Here a quick goldfish comparison between the 4 most popular fast combo decks in the format (at least I think they are... did I miss anything?). While it would be more relevant if a player with more experience had provided the numbers for each, they should be telling if we can assume that I am equally incompetent with each. (Personally I'd say I'm weakest with TES, and circumstances don't favour it as such anyway; see more below).

I apologise in advance for rambling, but testing data is fairly meaningless unless it's clear what was tested, and how. Here is what I did:

I played 100 goldfish games with every deck (50 on the play and 50 on the draw), aiming to win turn 4 at the very latest.
Anything past a turn 4 goldfish was counted as a loss (even if I had a 62-goblin army after much weirdness and cursing of MWS, or an active Belcher backed up by several blockers).

When going for Empty the Warrens, a first turn chain resulting in 10 goblins was considered acceptable only on the play. 14 was deemed good enough turn 2 on the draw, 12 at any time in between.
I never got a turn 3 Empty the Warrens for 20+, either because I couldn't or because I had a more immediate way to win.

Where applicable, I used versions that emphasised consistency over disruption; the exception being Xantid Swarm since The EPIC Storm doesn't make an awful lot of sense sense without it (at least not without other alterations). Having said that, if I played IGGy Pop under tournament conditions I would probably play Leyline of the Void maindeck.
Likewise, I opted to combo out immediately with TES rather than waiting for a turn to get a swarm online if the choice existed. No reason to punish the deck even further - 4 'dead' cards and stringent requirements for Empty the Warrens mayhem is already borderline unfair.

Generally, I played rather conservatively. Belcher and Spanish Inquisition in particular have the capability to be somewhat faster if your opponent is leering at you in a disturbing manner and you feel like you have to outrace the hate: the former by mulliganing more agressively, the latter by using draw-4s more recklessly. Naturally, this will result in more fizzles though.



If people are interested, I will go into details with notes on the individual decks (i'm not sure how much though. You can't really turn an overview over 4 very different decks into 4 simultaneous deck discussions...) but for raw speed and consistency, here the relevant number of cumulative kill/combo (the latter including a sufficient number of goblins) percentages turn 1 through 4.


Belcher (kill)................10/34/78/93
TES (kill)....................10/36/69/88
Spanish Inquisition.......41/68/83/90
IGGY Pop.....................9/44/88/96
Belcher (combo)..........41/72/85/93
TES (combo)...............21/61/83/88


Spanish Inquisition putting up the largest number of turn 1/2 wins by far shouldn't surprise anyone. What did impress me was the consistency (which, however, drops dramatically if you push the deck past its limits, which you likely will do in tournament settings. It is, after all, comparatively fragile).

Belcher only got a single turn 1 win on the play in 50 games, disappointing. On the other hand, Empty the Warrens was the dog's bollocks. Not only does it enable the deck to do something early on with frightening consistency (the 'combo out' numbers marginally surpass those of SI, without squanderíng precious life points) and it also means your opponent needs the correct hate to stop you.

TES was at a disadvantage anyway, had its Xantid swarms flapping about aimlessly, witnessed Belcher lay down more Goblins than it ever would and proceeded to do the only natural thing: it took it out on me with many near-misses and atrocious draws off brainstorm/plunge/returns. Well, the deck doesn't truly shine until someone to stop it so a lacklustre performance in a goldfishing contest isn't a real point against it.

IGGy Pop was as solid and consistent as always. There is little to say about this, other than that the Impulses weren't doing enough to justify abandoning Yawgmoth's Mindtwist.