VraskaTheCursed: Thank you so much for the compliment! This has been my pet project for a while now, and I really like that so many other people enjoy it too.

As for cards:

Manabarbs - I've been back and forth about. I do like it quite a bit, but it also draws a lot of hate.I would have to pretty much only play it a turn or two before my finisher, to limit the damage it does to me, but it's also going to end the game quickly as soon as it is played. I will definitely test it out, as it really fits into the playstyle the deck has worked its way towards.

Harsh Mentor - Ib runs a delicate balance of being ignored because Ib, and being focused by the whole table because "holy shit, IB?!". At least right now, Harsh Mentor feels like a card that I wouldn't be able to sufficiently protect myself after playing. It would definitely be worth sideboarded for FNM though, where I would care less.

Mizzium Mortars - In an effort to have multiples of each effect, I've noticed that only having Blasphemous Act as a wipe isn't enough. This may be just the right solution, and at a great CMC. It would lead very well into Repercussion.

Thanks for the great suggestions!

Absolutely love this deck. Almost everything about it is flavorful and you have an amazing primer. I just have one question. Why are you using fetch-lands? I understand it for Myriad Landscape but not the rest of them. The only benefit I can see you getting for them is Crucible of Worlds. Is it just to help out with ramp?

Dtowns: Thank you! I've spent a lot of time on it, so I really appreciate when people like it.

The fetch lands were an experiment that ended up being going better than I expected. They originally were only added for Crucible of Worlds (which is probably enough reason to include them on it's own), but I also found that it helped smooth out other interactions in the deck:

Scroll Rack (and previously Sensei's Divining Top) - once I put cards I don't want as much back on top of my deck, being able to shuffle them away is invaluable. This is the other major reason the fetches are there.

If a fetch is played later in the game, it means I can increase the likelihood of drawing a non-land card when I don't need land drops anymore. In a mono-colored deck this thinning has almost no observable benefit early, but 5 or 6 turns in when you could be 30 cards deep into your deck already, cracking the fetch and removing a land drop from the remaining cards makes a bigger statistical difference. This is probably the most minor of the benefits.

Against mill decks, if I know the top few cards for any reason (Goblin Recruiter, being forced to reveal or play with the top card revealed, etc..) I can use a fetch to tuck the spells I like back into the library instead of losing them to the GY where Red has a really hard time getting them back from.

Against control, if a card gets bounced to the top of my library in an attempt to control what I draw next turn, crack the fetch and shuffle it away.

Being able to guarantee that I can find fuel for Glacial Crevasses has allowed me to stall a game just long enough to win before.

So the benefits aren't extreme, but the drawbacks are so minor (only the life loss) that I just put them in. If someone wanted to make a budget version of this deck, the fetches would definitely be the easiest things to cut.

Added Glacial Crevasses back in, and it and Goblin Sledder won me the very next game against an Angel tribal control deck that I've never beaten. I forgot how much I liked it.

Testing Gravity Sphere again to see if it is the right way to go about countering my biggest creature weakness.

Added Mizzium Mortars per a recommendation by VraskaTheCursed. It is a great compliment to Blasphemous Act.

Testing Mind's Eye and Farsight Maskfor more draw. If I don't like the speed of them, I will put Reforge the Soul back in their place, unless I can find another big draw spell I like more. Wheels have been doing a lot of great work for me lately.

Removed:

Treasonous Ogre - Great card, but I found myself not casting it a lot because I didn't need blistering ramp so much.

Godo, Bandit Warlord - I love this card, but the CMC makes it a hard include. The better my draw gets, the less I need highly costed tutors, but tutoring my Nemesis Mask, Basilisk Collar, or Thornbite Staffand freecasting it can be really nice. May find it's way back in.

Expedition Map - It's hard to quantify the benefit of this card. Sideboarding it until I notice I miss it.

I think Feldon of the Third Path might be just the right form of "recursion" that this deck needs. I always had a hard time justifying something like Elixir of Immortality because it was too much of a hard reset late game when I really need selective recursion. Trading Post was too slow and expensive. It only got worse from there.

Being able to bring back a creature, even for a single turn, could be the difference between winning or losing a game in this deck. Getting Goblin King, Urabrask the Hidden, or Krenko, Mob Boss back into play could be invaluable.

Not sure what to cut for it, but definitely going to figure out how to fit him in.

