[Deck] Goblins

[ScatmanX]

Puzzle time 1:
I simply don't think this can be done like this. Lands deck differ a lot from one to another, and this is a SB game, so you would be able to see what he brought up. Also, I don't know exactly how the board is and how his grave looks like. Deal is depending on the situation there are multiple different acceptable answers. Maybe Tabernacle might be the right choice. Maybe Wastelands. Maybe Grove or P.Fire. Maybe Loam. Probably Loam. With a Stage into play and a Depths in the grave, I'd be inclined to take either Loam or more Depths, because that can kill you in a couple of turns, whereas the rest can mostly stall.

Puzzle 2: Gezz, this is a tuff one. That fetchland really screws your scry. I would resist all my urges and not crack it T1, to draw the Waste and then play Lackey, hoping to draw a 3rd land to Blood Moon him out of the game. Still, maybe Lackey would have won you the game, or maybe he would play a blocker and you'd never find a 2nd or 3rd land. Either way, I think you'd need to be lucky with either line of play to win.

Elves: My side out would be 4 Vial, 3 Ringleader, 1 Piledriver for 4 Shooter, 3 Needle, 1 Squad. Imo the early interaction from Therapy is good here. They're too fast. Vial is too slow, and since you don't run Ports and only 2 Wastes, I don't think it pull it's weight (you would have won G2 without that Vial as well as soon as the 2nd shooter hits play). Since you have 4 Shooters and 4 Matrons I don't think you need Ringleaders to find them, and this is not a MU you need to refill resources. Once you're ahead, they'll either Natural Order a Progenitus and try to kill you, or they'll just lose. And because of that a 2nd Squad comes in.

Congratz again there. I do think the RB list is better suited nowadays. But we do need to figure out how to improve Shardless MU, because it is quite a hard one.

[ProBlue]

GoboLord, thanks for posting those last two reports! I've been absent from Goblins and Legacy as a whole for some time now and I was wondering what builds people were using in the current meta.

I have a question about the second decklist you posted, the one from Dortmund, GER... The mainboard seems to be incomplete (short 2-3 cards) and the manabase is listed at 22 with 23 lands listed. I really like this decklist as I've favored the Black splash in the past so I'm curious what your exact 75 was. Also, you mention Mogg War Marshall in game 2 against the Elves player and none are present in your list, is that possibly the 2-3 missing cards?

Thanks again for posting and keep up the good work!

[GoboLord]

Good catch, thank you. I corrected the decklist. It's
-1 Mountain
+3 Mogg War Marshal

[GoblinTurkey]

I played at the SCG Legacy Open Saturday. I don't think there were many other if not any other goblin players other than me.

I brought the same list I brought to my local legacy tournament with the addition of one extra red fetch land.


Goblins

Creatures
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Warchief
3 Goblin Piledriver
2 Skirk Prospector
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Lightning Crafter
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Stingscourger
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Goblin Settler

Other Spells
4 Aether Vial
3 Blood Moon
1 Tarfire

Lands
4 Cavern of Souls
3 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Arid Mesa
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Mountain
2 Plateau

Sideboard
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Boartusk Liege
2 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Wear // Tear
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Rest in Peace
2 Containment Priest
3 Chalice of the Void



My matchups were terrible sadly, I didn't see one Miracle deck despite there being so many in the top 32.

Here were the games:

Match 1: Storm 2-1
Game 1:
They manage to go off, I lose.
Game 2:
I lock them with a vial on 2 with Ethersworn Canonist in hand. I then hard cast Leyline of Sanctity. I win.
Game 3:
I get my opponent to six life. They try to go off but can only count to nine (non lethal), so instead Empty the Warrens for 13 goblins. I top deck a Krenko and win.

Match 2: Reanimator 2-1
Game 1:
Turn one Griseldaddy. Scoop before playing anything.
Game 2:
Put in lots of hate. Manage to turn 2 Chalice of the Void, and then play Rest in Peace.
Game 3:
Keep a hand with double Chalice, Ancient Tomb and Wasteland. Keep though sketchy. Draw the land and play turn one Chalice on 1 and turn 3 Chalice on two. Opponent scoops.

Match 3: RUG Delver 0-2
Game 1:
Kept a bad hand, hoping to draw second land. Don't draw it, he beats me with a goyf.
Game 2:
Mulligan to 5 with no cavern of souls, lose to counter magic.

