Yesterday a friend asked me for some help. His son is involved in a Magic group with his friends. They play 60-card casual in big six-player games and he wanted to help his son out with some decks. Sixty-card decks are something I love, so I was glad to suggest a few decks. We quickly came to the conclusion that my Wort, Boggart Auntie deck could be just perfect.

Two Sigma Wort | Casual | Bruce Richard

• Creatures (20)
• 1 Goblin Balloon Brigade
• 1 Goblin King
• 1 Goblin Ringleader
• 1 Goblin Taskmaster
• 1 Goblin Tinkerer
• 1 Lightning Crafter
• 1 Spikeshot Goblin
• 2 Mad Auntie
• 3 Wort, Boggart Auntie
• 4 Goblin Matron
• 4 Mogg War Marshal

• Instants (8)
• 1 Blood Frenzy
• 1 Blood Lust
• 1 Brute Force
• 1 Dead // Gone
• 1 Trumpet Blast
• 3 Tarfire

• Sorceries (10)
• 3 Goblin Grenade
• 3 Fodder Launch
• 4 Boggart Birth Rite

• Lands (22)
• 9 Mountain
• 1 Badlands
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Forgotten Cave
• 1 Graven Cairns
• 1 Temple of Malice
• 2 Rakdos Carnarium
• 2 Sulfurous Springs
• 4 Akoum Refuge

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This deck has been together for a long time, so it has seen plenty of gameplay. The deck rushes out some early goblins, then sits back and uses regular graveyard recursion to bury opponents under Goblin Grenades and Fodder Launches. I was getting ready to send him the list when I recognized that the deck wasn't Lean enough. Wort could improve under the eye of a Six Sigma Black Belt!

To truly understand the issues the deck was having, a Gemba Walk would be the first step. You need to see the issues from the point of view of the user. We need to see which cards are actually producing the value and which are simply "there." Going to Gemba brought the performers and non performers into focus.

Wort, Boggart Auntie was an obvious star. Returning a goblin every turn is the point of the deck and getting Lean means leaning way into that part of the card. The other portion that needs to be remembered is that Wort is a 3/3 with Fear. It is easy to forget that you can regularly find someone who is vulnerable to a creature with Fear and score an easy three points of damage.

Fodder Launch is the next key part of the deck. This four-mana tribal sorcery takes out a creature and deals five damage to its controller. If the deck is running smoothly, you are simply casting Fodder Launch every turn. If you are taking out a large, threatening creature every turn, and doing five damage, all while never actually using up a card, then it won't take long for the card advantage to turn to your favor.

Goblin Matron ramps the consistency of the deck through the roof. The Matron allows you to find Wort, Fodder Launch, or virtually any other card you need at the time. Once you have the card, the Matron acts as a spectacular chump blocker or sacrifice option, dropping into the graveyard for Wort to find and put into your hand!

Boggart Birth Rite is a strange card. It allows you to get Wort, Boggart Auntie out of your graveyard if Wort is destroyed in combat or finds itself on the wrong end of a Murder or other removal spell. This would seem like a niche use, but it is also a great way to recur a second card in a turn. Wort pulls the Fodder Launch you need, but Boggart Birth Rite can get the Goblin Matron out for you to cast again. The real trick is knowing when to play the Birth Rite and when to wait. The deck relies so heavily on Wort, that using the Birth Rite for anything other than Wort seemed like a mistake unless you have another copy of Wort in your hand.

Goblin Grenade really benefited from Going to Gemba. It is easy to see it from a bird's eye view and assume it just doesn't offer enough to the deck. It has limited recursion and only does the damage to a single target, not two targets like Fodder Launch. Once you are on the ground level though, five damage for one mana is completely worth it.

Tarfire offers the balance the deck needs. Once opponents recognize how your deck works, they believe they are safe when it isn't your turn. A one mana instant that does two damage and is recurrable is wonderful! The first time you cast it, Tarfire is a complete surprise. After that it becomes something they have to remember and deal with before swinging. Suddenly creatures with 2 toughness are liabilities. Using a 5/5 to block a 3/3 becomes questionable. When you have no goblins in the graveyard before your turn, you can do two damage for free!

