To Koboldly Go!

[Exaulted_Leader]

I was looking through my obscene number of Lightning Coils the other day, and I said to myself, 'Geez... I really need to use these things for something.'

So I began to sort through my collection, thinking of different little pieces I could use to build something half-decent with them ('I could use my Coretappers and Power Conduits... but those are better suited for my Darksteel Reactor deck. Shrapnel Blast and weenie modular critters wouldn't be bad... but those are better suited for my standard Ravager Affinity deck. Hmm...'). Then, I happened upon some of my really old type 1 stuff.

And lookit that! My whole collection of Legends Kobolds, from Crimson Kobolds to Kobolds of Kher Keep.

Hey now... with a lot of zero drops, and some stuff to send them to the graveyard... maybe some stuff to reload my hand...

Thus the birth of a new casual-play T1 deck, 'To Koboldly Go!'


Foremostly, a whole host of 0 mana critters, and the Coils that they fuel:

4x Crimson Kobolds
4x Kobolds of Kher Keep
4x Crookshank Kobolds
4x Phyrexian Walker
4x Shield Sphere
4x Ornithopter
4x Lightning Coils

Then, a chunk of cards for getting those 0 drops into the graveyard:

4x Skullclamp
4x Carrion Feeder

And, lastly, a nifty utility card that can be used to generate a huge card scoop if Skullclamp is on the board:

4x Dark Ritual

The land:

20x Swamp

How it goes:

Your 0 drops will serve three purposes: fueling the Coils for the win, giving you card advantage, and protecting your life total from critter attacks. Drop, clamp, trigger coils, clamp coil's tokens, repeat. It's a fun little devil to play with - if certainly not top-tier.

I'm thinking of cutting some land, but I don't know... 20 lands always seems to do very well when we're talking about 60-card decks.

Input / Suggestions?

 

[Oversoul]

I saw a decklist for 1.5 that used the Kobolds with Skullclamp, Tendrils of Agony, and Carnival of Souls...

It was so cool...

 

[Exaulted_Leader]

UPDATE:

More speed was need. So I hopped-up the acceleration:

Lands:

10x Swamp
6x Forest

Non-Critters:

4x Tangleroot
4x Lightning Coils
4x Skullclamp
3x Dark Ritual
1x Fastbond

Critters:

4x Carrion Feeder
4x Ornithopter
4x Crimson Kobolds
4x Kobolds of Kher Keep
4x Crookshank Kobolds
4x Phyrexian Walker
4x Shield Sphere

Now it works monstrously well. After 10 games, the opening hand was:

Fastbond
Dark Ritual
Crimson Kobolds
Crookshank Kobolds
Tangleroot
Swamp
Skullclamp

This allowed for Swamp + Ritual + Tangleroot + Crimson Kobold + Skullclamp + Crookshank Kobolds, and using the remaining mana to clamp once. Forest and another Crimson Kobold allowed the Fastbond to hit the table, and I drilled down to 7 cards remaining in the library (Could've drilled to only a single one remaining, but there wasn't any merit in doing so). Exploded 3 coils on 2nd turn for well over 20 tokens.

Not a hand I'll see often, but I REALLY like doing stuff like this.

 

[Oversoul]

Nice, I think that it's more solid after it got the added speed...

After all, along the lines of Prosbloom or now the T1 Belcher decks, there's not really room for disruptive cards, and consistency is the key to success. Plus this deck is just cool...

 

[Homestar]

this may be stupid but you could do play it with eon hub and shatters.......

use the eon hub to stockpile counters on the coils then once you think you can kill them or deal major damage kill ur eon hub or durin their EoT step

or youu could find a way to return the eon hub to ur hand for later use.

 

[Oversoul]

You could do that...

But it's not necessary to do that in order to build up enough counters and I'm sure Exaulted_Leader's (can I just call you "Leader" for short?) version runs more smoothly...

 

[Homestar]

yea i kno but im just giving a little idea..

 

[Tabasco]

Goblin Bombardment.....

Tabasco' s useless fact #57 - Kobold is the German word for Goblin.......

Therefore Kobolds are goblins. Sac for extra damage using Bombardment.


Deck seems Tech

 

[Oversoul]

That depends though...

Would Bombardment make the combo any faster?

 

[Spiderman]

Cool you're using Kobolds!

 

[Exaulted_Leader]

Still chiseling away at this little monster. Even gave 'er a new name:

DEFCON 5

The Fastbond and Tangleroot, after a few one-on-one duels with friends, were given the slice - as were the Ornithopters, Phyrexian Walkers and Shield Spheres. This stuff is really disappointing to see in an opening hand; and that's where it usually ended up.

Since the deck just needs to grab the coils and fire them as quickly as possible, I decided to chop the green mana in favor of some blue, and bring 'er back up to 20 lands (I wasn't seeing enough land drops, even for a deck with such a low mana curve).

4 Coretappers, 4 Brainstorms, 2 Indexes, 2 Fabricates, 1 Dark Ritual and 4 Diabolic Intent were used to replace all the chopped cards, now making the deck look like:

Critters:

4x Coretapper
4x Kobolds of Kher Keep
4x Crimson Kobolds
4x Crookshank Kobolds

Non-Critters:

4x Lightning Coils
4x Diabolic Intent
4x Dark Ritual
4x Skullclamp
4x Brainstorm
2x Index
2x Fabricate

Land:

11x Swamp
9x Island

Total: 60 Cards

I'm pleased with this direction so far. 4th-5th turn multiple coils happen frequently enough to make it dangerous.


