Magus of the Moon or Blood Moon depends mostly on against whom do you need either of them.
If you want the effect to house RUG in particular I would suggest Blood Moon, on the basis that they can't deal with it with their removal spells. Similar reasoning applies to the matches where you face more removal after sideboarding. People can, and probably do, float mana needed to kill Magus of the Moon after it resolves. If they are playing Dismember they might not even need to do that much.
Blood Moon is kind of harder for all those decks to deal with since it's not like they will be adding enchantment hate after game one against a deck with 30+ creatures.
About Blood Moon: What decks do you want to play it against? Look at the Decks to Beat section.
Maverick
Miracle Control
Canadian Thresh
Blade Control
Dredge
Goblins
Sneak Attack
Merfolk
Reanimator
What does Blood Moon do against any of these decks? Can these decks deal with, play around, or play through a Blood Moon?
Maverick- They can fetch basics, they maindeck Hierarchs, and they play Pridemage. Blood Moon looks like a dead card here.
Miracle Control- Once again, they can fetch basics (2 color manabase), and they can counterspell or bounce Moon.
Canadian Thresh- We'll get back to this.
Blade Control- Fetches basics, makes you discard Moon or counters it.
Dredge- If you can resolve a Moon T2 then please do. But you can't, so you won't shut off that Cephalid Colesseum before it goes Threshold. Also, Faithless Looting don't care 'bout yo Blood Moon.
Goblins- Moon does nothing.
Sneak Attack- They can fetch basics (2 color manabase) and use red mana anyway and they can counterspell. They would probably be pleased to know you sided in Moons.
Merfolk- Moon shuts off Mutavault?!?!?! FUCK YEAH! Oh, wait, no, Moon does nothing worth a card slot.
Reanimator- Moon's too slow, they can counter it, and they can fetch basics.
Which brings us back to Canadian Thresh- This is the deck most often cited as a reason to play Blood Moon, but I keep seeing Blood Moon as a super weak card against them. Here's why: It slow. On the draw your opponent can deal with your lackey, drop a threat, and counter your Blood Moon with ease. You wind up in a position where you'ev just grown their Goyf and haven't developed your board. If you do manage to get a Blood Moon to stick it has to be in the late game (so they're out of free counters for it), and you still need to have answers to the fatties they've already thrown down. Post Blood Moon they still have access to FoW and burn anyway! If you don't follow-up that Blood Moon with a shit-ton of Gobbos or a Relic tout suite then you're still going to get beaten down out of the game. And under these circumstances just rocking Relic is the stronger play anyway. The only way I see Moon working into a gameplan here is if you're on the play G2 and can land it after you've drawn out some counterspells, and even then you still need to have a strong enough board position that you can fend off a Goyf or Delver for a few more turns, or follow-up Moon with a Relic. Then you can side Moon out G3 and hope against hope that your opponent leaves in Spell Pierce. Still, Moon is obviously an extremely situational card.
Oh, but if you must play it play Blood Moon over Magus. Enchantments are just harder to deal with and you're not short on bodies anyway.
combine Blood Moon with Goblin Lord and it might be much more useful. But its still damn slow.
Blood Moon is actually quite good against GW Maverick.
They usually run 2~3 basics, and they won't really expect a Moon effect, as they're more inclined to protect their dudes from Pyrokinesis and removal in general. It picks them up as surprise pretty good. If they Qasali Pridemage it, your Vial is safe.
Moreover, it stops Knight of the Reliquary tricks, which is pretty useful for a Swarm deck. Not letting Maze of Ith and Gaea's Craddle do their job is pretty big. Karakas on Krenko (without a haste-lord) might be a pain in the ass too.
On the draw, I'd gladly board out all Lackeys + something for Blood Moons and Pyrokinesis.
Let your Dredge 6 be: Narco, Narco, Narco, Bridge, Bridge, Dread Return
I was thinking about building the Rb version and was wondering if going with 4 duresses and 4 though seizes would be over kill in the sb for an unknown meta.
Some more thoughts from testing against Delver and Maverick. I feel pretty comfortable postboard against Maverick with SBed Sharpshooter, Prostpector, and Pyrokinesis. Against Delver I hardly ever have real trouble coming from the Goyfs and Mongeese. Like previously stated multiple times, Krenko especially and other chumps help stretch the game out where they shoot themselves with FOW disadvantage and my Ringleaders and Matrons.
Obviously the main problem is those bugger 3/2 flyers. I am going to try out a card for major SB only which seems underwhelming in most cases but may service itself well. Combust. I'm not trolling...sure 5 damage is overkill but it cant take out KotR and Delvers and Cant BE Countered. I feel that if I kill the Delvers, they will be hard pressed to punch damage through. Any thoughts?
