Pauper: Moggwarts Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

Have you ever just wanted to throw a decaying goblin out of a cannon at your opponent until they are at zero? Well this is the deck for you. This is a Goblin-based Combo deck that can kill your opponent out of nowhere.

It is all centred around our decaying friend.

Moggwarts is still one of my favorite deck names in pauper. However, although fairly self-explanatory, it’s not what we are here to explain.

This combo deck is a 3.5 card combo deck, which is quite a lot for successful combos.

To explain the combo, we need two creatures in play: Skirk Prospector and Putrid Goblin. With those in play, you cast First Day of Class.

What this allows you to do is sacrifice the Putrid Goblin for a to Skirk Prospectors ability. The Putrid Goblins persist trigger brings it back with a -1/-1 counter on. First Day of Class trigger happens and puts a +1/+1 Counter on the Putrid Goblin and both counters negate each other, allowing you to continuously keep sacrificing the Putrid Goblin for infinite Red Mana.

Winning the game from this point can be fairly easy as your Makeshift Munitions allows you to sacrifice the Putrid Goblin infinitely killing your opponent. Simple.

Why is this deck so effective towards hate and for a 3.5 Card Combo deck, so effective when played.

Let's take a look at the card choices to see how.

The Combo Pieces

Skirk Prospector is an obvious combo piece and the weakest one initially. However, it allows you to combo amazingly quickly, sometimes as early as Turn 3.

Putrid Goblin is the best creature you have access to. In some matchups you can just play a straight up beatdown plan with an army of Putrid Goblins and Goblin Matron with Haste.

First Day of Class is the last piece of the combo. This has some utility, as it allows you to search for missing pieces with the Learn Mechanic. Getting a Introduction to Prophecy of just discarding and drawing a card is useful to find the missing piece of the combo or finding the win con.

Discussing these all together as to why it works as a combo deck is much easier than reviewing them separately.

Putrid Goblin and Skirk Prospector can be played early and disposed of, as you can begin getting damage early. The opponent will have to always be prepared for the potential of comboing. This can be leveraged by never attacking, deploying well-timed First Day of Class and Goblin Matrons to just produce an early board presence and damage.

The Payoff

Makeshift Munitions is the only true wincon in the deck, having two copies is redundancy in case one gets Dawnbringer Clericed or hit with a Hydroblast whilst comboing off.

Dark-Dweller Oracle is a long winded payoff as it can be found by Goblin Matron. With infinite mana you can sacrifice Putrid Goblin infinite times, gaining access to your entire deck. Other versions have run Flamewave Invoker as a separate wincon, but Oracle also allows you to attack people to death when you have access to your entire deck.

Shred Memory is an uncounterable tutor. It is expensive but allows it to be an additional Makeshift Munitions, Putrid Goblin and First Day of Class all at once.

Goblin Matron is the glue that holds the deck together. Along with Skirk Prospector and Unearth, you can carry out some unique lines to rebuild and combo off out of nowhere.

The Utility

Unearth is a really unique card for this deck. Being so cheap allows you to effectively cheat on mana so easily. Especially combined with Faithless Looting and First Day of Class's loot ability. Sometimes you can combo off with only one mana to cast Putrid Goblin by discarding it and Unearth it.

Also, if you are comboing off but digging for a wincon, the Cycle ability is something you can do in a pinch.

Faithless Looting may seem odd in so low numbers, but it is a card that allows you to filter through all your situational cards whilst also providing you with speed. It also gets the additional benefit of being red for when comboing off, allows you to dig for your wincon.

Duress is a fairly obvious inclusion, it is a card that is there to take an important interaction piece. Finding the right window to cast this can be difficult, as the mana is so tight in the deck.

Masked Vandal is again maybe a strange inclusion as it can only be cast off Chromatic Star, Deadly Dispute Treasure Token and Unearth. But being able to exile a Relic of Progenitus or a Nihil Spellbomb before comboing can be super important, especially as it can be searched for with Shred Memory and Goblin Matron.

An interaction you can do is target with Masked Vandal and sacrifice it in response to its effect, either with Skirk Prospector or Deadly Dispute. This allows you to exile Masked Vandal as the creature of its effect.

Deadly Dispute is just a powerhouse. Digs deep to find combo pieces and ramps you mana too! At this point, this card needs no explaining.

Ichor Wellspring similar to Deadly Dispute card is just raw Card Advantage. Has other utility when being sacrificed by Makeshift Munitions which can be used to kill Faerie Seers etc. Lembas is a consideration for this deck however just getting raw card advantage with wellspring to me is the overall key, especially in a combo deck like this.

Chromatic Star filters your mana whilst also doing a great Ichor Wellspring impression with Deadly Dispute. Filtering to Black is quite common as you generally have excess due to Skirk Prospector.

