[DTB] Vial Goblins

[GoboLord]

You make some interesting points about Pillar, which I somehow managed to skip, although I am reading this thread. Too bad it is not as effective vs storm combo. With your help I have enough stuff to test, so when I have some testing-based conclusions, I will share them.

Could you telll me why it's not effective against Storm Combo? I thought about it for two days cause I didnt want to spam here:

They need storm-count 9 + Tendrills to kill you.
If they played 9 cc2 spells this turn they get 18 damage from Pillar.
You need 2 more extra damage to kill them (which is easy, cause you have T1-Lackey, and they fetch 2-3 times)

If I did my math homework right this card is great against StormCombo. Even removing/bouncing Pillar costs them 4 life (2 for Mystical tutor, 2 for bounce)

[Cavius The Great]

I'm pretty sure this deck would be better if it splashed blue for FoW, Daze, Brainstorm and Ponder. Like you'd have Goblins against creature decks, and they wouldn't be able to handle all your dudes, and you'd have FoW against the combo decks. You literally couldn't lose. Well except against LichTendrils of course, that deck is a Juggernaut. Not the card though, like the indesctructible Vishnu. And I don't mean indestructible like the keyword, I mean like, unstoppable.

[bleuisforwhimps]

Yup, and standstill with vial or lackey is great also xD.
Really.

[Funky-kun]

Could you telll me why it's not effective against Storm Combo? I thought about it for two days cause I didnt want to spam here:

They need storm-count 9 + Tendrills to kill you.
If they played 9 cc2 spells this turn they get 18 damage from Pillar.
You need 2 more extra damage to kill them (which is easy, cause you have T1-Lackey, and they fetch 2-3 times)

If I did my math homework right this card is great against StormCombo. Even removing/bouncing Pillar costs them 4 life (2 for Mystical tutor, 2 for bounce)

Each one of the permanent hate pieces are effective when they land. The thing is living up to two lands in play to do that. Of course with Pillar on the table they are unlikely to kill you. However, they can drop a bunch of goblin tokens, or use their time to find an aswer to Pillar.

Chalice goes around this by being available at turn one, set at 0. Mindbrak trap is available from the start. Thorn slows down their digging for answers and usually delays the answer a bit.

Granted, most of the argument in here are not relevant in my case, that is Belcher, as they don't dig for answers. They either have the right hand or they lose. Sadly, most of the time its the first one.

The limited testing I did showed that Pillar was not as effective as I hoped for against Enchantress, as besides the obvious Oblivion Ring, Solitary Confinement also negates its effect. Thorn and Chalice work the same way, they both buy us time. Chalice stops acceleration and Elephant Grass (this is a big one), Thorn slows them down, and also delays the answer by one turn usually. I do have a sideboard hate testing gauntlet scheduled, then I will be able to back up my arguments with statistical data.

[JonBarber]

Could you telll me why it's not effective against Storm Combo? I thought about it for two days cause I didnt want to spam here:

They need storm-count 9 + Tendrills to kill you.
If they played 9 cc2 spells this turn they get 18 damage from Pillar.
You need 2 more extra damage to kill them (which is easy, cause you have T1-Lackey, and they fetch 2-3 times)

If I did my math homework right this card is great against StormCombo. Even removing/bouncing Pillar costs them 4 life (2 for Mystical tutor, 2 for bounce)

The other big reason not to play it is the fact that everything in your deck minus 6 cards costs 3 or less. The only way to beat combo is to drop as many creatures as possible and attempt to race them. A pillar is going to quickly add up against you. Chalice is a lot better. If you go T1 lackey/vial, T2 chalice @1, you are in a MUCH better position. Chalice will shut off all of their cantrips and tutoring. This requires that they have the mystical or 2cc bounce in hand. Your T2 is usually spent clearing the path for lackey, so this causes no real tempo loss.

[TheSleeper]

Anyone see the list that came 3rd by Mark Brislin in the SCG Open? Ran 3 Lightning Bolts + 3 Weirdings MD:
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=32448

Is 4 x Lightning Bolt viable for Mono Red?

[ScatmanX]

Anyone see the list that came 3rd by Mark Brislin in the SCG Open? Ran 3 Lightning Bolts + 3 Weirdings MD:
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=32448

Is 4 x Lightning Bolt viable for Mono Red?

Yes it is. I used to run 4 a while ago. They're expecially effective in a Instigator build.
But than I came to the conclusion that we have goblins that are better options (like running 3-4 Gempalms)

[markbris]

Anyone see the list that came 3rd by Mark Brislin in the SCG Open? Ran 3 Lightning Bolts + 3 Weirdings MD:
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=32448

Is 4 x Lightning Bolt viable for Mono Red?

That was me. I actually ended up 5th losing to belcher in the quarters. I'm going to write up something for the thread later today probably, I didn't take notes so the game details will be pretty general from memory. Honestly, I don't think 3-4 gempalms is more effective than bolt and ill explain why later.

[markbris]

here is the trip report, ended up being far longer than i thought it would be.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?17445-Rb-Goblins-Top-8-at-SCG-Atlanta&p=452912

[FoulQ]

here is the trip report, ended up being far longer than i thought it would be.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?17445-Rb-Goblins-Top-8-at-SCG-Atlanta&p=452912

Congrats man.

Big events with goblins placing all seem to include a similar removal package of 3 bolt/3 weirding. At least the last two I remember. And a pair of gempalms and a lucksack stingscourger. Nice, nice.

I recommend we all try it out.

However, I have some questions for you.

Blood Moon is good against lands/landstill, but I would board it in against very little else. Don't know if that's really a significant portion of any meta. But...what does everyone think elsewise about his blood moons? Yes, it's rehashed discussion, but there is nothing wrong with a little hash.

In my testing pithing needle has been ineffective against "randomness," as I feel goblins is more of a proactive deck. It's ok if you are expecting survival, but especially against jitte I've always been disappointed with it. Do you feel differently?

You have nothing to side in against NOBant/Countertop. Does this concern you? I noticed you sided nothing against one of these opponents.

I will test your mainboard, I think it is very strong. However, I'm going to go -1 Piledriver, +1 Instigator for personal reasons.

But I'm going to try this sideboard, for now:

4 Perish
4 GY Hate (3 relic/1 crypt)
4 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Earwig Squad
1 Warren Weirding

Perish is awesome. I recommend x4 for zoo, NObant. Two of the three most popular decks in legacy, along with merfs.

I hold onto my GY Hate in my sideboard like a woman hangs onto her stocks. I + GYH = BFFs 4-3v4r

A well-placed thorn can go a long way, not only against combo, but against burn and a few others. I wouldn't say "(ex.) board it in against tempo thresh all the time," but once in a while you will reaaally surprise random non-creature decks with +4 additional must-counters (most of the time).

Earwig Squad defeats Prog and sticks it to Reanimator. Can help against goyf strategies, combo, landstill, lands, and fucking MORE. Gotta love him in today's metagame, though he's clunky as fuck. I wouldn't go over x2 despite his versatility (because if you think about it, it's not actually a very good card)

Warren Weirding is good against goyf-based aggro-control strategies, so I added the fourth to my board. I heard those are popular in legacy.

Personally, I think Mark's maindeck is pretty much awesome (though I dread the word optimal), but the jury is out on lightning bolt for many of us. I just prefer a higher instigator count and only 3 piledrivers because of playstyle considerations.

If anyone is looking for a starting point for a sideboard in today's general metagame, I would start with mine as a launching point. I do think x4 combo hate is worth it... though it doesn't increase your win percentage dramatically, it does increase it, and there is a lot more combo than there used to be. Sneaking wins is possible against combo, especially with 4 thorns. But if combo hate is stupid to you, I would personally try +2 Needle +2 Chieftain instead of the thorns.

Congrats man. Your only losses came to a pro and the deck's absolute worst matchup in the entire god damn world. Just curious, do you know if you would have made it if you drew in the last round against goblins? 2 goblins in the t8 would have made me wet.

[(nameless one)]

So Chieftains are not MB material anymore? What about on Mono-Red builds?

[markbris]

@foulq

Thanks for the congrats. I'll answer each of your questions.


Congrats man.

Big events with goblins placing all seem to include a similar removal package of 3 bolt/3 weirding. At least the last two I remember. And a pair of gempalms and a lucksack stingscourger. Nice, nice.

If you look back in this thread, mantis ran 2 bolts main and 3 weirding main at GP madrid and liked it alot. I tested the bolts and liked them alot.

There are a few things that make me like it alot:

1) It buys you time against zoo where gempalm is trash early. Nailing early nacactls, pridemages, etc, maybe a goyf if you get lucky really helps you keep your life high and have time to get the card advantage rollin

2) It can't be dazed second turn, and yes I know gempalm can't either but this at least makes me prefer it a bit more over weirding and alot more over more stingscourgers.

3)In the mirror, bolt gives you an out against opponents first turn lackey shenanigans. If they lead lackey and you don't have bolts then you are completely at the mercy of their gempalms and stingscourgers. With bolt you can just bolt him and not worry.

4) Bolt isn't dead against combo/lands/other things where gempalm/weirding are, and yes i know gempalm is a goblin too, but lets face it, hes subpar in that role. This 4th point matters little anyway.

Honestly, I like it mostly because of the zoo matchup, thats the tipping point for me putting it in the deck with a close second being the mirror and a more distant third being the daze reason. Honestly, I just wanted it for zoo, but i was gonna show it had more uses than that.



Blood Moon is good against lands/landstill, but I would board it in against very little else. Don't know if that's really a significant portion of any meta. But...what does everyone think elsewise about his blood moons? Yes, it's rehashed discussion, but there is nothing wrong with a little hash.

I don't know what the amount of lands at the tourney was, according to tacosnape he saw it everywhere in the early rounds and our teammates ran into it several games. Honestly though we were all clueless on what the meta would be like so I was just taking a shot. It straight up won me the ultimate walker match so I'm gonna be a bit biased now. But basically I chose it because I thought it could steal matches against lands/landstill etc and that seemed better than other stuff I could put in the sb.

In my testing pithing needle has been ineffective against "randomness," as I feel goblins is more of a proactive deck. It's ok if you are expecting survival, but especially against jitte I've always been disappointed with it. Do you feel differently?

You probably didn't read all of the long tourney report, but at the end I stated needle was worthless and if I could go back I would axe a lightning bolt and 3 needles for 4 mb traps. So no I don't feel differently.

You have nothing to side in against NOBant/Countertop. Does this concern you? I noticed you sided nothing against one of these opponents.

My memory of the NOBant/Countertop is hazy as hell for some reason, but I'm pretty positive I crushed the first game and felt pretty confident for the 2nd and had no problem going in with no sideboard cards. In the weeks leading up to the tourney perish was def there but tbh I didn't have any testing with it against zoo to know whether it would be effective or not. I talked with Tacosnape about it and he didn't like it in the sb because he thought the countertop matchup was already favorable enough and I liked that reasoning so it got cut.

I will test your mainboard, I think it is very strong. However, I'm going to go -1 Piledriver, +1 Instigator for personal reasons.
Def your choice to do that esp if their is some metagame consideration, I think piledriver is such a house though that I'd never go below four. Every list that I have ever seen do well has run 4 that I know of. As for instigator, he is great, he def won at least two games where he connected. I just can't fit more of him in and get everything I want in there.

But I'm going to try this sideboard, for now:

4 Perish
4 GY Hate (3 relic/1 crypt)
4 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Earwig Squad
1 Warren Weirding

Perish is awesome. I recommend x4 for zoo, NObant. Two of the three most popular decks in legacy, along with merfs.

Like I said before I can't really speak to the quality of perish against zoo, its an obvious house against NOBant but I gave my reasoning there. I like 4 pyrokinesis in this spot cuz its solid against zoo, beast against merfolk and beast in the mirror. Where perish is worthless against the last two obv.

I hold onto my GY Hate in my sideboard like a woman hangs onto her stocks. I + GYH = BFFs 4-3v4r

This is obvious, especially after reanimator had 3 of the Top8 slots at atlanta and also 11th place. It crushed me completely. I like leyline purely because of its uncounterability and its better against dredge, not that anyone hardly plays that deck anymore. I def like it over relic beacuse I want to be able to play my threats, lackey esp, out on first/2nd turn and not be dropping hate that kills my speed.Leyline can be used against lands pretty effectively as well if you want I think.

A well-placed thorn can go a long way, not only against combo, but against burn and a few others. I wouldn't say "(ex.) board it in against tempo thresh all the time," but once in a while you will reaaally surprise random non-creature decks with +4 additional must-counters (most of the time).

Like I said above, I'd pack 4 mindbreaks from now on for me. I like mindbreak trap for the same reasons as leyline, you can continue to play your threats full speed while also having combo hate. Yes you can go lackey, then thorn, but id rather go lackey, trap in hand, piledriver second turn. I don't have any testing to back this up though, in fact everythign I say here should be taking with a grain of salt since my playtesting consists of mws, a little bit the night before, and the tournament. I'm just combining what I've experienced and intuition.

Earwig Squad defeats Prog and sticks it to Reanimator. Can help against goyf strategies, combo, landstill, lands, and fucking MORE. Gotta love him in today's metagame, though he's clunky as fuck. I wouldn't go over x2 despite his versatility (because if you think about it, it's not actually a very good card)

I bought an earwig squad originally planning to run one in sb. Tacosnape didn't like the card though and honestly I don't like it that much, like you said, its not actually a good card really. I don't think I would board it against prog even if i had it in the sb, I just don't think you need to be worrying about stopping prog, you need to worry about beatingdown on him. Sticking it to reanimator is iffy as the earliest he can come down is turn 2 with the god draw of lackey,warchief, him in the opener and him not getting countered. Also all the builds I saw in atlanta were packing more than 3 creatures main so its not like its game ending, altho im sure it helps. The other matchups you listed I'm sure you can find better cards to bring in.

Warren Weirding is good against goyf-based aggro-control strategies, so I added the fourth to my board. I heard those are popular in legacy.

I'm fine with a fourth in the board, I nearly did that over the 4th bolt in the board but I like bolt more for merfolk,mirror,zoo so I chose it.

I just prefer a higher instigator count and only 3 piledrivers because of playstyle considerations.

I know tacosnape touched on this earlier in the thread about playstyle considerations referring to not running more instigators because of that reasoning. I believe he hammered it pretty hard, I run less than 4 instigators but I just believe they aren't as strong. If thats your reasoning for piledriver then cool but I don't believe playstyle has anything to do with it, the cards strength and your meta should be the reasoning.

If anyone is looking for a starting point for a sideboard in today's general metagame, I would start with mine as a launching point. I do think x4 combo hate is worth it... though it doesn't increase your win percentage dramatically, it does increase it, and there is a lot more combo than there used to be. Sneaking wins is possible against combo, especially with 4 thorns. But if combo hate is stupid to you, I would personally try +2 Needle +2 Chieftain instead of the thorns.

Agreed on the combo hate, even though we choose different cards.

Congrats man. Your only losses came to a pro and the deck's absolute worst matchup in the entire god damn world. Just curious, do you know if you would have made it if you drew in the last round against goblins? 2 goblins in the t8 would have made me wet.

I've never been in the situation so I was clueless on how to figure it out, I got advice from someone that plays pro tours and he said it wasn't guaranteed to get me in and he did not recommend drawing, so I played. I stated in the report I woulda been pissed to draw and not get in obv so it was an easy choice. You can see the list of the other goblins player on SCG but I think it was suboptimal. He had a poor mirror matchup with no pyrokinesis and 4 weirdings maindeck. He also had cabal therapy and planar void in the sb which I thought were poor choices.

[markbris]

So Chieftains are not MB material anymore? What about on Mono-Red builds?

I can't speak to monored builds as I haven't tried it in the longest time. I don't like chieftains though. IMO they really clog the 3 spot which I would think hurts you against zoo since I think your goal is to buy time early on and get card advantage later thru siege-gangs and ringleader. It really blows to have 2 or more 3 drops in your hand and you have to tap out on third turn just to get one down and watch as they burn it away and continue beating down on you. I don't think they are needed for merfolk since you destroy them anyway and they may or may not be better against the mirror, I feel like they are probably good for the mirror but the same tempo thing comes into play as well. With 4 ringleaders, 4 matrons, 1-3 siegegangs, 4 warchief and 2-4 chieftains your hands can get full of high CC creatures. Against lots of other decks I feel like its probably win more.

Also as far as the mirror goes, I don't know what the metagame numbers were at atlanta but I had goblins players near me it seemed almost every match so its def gaining popularity and you should be factoring in the mirror.

Edit: Chieftain talk is purely conjecture as I don't own them and have never played with them.

[TheSleeper]

How would a Mono Red list look with Lightning Bolt - something like this? Is Port still supportable when you need extra R for Bolts?

4 Vial, 4 Bolt, 4 Lackey,
4 Piledriver, 3 Instigator, 2 Gempalm, 2 Stingscourger
4 Warchief, 4 Matron
4 Ringleader, 2 SCG
17 Mountain, 4 Wasteland, 2 Rishadan Port

SB:
4 Pyrokinesis, 4 MB Trap, 3 Blood Moon, 3 Anarchy, 1 Gempalm

Reasons to play Bolt: as markbris has noted, good vs. mirror and Zoo, both of which are in my meta.

[Avatara]

I'm currently running:

4 Wasteland
16 Mountain
2 Smoldering Spires

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Stingscourger
2 Warren Instigator
4 Goblin Matron
3 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

4 Aether Vial
3 Lightning Bolt

Sideboard:
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Boartusk Liege
4 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Anarchy
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Goblin Sharpshooter

The deck's curve with Lightning bolts in it is much better:

1 - 11
2 - 10
3 - 11
4 - 4
5 - 2

[(nameless one)]

I was playtesting a mono-red list similar to markbris's and I have to say, It is a little faster than my usual build. I personally did not mind my initial build (with 3 Chieftains instead of Bolts). My meta has little combo. The thing I didnt like about my list, like what markbris pointed out, was it clogged the 3CC spot.

Also, with Bolt gives that extra removal if needed. I myself have lost enough games to Zoo. Bolt also provides that extra push when needed. I definitely am changing my list.

Speaking of extra reach, would Barbarian Ring be good too (on a mono-red build) or its one of those danger of cool things?

[lordofthepit]

Is the black splash for Warren Weirdings (with some combination of Badlands, Bloodstained Mire, and Auntie's Hovel) now considered superior to the mono-red version with more fatties than ever in the format? I'd be relieved not having to look for a set of Rishadan Ports if that's the case!

[TheSleeper]

lordofthepit: I've read in the last 10 pages or so that it is the case, with Reanimator/Iona and other combo decks, which black is slightly better at dealing with.

nameless one: I think Smoldering Spires is the only other non-basic that could fit - I don't see Barbarian Ring making the cut at all. You have enough reach via your Ringleaders & SCG.

avatara: Why run Kikki without Lightning Crafter & Co? I would have thought it was all in or not with that card.

[FoulQ]

Is the black splash for Warren Weirdings (with some combination of Badlands, Bloodstained Mire, and Auntie's Hovel) now considered superior to the mono-red version with more fatties than ever in the format? I'd be relieved not having to look for a set of Rishadan Ports if that's the case!

Depends on the meta of course. But in a general metal, I think the consensus is that RB is the best version. Like TheSleeper said, it is better against Reanimator, Iona, (progenitus!), and combo decks. Mono-Red is better against merfolk and zoo. Otherwise they are about the same on every matchup, with RB getting a slight edge because of superior removal and Mono-Red getting a slight edge because of a superior manabase (+ optional ports).

You don't even necessarily need ports for Mono-Red either. Playing 4 instigators and any number of chieftains (along with the standard 4 warchiefs) usually means you want 16-18 red sources, and 18 mountains + 4 wasteland is probably the most popular Mono-Red manabase configuration, at least on the Source.

I don't really know if the deck's curve with lightning bolt is really that much better, considering you will usually not curve out with a t1 bolt.

[markbris]

I was playtesting a mono-red list similar to markbris's and I have to say, It is a little faster than my usual build. I personally did not mind my initial build (with 3 Chieftains instead of Bolts). My meta has little combo. The thing I didnt like about my list, like what markbris pointed out, was it clogged the 3CC spot.

Also, with Bolt gives that extra removal if needed. I myself have lost enough games to Zoo. Bolt also provides that extra push when needed. I definitely am changing my list.

Speaking of extra reach, would Barbarian Ring be good too (on a mono-red build) or its one of those danger of cool things?

Barbarian ring won't work I think. You don't want to give away those life points against zoo and theres no way to insure you get to threshold.

[Enigma]

Could you telll me why it's not effective against Storm Combo? I thought about it for two days cause I didnt want to spam here:

They need storm-count 9 + Tendrills to kill you.
If they played 9 cc2 spells this turn they get 18 damage from Pillar.
You need 2 more extra damage to kill them (which is easy, cause you have T1-Lackey, and they fetch 2-3 times)

If I did my math homework right this card is great against StormCombo. Even removing/bouncing Pillar costs them 4 life (2 for Mystical tutor, 2 for bounce)
It used to be not very good when storms players were running Ill-Gotten-Gains, making the card useless unless you already dealt 4 dmg, which is unlikely if you wasted your second turn casting Pillar.

If ANT aren't running it anymore, then it is at least a viable option, which can still be answered by any of their bounce. That's why I'm prefering a mix of Squads, Duress, Thorn or Mindbreak Trap. Except the latter, all of these cards can serves in other MU (Squads against Progenitus, Reanimator, Bridge... Duress and Thorn against Control...). The reason to run MTrap is that it is possibly the best (but the most restrictive) option against ANT.

P-M

[danielcrocker]

Here's a mono-red list I built last night ...let me know what you think.




4 Wasteland
15 Mountain
3 Rishidan Port

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledriver
3 Stingscourger
2 Warren Instigator
4 Goblin Matron
3 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Gempalm Incinerator

4 Aether Vial
3 Lightning Bolt

Sideboard:
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Tormod's Crypt
4 Mindbreak Trap
2 Anarchy
4 Pyrokinesis
1 Goblin Tinkerer

[TheSleeper]

I don't really know if the deck's curve with lightning bolt is really that much better, considering you will usually not curve out with a t1 bolt.

Just theorycrafting here, but I think its less a case of improving the curve, and more about castable options on Turn 2/3 to help a Lackey/Instigator connect. markbris ran 3 Weirding, 3 Bolt, 1 Sting = 7 'Lackey-enablers'. Maybe a mono-red would be benefit from something like 4 Bolt, 3 Sting.

[Tacosnape]

The main allure of Lightning Bolt is that it enables you to get the Lackey through without walking into Daze and while keeping the Wasteland open.

That said, I still disagree with Lightning Bolt. And I'm not sure how much of a difference Bolt actually made in Mark's top 8. I think it made far less of a difference than the skill of the pilot, the matchups, and a little bit of luck. That said, Mark swears by it and it worked for him, so there you go.

[Lego]

Gempalm is also immune to Daze though, and I think he fits the deck a little better, making your Ringleaders and Matrons a bit better, and even providing a little extra reach those occasional times you need it in the late game. Plus he cantrips. Admittedly, I haven't played the deck in a while, but I've always been happy with him.

That said, he seems worse in the Zoo matchup, where he's probably not going to kill a turn 1 Nacatl, and definitely not going to kill a turn 2.

[(nameless one)]

Here is my current build right now:




15 Snow-Covered Mountain
4 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port

4 AEther Vial
3 Lightning Bolt

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
3 Stingscourger
3 Goblin Piledriver
3 Warren Instigator
3 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Siege-Gang Commander


My sideboard changes from time to time.

It used to be almost the same except my previous list goes as: -3 Lightning Bolt/-1 Goblin Warchief/+3 Goblin Chieftain/+1 Snow-Covered Mountain.

With the new changes, the deck is "faster" in a sense that Lackeys and Instigators can connect more efficiently with the addition of the Bolts but it is more vulnerable to board sweeper such as Pyroclasm. I did miss the extra haste from Chieftain late game.

I think Lightning Bolt gives us more early game ground which I believe is needed if you are racing Zoo and other Aggro decks.

I did not remove any Stingscourgers or Incinerators because they can be fetched by Matrons.

[FoulQ]

Gempalm is also immune to Daze though, and I think he fits the deck a little better, making your Ringleaders and Matrons a bit better, and even providing a little extra reach those occasional times you need it in the late game. Plus he cantrips. Admittedly, I haven't played the deck in a while, but I've always been happy with him.

That said, he seems worse in the Zoo matchup, where he's probably not going to kill a turn 1 Nacatl, and definitely not going to kill a turn 2.

Unfortunately, t2/3 gempalm (to clear for lackey/instigator) does not get it done nearly as well as t2 lightning bolt. Granted, I love gempalm, but he is more of a mid-game card in today's metagame.

He can still clear for a lackey against goblins, and sometimes merfolk or dredge, and that's pretty bomb. However, against most of the established forum decks and the rest of the DTB, they'll either have efficient noncreature answers to your t1/2 lackey/instigator or creatures with more than one toughness. Obviously, this is especially true if you are on the draw.

However, lightning bolt pretty much kills everything, except sometimes when you it is lackey vs goyf on the draw. Every other common t1/t2 creature that can stop lackey connections easily has 3 or less toughness, no matter how rogue or strange the deck is. In terms of legacy, when you can get matched up against who knows what, that give a lot of strength to lightning bolt.

But anyways, Mark still does play 2 gempalms, so we are still getting the best of both worlds.

[GoboLord]

Unfortunately, t2/3 gempalm (to clear for lackey/instigator) does not get it done nearly as well as t2 lightning bolt. Granted, I love gempalm, but he is more of a mid-game card in today's metagame.

He can still clear for a lackey against goblins, and sometimes merfolk or dredge, and that's pretty bomb. However, against most of the established forum decks and the rest of the DTB, they'll either have efficient noncreature answers to your t1/2 lackey/instigator or creatures with more than one toughness. Obviously, this is especially true if you are on the draw.

However, lightning bolt pretty much kills everything, except sometimes when you it is lackey vs goyf on the draw. Every other common t1/t2 creature that can stop lackey connections easily has 3 or less toughness, no matter how rogue or strange the deck is. In terms of legacy, when you can get matched up against who knows what, that give a lot of strength to lightning bolt.

But anyways, Mark still does play 2 gempalms, so we are still getting the best of both worlds.

The most common t1 creatures that stand in the way of Goblin Lackey are:

Noble Hierarch
Curscatcher
Mother of Runes
Kird Ape/ Loam Lion/Wild Nacatl
Goblin Lackey
Putrid Imp

Looking at those guys it hardly makes a difference whether to play Lightning Bolt or Gempalm.
A plus for Lightning bolt: it kills every creature listed here
A plus for Gempalm: it cant be countered

I agree with FoulQ: We dont need to think of wheter the one or the other is better, we can simply play both!
But: imo it is a question of how you play your deck and what your meta is like. We have several removal spells we can choose from:

Lightning Bolt
Stingscourger
Gempalm Incinerator
Warren Weirding

I think the most common oppinion is to play 5-7 removals. In every list (R or Rb) we can play a nice 3-2-(2) or 3-3 split, depending on:

mana-curve
meta
play-style
splash

To cut a long story short: Play Lightning Bolt as long you don't forget to put in some tutorable removal spells.

I played Terminate some time ago; until I decided not to play non-goblin-removals anymore.

Does anyone think this is an option? Some experiences maybe?