Match 4: Burn 0-2
Game 1:
Burn is terrible for Goblins. He wins.
Game 2:
Draw no sideboard and mulligan to 5. He keeps 7. He wins.

Match 5: Elves 2-1
Game 1:
Sharpshooter is a house. I win.
Game 2:
He Hoofs for a billion damage.
Game 3:
This was one of my favorite games. Kept a double vial hand with matron, warchief, canonist and priest. I play first vial and then second vial. Proceed to clear board with Sharpshooter and win game.

Match 6: Mono Red Fringe Thing 0-2
Game 1:
Bad against burn. Lose.
Game 2:
Get chalice on one, draw 6 lands and lose.

Match 7: America Stoneblade 1-2
Game 1:
The Batterskull was real and multiple swords to plowshares.
Game 2:
He draws poorly and I manage to remove all threats. I win.
Game 3:
Drew lots of land and no spells. Lose.

DROP

Overall I found my experience playing fun. The problem was that I played my bad match ups for the first 4 games (funny enough I beat Storm and Reanimator). I wished I had played more Miracle decks (should have tied a game I guess).

I am terrible against burn and mono red decks, does anyone have any recommendations?

[Olaf Forkbeard]

You have 2 Leylines, and 3 Chalice's. That's more than most of us are packing against burn. I also find the match-up to be in their favor.

You can Wasteland targeting itself to remove it from play in response to Price of Progress. In the same vein, leave it untapped as often as possible to waste yourself for the same scenario, or to tag a Barbarian Ring.

Thalia get's bolted immediately if you have her. Which is great news, as that is not your face.

Just block with everything. Do not let the extra damage get in. Absolutely chump a 1/1 into a 2/2. Everything is contextual, but this rule has helped me a lot in testing.

About the only thing you can control is incoming creature damage, so mul for hands that can mess with that.

Consider adding a Umezawa's Jitte to your board for Grindy match-ups.. and burn.

Pray.

[MattPruner]

I went to SCG Somerset with Goblins, and went 3-4 Drop. I've not written a tournament report before, so this should be intresting.
Decklist:
2 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
3 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 AEther Vial
1 Kolaghan's Command
2 Badlands
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Mountain
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
1 Stingscourger
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Tarfire
3 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
3 Mogg War Marshal
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
SB: 1 Kolaghan's Command
SB: 4 Cabal Therapy
SB: 3 Pyrokinesis
SB: 3 Chalice of the Void
SB: 3 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 Tuktuk Scrapper


Round 1: Iisac on Reanimator (0-2)
Game 1
Iisac opens with fetchland pass, i open with port -> vial. End of turn Entomb, untap exhume inkwell leviathan. I quickly died to the beats. I didnt play out any red sources, hoping he would think i was on Death and taxes and sideboard wrong.
Game 2
Almost exactly the same as the first. My hand has vial and two relic of progenitus, but my relics are answered by a pithing needle naming relic. turn 2 inkwell, followed up by a turn 3 elesh norn. This time i also didnt play a red souce. After the game, i revealed i was on goblins, he confirmed he did sideboard for death and taxes. The entire match was over in less than 8 mins.

Round 2: Sam on Death and Taxes (2-0)
Game 1
I win the die roll and start with port -> vial again. So does Sam. i untap and get to play my first red source of the event. Vialed in lackey gets hit with Swords to plowshares. He plays Stoneforge, searching for jitte, but i get too much going and kill the jitte with a tuktuk scrapper.
Game 2
No vials this time, but turn 1 lackey connects to put in warcheif. the rest of the game goes pretty standard. Sam said he had never played the matchup before, and i did not seem to know at all what to play around. Scrapper and Sharpshooter both caught him completley off guard and were total blowouts.

