[DTB] Vial Goblins [Archive] - Page 9

Shriekmaw

01-20-2009, 12:02 PM

So basically you're saying (please, correct me if I'm wrong) that you weaken your mana base so you can play Engineered Explosives and Krosan Grip just because of Enqineered Plague? Which means that you are much more vulnerable to Wastelands and to lesser extent Stifles, which you will encounter more often than sideboarded Engineered Plagues?

The only other reason you play green is Tin Street Hooligan I suppose? Goblin Tinkerer does exactly the same thing. And you can cast a Tinkerer with a Goblin Warchief in play which you cannot do with Tin Street Hooligan.

You do not really need Krosan Grip against Counterbalance in my opinion. Before CounterTop is online you already have played your key 1cc/ 2cc spells. And they have a hard time countering your 3cc+ spells after that.

And if you run EE and Grip in your SB what do you do against combo decks?

With black in your sideboard you can still preemptively get rid of Engineered Plague/Counterbalance by means of Duress/Thoughtseize/Cabal Therapy, whichever of those you like to play, and at the same time have proper answers to fight combo decks.

Or is the US metagame really that different from the European one?

The goal is to have the best goblin build in preparation for the GP coming up. If you don't think you will be running into engineered plague, then you will be mistaken. If you are playing black, then plague is probably in your board not only for goblins, but the other tribal decks as well. I've seen many tournaments where both merfolk and elves made top 8's in big events.

In regards to counterbalance, the main goal that it does is shutting off your removal in warren wierding. That is why Counterbalance stays in usually after game 1 against goblins b/c they have to protect their win conditions. I don't board in grip against threshold, just relic and explosives since they can hit mongoose or goyf/counterbalance at 1 or 2.

Everyone suggests you shouldn't play 3 colors b/c of all the stifles and wastelands going around which is just stupid. I would not weaken the deck in order to play around these type of cards. If you play smart, then a lot of the time you can play around these effects. I want to be able to play the best cards possible in goblins and 3 colors gives me that option.

Against combo, I board in the 4 chalice of the void and 3 cabal therapy. Sometimes it isn't enough against storm combo, but at least it gives me a shot with the quick clock I can put them on.

In a local matagame, I can understand why so many people think the mono-red or black/red version may be better, but in the GP you would want versatility with the ability to have as many answers as possible to cards that are hard to deal with.

Mantis

01-20-2009, 12:29 PM

Perhaps you are a ninja, but if my opponent is on the play and starts with Island go and I have 2 Fetchlands and want to play Aether Vial on my first turn I will have to walk into Stifle. I mean what are you going to do, wait three turns and hope your opponent is going to tap out?

What if you start with 3 non fetch non basic lands in your hand, you mulligan that hand in fear of Wasteland or something?

A lot of the time you won't be able to play around Stifle or Wasteland.

GreenOne

01-20-2009, 01:17 PM

Everyone suggests you shouldn't play 3 colors b/c of all the stifles and wastelands going around which is just stupid. I would not weaken the deck in order to play around these type of cards. If you play smart, then a lot of the time you can play around these effects. I want to be able to play the best cards possible in goblins and 3 colors gives me that option.
First, calling people stupid is plain insulting. Keep the discussion reasonable.
Goblin is an aggressive deck, and needs to tap out during its turn to play his cards. This puts goblins in a bad position with trying to play around stifle: sometimes, if you do it, you're losing tempo. Sometimes, if you don't do it, you'll run into stifle and manascrew.
Sometimes you just won't have the right lands to cast Tin-Street and have it brake an artifact.
Sometimes you just won't have the Black mana to play your removal.
Sometimes Rishadan Port will win you the game.
Sometimes a little fetch damage will lose you the game against Burn, or Price of Progress will ruin your day.
Sometimes Monored removal will be better than black one. Some examples:
- the mirror
- opponent has multiple creatures. Even something like Factory+Dreadnough, means you can't kill dreadnough.
- opponent counters your spell and his goyf became huge due to Tribal+Sorcery in grave.
- Opponent has a counter in hand, but you just Vial/Lackey in Stingscourger to take care of dreadnough/TS.
- The opponent plays mutavaults/changelings/fanatics or other goblins.
- The opponent doesn't play creatures (2/2 is better than nothing)

Being monored or Rg or Rb or Rgb is just a metagame consideration. If you're going to play in a tournament with loads of blue decks, LD decks, decks that abuse the graveyard and the mirror, then monored is a good choice. There's no way to demonstrate that a version is strictly better than the other, however, a testing session should help at individuate which matchups are better for every version.

ScatmanX

01-20-2009, 02:16 PM

I love nickrit2000's comments. For me, they're all : "I'm always right. The rest is stupidity".

Rbg is not bad. It gives you TSH, Krogan Grip, and 3cc EE. Nevertheless, in a meta full of Stifle, you should be worried about getting hit by stifle. It's a powerfull card. What Rb and MonoR do, is give up the power of some cards (qe all know Krosan Grip and Warrens Weirdings are powerfull), to have some more stability. And often times, it is worth it.

I don't think there should be a discussion wheter witch version is better. GreenOne summed it up nicely. It's a metagame call. The discussion, in my oppinion, should be wich version of each kind of deck, is the most relyable.

GUnit

01-20-2009, 05:09 PM

OK, I know I want to play Mono Red. I think counterbalance is terrible against mono red, so I don't care that I can't remove it. I see tarmogoyf, in general, and ANT as threats to this deck, so I'm thinking my "wiggle" slots in the maindeck will be relics of progenitus, which are solid against a lot of decks and cycle otherwise. It's not set in stone.

Here's roughly what I'm thinking:

4 x Lackey
4 x Vial
4 x Piledriver
4 x Warchief
4 x Matron
4 x Ringleader
4 x Gempalm
1 x Tinkerer
2 x Stingscourger
3 x SGC
1 x Goblin King

3 x Relic of Progenitus

14 x Mountain
4 x Waste
4 x Port

SB:
4 x Chalice
3 x Pyrostatic Pillar
4 x Pyrokinesis
3 x REB
1 x Goblin

I'm really not sure what to expect in Chicago, but I figure mono red + MD king gives me the edge in the mirror, which I expect will be more popular than it has been of late (availability, nostalgia, etc.). I'm not sure about cutting fanatics. That may be a mistake. Otherwise, I feel like things are solid. The board reflects my concerns about combo.

Comments, questions, suggestions? I really don't know what people consider optimal in terms of Mono Red builds.

ScatmanX

01-20-2009, 05:13 PM

If you want to have an edge in the mirror, play Shapshooter main, wich is good agains´t a bunch of decks (though you are not playng Fanatics, that are grat agains´t randomness....)

GreenOne

01-20-2009, 05:14 PM

raharu

01-20-2009, 05:17 PM

I've never really seen the point of Pyrokinesis. What does it do for you? Wouldn't Lightning Bolt be better?

ScatmanX

01-20-2009, 05:21 PM

Reharu: No
Knesis helps a lot more in the mirror. (takes down usually 2 to 3 criatures)
Can help you win agains´t 12 EtW tokens (done that)
Great agains´t the Elf combo deck
and several other stuff...

mainly is better because you don´t need to keep your mana open, so is always an surprise.

Nelis

01-20-2009, 05:31 PM

The goal is to have the best goblin build in preparation for the GP coming up. If you don't think you will be running into engineered plague, then you will be mistaken. If you are playing black, then plague is probably in your board not only for goblins, but the other tribal decks as well. I've seen many tournaments where both merfolk and elves made top 8's in big events.

I'm not saying you will not run into Engineered Plague but I just can't imagine you will see it that often. This is why I would not be bothered as much with it:

1. I would expect a GP to feature a whole range of different decks, be more random. The chance you run into a deck with Engineered Plagues is less likely than in a set metagame which features a lot of black decks for instance.

2. One Engineered plague is not that bad since it only shuts down lackeys and fanatics. Sure it's annoying that you lose them especially lackey. But lackey will have done its job before Plague hits. All other goblins survive -1/-1. I also don't see Plague do much against Merfolk because it runs 8 pump creatures and it also has counter backup. So in my opinion plague is only really efficient versus elves because they're mostly only 1/1s. Sure two Plagues are devastating but how likely is it that this will happen?

In a local metagame, I can understand why so many people think the mono-red or black/red version may be better, but in the GP you would want versatility with the ability to have as many answers as possible to cards that are hard to deal with.

I think discard is a very universal and thus a versatile answer to basically every possible threat. Its my choice for (almost) every tournament anyway but surely for a GP because of its 'randomness'. And if you want to win a big tournament you have to have a very good plan vs combo I think. The only thing I do not like about my sideboard is not having any room for Pyrokinesis.

ScatmanX

01-20-2009, 05:47 PM

@Nelis: -3 discard (you choose) , +4 Knesis.
done

Nelis

01-20-2009, 06:22 PM

I actually have made another choice (to try out anyway):

SB:
-3 Thoughtseize
+3 Pyrokinesis

Maindeck:
-1 Wort, -1 Sharpshooter, -1 Gempalm Incinerator
+3 Thoughtseize

That would make:
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Auntie's Hovel
4 Mountain
4 Rishadan Port
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland
4 Badlands

3 Thoughtseize
4 Aether Vial
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Lackey

1 Goblin Tinkerer
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Warren Weirding

4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Warchief

4 Goblin Ringleader

1 Siege-Gang Commander

Sideboard:
3 Pyrokinesis
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Chalice of The Void
4 Relic of Progenitus

ccook92mtg

01-21-2009, 12:54 AM

would spikeshot goblin work in vial gobins? i mean he allows you to do damage to a creature or player over and over where fanatics only once. The down grade on him he cost three to play.

ScatmanX

01-21-2009, 08:46 AM

@ccook92mtg: No.
The card you're looking for is Goblin Sharpshooter.
I guess that even Goblin Medics is better than Spikeshot, and you shouldn't use neither.

Tacosnape

01-21-2009, 10:27 AM

I've never really seen the point of Pyrokinesis. What does it do for you? Wouldn't Lightning Bolt be better?

Pyrokinesis is an incredible tempo boost. Apply it as such.

Uses include the Goblin mirror, wrecking Elf Combo, Faerie Stompy, Affinity, any combo deck that relies on a creature, and random other things.

ScatmanX

01-24-2009, 02:23 PM

Looks like Conflux isn't going to bring nothing new for goblins...
Kind of disaponting. All the other threads are commenting on possibilties.
Bummer.

GoldenCid

02-01-2009, 03:15 PM

Do you think that Voracious dragon will be a playable option in this deck??

BKclassic

02-01-2009, 03:50 PM

Do you think that Voracious dragon will be a playable option in this deck??

It would certainly be awesome to Vial out that sucker in response to a Pyroclasm or Plague. But SG Commander still seems consistently way better.

Ectoplasm

02-01-2009, 06:49 PM

Do you think that Voracious dragon will be a playable option in this deck??

Short: no
Long: No, because it invites 1000-for-1's, can't be matroned/ringleadered, costs 5 and predator dragon would IMO be a better choice anyway.

But who knows, it would be a cool card to try out since it looks fun at least and it could work out better than I hope as a finishing move, since if it gets countered it won't have eaten any goblins and if it gets plowed it will have done its damage anyway and probably killed off your opponent, also it has obvious synergy with goblin sharpshooter so it could potentially churn out a crapload of damage from nowhere. I'm gonna get a couple and playtest them just for fun since they probably won't be expensive anyway, don't expect them to be really viable but who cares! The idea of a fat dragon eating my goblins is pretty cool.

Henrik

02-06-2009, 04:08 AM

gieli0

02-06-2009, 06:02 AM

They splash blue for daze and for a faerie, that says: when it comes into play tap or untap target creature. they play it with kiki-jiki and go inf. tokens.

GreenOne

02-06-2009, 06:07 AM

They splash blue for daze and for a faerie, that says: when it comes into play tap or untap target creature. they play it with kiki-jiki and go inf. tokens.
I better play some more stable combo, like food chain and/or Lightning Crafter (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12248).

Media314r8

02-06-2009, 06:40 AM

Hey guys, I'm not a goblin player, but I've seen lists of the blue-splahsed goblin decks with daze and brainstorm etc. Has this deck evolved anything and/or been discussed in this thread, or is it more lucky shots of various persons, playing a suboptimal deck?

Sorry, messy question. In conclusion: Is there a current decklist of UR Goblin-control that is somewhat up to date and agreed upon? I'd love to see it.

Like any other non-goblin spells, blue would weaken the tribal nature of the deck, decreasing the 'aggro' feel and nut lackey openings, as well as ringleader flips, matron toolbox, ect. Daze might as well be REB/Vexing shusher, as both are probably serving the same roll, to ensure your important goblins resolve, and both slow down your tempo, the blast/shusher ensuring you leave R open before playing your important spells, and daze making you miss a land drop each time you use it to resolve one, making your ringleaders/SGCs come down a turn later. Adding daze will do MUCH less to improve the combo MU than adding a set of earwig squads, so if that is your goal, just play black with 3-4 squads main. You will not have enough blue slots to properly use FoW, so the main point of running blue is allready out.

If you have problems with control, play shusher/REB.

If you have problems with combo, play earwig squad.

Until they print a RU goblin with an ability to rival driver/SGC, I doubt a blue splash will be viable.

Eldariel

02-06-2009, 08:00 AM

FoulQ

02-09-2009, 08:12 PM

Media314r8

02-12-2009, 10:38 AM

Like I said before with Ru goblins, you can have the (somewhat) best of both worlds. Just splash blue for stifle to make your mana denial package stronger, and forget the FoW stuff, that's not goblins. But JUST splashing for stifle and playing it normally otherwise deserves a look. You could open up some sideboard options to, maybe something like submerge vs. goyf.

LD: play goblin settler

Goyf: play relic/weirding

why move into weaker colors and lower our goblin (and threat) count to play situational cards that have equals IN COLOR?

snackfu

02-12-2009, 07:34 PM

LD: play goblin settler

Goyf: play relic/weirding

why move into weaker colors and lower our goblin (and threat) count to play situational cards that have equals IN COLOR?

QFT

FoulQ

02-13-2009, 07:15 PM

1) Goblin Settler? Is this some sort of joke, Settler being equal to Stifle? Stifle is about 10 billion times better than goblin settler...playing 4 stifle and 4 vial as the only nongoblins in the deck is really not that strange, considering many goblin decks play 8 nongoblins. Plus, stifle out of goblins will surprise your opponent.
2) With Submerge, fine: that card is bad here. Still, if things are really getting terrible in your meta it does get around CB, unlike weirding.

Now, I'm not advocating Ru goblins, but I'm saying playing 4 stifles alone is not a terrible idea. It would be Ru goblins that basically plays like monored goblins, only 4 stifles make the port/wasteland/stifle combination deadly to a lot of decks.

I think the Ru goblins discussion should just be dropped at this point because it is pointless.

deathdealer

02-14-2009, 04:58 AM

omg u/r goblins??? not even funny ....
drop the discussion of blue and lets get things moving again

deathdealer

02-14-2009, 05:06 AM

Basically, the way to go with blue-based Goblins is to eschew Ringleader and focus on Lackey/Vial explosive starts (with SGCs, Matrons and Piles to actually make 'em matter). That makes the deck much more frightening in the early turns, but gives up the Ringleader's ability to rebuild in the midgame. So you make the deck more focused on the early game and more able to punish opponent's poor draws (along with some "I just win"-draws of your own), but in turn you make the deck less powerful in the midgame and have lower chances of coming back from behind.

You do improve the land disruption suite with Stifle though; Stifle+Waste+Rishadan Port is brutal almost to a Team Americanish degree, so it could definitely be a potent way to go given a proper metagame. But the tradeoff of losing Ringleader means that the tribal synergies of the deck are much weaker. Still, you will be grinning when you go turn 1 Lackey with Daze & Force backup. The biggest question is really the 4th blue card; you'll run Daze, Force and Stifle because those make the splash worth it, but whether the 4th slot needed to support Force should be Brainstorm, Standstill, a variety of RU Goblins or something else entirely is a question not answered.

To do any of that 99% of the time you will need a fectch land to get your blue source and it WILL get stiffled BLUE is DEF NOT THE ANSWER why would anyone cut goblins to make room for weaker cards in a goblin deck?
And it def not "worth " the splash you wanna make room for 12-16 unneeded blue cards? how many goblins did you plan on running 4-8?
the whole idea behind goblins is to out number and out speed your opps and win not sit with a lackey and a hand full of blue garbage wishing you had a goblin to lackey trigger in.. get away from the blue idea ..if you wanna play blue then you need to switch tribes and play merfolks ..

FoulQ

02-14-2009, 11:30 AM

A DISCUSSION ON MOGG FANATIC

People have been saying Mogg Fanatic should be removed, and I agree with that, as I'll explain below. That leaves 4 slots open that need to be filled. How should we approach that filling? I'll also discuss that below. Here is a list of relevant creatures that mogg fanatic straight up kills by himself (based off the DtB and Established forums):

DARK CONFIDANT, GOBLIN LACKEY, BIRDS OF PARADISE, CURSECATCHER, Silvergill Adept, Mogg Fanatic, Disciple of the Vault, Arcbound Ravager, Arcbound Worker, Scion of Oona, Ichorid, Nantuko Shade, Winged Sliver, Cloud of Faeries, Mother of Runes, Putrid Imp, Oona's Prowler, Llanowar Elves, Fyndhorn Elves, Goblin Welder, Quirion Dryad, Wirewood Symbiote, Basking Rootwalla, Grim Lavamancer.

Now that seems like an extensive list, but only 3 or so will be relevant (according to what is in the DtB forum) along with a few of the others based on the local metagame. We must not forget, however, that mogg fanatic can mess up blocking situations and acts like a 2/1 in most situations. He easily trades with many of the x/2's in the format. Yet, mogg fanatic doesn't really present any synergy with the deck's core (ringleader, warchief, lackey). He doesn't improve the core and doesn't really do much of anything but be a decent aggro threat. He also doesn't really help that much in the worst matchups (from my experiences, red aggro control and combo). And in today's environment, with bad goblins matchups running rampant, being a decent aggro threat does not cut it. There are other cards that are begging for maindeck inclusion, but mogg fanatic is taking up the slot.

You obviously want to include a goblin. From testing going above 8 preboard nongoblins is comical, and even going that high is just too dangerous for me as far as ringleader goes. So I want to keep preboard goblins at 4 vials, if possible.

In addition, we want a card that fits well on the curve, something I think goblin players need to address. It's hard to call goblins an aggro deck with such an inefficient curve based on 3cc. Why is Gempalm Incinerator getting worse and worse? Because goblin decks continue to neglect their mana curves to make it worse because there will be less permanents in play (obviously). So with that, I want both a goblin AND one that is 2cc at most, preferably 1cc.

Now, I'm not going to share right away the card I think is worthy of at least 3 of the maindeck slots, because then you will disagree with me immediately. But I will tell you that there is a card that can do many of the things mogg fanatic does: it is a goblin that is 1cc, it deals with ichorid decks, and messes up combat math very similarly to mogg fanatic. He loses the versatiliy of shooting the x/1's in the format, but if you look at the list above, only a few will be relevant, depending on the metagame. Also, by himself he isn't quite as powerful as mogg fanatic. But, there is more that this little 1cc goblin can do: he helps against math-based removal (such as lightning bolt) but more importantly, he can effectively fight pyroclasm and its descedants. In effect, instead of helping matchups goblins should already be winning as mogg fanatic does, he helps against one of goblins' bad matchups (decks packing pyroclasm or an equivalent in their 75 cards).

Intrigued? The card is goblin sledder, a humble and seemingly outdated creature that I'm sure many of you are already familiar with.

Now, you can tell me that goblin sledder is terrible and all of that, but then you also better be saying mogg fanatic is terrible and all of that, because goblin sledder can do almost everything mogg fanatic can do, AND he makes what would be a crushing pyroclasm into just losing 1 or maybe 2 goblins. When I see people's sideboards against goblins and other aggro decks, they are getting smaller, and for good reason. Obviously aggro control dominates the format, the only aggro deck having success right now is merfolk, and even that is questionably aggro. So many decks just pack some pyroclasm in the sb and call it an easy postboard matchup versus goblins.

That won't be the case with goblin sledder. Through testing him out, I can tell you that he messes up so many situations that he should at least be considered for inclusion. Let's face it people, goblins is just not good anymore, even with warren weirding...a goblin player is going to have to be a little more creative to win in today's metagame, whether that be something like maindeck relics, or goblin sledder. That is why I am advocating goblin sledder in metagames that see a decent amount of goblins, aggro loam, and UGr thresh. Goblin sledder will also be successful in metagames with lots of sideboard red boardsweepers: GP Chicago, anyone?

Thank you for reading this post. Please do not just pass off Goblin Sledder because of my low post count.

Seriously

02-14-2009, 06:47 PM

Now, you can tell me that goblin sledder is terrible and all of that

its terrible. and all of that.

goblin sledder can do almost everything mogg fanatic can do

how about, no. it doesnt do anything mogg fanatic does, except attack. the two cards play completely different roles.

you said it yourself:

DARK CONFIDANT, GOBLIN LACKEY, BIRDS OF PARADISE, CURSECATCHER, Silvergill Adept, Mogg Fanatic, Disciple of the Vault, Arcbound Ravager, Arcbound Worker, Scion of Oona, Ichorid, Nantuko Shade, Winged Sliver, Cloud of Faeries, Mother of Runes, Putrid Imp, Oona's Prowler, Llanowar Elves, Fyndhorn Elves, Goblin Welder, Quirion Dryad, Wirewood Symbiote, Basking Rootwalla, Grim Lavamancer.

goblin sledder does nothing to stop any of those. all it does is prevent a goblin or two, if that, from a mass sweeper like pyroclasm.

he makes what would be a crushing pyroclasm into just losing 1 or maybe 2 goblins.

thats some pretty bad math.

if at minimum you have a lackey, a sledder and a matron ? both the sledder and matron die to protect the lackey. thats 2 goblins.

if you have lackey, siege-gang, 3 tokens and a sledder, the 3 tokens die to pump the lackey and siege-gang and the sledder still dies as it cant protect itself. so you lose 4 and keep 2.