[danielcrocker]

I personally like bolt and stingscourger over gempalm because turn one lackey and turn two removal is so powerful/ crucial for goblins which we all can agree gempalm will not achieve. I'm not saying gempalm isn't needed but I'd rather have more bolts and stingscourger than gempalms, not to mention against Iona gempalm hardly as effective as a vialed stingscourger. My removal package looks like this right now:

3 lightning bolt
2 stingscourger
3 warren weirding
1 gempalm incinerator

As far as terminate, I really don't think it's needed because it's not as good as bolt and it's not a goblin but I have never tested it so what do I know lol ?

[overpowered]

9 is a huge removal package. I know bolt can go to the dome, but the +3 damage generally doesn't swing the game on the Rb Vial build. I run 1 stingscourger, 4 weirding and 1 incinerator respectively and feel that's even too much sometimes.

I've always felt that ringleader/matron is enough tutoring for me to pick up a removal piece when necessary, and a vial on turn X can still crush iona thanks to scourger off that. I haven't had enough matches vs reanimator to extensively test but it doesn't seem bad, as a turn 1 lackey can still stall with the threat of dropping nasties so it leaves Iona as a blocker for a while. That being said, less removal is optimal vs combo, a match that we don't auto-lose, and still strong vs mid-range decks.

Most of the countertop, bant and other variants in my meta run so few threats that it's fine to run 6 removal and be ok, as we just need to stop the business creatures. With my playtesting of Rb w/lightning bolt, it's hurt more than it's helped, so I cut it for 1 sharpshooter (who is godly with pyrokinesis) and SGC #2 along with a 4th Weirding. I presumed, with the amount of cheating creatures, that another SGC means that matron doesn't have to hit to have threats off the uncontested lackey.

I'll say flat out though that my Zoo match sucks. If you're looking to improve a bad matchup like that, this deck only has a few "must answers" and they're all named Goblin Warchief. That deck is and always will be bad news because their guys do less, but are much beefier.
Saying that turn two removal is crucial... I tend to disagree. He'll go uncontested against the decks that he needs to, and against the ones he doesn't, he doesn't have much more threat than dropping a 2nd mountain and saying go. One of the better strategies of this deck is to go late game and overwhelm them with card/creature advantage. Sure, he produces results in that category too, but he doesn't stockpile and lends himself to overextending into Tabernacles (another popular card in my meta).

In conclusion, 9 is too much removal for my meta, and I think it's heavy even for a blind one. I don't know if Lightning Bolt was the key to success for Mark, and I'm sure it didn't hurt, but I'm sure surprise factor had a lot to do with that as well. It helps to fill out the 1cc slot and is conducive to our mana-denial strategy, but sometimes long games are where we take the cake. Bolt, being card parity (provided they have no tricks) isn't the best card for that route-- where Weirding/StingScourger/Incinerator have CA built in with Wort or naturally.

I know-- I know... my opinion, my meta, but you be the judge.

[(nameless one)]

If I were running the Rb version, I wouldn't run Bolts as you have Wierdings already. I still think that Bolts are a meta call. On my list, I am either running Bolts or Chieftains.

[markbris]

9 is a huge removal package. I know bolt can go to the dome, but the +3 damage generally doesn't swing the game on the Rb Vial build. I run 1 stingscourger, 4 weirding and 1 incinerator respectively and feel that's even too much sometimes.

I've always felt that ringleader/matron is enough tutoring for me to pick up a removal piece when necessary, and a vial on turn X can still crush iona thanks to scourger off that. I haven't had enough matches vs reanimator to extensively test but it doesn't seem bad, as a turn 1 lackey can still stall with the threat of dropping nasties so it leaves Iona as a blocker for a while. That being said, less removal is optimal vs combo, a match that we don't auto-lose, and still strong vs mid-range decks.

Most of the countertop, bant and other variants in my meta run so few threats that it's fine to run 6 removal and be ok, as we just need to stop the business creatures. With my playtesting of Rb w/lightning bolt, it's hurt more than it's helped, so I cut it for 1 sharpshooter (who is godly with pyrokinesis) and SGC #2 along with a 4th Weirding. I presumed, with the amount of cheating creatures, that another SGC means that matron doesn't have to hit to have threats off the uncontested lackey.

I'll say flat out though that my Zoo match sucks. If you're looking to improve a bad matchup like that, this deck only has a few "must answers" and they're all named Goblin Warchief. That deck is and always will be bad news because their guys do less, but are much beefier.
Saying that turn two removal is crucial... I tend to disagree. He'll go uncontested against the decks that he needs to, and against the ones he doesn't, he doesn't have much more threat than dropping a 2nd mountain and saying go. One of the better strategies of this deck is to go late game and overwhelm them with card/creature advantage. Sure, he produces results in that category too, but he doesn't stockpile and lends himself to overextending into Tabernacles (another popular card in my meta).

In conclusion, 9 is too much removal for my meta, and I think it's heavy even for a blind one. I don't know if Lightning Bolt was the key to success for Mark, and I'm sure it didn't hurt, but I'm sure surprise factor had a lot to do with that as well. It helps to fill out the 1cc slot and is conducive to our mana-denial strategy, but sometimes long games are where we take the cake. Bolt, being card parity (provided they have no tricks) isn't the best card for that route-- where Weirding/StingScourger/Incinerator have CA built in with Wort or naturally.

I know-- I know... my opinion, my meta, but you be the judge.

A few things here:

1) Combo is pretty much an autoloss unless you are packing some serious sb hate, even then its not great. But the fact that you have 3 less removal, I doubt it gains you much at all.

2) Yes Stingscourger can pwn iona off vial, but you only got one in the deck and so you have to have both in hand or somehow get a matron into play which will be impossible if he has iona since you can't go up to 3 on the vial to drop the matron.

3) The reason your zoo matchup sucks is that you aren't running enough removal. I think people are misreading what I said about lightning bolt or just pulling stuff out of their ass. I don't think I ever said turn 2 removal was crucial, and if I did I meant it in the fact that it was critical to buying time. I stated in my original post after the tournament that the main reason I wanted lightning bolt is because it buys you the time you need against zoo. You are correct that long games is where you beat zoo with card advantage, but you gotta get there. Lightning bolt is really good at killing those nacatls,apes,lions,lynx first turn which really helps keep the damage off and buys you time.
The times you lose against zoo is mainly when they run you over, cuz they go first turn creature, then you drop something, they burn it and swing, and maybe drop another 1CC. Now you can drop a piledriver or a weirding or stingscourger. If you drop the piledriver or stingscourger they burn and swing again probably. if you drop the weirding they lose one and get to keep bashing/dropping and your life goes down some more, next turn, you can drop a warchief/matron but you only get one creature out there and they can burn him or just attack and you gotta chump or go even farther down. You just get too far behind.

With bolt, they drop the creature, you bolt him, turn 2 they drop another, you can weirding if hes a 2cc guy, or you can weirding one if they drop two and slow em down, but the earliest you take damage is turn 3, turn 4 if you weirding a golf turn 2 and you have a much better chance to get ringleaders online and win.

[markbris]

Also, I don't really like chieftain at all. Someone explain the situations to me where you want him.

Also I might go up to 4 weirdings myself as I really wanted two in my hand against reanimator and I'm sure its only going to get more popular. I had one both times in the SCG 5k against reanimator and he had the force both times.

[danielcrocker]

I think you misunderstood what I meant by "powerful/ crucial "....what I meant to say was powerful or sometimes crucial . The early game tempo with lackey hitting turn two is needed in some match ups and I'm not "pulling this out of my ass" this is based on experience. I read your report and I agreed with everything you had to say I was just offering another point of view on why bolt is good. I also agree with resiliency of goblins being able to gain momentum mid late game(goblins=best card advantage in magic) but like I said in some cases I found that the first 3 turns have decided the match.

[overpowered]

A few things here:

1) Combo is pretty much an autoloss unless you are packing some serious sb hate, even then its not great. But the fact that you have 3 less removal, I doubt it gains you much at all.

2) Yes Stingscourger can pwn iona off vial, but you only got one in the deck and so you have to have both in hand or somehow get a matron into play which will be impossible if he has iona since you can't go up to 3 on the vial to drop the matron.

3) The reason your zoo matchup sucks is that you aren't running enough removal. I think people are misreading what I said about lightning bolt or just pulling stuff out of their ass. I don't think I ever said turn 2 removal was crucial, and if I did I meant it in the fact that it was critical to buying time. I stated in my original post after the tournament that the main reason I wanted lightning bolt is because it buys you the time you need against zoo. You are correct that long games is where you beat zoo with card advantage, but you gotta get there. Lightning bolt is really good at killing those nacatls,apes,lions,lynx first turn which really helps keep the damage off and buys you time.
The times you lose against zoo is mainly when they run you over, cuz they go first turn creature, then you drop something, they burn it and swing, and maybe drop another 1CC. Now you can drop a piledriver or a weirding or stingscourger. If you drop the piledriver or stingscourger they burn and swing again probably. if you drop the weirding they lose one and get to keep bashing/dropping and your life goes down some more, next turn, you can drop a warchief/matron but you only get one creature out there and they can burn him or just attack and you gotta chump or go even farther down. You just get too far behind.

With bolt, they drop the creature, you bolt him, turn 2 they drop another, you can weirding if hes a 2cc guy, or you can weirding one if they drop two and slow em down, but the earliest you take damage is turn 3, turn 4 if you weirding a golf turn 2 and you have a much better chance to get ringleaders online and win.

I misunderstood what you were saying. I know what you mean by trying to stay ahead of the game. I thought you were saying that you ABSOLUTELY must have removal turn 2... my bad. Anyway, yeah, bolt can be advantageous vs Zoo most definitely, and you make some good arguments for it that I could only reiterate.

I do think reanimator is a problem that needs 4 weirdings to be dealt with. I knew it was one of my least tested matches and so I've been testing against it all day and it's a hard deck to make decent plays against. They pack countermagic and really ruin our fun. I'd recommend running 4 weirdings as I've been seeing a lot of alternate cast fatties recently.

In all my testing, 4 weirding has never been bad. In some of my matches, I wished I'd drawn one instead of the singleton gempalm.

[Nelis]

I've been running 4 Weirdings from day one and I agree that 4 Weirdings is never bad. If I could run 6, I would.

In my experience Gempalm is only really effective when you have a couple of creatures on the board, usually in midgame. Like when there's a Siege-Gang on the battlefield. It is my opinion that if you want to play Gempalm effectively early game you need to build your deck around it which means running Mogg War Marshal. Mono red would be more suitable for this.

I would run monoR in an aggro meta and B/r in a non-aggro meta.

[Pulp_Fiction]

This is only the second time I have ever played this deck in a tournament and both times I have made top 8 out of 25+ people. I usually play combo but .... this deck is getting insanely good, too god to not play in the meta right now. I took Gobbos to my local tournament wednesday night and made the top 8 out of around 28-34 people, losing in the top 8 to Belcher .... here is my list and a brief report of what happened:

4x Vial
3x Thoughtseize
3x Warren Weirding

4x Lackey
4x Warchief
4x Piledriver
4x Matron
4x Ringleader
3x Gempalm
3x Chieftan
1x Stingscourger
1x SGC

4x Bloodstained Mire
2x Polluted Delta
4x Badlands
9x Mountain
2x Swamp
1x Volrath's Stronghold

Sideboard
4x Leyline of the Void
3x Pyrokinesis
3x Blood Moon
2x Pithing Needle
1x Goblin Tinkerer
1x Goblin Pyromancer
1x Warren Weirding

Round 1 - Natural Order Elves
g1 - I mull to 6 and keep a slow hand and lose to 3x Chammions + 4 more elves on turn 5 .... pretty nuts.
g2 - turn 1 Lackey, Weirding his blocker, SGC, followed up by Chieftan makes it fast.
g3 - He mulls to 5 and gets overwhelmed quickly not much of a game.

Round 2 - Recruiter Aluren (ChokeSeemsGood)
g1 - He doesn't have a blocker until turn 4 .... I went first and played Lackey, this was over fast.
g2 - This is fucking hysterical, he plays 2 basics in the deck and I open a hand of: Blood Moon, Blood Moon, Blood Moon, Chieftan, Chieftan, Badlands, Mountain. He plays turn 1 land, turn 2 Living Wish for Recruiter. I draw a bunch of lands and he Thoughtseizes me on his turn 3 .... to his amazement, he is about to lose this game. He looks at his manabase of Bayou, Trop, Polluted Delta, then looks at his hand, then at mine .... and says "what the fuck ... 3 BLOOD MOON!" Everyone around us started cracking up and he looks at me with disdain but chuckles a little. I put a Chieftan in the yard and cast my turn 3 Blood Moon. It all goes downhill from here and before he knows it he is being attacked by Chieftan, Piledriver, and staring at 3 Blood Moon in play! The good thing about having all of his mountains in play, is that he can easily hardcast Imperial Recruiter! He has a Dream Stalker in play and a Recruiter and fetches out a Man-o-War! I draw a Ringleader and ... thats the game 3 turns later!

Round 3 - Reanimator
g1 - He reanimates Iona, I Weirding him, run into Force. Matron VIA Vial gets another Weirding and he has double Daze .... wtf, luck owns me.
g2 - He reanimates Sphinx after I kept a shitty 6 card hand, it had Vial and Thoughtseize so I kept, but I stall on one land and Thoughtseize gets Forced ... must be nice to draw the nuts every god damn game. I amass a board through triple Vial (oh, I don't draw fucking lands) but he is at ... 24-ish life, I could have dropped him a little lower but it didn't matter, he Exhumes Terastodon and Stone Rains himself 3 times and that kills my double Piledriver plan.

Round 4 - R/B Goblins
g1 - He gets a SICK hand and kills me on turn 5, he curved out perfectly.
g2 - I return the favor on turn 5.
g3 - This was awesome, since I boarded in Pyromancer I was trying to get him to overextend then wipe his board. We both play Lackey go, he has the Gempalm to clear the way and drop SGC. I am trying to setup the turn 4 Pyromancer but its not looking promising. I barely survive his onslaught and he whiddles me down to 3 and Earwigs my 3x Pyrokinesis out of the game. I Gempalm his Earwig and SGC then start to stabilize. I amass 3 Vials in play and he has 2 Port .. Stingscourger saves the day when he bounces a SGC token and kills Driver. I stabilize with Ringleader into Lackey .... but it stops the assault. I now have 3x Vials in play, a yard full of goblins and Volrath's Stronghold! Pyromancer Recursion kills his army fast and not wanting to take a chance at 3 life I Stronghold Matron back, Marton for Matron for Chieftan, then bring back Ringleader, hit a Piledriver, + a blocker, bring back Pyromancer and swing for lethal. I had to be very careful at 3 life. I could have killed him a lot faster but I don't feel like dying to freshly drawn hasty creatures. Volrath''s Stronghold + Vial single-handedly won the game after Pyromancer stabilized. We both had no cards in hand and ... I kept drawing Goblins!

Round 5 - Show and Tell Drazi, Iona, Progenitus
g1 - Turn 1 Lackey, turn 2 Warchief off Lackey and drop another Lackey and Piledriver, turn 3 Warchief, he concedes. This deck is so good.
g2 - He counters my discard, few Goblins, and Blood Moon. On turn 6 my board is like: 4 lands, Ringleader, and Warchief. He casts Show and Tell and I drop SGC into play he drops Iona on red. He is at .. like 12-13 life, this is over. Now, I already have the game won but .... I draw the Weirding off the top, just for good measure.

Top 8
Round 6 - Belcher
g1 - Turn 1, double Land Grant, drop Belcher, turn 2 activate. I mulled to 6 trying to find my Thoughtseize but kept a very aggressive hand instead of trying to find discard on the draw.
g2 - I mull to 6 trying to find something and hit Needle. He mulls to 6 and I play Needle on Belcher, go. He kept a hand with no wincons, cycles his Street Wraith and hits Empty the Warrens .... luck fucks me in the ass so hard, it is never on my side!!!! But hey, wtf am I going to do? Manamorphose sees to it that he has 16 Goblins before I have drawn my second card. Damn.

It is late and I have to wake up at a decent hour today, I will make a few comments on the list later since I know it is quite different than what most are playing. But overall the only thing I would change is the board. The main is working spectacular for me and I will justify the 3x Thoughtseize later.

[Amon Amarth]

I really like this list. I think R/b is the best positioned for the current meta. I'm not so sure about the Stronghold/1 SGC but the rest looks hot. I've been liking Pyromancer lately too. Grats on the Top 8.

[Nelis]

I used to play Volrath's Stronghold and it's only disappointing when you need a colored mana source and draw Stronghold instead. I think it's smart not to include Warren Instigator. Personally I think 22 land is just a bit too litte, I would run 23. And I would say1 swamp is enough.

I'm interested in some of the card choices.

[ScatmanX]

No Wastelands? Why is that?

[Pulp_Fiction]

@Amon Amarth: Thanks man, I want to find room for the second SGC but going down too 2 Thoughtseize seems just weak.

@Nelis: Stronghold is just so strong I can't imagine not playing it, unless you run Wastelands. 2x Swamp has never really caused me a problem, but it would be smart to go down to 1 since it could potentially be a problem, but I haven't seen that yet. 22 Feels right, but play what you are comfortable with, if you think you need 23 then play 23, this is why I play no Wastelands and mostly basics, to avoid mana problems.

@ScatmanX: I don't advocate not playing Wasteland but I wanted to build the most rock solid manabase that I could get. I see Goblins win and lose a LOT of games just simply based on Wastelands. Color screw and/or Wasteland may be your 3rd land, you kill the opponents and don't draw another. I realize the game plan and acknowledge most people want Wastelands which is fine, but I want to make the deck as consistent as possible and aviod occassional losses to itself. True Wasteland wins a lot of games, but it also loses a lot of games. Probably more wins than losses, but my goal is to make my deck work like a machine everytime and aviod any kind of anamoly along the way. I don't think its wrong either way someone chooses to play the deck, in Mono-Red I would absolutely run it, but in 2-3 colors it can get iffy, and it allows me to play more basics and thus makes me even less vulnerable to an opponent's attack on my manabase.

A few of the card choices may seem awkward. The 3x Thoughtseize most likely stands out. I mainly run them because I want 10-11 1-drops in the deck so I always have something to do on the first turn. For a while I was considering the 2x Fanatic and the second SGC but I just find Fanatic worthless. I can't think of a time other than turn 1 I want Fanatic, and even then, he becomes more and more worthless as the game goes on. Thoughtseize helps out against basically everything but the mirror and is seldom a dead draw before turn 7. Late game Fanatic and Thoughtseize seem equally awful, so that seems a wash. For what its worth, Thoughtseize usually shows up in the first 1-3 turns and always did something useful. It just seems the most versatile 1-drop that I can think of. There are certainly times where I would like to go +1 Weirding and +2 Bolt though.

Instigator is ... I don't really like it. Personal preference, when he connects he is bad ass, but it just seems like another worthless weenie that Zoo is going to stomp all over. If it works for you absolutely play it, but Instigator seems very situational to me and dependent on board position. And when you draw him mid to late game .. its just another weak Goblin, this is my take on it, it seems more win-more too me.

Volrath's Stronghold just wins games. Recurring Ringleaders, Gempalms, and Piledrivers is just nasty. It gives this deck a slight kick in the ass in the mid-late game and I think adds a nice power level to the deck. Now I am not a fan of colorless lands in the deck, and I almost want to play 2 of these, almost. But I remember how often I got stuck with 2x Jitte and … throw that plan away. Stronghold adds to a very consistent manabase. If you play R/B you should certainly test it out. Now if you run Wasteland and Port … I wouldn’t but if you run just 4x Wastelands test it out. Again all preference, I don’t advocate playing the cards that I do, its all personal playstyle and what you are comfortable playing.

The SB was … eh, I wouldn’t change a thing in the main (except maybe Swamp #2) but when I play this again here will be the new SB:

3x Faerie Macabre
3x Pyrokinesis
3x Blood Moon
2x Powder Keg (give the deck some game against Enchantress, plus it shuts off multiple LEDs and kills Goblin tokens, as well as fucks up whatever shit Zoo has in play)
1x Goblin Tinkerer
1x Goblin Pyromancer
1x Warren Weirding
1x Thoughtseize

This is what I should have been playing, I have the most diverse metagame imaginable and this seems to cover all the bases (except storm combo which really isn’t played a whole lot). I really just want to ignore storm combo since it is such a rare occurrence in my meta and take it as an auto-loss, even with Mindbreaks, they just Duress it out then go off. I simply don't want to devote SB slots towards a matchup that, even after I bring in 5-7 cards, is maybe 35% in my favor, just seems like a waste.

[Nidd]

If you like the effect of Stronghold, why not play Wort, Goblin Auntie? She's a goblin and has a reasonable body. Also, she only needs an one-time manainvestment.

Funny to see another Combo player has picked up Goblins.

[Pulp_Fiction]

I did play Wort a little while ago, I found it to be just win-more. If you are going to play Wort I think SGC would just fill that slot infinitely better. It is a cool card though and did have its merits, it was just slow.

I'm just taking a little break from combo, I am tired of the methodic nature of DDANT so I switched to TES, then TES just blows against Reanimator so I started playing Dredge on occassion, now I'm on to Goblins. This is where it stops though, these decks fill the gap of anything I would ever want to play in a metagame. All varied and each has the potential to win tournaments consistently. I only want to play decks that are unfair, and turn 1 Lackey with a full hand is just nasty! I think thats why combo players may choose to play Goblins, because of how explosive it is. I mean, next to block Ravager decks, this is probably the most aggressive deck in any format that I have ever seen.

[TheSleeper]

Just theorizing here, but does Thoughtseize mean you'll keep sub-optimal hands?

You say you want to maximize a turn 1 play, but it doesn't change the chance of having the 'best turn 1 play' (if that is defined by lackey/vial). Now you might keep a hand with Thoughtseize, where usually you would have mulled, possibly into a grip with Vial/Lackey.

Just food for thought - props on your finish :)

[ddt15]

Goblins is getting a better position in the metagame since Reanimator has been showing up. Not suprising as the matchup is probably favorable to Goblins. Goblins beats up Fish as well. Maybe thats why the combo players like to play it now so they can beat up the decks they tend to lose against playing combo.

PS what do you guys think of playing 3 cabal therapies main together with some War Marshals to improve the matchup against combo? Its also good for the mana curve never hurts to have some more 1 drops besides vial and lackey.

[JonBarber]

Goblins is getting a better position in the metagame since Reanimator has been showing up. Not suprising as the matchup is probably favorable to Goblins. Goblins beats up Fish as well. Maybe thats why the combo players like to play it now so they can beat up the decks they tend to lose against playing combo.

Thats actually why I started playing it. Probant was seeming to pop up everywhere and I wanted to play a deck that smash its face in. Turns out the little green guys are excellent at it.

[GoboLord]

@Amon Amarth: Thanks man, I want to find room for the second SGC but going down too 2 Thoughtseize seems just weak.
The SB was … eh, I wouldn’t change a thing in the main (except maybe Swamp #2) but when I play this again here will be the new SB:

3x Faerie Macabre
3x Pyrokinesis
3x Blood Moon
2x Powder Keg (give the deck some game against Enchantress, plus it shuts off multiple LEDs and kills Goblin tokens, as well as fucks up whatever shit Zoo has in play)
1x Goblin Tinkerer
1x Goblin Pyromancer
1x Warren Weirding
1x Thoughtseize



Powder Keg doesnt do anything against enchantress cause its just rips artifacts and creatures.
The card you are looking for is Engineered Explosives.

[Pulp_Fiction]

I know, I meant it as another way to remove Argothian Enchantress (thats something right?) but the matchup is just so abysmal its barely worth noting ... I considered EE but I'm not a fan, Powder Keg will kill Shackles which is important. Just a good versatility card VS EE which will only be set at 2. The only advantage I see for Engineered Explosives is that it can be played and blown up in the same turn to avoid Pridemage and wip Zoo's board with 4 mana in play.

@ddt15: In general, when playing DDANT or whatever weird DD variant I am playing, you have a 50/50 matchup versus Merfolk and CB garbage. I just don't like flipping coins in matchups, because DD is far superior to either of those decks, but the games are decided on how good the combo player's draws are, not the other way around. I have won through so much hate when the deck was working right, but ... if I wanted to flip coins I would go play some Rush Poker tournaments as opposed to Magic.

Cabal Therapy is interesting, but it will slow you down on occassion when you have to flash it back to hit something. Thoughtseize will ALWAYS hit something, whether that card matters or not is irrelevant, but it will always get something. I personally like Cabal Therapy better, but against a blind opponent just call Tarmogoyf or something. I will certainly test out Therapy since I like the idea of being able to strip my opponents hand pretty fast with my throw-away goblins. But the fact that you will totally whiff on occassion and might not have an extra dude to spare, that will be a problem. So the question is, is this such a rare occurrence that Therapy is better, or that fact that Thoughtseize always hits something makes it the better card? Against combo I would prefer Thoughtseize every time since Belcher and ANT draws are so random and hit you from a numer of different ways, calling: LED, Belcher, Dark Ritual, etc, may have no effect on them and they just beat you next turn where as Thoughtseize takes their most valuable card and takes chance out of the equation.

[FoulQ]

I'm glad to have you on our team, Pulp Fiction...

I have found cabal therapy to be bad. I have also found thoughtseize to be good, but not for all metas. I definitely recommend thoughtseize over cabal therapy from my experiences playing this deck.

Some cards that used to be much better were better because of engineered plague. EE was good in Rbg goblins because it killed off a lot of random things back then and also served as plague answer #4/5 alongside krosan grip. The same thing was true about cabal therapy, as it could hit plague, or landstill bombs. But plague and moat/humility decks aren't very popular right now.

Did anybody else see the recent SGC article where goblins performed well? Great numbers against reanimator and merfolk, and close numbers with countertop and zoo. Personally, I think this is the proof we need. This deck is definitely well-positioned to be a revitalized DTB if tendrils continues to slide.

I am also a big fan of faerie macabre now, but who isn't at this point.

[sligh16]

Talking about faerie macabre, do you prefer them over leyline of the void?
I think that the faeries are better against reanimator, but against ichorid i'm not so sure.

[ddt15]

I did play Wort a little while ago, I found it to be just win-more. If you are going to play Wort I think SGC would just fill that slot infinitely better. It is a cool card though and did have its merits, it was just slow.
Well the big advantage of Wort is that it allows you to keep your Vial on 4, instead of having to boost it up to 5 for SGC. Wort definetly has its merits in long drawn out games as it basically allows you to replay a Ringleader each turn.


Talking about faerie macabre, do you prefer them over leyline of the void?
I think that the faeries are better against reanimator, but against ichorid i'm not so sure.
I think leylines are the best choice, it allows you to buy abit of time against reanimator which should be enough to set up Vial+Scourger or draw/tutor for a Weirding. More importantly it is also very good against Ichorid and Loam decks unlike fearie macabre.



Here is what I would play right now:
Artifacts:
4 Aether Vial

Creatures:
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
3 Goblin Chieftain
3 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Warren Instigator
1 Siege-gang Commander
1 Stingscourger
1 Wort, Boggart Auntie

Sorceries:
3 Warren Weirding

Lands:
4 Auntie's Hovel
4 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland
6 Mountain

Sideboard:
4 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Leyline Of The Void
3 Pyrokinesis
3 Magus of the Moon
1 Boartusk Liege

[danielcrocker]

Why would you play magus instead of blood moon? Just seems silly when creatures are alot easier to remove than enchantments.

