virtual CA by card quality. I run one Moat, one Scepter, one ROP: red all MD ways of generating serious and permanent card advantage vs goblins. The first one is universally applicable vs all aggro with some smaller exceptions like Mystic Enforcer and Hippie. The second, Scepter is a bomb. If you opponent doesn't have an answer, it can typically break the game wide open. StP and Orim's Chant will, without fail, win you the game if they stick. (Plus there's Abeyance and G. Light for the Scepter in other important MUs)

Even if you opponent does have answers... You can easily bait out a counter with a Scepter.. even without an imprint card.. the threat of Chant is so great, Scepter will always draw a counter vs decks with Blue. Again, like E. Tutor, there is the threat of losing CA, but typically I won't play a Scepter unless I'm able to use it the same turn in case is naturalized.. etc.. (I try to get at least one use out of it) Also, both are a ONE of to minimize the risk. However, the reward is so great it is worth the risk. Other decks will play/board around it, boarding in reactive stuff (that doesn't kill you) like Naturalize, setting Needles on your lone Scepter that might have been used on Dragon/Decree. Play with it for a while and be smart about when you decide to fetch it/use it.

Don't forget the powerful options E. Tutor enables from the board, it increases the virtual size of your board as you can afford to run one ofs like...
x1 Sacred Ground
x1 Ivory Mask .. (can lock games vs Goblins, combo, burn)
x1 Seal of Cleansing
x1 P. Needle
x1 Chalice
x1 Phyrexian Furnace

(I've cut Humility since adding the Martyrs.)

Also, I've used E. Tutor to fetch my lone Darksteel Citadel in times of great need where I've got the business but not the mana.

To say E. Tutor is useless or unviable because of Predict is wrong on both counts. (which if you're really afraid of is easy to play around, using Chant effects, cantrips, or god forbid shuffles to protect your silver bullet). It may be a playstyle preference to use the E.Tootbox, but simply stating that its bad CA ignores the fact that it brings amazing power and flexibility to the deck.

In tourney news, I won a small 10 person tourney this weekend with the following list. I beat Red Death (2-1), lost to ThreshUGW keeping a questionable one-land hand G3 (1-2), beat Burn (2-0) in the Swiss.
In the top 4, I beat ThreshUGRw (2-1) and then the other ThreshUGW deck I previously lost to in the finals (2-1). I'm too tired for in-depth match analysis right now.

The SB always shifts depending on the meta. I took out Furnaces cause there were no Crucible/Reanimator decks present. The Martyrs replaced the Renewed Faiths and I liked them alot. Much more efficient at life gain.. plus hey wow, they block stuff!! (Oh yeah, I even sac-ed him once vs Thresh, revealing some Chants and a Dragon, intentionally holding back my Shards which he proceeding to walk right into thinking I was defenseless. I used this ploy more than once for different cards depending on the situation.)

Enough jabber, here's the list:

18 Plains
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Darksteel Citadel

4 Eternal Dragon
4 Martyr of Sands
3 Exalted Angel
1 Jötun Grunt
2 Decree of Justice

4 Abeyance
3 Gilded Light
3 Orim's Chant

4 Wing Shards
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Wrath of God
1 Akroma's Vengeance

1 Enlightened Tutor

1 Moat
1 Isochron Scepter
1 Rune of Protection: Red



// Sideboard:
SB: 1 Seal of Cleansing
SB: 1 Gilded Light
SB: 2 True Believer
SB: 4 Glowrider
SB: 1 Sacred Ground
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Ivory Mask
SB: 4 Chalice of the Void

@ Torgar
In fairness, I haven’t played much against Wombat, but in my testing, Humility was the card I was most worried about resolving. Even when you can remove it, it still generally buys the deck plenty of time to stabilize. Also it seems like with the abundance of relevant artifacts in the format: Chalice, Needle, Jitte, Vial, Crucible, all of Affinity... and the more or less lack of enchantments: Survival and Humility (I don’t see either of them much)... that more players are shifting to newer more artifact centered solutions like: Tin-Street Hooligans, Pithing Needles and Ancient Grudges as their forms of hate, making enchantments even stronger then they have been in the past. I really wouldn't advocate a move away from a Humility centered build.


