Budget Magic: $55 Izzet Hobgoblin Discard (Standard)
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Budget Magic! Spider-Man is here, and today, we kick off our exploration of the format with an update to a deck we played almost a year ago now in Izzet Discard. The plan of discarding cards to trigger Monument to Endurance, Marauding Mako, and Scrounging Skyray has always been super fun. Now, we've gotten a massive upgrade in Hobgoblin, Mantled Marauder, which not only gets +2/+0 whenever we discard a card but also has haste, which lets us deal a ton of damage out of nowhere. Having so much redundancy with our discard payoffs lets us go all-in on massive self-discard with cards like Brass's Tunnel-Grinder and Hearth Elemental, either of which can discard our entire hand, which can potentially let us one-shot kill our opponent if we have a payoff or two on the battlefield! How good is Hobgoblin, Mantled Marauder? Are Sharks back in Standard? Let's get to the video and find out!
Budget Magic: Izzet Hobgoblin Discard
The Deck
The addition of Hobgoblin to Standard now gives us three cheap creatures that grow whenever we discard a card. Marauding Mako you probably know because of Izzet Cauldron, while Scrounging Skyray is basically a flying Marauding Mako that costs an additional mana. Both get a +1/+1 counter whenever we discard a card, growing our creatures slowly but permanently as we go. Hobgoblin, Mantled Marauder is the big new addition to the deck. It works similarly but trades in the permanent +1/+1 counter for a temporary-until-end-of-turn +2/+0 boost whenever we discard a card. Oh yeah, and it also has haste, which adds a new dimension to the deck by allowing us to deal a ton of damage out of nowhere. It's also worth mentioning that both Mako and Skyray have cycling, so keep in mind that we can always discard them to trigger our payoffs in a pinch.
We also have a couple of slower but still powerful discard payoffs in Captain Howler and Monument to Endurance. Captain Howler, Sea Scourge is a bit expensive at four mana, but it basically has Hobgoblin, Mantled Marauder's pump ability but can target any creature, making it especially strong with our fliers. Meanwhile, Monument to Endurance is one of my favorite cards in Standard. It's a card-advantage engine that can also make mana or push through damage to close out the game. It does literally everything we could want.
Let's say we stack up a few discard payoffs on the battlefield; how do we actually win the game? The primary plan is to discard and draw a bunch of cards at once with Brass's Tunnel-Grinder or Hearth Elemental. Either card lets us discard our entire hand (and then refill with some number of cards), which potentially can win us the game on the spot. Let's say we play a Marauding Mako on Turn 1 into a Hobgoblin, Mantled Marauder on turn two and then follow up with Brass's Tunnel-Grinder on turn three to discard our entire hand. We should end up discarding 5 cards, which will make a Marauding Mako into a 6/6 and pump Hobgoblin to 11 power, which is a ton of damage so early in the game!
Rounding out our deck is some removal...that also discards cards. Broadside Barrage and Glacial Dragonhunt deal with whatever threats our opponent's might present, while also letting us discard a card to trigger all of our payoffs. Finally, Greasewrench Goblin gives us an additional one-drop that also lets us double rummage thanks to its exhaust ability. If we can't win the game with one big turn thanks to something like Brass's Tunnel-Grinder, these cards let us incrementally build a threatening board bit by bit, discard by discard.
Wrap-Up
Record-wise, we won right around 50% of the time with the deck. Honestly, though, I don't put a ton of weight in this record because it was during early-access day. And for some reason, pretty much everyone we played against was either playing a mayhem deck or a Spider deck, so we didn't get a very diverse set of matches. In general, the deck felt like a pretty powerful budget aggro deck with some interesting combo kills thrown in. But we'll have to test it in the normal meta before we really know for sure.
As far as upgrades to the budget deck, it's really just the mana base. To keep the budget down to 15 rares on Arena (and $50-ish in paper), we only have one rare dual land in Spirebluff Canal, with Peculiar Lighthouse backing it up as a common dual land. Any rare (and especially untapped) lands you have around will improve the deck, with the Izzet Verge being especially strong.
So, should you play Izzet Hobgoblin Discard in Spider-Man Standard? If you are looking for a fun, aggro budget deck, I think the answer is yes! Is this the new tier deck that will dethrone Izzet Cauldron and Anti-Cauldron Red? Probably not, but it's a blast to play, has some really explosive turns, and can win a lot of games out of nowhere thanks to the power of Hobgoblin, Mantled Marauder!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