That won't be the case with goblin sledder. Through testing him out, I can tell you that he messes up so many situations

like which ? swords ? nope. bolt ? at the cost of 3 other goblins.

UGr thresh.

I've beaten UGr thresh, without relics with RB goblins. at no point would I rather have had goblin sledder over fanatic.

Please do not just pass off Goblin Sledder because of my low post count.

no, but I will because it sucks.

Viscosity

02-14-2009, 06:57 PM

fanatic is much better than sledder.

Personally, I think this deck does well to have 4x StP in the main.

Ectoplasm

02-14-2009, 06:59 PM

Every couple of pages we have the same discussions. Drop Mogg Fanatic? No thanks, I'll keep my pingers and drop them for surprise damage on a stupid tarmogoyf, turn them into lightning bolts with my sharpshooter and so on. Play goblin sledder? He's simply not good enough, setting yourself up for 1000-for-1's sounds pretty silly to me.

But really, these things have been suggested time and again, and every time someone thinks he's found the holy grail of goblin tech and each and every time he gets disproven, just stop suggesting it already.

deathdealer

02-14-2009, 07:41 PM

All valid points HOWEVER Goblin Sledder doesn't do anything more than mogg fanatic did especially against combo we dont have problems swarming around goyf and the bunch.
We have main deck answers (some do) to tomb stalker/dreadnought, also as far as only 4 non goblin cards depending on you build 4-7 is still good a lot of the times in games 2-3 your running fewer goblins anyway im down to 2 mogg as it is and Im starting to lean toward skirk prospector as the replacement to mogg fanatic the reason being its very good against combo with a mana sac you have an out to ANT /other combo main deck.

98% of ANT players will stop @ 5life this gives you a chance to use prospector tricks/sharpshooter/siege- gang to in response to their next spell to take them down the rest of the way.:wink:

against other decks prospector give that little boost of speed:cool:
But I'm still not sold on cutting him as the prev poster suggested mogg is still useful

FoulQ

02-14-2009, 10:57 PM

how about, no. it doesnt do anything mogg fanatic does, except attack. the two cards play completely different roles.

They both mess up combat math. Fanatic pings guys, and sledder makes it easier to recover from red board sweepers.

you said it yourself:

DARK CONFIDANT, GOBLIN LACKEY, BIRDS OF PARADISE, CURSECATCHER, Silvergill Adept, Mogg Fanatic, Disciple of the Vault, Arcbound Ravager, Arcbound Worker, Scion of Oona, Ichorid, Nantuko Shade, Winged Sliver, Cloud of Faeries, Mother of Runes, Putrid Imp, Oona's Prowler, Llanowar Elves, Fyndhorn Elves, Goblin Welder, Quirion Dryad, Wirewood Symbiote, Basking Rootwalla, Grim Lavamancer.

goblin sledder does nothing to stop any of those. all it does is prevent a goblin or two, if that, from a mass sweeper like pyroclasm.

It also messes up combat math and stops ichorid in a similar manner to mogg fanatic. Let's not forget that point. All those get killed by mogg fanatic, but most decks that play x/1's goblins has a good matchup against anyway. I'm looking to improve the bad matchups while minimizing the percentage lost in good matchups because of that. Mogg fanatic is great in the great matchups, not so hot in bad matchups.

thats some pretty bad math.

if at minimum you have a lackey, a sledder and a matron ? both the sledder and matron die to protect the lackey. thats 2 goblins.

if you have lackey, siege-gang, 3 tokens and a sledder, the 3 tokens die to pump the lackey and siege-gang and the sledder still dies as it cant protect itself. so you lose 4 and keep 2.

And yet, that is better than anything fanatic would do in that situation.

like which ? swords ? nope. bolt ? at the cost of 3 other goblins.

By "sitautions" I meant combat situations. To save a warchief only costs 2 goblins, sledder + another. You don't have to keep the sledder around. And the goal with sledder is really to keep warchief alive, above all.

I've beaten UGr thresh, without relics with RB goblins. at no point would I rather have had goblin sledder over fanatic.

Well then I guess you are just awesome. But it doesn't matter whether you have beaten it, it matters if your odds are better with goblin sledder.

no, but I will because it sucks.

I knew it would have some haters, and that's fine. What I'm trying to point out with goblin sledder is that it improves bad matchups. Mogg Fanatic improves good matchups. In a metagame as wide as GP Chicago, I want to make my matchups as even as possible. That's the point I'm trying to get across with sledder.

Every couple of pages we have the same discussions. Drop Mogg Fanatic? No thanks, I'll keep my pingers and drop them for surprise damage on a stupid tarmogoyf, turn them into lightning bolts with my sharpshooter and so on. Play goblin sledder? He's simply not good enough, setting yourself up for 1000-for-1's sounds pretty silly to me.

But really, these things have been suggested time and again, and every time someone thinks he's found the holy grail of goblin tech and each and every time he gets disproven, just stop suggesting it already.

Some cards are more essential than others in goblins, as you know. Lackey late game isn't really going to do much of anything. But with sledder in play, he could be a savior for that crucial warchief or piledriver. Also, playing sledder doesn't force overextension, sure there may be card disadvantage involved, but I'd rather have card disadvantage and a warchief on the table than keeping my precious card advantage with nothing on the table. I don't think I've found the holy grail of goblin tech, I just think goblin sledder would be a good choice for GP Chicago. Bringing the same old list to GP Chicago is going to fail, because of two reasons, 1) goblins is not that good anymore, 2) people will be planning their sideboards based on plain ol' goblins, which means clasm + plague. Sledder is a decent answer to clasm, better than nothing, which is what goblins currently does against clasm.

Justin

02-14-2009, 11:56 PM

I'd have to say that Mogg Fanatic is overall a better card in the current format than Goblin Sledder. Goblins should probably play 4 fanatics MD (or three at the very least). As was noted, it is great against many x/1 creatures. Fanatic is very strong against the following decks: Aggro Loam, Goblins, Goyf Sligh, Ichorid, Rock, Survival Advantage, Fish, Merfolk, Slivers, and Elves just to name a few. Good luck playing a Legacy tourney and not seeing any of these decks.

I do admit that sledder can be better against some decks. Threshold comes to mind, as fanatic has trouble finding creatures to target. Sledder can help pump a 2/2 goblin to get an annoying Mongose off the board or to save some of your guys from a fire/ice or pyroclasm. On the other hand, fanatic is much more useful against Thresh if you are running Relic.

I just don't see enough decks that sledder is better against that would make me want to run him.

GreenOne

02-15-2009, 05:33 AM

I'm not going on debating Sledder vs Fanatic, cause this come up every month or two and it's getting annoying.

I'm with you, by the way, that goblin is not the deck that used to be and this is for a number of particular reasons:

- Printing of Goyf, Tombstalker, unerrata of Dreadnough: the decks and the metagame evolved, favoring a small number of huge beaters, and in general aggro-control or tempo strategies.
- Control in the form of landstill has basically the same strategy going on against us. We lost Rishadan port against them, that helped preventing turn 4 Humility/Wrath.
- Combo arise with the printing of AN.
- Goblin didn't gain much from last few cycles aside from Warren Weirding and Stingscourger.

The deck has to basically adapt to the new metagame if it can, or simply start being a tier 2.
Here is what have to be done to adapt:
1) Have a way to deal with those huge beaters
2) Have more than beat down as strategy against control decks
3) Just lose the combo mathup as always, but have a positive matchup against control and aggrocontrol.

Here are the possible answers IMO:
1) Obviously both Mogg Fanatic and Gempalms are being less and less effective, so are likely the cards that we have to discuss in favor of:

- Relic of Progenitus: Almost kills Goyf, and slows Tombstalker like noone. It also mess with the opponent's strategy if he's using the graveyard (like too many decks do)
- Warren Weirding: it's a good choice if you predict there will be little stifle (and tempo strategies) and the mirror.
- Stingscourger: Highly effective against tombstalker and dreadnought, a tempo card against Goyf, allowing also for a blocker for a turn (or monouse attack with warchief in play). Can also be vialed in for uncounterability (it matters against dreadnought)
- Mogg War Marshal: it's a 3 turn chumpblock against goyf, increases the power of Gempalm and Piledriver. Does nothing against Nought and TS.
- Goblin tinkerer/TSH: if you expect more Dreadnoughts than anyhing else.
- Other non-goblin creature removal, like Terminate, STP, Spitebellows, Snuff Out...

2) Keep your mana denial in he form of all the Rishadan Ports your deck can support, even if it's 1. Don't lose consistency, so play the little number of fetches/duals your deck have to play. Or play bombs against them, like Krosan Grip, Price of Progress, Sulfuric vortex, etc.

3) Don't dedicate SB spaces at the combo matchup unless you already have ALL your other matchups covered with the best cards for each matchup. So, basically, forget about combo, cause you'll never win 2 out of 3.

FoulQ

02-15-2009, 11:26 AM

You see, the problem I have with the whole fanatic + relic combo is that fanatic is one of the better candidates for siding out (along with incinerator) against many decks packing tarmogoyf, because he has few targets to target. If you aren't siding out fanatic against, thresh, for instance, what are you siding out?

I agree that goblins needs to adapt, and I think STINGSCOURGER is going to be an important card, since most of the top decks now just play a threat or maybe two at a time. Dreadnought and Tombstalker are rising in popularity, and he is a decent card against tarmogoyf as well. A couple stingscourgers coupled with a few warren weirdings I think gives this deck a strong matchup against the aggro control decks, the problem is CB.

About CB, I'm currently running the black splash and I'm just curious what you all think: can goblins live through counterbalance? Is Rb just unplayable because goblins NEEDS krosan grip against counterbalance, and is counterbalance really that important? I've seen some talk about counterbalance in the thread but not that extensive of talk.

I think Rb is playable, because you can't rely on x4 or x3 krosan grip to save you against counterbalance. Through testing, it has come up to me that sometimes CB really shuts you down but it isn't as common as it is against decks with tighter curves than goblins. But there is a point that nickrit brought up a long time ago that goblins is starting to rely on warren weirding against thresh, and obviously CB stops that pretty well. So I'm just curious what everybody thinks.

Eldariel

02-15-2009, 12:12 PM

Counterbalance hardly impacts Goblins. Between the fact that most of your important cards cost 3-5, the fact that you have 8 1-drops that ignore Counterbalance and the fact that Goblin Tinkerer can keep forcing Top on top of the library, the fact that Gempalm ignores it, the fact that Port and Waste can limit their mana for you to resolve stuf, the fact that you don't give aggro/control decks much time to filter and setup the board and the fact that they're spending ~3 mana to do nothing while resolving Countertop you shouldn't be overly concerned.

The real question is whether you can deal with Plagues or not.

snackfu

02-15-2009, 01:05 PM

Plagues happens to be one of my biggest concerns, since I am running R/B and don't have access to Taigas. I have people in the local shop bringing in 4 Engineered Plagues and 4 Infests against me. My usual sideboard strategy has been to bring in 2 Mad Aunties, but I am considering testing Dralnu's Crusade. It reads:

Dralnu's Crusade 1BR

Enchantment
rare

All Goblins get +1/+1, are black, and are Zombies in addition to their creature types.

Has anyone tried using this? Is it worthwhile in a metagame that will be dominated by black? Or are the Mad Auntie's just plain better?

I am thinking of packing four of these tonight to see how they work out.

GreenOne

02-15-2009, 02:42 PM

Plagues happens to be one of my biggest concerns, since I am running R/B and don't have access to Taigas. I have people in the local shop bringing in 4 Engineered Plagues and 4 Infests against me. My usual sideboard strategy has been to bring in 2 Mad Aunties, but I am considering testing Dralnu's Crusade.
Do they have ways to remove artifacts or are they playing monoblack?
If so Door of Destinies seems huge against both Plague and Infest. You can also try Patron of the Akki and/or Fledgling Dragon.

Justin

02-15-2009, 02:47 PM

I agree that counterbalance is not much of a threat against goblins. In fact, a good player with board his CBs out in a matchup vs. goblins because there aren't enough 1 and 2 drop targets.

I also agree that the emergence of fat creatuers such as Tarmogoyf, Tombstalker, and Dreadnought, as well as the continuing popularity of cards such as Nimble Mongoose, weaken the quality of Mogg Fanatic and Gempalm Incinerator. However, decks that run Tombstalker often also tend to run Dark Confidant, so there is still a place for these cards. The only top-tier decks in which Fanatic and Incinerator are weak are Threshold, Landstill, and non-Ichorid combo decks.

Warren Weirding seems to me like a must-play card given the number of fatties running around. I didn't take me too long to play with it to see that it was more useful than Incinerator in most situations. I currently run 3 weirdings and one incinerator, but have been considering cutting the incinerator for a fourth weirding. Weirding is so strong in the current format that it's hard to argue against splashing black. Plus, you also have access to Wort, Earwig, Leyline, Cabal Therapy, etc.

Wrecked

02-16-2009, 01:46 PM

After testing awhile, I agree that Mogg Fanatic seems much less effective.

How about Frenzied Goblin? I've been testing with him the past couple of days and he does help to race past 'Naught, Goyf and Tombstalker, as well as allows Lackey to get there. So many times I've dropped turn 1 Lackey only to get a cheap chump blocker in my way. Granted, he doesn't do anything against Factory or 'Goose, but you play Wasteland and Port. Also he does demand 1 mana per activation, but that seems minute, in comparison to the upside of getting through damage.

GreenOne

02-16-2009, 02:43 PM

How about Frenzied Goblin? I've been testing with him the past couple of days and he does help to race past 'Naught, Goyf and Tombstalker, as well as allows Lackey to get there. So many times I've dropped turn 1 Lackey only to get a cheap chump blocker in my way. Granted, he doesn't do anything against Factory or 'Goose, but you play Wasteland and Port. Also he does demand 1 mana per activation, but that seems minute, in comparison to the upside of getting through damage.
Yeah, this can actually be a worthwhile 1cc choice if you want to keep the curve smooth. I never tested it at its time (fanatic was still good with ravnica) but now it deserves it. I actually saw him in a awful list that top8ed lately and got surprised. It can really be a nice idea, especially for monored.

FoulQ

02-16-2009, 03:42 PM

I was just wondering if anybody here has tested Thorn of Amethyst, mb or sb? I know there were whispers about it when it came out but nobody has really talked about it since. I'm thinking it might just be better to play CotV sb against combo because you can sometimes bring it in versus thresh and maybe a few other random decks. Thoughts?

Also, snackfu, if you did use 4 dralnu's crusades, I'm interested in hearing what happened.

Tacosnape

02-16-2009, 03:59 PM

Frenzied Goblin is awful. If I want to play more things to get Lackey through, I'm going to max out my Warren Weirdings and Stingscourgers.

That said, Fanatic is being dismissed too quickly. If anything, Gempalm's the weak link, and Fanatic/Stingscourger/Sharpshooter is becoming the stronger configuration.

Fanatic, for :r:, does the following.

1. Gives you a 1/1 body that's almost guaranteed to at least get a point of damage through and pumps Piledriver.
2. Gives you a means to remove Dark Confidant, Eternal Witness, Birds of Paradise, Rofellos, Goblin Lackey, Tin-Street Hooligan, Other Mogg Fanatics, Spark Elemental, Hellspark Elemental, Ichorid, Narcomoeba, Bridge from Below, Llanowar Elves, Fyndhorn Elves, Quirion Ranger, Priest of Titania, Wirewood Symbiote, Silvergill Adept, Cursecatcher, Wake Thrasher, Cloud of Faeries, Pestermite, and an attacking Mishra's Factory. Among other things.

Justin

02-16-2009, 04:52 PM

I was just wondering if anybody here has tested Thorn of Amethyst, mb or sb? I know there were whispers about it when it came out but nobody has really talked about it since. I'm thinking it might just be better to play CotV sb against combo because you can sometimes bring it in versus thresh and maybe a few other random decks. Thoughts?

I played Thorn of Amethyst in a tourney shortly after it came out, and I was quite underwhelmed. In my view, Chalice of the Void is a much stronger card and should be in a goblin player's sideboard. Countering spells is better than making players pay one more for them.

Wrecked

02-19-2009, 11:44 AM

Tinefol

02-19-2009, 12:12 PM

Tacosnape

02-19-2009, 12:21 PM

I wouldn't play with less than 2 Siege Gangs. Or 4 fanatics. Seriously, its Earwig Squad enabler that doesn't scream "Remove me asap!", which Lackey does.

Stingscourgers, seriously? I can see them being useful, but overally just no, you better run some real removal, like Diabolic Edict or may be Terminate.

Scourger is better than you think. It's Lackey path-clearing, fantastic against things like Tombstalker and Dreadnought, runs off only Red, etc etc. They're also a Goblin. I wouldn't run more than a pair if at all, but it's been fantastic at knocking huge guys out of the way long enough for me to get a major swing through.

Wrecked

02-19-2009, 12:42 PM

I agree, and if you're on the draw, turn one lackey usually sees turn 2 tarmogoyf across the field, where scourger really shines. I've found that 2-2 Scourger/Gempalm is pretty effective. Also I'm expecting an aggro meta, so my real debate right now is about the Earwigs in general, if it'd be better to run 2 1-ofs like Tin Street, King, Auntie, or Sharpshooter. Although, they do shine when people board in E. Plague.

GoldenCid

02-19-2009, 05:44 PM

I've been reading list than run less than 4 piledriver....the question is: is this creature obligate in 4x in this deck??

Eldariel

02-19-2009, 06:22 PM

List of reasons, why Sting bouncing instead of killing isn't all that bad:
-Dreadnought and Tombstalker are often as good as dead when bounced.

-You can occasionally deny your 3+c opponent mana and the bounced creature isn't coming back.

-Decks often have more cards than they have mana to cast cards with vs. you (especially since most decks in the format have a card advantage engine and spend some mana not playing threats, be it lock pieces, counters, filtering, equipment or whatever).

This is especially true vs. aggro/control where you win not through attrition, but racing enough points through their defenses; in that scenario, while Goyf is one of the better cards they could be casting with their mana, they're still not getting any "extra plays" out of having a card returned to their hand vs. killed.

-Goblins is the deck with inevitability in most of the match-ups. Therefore you just need to slow the opponent down while you play more lands and draw cards and bouncing their threat gets you there just as well.

List of advantages Stingscourger has over removal spells:
-It's a Goblin that acts as a targeted removal against targets of any size for 2 mana that can avoid counters in a multitude of fashions. Any other card in this game does not fulfill all those 4 criteria (StP? Not a Goblin. Weirding? Cannot target (nice Factory/Trinket/Naught you just killed, I still have my Nought/Mongoose/Stalker). Gempalm? Very limited by size and by Gobs in play (against red, you want something to slow them down turn 2 and Gempalm does not deliver.).

-As stated, it can be Vialed and Lackeyed in. The latter is especially valuable against Dreadstill, pretty much forcing them to respect Lackey (which they really can't afford since they need to race with a Dreadnought in play, meaning you can evade their whole countersuite and send the Nought packing, or get a Piledriver through or some such).

Vial is even more powerful, allowing you to change combat math entirely bouncing a Goyf/Stalker/Nought and blocking a Goyf. Also, EOT removes a blocker (or upkeep in response to the Vial-trigger if you have a Warchief and want to swing with the Scourger while still ramping Vial for a Ringleader/SGC). All the while ignoring counters.

-It blocks. Most aggro/control decks need to kill you before you get into the lategame zone of dropping a bunch of 3-4CC Goblins in a turn and just overwhelming them. Stopping that 3 damage from a 'Goose/Nacatl or 5 from a Goyf is easily worth it, as well as having them spend removal to get the damage through or not attack. All have the same net effect.

-It swings. When you have a Warchief, this comes up in actual normal games a lot (2 extra damage+2 per piledriver is pretty fcking huge). The same goes for games where you are topdecking non-CA Goblins with plenty of mana; then you might as well pay the Echo and have a 6-mana 2/2. It needs to be dealt with all the same if you're both equally out.

-It's red. This means that when your manabase is disrupted, you're guaranteed an access to it. This also means that you don't need to fetch off-colour sources to use it on turn 2 making your manabase development much more fluent.

So Stingscourger is great and compares reasonably to e.g. Warren Weirdings (the big drawback here is Stifle, but there're no free Stifles or Stiflebalances or such so your mana disruption works fine there, and many decks have already burned their Stifles on other things such as their Noughts, your Wastes, your fetches, your Matrons, your Ringleaders, your SGCs, your Lackeys and similars).

deathdealer

02-20-2009, 07:44 AM

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
3 [MM] Rishadan Port
4 [REW] Wasteland
4 [UNH] Mountain
2 [A] Taiga
3 [A] Badlands
3 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
3 [ON] Wooded Foothills

// Creatures
4 [US] Goblin Lackey
4 [FNM] Goblin Ringleader
4 [FNM] Goblin Warchief
4 [ON] Goblin Piledriver
1 [EVG] Siege-Gang Commander
4 [US] Goblin Matron
3 [TE] Mogg Fanatic
2 [PLC] Stingscourger
2 [LE] Gempalm Incinerator
2 [MOR] Earwig Squad
1 [LRW] Wort, Boggart Auntie

// Spells
4 [DS] AEther Vial
3 [MOR] Warren Weirding

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [EX] Price of Progress
SB: 3 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [AL] Pyrokinesis
SB: 3 [JU] Cabal Therapy

Thoughts?

I my self love some type of maindeck artifact hate either tinstreet or goblin tinker , and with wort its gonna be goblin tinker.

