[DTB] Vial Goblins

[chokin]

I do consider Goyf and Red Burn to be very bad matchups for goblins. I have won those matchups before, but you have to get extremely lucky. Since I have 4 chalice and 3 therapy in my board, these are 2 matchups where I bring them in against since all there spells cost either 1 or 2 mana to cast.

I believe Red Threshold is the hardest version to beat, but game 1 is 50/50 with games 2 & 3 to be about 40/60. If I see white threshold its not that hard to beat, I would give it a 60/40 overall match ratio for goblins.

The threshold matchup is very dependent on the pilot of the deck because there are so many critical decisions that must be made against you.

Current Board:

4 Chalice of the Void
3 Pyrokinesis
3 Krosan Grip
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Engineered Explosives

Chalice would greatly improve the Burn/Sligh matchup. Didn't think about it. Thanks :) It's still a nightmare match though.

Even when that Thresh player boards in Clasms and REB/Pyroblasts, he is an idiot and puts Chill in there too. I easily beat him because I never overload my side of the board and his Geese die to Clasm too since I run Leyline. Goyf is usually a 3/4 or 4/5, so 3 Gobs, a Gempalm and that Clasm damage kill the Goyf. I don't think I've lost a match to him, just random games, and if there's a Fanatic, it gets even better. I definitely am a better Magic player than this Threshnub. Even with his board having about 9 cards geared to beating me, he loses. I just stick in Leylines and Grips(soon to add a Shusher).

[Malchar]

Mad Auntie is a fucking god awful answer to Engineered Plague/Pyroclasm. One Engineered Plague doesn't really bother me. It's easy enough to play through. Engineered Plague number two, however, basically causes you to scoop it up. Guess what? Mad Auntie does shit against multiple Plagues, and still dies to Pyroclasm.

After reading this post, I remembered why Mad Auntie wasn't in my deck to begin with. I had already considered all of this when Lorwyn was being previewed, and decided against it. It's good though, because I already have some trouble fitting everything into my sideboard. I think that Krosan Grip is the answer to plague. Not completely perfect, but definately the best. It occasionally works on deed, and it is uncounterable. Enough said.

As far as preemptive proteciton goes, it rarely matters. 90% of the time, I couldn't care less if all my 1/1's die when plague hits. And 50% of the time, it comes in off a dark ritual on turn 1 because I'm playing against a janky deck that I'll beat anyways. I don't see eplague as a huge threat anymore considering that black thresh/landstill has enough problems against goblins already. Any other black deck that bothers to use eplague couldn't be on the same tier as goblins anyway.

I know that all of these cards have been mulled over and discussed many times, but I'll put my opinions up as I work with my deck in case it helps anyone else. As for my decklist, I didn't want to give everything away at once. I think I said that I was planning to get rid of either kiki or wort, though, and I've decided that I really dont need kiki at all. I think I explained this a bit more in my last post or something.

My current list is looking great with 3x Siege-Gang Commander, 4x Warren Weirding. Problem is that I really want to experiment with Earwig Squad. I like the arguments for it. It seems devastating against combo (although it would require a semi god-hand to be fast enough). Realistically, it seems strong against thresh/landstill. Anyway, there simply isn't enough room to fit it in without removing gempalm incinerators. I think that I'll end up cutting the Earwigs because of the dissynergy with lackey/vial, but it's a real shame considering the power of the card.

As for the sideboard, I really like leyline. I think leyline should be in every sideboard. It buys you time against every combo deck. It gives you a huge head-start against thresh. It also works great against various Life from the Loam decks. All three of these decks are potentially troublesome for goblins.

I used to use Chalice of the Void, but I don't really like it that much anymore. It's just not a powerful enough hoser. Against combo, leyline just seems better since it still shuts them down but doesn't eat up all my mana for a turn. Against thresh, it's alright, but I don't consider thresh to be the largest threat, and I think that there are most versatile cards that could go in that slot.

I like engineered explosives a lot, but I havn't really been able to use them very effectively. On paper, it works great against thresh, although they will rarely let you get a 2 for 1. At the end of the day I'll put it in my board because it also foils stax and empty the warrens. This is all based on the assumption of a black and green splash.

I already talked about Kgrip and for now I'll be testing it along with the explosives even through they fill a similar role.

I think I might move Earwig Squad to the other slot and bring it in against combo in place of the weirdings. Currently I'm using Cabal Therapy, which is also against combo. I havn't been able to test it much as combo is dying down in my area.

[raharu]

What is the standard Rbg Goblins build looking like nowadays? What slots are still mandatory (Vial, Lackey for the obvious cards) and what seems to be shifting around (# of removal cards, ports, ect)?

[Jujuhawk]

What is the standard Rbg Goblins build looking like nowadays? What slots are still mandatory (Vial, Lackey for the obvious cards) and what seems to be shifting around (# of removal cards, ports, ect)?

Warren Wierding and Gempalm ratio tends to shift around a little bit. I run a 3/2 split for those guys. Matron targets obviously tend to float around. Some people run sharpshooter, pyromancer, etc. It's really just personal preference. Also, number of siege gang slots is moving around, but I personally believe they shouldn't be. I would run 4 if I could get a way with it, but I'm sticking with 3.

The mana base is also fluctuating slightly. Some people run an entirely nonbasic mana base. While this gives you more stability, you also just lose to a wastelock put on by loam, stax, or whatever deck that plays cvrucible or loam. Also, the number of ports changes from decklist to decklist. Personally for my mana disruption package I play 2 ports and 4 wastes, but some people run no ports, or even 3 or 4 of them. Again, just personal preference.

[chokin]

@Malchar - Leyline rocks, but it doesn't help against EVERY combo deck. Belcher has no reliance on the yard :P Regardless, it's a strong card that I have been running over Crypt. I like it when the retard Thresh player smiles at his hand and quickly says "Keep" and I drop 1-2 Leylines and that smile goes into an instant frown. Nothing makes me happier. Pay extra mana for EE if you don't want it to be hit by CB or Spell Snare. Chalice looks pretty good for some matches. I think Leyline and Grip is plenty for Thresh/Landstill, Chalice is good against Thresh too, but I dunno if I'd use it there. Chalice is also rockin against storm combo(0 for LED, Petal, Mox; 1 hits Dark Ritual, Rite of Flame, Brainstorm, Ponder) and burn.

@raharu - I think that my current list is pretty close to "standard". Nothing too out of the ordinary.
4 AEther Vial
3 Warren Weirding

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledriver (sometimes -1 for +1 Wort)
4 Fanatic
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Matron
2 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Wort
3 SGC

4 Wasteland
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Rishadan Port (right now -1 for +1 Mire)
4 Mountain
3 Badlands
1 Taiga
1 Swamp/Taiga/Mountain/Forest/yougettheideaoftheopenlandslot

SB
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Grip
1 Vexing Shusher
1 Goblin Tinkerer
1 Sharpshooter(EtW FTL)
2 Hooligan
2 Open slots for the meta

Sharpshooter is almost always an open slot, but when Belcher is around, I keep 1-2 in there. I used to love Hooligan in the MD and ran them both up in the maindeck, but they've been so underwhelming. There was ONE match in which I wanted it(Scepter with Lightning Helix is annoying), but when I put him in, I ended up playing him with the G for lawls killing a Bonesplitter and swung for win. The Hooligan was really unneeded there. Is it better to have it, not need it, then side it out? Or is it better to have a maindeck with fewer "dead" cards?

[Jujuhawk]

That's my exact list except for in the manabase:

- 2 Port
+ 2 red fetches.

and the last open slot for land is a taiga. I also cut a mountain for a MD hooligan which I may end up cutting for a land.

[Avatara]

This might be a weird question but... I'm going to ask it any ways :wink:

Imagine Vial Goblins wouldn't need Ports and Wastelands. How would the mana base looks like? How many lands would you still play and with what other cards would you replace the lost lands?

[b4r0n]

This might be a weird question but... I'm going to ask it any ways :wink:

Imagine Vial Goblins wouldn't need Ports and Wastelands. How would the mana base looks like? How many lands would you still play and with what other cards would you replace the lost lands?

Assuming that you're in a meta filled entirely with basic lands, I could see dropping Wastelands. Otherwise, don't do it. Even in such a meta, I would still probably keep Ports; the mana denial is very strong. Regardless, if you're planning on cutting Wastes and Ports entirely, I'd suggest something like this for R/b/g:

4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Badlands
3 Taiga
6 Mountain
1 Swamp

You'd definitely want 22 lands, and probably 8 fetches. Depending what cards you're running maindeck (Wort, Weirding, Hooligan?) and sideboard (Therapy, Grip?), and whether Wastelands are present, you can decide whether you need the off color basic. I personally like it, but it could just as easily be another Mountain.

Alternately, you could try adding Ancient Tombs to the manabase (-2 Mountain, -1 Swamp maybe). I think Eldariel had experimented with that in the past, and I messed around with it for a bit. It speeds the deck up a bit (dropping turn 2 Matron, turn 3 Ringleader is pretty sweet, as is a turn 4 SGC), but weakens your matchup against aggressive decks and the mirror. If you're not running any Wastes or Ports, Tomb might be a good option to consider.

[chokin]

Assuming that you're in a meta filled entirely with basic lands, I could see dropping Wastelands. Otherwise, don't do it. Even in such a meta, I would still probably keep Ports; the mana denial is very strong. Regardless, if you're planning on cutting Wastes and Ports entirely, I'd suggest something like this for R/b/g:

4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Badlands
3 Taiga
6 Mountain
1 Swamp

You'd definitely want 22 lands, and probably 8 fetches. Depending what cards you're running maindeck (Wort, Weirding, Hooligan?) and sideboard (Therapy, Grip?), and whether Wastelands are present, you can decide whether you need the off color basic. I personally like it, but it could just as easily be another Mountain.

Alternately, you could try adding Ancient Tombs to the manabase (-2 Mountain, -1 Swamp maybe). I think Eldariel had experimented with that in the past, and I messed around with it for a bit. It speeds the deck up a bit (dropping turn 2 Matron, turn 3 Ringleader is pretty sweet, as is a turn 4 SGC), but weakens your matchup against aggressive decks and the mirror. If you're not running any Wastes or Ports, Tomb might be a good option to consider.

In a meta of entirely basics, I'd run that 4th Taiga for consistency of G for Grips and Hooligans(if they're mained). I tried the Tomb list, I liked the acceleration, didn't like the self damage. Ports are hot, 2-4 are good. If you don't have any Ports/Wastelands, you might be able to go to 21 lands, but I wouldn't drop below that. 22-23 has been a sweet spot for my list(and apparently Juju and Baron too :P )

[Mental]

Everyone says that Goblins needs to play 22 lands. I've built my list around this mentality too, but once, for the sake of messing around, I changed my mana base to this:

4 Foothills
3 Wasteland
4 Badlands
7 Mountains
=18 Lands

And I ran 2 Blood Moon, 1 Goblin King and 1 SGC in the open slots.

The thing is, it wasn't awful. Sure, normal Goblins was better, but this build was faster and drew more threats, however, its late game was much worse. You actually got colorscrewed about as rarely as you do in 22 land Gobs, but often you'd have trouble hitting your 4th Land Drop, and we know how essential that is.

That leads me to ask a strange questions: If not running the full number of ports/wastes, or none, what is the lowest number of lands Goblins can go down to? 18 seemed to low, but 20 might be acceptable.

[chokin]

Everyone says that Goblins needs to play 22 lands. I've built my list around this mentality too, but once, for the sake of messing around, I changed my mana base to this:

4 Foothills
3 Wasteland
4 Badlands
7 Mountains
=18 Lands

And I ran 2 Blood Moon, 1 Goblin King and 1 SGC in the open slots.

The thing is, it wasn't awful. Sure, normal Goblins was better, but this build was faster and drew more threats, however, its late game was much worse. You actually got colorscrewed about as rarely as you do in 22 land Gobs, but often you'd have trouble hitting your 4th Land Drop, and we know how essential that is.

That leads me to ask a strange questions: If not running the full number of ports/wastes, or none, what is the lowest number of lands Goblins can go down to? 18 seemed to low, but 20 might be acceptable.

I think 18 is too low. Like you said, nailing drops after land 2-3 is hard. If you wanted to run fewer lands, you'd probably have to trim out some fetch, as you did. Only problem I see is colorscrew and Wasteland becomes your worst enemy. Also, those Wastelands may or may not stay around if you want to deny your opponent of mana.

With fewer lands, you'd have to rely on Lackey and Vial, meaning you better be packing protection or removal out the butt. Sure Chief helps, but if you're losing, I'd think that you'd have problems with recovering.

Also, I'd run a single Swamp and Mires instead of Foothills. But that's just me. Blood Moon doesn't like your Badlands. I wouldn't dip below 20-21 unless you want to change the average CC.

[Mental]

I think 18 is too low. Like you said, nailing drops after land 2-3 is hard. If you wanted to run fewer lands, you'd probably have to trim out some fetch, as you did. Only problem I see is colorscrew and Wasteland becomes your worst enemy. Also, those Wastelands may or may not stay around if you want to deny your opponent of mana.

With fewer lands, you'd have to rely on Lackey and Vial, meaning you better be packing protection or removal out the butt. Sure Chief helps, but if you're losing, I'd think that you'd have problems with recovering.

Also, I'd run a single Swamp and Mires instead of Foothills. But that's just me. Blood Moon doesn't like your Badlands. I wouldn't dip below 20-21 unless you want to change the average CC.

Blood Moon is just such a house that it didn't matter at the time. Sure, it made a few spells uncastable, but it made all their stuff uncastable if it stuck. What I liked about the deck is it seemed that once you DID hit 4-5 mana, the deck went nuts because the only things you ever drew were threats. It was just inconsistent.

I often get colorscrewed by the singleton swamp, so lately I've tried to curve my reliance on black and just play 4 Badlands/2 Taiga. This is in normal, 22 land Goblins, obviously.

BTW, SB Blood Moon is really strong. I play 3.

[chokin]

Blood Moon is just such a house that it didn't matter at the time. Sure, it made a few spells uncastable, but it made all their stuff uncastable if it stuck. What I liked about the deck is it seemed that once you DID hit 4-5 mana, the deck went nuts because the only things you ever drew were threats. It was just inconsistent.

I often get colorscrewed by the singleton swamp, so lately I've tried to curve my reliance on black and just play 4 Badlands/2 Taiga. This is in normal, 22 land Goblins, obviously.

BTW, SB Blood Moon is really strong. I play 3.

Maybe use a few Ancient Tombs to make up for lost land drops. Or use Thawing Glaciers :P After Dragon Stompy stealing the spotlight for a while, and Threshold developing Moon Thresh, it's safe to say that many decks are now built to avoid Moonscrew(new term developed...now).

I think that color screw would be too common in an 18 land build trying to mimic Rbg, so cutting a color like you did was smart. Also relying on fewer splashed cards would help prevent that color screw and Moonscrew.

[chocomel]

I saw some Rb lists but why don't you guys play Frogtossers?
It'll make the deck faster and besides that it's an extra 2CC slot...
Most of the times i don't see me using all of my mana t2 for not having 2 1 mana costing goblins or not having a pile driver and ofcource the same goes for an aether vail with 2 counters on it...

[Jujuhawk]

I saw some Rb lists but why don't you guys play Frogtossers?
It'll make the deck faster and besides that it's an extra 2CC slot...
Most of the times i don't see me using all of my mana t2 for not having 2 1 mana costing goblins or not having a pile driver and ofcource the same goes for an aether vail with 2 counters on it...

What do you cut for it? Warchief is a million eimts better, plus he's a 1/1 which isn't spectacular, and it makes your undercosted goblins MORE undercosted? Seems like it's not needed.

[Just me]

What do you cut for it? Warchief is a million eimts better, plus he's a 1/1 which isn't spectacular, and it makes your undercosted goblins MORE undercosted? Seems like it's not needed.

Sure it's not needed. Until you do not have a Warchief, then it's quite handy all of a sudden. Think of it as Warchief 5-6-7-8.

[kicks_422]

Same question: What do you cut for it? A deck with 4 Bannerets and 4 Warchiefs would become too thin. What would you use all those cost reductions on?

[Jujuhawk]

Sure it's not needed. Until you do not have a Warchief, then it's quite handy all of a sudden. Think of it as Warchief 5-6-7-8.

Having 8 warchiefs and 3 of them don't give haste doesn't seem good to me. You're actually sacrificing the speed because you're cutting good goblins for the bannerets.

[Malchar]

Just for the sake of argument, 8 warchiefs could be useful if the deck is only running 18 land. Also, it increases the chance of getting a warchief into play off of an early lackey, which is potentially epic.

[Avatara]

4 Æther Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
3 Mogg Fanatic

4 Frogtosser Banneret
4 Goblin Piledriver/Earwig Squad
4 Warren Weirding

4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Warchief
1 Mad Auntie
1 Gempalm Incinerator

4 Goblin Ringleader
2 Wort, Boggart Auntie

2 Siege-Gang Commander

7 Mountain
4 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Auntie's Hovel
1 Swamp

I've been playing around with this version on Apprentice (solo) for a while now. Here's a few things I'd like say about it.

I think that a lot of people underestimate Frogtosser. This deck gets really explosive on the 3rd turn. Sometimes I follow up with a Warchief and a Matron/Piledriver. If your opponent counters the Frogtosser (and he should), you can still follow up with Warchief or other goblins. Even without Warchief you can still empty your hand really fast... Ringleader on turn 3 etc. Goblins that cost 1 less are dangerous for your opponent but goblins that cost 2 less are overwhelming... Ringleader for 2, Matron for 1. All the Goblins that do matter profit a lot from the double reduced cost. It's only the early ones that don't. I haven't tested with 3 Frogtossers in the deck yet... but yes 4 feels to much. -1 is probably better +1 land.

Auntie's Hovel? Yes that was no mistake. Because there are more black cards in the main deck you want to stay consistent with less lands. Although this might not be optimal. You could replace 3 lands with Ports or Wastes but I wouldn't run both.

// going to replace Piledrivers with Earwig Squads to counter hate cards (loss of green) and vs combo decks. We are already heavy on black sources any ways. Prowl cost also gets a reduction from Warchief and Frogtosser :)

[berto_el_con]

I was wondering if there are any mono-red goblins coming around or is black becoming a standard into the deck. Any chances I could not have a dual landbase

[Skeggi]

I'm not a Goblin player, but at the Shadowmoor draft I got my behind kicked by Tattermunge Maniac. Might be an idea.

[Eldariel]

Mono-red Goblins are fine. You'll just have to improvise vs. Tarmogoyf. For what it's worth, I had good experiences with Stingscourger in mono-red as a tempo tool and temporary Goyf-removal. Also, bigger Goblins like Goblin Goon did a fine job against Goyfs.

Anyways, the main reason for Rb is the existence of Warren Weirdings. Wort is a groovy addition, but in no way necessary; I'd rather play SGCs anyways. So yes, you don't really need duals to play this. Badlands are rather cheap though, so they should be a good investment.

[Jujuhawk]

4 Æther Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
3 Mogg Fanatic

4 Frogtosser Banneret
4 Goblin Piledriver/Earwig Squad
4 Warren Weirding

4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Warchief
1 Mad Auntie
1 Gempalm Incinerator

4 Goblin Ringleader
2 Wort, Boggart Auntie

2 Siege-Gang Commander

7 Mountain
4 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Auntie's Hovel
1 Swamp

I've been playing around with this version on Apprentice (solo) for a while now. Here's a few things I'd like say about it.

I think that a lot of people underestimate Frogtosser. This deck gets really explosive on the 3rd turn. Sometimes I follow up with a Warchief and a Matron/Piledriver. If your opponent counters the Frogtosser (and he should), you can still follow up with Warchief or other goblins. Even without Warchief you can still empty your hand really fast... Ringleader on turn 3 etc. Goblins that cost 1 less are dangerous for your opponent but goblins that cost 2 less are overwhelming... Ringleader for 2, Matron for 1. All the Goblins that do matter profit a lot from the double reduced cost. It's only the early ones that don't. I haven't tested with 3 Frogtossers in the deck yet... but yes 4 feels to much. -1 is probably better +1 land.

Auntie's Hovel? Yes that was no mistake. Because there are more black cards in the main deck you want to stay consistent with less lands. Although this might not be optimal. You could replace 3 lands with Ports or Wastes but I wouldn't run both.

// going to replace Piledrivers with Earwig Squads to counter hate cards (loss of green) and vs combo decks. We are already heavy on black sources any ways. Prowl cost also gets a reduction from Warchief and Frogtosser :)

So you're cutting one of the best goblins in the deck, and the one that makes it so explosive for... Earwig Squad? What are we playing extended?


I'm not a Goblin player, but at the Shadowmoor draft I got my behind kicked by Tattermunge Maniac. Might be an idea.

Again, there's a problem of what to cut. The 1 drops right now are all auto 4-ofs, and most of the other stuff in the deck can't be cut. Finding room for 4 new cards is hardly possibly. Plus, maniac just stares awkwardly at tarmogoyfs..

[TrialByFire]

Plus, Maniac just stares awkwardly at Tarmogoyfs..

And then attacks right into it.

[kicks_422]

I know Bannerets could lead to explosive openings... But is that what the deck really needs? I mean, what bad match-ups does that improve?

It lets you walk into mass removal even more. And also, in the list above, you basically replaced 4 Wastelands with 4 Bannerets. Which of those two cards would help you win the game more?

[Jujuhawk]

I know Bannerets could lead to explosive openings... But is that what the deck really needs? I mean, what bad match-ups does that improve?

It lets you walk into mass removal even more. And also, in the list above, you basically replaced 4 Wastelands with 4 Bannerets. Which of those two cards would help you win the game more?

Exactly. Instead of locking thresh out of the game you're playing a 1/1 with haste that probably will just allow you to cast your other banerrets for B.


And then attacks right into it.

I think his new nickname instead of Nom-Nom should be "Death by Goyf."

[chokin]

If I wanted to add bad goblins, I'd run Torchrunner. I think he'd be funny post-Pyroclasm.

On a more serious note, how does Goon work against Goyf? Sounds hot IMHO, but is he worth slots in the MD?

[Bryant Cook]

I disagree with cutting Piledriver for Earwig Squads, however, it's definitely a good card for the sideboard. Vintage goblins plays him as a 4x of maindeck, I'm sure he has a use. Removing Tendrils and other win conditions or parts of painter combo.

[kicks_422]

Yup, I run 4 Earwigs in my Vintage build and it's been great, because of the general make-up of Vintage decks which rely on a few bombs and lots of draw/tutors. For Legacy, they're better off as SB options, to supplement other combo hate (e.g. Chalice of the Void).

[chocomel]

The List containing frogtossers will probaly be something like this:

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
1 Wort, Boggart Auntie
3 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Mogg Fanatic
2 Frogtossers
3 Warren Weirding
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Kiki-Jiki

4 Aether Vials
22 land

I think they'll be at best as a 2 off...
So you'll have to cut 2 mogg fanatic/warren/gempalm, depending on which you prefere...

[kicks_422]

Why run them at all if you're just going to run 2? It's too random if you just run 2, and you're not going to Matron for it anyway. And running 3-4 of it, like mentioned before, thins the deck too much.

[Nihil Credo]

Why run them at all if you're just going to run 2?
If anything, that's the only way it makes sense. Banneret didn't excite me either, but if it has any use it's to pad the Warchief count up slightly so that you can consistently rely on having a cost reducer in play on turn 3.

[Avatara]

Maybe because they count as an extension for your Goblin Warchiefs? I dunno about your meta but in mine the Warchief gets answered by something a lot of times. I certainly wouldn't mind a few "lesser" versions.

Try and play Warchief as if it didn't have the 1 cost reduction and tell me how good you still think it is.

I don't mind having a bigger chance to get a "Warchief" at my starting hand. And it's always nice to have a backup if my opponent does something about the first one.