Round 3: Mike on Esper Stoneblade (2-0)
Game 1: I am on the play. Mike mulligans to 6, then forces my t1 vial, pitching True-Name Nemisis. He lands Stoneforge on 2, Searching for Batterskull, but i kill it with tarfire and quickly overwhelm him with piledriver and a few friends.
Game 2: Mike is on the backfoot all game, i have vial on turn 1 and 2, and multiple wastelands. my tuktuk scrapper takes out a jitte, and i am pretty ahead. With Mike at 5, I overextend abit into a supreme verdict, leaving me with nothing but 2 lackeys in hand, some lands, and vials on 3 and 4. i manage to topdeck a warcheif and put him at 1. He follows up with Engineered Plague, leaving me with a 1/1 lackey. I draw a land, and attack for 1. he plays snapcaster as an ambush viper. he draws stoneforge, searching up batterskull. i have 1 land in hand. this is bad. i draw.... my second tuktuk scrapper! he flashes the batterskull in end of turn, and i get to vial in the scrapper to destroy it an deal him the lethal point of damage. Kind of a cool way to kill, i think it was the first time i got to deal lethal with a scappers trigger.

Round 4: Devin on Miracles (2-1)
Game 1: I had seen Devin playing earlier, so i knew what he was playing ahead of time. Turn 1 lackey was hit with swords, but cavern let me push everything else thru, and was ahead the whole game. He entreated for 3, but stingscourget took out 1 and incenerator took out another. The other one had to block a piledriver, and then he died.
Game 2: I legit have no idea what happened this game, but im pretty sure i lost this game. i kinda remember dying to a fast mentor. My lifepad/notes only show two games tho, but i remember filling out the slip 2-1 at the end.
Game 3: Super long and grindy, with multiple ringleaders, multiple swords to plowshares, and multiple terminus. At one point i attack with a lackey, and he flashes in a containment priest, which i get to kill with pyrokenesis. He didnt know that card exsisted, and it totaly caught him off guard. I get to put in a ringleader to fill my empty hand. I grind him down super slow, and manage to swing for exactly lethal on turn 4 of extra turns.

Round 5: Jordan on Reanimator (0-2)
Game 1: Man, i was really hoping to not play against this at all, and now i get paired against it twice? And both the guys i came with also have losses to reanimator at this point. Apparently there is more of this deck around than i thought. Game 1 i keep a two vial hand, and draw a third vial. he has a quick elesh norn, and beats in for a few turns while i fail to find a stingscourger.
Game 2: turn 2 griselbrand gets bounced by a stingscourger, and then my field is killed by an elesh norn. He exhumes a few turns later to get griselbrand back, which lets me bounce a guy with stingscourger, which is pretty funny, but i am still just dead. I saw jordan still playing pretty late into day two, so apparently he did quite well.

Round 6: BUG (0-2)
Game 1: I forgot to write down my opponents name this round. My vials and lackeys were no match for his double Deathrite Shamans and Double Goyfs. I quickly die.
Game 2: This time there is only 1 Deathrite, but there are still two goyfs. Hand of tarfires didnt match up well against the goyfs, and i die quick again.

Round 7: Lands (0-2)
Game 1: I keep a fast hand, but not as fast as his turn 2 Marit Lage.
Game 2: Same thing, but abit slower. i get some beats in, he gets a big beat in. The highlight of this match was a nice discussion about adventure time, brought on by his floop the pig token. At this point both of my carmates are dead (zoo went 0-4 and Death and Taxes went 1-5) so i dropped and we went to the ruby tuesdays down the street.

Overall i was super happy with my maindeck. Kohlagan's Command is insane. I would play more but it's rough with not being a goblin and all. The one in the board comes in alot tho and does work, especially. vs Stoneforge decks. The sideboard on the other hand felt like it had alot of issues, and chalice did nothing for me all day. I also played this exact list at the Legacy IQ at the Only Game in Town the night before, dropping at 3-3 so me and my carmates could go sleep. This event was completley stacked, with lots of big players showing up. According to the Open Series coverage, 8 of SCGs top 16 players on the leaderboard were at this event. Unfortunatley, i didnt take notes, but I did play a match aganst joe bernal on Stoneblade that was the most fun match i played all weekend despite losing. I also got to beat my carmate Sam on Death and taxes (not the Sam on Death and Taxes i played in the open) a few rounds earlier, which which was satisfying.
The weekend was super fun overall, and i managed to trade for/buy all of ANT (big props to alter reality games, they had an awesome booth at the event) A+ weekend overall.

[Stevestamopz]

My current list has 3 containment priests in the board because I can't stand losing to the "derp I win" decks like Reanimator/Sneak and Show. Oh well, thems the beats when you decide to play a deck with Goblin Ringleader in it.

