Mainboard (60)
Creatures (13)
Instants (6)
Sorceries (8)
Artifacts (4)
Enchantments (3)
Goblins is a fast tribal aggro deck that wins by flooding the board with cheap creatures and using Goblin Lackey to cheat in Siege-Gang Commander or Goblin Ringleader ahead of schedule — your top priority is disrupting that engine before it spirals out of control. Pyroclasm and Simoon are your most important tools, each capable of wiping most of their early board; note that Simoon only hits non-green creatures, but that covers the entire Goblin tribe here. Cursed Totem shuts off Goblin Matron, Goblin Ringleader, Goblin Sharpshooter, and Skirk Prospector, crippling their search and combo potential without affecting your own creatures. Land disruption via Wasteland, Rishadan Port, and eventually Armageddon or Vindicate remains strong — Goblins relies on Rishadan Port and Karplusan Forest and has no real card advantage without Ringleader, so keeping them mana-starved while you stabilize behind Terravore or Treetop Village can win the game cleanly. Zuran Orb, Cataclysm, and the one-of removal spells are trimmed because they either do nothing relevant against a creature-heavy aggro deck or are too slow to matter in the early turns where this game is decided.
Mono-Blue Stiflenought wins by using Stifle to counter Phyrexian Dreadnought's trigger, then beating down with a 12/12 while holding up counterspells. Your plan is to force through a threat or land destruction spell and ride it to victory — Terravore and Nimble Mongoose are both naturally resilient here, with Mongoose being uncounterable. Red Elemental Blast comes in to fight through the dense counter suite and can also hit a Phyrexian Dreadnought in a pinch. Vindicate is your best removal since it's a hard answer to Dreadnought if it resolves, and Armageddon is still a powerful closer if you can land a threat first. Disenchant and Naturalize are dead cards with almost no targets in their list, and Cataclysm is too risky in a counter-heavy matchup where tempo is critical.
Mono-Black Midrange is a discard-heavy deck that wants to strip your hand with Duress and Cabal Therapy before deploying threats like Hypnotic Specter and Nantuko Shade. Red Elemental Blast answers their key threats — particularly Hypnotic Specter, which is devastating against you — and can also counter Cabal Therapy on the stack if they cast it rather than flashback it. Aura of Silence slows down their Cursed Scroll and any artifact/enchantment sideboard additions like Gloom, which is a serious concern post-board since it taxes your white spells heavily. Cataclysm is awkward here since they run few permanents and you often want to keep lands up, and Call of the Herd is cut as a slower threat that gets blanked by Withered Wretch and Smother. Your core engine of land destruction via Armageddon and Vindicate backed by fast threats like Terravore and Nimble Mongoose is your path to victory — Armageddon is especially brutal since they have no ramp and rely on Swamps for everything.