And hmm Piledriver is seriously the best Goblin? It and Fanatic are the first Goblins that I'm thinking about removing. Yes Goblin Piledriver can be VERY nice. But there are plenty of situations where it's kinda like a mediocre to bad card if you ask me.

Earwig isn't all that horrible as far as I remember a deck placed 1st in Asia with Earwigs instead of Piledrivers. Sure the meta game was heavily based on combo decks... but it can't be total crap? removing 3 hate/key cards from your opponents deck on the 2nd-3rd turn really that bad?

[Jujuhawk]

Yup, I run 4 Earwigs in my Vintage build and it's been great, because of the general make-up of Vintage decks which rely on a few bombs and lots of draw/tutors. For Legacy, they're better off as SB options, to supplement other combo hate (e.g. Chalice of the Void).

I agree, he's a good SB choice for the abysmal combo matchup, and I even ran 2 main before, but currently there's no room in the maindeck, and he's not the greatest MD.

[Avatara]

Any ways guys... I was just experimenting with a Goblin deck with a lower land count. I'm not saying that it's better or anything. Don't start a yes or no war. :cool:

[chokin]

I only run 2-3 Piledrivers most of the time. By himself, he's horrible, but with a bunch of gobbos, he's a house.

I think Kiki sucks overall. I used to run him when I had Mono Red Goblins, but with the Rbg builds and through tons of testing, I've found him to be pretty janky. He's kinda cool when you have a Ringleader/Matron/SGC down and getting new ones every turn, but I'd imagine you'd be winning already by then.

3 SGC is where you wanna be. I'd trim Kiki and a Driver. But that's just me. I think Frogtosser is pretty bad. You'd really wanna have black mana by turn 2 unless you're relying on Lackey hitting. But I'd rather play just about anything else off of Lackey.

[Jujuhawk]

I only run 2-3 Piledrivers most of the time. By himself, he's horrible, but with a bunch of gobbos, he's a house.

I think Kiki sucks overall. I used to run him when I had Mono Red Goblins, but with the Rbg builds and through tons of testing, I've found him to be pretty janky. He's kinda cool when you have a Ringleader/Matron/SGC down and getting new ones every turn, but I'd imagine you'd be winning already by then.

3 SGC is where you wanna be. I'd trim Kiki and a Driver. But that's just me. I think Frogtosser is pretty bad. You'd really wanna have black mana by turn 2 unless you're relying on Lackey hitting. But I'd rather play just about anything else off of Lackey.

Kiki is usefull when you're already in a winning position. It's really not needed.

The thing about frogtosser is that people are just cutting 4 lands for him, and that means that with 19 lands you rely on hitting turn 1 lackey more than ever, and if that plan fails you just lose. Sounds like not the greatest to me. Then, if you're cutting good creatures you're putting a 1/1 in your deck and cutting cards that he accels into.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Kiki is usefull when you're already in a winning position.

Kiki is also good at breaking stalemates on the board. I ran into this a lot with Countersliver where the board is covered with blockers and no Winged. A single Ringleader wouldnt do as much, and Crystalline makes SGC less of a factor, so a good move was to tutor up Kiki and go nuts with Matrons and Ringleaders until you could swing around their defenses. And thats pretty much the only situation Ive ran into were he is generally good. Usually he win-more or dead weight against almost every other matchup.

[chokin]

Kiki is also good at breaking stalemates on the board. I ran into this a lot with Countersliver where the board is covered with blockers and no Winged. A single Ringleader wouldnt do as much, and Crystalline makes SGC less of a factor, so a good move was to tutor up Kiki and go nuts with Matrons and Ringleaders until you could swing around their defenses. And thats pretty much the only situation Ive ran into were he is generally good. Usually he win-more or dead weight against almost every other matchup.

Wtf? Why not Weirdings them into oblivion? I guess if they remove/counter Wort, that sucks, but if she sticks, you've got them in a soft lock in which they need to counter the Weirding or play a sliver to keep up.

If they don't/can't remove Kiki, they can't remove Wort, I'd say. Plus Wort has fear :P Try blocking that with a blue, white, or green creature. If you're really having troubles, start using in Engineered Explosives like some are doing. EE for 2 = GG Slivers(Muscle, Sinew, Winged, Crystalline).

[xsockmonkeyx]

Wtf? Why not Weirdings them into oblivion? I guess if they remove/counter Wort, that sucks, but if she sticks, you've got them in a soft lock in which they need to counter the Weirding or play a sliver to keep up.

If they don't/can't remove Kiki, they can't remove Wort, I'd say. Plus Wort has fear :P Try blocking that with a blue, white, or green creature. If you're really having troubles, start using in Engineered Explosives like some are doing. EE for 2 = GG Slivers(Muscle, Sinew, Winged, Crystalline).

Because this was over a year ago, and there was not Weirding yet, nor Wort. I guess I should have been more specific.

[Jujuhawk]

Because this was over a year ago, and there was not Weirding yet, nor Wort. I guess I should have been more specific.

Yeah, kiki was like 2004 tech, but now wort just seems better. She can recur siege gangs and shit all day and she also has fear which helps alot since tarmogoyf as a blocker can totally ruin you if you don't get a blazing start.

[Malchar]

After testing a deck that used 1x wort and 1x kiki, I found myself getting Wort every time with the Matrons. Wort is simply amazing against everything.
For control, you basically win on your next upkeep when you start bringing things back - it's like drawing two cards a turn, and one of them is automatically a threat.
Against aggro, bringing back a weirding or gempalm every turn wins you the game pretty quickly.

I also agree that piledriver is one of the worst goblins in the deck. It is fundamentally a win-more card. Anyone who plays against aggro decks a lot know that a piledriver might as well be a ball lightning except that it doesn't have haste or trample. If you want to experiment with Tattermunge Witch or Bloodmark Mentor then by all means keep the piledrivers, but against thresh or random aggro decks, it's quite useless unless you already have a strong advantage.

Earwig Squad, on the other hand, does it's damage immediately and also comes with a strong body. Most threshold decks only run 8-10 creatures that can possibly kill you. Combo decks are even more vulnerable, potentially losing after only a single Squad. I think that for goblins to continue to stay alive in top-tier competition, it needs to embrace earwig. Frogtosser is definately worth testing because it helps pave the way for the earwig.

Also, on monored, I would strongly suggest splashing to get enchantment removal if nothing else. Engineered Explosives is also fun to experiment with.

[chokin]

I think that Earwig Squad is sounds pretty good in the combo matchup but doesn't come down til about turn 3, and swings turn 4. I suppose Lackey gets him in a turn earlier, but is that fast enough to beat out most combo decks? I'd say most combo decks can do stuff by turn 4.

In the Thresh matchup, getting a hit with this guy will almost always hit 3x Goyf, which is hot. I'd say that Squad is much more viable against Thresh.

I think against combo, sticking to Chalice or discard should suffice. Engineered Explosives is an option for 1/1 Goblins and 2/2 Zombies. I tried out Chalice today and it rocked the Sligh/Burn matches. Right now my board is looking like:

4 Leyline
4 Grip
4 CotV
1 Hooligan
1 Tinkerer
1 Gempalm

I'm thinking about focusing those 3 goblins or shifting them to Shusher, maybe Boartusk Liege (fuck you Pyroclasm/EP), and 1 open slot. Any suggestions for the board?

[Avatara]

think that Earwig Squad is sounds pretty good in the combo matchup but doesn't come down til about turn 3, and swings turn 4

That's not true:

turn 1: play Lackey
turn 2: attack, put Warchief/Frogtosser into play, prowl Earwig

And be honest Eerwig hits vs any deck... it's removing 3 of the best cards that they have against you. You also get to see their entire deck. How can that not be an advantage...

[Melwis]

Hoi everyone :)

Updating myself on Vial Goblins and it seems lots as happend last time I checked. I am by no means an expert on the deck and i'm only playing casual with friends but I am simply amazed about what is being said. Piledrivers is bad?! Also, all the new black cards that is being added seems strong but i'm not sure...

Is the monored version seeing less play nowadays or is it still fully viable? That's what I currently have anyways and it looks like this:

Creatures(34):
------------
4 x Gempalm Incinerator (2/3)
4 x Goblin Ringleader (4)
4 x Goblin Warchief (3)
4 x Goblin Piledriver (2)
4 x Goblin Matron (3)
4 x Goblin Lackey (1)
4 x Mogg Fanatic (1)
3 x Siege-Gang Commander (5)
2 x Goblin King (3)
1 x Goblin Sharpshooter (3)

Artifacts(4):
-----------
4 x Aether Vial (1)

Lands(22):
-------
18 x Mountains
4 x Wasteland

Other cards that could be added into the deck:

Kiki-Jiki - Most of you seem to agree he is winmore and that you are better of with 3 Siege-Gangs.

Rishadan Port - Is this better than Wastelands in any way? Would 14 Mountains, 4 Wastelands and 4 of these be "to fragile"?

Tin Street Hooligan - Artifact removal is handy.

Vexing Shusher - He is interesting if you ask me.


There's probably more cards that could go in but atleast this is some ideas that I have tought about!

[Jujuhawk]

The problem with earwig squad is that he's terrible in the mirror where he just seems worse than piledriver, and against combo if 1 earwig beats them they deserved to lose anyway. You can't even lackey him out to get the ability either.

[ParkerLewis]

Creatures(34):
------------
4 x Gempalm Incinerator (2/3)
4 x Goblin Ringleader (4)
4 x Goblin Warchief (3)
4 x Goblin Piledriver (2)
4 x Goblin Matron (3)
4 x Goblin Lackey (1)
4 x Mogg Fanatic (1)
3 x Siege-Gang Commander (5)
2 x Goblin King (3)
1 x Goblin Sharpshooter (3)

Artifacts(4):
-----------
4 x Aether Vial (1)

Lands(22):
-------
18 x Mountains
4 x Wasteland

You have absolutely no disruption (well, except for incinerators...) do you just auto-lose against combo, or any hoser for that matter ?

Plus, Goblin King ? really ? :confused:

This makes the whole deck look like casual one :/ (although it clearly isn't)

Other than that, wasteland+port has been a long and widely approved combination.

[Cait_Sith]

You have absolutely no disruption (well, except for incinerators...) do you just auto-lose against combo, or any hoser for that matter ?

That is how Goblins has pretty much always been. The fact that Goblins is less popular now is due first and foremost to the rise of Combo decks in Legacy and secondly from Thresh getting a big tempo boost with Tarmogoyf.

[Avatara]

The problem with earwig squad is that he's terrible in the mirror where he just seems worse than piledriver.

For real how big is Piledriver in the mirror? Earwig is always 5/3 that means he can block almost any goblin out there. Sure he dies to destruction but so does Piledriver. Piledriver needs atleast 2 other attacking goblins before it reaches the size (power wise) from the Earwig. In the combat phase your opponent will most surely loose two of his Goblins to destroy your Earwig. If the prowl does resolve in the mirror... bang I remove 3 SGC/gempalm or any other key cards in the mirror.


You can't even lackey him out to get the ability either.
What's the loss? Oh yes Piledriver has very useful ability... NOT. :laugh: Yeah well a generic 5/3 on the second turn is better than a 1/2. It's not like the only reason to play Earwig is for the Prowl ability.


I also agree that piledriver is one of the worst goblins in the deck. It is fundamentally a win-more card. Anyone who plays against aggro decks a lot know that a piledriver might as well be a ball lightning except that it doesn't have haste or trample. If you want to experiment with Tattermunge Witch or Bloodmark Mentor then by all means keep the piledrivers, but against thresh or random aggro decks, it's quite useless unless you already have a strong advantage.
You can still take 1 tutor able Piledriver in your deck for the rare occasion that he will be the only card that will make you win.

Sure Piledriver CAN be bigger than Earwig... but overall I think Earwig is a lot more solid and reliable and it has a really nice ability if you ask me. Yes I am aware of the 3rd turn kills with multiple piledrivers... but how many times do you pull that off? And how many times doesn't your opponent have an answer like FoW/Daze and a Goyf sitting on the other side of the table. Infact he only needs a 2/1 to neutralize and kill your Piledriver.

[Tacosnape]

You are mistakenly assuming that Earwig Squad is going to consistently hit the board either on turn two or for its prowl cost at all in any matchup besides combo. Squad is an awful maindeck replacement for Piledriver, who can come out for a single :r: and finish the game with a chief out, and who is generally amazing at finishing off an opponent.

[Cait_Sith]

Piledriver tends to be a big reason Goblins is still able to keep up right now. He is one of the big enablers for consistent wins before turn 5. I can agree that his usefulness isn't what it used to be, but there is no real reason to cut him out of decks entirely. Maybe running 3 would be good.

Honestly, Earwig CAN be bigger and CAN be better, but winning on turn 3 is BEST among them all. I wouldn't readily give that up.

Oh, the third turn kill can use 2 Drivers, or a Driver and a SGC. With 3 SGC, 4 Driver, and 4 Warchief, I can pull it off roughly 1/5 games. That is enough alone to justify it.

Edit: Whoa. I didn't even notice Tacosnape has posted. My internet is being dumb. Listen to Taco.

[ParkerLewis]

That is how Goblins has pretty much always been. The fact that Goblins is less popular now is due first and foremost to the rise of Combo decks in Legacy and secondly from Thresh getting a big tempo boost with Tarmogoyf.

I agree on the most part, but this specific build even lacks the basic disruption that a goblin player usually has, like the green splash for TSH in the main & Grip in the board.

[chokin]

That's not true:

turn 1: play Lackey
turn 2: attack, put Warchief/Frogtosser into play, prowl Earwig

And be honest Eerwig hits vs any deck... it's removing 3 of the best cards that they have against you. You also get to see their entire deck. How can that not be an advantage...

Whoa I had no idea you could do that. That kicks ass. But I agree with Tacosnape that he's not gonna always come down turn 2 and swing turn 3.

I love Piledriver, but the fact that he requires other goblins to be good makes me sad. Like post-Pyroclasm. He's not a bad goblin. He's just a bad goblin when he's a lonely goblin. Squad may be SB tech in some cases, but I don't think he needs to be in the MD.

[Damiles]

THis is just a reccomendantion but has anyone made a five color goblin deck?
I was thinking confidant goyf swords and wishes any thoughts?
If the core just seems to be lackey piledriver +goblins is there enough space to change it?

[TeenieBopper]

You're new here, so I'ma be nice. 28 is the absolute bare minimum of goblins you can run, otherwise Ringleader is worthless. Please don't suggest horrible ideas again. Thanks.

[Lepp]

The only problem is that you will be adding so many non goblins that your draw card (ringleader) will be weakened for each non goblin card played.

I tested earwig a good bit, for me (at least in my meta) he hindered me more than helped. The fact you can't swing with him the turn he comes out (assuming you want to use that sweet prowl ability) is a pretty big hinderance. Thats just my opinion based on the tournies I play in.

Wort was interesting, but very few games was I able to really have her pull me through. Not many people let me keep her out long. Being a 4 cast she either takes a ringleader or sgc spot. I'm currently not running her, but I would say I'm somewhat on the fence about her. She is an immediate threat, one of which my oponents tend to take out asap.

[insertnamehere]

IMO Wart is a very useful card if dropped at the right time. Late game, I do not really care about him because ut us usually too late.

[Melwis]

I will probably get shouted for mentioning him but I have to :tongue:

Goblin Goon?

He is BIG. And if I, let's say, have 1 Goon, 1 random goblin and 1 Piledriver i'm swinging for lots of damage even if my opponent can chump block one of them. I'm not considering running 4 copies of him but perhaps 2-3?

And I really don't understand why people are ditching Piledriver(s) =/

Sure, he gets removed alot. But, that is because your opponent HAS to remove him. He easily swings for 5 early game and if you are allowed to and get enough goblin drops, in mid game he can swing for over 10+. If you don't run him your are allowing the opponent to start focusing on other goblins (namely Warchief) which will probably mean GG for you.

Seriously, Piledriver has to stay. Perhaps (and I really mean perhaps) you can go with 3 Drivers in the BR version of goblins. But in my mono-red i'm keeping 4 :)

[Avatara]

He is BIG. And if I, let's say, have 1 Goon, 1 random goblin and 1 Piledriver i'm swinging for lots of damage even if my opponent can chump block one of them. I'm not considering running 4 copies of him but perhaps 2-3?

You think someone will ever chump block a Piledriver? One blocker with power of 2 or a fanatic is enough to prevent his damage and kill him. I wouldn't bother chump blocking a goon either. If you want to cancel his damage trade him with one of your creatures otherwise just take the damage and kill off his friends.

He's also pretty bad after a pyroclasm and the likes.

But before I splashed black I ran Stingcourgers instead of Weirding and 2 Goons instead of 2 Worts. Goon can hit hard with a bit of luck and he has a nice body vs Goyf. But I liked Stingcourgers more than I liked the Goons.

[HedleyKow]

I think Frogtosser Banneret and Mutavault need to be given more serious consideration for goblins. I've found both to be very good in my testing. Right now I'm testing 3-4 mutavaults in place of Rishadan Ports/mountains, and 4 tossers in place of fanatics.

Yes, I realize fanatic is good, when you can actually use him to kill a 1 toughness creature, which doesn't seem to happen all too frequently for me as of late. Frogtosser, on the other hand, is ALWAYS good. Especially versus control, frogtosser provides another creature that needs to be countered or dealt with quickly or they'll be in trouble. Add to that the fact that mutavault is also very good versus control, and the addition of these 8 cards theoretically helps in the control matchup considerably. I haven't done enough testing versus a variety of control decks to be certain, but I've found my matchup versus my UGw ***** deck has gotten noticeably better since the inclusion of frogtossers and mutavaults.

One issue, however, with the inclusion of frogtosser is it forces you to run a number of Auntie's Hovels. Which means your mana base is a bit more complicated, as it's hard to fit everything you want in the deck. I'm still undecided on what the ideal mana base would be, and I'd be interested to hear others' opinions on the subject.

Also, on an unrelated note, I'd like to see a bit more discussion about the number of "big" creatures (Siege-Gang Commander, Wort, Boggart Auntie, Earwig Squad, Goon, etc) is the optimal amount to run in goblins; and in what combination. Personally I've really liked Wort, but generally it's better to tutor for ringleader, which is why I've been running 2-3 Worts in my builds as of late. This way I can simply draw in to Wort, or tutor for a ringleader and hit one, rather than tutoring for it directly.

[Mental]

I think Frogtosser Banneret and Mutavault need to be given more serious consideration for goblins. I've found both to be very good in my testing. Right now I'm testing 3-4 mutavaults in place of Rishadan Ports/mountains, and 4 tossers in place of fanatics.

Yes, I realize fanatic is good, when you can actually use him to kill a 1 toughness creature, which doesn't seem to happen all too frequently for me as of late. Frogtosser, on the other hand, is ALWAYS good. Especially versus control, frogtosser provides another creature that needs to be countered or dealt with quickly or they'll be in trouble. Add to that the fact that mutavault is also very good versus control, and the addition of these 8 cards theoretically helps in the control matchup considerably. I haven't done enough testing versus a variety of control decks to be certain, but I've found my matchup versus my UGw ***** deck has gotten noticeably better since the inclusion of frogtossers and mutavaults.

One issue, however, with the inclusion of frogtosser is it forces you to run a number of Auntie's Hovels. Which means your mana base is a bit more complicated, as it's hard to fit everything you want in the deck. I'm still undecided on what the ideal mana base would be, and I'd be interested to hear others' opinions on the subject.

Also, on an unrelated note, I'd like to see a bit more discussion about the number of "big" creatures (Siege-Gang Commander, Wort, Boggart Auntie, Earwig Squad, Goon, etc) is the optimal amount to run in goblins; and in what combination. Personally I've really liked Wort, but generally it's better to tutor for ringleader, which is why I've been running 2-3 Worts in my builds as of late. This way I can simply draw in to Wort, or tutor for a ringleader and hit one, rather than tutoring for it directly.

The frogtosser issue has been beat to death, but I will say that I feel like mana disruption is superior to beats right now in Goblins, so Port > Mutavault.

The optimal number of big goblins, IMO, is 3 SGC, 1 Wort. That's what I play at least, and it's strong.

[Avatara]

The frogtosser issue has been beat to death, but I will say that I feel like mana disruption is superior to beats right now in Goblins, so Port > Mutavault.

That's funny because doesn't Frogtosser make certain that you have more mana free to use port?

[TeenieBopper]

Jesus fucking Christ. Frogtosser sucks. Why in god's name are we still having this conversation?

What the fuck are you going to cut for it? Warchief? You're retarded. Fanatic? You're retarded. Lackey? Still retarded. Siege Gang? You sat at the front of the short bus. You have two slots, at most, with which to play around with, and those are the utility slots (Sharpshooter/Tin-Street/Wort). And you know what? I'd much rather have my utility slots, you know, actually fucking do something.

Restating for emphasis- Frogtosser Bannaret sucks donkey balls and swallows that oh so creamy surprise ending.

[chokin]

Jesus fucking Christ. Frogtosser sucks. Why in god's name are we still having this conversation?

What the fuck are you going to cut for it? Warchief? You're retarded. Fanatic? You're retarded. Lackey? Still retarded. Siege Gang? You sat at the front of the short bus. You have two slots, at most, with which to play around with, and those are the utility slots (Sharpshooter/Tin-Street/Wort). And you know what? I'd much rather have my utility slots, you know, actually fucking do something.

Restating for emphasis- Frogtosser Bannaret sucks donkey balls and swallows that oh so creamy surprise ending.

QFT from 'tiny Jesus, in your golden fleece diapers' to the animal erotica.

Moving along from Frogtosser Bannaret, let's talk more about:
-Vexing Shusher
-Goblin Goon
-Boartusk Leige
-Or what ever happened to the girl from Matilda

Seriously though, is Shusher good against decks packing countermagic? Or is there enough stuff beween mana denial and Aether Vial? And is Goblin Goon worth running at all?

I remember some talk about Liege being tough to put in because of his triple colored mana requirement and 4cc. But with immunity to Pyroclasm and Bolt, he provides a solid "No" to UGr Thresh's Pyroclasm. Even as a single guy fetched through Matron and Ringleader, do you think he could fit here?

Or is there new Goblin tech that I'm just not bringing up that should be discussed?

[GGoober]

Frogtosser does suck, and IMO, it's the Goblin Warchief for T2 gobs. Legacy succeeds with Lackey/Warchief/Vial. Frogtosser does not allow the Piledrivers to swing with insane damage on turn 3 with a bunch of gobs that Lackey/vials have dropped. The only reason if I ran Frogtosser would be if MTG involves playing a minimum 70 card deck, than a 60 card deck. We just have no space for the tossers right now.

[raharu]

In a build without access to 3-4 Piledriver, what would the correct substitution be? Goon? Perhaps More SGCs?

[Avatara]

Moving along from Frogtosser Bannaret, let's talk more about:
-Vexing Shusher
-Goblin Goon
-Boartusk Leige
-Or what ever happened to the girl from Matilda

There's no need:


You have two slots, at most, with which to play around with, and those are the utility slots (Sharpshooter/Tin-Street/Wort). And you know what? I'd much rather have my utility slots, you know, actually fucking do something.

Al tough I think that Boartusk Liege should replace Mad Auntie in some builds. Of course you will have to pay the 3 colored mana but you'll get a much more resistant lord in return. But yes mad auntie can regenerate Piledriver etc.


Frogtosser does not allow the Piledrivers to swing with insane damage on turn 3 with a bunch of gobs that Lackey/vials have dropped.

Yeah it's great how your opponents never do anything against that and how you can pull that off whenever you want! That's just as dumb as assuming that I can prowl Earwig you every time on turn 2.

[Mental]

Yeah it's great how your opponents never do anything against that and how you can pull that off whenever you want! That's just as dumb as assuming that I can prowl Earwig you every time on turn 2.