With earwigs, Most of the time I wanted them to be siege- gangs

So with that
+1 siege-gange
+1 tinker
-2earwigs
You have grips in the side for plauge. (see next change v.s combo)

I would also :
-3 price of progres
-1 pyrokinesis
+4 thorn of amethyst or +4 challace of the void (depends therpys could be pyrostatic pillars)
I have been playing with just 2 fanatics ( I would never cut them totally ) the reason is I made room for the stingscorchers and fanatic are still usfull.
-1 fanatic

I like to play no less than 23 lands in this decks because it craves mana for ports/siege-ganges.
and I want black mana a lot of the time for therpys.

3 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
5 Mountain
1 swamp
2 Taiga
3 Badlands
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills

I was working on a mono red build but I keep getting torn between the builds

anyway hope this helps:rolleyes:

Justin

02-20-2009, 10:26 AM

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
3 [MM] Rishadan Port
4 [REW] Wasteland
4 [UNH] Mountain
2 [A] Taiga
3 [A] Badlands
3 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
3 [ON] Wooded Foothills

// Creatures
4 [US] Goblin Lackey
4 [FNM] Goblin Ringleader
4 [FNM] Goblin Warchief
4 [ON] Goblin Piledriver
1 [EVG] Siege-Gang Commander
4 [US] Goblin Matron
3 [TE] Mogg Fanatic
2 [PLC] Stingscourger
2 [LE] Gempalm Incinerator
2 [MOR] Earwig Squad
1 [LRW] Wort, Boggart Auntie

// Spells
4 [DS] AEther Vial
3 [MOR] Warren Weirding

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [EX] Price of Progress
SB: 3 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [AL] Pyrokinesis
SB: 3 [JU] Cabal Therapy

Thoughts?

I am very skeptical about your mana base. It seems a bit much to run Badlands, Taigas, Wastelands, and Ports. I would think you could suffer from color-screw, especially against decks that run Wasteland against you. I think you should only run three of those four. Either, cut the Taigas or the Ports.

I've never tried Stingscourger, so I can't really comment there.

I'm very borderline on Earwigs. I recently cut mine after playing 2 MD for months. Still not sure if that was the right choice.

I think you should definately run at least one more Siege-Gang Commander. I moved up to playing three myself. They make your Lackeys a lot more powerful. Some decks just scoop on turn two if you can cheat in a Siege-Gang.

I actually cut my Gempalm Incinerators in order to run four Weirdings. Weirdings seem to be better in most of the matchups that I see nowadays. The fact that more people are trying Progenitus makes it even better.

I'm also skeptical about Pyrokinesis in the sideboard. The only top tier deck that you side it in for is Goblins. I actually like Tin Street Hooligan in that slot (or Tinkerer if you must) much better. It can be sided in against any deck that plays dangerous artifacts. It's also improves your chances in the mirror more than Pyrokinesis (which is usually a 2 for 2). It's really hard to lose if you can force your opponent to play without Aether Vials, while you run yours.

Wrecked

02-20-2009, 11:54 AM

I can see the point about SGC, but I actually bumped up my Earwigs to 3. It always seems to come in and take out the most difficult card for me to overcome, not to mention I'm running into CoP:R a lot more, which not only does it do the job of removing, but also negating. Can't hardly beat a 5/3 for 3, either.

Again, I'm expecting to play in a low budget high aggro meta, thus a lot of Goblins, Merfolk, Elves, etc. I agree with my suite of Incinerator/Scourger, that I could probably cut back, but 'Kinesis is pretty big in the mirror. This is also why I chose Incinerator, as I don't think many people at this GPT will have the duals to play the decks that Incinerator is at its worst against, like Dreadstill.

Wort really hasn't come into play for me, at all. So I cut it for the 3rd Earwig, but I might look at going something like:

MD:
-1 Wort
+1 SGC

SB
-1 'Kinesis
+1 Earwig/Wort/Sharpshooter etc.

Justin

02-20-2009, 12:27 PM

Wort really hasn't come into play for me, at all. So I cut it for the 3rd Earwig, but I might look at going something like:

MD:
-1 Wort
+1 SGC

SB
-1 'Kinesis
+1 Earwig/Wort/Sharpshooter etc.

I still have the one main deck Wort, but I'm not completely thrilled with it. It usually doesn't live long enough to do any tricks, and I find myself often boarding it out.

Wort shines against mid-range creature decks that don't pack a ton of removal. UGw Threshold and Merfolk come to mind. You can break those decks if you can recur your Weirdings and other goblins. I think I keep him MD because of the popularity of Thresh, but perhaps he would actually be better as a sideboard card.

deathdealer

02-20-2009, 02:49 PM

I don't think many people at this GPT will have the duals to play the decks that Incinerator is at its worst against, like Dreadstill.

Don't assume anything ....many people may not ,the ones you have to beat to get the byes will ..

Ectoplasm

02-20-2009, 03:28 PM

Luckily, goblins is wonderful at pounding lower-end decks into the ground so just assume you're going to play the better ones anyway.

Nessaja

02-23-2009, 12:10 PM

I've done some limited testing on monored goblins with this list, inspired by Eldariel's list.

Lands
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
15 Mountain

Creatures
3 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Ringleader
3 Stingscourger
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Goblin Tinkerer
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Lackey
1 Gempalm Incinerator

Spells
4 AEther Vial
3 Relic of Progenitus

This has been doing very good against a variety of decks, Relic is great against half the format and so is stinger. That together with the LD package gives me a very consistent meta deck. The weakness would be combo and the inabillity to improve that matchup at all (even sideboard I don't see much options) but other then that: Thresh, canadian Thresh, dreadstill, landstill, merfolk, ichorid, TA are all decent MU's so far.

deathdealer

02-24-2009, 07:03 PM

Funny how great minds think a like:tongue:

I've done some limited testing on monored goblins with this list, inspired by Eldariel's list.

Lands
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
15 Mountain

Creatures
3 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Ringleader
3 Stingscourger
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Goblin Tinkerer
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Lackey
1 Gempalm Incinerator

Spells
4 AEther Vial
3 Relic of Progenitus

This has been doing very good against a variety of decks, Relic is great against half the format and so is stinger. That together with the LD package gives me a very consistent meta deck. The weakness would be combo and the inabillity to improve that matchup at all (even sideboard I don't see much options) but other then that: Thresh, canadian Thresh, dreadstill, landstill, merfolk, ichorid, TA are all decent MU's so far.

THIS is EXACTLY the list I've been testing and have came to the same conclusions .. even with multiple diff sideboards, Im now leaning toward the green splash for at least krosan grips ../ tin streets

Basically a streamline build of more a traditional main 60 with tin street (with out sting scorcher) also has good matches ver the same decks you've listed.
And has the same weakness (combo) which 9times outta 10 we will not beat 2/3 but the decks we have good games against can.

So not to sound like an echo or broken record (someone had posted before) IGNORE the combo match and strengthen all the other.

That leaves combo as our number 1 worst match up what is number 2?

Nessaja

02-24-2009, 07:57 PM

I feel like the fanatics are a bit weak. I keep throwing them in and out because they're so often dead cards.

As for Sting vs Tin Street. Sting works against nought/stalker/goyf and doesn't require the splash. I much prefer Stinger as of now. I'm entirely torn on what to replace Fanatics with. The MU where I like them would be against Elves and.. ehm.. Ichorid.. and pinging Dark Confidants. I don't feel like it's really worth it though. When it comes to turn 1 lackeys, I'd rather have Sting/Gempalm Incinerator as one deals with Goyfs and the other draws me a card, which is great. Lategame Gempalm Incinerator is also a much better draw, often capable of dealing with any threat they might have on the table, uncounterable too.

Relics main have been absolutely great in so many matchups. It's hard to believe that Goblins could do without for so long.

As for the green splash, this would be for enchantment hate. Now I agree with you that for instance Solitary Confinement is not something we can deal with. The same can be said for Humility. However, the rest of the enchantments are quite doable. Siege Gang goes a long way dealing with Moat/Propaganda etc. And if it's for nought we already have stingers/tinkerer.

While typing this I realize that I forgot one major enchantment with Engineered Plague. With both Goblins and Merfolk as DTB it suddenly became a good meta call to have those in the board =/ annoying this definitly is a concern that the sideboard can be used for.

Current sideboard
4 Pithing Needle
3 Goblin Tinker
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Goblin Sharpshooter

and 3 open slots. Was considering Goblin King to deal with Plagues.

Ectoplasm

02-24-2009, 08:02 PM

Stuff like plagues, humility etc is the reason why people splash green nowadays :) Why are you trying to reinvent the wheel?

Nessaja

02-24-2009, 08:15 PM

Because mono red goblins has both strong mana disruption and a stable manabase while splashing makes you vulnerable to stifle and wasteland which is extremely common?

In addition, Humility isn't a large part of the meta. And as for plagues, Goblins has been fine with it before, they should be fine this time as well (that's before Krosan Grip and before splashing with goblins at all). Not trying to reinvent the wheel, trying to get positive matchups against the gross majority off the meta.

GreenOne

02-24-2009, 10:05 PM

As for the green splash, this would be for enchantment hate. Now I agree with you that for instance Solitary Confinement is not something we can deal with. The same can be said for Humility.
If you find those and don't like the green splash you could try Anarchy too.

I didn't find King useful vs plague. I prefer something like Goon (that avoids pyroclasm too and it's bigger than goyf or TS) or Patron of the Akki.

GoldenCid

02-25-2009, 09:19 AM

I didn't find King useful vs plague. I prefer something like Goon (that avoids pyroclasm too and it's bigger than goyf or TS) or Patron of the Akki.

But goon does nothing if we haven't other goblins that were killed by the plague...:frown:

GreenOne

02-25-2009, 09:33 AM

But goon does nothing if we haven't other goblins that were killed by the plague...:frown:
It depends on the number of the opponent's creatures.
If the opponent has 0 creatures then goon still beats for 4 a turn even with double plague. You only gotta have 1 more goon than opponent has creatures (you still have Pyrokinesis/Stingscourger to deal with opponent's creatures). Seems hard to do, but between our creature removal, creature bounce and Matron/Ringleader to find our goons is easier than it seems.

Also, with a single plague down goons are still bigger than goyf and trade with a Tombstalker. Between Port and Wasteland that monored support, double plague shouldn't come out often too.

thefreakaccident

02-25-2009, 01:46 PM

I just don't understand why this is a DTW now... nothing extreme has happened that would push this out of the DTB spot... why is no one playing this?

I remember when it was one of the most common decks around, and now it isn't even played that often, in fact it is quite rare that I see it around nowadays.

Questions:

1. With the sudden increase in merfolk/thresh as of late, do you guys think that goblins can/will make T8 in the prix?

2. Why is this deck less common than it used to be?

Nessaja

02-25-2009, 02:17 PM

IMO

Increase in Combo (bad matchup)
As a result, increase in Landstill/Dreadstill (not that good of a matchup for R/b R/b/g)
Perhaps, increase in anti tribal hate in fear of both Merfolk and grapeshot elves that affect goblins too.

It's still a very common deck, it's in every meta it just doesn't seem to get in the T8 as much.

edit: Boartusk Liege, I feel ashamed for suggesting this card. But he's probably the best anti Plague Card big like goon, pumping others like King. Just a heavy mana investment. So kinda need Vial.

snackfu

02-27-2009, 07:28 AM

I was unable to play two weekends ago, so I could not try the great Dralnu's Crusade experiment. I will give it a try Sunday hopefully.

Shriekmaw

02-27-2009, 09:11 AM

Questions:

1. With the sudden increase in merfolk/thresh as of late, do you guys think that goblins can/will make T8 in the prix?

2. Why is this deck less common than it used to be?

I will almost guarantee that Goblins will make a Top 8 at the Grand Prix. I think the most played deck will come down to Threshold and Goblins. If you don't expect goblins to show up then you will be dead wrong.

I think there will be 2 Threshold, 2 Storm Combo, 1 Goblins with 3 random decks in the top 8.

I think the question should be what version of goblins is best. I like my 3 color approach to the deck, but I'm not sure if its the best. I think in regards to the GP if gives you the most tools to fight through the hate that you will encounter.

Let me know what you guys think.

Smog

02-27-2009, 09:14 AM

I think there will be 2 Threshold, 2 Storm Combo, 1 Goblins with 3 random decks in the top 8.

Not giving landstill and more specifically dreadstill much credit here. Unless you're assuming they'd be in one of the "random 3".

Shriekmaw

02-27-2009, 09:32 AM

Not giving landstill and more specifically dreadstill much credit here. Unless you're assuming they'd be in one of the "random 3".

First of all, Dreadstill is an awful deck and doesn't deserve any credit.

I do think Dreadstill doesn't have a place anymore in the metagame when you can play threshold with the natural order combo which is by far a lot stronger than a dreadnought.

I could see landstill making the top 8.

Smog

02-27-2009, 05:49 PM

First of all, Dreadstill is an awful deck and doesn't deserve any credit.

Wow.

Not to pick a fight but.

http://www.deckcheck.net/list.php?type=Dreadstill&format=Legacy

http://www.deckcheck.net/list.php?type=Goblins&format=Legacy

For an awful deck, it's been having more success than goblins lately.

Mantis

03-01-2009, 05:34 AM

RB Goblins is the best version right now I think. It can answer combo with Thoughtseize and Earwig Squad, sure it will never be your best matchup but you just need a realistic chance of beating combo, you can't expect to just dodge it all tournament long. That said, Thoughtseize answer a whole host of problems and the peek effect can be very helpful to figure out what your lines of play should be. I am a great fan of Thoughtseize in the maindeck actually as it also forego's the need of a green splash to answer random problems. Guess what, Thoughtseize does that too.

I would focus my sideboard on beating combo and put 4 Relic of Progenitus and 3/4 Pyrokinesis in there too. There aren't any other cards you would actually prefer over your standard set of Goblins anyway in almost all matchups.

Also, I predict that Dreadstill isn't going to make T8 unless some very good players like Luis-Scott Vargas decide to run it. If Natural Order Threshold gets played I predict that will take up a slot. Mono Red Goblins will probably pick a spot as one will probably have the luck not playing against combo all day and RB Goblins might too. Storm combo might steal a slot but I am not sure. A Merfolk player is going to make it and there will be 3/4 Counterbalance decks there.

deathdealer

03-01-2009, 07:10 PM

I top 8ed with R/G gobs GPT INDY

I didnt miss the black all day.
I could have mulld for a more agressive hand g3 V.S (team u.s.a) but I took the conservitive 6 and tryed to over welm him with gobs unfortunetly Mana was an issue ...
all and all was a good day

Eldariel

03-02-2009, 01:58 PM

deathdealer

03-02-2009, 06:01 PM

That's why I've been advocating 25+ lands all along. The principal reason you lose games is because of not being able to use all the bombs in your hand as your Lackey/Vial got dealt with. 24-26 lands means you can almost invariably hardcast spells when need be.

It also means that you can afford to use your Wastelands pretty liberally as you usually have the lands to make up for it. Finally, it enables fitting full Port/Waste package even to 3c lists, and mono-coloured lists can play additional colourless lands such as Mutavaults to boost (the card is surprisingly handy, btw).

I disagree I feel that the 23 lands is the correct number 25 is way to many I had to mulligan and I did keep a soso 2 land hand It was just my luck I didnt have any problems all day AND I also have said over and over 23 is the number no more no less .. with more lands you will have less powerful lackeys and ringleaders (mutavaults are not needed)

heres the list I played ..

Lands
5 Mountain (1)
4 Rishadan Port
4 [TE] Wasteland
3 [U] Taiga
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills
3 [ON] Bloodstained Mire

Creatures
4 [EVG] Gempalm Incinerator
4 [US] Goblin Lackey
4 [EVG] Goblin Matron
4 [ON] Goblin Piledriver
4 [EVG] Goblin Ringleader
4 [EVG] Goblin Warchief
4 [EVG] Mogg Fanatic
2 [EVG] Siege-Gang Commander
1 [ON] Goblin Sharpshooter
2 [GP] Tin Street Hooligan

Spells
4 [DS] Æther Vial

Sideboard
SB: 4 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 4 [AL] Pyrokinesis
SB: 4 [SC] Pyrostatic Pillar

I would not change a thing

eclipsemonger

03-02-2009, 10:22 PM

congrats on the top 8 deathdealer, you deserve it. definately the best goblin player i've seen. :wink:

Patrick

03-03-2009, 12:16 AM

I don't normally post here, and not to be a dick, but making top 8 at a GPT isn't worth mentioning. I've yet to see one with a decent turnout, usually 12-16 people show.

eclipsemonger

03-03-2009, 01:51 AM

to be fair there were 32-34 people in this GPT so...

Eldariel

03-03-2009, 04:45 AM

I disagree I feel that the 23 lands is the correct number 25 is way to many I had to mulligan and I did keep a soso 2 land hand It was just my luck I didnt have any problems all day AND I also have said over and over 23 is the number no more no less .. with more lands you will have less powerful lackeys and ringleaders (mutavaults are not needed)

If your list runs few lands, then you're going to have hands low on lands. If you run a lower landcount, you will have worse mulligans (because mull hands have less cards and thus have a higher chance of having insufficient lands; Gobs with higher landcount mulligan better) and your ability to function properly when Vial/Lackey are dealt with is hindered. Also, it means you often cannot use your Wasteland when it'd be optimal since you need it for mana.

The extra lands weaken Ringleaders, true, but the difference between 31 and 33 Goblins is really quite small. In both cases, the expected value is two Goblins per Ring; point being, once you're resolving Ringleaders, you shouldn't run out of cards, you'll be running out of mana. As for Lackey, your Lackeys are just as good as with 23 lands as long as you don't cut Matron/SGC/Ringleader/Warchief for them. And again, when Lackey is connecting and opponent doesn't have a sweeper, chances are you've won already.

So in other words, the losses of playing fewer Goblins in those numbers are rather marginal (few percentages less per Ringleader; whoopedoo, you'll still be winning once they start resolving), while the gains for playing more lands are vast. Explain me why it's correct to play a landcount that:
1. Loses games where your landlight hand was unable to topdeck enough lands after Vial got countered/destroyed.
2. Costs you games because Wastelands were unusable as you needed them for mana preventing you from cutting opponent's color.
3. Forces you to be conservative with your hands as mulligan hands have a high probability to have insufficient landcount.

Do you have some magical cheat that prevents opponents from countering/removing Vial? Do you have some magical defense against land disruption decks? Or don't you just ever need to mulligan?

Yes, you've said "23 is the correct number." and I'm wondering how you ended up with that decision? How extensively have you tested higher landcounts? Seriously, I'd like to know where your conviction comes from.

Mantis

03-03-2009, 10:22 AM

I guess 23 is the correct number in goldfishing. In reality 24 might be the better call. I personally run 23 lands but that's because I run 3 Relic of Progenitus which cantrip and allow me to draw into the mana I need lategame. That said, it could very well be that 24 is the correct number as I run 7 fetchlands that will thin my deck in the lategame. I do not think Mutavault should be in this deck unless you run 4 Gempalm Incinerator maybe.

EDIT: I totally agree with what GreenOne says in his next post.

GreenOne

03-03-2009, 10:36 AM

I guess 23 is the correct number in goldfishing. In reality 24 might be the better call. I personally run 23 lands but that's because I run 3 Relic of Progenitus which cantrip and allow me to draw into the mana I need lategame. That said, it could very well be that 24 is the correct number as I run 7 fetchlands that will thin my deck in the lategame. I do not think Mutavault should be in this deck unless you run 4 Gempalm Incinerator maybe.

23 is the right number in any monored version with no fetches. 24 is a good number for any splash version that plans to play ports too. 25 is just too much: I tested it (in a BR version) and found it quite weak.

deathdealer

03-03-2009, 03:55 PM

I don't normally post here, and not to be a dick, but making top 8 at a GPT isn't worth mentioning. I've yet to see one with a decent turnout, usually 12-16 people show.

I didnt take it as you being a dick

It is worth posting about because this is real data not a few forum junkies just repeating what others have said and dont even play the deck first hand..

As far as 32 players this will be the same numbers for the GPTs the friday of the GP which will be relevant as far as deck/win lose % ect ect / # of players .. single elim

THE SAME list also top 8d the week before in Chicago and that was around 40 people ..and finished 4th

I really fail to see how this info is not worth posting about

deathdealer

03-03-2009, 04:34 PM

If your list runs few lands, then you're going to have hands low on lands. If you run a lower landcount, you will have worse mulligans (because mull hands have less cards and thus have a higher chance of having insufficient lands; Gobs with higher landcount mulligan better) and your ability to function properly when Vial/Lackey are dealt with is hindered. Also, it means you often cannot use your Wasteland when it'd be optimal since you need it for mana.

The extra lands weaken Ringleaders, true, but the difference between 31 and 33 Goblins is really quite small. In both cases, the expected value is two Goblins per Ring; point being, once you're resolving Ringleaders, you shouldn't run out of cards, you'll be running out of mana. As for Lackey, your Lackeys are just as good as with 23 lands as long as you don't cut Matron/SGC/Ringleader/Warchief for them. And again, when Lackey is connecting and opponent doesn't have a sweeper, chances are you've won already.

So in other words, the losses of playing fewer Goblins in those numbers are rather marginal (few percentages less per Ringleader; whoopedoo, you'll still be winning once they start resolving), while the gains for playing more lands are vast. Explain me why it's correct to play a landcount that:
1. Loses games where your landlight hand was unable to topdeck enough lands after Vial got countered/destroyed.
2. Costs you games because Wastelands were unusable as you needed them for mana preventing you from cutting opponent's color.
3. Forces you to be conservative with your hands as mulligan hands have a high probability to have insufficient landcount.