Also I would tend to agree with Slay on most of his points. Chalice is very good against top decks: NQG, Solidarity, and TES. Enlightened Tutor is card disadvantage unless its target resolves and is greater then a 2for1, and versus NQG it is a liability. If one was going to go a ETutor route though I would probably play 3-4 rather then 1, if calling up silver bullets is the direction one would choose to take, seems natural to want to do it "reliably".

Anyway just 2 cents.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by from Cairo

@ Torgar
In fairness, I haven’t played much against Wombat, but in my testing, Humility was the card I was most worried about resolving.

---

In what MU? I only find myself wanting Humility against Survival. Moat is better vs Goblins. I really like Humility but honestly, it constrasts with my Dragons, E.Angels, Matyrs, and Grunts so I've opted for a different direction. Humility only really shines with DoJ cycles and manlands.

Moat, like Humility as you pointed out, dodges artifact-specific hate

Quote:

---

Chalice is very good against top decks: NQG, Solidarity, and TES.

---

I'd definitely agree, which is why I run x1-4 SB. The only place I disagree is against Thresh. Chalice is a preemptive solution. It's great if you resolve it early (which is always going to draw a counter), but late game, where Wombat likes to live, it's a dead draw. I prefer to bring in Glowriders, which slow things down and clog up the ground.

Quote:

---

Enlightened Tutor is card disadvantage unless its target resolves and is greater then a 2for1, and versus NQG it is a liability. If one was going to go a ETutor route though I would probably play 3-4 rather then 1, if calling up silver bullets is the direction one would choose to take, seems natural to want to do it "reliably".

---

You don't want 3-4 E.Tutor. The CA problem is real which is why it's a one of. Also, there aren't enough targets to justify that many tutors. Think of it a single wild card.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by torgar

In what MU? I only find myself wanting Humility against Survival. Moat is better vs Goblins. I really like Humility but honestly, it constrasts with my Dragons, E.Angels, Matyrs, and Grunts so I've opted for a different direction. Humility only really shines with DoJ cycles and manlands.

Moat, like Humility as you pointed out, dodges artifact-specific hate

---

Siege Gang Commander absolutely wrecks through Moat. Dark Confidant and Hyppie are awesome against Moat when there's Vindicates maindeck. Survival is a deck which, if you don't have Humility, you lose. It's also better against random critters like Enchantresses and Meddling Mages and Salvagers. Though there are situations where it would be a great card, but Wombat has too many bad matchups which are completely flipped by Humility. It's a crime not to play it.

Quote:

---

I'd definitely agree, which is why I run x1-4 SB. The only place I disagree is against Thresh. Chalice is a preemptive solution. It's great if you resolve it early (which is always going to draw a counter), but late game, where Wombat likes to live, it's a dead draw. I prefer to bring in Glowriders, which slow things down and clog up the ground.

---

How is shutting off a third of their deck NOT a good thing? Against Gro I would never not want to see Chalice. I also use Glowriders in the sideboard.

Edit: Glowriders don't clog up the ground at all. They get overrun by 3/3s and 4/4s.

Hey guys, i'm not comopletely familiar with wombat although i have played it from tiem to time. Since most Wombat builds have dedicated their sideboards to combo hate, it seems like it's losing its edge against goblins. Either I keep playing against weak Wombat players, or Wombat doesn't have much of an edge anymore. How have your matchups been against goblins? I am only really asking players who test with very good goblin players or p[layers who have a lot of wombat experience, since I have a little. For the record, I'm a Goblin player, and game 1, moat isn't nearly as scary as humility since I run 3 siege gangs.