Jesus Christ.

Anyone who has played Goblins for more than 15 minutes knows that it is not a balls to the walls, standard aggro deck. You slowly build position over time - that's why Aether Vial/Ringleader > Lackey. And that's what lets you beat decks that don't suck.

The only true agro cards that are in this deck are Goblin Lackey, Warchief and Goblin Piledriver, and I would argue that they're less essential to the deck than Vial, Ringleader, and Matron. We don't need to up the count of cards that end the game fast but serve no other purpose - they especially don't do crap when you're losing. Even if I had 20 open slots in Goblins, I wouldn't play Frogtosser.

Shusher and Leige will probably prove to be unnecessary.

[kicks_422]

Truth.

However, this is a creature deck. Obviously. Opening yourself up even more to mass removal as Banneret makes you do is far more relevant than the points of damage that you can squeeze in with him (which is probably the last thing the deck needs).

[Malchar]

edit: piledriver is a good goblin, but i think it's fair to say that he is at least the weakest goblin in the deck. please let me know if anyone plays in tournaments and actually deals combat damage to players with huge piledrivers because i'd love to come play in your easy-mode meta. whoever said that goblins is about slowly building up is correct. that's why i advocate earwig squad.


THis is just a reccomendantion but has anyone made a five color goblin deck?
I was thinking confidant goyf swords and wishes any thoughts?
If the core just seems to be lackey piledriver +goblins is there enough space to change it?

The goblin deck's only advantage over any other deck is the tribal synergy. All goblins suck when compared to the creatures in thresh, angel stompy, or even sui-black. The only things good about goblins are cards like matron, ringleader, and incinerator, which all assume that all the other spells in your deck are goblins.

If you start taking out goblins, you might as well just take them all out and play a thresh deck. In practice, even when The only non-goblins I had were vial and stp/snuff out, it still really hurt when I threw them all away to a ringleader or when I couldn't find anything with a matron.

Now with warren weirding and a potential bomb in earwig squad, goblins might actually be up to par with thresh while maintaining the tribal engine. For once we actually have strong cards that count as goblins. Anyway, here's the deck that I played with last night in a weekly to finish 2-2 after a topdeck stalemate in game 3 of round 4:

4 aether vial

4 warren weirding
2 gempalm incinerator

4 goblin lackey
4 goblin matron
4 goblin warchief
3 frogtosser banneret
4 goblin ringleader

4 siege-gang commander
4 earwig squad
1 wort, boggart auntie

(22 land)
5 mountain
1 swamp
2 taiga
2 badlands
4 wasteland
4 wooded foothills
4 bloodstained mire

(sideboard)
4 leyline of the void
4 krosan grip
4 engineered explosives
3 mogg fanatic

notes:
The mogg fanatics should be replaced, probably by Tin Street Hooligans.
I might change the land base to accomodate 3 or more badlands. Having black sources early and reliably was an issue in some games. I think 1 swamp is definately enough for basics though.
Wort is better than kiki-jiki, especially sans piledriver. Fear and a 3/3 body are always relevant stats. The ability wins games if it goes off, where kiki is potentially useless as the only goblin in play.
Earwig is a noted improvement over piledriver. First, either way, your fattie is going to die and trade with one of the opponent's creatures. At least with the squad, you've already done the damage as soon as it hits play. The prowl is only 1 more mana than it costs to play a driver, and the ability is very significant. Aside from that, it's a 5/3 always, which is a lot better than x/2. Also, it's not a red creature.
The only real problem that I'm having with this deck is not having enough black sources, so I think I'll just trade some mountians for badlands and get rid of those fanatics
On frogtosser bannerets, they're definately decent. However, they almost seems to cause more mana problems than they solve by usually requiring a black source on turn 2. I would like to experiment with removing the tossers and adding a utility package that includes some of these:
1 more wort
1 more incinerator
1 sharpshooter
1 tin street/tinkerer
1 goblin wizard (probably wont happen but I still really want to make this guy work)
other splashy stuff

[Melwis]

So I have tuned my deck some more and the list looks as follows:

Summons(32):
---------------
4 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg Fanatic
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Goblin King

Artifacts(4):
--------------
4 Aether Vial

Lands(22):
-----------
16 Mountains
4 Wasteland
2 Rishadan Port

Slots left(2):
---------------
???

As you can see I have 2 slots left that i'm having troubles with. I know many of you think 3 SGC's is a good thing but I think I will keep them at 2 for now tho I might change it later on.

I have been looking alot on all the 2cc goblins that are available and these are the ones i've found that could make a fine addition:

Mogg Flunkies - Bigger than all your other goblins but I am not sure if he is big enough. Besides he is crap alone (but with only 2 copies this should be rare).

Tin Street Hooligan - Very nice utility and a 2/1 for 2 mana isn't all that bad. What I don't like is that he forces me to splash for green. The thing is splashing for another color makes you alot more vurnerable if you ask me. With Taigas in the deck Wasteland suddenly turns into a threat and with fetches Stifle could be real nasty not to mention Blood Moon (it doesn't stop you but it turns Hooligan into a 2/1 for 2 mana with no bonus). I am not sure if Hooligan is good enough to justify this.

Mogg War Marshal - Possibly the one i'm leaning towards the most too atm. As a 2-of I really don't think he can be wrong. He makes your Gempalms, Piledrivers and SGC's better since he is 2 goblins in 1 card. Besides you can block with him (the one you would be paying echo for) should your opponent be having a big creature out (Tarmogoyf?) and still you get 2 goblins.

Sparksmith - He probably goes in the category has suicidal but with a Warchief out and say 2-3 other goblins I'd say he more or less has to be good. Perhaps he's better of as a 1-of for Matron to fetch when you really could use him but i'm mentioning him anyway. After all, he is in the 2cc range :)

Stingscourger - I think he got mentioned before and I believe he could be handy sometimes. Especially along with Warchief to bounce up that creature that's in your way and then get to attack with him the same turn. Without Warchief he will probably disappear thanks to echo and this is why i'm hesitating.

I think these are the candidates we have for the 2cc range (for red atleast) and I would like to hear which one of them you think deserves my 2 spots the most ;)

[GreenOne]

You really wanna win the Aggro Control matchup. That means you gotta have some sort of solution to Goyf.
I like the War Marshall thing, cause it helps in chump blocking opposing creatures while bulding an army that can kill opposing goyfs with Incinerator. I'd play a Goblin Goon too, as it's the bigger as the biggest creature in the format (Goyf obv) and it can attack easily through opposing Mongeese. It survives Pyroclasm and Burn too. It's a non-piledriver significant clock.

If I had to play a monored version I'd play your list -1 King +2 War Marshall +1 Goon. Or i'd use those slots as meta-slots for (magus of the) Blood Moon, Jitte, the evoke guy that deals 6 damage to a critter, etc.

EDIT: I forgot Tinkerer. It's a valid option too.
EDIT#2: Goon helps against Propaganda effects too.

[chokin]

You really wanna win the Aggro Control matchup. That means you gotta have some sort of solution to Goyf.
I like the War Marshall thing, cause it helps in chump blocking opposing creatures while bulding an army that can kill opposing goyfs with Incinerator. I'd play a Goblin Goon too, as it's the bigger as the biggest creature in the format (Goyf obv) and it can attack easily through opposing Mongeese. It survives Pyroclasm and Burn too. It's a non-piledriver significant clock.

If I had to play a monored version I'd play your list -1 King +2 War Marshall +1 Goon. Or i'd use those slots as meta-slots for (magus of the) Blood Moon, Jitte, the evoke guy that deals 6 damage to a critter, etc.

EDIT: I forgot Tinkerer. It's a valid option too.
EDIT#2: Goon helps against Propaganda effects too.

In Mono Red, I'd not play Marshal or the Evoker. Jitte is pretty decent. Blood Moon is hot and is a potential back breaker to Landstill and 43land.dec. King should be there if you run Moon.

Sparksmith as removal is partly suicidal, but blocking and taking 4-5 damage from him is better than eating a Goyf's attack every turn or chumping til ya lose.

There are no real solutions to Pyroclasm or E.Plague in Mono Red unless you pack in 4 Kings :P Splashing green and/or black would be wise. It helps deal with many of Mono Red's issues.

[GreenOne]

There are no real solutions to Pyroclasm or E.Plague in Mono Red unless you pack in 4 Kings :P

Not true, there are artifact solutions: Gauntlet of Might and Door of Destinies. :tongue:

[Eldariel]

Not true, there are artifact solutions: Gauntlet of Might and Door of Destinies. :tongue:

There's the old Patron of the Akki, which definitely isn't expected and can end games in a hurry (at 7/5, it clocks above most Tarmos and it makes your now-1/1 Goblins into 3/1+ beaters). I'd personally still play few of those á la Sonne; it may be old tech, but it works. Also, Kings have the issue that they don't kill really any faster than normal when counteracting PLague, and they often tend to make any Smothers/Bolts/such the opponent might have into Plague Winds. Further, two Plagues = GG Kings.

I never really saw the use in using a Goblin to counter a card that hoses Goblins. It just hasn't really worked out in games I've watched; if there's a Plague in play, I'd damn much rather have that Pyromancer/Patron/Goon/whatever for the kill than a King to allow me to start casting 1/1s again just waiting for the second Plague to crush me.

[Mental]

edit: piledriver is a good goblin, but i think it's fair to say that he is at least the weakest goblin in the deck. please let me know if anyone plays in tournaments and actually deals combat damage to players with huge piledrivers because i'd love to come play in your easy-mode meta. whoever said that goblins is about slowly building up is correct. that's why i advocate earwig squad.



The goblin deck's only advantage over any other deck is the tribal synergy. All goblins suck when compared to the creatures in thresh, angel stompy, or even sui-black. The only things good about goblins are cards like matron, ringleader, and incinerator, which all assume that all the other spells in your deck are goblins.

If you start taking out goblins, you might as well just take them all out and play a thresh deck. In practice, even when The only non-goblins I had were vial and stp/snuff out, it still really hurt when I threw them all away to a ringleader or when I couldn't find anything with a matron.

Now with warren weirding and a potential bomb in earwig squad, goblins might actually be up to par with thresh while maintaining the tribal engine. For once we actually have strong cards that count as goblins. Anyway, here's the deck that I played with last night in a weekly to finish 2-2 after a topdeck stalemate in game 3 of round 4:

4 aether vial

4 warren weirding
2 gempalm incinerator

4 goblin lackey
4 goblin matron
4 goblin warchief
3 frogtosser banneret
4 goblin ringleader

4 siege-gang commander
4 earwig squad
1 wort, boggart auntie

(22 land)
5 mountain
1 swamp
2 taiga
2 badlands
4 wasteland
4 wooded foothills
4 bloodstained mire

(sideboard)
4 leyline of the void
4 krosan grip
4 engineered explosives
3 mogg fanatic

notes:
The mogg fanatics should be replaced, probably by Tin Street Hooligans.
I might change the land base to accomodate 3 or more badlands. Having black sources early and reliably was an issue in some games. I think 1 swamp is definately enough for basics though.
Wort is better than kiki-jiki, especially sans piledriver. Fear and a 3/3 body are always relevant stats. The ability wins games if it goes off, where kiki is potentially useless as the only goblin in play.
Earwig is a noted improvement over piledriver. First, either way, your fattie is going to die and trade with one of the opponent's creatures. At least with the squad, you've already done the damage as soon as it hits play. The prowl is only 1 more mana than it costs to play a driver, and the ability is very significant. Aside from that, it's a 5/3 always, which is a lot better than x/2. Also, it's not a red creature.
The only real problem that I'm having with this deck is not having enough black sources, so I think I'll just trade some mountians for badlands and get rid of those fanatics
On frogtosser bannerets, they're definately decent. However, they almost seems to cause more mana problems than they solve by usually requiring a black source on turn 2. I would like to experiment with removing the tossers and adding a utility package that includes some of these:
1 more wort
1 more incinerator
1 sharpshooter
1 tin street/tinkerer
1 goblin wizard (probably wont happen but I still really want to make this guy work)
other splashy stuff

Are you insane? Did you read any of the past page before playing Frogtosser MD:


Anyone who has played Goblins for more than 15 minutes knows that it is not a balls to the walls, standard aggro deck. You slowly build position over time - that's why Aether Vial/Ringleader > Lackey. And that's what lets you beat decks that don't suck.

The only true agro cards that are in this deck are Goblin Lackey, Warchief and Goblin Piledriver, and I would argue that they're less essential to the deck than Vial, Ringleader, and Matron. We don't need to up the count of cards that end the game fast but serve no other purpose - they especially don't do crap when you're losing. Even if I had 20 open slots in Goblins, I wouldn't play Frogtosser.

So, MAYBE I'll believe your decision is correct if you come up with one logical reason that Frogtosser is better than Mogg Fanatic. All you say about the Frogtossers is "they're definitely decent." Thanks. And why?

Piledriver is always stronger than Earwig. Goblins is a deck that runs on Card Advantage, generated by Ringleader/Matron/SGC/Wort. It can power at advantage faster than other decks through Warchief, which doubles as a wincon. However, the only ways that it CAPITALIZES on this card advantage are through Piledriver/SGC. So don't cut them.

[ChillerKiller0815]

Hi guys,
I would like to sum up some of the discussion going on:


Manabase:
-The right number of lands is probably either 21 or 22 whether you play Port or not.
-What is the correct number of Fetchlands? The deck-thinning effect is very small so that shouldn´t be taken into consideration (Please don´t discuss on this fact because there are plenty of places in this forum where this has been done with great effort.)! The only real purpose is mana-fixing for the cost of life! I am currently running 6 Fetchlands and feel quite happy with that.
- Everyone using Snow-covered mountains without capitalizing on them should REALLY use normal BASICS, I have witnessed someone losing because of this in a tournament due to ICEQUAKE-> LOL(but shit like this happens)!!!

My Lands:->21
4xWasteland
4xBadlands
2xTaiga
1xSwamp -> vs Moon, doesn´t weaken the manabase more then a Port or so.
4xBloodstained Mire
2xWooded Foothills
4xMountain

Non-Goblins: -> 4

4xAtherVial

Nothing to say.

Goblins (mandatory): -> 22
4xLackey
4xWarchief
4xMatrone
4xRingleader
2xSGC
2xIncinerator
2xPiledriver

This is only the minimum of each Goblin you must play in order to keep your deck good at what Goblins do best:
- Cardadvantage
- Tutoring
- Speed
- Swarm
- Quick Kill if needed
- Uncounterable, Cantrip Creature removal

Open Goblin Slots: -> 13
- We want to make sure Lackey connects very frequently -> Cards that help: Mogg Fanatic, Goblin Sledder, Warren Weirding, Incinerator. All of them have their pros and cons:
Mogg Fanatic kills almost every first turn critter except for mongoose (this is one thing Sledder is better at even if lackey wouldn´t connect the same turn), Fanatic is very good vs. combo (Wild Cantor, Ichorid, BfB, Normads en-kor, Cephalid Illusionist,…Sledder as well to a lesser degree. Jitte gets handelt by Fanatic once and by Sledder all day long. Sledder in addition gives your opponent a headache with combatmath and keeps some Goblins alive if you face Pyroclasm and stuff like that. Weirding is a house vs big critters like single tombstalkers and goyfs. Whereas gempalm shines when you face stuff like factory backed up with counters. To sum this aspect up: They all serve the same primary role of letting the lackey connect, to a lesser degree the removal role and every single one shines in very specific situations.

My build:
3x Mogg Fanatic
1x Goblin Sledder
1xIncinerator (Number 3 in total)
2xWarren Weirding

This gives me a very nice toolbox and 9 ways to help out connect lackey. Because of this I want to have an increased chance of having a SGC in my hand.

1xSGC (Number 3 in Total)

I think 4 Piledrivers is too many! 3 is the way to go for me. Piledriver can kill quick but as a stand alone critter he sucks and he gets blocked to easily. He is a midgame Goblin you want to Tutor for or draw into after the first few turns -> 3!!!

1xPiledriver (Number 3 in total)

This leaves us open for basically 4 Slots to play around with. This might be preference, metarelevant or whatever. I will post my choices and give a short explanation to it.

1xWort

She survives Plague, Pyroclasm…. due to her body and has fear which is nice for the last few dmg especially if u play Sledder as a one of. She gets handled so often because she is a big threat that can turn the favour. Again Sledder helps getting a Matrone, Ringleader or so into your grave EOT for a nice comeback (Just another sometimes useful synegie) the next turn.

1x Goblin Tinkerer

Is a MD solution for: Jitte, Needle, Explosives, Keg, CotV, Ather Vial, Dreadnought, helps vs SDT, Factory, Raffinity, Mox, Petal, LED, Trinisphere, Crucible, Smokestack, Shackles, Disk……..unfired Belcher…..Ensnaring Bridge

I play the Hooligan in my SB

Tinkerer is RED, does its job multiple time even vs big targets thanks to Sledder and works in a late-game-situation with Warchief on board and he can be vialed in. Hooligans is good too but is more SB material rather then a maindeck toolcard.

The last 2 spots could be:

Sharpshooter
Mad Auntie
Earwig Squad
Pyromancer
King -> if u face a lot of mountains
Boggart Mob -> Vialed in he safes some critters, survises lots of stuff, and reuses CiP-Stuff due to Sledder
Skirk Prospector-> nice with Shenanigans, Shooter, SGC

Currently I test the Squad for control decks like MUC or Standstill with very few wincons and the Pyromancer for a surprise kill.


SB:
4xLeyline -> Ichorid, Iggy, Breakfast, Reanimator, Loam, GeddonStaxx….
4xCotV/Cabal Therapy-> Combo
3xKrosan Grip -> …..
1x Tin-Street Hooligan
1x Mad Auntie-> Don´t really know…
1x Boggard Shenanigans -> good vs. Plague since Plague get played by suicide or slower controldecks which should have lost some live before they can get a board position.
1x Shooter -> Shooter + Shenanigans + Sledder (Prospector would be even better) can sometimes surprise kill without combat dmg for at least 12 dmg


What do you guys think

[b4r0n]

-The right number of lands is probably either 21 or 22 whether you play Port or not.
-What is the correct number of Fetchlands? The deck-thinning effect is very small so that shouldn´t be taken into consideration (Please don´t discuss on this fact because there are plenty of places in this forum where this has been done with great effort.)! The only real purpose is mana-fixing for the cost of life! I am currently running 6 Fetchlands and feel quite happy with that.
- Everyone using Snow-covered mountains without capitalizing on them should REALLY use normal BASICS, I have witnessed someone losing because of this in a tournament due to ICEQUAKE-> LOL(but shit like this happens)!!!

I think 22 is the bare minimum number of lands that I'd feel comfortable running in this deck. In fact, normally I run 23. I go back and forth between 6 and 8 fetches. In game one, you don't want to fetch after Ringleading (in order to minimize your chances of drawing into more land), so you only want your fetchlands early. But in games 2 and 3, you sometimes will want to fetch after Ringleading (in order to get back hate that's now at the bottom of your library). Also, the color fixing becomes more important post board in order to be able to cast Grip.

As for the rest of the deck, it looks decent. Personally, I wouldn't go below 4 Fanatic, 3 SGC, and 3 Weirding, but I guess that's up to you.

[puddn]

i run 22 lands for 5 fetchs, it works very well

for the mandatory, i agree for all but not for piledriver: i think you need the 4 main deck!
then i play 4 fanatic, 3 weirding, 1 tinkerer and for the 2 free slots i think run stingscourger and maybe wort/3rd gempalm

i don't understand why you want to play sledder??? it's very bad!!

[Malchar]

I'm just adding a quick comment on the mana base. 22+/-1 is the right number depending on what else is in your deck. If you use a lot of SGC's, I would tend to increase the land count because you can try to cast them or take better advantage of the activated ability. If anyone is going to use frogtossers, then I would tend to decrease the mana count obviously.

On fetchlands, I do think that the lifeloss is significant. After doing some research, I don't think that the deck thinning matters that much. At least with tools like Kiki/Wort and matron+ringleader, the deck shouldn't have to rely on topdecking threats. In fact, no competitive deck should have to rely on that.

As for the deck's vulnerability to wasteland, I don't think that it is that big of a deal. Running 1x swamp and/or forest makes sense, but I would still suggest running plenty of nonbasics. If you go 3-color, the nonbasics are more important to include or you risk being mana screwed, and you don't have the time to sit around waiting on colors.

Fundamentally, I think that this deck has one of the best advantages in a wasteland vs. wasteland matchup. Having aether vial is the key to the deck. This is another reason why I am skeptical about mutavault (and that they are about 20$ each). I mean, this deck was designed to take advantage of wasteland in the first place.

[Mental]

I'm just adding a quick comment on the mana base. 22+/-1 is the right number depending on what else is in your deck. If you use a lot of SGC's, I would tend to increase the land count because you can try to cast them or take better advantage of the activated ability. If anyone is going to use frogtossers, then I would tend to decrease the mana count obviously.

On fetchlands, I do think that the lifeloss is significant. After doing some research, I don't think that the deck thinning matters that much. At least with tools like Kiki/Wort and matron+ringleader, the deck shouldn't have to rely on topdecking threats. In fact, no competitive deck should have to rely on that.

As for the deck's vulnerability to wasteland, I don't think that it is that big of a deal. Running 1x swamp and/or forest makes sense, but I would still suggest running plenty of nonbasics. If you go 3-color, the nonbasics are more important to include or you risk being mana screwed, and you don't have the time to sit around waiting on colors.

Fundamentally, I think that this deck has one of the best advantages in a wasteland vs. wasteland matchup. Having aether vial is the key to the deck. This is another reason why I am skeptical about mutavault (and that they are about 20$ each). I mean, this deck was designed to take advantage of wasteland in the first place.

Personally, if I have an active vial/warcheif and someone wastes my land, I'm happy. It's going to hurt them more than me in most situations. 1x Swamp makes sense, and 1x Forest is probably unnecessary. Still, I can't tell you the number of times I've gotten screwed by that one swamp. I just think the number is less than the times I've been screwed without it.

Tinkerer is awful. Jitte, the artifact that scares you the most, kills it before it can tap, making it only really good against Stax, which isn't a very played deck. Besides, Stax will probably just Oring/Barb Ring it anyways, and it will only activate once before dying. Play Hooligan.

[chokin]

22 is the base number for builds running Wasteland and 3 colors. 23 land is usually for if you run Ports since you're gonna be needing to hit colored mana. I think that 2 Ports is good, but I've also run 3 and even 4 depending on the meta. 21 is for builds lacking Port or have less colors.

SGC is also a factor in this, as are higher costing goblins. 6 fetch is a nice number, I've run 5-8 though. 6-7 is the sweet spot in 23 land builds.

I run 2 Wort and 2 Drivers, only because Wort is so awesome and gets removed too much. She really does win games. Being able to have more than one shot out of a ground lock is key.

EDIT: @ Mental - If Warchief is in play, Tinkerer can activate :P. I occasionally run this guy when I'm really concerned with decks like Dragon Stompy where Blood Moon or Magus can prevent me from getting green mana.

I like the single Swamp a lot. I don't like the single Forest. The number of times I've been screwed by that swamp is so marginal compared to times when it kept black mana on the table to fight off Tarmogoyf.

[ChillerKiller0815]

@ Puddn:
I know that Sledder is NOT the god.goblin, but as a one off tool-target he serves some very versitile roles that come in handy from time to time:

1. He does help keeping the lackey alive turn 2
2. he handles Jitte all day long which is often a big deal game 2 and 3
3. he keeps some of your goblins alive after stuff like pyroclasm, contagion....also relevant game 2 and 3
4. he does some combat tricks like: giving the unblocked goblin (even if it is a matrone) leathal power on the final attack
5. has great synergie with the sharpshooter and shenanigans if u have them in your board.
6. Makes your unblockable wort even scarier and a real finisher
7.Sacs Goblin to keep the graveyard clean from bridges for example -> anti-combo
8. Does some nice EOT-tricks in combination with Wort-> sac ringleader ,matrone-> get back in upkeep -> replay

I think the points are all more or less relevant so taking one slot from the fanatic isn´t such a big deal because he fulfills the same role as the fanatic (admitted:most of them not quite as good but some a lot better) but adds a lot of synergie and versitality in many game situations.

