I've always liked a singleton Thorn of Amethyst. It doesn't hose much outright, but it's an upgrade over some of your MD removal versus both combo and control archetypes.
I would still run Chalice of the Void and/or Mindbreak Trap to fill out my anti-combo slots.
Yuri is right.
Imagine this: both Chalice of the Void and Hive Mind are in play.
Now your opponent plays Pact of the Titan, which triggers both, Chalice and Hive Mind. The result is that the original Pact is countered by Chalice's triggered ability and that a copy of Pact is put on the stack. However, putting spells on stack does not trigger Chalice of the Void's ability, no matter what it's manacosts are. The copy resolves, which means that YOU need to pay it's upkeep costs.
MountainCaverns, Lackey, Go.
If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchanges our apples, we each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange our ideas, we each have two ideas.
It's counter-intuitive, but Chalice only counters spells, not COPIES of spells, because Chalice only triggers when a spell is cast. So, with a Hive Mind and a Chalice in play, your opponent would cast a Pact for 0. The Hive Mind trigger and Chalice trigger would go on the stack in the order of your opponent's choice, but it doesn't really matter. Chalice counters your opponent's 0cc Pact, but the Hive Mind copy still goes on the stack under your control. Essentially your Chalice @ 0 makes it EASIER for your opponent to win, because they no longer have to worry about paying the pact upkeep since YOU countered their Pact. But you still have to pay YOUR pact upkeep since your copy wasn't countered.
@Thorn of Amethyst
Here's a sideboard I've been thinking of...
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Red Elemental Blast/Pyroblast
2 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Anarchy
1 Stingscourger
1 Sharpshooter
1 Tuktuk
MonoR sideboard. Relic fights graveyard and Goyf/Mongoose
REB fights Snapcaster, Show and Tell, draw spells
Thorn slows down All combo
Chalice slows down Storm combo and can blow out RUG when played at the right time.
Anarchy kills Maverick, Moat, Humility, Angels
And utility goblins work wherever you need them
There's not really enough room in 15 cards to consistently fight combo, so paint with a broad brush.
been to a ~45 people tournament and went pretty well, won 4 lost 1 and agreed on drawing the last one. I picked up the suggestion of somebody else few pages ago in this thread about cutting SGC. I removed the 2 SGC and 1 rishadan port since the mana curve became lower and I added 2 piledrivers and 1 chieftain. I wanted to be faster and less dependent on lackey/vial. They are great cards but we cannot rely EVERYTHING on them. That s why I dislike warren instigator. Too conditional, too many things have to go right in order for it to work properly and too many things you have to change in the decklist in order to give it a chance. Since I stopped playing WI I began to like gempalm and MWM again, 2 great goblins that I disliked in my WI times. Gempalm is the best removal that goblins have. The card advantage it gives is just so good. I wanted to exploit all power from this card so came the choice of playing cheaper goblins especially fanatic and MWM. Cheaper goblins also mean that I could put on some early pressure faster with piledriver. Moreover, I included a single matronable chieftain in order to capitalize on this early mass of goblins. With cavern of souls I cut pyrokinesis and tarfire to have all my removals uncounterable.
here is the list:
4 wastelands
3 rishadan ports
4 cavern of souls
11 mountains
4 aether vial
4 lackey
4 mogg fanatic
4 piledriver
3 MWM
1 Stingscourger
4 gempalm
4 warchief
4 matron
1 chieftain
4 ringleader
1 tuktuk
SB:
4 layline of the void
4 chalice of the void
3 pithing needle
1 REB
1 anarchy
2 cursed totem
I expected to see mainly mavericks and sneak and show.
I had unfavorable pairings: burn, doomsday, sneak and show, BUG, dredge and then sneak and show again.
