Krenko's Army of Green Men

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Jack
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Krenko's Army of Green Men

Postby Jack » Wed Jul 17, 2013 2:39 am

Throw enough goblins at any problem, and it should go away. At the very least, there'll be fewer goblins.
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I'm aware that we already have two threads for Krenko on this site. Manasjap's post/list is what inspired me to build a Krenko deck; giving me an idea of some cards that would work well in goblin EDH and reminding me how much fun I had with goblins when M12 was part of Standard. I saw that the deck would be very inexpensive, so looked through a few commons bins and entered a few card names into TCGPlayer, and less than $50 later, I had a 1v1 EDH deck that could deliver a serious ass-kicking.

Since then, I've put a bit more money into the list, but not much. First off, I bought a
pack of gold Dragonshields and a set of Snow-Covered Mountains, but that's probably been the biggest upgrade the deck has received. As a result, the list still has a handful of less-than-optimal cards in it, but a foil Krenko, Mob Boss in a hard plastic sleeve does more than enough to compensate for this. The list below is what I am actually playing at the moment, not what I would play if I had every card in the format. It does not follow the French Banlist, because none of the people I play against play French rules.
[deck]The Army[/deck]
About the Deck
The first thing you should know about this deck is that it can be very, very fast. It is capable of dealing lethal damage by turn 4, and many hands will be able to kill them dead by turn 5. Keep this in mind when piloting the deck. Make mulligan decisions using the same reasoning that you do for any other aggro deck (ask "can this hand kill them" rather than "can this hand do something, and keep me alive until I can do that thing"), but also keep it in consideration that you should be able to: 1) cast and tap Krenko, and launch an attack of goblin tokens on or before turn six; and 2) put enough goblins on the battlefield before you cast Krenko in order to make that attack sizable enough to end the game. Cards such as Brightstone Ritual and [card]Krenko's Command[/card] do a wonderful job of fulfilling the
second requirement.

While the deck may be outstandingly fast for a non-combo deck in this format, this does not mean that it lacks reach or a plan for the late game. Your enchantments and Shrine of Burning Rage will survive most sweepers, and Goblin Chirurgeon helps your creatures to survive as well. You even have a sweeper of your own. It's called Ruination, and it often hurts more than a Planar Cleansing. When you're staring a big, scary voltron general in the face, drop a Zealous Conscripts and kill them with their own weapon. If the game's going long and you seem to have run out of gas, Wheel of Fortune, Reforge the Soul and Sensation Gorger make for some very welcome topdecks. Goblin Matron and [card]Goblin
Recruiter[/card] also help you to get back to your original game plan (I usually fetch Recruiter with Matron).

