[Deck] Goblins

[Gion]

Hi, i'm new of the forum, but i play goblin from 3 years, and i'm testing this list


2 rishadan port
4 wasteland
1 taiga
4 cavern of souls
3 arid mesa
2 bloodstained mire
5 mountain
2 plateau

4 lakey
4 matron
4 warchief
4 ringleader
4 aether vial
2 mogg war marshal
2 piledriver
3 restoration angel
2 gempalm
3 tarfire
1 siege gang commander
1 kiki jiki
1 sharpshooter
1 tin street hooligan
1 krenko
1 stingscourger

My biggest problem's that there's a lot of game i am in screw, so, on gobolord's council, i want try city of traitors or chrome mox. How i can change the list in your opinion to shift this problem? My metagame is built above all of midrange and time deck (canadian, bug, jund), and thera are not a lot of storm. Then there are the normal miracles and controls like that, but they're not a problem

Thenk for responses and sorry for my peculiar english, i'm working on it

[dissy]

Hey all!

Played in a legacy tournament yesterday 6 rounds played cools list and it went horrible haha!
I went 2-4.

Reanimator: Lost 1-2
Death and Taxes: Lost 0-2
BUG control: Won 2-0
Strange Lands Build: Lost 0-2
Elves: Won 2-1
Pox: Lost 1-2

I don't know if all my matchups were bad.
But i get the feeling that even our strongest play is easily countered by a stronger play of the opponent.
I took my goblins apart and rebuild it when the meta better fits for it or when the goblins get some new good cards.
For know its gonna be stompy or belcher. After a year of bad results iam giving up

[Bahra]

Hey guys I play a ton of D&T but sometimes I also play goblins. You're all tinkering a lot with Goblins but I find that a more or less traditional list gets the job done a lot of the time.

Yesterday I 4-0'd a Legacy daily with this list (the link is an old 4-0 though) http://www.mtgo-stats.com/decks/109770

And I'm currently 1-0 in a daily with it, beat Reanimator in round 1.

I will stream a daily or 2 with the list today at http://www.twitch.tv/bahra_

The dailies I will stream are 4 pm. CET and 8 pm CET.

I hope to see some of you Goblin enthusiasts in the stream! And please let me know in the chat if you came here from the source

[Wucherkater]

What do you guys think of Deflecting Palm ? Could be nice against Belcher or an attacking Emakrul/Progenitus.

[Olaf Forkbeard]

What do you guys think of Deflecting Palm ? Could be nice against Belcher or an attacking Emakrul/Progenitus.

Seems awfully narrow. Kind of like using Guerrilla Tactics to deal with Liliana of the Veil. I'd rather play an Oblivion Ring type card as it can come in off their Show and Tell, with extra applications.

[jrw1985]

I played a Mono-R deck to a 3-1 finish Wednesday which was the first time in about 6 tournaments where I did better than X-2.

List-

4 Cavern of SOuls
18 Mountains

4 Lackey
4 Vial
4 Piledriver
4 Warchief
4 Matron
4 Ringleader
4 Gempalm
3 Tarfire
2 Mogg War Marshal
1 Chieftain
1 Krenko
1 Tuktuk
1 Stingscourger
1 Squee

R1 - Miracles - Won both games easily. She had to mull to 6 both games.
R2 - RUG Delver - Won G1 despite some misplays. Attacked into a 2/3 Goyf with Warchief. I allowed damage to resolve before casting Tarfire. Had I cast Tarfire first Goyf would ahve been 3/4 when it took Warchief damage. Instead Goyf was 4/5 when it took warchief damage. Whoops. So i just chained Ringleaders together and completely clogged the board until I got the win. No need to worry about overextending G1. G2 he kept a greedy hand with Volcanic Island and Pithing Needle on Vial. Then couldn't find another land. So i just played a super slow game and built up my board very conservatively and got the W.
R3 - UW Stoneblade - I got him down to 1 life G1, then he got TNN with BS equipped and that was that. G2 looked pretty much the same. I needed 2 Tuktuks to bring in from the sideboard to fight the equipment and I could have won.
R4 - BUG Delver. G1 he got 3 6/7 Goyf, so I lost. G2 I boarded out Tuktuk and he boarded in Jitte, but I was able to use Gempalms to blast his creatures when he tried to equip Jitte. He miscounted the goblins in play at one point which allowed me to kill a goyf with gempalm and win the game. G3 I had Relics which I used to kill goyf after combat damage, which is always fun. Then I filled the board with Gobbos and got a Krenko activation for the W.

So I dodged combo. That was good. I also had no mana problems thanks to my bare-bones manabase. Gempalm Incinerator was MVP. Drawing that extra card helped me keep hitting my land drops. Ringleaders were great thanks to playing only Goblins and Vials and lands.

