Mainboard (60)
Creatures (18)
Instants (12)
Sorceries (4)
Enchantments (6)
Lands (20)
Sideboard (15)
Gruul Goblins is a tribal aggro deck that wins through Goblin Lackey cheating threats into play and Goblin Ringleader refueling the hand — your discard suite of Duress, Cabal Therapy, and Funeral Charm is critical for disrupting these key pieces early. Engineered Plague naming Goblin neuters almost the entire board simultaneously and is your most powerful card in this matchup. Perish as a sorcery sweeper hits everything in their deck except Goblin King, providing additional reset potential. Smother and Snuff Out come out because Engineered Plague is a more efficient answer to their swarm, and one Ravenous Rats is trimmed since their deck refills via Ringleader making the discard less impactful in topdeck wars. Phyrexian Negator and Hypnotic Specter remain in as your primary clock — getting a Specter through early can be backbreaking, and the combination of hand disruption plus a fast clock is your primary game plan.
Mono-Blue Stiflenought wins by either landing a free Phyrexian Dreadnought (via Stifle) or countering everything you play while drawing through their deck with Gush and Portent. Chill is your best weapon here, taxing every blue spell by 2 mana and effectively shutting down their counter-magic and card draw engine — resolve it early and it often wins the game on its own. Defense Grid further punishes them on their turn, making it nearly impossible to hold up Counterspell and Daze simultaneously. Your removal suite (Diabolic Edict, Smother, Snuff Out) is largely dead against a deck that wins with a single indestructible 12/12, so trim the less impactful pieces while keeping Diabolic Edict in full as your primary answer to Dreadnought. Duress and Cabal Therapy are critical — strip Stifle before playing your threats and discard their counterspells before resolving Chill or Defense Grid.
Engineered Plague naming Zombie is the key asymmetry in this matchup: it destroys their Withered Wretch and Graveborn Muse while leaving every creature in your deck untouched. Funeral Charm's modes are all weak here — discard requires them to have a card in hand in a game where both decks empty hands fast, -1/-1 rarely kills anything relevant at this power level, and swampwalk is irrelevant in a mirror. Knight of Stromgald's protection from black makes your Smother, Snuff Out, and Funeral Charm unable to target it, so prioritize Diabolic Edict to force sacrifices and answer the Knight cleanly. Your Hypnotic Specter and Phyrexian Negator are faster threats than their Graveborn Muse, so apply pressure early and use Duress and Cabal Therapy to clear the way before they can stabilize.