Do you have some magical cheat that prevents opponents from countering/removing Vial? Do you have some magical defense against land disruption decks? Or don't you just ever need to mulligan?

Yes, you've said "23 is the correct number." and I'm wondering how you ended up with that decision? How extensively have you tested higher landcounts? Seriously, I'd like to know where your conviction comes from.

My conviction comes from playing this deck continuously from GP philly 4 + years ..Im not going to get into a fourm flame war with you about 1% diff in drawing or not drawing lands vs goblins thats already be discussed with the argument of saclands to help the % on ringleader flops

As far as some "magical cheat" NO I play to draw the counters out (smart playing)

LAND disruption decks? are you serious??? what prey tell decks are you speaking of?
If I go second and my opp has island up Im sure the hell not gonna play a sac land first just to have it stiffed ..

I don't see the need to cut something to ad another land when the deck doesn't need it..when All others played 22 lands I kept pushing for 23..
24 is just to many.. if you wanna play 24-25 go a head ..

As I stated I mulled my first hand because I wanted a more aggressive hand
and settled for a sound 6 with 2 land (both basic mountains)
I lost 1 game on a mana screw

I posted this to share my experience with others who play the deck and to help sculpt the best list for the upcoming GP , not to go into flame wars with someone who would rather argue over .01% chance that caused 1 game loss All day.

My point is this EVEN if I had ran 1 MORE land I could have had the same results.. OR could have drawn a land instead of a threat .

I Hope your still not upset over the time I beat you for the 3 round byes a few years back ??? Or Am I confusing you with someone else?

Just seems like your attacking me for no reason hope not :tongue:

cheers

eclipsemonger

03-03-2009, 04:40 PM

um, actually you are confusing him with someone else....your thinking of emidlin.

deathdealer

03-03-2009, 04:51 PM

um, actually you are confusing him with someone else....your thinking of emidlin.

Ahhh ok then I'll take that back

@ Eldariel I Understand what your saying about wanting to up the land and the reasons why .

If we agree to disagree it's ok the list I played only ran green for tin streets and grips (IF) I had played the R/B I'll Agree 24 land is stronger because the black mana is needed more g2-3 depending on your sb and build

FoulQ

03-03-2009, 06:22 PM

23 is the right number in any monored version with no fetches. 24 is a good number for any splash version that plans to play ports too. 25 is just too much: I tested it (in a BR version) and found it quite weak.

I agree here, in testing 23 is the right land count for fetchless monored (which personally I think is the best right now). I also tested 25 lands and 3 siegegangs in rb goblins and it just did not work out for me.

What is the benefit of running 2+ or so mutavault in those flex spots in monored over say, relics or fanatics? It's not like merfolk where you get +1/+1 islandwalking shenanigans, the only relevant thing is haste, sgc sac effects, and piledriver. Seems to me it would be just another nameless 2/2 that can't get around tarmogoyf. It doesn't get revealed off ringleader, which I know is minor but 4 vials + potential relics g2/3 + mutavaults where goblins would be does create a pretty high count. Unfortunately I've extensively played 8+ nongoblins in my stupid days and it's unbearable, at least for me. I'd rather play fanatics, relics, or tinkerers in those flex spots.

Deathdealer, I know I'm not respected around here very much, but I'm glad you posted. Better than nothing.

Also, I just noticed in a "Legacy's Allure" article on SCG that goblins should not playing around daze, saying "The one exception is Goblins, which should play as fast as possible, Dazes be damned." Do you guys agree with this?

deathdealer

03-03-2009, 08:03 PM

Also, I just noticed in a "Legacy's Allure" article on SCG that goblins should not playing around daze, saying "The one exception is Goblins, which should play as fast as possible, Dazes be damned." Do you guys agree with this?

Agreed The same is true playing against standstill (Ignore it and play threw it)

Seriously

03-03-2009, 08:18 PM

Also, I just noticed in a "Legacy's Allure" article on SCG that goblins should not playing around daze, saying "The one exception is Goblins, which should play as fast as possible, Dazes be damned." Do you guys agree with this?

NO. I'll just drop fanatic first and beat with that instead. then do vial/lackey second turn.

ForceofWill

03-04-2009, 12:04 AM

NO. I'll just drop fanatic first and beat with that instead. then do vial/lackey second turn.

It usually depends on my hand; the key thing to note is if you have a hand that you want to gain tempo or you want to resolve vial and go to midgame.

GreenOne

03-04-2009, 05:51 AM

It usually depends on my hand; the key thing to note is if you have a hand that you want to gain tempo or you want to resolve vial and go to midgame.

If I have both lackey and vial I usually play lackey first and then vial:
Pros:
- They gotta find a solution fast, otherwise they just lose.
- Vial becomes Daze-proof, and if the opponent dazed lackey then you have gained some tempo.
Cons:
- Vial will have 1 less counter on it if it would have resolved.

So, basically, my basic strategy is to always play lackey first if I have a Lackey+Vial hand (both on the play and on the draw).
There are obviously rare exceptions, like against Chalice decks I usually play Vial first.
I feel like I'm not always making the optimal choice, so what do you thik about it? Do we agree on playing lackey first and then vial?

Mantis

03-04-2009, 06:42 AM

I play Vial first against anything but decks with Daze in it. Against a deck with Daze I will play my Lackey first because I value my Vial against those decks very highly. Vial allows us to easily play around Counterbalance. The chances they don't have FoW and don't have Daze are pretty slim, so I'd rather use Lackey for bait on the draw. On the play I haven't quite figured out yet what the better play it, it largely depends on your opening hand I guess.

Against decks without Daze, just go for first turn Vial. Vial just a ton better than Lackey and the opponent will usually be able to deal with a turn 1 Lackey anyway. Even if they would not be able to deal with first turn Lackey I still think Vial is a stronger play on turn one. But it also depends on my hand, if I have a Siege Gang and a way to remove blockers the second turn I will gladly open with Lackey first.

Combo is an exception. Against combo just hope for turn 1 Lackey and then topdeck a Siege Gang Commander, because Vial is too slow in that matchup.

deathdealer

03-05-2009, 07:18 PM

For the combo match up what do you all think of running thorns ?
instead of challace or pillars?

challace stops thier tutors (but they just bounce it)
pillar hurts (but they either bounce it or angels grace threw it)
thorns slows down tutors/mana excel (doesnt shut off ur spells)

Mantis

03-06-2009, 12:44 PM

Eldariel

03-06-2009, 03:23 PM

Pyrostatic Pillar is not your best bet against Combo I agree on that.
Chalice is great, like you said it stops the Infernal Tutor and greatly hinders their mana supply and significantly weakens Ad Nauseam. It makes your Wastes and Ports better and it doesn't take up any of your mana to do so thus you can quickly apply pressure. As combo can somtimes kill on turn 1 or 2 it's very important to be able to drop it early, Thorn or Pillar might just be too late.

Another thought I had was Root Maze, seems great at slowing them down and making your Wastes/Ports count. I think if we spend 6 or 7 slots on combo with Chalice and Root Maze the matchup might just be winnable. Root Maze + Chalice + Waste/Port + an adequate clock seems like a great way to beat combo actually.

7-8 cards is correct, Root Maze isn't. LED works while tapped making it far weaker than it appears. Chalice+Waste/Port+Generic 1-Drop Disruption is your best bet to go with Lackey, but the true question is whether it's worth devoting that much SB on. I'd personally wager more than Chalices is a waste and even Chalices are ok only because they are useful elsewhere. REB is another such card to consider; really screws their setup cards. Unfortunately, it requires keeping mana open which slows down your clock.

Ectoplasm

03-06-2009, 05:14 PM

7-8 cards is correct, Root Maze isn't. LED works while tapped making it far weaker than it appears. Chalice+Waste/Port+Generic 1-Drop Disruption is your best bet to go with Lackey, but the true question is whether it's worth devoting that much SB on. I'd personally wager more than Chalices is a waste and even Chalices are ok only because they are useful elsewhere. REB is another such card to consider; really screws their setup cards. Unfortunately, it requires keeping mana open which slows down your clock.

In my opinion, without running some kind of interaction with combo MD, the matchup will remain unfavourable unless you devote obscene amounts of sideboardspace to it. Just run some token allround disruption and consider it a lost cause, except for the occasional cabal therapy + prowled earwigsquad-fueled fluke win.
Taking out combo is what we have threshold players for :)

Mantis

03-07-2009, 04:42 AM

Thanks for pointing that out Eldariel, that means Root Maze doesn't do squat unfortunately. You really think REB is worth it? Both TES and ANT don't seem all that dependant on blue. And while it can screw up their setup and therefore buys you some it also slows down your clock making it hardly worth the trouble I guess. Would you side in your Relic of Progenitus against combo? I usually do, but I'm unsure if the effect is big enough to really warrant siding it in.

I personally hate to just play the 'Glass Cannon' strategy. I mean if it works out that's nice but if you get paired up against combo you are screwed.
I also think that you really don't need much help from your sideboard against most decks. 4 Pyrokinesis and 4 Relic are mandatory, I already have 3 Relic in my maindeck so that leaves a ton of space to work with. So devoting a large part of the sideboard against combo doesn't seem too bad.

Also, deathdealer I really like your approach of just going RG. I would change some things, but I really don't think Warren Weirding is worth all the trouble especially with Relics in the maindeck. So I think you are spot on in that assesment. I'm not sure why you run 2 TSH though, I can see the purpose of one, killing off equipment but 2 just seems a bit redundant. I would prefer one of them to be a Stingscourger. Though I might cut all of them if I were to run your build because I just love Relic of Progenitus in the maindeck.

Viscosity

03-10-2009, 12:31 AM

I agree that MD Relics is great in the current meta. And they open up your sideboard for combo hate beautifully.

A friend of mine won one of the GP trials with Mono-Red gobs. 3 MD relics.

The more I think on it, I like the idea of Chalice plus Thorn for the combo MU. First turn chalice at 0 buys you some time by slowing their acceleration. And the great thing about thorn is that it increases the cost of their bounce spells. Probably buying you a turn or two. Multiple thorns are even better. Usually when you cast multiple hate, they can get echoed back to your hand. But multiple thorns make echoing truth that much harder to play.

i haven't tested thorn yet though, I'm just speculating.

Media314r8

03-10-2009, 06:22 AM

The more I think on it, I like the idea of Chalice plus Thorn for the combo MU.

I played with 4 chalices, 3 thorns in my RB SB for about half a year and found the thorns lacking, as you really need to have a chalice (or have your opponent have a shitty draw, in which case a fast hand might be better against them anyhow) AND a thorn for thorn to be effective. Multiple thorns likely seal the deal, but slow you down a lot as well, taking up your second and third turns. With ANT running only 1-3 wincons MD and rarely running burning wish, I have switched to just running 3 earwig squads MD, who auto win against combo if prowled, and can also help as anti-hate against E plagues, jitte, ect. I think the better option is to run squads main and 4 chalices side, leaving 11 open slots, or just go the glass cannon route and run 0 slots Main/side of combo hate and hope for a nuts lackey->SGC + driver turn 2 for a turn three kill.

zabuza

03-10-2009, 10:33 AM

Could Kill-Suit Cultist be a solution to tarmogoyf??
It´s only playable in RB goblins but i think is a good chance to kill Tarmos and if you have a warchief is very nice.
What do you think about it?

Avatara

03-10-2009, 11:02 AM

Kill-Suit Cultist is horrible card disadvantage if you ask me. No one will ever block it and this means that you will loose two cards (Kill-Suit Cultist and the creature that is dealing combat damage). The fact that it's a conditional card is also horrible. If you want something that takes care of Goyf or other creatures... why not run something that does so immediately!? (removal like Stingscourger, Gempalm Incinerator, Warren Weirding or Swords to Plowshares)

Ectoplasm

03-10-2009, 03:24 PM

What's wrong with relics to shrink tarmogoyf? They do a great job keeping multiple decks at bay, besides their obvious role as graveyardhosers. Relics rule!

GreenOne

03-10-2009, 03:31 PM

Too bad there was no Goblin in Top8. As the 2nd more represented deck and with such a good metagame, it had to top8. Why do you guys think it didn't?

Eldariel

03-10-2009, 03:37 PM

My theory is getting repeatedly paired vs. all the ANT and Engineered Plague in there (see all those black decks).

ScatmanX

03-10-2009, 03:51 PM

So, us not getting top 8 is due to getting lots of bad matchups?
I really thought at least 1 would get there...

DukeDemonKn1ght

03-10-2009, 04:04 PM

Too bad there was no Goblin in Top8. As the 2nd more represented deck and with such a good metagame, it had to top8. Why do you guys think it didn't?

Same reason Merfolk didn't Top 8, dude: 4X Engineered Plague in everyone's fucking sideboard who could run it.

ScatmanX

03-10-2009, 04:27 PM

The weird thing is that Gobbos and Merfolks were 2 of the 3 decks that most showed day 2, if I remember right...

FoulQ

03-10-2009, 06:10 PM

Hello everyone. I'm currently fiddling around a lot with monored goblins: MD 3 relic, 3 stingscourger, goblin goons out of the sb for engineered plague like greenone said a few pages back. It has been working well for me.

However, I like Media314r8's idea of 3 MD Earwig Squad and 4 Chalice SB. This would also allow me to play warren weirdings of course, but the problem with 3 MD Earwigs is it would probably mean cutting my 3 mogg fanatic, and I like him for the general aggro matchup.

Now, everyone always says "use the splash appropriate for your meta." And I was just wondering if I should go glass cannon approach vs. combo (monored), seeing as 10% of my meta is probably storm combo. But 3 MD relics (monored) are really helpful since up to 20% (!) of my meta is ichorid, as well as a lot of random tarmogoyf decks (thresh, loam, rock), and I would have a hard time fitting the relics maindeck in a black splash list. I'm currently running monored but it is pretty much an autoloss to 10% of the field, especially at the higher tables where it seems a lot of the combo players end up. So what do you guys think, should I run monored or rb (or even rg / rbg)?

wolfstorm

03-11-2009, 01:43 AM

So, us not getting top 8 is due to getting lots of bad matchups?
I really thought at least 1 would get there...

I won one of the trial's with a mono red list but definitely got raped by bad luck against Ichorid, Dreadstill (double nought game 1 nought double force and a stifle for my stingscourger game 2) and then AN killing me turn 2 game 1 and turn 1 game 2.

Anyways, Relic and stingscourger is truly amazing, relic omost single handedly deals with goyf/tombstalker while also screwing with decks that depend on there graveyard, I found stingscourger to basically at the worst be a time walk against decks and was wonderful when it came to screwing with combat math for your opponent.

Avatara

03-11-2009, 04:19 AM

I won one of the trial's with a mono red list but definitely got raped by bad luck against Ichorid, Dreadstill (double nought game 1 nought double force and a stifle for my stingscourger game 2) and then AN killing me turn 2 game 1 and turn 1 game 2.

Anyways, Relic and stingscourger is truly amazing, relic omost single handedly deals with goyf/tombstalker while also screwing with decks that depend on there graveyard, I found stingscourger to basically at the worst be a time walk against decks and was wonderful when it came to screwing with combat math for your opponent.

I guess you are Erik Mynatt?

I have some questions about your decklist...

Did you ever win 'coz of Goblin Sharpshooter?
Why are you running a singleton Gempalm Incinerator?
Did you have an advantage by playing no fetch lands?

wolfstorm

03-11-2009, 05:38 AM

I guess you are Erik Mynatt?

I have some questions about your decklist...

Did you ever win 'coz of Goblin Sharpshooter?
Why are you running a singleton Gempalm Incinerator?
Did you have an advantage by playing no fetch lands?

Yep.

And yes, Goblin Sharpshooter allowed me to force through damage a couple of times specially in a match against team america after he had 2 goyfs in play and a Trygon Predator, I normally run him because IMO hes fantastic against Merfolk, Elves and the Mirror, hes also nice with Stingscourger.

The Gempalm was mainly there as a matron target to deal with things that I didn't want to see coming back hes also silly in the mirror and you can use him to kill your own creatures against ichorid. And the reason for no fetch lands was because I didn't want to risk having my mana base being stifled when I was already running such a low land count, plus having a hand were your only land drops are fetch's though rarely happens can suck against Team America Dreadstill and Threshold, IMO theres really no reason to risk playing them in Mono Red.

Avatara

03-13-2009, 04:04 PM

Sunday I'm playing at a local legacy tournament (+/- 40 people)

I was planning to run mono red but I am unable to acquire the Stingscourgers on time. Because of that I'm going to run the build that I'm most familiar with: Rb (although with a twist).

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

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledrivers
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
3 Mogg Fanatic
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Wort, Boggart Auntie
1 Mad Auntie
1 Goblin Tinkerer
1 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin Sharpshooter

4 Aether Vial
3 Warren Weirding

Sideboard:
4 Pyrokinesis
4 Challice of the Void
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Goblin Tinkerer

I know there will be a lot of decks with blue in it (Countertop, Threshold, TA, Eva Green, Merfolk). Because of that I choose to run less fetch lands and replace them with Auntie's Hovels. I don't expect there to be a lot of combo (I know for 100% that there will be one combo elf player). The rest will be random decks.

I'm not certain about the utility slots (4 because I drop one Mogg Fanatic):

1 Wort, Boggart Auntie
1 Mad Auntie
1 Goblin Tinkerer
1 Goblin Sharpshooter

There's a Mad Auntie in there because with all the TA and Eva Green I expect there to be a few Engineered Plagues. However goblins is not a common sight in the meta game.

Al tough I still have doubts about the utility slots... should I keep them as they are or should I replace them with 3 maindeck Relic of Progenitus? (I have no experience with this) Would it be viable to drop to 22 lands with only 4 fetchlands) and have 2 utility slots (Goblin Tinkerer & Mad Auntie or Goblin Sharpshooter) and 3 Relic of Progenitus?

Any other feedback/advice is also welcome!

Seriously

03-13-2009, 04:23 PM

So, us not getting top 8 is due to getting lots of bad matchups?
I really thought at least 1 would get there...

what, goblin decks or active members of the source ?

wolfstorm

03-13-2009, 04:48 PM

what, goblin decks or active members of the source ?

I think he was talking about goblin decks in general, but for me it was Deff b/c of 2 bad matchups and then someone with a little to much luck on his side playing Dreadstill.

ScatmanX

03-13-2009, 04:54 PM

@ Avatara:
I wouldn't recomend relic main in the Rb version, once you have Weirdings to get rid of goyfs, Stalkers, etc... And I've never been a fan of goblin toolbox...

@ Seriously:
I thought a goblin deck would top8 the GP...

Question:
you're playing agains't Dredge. It's game 2 or 3, and you start. You open a hand of 2 mountains, 1 Relic, 1 Fanatic, 1 Pithing Needle, 1 CotV, 1 Duress.
What do you do for the first and second turns?
Can't figure the best play... =/

Edit: And if you dont have Fanatics? You would try to discard a breaktrough, LED or something with duress, or Pithin Needle on Putrid Imp 1st turn?

wolfstorm

03-13-2009, 05:04 PM

Question:
you're playing agains't Dredge. It's game 2 or 3, and you start. You open a hand of 2 mountains, 1 Relic, 1 Fanatic, 1 Pithing Needle, 1 CotV, 1 Duress.
What do you do for the first and second turns?
Can't figure the best play... =/

I would do first turn Fanatic, that will most likely stop them from killing you turn 1 and will also draw out there pithing needle if they have it, after that you can play down Relic on turn 2 with the mana to pop it if needed. My friend actually tried turn 1 relic at the PTQ and got owned on turn 1 because of it. Personally I wouldn't bring in CotV against dredge just seems to slow concidering 0 only hits LED if there running it and laying it down for 1 seems a little slow.

Avatara

03-13-2009, 06:34 PM

@ Avatara:
I wouldn't recomend relic main in the Rb version, once you have Weirdings to get rid of goyfs, Stalkers, etc... And I've never been a fan of goblin toolbox...

The Relic of Progenitus main deck wouldn't only be against Goyfs and Stalkers. There are many more decks that utilize the graveyard. Against decks like Goyf Sligh and Aggro Loam it's kinda hard to hit the Goyf with Weirding. Against the latter I think it's essential to run both.

Versus elves and merfolk Relic isn't really useful... but elves beats you 80%+ of the time pre-board anyways and Merfolk has a bad match-up against you as it is.

It also forces opponents to choose between destroying your Vial or Relic.

I wasn't a fan of Relic main deck but I've been starting to like it more and more over the last hour or two. I like how it increases the mana curve and dodges daze on turn two.

On the toolbox part I agree!

This is the deck I'm going to run against a gauntlet of test decks tomorrow:

22 Lands
4 Badlands
3 Auntie's Hovel
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
2 Mountain
1 Barbarian Ring (Trent Jones - GP Chicago 2009 Day 1 Undefeated Deck)

28 Creatures
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledrivers
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
3 Mogg Fanatic
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Goblin Tinkerer
1 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin Sharpshooter

10 Other
4 Aether Vial
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Warren Weirding

Sideboard:
4 Pyrokinesis
4 Challice of the Void
3/4 Cabal Therapy (0/1 Mogg Fanatic or something else)
2 Goblin Tinkerer
1 Relic of Progenitus

The deck is still subject to change. (I will also be testing the version without Relic main deck)

ScatmanX

03-13-2009, 06:43 PM

I'm not denying the power of Relic. I'll probabily move back to monored because of it. I just think that with Weirdings, relic is not that needed MD. I think, nonetheless, that you should have them in the SB.

You're list is fine. Even thogh the Ring looks weird, keep it if you want it.

I noticed people are cutting Fanatics from 4 to 3 MD.. I did it aswell, guess is the right move.

As for CotV agains't Dredge, I think it can be sided in, because we have some cards to remove from MD agains't them.

