Community

First, great to see an old player coming back. Welcome back.

Second, here's an idea of how well old school Goblins can play with new skool Goblins:


4x Goblin Chieftain
3x Goblin King
4x Goblin Lackey
3x Goblin Sky Raider
3x Mogg Fanatic
2x Spikeshot Goblin
2x Lightning Crafter
3x Krenko, Mob Boss

4x Rite of Flame
3x Browbeat
3x Goblin Grenade
3x Skred
2x Krenko's Command
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Fireblast  

19x Snow-Covered Moutain  


First, a couple of pre-emptive notes:
-Having those Skyraiders around has saved my butt to many times to take them out. Just having that one flyer around has been the diff between win or loss on many occasions.
-At first glance, it's way more expensive mana wise than a goblin deck should ever be, but with the Rite of Flame, I very rarely have an issue.
-The lone Fireblast has capped more games than I can count.
-I have tried the Vial route, but honestly, it didn't make much diff at all.  This deck really doesn't have much of a mana issue, even with only 19 lands.
-Kiki-Jiki had a place in here for years, along with Mogg War Marshal , but just got cut with the Marshal for Krenko. It's better now than it was.

I'd like to try a R/B thing, fixing the mana base to do so and swapping Goblin King for Mad Auntie and finding a replacement for Skred, which I don't think would make the cut with far fewer snow-covered lands. I would probably swap Skred for Dreadbore in that case. Another new card I'd love to work in is Quest for the Goblin Lord . Seems like a solid card with as many tokens as thing creates. Turn 4 or 5 wins are status-quo for this deck.

Pretty much, if you block a creature (or attack) with Mogg Fanatic, you can't have Fanatic deal combat damage to the creature you're blocking, and then sac to use its ability. You can declare the creature blocked, and then sac the Fanatic. If you do that, unless the creature you're blocking has trample, it won't deal any damage, but even if it has 1 toughness, it will still live, because your Fanatic didn't deal damage (unless you targeted the creature with the Fanatic).

Say your opponent attacks with a Ball Lightning and a Goblin Piker, and you have a Mogg Fanatic. If you block the Piker with Fanatic, then sac it to deal 1 damage to Ball Lightning, the Ball Lightning will die and you'll take nothing. The Piker lives but niether deals or recieves any damage. 
If you decide to block the Ball Lightning instead and then target the Piker with Fanatic's ability, then you will kill the Piker (before the damage step), and then, even though you blocked the trampling Ball Lightning, it will deal the full six damage because there is 0 toughness in its way.

The same is true for instants like Fling, Dredge and Scapegoat.

Oct 5, 2012 -- 6:50AM, DRYIYC wrote:

So this makes all of the holyday/fog cards worthless after blockers are declared? I mean what is the point of Timberwatch now?

Not quite.  I'll try to make this a little clearer by way of example.  What dagbaker said is true, but it doesn't quite cover what I'm trying to get at

Under the old rules the combat phase went like this:
1)Declare attackers
2)Players get Priority (may cast instants and activate abilities at instant speed)
3)Declare blockers
4)Players get Priority
5)Combat damage is dealt but goes on the stack and is not applied yet
5.1)Players get Priority
5.2)Combat damage resolves from the stack and is applied (things die)
6)Players get Priority

For example this is how you would best handle things under the old rule (I'm not using Ball lightning anymore because using it to illustrate this concept would be foolish as you still take lots of damage):

1)You are attacked by a Raging Goblin and a Goblin Piker .
2)No actions
3)You block Goblin Piker with Mogg Fanatic
4)No actions
5)Combat damage on the stack
5.1)Sacrifice the Mogg Fanatic to deal 1 damage to the Raging Goblin.  Raging Goblin dies.
5.2)Combat damage resolves, you take 1 point of combat damage from the Raging Goblin's damage from the stack.  The Goblin Piker attempts to deal 2 combat damage to the Mogg Fanatic, but it's no longer there so the damage whiffs.  Mogg Fanatic's combat damage resolves and hits the Goblin Piker for 1 point, killing the Goblin Piker.
6)No actions

The end result under the old rules:
You take 1 point of combat damage and lose your Mogg fanatic, but you kill both of your opponent's creatures.


Under the new rules the combat phase goes like this:
1)Declare attackers
2)Players get Priority (may cast instants and activate abilities at instant speed)
3)Declare blockers
4)Players get Priority
5)Combat damage is dealt and applies immediately (things die), players may not cast spells or activate abilities here.
6)Players get Priority

That same sequence of events under the new rules:

1)You are attacked by a Raging Goblin and a Goblin Piker .
2)No actions
3)You block Goblin Piker with Mogg Fanatic
4)Sacrifice the Mogg Fanatic to deal 1 damage to the Raging Goblin.  Raging Goblin dies.
5)Combat damage is dealt and applied, you take no combat damage from the Raging Goblin.  The Goblin Piker attempts to deal 2 combat damage to the Mogg Fanatic, but it's no longer there so the damage whiffs.  Mogg Fanatic is no longer around to deal combat damage so the Goblin Piker survives.
6)No actions

You'll note that under the new rules it would actually be better for you to switch who you're blocking, but I was trying to keep the examples symmetrical so you could see what's happening.

The better choices under the new rules:

1)You are attacked by a Raging Goblin and a Goblin Piker .
2)No actions
3)You block Raging Goblin with Mogg Fanatic
4)Sacrifice the Mogg Fanatic to deal 1 damage to the Goblin Piker.  Goblin Piker dies.
5)Combat damage is dealt and applied, you take no combat damage from the Goblin Piker.  The Raging Goblin attempts to deal 1 combat damage to the Mogg Fanatic, but it's no longer there so the damage whiffs.  Mogg Fanatic is no longer around to deal combat damage so the Raging Goblin survives.
6)No actions


The functionality of Timberwatch elf doesn't change unless you want to deal LESS combat damage for some reason.  If you wanted to deal less damage and just have a higher toughness, then you would activate Timberwatch's ability during step 5.1.  Otherwise just activate the Timberwatch in step 4 of both the old rules and the new rules to get both more damage and more toughness.  The same goes for Holy Day / Fog , just activate them in step 4.


Another Example:

On the other hand Morphling is now significantly worse because it used to be that you could turn it into a 5/1 during step 4, put combat damage on the stack in step 5, then turn it into a 1/5 in step 5.1, and have it kill an Earth Elemental and still survive against that same Earth Elemental because the Morphling had 5 toughness when the Earth Elemental's 4 points of combat damage resolved in step 5.2.  Now, under the new rules you have to choose whether you want to kill the Earth Elemental or save your Morphling, you can't do both.


My apologies for the wall of text, but I hope this helped.

Oct 5, 2012 -- 12:03PM, Sacrifice wrote:

I don't mind the wall of text, but I'm still a bit confused. Maybe I'm just completely lost, but, it looks like the new rules are in fact somewhat more akin to the old OLD rules, before the stack existed.

Talk about evolution of a thread. I hope the OP isn't upset at the hijacking of thread subject... 

I didn't start playing until Invasion so I don't know what the pre-sixth edition rules were so i can't help you there.  All I know is that from the time 6th Edition was released to the time M10 was released combat damage went on the stack before it resolved.  After that, WotC made combat damage bypass the stack.

As for hijacking the thread, the OP asked for explanations of rules changes since he stopped in 2004 so we're still on topic.

So you have to buff before your attack? Play all spells, declare attackers and then wait for any inturpts to be played then attack damage is counted? So I would have to pre sack golbins to Clickslither then order the attack with him because if I order the attack I can not buff him if he is blocked with a bigger critter?