Sideboarding Stranglehold for now. It is really good whenever you play it, but the amount of hate it generates is something that is hard to prepare for. I prefer the kind of stax that I can work around more easily, and have an effect that compliments the rest of the deck more. This one just felt like a tacked on Stax effect that I can't justify anymore.

Testing Feldon of the Third Path in its slot.

"Step lightly and we might be able to use it as a bridge"

Goblins are known for having some amazing flavor text.

+1 for the amazing description! Always a fan of goblins!

Great primer, well done! +1

Dude hands down the best goblin themed deck I've seen so far. Original, I think it would be hilarious to be beaten down this way!! +1

Taking out Lightning Crafter and Thornbite Staff for now. This removes all of the infinites that are possible with the deck, but I never had fun doing those anyway, and they were definitely win-more cards with the way the rest of the deck is balanced. These, along with Mana Web/Stranglehold/Manabarbs, may make it back in for FNM outside of my regular playgroup.

This opened up slots for the fantastic Curse of Opulence and Kindred Charge from C17. The curse will fill the ramp spot that removing Treasonous Ogre made (without any negatives!), and Kindred Charge is just straight up stupid in any red tribal deck.

Current Sideboard:

Still looking for a slot for Disrupt Decorum. Not only is it a really strong card, but it also fits this deck's playstyle very well.

Gauntlet of Might and Imperial Recruiter will make it in sometime in the far, far future.

I want to playtest Surveyor's Scope. The exile aspect is rough, but since I can all but guarantee that I can have less land that the other players, this is basically "free" goblins and landfall triggers for Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. Put it on the stack and then crack a fetch in response and you are already at -1. In my regular playgroup this is good for 3-5 basic lands. You can use Rings of Brighthearth on it as well, so that helps.

I need a little more protection for the more important creatures, so getting a Swiftfoot Boots in to backup the Lightning Greaves is probably my best option in MonoRed. Not sure what to cut for it though.

As always, if you have any suggestions or criticisms, start screaming them at me!

RazortoothMtg: Thank you! I had never seen Panglacial Wurm before, so I went looking and found these too:

• Blinking Spirit

• Goblin Ski Patrol

• Goblin Snowman

• Spoils of War

• Wall of Shields

I wouldn't have expected anything less than fantastic quotes from Ib.

Enral Thanks for the compliment and the upvote!

Mike94: Thanks Mike, I'm glad you like it!

Fantastic build, and looks like a ton of fun to play. +1 for Goblins!

bushido_man96 Thanks man! It is a ton of fun to play, and other people seem to enjoy playing against it. It has a lot of the explosiveness (harhar) of Krenko, without becoming an instant focus target.

Well, the playtesting of Surveyor's Scope went much better than I could have expected. I've drawn it just three times now, but it has made an impact on every game, much more than Solemn Simulacrum.

One game I had missed two land drops and was able to add 4 more (untapped!) in to ramp me up in a hurry.

The other two games I was either tied with my opponents, or slightly ahead, so saccing a pair or two of Mountains to Ib Halfheart, Goblin Tactician and then cracking the Scope meant I got goblin tokens into play as well as getting back to my exact number of lands, or two ahead.

All in all, I am pleasantly surprised about just how well a typically bad card can do in this deck. I'm constantly on the look out for odd card suggestions so take advantage of not oft-used mechanics, so if you have any ideas let me know so I can tell Ib and he can claim the idea as his own!

I'm of the opinion that one can find at least one use for just about every Magic card out there, one just has to look hard enough.

Testing Throne of the God-Pharaoh and Rolling Earthquake in place of Ashnod's Altar and Goblin Assassin.

I've always been curious about Throne, and have never seen someone play it in person. I need just a little more player damage in the deck, and hitting all opponents is definitely nice, and the damage being dealt at the end of my turn really lowers the number of answers people can have to it. I am replacing Ashnod's mostly because I found myself not casting it a lot, where I will cast Phyrexian Altar every single time I get it. I guess the deck is just becoming more consistent, and I'm not needing to ramp into anything big anymore.

I just recently learned that Rolling Earthquake was actually reprinted in From The Vault: Annihilation and isn't only a $65 card from Master Editions III or P3K. It is going to replace Goblin Assassin for the time being. Assassin might be my favorite goblin in the whole deck, but the amount of hate he draws is just too much. He is insanely powerful, but people will target me for the rest of the game for making them roll and then sac one of their good creatures, where if I did the same thing as a sorcery or did player damage instead the response would be a lot more muted. If I can find a different underperforming card I might put Goblin Assassin back, but maybe only for FNM and not my regularly playgroup.