So please don´t tell me don´t play him because.....he is BAD. Write some thoughts to it at least. I for myself don´t miss fanatic #4 but often appreciate the tool-goblin named Sledder. Try it!!!

[GreenOne]

Did you try only sledder or prospector too?
Prospector does many of the tricks you listed (minus the combat ones) and can add some speed at the deck, if needed.

[revenge_inc]

What do people's sideboard's look like post Shadowmoor?

[puddn]

@ Puddn:
I know that Sledder is NOT the god.goblin, but as a one off tool-target he serves some very versitile roles that come in handy from time to time:

1. He does help keeping the lackey alive turn 2
2. he handles Jitte all day long which is often a big deal game 2 and 3
3. he keeps some of your goblins alive after stuff like pyroclasm, contagion....also relevant game 2 and 3
4. he does some combat tricks like: giving the unblocked goblin (even if it is a matrone) leathal power on the final attack
5. has great synergie with the sharpshooter and shenanigans if u have them in your board.
6. Makes your unblockable wort even scarier and a real finisher
7.Sacs Goblin to keep the graveyard clean from bridges for example -> anti-combo
8. Does some nice EOT-tricks in combination with Wort-> sac ringleader ,matrone-> get back in upkeep -> replay

I think the points are all more or less relevant so taking one slot from the fanatic isn´t such a big deal because he fulfills the same role as the fanatic (admitted:most of them not quite as good but some a lot better) but adds a lot of synergie and versitality in many game situations.

So please don´t tell me don´t play him because.....he is BAD. Write some thoughts to it at least. I for myself don´t miss fanatic #4 but often appreciate the tool-goblin named Sledder. Try it!!!

4th fanatic >>> sledder and skirk>>> sledder

Try it!!!!

[TrialByFire]

GOBLIN


SLEDDER


SUCKS.


Now back to your regularly scheduled Goblins thread.

[Malchar]

Swinging with an unblockable wort and sacrificing all of your goblins for leathal only to see a stp wins games... for the opponent.

I agree that hooligan is better than tinkerer overall. I'm thinking of replacing my 3x frogtossers with 1x sharpshooter, 1x hooligan, 1x wort. The wort might become something else. 3 more hooligans will appear in the SB instead of mogg fanatic, which was really just me being lazy and not changing that sooner. I, along with a few others here, have finally reached the point where fanatic is no longer fantastic, but it all depends on the meta... I guess. Essentially replacing fanatics with incinerators/weirdings seems to be fine in most situations anyway.

The 1x swamp is questionable in any deck that's not using frogtossers. With them gone, more badlands look fine. In fact, I'm not really sure why I used swamp in the first place, considering I argue against fearing wasteland.

Looks like it's time for more testing, less theory, at least for me.

Has anyone been checking out the new deck with Swans of Bryn Argoll and Chain of Plasma? If this catches on as a minicombo in thresh, then pyroclasm is going to be back with a vengeance. The only substantial problem is that the opponent theoretically buys enough time with pyroclasm before they go off with counter backup. Weirding seems good. Incinerator seems bad, especially with pyroclasm. For once, there's a combo deck that doesn't lose to leyline of the void.

[Mental]

22 is the base number for builds running Wasteland and 3 colors. 23 land is usually for if you run Ports since you're gonna be needing to hit colored mana. I think that 2 Ports is good, but I've also run 3 and even 4 depending on the meta. 21 is for builds lacking Port or have less colors.

SGC is also a factor in this, as are higher costing goblins. 6 fetch is a nice number, I've run 5-8 though. 6-7 is the sweet spot in 23 land builds.

I run 2 Wort and 2 Drivers, only because Wort is so awesome and gets removed too much. She really does win games. Being able to have more than one shot out of a ground lock is key.

Really? I've been steadily cutting Worts - I'm at one right now. The card always dies, and it doesn't win games on the spot, like Piledriver can. I think the appropriate build for Goblins should include:

18-21 Engine Cards (4 Ringleader, 4 AEther Vial, 4 Lackey, 2-3 SGC, 0-2 Wort, 4 Matron)
8 Ways to Capitalize on the advantage generated by the engine (4 Warchief, 4 Piledriver)
8-12 Utility (4 Fanatic, 3-4 Weirdings, 1-2 Gempalm Incinerator, 0-2 Tin Street Hooligan)

That seems to be the appropriate base for building this deck. With only 2 Piledrivers, it's very hard to get anything out of the advantage generated by your very powerful engine.

Basic Swamp is especially useful if you're SBing in Blood Moon.

[Elficidium]

What do people's sideboard's look like post Shadowmoor?
Sideboard
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Krosan Grip
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Mad Auntie
1 Vexing Shusher

[Mental]

Sideboard
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Krosan Grip
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Mad Auntie
1 Vexing Shusher

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Leyline of the Void/Tormod's Crypt
3 Kgrip
3 Blood Moon
1 Mad Auntie

It's really just the choice of Therapy/Thoughtseize vs. Blood Moon for me. I prefer Moon but I can see running Therapy instead. Moon really improves the Thresh and Landstill MUs, as if they don't expect it you can often catch them with their pants down. And as Goblins isn't Dragon Stompy, most people don't.

Is Shusher good here? I haven't had time to test it, but he seems very vulnerable. As a 1 of, how many times does he really help you out? Goblins is a very mana intensive deck, so it seems like it would suck to have to pay an additional :r: to play everything.

[revenge_inc]

What do people think of Planar Void (http://ww2.wizards.com/Gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?id=5608)? Since you can play it on turn 1 or 2 and shut down a lot of decks, is it better or worse than Leyline or Tormod's Crypt?

Is Shusher good here? I haven't had time to test it, but he seems very vulnerable. As a 1 of, how many times does he really help you out?
The rational here was that when a single Vexing Shusher is boarded in, Goblin Matron becomes a must counter.

Thanks for sharing your sideboard guys.

[chokin]

What do people think of Planar Void (http://ww2.wizards.com/Gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?id=5608)? Since you can play it on turn 1 or 2 and shut down a lot of decks, is it better or worse than Leyline or Tormod's Crypt?

The rational here was that when a single Vexing Shusher is boarded in, Goblin Matron becomes a must counter.

Thanks for sharing your sideboard guys.

I use Leyline for the free factor. It's mostly in there for the Thresh matchup for me and Engineered Explosives for 1 is saddening. Grip/Predator is their only real out and I can nuke Predator and slow down Grip through Wastelands(and Port if they want to do it on my turn).

My board is looking a bit like:
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Krosan Grip
1 Vexing Shusher
1 Mad Auntie/Boartusk Liege
1 Open Slot

Right now I'm considering going 3 Grip and using the 2 slots remaining for Discard or Blood Moon. I don't know if I want Auntie/Tusk there either, so that would be better to have 3 Moon/Discard than 2.

Also on the topic of Swan Combo, between Wasteland and Port, I think we can squeeze in victories. But yeah, Pyroclasm is going to suck. Maybe this is when we'll need Tusk? Yeah he's expensive, but he is a good answer to Clasm in comparison to Auntie or King.

LOL Or we add Boggart Shenanigans or Fecundity(Dirty Kitty!) But that would be very dumb I think.

[Malchar]

On vexing shusher, it's a vial that can be found with matron/ringleader and is itself uncounterable. The problem is that it costs you mana whereas vial gives you mana. Also, it comes out a turn slower. Any time where you're in a position to search up a shusher, play it, and have enough mana online to use it, it's gotta be mid/lategame already. By this time, your vial should be big enough to let you play whatever you want for free and have it be uncounterable just the same.

The only logical choice would be to replace 4x vial with 4x shusher and pretend that it's an aether vial with tribal synergy. Problem here is that you just lost your mana denial strategy. Vial lets you win the game with no land in play. Also, shusher still loses to pithing needle. Doesn't die to artifact-D though.

In the end, it's not that bad of a choice. I just think that the most reasonable way to use this is to simply replace vial or at least add 3 or 4 of these to the deck. Having it just to matron for seems like a waste when you could just matron a ringleader or sgc and use the vial. However, I don't think I'm ready to make the trade in my own deck.



Leyline is better than Planar Void because it's free and uncounterable. Planar Void requires you to have black mana on turn 1 and it still loses to daze/fow. Every deck that hates leyline is going to mull into a daze/fow against goblins, except for loam.

All these cards merely turn off the graveyard UNTIL the opponent gets their kgrip. With leyline you can still play something turn 1 and keep going just as fast. Casting planar void is merely a waste of time.

Crypt is ok but I don't think that it's as devastating as either of the two enchantments. It also can lose badly to kgrip. If you use the crypt right away, then it's frequently not good enough. It also doesn't hurt goyf that much since your own graveyard will now probably contain land, creature, and artifact.



I think that Wort does win games. It's just a different condition than piledriver.

Wort
- attacks with power 3 and fear
- you need something good in your graveyard
- needs to survive a full turn
- can't have multiples out at the same time

Piledriver
- you need other goblins in play
- he needs haste or has to survive a full turn
- opponent can't have any blockers or piledriver trades with a creature
- can have multiples out at the same time

I'm going to be trying 1x piledriver and 1x wort and matron them up when the time is right. 4x piledriver is not a bad choice, but I would like to steer my deck farther from aggro, so I am using earwig squad instead.

[Tacosnape]

Is Shusher good here? I haven't had time to test it, but he seems very vulnerable. As a 1 of, how many times does he really help you out? Goblins is a very mana intensive deck, so it seems like it would suck to have to pay an additional :r: to play everything.

You do know this isn't how this actually works, right?

If you activate the Shusher unprompted, they counter the spell in response to the activated ability. What you -do- with the Shusher, is play spells, and it basically turns every counter they have into Daze. If they attempt the counter, you activate the Shusher.

[Avatara]

Considering how important mana denial is to Goblins... has anyone ever tried Goblin Settler? It's a tutorable Stone Rain with a 1/1 Goblin body attached to it.

[Malchar]

It's actually one of my favorites that never made the deck. Another choice would be goblin gardener in case someone wanted an effective 8x. One of the problems is that land destruction isn't really important enough to warrant a slot, especially next to wasteland. It might be worth trying with Wort/Kiki-Jiki + 1x settler as a matron target. Otherwise, it could ride the SB.

[kicks_422]

Here's my SB:

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Krosan Grip
3 Earwig Squad
1 Goblin Sharpshooter

Oh, and Wasteland and the occasional Rishadan Port is all the mana denial you'll need.

[Michael Keller]

Leyline is better than Planar Void because it's free and uncounterable. Planar Void requires you to have black mana on turn 1 and it still loses to daze/fow. Every deck that hates leyline is going to mull into a daze/fow against goblins, except for loam.

Right, but in the more likely scenario you draw into one of your four Leyline of the Void in a deck like this, it's very unlikely you'll be able to cast it with Wasteland and/or Port. If your opponent is going to give in to card advantage and or a set-back on mana by Dazing a Planar Void....especially against Goblins...that could be a really big problem for them. I think this is the one exception where Planar Void is more useful. There are no basic Swamps in the deck, so if you're drawing into either, it's more likely you'll get away with casting and resolving a Planar Void rather than banking on Leyline in your opening grip. And if it's not there, you've pretty much wasted four slots.

With all the tempo advantage you're trying to gain with your own non-basic lands, I think Void deserves more credit than you're giving it. I'm not saying it is better (overall) than Leyline, I'm not, but I am saying in Goblins it shouldn't be dismissed as entirely un-useful.

[Malchar]

The only other thing worth mentioning is that playing a void or leyline after the opponent has threshold does nothing for you. Against gy-based combos, you shouldn't be worried about drawing into one of these because you wont make it in time. However, it is still effective to play it late against loam or the rock.

I don't fear thresh nearly as much as I fear the other decks listed here, especially combo. Keeping a hand game 2 or 3 that doesn't have a leyline/planar in it is a mistake against combo. Also, having it be uncounterable helps a lot against a combo deck that's also packing fow/daze, which all of the better combo decks do.

On a related note, I think that I'm going to drop my engineered explosives for chalice of the void. I simply was never using the explosives and even if I ever do face a stax deck or something like that, I still have 3x tin street.

[Nihil Credo]

Keeping a hand game 2 or 3 that doesn't have a leyline/planar in it is a mistake against combo. Also, having it be uncounterable helps a lot against a combo deck that's also packing fow/daze, which all of the better combo decks do.
I can't make any sense of this. The only decent combo deck that both runs countermagic and relies on the graveyard is Cephalid Breakfast, which is also the one combo deck you don't fear to face at all.

[Malchar]

Well, I've faced a number of combo decks that rely on the graveyard, and I'm not willing to bet the match on the hope that they arn't using counterspells. Besides, even if they don't have counters, if I'm going to try to mulligan into a leyline/planar and play it right away, leyline is still the best choice. Even if I were only chosing a SB card to take care of thresh, I would still prefer leyline for a variety of reasons. In addition to the reasons in my other post, leyline is also harder to kill with deed/explosives.

[chokin]

Well, I've faced a number of combo decks that rely on the graveyard, and I'm not willing to bet the match on the hope that they arn't using counterspells. Besides, even if they don't have counters, if I'm going to try to mulligan into a leyline/planar and play it right away, leyline is still the best choice. Even if I were only chosing a SB card to take care of thresh, I would still prefer leyline for a variety of reasons. In addition to the reasons in my other post, leyline is also harder to kill with deed/explosives.

I agree. Mulling til you find a Leyline/Planar means Leyline hits free and Planar still requires B on the first turn.

Against Thresh, they need 3 mana for Grip and between Wasteland and Port, we can hold that back for a few turns while getting situated. I'm not saying that they need it gone, but their Geese are 1/1's until it's gone and Goyf may not be as big as they'd like. By the time they find a Grip and 3 mana, we could have BB available and be able to cast another if we find one.

Void isn't bad, but I prefer Leyline.

[Mental]

In the past few days I've come to a few conclusions:

Warren Weirdings is bad. It's awful in the mirror, and never makes turn 1 Lackey hit against Thresh. Gempalm Incinerator is the better card...Piledriver is adequate removal for Goyf, and you shouldn't mind using double Incinerator/Incinerator + Mogg Fanatic to take out Goyf, especially when your board is devoted to beating it. You play 32 Creatures, Thresh play 8-12.
7 Duals is optimal. You want to play 3 Taiga and 4 Badlands, so that you can bluff Weirdings and have a flexible SB Plan.
6 Fetches is generally correct, unless you're especially scared of Stifle. No BASIC SWAMPS.
Play 24 Lands. 4 Port/4 Wastelands are a must - they're your best hope against Threshold. Mana Denial is how you win those games.
Wort is bad. Don't play her, you have enough 4 and 5 drops as it is.


My Current Sideboard is:
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Thoughtseize
2 Pyrokenisis
1 Goblin Good
3 Perish
2 Tormod's Crypt

Against Thresh, you do something like: -4 Mogg Fanatic, -3 Gempalm Incinerator, +2 Chalice of the Void, +1 Engineered Explosives, +3 Perish.

In the mirror, you can go: -1 Goblin Lackey, -1 Goblin Piledriver, +2 Pyrokenisis.

I really like the versatility of this sideboard. It doesn't force you to overload your MB and sacrifice speed, but it is powerful against most decks.

Also, I'd like to get some comments on my current build. I guess it's fairly unconventional now:

4 Badlands
3 Taiga
3 Foothills
3 Mires
3 Mountain
4 Wasteland
4 Rishidan Port

3 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Mogg Fanatic
3 Tin Street Hooligan
2 Seige-Gang Commander

4 Aether Vial

[calosso]

In the past few days I've come to a few conclusions:

Warren Weirdings is bad. It's awful in the mirror, and never makes turn 1 Lackey hit against Thresh. Gempalm Incinerator is the better card...Piledriver is adequate removal for Goyf, and you shouldn't mind using double Incinerator/Incinerator + Mogg Fanatic to take out Goyf, especially when your board is devoted to beating it. You play 32 Creatures, Thresh play 8-12.
7 Duals is optimal. You want to play 3 Taiga and 4 Badlands, so that you can bluff Weirdings and have a flexible SB Plan.
6 Fetches is generally correct, unless you're especially scared of Stifle. No BASIC SWAMPS.
Play 24 Lands. 4 Port/4 Wastelands are a must - they're your best hope against Threshold. Mana Denial is how you win those games.
Wort is bad. Don't play her, you have enough 4 and 5 drops as it is.


My Current Sideboard is:
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Thoughtseize
2 Pyrokenisis
1 Goblin Good
3 Perish
2 Tormod's Crypt

Against Thresh, you do something like: -4 Mogg Fanatic, -3 Gempalm Incinerator, +2 Chalice of the Void, +1 Engineered Explosives, +3 Perish.

In the mirror, you can go: -1 Goblin Lackey, -1 Goblin Piledriver, +2 Pyrokenisis.

I really like the versatility of this sideboard. It doesn't force you to overload your MB and sacrifice speed, but it is powerful against most decks.

Also, I'd like to get some comments on my current build. I guess it's fairly unconventional now:

4 Badlands
3 Taiga
3 Foothills
3 Mires
3 Mountain
4 Wasteland
4 Rishidan Port

3 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Mogg Fanatic
3 Tin Street Hooligan
2 Seige-Gang Commander

4 Aether Vial

Your Mana Base is AWFUL. Why do you run more black sources then green sources when you actually require green sources in the main? Port is not necessary to win games, it only slows you down and makes your mana base even worse. You are completely stupid if you think warren wierding is bad, HUURRRRRRR getting lackey to stick is not the only reason you use wierding it helps in the mid to late game vs thresh where goblins shines. Also wierding is not completely dead in the mirror, I am not saying it is good but randomly wierding a matron away for 2 1/1's is not awful, and randomly hitting a warchief can be pretty good. 3 Tin street hooligan is bad and unnecessary unless you have a swarm of dragonstompy in your metagame then you really do not need more than 2. Why do you have a random goblin goon? Why not make it a actual relevant card. Also Wort is gas, if he sticks vs threshold you win...... END OF STORY!!!! Also OMG WHY AREN'T YOU NOT PLAYING KROSAN GRIP??????????

[Mental]

Your Mana Base is AWFUL. Why do you run more black sources then green sources when you actually require green sources in the main? Port is not necessary to win games, it only slows you down and makes your mana base even worse. You are completely stupid if you think warren wierding is bad, HUURRRRRRR getting lackey to stick is not the only reason you use wierding it helps in the mid to late game vs thresh where goblins shines. Also wierding is not completely dead in the mirror, I am not saying it is good but randomly wierding a matron away for 2 1/1's is not awful, and randomly hitting a warchief can be pretty good. 3 Tin street hooligan is bad and unnecessary unless you have a swarm of dragonstompy in your metagame then you really do not need more than 2. Why do you have a random goblin goon? Why not make it an actual relevant card. Also Wort is gas, if he sticks vs threshold you win...... END OF STORY!!!! Also OMG WHY ARE YOU NOT PLAYING KROSAN GRIP??????????
I'll try to answer your incoherent ramblings one point at a time.

Why do I run more black sources than green? 2 Reasons - I require Black earlier in the game postboard, meaning I can take more time to find green. Also, I don't have the 4th Taiga.
Port is necessary to win games, it's very strong after really anything as it shuts Thresh down and randomly wins other games. Stalling = Tempo = Winning, if you didn't know. When you're in the postition with the advantage and you stall, it means you're winning the game.
Warren Weirdings isn't bad, and it could go in the TSH slot, I just don't think it's up to par. It never gets lackey to stick and when it only hits cards like Warchief when you've already a) lost the game or b) won the game. Tutoring for it late game against Thresh is decent, but if you're in the late game against Thresh, again, you're either in really good or really bad shape.
On TSH - I do have a lot of DStompy and Stax in my meta. Happy?
Goblin Goon is a relevant card. It trumps GOYF, and it lives through Plague. Sounds good to me.
I don't need Grip - No one plays Counterbalance in my meta/anything that plays both Artifatcts/Enchantments in combination with Counterspell.


OMG END OF STORY!!!!11!1

[Bovinious]

@ Mental:

I dont think you have ever played this deck in a tournament setting if you are saying some of the things you are. Warren Weirding is the stone cold nuts, and Hooligan is a 1-0f IF THAT, goblins doesnt care about Chalice or Trinisphere, really. Also, the number of duals/fetches is changeable but with 3 colors you really shouldnt be running 8 colorless producing lands, 4 Waste 0-2 Port is best.

Also, your sideboard is terrible. Its like all 1 and 2 ofs, and half of them are barely relevent. Goblin Goon doesnt do much actually, and the time spent tutoring it up and playing it would be better spent on Warren Wierding to kill Goyf or ANY other fatty. All those other cards shouldnt be there in the numbers they are. Chalice is best as a 4 of so you can get it down ASAP vs Thresh at 1 so they cant start cantripping, and vs Storm combo so they cant, ya know, win the game turn 1 or 2 (hopefully). Also, Kroson Grip is a MUST SB because of EPlague, Moat, Ghostly Prison, Enchantresses whole deck...I could go on, its not for Thresh/Counterbalance, you dont need it there. Seriously, dont talk down to others until you reexamine yourself and dont post a God-awful list with assertions that are mostly groundless and wrong, the only thing correct you said there was "No BASIC SWAMPS."

[Mental]

@ Mental:

I dont think you have ever played this deck in a tournament setting if you are saying some of the things you are. Warren Weirding is the stone cold nuts, and Hooligan is a 1-0f IF THAT, goblins doesnt care about Chalice or Trinisphere, really. Also, the number of duals/fetches is changeable but with 3 colors you really shouldnt be running 8 colorless producing lands, 4 Waste 0-2 Port is best.

Also, your sideboard is terrible. Its like all 1 and 2 ofs, and half of them are barely relevent. Goblin Goon doesnt do much actually, and the time spent tutoring it up and playing it would be better spent on Warren Wierding to kill Goyf or ANY other fatty. All those other cards shouldnt be there in the numbers they are. Chalice is best as a 4 of so you can get it down ASAP vs Thresh at 1 so they cant start cantripping, and vs Storm combo so they cant, ya know, win the game turn 1 or 2 (hopefully). Also, Kroson Grip is a MUST SB because of EPlague, Moat, Ghostly Prison, Enchantresses whole deck...I could go on, its not for Thresh/Counterbalance, you dont need it there. Seriously, dont talk down to others until you reexamine yourself and dont post a God-awful list with assertions that are mostly groundless and wrong, the only thing correct you said there was "No BASIC SWAMPS."
I've played this deck multiple times in a tournamnet setting. The sideboard is one and 2 ofs because it lets me customize it easily and pick and choose what to board in. I've already mentioned why I don't play KGrip, but you may have a good point about running 4 Chalice. I don't see why I can't play 4 Ports in a 24 Land Lists - It's like cutting 1 SGC and 1 Wort and replacing them with Port, not cutting lands. Since you rarely play those cards except of Lackey, Port has been stronger in my experience.
Goblins may not care about Chalice and Trinisphere, but I care a whole lot about Ensaring Bridge.
Tutoring up Matron over Goon is pointless because they may have a Goyf and Goose out. Also, Goon can block multiple creatures over the course a few turns.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

Goblin Goon is a relevant card. It trumps GOYFWarren's Weirding trumps Tarmogoyf even better.
On TSH - I do have a lot of DStompy and Stax in my meta. Happy?Tin Street Hooligan isn't too fantastic against Dragon Stompy. Warren's Weirding can take out almost any threat and create a lock with Wort.