Instead of trying to make Goblins faster I made them slower but more resilient. Turns out that is a pretty good strategy against Tempo decks. Playing around Daze isn't difficult to do also. The only real T1 threat from Tempo is Delver, and you can always Tarfire it T2 instead of playing Vial or whatever.

I need to work on the sideboard though. Like I said earlier, add 2 tuktuks to the side would be great for the blade MUs and keep the Goblin count up. Aside from that I think Surgicals for Punishing Fire would be good, Relic is a House, and combo hate is always good too. The only question is what kind of combo hate to play, since Storm hate is pretty bad against SnT and vice versa.

Possible sideboard
2 Tuktuk
3 Relic
3 Surgical
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Pithing Needle
1 Thorn of Amethyst?

[Olaf Forkbeard]

I played a Mono-R deck to a 3-1 finish Wednesday which was the first time in about 6 tournaments where I did better than X-2.

Good Job. I'd play Eidolon of the Great Revel before Thorn of Amethyst against storm , if mono red, personally. How popular is Punishing Fire in your meta? 3 Surgical Extraction seems like a lot. I'm guessing really popular based on the mainboard Squee, Goblin Nabob, presumably for Liliana of the Veil in Jund.

I too have been in a slump- For a different reason. I've noticed, for my local meta, that If I show up every week I don't do as well. People simply play that 1 more Golgari Charm, or 1-2 Engineered Plague in board, Sneak and Show pushing Pyroclasm to 4 in board, etc. If I show up about once a month their main-deck and sideboards are slightly weaker towards me. They are all very good players, my area is very competitive, so those 2%er's make a huge difference. It annoys me that the meta grows so inbred so fast, I can't get as good testing done that way. People want to win I guess. My resolution is to roll a die and play Junk Depths or Goblins each week, because they require entirely different cards to fight.

[jrw1985]

Good Job. I'd play Eidolon of the Great Revel before Thorn of Amethyst against storm , if mono red, personally. How popular is Punishing Fire in your meta? 3 Surgical Extraction seems like a lot. I'm guessing really popular based on the mainboard Squee, Goblin Nabob, presumably for Liliana of the Veil in Jund.

I too have been in a slump- For a different reason. I've noticed, for my local meta, that If I show up every week I don't do as well. People simply play that 1 more Golgari Charm, or 1-2 Engineered Plague in board, Sneak and Show pushing Pyroclasm to 4 in board, etc. If I show up about once a month their main-deck and sideboards are slightly weaker towards me. They are all very good players, my area is very competitive, so those 2%er's make a huge difference. It annoys me that the meta grows so inbred so fast, I can't get as good testing done that way. People want to win I guess. My resolution is to roll a die and play Junk Depths or Goblins each week, because they require entirely different cards to fight.

Eidolon doesn't appeal to me because it doesn't do anything against Show n Tell. There are enough SnT decks that I feel sideboard slots against them are better than more Storm hate. And all Eidolon looks like to me is Storm hate. Thorn makes SnT cost 4, makes Sneak Attack cost 5, and makes Lotus Petal cost 1. I believe that is much more relevant than dealing 2 damage.

Punishing Fire is a real concern in my meta. My meta has a lot of Lands decks, and fairly regular Jund, plus a guy that plays Nic Fit with PF. So there can be lots of Punishing Fire at a tournament.

Squee is just too cute against Lilliana. He's also an inifite blocker against Goyf, and sometimes you just want to always have a blocker.

Sweepers haven't really been a problem for me too often. Pyroclasm has always been a card, but if you keep Goblins in hand you can recover. The only sweeper I really don't like is Toxic Deluge, cuz it is versatile enough to maindeck.

On running 18 Mountains - It felt good. The manabase was super sturdy and I think I'm going to stick with it for the next tournament. It's done very well against grindy decks, but I want to see how it is against the explosive decks of the format. I don't think it will make a huge difference G1, but it definitely changes how you can approach your sideboard. It makes the sideboard feel old cuz all your cards are colorless. No KGrip. No Thalia. :( And while racing combo is technically possible, it's still a T4 deck.

[GoboLord]

Hello fellow Chieftains,

I bought a Goblin Settler last week and played a small local tournament yesterday, finishing 3-1. The list:

MANA [22]
4 Cavern of Souls
3 Wasteland
3 Chrome Mox
2 Pendelhaven
9 Mountain
1 Snow-Covered Mountain

CORE [32]
4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Tarfire
4 Warren Instigator
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader

OTHERS [6]
2 Goblin Warchief
1 Stingscourger
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

Sideboard [15]
1 Chrome Mox
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Grafdigger’s Cage
2 Pithing Needle
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Boartusk Liege
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Goblin Settler


Round 1: Death & Taxes (1-2)
I won game 1 after some back and forth, which took about 20 minutes.