[ddt15]

Why would you play magus instead of blood moon? Just seems silly when creatures are alot easier to remove than enchantments.
Well against lands you can drop it off a vial (they always seem to have multiple ports in play), and against control decks it works nice with thorn of amethyst as well.

[Nelis]

@Nelis: Stronghold is just so strong I can't imagine not playing it, unless you run Wastelands. 2x Swamp has never really caused me a problem, but it would be smart to go down to 1 since it could potentially be a problem, but I haven't seen that yet. 22 Feels right, but play what you are comfortable with, if you think you need 23 then play 23, this is why I play no Wastelands and mostly basics, to avoid mana problems.
.

I actually missed out on the Wastelands.

Without Wasteland I would definitely put in Stronghold. With 4 Wasteland and 1 Stronghold I got screwed on more occasions than I cared for that's why I stopped playing Stronghold. And without Wastelands you can afford to play one land less, I guess. I understand now.

[danielcrocker]

Right now I am trying to prepare for the SCG open series Seattle next month and I am having trouble with my SB.

Right now it looks like this ...

4 pyrokinesis
4 leyline of the void
3 mindbreak trap
3 chalice of the void
1 earwig squad

cards considering...

tormod's crypt
faerie macabre
goblin tinkerer
bloodmoon(or magus)
goblin pyromancer


any suggestions ?

[alphastorm]

I did play Wort a little while ago, I found it to be just win-more. If you are going to play Wort I think SGC would just fill that slot infinitely better. It is a cool card though and did have its merits, it was just slow.
.

And Volrath's stronghold isn't a win more? It's slower and it can't be tutored or ringleadered.

[JonBarber]

And Volrath's stronghold isn't a win more? It's slower and it can't be tutored or ringleadered.

Volrath's stronghold and wort are both great against slow control decks. Therefore speed isn't a huge issue. Unlike volrath's stronghold, Wort is likely to just get countered or kiled. Unless your oppenent is running wastelands, they can't deal with it. If creature denial/removal is a problem, wort is just as suseptible.

[Tacosnape]

Both Volrath's Stronghold and Wort, Boggart Auntie are addressing problems that aren't really problems. That's why you shouldn't run either one of them.

Goblins isn't losing long games. I don't mean this as "Goblins always wins long games," but I mean this as the majority of problems Goblins is running into in tournaments has nothing to do with losing long games. Goblins' losses are coming to combos/strategies it fails to stop (ANT, Belcher, sometimes Lands/Reanimator), or faster aggro. So I'd rather run cards that fix these problems first.

[(nameless one)]

I actually never had a problem with long games with Goblins. A Matron or Ringleader can easily turn things around.

With my current mono-red decklist, I have an open slot. I am wondering if should put in Warchief or Instigator on that spot.

My current list looks like this:



15 Mountains
4 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port

4 AEther Vial

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
3 Goblin Piledriver
3 Stingscourger
3 Warren Instigator
3 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Goblin Warchief
3 Goblin Chieftain
3 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Open Slot



If I switch Chieftain with Lightning Bolt, I might just run a 4th Warchief. But even then, I like having 6-7 Hasters, not to mention the explosiveness those Lords provide. That said, I also like having 12 ways to cheat goblins into play. I know Lackeys rarely stick around but would that be enough reason to run 4 Instigators?

I know Tacosnape likes running 4 Instigators but which is more important?

Also, with 4 Instigators, I can set my Vials on 2 and 3 (I will have 10 of each drops).

Speaking of Lightning Bolt, I am still 50-50 with it. Yes, I like the idea of more removal, more reach and random use of it but I just dont feel it. I did some testing with it and actually won me random games but overall, it does not really help. Although I am thinking of putting them on the side along with Pyrokinesis against aggro matchups. I did win a game on MWS with a Bolt against AnT. He/she was recklessly wasting life away with AnT (I guess the player was hoping to draw Pact of Negation, which he/she never did) and when the player was at 2 life, I bolted him/her.

But ya, I am still skeptical with Bolts. I guess I to test it even more (I am also testing Merfolk, Dredge, Quinn and CounterRebels as I dont know what to play yet for an upcoming tournament).

On the topic of AnT, would Thorn of Amethyst on the side be enough or that matchup is plain hopeless?

[danielcrocker]

Both Volrath's Stronghold and Wort, Boggart Auntie are addressing problems that aren't really problems. That's why you shouldn't run either one of them.

Goblins isn't losing long games. I don't mean this as "Goblins always wins long games," but I mean this as the majority of problems Goblins is running into in tournaments has nothing to do with losing long games. Goblins' losses are coming to combos/strategies it fails to stop (ANT, Belcher, sometimes Lands/Reanimator), or faster aggro. So I'd rather run cards that fix these problems first.

I very much agree. I really think the land disruption is needed, it really helps against reanimator and ant.

[JonBarber]

Both Volrath's Stronghold and Wort, Boggart Auntie are addressing problems that aren't really problems. That's why you shouldn't run either one of them.

Goblins isn't losing long games. I don't mean this as "Goblins always wins long games," but I mean this as the majority of problems Goblins is running into in tournaments has nothing to do with losing long games. Goblins' losses are coming to combos/strategies it fails to stop (ANT, Belcher, sometimes Lands/Reanimator), or faster aggro. So I'd rather run cards that fix these problems first.

I wasn't saying that either should be played, just that imho stronghold was better.


On the topic of AnT, would Thorn of Amethyst on the side be enough or that matchup is plain hopeless?

I like chalice or mindbreak trap more than thorn. ANT/Belcher is likely to go off t1/t2 and I'd like to do whatever I can to slow them down as much as possible. If they have to spend their tutors to get bounce or discard, it gives me that much more time to beat them down.

[sligh16]

IMO mindbreak trap is really bad. The problem is that is reactive, you have to wait in order to disrupt your oponent. In the meantime, they can duress you or simply play chant first. Against belcher is much better, but AnT can always play around it.

Thorn is very effective when you are on the play, but in game 3 AnT and Belcher will surely play duress or go off in turn two.

For me, the solutions have always been chalice and duress/thoughtseize/inquisition. Sure, chalice can be bounced and is very selective, but playing it in turn 1 for zero or turn 2 for 1 buys you a lot of time. Duress efects are nice, but it's a one card trade that sometimes don't give you enough time.

Anyways, i still struggle to put them in the side, cause that means usually taking out other usefull and needed cards.

my current sideboard without storm hate:

3 Pyrokinesis (in the mirror is the card that gives you the game)
4 faerie macabre (or leylines)
3 perish (i'm not so sure about them, but zoo is a great excuse)
3 shattering spree (really really usefull and needed against all that jitte-u/w tempo shit)
2 boartusk liege (strictly a metagame answer, too much plagues)

Storm combo and enchantements are the shit that ruins the day, as always, but you can run anarchy and chalices if you want.

[GoboLord]

IMO mindbreak trap is really bad. The problem is that is reactive, you have to wait in order to disrupt your oponent. In the meantime, they can duress you or simply play chant first. Against belcher is much better, but AnT can always play around it.

Thorn is very effective when you are on the play, but in game 3 AnT and Belcher will surely play duress or go off in turn two.

For me, the solutions have always been chalice and duress/thoughtseize/inquisition. Sure, chalice can be bounced and is very selective, but playing it in turn 1 for zero or turn 2 for 1 buys you a lot of time. Duress efects are nice, but it's a one card trade that sometimes don't give you enough time.

Anyways, i still struggle to put them in the side, cause that means usually taking out other usefull and needed cards.

my current sideboard without storm hate:

3 Pyrokinesis (in the mirror is the card that gives you the game)
4 faerie macabre (or leylines)
3 perish (i'm not so sure about them, but zoo is a great excuse)
3 shattering spree (really really usefull and needed against all that jitte-u/w tempo shit)
2 boartusk liege (strictly a metagame answer, too much plagues)

Storm combo and enchantements are the shit that ruins the day, as always, but you can run anarchy and chalices if you want.


My oppinion about Mindbreak Trap is quite the same. I used to play Duress/Cabal Therapy/Thoughtseize too, but I realized that this 1:1 trade sucks.
Here is my sideboard (I run RB). I have worked on it a long time and now I'm quite satisfied:

2 Anarchy
2 Perish
4 Ley-Line of The Void
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Red Elemental Blast

Against Bant: 2 Anarchy, 2 Perish
Against Combo: 4 Pillar, 3 REB
Against Dredge: 4 Ley-Line
Against Reanimator: 4 Ley-Line, (3 REB, depending on list)
Against Loam: 4 Ley-Line, 2 Perish
Against Enchantress: 4 Pillar, 2 Anarchy
Against CounterTop: 2 Perish, 3 REB
Against Merfolk: 3 REB
Against U/W Tempo: 3 REB, 2 Anarchy
Against Zoo: 2 Perish, (2 Anarchy, depending on list)

This sideboard offers reliable answers on the most common colors/decks: W, U, G
Plus it has 4 slots each with combo- and graveyard hate.
I would play Chalice instead of Pillar if I wasnt running REB (which is the most flexible card in SB).

Shattering Spree looks nice but it isn't. Jitte is not the card we face too often. Actually its only in decks with many white creatures. Anarchy rips the carriers for Jitte away AND can be used against Enchantress (the real killers are white: Moat, Confinement, Sigil+Angel-Token).

[sligh16]

I think you're right about shattering spree, anarchy seems way better because against enchantress you can sweep every annoying enchantment, except maybe elephant grass. Against stax is also nuts, killing that fcking magus and prisons.
The thing i don't understand is why running pillar over chalice, arguing it with the inclusion of REB. Yeah, setting chalice for one and drawing REB against combo sucks but you can play it for zero, shutting their diamonds, moxes and lotus while holding a REB to counter their bounce spell. I havent tested chalice + REB, but seems solid to me, at least better than any other options.

[danielcrocker]

I've been testing and testing and I think I finally got the deck where I want it ....let me know what you think.


1Gempalm Incinerator
2Goblin Chieftain
4Goblin Lackey
4Goblin Matron
4Goblin Piledriver
4Goblin Ringleader
4Goblin Warchief
2Siege-Gang Commander
1Stingscourger
2Warren Instigator

3Lightning Bolt
3Warren Weirding

4Aether Vial

4Auntie's Hovel
2Badlands
2Bloodstained Mire
5Mountain
3Rishadan Port
2Scalding Tarn
4Wasteland

2Faerie Macabre
4Leyline of the Void
3Pyrokinesis
3Mindbreak Trap
3Chalice of the Void

My zoo and reanimator MU's have been 50-50 and my combo MU's been fairly successful . My friend made a good point to me today that my whole board was free which I thought was kind of amusing. I personally feel that graveyard hate is so good in legacy right now because it is affective against so many decks in any meta (lands, reanimator, dredge, aggro loam, survival).

[markbris]

I've been testing and testing and I think I finally got the deck where I want it ....let me know what you think.


1Gempalm Incinerator
2Goblin Chieftain
4Goblin Lackey
4Goblin Matron
4Goblin Piledriver
4Goblin Ringleader
4Goblin Warchief
2Siege-Gang Commander
1Stingscourger
2Warren Instigator

3Lightning Bolt
3Warren Weirding

4Aether Vial

4Auntie's Hovel
2Badlands
2Bloodstained Mire
3Mountain
3Rishadan Port
2Scalding Tarn
4Wasteland

2Faerie Macabre
4Leyline of the Void
3Pyrokinesis
3Mindbreak Trap
3Chalice of the Void

My zoo and reanimator MU's have been 50-50 and my combo MU's been fairly successful . My friend made a good point to me today that my whole board was free which I thought was kind of amusing. I personally feel that graveyard hate is so good in legacy right now because it is affective against so many decks in any meta (lands, reanimator, dredge, aggro loam, survival).

Looks like you are missing 2 cards in that list i count 58, you only have 20 lands, not sure if thats right, I think 22 is the perfect number and thats what people have had success with. I'd like to see someone make a case for goblin chieftain still, I don't think hes needed. I'd cut them for another scg and another gempalm.

[danielcrocker]

Looks like you are missing 2 cards in that list i count 58, you only have 20 lands, not sure if thats right, I think 22 is the perfect number and thats what people have had success with. I'd like to see someone make a case for goblin chieftain still, I don't think hes needed. I'd cut them for another scg and another gempalm.

I really like the 2 chieftan because its helps against engineered plauge and I hate boartusk liege. It also helps in the zoo matchup especially when you catch them off guard with a vial at 3. I have had games as well where it was a great finisher just for the facts that is gives haste...I mean warchief does the same thing but having 6 lords is great. I was playing today and my opponent attacked with two creatures, I had nothing on the board except 2 lands and a vial at three. I had one lackey in hand,a seige-gang,a piledriver,and a chieftan. I drew into another lackey and then dropped the lord and two lackeys and you can predict what happened next. My point is I just feel like the chieftan adds some explosivness to the deck that helps more than hurts.You should test 2 and no more than that, it's the perfect amount. The card I'm really thinking about cutting is the instigator .... is really has just been a target more removal and thats all .


ps thanx I fixed the lands ...i was missing some mountains

[jtwilkins]

Looks like you are missing 2 cards in that list i count 58, you only have 20 lands, not sure if thats right, I think 22 is the perfect number and thats what people have had success with. I'd like to see someone make a case for goblin chieftain still, I don't think hes needed. I'd cut them for another scg and another gempalm.

I play mono-red without Chieftains and with chieftain wins in the mirror match, also helps vs engineered plague. I would like to see if it helps vs goyf and Knight of the Reliquary. Knight and goyf just own me.


I am facing an issues with a meta game that is slanted both ways. On one side I have problems vs goyf & Knight of the Reliquary on the other hand a huge crop of stifle-knot & show and tell decks have cropped up due to Emrakul.

Has anyone tried to run 4x Chalice of the Void main deck? I think it could be the ultimate utility.
Drop it for 0 hits LED, moxes
1 hits top, stifle, brainstorm, dark rit, ponder, reanimate
2 hits goyf, counterbalance, loam
3 hits Knight of Reliquary, show and tell, rhox

With vial, lackey and instigator you can work around anything you set it at. Then you have massive agro + artifact problem to deal with.

[bakofried]

I'm finally ponying up for a few Duals, does anyone have any suggestions as far as a manabase goes? I'm wondering if the full 4 Badlands is necessary. Also, how would a Rbg manabase work? I've got Enchantress in my meta, and I don't want to get trashed by it.

[daPaule]

How about playing Anarchy in the SB then ? ;-)

I play 3 badlands + 1 swamp in Rb just because of Bloodmoon in the SB, considering the moons will be mostly gone in a Rbg build i would play with 3 badlands and one taiga, never had problems with this while running Rbg.

[GoboLord]

How about playing Anarchy in the SB then ? ;-)

I play 3 badlands + 1 swamp in Rb just because of Bloodmoon in the SB, considering the moons will be mostly gone in a Rbg build i would play with 3 badlands and one taiga, never had problems with this while running Rbg.

I think 3 Badlands are enough for manafixing. I run 4 Badlands + 1 Swamp, just because I run 3 Weirding and 2 Wort MD.
If you want to play Rbg I would play 2 Taiga (or 1 Taiga, 1 Stomping Ground). When I was running Rbg with only 1 Taiga it got wasted/sinkholed several times before I drew my Krosan Grip. For this reason its good to have a back-up. You cant avaoid this situation by keeping Taiga on hand, because that will surely slow you down.

If you are looking for good SB cards in Rbg it can recommend Reverent Silence. Other lists without G often dont run artifact-hate and a lonely Krosan Grip hardly helps against our critical MUs. That's why I play more "global" solutions.

@ Sligh: Your Chalice + REB reasoning has a point. BUT I have to consider SB options against Enchantress and 2 lonely Anarchy wont help much. Plus: I am conviced that blocking ANT wont help much if you dont do enough damage before he can bounce + go off. Even with Chalice on 0 he can still cast Ritual-->Ritual-->Ad Nauseam and play the artifacts just to push storn count.

[danielcrocker]

Have any of you guys thought about playing deathmark in the board?....... kills goyfs, pridemage, knight, sphinx, iona etc.

[Arsenal]

Have any of you guys thought about playing deathmark in the board?....... kills goyfs, pridemage, knight, sphinx, iona etc.

I think the big thing is being able to deal with Progenitus and Emrakul. Tutorable Warren Weirding does this while untutorable Deathmark does not.

[danielcrocker]

I think the big thing is being able to deal with Progenitus and Emrakul. Tutorable Warren Weirding does this while untutorable Deathmark does not.

I'm talking about in the board with weirding maindecked. I play 3 bolt, 3 weirding,1 stingscourger, 1 gempalm. I think 2-3 deathmark would be amazing vs zoo and reanimator.

[Mantis]

I'm finally ponying up for a few Duals, does anyone have any suggestions as far as a manabase goes? I'm wondering if the full 4 Badlands is necessary. Also, how would a Rbg manabase work? I've got Enchantress in my meta, and I don't want to get trashed by it.
It's not optimal but you could probably do with 2 or 3 and a few more fetchlands. It's probably not going to influence your results by a wide margin but I think we can all agree that not running the full set of Badlands is suboptimal in RB Goblins.

Beating Enchantress doesn't require green in my opinion.If Enchantress is a significant part of your metagame you should run 1 Earwig Squad maindeck, as you can often catch them offguard and remove all of their win condition and snag away game 1 (just check out some Enchantress lists, they almost always just run 3 win conditions). Definately run at least 1 Siege Gang as you are going to need it against Moat. Warren Weirding helps a lot as it can clean up Argothian Enchantress. Postboard Anarchy helps a lot, I would recommend running 3 if you expect to face Enchantress so you can count on drawing at least 1 in a long game and play accordingly.

When playing against Enchantress it's important to play on your outs, think about what you need to swing back from an unfavorable gamestate and play accordingly. Sometimes Anarchy is the only card that helps you win, in that case play Ringleader and fetch afterwards to thin your deck and maximize your chances of topdecking Anarchy the next turn. Other times your only out is SGC as you are trapped under a Moat, now fetch first and then play Ringleader as this maximizes your odds of drawing the SGC. You need to play perfect to beat Enchantress as they have a large strategical advantage, so keep your head cool, come prepared and play like a champ.

[Nelis]

It's not optimal but you could probably do with 2 or 3 and a few more fetchlands. It's probably not going to influence your results by a wide margin but I think we can all agree that not running the full set of Badlands is suboptimal in RB Goblins.


He can also add 4 Aunties Hovels. Shouldn't cost more than €10-€15 a playset.

[bakofried]

Didn't a list that did really well only use 2 Badlands?

[sligh16]

Personally i play only 2 badlands, i haven't had any problems with black mana, cause i only use it for the 3 weirdings. 7 fetchs, 4 Rishadan Ports, 4 Wastelands and 5 mountains. Ports, what can i say, i just love them. They have won me so much games just by punishing my oponent for keeping a hand with 2 lands. They have been even better than wastelands, cause they still give me mana after denying theirs. I'm testing right now volrath's stronghold, maybe taking a wasteland out. Stronghold is a card that i always wanted to put, and many times is a game winner.

[GoboLord]

Personally i play only 2 badlands, i haven't had any problems with black mana, cause i only use it for the 3 weirdings. 7 fetchs, 4 Rishadan Ports, 4 Wastelands and 5 mountains. Ports, what can i say, i just love them. They have won me so much games just by punishing my oponent for keeping a hand with 2 lands. They have been even better than wastelands, cause they still give me mana after denying theirs. I'm testing right now volrath's stronghold, maybe taking a wasteland out. Stronghold is a card that i always wanted to put, and many times is a game winner.

I wanted to test Volrath's Stronghold too. I would like to hear some results. I want to play 1 Stronghold + 2 Wort, Boggart Auntie. Do you think that's too much?

[sligh16]

I played Wort when it was released in lorwyn. If your opponent lets her live at least one turn, the advantage is too much for you. Still, i think 2 of them and one stronghold is too much. Maybe 1 of wort and stronghold, but still seems too much for me. In the high casting cost cards i prefer goblins with an immediate effect, 2 siege-gangs and one kiki jiki. For me, Wort is like lightning crafter, but crafter at least can chamipon a matron or ringleader giving you card advantage when it leaves play.

[Mantis]

Didn't a list that did really well only use 2 Badlands?
One very important thing to note is that if a list does well, it doesn't automatically mean that list is optimal. Take into consideration that the difference between 2 or 4 Badlands probably doesn't even changes the outcome of a single game in any tournaments, however if you play enough games a suboptimal decklist will eventually drop a game it would otherwise not have. To strengthen my argument somewhat, I have won my fair share of tournaments with suboptimal decks myself.

[danielcrocker]

One very important thing to note is that if a list does well, it doesn't automatically mean that list is optimal. Take into consideration that the difference between 2 or 4 Badlands probably doesn't even changes the outcome of a single game in any tournaments, however if you play enough games a suboptimal decklist will eventually drop a game it would otherwise not have. To strengthen my argument somewhat, I have won my fair share of tournaments with suboptimal decks myself.

I'm currently using 2 badlands, 4 auntie's hove,l 2 scaldering tarn, 2 blood-stained mire, 4 wasteland, 3 rishadan port, and 5 mountains and I have rarely had problems if any.

[P-AiR]

What luck! Recently joined a local legacy tournament.

Faced Slivers, Pox and TWO ANT decks with a sideboard of:

1x Gaea's Blessing
3x Mindbreak Traps
4x Leyline of the Void
3x Red Elemental Blast
2x Anarchy
2x Perish

Mindbreak traps were totally ineffective against ANT since they casting duress / thoughtseize first was not a problem. Although it was hilarious, the first ANT player killed me on first turn, he was confident that he'd be doing the same in the second game. He didn't even cast his duress to check my hand. His face was priceless when I casted the mindbreak trap.

Any suggestions on what I should've ran for sideboard instead? I would've wanted to use thorn of amethysts or pyrostatic pillars.

[GoboLord]

What luck! Recently joined a local legacy tournament.

Faced Slivers, Pox and TWO ANT decks with a sideboard of:

1x Gaea's Blessing
3x Mindbreak Traps
4x Leyline of the Void
3x Red Elemental Blast
2x Anarchy
2x Perish

Mindbreak traps were totally ineffective against ANT since they casting duress / thoughtseize first was not a problem. Although it was hilarious, the first ANT player killed me on first turn, he was confident that he'd be doing the same in the second game. He didn't even cast his duress to check my hand. His face was priceless when I casted the mindbreak trap.

Any suggestions on what I should've ran for sideboard instead? I would've wanted to use thorn of amethysts or pyrostatic pillars.

I run 4 Chalice of the Void instead of 3 Trap, 1 Blessing. The rest is identical. It's good against CanTresh, Reanimator, and ANT

[Mister Agent]

What luck! Recently joined a local legacy tournament.

Faced Slivers, Pox and TWO ANT decks with a sideboard of:

1x Gaea's Blessing
3x Mindbreak Traps
4x Leyline of the Void
3x Red Elemental Blast
2x Anarchy
2x Perish

Mindbreak traps were totally ineffective against ANT since they casting duress / thoughtseize first was not a problem. Although it was hilarious, the first ANT player killed me on first turn, he was confident that he'd be doing the same in the second game. He didn't even cast his duress to check my hand. His face was priceless when I casted the mindbreak trap.

Any suggestions on what I should've ran for sideboard instead? I would've wanted to use thorn of amethysts or pyrostatic pillars.

I would suggest thorn of amethyst instead of mindbreak traps because not only are they relevant against ANT but they are also relevant against other combo decks and blue based control. Also, thorns can supplement ports and/or wastes rather well since the combination makes your opponent's spells cost more then usual.

Although, I suppose you could also make the same case for chalice of the void as well.

[Endril]

This is a hard choice for me. I was running thorn of amethyst, and I'm switching to mindbreak trap. If they try to get the ad nauseam out before playing duress, I might be able to stop their mana sources post nauseam and get a win out of it. But I'm worried about more ANT players playing around MT. But with thorn, they might combo out before you can even drop it (if they're on the play and go of on T2). That, and mindbreak trap stops belcher, while thorn doesn't come out fast enough. As for chalice, do you drop it for 0? They'll probably bounce it EOT then combo off. At least thorn makes that option more expensive for them. And a chalice for 0 may not help vs belcher. Pyrostatic pillar wasn't working for me before either. I think we have to accept that there really is no best option and run what works best for us, and I'm gonna try mindbreak trap.

Volrath's Stronghold - this option was brought up a couple pages back and I just happened to notice it. I can think of some favorable situations this card can create, and I'm just wondering why no one runs it. I often find myself with a vial for 4 on the board and a ringleader in the graveyard, which makes this card worth considering IMO.

Mogg Fanatic - Everyone jumped off the bandwagon with this guy, and I think he deserves more consideration. He's effectively a seal of fire (for 1) that also blocks and powers up your piledrivers and incinerators. He also hops into your hand when you resolve ringleader. It's a hard debate whether to run MF or lightning bolt because 3 damage opens you up to a lot more targets than 1 damage, including many zoo creatures. However, 1 is enough to kill several threats, such as lackey, hierarch, dark confidant, grim lavamancer, etc. I still don't feel comfortable with taking out 4 goblin creatures, leaving me only 22 goblin creatures (not counting incinerators) instead of 26, to run 4 bolts.

[Nelis]

On combo: it is always possible to have your chalice being bounced but that doesn't mean it always happens. It gives you time to find more hate. But I think you need more than 4 anti combo cards in your sb for chalice to be effective. Personally I would go for discard (Cabal Therapy, Duress, Thoughtseize) combined with graveyard hate in the sideboard.

On Volraths Stronghold: I think its a combination of people who think it's a win more card (or think Wort is better) or a manabase consideration.

[JonBarber]

You do set chalice to zero, and it becomes a pain for your opponent. If playing Belcher or ANT, it shuts off 12 cards in their deck. Yes, they will eventually bounce it. The odds of them having the bounce in their opening hand is practically none. Therefore they have to waste a tutor to get bounce, which wastes 2-3 turns. You can do a lot of damage in those three turns. Not to mention, if you drop a second one at 1 or 2, you'll make their life that much more difficult. Against combo your not trying to stop them with your hate, only trying to delay them as long as possible. IMHO, turn 2 is too late (thorn and pillar) and they run 6-8 discard effects, making mindbreak trap not effective enough. Discard is okay, but ANT runs brainstorm, and often times you won't hit anything useful enough. Discard also means you don't get your turn 1 lackey or vial, which slows you down a lot. When your trying to race them, thats not good. Chalice drops for zero, therefore not hurting your tempo, and shuts off 20% of their deck. Seems good.

[danielcrocker]

I hate to bring this topic up again but has anyone else had experience with deathmark in the board. I was play testing against zoo yesterday and although I won 3 out of 5 matches post board I found that deathmark would be better than pyrokinesis. With that said I think my board will be ....

4 leyline of the void
2 deathmark
3 pyrokinesis
3 chalice of the void( hands down best option against combo)
3 mindbreak trap

[markbris]

I hate to bring this topic up again but has anyone else had experience with deathmark in the board. I was play testing against zoo yesterday and although I won 3 out of 5 matches post board I found that deathmark would be better than pyrokinesis. With that said I think my board will be ....