[insertnamehere]

What about stingscourger. He bounces creatures and is an alternate source for taking out Goyf

[Mental]

Warren's Weirding trumps Tarmogoyf even better.Tin Street Hooligan isn't too fantastic against Dragon Stompy. Warren's Weirding can take out almost any threat and create a lock with Wort.

Weirdings trumps Goyf once. Goon does it multiple times.

TSH is just a flex slot. For now I'm playing it because there's a decent amount of Stax and DStompy in my meta, and the occasional mirror. I have no counterbalance, though there is a fair amount of tempo thresh.

[ChillerKiller0815]

Weirdings trumps Goyf once. Goon does it multiple times.

TSH is just a flex slot. For now I'm playing it because there's a decent amount of Stax and DStompy in my meta, and the occasional mirror. I have no counterbalance, though there is a fair amount of tempo thresh.

If you have trouble with a lot of decks playing with lots of Artifacts maybe you should consider playing a single Tinkerer instead of only TSH because they do shit if vialed in or played with a warchief online. -> Just a thought... Adds some flexibility. I mean Tinkerer is a one shot wonder for big artifacts and a permanent solution for many others like: Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, LED, Petal, Ornitopther, Arti-lands, Chalice of the Void, Vial, Needle, slows down SDT, Dreadnought, EE, .....

[Malchar]

The reason Hooligan is good against dragonstompy is because it takes out jitte and sword of fire and ice, which are significant threats. Tinkerer, by the way, gets much better when you have a warchief, whereas hooligan gets much worse.

Goon is alright. I don't feel like testing it, though, because it appears to be risky. Under an eplague, it's quite possibly dead because it doesn't have any friends left. Against goyf, the goyf is potentially bigger. Thresh will be happy to stp my singular goblin that can (sometimes) trade with goyf anyway.

Kgrip works as a good answer to plague but also to a number of other threats that simply cannot be answered by goblin cards.

As far as goblins is concerned, almost any creature under the opponent's control is a threat because it probably trades with piledriver (or worse, something like mother of runes). Warren Weirding will always remove a threat from the field. Incinerator fails when you don't have enough goblins, or if the other creature has protection or shroud.

[Bane of the Living]

People are really playing Goblin Goon again? He's older than Goblin Warchief himself, I promise he's not new tech. Just because he might be bigger than a goyf at twice the casting cost doesn't make him playable. Its not like the entire format revolves around the card.

Warrens Wierding is honestly a perfectly suitable answer to goyf. If he's still killing you add more to your deck.

Aside from Wierding, I've been liking Frogtosser Banneret alot. Wort was kinda flashy and cool but win more, and battled over SGC's spot. Frogtosser is perfect because he hits that sweet spot in your mana curve thats always a bit empty. He lets you have super broken games in cunjunction with Warchief. Chief was the best card in the deck, honestly why not play more than 4?

Another cost reducer is one of the things this deck was lookiung for. Especially at 2 mana. Try it out, you wont be disapointed.

[HdH_Cthulhu]

I dont like Frogtosser Banneret because he does nothing by itself... he is like a Ruby Medallion!

[Bane of the Living]

I dont like Frogtosser Banneret because he does nothing by itself... he is like a Ruby Medallion!

Why your right! He's a Ruby Medallion that chumps goyf, swings for 1, pumps piledrivers, and can be tutored/leadered for!

It looks like everything is better in this deck if its a goblin!

[Avatara]

You draw him with Ringleader
He makes Gempalm Incinerator bigger
He's another must counter for your opponent
Because he has haste himself he can instantly pump your Piledriver +2/+0
You can sack him with SGC
You can put him into play with Vial


I went down 2 lands and replaced them with 2 Frogtossers for a while now (testing purpose of course). So I run 21 lands.

To be honest I'm pretty happy with him, but I know that a lot of people on this forum aren't :laugh: .

I think that one of the success factors for Goblins is that it cheats casting cost... Lackey, Vial, Warchief . I don't mind having 6 "Warchiefs" myself.

This is the deck I'm running at the moment:

4 Æther Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
3 Mogg Fanatic

3 Earwig Squad/3 Goblin Piledriver
1 Goblin Piledriver
4 Warren Weirding
2 Frogtosser Banneret
1 Tin Street Hooligen

4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Warchief
1 Mad Auntie
1 Gempalm Incinerator

4 Goblin Ringleader
2 Wort, Boggart Auntie

1 Siege-Gang Commander

// 21 lands
4 Wasteland
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Badland
2 Rishadan Port
2 Mountain
2 Wooded Foothill
2 Taiga
1 Swamp

[Brehn]

He's another must counter for your opponent

A 1/1 for 2 is a must counter? Gosh, control must suck in this format.

[Avatara]

A 1/1 for 2 is a must counter? Gosh, control must suck in this format.

OK maybe a bit exaggerated. But it's a 1/1 that makes all spells cost one less... Don't tell me that's nothing because than we might as well play Fires instead of Warchief (sarcastic). No, I don't think there's any denying in the fact how important -1 mana cost is for a deck that is rather energy hungry. Combined with haste this is of course totally über. Goblins are forced to win a lot without Goblin Warchief in play... simply because he is a top priority target for removal spells.

Yes Warchief makes you win with explosive Piledriver stuff at the start. But Frogtosser doesn't decrease your Warchief (or any other threat) count in my case... it decreases the land count. And to be honest the only minor issue about running less than 23 lands was the fact that it's hard to get that fourth land. Frogtosser solves this problem in a way while retaining his tribal benefits.

Top decking the Warchief instead of a Frogtosser mid/late game at a critical moment is only a minor difference (1 damage)... because they both have haste. Anyhow I rather top deck a Frogtosser at this time than a mountain.

I don't think we should be talking about how much better Warchief is than Frogtosser but about the difference between a land and Frogtosser.

And yes there are situations where that land is better than a Frogtosser but there's also a lot of situations where the Frogtosser is better than the land card.

[chokin]

Dropping lands for Banneret makes sense kinda, but you're gonna want to hit your colors more than ever, so dropping fetch or duals is probably not the best way to go. This argument really goes back and forth forever. With 2 copies, you probably won't be seeing him much, but when you do, you'll want that black mana or a Vial.

I'm not sure I'd call Banneret a "must counter" or Warchief 5-6. The requirement for black mana without a basic swamp can kinda negate his discount if they Wasteland that Badlands. I'm not saying it'll happen every time, but it will probably happen here and there.

I think that Avatara's list needs: more SGC, no Mad Auntie, and maybe Tinkerer over TSH because of the "zOMG 6 Chief" style list.

I do like that he has that single Swamp that helps for Wasteland hate and it gives him that extra black source. The lowered land count makes it so it hurts more for red sources, but since you run as many black cards as you do, it might not.

[Hunter245]

Hey everyone. I was reading some of the posts, and i'm starting to get into legacy :). I was wondering some things though.

My List right now is meant to beat aggro and combo, Suggestions would be Helpful.


4 [TE] Wasteland
2 [MM] Rishadan Port
7 [OD] Mountain (2)
4 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
3 [ON] Wooded Foothills
2 [A] Badlands

2 [TE] Mogg Fanatic
4 [ON] Goblin Piledriver
4 [SC] Goblin Warchief
1 [SC] Siege-Gang Commander
1 [LE] Gempalm Incinerator
4 [US] Goblin Lackey
4 [P2] Goblin Matron
4 [AP] Goblin Ringleader
1 [MOR] Earwig Squad
1 [ON] Goblin Sharpshooter

4 [DS] AEther Vial
4 [LRW] Thorn of Amethyst
4 [MOR] Warren Weirding

SB: 2 [MI] Goblin Tinkerer
SB: 4 [SC] Pyrostatic Pillar
SB: 3 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [B] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [10E] Goblin King

Whats better in the board chalice or pycrastic pillar, Just curious, but i thinking i need to replace the pillars in my board with chalice.
Listening to the posts i was going to cut crypt for leyline of the void. I really like thorn of amethyst because it kinda slows everyone down, giving yourself time to find the tools to kill them it's usually dropped turn 2 when ur disrupting their mana. I have goblin king for eniginered plaque, because i don't splash green. otherwise krosan grip ftw! I like welder because it takes care of nasty equipment, and crucible, not to mention affinity. But i was wondering if i should -1. Or if it should be a welder.

I dunno if i have to much combo hate. I Like sharpshooter in their so i can kill bitterblossom tokens and empty the warren tokens with ease. Also the one ear-wig although i haven't really gotten to use it yet it seems good. Rfg 3x Goyfs, or combo pieces. Also I really want to squeeze Wort in but I simply don't have room. I Also want to try to bump up fanatic +1, but its so hard to cut anything. Alright thanks in advance

[raharu]

The Pillars would be better as Chalices as they come down faster and are mre effective combo hate. I don't see why, if the list's tweaked against combo, to run Cabal Therapy. It turns dead/ underpowered Fanatics into disruption and possible card advantage. Perhaps it's not the best with Thorn of Amethyst, but Therapy is ballin'... I guess Thorn is better and is viable as a MD option, where Therapy is not.

Are you sure that a 1/4 split for Incinerator/ Wierding is the best idea for an agro metagame? Goblin edict isn't pinpoint like Incinerator, which is a really important things to bear in mind because you don't want to Wierding a player and have them sac a small and/ or insignificant creature instead of the 'Goyf. At the very least, Incinerator gives youa choice in the matter and is card advantage (although you have to overextend into it for Incinerator to be the best it can be).

If you're running black, why not run Wort? Cutting a Piledriver for a Wort means you can recur one of the Piledrivers that you tutored up instead of having to hope that your 1000/2 doesn't get wiped out by a Mogg Fanatic. Why run a 4/1 split of Piledeiver/Squad? Perhaps I could see a 3/2 or 2/3, but why run 1 of a card that wants to hit in the early game and 4 of a card that you won't want until you have a strong board position (presumeably in the late game)?

Just a few thoughts.

[Hunter245]

Thanks a bunch. I just changed my configuration before i posted my list. I had before a 3/2 for warren and incinerator but i just wanted to test it out. Therapy, was actually the reason i splashed black at first with warrens. But i eventually cut it for the thorn.

Now I may seem like an idiot but i always thought that it should stay at 4x Piledrivers. ALthough it seems like i always usually toolbox for it ftw, but i dunno topdecking is always nice. I see about adding wort since she lives through enignered plaque (Which is always nice).

And Finnally the reason i through the one squad in their was because I planned it to be the final nail in the coffin against combo. After hopefully getting a lackey or vial to stick, getting a matron and prowling squad in. But does earwig deserve more spots?

[Malchar]

I went down to 1x piledriver and will consider cutting that one as well. The toolbox makes your deck more consistant. Also, drawing a sharpshooter or tinkerer instead of a piledriver is usually just as good. If piledriver was twice as good as any of the toolbox creatures, then I'd say to just keep the piledrivers. In reality, piledriver isn't so much better. It has just as many weaknesses as other creatures.

I also am starting to dislike wort. It's a great card but it always dies before doing anything. Almost every other creature has a bomb come-into-play ability that goes off no matter what. I'd rather just add another incinerator.

Frogtossers are good but it does mess up your mana base. I would suggest no more than 6 colorless sources. Cutting ports completely would be better. Using earwigs with the frogtossers kind of makes sense since it's more black sources and more chances to play the earwig for 1B. I have lost a few games with this build because my opponent locked down my black sources.

[chokin]

@ruharu - Weirding might be better in an aggro meta because of the fact that it isn't dependent on how many goblins are already down. It's just sorcery speed, counterable, and doesn't give you a card back. Spot removal is fine and dandy, but having to put down 5 goblins and have Incinerator < Weirding to deal with Goyf.

I personally don't like Thorn of Amethyst. It is nice for messing up math in combo decks as well as messing with counters. I like discard over Thorn because ripping out essential cards for B or for the cost of a creature

Wort really gives you extra gas. She recycles(environmentalists ftw) that old removal to force aggro to play a creature a turn to keep up the pace and also works nicely with other goblins. Wort also keeps your Tinkerers around kinda.

Play Mad Auntie. It scales better than King with Warchief. The regenerate ability is awesome with Piledriver, Tinkerer, and Sharpshooter. If they Pyroclasm, regenerating the Sharpshooter gives him the ability to keep shooting. Tinkerer and Driver are obvious. You can opt to keep a single king for Mountainwalk if you want, but I think Auntie is much better.

[Malchar]

I used to keep a king SB for red thresh. The deck totally fell out of my meta before it was even good, though. King is bad anyways, though. Attacking with everything sucks when they StP the King before blockers.

[raharu]

It seems like all the recent lists that have been t8ing have been white splash lists... Why do you think that is? I've always thought Rbg, Rg, and Rb were the best lists, but a quick look in the historical t8 thread proves me wrong, aparently...

[Mental]

The Pillars would be better as Chalices as they come down faster and are mre effective combo hate. I don't see why, if the list's tweaked against combo, to run Cabal Therapy. It turns dead/ underpowered Fanatics into disruption and possible card advantage. Perhaps it's not the best with Thorn of Amethyst, but Therapy is ballin'... I guess Thorn is better and is viable as a MD option, where Therapy is not.

Are you sure that a 1/4 split for Incinerator/ Wierding is the best idea for an agro metagame? Goblin edict isn't pinpoint like Incinerator, which is a really important things to bear in mind because you don't want to Wierding a player and have them sac a small and/ or insignificant creature instead of the 'Goyf. At the very least, Incinerator gives youa choice in the matter and is card advantage (although you have to overextend into it for Incinerator to be the best it can be).

If you're running black, why not run Wort? Cutting a Piledriver for a Wort means you can recur one of the Piledrivers that you tutored up instead of having to hope that your 1000/2 doesn't get wiped out by a Mogg Fanatic. Why run a 4/1 split of Piledeiver/Squad? Perhaps I could see a 3/2 or 2/3, but why run 1 of a card that wants to hit in the early game and 4 of a card that you won't want until you have a strong board position (presumeably in the late game)?

Just a few thoughts.

Meh, I don't think Wort is necessary. I like what 4x Piledriver does to your curve and the pressure it applies in the early game, and I don't like running Wort, which, is itself a Matron target, on the logic of "it's good with another matron target". Wort it unnecessary - even with Driver in play, I'd ALWAYS rather have Ringleader. Squad's also SB material at best - it's not even that good in the late game, rarely does it come down on turn 2, and it dies to just as much as Driver without applying half as much pressure.

Those are my thoughts.

[Avatara]

It seems like all the recent lists that have been t8ing have been white splash lists... Why do you think that is? I've always thought Rbg, Rg, and Rb were the best lists, but a quick look in the historical t8 thread proves me wrong, aparently...

You think that list gives you a realistic overview?

Take a look at: http://www.magic-ville.com/fr/decks/decklists?format=T1.5

That site tells me that most top 8 goblin decks are either RB or mono-red.

[kicks_422]

Because even fewer people are playing Goblins now? Just a hunch.

Rgb's been pretty solid. Warren Weirding really helps a lot, generally actign as tutorable StP's.

I only have G for the SB Grips, though - and the only enchantments that I want to board them in against are, off the top of my head, Engineered Plague, Humility, and maybe Moat and Ghostly Prison/Propaganda. Are there any other green cards worthy of inclusion? I've never been much of a fan of Tin-Street in 3-color.

[chokin]

Because even fewer people are playing Goblins now? Just a hunch.

Rgb's been pretty solid. Warren Weirding really helps a lot, generally actign as tutorable StP's.

I only have G for the SB Grips, though - and the only enchantments that I want to board them in against are, off the top of my head, Engineered Plague, Humility, and maybe Moat and Ghostly Prison/Propaganda. Are there any other green cards worthy of inclusion? I've never been much of a fan of Tin-Street in 3-color.

I splash green solely for Grip and the occasional TSH if the meta calls for it. I used to use Tranquility or Tranquil Domain to deal with pesky enchanments. I used Oxidize for killing artifacts. If the meta had both, I used Naturalize.

And then Krosan Grip was printed.

Grip fills the role of all of these cards and has the advantage of being very hard to counter. It's immune to normal counters, and can only really be taken care of by Counterbalance and Willbender(who plays that anyway?).

The ONLY disadvantage is if there are multiple targets you need to get rid of, but that's rarely an issue.

But yeah, Grip is about all you'll need. And TSH is good sometimes too.

[Mental]

Because even fewer people are playing Goblins now? Just a hunch.

Rgb's been pretty solid. Warren Weirding really helps a lot, generally actign as tutorable StP's.

I only have G for the SB Grips, though - and the only enchantments that I want to board them in against are, off the top of my head, Engineered Plague, Humility, and maybe Moat and Ghostly Prison/Propaganda. Are there any other green cards worthy of inclusion? I've never been much of a fan of Tin-Street in 3-color.

Engineered Explosives isn't green, but it can't be run without green. It's decent, I think. Other than that, there's no commonly accepted green cards besides Chant.

[Melwis]

Engineered Explosives isn't green, but it can't be run without green. It's decent, I think. Other than that, there's no commonly accepted green cards besides Chant.

Seriously, I have to ask because I just can't let go of the card: Rancor.

It just seems to me that it could be so godly with Lackey and/or Piledriver. And then i'm not saying it's crappy on any of your other Goblins, because it's not. A good example is Mongoose (or any other creature with 3 in toughness and atleast 2 in power; Mishra comes to my mind). If ur opponent has one of these on their side it suddenly gets so much harder to swing every turn. With a Rancor on any of your Goblins you could probably swing for 3-4 damage every turn which also seems solid. And the fact that Rancor just stays after you've drawn it makes it so good. Thanks to Rancor staying you probably won't need 4 copies of it either. 2-3 will probably be enough and 2 is what i'm planning on adding into my list for some testing:

Summons(32)
---------------
4 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg Fanatic
2 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Tin Street Hooligan

Instants(2):
-------------
2 Rancor

Artifacts(4)
--------------
4 Aether Vial

Lands(22)
-----------
8 Mountains
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Wasteland
4 Taiga
2 Bloodstained Mire

Please tell me why Rancor shouldn't be included in the list if thats what you think.

PS: Besides Rancor, please comment my list if you think anything else is "wrong" with it.

[Jeremy]

Please tell me why Rancor shouldn't be included in the list if thats what you think.


'cause Rancor ain't an instant but an enchantment?
'cause if I see rancor on stack i shot/stp/blast/everything else to lackey and I make a 2x1?

Otherwise, 2x in a card that can be used with 2 sets of goblins which are tutorable and rancor is not is just a random card.

Imho, your list lacks of removal for creatures. Sharpshooter would be fine, or if you go only RG you could think of tarfire, or even lightning crafter.

[Melwis]

'cause Rancor ain't an instant but an enchantment?
'cause if I see rancor on stack i shot/stp/blast/everything else to lackey and I make a 2x1?

Otherwise, 2x in a card that can be used with 2 sets of goblins which are tutorable and rancor is not is just a random card.

Imho, your list lacks of removal for creatures. Sharpshooter would be fine, or if you go only RG you could think of tarfire, or even lightning crafter.

True. I didn't think about the fact that instant removal = GG Rancor..
Still, I think it seems solid. If I play Lackey and then you simply play a land (to StP my Lackey in my turn for example) then there is no reason to play Rancor on Lackey because I know you got something for him and if you don't, Lackey will connect (which is the outcome you want when you play Rancor on Lackey anyways). The reason to play Rancor on Lackey would be when I play him, you play a land and then play a creature to stand in the way for Lackey.

And I already said that I think Rancor is solid on any Goblin which doesn't make it random imo.

Sharpshooter is situational but perhaps I should have him in my list yes..
Tarfire doesn't attract me to much. I had never seen Lightning Crafter before actually. He's a bit interesting but right now when I want to try out Rancor I don't see anything I can cut for him nor Sharpshooter.

[Jeremy]

True. I didn't think about the fact that instant removal = GG Rancor..
Still, I think it seems solid. If I play Lackey and then you simply play a land (to StP my Lackey in my turn for example) then there is no reason to play Rancor on Lackey because I know you got something for him and if you don't, Lackey will connect (which is the outcome you want when you play Rancor on Lackey anyways). The reason to play Rancor on Lackey would be when I play him, you play a land and then play a creature to stand in the way for Lackey.

And I already said that I think Rancor is solid on any Goblin which doesn't make it random imo.

Sharpshooter is situational but perhaps I should have him in my list yes..
Tarfire doesn't attract me to much. I had never seen Lightning Crafter before actually. He's a bit interesting but right now when I want to try out Rancor I don't see anything I can cut for him nor Sharpshooter.

Ok, I could say it becomes useful on 8 goblins, I don't think I'd like it on matron or sgc, if not necessary.

I think it is less sinergic with all the goblin tutors and drawers, and it forces
you to fetch for green on 1st or 2nd turn, making your manabase weaker during the game.
And manabase has always been goblin's strenght.

Concerning crafter, here's a Rw list which made 1st place on 37 people tournament:
http://www.tipo1.it/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6627

[Avatara]

hmmm funny that Lightning Crafter was also on one of the top 8 decks that I posted on my link on the previous page.

[Avatara]

If I HAD to run another non Goblin card to boost my Goblins it would be Fires of Yavimaya instead of Rancor. Seeing how haste wins for goblins...

OK you can laugh now! :laugh:

[Pulp_Fiction]

Ok, I am sure this has been discussed before but this thread is 70 pages long and I really don't want to go through all of that. I am just starting to play Goblins and I have a very standard Rgb build and I am nitpicking about the lands. The 22x lands I run are:

4x Wasteland
3x Port
3x Badlands
3x Taiga
4x Wooded Foothills
2x Bloodstained Mire
3x Mountain

3x Weirding in the main, 1x Wort main and 3x Cabal Therapy in the side is what black is for and the green is for 3x Grip SB and 1x Hooligan main. Does this manabase have to many fetchlands which thin the lands thus making it a little harder to hit 4 consistently? And the other important question (to me anyway) is does it make a difference between running 2x or 3x Rishadan Port? I haven't extensively tested this deck enough to know all about it and I am just wondering if playing 2 or 3 Port really affects much of anything.

The other random thought I had was about the number of SGC. Is 1x enough? I tested a list with 2 and loved them but then I cut one to make room for Wort. Is it always better to run more SGC? My meta is everything you can think of, there is nothing predictable about it so the cards are not meta dependant, just wanting some advice from the people who really know goblins!

[H8ER8ER]

Ok, I am sure this has been discussed before but this thread is 70 pages long and I really don't want to go through all of that. I am just starting to play Goblins and I have a very standard Rgb build and I am nitpicking about the lands. The 22x lands I run are:

4x Wasteland
3x Port
3x Badlands
3x Taiga
4x Wooded Foothills
2x Bloodstained Mire
3x Mountain

3x Weirding in the main, 1x Wort main and 3x Cabal Therapy in the side is what black is for and the green is for 3x Grip SB and 1x Hooligan main. Does this manabase have to many fetchlands which thin the lands thus making it a little harder to hit 4 consistently? And the other important question (to me anyway) is does it make a difference between running 2x or 3x Rishadan Port? I haven't extensively tested this deck enough to know all about it and I am just wondering if playing 2 or 3 Port really affects much of anything.

The other random thought I had was about the number of SGC. Is 1x enough? I tested a list with 2 and loved them but then I cut one to make room for Wort. Is it always better to run more SGC? My meta is everything you can think of, there is nothing predictable about it so the cards are not meta dependant, just wanting some advice from the people who really know goblins!

In a 3 color deck, I would suggest running at least 23 land, with 6 (or less) of them being colorless, optimally 4 Wasteland, 2 Port. You really want to keep hitting land drops, and with 6 colorless producers you also want to hit RR soon, and also your splash colors, so 23 is pretty much the standard. If you were only running 2 colors I could conceivably see 22, but 23 lands is generally considered best for 3 colors, with 4 Wastes and 0-2 Ports.

