Mulling should be reduced by upping your mana source count to 23-24. Goblin Wizard is a pretty easy cut for one more land. Since Omni is giving you problems you might also want to cut the Spyglasses from the Side an add 2 more Thorn or Sphere of Resistance. I think Sphere is the most efficient piece of combo hate.
Replay analysis: GoblinLackey1 youtube league
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rjgy...mblNAIBO-jEuTw
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Deck Tech
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9:25
Olaf correctly identifies the following:
Probability of opening 7 cards with a black source with 9 in the deck: 70.0%
However the more pertinent figure is:
Probability of opening with a black source given that you also opened with a discard spell: 64.7%
It can be helpful to use distributions rather than intuition to judge how many copies of a certain effect to play but make sure you're doing the right calculations. (This isn't a comment on whether 9 black sources is correct or not)
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Practice Match: Bant RIP/Field
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14:10
This is one of the spots where I would try to justify playing warboss/rabblemaster, rather than tutor for warchief so you can enable the rest of your hand, you can tutor for a 3 drop that provides a significant board presence on its own and then wait to draw lands for your ringleader while your opponent deals with the threat that you have already
15:00
I don't think this is a matchup (Bant Rip/helm) where you want K Command, I think I'd rather just have Ringleader or Mogg Fanatic
17:20
Again a spot where matron for Rabble/Warboss is perfect
18:20
EE in your shardless deck 4Head
19:10
In this spot I am very tempted to just cast the lackey and shove with everything
It's too important vs this deck to put them on a clock because you can't give them time to assemble their unbeatable combo/lock
19:50
Wasteland would kill an energy field but you could also matron for artifact kill to destroy the EE
20:40
I have to admit this is one of the spots where the combo of warchief and piledriver is exactly what you want but it's also like the magical christmas land scenario where you're playing vs a weird prison/value deck that hasn't drawn any lockpieces or interaction except 1 STP which they used on a Matron for some reason
24:20
Extremely interesting spot
Because of the way the opponent's deck is built Priest overlaps quite a lot with RIP, so I'm not sure if that's what you name even if the opponent doesn't brainstorm in response.
Naming STP is the most conservative play and is appealing because your hand is total ass if your lackey dies here, but personally I wouldn't name STP because I wouldn't think my opponent would take such a risk to try and level me that hard. (But thats why Therapy is fun)
Because the opponent didn't have a turn 2 play it's tempting to name a 3 like Shardless, but because that's the most logical route for you to take it's more likely that your opponent will have hidden their 3s with Brainstorm.
I think if you're not going to name STP, my line of thinking is that you aren't going to lose to the combo because when your lackey connects you have whatever follow up Therapy to shred pieces, but your hand can lose to value 2/2s, so shardless might just be the correct name anyway?
While I'm spending so much time thinking about this I also would like to highlight that this is a spot where Prospector is basically worthless
25:40
Postcombat you play the 2nd therapy
You want to force him to decide whether to keep the top 2 cards or the enlightened tutor
The line where you lose is when he goes: Draw RIP, cast RIP, play 3rd land, cast tutor
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Match 1: Mono B Reanimator
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29:10
This is precisely one of the reasons why Piledriver sucks
It's largely in the deck to help you race combo and yet in the way that you plan to play this game against combo it's a worse clock than Dragon Fodder
29:50
It took me a while to think about this but I realised that if your opponent is on combo, casting Piledriver over activating port doesn't actually speed up your clock given that you already have matron and vial, so it's worth hurting the opponent's mana here, which is what you do
32:00
I think you can board in the Needle because it's okay vs both Reanimator and Pox which are basically both the 2 options you can be facing, I think you can board whirler out probably
34:00
Mons goblin skirk raiders
34:30
Lol thats the sickest gempalm
35:10
Okay we untap with Prospector we have MWM and 3 lands whats the play
MWM for RRR leaving badlands up
cast matron for Earwig
attack
eat the Matron and the Skirk, tap Badlands
Earwig them
?