Homestar wrote:

this may be stupid but you could do play it with eon hub and shatters.......

use the eon hub to stockpile counters on the coils then once you think you can kill them or deal major damage kill ur eon hub or durin their EoT step

or youu could find a way to return the eon hub to ur hand for later use.


I think this would be counter-productive to what I'm trying to achieve. The idea isn't to stockpile a whole load of counters onto a single coils and let 'er rip (which would give an opponent plenty of time to bounce them, find a stifle, ready a holy day, deal me lethal damage, etc...), but to fire more than one coil early in the game with the minimum alotment of counters.

Eon Hub and some bounce as opposed to Shatter are definately decorating my sideboard, however, for tricky games against things like Welder Mud.


Tabasco wrote:

Goblin Bombardment.....

Tabasco' s useless fact #57 - Kobold is the German word for Goblin.......

Therefore Kobolds are goblins. Sac for extra damage using Bombardment.


Deck seems Tech


Thanks! To be honest, it's more fun than it is effective (TnT, Panda Burst, Welder Mud, Charbelcher, Gay Fish... the list goes on of the number of decks that simply blow Defcon 5 out of the water.

To me, though, it's the entertainment value that counts.

I was considering my Goblin Bombardments for a while... then decided against them. 1 damage is fairly insignificant when compared to, say, drawing two cards with a Skullclamp (even if you do have to pay a mana to do so). The decks NEEDS to be able to reload it's hand after dumping the stuff on the board, so you can keep the Coils fed.


Issues:

Where's the D!?!?

Although I haven't actually played-out a match against an aggro deck yet (Suicide Black comes to mind), I imagine that Defcon 5 would get brutally murdered. My only way of keeping critters from slamming into my life total is by using the Kobolds as chumps, or forcing my opponent to leave their critters as blockers for a ready-to-fire Coils.

I don't presently have a solution for this. Suggestions are welcome!

 

[Tabasco]

In response to your comment about my comment......Goblin Bombardment isalso for utility.....think of it this way......1 Kobold could ping off a......Goblin Welder (from TnT)......a Cloud of Faeries/ Spiketail Hatchling with curiousity attached (from Gay Fish)....not to mention the creature lands like Blinkmoth Nexus or Faerie Conclave.

think of what 2 Kobolds could do.......

The fact is that despite it costs 2cc instead of 1cc compared to the feeder.

 

[Oversoul]

I don't currently have anything for the aggro match...

But I notice that you're actually using Index in a U/B deck...

Lim-Dul's Vault may cost twice as much, but it's so much better...

Speaking of which, there has to be something better for you to use than Diabolic Intent...

 

[Spiderman]

Hey EL, does this mean you don't need the Shield Spheres and Phyrexian Walkers anymore?

Check your PMs...

 

[Shiro, Time Devourer]

If you can make THAT deck work, you deserve to win outright.

Perhaps some Storm cards? Scattershot comes to mind.

 

[Oversoul]

Once the combo has gone off, you want to kill players, not creatures...

I don't see how Scattershot would be useful...

You shouldn't have excess mana either, as you're using it to Clamp away...

 

[Exaulted_Leader]

Lim-Dul's vault is indeed a better choice than Index; but alas, I've traded my Vault away. :/ Indexes are just a 'placeholder' of sorts until I get my hands on something better.

Diabolic Intent, IMHO, ROCKS! Unrestricted in T1, with EXACTLY the same cost and effect as our good friend, Demonic Tutor. With a whole ton of 0 drop critters, it may as well BE a demonic tutor. Except that I can have 4 of them! No virtual card advantage for my opponent (as in the case of Vampiric Tutor), no loss of life, no gambling... it's a heck of a toolbox!


Alrighty - I gave those Goblin Bombardments a shot. What a HOOT! Metalworkers, Welders, Slobad, Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves... Even a Mishra's Factory were ejected from the playing field before my opponent had the chance to utilize them (though TnT still manages to hose me really well due to the Anger it usually seats in the graveyard, Welder Mud doesn't even know what hit it). Thanks for sticking-up for your claim - these are a far better choice than Skullclamp.


Ugh... 'Storm'. I prefer doing slightly less 'tricky' things when it comes to attacking my opponent. I'm the Red and Green mage far more often than the Blue.


Thanks for the feedback, guys. I'll see how she does in an upcoming T1 multiplayer tournament.

 

[Oversoul]

Better than Clamp? The Clamp is the card that has synergy with the Kobolds. Without it they're just 0/1 creatures...

 

[train]

But they're stll 0/1 creatures with it...

I like the idea, but always run some white in my type 1 decks... It just has good synergy with Red overall... IMO...

I'd run it with something like Enduring Renewal... (Yes, I do know this would be a slower deck - but it's all about the utility...

 

[Homestar]

if you play it with white you could use wrath of god..........kill thiers AND yours but you want urs to fie so ur coils get counters...and, unless they play a creature next turn they take direct from ur lightning elememntal tokens er whatever they are n the coils.....