[Deck] Goyf Sligh

[kicks_422]

Fitting in an LD theme with Fulminator and Avalanche Riders won't make it Sligh anymore. If you want, you could read the opening post of this thread. There are links there to my opening post for the now-defunct Dryad Sligh, but the concept is still similar.

[Wallace]

thanks for the warm welcome sir wallace...thanks for the insights..i'll start reformatting my deck as soon as i get my hands on the goyfs and some bloodstained mires...sir, if i could include the fulminator and the avalanches(riders), how many should i put in the deck?...i'm not really that good with mana curves..coz i understand sligh follows a "strict mana" curve...

Kicks is right, by adding Ful. Mage and Avalanche Riders the deck is no longer Goyf Sligh. If you want to go the aggro/LD route the I suggest starting a new thread in the New decks Forum. A 2/2 with haste isn't really that impressive and doesn't fit with the theme of the arc-type. Fulminator Mage has the same problem, for a 2/2 is a waste of mana. For the same CC you could be playing Countryside Crusher or you could just spend less mana and get a better creature.

[grungyboy]

thank you sirs for the insights..i really cleared things for my "deck-reformatting"...i'll guess i better stick with the staples first...sirs, another question again...can you suggest any substitutes for chain lightning?i think i'll have a more difficult time looking for these here than Goyf...

[kicks_422]

Can we see your list to see where you're at?

Here are your options to replace Chain, without seeing your list first (assuming you run all these - Lightning Bolt, Incinerate, Magma Jet, Fireblast, Seal of Fire):

1. Rift Bolt - keeps the 3 damage, but you'll have to wait a turn. Personally, I don't like it, since I want my burn to hit right away.
2. Shard Volley - Also keeps the 3 damage, but losing a land hurts, especially in conjunction with Fireblast.
3. Shock - The baseline burn spell. This is actually my choice out of these three if I had to choose, just because I'd much rather have flexibility than damage.

Those are off the top of my head. I might be missing some.

[Hana, The Deadly Flower]

has anyone tested this deck with black, aka confidant?

[kicks_422]

Splashing for black for Dark Confidant (and possibly Duress/Seize/Therapy out of the SB for combo) has a lot of pros and cons. The power of these black cards really help the deck out a lot, but they somewhat slow your tempo down. Confidant is outclassed by the rest of the creatures in the deck in what you're trying to accomplish (e.g. slit throat). Instead of relying on Confidant to draw cards, I guess some have just relied on tuning the deck so that every card you draw counts. Playing 3 colors also opens you up to LD/Wasteland, which hurts the deck a lot with the low land count.

[Sims]

Yes, people have and some of them have liked it, others haven't. I personally don't like going into 3-color territory in Sligh. You'll begin running too many duals to support Price of Progress reliably without killing yourself, and you'll have to run at least a basic swamp. Getting away with 1 non-Mountain basic in is fine, but adding another might muck up your consistancy and screw you while your opponent is at 4 or less and you have Bolts or a Fireblast in your hand that can't be cast because of said Swamp. Bob also sits at 2CC and draws heavy removal from your opponent because of his effect... On the surface this seems like a good thing, but then you realize that many of these Goyf Sligh builds pack it to Counterbalance (bob is right on the firing line there) and that if he's eating removal, while it's not aimed at your Goyfs or KMs, it's screwing your manabase so you can play ": Target Player Discards a removal spell." Now, don't get me wrong, if he sticks he's fantastic. I just don't feel that he's worth the retooling of the manabase, potentialy losing our biggest burn threat, and sometimes screwing up our fireblasts in order to run a draw spell. Magma Jet has done me just fine up til now with card selection that I haven't really felt the need of him.


On the upside though, Black has a lot to offer between Discard spells to help your nearly non-existant combo matchup, Plagues if goblins has somehow been giving you trouble, Terminate even though it's not burn, Extirpate, etc... But all of these begin to require more of a hefty commitment to black, and at that point you're not playing Goyf Sligh, you're starting to turn into BRG Zoo.


Edit: Naturally, someone beat me to the post.

[Wallace]

has anyone tested this deck with black, aka confidant?