4 leyline of the void
2 deathmark
3 pyrokinesis
3 chalice of the void( hands down best option against combo)
3 mindbreak trap

I like pyrokinesis for the mirror and for zoo and u can also bring it in against merfolk if you want, not that its needed. It's also good against random aggro you might play, like elves or something, I used it against belcher tokens as well. Its much more versatile although im sure deathmark is better against zoo

[GoboLord]

I hate to bring this topic up again but has anyone else had experience with deathmark in the board. I was play testing against zoo yesterday and although I won 3 out of 5 matches post board I found that deathmark would be better than pyrokinesis. With that said I think my board will be ....

4 leyline of the void
2 deathmark
3 pyrokinesis
3 chalice of the void( hands down best option against combo)
3 mindbreak trap

I think Deathmark makes only 1 bad match up a bit better
Perish is a good choice as well (not as god as Deathmark against Zoo, but much more flexible.
You can improve the Zoo MU by changing your strategy completely, so you dont need Deathmark.
The strategy:
you go into defense
you avoid as many damage you can, by putting creatures into their way.
you dont attack too much
you beat them in late game when they run out of burn and you draw Perish, SGC or Wort to make sick card advantage they cant keep up with.

Mindbreak trap is (as said before) total crap against combo, since they have discard.

[danielcrocker]

I think Deathmark makes only 1 bad match up a bit better
Perish is a good choice as well (not as god as Deathmark against Zoo, but much more flexible.
You can improve the Zoo MU by changing your strategy completely, so you dont need Deathmark.
The strategy:
you go into defense
you avoid as many damage you can, by putting creatures into their way.
you dont attack too much
you beat them in late game when they run out of burn and you draw Perish, SGC or Wort to make sick card advantage they cant keep up with.

Mindbreak trap is (as said before) total crap against combo, since they have discard.

I dont agree that it only helps with just zoo....reanimator,new horizons,no goyf,bant,countertop etc.
As far as mindbreak goes, it's good against belcher but is horrible against ant ....so i might make it a 4 chalice 2 trap split.

[GoboLord]

I dont agree that it only helps with just zoo....reanimator,new horizons,no goyf,bant,countertop etc.
As far as mindbreak goes, it's good against belcher but is horrible against ant ....so i might make it a 4 chalice 2 trap split.

What I meant was this: considering Deathmark OR Perish, against Zoo Deathmark is better than Perish. Against all other MU you named Perish is a bomb. Against Reanimator you dont even need Deathmark.

I noticed that nearly everyone considers Belcher when building the SB. Is Belcher really this wide-spread in America?

[pater]

I just got finished rebuilding this deck, and I'll be trying it out Sunday. I'll update Monday with a decklist, MU results, and meta decisions.

@ Mogg Fanatic: This guy was a beast last time I checked but lately he's just been replaced. As I built the deck I noticed that a good chunk of the deck needs to be set aside just to put Lackey/Instigator through. That seems like it would be the only use for Fanatic but there just isn't enough space for him, not to mention when I'm playtesting I ALWAYS imagine a Kird Ape across the board from me. That being I said, I think any combination of Gempalm/Weirding/Stingcourger/Bolt has to take prioity over the Fanatic. I would even run Tarfire over Fanatic, but I chose Bolts 'cause last time I checked, 3 > 2. Is everyone really THAT much against Tarfire? I haven't seen anyone mention it.

@ Leyline: Is Tormod's Crypt outdated?

[danielcrocker]

What I meant was this: considering Deathmark OR Perish, against Zoo Deathmark is better than Perish. Against all other MU you named Perish is a bomb. Against Reanimator you dont even need Deathmark.

I noticed that nearly everyone considers Belcher when building the SB. Is Belcher really this wide-spread in America?
Point taken on the deathmark ...thanks for the insight.
Yea i have played quite a few belcher decks especially in Cali...everyone likes to play combo here.

[GoboLord]

Point taken on the deathmark ...thanks for the insight.
Yea i have played quite a few belcher decks especially in Cali...everyone likes to play combo here.

I wouldn't call that insight, cause I still think that Perish is a better choice than Deathmark. ;-)
Let's take a look at some MUs to look which one is better:

Deathmark: Zoo, Reanimator
Perish: Bant, Progenitus Order, CounterTop, New Horizons, Canadian Thresh

Looking at this I would prefer Perish. Zoo is a bad MU and Deathmark makes it only little better. If you are running Rb Reanimator is a very good MU, with Ley-Line its even better than usual.
For all other MU listed above: Perish can rarely be countered by Counterbalance, Perish is a sweeper, and most importantly: it doesnt target!

If you dont agree: let me know, cause I never tested Deathmark and therefore I can only assume how it changes our MUs

[danielcrocker]

I wouldn't call that insight, cause I still think that Perish is a better choice than Deathmark. ;-)
Let's take a look at some MUs to look which one is better:

Deathmark: Zoo, Reanimator
Perish: Bant, Progenitus Order, CounterTop, New Horizons, Canadian Thresh

Looking at this I would prefer Perish. Zoo is a bad MU and Deathmark makes it only little better. If you are running Rb Reanimator is a very good MU, with Ley-Line its even better than usual.
For all other MU listed above: Perish can rarely be countered by Counterbalance, Perish is a sweeper, and most importantly: it doesnt target!

If you dont agree: let me know, cause I never tested Deathmark and therefore I can only assume how it changes our MUs

I mainly like deathmark the reanimator and zoo MU but you're right perish is better. On another topic i really dont think zoo is a bad MU....it mostly counts on who goes first....with my build at least

[Muradin]

So is there any consens whether Mono Red lists or the Rb ones are stronger in the current metagame? I've been testing goblins recently and found this particular list to be very strong:

15 Mountain
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Piledriver
1 Stingscourger
4 Goblin Warchief
2 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Matron
4 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Ringleader
2 Siege Gang Commander

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Pyrokinesis
4 Relic of Progenitus
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Goblin Tinkerer/ Tuktuk Scrapper (Which one is better?)
1 Goblin Pyromancer


However I can see as my list struggles against Zoo as I don't have any Warren Weirdings. Going Mono red however gives me the possibility of running Mogg Fanatic along with the full set of Incinerators. This complements the deck's removal suite very well and the Moggs are quite strong in the current metagame. Basically they are good at killing Noble Hierarch, Dark Confidant, Elves, Fish, Dredge, other goblins and Grim Lavamancer. They give us a desperately needed 1 drop and make the Incinerators much stronger by giving you more goblins in the earlygame. They also tend to make Piledriver much better as they give you more agressive starts.

So far I've also been very comfortable with the deck's manabase stability which is awesome to have in many matchups. Not running black denies me the ability to run Perish but this is basically needed for Zoo (which is my only real problem), Goyfs, Vores, Knights of the Reliquary (Relic of Progenitus) and Progenitus itself which can quite effectively be delayed with 4 Moggs/Incinerators to kill of your opponents guys supported by 8 mana denial lands.

More testing will prove but so far I like Mono Red better.

[alphastorm]

Volrath's stronghold and wort are both great against slow control decks. Therefore speed isn't a huge issue. Unlike volrath's stronghold, Wort is likely to just get countered or kiled. Unless your oppenent is running wastelands, they can't deal with it. If creature denial/removal is a problem, wort is just as suseptible.

Slow control decks die to goblins so there is no need for either. And therefore, they are both win more cards.

[Endril]

I just did some work and found that Goblins was 2-5-0 vs Belcher in Atlanta. And I'm not sure that chalice can stop them, since they'll often pitch spirits and use rituals to get there. Does that make mindbreak trap look better?

[GoboLord]

I just did some work and found that Goblins was 2-5-0 vs Belcher in Atlanta. And I'm not sure that chalice can stop them, since they'll often pitch spirits and use rituals to get there. Does that make mindbreak trap look better?

Unless in Atlanta every Goblin deck ran Mindbreak Trap it has nothing to with it.

Mind break Trap is good against Belcher.
Price of Progress is good against Lands.
Boil is good against Merfolk.

All of this is true, but we have to find flexible SB options. As we found out, Trap sucks against ANT (which is more frequently played than Belcher).
I'd rather run Chalice to make more MUs better (like Canadian Thresh, New Horizons) and accept that the Belcher MUs sucks (even with Chalice).

[Nelis]

So is there any consens whether Mono Red lists or the Rb ones are stronger in the current metagame? I've been testing goblins recently and found this particular list to be very strong:

However I can see as my list struggles against Zoo as I don't have any Warren Weirdings. Going Mono red however gives me the possibility of running Mogg Fanatic along with the full set of Incinerators. This complements the deck's removal suite very well and the Moggs are quite strong in the current metagame. Basically they are good at killing Noble Hierarch, Dark Confidant, Elves, Fish, Dredge, other goblins and Grim Lavamancer. They give us a desperately needed 1 drop and make the Incinerators much stronger by giving you more goblins in the earlygame. They also tend to make Piledriver much better as they give you more agressive starts.

So far I've also been very comfortable with the deck's manabase stability which is awesome to have in many matchups. Not running black denies me the ability to run Perish but this is basically needed for Zoo (which is my only real problem), Goyfs, Vores, Knights of the Reliquary (Relic of Progenitus) and Progenitus itself which can quite effectively be delayed with 4 Moggs/Incinerators to kill of your opponents guys supported by 8 mana denial lands.

More testing will prove but so far I like Mono Red better.

The consensus is that Rb is better. I used to be convinced that Rb is better too (I played it before it got popular). But now I'm not sure. The reanimator matchup is much worse but I'm not so sure about other matchups.

I played Monored a while ago and I really liked it for its consistency too. Rishadan Port singlehandedly won me the round vs NOPROcountertop. I din't play against Zoo at that tournament but have tested vs Zoo a bit. My suggestion is to test Mogg War Marshal instead of Fanatic. I like it for a few reasons.
1. It gives you 3 blockers vs zoo which give you time to set up mid and/or late game and win.
2.The extra creature you get from it really helps Gempalm Incinerator.Without War Marshal I always felt that Gempalm is mediocre and not suited for early game. War marshal changes this.
3. It's two more damage if you run chieftain , and adds +2/+0 to Piledriver. I like a 3/3 split between Chieftain and Warchief.

I haven't tested scrapper yet but I think its better because you're not dependent on haste for your tinkerer.

About Belcher: if you want to do the unexpected you can run Artifact Blast :laugh: But it's too narrow a sideboard card.

[Endril]

@Gobolord: If every deck ran mindbreak trap, that would make it look worse. I'm saying that we win 25% of those games so maybe we should run mindbreak trap in the SB to up the win %. And how does chalice of the void help against canadian threshold? They have a pretty balanced curve.

@Nelis: Goblins wins about 3 out of 4 matches against reanimator, and I believe that's due in part to warren weirding. If you're monored, your chances of winning are actually worse. They'll drop an Iona and name red, and you have to hope you have a vial with 2 counters and draw into a stingscourger or that's good game. It's not hard for R/B to be as consistent as monored since you can just run swamp as a one of and still have 14-15 red sources and 11 black sources. And that's including 3-4 ports. And artifact blast is an interesting solution to belcher, except that 7 of their 11 win conditions aren't artifacts.

@Muradin: There has been some debate over if mogg fanatic is better than lightning bolt, and even though it's not a goblin, I'm starting to side with the bolt. Zoo is actually the reason I made this choice, because it kills the majority of its creatures. But I also like Nelis's argument for the war marshal, and I don't know where else you would fit it.

As for the scrapper vs tinkerer, I agree with Nelis. You don't want the tinkerer sitting there for a turn before you can use it because it might be to late or it might get removed. And I'm scared to play pyromancer because of the amount of removal in the format. They are likely to stop you from dealing lethal, and then your board is cleared. And I don't agree with using it against goblins either. It doesn't give you time to lay down goblins after it resolves, so they get the first chance to ramp back up. And while I don't agree with putting Instigator in my R/B version because I would have to remove removal for it, I think it belongs in monored. It's too strong for monored to not run at least 2 of it.

[TheSleeper]

@ Endril -> Nelis already admitted the mono build had a much worse Reanimator matchup; why are you telling him the same? He merely said he thinks mono-red is stronger against other decks.

[Endril]

@ Endril -> Nelis already admitted the mono build had a much worse Reanimator matchup; why are you telling him the same? He merely said he thinks mono-red is stronger against other decks.

"The consensus is that Rb is better. I used to be convinced that Rb is better too (I played it before it got popular). But now I'm not sure. The reanimator matchup is much worse but I'm not so sure about other matchups."

I must have taken him out of context. It looks like he's saying he used to think RB was better but now he's not sure because of the reanimator matchup, suggesting that monored handles it better. But I guess it makes more sense if he's saying that RB handles reanimator better, but maybe not the others. Of course, from what Muradin is saying, monored is having just as much trouble with zoo as RB is (I would think it's having more trouble).

[daPaule]

@Gobolord: If every deck ran mindbreak trap, that would make it look worse. I'm saying that we win 25% of those games so maybe we should run mindbreak trap in the SB to up the win %. And how does chalice of the void help against canadian threshold? They have a pretty balanced curve.

I wouldn't bring in Chalice vs Canadian either but anyhow the curve may look quite balanced you are shutting them off everything they need in the beginning:
Stifle, Goose, Brainstorm, Ponder, Bolt, even Spellsnare.

Still im more convinced by bringing in Perish for this matchup and REBs.

[Nelis]

"The consensus is that Rb is better. I used to be convinced that Rb is better too (I played it before it got popular). But now I'm not sure. The reanimator matchup is much worse but I'm not so sure about other matchups."

I must have taken him out of context. It looks like he's saying he used to think RB was better but now he's not sure because of the reanimator matchup, suggesting that monored handles it better. But I guess it makes more sense if he's saying that RB handles reanimator better, but maybe not the others. Of course, from what Muradin is saying, monored is having just as much trouble with zoo as RB is (I would think it's having more trouble).

I guess you could read it the other way around. I did mean to say that Rb is better vs Reanimator but Im not so sure Rb is better than monored vs a whole lot of other decks.

I do believe mono red does better vs zoo (especially if you build it with War Marshal) because:
1. You get no damage from fetch lands. The manabase is much more consistent
2. Rishadan Port and wasteland helps in shutting them down. If they fetch basics because of wasteland it slows them down (which is good) and you can still screw them with Port. If they fetch duals they're faster but you can screw them much more with Wasteland. It's a lose lose situation for Zoo if you ask me.
(3. Some zoo builds even run Wasteland nowadays.)

I feel opposing wastelands in general are not good vs Rb Goblins. It's the main reason I am starting to dislike Rb more and more. I also feel that fetch thins out lands too much which makes Rb's manabase much more inconsistent. This makes it hard to reach 3 mana especially when my opponent wastes some of my lands. This is especially a problem if you haven't managed to play a turn 1 Vial.

(Btw, some people will disagree about the deck thinning because someone once calculated that thinning out the deck has hardly any impact on drawing lands. My intuition says otherwise.)

[Endril]

Reason 1 makes sense, although I typically take 1-3 points per game at most with 6 fetches. As for reason 2, I run both of those in RB, although I admit I have to run 3 ports instead of 4 if I want a basic swamp so I'll have 14 red sources. Reason 3 I'm not worried about. The reason I thought RB might be able to handle zoo better is weirdings, and some even run perish. I think that's a better consideration for zoo than the damage taken from fetches. I admit I haven't tested monored enough to know how it does in the various matchups, but I was playing the deck that took 2nd at SCG Indy for a while and I didn't like it. Before that, I had been running RW for a few years and loved the versatility of it. I'm actually thinking about switching back to it if I ever become comfortable with giving up untargeted removal. I'd run it before monored. Having plows along with all the SB hate I can run is nice.

Oh, and I'm not convinced that fetching lands has a big impact on your land draws. You only pop a couple of them and you only draw a few more cards out of the 50-some cards you have remaining. That, and if it does thin your lands out a little, I generally pop them after I lay my other lands and I can usually at least get enough to drop a ringleader, and less lands in the deck means more goblins from him. If anything, ringleader increases your land draws by taking goblins out. Fetch lands also allow you to shuffle after ringleader puts cards on the bottom (I know... matron does to). This debate could go on and on, and I'd imagine it has if I look back 50 pages or so.

[Van Phanel]

(Btw, some people will disagree about the deck thinning because someone once calculated that thinning out the deck has hardly any impact on drawing lands. My intuition says otherwise.)

Well of course. Let's believe your intuition over a mathematical proof. Probably the intuition of some BP engineer said that their Oil platform was secure...

That said, there's no way I'd not play Perish in the sideboard of Goblins at the moment. It is just amazing in all problematic noncombo matchups. If you feel that there's a problem with not enough lands, run an additional land or use your Wastelands more carefully, they can also be used to produce mana after all. With Auntie's Hovel in the deck in addition to fetchlands and Badlands colored mana shouldn't be a problem.

The only matchups that are improved by not running black are decks with Stifle + Waste and against those, Perish easily outweighs the disadvantage of a weaker manabase.

[Nelis]

Well of course. Let's believe your intuition over a mathematical proof. Probably the intuition of some BP engineer said that their Oil platform was secure...

That said, there's no way I'd not play Perish in the sideboard of Goblins at the moment. It is just amazing in all problematic noncombo matchups. If you feel that there's a problem with not enough lands, run an additional land or use your Wastelands more carefully, they can also be used to produce mana after all. With Auntie's Hovel in the deck in addition to fetchlands and Badlands colored mana shouldn't be a problem.

The only matchups that are improved by not running black are decks with Stifle + Waste and against those, Perish easily outweighs the disadvantage of a weaker manabase.

BP is what happens if you make decisions based on mathematical prove. Some mathematical idiot probably figured a 10% risk is worth it. Anyhow for me its better to count on my intuition than on my mathematical skills for sure :laugh:.

I actually do run Hovels in my Rb build just because of that but there are people not convinced of this (I think they're wrong). I played 24 lands before but there's so many Goblin cards I want to fit in that I went back to 23.

I'm not sure how you mean your last statement. Those decks packing Wastes and Stifle are usually tempo decks (UW tempo, ***** variants, Team America and such) that do not or hardly run enough green creatures to sideboard in Perish anyway.
Or do you mean that the benefits of Perish vs other decks (like zoo) outweighs weakening those Wasteland and stifle matchups.

[bakofried]

So is a Rbg manabase too fragile? I want my deck to be prepped for an unknown metagame, and Tin-Street seems fairly strong. Is it worth weakening the manabase, or no?

[GoboLord]

So is a Rbg manabase too fragile? I want my deck to be prepped for an unknown metagame, and Tin-Street seems fairly strong. Is it worth weakening the manabase, or no?

First of all: Goblins is a deck most other decks have to find good solutions for. We ask the question and THEY have got to answer them (not the other way round).
For this reason I think it is important to play a straight and stable MD and put flexible cards ind SB. Usually Rb provides answers (SB-cards) for all situations. G is usually splashed for HooliganMD and Krosan Grip in SB.
IMO Hooligan is not worth the slot in MD cause you trade speed for flexibilty here. Plus: Hooligan does nothing if you control Warchief.
Krosan Grip in SB definatley IS an option, but I think one single enchantment or artifact has never been a problem for Goblins. Therefore we dont need it.
If you want to prepare for an unknown meta you could play some of these in SB

Earwig Squad
Thorn of Amethyst
Red Elemental Blast
Engineered Explosives (Goyf, Pridemage, Survival, Jitte, Spellstutter Sprite, Bitterblossom, Confidant, Mana-Artifacts, Token)

[Endril]

Bako - I can usually get G mana with 6 fetches and a taiga (maybe run a 2nd just to be sure), but it's pretty hard to have all the R/B mana you want and still run ports. I'm still waiting for your answer in the other forum on grips, because I'm still worried about solitary confinement, engineered plague, etc. In my latest bit of testing, I haven't really needed it though.

Tin Street - I took this guy out of my main when I decided to clean up my deck and run 4-ofs, and make it RB again. Tuktuk is a great replacement. And when testing him against merfolk, I vial'd him out to blow up a jitte without setting off a standstill. So that's yet another use for tuktuk over tin street... you can vial him out and get around counter spells.

Engineered Explosives seems like an interesting answer, although I'd have to have 4 mana open to drop it and activate it in most cases. That, and it doesn't hit plague or confinement. And it gets countered. But still worth considering I guess.

[Ch@os]

Green isn't worth it...

[Nelis]

Green isn't worth it...

Indeed, the main reason for wanting to splash green is Krosan Grip. Counterbalance isn't enough of an issue to splash for.

[Ch@os]

A friend of mine just does it to beat nought -.-

[Nelis]

A friend of mine just does it to beat nought -.-

I wouldnt splash green for that. We run Weirdings. If there's a lot of Noughts around you could always opt for Grip but I personally would't splash for Nought. Dont meet them enough in Holland to care about 'em.

[GoboLord]

I wouldnt splash green for that. We run Weirdings. If there's a lot of Noughts around you could always opt for Grip but I personally would't splash for Nought. Dont meet them enough in Holland to care about 'em.

You are right.
But Counterbalance isnt a problem either. It is dangerous only when they have Sensei's Diving Top alongside.
They rarely hit Matron, Chieftain, SGC, Warchief or Ringleader, cause their mana-curve ist strong at cc1 and cc2.
Plus we have Vial. So no need to run Grip for that.

Oftentimes they dont even have Counterabalance in g2 and g3, because they find it bad themselves.

[(nameless one)]

How is our matchup with Death and Taxes/Random Weenie-Kithkin decks? I am running a Mono-Red build. Would Anarchy actually be a good sideboard or is it just overkill?

[GoboLord]

How is our matchup with Death and Taxes/Random Weenie-Kithkin decks? I am running a Mono-Red build. Would Anarchy actually be a good sideboard or is it just overkill?

Usually we are way to fast for them. Therefore its pretty good. They dangerous if they have Swords of Fire and Ice; sometimes Jitte can be a problem too. The Mangara/Karakas action doesnt bring a bit, its too slow.
Anarchy is a good SB card. Its also killer against the nasty Staxx and Enchantress (which is almost an autoloss for us)

[ScatmanX]

How is our matchup with Death and Taxes/Random Weenie-Kithkin decks? I am running a Mono-Red build. Would Anarchy actually be a good sideboard or is it just overkill?

I put in only 3 Knesis, and depending on they're build, 1 or 2 P. Needles. The MU is not a hard one, but i run Rb, wich I think is better agains't that.

[lebarion]

Usually we are way to fast for them. Therefore its pretty good. They dangerous if they have Swords of Fire and Ice; sometimes Jitte can be a problem too. The Mangara/Karakas action doesnt bring a bit, its too slow.
Anarchy is a good SB card. Its also killer against the nasty Staxx and Enchantress (which is almost an autoloss for us)

Actually, the matchup depends a lot on their build, specially on how many Silver Knights they run. All builds should run Jitte, an active Jitte means bad times. I've saw some D+T builds with Tivadar of Thorn in the sideboard, too.

But I agree that Anarchy is a good SB card, specially for MonoR. Besides what GoboLord said, it also takes care of Progenitus.

[Moosedog]

Running a pretty standard RB build. Been running into jitte a lot lately and every time it hits I lose.

Question: Are people running any artifact hate maindeck? in the board? If so I feel as though it should be a goblin so its tutorable. i.e. scrapper or tinkerer. Tinkerer doesn't really solve a jitte because you will not have a warchief/chieftain in play for haste and I think scrapper is too slow, or is it?

I came to the conclusion that EE might be the best answer even though it isn't tutorable. (Obviously shattering spree is probably the best answer but its much more narrow than EE) Anybody have some thoughts on this?

[overpowered]

the best answer is arguably, Goblin Tinkerer (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=3451). It's tutorable, comes in cheap and with haste can eat legacy moxen, force tops on libraries, jitte, vials and live... He's really good. Try testing him.

[Avatara]

the best answer is arguably, Goblin Tinkerer (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=3451). It's tutorable, comes in cheap and with haste can eat legacy moxen, force tops on libraries, jitte, vials and live... He's really good. Try testing him.

Except for the fact that it will never kill an active Jitte, because your Chieftains and Warchiefs are among the first things to die.

[ScatmanX]

I'm becoming more and more fan of Scrapper. It's casting cost is not an issue, once you usually have to tutor for it, so you have at least 3 mana avaliable.

Agains't Jitte, I have in the board 2 P. Needle (I think it is underestimated) and 1 Scrapper. (and 7 creature removal MD)
It is enough to deal with Jitte in my games...

[Tacosnape]

Except for the fact that it will never kill an active Jitte, because your Chieftains and Warchiefs are among the first things to die.

Avatara's absolutely right. It's been discussed for years. The end conclusion is always that Goblin Tinkerer is terrible against Umezawa's Jitte and SOFI, and there's very few if any other artifacts that Goblins ever needs to really deal with.

Tuktuk Scrapper is arguably workable given that Stoneforge Mystic has put Jitte on the rise. But his CMC may make Needle and Pyrokinesis the better options. Besides Tuktuk and Tin-Street Hooligan, there aren't any other good actual Goblin options. Tinkerer's subpar, Replica's way overcosted, and Archaeologist and Vandal both suffer the same problems as Tinkerer while being generally worse. I'd rather risk the third (Or second) color for Tin-Street, personally.

[Mantis]

I personally think it's a mistake to be concerned about Jitte too much. First of all, you can beat a Jitte by killing their creatures (ideally in the attack phase through Incinerator) or chump --> sac with Siege Gang. Sometimes you can race them. Oftentimes you will lose to an active Jitte. You are going to lose games, it happens, get over it. Maindecking a Scrapper will salvage at best half of the games that you would otherwise lose against Jitte and I'm being optimistic. But on the flipside, drawing a Scrapper when you really need a removal spell or a Siege Gang Commander is going to lose you a ton of games as well. Personally I think the games you are going to lose due to Scrapper not being something else are probably way more than the games he will steal you against Jitte. If you disagree with me, do realize that you may very well be convinced by Scrapper or Tinkerer, by the few games you won due to them as they were probably memorable games to you.

About Tinkerer, listen to Avatara he makes a very solid point here.

Summary: Scrapper and Tinkerer both suck.

[GoboLord]

I personally think it's a mistake to be concerned about Jitte too much. First of all, you can beat a Jitte by killing their creatures (ideally in the attack phase through Incinerator) or chump --> sac with Siege Gang. Sometimes you can race them. Oftentimes you will lose to an active Jitte. You are going to lose games, it happens, get over it. Maindecking a Scrapper will salvage at best half of the games that you would otherwise lose against Jitte and I'm being optimistic. But on the flipside, drawing a Scrapper when you really need a removal spell or a Siege Gang Commander is going to lose you a ton of games as well. Personally I think the games you are going to lose due to Scrapper not being something else are probably way more than the games he will steal you against Jitte. If you disagree with me, do realize that you may very well be convinced by Scrapper or Tinkerer, by the few games you won due to them as they were probably memorable games to you.

About Tinkerer, listen to Avatara he makes a very solid point here.

Summary: Scrapper and Tinkerer both suck.

I totaly agree with what you said about Jitte. This card can be handled with a little skill and the right strategy.
Maybe you guys can get something from my SB constelation (Ive been working on it quite a while). Its on page 228 or 229 (Post #4563)

[pater]

Summary: Scrapper and Tinkerer both suck.
Agreed. My current SB has 1 Tinkerer and 3 Shattering Spree. Almost thinking of switching Tinkerer to Scrapper. The only argument I have is efficiency with Warchief.