As always, if you have any suggestion, no matter how weird, speak up! This whole deck was built on stuff that wasn't supposed to work.

Just found Grip of Chaos, and I think it is the perfect kind of card for this deck. I've always hated the inflexibility of Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast, and loved Wild Ricochet despite it's high CMC for a one time use spell I wouldn't be able to recur, but Grip of Chaos seems like an amazing card for this deck.

Gonna playtest it as soon as possible. It does hurt some of the interactions of my deck, but if I am smart about when I play it I'll be able to pillowfort with it and help seal off a win.

Any thoughts?

Im a huge goblin lover (my name = fave card)

I love krenko, wort, grenzo, zada and other legendary goblins, my 3rd most competitive edh deck is Wort, the Raidmother, which is almost identical to ib and he is included in her list

So i have to ask, why ib over wort? Wort does what ib does but has access to stuff like Doubling Season, Food Chain and Earthcraft as well as ramp and recursion like Skyshroud Claim and Regrowth

if i had to guess, its because you want more consistency with mono color, you're in a more casual/budget playgroup than mine, or you simply wanted to take one of the difficult to pilot and less faceroll/high power goblin generals and make them do work, and if the latter is the case, I like what i see, its essentially mono red wort which is strictly worse yet obviously not a "bad" list

I love it when people take mediocre generals and turn them into subtle powerhouses, and I also love goblins and homebrew deck builds, therefore you've earned a +1 from me!

goblinguiderevealpls: Thanks for the support! Originally I did it for the challenge and the flavor. Monored, and to an extent monowhite, are arguably the worst mono colors in EDH, so it was already going to be hard. On top of that, Ib has never been considered a good general for anything but a Chaos deck (which you don't really play with the intent to win), so I wanted to do what I could to challenge that viewpoint. What eventually happened was I ended up loving the playstyle more than I ever expected, and now it's my favorite deck. It's explosive, fairly innocuous, and going all in can be really fun.

My playgroup doesn't have budgets, but everything is casual-competitive or 75%, and fairly creature heavy. Building the deck slowly in that environment allowed me to get punished for bad cards, bad plays, or poor balance, so that I could learn what worked and what didn't, but wasn't so punishing that I didn't just not build it at all. All in all I am very happy with where it ended up, as I have on average a 50%+ chance of winning every time I play it, which is fantastic for a deck heavily built around Ib Halfheart, of all creatures.

You need the infinite goblin combo! You already have 3/5 pieces you're just missing Lightning Crafter and Goblin Ringleader

how it works:

cast Goblin Recruiter and tutor in this order top to bottom

Goblin Warchief

Goblin Ringleader

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

Lightning Crafter

Skirk Prospector

(Any other goblin you want to draw with ringleader here)

Play warchief and ringleader, drawing the last 3

Cast Kiki, then cast crafter, with the champion effect on the stack, tap kiki in response to make a token of crafter, champion kiki with the original crafter, and then champion crafter with its token, tap the crafter token for a Lightning Bolt sac the token to prospector, bringing in kiki jiki and crafter untapped, repeat this and you have infinite bolt damage and infinite

:)

goblinguiderevealpls: For my regular playgroup I take out my Lightning Crafter (and also the Thornbite Staff). The sideboard I show here is cards I am playtesting or want to find a permanent slot for.

With that being said, I never used Goblin Ringleader, which meant I was always tutoring for them separately, or drawing them slowly. I will definitely have to use that instead to get it all cleanly like you laid out. Thanks for the advice!

wurmcoil engine + goblin welder value town and goblin sharpshooter_ basilik collar is just funny

Trying out Scour from Existence as a backup to Chaos Warp. I don't like having Chaos Warp be my only non-damage based removal, so gonna give Scour a try. The high cost doesn't really worry me, as ramping into it won't normally be a problem. I hardly ever need the mana for something if I am ready to swing for lethal on the table, but I am often being held back by a single permanent that Scour could help quite a bit with.

Also have Insult / Injury back in, in place of the short-lived Throne of the God-Pharaoh. Only sideboarding the Throne for now, until I make sure I actually don't like it, but it was really underwhelming with the way the deck is paced.