Couple questions from a gobbo player that hasnt been around in 3-4 years.
1) What good does the War Marshal do? Produces chump blockers to stall for time?
2) Why do most builds not use Warren Instigator? If you drop him your opponent HAS to deal with him.
War Marshall is a very versatile card. In the early game, it holds off creatures while still making tokens and replacing itself. With Chieftain/Warchief, the card is a monster against a lot of decks. It's definitely one of the decks better creatures.
Warren Instigator is far too slow to do anything relevant at all, especially in a world of turn 1 Delver/Nimble Mongoose/Mother of Runes/Noble Hierarch/Dryad Arbor/etc.. Since the metagame has shifted heavily towards creatures, the difference between attacking on turn 2 and turn 3 is crucial to how your game will play out. Sure, there's magical christmas land, where you open up your hand and it's Goblin Lackey, Mountain, Fetchland, Warren Instigator, Siege Gang Commander, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Goblin Ringleader, but those draws are few and far between. My argument probably isn't the most convincing thing in the world, but you'll have to take my word for it. Goblins is one of those decks that has been thoroughly tested and optimized for years (seriously, take a look at this: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazin...i05/welcomea#1 - The only different thing nowadays is the addition of Mogg War Marshall, the removal of Swords to Plowshares for cards like Tin Street Hooligan/Stingscourger/Warren Wierding), and Instigator hasn't really been a 2-4 of in any list since it's been printed.
Thanks...so two - three (depending on if you pay the echo) 1/1 creatures is solid for 1R (possibly just R)?
Seems underwhelming but I haven't play tested him. I guess I'm just unsure of HOW/WHEN to use him.
Always on turn 2, there really isn't a better creature. Piledriver is mediocre when you played a Vial turn 1. Just test it, it's really good.Originally Posted by namrufmot
WHat if I know I'm not going to pay the echo, still drop him on turn 2? Wouldn't dropping the PD on turn two be better so that way next turn I can drop the Mogg and swing with a powered up PD?
Just thinking out loud...this weekend I'll start testing.
I'm also thinking that running Chalice of the Void MD might be huge. Setting it to one stops nearly every removal in the format.
Very true...Chalice does do that, but it also takes out your Lackey, Vial, and maybe Tarfires if you play them...its good, but you gotta weigh the cost of losing your one drops.
Another question for us to discuss...what is the optimal number of removal spells to play? Pan got 8th place only running 6 - gempalm and pyrokenesis.
Cavern of Souls can help the Lackey dilemma under a Chalice on one.
I am convinced that WotC is "dumbing" the game because of all the stupid posts they come across on MTG-related forums
Currently for removal I am still running 4 Gempalm Incinerator 1 Goblin Sharpshooter 1 Stingscourger (If stingscourger counts as removal anyhow) 2 Seige Gang Commander
& for artifacts, 1 maindeck Tuktuk scrapper
One thing I was looking at recently is interesting when I learned Mad Auntie was a card:
4 Goblin Wardriver
4 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin King
4 Mad Auntie
I am guessing however that this is not an optimal way to push goblins since if it was, it likely would have been out there by now. >^,^<
Primary legacy deck High Tide primer
I think the problem with "lords" in Goblins is that they tend to make an atrocious curve for the deck. Merfolk can pull it off because almost all of their lords are two drops.
I've been curious about playing this deck. What do you side in and out against storm?
The norm is to take out removal for either discard (if you are splashing black) or some sort of disruption like Thorn of Amethyst or Chalice of the Void. People have been playing Thalia to some success but I can't say that I'm a fan of the white splash myself.
this is a nice discussion, I'd like to hear moe thoughts on that.
as I was saying previously, I've not been playing pyrokinesis, but I will give it a try, based on the reports of it being good against maverick.
as of now, I play 4 incinerators, 2 stingscourgers and 1 tarfire main deck, and 2 sharpshooters in the sideboard. I do feel the need for more removal, but maybe pyrokinesis can be a 2 or 3 for 1 in this kind of occasion, so I'm not sure how to count that one.
and I'm not a fan of dismember in this meta, but i could see it being played against KotR.
someone mentioned combust, guess it could be considered on a delver/maverick heavy enviroment.
I run 4 Incineraters, 1 Stingscourger, and 2 Tarfires, along with 2 Kinesis and 1 Sharpshooter in the SB. I think enough of these removal are really useful to pave the way for Lackeys early.
I have played a lot of games with T1 Lackey followed by Stinky to bounce their only blocker...also I run 2 Winstigators and the removal help get him through sometimes.
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