BKclassic

03-13-2009, 10:33 PM

For the sake of doing so, I tabulated what Goblins splashes made day 2 @ the GP(there posted at thestarkingtonpost.com in case you missed it). Without further ado:

Green: 9
Green Black: 3
Mono Red: 1
Black: 1
White Black: 1

Interestingly, the most popular sideboard strategy among the popular Green spash was something along the lines of:

4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
4 Pyrokinesis
3 Krosan Grip

I have to say that the green splash and this sideboard plan is something I am in agreement with. Particularly running Pillar over Chalice. Combo decks always seem to pack answers to Chalice and have far fewer answers for enchantments. This also combos very effectively with Tin Street Hooligan, because they will often play their artifact mana right away to dodge Chalice. Indeed, I have won both of my past two matches against combo with no dedicated sideboard hate with Rg Goblins and simply Tin Streeting and Wasting their mana sources. (Not that I am trying say this match is good or anything, just that its not entirely hopeless).

ScatmanX

03-13-2009, 10:49 PM

"Mono Red: 1
Red: 1"
did not got it... =/

Now, the SB looks good. I might give it a shot in my monoR list, with REB in place of Grips.

Will check the site later.
Thanks for posting that for us. =]

BKclassic

03-13-2009, 11:03 PM

"Mono Red: 1
Red: 1"
did not got it... =/

Now, the SB looks good. I might give it a shot in my monoR list, with REB in place of Grips.

Will check the site later.
Thanks for posting that for us. =]

Fixed!

FoulQ

03-14-2009, 12:10 AM

In regards to the green splash and the normal sideboard: that looks like it has a hard time dealing with tarmogoyf. Stingscourger + Wasteland, and the classic of Gempalm Incinerator have proven themselves that they can't do it by themselves.

Also, Avatara, I disagree with your mana base: 22 lands with only 2 basics in the most extensive splash (black) really restricts your use of wasteland. I guess the manabase is just a little out of the ordinary, I'll be interested to see how it does for you.

To ScatmanX: I don't know if I can agree with REB replacing Grips in the sideboard in monored since they serve two very different functions. REB can't get rid of plague and random annoying things like humility and moat that may pop up from time to time. Not taking anything away from REB because it's a good card, but having 4 vials, 4 relics, and 3 REBs in deck with 23 lands puts you at 26 goblins, which means ringleader will reveal less than 2 goblins on average, unless you decide to board out ringleaders (and I'm really quite against that for obvious reasons).

Finally, analyzing original decklists from the GP I think is a good idea. But the metagame there is vastly different with 1200 people than it is with 40. Goblins in those situations has to generalize itself and make itself a stock build, which in tourneys of 40 people will be much easier equipped to handle. That's why I recommend (and have seen through testing) the effectiveness of some slightly more unique cards like Goblin Goon, Price of Progress, and Stingscourger (who is no longer unique at this point).

About Goblin Goon: his primary purpose is to fight engineered plague in the monored version of goblins. I realize he seems like he sucks, but thinking in the minds of your opponent, they will often keep bad hands that have a plague or multiples. Especially in the case of multiple plagues and 2-3 mana sources, opponents will keep total crap just to smirk with their double plagues against monored. Well, goon is still a 4/4 in that situation. He really is a good tool to fight against engineered plague from what I've seen. If an opponent has a decent hand PLUS engineered plague, well tough luck. That's the weakness of playing monored, but I really don't think plague is as common as it is made out to be on this thread. Also, goblin goon is helpful against decks like team america that have very few threats. A 6/6 beater that gets by tarmogoyf easily? Sign me up.

Also, with price of progress, I figure Landstill is a DtB still, and we don't really have much else to side in for the matchup. I feel this matchup is grossly overestimated and that Landstill is actually not that great of a matchup for goblins. Though I haven't tested PoP much at all yet, it looks good on paper. I'd be interested to hear from anybody who has. Just wondering: has anybody tested Magus of the Moon in matchups like landstill? I figure you can vial it in pretty nicely to prevent counters, unlike blood moon.

So yes, Rg goblins is perhaps the best build for a 1200 person event, but for smaller venues I'd stick to something else (imo monored w/ md relics) unless enginereed plague is really that big of a problem. I think everyone knows about goblins is that monored, Rg, Rb, and Rbg are all good in their own different metagames.

deathdealer

03-14-2009, 02:42 AM

ok guys sorry about the late post heres what I ran at gp chi-town

Lands
5 Mountain
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
3 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire

Creatures
4 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
3 Mogg Fanatic
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
2 Tin Street Hooligan
1 stingscourger
Spells
4 Æther Vial

Sideboard
1 goblin king
4 Relic of Progenitus
3 Krosan Grip
3 Pyrokinesis
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
sadly I went 6-2-1 my 2 losses to thresh I just couldnt draw the answers

Mantis

03-14-2009, 09:31 PM

So deathdealer has 4 Pyrostatic Pillar in his sideboard, while I run 4 Chalice of the Void, what do you guys think is better? I prefer Chalice as it hits burn and Elves (to some extent) as well. Also, it is able to win through turn 1 or 2 wins of combo.

Against combo I go:
-4 Vial
-4 Gempalm Incinerator
-1 Skirk Prospector
-1 Goblin Ringleader
+4 Krosan Grip (I know it's terrible, but let's just hope the combo player misplays and KroGrip can get there, do it in your own turn as mana abilities don't use the stack!)
+4 Chalice
+2 Relic of Progenitus (I run 2 maindeck)

Against Elf Combo I go:
-4 Vial
-2 Relic
-1 TSH
-1 Ringleader
-1 Piledriver
+1 Sharpshooter
+4 Chalice of the Void
+4 Pyrokinesis

In the mirror match; what do you take out to fit in Pyrokinesis? I take out my 2 MB Relic and 3 Piledrivers for 4 PKinesis and 1 Sharpshooter.

Curious to see the boarding plans of other people in these matchups.

Seriously

03-15-2009, 01:14 PM

I think he was talking about goblin decks in general, but for me it was Deff b/c of 2 bad matchups and then someone with a little to much luck on his side playing Dreadstill.

@ Seriously:
I thought a goblin deck would top8 the GP...

yeah, it was a joke, I was talking shit. it was a reference to how everyone posting on this forum thinks that their shit doesnt stink, but when it comes time to put their money where their mouth is and win a GP, everybody fails. no matter what DTB/DTW deck they're playing, fucking zero people here managed to top 8. I think its a little funny thats all, like playing a pithing needle and naming 'ego'.

GreenOne

03-15-2009, 02:03 PM

Well, Caplan worked his way to the Top8 and he's a sourcerer. Some sourcerer made day 2 too. I think it's not bad, considering 1200 people attended, with pros being present and just <50 sourcerers probably went there.

It's just a pity goblins didn't Top8 in a quite good metagame, but was probably hated out by people's SB, that was prepared to Elves and Merfolk too.

THEchubbymuffin

03-25-2009, 04:02 AM

Here's the list that I have been testing.

Lands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Mountain
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
4 Badlands
2 Taiga

Creatures
4 Goblin Lackey
2 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Matron
1 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Warchief
3 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Wort, Boggart Auntie
1 Tin Street Hooligan

Spells
4 AEther Vial
4 Warren Weirding
4 Thoughtseize

Sideboard
3 Mogg Fanatic
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Duress
3 Krosan Grip

Hoping that somebody can further improve my list.

GreenOne

03-25-2009, 07:13 AM

I don't get the Fanatics in the SB.
In what matchups outside dredge and the mirror are you siding them? If those are the only matchups than Pyrokinesis might be overall better.

FoulQ

03-25-2009, 12:09 PM

In my opinion, people loaded up tons of tribal hate for GP:Chicago in their sideboards, and many kept that hate in their sideboards. But also, wasteland and stifle are on the decline in many places. In many thresh lists, stifle is being cut for cards like shackles and sower, mainly a lot more artifacts. So I am in love with monored (and playing it for the last month), but the question is, why not splash? Going 2color really doesn't make you that vulnerable to wasteland, and less and less people are playing waste+stifle. So, going back to the original point, people loaded up CoP:Red for burn/goblins, as well as of course Enginereed Plague, AND a lot of the cards they are adding to the new blue lists are artifacts. Green splash looking attractive...

I also think the combo matchup is not worth the time. I know some people do. But that is what makes goblins no longer the best deck, it will lose to combo a lot of the time.

So with that I'd like to present my decklist and see what you guys think:

LAND (23)
5 Mountain
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Taiga

GOBLINS (30)
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
3 Mogg Fanatic
1 Goblin Tinkerer
1 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Siege-Gang Commander
3 Stingscourger

OTHER (7)
4 Aether Vial
3 Relic of Progenitus

SIDEBOARD
1 Relic of Progenitus
3 Goblin Goon
4 Pyrokinesis
1 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Tin Street Hooligan
1 Shattering Spree
3 Krosan Grip

A few things about this: 1 gempalm incinerator worries me. I really like deathdealer's list which is basically just straight-up Rg goblins, but I think it might have difficulty dealing with tarmogoyf. That's why I love stingscourger+wasteland/port as well as relic of progenitus. And the maindeck tinkerer I like because it deals with many problems, and they might think you are dedicated to tinkerers but you have hooligans in the sb.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Goblin goon is tech. The last tournament it was at, every time I played it my opponent had to read the card. And every time I played it I won the game.

Singleton shattering spree is in there for decks like affinity, which is popular in my metagame. It can randomly pull out wins.

So what do you guys think? Gempalm count too low? Me throwing out the combo matchup a big mistake? Tinkerer/Hooligan split a good idea? I'm really interested because I'll be honest, most of you here are probably a lot better players than I am with the deck.

ETA: I'm also curious for those of you bringing in Grips and Relics against Goyf/Plague decks. That's 11 nongoblins, and with 23 lands, that leaves only 26 goblins for ringleader. Do you end up boarding him out then? The day they print a goblin enchantment destroyer is the day goblins becomes good again...

THEchubbymuffin

03-25-2009, 02:30 PM

I don't get the Fanatics in the SB.
In what matchups outside dredge and the mirror are you siding them? If those are the only matchups than Pyrokinesis might be overall better.

They were there for dredge and to ping pesky creatures with x/1.
But I will start testing with Pyrokinesis.

Mantis

03-26-2009, 09:33 AM

You just cant disregard the combo mu if you expect to win a tournament, if 1 combo deck enters T8 along with you thats a 25% chance you will face it.. Given that in most T8s at least 1 combo deck shows up thats a percentage I just dont feel comfortable with..

Ectoplasm

03-26-2009, 09:45 AM

Last tournament I played (MCM 50 man) I faced 3 combodecks... solidarity twice (won 2-0 once and lost 1-2 once) and ANT (He killed himself with AN twice for 2-0) so yeah, combo is a factor, at least in NL/Belgium.
The silly thing is, 50% of the time there's hardly any combo around, and the other 50% of the time there's loads of it :(

That being said, combo is a shitty matchup but not completely unwinnable. You lack any form of interaction with a combodeck (no MD counters/stifles/discard/other forms of disruption except wastelands/ports) but at least you can present a very relevant clock, with *some* form of combohate coming in from the board you *should* be able to win it, sometimes, but unless you run some form of disruption maindeck, outside wastelands/ports which often aren't that big of a factor anyway, you're going to be devoting insane amounts of sideboard-space just to be able to get a reliable matchup against combo, which at least in NL isn't even showing up to alot of tournaments.

So, what can we do about this? The answer is simple: run maindeck disruption, diluting the overall plan of goblins but improving the shitty matchups like TES and friends.
Stuff like Thorn of Amethyst, Thoughtseize, Cabal Therapy etc all seem like decent candidates for the MD, but I'm reluctant to put anything of this in, since you'll shit all over your other matchups, even though some cards (like seize) might be relevant in those as well, so it might actually be worth considering.

The third option is to hope for WotC to print some grixis/jund hybrid goblin that makes your opponent discard cards or something or has a glowrider effect but meh.

Nessaja

03-26-2009, 08:50 PM

About Goblin Goon: his primary purpose is to fight engineered plague in the monored version of goblins. I realize he seems like he sucks, but thinking in the minds of your opponent, they will often keep bad hands that have a plague or multiples. Especially in the case of multiple plagues and 2-3 mana sources, opponents will keep total crap just to smirk with their double plagues against monored. Well, goon is still a 4/4 in that situation. He really is a good tool to fight against engineered plague from what I've seen. If an opponent has a decent hand PLUS engineered plague, well tough luck. That's the weakness of playing monored, but I really don't think plague is as common as it is made out to be on this thread. Also, goblin goon is helpful against decks like team america that have very few threats. A 6/6 beater that gets by tarmogoyf easily? Sign me up.

Boartusk Liege is a much better card then Goon against Plague IMO.

FoulQ

03-26-2009, 11:57 PM

Boartusk Liege is a much better card then Goon against Plague IMO.

I would somewhat agree with you, I think they fit hand in hand as tools to fight EP and mainly because they are goblins. It can be hard for me to stick behind KGrip because it simply isn't reliably drawn. Would you say the beefier body and trample is better than mountainwalk that King offers, though? Also the fact that Liege costs RRR somewhat scares me. I'd be interested to hear how it works for you in a tournament setting though.

Nessaja

03-27-2009, 03:38 AM

The whole point is that it survives 2 plagues basically.

ScatmanX

03-28-2009, 07:50 AM

Goblin Goon is a 4/4 under 2 Plagues.
Liege is too hard to cast.

But if you have done some testing, please share. I'd like to hear (read).

ScatmanX

03-30-2009, 03:46 PM

I wrote a quite big speech about everything on the deck i'm going to post, but it was all lost, and I'm not going to wright it again so, here it is:

Goblin Burn

// Lands
4 [R] Badlands
4 [TE] Wasteland
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills
3 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
5 [ST] Mountain (4)
2 [DIS] Blood Crypt

Lots of black and mountains.

// Creatures
1 [SHM] Wort, the Raidmother
4 [AT] Goblin Matron
3 [REL] Earwig Squad
4 [MOR] Frogtosser Banneret
4 [US] Goblin Lackey
4 [ON] Goblin Piledriver
1 [AP] Goblin Ringleader
2 [SC] Goblin Warchief
1 [SC] Siege-Gang Commander

Less Ringleader because it sucks with 24 goblins.

// Spells
1 [MOR] Warren Weirding
2 [AT] Goblin Grenade
3 [FNM] Fireblast
4 [R] Lightning Bolt
4 [LG] Chain Lightning

13 Burn spells to gain more reach. They "combo" with Wort (yes, it's the green one).

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [MOR] Warren Weirding
SB: 4 [US] Duress
SB: 4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
SB: 1 [ON] Goblin Sharpshooter
SB: 1 [LRW] Mad Auntie
SB: 1 [ON] Goblin Pyromancer
SB: 1 [MI] Goblin Tinkerer

SB is not very good. Is mainly to delay combo, dont let opponent play countebalance, have more awnsers to big creatures.
Would like to fit Pyroknesis in it, because it is freaking Nuts with Wort!

So, tell me what you think about, and if you have ever played something similar. It's a lot of fun to play, that I can say for sure. =]

Tacosnape

03-30-2009, 04:17 PM

Why would you not just run zoo at that point?

And how is Pyrokinesis good with Wort? Recurring a goblin to pitch?

ScatmanX

03-30-2009, 04:21 PM

Read again.
It is the GREEN Wort
the Raindmother
not the black one.

me thinks 8 dmg divided how you want between creatures is very good.
10 dmg and 1 goblin sacced is very good for a goblin grenade also...

But I agree. The deck is working more like a Zoo deck then a normal Goblin one, but as I said, its a different take.

Nessaja

03-31-2009, 06:14 PM

Goblin Goon is a 4/4 under 2 Plagues.
Liege is too hard to cast.

But if you have done some testing, please share. I'd like to hear (read).

I've played him SB in monoR goblins. Goon is beyond useless against 2 plagues, you have no other creatures besides Goon so he's still not going to do anything, not attack or block anyway. Atleast a liege allows you to continue your usual gameplan minus the 1/1's against 2 plagues. And continue normally against 1 plague.

FoulQ

03-31-2009, 06:30 PM

Has anybody else been having problems with Vedalken Shackles (and I suppose Sower)? I run 2 md tin streets right now to help, but warren weirding seems rather...underwhelming against it and Sower. A smart player with a Shackles and a Goyf in play is a rather large roadblock for any goblins deck, it seems like. Obviously I'll bring in grips for Plagues if they are Ugb, but I don't want to waste them right away if I somehow draw them (it often feels like only 3 grips makes it to hard to draw it against gamewinning plagues). I've noticed stingscourger is a great tool against it and is an awesome gamewinning surprise in many instances, but I don't like running him in Rbg without 4 ports. So anybody else out there having problems with shackles? I'd like to hear your thoughts.

And I've been playing monoR for about a month now. I'm sorry, plague is just too much of a problem, at least in my meta. And the loss of tinstreets and grips not to mention weirdings...well it hurts.

Also, I really, really, hope they print a RW goblin that destroys enchantments in Alara Reborn. Better yet RG but I doubt that.

neon_havoc

04-08-2009, 10:55 AM

THEchubbymuffin

04-08-2009, 01:19 PM

lorddotm

04-08-2009, 01:20 PM

GreenOne

04-08-2009, 01:34 PM

Hey all , i was thinking about throwing together a Gob deck but i dont have the Taigas or the Badlands nor do i have the sac lands for that matter. Where as i do have almost all of the correct goblins/waste lands & ports. The question i have is should i spring for the spash/sac lands or is the deck able to function well without them? or is the hate that gits sided in to strong?
Yeah, you can play monored goblins and have an optimal deck anyway. It depends on your meta: if it feats many Stifle+Waste decks and decks that abuses the graveyard then it's the right decision.

Here's a sample list (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=24597), and another sample list (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=24198).

Here's the list I'm playing:
// Lands
15 [7E] Mountain (1)
4 [TE] Wasteland
4 [MM] Rishadan Port

// Creatures
4 [ON] Goblin Piledriver
4 [US] Goblin Lackey
4 [SC] Goblin Warchief
2 [LE] Gempalm Incinerator
4 [AP] Goblin Ringleader
4 [7E] Goblin Matron
2 [SC] Siege-Gang Commander
3 [TE] Mogg Fanatic
3 [PLC] Stingscourger

// Spells
4 [DS] AEther Vial
3 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 [MI] Goblin Tinkerer
SB: 1 [LE] Goblin Goon
SB: 4 [AL] Pyrokinesis
SB: 2 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [ON] Goblin Sharpshooter
SB: 2 [MOR] Spitebellows
SB: 3 [EX] Price of Progress

SB is, as always, adjustable, with more Goons or Boartusk Liege/Goblin King if you're fearing plague (and you shouldn't).
Spitebellows is removal against opposing Goyf, and Good against double plague too.

GoldenCid

04-08-2009, 04:44 PM

I like your deck list...but why not 3 SGC?? or even 4??

GreenOne

04-08-2009, 05:14 PM

I like your deck list...but why not 3 SGC?? or even 4??
You don't want him before turn 4 unless you have a connecting Lackey. If lackey connects you're usually going to win even if you put a Ringleader/Warchief/Matron into play. And by turn 4 you have the time to draw/Ringleader/Matron one.
I did chose those number cause they make a nice curve for the deck, so you can effectively use your mana even if you don't have Lackey/Vial going.
Here's the curve of the deck:
1: 14
2: 9
3: 8
4: 4
5: 2
That said, you could easily have access to more siege gangs removing some number of Incinerators/Fanatics.

GoldenCid

04-08-2009, 06:05 PM

That said, you could easily have access to more siege gangs removing some number of Incinerators/Fanatics.

I prefer this...if you hit with lackey in t2 with a commander in hand el will be gg. To much guys to beat!!

FoulQ

04-08-2009, 07:38 PM

***
to Greenone, I'm sorry but it is really neecessary to have a mainboard tinkerer in monored. I'm also interested if you have done any testing with spitebellows. It seems like it could potentially work.

***
I would tell you neonhavoc, that there are only a few cards that monored gets really destroyed by: enginereed plague and humility. There are basically zero answers to plague (goblin goon and boartusk liege are okay but not worthy of being called an "answer") and simply NO answer to humility (technically anarchy, but humility isn't that popular anyway). Of course, there are about 8 trillion more cards monored dies to without 1-3 mainboard tinkerer, but that is beside the point.

***
to GoldenCid, in monored goblins you don't have the same tool to clear for lackey: warren weirding. Simply put, you are not mathematically likely to hit with your lackey that often, especially if going second. If you say, "well people are cutting answers to lackey so it is more likely to hit nowadays," then you should win anyways because there deck isn't prepared for goblins. ESPECIALLY if you cut fanatic and incinerator, then you have even LESS pathclearers for goblin lackey. 3 SGC can be reasonable but not in relic monored. You need at least 1 stingscourger, 2 relics, 1 tinkerer, preferably more stings and relics. You are already taking out incinerators for these cards. The monored list is actually tighter mainboard than some others because relics and stingscourgers are only really played oftenly in monored.

TL;DR: Adding 1 or 2 more SGC is a horrible idea.

***
Also, I'm still wondering if anybody else is having the same problems as me with vedalken shackles, and how to beat the card? I don't know why but it seems like whenever I post in this thread it comes to a dead halt. Maybe it's because I type too much, I dunno.

GreenOne

04-08-2009, 08:22 PM

***
to Greenone, I'm sorry but it is really neecessary to have a mainboard tinkerer in monored. I'm also interested if you have done any testing with spitebellows. It seems like it could potentially work.
[...]
Also, I'm still wondering if anybody else is having the same problems as me with vedalken shackles, and how to beat the card? I don't know why but it seems like whenever I post in this thread it comes to a dead halt. Maybe it's because I type too much, I dunno.
I don't believe is necessary to have a mainboard Tinkerer: artifacts are not that present in every meta, while creatures are (since Tinkerer is going to take a Relic or Stingscourger/Incinerator slot).
Spitebellows is quite good and unexpected. It always get rid of Goyf and Tombstalker, it's CB proof, and sometimes beats FTW. I'd actually play it over Pyrokinesis if mirror and tribal decks were non-present.

