[Deck] Goblins

[GoboLord]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Hypothesis: We do not need to actually speed up our game right now because the format is actually getting slower, and if we approach it as such we can improve our match-ups.

I've been thinking about something recently. I've been playing monoR without Wastes or Ports or Chrome Mox. No Winstigator either, or Thalia for that matter. Considering the everyone thinks of Legacy as a very FAST format you would think that I would need mana disruption to slow opponents' games down or Winstigators to speed our games up. What I have found is that the monoR 18 Mountain list is performing very well specifically because it does not try to slow the game down or speed the game up. Instead, I've been winning (or coming close) with shear resiliency because THE FORMAT IS ACTUALLY SLOWING DOWN.

Interesting! I have to think about this a little longer before I come back with a reply.

Here's what I see happening in the meta right now. FoW decks are everywhere, as is DRS. Both are control cards that slow the game down. Yes, DRS is a mana accelerator, but the real power of the card is its ability to chump 1/1s then tap for a shock EOT, or gain 2 life. Those abilities make it a Control card. BUG decks don't have the ability to burn out opponents like RUG does since Abrupt Decay doesn't deal damage, so BUG takes over the game with resource denial (counters, discard, waste, stifle, AD) and card advantage.

Because there are so many control decks now Combo has been edged out to a degree. Combo decks are now more focused on resolving fewer spells, playing longer games, and winning counter wars (like SnT decks). This is hugely beneficial to us because SnT decks are far far better MUs than Storm decks, as Stingscourger is often the perfect foil to their plans.

Delver of Secrets has also, counter intuitively, slowed that meta down. This is because it's blue, plain and simple, and if you're playing Delver you're also playing FoW and Brainstorm.

Rewind the clock to 2010 when Legacy exploded. The German GP blew up the format with the top decks being Reanimator, ANT, and Zoo. Reanimator put a T2 fatty in play, ANT went off T1/T2, and Zoo attacked with a 4/4 Nacatl T2.

Compare that to the format today. RUG/BUG attack with a 3/2 T2, and SnT/Elves go off T3.

So the format has gotten a little slower, a little grindier, and a little more control-oriented. Given this, why are WE trying to Speed Up Goblins?

The format is slower, and being slower ourselves becomes a benefit. With my 18 mountain list I'm not fetching into basics to play non-Goblins T2. I'm making land drops and staring across the board at a player that won't atack until turn 3. All these other decks are jockeying for position T1 and T2. Well we can play that game, but we can also just make Waste-proof land drops and fill the board with Goblins until our opponents cannot win. Nice delver, here's a tarfire. Nice Goyf, here's a MWM. Rather than trying to play faster or more powerful creatures (and opening ourselves up to Wastes/Discard/Counter?AD in the process) just making land drops and casting creatures keeps parity into the late game, where we have inevitability.

Here is what I agree with:
* resilience pays off. I like monocolored decklists more than splashed ones, and I like to run as few non-goblins/non-creature-goblins in my 75 as possible, because it makes the deck resilient. Goblins, at their very core, need two things: (1) Mountains and (2) other Goblins.
* every popular deck plays FoW, except for STORM.combo and Death&Taxes

Here is the problem that I have with "slower" approaches.
First of all, I don't know whether the format is slowing down or not - but that's not even relevant for what I am about to say. Taking your description of the metagame (or rather: the cards that determine the metagame right now, which I believe you listed accurately) I dont see any reason at all to play a 'grindy' decklist. What I am seeing is this:

Combo
Combo decks can't be and won't be beaten with a grindy plan involving MWM and/or Gempalm Incinerator. As you pointed out correctly, the combo deck (if there is one) is SneakShow, which is slower than STORM.combo. However, it is still fast enough. It might just be slow enough for us to beat it with just brute force and speed without any hate exept for that 1-off Stingscourger.

Control
Well, there is Miracles and not much else what I would file under "control". Miracles is a creature-less (or at least creature-light) deck that has basically no means of interaction with us in turns 1-3. Even a Turn 3/4 Terminus needs a very good setup and will usually mean that we are starting the game over again, only difference is that we have 5-6 cards (him 3-4) and we have 20 life (him 12). Miracles has a right to exist in this metagame because it can successfully bait/play other decks into that stage where it stats to take control and win the game at EOT with Entreat the Angels. We have such a good MU against Miracles because we don't let them reach that stage 70% of the time. I know that inclusion of MWM and Gempalms doesn't mean that our decks transforms from "totally fast" into "totally slow". In fact, I think our MU against Miracles is so good that it probably doesn't matter at all what the our decklist looks like in detail.