Without Warchief: Tinkerer - 2 to cast, 1 to activate, summoning sickness, probably dies
Scrapper - 4 to cast, comes-into-play activation, 1 damage ping
With Warchief: Tinkerer - 1 to cast, 1 to activate, haste, still probably dies
Scrapper - 3 to cast, 1 damage ping

Seems like a matter of choice. I run 4x Warchief and 1 MD Wort, so I'll stick with Tinkerer 'till it pisses me off.

[Endril]

I personally think it's a mistake to be concerned about Jitte too much. First of all, you can beat a Jitte by killing their creatures (ideally in the attack phase through Incinerator) or chump --> sac with Siege Gang. Sometimes you can race them. Oftentimes you will lose to an active Jitte. You are going to lose games, it happens, get over it. Maindecking a Scrapper will salvage at best half of the games that you would otherwise lose against Jitte and I'm being optimistic. But on the flipside, drawing a Scrapper when you really need a removal spell or a Siege Gang Commander is going to lose you a ton of games as well. Personally I think the games you are going to lose due to Scrapper not being something else are probably way more than the games he will steal you against Jitte. If you disagree with me, do realize that you may very well be convinced by Scrapper or Tinkerer, by the few games you won due to them as they were probably memorable games to you.

About Tinkerer, listen to Avatara he makes a very solid point here.

Summary: Scrapper and Tinkerer both suck.

I doubt running scrapper as a one-of will lose you the game more often than win it. Just keep it in your SB to bring in against Jitte and you'll be fine. And Jitte is worth worrying about because I see decks both maindecking it and SB'ing it just for us. I've tried running tinkerer, which can die before use if you don't have a warchief out, and tin street, which can't be used to destroy artifacts if you do have a warchief out, but I prefer scrapper, which works in either scenario. And Jitte isn't the only artifact to worry about. There's all sorts of nasty artifact randomness out there waiting to spoil our game. Not to mention charbelcher. If they can drop it on T1 and have to wait til turn 2 to activate, dropping a scrapper off of a lackey makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

[Mantis]

I doubt running scrapper as a one-of will lose you the game more often than win it. Just keep it in your SB to bring in against Jitte and you'll be fine. And Jitte is worth worrying about because I see decks both maindecking it and SB'ing it just for us. I've tried running tinkerer, which can die before use if you don't have a warchief out, and tin street, which can't be used to destroy artifacts if you do have a warchief out, but I prefer scrapper, which works in either scenario. And Jitte isn't the only artifact to worry about. There's all sorts of nasty artifact randomness out there waiting to spoil our game. Not to mention charbelcher. If they can drop it on T1 and have to wait til turn 2 to activate, dropping a scrapper off of a lackey makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
Scrapper and Tinkerer make sense as sideboard cards, I was talking about maindecking it. I probably still would play without either one as naturally drawing into it is very unreliable and on the other hand the jump from 4 to 5 mana isn't that much so there are probably a lot of instances where Siege Gang will suffice as well.

I just don't see Jitte as too much of a problem. Merfolk often runs it and we can just put Piledriver in front of their guy and Waste or Gempalm the Mutavault. Zoo sometimes plays it and they will beat us mercilessly if we spend all of our efforts on resolving Matron and then Scrapper. The tempo loss is just too huge and they will often have already killed several Goblins with the Jitte putting you way behind.

On the other hand, I wouldn't hold it against you if you run a singleton Scrapper or Tinkerer because everyone plays Jittes in your area. But in that case it might be worth considering splashing green and play a couple of Tin Street Hooligans or Ancient Grudges in the main.

[gmeroni]

Hi!...iI'm a n00b with goblin but i wanna try something different to my usual decks, so can anyone help me to build something competitive?

// Lands
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills
4 [TE] Wasteland
10 [UNH] Mountain
4 [R] Plateau

// Creatures
4 [LE] Goblin Grappler
4 [US] Goblin Lackey
4 [ON] Goblin Piledriver
4 [AP] Goblin Ringleader
4 [SC] Goblin Warchief
4 [7E] Goblin Matron
1 [SC] Siege-Gang Commander
1 [ON] Goblin Sharpshooter
4 [LE] Gempalm Incinerator

// Spells
4 [DS] AEther Vial
4 [IA] Swords to Plowshares

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [9E] Blood Moon
SB: 4 [US] Disenchant
SB: 4 [LRW] Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 1 [SHM] Vexing Shusher
SB: 3 [MR] Chalice of the Void/Pithing Needle

[Nelis]

I came across this in another thread:


Stingscourger is a stupid 2/2 that sets your opp back a turn. Great combo with Cabal Therapy.

For those who want to maindeck discard. Would this be a viable strategy to put in the main? Would it be good enough to fight hard aggro matchups like Zoo and (to lesser extent) Bant (RWM)? Cabal Therapy is very good vs combo so basically you can fight both but then again Stingscourger is weak against combo. Would it be worth it? It might mean not to play Incinerator and even Warren Weirding.

[danielcrocker]

Hi!...iI'm a n00b with goblin but i wanna try something different to my usual decks, so can anyone help me to build something competitive?

// Lands
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills
4 [TE] Wasteland
10 [UNH] Mountain
4 [R] Plateau

// Creatures
4 [LE] Goblin Grappler
4 [US] Goblin Lackey
4 [ON] Goblin Piledriver
4 [AP] Goblin Ringleader
4 [SC] Goblin Warchief
4 [7E] Goblin Matron
1 [SC] Siege-Gang Commander
1 [ON] Goblin Sharpshooter
4 [LE] Gempalm Incinerator

// Spells
4 [DS] AEther Vial
4 [IA] Swords to Plowshares

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [9E] Blood Moon
SB: 4 [US] Disenchant
SB: 4 [LRW] Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 1 [SHM] Vexing Shusher
SB: 3 [MR] Chalice of the Void/Pithing Needle

The white splash is alright but black is better. Take out the grapplers there are a lot better goblins you could play. Try the mono red version with mogg warmarshall and goblin chieftan. Add stingscourgers,maybe kiki -jiki and lightning crafter . Def take out vexing shusher.

[gmeroni]

The white splash is alright but black is better. Take out the grapplers there are a lot better goblins you could play. Try the mono red version with mogg warmarshall and goblin chieftan. Add stingscourgers,maybe kiki -jiki and lightning crafter . Def take out vexing shusher.

Thk for the reply, this is my current creatures list

// Creatures
4 [LE] lightning crafter
4 [US] Goblin Lackey
4 [ON] Goblin Piledriver
4 [AP] Goblin Ringleader
4 [SC] Goblin Warchief
4 [7E] Goblin Matron
1 [SC] Siege-Gang Commander
1 [ON] Goblin Sharpshooter
4 [LE] Gempalm Incinerator

If i would use the black splash, what cards i have to put in ?

[Nelis]

The most important reason to play black is Warren Weirding. 4 Lightning Crafter are way too many. You only need one. I wouldn't play any Lightning Crafters myself but if you want to play them play one.

If I were you I would go:

-3 Lightning Crafter
-2 Gempalm Incinerator
+4 Warren Weirding
+1 Siege-Gang Commander

If you read the last 10 pages or so. You'll find enough information on card choices and such.

[danielcrocker]

Thk for the reply, this is my current creatures list

// Creatures
4 [LE] lightning crafter
4 [US] Goblin Lackey
4 [ON] Goblin Piledriver
4 [AP] Goblin Ringleader
4 [SC] Goblin Warchief
4 [7E] Goblin Matron
1 [SC] Siege-Gang Commander
1 [ON] Goblin Sharpshooter
4 [LE] Gempalm Incinerator

If i would use the black splash, what cards i have to put in ?

I wouldnt run so many lightning crafters ....just one to tutor for with matron. I would also run one kiki-Jiki so you could copy him. You can copy the crafter with kik-jiki and ping your opponent to death and if you have a ringleader or matron out you can keep championing them with the crafter copy and when it dies at the end of turn the ringleader/matron comes back and you can ues their abilities over and over.

here is a pretty standard and fun list
1 lightning crafter
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
2 Siege-Gang Commander
3 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Stingscourger
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
3 Goblin Chieftain
2 Mogg War Marshal

4 Aether Vial

4 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port
15 Mountains

if you are adding black you are adding it for Warrens Weirding....some people also add wort, earwig squad, or frogtossers but i dont think they are needed.....it allo depends on what you want to play.

[nubdrood]

Just got done with a local tourny, went 4-1 with R/b gobbies that I have been playing for about 3 years now. Today my deck performed the best it has in a long time, so I thought I might share my experience.

Here's my list:

4x Badlands
4x Bloodstained Mire
4x Wasteland
2x Auntie's Hovel
7x Mountains

4x Goblin Ringleader
4x Goblin Lackey
4x Goblin Matron
3x Goblin Chieftain
3x Frogtosser Banneret
3x Gempalm Incinerator
3x Siege-Gang Commander
2x Warren Instigator
2x Stingscourger
2x Goblin Piledriver
1x Wort, Boggart Auntie
1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1x Earwig Squad

4x Aether Vial
2x Warren Weirding

SB:

4x Pyrokinesis
2x Thorn of Amethyst
2x Relic of Progenitus
2x Duress
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Anarchy
1x Goblin Tinkerer
1x Boartusk Liege
1x Goblin Sharpshooter

I know, my sideboard is really messy. I had just pulled an all nighter and forgot my extra sideboard stuff at home. Such is life. However weird it looks, my sideboard was fantastic to me today, getting me everything I needed when I needed it. Goblin Sharpshooter was especially helpful, stomping all over Merfolk multiple times (to be explained in detail later :D). I didn't take any notes so I'm pulling this mostly from memory, so no play-by-plays, just the major points.

Round 1: Josh R w/ Mono-black Dark Depths (maybe?)

G1: We start a war over lands, both of us wasting each others everything so neither of us end up with much. Fetched 3 times to finally get enough mana to get a Banneret to stick. He was stuck on a single swamp for most of the game, I think he managed to get a Nighthawk out near the end. Game went pretty fast when he ran out of wastes and drew not much else.


G2: Same as last game, with less mana-base screwing and more of him drawing nothing. I got a super draw and won pretty fast.


Round 2: Josh C w/ WUG New Horizons

G1: I was scared out of my mind, because I thought Josh would be playing Zoo. This was a change of pace. I start out slow, him countering some of my stuff and eventually playing a terravore. Didn't see that coming. Between that and goyf, he gets the first game won pretty easy.

G2: Now that I know what he's playing, I am a bit more aggressive in my approach. I sided in Relics and Crypt for this, and they were invaluable. Drew a Relic in first hand, and it made it hard for him to get a stable creature to stick (No cards to fuel a big enough Goyf and no lands to make Terravore big). He eventually gets a 4/5 Goyf out, but by then I had enough stuff out to win it out.

G3: If I thought that my sideboard would be bad in the beginning because I forgot my cards at home, I was disproved in this game.This time, got Crypt in first hand, he was on the play. T2 I draw a Relic, which was essential to my win. He does try to make it difficult for me, bringing in a COP: Red. That was suprising to see. Eventually I had a Chieftain, a Piledriver, a Banneret, and a Matron out. He is at not much life and time has been called. I play a Ringleader, see land, land, Vial, and.....a second Piledriver. He scoops with not enough mana to COP all my critters.


Round 3: Alan w/ U Merfolk

G1: Alan really didn't want to see this matchup. He wins rock-paper-scissors and goes first. I do what Goblins do best: kill Merfolk. Lots of critters and removal, we move on to G2.

G2: I get a bad hand, mull to 6 into an even worse hand. Don't know why I kept, but i did. I got no steam going as Alan just threw lords and such onto the table. Bad game, wasn't expecting to win that one.

G3: I'm on the play, Lackey, go. Alan plays Island, Vial, then reluctantly says go. Lackey hits, brings in Sharpshooter. a few turns go by, my tempo slows a bit, I eventually get a SGC out, I think i hard casted it (Shocked? So was I). His field is Waterfront Bouncer, Sovereign, LoA, and a Cursecatcher. Through some careful manipulation of SGC token saccing and Sharpshooter, I wipe his entire board and swing for the win with an absurd Piledriver. Nuts, right? Both of us were kinda shocked it actually worked.

Round 4: Brandon w/ GBW Rock

G1 & G2: I did really bad. Terrible hands I shouldn't have kept and either no lands or too much land. Tombstalker beat me like a drum.


Round 5: William w/ U Merfolk

G1: After that abyssmal round 4, I needed something to pick my spirits up. Hearing that I would be playing Merfolk again did just that. However, like I did many times today, I kept a risky hand. 2 Bannerets, Wort, and some lands I think. First Bannneret got Force'd, second stuck. I made the mistake of paying 4 for Wort when she only cost 3, he Dazed and i didnt pay because I thought I had no mana. Bad mistake, cost me the game. He went nuts after that with 3 lords on the table and a few other things. Got 3 Standstills in a row, just nuts. Needless to say, I lost.

G2: I don't know what happened this game, Will just started making really stupid mistakes, like attacking with a 1/1 Cursecatcher with no lord backup into a Piledriver. After he made a mistake on countering something (a Chieftain perhaps?), he just folds, saying he has made too many mistakes and wants to start over in G3. Fine with me.

G3: This was one epic game. He started off really strong, even though he made the play mistake of forgetting his first Vial trigger T2, getting some lords and 2 Mutavaults, eventually briinging me down to 12 before I could do anything of note. Eventually I got a Vial to 3 and starting to vomit stuff onto the table via Matron. With Matrons and a Piledriver I had drawn, I was able to stall until I got Vial up to 5 for the SGC in hand. He Stifled the token ability though, making me sigh a bit. My board was eventually SGC, Chieftain, and Piledriver. Piledriver didn't get to attack much, he was being held back to block in case he had a lord hiding up his sleeve. Eventually he ran out of steam, sitting on a Silvergill Adept and not much more for quite a few turns. We both drew into nothing for about 4 turns, but then I got some actual creatures, notably another SGC (got stifled AGAIN) and an Instigator. He just ran out of stuff to play, since i had killed about 6-7 lords by the end of the game. I was quite happy, since I knew not many people had 4-1 records.

In the end, I top 4'd, grabbing some sweet store credit. Had a great day, lots of fun playing with some fun people.

Final Conclusions:
-Sharpshooter is amazing, he does so many good things that are so synergistic with the deck. Does a lot of damage to Merfolk, its just brutal.

-Instigator has lost its appeal for me. He never really helped me out very much. He's too small for fending off Goyfs without a lot of pump, and he is always dead if I do get him out T2/3. I know its more of the threat of Instigator that makes him good, but all bark and no bite is not what this deck needs.

-Incinerator and Stingscourger are just plain awesome. With a Vial out, Scourger is instant cast, free, uncounterable bounce, and Incinerator is uncounterable burn. Melting Merfolks and Nighthawks is always fun :)

-Not bringing my binder with sideboard options is not a good idea.

Any suggestions or comments you have would be great; always trying to improve my deck. Just please, no flaming or trolling just for the heck of it. Its annoying. :P

[danielcrocker]

I agree with you that instigator is more or less bait for removal. I'm debating taking him out of my lost for more stingscourgers since I'm only playing one at the moment. It's really hard to decide because he can be amazing if he hits once. In some matches I've played he has single handedly one me games but most of the times he doesn't do much.

[gmeroni]

I wouldnt run so many lightning crafters ....just one to tutor for with matron. I would also run one kiki-Jiki so you could copy him. You can copy the crafter with kik-jiki and ping your opponent to death and if you have a ringleader or matron out you can keep championing them with the crafter copy and when it dies at the end of turn the ringleader/matron comes back and you can ues their abilities over and over.

here is a pretty standard and fun list
1 lightning crafter
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
2 Siege-Gang Commander
3 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Stingscourger
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
3 Goblin Chieftain
2 Mogg War Marshal

4 Aether Vial

4 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port
15 Mountains

if you are adding black you are adding it for Warrens Weirding....some people also add wort, earwig squad, or frogtossers but i dont think they are needed.....it allo depends on what you want to play.

I wanna play a fast aggro version, with a CC very low...i didn't like the black version very much, but maybe it's my head that wouldn't see black

[Endril]

Has anyone ever tested a red/black/white version? I splash black for weirdings, but I miss my plows and disenchants. I know green has grip, but plows are just so good...

[FoulQ]

Has anyone ever tested a red/black/white version? I splash black for weirdings, but I miss my plows and disenchants. I know green has grip, but plows are just so good...

3c goblins plays a lot differently than 2c goblins.

The jump from mono to 2c is much less significant than the jump from 2c to 3c for this deck.

With 2c, you are always splashing one color.

However, with 3c (in your case RBW), you'd have to be careful about what you fetch. Fetch black, draw swords. Fetch white, draw weirding. It would make it much more difficulty.

And honestly I don't think that would be worth it.

As an aggro deck, we should keep our objective more focused.

So personally I think it's probably a bad idea.

And to the guy who said the white splash is inferior to the black splash, that is untrue. Current metagame, black is probably better. But people can have funky metagames. And I think that's the general consensus.

White has proven it can place, though it was a while ago, it had two in the t8 of an SGC event. One was even playing path to exile.

[Endril]

Well I was considering it as an alternative to RBG. The split second ability of grip is very important, but plow is better targeted removal than anything RBG can muster up, so it's worth considering IMO. As for RB vs RW, I still like RW but feel I need to run non-targeted removal for decks like reanimator and NO bant.

[overpowered]

Well I was considering it as an alternative to RBG. The split second ability of grip is very important, but plow is better targeted removal than anything RBG can muster up, so it's worth considering IMO. As for RB vs RW, I still like RW but feel I need to run non-targeted removal for decks like reanimator and NO bant.

Tariff (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=15361&type=card) isn't horrible for NOProg or Reanimator, as far as a white alternative. It's a double edged sword, so it's bad CA and tempo, but I don't think they'll be paying 7-10 mana for their creatures, since the point is not to.

[daPaule]

I will just move the discussion from the R/B Tribal Goblin thread to here:



And if single cards like Jitte are a problem, use your sideboard wisely. If Jitte is owning you HARD, the green splash has Tin Street Hooligan.


As said before: Tin Street is useless for me a lot of times just because it needs to be cast, therefore can be countered. You can even shoot yourself by having a warchief ingame which makes it impossible to destroy Jitte with Tin Street.

From my point of view an active jitte is gg like 60% of the time, assuming Turn 3/4. When it comes down late, it's too late.

The most fearsome decks i've met with jitte are cbtop-bant and u/w tempo, everything else seems to be quite fair. Anyhow my gameplan vs jitte, because nothing outside of Krosan kills it effectively, is to just ignore it and kill the creatures it's attached to.
Thanks to perish this works better vs bant than vs u/w tempo and death & taxes, damn mothers shutting down the spot removal.

Maybe i should also give needle a spot in the sb.

[FoulQ]

It is a common misconception that warchief stops TSH.

It's not true. Please test him for a couple weeks before judging. I used to have the same belief, but when I tested him, it's clear that that interaction is surprisingly irrelevant.

If warchief is in play, you are probably doing fine. It is usually immediately targeted by jitte anyways, at least by good players (and bad ones you might be able to play around the jitte).

Decks with Jitte + Counters are usually fairly good matchups. Merfolk, random fish decks, the majority of bant decks, etc. UWT I assume is a bad matchup (because it's the best deck in the format of course) but I don't worry about that deck so much for now.

We will have to wait and see how popular stoneforge mystic is before deciding if we need to reevaluate our jitte hate.

TSH is not that great of a card. But as far as goblins that destroy jitte, he stands out above tinkerer and scrapper. It's a metagame consideration.

But the best answer to jitte is often just killing the creature, like you said.

Jitte is a tempo sink. If we play with this in mind, and try to take advantage of the lost turn (unless its t4 already then you're fucked hah), it is easier to play around.

[danielcrocker]

Has anyone had trouble against new horizons?

[ScatmanX]

Has anyone had trouble against new horizons?

Nope. Perish is there for us.

[Nelis]

Nope. Perish is there for us.

Do you still run Pyrokinesis now that you run Perish? (havent had any testing in lately)

I'm running this sideboard atm:

2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Ravenous Trap (maybe switch these for Relic)
2 Faerie Macabre
3 Perish
3 Kinesis
1 TukTuk Scrapper
2 Anarchy

I would like to add Cabal Therapy against combo (ANT) but I'm hesitant to run less graveyard hate. So that would mean getting rid of Kinesis or Perish or a combination of both and possibly TukTuk Scrapper.

[ScatmanX]

Do you still run Pyrokinesis now that you run Perish? (havent had any testing in lately)

Yes, I do. One is not a substitute for the other. Knesis is a must agains't Goblins, Folk, Elves, GStompy, Slivers, Death and Taxes, and Zoo (also useful un other MU's, like fish, Dredge, fearies, etc.). Of those, I only side in Perish agains't Zoo, gStompy and Elves (of course). Perish now also owns New Horizons, Counter Top, Tempo Thresh, NoProg, Bant Aggro, Supreme Blue, Survival...
I don't see me running thm both in my board any time soon.

My SB is like this:

4 Planar Void
4 Perish
3 Kinesis
1 TukTuk Scrapper
2 Pithing Needle
1 Red Elemental Blast

I only run 4 grave hate cards, because thats all I ever felt I needed. And I chose Planar Void after a whole lot of testing, and it has proven to be the best option for me.
1 Scrapper, 2 Needle and 1 REB aer meta choice, though I think Needle is underplayed.
Teh only combo hate I run is 1 MD Earwig Squad. I just plan on not getting paired agains't them.

[FoulQ]

@ Nelis, I don't think you should play ravenous trap. The #1 priority for GY hate today should be too hit reanimator. Hitting other decks is nice too, and most graveyard hate will. Ravenous trap sadly falls short. But pretty much every other GY hate card does hit them and other decks.

Do you ever board in 4 perish + 3 kinesis together? That just seems like a hella lot...

[Nelis]

@ Nelis, I don't think you should play ravenous trap. The #1 priority for GY hate today should be too hit reanimator. Hitting other decks is nice too, and most graveyard hate will. Ravenous trap sadly falls short. But pretty much every other GY hate card does hit them and other decks.

Do you ever board in 4 perish + 3 kinesis together? That just seems like a hella lot...

I havent been testing at all lately so I never tried it out. Atm I'm basically going on advise of you guys. I'm not sure if I would play them together. I do feel that kynesis isn't good enough vs Zoo so I would probably only put in perish. But I'll have to test.

@Scatman X: I dont want to mulligan towards graveyard hate. I have bad experiences vs decks that depend on the graveyard so thats why I want 6.Planar Void is a nice choice but I feel that vs certain decks you want to remove whole graveyards especially if there's already a few cards in those graveyards.

I already was thinking of changing Mindbreak Trap into Relic so that's a definite. I also forgot that Perish is also good vs Progenitus so those Anarchies are removed from the sideboard.

2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Faerie Macabre
3 Perish
3 Kinesis
3 Cabal Therapy (maybe, just maybe add another one in and take out 1 graveyard hate, or otherwise add 3 Thoughtseize.)

[danielcrocker]

I havent been testing at all lately so I never tried it out. Atm I'm basically going on advise of you guys. I'm not sure if I would play them together. I do feel that kynesis isn't good enough vs Zoo so I would probably only put in perish. But I'll have to test.

@Scatman X: I dont want to mulligan towards graveyard hate. I have bad experiences vs decks that depend on the graveyard so thats why I want 6.Planar Void is a nice choice but I feel that vs certain decks you want to remove whole graveyards especially if there's already a few cards in those graveyards.

I already was thinking of changing Mindbreak Trap into Relic so that's a definite. I also forgot that Perish is also good vs Progenitus so those Anarchies are removed from the sideboard.

2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Faerie Macabre
3 Perish
3 Kinesis
3 Cabal Therapy (maybe, just maybe add another one in and take out 1 graveyard hate, or otherwise add 3 Thoughtseize.)

I have 3 questions to ask:

1. What do we do against moat if we don't use anarchy? Do we just swarm and ping with Siege-gang?

2. Is leyline as effective as crypt, relic, macabre?

3. How effective is cabal therapy against combo adn what do we name when when playing it?

[ScatmanX]

@Do you ever board in 4 perish + 3 kinesis together? That just seems like a hella lot...

Just agains't Zoo, and I don't think that's over kill. Actually, overkill agains't Zoo is fine. Post SB I have 3 Gemplam, 3 Weirdings, 1 Stingscourer, 4 Perish and 3 Knesis, and am really happy with that. Knesis gets better if they're running Lavamancer of Figure of D., but it is always great to have.

@ Nelis: I understand the the slots agains't grave, but don't think they're so necessary in my meta. If it were, I'd probably run youre those 6 cards.

@danielcrocker: from those questions, I can only anweser the 1st. YES. If you have Lightning Crafter, better, but SGC is enough. 1st: keep a fast hand.Then you should have inflicted a lot of dmg by turn 4-5. 2nd: use Wastelands and Port; they delay Moat. 3rd: Vial is your best friend. Vial SGC in the end of they're turn, sac a shitload of goblins, then do it again your turn, before Warth. StP/Path are a problem, but you can sac him in repsponse, and get him back with (a vialed) Wort later.

[Nelis]

I have 3 questions to ask:

1. What do we do against moat if we don't use anarchy? Do we just swarm and ping with Siege-gang?

2. Is leyline as effective as crypt, relic, macabre?

3. How effective is cabal therapy against combo adn what do we name when when playing it?

1. I ignore Moat. I don't feel its common enough to worry about. The decks I want to be able to fight are: Zoo, ANT, Ichorid, Merfolk and to lesser extend Aggro Loam, *****, countertop variants and the mirror.

Against most other decks the sideboard cards are also good or the deck itself is good enough to fight them. I don't care about decks like Enchantress, Staxx. They're tough matchups for sure but they're never really contenders to win an tournament. Sure there are people who play them but should I come across them i'll take my losses.

Basically my philosophy is: Only put in cards vs your hardest matchups (ANT, Ichorid) unless the deck is not that common (Staxx, Enchantress)

2. Leyline sure is effective but I just don't like them. You always have to mulligan towards them. Of course it's the same against the real hard match ups like Dredge with the anti graveyard cards I run. But there are also a lot of matchups where you dont need graveyard removal on turn 1 but later. It has the same problem like Planar Void, it does not remove cards already in the graveyard. And what if you want to play it and are stuck on 3 mana or stuck on 1 black source? That's why I'll never play them.

3. Combo will always be a very hard match-up, if people decide not to take combo into account in building their sideboard I completely understand. I wouldn't play Cabal Therapy if it wasn't good vs other decks as well. It gives you a chance to get rid of Moat for instance. That's why I like to have some form of discard in my sideboard.

Vs ANT I think its best to name Infernal Tutor. Just hope they don't have a brainstorm in hand. Other options are Mystical tutor or Ad Nauseam. But I'm not 100% sure on that.
Vs Belcher I think it should be Goblin Charbelcher beacuse it's auto lose. At least we have a fighting chance against Empty the Warrens, which can always be named once you've seen their hand.

[Endril]

For question 3, I wouldn't name mystical tutor if they have a mana open for obvious reasons. LED, ritual, and infernal are all good options IMO. But I wouldn't play cabal therapy as an answer to combo for the same reason I dont like thorns or pillars. You can't be sure you'll pick the right piece out unless you've seen their hand, so you often have to wait until turn 2 when you flash it back. Answers that wait until turn 2 can lose to combo. A quicker answer is a duress, thoughtseize, mindbreak trap, or chalice for 0. Another consideration is that they'll play discard on turn 1, which pretty much rules out mindbreak trap and the 2-drops.

