PrimerMulligansSideboardMatchupsCommunity

We take the aggressor's seat, even though both decks flood the board with one-mana creatures. More of our board attacks the turn it lands: Clockwork Percussionist has haste printed on it, Goblin Tomb Raider gains it while we control an artifact, and the tokens from Rally at the Hornburg arrive with haste, while their Carrion Feeder can't block at all. Their deck profits from creature deaths instead: nearly every body they lose leaves a token, a counter, or a card behind, so despite an aggressive card pool they spend the game chump-blocking, trading, and dragging things toward one big attack-plus-Rite of Consumption turn. That is the shape of the race: their removal and sacrifice tricks trim our swarm one body at a time without stopping the burn finish, and our burn must keep Carrion Feeder and Mortician Beetle small enough that the drain turn can't swing both life totals before we close. Speed is ours, resilience is theirs.
Game one, our burn has one job before it ever goes at their face: kill Carrion Feeder and Mortician Beetle the turn they land, at instant speed where possible. Once they untap with fodder and a free outlet, sacrifices in response either grow the payoff out of burn range or leave our spell with no target, and every death along the way pays them. Galvanic Blast is the spell that keeps up: with three artifacts it deals 4, enough to catch a payoff that has already eaten two or three bodies, so lead with Great Furnace and count artifacts before cracking a Blood token. Bigger than that and it takes two spells. Weight opening hands accordingly: a burn spell now rates as high as an extra creature, and on the draw higher still, since their payoff lands and starts growing before we untap.
Meanwhile the swarm keeps attacking. Their fodder must chump or let damage through, trades cost us little (Voldaren Epicure has already paid out by the time it dies, and Clockwork Percussionist banks us a card on the way out), and every Snuff Out they cast for its 4-life cost does a burn spell's work for us. Rally at the Hornburg moves up the keep order here: its tokens dodge the forced sacrifice on Accursed Marauder, out-number a defense that spends one body per attacker, and the haste it grants covers Burning-Tree Emissary on a big turn. When Accursed Marauder does resolve, hand it Clockwork Percussionist, whose death banks us a card. Hold Goblin Bushwhacker until our attacker count clears their untapped bodies; a kicked swing into a full board of expendable blockers wastes the pump. Cast End the Festivities first once their board is committed: one mana kills every creature of theirs that has not banked counters, Squirrel, Insect, and Mercenary tokens included, and bodies fed to an outlet in response still leave their fresh tokens dead under the sweep. The kicked swing right behind it is our cleanest kill. And if the game stalls into topdecks, we are still live: our burn kills a payoff or finishes the face from any board, while their sacrifice spells sit blank without bodies already in play.
Carrion Feeder is the matchup's defining card, and the rule is strict: kill it before they untap with it. It is a free sacrifice outlet that grows a +1/+1 counter for every body it eats, it protects itself by eating fodder in response to our burn until it is out of range, and it can't block, so it races us without ever defending. Pass the turn it lands and every later burn spell becomes a losing trade, overpaying while the eventual Rite of Consumption target keeps growing.
Rite of Consumption is the number our race math must beat. On their big turn the grown creature attacks, then gets sacrificed in the second main phase to drain us for its power: the same power counts twice, and every point drained comes back to them as life, undoing burn we already spent. Never plan a race that leaves them low but alive with a tall creature in play; one sorcery from there kills us while lifting them back out of burn range. The sacrifice is part of the casting cost, so once the spell is on the stack the creature is already gone. The only window is killing it at instant speed before they cast the sorcery.
Shambling Ghast beside a free outlet is their removal: sacrificed in the middle of combat, its -1/-1 death trigger kills any one-toughness creature we control, a pumped token included. Never build a kicked Goblin Bushwhacker swing that needs every one of those bodies to connect (one sacrifice drops the attack below lethal), so leave a damage margin or thin their board with burn first. Given nothing to shrink, the Treasure mode ramps their two-drops out a turn early instead.
Supernatural Stamina punishes burning a fresh payoff into open black mana: for one mana the creature returns tapped, the engine seat stays filled, and we have paid a full card for their one-mana rebuy. It also lets them keep the creature they feed to Rite of Consumption. Against a grown Carrion Feeder, though, the return loses all its counters; forcing that reset with a burn spell is a fine outcome for us.
Bloodthrone Vampire is the one attacker worth a chump block. Its instant-speed pump, +2/+2 for each body fed to it, turns leftover fodder into burst, and on the big turn that pumped power counts twice: full combat damage, then the Rite of Consumption drain off the same creature. Holding one spare Rally at the Hornburg token back to block it denies the combat half of that turn, the lone exception to attacking with everything.
In:
Out:
Cast into the Fire is instant-speed split damage that kills two of their one-toughness creatures at once (a fresh Carrion Feeder or Mortician Beetle plus a fodder creature) before counters put the payoffs out of reach.
Relic of Progenitus does double duty: cracked at instant speed it exiles the body out from under an Unearth or a Supernatural Stamina return trigger and strips Spinning Darkness of its free cost, and until cracked it sits on the battlefield as an artifact for Goblin Tomb Raider and Galvanic Blast that replaces itself. Two copies rather than three because their graveyard is a support angle, not the engine core, and the third slot is worse than kept pressure.
Reckless Impulse goes out because a two-mana turn with no board impact is a free setup turn for Carrion Feeder and Bloodthrone Vampire, and Cast into the Fire does the card-economy work by trading one card for two of their creatures.
Chain Lightning goes out because sorcery speed can't act in their combat or sacrifice windows, and the face damage it deals is exactly what the lifegain on Rite of Consumption refunds. Lightning Bolt and Galvanic Blast stay: instant speed is what the fight over their payoffs demands.
Sideboarding barely moves this pairing. Cast into the Fire trading one card for two creatures is exactly what an all-one-toughness deck fears, but their package (Tragic Slip, Drown in Sorrow, and incidental lifegain) hits our swarm just as hard. Both sideboards were built for this exact fight, and neither clearly outweighs the other.
Post-board games become a fight over who overextends into the other's sweep first. Cast into the Fire comes in beside the main-deck End the Festivities, so their one-toughness board dies two creatures at a time at instant speed or all at once to one mana unless a payoff has already banked counters, and their configuration turns more interactive in reply: Tragic Slip in most lists, Drown in Sorrow in roughly half, and in some lists extra free removal in Snuff Out plus the lifegain of Spinning Darkness and Vampiric Link.
Tighten the plan to two or three deployed threats and hold the rest. Cast into the Fire picks off a fresh payoff and a fodder creature at instant speed, and the main-deck End the Festivities is the payoff for patience: wait until their board is committed, then sweep. Feeding bodies to Carrion Feeder in response does not save them: the tokens those deaths create arrive before the sweep resolves and die with everything else, leaving one grown Carrion Feeder for a saved Galvanic Blast. A kicked Goblin Bushwhacker right after the sweep is the cleanest kill line in the matchup. Crack Relic of Progenitus in response to Unearth or to a Supernatural Stamina return trigger so the body is exiled and the return finds nothing; until then it stays in play adding to our artifact count.
Commit in waves against open black mana rather than presenting the full swarm. Tragic Slip kills anything we field in games where a creature dies every turn, and Drown in Sorrow clears our whole board while their death triggers leave tokens to rebuild theirs, so lean on the cards that bank value through removal. Clockwork Percussionist banks us a card when it dies, and sacrificing Experimental Synthesizer rebuilds a 2/2 Samurai after a sweep. If Vampiric Link lands on one of our attackers, that creature's combat damage cancels out of the race: count it out of the damage math and finish with the rest of the swarm plus burn.