[Psuedo-Article] Your Gauntlet for Columbus

[Artowis]

positive against any form of control

I hate when people say this crap. Just because some Control decks can't beat Goblins consistently doesn't mean they can't with a few modifications. It's a lazy way of thinking and will likely degrade prep you put into the format pre-GP.

[Amon Amarth]

I hate when people say this crap. Just because some Control decks can't beat Goblins consistently doesn't mean they can't with a few modifications. It's a lazy way of thinking and will likely degrade prep you put into the format pre-GP.

With a few exceptions, can't you say this about most decks?

[Artowis]

With a few exceptions, can't you say this about most decks?

I mean you can, but on the level I'm talking about I mean it'd be an easy fix. With the sheer amount of manipulation many Control decks run and the wide array of hosers they have access too, it's a lot easier to beat something along the lines of: "A linear swarm aggro deck with no reach outside of attacking". Where as other decks need to basically reconstruct a good portion of their maindeck or sideboard to deal with a similar kind of issue.

At it's core my statement can be taken as an indictment of lazy deckbuilding though, sure.

[Aggro_zombies]

Pat Chapin's article today (WARNING: Premium) is a thing of beauty. He basically gives the same criticisms of control I did, but explains it better.

@Amon: What he's saying is that, if you're a Goblins player, simply assuming you beat control because you're Goblins is a great way to get surprised buttsexed by control players who decided they wanted to beat Goblins. There are very few matchups in this format that are simply unwinnable for one of the decks involved (like, 90% against, say). Thinking you're fine because you get 60% against your average control deck leads to the sort of lazy deckbuilding Artowis mentioned, which means you won't have the sort of outs you should have had when your prey deck figures out the key to beating you.

EDIT: One example of this comes from Standard earlier this year, prior to Worldwake's release (IIRC). Jund at the time was basically the best deck in the format, and as such it began to focus heavily on beating the mirror by cutting cards like Maelstrom Pulse and Putrid Leech and trying to go big. It allowed a plethora of lesser decks to suddenly start beating Jund, because instead of running generally good cards those decks couldn't deal with, Jund was getting super inbred and top-heavy. Similarly, control isn't so good for Goblins that it can simply ignore the matchup; Goblins has zero reach and therefore is heavily reliant on being able to profitably attack. Decks like Lands that can shut that down will just roll Goblins, especially if Goblins players figure they're favored and therefore don't have to try.

[Amon Amarth]

I mean you can, but on the level I'm talking about I mean it'd be an easy fix. With the sheer amount of manipulation many Control decks run and the wide array of hosers they have access too, it's a lot easier to beat something along the lines of: "A linear swarm aggro deck with no reach outside of attacking". Where as other decks need to basically reconstruct a good portion of their maindeck or sideboard to deal with a similar kind of issue.

At it's core my statement can be taken as an indictment of lazy deckbuilding though, sure.

Ah, true enough. At least from a Goblins players point of view trying to metagame against "Control" is not worth it. Mostly because Control decks (aka CounterTop-Thopter, Landstill, etc etc.) don't really seem to be very prevalent although that may change after this last SCG Open. The other reason is that they all run different hate cards/sweepers/ etc. Are they running Humility or Firespout? Moat or WoG? BEB? Who the fuck knows; there doesn't appear to be a solidified control deck in this format. Yeah, sure, if I show up to an event and I'm able to do some scouting and it looks like everyone is playing EPlagues maybe I should roll with Krosan Grip in my sideboard, or Tranquilty. Otherwise I'm not going to try and play the guessing game and I would just rely on Vial+Wastes+Card Advantage to get me there.

@AZ: In the example you gave Goblins is only favored because they can profitably run things like PoP and or Moon in the sideboard. I don't think Goblins really has any innate advantage over Lands with the exception of its rock solid manabase, at least for Mono Red.

[Antonius]

goblins is a LOT better against lands than zoo. They can timing push through chasm with wasteland. They can timing push through mazes with ports. It's harder to dominate goblins with Tabernacle because they have so many basic mountains. EE doesn't hit as many things because their CC is all over the place. And they still have PoP and Moon in board. I'd much rather play against zoo than goblins.

[Brad Herbig]

Hey guys, take out your combo hate. You won't need it.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Control is an archetype, not a deck. Control beats whatever it was designed to control; that's why it's control. If you build a control deck to build Goblins, it will beat Goblins. There are lots of ways to do this. The problem with control is the decks you're not designed to beat, generally.

[FoulQ]

I think you people are a little crazy about goblin matchups. Goblins is not that well positioned. It had a great matchup against reanimator, this was true, and also against merfolk, and a favorable one versus bant lists, particularly CB ones.. However, both those two decks are waning in popularity for obvious reasons which does make goblins worse. Any aggro-control or control list depends on the list individually if it is good against Goblins more than anything, but I would say goblins has an even matchup with landstill and aggro loam, but definitely not positive...and even with zoo? I don't think so, it's unfavorable but winnable with skill. Goblins has a very bad matchup against lands, they just have to fetch out the right lands and its done...g1 is possibly even but lands sideboard hate against creatures is usually very stellar against goblins. Meanwhile, goblins has to get lucky enough (or mull enough to statistically make their deck worse) to get their hate early on (or mid for PoP) to screw the lands player. Guessing the hate is usually pretty easy, because moon and crypt will come down fairly early (since lands will go for loam right away most of the time and the goblin player needs to moon him before he is prepared) and PoP requires a large creature push, but a creature push that can have sacrifices. So the lands player can focus on killing creatures for awhile if he can see PoP coming, or let the life points slide to insure that moon and crypt don't wreck everything before they set up their sideboard hate (which is better later in the game usually).

It's not a good matchup at all, playing against lands is one of the last things I want to see.

Also goblins still has one of the worst matchups in the format against combo of most kinds.

I would not call goblins tier 1. Bant lists that predict it will have a favorable matchup (and people probably will predict a heavy goblins presence, everyone knows goblins is the most popular at the mega events), zoo has a favorable matchup especially since it is preparing for the mirror and aggro, most tier 2 decks that got a boost from ant/reanimator dying will have an even but most likely positive matchup (enchantress, loam decks, landstill, TES). So goblins might beat up on cheap merfolk players the first few rounds, but the decks played by the best players in the later rounds will make quick work of them.