This is my SB:
x3 Pyrokinesis
x1 Tuktuk Scrapper
x3 Tormod's Crypt
x2 Relic of Progenitus
x3 Chalice of the Void
x3 Thoughtseize

I'd love to find room for Perish, but I'm having a worse time against ANT and Dredge than Zoo at the moment, so it's hard to justify taking any of those cards out.

[Nelis]

If there's that many combo I think its better to play something else. But if I would have to play in a combo heavy environment I would also cut Perish.

Yeah the discard they play is so annoying. I understand why you don't like cabal therapy but I really like the fact that it can take out two of their cards. I really have to test more to see if its really worth it but nobody around here plays ANT and I'm not good at playing combo at all myself.

I asked in the ANT topic btw. 1 reaction so far.


Ok, so assuming it is blind Therapy, Iď go for Brainstorm, the next one (hope you have a spare critter...) I'd take anything dangerous. If there are two or more BS in yard, I'd name Mystical/LED.

[Nidd]

If you cast CT VS ANT, name Dark Ritual or LED when you have 0 information about their hand. Your plan should be to slow them down and kill them.

[Nelis]

Thorn is the best hate piece you have available. We can win through both Chalice and Pillar, but winning through Thorn, if it comes with a reasonable clock, is quite difficult. An early Thorn also hinders our cantripping (Chalice does too though). However, even with Thorn, against good ANT players, you're not going to get a positive matchup post-board. If you have other options to board against other decks, I'd consider not running any combo hate at all.

Concerning the Reanimator matchup, I run 3 Doomsday, 1 Shelldock Isle and 1 Emrakul sideboard, and my postboard matchup is favorable. Their deck can't really beat an early Doomsday, and any creature after that is irrelevant.

[GoboLord]

"I'd consider not running any combo-hate at all"???
Bullshit!

Good players can deal with every hate you can imagine. Since the manyANT players love this deck for its auto-pilot-playing-style, combo-hate is perfectly alright

[Nidd]

"I'd consider not running any combo-hate at all"???
Bullshit!

Good players can deal with every hate you can imagine. Since the manyANT players love this deck for its auto-pilot-playing-style, combo-hate is perfectly alright
Auto-Pilot? Yeah, right.

[BantFTW]

bIf you play against ANT, and a good player is playing...
Forget it, they win alot. They lose only if they go bad or unlucky I think so...

But, I've seen some players who play volcanic islands in mono red (with black it's harder but yeah) and they go for extract.
Idk how you guys think about that but I really like the idea because in the Netherlands they play mostly only one tendrils...

[Nelis]

If you play against ANT, and a good player is playing...
Forget it, they win alot. They lose only if they go bad or unlucky I think so...

You are absolutely right.

[FoulQ]

bIf you play against ANT, and a good player is playing...
Forget it, they win alot. They lose only if they go bad or unlucky I think so...

But, I've seen some players who play volcanic islands in mono red (with black it's harder but yeah) and they go for extract.
Idk how you guys think about that but I really like the idea because in the Netherlands they play mostly only one tendrils...

I basically agree with this and I don't really see what GoboLord is getting at.

The thing about combo hate, and silver bullet sideboard cards in general in goblins, is that you CANNOT rely on them. A deck like countertop is going to get way more out of its sideboard than we are, obviously, with all their draw mechanics and shuffling and what not. 4 chalices in our sideboard aren't going to be as good as 4 spell pierces in countertop's sideboard (just an example).

So even for just 4 extract, you have to draw one of them early and have a fetch for the one volcanic. Personally I feel like if you have to go that far you should probably play something else.

If combo becomes popular in your meta, I recommend investing in merfolk and playing that once in awhile. Combo will push out the zoo and board control decks, and then you will have mostly good matchups.

I'd rather save the sideboard space for other bad but winnable matchups like zoo. I know Mantis on these forums used to test against combo and used REB in combination with other hate. I'd try that before further manabase dilution. Personally I don't have the time to test against a matchup like this, I'm more concerned with more popular decks.

[Nessaja]

As far as I'm concerned, combo and GY matchups need atleast 6 pieces to effectively deal with it. And for combo a combination of mindbreak traps and chalice of the void (aka, cards that don't make you lose tempo) seem to work the best.

If you're only going to devote 3/4 spots to it you better spend your sideboard for other MU's.

[pater]

A couple questions...

If I have Aether Vial and Lackey in my opening hand, which do I play T1? If I have those with say, Lightning Bolt, Siege-bang, 2 mountains and a Wasteland, I see playing the Lackey T1 and trying to bolt him through with the Vial dropping T2. I guess what I'm asking is, is it completely relevent to the MU?

Also, I'm having trouble deciding on my sideboard. I have to test the meta to see how many Anarchy/Perish/REB are needed but as far as combo hate (if there's a presence in the meta) should I run Pithing Needle, Chalice, or Mindbreak Trap?

I see the weakness in Pithing Needle, but I also see drawback from the Chalice blocking out my spells too.

[Pulp_Fiction]

Posted this over in the ANT thread, figured I should post it here as well:

@gobolord: The absolute best hate you can have is Null Rod. Well, when running the terrible version with no IGG and 2 Tendrils, Chalice @0 really hurts them. But for EVERYTHING, play Null Rod. With DD, Chalice is whatever, you can play around it. There is no playing around Null Rod ... ever (unless Goblins gives us about 4-7 turns to setup threshed Cabal Rituals + IT assuming we can't find answers for it).

Thorn is also good, but if I had the choice of having Thorn/Sphere in play or Null Rod, I would MUCH rather see the Thorn/Sphere since it allows me to use Top to find an answer and doesn't shut off my artifact mana if I stall on 2 lands or something early on. Although, I will tell you one thing, out of all the hate cards I want to see played, I HOPE to see Mindbreak Trap the most. The card is so worthless against combo its ridiculous. It may steal A game ... but it sucks against anyone who knows what they are doing and usually you mull to 5-6 trying to find it and keep shitty hands.

In short, Null Rod is THE BEST way to stall combo out for the longest period of time because it MUST be answered if your deck can only win VIA storm.

Although when it comes to running combo hate in Goblins ... its largely worthless. Now I have a different train of thought, a lot of people say "well I want a fighting chance" but if that fighting chance is still like a 35% chance of winning, those 4 slots that you dedicate to the matchup are largely worthless. With a SB I always try to optimize my 45-55% matchups and slightly help my good-decent matchups. But the ones that are so abysmal I take em as an auto-loss because I am not going to clog up the board with shitty cards, only used in 1 matchup that don't even help me that much. Its a waste of time and effort. Make your 45% matchups better, not the ones where you will win maybe 15% of the time.

[Nelis]

As far as I'm concerned, combo and GY matchups need atleast 6 pieces to effectively deal with it. And for combo a combination of mindbreak traps and chalice of the void (aka, cards that don't make you lose tempo) seem to work the best.

If you're only going to devote 3/4 spots to it you better spend your sideboard for other MU's.

That's doable. 6+6 equals 12 which leaves 3 for Perish :) That's all the relevant hard matchups covered.

[GoboLord]

Posted this over in the ANT thread, figured I should post it here as well:

@gobolord: The absolute best hate you can have is Null Rod. Well, when running the terrible version with no IGG and 2 Tendrils, Chalice @0 really hurts them. But for EVERYTHING, play Null Rod. With DD, Chalice is whatever, you can play around it. There is no playing around Null Rod ... ever (unless Goblins gives us about 4-7 turns to setup threshed Cabal Rituals + IT assuming we can't find answers for it).

Thorn is also good, but if I had the choice of having Thorn/Sphere in play or Null Rod, I would MUCH rather see the Thorn/Sphere since it allows me to use Top to find an answer and doesn't shut off my artifact mana if I stall on 2 lands or something early on. Although, I will tell you one thing, out of all the hate cards I want to see played, I HOPE to see Mindbreak Trap the most. The card is so worthless against combo its ridiculous. It may steal A game ... but it sucks against anyone who knows what they are doing and usually you mull to 5-6 trying to find it and keep shitty hands.

In short, Null Rod is THE BEST way to stall combo out for the longest period of time because it MUST be answered if your deck can only win VIA storm.

Although when it comes to running combo hate in Goblins ... its largely worthless. Now I have a different train of thought, a lot of people say "well I want a fighting chance" but if that fighting chance is still like a 35% chance of winning, those 4 slots that you dedicate to the matchup are largely worthless. With a SB I always try to optimize my 45-55% matchups and slightly help my good-decent matchups. But the ones that are so abysmal I take em as an auto-loss because I am not going to clog up the board with shitty cards, only used in 1 matchup that don't even help me that much. Its a waste of time and effort. Make your 45% matchups better, not the ones where you will win maybe 15% of the time.

@ All: First of all: What I said about auto-pilot-playing-style of ANT was wrong, my apologies. I wrote that when I was in a bad temper.

@ Pulp Fiction: What you say about Null Rod makes sense. I partly agree with what you say about how to build up a sideboard. Indeed we should run SB cards optimize our 45-55% match-ups. But we should also run cards that are flexible enough for not only killing one deck. So IMO Null Rod is one of those cards. It improves match-ups against ANT and Belcher, but so what? I'd rather run Thorn/Chalice/Pillar because they are good against other decks too.

Maybe Null Rod is a good choice, but for the moment Im not convinced. Any other ideas where to use Rod?

[ScatmanX]

Maybe Null Rod is a good choice, but for the moment Im not convinced. Any other ideas where to use Rod?

In my SB,the 2 P.Needle could be replaced by Null Rods. I mainly put them in ti fight Sensei's Divining Top and Jitte/friends.
The bad part is that it fucks Vial up, so I would not play it (again).

[JonBarber]

@ Pulp Fiction: What you say about Null Rod makes sense. I partly agree with what you say about how to build up a sideboard. Indeed we should run SB cards optimize our 45-55% match-ups. But we should also run cards that are flexible enough for not only killing one deck. So IMO Null Rod is one of those cards. It improves match-ups against ANT and Belcher, but so what? I'd rather run Thorn/Chalice/Pillar because they are good against other decks too.

Maybe Null Rod is a good choice, but for the moment Im not convinced. Any other ideas where to use Rod?

No no no. CHALICE IS NULL ROD THAT COSTS ZERO. The only benefit of null rod in the combo matchup is that it shuts off top, which is a 2 of in mosts lists. Chalices benefits are that it drops turn 1, it causes zero tempo loss, it doesn't shut off vial, it doesn't allow their artifacts to stay in play, and a 2nd one can be dropped turn 2 to reallyy screw them over. Chalice is just as if not more useful than null rod in other matchups. Once you have vial in play, you can set chalice to whatever. People need to actually spend two seconds thinking about what makes a card good. Those who think null rod is the be all end all, please explain to me where my logic is failing, because right now I don't see any reason to play that card..

[Pulp_Fiction]

Based on the decks I play, I think Null Rod is better. If you play the 2x AdN 2x Tendrils lists, absolutely Chalice is better since they have such a reliance on free mana. But to the adaptable combo decks that run Doomsday or TES variants, Chalice is nothing. Chalice + Trinisphere is a problem, but Chalice by itself is fairly worthless. CotV@1 .... ok, watch me IGG loop. Chalice @0 ... ok, watch me IGG loop or look at this cool DD stack with Dark Rituals, Meditate, and Tendrils. Chalice @2 or less ... check out Emrakul. This is all shit I can do to win through it, let alone finding any of the 8+ answers I have postboard. Chalice may slightly inconvenience or delay me, Null Rod STOPS me. Only thing I can do through Null Rod is build an Emrakul stack with Needle so I can stop Wasteland.

Maybe its the lists you play, maybe its something else, as a combo player I would much rather see Chalice played against me than Null Rod. Null Rod is also amazing at shutting down Top, Vedalken Shackles, Engineered Explosives, Thopter Foundry combo, and Affinity basically auto-loses to it. I mean, play what you want as combo hate, but just don't run Mindbreak Trap, it is the worst thing you can put in. You will lose most games against competent players. Null Rod turns everything off and MUST be answered. Chalice requires no answer to win. Thorn is annoying but ... as long as I can keep playing my setup spells I have no problem with it usually unless it is backed up by double Piledriver + more goblins.

[FoulQ]

A couple questions...

If I have Aether Vial and Lackey in my opening hand, which do I play T1? If I have those with say, Lightning Bolt, Siege-bang, 2 mountains and a Wasteland, I see playing the Lackey T1 and trying to bolt him through with the Vial dropping T2. I guess what I'm asking is, is it completely relevent to the MU?

Also, I'm having trouble deciding on my sideboard. I have to test the meta to see how many Anarchy/Perish/REB are needed but as far as combo hate (if there's a presence in the meta) should I run Pithing Needle, Chalice, or Mindbreak Trap?

I see the weakness in Pithing Needle, but I also see drawback from the Chalice blocking out my spells too.

You're right, it's all about context.

T1 blindly aether vial is better. But that never happens, because you will always have accompanying cards. If you can curve out with vial and aren't afraid of daze, go for it. If you have t1 lackey t2 removal (not just gempalm) and a really juicy lackey target (basically just SGC and ringleader), go for that.

If you know what you're playing, it changes a lot of things of course. For instance, vs zoo I would almost always go t1 vial over lackey, especially with a wasteland in hand. With the given hand, I would put vial down first vs zoo.

Generally, vial is the better turn 1 play. But generally doesn't really matter. SGC/Ringleader + Lackey + Removal (+ Vial) is usually enough to sway me for the t1 lackey in most matchups.

From what I've seen, chalice is best at 0 followed by a goldfish. Chalice at 1, even if you lay it, won't really matter, because the game won't go on long enough for it to be relevant (and you played a 1cc spell first turn hopefully, if not, well at least you have combo hate on the board right?).

But all those options aren't going to be enough vs all but beginning combo players in my opinion, like Pulp said. I haven't tested null rod so I have no comment on that.

[Endril]

Based on the decks I play, I think Null Rod is better. If you play the 2x AdN 2x Tendrils lists, absolutely Chalice is better since they have such a reliance on free mana. But to the adaptable combo decks that run Doomsday or TES variants, Chalice is nothing. Chalice + Trinisphere is a problem, but Chalice by itself is fairly worthless. CotV@1 .... ok, watch me IGG loop. Chalice @0 ... ok, watch me IGG loop or look at this cool DD stack with Dark Rituals, Meditate, and Tendrils. Chalice @2 or less ... check out Emrakul. This is all shit I can do to win through it, let alone finding any of the 8+ answers I have postboard. Chalice may slightly inconvenience or delay me, Null Rod STOPS me. Only thing I can do through Null Rod is build an Emrakul stack with Needle so I can stop Wasteland.

Maybe its the lists you play, maybe its something else, as a combo player I would much rather see Chalice played against me than Null Rod. Null Rod is also amazing at shutting down Top, Vedalken Shackles, Engineered Explosives, Thopter Foundry combo, and Affinity basically auto-loses to it. I mean, play what you want as combo hate, but just don't run Mindbreak Trap, it is the worst thing you can put in. You will lose most games against competent players. Null Rod turns everything off and MUST be answered. Chalice requires no answer to win. Thorn is annoying but ... as long as I can keep playing my setup spells I have no problem with it usually unless it is backed up by double Piledriver + more goblins.

If we're going to prepare for Ad Naus, we should definitely prepare for a deck something like this:
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=32454
because that's what we're more likely to run into. Chalice for 0 makes an IGG loop difficult unless you have extra mana floating, and IGG usually just gets sided in as a 1-of anyway. You need 6 mana to tutor into and cast tendrils, so you need B in the pool and dark + cabal at the least. But you're not incorrect when you call chalice an inconvenience. It's possible, although difficult, to win with chalice for 0 on the table, and you can often find a chain to bounce it EOT and combo out. If they drop chalice for 0 and 1, then it becomes a problem. If you didn't board in recall, you're probably done. But it's not meant to shut you down. It's meant to get us to T4 or so so we can win before you. But it's when you claim that null rod shuts you down that you're completely losing me. It does absolutely NOTHING different than a chalice for 0, unless you value top WAY more than I do. And I don't know about you, but I can combo out on T2 with ad naus. As a goblin player, I'd much rather use a 0 drop than a 2 drop for that reason. You respond to Null Rod the same way as chalice: float mana into rituals, or bounce it EOT.

But as far as chalice goes, I've seen enough Ad Naus decks win through it to think thoughtseize/duress is a better way to go. They won't always have a brainstorm to respond with, and that won't even matter when you're on the play. Even if they storm pieces on top of their deck, just removing one ritual is often good enough to stop them long enough for the win.

[Dia_Bot]

Although I do agree Null Rod is the most annoying solution when playing against any Doomsday version of Ant I think you must all ask yourself the question what you will be most likely to face if you're going to any tournament.
8 times in 10 when you play against AnT it will be regular Ant because it's 1) easier to play 2) more explosive (slightly).
Against regular Ant I would have to say I find Thorn of Amethyst the most effective sollution. (although I've had had situations where it was to slow) When a Thorn of Amethyst hits play it basically means the combo player will not combo out before he gets rid of it.
But just as important you make the combo player way more vulnerable to both port and waste effects buying you way more time.
Null rod is annoying when you play regular Ant but I punishes you in no way if you have 2x ritual or Crit + AN. You play Ad nauseum without any trouble, find your bounce spell (if you dont have enough rituals) and win.

The reason why in doomsday versions Null Rod is more annoying is because in doomsday versions top is the easiest way to anable cheap doomsday piles to play through hate cards. (like chalice)

[spector_xero]

So, I've been lurking this thread for last month or so, and have used it to tweak this deck that I've played and loved since Onslaught block. There's a GPT in Nashville next week that I'm interested in playing, and while I'm familiar enough with the deck, I have no Legacy experience other than what I've read about various decklists and whatnot.

That being said, I'd like some help finalizing my list. I have no idea how many people will show up, or even what the meta will look like, so I'm going for the best overall, non-specialized percentages I can. Here's my current list:

38 spells:
4 Aether Vial
3 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin Chieftain (flex spot)
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
2 Mogg War Marshal
2 Siege-gang Commander
2 Stingscourger
3 Warren Weirding
1 Wort, Boggart Auntie

22 land:
3 Auntie's Hovel
4 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland
1 Wooded Foothills
5 Mountain
1 Swamp

sideboard:
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Leyline of the Void
7 Anarchy/Perish/Pyrokinesis

My biggest concerns are the single Chieftain in the MD (I'd rather have a good option as opposed to just the least bad one), and only 7 spots in the SB to devote to 3 very good cards (and maybe a single Sharpshooter, Scrapper, etc.). Any advice?

Also, any general sideboarding tips would be greatly appreciated. And, thanks already to the board for helping me get this far.

[JonBarber]

So, I've been lurking this thread for last month or so, and have used it to tweak this deck that I've played and loved since Onslaught block. There's a GPT in Nashville next week that I'm interested in playing, and while I'm familiar enough with the deck, I have no Legacy experience other than what I've read about various decklists and whatnot.

That being said, I'd like some help finalizing my list. I have no idea how many people will show up, or even what the meta will look like, so I'm going for the best overall, non-specialized percentages I can. Here's my current list:

38 spells:
4 Aether Vial
3 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin Chieftain (flex spot)
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
2 Mogg War Marshal
2 Siege-gang Commander
2 Stingscourger
3 Warren Weirding
1 Wort, Boggart Auntie

22 land:
3 Auntie's Hovel
4 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland
1 Wooded Foothills
5 Mountain
1 Swamp

sideboard:
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Leyline of the Void
7 Anarchy/Perish/Pyrokinesis

My biggest concerns are the single Chieftain in the MD (I'd rather have a good option as opposed to just the least bad one), and only 7 spots in the SB to devote to 3 very good cards (and maybe a single Sharpshooter, Scrapper, etc.). Any advice?

Also, any general sideboarding tips would be greatly appreciated. And, thanks already to the board for helping me get this far.

I'd cut the mogg war marshalls for 2 more chieftain and cut 1 stingscourger and the wort for 2 instigators (you could do 3 instigators and 2 chieftains as well).

As for as sb, the 7 flex cards really depends on the meta. If it looks more aggro, play the full set of Pyrokensis, if its stax/enchantress/landstill, more anarchys, zoo/bant/thresh, play Perishes. Do your best get there early and try and do some scouting.

[Mantis]

To understand what hate pieces are best we must first determine what we are trying to achieve with them. ANT sweeps the floor with pure aggro, but has a much harder time against pressure paired with disruption; the aggro control approach. Preboard Goblins is a pure aggro deck, but my goal is to set up an aggro control deck. This means maximizing the amount of tempo generated and dealing 20 damage in the shortest period of time.

Combo players tell me time and time again that Thorn of Amethyst is what they fear most, moreso than Chalice, or Mindbreak Trap. But they forget about the Goblins players perspective and the afforementioned concept of tempo, you spend your complete second turn casting Thorn this means that you are not applying pressure. Chalice and Mindbreak Trap do not require any investment and allow for quick kill while still applying pressure. With Warren Instigator we actually have something relevant to do on turn 2, namely setting up a turn 3 win, with Thorn this would otherwise be a turn 4 kill.

Another consideration si that Chalice is stopped by bounce and Trap is stopped by Duress, meanwhile Thorn is stopped by both. Trap also provides the element of surprise. And while good combo players might see this coming but I absolutely agree with GoboLord, that not every ANT player is a great player and a lot of them will not play around Trap only to get demolished by it. The best configuration I could find while dedicating 4 slots to combo is 4 Mindbreak Trap with 1 Earwig Squad in the main.

[JonBarber]

To understand what hate pieces are best we must first determine what we are trying to achieve with them. ANT sweeps the floor with pure aggro, but has a much harder time against pressure paired with disruption; the aggro control approach. Preboard Goblins is a pure aggro deck, but my goal is to set up an aggro control deck. This means maximizing the amount of tempo generated and dealing 20 damage in the shortest period of time.

Combo players tell me time and time again that Thorn of Amethyst is what they fear most, moreso than Chalice, or Mindbreak Trap. But they forget about the Goblins players perspective and the afforementioned concept of tempo, you spend your complete second turn casting Thorn this means that you are not applying pressure. Chalice and Mindbreak Trap do not require any investment and allow for quick kill while still applying pressure. With Warren Instigator we actually have something relevant to do on turn 2, namely setting up a turn 3 win, with Thorn this would otherwise be a turn 4 kill.

Another consideration si that Chalice is stopped by bounce and Trap is stopped by Duress, meanwhile Thorn is stopped by both. Trap also provides the element of surprise. And while good combo players might see this coming but I absolutely agree with GoboLord, that not every ANT player is a great player and a lot of them will not play around Trap only to get demolished by it. The best configuration I could find while dedicating 4 slots to combo is 4 Mindbreak Trap with 1 Earwig Squad in the main.

I agree with what your saying, but if they go turn 1 duress, turn 2 go off (like the deck is built to do), your sooo SOL. I'd prefer chalice just because it gives me SOMETHING thats permanent, and they have to waste time and valuable spells finding bounce. When boarding against combo, I like to take 8-10 cards from my sideboard, shuffle them into my deck, and then remove everything but the chalices. This leaves my opponent thinking that I'm playing a shit load of hate, and often times the "good" players will duress me with a chalice in play just to make sure I'm not also holding mindbreak trap.

[Armfelt]

Hi, I am quite new to the forum and MTG in general. Despite that I am currently working to create a goblin mainboard that at the moment lacks a sideboard.

I started a thread in the New and development deck, but got convinced to start writing here:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?17741-[Deck]-R-B-Tribal-Goblin

(I must confess that I have only read about 10 pages in the beginning and 10 pages in the end of this thread, for that I apologize).

The goal with this deck is to contain the colours Black and Red and of course aiming to be as aggressive as a Goblin deck can be.

This is the current progress of the deck (the deck is including cards I got IRL this far):

Deck: Untitled Deck (http://deckstats.net/deck-164237-dbb0a2d80c53551ee5db11228a6b8182-en.html)

//Lands
5x Mountain (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Mountain)
4x Auntie's Hovel (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Auntie%27s+Hovel)
2x Blood Crypt (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Blood+Crypt)
4x Wasteland (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Wasteland)
3x Sulfurous Springs (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Sulfurous+Springs)
4x Badlands (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Badlands)

//Creatures
3x Goblin Warchief (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Goblin+Warchief)
4x Goblin Lackey (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Goblin+Lackey)
4x Goblin Piledriver (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Goblin+Piledriver)
4x Goblin Matron (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Goblin+Matron)
4x Goblin Ringleader (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Goblin+Ringleader)
3x Gempalm Incinerator (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Gempalm+Incinerator)
2x Siege-Gang Commander (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Siege-Gang+Commander)
2x Stingscourger (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Stingscourger)
2x Goblin Chieftain (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Goblin+Chieftain)
2x Warren Instigator (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Warren+Instigator)
1x Wort, Boggart Auntie (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Wort%2C+Boggart+Auntie)
1x Goblin Tinkerer (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Goblin+Tinkerer) or use Lightning Crafter? Add another Stingscourger? Or pick/add another Goblin?

//Spells
3x Warren Weirding (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Warren+Weirding)
3x AEther Vial (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=AEther+Vial)

http://i.hbtronix.de/chart_pie.png Display Deck Statistics (http://deckstats.net/deck-164237-dbb0a2d80c53551ee5db11228a6b8182-en.html)

As far as I know, and that people told me. Goblin cards that is needed is:
Goblin Lackey, Matron, ringleader Piledriver, Warchief, Gempalm incinerator and Aether vial. So those cards won't be exchanged for other cards.

Stingscourger and Warren Weirding have proven to be very useful, especially with Wort.

I have tested to play with proxy "Rishadan Port", with quite good result, so I guess I will try to have atleast 2 of them.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But otherwise, generally, what do you think about this build and what would you change?
I would get happy for your respond. :]

[Mantis]

Keep in mind that Chalice is suspectible by Duress 50% of the time and in addition is suspectible to bounce. On the play they can also get around Chalice to some extent by playing out their Petals/LEDs. There have also been times when my opponent just comboed right through my Chalice at 0. On the other hand Mindbreak Trap has it's limitations as well , they can sometimes play Ad Naus as their second spell and the play you described is a vunerability as well. I guess we can conclude that both Chalice and Trap have their merits and limitations, but we agree that they are both better than Thorn. With that said, perhaps a 2/2 or 3/1 split would be a good idea, since having a Chalice for 0 and 1 in play leaves you extremely vunerable to Hurkyls Recall and having 2 Traps makes you vunerable to Orims Chant so you get around those problems as well.

[alderon666]

On Null Rod, DDANT uses 4 Sensei's Divining Top on top of all the artifact mana. That's why Null Rod is so devastating.

I think something that should be pointed out is that Chalice is better against Belcher and it also is somewhat useful against Zoo. They have way too many 1cc spells while you have around 8. You can side out Lackeys and hope do get a Turn 1 Vial into Turn 2 Chalice @1. That looks pretty good to me. For the ones playing Bolt that plan seems rather mediocre.