[Mental]

Seriously, I have to ask because I just can't let go of the card: Rancor.

It just seems to me that it could be so godly with Lackey and/or Piledriver. And then i'm not saying it's crappy on any of your other Goblins, because it's not. A good example is Mongoose (or any other creature with 3 in toughness and atleast 2 in power; Mishra comes to my mind). If ur opponent has one of these on their side it suddenly gets so much harder to swing every turn. With a Rancor on any of your Goblins you could probably swing for 3-4 damage every turn which also seems solid. And the fact that Rancor just stays after you've drawn it makes it so good. Thanks to Rancor staying you probably won't need 4 copies of it either. 2-3 will probably be enough and 2 is what i'm planning on adding into my list for some testing:

Summons(32)
---------------
4 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg Fanatic
2 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Tin Street Hooligan

Instants(2):
-------------
2 Rancor

Artifacts(4)
--------------
4 Aether Vial

Lands(22)
-----------
8 Mountains
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Wasteland
4 Taiga
2 Bloodstained Mire

Please tell me why Rancor shouldn't be included in the list if thats what you think.

PS: Besides Rancor, please comment my list if you think anything else is "wrong" with it.

Rancor opens you up to huge 2-for-ones, like, "I play Rancor. Response - STP lackey." That really sucks for you. Also, Rancor is a dead Topdeck, can't be tutored for, isn't a goblin, and isn't read. The goal of this deck isn't to make Lackey connect - that's just one of the various ways you generate advantage. No Legacy deck should be built around untutorable 2 card combos.

As to what else is wrong with your list...you should probably run more black, less Incinerator, less Tin Street, and more Weirdings.

[Braves]

What is the general decision on the best suited decklist to an unknown meta game?

[Melwis]

Rancor opens you up to huge 2-for-ones, like, "I play Rancor. Response - STP lackey." That really sucks for you. Also, Rancor is a dead Topdeck, can't be tutored for, isn't a goblin, and isn't read. The goal of this deck isn't to make Lackey connect - that's just one of the various ways you generate advantage. No Legacy deck should be built around untutorable 2 card combos.

As to what else is wrong with your list...you should probably run more black, less Incinerator, less Tin Street, and more Weirdings.

Ok, I give up, i'll try splasing for black to see the awesomeness so many is talking about :p

This is the list i'm leaning towards after looking on quite a few that has been posted earlier:

Summons(32)
---------------
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg Fanatic
3 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Frogtosser Banneret
1 Goblin Tinkerer

Sorceries(3)
--------------
3 Warren Weirding

Artifacts(4)
--------------
4 Aether Vial

Lands(22)
-----------
5 Mountains
4 Wasteland
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Badlands
2 Auntie's Hovel
2 Rishadan Port

I decided to go with a 3/3 split between Weirding and Incinerator because I have no experience in Weirding whatsoever but what I do know is how broken Incinerator can be. If I happen to like/dislike Weirding this will probably turn into a 2/4 split.

I'm going with Frogtosser for a number of reasons and even tho I know many of you doesn't like them we don't have to start arguing about this again (since it has been done quite well already). Anyways, the reasons are:

- They give me enough courage to make me cut a land from 22 to 21.

- I want to try Goblin Tinkerer out which happen to be alot better with either Warchief or Frogtosser out.

- They have a nice mana cost.

I also am not sure about Auntie's Hovel which I do think seem alright. They could very well be swapped for 2 more fetches however. I guess the question is if you should fear Wasteland or Stifle the most?

Edit: One thing I am a bit worried about when it comes to Weirding is the fact that it is tribal. Sure, the card might remove a Goyf on the board, but what if my opponent gets another one out and I don't happen to draw into more Weirdings? It seems it could just buff Goyf more in some occasions.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

One thing I am a bit worried about when it comes to Weirding is the fact that it is tribal. Sure, the card might remove a Goyf on the board, but what if my opponent gets another one out and I don't happen to draw into more Weirdings? It seems it could just buff Goyf more in some occasions.Removing the current 'goyf is worth the one more damage later. Weirding is powerful removal that gets things that Incinerator can't. It's good against Tarmogoyf, decks with the word 'stompy' in their name, and swings the board greatly in your favor when combined with Wort.

[GreenOne]

- I want to try Goblin Tinkerer out which happen to be alot better with either Warchief or Frogtosser out.

Edit: One thing I am a bit worried about when it comes to Weirding is the fact that it is tribal. Sure, the card might remove a Goyf on the board, but what if my opponent gets another one out and I don't happen to draw into more Weirdings? It seems it could just buff Goyf more in some occasions.

I don't see how Frogtosser helps Tinkerer other than make it cost 1 less. It don't give him haste for its ability, is there something I'm missing?

Yeah, weirding has this little side effect. However, if you play 4 (and maybe a Wort too), you have plenty of ways to get rid of it. In addition, if you killed the first Gof, you're probably already in good shape and have some number of dudes on board to make incinerator effective or to chump block and attack on your turn.

[Melwis]

I don't see how Frogtosser helps Tinkerer other than make it cost 1 less. It don't give him haste for its ability, is there something I'm missing?

Yeah, I realised that was a stupid point. Warchief is obviously the card that makes Tinkerer sick thanks to the haste factor.

You both suggest Wort to be added but I really don't know what I can cut for it. Perhaps 1 Commander? Alot of people think it's wrong to cut them for Wort saying Wort is more of a win-more and a horrible topdeck when compared to Commander. I guess you will probably tell me to cut the Frogtossers but I really just want to try them. If I don't find them impressive i'll swap them for 1 land and 1 Wort.

[redmage]

Yeah, I realised that was a stupid point. Warchief is obviously the card that makes Tinkerer sick thanks to the haste factor.

It's not so much that Frogtossers/Warchiefs help Tinkerer, as it is Frogtossers/Warchiefs hurt TSHooligan. When considering the two options, your statement of "Tinkerer happens to be alot better with either Warchief or Frogtosser out" is quite true. They don't cut off your Art. destruction with a Tinkerer.



You both suggest Wort to be added but I really don't know what I can cut for it. Perhaps 1 Commander?

I wouldn't drop below 2x Commanders. If you want to test Wort, the slots I'd look to would be one of the following:

-1x Incinerator/Weirding (going to 5 total: 2x GI, 3x WW)
-1x Mogg Fanatic
-1x Goblin Piledriver

Or, with your idea of replacing the Frogtossers with +1x Land & +1x Wort; of course, the final call depends on your meta.

[Melwis]

It's not so much that Frogtossers/Warchiefs help Tinkerer, as it is Frogtossers/Warchiefs hurt TSHooligan. When considering the two options, your statement of "Tinkerer happens to be alot better with either Warchief or Frogtosser out" is quite true. They don't cut off your Art. destruction with a Tinkerer.

Yeah that's exactly what I meant!!! :tongue:

Well, I think in some way it kinda was but it it was wrong to put it as a reason to play Frogtosser I guess. The reason I was trying to point out would probably be something like: "Since i'm running Tinkerer instead of TSH, more cards that makes my goblins cost 1 less can only be positive". :wink:

[Mental]

Yeah that's exactly what I meant!!! :tongue:

Well, I think in some way it kinda was but it it was wrong to put it as a reason to play Frogtosser I guess. The reason I was trying to point out would probably be something like: "Since i'm running Tinkerer instead of TSH, more cards that makes my goblins cost 1 less can only be positive". :wink:

Tinkerer is bad. Half the cards you want to kill with it (read: Jitte, SOFI) will kill it first. Play TSH, and don't play Banneret. It makes TSH bad, it dies to everything, and it makes your manabase sucky, and if you aren't cutting lands for it, you should be playing something better, like more SGC/Weirdings. If you want to play a Wort, fine, but I think it's unnecessary also. I'd play -2 Frogtosser, -2 Mountain, -1 Gempalm Incinerator, +1 Weirdings, + 1 Tin Street Hooligan, +1 SGC/Wort, +2 Taiga. You should run fine on 22 Lands, without Frogtosser.

[Melwis]

Tinkerer is bad. Half the cards you want to kill with it (read: Jitte, SOFI) will kill it first. Play TSH, and don't play Banneret. It makes TSH bad, it dies to everything, and it makes your manabase sucky, and if you aren't cutting lands for it, you should be playing something better, like more SGC/Weirdings. If you want to play a Wort, fine, but I think it's unnecessary also. I'd play -2 Frogtosser, -2 Mountain, -1 Gempalm Incinerator, +1 Weirdings, + 1 Tin Street Hooligan, +1 SGC/Wort, +2 Taiga. You should run fine on 22 Lands, without Frogtosser.

Ok, first of all i'm sorry but I didn't change the number next to "Lands". In the list I posted I only have 21.

I'm not sure why you think Tinkerer is so bad. He becomes better with either Warchief and/or Frogtosser out where TSH just becomes completely useless. He can handle multiple artifacts in some cases (Sensei's, Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, Pithing Needle, Phyrexian Dreadnought etc etc). And what if he dies to a couple of artifacts aswell, he still gets rid of 1 artifact which is what TSH also do. Sure TSH remains on the board and that's better but removing the artifact is the reason you run them and they both take care of 1 with Tinkerer having the possibility of handling multiples.

The only real advantage that TSH has is the fact that it removes an artifact as soon as it gets out. But with a Warchief out, this is true for Tinkerer aswell and you don't need any green mana for him unlike with TSH.

Don't get me wrong. I see the benefits of TSH. But right now, I see more of them with Tinkerer.

[kicks_422]

What artifacts are you afraid of anyway? If you're thinking Jitte/SoFI, your Warchief will most probably die, giving you the chance to use TSH's ability. And without a Warchief, Tinkerer will do nothing against those. The only other artifact off the top of my head which Tinkerer does a better job against than TSH would be Ensnaring Bridge.

[Slay]

The reason Tinkerer is so bad is because your removal shouldn't be able to be defeated by removal. Especially if that removal is a sofi or a jitte.
-Slay

[loop]

Hi. I fired up MWS again yesterday and started playing a bit with gobs again... and I was thinking about playing it in an upcoming local tourney.
For budget reasons, I'd like to stick to mono red though.. is it still viable?

I was thinking about a list like this:

15x Mountain
4x Wasteland
4x Rishadan Port

4x Goblin Matron
4x Goblin Ringleader
4x Goblin Warchief
4x Goblin Lackey
4x Goblin Piledriver
4x Mogg Fanatic
4x Gempalm Incinerator
3x Siege-Gang Commander
1x Goblin Tinkerer
1x Goblin Sharpshooter

4x Aether Vial

SB:
4x Tormod's crypt
4x Pyrostatic Pillar
4x REB
1x Goblin King
2x ?

It seems 4x Port isnt played anymore... but I figured in mono red, it shouldn't really hurt since you can always get RR consistently. Should I still lower the count?
Sharpshooter could probably be something else, I just didn't see any other gob worth including.

Any advice would be appreciated ;) Thanks!

[chokin]

Hi. I fired up MWS again yesterday and started playing a bit with gobs again... and I was thinking about playing it in an upcoming local tourney.
For budget reasons, I'd like to stick to mono red though.. is it still viable?

I was thinking about a list like this:

15x Mountain
4x Wasteland
4x Rishadan Port

4x Goblin Matron
4x Goblin Ringleader
4x Goblin Warchief
4x Goblin Lackey
4x Goblin Piledriver
4x Mogg Fanatic
4x Gempalm Incinerator
3x Siege-Gang Commander
1x Goblin Tinkerer
1x Goblin Sharpshooter

4x Aether Vial

SB:
4x Tormod's crypt
4x Pyrostatic Pillar
4x REB
1x Goblin King
2x ?

It seems 4x Port isnt played anymore... but I figured in mono red, it shouldn't really hurt since you can always get RR consistently. Should I still lower the count?
Sharpshooter could probably be something else, I just didn't see any other gob worth including.

Any advice would be appreciated ;) Thanks!

Needs more fetch, IMO. Mono red feels weaker than the splashes of B and/or G. Black gives you awesome removal and recursion from Wort and Weirdings. Green gives Grip and Hooligan.

[loop]

I never said I didn't see the strength of a green/black splash, I think I made it clear it was a budget issue...

[quietmage]

You ever thought about putting Blood moon in the maindeck? It seems pretty strong if you are mono red.

[Mental]

You ever thought about putting Blood moon in the maindeck? It seems pretty strong if you are mono red.

Yeah, I'd test blood moon MD, but since it isn't a Goblin, and is often dead, it may not be optimal MD. You should definitely play a few in your board, though.

[loop]

Seems like a good sideboard choice indeed... here's what I had in mind so far:
4x REB
4x Tormod's Crypt
4x Chalice of the void
3x Pyrostatic pillar

I thought it'd give me a fighting chance against combo... do you suggest blood moon over something else?

And what about the MD of the list I posted? No suggestions?
Thanks :)

[kicks_422]

The MD for your mono-red list is pretty standard. I'd run that if I were running mono-red.

For the SB, I've never felt the need to run REB's in Goblins. I'd much rather want it to be any other Goblin in decks which REB is sided in. I can't think of anything to replace it though, other than the aforementioned Blood Moon. Maybe Pyrokinesis.

[Avatara]

Hi. I fired up MWS again yesterday and started playing a bit with gobs again... and I was thinking about playing it in an upcoming local tourney.
For budget reasons, I'd like to stick to mono red though.. is it still viable?

I was thinking about a list like this:

15x Mountain
4x Wasteland
4x Rishadan Port

4x Goblin Matron
4x Goblin Ringleader
4x Goblin Warchief
4x Goblin Lackey
4x Goblin Piledriver
4x Mogg Fanatic
4x Gempalm Incinerator
3x Siege-Gang Commander
1x Goblin Tinkerer
1x Goblin Sharpshooter

4x Aether Vial

SB:
4x Tormod's crypt
4x Pyrostatic Pillar
4x REB
1x Goblin King
2x ?

It seems 4x Port isnt played anymore... but I figured in mono red, it shouldn't really hurt since you can always get RR consistently. Should I still lower the count?
Sharpshooter could probably be something else, I just didn't see any other gob worth including.

Any advice would be appreciated ;) Thanks!

Maybe a Stingscourger (or a few)? It's really nice to be able to bounce Naughts and other big blockers to get that lethal damage through. And I'm not certain whether you really need 23 lands because you wont be reducing your library's land count during the game with fetchlands. Maybe you can drop one or two lands?

[Mental]

Seems like a good sideboard choice indeed... here's what I had in mind so far:
4x REB
4x Tormod's Crypt
4x Chalice of the void
3x Pyrostatic pillar

I thought it'd give me a fighting chance against combo... do you suggest blood moon over something else?

And what about the MD of the list I posted? No suggestions?
Thanks :)

In place of 4 REB and 3 Pyrostatic Pillar, play 3 Blood Moon and 4 Shattering Spree. Or something like that. Pillar is awful.

[Shivanking]

I play goblin from about two years: goblin grappler in this meta is a very good card! Whit grappler I can attacks with goblin piledriver without the fear of tarmogoyf or another annoying card!
For the side I play this:

SB: 3 [9E] Blood Moon
SB: 3 [US] Disenchant
SB: 4 [LRW] Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 2 [SHM] Vexing Shusher
SB: 3 [MR] Chalice of the Void

[loop]

In place of 4 REB and 3 Pyrostatic Pillar, play 3 Blood Moon and 4 Shattering Spree. Or something like that. Pillar is awful.
Really? That's interesting.. I assumed Pillar made the combo match up better (haven't been able to playtest a lot against it yet tho). Is it not the case?

Blood moon seems like a good idea, and was already suggested, I'm adding it.

Against which deck would you want Sprees?

I'm not really convinced for either Stingscourger and Grappler yet, but I'll think about it...


And I'm not certain whether you really need 23 lands because you wont be reducing your library's land count during the game with fetchlands. Maybe you can drop one or two lands?
Maybe I can indeed. Though I don't really want to drop mountains because of RR requirements, and Port seems better to me than subpar goblins... Not sure yet.

Thanks for all the advice so far :)

[Shivanking]

with grappler you haven't problem for tarmogoyf(blocking piledriver) and other big creatures that many times are problematics..

[kicks_422]

Really? That's interesting.. I assumed Pillar made the combo match up better (haven't been able to playtest a lot against it yet tho). Is it not the case?

Combo is just one of those MU's that you just need luck and Chalices to win. Overloading your SB for that MU is just a waste of space.


with grappler you haven't problem for tarmogoyf(blocking piledriver) and other big creatures that many times are problematics..

It's a pretty narrow card to even try to fit into the deck. We already have Warren Weirding anyway.

[loop]

Combo is just one of those MU's that you just need luck and Chalices to win. Overloading your SB for that MU is just a waste of space.

Makes sense. I'll remove it then...
Mental mentionned Spree in its place, is it to take care of Jitte/SoFI, etc. that Tinkerer won't be able to handle?
Sounds like a good idea... Would help against Stax, too.
Thanks for the input.

For my next playtests I'll be trying
4x Crypts
4x Sprees
4x Chalice
3x Blood Moon

[Avatara]

As far as I remember Stingscourger was a pretty normal card in the deck before the black splash became available offering Warren Weirding. Gempalm is not a replacement for Warren Weirding.

[ASSASSIN]

Makes sense. I'll remove it then...
Mental mentionned Spree in its place, is it to take care of Jitte/SoFI, etc. that Tinkerer won't be able to handle?
Sounds like a good idea... Would help against Stax, too.
Thanks for the input.

For my next playtests I'll be trying
4x Crypts
4x Sprees
4x Chalice
3x Blood Moon
crypt against what ? Against aggro loam leyline is better. Against aggro with tarmo is really useless because you want only kill the creature and tormod never help for this. Sure against ichorid it is good. But versus ichorid it is a win more in a normally constitued goblin.

With your list you can't win against real aggro in legacy. You haven't warren weirding in MD and pyrokinesis in SB so you couldn't kill their creature (gempalm is too long now). tarmogoyf, countryside crusher, terravore, dreadnought, tombstalker, akroma and arc slogger kill you.

chalice is not optimised against combo now. Thorn of amethyst can help again ichorid and control too.

pithing needle is better than shattering spree. He stop the threat before the opponant can use it. And it is also good against pernicious deed.

blood moon is conceivable in a mono red build but goblin without black (and especially without warren weirding) can't survive in the actual meta (or in minimum, in my meta).


As far as I remember Stingscourger was a pretty normal card in the deck before the black splash became available offering Warren Weirding. Gempalm is not a replacement for Warren Weirding.
Sure. In my Rb version I play 1 stingscourger, 3 gempalm and 3 weirding. I need all of them against all the aggro in the meta.

[Mental]

After some further remembering my old lists, I'd play the following SB in mono red:

4 Chalice
3 Moon
4 Crypt
3 Pyrokenisis
1 Goblin King

that's about as solid as it gets. If you're worried about Jitte/SoFI, play Spree in place of Crypts/Kenisis.

Thorn of Amethyst, while decent, can't really do as much as Chalice can. Combo can win through Thorn before Chalice, and Thresh is hurt more by Chalice than Thorn. Play Chalice.

[loop]

crypt against what ? Against aggro loam leyline is better. Against aggro with tarmo is really useless because you want only kill the creature and tormod never help for this. Sure against ichorid it is good. But versus ichorid it is a win more in a normally constitued goblin.
Well, the fact that I can't hardcast Leyline is kinda a turnoff... sure it'd be better, but I won't play it until I splash black. And I don't believe that crypts are "win more" against Ichorid.


With your list you can't win against real aggro in legacy. You haven't warren weirding in MD and pyrokinesis in SB so you couldn't kill their creature (gempalm is too long now). tarmogoyf, countryside crusher, terravore, dreadnought, tombstalker, akroma and arc slogger kill you.
None of these die to Pyrokinesis tho, except Crusher if cast early.. so it's at best a 3 for 1? :eek:


chalice is not optimised against combo now. Thorn of amethyst can help again ichorid and control too.
Could you elaborate? What has changed in combo making Chalices less useful in your opinion?


pithing needle is better than shattering spree. He stop the threat before the opponant can use it. And it is also good against pernicious deed.
Pithing needle seems to be a good choice indeed. Can't afford a set yet though.


blood moon is conceivable in a mono red build but goblin without black (and especially without warren weirding) can't survive in the actual meta (or in minimum, in my meta).
Well, I'll splash black whenever I can afford the duals.
And I agree Weirding is a great card, but why would you say the deck can't work without it? It's only been there since Morningtide :confused:

Mental, is King there for E. Plague?
As someone said a few pages back, it doesn't seem so hot... since he can't live through double plague, and dies to Pyroclasm, it seems kinda useless.
Thanks for the SB tho :)

[Maëlig]

Mental, is King there for E. Plague?
As someone said a few pages back, it doesn't seem so hot... since he can't live through double plague, and dies to Pyroclasm, it seems kinda useless.
Thanks for the SB tho :)

Actually, without access to green and krosan grip, I would tend to think 1x goblin king in the SB is a good idea. Of course double plague kills it, but if that happens you're probably dead anyways. And how many decks pack plague AND pyroclasm? Also, isn't he decent in mirror or against aggroloam and dragon stompy?

[ASSASSIN]

@ chalice VS thorn of amethyst

-> against ThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThresh playing chalice is not optimal now. You only want a solution against tarmogoyf. If tarmogoyf dead, you win. And chalice doesn't help for that.

-> chalice is not optimal against combo. What changed since one year (when I play a playset of chalice) ? Half of combo is ichorid.deck now. And you wouldn't chalice in this MU. But with thorn you could stop all cabal and dread return.

@ pyrokinesis

It is not necessary a card against aggro loam but against Dragon Stompy, Faerie Stompy, mirror, ichorid and against ETW token. It is really better than crypt.

@ ichorid MU :

It is a easy MU if you play a solid build, with thorn and pyrokinesis, with 4 fanatic (and shearching it with matron) and if you really win this MU you can put one sharp in SB.


And I agree Weirding is a great card, but why would you say the deck can't work without it? It's only been there since Morningtide
Before morning tide the metagame is really hard for goblin because tarmogoyf is too present and too hard to kill for goblin. With morning tide warren weirding was prainting and immediatly I test it. With it we can again win with goblin. But now with aggro loam WW is not sufficient. Now I don't play goblin because I couldn't win with it in this meta. Before this I never stop testing goblin since 2005.
Maybe your metagame is different but I don't believe you can win without a black splash (green splash is, for me, useless).

@ Maëlig :
goblin king is crap. It is a chance factor in a CA fight. The only games I loose in mirror since 2005 (and I play a tournament each two weeks) is fault to goblin king. Or because I have one in hand and I couldn't play it or because my opponant have one in hand.
For my reflexion I consider the two players have pyrokinesis in side because all valable goblin player I meet play it. So if you play goblin king and your opponant have a minimum of two cards in hand he can kill it, or more intelligent, kill piledriver and kill you the next turn because you couldn't block.
If your opponant have no cards in hand when you play goblin king you are in good position for win so in tutorise another gob (since gempalm, sharp or pily) you probably win. But in the other situation : your opponant is in a win position you could alway win with the good topdeck and the good play and have always a better target to shearch than goblin king. With this logic I win a lot of matchs so when I begin again to play gob I continue in this way.
goblin king against dragon stompy is a win more. If you have the sufficient number of gob for win with it you have a lot of combinaison possible for win without king.
goblin king against aggro loam is a good question. It is really the principal problem for gob in my metagame so I test a lot of sideboard card, king is in my list :).

[NQN]

Did you EVER played against a competent ichorid-pilot? I don´t think so. Thorn comes down turn 2. If you have turn 1 Fanatic+turn 2 Thorn+Wasteland it might help you, but otherwise it´s just useless. In germany many goblin players are packing about 7-8 hate-cards against Dredge because only Crypt or Fanatic doesn´t help you that much.