Vedalken shackles is not that hard to beat, unless it's paired with other beaters or Counterbalance. Just assemble a good army and swing FTW, or just bounce the creature with a stingscourger and beat face. Side in your Needles or artifact hate and you're done.

Did anyone re-test Goblin Grenade? Seems another removal for TS an Goyf in monored, and gives the deck some reach. Paired down with PoP could deal quite a good amount of DMG.

FoulQ

04-08-2009, 09:11 PM

I don't believe is necessary to have a mainboard Tinkerer: artifacts are not that present in every meta, while creatures are (since Tinkerer is going to take a Relic or Stingscourger/Incinerator slot).
Spitebellows is quite good and unexpected. It always get rid of Goyf and Tombstalker, it's CB proof, and sometimes beats FTW. I'd actually play it over Pyrokinesis if mirror and tribal decks were non-present.

Vedalken shackles is not that hard to beat, unless it's paired with other beaters or Counterbalance. Just assemble a good army and swing FTW, or just bounce the creature with a stingscourger and beat face. Side in your Needles or artifact hate and you're done.

Did anyone re-test Goblin Grenade? Seems another removal for TS an Goyf in monored, and gives the deck some reach. Paired down with PoP could deal quite a good amount of DMG.

Pretty much every meta contains at least some problem artifacts. There are a billion of them. For example Jitte, SoXY, Servant/Grindstone, Top shenanigans, Dreadnaught, Chalice, etc etc etc but you already know all this. And what does incinerator really do anyway? Sure it helps but monored is a metagame deck and if I'm playing it I don't want to have this fine-tuned metagamed deck only to lose to something as trivial as Jitte. No tinkerers is like playing with fire, your deck might improve the overall matchup with 1 more incinerator but if they draw one of their bomb artifacts you might be screwed. But I suppose you are already playing with fire with monored.

I was using stingscourger but I'm playing rbg with not many ports so I don't find him as strong, so I cut him. I guess its just me that finds problems with the card in combination with 4 plowshares 4 beb and 4 enginereed plague.

And funny thing, I actually played 3 goblin grenade sb with rg goblins at legacy worlds last year. Absolutely horrible from what I experienced.

GreenOne

04-08-2009, 09:33 PM

Pretty much every meta contains at least some problem artifacts. There are a billion of them. For example Jitte, SoXY, Servant/Grindstone, Top shenanigans, Dreadnaught, Chalice, etc etc etc but you already know all this. And what does incinerator really do anyway? Sure it helps but monored is a metagame deck and if I'm playing it I don't want to have this fine-tuned metagamed deck only to lose to something as trivial as Jitte. No tinkerers is like playing with fire, your deck might improve the overall matchup with 1 more incinerator but if they draw one of their bomb artifacts you might be screwed. But I suppose you are already playing with fire with monored.
Maybe you're right, I'll re-test it. Sure of those artifacts you listed just a little are solved with one Tinkerer: Jitte and SoFI are answered only if you already have the tinkerer active or have a Warchief in play (quite strange to have him alive with such equipments going on), Chalice is not really a problem, Servant can be dealed with the incinerator, about SDT, I don't believe it's a tinkerer that saves you from its CQ.
Incinerator is not great if not combined with Relic or playing against tribal decks/confidant, so a tinkerer might be better anyway.

And funny thing, I actually played 3 goblin grenade sb with rg goblins at legacy worlds last year. Absolutely horrible from what I experienced.
You just saved me 3+ hours of testing

FoulQ

04-08-2009, 10:20 PM

Maybe you're right, I'll re-test it. Sure of those artifacts you listed just a little are solved with one Tinkerer: Jitte and SoFI are answered only if you already have the tinkerer active or have a Warchief in play (quite strange to have him alive with such equipments going on), Chalice is not really a problem, Servant can be dealed with the incinerator, about SDT, I don't believe it's a tinkerer that saves you from its CQ.
Incinerator is not great if not combined with Relic or playing against tribal decks/confidant, so a tinkerer might be better anyway.

With the tinkerer thing, I think it just comes down to, I want to have some kind of out against danger artifacts. My list wasn't comprehensive by a long shot, just to name a few more there are others like affinity.dec (you can count on this, goblins, burn to always be present from what I've experienced) and aether vials (important with unlimited hand size in mirror match, and of course other vial decks), and mox diamonds from aggro loam (important if they play heavy devastating dreams), and this and that and this and that and yeah. I don't want it to be "well, gg, you played jitte and now when you equip it next/this turn that's game." Eldariel pointed out earlier that tinkerer does help with CB+Top, and while I'm not quite as passionate about it as he is, I still think it is helpful: although instead of the crucial warren weirding you have the crucial stingscourger. Unless of course the opponent looks top 3 in response and before passing priority draws card with top (knowing that I would only tinkerer his top if I had a 2cc or 3cc card coming next). Correct me if I'm wrong but then he would draw the card, put top on top of library, and then the top 3 ability. What is funny is that all we are talking about here is 1 slot in 1 archetype of 1 deck.

neon_havoc

04-08-2009, 11:53 PM

Thanks for the fast responses, i think im going to just go mono red for now and if i get slaped around by hate then il splash.

Tacosnape

04-09-2009, 03:30 PM

I think that less than 4 Gempalms main in Mono-red is probably not a great idea. Nobody's arguing Gempalm isn't the facemelter it once was, but it's still pretty ridiculous. It works under Chalice/Counterbalance/Force/whatever, and it cantrips, meaning even if you can't kill anything with it, sometimes cycling it early will grab you that third or fourth land you need to get crazy with Warchief/Ringleader/Matron shenanigans.

As for whether you should splash, it comes down to this.

You want versatile answers to every artifact/enchantment? Splash Green. Get TS Hooligan and Krosan Grip.

You want the best removal spell Goblins ever got? Splash Black. Get Warren Weirding. Also possibly discard for SB to help against hate/combo.

You want a balance of removal and combo protection? Splash White. Get STP and Ethersworn Canonist, as well as possibly Disenchant.

You want to confuse everyone ever? Splash Blue. Get some combination of Stifle/Daze/Standstill.

You want a solid manabase and a straightforward deck with no frills? Stay mono-colored.

neon_havoc

04-09-2009, 07:32 PM

Hey Tacosnape could i see your mono-colored list ?
:>

GoldenCid

04-09-2009, 08:52 PM

Hey "my list" could i see your mono-colored list ?
:>

This is my mono red list! Check it out!!

// Lands
14 [10E] Mountain (4)
3 [MM] Rishadan Port
4 [TE] Wasteland

// Creatures
4 [SC] Goblin Warchief
4 [TE] Mogg Fanatic
2 [SC] Siege-Gang Commander
1 [ON] Goblin Sharpshooter
3 [ON] Goblin Piledriver
1 [7E] Goblin King
4 [US] Goblin Lackey
4 [AP] Goblin Ringleader
1 [MI] Goblin Tinkerer
4 [US] Goblin Matron
3 [LE] Gempalm Incinerator
3 [PLC] Stingscourger
1 [ON] Goblin Pyromancer

// Spells
4 [DS] AEther Vial

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [7E] Goblin King
SB: 1 [LE] Goblin Goon
SB: 3 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 4 [AL] Pyrokinesis
SB: 3 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [MR] Chalice of the Void

neon_havoc

04-09-2009, 09:14 PM

Why only 3 Piledrivers?

GoldenCid

04-09-2009, 10:15 PM

Why only 3 Piledrivers?

I wish ran 4 but if feel confortable with just 3. However 3 is not a bad number considering i run 4 matron and 4 ringleader.

FoulQ

04-09-2009, 10:49 PM

@ GoldenCid Not a fan of the list, perhaps just because it is so unorthodox. Have you ever played goblin king? Let me give you a classic example, vs ugr thresh.

You: "I attack with my 4 mountainwalk goblins ftw"
Him: "Bolt your king and screw you over gg"
You: "Oh god"

3 Ports? 21 lands? It has been discussed quite extensively earlier in the thread that 23 is a good number, sometimes 22, but 21 is stretching (in monored). I realize that a lot of decks on deckcheck are playing lower land counts, so if you are going by statistics alone maybe 21 is fine. And 3 ports?

And 3 piledrivers, I disagree here. I can understand in some 3c or black builds, but piledriver is important for explosiveness in the deck.

Also just my opinion but I wouldn't even bother with sb chalices in monored. You will lose to combo anyways. Mantis said earlier that there is a 25% chance to play combo in t8, but neon_havoc seems to be a new player so I think the goal should be to just t8. And I believe that king is the most misunderstood card ever. It is bad against plague, it is bad against decks with mountains, it. is. bad. There are so many better things you could be playing in that slot (same for pyromancer really) like a fourth incinerator, a tinkerer, a fourth piledriver, etc.

@ Tacosnape: Agreed, it pains me to cut incinerators down so much in monored builds, but in metagames infested with goyf and without the tools to splash, maindeck relics are really helpful. I did it for a while. What you don't mention in your list is rbg, which I think is important, because as nickrit2000 pointed out a trillion pages back (more like 20) it gives you engineered explosives. Is anybody but me still playing that card?

GoldenCid

04-09-2009, 11:03 PM

@FoulQ: Ok. I'll make my changes....

Does blood moon serves for anything here??

gamegeek2

04-09-2009, 11:39 PM

Does blood moon serves for anything here??

I would rather have a Magus, since it can be Vialed into play. Sure, it's more easily killed, but its ability protects itself. And if they're using removal on Magus, that's removal that your Goblins aren't taking. And it's far from one-sided - while it by itself is mana denial, it invalidates your other mana denial - Wasteland and Port. It also denies you your splash color, if you have one.

Nihil Credo

04-10-2009, 05:46 AM

The best Goblin-related notion I've read in the last few months has been Eldariel's recommendation to play a minimum of 23 and optimally 24 lands. I took the mono-R, the R/w and the R/g/b lists I have and upped them to 24 lands, and the power increase was amazing.

You should all try that. Mana screw is a lot more dangerous than mana flood in a deck with 3 SGC and up to 8 "Ringleaders" (and 9 in Rgb since I also play a Wort in there). And the two scariest word in a Goblin player's tournament report, right after "Lackey connects", are "curving out".

Zinch

04-10-2009, 06:22 AM

I agree with you Nihil, I always hated mana screw on goblins and very few times felt mana flooded realy (you can draw a lot of mana, but if you have the ringleaders, matrons or SGC, you'll be happy), so I adviced to increase the number of lands. I play mono red for personal preferences and metagame issues (a lot of wasteland and stifle) so I play 23 (without fetches), but when I played 2 or even 3 colors, I tried 24 lands and was a lot better than 23

Tacosnape

04-10-2009, 08:54 AM

Hey Tacosnape could i see your mono-colored list ?
:>

Sure. Mine's pretty straightforward.

14 Mountain
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port

4 Aether Vial

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Gempalm Incinerator
3-4 Stingscourger, depending on my mood.
2 Siege-Gang Commander
0-1 Goblin Sharpshooter, depending on my mood.

SB:
4 Pyrokinesis
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Chalice of the Void

EDIT: It's also worth noting that sometimes I just say fuck combo and run the risk of it. In this case, my last seven slots change based on the meta to some combination of Blasts, Needles, Tinkerers, etc.

SECOND EDIT: I also get away with running only 22 lands because A. My manabase is hard to touch, and B. I run 4 Gempalms and the cycling makes a difference.

zulander

04-10-2009, 09:04 AM

You should all try that. Mana screw is a lot more dangerous than mana flood in a deck with 3 SGC and up to 8 "Ringleaders" (and 9 in Rgb since I also play a Wort in there).
I'm not very familiar with goblins, what do you mean by "8" ringleaders?

Tacosnape

04-10-2009, 09:06 AM

I'm not very familiar with goblins, what do you mean by "8" ringleaders?

This is implying Matron, I'm guessing, as Matron turns into a Ringleader quite often.

zulander

04-10-2009, 09:15 AM

This is implying Matron, I'm guessing, as Matron turns into a Ringleader quite often.

That's what I thought too, although I didn't know if he was referring to a new goblin that was printed or something since I don't really know much about the new goblins.

Nihil Credo

04-10-2009, 09:26 AM

Yes, I meant Matron with it.

@Taco: Why run the crappy Pyrostatic Pillar when you could be running 4 Thorn of Amethyst in there? The slight extra vulnerability to Spree/Rebuild (only partial because they cost 4 mana) is more than compensated by Thorn's superiority when it's the only anti-combo card in play (and by the lessened vulnerability to Hull Breach, too), as well as by its superior versatility.

GreenOne

04-10-2009, 09:29 AM

Wow, 34 Goblins. You surely have the best ringleaders ever, but are the Incinerators worth the slots? are them killing that many dudes in your meta? No Goyf/TS/Dreadnough there?

Eldariel

04-10-2009, 10:56 AM

Wow, 34 Goblins. You surely have the best ringleaders ever, but are the Incinerators worth the slots? are them killing that many dudes in your meta? No Goyf/TS/Dreadnough there?

With all the nonsense in modern Cbalance decks (think Sower, Trygon, Werebear, Confidant, etc.) Gempalm is actually surprisingly solid nowadays. Also, crap like Elves is abound - I love 3 Gempalms and actually play them over Fantastics just because cantripping removal isn't, and has never been fair.

FoulQ

04-10-2009, 10:57 AM

I'm just curious about some 3c builds that you all might have. I'm trying to follow Eldariel's suggestion of at least 24 lands, but I'm having difficulties doing that and keeping some of the classic cards at a respectable count. Here are the cards that could feasibly be cut in my 23 land build:

4 Goblin Piledriver
2 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Mogg Fanatic
2 Tin Street Hooligan
3 Warren Weirding
1 Wort, Boggart Auntie

So I need to cut at least one to get up to 24 lands. Honestly I'm thinking about cutting an incinerator because my meta is basically goyf, although gempalm + wort is very exciting synergy.

@ Nihil: I may not be an expert, but the fact is pillar is in a lot more deckcheck lists than thorn. I know that's a guiding factor for me when deciding between two similar pieces of combo hate.

from Cairo

04-10-2009, 11:25 AM

Mana screw is a lot more dangerous than mana flood in a deck with 3 SGC and up to 8 "Ringleaders" (and 9 in Rgb since I also play a Wort in there). And the two scariest word in a Goblin player's tournament report, right after "Lackey connects", are "curving out".

/Signed.

Been testing a Rbg build with 24 land since after the GP, and have been very happy with the mana base. Consistently curving out needs to be part of the game plan, it's unrealistic to put all the weight on getting an active Vial or Lackey.

@ FoulQ: a Fanatic or Tin Street Hooligan would probably the two cards I'd cut first.

GoldenCid

04-10-2009, 11:29 AM

14 Mountain
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port

22 Lands...i feel this number good. Sorry Nihil...:laugh:

SB:
4 Pyrokinesis
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Chalice of the Void

Why are pyrostatic pillar and chalice together?
Red elemental blast isn't healthy here??

FoulQ

04-10-2009, 12:57 PM

@ FoulQ: a Fanatic or Tin Street Hooligan would probably the two cards I'd cut first.

Yes, sometimes I wish I could just cut all my fanatics and play +1 land, +1 gempalm, and then a wildcard slot. But then there is a lot of confidant and ichorid in my meta so I have never actually done it.

@ GoldenCid: It is 7 cards to fight combo. And combo is terrible TERRIBLE matchup for monored (whereas just terrible for others). So a lot of sb space is dedicated to help beat it. If you look back in the thread, tons of discussion has happened about sideboard against combo.

Another card I've been fiddling around with is extirpate. I'm just kind of obsessed with wasteland your tropical, extirpate tropical, lol gg. And if they happen to play a forest, it will be a while until they draw that windswept heath. Plus extirpate is sweet against landstill, does its job against aggro loam, and is still ok versus ichorid (I know in the ichorid thread they say it is the card they fear the least). Plus it works very well with cabal therapy.
I was just wondering if anybody has had any extensive playing with the card.

Now I realize sbs are extremely meta-dependent, but my sb looks something like this w/ extirpate...

3 Krosan Grip
3 Pyrokinesis
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Extirpate
4 Cabal Therapy (or 4 CotV)

ETA: Extirpate is terrible, do not play this card.

from Cairo

04-12-2009, 02:05 PM

3 Krosan Grip
3 Pyrokinesis
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Extirpate
4 Cabal Therapy (or 4 CotV)

I've been running something similar. - 4 Cabal Therapy, -3 Extirpate; +4 CotV, +3 Earwig Squad. And have been pretty happy with it. Earwig Squad serves a similar function to Extirpate, removing a handful of cards from their deck that you don't want to deal with. I'm not sure if the trade-off of losing uncounterability and gaining a 5/3 makes it better or not. It's best in the combo match up though where that's a non-issue anyway. And it being a 5/3 can randomly be good against a resolved E Plague as well.

b4r0n

04-12-2009, 03:12 PM

I've been running something similar. - 4 Cabal Therapy, -3 Extirpate; +4 CotV, +3 Earwig Squad. And have been pretty happy with it. Earwig Squad serves a similar function to Extirpate, removing a handful of cards from their deck that you don't want to deal with. I'm not sure if the trade-off of losing uncounterability and gaining a 5/3 makes it better or not. It's best in the combo match up though where that's a non-issue anyway. And it being a 5/3 can randomly be good against a resolved E Plague as well.

I've been liking Earwig Squad too. Not only is he still a fat beater against a resolved Plague, but he prevents further Plagues from coming down. The same can be said for Goyfs/Firespouts/etc. Also, unlike Extirpate, you don't have to find a way to get that card in the graveyard first.

In regards to the combo matchup: I've basically given up on it. Chalices and Pillars and Thorns can buy you time and maybe win you game 2, but you're still likely to get blown out in games 1 and 3 (barring some sort of ridiculous luck). Also, I haven't been seeing nearly as much combo recently (probably due to the high number of people playing Counterbalances), so I'd rather devote sideboard slots to beating the decks that I can reasonably hope to beat (aka the rest of the metagame).

FoulQ

04-12-2009, 03:35 PM

I've been liking Earwig Squad too. Not only is he still a fat beater against a resolved Plague, but he prevents further Plagues from coming down. The same can be said for Goyfs/Firespouts/etc. Also, unlike Extirpate, you don't have to find a way to get that card in the graveyard first.

In regards to the combo matchup: I've basically given up on it. Chalices and Pillars and Thorns can buy you time and maybe win you game 2, but you're still likely to get blown out in games 1 and 3 (barring some sort of ridiculous luck). Also, I haven't been seeing nearly as much combo recently (probably due to the high number of people playing Counterbalances), so I'd rather devote sideboard slots to beating the decks that I can reasonably hope to beat (aka the rest of the metagame).

I only have one issue with not having combo hate, and this might be kind of weird, but what else is there for the sideboard? Earwig Squad, really? I guess I'll try it...maybe a mad auntie too...I would rather not talk about earwig squad too much though because it has been beaten to death in this thread.

I have to agree with you b4ron that I am also seeing less and less combo, but I'm just not sure what to replace it with, I was thinking of just upping everything.

TBH I haven't really tested therapy very much. I originally planned for it to work with extirpate, but since that card has proven to be terrible for me and goes against basic goblin philosophy I probably will drop therapies. I've read before that therapy is only effective against combo and isn't worth the dilution in the control or aggro control matchups. This was from teeniebopper years ago, and of course he is goblins master but this was years ago. Not sure, wondering what other people think about it....my original intent for the card was a combo answer AND answer to decks with EPlague, that I can just cast and not have to worry about conditional things like Earwig Squad.

About CotV: Is this card still worthwhile to board in against thresh? I know in earlier discussion people were boarding it again. But obviously it has lost some effectiveness with people cutting cantrips. This alone might make me think twice about CotV because sure it helps against combo by allowing you to lay it and goldfish, but it was also useful as a "question" for thresh to answer. Is this card still good against modern thresh lists?

Haha, and of course CotV rapes the always-present first round burn :)

ScatmanX

04-12-2009, 04:21 PM

CotV is good agains't Thresh, bu I side in only if I'm on the play.
CotV is great agains't Combo, so I always side in.
CotV is great agains't whateverNought. So many 1cc's...
CotV is great agains't Burn, so always side in.