Creature-based decks
Now this is the category of decks where a grindy plan (and/or cards like MWM and Gempalm) could pay out. However, many creatures (I would even say most of them) deliver unblockable damage:

* DRS
* Insectile Delvers
* True-Name Nemesis
* Serra Avenger/Flickerwisp/Aven Mindcensor
* basically any equipped creature and/or any creature protected by Mother of Runes
* even freaking Phyrexian Revoker does the REAL 'damage' by pinning our Aether Vial

And the longer the game takes the more freasome these card get. All of them. So, if I had the choice I would rather not let them inflate their potential.
My last point is that I don't see any drawback in running aggressive Warren Instigator+Chrome Mox decklists. The "grindy" part of the deck comes with Matron and Ringleader and is only occassionally supported by other cards.


tl;dr
A resilient manabase is probably where we should be going. However, my approach to a slower metagame (if there is one) is to prey upon the decks that feel safe as soon as they are still alive in turn 4.

[LeoCop 90]

I always enjoyed playing goblins in a controllish way, and also had the best results with that approach. The warren instigator / chrome mox lists don't seem to work for me .... although i agree with gobolord that the grindier plan of goblins is always there in the form of matron/ringleader , i have to say that cutting war marshals and gempalm incinerators and adding chrome moxes makes the deck A LOT different. Gempalm provided card advantage and removal for big creatures, war marshal provided a way to stall early beaters and protection against liliana, chrome mox is card disadvantage. What i found out is that with instigator lists you are barely able to play the control role, and you are most of the times reliant on connecting with lackey/instigator. I don't like this approach very much and i'm not having good results with it.

The problem i find now with the control approach is mainly true name nemesis. Unfortunately a lot of people in my area play the stupid merfolk and it is a problem. Yes, we are able to swarm through it and win anyway, but there are a lot of games where i stabilize at a low life total against delver decks .... games that i would always have won before, but now can be changed by the fact that they can drop their 3 mana unblockable untargetable creature and deal me the last points of damage while i have a hand full of removal spells and the ability to kill my opponent in the next 1-2 turns. Maybe I'm just unlucky, but this happened a lot of time in my experience.

[jrw1985]

I always enjoyed playing goblins in a controllish way, and also had the best results with that approach. The warren instigator / chrome mox lists don't seem to work for me .... although i agree with gobolord that the grindier plan of goblins is always there in the form of matron/ringleader , i have to say that cutting war marshals and gempalm incinerators and adding chrome moxes makes the deck A LOT different. Gempalm provided card advantage and removal for big creatures, war marshal provided a way to stall early beaters and protection against liliana, chrome mox is card disadvantage. What i found out is that with instigator lists you are barely able to play the control role, and you are most of the times reliant on connecting with lackey/instigator. I don't like this approach very much and i'm not having good results with it.

The problem i find now with the control approach is mainly true name nemesis. Unfortunately a lot of people in my area play the stupid merfolk and it is a problem. Yes, we are able to swarm through it and win anyway, but there are a lot of games where i stabilize at a low life total against delver decks .... games that i would always have won before, but now can be changed by the fact that they can drop their 3 mana unblockable untargetable creature and deal me the last points of damage while i have a hand full of removal spells and the ability to kill my opponent in the next 1-2 turns. Maybe I'm just unlucky, but this happened a lot of time in my experience.

I looooooved playing controllish Goblins. It was so much fun because it was all about creating incremental advantage. You weren't trying to clear their board or keep them from playing anything. You just wanted to squeeze their resources just a little bit, then explode with a Lackey connection of a Vial activation. Turn a little advantage into a lopsided board state. But DRS stops Lackey, and Abrupt Decay stops Vial, and losing those two makes your manabase vulnerable to Wasteland, so running Wastes and Ports yourself becomes a liability, and your opponent is less effected by them because of DRS anyway. It's a cyclical effect!

What I have found interesting in the games I've played with 18 Mountains is how effective Goblins still is at creating that incremental advantage. Aside from Goyf almost every fair creature in the format is taken out by Tarfire. So Tarfire slows their early game just a little bit with a 1:1. Then they play a bigger threat, but you have a few goblins on board now, and now Gempalm becomes a value card netting you a 0:1. Then you just start chaining together Ringleaders or activate Krenko and its soon over.