Finally, Mogg War Marshal has been an all-star. It brings a steady stream of fodder for Goblin Grenade and Fodder Launch, as well as chump blockers. When you realize it only costs two mana and Wort can always get it back for you when you need it, Mogg War Marshal's value as a goblin body provider just gets better!

Going to Gemba has allowed us to reach the Lean portion. Knowing what brings the value allows us to cut out the extraneous cards that don't bring value, or aren't maximizing value. While that has value in a factory setting, when deck-building, we need the minimum card count. The remaining cards in the deck may not have as much value as the cards already mentioned, but if they are better than the other options, then they are bringing the maximum value. So what are the other options? I narrowed them down to three.

Boggart Shenanigans Leans into the goblin recursion Wort offers, as it is a Goblin enchantment, so Wort can put it back in your hand. The deck sees at least one or two goblins dying every round, so it adds a couple points of damage each round, and that is assuming no one attacks you and leads to you chump blocking.

Mudbutton Torchrunner offers up another chump blocker, but this one packs a punch, adding a Lightning Bolt to the damage that is already being done when it dies. With the Torchrunner ready to block, players are going to think twice as this goblin can take down a 4/4 creature on its own, or just redirect and hit someone for three damage.

Murderous Redcap is the final card I would consider adding to the deck. I love the idea of sacrificing Murderous Redcap to a Fodder Launch, doing eight total damage to an opponent and giving a creature -5/-5 one turn, then following it up the next turn with another Fodder Launch powered by the now 1/1 Redcap. The Persist ability on the Redcap means that Wort spends a turn recurring it and gets essentially two sacrificial goblins from it, with three points of bonus damage.

To truly get Lean with the deck, we need to bring Kanban to the table. We aren't going to slap four of each card in the deck and call it a day. The value they bring is great, but redundant copies of Wort in hand isn't value; it just isn't Lean. Kanban encourages us to carry just what we need, so do we need four copies of these cards? Here is our Lean deck, using Kanban as our guide.

Six Sigma Wort | Casual | Bruce Richard

• Creatures (17)
• 3 Mudbutton Torchrunner
• 3 Murderous Redcap
• 3 Wort, Boggart Auntie
• 4 Goblin Matron
• 4 Mogg War Marshal

• Instants (5)
• 2 Dead // Gone
• 3 Tarfire

• Sorceries (10)
• 3 Goblin Grenade
• 3 Fodder Launch
• 4 Boggart Birth Rite

• Enchantments (4)
• 4 Boggart Shenanigans

• Lands (24)
• 4 Swamp
• 8 Mountain
• 4 Badlands
• 4 Rakdos Carnarium
• 4 Temple of Malice

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With the Goblin Matron able to search for any of these cards (other than Goblin Grenade), I didn't see why four copies of necessary for most. As the Matron acts as quasi card draw, I wanted four copies of it. The cards that did get four copies were cards where two copies of the card in hand would still be useful. Boggart Birth Rite allows for a big turn when you use Wort and multiple copies of Birth Rite to recast several goblin spells. Mogg War Marshal is another card I'm always happy to draw, no matter how many I have in hand. They bring plenty of friends and multiple copies generally means I'm just not paying the Echo cost. Finally, four copies of Boggart Shenanigans just makes sense. Why wouldn't you want two damage for every dying goblin instead of one?

I kept two copies of Dead // Gone because it allowed me to bounce a creature I couldn't destroy back to its owner's hand. There are enough indestructible creatures in my meta, that keeping that around was important.

The lack of mana ramp may be concerning to some of you but I've been to Gemba a ton with this deck and it is rarely needed. The curve is low with this deck. Four mana lets you cast practically everything and once you hit six mana you can do some serious damage in one turn. With a Goblin Matron running, this deck that is 40% land can feel like a deck that is almost 50%.

While I have optimized the land package somewhat, we are likely talking about the difference of 99% effective to 99.99% effective. Yes, this set of lands is better than the set in the original deck, but the cost is much higher and that may make it less desirable.

These changes have shifted the deck from one that uses some creature attacks and recursion, to one that Leans into the recursion package completely. I'm looking forward to further trips to Gemba to maintain Kaizen. This deck can undoubtedly get better. Three copies may still allow for an even more Lean option.

If this deck's changes interest you, let me know. I'll keep you updated with regular TPS reports as I bring this deck ever closer to Six Sigma.

Bruce

@manaburned