[GoboLord]

What do you think of good old Pyrostatic Pillar?
ANT loses lots of lives for Ad Naus. As we know from the finals in Madrid they sometimes draw themselves to death. Pyrostatic Pillar must be answered before they go off, and my experience says that it always costs them 4 life to bounce it (tutor/brainstorm/ponder + bounce).
If they take more than 4 damage from Pillar AND we can set up pressure, they are probably done for.
I discussed this with severel ANT players and their answers were like:
"I didnt expect to face Pillar, thats why I couldnt deal with it"
and
"Pillar is the most uneffective combo hate in R, cause we can win without removing it"

Unfortunately nobody could tell me HOW to do this. Can someone please tell me? I can imagine that IGG is important but I dont know how this invincible turn should look like :D

[JonBarber]

Hi, I am quite new to the forum and MTG in general. Despite that I am currently working to create a goblin mainboard that at the moment lacks a sideboard.

I started a thread in the New and development deck, but got convinced to start writing here:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?17741-[Deck]-R-B-Tribal-Goblin

(I must confess that I have only read about 10 pages in the beginning and 10 pages in the end of this thread, for that I apologize).

The goal with this deck is to contain the colours Black and Red and of course aiming to be as aggressive as a Goblin deck can be.

This is the current progress of the deck (the deck is including cards I got IRL this far):

Deck: Untitled Deck (http://deckstats.net/deck-164237-dbb0a2d80c53551ee5db11228a6b8182-en.html)

//Lands
5x Mountain (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Mountain)
4x Auntie's Hovel (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Auntie%27s+Hovel)
2x Blood Crypt (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Blood+Crypt)
4x Wasteland (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Wasteland)
3x Sulfurous Springs (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Sulfurous+Springs)
4x Badlands (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Badlands)

//Creatures
3x Goblin Warchief (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Goblin+Warchief)
4x Goblin Lackey (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Goblin+Lackey)
4x Goblin Piledriver (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Goblin+Piledriver)
4x Goblin Matron (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Goblin+Matron)
4x Goblin Ringleader (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Goblin+Ringleader)
3x Gempalm Incinerator (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Gempalm+Incinerator)
2x Siege-Gang Commander (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Siege-Gang+Commander)
2x Stingscourger (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Stingscourger)
2x Goblin Chieftain (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Goblin+Chieftain)
2x Warren Instigator (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Warren+Instigator)
1x Wort, Boggart Auntie (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Wort%2C+Boggart+Auntie)
1x Goblin Tinkerer (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Goblin+Tinkerer) or use Lightning Crafter? Add another Stingscourger? Or pick/add another Goblin?

//Spells
3x Warren Weirding (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Warren+Weirding)
3x AEther Vial (http://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=AEther+Vial)

http://i.hbtronix.de/chart_pie.png Display Deck Statistics (http://deckstats.net/deck-164237-dbb0a2d80c53551ee5db11228a6b8182-en.html)

As far as I know, and that people told me. Goblin cards that is needed is:
Goblin Lackey, Matron, ringleader Piledriver, Warchief, Gempalm incinerator and Aether vial. So those cards won't be exchanged for other cards.

Stingscourger and Warren Weirding have proven to be very useful, especially with Wort.

I have tested to play with proxy "Rishadan Port", with quite good result, so I guess I will try to have atleast 2 of them.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But otherwise, generally, what do you think about this build and what would you change?
I would get happy for your respond. :]

Get rid of the shock lands and put in fetches. You NEED that 4th aether vial, its one of the best cards in the deck. Lighting crafter is terribad. Personally, I'm not a big fan of wort, but that's a meta call. Ports are very good.

On the topic of mindbreak traps, I was playing ANT and my oppenent was holding 3 mindbreak traps in hand. I was able to go off, and then remove all three of them and kill him. From 12 life... the deck is stupid good.

[Wargoos]

Unfortunately nobody could tell me HOW to do this. Can someone please tell me? I can imagine that IGG is important but I dont know how this invincible turn should look like :D

I don't know what you mean by "invincible turn" but combo player can still go off with Ill-Gotten Gains under a pillar when they have enough life getting enough storm (while taking 16 or more dmg) and finishing you off with tendrils. However, that just funtions when they really have Iggy (some ANT list don't play them aynomre) and when you couldn't deal any dmg to them except with the pillar.


On the topic of mindbreak traps, I was playing ANT and my oppenent was holding 3 mindbreak traps in hand. I was able to go off, and then remove all three of them and kill him. From 12 life... the deck is stupid good.

A single Orim's Chant shuts unfortunately off the traps. Also when you have just one copy of the trap in hand ( well, that should be the usuall number at least) then duress still wins the game for the ANT player here.
I think trap is just good in a sideboard against ANT where you can pair it with other hate (see the lands.dec sb -> Chalice + Traps).
I don't think that trap is suited for a goblin deck, while you can have some momentum and suprise the ANT player with playing the trap, most of the time he will be able to easily outplay it.
I think Thorn of Amethyst is the right ANT hate in a goblin sb.

[lordofthepit]

Is there a new primer available? This one is over 3 years old.

[Mantis]

This has been mentioned before, but if the ANT player keeps their Chants in, in fear of Trap, Im absolutely fine with that. If they are going to spend their efforts digging for Chant in fear of Trap then Trap more than I could have dreamed it to do; namely get me to turn 3 where I can beat them with Earwig Squad. The interaction of Squad with Instigator/Lackey and Trap is where its at kids.

[Wargoos]

This has been mentioned before, but if the ANT player keeps their Chants in, in fear of Trap, Im absolutely fine with that. If they are going to spend their efforts digging for Chant in fear of Trap then Trap more than I could have dreamed it to do; namely get me to turn 3 where I can beat them with Earwig Squad. The interaction of Squad with Instigator/Lackey and Trap is where its at kids.

Works only when you actually play Earwig Squad in addition to trap.

I think trap is just good in a sideboard against ANT where you can pair it with other hate
I think this includes the Squad to a degree.

[Mantis]

Yes but with Lackey/Instigator you can put Matron into play and then cast Earwig Squad since I am not going to rely on naturally drawing into a 1-of.

[bakofried]

You could just pray for turn 1 Lackey, turn two swing, Warchief, Squad. Extremely rare, but fun.

[Pulp_Fiction]

Keep playing Pillar, only to watch your opponent IGG loop.

Being a combo playing I am telling you how to beat me, and the simple answer is don't waste your time. Whatever bullshit cards you play against a good combo player are worthless. Null Rod is the only thing that stops a good list. And if you play in a meta with lots of combo, I would advise you to not play Gobbos. Play Merfolk since that deck sucks against most everything else but combo.

It is really not even worth the slots, and if you keep running Mindbreak Trap, I will keep winning. Seriously, as a combo playing I build SBs that take Dragon Stompy and Stax as an autoloss since the matchups are that bad, but literally every other matchup can go my way. Null Rod is the best all around card you can have. Play Chalice and watch me win through it. Play Thorn, watch it killed or bounced then watch the combo. Rod is the only thing that STOPS the combo. Delay isn't good enough unless you have a double Piledriver draw.

[Endril]

Keep playing Pillar, only to watch your opponent IGG loop.

Being a combo playing I am telling you how to beat me, and the simple answer is don't waste your time. Whatever bullshit cards you play against a good combo player are worthless. Null Rod is the only thing that stops a good list. And if you play in a meta with lots of combo, I would advise you to not play Gobbos. Play Merfolk since that deck sucks against most everything else but combo.

It is really not even worth the slots, and if you keep running Mindbreak Trap, I will keep winning. Seriously, as a combo playing I build SBs that take Dragon Stompy and Stax as an autoloss since the matchups are that bad, but literally every other matchup can go my way. Null Rod is the best all around card you can have. Play Chalice and watch me win through it. Play Thorn, watch it killed or bounced then watch the combo. Rod is the only thing that STOPS the combo. Delay isn't good enough unless you have a double Piledriver draw.

-You have yet to tell me what artifact in ad naus tendrils is stopped by null rod but not a chalice for 0.
-You also haven't explained why the combo player can bounce/kill a thorn but not a null rod

Null Rod is horrible vs tendrils. I'd try discard.

[denial]

You could just pray for turn 1 Lackey, turn two swing, Warchief, Squad. Extremely rare, but fun.

What ? What good is that ? That doesnt even make any sense.

[Pulp_Fiction]

-You have yet to tell me what artifact in ad naus tendrils is stopped by null rod but not a chalice for 0.
-You also haven't explained why the combo player can bounce/kill a thorn but not a null rod

Null Rod is horrible vs tendrils. I'd try discard.

LOL, this makes me laugh, its this mentality thats keeps competent combo players winning. Top isn't stopped by Chalice at 0. Neither are any of my cantrips, MT or rituals.

I forgot why I stopped posting on these boards for a while but you just reminded me, welcome to my ignore list :) I'm not going to justify why Null Rod is worse, this debate has been had numerous times on combo threads. You can bounce Rod and Thorn. ROD TURNS OFF TOP. Which is huge. Also, if I stumble on mana I can't use Moxen and Petals to stabilize and keep digging for my combo. But don't take my advice on it, keep playing Mindbreak Trap and Chalice, they work so well.

[Endril]

LOL, this makes me laugh, its this mentality thats keeps competent combo players winning. Top isn't stopped by Chalice at 0. Neither are any of my cantrips, MT or rituals.

I forgot why I stopped posting on these boards for a while but you just reminded me, welcome to my ignore list :) I'm not going to justify why Null Rod is worse, this debate has been had numerous times on combo threads. You can bounce Rod and Thorn. ROD TURNS OFF TOP. Which is huge. Also, if I stumble on mana I can't use Moxen and Petals to stabilize and keep digging for my combo. But don't take my advice on it, keep playing Mindbreak Trap and Chalice, they work so well.

Someone doesn't agree with you so you try to make yourself look correct by threatening to ignore them? Way to improve your game there, bud.

I don't even know what your decklist is, but from the sound of it, it's not one I'm likely to run into. I'm not going to run null rods just so I can have a good game against a deck that I'm not likely to run into unless I'm 0 and 2. I'm trying to gear up against tendrils decks that actually win. Because goblins have been posting wins against ad nauseam about 50% of the time in the 6 SCG opens, I'd like my win % against ad nauseam to be that high too. If I ignore combo like you're suggesting, I'm likely to run into about 1 MU against A.N. tendrils since it makes up about 5% of the field, and my chances of winning might fall from say, 50% to 35-40%.

And the tendrils players I run into can combo off on turn 2, so null rod might not even hit the board if they're on the play, while chalice will. You drop it for 0 and they can't play lotus petal, lion's eye diamond, or chrome mox. Sure, Null Rod hits SDT, but you've just given them 2 turns to beat you before you even lay it down. And I'm not as worried about SDT as I am them having mana to resolve Ad Nauseam, or having the blue mana they might need to pull out tendrils after nauseam resolves.

And the version of tendrils I test against doesn't run cantrips. And Null Rod doesn't stop mystical tutor. Or rituals. So I'm not sure why you brought that up.

And I don't run mindbreak or chalice. I was running chalice, and it did slow Ad Nauseam down because they had to bounce it, but I decided discard is a more effective answer. If I pull out the only card you have to find you an ad nauseam, you're in top deck mode, and I might be able to win before you draw into the piece you need.

[daPaule]

What ? What good is that ? That doesnt even make any sense.

Turn 1 Land -> Lackey
Turn 2 R/B Land / Fetch for R/B; Lackey in Warchief, thus reducing the prowl cost by one, therefore be able to prowl in Earwig.

But yeah, most of the time you need to Matron first to get earwig, resulting in the combo player finishing you on his 2nd turn.

So i would say optimal play vs ANT:
T1 Lackey,
T2 Thorn, Lackey into Matron for Earwig and hope that he can't solve the Thorn AND combo in his turn.

Nevertheless this play isn't the i-win button it might look like. I had an ANT player earwiged before just finding out he had Tendrils and *insert win enabler* in hand.



I don't even know what your decklist is, but from the sound of it, it's not one I'm likely to run into. I'm not going to run null rods just so I can have a good game against a deck that I'm not likely to run into unless I'm 0 and 2. I'm trying to gear up against tendrils decks that actually win.

Referring to:


ROD TURNS OFF TOP. Which is huge. Also, if I stumble on mana I can't use Moxen and Petals to stabilize and keep digging for my combo.

He's playing something extremely bad for the rest of the field in form of DDANT. I don't think it's suboptimal, instead i would say this is even superior to the normal ANT lists IF the player knows what he's doing.
Afterall i don't see alot of DDANT finishing that great in the hand of *random* guys, no insult intended here, but people who are established storm combo players love DDANT for what it's capable of doing: fighting through hate like no other deck out there.

Anyhow, if you're facing alot of combo in your meta goblins is the wrong deck.
BUT if you're just afraid to run into the 1-4% percent and your matchup against the rest is good, then i guess you CAN improve your matchup, by dedicating at least 4 cards to it, or you just take it like a man and ignore it, improving the 50-50 matchups.


Unfortunately nobody could tell me HOW to do this. Can someone please tell me? I can imagine that IGG is important but I dont know how this invincible turn should look like :D

This is heavily depending on the ANT list you're facing.
If it's with white expect angels grace to deal with pillar, then he's free to go, although these variants aren't very common anymore.

[GoboLord]

Keep playing Pillar, only to watch your opponent IGG loop.

Thats the answer I always get. It is POSSIBLE but not very LIKELY to get killed by IGG loop.
For real: how much damage do you take before you find the right cards to loop? Lets assume I fetched twice in until turn 2, then dropped Pillar. So I'm on 18. You need 8 spells + Tendrills to kill me. One of these 8 spells is IGG. That means you took at least 14 damage.

How likely is it that you can go off via IGG (not being prepared for Pillar)?

//EDIT: Angels Grace has a point, thanks daPaule!

[Nidd]

Someone doesn't agree with you so you try to make yourself look correct by threatening to ignore them? Way to improve your game there, bud.

I don't even know what your decklist is, but from the sound of it, it's not one I'm likely to run into. I'm not going to run null rods just so I can have a good game against a deck that I'm not likely to run into unless I'm 0 and 2. I'm trying to gear up against tendrils decks that actually win. Because goblins have been posting wins against ad nauseam about 50% of the time in the 6 SCG opens, I'd like my win % against ad nauseam to be that high too. If I ignore combo like you're suggesting, I'm likely to run into about 1 MU against A.N. tendrils since it makes up about 5% of the field, and my chances of winning might fall from say, 50% to 35-40%.

And the tendrils players I run into can combo off on turn 2, so null rod might not even hit the board if they're on the play, while chalice will. You drop it for 0 and they can't play lotus petal, lion's eye diamond, or chrome mox. Sure, Null Rod hits SDT, but you've just given them 2 turns to beat you before you even lay it down. And I'm not as worried about SDT as I am them having mana to resolve Ad Nauseam, or having the blue mana they might need to pull out tendrils after nauseam resolves.

And the version of tendrils I test against doesn't run cantrips. And Null Rod doesn't stop mystical tutor. Or rituals. So I'm not sure why you brought that up.

And I don't run mindbreak or chalice. I was running chalice, and it did slow Ad Nauseam down because they had to bounce it, but I decided discard is a more effective answer. If I pull out the only card you have to find you an ad nauseam, you're in top deck mode, and I might be able to win before you draw into the piece you need.
Wow, ignorant much?

He runs, from what I know, DDANT, which will play right through CotV like nobodies business but has problems against Null Rod.

Oh wow, the deck can combo off T2. Guess what, DDANT can do that, too.

And honestly, if the ANT decks you play against don't run cantrips, they seem to be freaking bad. I mean, I can understand when people don't play the full playset Ponder, but 0 Brainstorm? Best be joking.

Seriously, you're dismissing the point one of the most experienced, regular posters on this forum who actually plays ANT and just say he writes bullshit and his version is bad? Great way to get help from Storm pilots.


On topic: CotV is only half as effective against DDANT. Against ANT, it's a legitimate strategy, but against DDANT, which is regarded superior by many good storm pilots on this forum, it's worse than Null Rod.

[daPaule]

Thats the answer I always get. It is POSSIBLE but not very LIKELY to get killed by IGG loop.
For real: how much damage do you take before you find the right cards to loop? Lets assume I fetched twice in until turn 2, then dropped Pillar. So I'm on 18. You need 8 spells + Tendrills to kill me. One of these 8 spells is IGG. That means you took at least 14 damage.

How likely is it that you can go off via IGG (not being prepared for Pillar)?


Assuming ANT player is on 17 -> 2nd turn for him, everything else is even more unlikely. So he has 2 lands in GY + any of BS, Ponder, Mystical making it 3 Grave cards, 6 cards in hand after playing his 2nd fetchland.

Ritual, Cabal Ritual, LED, Petal, Tutor -> 7 life, 6xb + 2nd land, getting IGG.
Making it 8 GY cards. Casting IGG -> Ritual, LED, tutor; 2b + land left
Casting Ritual, LED, saccing it response to tutor for tendrils; 1 life 7xb left + tendrils in hand @ 1life punishing us for 20.

And unless you are playing a version with lightning bolt it is not possible for us to have him below 17 at his 2nd turn.
Also in this scenario I ignored the 6th card in hand and still stormed to 10 with Cabal Ritual not getting threshed.

OK worst scenario:
We started with lackey go, 2nd turn we play Pillar, lackey in Siege Gang (ANT: 19life). He can't go off on his 2nd turn.
Hardcast chieftain (Goblin, never fetched and stuff: 18). Attack -> Lackey, 3x Token, Chieftain, SGC taking ANT to: 6.

THIS makes it alot harder ;-)
ANT also fetched once, played again one Ponder/BS/Mystical taking him to 5.
3 lands in play, 2 cards in grave again isn't enough to thresh cabal.
His play is: DR, CR (1life), Tendrils (taking us to 12 and him to 7); DR (i can't find a way with petal right now :D), LED, Tutor, for 2nd tendrils;
Finishing us again on 1 life with one storm above needed, also 6 cards used on his turn 3.

So it's not that it is impossible. Pillar just shuts down a win through doomsday and ad nauseam.

And i'm not a combo player @legacy, i guess there's also an easier way through igg.

I've seen combo players @tourney who can't figure out basic DD piles or IGG configurations. Therefore blaming the deck while having the win in hand!
Such people will will get a serious headache from pillar.

But as you can see: IF you have some1 who is able to figure it out, no hate will really stop him.





can we all just calm down :(

[GoboLord]

Wow, ignorant much?[...]

Seriously, you're dismissing the point one of the most experienced, regular posters on this forum who actually plays ANT and just say he writes bullshit and his version is bad? Great way to get help from Storm pilots.

He's not ignorant but CRITICAL against someone who tries to undermine his statements with the good, old "believe-me-cause-I'm-right"-reasoning.
Nobody wants to get any help, we are just discussing things.

@ TOPIC:

I think we should leave at the point that we still have different oppinions on combo hate (ranging from 0 to 8 solts that can be filled with

Mindbreak Trap
Thorn of Amethyst
Chalice of the Void
Null Rod
Pyrostatic Pillar
Earwig Squad
Discard

depending on how good/bad the player is, which list he runs and how many combo deck we expect to face.

In the end have no "one and only" solution but discussed advantages and disadvantages of differnt combination of cards.

Agreed?

[Nidd]

He's not ignorant but CRITICAL against someone who tries to undermine his statements with the good, old "believe-me-cause-I'm-right"-reasoning.
Nobody wants to get any help, we are just discussing things.

@ TOPIC:

I think we should leave at the point that we still have different oppinions on combo hate (ranging from 0 to 8 solts that can be filled with

Mindbreak Trap
Chalice of the Void
Null Rod
Pyrostatic Pillar
Earwig Squad
Discard

depending on how good/bad the player is, which list he runs and how many combo deck we expect to face.

In the end have no "one and only" solution but discussed advantages and disadvantages of differnt combination of cards.

Agreed?

I don't even know what your decklist is, but from the sound of it, it's not one I'm likely to run into. I'm not going to run null rods just so I can have a good game against a deck that I'm not likely to run into unless I'm 0 and 2. I'm trying to gear up against tendrils decks that actually win
That sounds pretty ignorant to me.


In my eyes, Storm Hate should be judged by the amount of relevant cards it can hit. CotV hits a ton of them, but can be played around by developed versions, streamlined ones still can luck out, but it makes it hard enough for them.
Now you have to see whether you still want to have a shot against the developed versions. 1 plan is Null Rod, which is relevant, because DDANT tends to be slower than ANT.
The best bet against developed versions is to go for the "disruption backed up with serious beatings" plan. Remember, DDANT can still win at 2 life, disruption is somewhat more important here than applying pressure fast enough, the combo deck will be faster than you if you don't hinder his gameplan enough to make your green men go the way.

In my opinion, CotV + Discard accomplishes this best, but don't expect to have a MU as good as against ANT when facing DDANT with these SB options.

[Cyrus]

Mindbreak Trap
Chalice of the Void
Null Rod
Pyrostatic Pillar
Earwig Squad
Discard

Why not Thorn too? Pretty good against stuff that isn't combo like Tempo Thresh or the like; costs as much mana as Rod or Pillar, but doesn't stop our vials or burn ourselves down (besides, people can combo around pillar easily).

[nightmaster]

I have a question about artifact hate. How important is it to have a one-of tutor option maindeck (Tinkerer, Scrapper, etc.)? It seems that there are lots times where it would be useless and there are times where it seems like it could pull you out of a tight spot. Is it a personal call? A meta call? Or is it something that you shouldn't worry about maindeck and if you do need it sideboard it?

[Endril]

@Nidd: What's so ignorant about paying more attention to the ANT deck that's top 8'ing at SCG opens and makes up about 5% of the field? That's the one I want to have good SB against. The only doomsday deck I'm seeing that was played in the opens was played once and finished with 6 points. If I can win a couple rounds, ANT is likely to be the only tendrils deck I run into. And the top 8 decklists are all pretty much identical to each other. Some run orim's chant or silence, while some run thoughtseize. That's pretty much the only difference. I want to hear a good argument as to why Null Rod is the best answer to THAT deck.

The only argument null rod supporters have vs chalice is SDT. Are we really suggesting that you stop an ANT deck by shutting down the top?

And I feel like I'm wasting my time trying to compare chalice vs null rod anyway, since I'm not playing either. I think I'm just trying to help everyone else out by pointing out how horrible it is to play a 2 drop when you could be playing a 0 drop against a fast combo deck. That's such a relevant point that keeps getting overlooked in this discussion.

But I'm running 3 thoughtseize and 2 duress as my anti-combo package, which is also helpful against other decks. Why would I run null rod over those cards?

[Nelis]

I have a question about artifact hate. How important is it to have a one-of tutor option maindeck (Tinkerer, Scrapper, etc.)? It seems that there are lots times where it would be useless and there are times where it seems like it could pull you out of a tight spot. Is it a personal call? A meta call? Or is it something that you shouldn't worry about maindeck and if you do need it sideboard it?

You dont necessarily need artifact hate in the main I think. The only artifact Im 'afraid' of is Jitte. I would put one (arti hate) in my SB.

[danielcrocker]

I have come to the conclusion after reading the last 2 pages that combo hate really is worthless lol, I think i'm just going to devote my board to decks where the hate is effective. I used to run a hate package of 3 traps and 4 chalice and even that wasn't enough against ANT a majority of the time.

So this is what my board looks like right now... I think it's a very flexible board:

1 Earwig squad
1 Faerie macabre
1 Tuktuk scrapper
2 Anarchy
3 Perish
3 Pyrokinesis
4 Leyline of the void

[Endril]

I've heard others comment that 3 pyrokinesis and 3 perish is overkill, and I might agree. If I wasn't running discard to battle combo (among other things), I'd probably be running blood moons. Maybe you could find room for 2-3 blood moons.

[Muradin]

The problem with mono red goblins is that ignoring storm combo is more or less not possible. In most matchups any non-goblin card is just worse than any goblin in your main deck. Statistically good ringleaders have proven to be way more effective to me than boarding in Thorn of Amethyst against blue decks or so. To tell the truth, Pyrokinesis sucks against zoo. In 15 postboard test games I have only once have the opportunity to kill 3 creatures with it and I already lost about 3 of those games because my Ringleaders had 2 Pyrokinesis in them. Sideboard options like Perish are indeed definitely good enough to board in against zoo and to dilute your ringleaders but if you go mono red which is definitely not for budget constraints in my case but the deck is simply stronger in my given metagame.

So far my board has been:

4 Blood Moon (Imo 4 are needed to reliably get one, those are for Lands and other decks that scoop to it)
4 Pyrostatic Pillar (Storm combo only, this will make them go the Ill-Gotten gains route or kill them if they only play Ad Nauseam)
4 Fairy Macabre (When storm combo takes the IGG route and they might even chant you before you crush them, besides kills Ichorid, Reanimator, Lands, Loam, messes up Cabal Ritual...is free and doesn't succumb to Duress or chant or bounce or Counters... even owns some Doomsday Piles including IGG)
1 Tuktuk Scrapper (he is indeed required and quite effective at what he does. My most boarded sideboard card, there to kill Jitte)
1 Goblin Sharpshooter (Merfolk, Elves, Goblins, Ichorid, NoGoyf, Moat)
1 Boartusk Liege (Firespout, Pyroclasm, Plague, your dudes feel too small? Awesome card)

In general I don't bring in any non-goblin cards for matchups where card advantage matters. Only really bad matchups get solved by the sideboard, some get ignored and the rest is more advantageous with my maindeck configuration featuring some effective silver bullets postboard.

The only change I am sometimes making is:
Faery <-> Relic and
Blood Moon <-> Shattering Spree

[Nelis]

4 Fairy Macabre (When storm combo takes the IGG route and they might even chant you before you crush them, besides kills Ichorid, Reanimator, Lands, Loam, messes up Cabal Ritual...is free and doesn't succumb to Duress or chant or bounce or Counters... even owns some Doomsday Piles including IGG)

Never screwed by discard (Thought Seize, Cabal Therapy)? I always mix my graveyard hate.

[Endril]

@Nelis - I think he means he can use it in response. But I'm pretty sure they would hit you with discard before the fairy had a good target, so mixing it up isn't a bad idea. He said he sometimes alternates between fairy and relic though.

@Muradin - I like that board, except that pyrokinesis is strong against every deck sharpshooter is, in addition to zoo. For me, it usually hits 2 creatures, which I think is worth it. I'm really concerned because zoo is our worst match up (other than a few random rogue decks or belcher), so I have to have something to answer it. Does monored perform better against zoo than red/black? I've only tested that matchup once, and zoo smoked me. The chieftains didn't stay on the table, and they wouldn't have been enough to stop tarmogoyfs anyway. I'm guessing monored tries to outrace them with chieftain and war marshal, but I still feel more comfortable splashing black and running more removal.

[Nelis]

@Muradin - I like that board, except that pyrokinesis is strong against every deck sharpshooter is, in addition to zoo. For me, it usually hits 2 creatures, which I think is worth it. I'm really concerned because zoo is our worst match up (other than a few random rogue decks or belcher), so I have to have something to answer it. Does monored perform better against zoo than red/black? I've only tested that matchup once, and zoo smoked me. The chieftains didn't stay on the table, and they wouldn't have been enough to stop tarmogoyfs anyway. I'm guessing monored tries to outrace them with chieftain and war marshal, but I still feel more comfortable splashing black and running more removal.