- 4 Piledriver
+1 Goblin Sharpshooter, +1 Tuktuk Scrapper, +2 Pithing Needle

In game 2 I took mulligan to 4 and got totally crushed.

Game 3 was awkward. We traded 2 Tarfires for 2 Mother of Runes. Then Pithing Needle shut down Sword of Fire an Ice. Another Tarfire burned Mirran Crusader. Tuktuk Scrapper shattered a Jitte. All that happed while Serra Avenger was constantly hitting me in the face. Then when I was at 5 life his board looked liked this:

6 Plains
1 Aether Vial (@2 counters)
1 Serra Avenger
0 cards in hand

My board was as follows:

1 Pendelhaven
2 Mountain
1 Goblin Matron
1 Goblin Lackey
1 Goblin Kiki-Jiki
In my hand: 1 Goblin Ringleader, 1 Goblin Sharpshooter

With Kiki-Jiki in play my plan was to get that Sharpshooter into play, copy it and take down ANY creature he was going to play. So, I had 2 options: play Sharpshooter and start the action next turn. OR copy Lackey, attack with both Lackeys and put Sharpshooter into play. Unfortunately, I chose option 3: copy Matron, fetch Stingscourger, bounce Serra Avenger and attack with the team. My plan failed, because he just tapped his Vial and blocked Lackey. 2 turns later Serra Avenger bit my face one last time.


Round 2: Rw CLASSIC Goblins (2-0)
G1: I get a Sharphooter online.
G2: My turn-1 Winstigator connects on turn 2 into Matron and Sharpshooter.


Round 3: BW Deadguy Ale (2-0)
In game 1 Kiki-Jiki, two Chieftain and some Tarfires apply so much pressure that he can’t spend mana to equip his creatures.

- 4 Piledriver
+1 Goblin Sharpshooter, +1 Tuktuk Scrapper, +2 Pithing Needle

I have a very good run and basically find answers to all of his threats right at the moment when I need them. Pretty lucky game.


Round 4: UR Sneak Show (2-1)
Game 1 I play Piledriver on turn 1 (which gets countered), then Chieftain on turn 2. My opponent play Show and Tell into Grieselbrand pn his turn 2. I put a Matron into play, fetching a Stingscourger. On my turn 3 I play Stingscourger. He responds by drawing 7 cards. Then I play a land and Goblin Piledriver to attack him for lethal.

-4 Tarfire, -1 Tuktuk Scrapper, -1 Goblin Sharpshooter, -1 Aether Vial, -1 Pendelhaven
+4 Chalice of the Void, +2 Pithing Needle, +1 Chrome Mox, +1 Goblin Settler

Game 2 I keep a fast hand with a Stingscourger in my hand. He kills me on turn 2 with Sneak Attack, Ancient Tomb and some Lotus Petals.

Game 3 I keep another fast hand without hate. On turn 4 I connect with 2 Lackeys and a Piledriver with Matron in my hand. I put Matron into play, fetching Kiki-Jiki, then copying Matron to search for Goblin Settler. I play Settler, destroy his Volcanic Island. Turns out he was 1 mana short from killing me next turn.

Thoughts:
* I am very happy with the list it is right now. Every MU feels winnable and I had gladly played against any player in the room.
* I’m thinking about replacing the #4 Chrome Mox in the board with something else. Likely candidates are #3 Pithing Needle and #2 Goblin Settler

Questions and comments are, as always, appreciated.

- GL

[Chatto]

@ GL: funny how jrw1985 and you both run different paths, yet have the same results. Settler did win you one game, but is he really that good to invest a big amount of cash in it? I'm still in doubt. Was there any other way for you to win that G3?

[LeoCop 90]

For everyone wondering about acquiring settler or not : it is worth it if you love goblins and love playing them. If you do, you will be very happy to buy him instead of a dual land or some fetches.... and it's not like his price is astronomical;, it's high but manageable.
Acquiring the second one is another story... this is worth it only if you think that he is very powerful and not just a toolbox creature for matron.

[GoboLord]

For everyone wondering about acquiring settler or not : it is worth it if you love goblins and love playing them. If you do, you will be very happy to buy him instead of a dual land or some fetches.... and it's not like his price is astronomical;, it's high but manageable.
Acquiring the second one is another story... this is worth it only if you think that he is very powerful and not just a toolbox creature for matron.

My thoughts exactly.
I also struggled with myself before deciding to buy a Settler. I don't think that it is a secretly underrated, latently powerful card. Right now it fits perfectly into my picture of the deck (which is something I didn't realize until mrblueduck, cooljets and OlegTheSuper were writing about it). It was one year ago that I started to cut manadenial from the deck, ultimately leaving me with only 3 copies of Wasteland, which is the minimum number I need against random problematic lands, like Dark Depth/Thespian Stage, Tabernacle and Punishing Fire. So Wasteland is a utility-land that taps for most of the time. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I didn't use a wasteland to actually destroy a land in the last 2 tournaments and maybe even beyond that. If it wasn't for those random problematic lands, I'd cut them entirely in favor of more basiclands (which is what jrw1985 did on his last tournament). More Settlers could make this happen, although I would need one of them in the MD then. That's something I want to figure out in the near future.