I didn t take notes so I don t have a detailed report of whatsoever. However, some considerations:
-burn
I won the roll, G1: I kept a hand including MWM which slowed down his GOBLIN guide. Topdecked gemplalm, stabilized and won from there. There is to say he drew many lands this game. G2 I play chalice on 1 but he topdecks smashing to smithereens, he shoots my balls and wins right away. G3 I topdeck chalice, set it @1 and win before he can find an answer for it.
considerations: chalice is the best card you can have. However, I was surprised how good MWM and incenerator are in this MU. Moreover, having an horde early in game forces him to shoot at your piledrivers to remain alive meaning that he runs out of gas.
-doomsday
I won G1 and G2, the guy was new with the deck i guess so it was fairly easy. I had tons of mana denial both games so he was never able to go off.
-sneak and show
G1 was epic: I win the roll and start with an uncounterable T1 lackey. Turn 2 I attack with lackey drop a piledriver and play another piledriver. Turn 3 play chieftain and attack for 20. In these cases emrakul turn 3 is just awfully slow.
G2 I keep porting him and wasting so that he cannot play show and tell. besides I have tons of hate on the board: chalice @1, chalice@2, cursed totem and pithing needle on sneak attack. I win many turns after with a hardcasted gempalm that dealt 2 damage at the time. At the end of the game he showed me a hand with show and tell, emrakul, sneak attack and Echoing Truth.
considerations: It was silly of me to board in all that suboptimal hate. chalice doesn t do enough. The way to go is: mana denial, pithing needle, REB and of course early pressure. the strongest card they have against us is Griselbrand if they play it is basically game over. If you can find a second pithing needle and set it on that is golden.
-BUG
G1 I kept a 1 land (mountain) hand with vial and lackey. He forced my T1 vial and gastly demised the lackey. I didn t top deck a land for too many turns and I scooped. I hate these situations so much.
G2 He puts sume early pressure with a big tarmogoyf. he plays EE @1 and I have piledriver, lackey, vial down. When he blows it I have my vial @2. I was so silly (and hungry by that time) that I realized I had a piledriver in my hand too late. He wins a coulple of turns after at 1 life, if I had played piledriver off the vial I would have won probably. Shame at me, shame at me.
-dredge
I know he is playing dredge. G1 I keep a hand including a T1 fanatic. Turn 2 I play a topdecked lackey. Not enough, he goes off.
G2 I have 2 laylines in my opening hand, win. G3 I mull to 6 and find a layline, win. lucky bastard.
Last match we decide to draw. He is playing sneak and show so we played some games for fun (4 if I remember correctly) pre and post board. I won all of them. Really, I am surprised how much the little green men can deal with such a deck. The key in this MU is mana denaial, mana denial and mana denial. Ports were absolutely amazing. And uncouterable lackeys too.
All in all, I don t really know how many conclusions are possible draw. Especially because I paired almost only to combo, did very well against them and lost against the only non combo deck. Pretty weird. Nevertheless, the list felt very consistent and was able to put on early pressure. I was very happy to have more 2 mana drops. I matroned for gempalm, ringleader, chieftain and piledriver. I never missed SGC or tarfire probably also because of the MUs. Mana denial combined to early pressure was the key. cavern of souls wins games. I would like to have the 4th MWM, it is the collagen that boosts up the whole deck. Also, having many 2 drops seems to work very well. To do that, I think I m gonna move tuktuk to the sideboard, stoneforge is finally becoming less popular. I would also love to fit the 4th rishadan port but I am afraid on cutting too much colored mana.
My list is pretty much 95%+ similar to jrw too. I'm all for 2 MD pyrokinesis in the current meta. Sure it sucks against combo, but the sideboard fixes that. at least we're going to stick one up maverick/RUG/blade most of the G1s, and thats worth it for me.
Btw nice report! How on earth did he let you set chalice@1 and chalice@2 though? (referring to show and tell)...either he kept a really slow hand or he used his FoWs on other stuff you didn't mention.
By the way guys, I'm being beaten black and blue by this new deck that my friend proxied up, its todd anderson's hypergenesis & show deck that placed 5th in SCG Columbus.