So I made top 8 on day 2 of TMLO with the following list:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Dark Confidant

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Lava Spike
3 Tarfire
3 Fireblast
2 Seal of Fire
2 Pyrite Spellbomb

4 Taiga
4 Snow-Covered Mountain
2 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills

SB:
4 Duress
4 Price of Progress
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
2 Krosan Grip
2 Seal of Primordium

I lost a close Thresh match up and to Goblins in the top 8. Fireblast or POP off the top and I win the top 8 match. I beat Enchantress, Elves, Thresh w/scepter, Landstill and drew with Tarmo Sligh to make top 8.

The deck played wery well and both matches I lost were close, any burn spell off the top and I win game two against the Thresh player. I am going to drop Quirion Dryad from my build. Was not impressed with it at all, always wanted it to be something else.

This was a while ago but still...

[grungyboy]

Can we see your list to see where you're at?

this my list sir:

LAND:

4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Wasteland/Stomping Grounds
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Mountain
2 Forest


CREATURES:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg Fanatic
3 Keldon Marauders
3 Fulminator Mage

SPELLS:

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Seal of Fire
3 Incinerate
3 Magma Jet
3 Shock
2 Fireblast

ARTIFACTS:

2 Sensei's Divining Top

SIDEBOARDS:

4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Krosan Grip
2 Price of Progress
2 Tin-Street Hooligan
1 Shattering Spree 

sirs,i know i said i'll stick with the staples and i'd keep out the LD parts but I really want to test this deck...and i saw other goyfsligh decks running wastelands and magus of the moon..personally i like fulminator mage more than magus of the moon because sure the magus locks deck in an instant but once removed by removal spells it goes to normal again..the mage however is always a 2 for 1...how much you look at it its always an advantage for you..i've seen it work with my Ponza deck and boy i'm giving them a hard time especially the Landstill guys anyways i'm just testing this form of the deck and if it sucks then i'll really stick to the staples...

thank you also for your suggestions for replacements for Chain Lightning...

[kicks_422]

Thing is, running Wasteland with only 18 lands total keeps you off of colored mana. Also, you want to be able to maximize your mana each turn, and Wasteland doesn't help you with that. Fulminator Mage, on the other hand, is just too bad of a beater to run. If he were 2cc 2/2, he could be up for consideration... But at 3cc, it's way too expensive.

Regular Goyf Sligh already has a pretty good MU against Landstill anyway. Resolve a Price of Progress and watch them cry.

[Wallace]

@ grungyboy

I think your list leaves a little to be desired. Goyf Sligh has some staples, cards that, IMHO, that should be included in every list. Here is that list:

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Rift Bolt
3-4 Price of Progress
3-4 Magma Jet
3 Fireblast

4 Tarmogoyf
3-4 Grim Lavamancer

To me that is the starting point for any Goyf Sligh deck.

The mana base is really simple, it doesn't have any room for Wasteland or Factory's. The deck only runs 4 green cards in the MB and if you don't run Kird Ape, then those are the only cards that need forests. The board will have another 3-4 green cards, so running more than 5 green sources(4 Taiga, 1 Forest) isn't needed. The number of fetch lands is up to you, I like to run 6, they feed Lavamancer and get those Taiga's.

Goyf Sligh depends on it's low mana curve and it's high damage to cc burn spells. Don't muck up the deck with cards like Sensei's Devining Top, Avalanche Riders, Fulminator Mage and other spells that are to costly for what they do.

[Peter_Rotten]

So, has anyone been messing with Figure of Destiny? Word on the street is that he is goodz, but I have yet to really test him. BigBear just placed in Hadley with build that ran Figure and main Grips.

[kicks_422]

Is there any reason for playing him in this deck over Kird Ape? Ape comes down as a 2/3, while Figure needs a bit more mana investment, which would slow down the deck. Also, there are a lot of things I would want to do with 3 open mana, and pumping up a creature by +2/+2 isn't one of them. If the hand is exhausted to finally have mana to pay for the cost, changing a 2/2 into a 4/4 wouldn't exactly be game-breaking.