@ GL: funny how jrw1985 and you both run different paths, yet have the same results. Settler did win you one game, but is he really that good to invest a big amount of cash in it? I'm still in doubt. Was there any other way for you to win that G3?

I think that Settler is something you want only in quite special situations. I'm still not impressed of him as a combo-hate. As I wrote above it is a very solid option against utitlity-lands, and he's even more valuable if you, whatever path you take, think that your list can be improved by cutting Wastelands. That's the point where I am right now.
About that G3. To be honest, Goblin Ruinblaster would have won me the game there. However, I didn't know that manadenial was the important factor in this game until he told me so on his next turn. I just did what would disrupt him the most. Thinking about it since you posted the question yesterday, I don't think that any othermono-red GOBLIN card would have won me the game there. That is not to say that Settler is exceptionally good against SneakShow (I mean: maybe he is, but I wouldn't conclude that only from that situation).

[LittleGreenGuys]

@GL I play a very similar list as you and am interested in purchasing a Goblin Settler. I was wondering if you had plans to main board a Settler anytime soon, and if so, what would you cut?

[GoboLord]

@GL I play a very similar list as you and am interested in purchasing a Goblin Settler. I was wondering if you had plans to main board a Settler anytime soon, and if so, what would you cut?

I have no straight answer to that question yet. What would you cut from my list (see above)?

[ScatmanX]

I have no straight answer to that question yet. What would you cut from my list (see above)?

Warchief or Shooter, depending if you need him on your meta.
How's the 4th mox on the sb going?

[LittleGreenGuys]

I have no straight answer to that question yet. What would you cut from my list (see above)?

My initial thoughts on what to cut for the settler are either a piledriver, chieftan, or a warchief. My reasoning is these are my least likely targets that I matron for on a regular basis. I played a list recently and was very happy with goblin warchief because if helps you unload a stacked hand. In the case where you are trying to swing for lethal on turn 3 with the instigator/kiki/matron combo, you will have the opportunity to matron for both the piledriver and cheiftan to swing for lethal so it may not be necessary to run a full set of them. I find it hard to want to cut the removal because a stingscourger and tarfire set are so valuable. Maybe a land as well but that seems a bit of a stretch.

[cooljets]

You already know my answer to your question GoboLord, I'd cut the Chieftain(s). I actually like Settler so much, I'm thinking about buying the second one so that I can have 1 main AND one sideboard.

[GoboLord]

You already know my answer to your question GoboLord, I'd cut the Chieftain(s). I actually like Settler so much, I'm thinking about buying the second one so that I can have 1 main AND one sideboard.

I guess you meant to say you'd cut the Warchiefs?

The 4-off are the "untouchables" - the cards that I want to draw as often as possible. Tuktuk Scrapper, Stingscourger and Kiki-Jiki are core-cards as well: MD artifact removal is more important than MD landdestruction, Stingscourger is just too flexible to cut; and cutting KJ for Settler doesnt make any sense, because I want this duo to out-control other deck when possible and neccessary. That leaves me with choosing either Warchief or Sharpshooter.

Reading your statements confirms my impression that, if I had to cut anything, Warchief would be the likely cut.

[jrw1985]

You already know my answer to your question GoboLord, I'd cut the Chieftain(s). I actually like Settler so much, I'm thinking about buying the second one so that I can have 1 main AND one sideboard.

I'm very surprised to see Settler is gaining traction. It's not that I think it's a bad card, it's just that I don't think mana denial is a good strategy. I also don't think there are enough utility lands to warrant playing mana denial. Well, that's not completely accurate. I think playing mana denial is more detrimental than beneficial at this point because Waste/port weaken our manabase and Settler isn't good against Delver decks. In fact it's bad against Delver. But what do I know? Hopefully I'll get to play again tomorrow and hopefully it goes well again and I'll get to start giving some weight to my performance with 18 mountains.

[cooljets]

I guess you meant to say you'd cut the Warchiefs?

The 4-off are the "untouchables" - the cards that I want to draw as often as possible. Tuktuk Scrapper, Stingscourger and Kiki-Jiki are core-cards as well: MD artifact removal is more important than MD landdestruction, Stingscourger is just too flexible to cut; and cutting KJ for Settler doesnt make any sense, because I want this duo to out-control other deck when possible and neccessary. That leaves me with choosing either Warchief or Sharpshooter.

Reading your statements confirms my impression that, if I had to cut anything, Warchief would be the likely cut.

Whoops, you're right of course. I meant Warchief. :)