Nihil Spellbomb is a card that can do a Wellspring impression with Deadly Dispute whilst it also helps against decks like Terror or Familiars.

The Lands

These are fairly self-explanatory land choices, all Rakdos Color lands that help with a mana hungry deck like this, or in a pinch can help with Deadly Dispute.

Tramway Station is a card that you can use when comboing off to draw a card to try and find a wincon, which can be useful.

This hand is nowhere close to the perfect hand. However, this hand gives us lots of game to begin carrying out what we need to.

Chromatic Star and Deadly Dispute allow us to see more cards in the early game ready to set up the combo. Goblin Matron and Unearth allows us to get most of our combo pieces together.

This hand just needs a First Day of Class and it is ready to combo people.

Introduction to Prophecy can’t be cut from the sideboard. It is a universal card that you can pull from the board with First Day of Class. Let's us dig for more Combo pieces usually after they have shown their hand by interacting with the first attempt at comboing off.

Nihil Spellbomb is another Graveyard hate spell to help slow down other combo decks or super aggressive decks like Terror. Doubling up just helps with consistency.

Gorilla Shaman is mainly for Affinity, as the deck is just super interactive, and wasting interaction on the Ape means there is less interaction for your combo.

Krark-Clan Shaman is a Goblin. So having 1 copy means we actually have 4 with Goblin Matron. Also, we can bring it back with Unearth too. This helps against go wide strategies and Creature-based Combo Decks like Walls.

Red Elemental Blast is for Blue Interaction as expected. Hydroblast to deal with First Day of Class is generally the easiest way for the opponent to interact with us. Red Elemental Blast helps with that.

Abrade is just a generally good card. There is a chance this could be the fourth Cast into the Fire, but more testing would confirm that. Abrade is a searchable with Shred Memory to deal with Relic of Progenitus and can also Lightning Bolt Creature’s if that is necessary.

An extra copy of Duress goes a long way. This helps us remove interaction from the opponent’s hand, and lets us know if the path is clear to go for it.

Cast into the Fire is the newest addition to the deck, and obviously shines here. Similar to Abrade it answers Relic of Progenitus whilst also killing two Faeries to allow our First Day of Class resolve.

VS Kuldotha Red

IN:

OUT:

Basically, the way I see this match up is that it has a lot of interaction, and they are really quick out the gates. So we have to try and tackle that by slowing them down and answering their interaction.

The biggest thing I fear is Relic of Progenitus and holding up Lightning Bolt style effects to interact with the combo.

The cards I bring in here help with that, and the cards I am taking out make the Relics worse. That is how I see it; however, Mono red seems like a difficult matchup so far.

VS UB Terror

IN:

OUT:

This is a relatively okay matchup. Slowing them down with Nihil Spellbomb and Red Elemental Blast is key. This allows the game to go long, where generally you will have more flexibility in comboing off multiple times in a turn than they will have interaction.

I could see keeping Duress in and boarding the 3rd one in too, but it is just figuring out what to cut. I keep Masked Vandal in generally as they have access to Nihil Spellbomb post board.

VS Caw Gate

IN:

OUT:

Hopefully your aim is to combo off as fast as reasonably possible. However, X/1’s and Relic of Progenitus can eventually become a problem hence the Cast into the Fire.

The Red Elemental Blasts are because Counterspell can become a problem. One thing to watch out for which can be difficult to play around is Prismatic Strands on protection from red, that can prevent you from killing with Makeshift Munitions.

This can be prevented by attacking with big Putrid Goblins and Masked Vandal this is generally done by drawing your deck with Dark-Dweller Oracle and casting as many First Day of Class's as you can and then casting all the above. It allows you to get in a fair bit of damage and finish them off in the next turn, or your opponent's upkeep if it wasn’t enough. This is just a line that has been relatively common for me when against Caw Gate.

VS Affinity

IN:

OUT:

These should be relatively easy changes, we are just trying to disrupt the Affinity players' manabase, allowing us to combo off whilst they have very few resources.

Cutting Nihil Spellbomb isn’t something that decks generally do against Affinity. However, we are hoping the game doesn’t go that long where they are getting Myr Enforcers back with Blood Fountain.

I could go through a whole host of different card choices you could choose to select. I've mentioned there are alternate wincons out there like Flamewave Invoker or Pyromatics. Even other goblin considerations like Impulsive Pilferer.

However, I am just going to link Hamuda's Top 8 on the Weekends Challenge which ran Exhume and Troll of Khazad-dum.

Overall, this deck has some cool nuances about it and is an interesting deck to pilot. I highly recommend giving it a go at the next chance you can play Pauper. Hope you enjoy the Cannon Fodder.

Until next Time!