Oh, remember that piece of wisdom written on Goblin Piledriver? As it turns out, throwing enough goblins at a problem is the key to the deck's infinite combo. With Krenko, Phyrexian AltarSkirk Prospector and something to give Krenko Haste, as well as 6 or more goblins (something that is not very hard to achieve with this deck), you can make infinite goblins. Tap Krenko to give you a total of 16 goblins, then sac Krenko plus 5 tokens to the altar and use the red mana to cast Krenko again. Tap Krenko, giving you 20 total goblins, and have 8 goblins (one of which is Krenko) make funny little popping sounds so you have enough mana to cast your general again so you can repeat the cycle, giving you a net increase of 2 goblins each time. If you also have a [card]
Thornbite Staff[/card] in play, you can deal infinite damage as well, and not have to worry about never ever ever being able to cast your general again when your opponent wipes the board. In fact, you only need 2 goblins (Krenko and Skirk Prospector) for this combo, and you don't even have to sac your general, which is a plus if they manage to interrupt it. Goblin Sharpshooter can take the place of Skirk Prospector in this combo (shoot your goblin token to untap both Krenko and Sharpshooter), except you don't get infinite mana, so you can't use Krenko to deal infinite damage through Thornbite Staff.
Card Choices
Yeah...I'm not going to write a line or two for 64 different cards right now. Maybe later; probably before the end of summer.
Cards I own, and once played or thought about playing, but do not play
[card]Goblin Grappler[/
card]: It can be useful. If they only have a few creatures, it can keep someone from blocking and killing your important creature, and occasionally be used to kill one of their utility creatures, but in the context of this format and this deck, the card is not worth playing.
Mogg Sentry: Again, the card just is not worth the space. Since you're not so worried about blocking, and +2/+2 isn't much of a punishment to play a spell on your turn, this card's greatest strength is making Krenko pump out another goblin. Honestly, I'd rather play another Mountain.
Goblin Tinkerer: Having an answer to artifacts is very useful, but there are better cards to do that than this one.
Utvara Scalper: See Mogg Sentry.
Akki Coalflinger: Strictly worse than Bloodmark Mentor. I just feel like it doesn't do enough for the cost.
[card:
38qbjpwi]Akki Drillmaster[/card]: Haste for Krenko is good. The goblin creature type is good. This card is not a bad option, but I don't play it.
Goblin Ruinblaster: He provides a very useful effect. The reason I don't play him is that, when kicked (he's terrible when you don't), he has the same mana cost as Krenko, which is a problem.
Rummaging Goblin: It's too slow.
Adaptive Automaton: I already have enough of these types of cards. He's fine in decks that don't have enough lords, but this is not the case for goblins, where there are better options. A +1/+1 just seems too small. Goblin King may end up getting cut for the same reason.
Beetleback Chief: Getting to 4 mana with this deck can sometimes be a problem. When you do, would you rather cast your general, or this guy?
Horde of Boggarts: This
card is just a big beater. This deck likes a bunch of little beaters, not one big one. He is easily blocked, and usually won't deal too much damage when you attack with him. In this deck, I don't like to play a 4 drop unless it can reliably deal 10+ damage before it dies.
Moggcatcher: If you're going the more combo-oriented route, this card is great.
Reckless One: I used to play it for the Onslaught goblin flavor, but then I got better cards.
Voracous Dragon: Again, I liked this card for the flavor. It will often win the game if you cast it after you attack with the tokens Krenko made. This deck cannot reliably get to 5 lands before turn 7. Look at the other 5 drops, then look at this. It just doesn't do as much damage as the others, plain and simple.
Burst Lightning / Tarfire / Sudden Shock / [card:
38qbjpwi]Staggershock[/card]: Spot removal is good. These cards are good. I just don't play them.
Weapon Surge: The first strike is nice, but 1 extra damage just proved to be not enough most of the time.
Wheel of Fate: When cast on turn 2, it will go on the stack on turn 6. This is a good thing, because by turn 6, you should have dumped your hand and/or won the game. If you didn't win, you get a new hand, so you have a better shot at winning. Seems good, right? My problem with the card is that, if you spend your second turn doing nothing to improve your board rather than putting out a few goblins for Krenko, you oftenwon't win the game on turn 6.
[card]Ashnod's Altar[/card] / Phyrexian Altar: These are good if you want to focus more on winning with a combo.
In the Web of War: Paying 5 mana for this is silly
now that they printed Ogre Battledriver
Cards I don't own, but would totally play if I did
Coming soon. Sooner than the card choices section.
Multiplayer Transition
Yeah, Krenko's also pretty good in multiplayer, where he prefers to play as a combo general (though I suppose a balls-to-the-wall, Tears of Rage-style token overrun deck could work. Since red is very weak in its ability to tutor (though I did pick up a copy of Gamble, you can try to play a number of very similar cards that are interchangeable in your infinite combos. I have yet to assemble all of the cards I need to transform this into a strong multiplayer combo list, but for starters, I added some cards to improve the late game and give the deck a bit more resilience.

[deck]In[/deck]

[deck]Out[/deck]

Partial credit for this deck can be attributed to multiple sources. A number of the card choices for the early 1v1 version came from simply looking at a few top 8 lists in European tournaments. Much of the inspiration for the multi-player, more combo-oriented version comes from dorino's fantastic primer found [url=http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/
showthread.php?t=509897]here[/url] on MTGS.
Last edited by Jack on Sat Nov 30, 2013 6:14 am, edited 11 times in total.
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Postby Checkbox » Thu Jul 18, 2013 3:45 pm

in the web of war >>> Ogre Battledriver, as enchantments are much more difficult to get rid of than 3 toughness dudes
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Postby Jack » Thu Jul 18, 2013 10:35 pm

This is debatable. You probably want to cast either the turn after you play Krenko, and, ideally, you won't have 5 lands in play on that turn (35 lands in a 99 card deck is nearly equivalent to 21 lands in a 60 card deck). If you have both him and Krenko out at the same time, you can tap Krenko in response to any removal aimed at the ogre and still get the triggers, assuming they don't bolt him in response to Krenko's ability.
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Postby DocLawless » Wed Nov 27, 2013 5:38 pm

[deck]Krenko, Mob Boss and a Pile of Dead Goblins[/deck]

Straight aggro and nothing tricky. This was the first EDH deck I ever built, and its the only one I've kept sleeved up since I started. It's built strictly out of cards that I actually own; none of this Mana Crypt bullshit. I'm positive there's room for improvement, but I just don't come back to my EDH decks often enough that I've invested in making any.
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Postby Jack » Wed Nov 27, 2013 6:21 pm

How's the all-aggro thing been working out for you? My build is also heavy aggro (it's hard to compete in a 1v1 game if you're not), but I also play a lot of removal and finishers. Maybe I should have more goblins in there, though. It'd make for a lot more keepable hands, at the cost of a few answers.

I also need to find myself at least 3 Chaos Warps. Nobody seems to have them in their trade binders.
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Postby DocLawless » Wed Nov 27, 2013 7:06 pm

It's kinda linear. Once you hit critical mass people start scooping, but it's really easy to have that process disrupted by a board wipe in multiplayer. You've got a whole table of people to commit even a minimal amount of effort to keeping you at zero board state until they deal with each other, or get tired of you. In 1v1, I usually only have issues with aggro tron generals like Zur and Rafiq just because they come online so damn fast. Rafiq in particular is a one-hit kill with Eldrazi Conscription and anything that makes him unblockable. I can imagine having issues with Ashling as well, but nobody I know plays Ashling 1v1.
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