Also Pyrokenisis is horrible right now as it doesn´t kill anything relevant.

[ASSASSIN]

Sure I do. Now I play ichorid in tournament and for test my ichorid version I test with a friend against goblin (my build). And against a classic version with FKZ my goblin build win. I always can remove a bridge in turn 2 (mogg fana, gempalm one of my gob, warren weirding) and with the card avantage I can kill or controle the game.
Post side pyrokinesis and thorn are good against ichorid. Pyrokinesis can make 5e to 8e mogg fanatic, kill 2 token or kill one token and remove bridge. With torn of amethyst I have regullary one of my 8 mana denial land so ichorid player can't play his cabal or dread return after the turn 3. Before I remove his bridge so he wouldn't sacrifice creature and after I controle the game (and if you want ichorid become a really good MU you must put one sharp for kill in this step).

When I speack with other french ichorid player they play akroma or leyline for fight against goblin. It is not because goblin is a bye for ichorid ;).
And another time against leyline and akroma the solution is warren weirding.

[NQN]

Actually, goblins isn´t the best matchup. If you don´t get an early fanatic in g1 you will loose fast. In g2+g3 he´ll have needle for fanatic and then you need crypt/leyline to still have a chance.

[quietmage]

Warren Weirdings is also good in the Icorid MU because you can but bridge rfg and get 2 1/1 goblins.

[Mental]

Goblin King is just a Matron Target against Plague; that's it. It's one spot in your SB. Cut it if you want.

Seriously, Kenises is good in this meta. Ok, not GOOD, but as good as the removal avaliable to red will ever be. I kenises + fanatic goyf all day, and, even though that's seriouse card disadvantage, it's usually worth it.
Kenises + Fanatic is all you need to beat Ichorid. Thorn isn't worth boarding in.
They'll bring in Needle for Fanatic, but I doubt that they'll expect Kenises, so you've got the advantage there. If they bring in Leyline, then they have to mull aggressively to get it, so that's ok too. But it does make this MU harder, however, most Ichorid players I know bring in Needle against Goblins because Leyline is so clunky.
Chalice does beat Thresh. It shuts off their card quality engine, for gods sake. That's about all there is too it.

[FoolofaTook]

I'm looking for the list of cards that all goblin decks have in common as 4-ofs. So far I have Goblin Lackey, Goblin Matron, Goblin Warchief, Goblin Ringleader and Aether Vial. I'm making a composite Goblins base deck for MWS that can be quickly added to for the various splashes in play.

Am I missing any 4-ofs that are in EVERY build?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Sanguine Voyeur]

Wasteland and Mogg Fanatic.

In terms of non-four-ofs, every list I've seen runs at least one Incinerator and an artifact solution.

[Hunter245]

After testing out the black splash i realized that's the way to go XD. But the only thing that i hated was the fact that warren weirding costed extra with thorn. Maybe if it was cabal therapy instead it would not have even mattered. Also I highly encourage some form of maindeck combo hate, It really turns the match-up around. Thorn although not enough on it's own combined with chalice and some quick beaters = gg. Also the reason I'm back to mono red is because atm i'm kinda poor. Question about the sb, is that i find that goblin king when faced against engineered plague they always run some other form of removal. So i don't understand why some of u run it as a 1 of in the sb. How was the blood moon idea? it seems to be cool, but would u run the magus or the enchanment. Finnally the decision to cut mogg fanatic and pump up the # of piledrivers was simply due to goyf! and his little buddies. They Help buy time, you never really have any desire to pay echo. Although I don't know how this list will do in a tournament setting since no one i know besides myself plays dredge. Which is a reason for 0 crypts. ANy constructive criticism?

4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
14 Mountain

1 Goblin Tinkerer
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Warchief
1 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Mogg Warmarshall

4 AEther Vial
4 Thorn of Amethyst

SB: 2 Goblin Tinkerer
SB: 4 Pyrostatic Pillar/Chalice
SB: 2 Pyrokensis
SB: 3 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3 Goblin King
SB: 1 (Whatever)

[kicks_422]

What Goblins needs is 1) Goyf-removal and 2) anti-Plague. Going mono-red already shuns you out of the best card for #1 which is Warren Weirding. I suggest bringing back in Mogg Fanatics. Wastelands, Ports, and Thorns just might be able to save you from plagues. Might.

[xsockmonkeyx]

What Goblins needs is 1) Goyf-removal and 2) anti-Plague. Going mono-red already shuns you out of the best card for #1 which is Warren Weirding. I suggest bringing back in Mogg Fanatics. Wastelands, Ports, and Thorns just might be able to save you from plagues. Might.

Goblin King saves your doodz from plague too. Just sayin.

The mono red list needs more SGC and Fanatics.

[Shriekmaw]

Goblin King saves your doodz from plague too. Just sayin.

The mono red list needs more SGC and Fanatics.


I think the conseus that I concluded from the best build of goblins is splashing both green and black. Black is mainly there for Warren Wierding to help with Goyfs, and discard in the board in the form of therapy. Green basically adds Tin-Street Hooligan main deck and Krosan Grip in the board. Plus since I splash both colors, I have added 2 copies of Engineered Explosives to help with multiple plagues.

You should be running 4 mogg fanatics and at least 2 SGC.

[Geeba]

I just picked up goblins (again) with a black splash and started goldfishing against red-tempothreshold. I decided to give goblins a rough time and let threshold start each game. I did this because I wanted to know in how far the die-roll decides the outcome of the game. I think that a deck must have a fighting chance, even when playing second. The results were quite depressing, but fortunately I am a very merry fellow.

This got me thinking (the former, not the latter) about the strategy of goblins and I would like to hear other peoples opinions about the deck and how it should be constructed. To get the discussion rolling, I'll adress some problems I encountered and present a possible solution to them. Mind you, I am not planning on winning the Nobel prize for this, as most of it should be familiar.

I think the deck relies too heavily on goblin lackey and aether vial. If those are eliminated, the deck hardly establishes anything in the first four turns, especially if your warchief gets removed. Daze, stifle and wasteland make things worse. If you get stuck with no "accelerators", it is hard to cast/put into play more then one relevant spell per turn, leaving them easy to answer. In order to solve this, it may be interesting to test Ancient Tomb/Chrome Mox again and maybe add goblins which are strong by themselves (e.g. Taurean Mauler).

I feel the deck is full of inconsistant cards or cards that perform either awesome or do nothing given the situation. Aether vial and Lackey are far from impressing with only an incinerator, a piledriver and a fanatic in hand. (Sure, how awesome this is also depends on the game state.) However, increasing the number of bombs increases both inconsistency and dependency on Vial and Lackey.

Concerning the threshold matchup, I found it was nearly impossible to force through a Warren Weirding, as there are only few key spells they have to counter. I thought adding Thoughtseize/Duress/Cabal Therapy in some mix might help to force through spells. I could even see Aether Vial being removed to maintain a high goblin count, as both Vial and discard help forcing through, but Duress and the like is 1) less easily answered, 2) helps in the combo match-up and 3) can even protect your goblins. (OK, Vial can protect your goblins by throwing then into play eot.)

I was wondering what people experienced in the current metagames think about the current state of goblins. Personally, I felt that the deck was outdated. Is there desperate need for innovation? Or am I just too worried about one single match-up?

[chokin]

I just picked up goblins (again) with a black splash and started goldfishing against red-tempothreshold. I decided to give goblins a rough time and let threshold start each game. I did this because I wanted to know in how far the die-roll decides the outcome of the game. I think that a deck must have a fighting chance, even when playing second. The results were quite depressing, but fortunately I am a very merry fellow.

This got me thinking (the former, not the latter) about the strategy of goblins and I would like to hear other peoples opinions about the deck and how it should be constructed. To get the discussion rolling, I'll adress some problems I encountered and present a possible solution to them. Mind you, I am not planning on winning the Nobel prize for this, as most of it should be familiar.

I think the deck relies too heavily on goblin lackey and aether vial. If those are eliminated, the deck hardly establishes anything in the first four turns, especially if your warchief gets removed. Daze, stifle and wasteland make things worse. If you get stuck with no "accelerators", it is hard to cast/put into play more then one relevant spell per turn, leaving them easy to answer. In order to solve this, it may be interesting to test Ancient Tomb/Chrome Mox again and maybe add goblins which are strong by themselves (e.g. Taurean Mauler).

I feel the deck is full of inconsistant cards or cards that perform either awesome or do nothing given the situation. Aether vial and Lackey are far from impressing with only an incinerator, a piledriver and a fanatic in hand. (Sure, how awesome this is also depends on the game state.) However, increasing the number of bombs increases both inconsistency and dependency on Vial and Lackey.

Concerning the threshold matchup, I found it was nearly impossible to force through a Warren Weirding, as there are only few key spells they have to counter. I thought adding Thoughtseize/Duress/Cabal Therapy in some mix might help to force through spells. I could even see Aether Vial being removed to maintain a high goblin count, as both Vial and discard help forcing through, but Duress and the like is 1) less easily answered, 2) helps in the combo match-up and 3) can even protect your goblins. (OK, Vial can protect your goblins by throwing then into play eot.)

I was wondering what people experienced in the current metagames think about the current state of goblins. Personally, I felt that the deck was outdated. Is there desperate need for innovation? Or am I just too worried about one single match-up?

I'd imagine that Thrash is much tougher to play against than Balanced version because of Wasteland and Stifle. CotV really hurts that build since @1 it stops most of their spells, and @2 it stops Goyf. But later, Wipe/River will pick those off(it's ok, they have to topdeck it without Brainstorm/Ponder).

Their mana base is pretty weak vs Wasteland/Blood Moon/Port. Blood Moon completely wrecks them, shutting them off from UG, but if you were to run it, I'd really suggest adding one basic Swamp and consider dropping Port.

Cabal Therapy is awesome and I usually call Goyf if they haven't responded. http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9751&highlight=cabal+therapy

So the short version: Try CotV and Blood Moon in the board. And another good tip is be willing to trade Lackey for Goose when you can.

[Mister Agent]

Against threshold I run warren weiding, thoughtseizes, and of course gempalm incinerators are brilliant in the matchup.

Warren Weirding: Pretty much can take care of any threshold threat and Warren weirding has synergetic CA with goblin ringleader/goblin matron.

Thoughtseizes: Thoughtseize is pretty hot in goblins considering you have more ways to rid yourself of opposing tarmogoyfs. Of course I only board a playset in since they are not necassary in every matchup. However, postboard you are able to shift gears and play goblins more like an aggro-control deck which can be stellar at times. Keep in mind, I am NOT advocating that people should run thoughtseize over cabal therapy.

[Avatara]

Anyone ever tried Sensation Gorger?

[chokin]

Anyone ever tried Sensation Gorger?

I think there was a little bit of talk about this guy a few pages ago. It's cool for potentially wrecking an opponents hand. It's also cool if you run out of gas or need to get a specific piece of hate. I don't like it though.

[BKclassic]

I just picked up goblins (again) with a black splash and started goldfishing against red-tempothreshold. I decided to give goblins a rough time and let threshold start each game. I did this because I wanted to know in how far the die-roll decides the outcome of the game. I think that a deck must have a fighting chance, even when playing second. The results were quite depressing, but fortunately I am a very merry fellow.

This got me thinking (the former, not the latter) about the strategy of goblins and I would like to hear other peoples opinions about the deck and how it should be constructed. To get the discussion rolling, I'll adress some problems I encountered and present a possible solution to them. Mind you, I am not planning on winning the Nobel prize for this, as most of it should be familiar.

I think the deck relies too heavily on goblin lackey and aether vial. If those are eliminated, the deck hardly establishes anything in the first four turns, especially if your warchief gets removed. Daze, stifle and wasteland make things worse. If you get stuck with no "accelerators", it is hard to cast/put into play more then one relevant spell per turn, leaving them easy to answer. In order to solve this, it may be interesting to test Ancient Tomb/Chrome Mox again and maybe add goblins which are strong by themselves (e.g. Taurean Mauler).

I feel the deck is full of inconsistant cards or cards that perform either awesome or do nothing given the situation. Aether vial and Lackey are far from impressing with only an incinerator, a piledriver and a fanatic in hand. (Sure, how awesome this is also depends on the game state.) However, increasing the number of bombs increases both inconsistency and dependency on Vial and Lackey.

Concerning the threshold matchup, I found it was nearly impossible to force through a Warren Weirding, as there are only few key spells they have to counter. I thought adding Thoughtseize/Duress/Cabal Therapy in some mix might help to force through spells. I could even see Aether Vial being removed to maintain a high goblin count, as both Vial and discard help forcing through, but Duress and the like is 1) less easily answered, 2) helps in the combo match-up and 3) can even protect your goblins. (OK, Vial can protect your goblins by throwing then into play eot.)

I was wondering what people experienced in the current metagames think about the current state of goblins. Personally, I felt that the deck was outdated. Is there desperate need for innovation? Or am I just too worried about one single match-up?

A few things I am going to be trying out:
-Cramming in Ancient Tomb: In the 22 land mana base with 6 Wasteland/Port, I am going to try and cut 2 Ports and maybe a spell for 2-3 Ancient Tomb. This should make slower hands more exciting, and CotV in the SB better.

-Reanimate in the SB- I think that this would be a great card too answer to a lot of Gobo hate running around out there. Pyroclasms and stuff. And as long as they don't get double engineered plague, I can see it being good against that. And I think Reanimate generally makes Goblin Matron better. Because you could chump something then reanimate it out. And obviously Goblin Ringleader would be a bomb. And Seige-gang. And Warchiefs would stick. And stealing others peoples stuff. Goyf maybe? Not a great answer to swords though.

[Geeba]

I'd imagine that Thrash is much tougher to play against than Balanced version because of Wasteland and Stifle. CotV really hurts that build since @1 it stops most of their spells, and @2 it stops Goyf. But later, Wipe/River will pick those off(it's ok, they have to topdeck it without Brainstorm/Ponder).

Their mana base is pretty weak vs Wasteland/Blood Moon/Port. Blood Moon completely wrecks them, shutting them off from UG, but if you were to run it, I'd really suggest adding one basic Swamp and consider dropping Port.

Cabal Therapy is awesome and I usually call Goyf if they haven't responded. http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9751&highlight=cabal+therapy

So the short version: Try CotV and Blood Moon in the board. And another good tip is be willing to trade Lackey for Goose when you can.

Good advice, though I don't really agree with the Port/Wasteland statement. Goblins is extremely mana-hungry, and in my opinion Port and Wasteland should be used to keep the opponent from stabalizing. Threshold uses the same strategy, but seems to be able to apply far more pressure in the early turns. Because we play so much non-basics, it is not hard for threshold to take advantage from Wasteland. The other way around, I think that spending your mana-sources to destroy the opponents is rather weak when playing against a deck that operates well with far less mana.

I can CotV and Blood Moon being a wrecking ball though.


..., and of course gempalm incinerators are brilliant in the matchup.


Really? I found them really subpar, though they pick off an occasional Goyf that gets blocked. Just not on a consistent basis, I think.


-Reanimate in the SB- I think that this would be a great card too answer to a lot of Gobo hate running around out there. Pyroclasms and stuff. And as long as they don't get double engineered plague, I can see it being good against that. And I think Reanimate generally makes Goblin Matron better. Because you could chump something then reanimate it out. And obviously Goblin Ringleader would be a bomb. And Seige-gang. And Warchiefs would stick. And stealing others peoples stuff. Goyf maybe? Not a great answer to swords though.

That's also awesome tech against reanimator... Maybe Oversold Cemetary or Volrath's Stronghold are interesting as well.

Thanks for the feedback, people!

[Mister Agent]

Really? I found them really subpar, though they pick off an occasional Goyf that gets blocked. Just not on a consistent basis, I think.



Yeah, although pyrokinesis is probably fundamentally better then Gempalm incinerator as a less conditional removal spell. But still Gempalm is efficient since it acts like a psuodo-cantrip as well. However, I only run a singleton Gempalm just to save those important slots for more relevant/efficient removal like warren weirding when it comes to dealing with goyf.

[chokin]

Yeah, although pyrokinesis is probably fundamentally better then Gempalm incinerator as a less conditional removal spell. But still Gempalm is efficient since it acts like a psuodo-cantrip as well. However, I only run a singleton Gempalm just to save those important slots for more relevant/efficient removal like warren weirding when it comes to dealing with goyf.

Yeah Incinerator is horrid vs Thresh. It's an uncounterable Goyf Killer if you have a number of goblins equal or greater to Goyf's toughness.

[kicks_422]

Incinerator is pretty bad against Thresh (since if you have enough Goblins to kill a Goyf with it, you're already in good position), but aside from that MU, there are only a few others where it doesn't have uses. It's still a pretty good card, just outclassed by Weirding at this point.

That said, my "removal" suite for an Rbg list is 4 Weirding, 4 Fanatic, and 2 Incinerator, with a Sharpshooter in the SB.

[chokin]

Incinerator is pretty bad against Thresh (since if you have enough Goblins to kill a Goyf with it, you're already in good position), but aside from that MU, there are only a few others where it doesn't have uses. It's still a pretty good card, just outclassed by Weirding at this point.

That said, my "removal" suite for an Rbg list is 4 Weirding, 4 Fanatic, and 2 Incinerator, with a Sharpshooter in the SB.

QTF. Weirding is better in most scenarios. And your removal package is very close to my own(I don't use the Sharpshooter unless EtW decks are played). You forgot SGC though. He is technically removal :P

Beating Thresh isn't that concerning to me. Cabal Therapy really owns if you're good/lucky. I wish that there was some decent removal that could nail Goyf and dodge CB.

[Geeba]

QTF. Weirding is better in most scenarios. And your removal package is very close to my own(I don't use the Sharpshooter unless EtW decks are played). You forgot SGC though. He is technically removal :P

Beating Thresh isn't that concerning to me. Cabal Therapy really owns if you're good/lucky. I wish that there was some decent removal that could nail Goyf and dodge CB.

Maybe Shriekmaw? It's also nice to have some more 5cc cards in your deck to make some more use of Aether Vial. And without Vial, it's still very castable.

[Eldariel]

Shriekmaw qualifies. They can only stop it with a FoW on the top, giving you a very decent chance of getting past the Balance, and FoW is generally a card they want in hand instead of the top of their deck. Anyways, the singleton Vexing Shusher also makes sense; at least it draws removal if nothing else.

[Mordenkaynen]

So, guys, can you write very briefly, want are the main problems of gobs in todays meta?

[arsenalpow]

1) combo that kills turn 1/2

2) tarmogoyf and the ability to consistently deal with him (warren's weirding helps but sometimes you just can't resolve it)

[raharu]

Spot Discard and Recursion? You could run something like 1x Wort and some amount of Bogart Birth Rite/ Oversold Cemetery/ Oath of Ghouls? It's a fairly dumb idea, but that is what seems as thouhg it would fix said problems. Perhaps I'll draft a really rough concept list. I can tell you it'll be, well, bad looking. Possibly just bad, but it's the concept that would hold potential, if any.

[kicks_422]

I think Wort is enough recursion. She's a big body to boot.

If only Shriekmaw was a Goblin. Here's to hoping they print a CiP Terminate Goblin in the next set.

[chokin]

I think Wort is enough recursion. She's a big body to boot.

If only Shriekmaw was a Goblin. Here's to hoping they print a CiP Terminate Goblin in the next set.

God, if Shriekmaw were a Goblin I'd love that.

For beating fast combo, would it be possible to use Ancient Tomb with Chalice or Thorn? Pros to Tomb go beyond SB tech, as you can get turn 2 Matrons and turn 3 Ringleaders without a Chief down. Cons are increased sensitivity to Wasteland/Blood Moon and more colorless sources.

[arsenalpow]

the best way of beating combo is just running a set of chalice in the board, the connecting with a prowled earwig squad.

tarmogoyf is really what kills the little green men. if a deck can stick a goyf and protect it, then it can usually just win the game. Goblins is typically forced to double and triple block to take it down and goblins cant win when its in that type of position.

[thefreakaccident]

Tarmogoyf is not a game ender against goblins, it is when it is backed up with removal and pressure that it can become an issue... a lonely goyf will never be able to take down the swarm.

[kicks_422]

Yeah, what he said. A single Goyf on the table is not scary at all. When it's backed up by countermagic and lots of spot removal, and maybe even sweepers, it becomes a problem. This deck is very resilient, but it usually takes a couple of turns to recover. You don't have that luxury of time when a 4/5 is bashing in.

[arsenalpow]

if a deck can stick a goyf and protect it, then it can usually just win the game.

I think that would encompass removal, permission, etc, etc

[Hunter245]

What Goblins needs is 1) Goyf-removal and 2) anti-Plague. Going mono-red already shuns you out of the best card for #1 which is Warren Weirding. I suggest bringing back in Mogg Fanatics. Wastelands, Ports, and Thorns just might be able to save you from plagues. Might.

Hmmm did u read my post at all or did u just look at the deck list? The list in goblins is very tight and since I'm running thorns mb i had to cut something. Going mono red does not shun you out of choices... And their are ways of winning around the plaque.

XsockmonkeyX- SCG was a thought of adding more instead of marshall but it requires a lackey to get out early, Fanatics help against decks that run Bob, Birds and Dredge, I don't think it's worth it since i play against 0 dredge.

nickrit200- the ee's are a cool idea but the fact that i don't like having a 3 color manabase because it makes it a little unstable,

Honestly I don't think cutting mogg fanatics was that big of a sin like all of you tend to think, Honestly try them

[kicks_422]

Hmmm did u read my post at all or did u just look at the deck list?

I read what you said. I'm just saying that if you're going to go mono-red for whatever reason, you need to cover those two things. Goblin King is a decent choice against Plague, but as for Goyf removal... Well, I guess you'll just have to outswarm the opponent. What does your meta look like btw?

[GreenOne]

I'm just saying that if you're going to go mono-red for whatever reason, you need to cover those two things. Goblin King is a decent choice against Plague, but as for Goyf removal... Well, I guess you'll just have to outswarm the opponent. What does your meta look like btw?

Spitebellows could do the job as non-Goblin Goyf removal. It's also never EVER counterbalanceable :wink: And it can help vs double plague, where you can just play it and go to the dome

Also, red can have some other decent answers to plague in Door of Destinies and Gauntlet of Might. Door of Destinies can be played before Plague comes down (unlike Krosan Grip) and begin to pump your creatures. I'd at least test it if I had to go monored.

I know those solutions aren't goblins, but they're the best tools you have if you want to stay monored.

[Vacrix]

i know it sounds unorthodox but if your biggest problems are turn 1/2 combo you mite want to consider a blue splash. yes, i know, it sounds ridiculous, but just consider:

4 Pile driver
2 Siege Gang
4 warchief
4 matron

4 lackey
4 vial

4 brainstorm
4 fire//ice
4 force of will
3 ponder

4 wasteland
4 rishidan port

4 bloodstained mire
4 wooded foothills
3 mountain
3 volcanic island
1 taiga

SB:
4 naturalize
4 stifle
3 tormod's crypt
4 pithing needle



its rough but that would be the basic idea. you would essentially replace the draw engine of ringleader with brainstorm/ponder in order to deal with combo. i also removed incinerator because fire//ice is a burn spell that also supports the blue for force. you can side in stifle or watev against combo, i dont know how to work a goblin board. and then i guess you could leave one taiga in for when u need to remove enchantments/artifacts.

it definetly needs reworking but ya. sacrifice a lil speed for a possibly a better combo game.

another idea would be to consider this: afFoWnity is has a cool mechanic that functions a little bit like the land distruption in this in that it uses wasteland, stifle, and vision charm in order to stifle fetch, waste nonbasics, and keep your opponent off the rite color mana with vision charm. maybe consider making room for this:
4 Stifle
4 Vision Charm
4 Dreadnought

and maybe even
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will

the stifle and vision charm would improve your game against control with the mana distruption, the dreadnought would improve your game against aggro (without StP) and the stifle would be a sick bonus against combo, that they will completely not see coming.