I guess it's still worth it's slots.

morgan_coke

04-12-2009, 05:13 PM

FoulQ

04-12-2009, 05:54 PM

Funny I said I wouldn't talk about Earwig but this is what I have to say: In the thresh matchup I'm boarding out fanatics which is one of the biggest Earwig enablers. And of course you can't really rely on lackey as an enabler. So I'm hesitant on earwig, but I'm trying to find something suitable to complement KGrips in dealing with plague and other things like it, preferably a goblin. Haven't found anything yet really, might have to settle on suboptimal garbage like mad auntie.

~~~~~~~~~
About the 11chants in sb...
And I think somebody tried an 8chant thing in white weenie somewhere on the source. Or someplace, I don't remember where. It failed. It is a bad idea. How are you going to beat goyf.dec, especially without the StP (you implied there is no StP)? And let's set up a game situation. Against combo...you play chant while they are comboing. They shrug their shoulders, pass the turn to you, ready to combo next turn. Now what?

It's the same reason I figured out extirpate is bad in goblins. And bad in sui, in my opinion. These cards are naturally reactive cards. You are playing a proactive deck, and these cards stray from the ultimate goal of a beatdown deck. The funniest thing about it is, these 11 cards might actually be worse than 4 chalice and 7 other combo hate cards, as chalice allows you to goldfish and doesn't disrupt your own strategy. And nobody in their right mind is playing 11 combo hate cards.

TL;DR: No.

Tacosnape

04-13-2009, 11:48 AM

This might be a crazy idea, but once M10 hits, or heck, probably even right now, is it worth considering going back to the white splash for sideboard combo hate? I mean just turn your board into something like this:

4x Disenchant
3x Abeyance
4x Orim's Chant
4x Silence

With basically the mono-red decklist + plateau's in the main.

Against combo you'd sideboard out the Ringleaders, Relics, Fanatics, and removal for the 11 "pause" effects.

Then just try to beat down while hitting them with a "no spells" effect every time they tried to combo. An extra 2-3 turns should provide enough time to win, and Ringleader seems like an obvious choice to take out since you don't have a long term plan or need to recover from removal here, and the extra non goblins make it weaker anyways.

That's sort of a hilarious game to envision. My only point of note is that Swords to Plowshares should be in here somewhere, either main or board or split.

You also lose some other things, like Pyrokinesis, for instance. That said, a Disenchant/Swords/Silence/Chant setup is very intriguing.

I think if it were me, though, I'd maindeck the swords, make my board look like Disenchant/Relic/Chant/Silence in a 4/4/4/3 setup, and go from there. Something like, off the top of my head:

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Plateau
4 Mountain
4 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port

4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares

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

SB:
4 Seal of Cleansing (Better against Standstill and Counterbalance)
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Orim's Chant
3 Silence

neon_havoc

04-14-2009, 09:23 AM

Hey , just have a quick question about Goblin Pyromancer. if i sac him before I end my turn i don't have to destroy all my goblins still, or do I? sorry if this is a dumb question im new to the whole goblin thing.

Gekoratel

04-14-2009, 10:07 AM

You are correct in that if Pyromancer is not in play EOT then you don't need to sacrifice your Goblins.

neon_havoc

04-14-2009, 11:00 AM

Thanks :) i was pretty sure. Just wanted to be 100% on that prior to any tournament play.

true story

04-19-2009, 12:54 PM

FoulQ

04-19-2009, 02:50 PM

I was trying so hard not to get involved in any conversations/debates about goblins today... I can't help but wonder why everyone thinks Goblin King is so bad? He pumps all your dudes and if you're lucky enough to get a second one out they pump eachother. I'm playing Rb at the moment(no real answer for Plague), and in some random tourney yesterday he was huge against Plague, and in 2 different matchups I went agaisnt decks with mountains, I hear un-blockable piledrivers are pretty good. All I'm saying is that most of the time I'm dropping him for 2 mana(Warchief) or Vialing him out and giving your team +1/+1 is always good. If they have mountains he's huge, when I board in blood moon he's awesome. Has anyone else tried Goblin King? I'm rocking 3 maindeck. Thoughts?
I also read that some people don't think Wort Boggart Auntie is worth playing, wtf? A 3/3 fear that let's you get Weirdings and Ringleaders etc. back from your yard and it only cost 4 mana. This card is AMAZING! It has to be killed asap or I win.

Goblin King can open you up to bad bad combat misfortune. If you assume they don't have instant removal for him you can walk right into a trap. And if you play around it, then the king is better suited as something else. Also, there is not that many guys on the board at once, so being unblockable doesn't always make that big of a deal, if you can just kill there 1 goyf you can just swing with driver anyway. And king does not answer double plague. He's ok I guess. But I'd rather play many more things to answer plague even though many of them are nongoblins.

And here is why, from what I've seen, some people don't like Wort: SGC has to be killed asap or you will win as well. But SGC has immediate impact. So people say, why not just play SGC #2 or #3 instead of Wort? And the whole "well you can recur ringleaders with Wort, and not with SGC," well, that has been put to the test with kiki-jiki for years, and the verdict is that another SGC is better than 1 kiki-jiki.

Nessaja

04-19-2009, 03:10 PM

Goblin King can open you up to bad bad combat misfortune. If you assume they don't have instant removal for him you can walk right into a trap. And if you play around it, then the king is better suited as something else.

I was going to answer the same thing but the logic is flawed. If you're prepared for removal (as you should be) then it's still a big bonus when it isn't removed. For a 3 mana goblin King isn't half bad. His worst aspect is that he's bad on his own. I think the biggest factor is that there's quite simply no place for him and the 3 mana spot is already quite clogged.

true story

04-20-2009, 01:48 PM

Goblin King can open you up to bad bad combat misfortune. If you assume they don't have instant removal for him you can walk right into a trap. And if you play around it, then the king is better suited as something else. Also, there is not that many guys on the board at once, so being unblockable doesn't always make that big of a deal, if you can just kill there 1 goyf you can just swing with driver anyway. And king does not answer double plague. He's ok I guess. But I'd rather play many more things to answer plague even though many of them are nongoblins.

And here is why, from what I've seen, some people don't like Wort: SGC has to be killed asap or you will win as well. But SGC has immediate impact. So people say, why not just play SGC #2 or #3 instead of Wort? And the whole "well you can recur ringleaders with Wort, and not with SGC," well, that has been put to the test with kiki-jiki for years, and the verdict is that another SGC is better than 1 kiki-jiki.

I see your point with Wort, I have to wait til my upkeep to get something back where as Seige-Gang comes into play with 3 homies. Plus if I have no yard for some reason she's garbage, just like Kiki-Jiki is garbage with no other goblins in play.

As for Goblin King, if you get 2 out before they hit Plague number 2 it does get around double Plague. My friend plays Tombstone all the time, believe me I'm well aware of the dirty combat tricks people can do when you play Goblin King but it seems that good outweighs the bad. Right now I'm really not sure that's why I asked for imput. My main question is if I stay RB what else is there as far as answers for Plague. I tried a RGB build at the Source tourney a few months ago, with Grips for Plagues. I started 3-0 then lost to TES and then 2 decks that beat the shit out of my mana base(stifle, wasteland). So the other thing I'm torn over is which colors to play. If I go RG I lose Weirding and Terminate, Gempalm is a poor substitute as it doesn't kill Goyf, Doran, Tomstalker, Naught... I never palyed Stingscourger in Legacy is it any good? If I stay RB I get the bomb removal but I'm stuck with Goblin King as my answer to Plague?

FoulQ

04-20-2009, 02:36 PM

Your options for plague hate in rb are limited, and honestly it might not even be worth the battle. Goblin King, Earwig Squad, Mad Auntie, Dralnu's Crusade, Goblin Goon. And frankly, all those answers suck compared to Krosan Grip in combination with Engineered Explosives.

I have had many times when my yard isn't full and I'd like to play Wort. But I also have had times where she won the game alone. I personally like 1 simply for threat diversity with SGC.

Goblin King might work for you, but its never worked for me. I use grip+ee and it has worked well because both these cards are often mvps in these matchups anyways (especially ee).

Stingscourger is good but as others have pointed out, probably should not be played in conjuction with warren weirding. I have had major success with it in the past, mainly because it does surprise people. It works very well with wasteland/port but that doesn't come up as often as you'd think.

And playing weirding + terminate + gempalm + fanatic (+sharpshooter?) seems like way too much removal at least for my tastes. tbh I've never really tested terminate, but I've always had problems with plowshares being my primary removal spell and a nongoblin so I think I'll stay away from that devil.

Avatara

04-20-2009, 03:35 PM

Wort is also immune to Smother and Snuff Out... very handy if there's a lot of TA and Eva Green in your meta game. If they have no other way to remove Wort; recurring Warren Weirding wins the game. Even if they have one or two Engineered Plagues you can still tutor for the Earwig prowl while you lock them down ensuring victory.

I tried discard (Cabal Therapy) as an anti Plague strategy but it failed horribly. The best thing you can do against resolved Engineered Plagues (yes you can't stop top decked ones) with the BR Goblins build is to punch straight through them. Wort & Earwig does that for me.

When a deck tries to lock me down with other nasty enchantments (Circle vs red, moat etc) I go for the Kiki-Jiki, Skirk Prospector (-1 Mogg Fanatic), Lightning Crafter combo.

Just a few things I learned from my mistakes at my last 38 people tournament. :wink:

true story

04-20-2009, 03:38 PM

true story

04-20-2009, 03:52 PM

When a deck tries to lock me down with other nasty enchantments (Circle vs red, moat etc) I go for the Kiki-Jiki, Skirk Prospector (-1 Mogg Fanatic), Lightning Crafter combo.

I've never seen this before. Let me see if I got it figured out right? You get the 3 Goblins in play, target Crafter with Kiki's ability, champion Kiki away to Crafter Token , shoot them in the face for 3 with Token, sac Token to Prospector, returning untapped Kiki to play and repeat. Thats awesome if I got it right.

Avatara

04-20-2009, 03:57 PM

I've never seen this before. Let me see if I got it figured out right? You get the 3 Goblins in play, target Crafter with Kiki's ability, champion Kiki away to Crafter Token , shoot them in the face for 3 with Token, sac Token to Prospector, returning untapped Kiki to play and repeat. Thats awesome if I got it right.

Yes that's right.

true story

04-20-2009, 05:16 PM

So... How many of each do you run? Are they MD or SB? Just curious

Ectoplasm

04-20-2009, 06:20 PM

Ib Halfheart

Saccing lands is never good, goblins is one of the most mana-hungry decks in Legacy right now, you really want your lands to string ringleader/matron madness and shoot stuff with your siege-gang commander.

FoulQ

04-20-2009, 07:56 PM

I only run 1 Wort for like you said threat diversity. She's really never sucked for me and there's a few times where fear is huge believe it or not. I've been running 3 Terminate, 3 Weirding, 4 Fanatics MD. I haven't run Sharpshooter or Gempalm in a long time. I'd love to run RW for Swords and Disenchant but my broke as doesn't have Plateaus...
I never thought about Engineered Explosives before I think you just convinced me to try RGB again. Before I was only running 21 lands I've gone up to 23 so maybe I won't be mana screwed as easily.
One more question, have you ever tried Ib Halfheart as a 1 of? I ran him in type 2 a while ago and sac-ing lands and the end of your opponents turn for more dudes was always good. I know you're prolly gonna say there's betther stuff to put in that slot but I was just wondering if you or anybody else has tried it in Legacy and if it was any good?

I ditched sharpshooter for a year. I readded him a few weeks ago, and I forgot how insane he could be. You should really consider him, especially with 4 lightning bolt fanatics. I actually cut my fourth piledriver for him in my rbg build, but that's a discussion for another day. Not having at least one tutorable gempalm is risky, but I suppose running so much removal its not as important.

23 is the minimum in rbg, in my opinion. I know both nihil and eldariel, among others, prefer 24. I play 23. I actually toyed around with 2 maindeck EEs but I would reccomend against that because it takes away from the strategy of goblins. Anybody else tried this?

Disenchant I think is horrible and I would not shell out for RW if I were you. If you are forced to play RW I would personally go 3/3 split on leave no trace and serenity. And Ib is only good in RW builds with armageddon out of the sideboard, and even then it is only a cute trick against landstill. I have not personally tested Ib though so I can't say much more than that. Just from common sense I would think he's subpar with his many other subpar lorwyn friends like Boggart Mob, Lightning Crafter, and Tarfire.

And about that Kiki/Crafter/Prospector combo...honestly, how reliable is that? All those cards are ehh on their own. It's like, why don't I just play krosan grip instead of trying to assemble a master combo?

Shriekmaw

04-21-2009, 01:24 PM

So... How many of each do you run? Are they MD or SB? Just curious

You shouldn't focus on cute combos in goblins at all, b/c they are not very reliable. I'm back to the Red/Green version since I like the stability of the mana base. Since landstill has been on the rise, I found it once again to run rishadan port necessary.

The only kinda new goblin that I play is stingcourger which has been pretty amazing. I made the switch right before the GP and have been happy with it ever since. I still run 1 tin street and 1 sharpshooter b/c in situations they have been very good to me.

If you want some good suggestions you can always PM me.

true story

04-21-2009, 03:37 PM

If you want some good suggestions you can always PM me.

Do you still play magic? Lol. I'm sure you've figured out who I am by my name. I really could use some suggestions cause I'm getting headaches trying to perfect my deck. I trust your opinion more than most cause I know you and know you've played Goblins alot. I'll have to get your number from Jap Foil.

true story

04-22-2009, 04:33 PM

Anyone thought about not playing Vial. It has been pretty lame lately. It only seems good against blue control matchups. Against everything else it seems like its slowing me down?

HdH_Cthulhu

04-22-2009, 04:51 PM

Sry but you must play 4 Vials. Its soo good in so many ways!

Ectoplasm

04-22-2009, 05:14 PM

Anyone thought about not playing Vial. It has been pretty lame lately. It only seems good against blue control matchups. Against everything else it seems like its slowing me down?

This is simply not true. Contrary to popular belief, goblins doesn't have to win on turn 3, even though it's nice. The reason we can run the amount of wastelands/ports we do is because we have stuff like lackeys, warchiefs and vials to get stuff into play cheaply.

Goblins has an insane midgame, stringing ringleader into matron into ringleader, which would be alot harder without the aid of vials. Even if it sometimes feels like you're 'wasting' your first turn dropping a vial and even if it runs behind your landdrops in the first 2-3 turns, it will prove itself time and time again once you progress a bit further into the game, allowing you to drop multiple men onto the table in an obscenely short timespan.

Eldariel

04-22-2009, 06:02 PM

Reasons you can't cut Vial:
-Countertop and control decks rip you unless you have enough pressure - 1-drops like Vial are necessary for this.
-Aggro-decks rip you unless you can play the control-game. To this end, Vial allows you to spend your daily mana allotment slowing down their beats while Vial eventually gives you sufficient mana lead to use your bigger spells and win.
-I can't stress enough how much you want those Matrons & Ringleaders to resolve.
-It gives you an enormous resilience to non-Deed sweepers by just refilling the board when they're all gone. Also works great vs. Sorcery-removal in general.
-Vialing out SGC is insane - you've got all your mana open to start pinging stuff and a lot of fuel to ping with. This is how I usually finish off white/blue control-players from behind their Moat/Propaganda/Ghostly Prison/whatever non-Humility effects (and it's handy even against Humility to get those last few points in).
-Vial is a non-land "mana" source you can use to pay for all your Goblins. It gives you tons of resilience to mana disruption strategies (majority of my wins vs. Aggro Loam are a direct consequence of Vial, for example).

If you wanted to take the deck into a more aggressive direction, you could play with cutting the Vials, but frankly, without Vials all your 3+ spells become much worse and the deck becomes much more reliant on Lackey, which presently isn't at all reliable. And Lackeying out Piledriver just isn't all that gamebreaking.

neon_havoc

04-23-2009, 10:04 PM

FoulQ

04-23-2009, 10:41 PM

Okay so i have been playing the mono-red build for a little bit and was wondering how others felt about the other builds that splash and what they bring to the deck any imput would be nice to hear as im trying to make up my own mind as to what colore i want to add . :)

You could, you know, read the thread. More than half of all discussion is about what to splash. But I'll break it down very simply.

Black: Warren Weirding, Wort.
Green: Tin Street Hooligan, Krosan Grip.
White: Swords to Plowshares
Blue: Not Goblins.
Multiple Colors: Engineered Explosives

Of course there are some other things but those are the main ones.

neon_havoc

04-23-2009, 11:35 PM

Fair enough, well then what colore is superior if any in your opinion ?

Ectoplasm

04-24-2009, 11:11 AM

Fair enough, well then what colore is superior if any in your opinion ?

That's the same question, just asked differently. The answer is: none. Some people play RB because they like to get rid of tarmogoyfs, mongeese and other stuff (and sometimes they play wort). Some people play RG because they prefer the monored approach, but want to play tin street hooligan and have some stuff in their sideboard such as krosan grip, apart from that it's pretty much monored. Some people play RGB because they want both, at the cost of rishadan ports (you're not going to play 8 colourless lands in 3-colour goblins).
Some people play RW because they are stuck in 2006
Some people play monored because they like the consistency and explosiveness (monored is still the fastest) even though they will lack some general utility.

GoldenCid

04-24-2009, 11:15 AM

Fair enough, well then what colore is superior if any in your opinion ?

All versions mono red and splashed one, has their own way to get rid of different problems. Here's a small comparisson:

RB = Warren weirding is used to clear the path for lackey in the first turns, RR uses stingscourger for this aim and incinerator for the mid game.

RG = Krosan grip / Tin street holligan are used for cracking artifacts, RR use goblin tinkerer for this aim. Krosan grip is also used to destroy enchantments (plagues mostly) RR use goblin king and goblin goon to reduce the plague effect.

So...i think that this is a matter of the player with color use.

FoulQ

04-24-2009, 11:31 AM

Fair enough, well then what colore is superior if any in your opinion ?

It all depends on your metagame. A few of the guiding factors:

1. Presence of Tarmogoyf.
2. Presence of Engineered Plague and other Enchantments.
3. Presence of Stifle/Wasteland and/or Landstill.

These are the three decisions that generally guide the decision as to what color to splash. Evaluate what your metagame is like, how much of each these three there are, and then adjust the splash as you see fit. Each splash usually has a problem with one of the above three. For a general metagame I recommend RG: It can deal with #2 and #3 just fine...or possibly RBG, because #3 is probably less of a concern than #1 and #2 (RBG loses port which is a big help in the landstill matchup). RB is generally hit or miss, because it does do a good job of domination against #1 and #3 but having to dig for one of your 3 almost-answers to plague is never good, so it loses to #2 very badly. MonoRed has problems with #1 and #2. However, the philosophy of a monored player is a little different, and the deck is just a little different as a whole as monored. Funny enough, RW technically has answers to all 3: it has disenchant for #2, swords to plowshares for #1, and is only 2colors so #3 is not really much of a problem at all.

There is also a fourth factor:
4. Presence of Combo.

But this usually only alters your sideboard, and most of the good combo hate cards nowadays (pyrostatic pillar and chalice of the void being the most played) are on color. (Do not get me started on Earwig Squad being an "effective answer" to combo)

Currently cased up for me is RBG: Engineered Explosives is very good against many countertop decks, and with krosan grip provides a strong force to combat engineered plague. And of course warren weirding with the hundreds of goyfs in my meta.

But this could all change in an instant. If I see a lot of stifle/wasteland or landstill, I might just go rb. Or if I'm seeing something else, I'll go to something else, or whatever whatever, you see what I'm saying.

Tacosnape

04-24-2009, 11:41 AM

For what it's worth, White still does have a few advantages.

One is that Swords to Plowshares is a one mana spell, which makes a huge difference in your tempo. It means that not only can you clear the path for a Lackey like you can with Scourger/Weirding, but you can also be using a Wasteland, dropping a Vial, etc. with your other land. STP's also an instant. Don't get me wrong. It's probably not nearly enough to make up for the fact that Warren Weirding is a Goblin. But it's noteable.

Also, white also offers you what green can do, just worse. Seal of Cleansing's a poor substitute for Grip.

White also gives you whatever combination of Chant/Canonist you might want.

So White's probably the most versatile splash color. It's the only color that can add removal, answer artifacts/enchantments, and improve combo hate. It just doesn't have the strongest cards to get.

THEchubbymuffin

04-24-2009, 01:04 PM

FoulQ

04-24-2009, 04:45 PM

Has RBW been considered at all? Vindicate is a great solution to... almost everything. You get to keep wierding, but if you need targeted creature removal you get STP.

I think this should be considered because vindicate could play the role of krosan, possibly better because it kills a lot of stuff. Including lands to support the wastelands.

Vindicate has been explored by Tacosnape in the thread. Playing vindicate, stp, vials, and potentially more is a lot of nongoblins, and there are things that can do what vindicate does on color. Asking for one splash color at a time (For example, wort, grip, etc.) isn't that difficult, but asking for black AND white can be difficult at times. The effect better be earth-shattering, and for me, Vindicate just doesn't get there. Vindicate + Weirding + StP is, in my opinion, too much removal for the deck, as well as too many nongoblins pre or post board. Plus you probably aren't going to be playing EE in that deck with so many nongoblins, and to me EE is one of the strongest factors towards a 3 color build, being as it rapes the 2cccentric meta.

The other card that has been suggested that is in two off-colors is Ray of Revelation, so I'll just get that out of the way right now. Suffers the same problems as vindicate in that it is too mana intensive for an effect that is already covered well enough by one color.

Ectoplasm

04-25-2009, 08:17 AM

Vindicate has been explored by Tacosnape in the thread. Playing vindicate, stp, vials, and potentially more is a lot of nongoblins, and there are things that can do what vindicate does on color. Asking for one splash color at a time (For example, wort, grip, etc.) isn't that difficult, but asking for black AND white can be difficult at times. The effect better be earth-shattering, and for me, Vindicate just doesn't get there. Vindicate + Weirding + StP is, in my opinion, too much removal for the deck, as well as too many nongoblins pre or post board. Plus you probably aren't going to be playing EE in that deck with so many nongoblins, and to me EE is one of the strongest factors towards a 3 color build, being as it rapes the 2cccentric meta.

The other card that has been suggested that is in two off-colors is Ray of Revelation, so I'll just get that out of the way right now. Suffers the same problems as vindicate in that it is too mana intensive for an effect that is already covered well enough by one color.