It's kind of like a fighter training to be a counter puncher versus one that is a volume puncher. The volume puncher wins if he can close the distance and land without eating too many counter strikes. If he hesitates, or if he runs out of gas, he loses. That's Goblins. We need to overwhelm our opponent, but we need to do it in such a way that does not leave us open to their counter-attack. This is part of the reason why I'm liking an 18 mountain build. Our opponent cannot attack our manabase to make us stumble. So long as we have mana we can keep casting spells and keep our board and hand full. And we eventually wear our opponent down.

Of course we are still susceptible to the power-punchers out there (combo), and really good players will always be able to find holes in our game, but the good players among us can find the holes in their too. Not playing with Waste/Port/Splash gives us fewer tools to exploit holes in their game, but it also closes up those holes in our game so we can keep swinging!

[GoblinSettler]

@jrw
Can you clarify, do you run Caverns with the 18 Mountains or just 18 lands?

[Chatto]

So dropping Rishadan Port, once considered blasphemy, is nowadays pretty much the norm here. Dropping Wasteland was something that was already mentioned a couple of months ago, and now we pretty much accustomed to discuss and to do so(jrw1985, one of the most dedicated Goblin-player on this forum taking the lead in this approach).

I played a little tournament with a another deck, but there was a Classic Goblin-build. A friend of mine was on Jund and during the third round played Goblins (both were 2-0 at that time). He observed how fragile the Goblin-manabase is. He mentioned how the Goblin-player was manascrewed in both games. Of course, Jund is a terrible MU, but still. I told him about this new approach and about Goblin Settler getting play nowadays. We discussed the following: Ports should go, Wastelands too (although this is disputable). Having just purchased Goblin Settler and tested it a bit, I am pretty impressed with the little bugger (@ all who said 'just test him': you were right). In theory, Goblin Settler could likely become our Wasteland-to-go-to nowadays. Being a maindeck Goblin, a SB-card or both: it fills the need of getting a more reliable manabase and still being able to get rid of those utility-lands.

But how about Cavern of Souls? Would you also drop Cavern of Souls? Together with Vial it's the most annoying thing a U-based deck can see (and there will always be a lot of U-based decks), sometimes crippling 1/3 of the deck.

Personally I would not drop CoS.

[GoboLord]

But how about Cavern of Souls? Would you also drop Cavern of Souls? Together with Vial it's the most annoying thing a U-based deck can see (and there will always be a lot of U-based decks), sometimes crippling 1/3 of the deck.

Personally I would not drop CoS.

No way. Running 8 non-basicland (4 Caverns and 4 Wasteland) and 14 Basiclands already makes up a very good and solid manabase and I don't think cutting even more non-basics will improve it significantly. While I get jrw1985's point to cut Wastelands entirely I think that's a little too extreme - the manabase will still be rocksolid with 2-3 Wastelands. This small difference does not outweigh the benefits that Wasteland ocassionally have.
As you can see on his last report he not having drawn a Caverns against Sneak Show costed him a game - that'S just anecdotal evidence of how
important the card is. Imagine having to fight Miracles without Caverns...

One thing you could consider is exchanging Rishadan Port and Wasteland - but that would imply (1) at least 1 Goblin Settler in your 75, for when you really want to destroy a land, and (2) a very clear idea of what kind of lands you want to deal with/ what you want to do with your manadenial. For now I'm sticking to 3-off/2-off Wasteland, which I find a "necessary evil".

[jrw1985]

@jrw
Can you clarify, do you run Caverns with the 18 Mountains or just 18 lands?

Yes, I run 4 CoS. 22 lands has always seemed like the sweet spot to me, so I was talking about 18 Mt and 4 CoS.

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

4 Cavern
18 Mountain

A note on this list: Squee and Chieftain are the only 2 slots that I'm not really pleased with.

No way. Running 8 non-basicland (4 Caverns and 4 Wasteland) and 14 Basiclands already makes up a very good and solid manabase and I don't think cutting even more non-basics will improve it significantly. While I get jrw1985's point to cut Wastelands entirely I think that's a little too extreme - the manabase will still be rocksolid with 2-3 Wastelands. This small difference does not outweigh the benefits that Wasteland ocassionally have.
As you can see on his last report he not having drawn a Caverns against Sneak Show costed him a game - that'S just anecdotal evidence of how
important the card is. Imagine having to fight Miracles without Caverns...

