Diving into Modern Goblins with Conspicuous Snoop
Core 21 is here! For those out of the loop, it is currently like “Christmas morning” for those of us who love Magic’s little green men. You see, Core 21 brings with it a brand new goblin king, and his name is Conspicuous Snoop. Snoop daddy brings with him everything Vial goblins needed to have a shot at being a legitimate top tier deck in the Modern format. Aside from offering some powerful card advantage in the later turns, this little guy also packs a 2 card turn 3 infinite combo.
Vial goblins was already attempting to run an infinite combo with Murderous Redcap to some marginal success, but this new combo angle is sure to boost resiliency.
So first things first, how does the combo work? Well, approximately 3 minutes after Snoop was spoiled, Reddit user u/Zekumo posted a lovely MS Paint image describing a scenario in which you play Snoop turn two, Boggart Harbinger on turn three to tutor for Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and put it on top of your library, then because Snoop gets Kiki’s ability and isn’t legendary itself, Snoop goes infinite with itself making a million tapped copies of itself by targeting itself with it’s own ability upon entering the battlefield. Whenever you want to end the loop, you tap your Snoop to copy your Harbinger and tutor your deck for Mogg Fanatic or Sling Gang Lieutenant, which will allow all of your copies of Snoop to sacrifice themselves for 1 damage each, thus resulting in infinite damage.
Wait, isn’t this actually a 4 card combo? Well, yes, but actually no. You see, the only cards that you need in play are the Snoop and the Boggart. Playing Kiki and Fanatic is an extremely low opportunity cost to enable the combo, and the deck is naturally going to be playing Sling-Gang anyway. The shell that we’re going to want to slot this combo into is going to be a more traditional Aggro-Control goblins strategy, and it just happens that all of the cards needed for the combo are incidentally good in this kind of deck anyway.
Let’s take a peek at a list:
This is a tutor-centric build that tries to create a toolbox style play pattern while taking advantage of the wide range of utility goblins that modern has to offer. The is able to back up its tutor package with the now 8 card advantage machines in Snoop and Ringleader. It’s really a deck that tries to keep opponents on their toes at all points in the game.
So why play Goblins over any other deck in Modern?
Goblins as an archetype in Modern is all about utility. Whether that be the wide range of effects that the tribe has access to or the different styles of gameplay that you can pivot between depending on your matchup, the little dudes are great at being ready for anything. With this new combo available, this deck plays a little bit like Splinter Twin did back in the day; it goes into the match being a tempo-aggro deck that has access to a fast combo, but can also stop on a dime and become the control deck should the need arise. If the opponent can’t do something to stop all three of those elements, they’re going to be on the back foot out of the gate. Goblins offers players a chance to really flex their in game knowledge by assembling (though sometimes it feels more like cobbling together) the right combination of cards which, on their face are just kinda mediocre, to form a synergy that will run an opponent over. It heavily rewards knowledge of your own deck as well as understanding an opposing strategy inside and out. The deck is also highly customizable, and can suit any play style easily.
The majority of Goblins are going to offer a two-for-one in some capacity thanks to having a relevant ability attached to a body. Goblins looks to swing the advantage bar by stacking up all of those effects to bury an opponent in card advantage if the deck doesn’t manage to perform a solid beat down in the early and mid game. Whether it’s a body that also acts as a removal spell such as Munitions Expert, a body that creates more bodies like Sling-Gang, or a true card advantage machine like Goblin Ringleader, the two-for-ones just don’t stop in this deck. This aspect also makes it easier to catch back up if a control deck manages to put us into an unfavorable spot with a wrath.
Sideboarding:
As effective as the main deck of a Goblins deck may be against a large portion of the field, there are a couple of strategies that the little monsters really struggle with. Spell based combos or decks that don’t lean heavily on creatures are going to give Goblins some fits because there’s not a lot that can be done in terms of interacting with them. Ramp strategies that have access to sweepers, such as Green Tron and Titanshift are also going to be troubling because if they can manage to dodge the combo they’re going to be able to go over us. Lastly, anything that wants to try and out-value us while also having their own answers to our threats (so basically anything that can beat us at our own game). We’re basically looking to load up on cards that either interact beyond the battlefield, or cards that stop stupid things from happening like Damping Sphere and Grafdigger's Cage. There are several versions of the deck that try to jam Chalice of the Void out of the side as well, but I think that having access to the one drops in the deck is a bit more important at the moment. Should the meta shift, this may be where we’re looking towards moving though. The skinny of it is that we want to morph into a Legacy Stompy style aggro prison deck out of the sideboard for those couple of matches where our main deck just doesn’t stand a chance.
Modern Goblins has a little something for everyone, from those that like to beat down to those that prefer a slightly longer game and everyone in between. If you’re a fan of interacting, customization in deck building, or just jamming cards that your opponents haven’t seen since that draft format like 7 years ago, Goblins is shaping up to be an excellent deck to choose. There’s also a lively community on reddit, discord, and twitch where you can watch streams and discuss the pipsqueeks to your heart's content. I highly recommend digging a little deeper if you’re interested, because the Goblin Warren goes pretty deep.
Anyway, here’s where we end for now. Thanks for Reading!