Then next turn you have Trashmaster follow up for the 3 turn clock
Seems fine
I feel like your line just wastes a turn for no reason
36:10
Your line also gets boned by Infest apparently, not that I think that's a card you should play around
36:30
But your opponent's draw has just lined up absolutely terribly vs yours so lucky you I guess lol
38:45
I agree with your read that the opponent has at least one Griselbrand in hand, which means that your opponent has Entomb + Liliana + Brutality = 9 outs to get a fatty in the bin
However they only have Animate Dead + Reanimate = 7 outs to get a fatty from the GY into play
So it might be worth removing Animate Deads rather than Entomb here (because in 1 turn your opponent will be too low life to use Reanimate on anything, which cuts their outs even further)
40:20
Volrath's Gempalm is correct here because putting your opponent to 7 cuts off a bunch of their outs (I spent a long time thinking about alternate lines where you Volrath's for matron so you can have Stingscourger the next turn but I think it's a wash, you still potentially lose to animate dead because the opponent will block both your guys to be on 10 and can draw 7 with Griselbrand to ritual out a Grave Titan or whatever)
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Match 2: Grixis Delver
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42:20
Does Warchief not look awful here?
45:00
This is a pretty tricky situation but I think I agree with Marcelo's youtube comment about vialing in the Sting on the 1/1 delver to prevent exactly this blowout that happens at 46:10. There isn't much downside of doing it this way assuming you're going to sting in combat on the flipped delver anyway, and it potentially means you get to use your Gempalm a turn earlier so you could have e.g. double Warchief on the turn that your Sting died
47:35
PiLeDrIvEr Is So GoOd, TnN cAn'T eVeN bLoCk It, nice Gray Ogre btw
51:25
Like look at this hand and the matchup, what do you expect Warchief can even do? 90% of the time I see this card it does nothing
55:00
Hasty Gray Ogre strikes again
56:25
It's interesting to me that you left the vial on 3 this whole time rather than putting it up to 4
If you draw matron (or another 3) you have cavern to guarantee it resolves and you're going to search for Ringleader immediately with Matron anyway, so having Vial on 4 lets you use your mana more efficiently
Are you playing around e.g. double waste on your caverns? Interested to know what is the reasoning here
57:45
This kind of situation is where Warchief looks good
But I would rather just play 1 Chieftain as a tutor target for these alpha strike opportunities
In topdecking-Grey-Ogre mode it's usually better giving your stuff +1+1 rather than making it 1 cheaper
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Match 3: UB Omni
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1:15:20
I agree you probably shouldn't keep this 6 but can we just stop for a moment and consider how much equity Piledriver actually seems to give you in combo matches (i.e. hardly any) vs how often people cite it as a reason to play the card (i.e. quite often). Piledriver isn't a reason to keep a hand vs combo so you end up mulliganing to real hate cards a lot and Piledriver is a really bad card when you mull to 5
1:16:20
Mons goblin skirk raiders
1:17:25
I agree with this surgical
1:25:20
This is another spot where the 1 Chieftain would give you exact lethal (although if the opponent is still holding onto the cut I guess not)
1:29:50
Prospector confirmed better than Chirurgeon for having 1 power (I'm being slightly sarcastic but I do realise that Chirurgeon would have done absolutely nothing in all the spots you have drawn Prospector in this video)
1:37:10
Wait am I missing something
Why not just name SNT
1:37:25
You can try to master bait your opponent here by not casting anything and hoping that they SNT into Emrakul so that you can Matron for Cratermaker but this is probably a bit loose
1:37:45
Matron for Piledriver in this spot LUL where's your Warboss/Rabble
1:41:50
of course you get the topdeck piledriver lethal after I shittalk it constantly
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Match 4: BR Reanimator
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1:50:00
Playing out all your lotus petals before reanimating Tidespout DansGame
2:02:20
I don't think getting Sting makes sense here
If he reanimates Elesh and you Sting it it's still destroying every resource that you have
The chance that you can build a lethal board before he finds another reanimate effect seems too unlikely
It does end up working so maybe it was correct? Your point about Stingscourger negating Exhume is pretty relevant I guess
220
If you therapy abrade he needs to draw 2 reanimate spells or an artifact destruction and a reanimate spell
If you therapy entomb he needs to find 1 GY dump effect and 1 reanimate spell
It's close but think taking abrade might be better
It also gives you the small equity that your relic can sit in play and you can put pressure on your opp by tapping it over multiple turns
230
Piledriver is so great post sb vs combo when you have so many great Goblin cards such as *checks notes* Thoughtseize, Therapy, and Relic of Progenitus
250
Mons goblin skirk raiders
(Nevermind, if it baits your opponent into wasting Entomb and then walking into the relic activation then it's fine lol)
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Match 5: Depths
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2:37:50
Probably should kill bob
--- END ---
Congrats on the 4-1
Thoughts:
- Maybe 1 Prospector is acceptable just for curve reasons but the card is so mediocre almost all of the time
- There is some evidence that Piledriver can be useful but the card is unimpressive in enough situations that I don't think the advantages it confers make it more attractive than other options
- On the other hand I don't understand how anybody can watch this video and not come to the conclusion that Warchief is a huge steaming pile of shit, this card is just unplayable in 2018
- A decent amount of evidence here that Cratermaker doesn't totally replace Stingscourger
- Earwig seems good but not amazing, which was basically my impression of it before watching (I like Earwig Squad and play 1 main as well).