One thing you could consider is exchanging Rishadan Port and Wasteland - but that would imply (1) at least 1 Goblin Settler in your 75, for when you really want to destroy a land, and (2) a very clear idea of what kind of lands you want to deal with/ what you want to do with your manadenial. For now I'm sticking to 3-off/2-off Wasteland, which I find a "necessary evil".

Here's what I see as the main problem with Wasteland right now. Consider a game against any Delver deck or any DRS deck. They play a curve of 2. We play a curve of 3. Let's say Goblins is on the play and leads with a CoS. They play a Dual on their turn. On out turn we Waste their dual. On their turn they play another dual. Our turn we play another land, then their turn they Waste our dual. We have parity in land drops (3 to 3). However, we both have 1 land in play after this exchange of Wastes. Our Delver opponent can still play half the cards in their deck and is 1 land away from playing 85%+ of their deck. We on the other hand are 2 land drops away from getting where we need to be.

Basically, Wasting an opponent is shooting ourselves in the foot, because their curve doesn't care as much about losing a land as ours does. If Delver decks can ignore Waste, and if we need all our land drops, why would we bbother to play Waste? I'm actually OK with losing to Chasm 1/50 matches.

[cooljets]

Here's what I see as the main problem with Wasteland right now. Consider a game against any Delver deck or any DRS deck. They play a curve of 2. We play a curve of 3. Let's say Goblins is on the play and leads with a CoS. They play a Dual on their turn. On out turn we Waste their dual. On their turn they play another dual. Our turn we play another land, then their turn they Waste our dual. We have parity in land drops (3 to 3). However, we both have 1 land in play after this exchange of Wastes. Our Delver opponent can still play half the cards in their deck and is 1 land away from playing 85%+ of their deck. We on the other hand are 2 land drops away from getting where we need to be.

Basically, Wasting an opponent is shooting ourselves in the foot, because their curve doesn't care as much about losing a land as ours does. If Delver decks can ignore Waste, and if we need all our land drops, why would we bbother to play Waste? I'm actually OK with losing to Chasm 1/50 matches.

I have been thinking about going back to mono-red lately, but there's no way I'll ever play less than 4 Wasteland. The card is just too good. The trick is, just don't use it unless you have a Vial, Lackey, Winstigator or already have enough lands out to play your spells. In your example you shot yourself in the foot by wasting his land before casting your spells first.

[ScatmanX]

[QUOTE=cooljets;835836In your example you shot yourself in the foot by wasting his land[/QUOTE]
This is what i came to write.
Imo the Wasteless build is viable, maybe even optimal today (though i dont think so), but if I was to go for it, would definitely have a Settler on it.
Also, agree that playing without Cos is a mistake when SnT and Miracles are 2 very common decks.

Been loving the debates guys. Wish i had more time to play to help giving more info.

[Chatto]

I have been thinking about going back to mono-red lately, but there's no way I'll ever play less than 4 Wasteland. The card is just too good. The trick is, just don't use it unless you have a Vial, Lackey, Winstigator or already have enough lands out to play your spells. In your example you shot yourself in the foot by wasting his land before casting your spells first.

True, but being mono-red and playing a Winstigator-list makes drawing a non-mountain (i.e. Wasteland or Pendelhaven) a liability when wanting consistency. That's why I argued that Goblin Settler could in theory be the best answer for utility-lands. Granted, also having access to Wasteland gives you more answers, but being able to tutor for it can be huge, while not deluting your manabase. Like it or not, but Wasteland isn't what it used to be in Goblins.

Difficult decisions, I do think it also depends on your build.

Right now my manabase is:

2 Pendelhaven
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
12 Mountain

The only thing I'm really not sure about is Pendelhaven.
EDIT: and of course Wasteland.

[jimmythegreek]

Really great talk in this thread. Just finished my first game with the little green men in more than a month or so, beating my brothers Armageddon stax deck 2-1 in one hell of a game. I forgot how much fun and how challenging this deck can be. Anyhow, I'm in agreement on more basic lands fwiw. I remember almost always wanting red mana and tons of it playing this deck. Now, I'm not saying port and wasteland haven't won me some games cuz believe they have, as I'm sure most people can attest to themselves. I remember many questionable hands were due to a single non-basic land being that and not a mountain; a hand with war chief looks more positive with two mountains rather than mountain and said non-basic( hands containing vial were often keeps though). This brings me to my next point.......in general is it possible that a more stable mana base could lead to relying on our one drops less? My point being that getting our lords online sooner(having RR every Opening hand) will allow us to fill the board faster with more/stronger goblins.