The 4 Elvish spirit guide and 4 simian spirit guides mean they can cast a t2 cascade -> hypergen OR S&T WITH counterspell backup.
Any advice on how to beat this deck will be appreciated, I hate scooping when my only play is cavern lackey go.
Last edited by movingtonewao; 06-07-2012 at 08:16 AM.
@movingtonewao: I honestly don t remember which goblin he countered, but I am sure he countered some threat, that s why I manage to have on board only a single incenerator beating him slowly.
I'm liking your thoughts on a sideboard.
I looked back at the most recent list you posted, and I'm not sure that the one copy of Stingscourger in the 75 is enough. I find it to be a pretty big blow out, particularly as long as Show and Tell is popular. Given the success of a Hypergenesis deck this past weekend, I have a feeling we're going to see more fatties in the near future.
Speaking of Hypergenesis - I'm not sure what our plan should be against them. I imagine that it will be a lot like playing against TES or LED Dredge in that we will just have to hope that they can't go off until we can get some hate in place. Chalice at 0 and Thorn of Amethyst are probably equally useful for slowing them down.
**EDIT: How has 20 lands been for you?
Chalice @ 0 shuts off Hypergenesis pretty badly.
Thorn of Amethyst makes them pay 4 for their cascade spell (unless it's the creature) and 1 for the spell they cascade into. 5 mana in total. That's pretty harsh on a deck that only runs 15 lands.
And, of course, you can always just run their fatty over with a huge wave of goblins if they don't manage to generate haste. Stingscourger helps.
I played a couple of games vs. Maverick and made the same experience. If you got enough power for removal you don't need anything else. I also came to the conclusion to cut artifact removal from the MD.
Quick question: can mogg-fanatic replace Tarfire?
with cavern of souls he is uncounterable and you can cast him without a red source
he can fight jitte
he hits most targets tarfire also solves, except for SFM-which I haven't seen in a longer while
he synergieses with incinerator, sharpshooter and piledriver
Gobbos: Kings of flavortext!
I have a question regarding Cavern of Souls:
I found that I sometimes would like to have a mountain instead of Cavern. I see that most decklists play Cavern as a 4-of. I was thinking about the following manabase:
3 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
14 Mountain
Reasons: I don't always want a Cavern in my starting hand, I like to draw Cavern mid/ late game when I really need a goblin to be uncounterable and I think it makes the manabase so much more stable.
What do you guys think?
For me this question was always: can tarfire replace fanatic? and my answer is no. Difference between body and spell is too huge in tribal deck and that is main reason why I play fanatic. Would you keep hand with only tarfire as one-drop aganist RUG? Would you keep same hand with fanatic?
"2 damage to target" versus "attacking/blocking creature/1 damage to target"
I'll take this opportunity to write a brief history of my manabase.
I used to run 22 lands in a Rb list, and that included Ports and fetches. I liked that fetches were able to thin out the deck so I never got too flooded in games. Port was very useful and more likely to lock out opponents. The format was slower then. Zoo was the most popular deck and Reanimator had just won a Legacy GP.
But times change. Black splash seemed less and less impressive with all the equipment and SFMs that started running around a while ago. Weirding just was underwhelming against Jitte and Germs. It was too slow to keep Jitte offline and did very little against active SFM + Batterskull.
Also, less Reanimator was being played, making Weirding weaker. And WW was never very good against RUG decks with Spell Snare and Spell Pierce.
The sideboard cards for Black kinda fell out of favor too. Many of the creatures you want to kill with Perish can also be killed with spot removal, Relic, and Anarchy.
So why play a B splash? It exposed me to Wasteland and Stifle and manascrew but did nothing to really help that couldn't be done in monoR.
So I cut B.
It became clear that Port wasn't pulling its weight either. The curve in the Meta has gotten ridiculously low. SFM could be activated in response to a Port, burn laughed at Port, and once again, Port exposed me to manascrew.