I haven't tested goblins post DRS
The list that I played in the DRS format was
4 Port
4 Waste
4 Cavern
3 Mountain
3 Badlands
5 Fetchlands
4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
1 Goblin Chirurgeon
1 MWM
1 Sparksmith
1 Stingscourger
3 Rabblemaster
1 Chieftain
1 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Sharpshooter
1 Chainwhirler
4 Matron
4 Ringleader
1 Lightning Crafter
1 Scrapper
1 Kiki Jiki
1 Earwig Squad
4 Tarfire
2 Warren Weirding
The changes I think I would make going forward are
-1 Scrapper
+1 Trashmaster
-3 Tarfire
+1 Cratermaker
+1 MWM
+1 Gempalm Incinerator
SB will probably be something similar to what was in this video
I tested Kolaghans command a lot before trashmaster/cratermaker and I liked it but I'm not sure that you need it anymore because these 2 new cards have you covered for artifact hate. I would be more interested in leaning into the value side of the card with something else like Oath of Ghouls, Victimize, Reaping the Graves, etc
Some comments on my list:
- Sparksmith, Kiki Jiki, Earwig Squad, Chirurgeon, Crafter, and Sharpshooter (now that Whirler exists) are kind of personal preference, obviously I think they are good because I play them but if you look at this list and go UGH TOO SILLY then cut these 1 ofs for whatever you find more palatable just so you can test a shell with Rabblemaster and no Warchief/Piledriver
- Chirurgeon is really good with Rabblemaster, and a sac outlet is good with Sharpshooter, enables the Crafter combo, disables lifelink etc, but this league kind of showed that a 1 mana low-power card (the 'prospector slot') can be a liability in a lot of situations, so maybe it's not necessary
- I still think that Rabble is probably better than Warboss. It's a faster clock by itself and it gets boosted by all your other Goblins, and it can trade into other big creatures like Piledriver can. Making all your creatures attack isn't a significant drawback because in this build because almost every creature is a 1/1 or 2/2 vanilla after its ETB trigger goes off OR the creature has a tap ability so you don't ever have to attack with it anyway
- I would always rather have a split of effects that are similar if the power level is close (e.g. 1 Sharpshooter + 1 Whirler rather than 2 Whirler or n-1 Gempalm + 1 Sparksmith rather than n Gempalm). I think this is a strategically defensible choice. If I was just an EDH Fiend trying to play every different card possible I would have found space for 1 Warchief or 1 Piledriver or 1 SGC or whatever
- I think Lightning Crafter might just be better than SGC regardless of whether your deck has Kiki Jiki in it or not. SGC really shines when your lackey connects on turn 2 (and it makes a bunch of bodies for Piledriver, which I'm not playing) but Crafters Ping effect is similar and as long as you get the champion trigger off, it also leaves value behind when it dies (like SGC). The difference between 4 mana and 5 is a lot. (SGC is still the best topdeck if you're really flooded and I am not strongly against playing this card like I am with Piledriver / Warchief)
- Tarfire was so good for me historically that I am hesitant to cut it entirely but if you think it's not needed you can cut it for another Cratermaker or Mogg Fanatic
- 2 Weirding is an important reason for playing the black splash, having unconditional answers to large creatures and TNNs is really good (playing 3-4 Gempalm is what you want to be doing, but it's too greedy unless you expect to be playing vs the mirror all the time. Just play the removal that Outright Kills The Thing rather than getting annihilated vs Delver because they bolted your Warchief with a Gempalm trigger on the stack). Playing a lot of removal (instead of more MWMs or Piledrivers/Lords) is good in goblins because it helps you delay the game until late where you can leverage your card advantage effects, and you don't need to build your deck with a lot of attacking creature cards when Rabblemaster creates a big army by itself as long as you have removal to clear the way for it
Prospector is really strong. I know it seems underwhelming and you never want to draw a second one, but it should be a one of in every list and I currently run 2. It allows for a lot of plays you usually cant pull off and helps smoothing the curve and R
Piledriver is situational and not stellar in every matchup, but the blowout potential against unfair decks is absolutely neccessary. I lowered my count to 3 because I wanted anotehr land, but actually I wouldnt recommend going below.