[Zombie]

re: Wasteland talk:
As an outsider, Goblins has always felt to me like a very similar deck to Shardless - just drown them in stuff until you have stuff and they don't and win from there. Just raw card advantage. The 18 Mountains, 4 Caverns plan is exactly Shardless BUG MO - stability, build yourself up, raw CA, raw CA. In that light I might see the point in having maybe 2 Wastelands in the deck.

Here's what I see as the main problem with Wasteland right now. Consider a game against any Delver deck or any DRS deck. They play a curve of 2. We play a curve of 3. Let's say Goblins is on the play and leads with a CoS. They play a Dual on their turn. On out turn we Waste their dual. On their turn they play another dual. Our turn we play another land, then their turn they Waste our dual. We have parity in land drops (3 to 3). However, we both have 1 land in play after this exchange of Wastes. Our Delver opponent can still play half the cards in their deck and is 1 land away from playing 85%+ of their deck. We on the other hand are 2 land drops away from getting where we need to be.

Basically, Wasting an opponent is shooting ourselves in the foot, because their curve doesn't care as much about losing a land as ours does. If Delver decks can ignore Waste, and if we need all our land drops, why would we bbother to play Waste? I'm actually OK with losing to Chasm 1/50 matches.

If I was playing Shardless vs. Delver, I'd consider that horrible, yet Shardless players love their Wastelands, and for good reason. Why? Because the job of the Wasteland in Shardless is different than it is in Delver - Delver decks use them as proactive, raw resource denial because they're better optimized to run on low-resource situations than nearly any other deck in the format. Shardless' Wastelands are the same card in name only. The hint should already be that they run only 2. The number isn't just for mana stability considerations (but they're super color hungry like Goblins are).

They don't run Wasteland to constrict an opponent's mana or to actively deny him colors (except in complete blowout situations) - like Goblins Shardless just wants to cast their stuff. Wasteland is there as a mana producer and a solution to opposing troublemakers like Tar Pit, Inkmoth Nexus, Cradles - okay, it's probably used proactively against 12-Post. But the point is, it's there more as a really good Tectonic Edge than a Delver-style Wasteland. Played that way, it might still be correct as a 1-2 of in Stable Goblins.

[jrw1985]

I have been thinking about going back to mono-red lately, but there's no way I'll ever play less than 4 Wasteland. The card is just too good. The trick is, just don't use it unless you have a Vial, Lackey, Winstigator or already have enough lands out to play your spells. In your example you shot yourself in the foot by wasting his land before casting your spells first.

re: Wasteland talk:
As an outsider, Goblins has always felt to me like a very similar deck to Shardless - just drown them in stuff until you have stuff and they don't and win from there. Just raw card advantage. The 18 Mountains, 4 Caverns plan is exactly Shardless BUG MO - stability, build yourself up, raw CA, raw CA. In that light I might see the point in having maybe 2 Wastelands in the deck.




If I was playing Shardless vs. Delver, I'd consider that horrible, yet Shardless players love their Wastelands, and for good reason. Why? Because the job of the Wasteland in Shardless is different than it is in Delver - Delver decks use them as proactive, raw resource denial because they're better optimized to run on low-resource situations than nearly any other deck in the format. Shardless' Wastelands are the same card in name only. The hint should already be that they run only 2. The number isn't just for mana stability considerations (but they're super color hungry like Goblins are).

They don't run Wasteland to constrict an opponent's mana or to actively deny him colors (except in complete blowout situations) - like Goblins Shardless just wants to cast their stuff. Wasteland is there as a mana producer and a solution to opposing troublemakers like Tar Pit, Inkmoth Nexus, Cradles - okay, it's probably used proactively against 12-Post. But the point is, it's there more as a really good Tectonic Edge than a Delver-style Wasteland. Played that way, it might still be correct as a 1-2 of in Stable Goblins.

Good points about Waste serving Goblins better as a Reactive card rather than Proactive. Maybe Waste doesn't need to be cut entirely, but it feels good knowing that all of your land drops will produce R for you. I would still recommend trying a few games without Wastes just to see how the deck performs. I really have not missed land destruction yet.