If you haven't already, check out our Goblins facebook page. We're like the TES page, except 1/10th the size or something

[jrw1985]

@MattPruner - Your losses to Reanimator and Lands might have been avoided had you ran a maindeck Warren Weirding or a second MD Stingscourger. They give you more outs to fatties and Stingscourger off Vial is about our only way to beat a Merrit Lange. You could shave a Tarfire or Gempalm to make room for it. I've been running 2 Stingscourgers and they are amaze-balls. First off, no-one expects you to run 2 in the Main, so the second one is a real blowout. Secondly, they're still very good against Goyfs and Midrangey decks so they are a close replacement for Gempalm or Tarfire.

To shore up the Reanimator and Lands MUs I've been a big fan of Surgical Extraction in the board as well. You could easily fit that in by cutting a Therapy or Relic and playing 2 Extractions. Actually, i'm not sure you need Relic at all. The only deck that Relic is REALLY good against is RUG Delver, but you should be able to beat them with plain-old MWM chumps + Chalice.

BUG is a rough MU but they have a very difficult time beating a Krenko, so getting him on the board and activated should be a priority. Also, if you are up against Shardless BUG remember that you are the beatdown and keep turning your guys sideways. Relic isn't nearly as good against BUG as it is against RUG since BUG isn't putting a clock on with Goose, and DRS can play through a Relic with ease.

[jrw1985]

How do you all feel about Surgical Extraction against ANT? I side it in generally and it is terrible. Or am I doing it wrong? I usually sandbag it to try and hit a PiF or disrupt a Tutor chain, but that doesn't seem to work very well.

[Chatto]

@ Gobolord:

#1: take away the Dark Depths will mean a slow wincon (Punishing Grove). Loam is irritating, but it will only stall you. Besides, you have Vial, and potentially can overrun your opponent.

#2: it really depends on the line of play you wish to follow. I probably would just leave Wasteland on top, fetch a mountain, and play Goblin Lackey.

@ jrw: I never played SE in Goblins, but it feels suboptimal. If you can hit a PiF, well... you're usually too late. That means you just gave him a free Storm-counter. Hitting a tutor can be a blow-out, but usually just slows them down. Paired with a fast clock this, of course, could be enough. I like a Chalice on 1 or Thorn better, because it means your opponent has to find an answer.

[ScatmanX]

@chatto:
#2, if you leave wasteland o top, then fetch, it's irrelevant because you're shuffling your deck. You're on the play.

@surgical vs ant: only bring it in if you have worse cards to take out. It's hard to make it work, and most of the times, it won't. I'd prefer Tormord's or nihil spell bomb against them, because with pif is quite easy to play around surgical.

[Chatto]

@ ScatmanX: that's what I imply: it's irrelevant to scry if you wish to play Lackey

[goblinpiledriver]

How do you all feel about Surgical Extraction against ANT? I side it in generally and it is terrible. Or am I doing it wrong? I usually sandbag it to try and hit a PiF or disrupt a Tutor chain, but that doesn't seem to work very well.

I go the chalice and earwig squad route, so SE usually would be dead in hand. Then again I do usually bring in my one cage, which would be dead with a chalice out. I guess SE requires you to wait around too long, whereas with chalice, cage, and squad you can and want to get down ASAP.

[jrw1985]

4 Vial
4 Lackey
4 Piledriver
4 Warchief
4 Matron
4 Ringleader

2 Tarfire
2 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Stingscourger

2 Skirk Prospector
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Lightning Crafter
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Goblin Sharpshooter

1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Earwig Squad

4 Cavern of Souls
3 Wasteland
2 Ancient Tomb
1 Chrome Mox

3 badlands
1 mountain
4 auntie's hovel
4 Fetch

SB
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Pyrokinesis
2 Blood Moon

I went 0-2 today running this list, but I really liked it regardless. I've been running a toolbox silver-bullet build for a while now and it occurred to me that I was missing out on Earwig Squad against Miracles and Combo by not running Black. I took out all but 1 basic Mountain and replaced them with Badlands and Auntie's Hovel. I saw no real downside because 1) we're susceptible to Wastelands even while running 12 Mountains and 2) I haven't seen recurred Wastelands in forever, ever, ever thanks to DRS bossing around the format. I guess I made my Burn MU worse but it was never very good to begin with and that deck isn't a big concern of mine.