My experience with mono red is that you do not try to outrace Zoo. You want to hold out till midgame, blocking some, removing some (blocking and cycling for damage works). And then swarm them. War Marshal really helps in the match up since Zoo wants do do damage with creatures. So they either have to burn away marshal or attack through it. So it either costs them a lot of recources or a lot of less damage.

I never tried running Blood Moon though. I think it might help even more especially when on the play. If you combine it with Rishadan Port it should work. Port allows you to keep them off one color first and mana in general, so you wont get beat up quickly. Then Blood Moon them.

In the worst case they were able to get both a plains and a forest in play for Pridemage. For them to get rid of Blood Moon costs them a full turn, playing and activating pridemage. Besides if they have to fetch basics it slows them down considerably and they also cant really afford to fetch non-basics because of Wasteland. And there's vial too as a target. So if they get rid of your blood moon you still have vial to keep up.

And the good thing is also that they might not expect Blood moon game 2 anyway. And zoo is tight on mana, I dont think they are quick to trow away a good hand with a fetch and a non-basic ( I never did as far as I can remember). That's an opportunity for us as well.

[Endril]

You know, in my last MU vs zoo I remember thinking blood moon would be brutal because they have to have plains and forest already in play before it hits, or they won't likely have white or green for pretty much the rest of the game since they only run 1 of each. But most zoo players search for basics against you anyway because of wasteland, so I don't think it would shut them down. I still think removal is a better answer to zoo. Do you really feel goblins can hold out against zoo? Ever since they've started running sylvan library, I've felt like I need to get control of the board as soon as I can because if I just stay on the ropes, they'll hit card advantage on me.

[Nelis]

You know, in my last MU vs zoo I remember thinking blood moon would be brutal because they have to have plains and forest already in play before it hits, or they won't likely have white or green for pretty much the rest of the game since they only run 1 of each. But most zoo players search for basics against you anyway because of wasteland, so I don't think it would shut them down. I still think removal is a better answer to zoo. Do you really feel goblins can hold out against zoo? Ever since they've started running sylvan library, I've felt like I need to get control of the board as soon as I can because if I just stay on the ropes, they'll hit card advantage on me.

I havent come across zoo in a tournament setting but I have tested the matchup a bit and I have played a lot of Zoo myself and I know fetching basics slows the deck down. Against zoo it always either:

They fetch duals and you waste them.
or
They fetch basics and you port them.

You have removal in the form of Gempalm and Kynesis. Anyway I would have Kinesis in my sb. Im not quick to put in Lieges and sharpshooter. And I probably wouldn't put in stuff vs Storm Combo.

Sylvan Library is annoying but their card advantage costs them life, ours (ringleaer) doesn't. If you were able to keep them off bay (= not too low on life) their card advantage wouldn't help them that much. They cant afford to attack you all out because one piledriver could kill them in one attack. I consider Knight of the Reliquary the worst Zoo has to offer. I really think its possible to win from zoo but its still gonna be a hard matchup.

[Malchar]

Goblins has the luxury of being able to quickly become a control deck with features like waste, port, tutorable removal, and card advantage. Against decks like zoo and merfolk, goblins can win by playing the control game. In my experience, the only time that I really NEED a sideboard is against eplague and storm.

[GoboLord]

Goblins has the luxury of being able to quickly become a control deck with features like waste, port, tutorable removal, and card advantage. Against decks like zoo and merfolk, goblins can win by playing the control game. In my experience, the only time that I really NEED a sideboard is against eplague and storm.

I wouldnt agree on that. Bant (in all forms) is 50/50 and woth Sideboard options like Perish and REB its much easier to win.

Besides:
I can come up with some experience on Blood Moon! I own a Goblin and Zoo deck myself, so I tested a lot with friends.

I run RB and my personal conclusion about Blood Moon is, that its useless against Zoo.
As you said: they fetch on basics cause they dont wanna get wasted. With 8-10 Fetches in deck it isnt much of a problem to play around Blood Moon. Plus: your probably putting down Blood Moon in T3. That costs you a hole turn and doesnt even change the situation on board a bit. If they know what they are doing they try to put creatures first in T1-3, so they are most likely to have more burn than creature in hand when you play Blood Moon.
If you run Port + Wastes Blood Moon shuts down both parts of your mana-denial. I'd rather do some denial-action against their otherwise weak manabase than leaving them with only their most important color.

Well I have to admit that my testing was not as representative as it could be, cause not all my friends are killer Zoo-players, but at least could most of them handle Blood Moon in g3.

I'd rather run removal in board and try to beat zoo in mid- or even late game by just swarming them.

[lotriderm]

I actually have a pretty good matchup against zoo most of the time but that's because I'm running maindeck 3x Mogg War Marshal and 4x Gempalm Incinerators. With War Marshal, I can buy a lot of the time in the beginning and it helps me get to the late game. Also, with 3 Marshals, my Gempalms are hard removals that cantrip.

[(nameless one)]

I actually have a pretty good matchup against zoo most of the time but that's because I'm running maindeck 3x Mogg War Marshal and 4x Gempalm Incinerators. With War Marshal, I can buy a lot of the time in the beginning and it helps me get to the late game. Also, with 3 Marshals, my Gempalms are hard removals that cantrip.

Is your list mono-red or RB?

While we're at it, would you like to share your list?

[Nelis]

I actually have a pretty good matchup against zoo most of the time but that's because I'm running maindeck 3x Mogg War Marshal and 4x Gempalm Incinerators. With War Marshal, I can buy a lot of the time in the beginning and it helps me get to the late game. Also, with 3 Marshals, my Gempalms are hard removals that cantrip.

Thats my experience too (with monoR):

This is what I ran when playing MonoR

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg War Marshal
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Matron
4 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Chieftain
2 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
2 Siege-Gang Commander

//Artifacts
4 AEther Vial

//Lands
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
16 Mountain

[Endril]

@Nelis - I couldn't run a deck with less than 4 warchiefs, but that's the most solid mana base I've seen for goblins.

@Topic - My maindeck answer to zoo is my removal. I have 2 scg, 1 stingscourger, 1 sharpshooter, 3 lightning bolt, 3 gempalm, and 4 weirding. Then I have 3 pyrokinesis and 2 perish in the board. Sharpshooter has won me games, so I at least want it in the board. Stingscourger I'm still divided on, but I hear more people telling me to keep it in than take it out and I see the wisdom in it. I've been told to remove lightning bolts, but it's been a better fit for my MU's than the cards I would run it its place. Any more thoughts on those choices? I'm specifically wondering if it's worth taking out removal to run war marshal. I haven't considered it much before now because it doesn't actually take creatures off the board and there's other MU's where removal seems more important.

[danielcrocker]

@Nelis - I couldn't run a deck with less than 4 warchiefs, but that's the most solid mana base I've seen for goblins.

@Topic - My maindeck answer to zoo is my removal. I have 2 scg, 1 stingscourger, 1 sharpshooter, 3 lightning bolt, 3 gempalm, and 4 weirding. Then I have 3 pyrokinesis and 2 perish in the board. Sharpshooter has won me games, so I at least want it in the board. Stingscourger I'm still divided on, but I hear more people telling me to keep it in than take it out and I see the wisdom in it. I've been told to remove lightning bolts, but it's been a better fit for my MU's than the cards I would run it its place. Any more thoughts on those choices? I'm specifically wondering if it's worth taking out removal to run war marshal. I haven't considered it much before now because it doesn't actually take creatures off the board and there's other MU's where removal seems more important.

I also run r/b list with bolts and I love them. Zoo has been on the rise and with bolts in zoo doesn't scare Me what so ever. I play 3 bolts, 3 wierding, 1 stingscourger, 1 gempalm and I have been able to slow zoo enough too swarm turns 4 and up. As far as the stingscourger goes I feel that one should be played because it's "tutorable" and is good vialed in. As I stated earlier in the thread I play 3 perish and 3 pyrokinesis and some think that's it overkill but perish is amazing right now and I never board kinesis vs zoo because it's really not that good. Kinesis is there strictly for the mirror and merfolk.

[danielcrocker]

@Nelis - I couldn't run a deck with less than 4 warchiefs, but that's the most solid mana base I've seen for goblins.

@Topic - My maindeck answer to zoo is my removal. I have 2 scg, 1 stingscourger, 1 sharpshooter, 3 lightning bolt, 3 gempalm, and 4 weirding. Then I have 3 pyrokinesis and 2 perish in the board. Sharpshooter has won me games, so I at least want it in the board. Stingscourger I'm still divided on, but I hear more people telling me to keep it in than take it out and I see the wisdom in it. I've been told to remove lightning bolts, but it's been a better fit for my MU's than the cards I would run it its place. Any more thoughts on those choices? I'm specifically wondering if it's worth taking out removal to run war marshal. I haven't considered it much before now because it doesn't actually take creatures off the board and there's other MU's where removal seems more important.

I also run r/b list with bolts and I love them. Zoo has been on the rise and with bolts in zoo doesn't scare Me what so ever. I play 3 bolts, 3 wierding, 1 stingscourger, 1 gempalm and I have been able to slow zoo enough too swarm turns 4 and up. As far as the stingscourger goes I feel that one should be played because it's "tutorable" and is good vialed in. As I stated earlier in the thread I play 3 perish and 3 pyrokinesis and some think that's it overkill but perish is amazing right now and I never board kinesis vs zoo because it's really not that good. Kinesis is there strictly for the mirror and merfolk.

[markbris]

I also run r/b list with bolts and I love them. Zoo has been on the rise and with bolts in zoo doesn't scare Me what so ever. I play 3 bolts, 3 wierding, 1 stingscourger, 1 gempalm and I have been able to slow zoo enough too swarm turns 4 and up. As far as the stingscourger goes I feel that one should be played because it's "tutorable" and is good vialed in.


This is pretty much exactly my thoughts. I really dislike running more than one stingscourger, its great to be able to tutor it for those special situations but thats it imo. Bolts really help the zoo matchup, keeping the damage low in the beginning turns is key and bolt lets you stop all their turn one threats.

[Nelis]

@Nelis - I couldn't run a deck with less than 4 warchiefs, but that's the most solid mana base I've seen for goblins.

The idea behind running 2 Warchiefs and 4 Chieftains was that a turn 2 War Marshal is best followed by a turn 3 Chieftain. And I realized that Warchief wasn't really needed until midgame so that's why I went for that configuration. I didn't feel like cutting another goblin for a third Warchief. Maybe a 3/3 split between Warchief and Chieftain could work too.

Yeah, I don't feel like screwing around with the manabase by running less lands or strange cip lands. I don't want to be screwed by too little mountains.

[lotriderm]

Is your list mono-red or RB?

While we're at it, would you like to share your list?

4 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port
15 Mountain

4 AEther Vial

4 Goblin Lackey
3 Mogg War Marshal
3 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Matron
4 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Stingscourger
4 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Siege-Gang Commander

[(nameless one)]

4 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port
15 Mountain

4 AEther Vial

4 Goblin Lackey
3 Mogg War Marshal
3 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Matron
4 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Stingscourger
4 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Siege-Gang Commander

Do you side anything against Zoo with this build?

[Neuad]

Just got into legacy and looking to build a budget deck that I can upgrade easily

MAIN DECK

3 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
1 Goblin Pyromancer
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Lightning Crafter
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Skirk Prospector
2 Stingscourger
1 Wort, Boggart Auntie
Creatures [31]

4 AEther Vial
3 Warren Weirding
Spells [7]

17 Mountain
5 Swamp
Lands [22]


SIDEBOARD
2 Blood Moon
2 Perish
3 Pyrokinesis
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tormod's Crypt
5 ??

this a decent goblin deck? Would you drop the splash of black? Am I running too much mana?

I know I have no land destroy/duals/fetches, I might be able to barrow a couple for game day from friends but for now I'm planning my deck around not having them, and upgrading as I get the money.

[ScatmanX]

this a decent goblin deck? Would you drop the splash of black? Am I running too much mana?

I know I have no land destroy/duals/fetches, I might be able to barrow a couple for game day from friends but for now I'm planning my deck around not having them, and upgrading as I get the money.

The deck looks really good. Only the Skirk Prospector should definitely be cut, but I see the combo with kiki-crafter-prospector, so your call actually.

If you don't have fetches/duals, don't splash a color. Go monored. Thats just too risky. And try to get a hold on Wastelands first.

err...isn't Leave No Trace and Disenchant White?

[Exospaciac]

If you want to splash black, at least add Auntie's Hovel. You might, might be able to get away with 1 or 2 copies of Graven Cairns too, or you can add Sulfurous Springs.

My friend just built Rb Goblins without the Wastes/Ports and his manabase looks like:

4 Auntie's Hovel
1 Graven Cairns
3 Sulfurous Springs
1 Swamp
13 Mountain

[Neuad]

The deck looks really good. Only the Skirk Prospector should definitely be cut, but I see the combo with kiki-crafter-prospector, so your call actually.

If you don't have fetches/duals, don't splash a color. Go monored. Thats just too risky. And try to get a hold on Wastelands first.

err...isn't Leave No Trace and Disenchant White?

Sorry, copied part of the wrong SB. In the midst of piecing together a couple decks to show friends and see what they think.

I'll see what I can do about getting fetches/duals, I ran a R/G standard deck yesterday and was able to get 4 fetches and 3 Taigas to play during the tourney so. . . if I can't I might drop black.


If you want to splash black, at least add Auntie's Hovel. You might, might be able to get away with 1 or 2 copies of Graven Cairns too, or you can add Sulfurous Springs.

My friend just built Rb Goblins without the Wastes/Ports and his manabase looks like:

4 Auntie's Hovel
1 Graven Cairns
3 Sulfurous Springs
1 Swamp
13 Mountain

I actually like that mana base, Aunties, Graven, and Sulfurous are all fairly cheap. . .hell I even have 1 of the Sulfurous laying around. Thanks alot <3

[SpoCk0nd0pe]

To the sb discussion against combo:

I would always run 4 chalice against combo simply because it can be dropped for 0. If I do not waste my turn 2 drop, I can win turn 3, reliably on turn 4. I would run thorn+chalice over nullrod because they do nasty against other decks as well while the nullrod shuts off my vials.

Against zoo:

I decided that zoo is an utterly lost mu. Someone over at the zoo thread said if you run into your second land until turn 12, you win for sure and I found it to be true.
My list currently does not run port though, in my experience (I did not test it very much tbh) it has been win more. You cannot shut off zoo removal or most creature drops from zoo+you cannot get creatures in yourself. It does not hurt reanimator, combo or dredge. The only mu where I found it really helpful is enchantress.

Warren Instigator has proven extremely strong for me. I wonder why so few lists run it, I think it's by far the best turn 2 drop. It won many games for me, if he is not handled he warps in matron+sgc or ringleader+something else nasty.

My side currently looks like this:
SB: 3 [LRW] Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 1 [MI] Goblin Tinkerer
SB: 4 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 3 [SHM] Faerie Macabre

[lotriderm]

@ (nameless one)

No, I usually don't bring in any cards against Zoo. Unless they have a really good draw and I keep a pretty mediocre hand, I don't lose to Zoo that often.

[ddt15]

To the sb discussion against combo:
Against zoo:

I decided that zoo is an utterly lost mu. Someone over at the zoo thread said if you run into your second land until turn 12, you win for sure and I found it to be true.
My list currently does not run port though, in my experience (I did not test it very much tbh) it has been win more. You cannot shut off zoo removal or most creature drops from zoo+you cannot get creatures in yourself. It does not hurt reanimator, combo or dredge. The only mu where I found it really helpful is enchantress.

Warren Instigator has proven extremely strong for me. I wonder why so few lists run it, I think it's by far the best turn 2 drop. It won many games for me, if he is not handled he warps in matron+sgc or ringleader+something else nasty.

My side currently looks like this:
SB: 3 [LRW] Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 1 [MI] Goblin Tinkerer
SB: 4 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 3 [SHM] Faerie Macabre

Why exactly is Zoo a lost matchup? From my experience it is at least 50/50, maybe even in favor of Goblins if you pack some extra removal. Wasteland+Pyrokinesis (or any other removal) can be a one-sided wrath of god. And essentially all you have to do is stay alive turns 1-3 then play out some Ringleaders to overwhelm them.
Your sideboard has too many GY hate. Run some Pyrokinesis or Perish.

The only truly terrible matchup is Tendrils imo. You have to get lucky with a hate piece and a really fast clock or even luckier when they beat themselves. Usually I am always 1 turn short to kill them before they combo me out.


Here is what I will run next tournament:

Maindeck:

Artifacts
4 Aether Vial

Creatures
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
2 Mogg Fanatic
2 Goblin Chieftain
2 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Warren Instigator
2 Siege-gang Commander
1 Stingscourger

Tribal Sorcerys
3 Warren Weirding

Basic Lands
7 Mountain
1 Swamp

Lands
2 Auntie's Hovel
4 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:
3 Perish
3 Pyrokinesis
1 Boartusk Liege
4 Leyline Of The Void
4 Thorn of Amethyst

Expected matchups, from most likely to least likely to face:
Zoo
Reanimator
ANT
Goblins & Fish
Bant decks of all sorts
UWx Control (CBTop, Planeswalkers, Standstill)
Black decks of all sorts /w engineered plague
Loam decks of all sorts
Dredge

[(nameless one)]

@ (nameless one)

No, I usually don't bring in any cards against Zoo. Unless they have a really good draw and I keep a pretty mediocre hand, I don't lose to Zoo that often.

Its funny because we almost have an identical list (Instigators for War Marshalls and a single Incinerator for Commander). There has been a rise of Zoo in my meta (5/20) from the past tournament here. I should try using War Marshalls again in favour against Instigator)

[Moosedog]

Why exactly is Zoo a lost matchup?



Its not exactlly lost but.....

http://deckbox.org/mtg/jitte
http://deckbox.org/mtg/tarmogoyf

And if their smart they fetch basics.

[bakofried]

I don't know, from the few games I've played all you need to do is start up the Ringleader+Matron Engine and you'll be fine.

[Mystical_Jackass]

Ember Hauler
Creature - Goblin
:1:, Sacrifice Ember Hauler: Ember Hauler deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
Flurk's crude Goblin language didn't differentiate between "I bring the flame" and "I am the flame".
2/2
Any potential? Reusable shock not terrible

[lotriderm]

Its funny because we almost have an identical list (Instigators for War Marshalls and a single Incinerator for Commander). There has been a rise of Zoo in my meta (5/20) from the past tournament here. I should try using War Marshalls again in favour against Instigator)

Since I don't run Instigators, I decreased my "bombs", so I trimmed the Siege-Gang to 1. With 4 Chieftains, War Marshalls become more of a threat too.

[jin]

Try blocking with mogg war marshal and then dropping ringleaders and matrons. Their removal all fly at lackey and chiefs and their PtE power out your ringleaders. In time, you'll just swarm the cats with your little green men.



To the sb discussion against combo:

I would always run 4 chalice against combo simply because it can be dropped for 0. If I do not waste my turn 2 drop, I can win turn 3, reliably on turn 4. I would run thorn+chalice over nullrod because they do nasty against other decks as well while the nullrod shuts off my vials.

Against zoo:

I decided that zoo is an utterly lost mu. Someone over at the zoo thread said if you run into your second land until turn 12, you win for sure and I found it to be true.
My list currently does not run port though, in my experience (I did not test it very much tbh) it has been win more. You cannot shut off zoo removal or most creature drops from zoo+you cannot get creatures in yourself. It does not hurt reanimator, combo or dredge. The only mu where I found it really helpful is enchantress.

Warren Instigator has proven extremely strong for me. I wonder why so few lists run it, I think it's by far the best turn 2 drop. It won many games for me, if he is not handled he warps in matron+sgc or ringleader+something else nasty.

My side currently looks like this:
SB: 3 [LRW] Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 1 [MI] Goblin Tinkerer
SB: 4 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 3 [SHM] Faerie Macabre

[Justin]

Ember Hauler
Creature - Goblin
:1:, Sacrifice Ember Hauler: Ember Hauler deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
Flurk's crude Goblin language didn't differentiate between "I bring the flame" and "I am the flame".
2/2
Any potential? Reusable shock not terrible

No potential. If combat damage still used the stack, he might be worth a look. Under M10 rules, this guy doesn't cut it.

[ScatmanX]

Also, now goblins already have enough good creatures in the 2cc slot.
And I don't see what kind of role Ember Hauler would be playing in the deck.

[Patrick]

No potential. If combat damage still used the stack, he might be worth a look. Under M10 rules, this guy doesn't cut it.

Assuming this guy costs 1R, he's fringe playable. He can shoot utility creatures, but more importantly he can shoot players over a Moat, and is Swords-proof. That being said, Gempalm Incinerator is just better.

[Malchar]

The reason that everyone is obsessed with beating zoo is because zoo is the deck that everyone wishes goblins was. Super powerful creatures for cheap, a reasonable amount of versatility, and a burn finisher. Since it's so consistent, it has reasonable matchups against combo, and you don't feel bad sideboarding in a ton of cards that aren't goblins so that you can properly deal with the meta.

[Neuad]

After playing the 2 decks I was arguing about back and forth, Elfball (elven combo) and vial gobbies. . .I think I'm going to build this deck over elfball as its just too inconsistant.

Here is the decklist I have right now

1 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin Chieftain
1 Goblin King
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
1 Goblin Pyromancer
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Lightning Crafter
1 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Stingscourger
1 Warren Instigator
1 Wort, Boggart Auntie
Creatures [31]


4 AEther Vial
3 Warren Weirding
Spells [7]

4 Auntie's Hovel
1 Graven Cairns
13 Mountain
3 Sulfurous Springs
1 Swamp
Lands [22]


SIDEBOARD
1 Boartusk Liege
3 Perish
3 Pyrokinesis
2 Relic of Progenitus
4 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Tormod's Crypt

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=608416

The only tenative changes I have planned are 4 duals and fetches during tourneys if I can snag them from my friends. . .if I get them I'll

-4 Aunties Hovel
+4 Badlands
-1 Graven Cairns
-3 Sulfurous Springs
+4 Bloodstained Mire

Anything else you guys would recommend?

Edit - Added a King and Chieftain, removed 2 Gempalms. . .

[Tacosnape]

I would recommend playing less bad goblins. No King, No Crafter, No Kiki, No Pyromancer, and no Wort. Then replace them with a Siege-Gang, a Gempalm, 2 Instigators, and a 4th Weirding. You'll be amazed at how much better your deck runs.

[Neuad]

I would recommend playing less bad goblins. No King, No Crafter, No Kiki, No Pyromancer, and no Wort. Then replace them with a Siege-Gang, a Gempalm, 2 Instigators, and a 4th Weirding. You'll be amazed at how much better your deck runs.

Crafter wasn't all that thrilling to me until my friend pointed this out about Crafter.

Play Crafter, champion a ringleader or a matron. If you have a warchief out, tap crafter and nuke itself.

Ringleader, matron, whatever go back into play and you can sort through the top four, find a card etc etc blahblah.

That isn't useful? Or just too situational?


About Pyromancer, wasn't that thrilled with it I'll be honest.

Wort I kind of like, but I could see removing for another Instigator.

Kiki also had some nice deals with clone a piledriver for another wtfpwn etc but I will keep in mind.

I'm going to go
-1 Pyro
-1 Wort
+1 Instigator
+1 Weirding

for now, but since I'm just using proxies currently I'll play around with removing

-1 Crafter
-1 Kiki
+1 Siege
+1 Gempalm

[ScatmanX]

Crafter and Pyromancer weren't all that thrilling to me until my friend pointed this out about Crafter.

Play Crafter, champion a ringleader or a matron. If you have a warchief out, tap crafter and nuke itself.

Ringleader, matron, whatever go back into play and you can sort through the top four, find a card etc etc blahblah.

That isn't useless? Or just too situational?

It is too situational. It oonly really shines against Merfolk, but the deal is, it does not complement the deck with anything it don't have already. It does not make it more consistent, faster... It can also be dead if 0 goblins in play, or 2 for 1ed if you play with only 1 goblin in play.
I have played with it MD, and he should be considered. The same is not true about King, Kiki or Pyromancer. Those should definitely be replaced.

Edit: Also, something I learned: Goblin toolbox (lots of 1-offs) is bad. Don't do it. I have only 2 goblins that are 1-offs in my list (Earwig Squad and Stingscourer), since they are really stealer is some MU's but really lackluster in others, so you don't want to see many of those.

[Neuad]

So king is out, but chieftain is good? They are essentially the same card. . .?

So with the advice in the past 2 posts, here is my edited list.

MAIN DECK

2 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Stingscourger
1 Earwig Squad
2 Warren Instigator
Creatures [30]

4 AEther Vial
4 Warren Weirding
Spells [8]


4 Auntie's Hovel
1 Graven Cairns
13 Mountain
3 Sulfurous Springs
1 Swamp
Lands [22]


SIDEBOARD
1 Boartusk Liege
3 Perish
3 Pyrokinesis
2 Relic of Progenitus
4 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Tormod's Crypt
Sideboard [15]

The one other thing I'm still worried about is that Boartusk Liege. My friend agreed with the rest of my SB to suit our metagame (and the game in general) but that one just doesn't seem to fit. . .

And also talking to him it looks like I will be able to snag 4 Badlands and 4 Bloodstained Mires for tournement play so that will help alot


Edit - Looking at Earwig Squad. . .I really like it. . .would playing 1 of's Earwig and Stingscourger like ScatManX be a bad idea? Or a pretty viable plan?

[daPaule]

So king is out, but chieftain is good? They are essentially the same card. . .?

The one other thing I'm still worried about is that Boartusk Liege. My friend agreed with the rest of my SB to suit our metagame (and the game in general) but that one just doesn't seem to fit. . .

Edit - Looking at Earwig Squad. . .I really like it. . .would playing 1 of's Earwig and Stingscourger like ScatManX be a bad idea? Or a pretty viable plan?

No offense but you really should read some of the last 5 pages or so.. at least.

Chieftain, in contrast to king, gives haste, most important stuff your lords can do and also only pushes YOUR goblins.

Boartusk liege is there just in case there is a 2nd engineered plague dropped. It will survive 2 and will enable your chieftains to stick again, therefore you are back in business from there on.

The 1of on Scourger and Earwig: Earwig is good vs some decks, like mentioned before. For example vs combo and decks with random jitte or progenitus. You usually don't wont to see him besides those matchups, therefore max 2 MD.

Scourger as a 1of isn't fixed like that. Scourger is another removal, you have 4 weirding, 2 Incinerator and 1 stingscourger.
Each of the removal pieces is better in a specific situation. Stingscourger for example if you have vial @2 and the enemy has more than one creature with you not having enough goblins to incinerate the iona. There are lists who play more scourgers, less weirdings and so on. This is personal choice.

Regarding the sideboard: especially on the combo hate there was a lot of discussion on the last 2 pages. From my point of view your sideboard looks fine.
I personally play something very similiar but with REBs, anarchy and bloodmoon instead of the combo hate and boartusk. Perish is something like the most boarded card by me.

[Neuad]

I've been meaning to read the thread, but everytime I get a few minutes to sit and start reading something comes up, so as I run around I think of questions and ask them before starting to read, so sorry I'm sure this same subject has been argued over the past 119 pages. . .but I don't plan on arguing. . .especially since your logic is perfectly sound and things I didn't catch.

Thanks for all the info, I think I'm going to stick with the build I posted up above in

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?5557-[DTW]-Vial-Goblins&p=462504&viewfull=1#post462504

Thanks again <3