[Zombie]

I definitely think embracing the Shardless-esque style is a good plan overall - I mean, Shardless does it, it's in DTB with a fully nonbasic manabase that gets blown up by Moons. Elves does it when in a fair mood (they're in a fair mood pretty often nowadays), they have basics but they don't have removal (except for the opponent sometimes :P). They're in the DTB.

So I'd think Goblins could do it, have basics and removal. I'd say in light of evidence that's probably where you want to go. Whether it's with Wastelands or not I can't say, but I think they may have a place as long as you realize Grindstation 3000 Wastelands are not Tempo Wastelands. It's one of those things that's sometimes gone over in the Shardless thread and I know I stumbled on it myself when I played with BUG for a while. Then I read someone explain the difference and my problems disappeared.

[jrw1985]

Well I went 2-1 with monoR tonight with two Wastes. I drew them each match and they never mattered. R1 & 2 against combo they didn't matter. R3 against Werewolf stompy they actually were liabilities were it not for his Magus of the moon turning them into mountains so I could cast my tarfires. Even in those matchups I didn't really want to see them.

Small sample, yes, but I didn't feel there was a need for Wastes. Maybe if I had played my R4 opponent who was on Infect I'd feel differently.

[cooljets]

Welp, I just went deep and ordered 3 more Goblin Settlers on e-bay. I've had an itch to attempt a new mono red version so this is what I'll be playing at my next tournament. Without access to Cabal Therapy or Earwig Squad I need another way to slow down combo so we're gunna see if blowing up their lands is good enough. Meanwhile now that I don't need to be able to find a black source turn one for Therapy, I can afford to also give Pendelhaven a shot. This should give me some extra ability to force my Lackey's past squires in the fair matchups. I've also been running into Sneak and Show a lot lately, and since Chalice doesn't do much against them, I think I want access to a full set of Stingscourgers for them for games 2 and 3. I'll be sure to report back once I get a few local tourneys under my belt.

//MANA [22]:
9 Mountain
4 Cavern Of Souls
4 Wasteland
2 Pendelhaven
3 Chrome Mox

//CORE [32]:
4 AEther Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Warren Instigator
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Tarfire

//TOOLBOX [6]:
1 Stingscourger
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Goblin Settler
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker


//SIDEBOARD [15]:
4 Chalice Of The Void
3 Stingscourger
3 Goblin Settler
3 Tuktuk Scrapper
2 Goblin Sharpshooter

[Lormador]

To what extent does Goblins stand to profit if Treasure Cruise decks become the norm?

It seems to me that they could gain a lot of traction against decks in a slower meta that wants to trade 1 for 1 with instants and sorceries before refueling with faux Ancestral Recall. Would opposing players get stuck drawing yet more ineffectual counterspells while the hasty Goblin "Ancestral Recall" gets in for 2?

[Chatto]

//MANA [22]:
9 Mountain
4 Cavern Of Souls
4 Wasteland
2 Pendelhaven
3 Chrome Mox

//CORE [32]:
4 AEther Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Warren Instigator
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Tarfire

//TOOLBOX [6]:
1 Stingscourger
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Goblin Settler
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker


//SIDEBOARD [15]:
4 Chalice Of The Void
3 Stingscourger
3 Goblin Settler
3 Tuktuk Scrapper
2 Goblin Sharpshooter

Wow, three Sharpshooters? May I ask why? I only play him as one-of in my SB. Stingscourger is indeed a good card against S&T, but having three in your SB? Why not cut two and replace them with Thorn. It has a nice interaction with your four(!) Settlers. I'm looking forward to your report

To what extent does Goblins stand to profit if Treasure Cruise decks become the norm?

It seems to me that they could gain a lot of traction against decks in a slower meta that wants to trade 1 for 1 with instants and sorceries before refueling with faux Ancestral Recall. Would opposing players get stuck drawing yet more ineffectual counterspells while the hasty Goblin "Ancestral Recall" gets in for 2?

Well, Treasure Cruise seems awfully slow and I think will be a one-of, and only as a SB in certain decks. But who knows? Slowing the meta more would be nice. I really don't think it will see much play, though (except in Omnitell, perhaps)

[Lemnear]

Well, Treasure Cruise seems awfully slow and I think will be a one-of, and only as a SB in certain decks. But who knows? Slowing the meta more would be nice. I really don't think it will see much play, though (except in Omnitell, perhaps)

You make this post after a UR Delver with 4 Treasure Cruise just won a SCG Open? Congratulations

[Zombie]

Four sharpshooters?
*runs away*