[Wallace]

Is there any reason for playing him in this deck over Kird Ape? Ape comes down as a 2/3, while Figure needs a bit more mana investment, which would slow down the deck. Also, there are a lot of things I would want to do with 3 open mana, and pumping up a creature by +2/+2 isn't one of them. If the hand is exhausted to finally have mana to pay for the cost, changing a 2/2 into a 4/4 wouldn't exactly be game-breaking.

I think he is worth testing, while there are a lot of things you want to do with 3 mana, what happens when you empty your hand? This guy gives you a way to spend that extra mana, he gives you another outlet. I will throw this together and test it with FoD, I mean the original Sligh decks ran Ball Lightning, so should be no problem.

[kicks_422]

I think he is worth testing, while there are a lot of things you want to do with 3 mana, what happens when you empty your hand?

I already mentioned that. When your hand is empty, turning your 2/2 into a 4/4 wouldn't matter much, since you're probably on the way to losing/winning.

[Peter_Rotten]

I just Top8ed the Tropical Summer Event in Cuse (44 players). Before I get into details, I have to flat out say that luck was on my side A LOT for that Top8. Two other GoyfSligh lists made T8 and both of those were running FoD.

I was running a typical build but with 3 FoD, 3 Grims, and 3 KMs. Twice I played the mirror and beat both of them. Both mirrors ran Kird Ape.

So far, here is what I like and dislike about FoD:

Likes:
- Another turn one play
- A turn one play that prevents a Standstill from being played. (Kird Ape can get Factory chumped).
- Opponents usually must deal with him
- A better mid-game Top Deck than Kird Ape. Becoming a 4/4 is nothing an opponent can usually blow off.
- Opponents have been killing him like crazy. Less StPs aimed at my Goyfs. This also probably means one of two things: Opponents see him as a threat because he is OR they are overvaluing him (like sometimes we do with Bob).
- He does not force me to play an early Taiga and by extension, open me to nonbasic hate like Wasteland and Moon effects.

Dislikes:
- He is a weaker turn one play than KirdApe in specific situations like if I plan to play a 2cc critter on turn two. I've found him to be best when my turn two play can consist of dropping another 1cc threat and having the option to burn something OR pump FoD.
- He really gets killed A LOT. This, however, may not be an argument for Ape since the spells that were killing him would handle Ape also - StP, Mortify, and Bolts.

I think that this deck does not lack the early pressure spells like Ape, Grim, Fanatic, Goyf, KM, Bob, etc. What it needs to improve itself is flexible spells that are good early and are a decent topdeck. I think that FoD fulfills that role.

[Wallace]

Congrats on the finish P_R, I wish I knew what you looked like and I would have said hi. I wanted to play this deck but went with Dragon Stompy instead. I went 3-2 drop and decided to hang at the fair.

I too like FoD and plan on running him over Kird Ape. I love the fact that Goyf Sligh is back in the DTB forum and on the rise. Do you have the list you ran, of a list of the MU's you faced?

[Peter_Rotten]

Report here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=10917

List:

Burning Tog
Spells (41):
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Grim Lavamancer
3 Figure of Destiny
3 Keldon Marauder

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Magma Jet
4 Rift Bolt
3 Fireblast
3 Price of Progress

2 Krosan Grip

Lands (19):
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Taiga
8 Mountain
1 Forest

Sideboard (15):
4 Pyroclasm
2 Krosan Grip
2 Shattering Spree
4 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Price of Progress
2 Vexing Shusher

My Board was OK, but my main deck has the possibility of 5 dead cards - PoP and Grips. I found that I was siding in Shushers just to have another body to beat with. I never needed the Clasms or the Crypts, but 4 Crypts are mandatory in all my SBs.

[Volt]

.

[bigbear102]

@ sideboard: I would definitely keep Pyroclasm in the board. I was playing Goyf Sligh at the same tourney as PR and only had 1 clasm in my board because of a last minute switch up. I would definitely have sided it in for 2 of my 3 losses, and think that it would have made a huge difference in my record.

FoD is definitely better than Kird Ape in this deck. I haven't played Kird Ape in this type of shell for probably 3 years now, so I don't think that's too relevant.