Running Black allowed me to cut two narrow pieces of Combo hate from my SB (Mindbreak Trap and Pithing Needle) and replace them with a much better catch-all, Cabal Therapy. I wound up going 0-2 against two combo decks today and having Cabal Therapy was better than having MbT or PN in both matches.

R1 Big Red
G1 Lost
G2 hit his win cons with CT, hardcast an Earwig Squad and beat down with that for the W.
G3 Got T3'd

R2 Oops All Spells
G1 Prowled an Earwig Squad eliciting a scoop
G2 He went off my T0
G3 He sided into Belcher. I played CT T1 naming Lotus Petal, missed, he topdecker petal T1 and played Belcher, but didn't have the mana to go off. I tried to put on a clock but he found the last piece of mana he needed to kill me. Oh well.

Note on Oops, Pyrokinesis is a great card against them if they are on the GY plan because they need to sac Narcomoebas for Dread Return, but the Narc's GY to Battlefield ability still goes on the stack so you can Pyro 2-3 Narcs before they have the opportunity to DR anything.

Despite losing 0-2 and dropping I still thought my build was good. Earwig won both the games I won! I think I'll be on this build for a while.

[jrw1985]

Here's a list of the current DTBs and what I see as the silver bullet card in each matchup.

Team America - Krenko
Shardless BUG - Krenko
Miracles - Earwig Squad
ANT - Earwig Squad
Elves - Sharpshooter
DnT - Sharpshooter, Tuktuk
RUG Delver - None

BUG strategies just don't have an answer to Krenko since he's outside of Abrupt Decay range. An early Earwig strips Miracles and ANT of their win cons. Sharpshooter runs the board against Elves and DnT. The only MU where we don't have a strong goblin-shaped counter is RUG Delver. We just have to outplay them the old fashioned way. Clogging the board with MWM and getting CA with Gempalm both help, but there is no Goblin that they cannot just play around or Bolt.

[Humphrey]

How do you all feel about Surgical Extraction against ANT? I side it in generally and it is terrible. Or am I doing it wrong? I usually sandbag it to try and hit a PiF or disrupt a Tutor chain, but that doesn't seem to work very well.

depending on your sb suite and the amount of combohate its better to have extraction than tarfire or vial. its not a very good sb tech, but it can work. usually i extract rituals, brainstorms, fetches or duals.

[GoblinTurkey]

Here's a list of the current DTBs and what I see as the silver bullet card in each matchup.

Team America - Krenko
Shardless BUG - Krenko
Miracles - Earwig Squad
ANT - Earwig Squad
Elves - Sharpshooter
DnT - Sharpshooter, Tuktuk
RUG Delver - None

BUG strategies just don't have an answer to Krenko since he's outside of Abrupt Decay range. An early Earwig strips Miracles and ANT of their win cons. Sharpshooter runs the board against Elves and DnT. The only MU where we don't have a strong goblin-shaped counter is RUG Delver. We just have to outplay them the old fashioned way. Clogging the board with MWM and getting CA with Gempalm both help, but there is no Goblin that they cannot just play around or Bolt.

I run mainboard Blood Moons in my build. Shuts down RUG Delver pretty hard. So does Chalice on 1, Rest In Peace, and Pyrokinesis, Sudden Demise. Unfortunately it is true that we don't have a tutorable target for RUG, but Cheiftain or Boartusk Liege might be able to get you over the wall.

[ScatmanX]

It is not the easiest thing, but resolving a Squad against Canadian in an even board is a big step towards winning the game. Getting 3 Goyfs, or 3 Volcanic Islands, or their hate cards, is quite good.
Other than that, all agreed.

[jrw1985]

It is not the easiest thing, but resolving a Squad against Canadian in an even board is a big step towards winning the game. Getting 3 Goyfs, or 3 Volcanic Islands, or their hate cards, is quite good. Other than that, all agreed.

Good point about Squad v RUG. You can potentially hose those mana base with it, or just strip 3 Goyfs or Rough//Tumbles. Plus the 5/3 body is relevant as it forces a 1:1 exchange.

[Stevestamopz]

A bit of pimp for the thread.