[Elf_Ascetic]

That is a very, very bad idea. Just play another deck, really. You can play: TES, ThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThresh (with Counterbalance and Spell Snare), FT, anything with Chalice mainboard, Belcher. Anything but Goblins.

I'll explain why I think a blue splash is bad:

This deck is a agrodeck. Agro in it's purest form. If you add Force of Will and Ponder, you remove the hook from your deck. You can't play the agrorole with less goblins, you're playing agro-control then. And if you're doing that, you can do better. Play Goyf over Piledriver, cause normally Goyf is bigger then. Play counterbalance. In short, play ThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThreshThresh.

[Elficidium]

i know it sounds unorthodox but if your biggest problems are turn 1/2 combo you mite want to consider a blue splash.

You have something called a sideboard, with a little tooling this is more than enough against combo. This is even more so with the general acceptance of the B splash. This gives you Thoughtseize, cabal Therapy and Leyline of the Void. This combined with artifacts such as Chalice of the Void, Pithing needle and Thorn of Amethyst should be enough..

[raharu]

I remember when Hulk Flash was molesting the metagame I was trying to make Enchantress' (Giant Growth) Goblins deck viable for the metagame. Well, it was really really really insane against combo (interesting tech abounds from that strange ass metagame), but it lost against literally everything else. There's no reason to attempt to do anything unorthadox with the maindeck to fight combo because, while you may make progress against fast combo, you're assured to loose against EVERYTHING ELSE. Literally, everything. You'll severly weaken the deck's other MUs at the cost of being able to win against combo G1. Chalice, Thorn, and Cabal Therapy are more than enough to make the combo MU playable in games two and three.

EDIT: anyone else remember GUblins? That RU goblin fish thing? Remember how it sucked against most decks? Otay then, stop trying to put Blue where it doesn't belong.

[kicks_422]

The basis for adding blue was, IIRC, mainly for Stifle to have an MD card against combo as well as to supplement the mana denial of Waste/Port. When Eldariel started a thread for that, I got pretty interested in it, and it played out really well for me.

Splashing blue for Goblins is much more viable in Vintage than in Legacy though. I could say that cramming in blue cards into Goblins to support Force of Will is a mistake. There are other blue cards which would be better in a deck like this.

[chokin]

I agree with Elf Ascetic that by taking a more aggro-control approach, you might as well get more efficient creatures for your mana and go for Goyf. Then we're playing URg Goblins. From there, you'd want even more powerful creatures for your mana, so you'd go -Goblins for +Thresh shell and end up with UGr Thresh.

That's just my opinion. If you wanted a mana-denial strategy in Thresh, you could play Thrash. Just sayin.

[Drac]

I Think that if you want to play Blue in Goblins you should play vial Daze and Pestermite as your only non goblin cards.

and Yes pestermite is awesome in goblins.
not only does he obviously combo with kiki jikki. but he also taps down those annoying goyfs and has flying and flash.

Also adds the option for stifle amongst othe things for your SB.

[Dark_Cynic87]

Personally, against the combo matchup, I'd go either Winter Orb and/or Thorns, not Chalices. This can really screw them up more than chalice. Chalice can be played around at 1, meaning to be any real kind of threat you need chalice at 1 and 2. How consistantly could this list pull that off, and even more so, how bad would that hurt itself? The ideal situation would be to drop a turn one vial/lackey, turn 2 drop Chalice. But turn 4 is the soonest you can drop a chalice@2, right? That might be a day late and a dollar short, whereas if a Thorn comes down turn 2, it really screws with all of their math. You can drop another one turn 3 without really worrying, and that's the equivalent of Trinisphere, only better. There's two to get rid of, and it makes their cheapest artifact/permanent removal cost 4. That's enough time for you to win. I'm not certain how well Orb would work, but I'm sure someone's tried it. With both vial and lackey, and possibly Prospector (I understand it's not run, but if you needed to it's an option), I'm not sure you would have TOO much of a problem....

Combo is now running 1x K. Grip/Wipe Away maindeck (in countertop-light metagames, some choose Naturalize/Echoing Truth instead), along with Extirpate maindeck, with a couple K. Grips in the board, and also use Serenity, which can wipe out both Chalice and Vial (do you side out vial for chalice? I'm extremely new to the list as I just got my Piledrivers and everything else today). Some people also run other bounce, and others have been known to run sets of Thoughtseizes in their board. Duress is more common as the pricetag deters some while the lifeloss deters others.

How is Deed handled? Needles?

Pce,

--DC

[Nihil Credo]

Winter Orb is useless against Belcher and TES (which run very very few lands in the first place), mediocre against Fetchland Tendrils (whose setup will be slowed down, but only a little), and conditional against Solidarity, were you to meet it (it can nullify it with a Reset).

Chalice of the Void's main purpose is to be cast at zero, rather than at 1. This allows you to goldfish as fast as usual while denying combo their fastest wins - mind you, they can still outrace you without 0cc artifacts, but it's less likely. Thorn of Amethyst has a better effect, and pairs up nicely with Wastelands, but not coming down before turn two makes all the difference in the world, especially in G3 on the draw. Thoughtseize and Therapy are in the middle, with versatility being their main advantage.

Deed is handled via Matron, Ringleader, Wort, and Siege-Gang Commander.

[Hunter245]

I recently played in a tournament with i think 33 people in it, and i got 9th losing to Welder Survivial, and Threshold with Dreadnought, While winning against like black control, and some prison deck that i had no idea how i won.

Overall I realized I should never have cut Fanatics, (I Would of won the Survival match up since i got him down to 1,). He's also better than thorn. Speaking of thorn I moved it to the sb, and cut chalice. Mogg Warmarshal was a beast all day, helped power out some fast kills, and he's definatly worth playing. I'm not going into more detail at the moment since I need to get going, Maybe i'll post a longer more detailed tournament report.

[ebbitten]

also @ Deed, Decks playing deed generally are decks that are bad against goblins, ie 4 color control, The Rock etc

[Elficidium]

Overall I realized I should never have cut Fanatics, (I Would of won the Survival match up since i got him down to 1,). He's also better than thorn. Speaking of thorn I moved it to the sb, and cut chalice. Mogg Warmarshal was a beast all day, helped power out some fast kills, and he's definatly worth playing. I'm not going into more detail at the moment since I need to get going, Maybe i'll post a longer more detailed tournament report.

Thorn is crap in the SB. For the matchups where you really want it, like TES, it's too slow. Also, War Marchsal might be good, but for me he doesn't make the cut, in the RBg version you do not have the room for him MB.

[chokin]

I like Chalice a lot. Chalice can come down early at both 0 and 1, making it good against fast combo. And since they pack Wipe/Grip as singletons, Mystical Tutor, Brainstorm and Ponder are all stopped by Chalice at 1 but only slowed by Thorns. Yeah, Thorns also effects Grip and other stuff, but Chalice also prevents Thresh's cantrips and Goose and in most cases, removal.

I like Thorns a lot, but Chalice is pretty versatile.It's also darn good against Burn/Sligh, a match that is nearly unwinnable without some form of disruption, imo.

[Dark_Cynic87]

So what exactly is the most current Goblin list? Is it RBg? I don't care about price, I care about the most reliable and quickest build. This is for my gauntlet, and I'm wanting to get the best (read: most played most accepted) version.

When I see it, I'll have some questions, I'm sure.

[slobad23]

if you would like to know the most accepted version, i would go and take a look at the most recent legacy decks on http://www.deckcheck.net/list.php?format=Legacy where they have posted lists from the source for each thread. That will give you a good idea of what lists to run in your gauntlet.

slobad23

[Hunter245]

Yeah Thorn is less then stellar.

Alright for a right up.

Round 1 Mono Black Control.

He rapes my hand, I eventually get ringleader into goodies, and He damnation, but i get through slowly all 2 games. 1-0

Round 2 Welder Survival

Damn I wish I didn't cut Fanatic for Thorn (worst move ever since no one is playing thresh really)

I win game 1, with a fast draw, g2 i get him to 1 with Mountian walk from gobbo king, and game 3 I get him to 5, Hard Match so 1-1

Round 3 I'm Playing Counterbalance,Thresh,Dreadnought,Stifle all in one package, I get mana screwed g1, g2 he pulls out a second turn dreadnought and i cant find any of my hate and he walks away. 1-2

Prison Style Energy Flux.

No Idea how I won, He got screwed I guess but I honestly shouldn't have won this. But Energy Flux, and wheel of sun and moon are cool togeither! I lose once, but win twice. so I'm 2-2 and I come in 9th place.

Overall don't use thorns.

[morgan_coke]

I looked through several pages on here and didn't see it mentioned, but if this has been discussed before my bad.

I was messing around with post-rotation extended goblins looking for a ringleader replacement and just for fun tried out sensation gorger. And I was really surprised, he's AMAZING. Not many decks play out cards as fast as goblins do, and if gorger lives a turn, he hits over 50% of the time and when he does, it completely screws your opponent as well as refilling your hand. Plus, he's always a guaranteed four cards. One of the biggest things though, and this is especially relevant vs. combo and control, is that he knocks their hand down to four random cards instead of the sculpted thing of beauty it was before.

I proxied up a list and did some goldfishing with him, and he didn't really speed up the kill any, but he did make for a significantly stronger mid and lategame.

I obviously don't recommend cutting ringleader for him, but as ringleader #5-6 and maybe 7 I think he could be a really solid strong, semi-disruptive addition to the deck that significantly pushes the mid/late game.

The best cast of him appeared unsurprisingly to be EOT off of vial so you got the bonus right away.

[SuckerPunch]

I honestly gave up on goblins a while ago. But I'm curious to hear how competitive the deck is these days. It doesn't seem to top 8 anywhere near as often as it used to.

[GreenOne]

I honestly gave up on goblins a while ago. But I'm curious to hear how competitive the deck is these days. It doesn't seem to top 8 anywhere near as often as it used to.

Yeah, it's played a lot less. However the deck is still competitive when build to dominate the aggro-control matchup. It's still a solid tier 1 and people is still packing hate to it.
+Wierding+Wort-some number of ports is the only developement in goblin decks, so no much to talk about here.

[arsenalpow]

try maindeck earwig squads. It's a beating against threshold because you can just rip 3 of their threats which are usually quite limited anyways.

You can cut seige gangs for them which means your vials would never have to go past 4 counters(ringleader, wort)

[slobad23]

i have some input for you :-p

the list looks like it was either thoroughly tested or just thrown together because they are goblin cards.

in my particular meta i am dropping the siege gang count to zero. this is jsut because combo is on a bit of a roaring streak and with the single thresh deck, earwig squad isnt that bad at 5/3 (ripping 3 goyfs out is nice too).

i don't know if i like the singleton taiga in the main - i would probably up that to 2... just in case it gets wasted before you can cas krosan grip.

reading an unlocking legacy article the other week about land in legacy and i am half tempted to go back from my 3/3 fetch land configuration and up to 4/4 again with a single swamp and who know - maybe even a forest to go fetch - i hate moon effects(which unfortunately means less ports! - i know people have been dropping port counts anyway - but that doesnt mean im happy about it ^_^)

here is a list i have been testing - just for reference:

4x bloodstained mire
4x wooded foothills
3x rishadan port
4x wasteland
3x badlands
2x taiga
1x forest
1x swamp
1x mountain

*ugh - just looking at that manabase makes me sick*

4x aether vial
4x mogg fanatic
4x goblin lackey
1x goblin tinkerer
4x goblin piledriver
3x warren weirding
1x gempalm incinerator
4x goblin warchief
4x goblin matron
4x goblin ringleader
1x wort bogart auntie
3x earwig squad

this version has been performing well - the old version i was playing with tin street main was not performing as wel against painter as i would have liked so tinkerer is in there instead to keep hitting problem artifacts. this deck is playing a lot more controlling than any of my previous goblins lists, but i like the extra options black has given... late game is actually where goblins shines most!

(mid and late arent that bad either :wink:

[Joe_C]

slobad, Ive been toying with removing SCG myself, but there are situations where he can just win you games(like moat for example, if you see this card in your meta)plus he makes an incinerator HUGE early game. Plopping him in off a lackey is still one of the decks best openers...i am quite comfortable with the 2 earwigs main. My board I am still iffy on, i have a feeling I will be seeing elves at my next tournament I attend, so I am runnning 3 perish in the board also 3 or maybe 4 pyrokinesis. I like the 2/2 split of weirding and incinerator. Like you said my list looked either thouroughly tested or tossed together, it has been well tested.

[edgewalker]

slobad, Ive been toying with removing SCG myself, but there are situations where he can just win you games(like moat for example, if you see this card in your meta)plus he makes an incinerator HUGE early game. Plopping him in off a lackey is still one of the decks best openers...i am quite comfortable with the 2 earwigs main. My board I am still iffy on, i have a feeling I will be seeing elves at my next tournament I attend, so I am runnning 3 perish in the board also 3 or maybe 4 pyrokinesis. I like the 2/2 split of weirding and incinerator. Like you said my list looked either thouroughly tested or tossed together, it has been well tested.

Why not just play sharpshooter?

EDIT: Against elves I mean, shoot down priest and the llanowaresque guys pretty easily.

[Shriekmaw]

If you want a good reference list to go by when deciding on playing goblins, then look at the list that I played in the 1,000K Legacy event. I just missed the top 8, coming in 9th. I would not change a single card in the main deck.

The deck is very competitive and would argue still one of the best decks in the format. Take a look and tell me what you think.

[Joe_C]

Why not just play sharpshooter?

EDIT: Against elves I mean, shoot down priest and the llanowaresque guys pretty easily.

because sharpshooter cant kill a ton of 2/2 elves is they get the pump guys out before I get to 3 mana. Perish solves this problem. Sharpshooter is in the board to battle combo and in the mirror.

Nickrit, where can I find your list? All I can say is I have been happy with mine. I think my manabase is solid, the card choices and quantities are where they should be for what I expect to play. I will write a report after I play in a tourney next month

[arsenalpow]

nickrit's list

4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Mogg Fanatic
3 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Warren Weirding
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Wort, Boggart Auntie
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Tin Street Hooligan

4 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland
4 Badlands
3 Taiga

Sideboard (15):
2 Enginered Explosives
3 Krosan Grip
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Pyrokinesis
4 Chalice of the Void

I'm not sold on your manabase, i think you could
-1 badlands
-1 Taiga
+2 Mountain
in order to make opposing wastelands less scary if you happen to only draw duals and no fetches. You don't want to draw duals everytime, you want to go find them when necessary. In fact 23 lands is quite a bit. The deck can run at 20-22 just fine.

I still think siege gang is too slow also. And also i think tinkerer > tin-street. Sometimes you just can't access the green mana to utilize him.

Here would be my final list.

4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Warren Weirding
4 Earwig Squad
1 Wort, Boggart Auntie
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Goblin Tinkerer

5 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland
3 Badlands
2 Taiga

Yes 4 squad. He is an absolute beating if he resolves. His prowl cost is also reduced by warchief. He has been performing so well that I am almost considering adding in skirk prospecters in order to accelerate him out even faster.

For example:

Turn 1: Land, skirk prospecter, pass turn
Turn 2: Land, attack with prospecter, sac prospecter for mana, cast squad for prowl, cap 3 cards and have a 5/3 ready to beat next turn.

The prospecter never gets blocked because he doesn't seem scary, he isn't a lackey. The squad comes down and then the opponent realizes the error.

[Joe_C]

what artifacts do you fear that you would want to maindeck hate? I cant see why running tinkerer main is necessary, i would think that slot would be better served as an incinerator or something else.

Arsenal, how is the 22 land manabase? Ive been thinking of cutting down 1 land myself, but sometimes keeping a steady manaflow is needed. Have you playd with both(22/23 lands?)

[arsenalpow]

i've played with a manabase from 20 all the way to 24 (with ports obv) and i think 22 is the correct number.

Tinkerer gets rid of whatever jank artifacts that get thrown at you. He also deals with dreadnaught quite nicely when you can't get a weirding and an incinerator won't do the job.

[Shriekmaw]

In regards to the manabase, I could see -1 badlands for +1 mountain, but thats about it. I want to be able to hit consistent green or black mana, especially after sideboarding.

I also had 3 Goblin Piledrivers in the main deck that was left out of the list. I've tested a lot of different variants and believe this is the best build. I've played Goblins for a long time so I know what works and what doesn't.

The only thing I change is the sideboard which is dependant on the meta game your expecting.

Take Care.

[Joe_C]

Here would be my final list.

4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Warren Weirding
4 Earwig Squad
1 Wort, Boggart Auntie
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Goblin Tinkerer

5 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland
3 Badlands
2 Taiga

Yes 4 squad. He is an absolute beating if he resolves. His prowl cost is also reduced by warchief. He has been performing so well that I am almost considering adding in skirk prospecters in order to accelerate him out even faster.

For example:

Turn 1: Land, skirk prospecter, pass turn
Turn 2: Land, attack with prospecter, sac prospecter for mana, cast squad for prowl, cap 3 cards and have a 5/3 ready to beat next turn.

The prospecter never gets blocked because he doesn't seem scary, he isn't a lackey. The squad comes down and then the opponent realizes the error.


No piledriver? I could see maybe running less than a playset, but zero? The option to win quick is soo good with driver. Him and a earwig get it done fast

[arsenalpow]

woops, didn't realize nicks list lacked piledrivers. With that in mind here are the adjustments

4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Mogg Fanatic
2 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Warren Weirding
3 Earwig Squad
1 Wort, Boggart Auntie
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Goblin Tinkerer

5 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland
3 Badlands
2 Taiga

a 4th squad would be nice but you gotta use piledrivers, they just end games too quickly not too.

[Joe_C]

if seige gang is too slow, why not run something to smooth the deck? Ive been toying with the idea of sensei's top. 2 in the deck would make your draws more effective. I have had a TON of opening hands that I wished we stronger with a lackey and nothing really great to put into play and dead drawing for a few turns. Top solves this problem. I am looking to test this

I havent played in a tournament with r/b/g goblins, I have with R/g and done well. Is Wort too conditional? Wouldnt another more easily casted card be better? Ive had games where wort is great since it takes back weirding etc.... but how often will you get it to resolve in a situation you need it in?

[Dark_Cynic87]

Vial it in. By the time you need it Vial can be at 4. Top seems interesting, but why not consider Street Wraith over it? I understand it doesn't smooth draws out, but 56-ish card lists aren't bad either. In a serious bind it can even be a blocker or evasive (conditional obv.) beater.

4 Earwig squad seems a tad radical. 3 seems plenty in my opinion...

Pce,

--DC

[Joe_C]

Vial it in. By the time you need it Vial can be at 4. Top seems interesting, but why not consider Street Wraith over it? I understand it doesn't smooth draws out, but 56-ish card lists aren't bad either. In a serious bind it can even be a blocker or evasive (conditional obv.) beater.

4 Earwig squad seems a tad radical. 3 seems plenty in my opinion...

Pce,

--DC

I am currently running 3 earwigs maindecked. Wraith would take up 4 spots, top would be fine at 2. What about vexing shusher?

[Dark_Cynic87]

Ehh...Vial + Lackey = shusher seeming like overkill...

Maybe in the board for CB/Chalice, but even then it's a drain on the colored mana and you can get down vial/lackey before CB is an issue (although I realize that thresh runs a crap-ton of counters).

Chalice @ 1 sux...I guess hope ur on the play?

Did anyone see that mono-red build that t8'ed a while back that ran Chrome Mox and Blood Moons? Is that still an option or is Rgb better?

Pce,

--DC

[Joe_C]

Ehh...Vial + Lackey = shusher seeming like overkill...

Maybe in the board for CB/Chalice, but even then it's a drain on the colored mana and you can get down vial/lackey before CB is an issue (although I realize that thresh runs a crap-ton of counters).

Chalice @ 1 sux...I guess hope ur on the play?

Did anyone see that mono-red build that t8'ed a while back that ran Chrome Mox and Blood Moons? Is that still an option or is Rgb better?

Pce,

--DC


Ive been testing 1 shusher in the main along with 2 earwigs... Shusher nullifies chalice at any # and also protects weirding etc... Ive been liking him in there so far..

[Shriekmaw]

Is that still an option or is Rgb better?




I believe the R/b/g is the best build of goblins so far. This color combination gives you acces to wort, wierdings, and tin-street main deck. Also gives you options such as grip, explosives, therapy in the board to help fight through the hate that you will face.

I have also stated before, I don't believe Rishadan Port is necessary anymore in goblins as I completely cut them for a more stable mana base, mostly to support the 3 colors in the deck now.

In larger events there is no deck I would rather play than Goblins as it still just wins.

[FoulQ]

Hey, I know rg goblins is not the best (I've been reading through the thread), but it is what I have available, so I was wondering if this decklist is any good for an unknown metagame:

// GOBLINS (31)
Goblin Lackey x4
Goblin Matron x4
Goblin Piledriver x4
Goblin Ringleader x4
Goblin Warchief x4
Mogg Fanatic x4
Siege-Gang Commander x2
Gempalm Incinerator x3
Goblin Sharpshooter x1
Tin Street Hooligan x1

// OTHER (7)
Aether Vial x4
Pyrokinesis x3

// LAND (22)
Taiga x4
Wooded Foothills x3
Bloodstained Mire x3
Wasteland x4
Rishadan Port x4
Mountain x4

// SIDEBOARD (15)
Pyroblast x2
Red Elemental Blast x2
Krosan Grip x4
Tormod's Crypt x4
Tin Street Hooligan x3


...another question, rishadan ports, can I go 0-2? Thanks for any help!

[Joe_C]

I have dropped green entirely. Black does alot for the deck. Running just 2 color(r/b) makes for aggressive moves with earwig to remove the cards we would need to hate on with green in the deck. Mods please do not delete my post for having a list(3 others posted lists after me and they were not deleted, what gives?) This has been doing really well for me in testing:

4 bloodstained mire
4 wooded foothills
4 wasteland
5 mountain
1 swamp
4 badlands

4 goblin lackey
3 goblin piledriver
3 siege-gang commander
4 goblin warchief
3 earwig squad
4 mogg fanatic
4 goblin matron
4 goblin ringleader
4 aether vial
2 warren weirding
2 gempalm incinerator
1 wort boggart auntie

sb:always open for moderation, but generic:
4 planar void(could be leyline, but i can cast this one easy enough and it keeps goyf at 0/1)
1 goblin king(just in case against e.plague)
1 goblin tinkerer
1 gaea's blassing( i hate painters servant combo)
4 cabal therapy
3 perish
1 goblin sharpshooter

dropping green makes my mana more stable and i can just go for the throat with earwig.

[Shriekmaw]

If players start by switching only to the black splash for goblins, then what is your answer to engineered plague? I simply don't want to be put into a situation where I don't have an answer to that card. I believe the green splash is very important in the metagame today as it gives you more answers like engineered explosives, cabal therapy, krosn grip, tin street hooligan.

I'm also not sold on the card earwig squad and how its better than some of the other goblins you can run in the main deck. Earwin squad is not a reliable solution to a lot of problems that you might face with goblins, it is a hit or miss in my opinion.

I've also seen the 3 color version do a lot better than the straight black splash in tournaments.

[chokin]

I prefer the Rbg build over any other current build due to the answers it provides to both bigger opposing creatures and enchantment hate.

Where I'm at, TSH is not really needed, so green is just for Grip and (if need be) Hooligan/Ancient Grudge.

@bruenor - Some people prefer Planar Void over Leyline, but I think that the reason Leyline appeals to me more is the "free and uncounterable" factor(to allow Lackey to hit turn 1) and that it can't be easily destroyed by EE. Free stuff is nice. I might even consider Crypt before PV.