Mainboard (60)
Creatures (16)
Instants (12)
Sorceries (4)
Artifacts (3)
Enchantments (4)
This is a fast, symmetrical creature matchup where the first player to establish board dominance usually wins. Goblin Lackey on turn 1 is the highest-priority target — use Seal of Fire or Mogg Fanatic immediately to deny free drops of Siege-Gang Commander or Goblin Piledriver. Goblin Piledriver can grow to an unmanageable size in a single attack step once Warchief grants haste, so kill it on sight with Incinerate or Lightning Bolt before it ever attacks. Earthquake replaces the slow Cursed Scroll as a reset button when the opponent floods the board with small goblins; casting it at X=2 clears most of their army while leaving you with burn spells and Fireblast to finish the game. Grim Lavamancer is particularly strong here, converting spent removal spells into repeated pings that efficiently trade against their 1-toughness engine pieces like Goblin Lackey and Mogg Fanatic.
Mono-Blue Stiflenought wins by countering your threats and either landing a Phyrexian Dreadnought through Stifle or locking you out with Vision Charm's phase-out ability. Your game plan is to go under their counterspell suite with cheap burn spells that are hard to counter profitably — Mogg Fanatic, Seal of Fire, and Lightning Bolt all demand answers or quickly close the game. Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast come in as efficient, uncounterable answers to their blue permanents and can also blank their counters in a pinch. Goblin Cadets comes out because its attack-redirection drawback is especially punishing when the opponent can choose blockers freely, and it rarely connects meaningfully against an island-heavy deck. Keep the pressure relentless and aim to have Fireblast or a Lavamancer as a finisher once they've tapped out to protect the Dreadnought.
Mono-Black Midrange is a grindy matchup where their discard suite (Duress, Cabal Therapy, Hypnotic Specter) threatens to strip your hand early, making Cursed Scroll's activation cost unreliable and slow. Bring in Earthquake as a sweeper to handle their go-wide threats like Mishra's Factory tokens and to efficiently kill Hypnotic Specter and Knight of Stromgald before they take over. Your primary game plan is to deal as much direct damage as fast as possible — Ball Lightning and Fireblast are your best cards here, as they bypass their ground blockers and can't be hit by Diabolic Edict once they're already attacking. Watch out for Nantuko Shade pumping to survive damage-based removal; use burn spells like Lightning Bolt and Incinerate in response to their pump activations. Post-board they will likely bring in Engineered Plague naming Goblins, which hits Goblin Cadets and Mogg Fanatic, so prioritize landing Grim Lavamancer and Ball Lightning as damage-dealers that dodge the Plague.