I wholeheartedly agree here. I say, engineered explosives solves all the problems that vindicate does (albeit, obviously, usually a turn slower) and more. Not only does EE allow you to splash the colours you really want (black and green) instead of subpar white (even though taco has some points about white being a nice allround colour, I don't think we need it, *ever*), but it also takes care of random shittiness like double plague, a board full of zombietokens etc.
So yeah, if you want to destroy more stuff than weirding/grip allows you to, go for the explosives instead, but keep them in the board :)

Mr.T

04-25-2009, 10:56 AM

FoulQ

04-25-2009, 11:07 AM

On the subject of running Vindicate, has anyone considered running RGB goblins builds and using the new Maelstrom pulse. You have access to both of the best splashes as well as being able to deal with multiple tarmogoyfs at the same time.

To me this is similar but not quite the same to vindicate. EE can destroy multiple goyfs as well as counterbalance, bob, and many popular cards outside of the 2cc range. EE only takes 2 colors to be effective but becomes even better with 3. Maelstrom Pulse is going to take all 3 or otherwise it is uncastable (as you probably aren't going to have black and green but not red). Now, the effects aren't equal, and you could make an argument that placed side by side maelstrom pulse is better than EE, but the amount better I don't think is worth it for the mana cost. Both are great at some things and average at others, but they both have the goal of killing pesky permanents.

But of course, I can't really say how good maelstrom pulse is going to be, in goblins, in eva green, in other decks. I haven't even tested it in goblins because I have tested vindicate and hated it. Obviously you get green instead of white with the pulse, but you could just run more synergistic warren weirdings to deal with goyfs.

And I know I shoot down a lot of ideas, but I'm not saying we should not continue innovation within goblins. Just that the deck is so established and so tested that few ideas really can make the cut. Shadowmoor and Shards all brought pretty much nothing, and Lorwyn brought a lot less than you'd expect when goblins are central theme of the block. Maelstrom Pulse definitely deserves testing, but only because, sadly, no other new cards really look promising at all and MP does have potential.

Joon

04-25-2009, 11:09 AM

Ectoplasm

04-25-2009, 01:59 PM

Pulse seems okay to me, here in Germany VG Players splitted their Removal up like 2/2/3 Incinerator/Weirding/Terminate. Pulse seems to be strictly better than Terminate, but it needs both splash colors. Normally you don't care if your opponent wastes one of your Taigas G1, but if you play Pulse, you have to watch carefully after your two green producing lands.

This is the reason why pulse will be unplayable. The deck is red, with a light splash to either or both green and/or black for extra niceness. Nobody even runs basic land besides some mountains and the appropriate fetchlands. Sticking in heavy off-colour requirements like MP seems like suicide, since you'd need to retool your entire manabase (play more duallands, maybe stick in some random basics that will pop up when you dont need them and will only be fetchable with 50% of your fetchlands, which are of course the ones you're not holding right now) to be able to actually play them.

As much as I'd love to run some cool new gimmick, I'm afraid we're not getting it with this set which is sad :( since goblins seemed to be a big part of the flavour of Jund, and I really got excited when they released the rare razerunners and goblin-eating dragon in conflux since it could mean we'd get more!

from Cairo

04-25-2009, 04:41 PM

Engineered Explosives seems like a much safer card to run than Maelstrom Pulse. Since it can randomly be used to hit problem stuff like Engineered Plague, Crucible of Worlds or Lorescale Coatl, but even if you're being kept off EE@3, you can always hold back a fetch or dual in hand to hit EE@2 and it deals with the largest problem, Tarmogoyf.

Admittedly it doesn't answer Elspeth or Humility though, which are both gigantic pains in the ass if they get online.

Ectoplasm

04-25-2009, 09:14 PM

Luckily though, we still have krosan grip :)
Often, you can just build up a giant force against humility, cast K grip at EOT and swing for the win in your own turn.
And yeah, elspeth is horrible. It means you're going to have to overextend just to be able to deal with the infinite chumpblockers and run into a wog as a result, assuming you're talking about landstill.

That being said, I'm not going to call our landstill matchup unfavorable. It's probably the most even matchup goblins has (goblins being a deck of extremes, either completely raping in some matchups and losing 99% in others) pretty much depending on your starting hand, since you'll be left unchecked for the first few turns and if you start with say, a lackey or a vial and some meat to drop after it you can do just fine, even in the face of humility. It's a matchup where rishadan ports shine.

Malchar

04-26-2009, 12:16 AM

What's the consensus on Blood Moon? I've played Goblins for a long time but lately became dissatisfied with the cards available. Razerunners turned out to be not as great as I thought, and I sidelined the deck for a while. It just feels weird to play a red deck that doesn't use Blood Moon. I think the best bet would be to try proactive solutions against things that stop goblins. Moon can shut down Deed or other large bombs. At the very least, it will probably buy a turn, which puts you ahead if you have board control. Other more proactive cards could be lightning bolt or, one of my favorites, pyrostatic pillar. All of these cards also help to set you up for a possible mono-red build or at least a single-color-splash build.

gamegeek2

04-26-2009, 09:36 AM

Magus is probably better, since it's uncounterable with Vial, and lots of decks splash removal and won't have access to their removal colors.

ScatmanX

04-26-2009, 10:15 AM

Either way, they don´t fit. We don´t have accel to drop them before turn3, and again, they´re non goblins. Bolt is the only usable, but then I guess it would suit better in different versions of the deck, like a goblin burn build, like I posted 3 or 4 pages back.

Why are you afraid of spot removal? We have bazillions of goblins, and a lot of CA with that. Even WoG shoulden´t be a big concern...

FoulQ

04-26-2009, 10:58 AM

Magus is probably better, since it's uncounterable with Vial, and lots of decks splash removal and won't have access to their removal colors.

This is what makes things interesting. I question: with vial, if you vial it in, and the opponent does not respond to tapping the vial, isn't it too late for them to float mana when you put magus of the moon in play? If so, that makes it slightly better. ETA: Alright thank you I was just doublechecking things.

Both are eh for the deck. Not terrible, but...not really great either. If you played in a small metagame I'd throw it in once in a while for surprises. But otherwise I and it seems others agree that it isn't so hot.

georgjorge

04-26-2009, 11:00 AM

I question: with vial, if you vial it in, and the opponent does not respond to tapping the vial, isn't it too late for them to float mana when you put magus of the moon in play?

You're right, they can't float mana if they let the Vial ability resolve.

Avatara

04-27-2009, 02:02 PM

Ever tought about Lightning Greaves? Reusable haste & shroud can't be that bad.

Eldariel

04-27-2009, 02:06 PM

You're right, they can't float mana if they let the Vial ability resolve.

The more interesting implication is being allowed not to Vial anything in if you tap it and they do float. So if they seem to be expecting Magus and floating White for StP or Blue for Hydroblast, you can play tricks on them.

Melman

04-27-2009, 02:21 PM

Ever tought about Lightning Greaves? Reusable haste & shroud can't be that bad.

It's not a goblin, it equips at sorcery speed (making it fairly useless for protection), warchief already gives your guys haste. Pretty terrible in goblins.

Avatara

04-27-2009, 04:47 PM

It's not a goblin, it equips at sorcery speed (making it fairly useless for protection), warchief already gives your guys haste. Pretty terrible in goblins.

In the games that I've played Warchief doesn't live very long. If it does you are prolly going to win. Your opponents know that and will do everything to destroy it.

Opponents don't always have mana free to answer your creatures during your turn... but he will have as soon as it's his untap phase. It's not like your opponent can keep all his mana available versus a deck with 30+ threats in it.

It's obvious that you haven't even tested it at all. I've been play testing it for two days and no it isn't terrible in goblins. Goblins love haste... and your opponents fear it. Yeah sure it's no ultimate protection but it's prolly as good as protection for Goblins will get. As long as you have goblins Lightning Greaves is never a useless card. Nothing wrong with a Warchief, Sharpshooter or Wort that can't be targeted... :cool:

Something funny that I pulled off:
1st turn: Aether Vial
2nd turn: Lightning Greaves, Tap Vial for Lackey, Attach Greaves and attack.

My experience is that it puts a lot more pressure on enemies. It makes you more dangerous in every stage of the game. Constant pressure... isn't that what Goblins wants to do?

Ectoplasm

04-27-2009, 06:21 PM

If lightning greaves was the supersecret tech everybody would play it right now. Go ahead and try it, but most of the time you're going to be wishing you drew another goblin instead.

Melman

04-27-2009, 06:41 PM

In the games that I've played Warchief doesn't live very long. If it does you are prolly going to win. Your opponents know that and will do everything to destroy it.

It's redundant with warchief. Sure, they're going to kill warchief if they can. They also are going to kill lackey if they can. And your piledrivers if you have any number of threats out. And your goblin kings, if you play them or SBed them in, and they have mountains. They need to kill everything. They don't need to kill greaves.

Opponents don't always have mana free to answer your creatures during your turn... but he will have as soon as it's his untap phase. It's not like your opponent can keep all his mana available versus a deck with 30+ threats in it.

Warchief gives haste. As far as I know, this means you can use the guys you play on your own turn, before their untap phase, and before they have free mana to answer it.

Also, vialing stuff in EoT of their turn is as good as haste.

The deck plays plenty of ways to get around removal for a turn, so this is a ridiculous argument.

It's obvious that you haven't even tested it at all. I've been play testing it for two days and no it isn't terrible in goblins.

I've never tested it because I've played goblins long enough to know a bad card when I see it.

Goblins love haste... and your opponents fear it. Yeah sure it's no ultimate protection but it's prolly as good as protection for Goblins will get. As long as you have goblins Lightning Greaves is never a useless card. Nothing wrong with a Warchief, Sharpshooter or Wort that can't be targeted... :cool:

You know what's better than a warchief, sharpshooter, or Wort that can't be targetted? Two Warchief, sharpshooters, or Worts (In the case of wort, playing the second if the first dies).

Something funny that I pulled off:
1st turn: Aether Vial
2nd turn: Lightning Greaves, Tap Vial for Lackey, Attach Greaves and attack.

This is cool. This is also the only time I could ever see lightning greaves being a worthwhile inclusion. This happens like one in fourty-someodd games.
Lackey turn 1, incinerate their blocker turn 2?
Vial turn 1, Port a land turn 2 vial in lackey eot, king turn 3 attack with unblockable?
I mean, it's not like greaves is doing something that isn't already done better

My experience is that it puts a lot more pressure on enemies. It makes you more dangerous in every stage of the game. Constant pressure... isn't that what Goblins wants to do?

Again, it's not a goblin. Let's go through the reasons this is bad a thing. It's dead off ringleader. It can't be vialed in, meaning you have to spend mana playing it rather than wastelanded or porting your opponents lands or dropping another threat. It can't be put into play with lackey.
And, it's like the definition of not constant pressure. Try drawing a greaves turn 5 after you've emptied your hand and are looking for an incinerator, ringleader, or matron to bring in the guys again, and tell me that it's applying pressure.

FoulQ

04-27-2009, 07:30 PM

The more interesting implication is being allowed not to Vial anything in if you tap it and they do float. So if they seem to be expecting Magus and floating White for StP or Blue for Hydroblast, you can play tricks on them.

Exactly. This is why I think magus of the moon (but not necessarily blood moon) is a good call in small (SMALL) metagames once in a while. Sometimes you will play it sb, sometimes you won't, they have to play like you are because it can still wreck decks. The prospect of not playing it actually excites me more than playing it. But unfortunately most experienced players in larger metagames (or just ignorant players) aren't going to be expecting moons from goblins because they are somewhat uncommon.

Post some results with lightning greaves, then come back. I'm going to have to stand with the majority in that it probably is like a million other good cards that don't really fit in the goblin theme. Hell, greaves isn't even really a good card.

I think greaves is taking away from the thematic focus on goblins...goblins is not necessarily about the guys on the field. We have the superstar cards, but superstar cards are easily stopped by swords to plowshares. The deck leads others in many intangibles, such as in the tempo game and in the concept of "inevitability." Lightning greaves is more about speed and other garbage that goblins doesn't need, especially with how slow the meta is right now.

Malchar

04-28-2009, 11:27 AM

how about moon + goblin king? moon is the best red card in the game and probably the only non-goblin worth considering. it compliments the mana denial strategy that's already used in goblins.

as for having no acceleration, I don't think it's needed. goblins has a ton of early threats to put the opponent off balance. moon acts as a finisher when it comes down on turn 3 or 4.

if they're able to locate removal for it and plan ahead, then that's fine too. it's just another card that clogs up their mana and trades with a removal spell. combining it with goblin king makes it even more threatening, and the king himself isn't all that bad either.

true story

04-28-2009, 03:36 PM

I've been running 3 Goblin King MD for about a year and Blood Moon in the SB I love it! Something about screwing up mana bases and having unblockable dudes seems awesome. True Story. I know some people don't like the Goblin King but he really hasn't sucked for me although I admit he's prolly the weakest card in the deck at the moment. I like Blood Moon over Magus cause it doesn't die to STP, Smother, Snuff Out... you get the point. I know you can "vial" out Magus but he still dies way to often. Chances are your opponent will counter turn 1 Lackey, turn 2 Piledriver, turn 3 Warcheif whichs means there's a good chance Blood Moon will resolve turn 4, effectively screwing them over, hopefully, if they counter or answer all that shit you prolly ain't winning anyway...

As far as Greaves is concerned, I can see where it might be good... What happens mid game when you need a removal spell or another goblin to win and you top deck Greaves? The phrase sub-optimal comes to mind. Goblins has to push the tempo so you have to maximize the effectiveness of every slot. Basically every card has to be removal or a threat. You shouldn't be worried about saving a goblin, they die it's what they're made for, you should worry about bashing face, that to is what they're made for. True Story

Tacosnape

04-28-2009, 04:36 PM

@Greaves: Greaves is just a flat out shit awful idea. An equipment that grants haste and shroud. Whee. Let's dissect all the things wrong with this.

1. You already run eight creatures with haste, four of which grant everything in your deck haste.

2. You don't really need shroud, as your solution to removal is to Matron/Ringleader for multiple copies of things. Or just kill with other Goblins. No threat you have is so vital to the assault that it can't be done without.

3. Your guys don't really benefit all that much from haste. Not enough to warrant a slot specifically for this. The same is true of Shroud.

4. If you're going to run an equipment, why aren't you running Umezawa's Jitte, or something that's actually good?

@RBW: Vindicate is weak because you need both splash colors and because it's mana intensive. Also, RBW is a weak splash because White and Black both do the same thing for a large part: Removal and anti-combo.

It's also worth noting that the white splash doesn't offer you much that the green-and-black splash also offers. The point of the white splash is to be able to do -everything- in one color splash, albeit not the most effecient way possible.

FoulQ

05-04-2009, 04:04 PM

I have a really random question about affinity. Say you have a SB like this:

4 Combo Hate
3 Krosan Grip
3/4 Pyrokinesis or creature hate of your choice
3/4 whatever

Do you side in the grips and the kinesis? With vial, that is 10-11 nongoblins, and with most competitive builds playing 22-24 lands nowadays, that's a pathetic goblin count of 25-28 goblins. So just wondering what you guys do, I would think you'd want those ringleaders against affinity as your deck is slightly slower. (And I play 2 EE in the sb as well, maybe side those in too?)

A question like this may seem random and minor, but it will answer a lot of the issues I have with sideboarding with the deck.

Nessaja

05-04-2009, 05:07 PM

Pyrokinesis is a bad topdeck against Affinity, you would want it in your opening hand, but even then it's not that amazing. Just board in the Krosan Grips or don't board at all.

HdH_Cthulhu

05-04-2009, 05:25 PM

I play one Tin Street Hooligan and one Goblin Tinkerer in the SB.
Realy usefull, both have their advantages, so you search out the guy you need.

FoulQ

05-04-2009, 05:48 PM

Pyrokinesis is a bad topdeck against Affinity, you would want it in your opening hand, but even then it's not that amazing. Just board in the Krosan Grips or don't board at all.

Ok yeah, I've only played the match a couple times and both times pyrokinesis was rather dull. But I'm not sure if a 2G Vindicate is worth passing up on, or if 2 engineered explosives are worth passing up on, since I feel we are forced to play the control role in the matchup because there deck is faster but shallower. There are a also a lot of potential goblins to side out: weirding, lackey, piledriver come to mind immediately. I usually side out those three in some way depending on a lot of miscellaneous factors. I'm still undecided about the explosives though.

Shriekmaw

05-05-2009, 12:18 PM

Pyrokinesis is a bad topdeck against Affinity, you would want it in your opening hand, but even then it's not that amazing. Just board in the Krosan Grips or don't board at all.

I think Krosan Grip is not good at all against affinity and I would never board it in. I would probably just board in the pyrokinesis from the board and any tin streets.

I don't understand why you guys don't like pyrokinesis, since it deals with early blockers and kills disciple of the vault which is a very important card in the matchup. I've played this matchup on both sides of the fence and its pretty much a 50/50 spilt, so it can go either way.

true story

05-05-2009, 01:23 PM

The last time I ran into Affinity while playing Goblins I boarded in 3 Grips and 3 Null Rods. The Null Rods were in the board for combo hate and the off chance I played Affinity. It worked out great, the kid almost cried when the judge told him he couldn't tap his lands anymore. Has anyone else tried Null Rod?

sauce

05-05-2009, 01:37 PM

true story

05-05-2009, 01:49 PM

yeah i won off a null rod vs affinity before while playing a diff deck. its insane vs them.

I know it's the shit vs affinity, what about other matchups? I like it vs TES and other combos that use Lotus Petal, LED, Chrome Mox, it buys time while you bash face. I know they can still win but turn 1 Lackey, turn 2 Null Rod and drop Seige Gang off Lackey seems good? I'm just trying figure out if I should leave it in the board or look for something better.

FoulQ

05-05-2009, 07:03 PM

I personally prefer Chalice or Pillar. Chalice can also be sideboarded in against burn and sometimes traditional threshold lists if on the play, but most importantly it allows you to lay it for 0 and goldfish against combo. Pillar is good against ANT decks. I know nickrit2000 likes Pillar, and I've been testing it and it's alright. He is one of the few very experienced goblin players left on the forums, just look way back.

I feel chalice is superior to null rod because it stops lotus petal, LED, and Chrome Mox but costs 0 instead of 2. Also, I feel burn is more common than affinity, but that would technically be a meta call.

And I'm glad I've seen both opinions on affinity. That just makes me feel better about not being sure, haha.

Malchar

05-05-2009, 09:58 PM

pillar is extremely strong against ANT as long as you can play it fast enough. the opponent typically has to use mystical tutor/brainstorm or others to find a bounce spell to deal with it, all the while taking plenty of hits from the pillar and your field. again, the problem is playing it fast enough.

chalice @ 0 is a good compliment, usually buying enough time to drop the pillar. the biggest problem that I had while playing with these in my SB was that I really wanted to bring in chalice against thresh too. at that point, I wondered why not just have it be maindeck. before I knew it, I just wanted to play a stompy shell and then might as well make it dragon stompy.

in conclusion I would suggest a sideboard that looks something like this:
4 chalice of the void
4 pyrostatic pillar
3 or 4 engineered explosives/krosan grip
3 or 4 leyline of the void/relic of progenitus
~1 tutorable goblin utility (current favorite: goblin wizard)

without giving too much credit to the deck, i think that goblins is quite strong against everything except combo. there shouldn't be much need for answers to other decks. the generic enchantment removal and graveyard hate slots are all that are really needed.

true story

05-05-2009, 10:23 PM

For the record I've been playing goblins since The Dark, so I"ve got plenty of experience. I have to admit Nickrit2000 has played in way more tourneys with goblins then me and therefore has more experience vs a wide variety of decks. I usually bounce ideas of him when I see him. Nick I gotta get your number.

I was using 3 Null Rod and 3 Chalice in the SB. I used these in Vintage to stop combo so I figured I'd try it in Legacy. I figured if I open hand Chalice then I'd play it for 0. If I open hand Null Rod, hope I don't die turn 1 and drop it turn 2. Then I could could cast Chalice for 1 when/if I draw one. I went to game 3 against TES last time I played it. On the play I go turn 1 Lackey, and I'm holding Null Rod and Seige Gang(seemed good). He won on turn 1.... So I'm back to wondering? I know Chalice is the shit, I love it. I'm just wondering if there's something better than Null Rod to run with it. I like Null Rod because it rapes affinity as well, it seems since Master of Etherium came out there has been a slight rise in affinity decks. Still I wonder? If Nick says Pillar is good maybe I'll try it again, but it never did anything for me before, except against Suicide Black lol.

gamegeek2

05-05-2009, 10:44 PM

Null Rod is good against Affinity, indeed, but Affinity tends to dump its hand turn 2 anyways. On the play, it's obviously devastating. And if you seriously need to devote SB space to Affinity, you should probably play some sort of combo deck, or just not play goblins.

FoulQ

05-05-2009, 10:55 PM

@ TrueStory: Well tournament and testing experience, I'd rather go with tournament experience. Let's ask Nassif about that one.

The problem with Null Rod, Thorn of Amethyst, and Pyrostatic Pillar? Game 3. You will probably lose game 1, and even if you do win game 2, going second in game 3 puts you at a huge disadvantage. If you win game 2, your opponent knows exactly what your combo hate is (again, barring extreme luck), so they will make it their best effort to combo out in their first 3 turns (which is pretty esay for pretty much every combo deck facing no real disruption).

@ Malchar: the problem I have with your sideboard is there is nothing for the mirror. Especially at large events, there will always be goblins. I always see goblins, and things like pyrokinesis are good against other decks too. But of course SBs are always meta-dependent so I can't really judge. Right now I feel gy hate just dilutes the deck's strategy too much. Goyf troubles? Just run more weirding. Loam causing a problem? I'm really not afraid of that engine because I think it is overrated, but that's just me. The only deck you take a real banging from is ichorid then. But I don't give a shit about ichorid, to be honest.

My sideboard for rbg looks like this right now:
4 chalice of the void / pyrostatic pillar
2 engineered explosives
3 krosan grip
4 pyrokinesis
2 tin street (mainly for mirror but has other purposes) (also 1 maindeck)

The only problem I have is playing either pillar or chalice can be underwhelming by themselves, as already stated.

I know not having gy hate is controversial, but bringing in relics against goyf just seems like you are killing your ringleaders, and against loam and ichorid I mean whatever. It basically comes down to, rather win the mirror or ichorid?