I eventually went to just mountains and wastelands. I lowered my manacurve (Fanatic, Tarfire, and Pyro instead of Weirding) to compensate for running fewer lands. I contemplated playing fetches still, but when I ran the numbers on how they effect Ringleader reveals. It turned out that I would need to resolve 4 fetches before a Ringleader in order to make drawing 3 or more goblins more likely than drawing 2 or less. Essentially, fetches are a long run Sylvan Library. You need to pay 4 life to draw 1 extra card. That's just not worth it. I couldn't justify running fetches in a monoR deck.
When Cavern of Souls was spoiled that sealed the deal. That card is an auto 4-of and I couldn't see exposing myself to the manascrew that could come with it. Cavern, which is great with creature cards, is an awful mess when you have Weirding or Gempalm in hand. Playing a deck with Mountains, duals, Wastes, Ports, Caverns, and fetches just doesn't work. Goblins has a ridiculously high curve for Legacy and sooner or later you're going to have to tap out and cast some spells. That's hard to do when your Badlands and Caver have been Wasted, leaving you with 2 Ports.
Summation:
4 Wasteland
4 Cavern
12 Mountain
Color splashes don't work well with Cavern and aren't very powerful.
Port is underpowered.
Fetches don't do anything in a monoR deck.
I'm not saying this is the definitive word on Goblin manabases, but this essentially reflects my experiences with the deck.
Crazy and potentially janky idea incoming, but what about Phyrexian Metamorph for the maindeck? It answers Jitte, Batterskull, Show and Tell, Hypergenesis and can help to stop a Goyf onslaught. Otherwise, it copies a Ringleader, Matron or Siege Gang. They can't even remove your creature in resp because you will just copy something else, remember it doesn't target. Haven't tested it yet, perhaps it doesn't pan out but it sounds quite decent in theory.
Team R&D
I don't think Goblins is the best shell to take advantage of Metamorph's utility. The fact that Goblins has it's Matron/Ringleader engine already opens it up to running some on-tribe utility to combat these issues (see: Tuktuk Scrapper and Stingscourger). It doesn't take advantage of Lackey/Instigator or Goblin Warchief. Metamorph is definitely a well positioned card though, it could be worth testing maybe it's utility would overcome the lack of synergy.
I found Port very promising in my last testings. Especially since it can be supported with colorless mana all the time. Playing Cavern of Souls and Vial into T2 Port, let's you tick up vial and mana screw your opponent. With 4 of fanatic you can also put a goblin into play that might take care of Hirach or similars.
I came down to something like this:
4xCavern
4x Wasteland
3x Port
10x Mountain
4x Vial
4x Lackey
3x Piledriver
4x Warchief
4x Matron
4x Ringleader
2x SGC
4x Fanatic
4x Incinerator
2x Stinger
1x Pyrokinesis
1x Sharpshooter
1x MWM
1x Skirk Prospecter
Gobbos: Kings of flavortext!
IMO it's very difficult. On the one hand, Port can be the gamebreaker in some matchups and like wasteland 5-X. On the other hand you have to decide if you want to have opening hands with CoS and Port to draw a Wasteland as the third land.
So the question isn't how many Ports we want to play. The question should be, how many non-goblin-creatures we play mb/sb and how often we need RR for example. In a built with Tarfire, Chieftain and Warchief, I don't like Ports because of the high count of nonmountains.
Fanatic: Depends on meta. More SM and Delver = more Tarfire. Less SM and Delver = less Tarfire.
Metamorph: I like this card. I remember the day, I defeated a Goblindeck playing Lackey into SGC, by playing 2 Metamorphs copying the SGC in my Merfolkdeck. But I don't see this guy in Goblindecks. It isn't a Goblin (Ringleadercount) and can not be searched by a Matron. If you want to haves answers against opponent's fatties or equipment, Scrapper and Stingscourger are better.
Last edited by Pee-Dee-2; 06-08-2012 at 07:31 PM.
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