Absolutely agree. Warchief is outclassed. 1of is enough to tutor for some surprise attacks.
Who would replace Sting with Crater? Nothing can replace Sting!
Earwig is awesome. 1of seems random though.
Got tired of Legacy and you like drafts? Try my Paupercube What?
Great match stream and match review! Well worth the 3 hours spent watching it.
What would you name? Shardless? That would only still be in his hand if he Brainstormed into 2 better cards.
I think StP was correct. As long as Lackey connects, he can Therapy up to 3 more times that turn. He just needs to guarantee the Lackey gets through. The only possible obstacle is if opponent Next Leveled StP, which negates his hand and puts him in topdeck mode. Can't afford to lose the Lackey. Shardless or anything else can get ripped postcombat.
For all the ripping you've done into Prospector, this is where it really shines for tempo. It's ironic this is where he chooses to keep it as a Mons Goblin Raiders instead of abuse it for the upside. If you're not going to Mogg Ritual or accelerate into Earwig Squad, why is it in the deck?35:10
Okay we untap with Prospector we have MWM and 3 lands whats the play
He has even more outs to get a fatty in the yard, e.g. Animate Dead on Pack Rat (which is presumably why he did that earlier, hoping to untap and discard Griselbrand). That's even more reason to pick Animate Deads instead of Entombs, choking both his fatty reanimation and his discard outlets.38:45
I agree with your read that the opponent has at least one Griselbrand in hand, which means that your opponent has Entomb + Liliana + Brutality = 9 outs to get a fatty in the bin
You mean my Squire costs 2 mana, doesn't generate mana, and doesn't have built-in gravehate? Ok, at least it must create Batterskulls right?230
Piledriver is so great post sb vs combo when you have so many great Goblin cards such as *checks notes* Thoughtseize, Therapy, and Relic of Progenitus
I like Pile vs combo in game 1. Racing for the turn 3-4 kill is your only chance. Postboard Piledriver openers are so underwhelming. 1 copy is probably enough.
2:34:00
Warchief doesn't add much speed here. Cast nothing and hold up Port vs the combo deck. Attack with Lackey alone, planning to drop a free Cratermaker with 3 lands up. Port Stage on his upkeep (to stall him in case he has Dark Depths that turn). He dropped Thespian's Stage last turn against a Wasteland deck, so there's a chance he has the Dark Depths in hand. Port stalls him. Then on his end step you have 1 mana left to blow up Needle getting back Vial. Tick Vial to 3. Vial in Warchief. Cast Ringleader or hold up Port again (and Vial in Ringleader next turn). This line leaves you in a fine position.
Turns out he had removal for Lackey so the line wouldn't work, but Trophy gives you a 4th land so you can hardcast Cratermaker and still Port him. It all works out. What does tapping out for Warchief add? You could Vial it in for free next turn and save that mana for Porting. So it just adds 2 damage?
2:35
Guess he did have Depths. Port would have stalled him a full turn from creating Marit Lage, the difference between a W and L.
If he chose not to drop Dark Depths with Stage tapped (risking Wasteland blowout), then you can keep Time Walking with Port while Vial gets it done. If he drops the Dark Depths naked, he's getting Marit Lage next turn, but that one extra turn gives you enough tempo to stabilize....
You'd untap with 4 lands, Vial @ 3 and Cratermaker. His Stage is tapped. Pop Cratermaker to kill Needle. Vial in Warchief. Hardcast Ringleader (which found you a Matron in the game). Swing for 4. Now he creates Marit Lage a full turn later and you have the tempo to Matron for Stingscourger FTW. Even if he tries to wait till End Step to dodge Stingscourger, you can force his hand. When you untap, Port his Stage precombat. He either creates Marit Lage or loses the chance to swing on his turn (in which case you're Time Walking him with Port again). If he creates it, you Vial Matron for Stingscourger and Sting it. If he doesn't, you can probably just kill him with Matron -> Piledriver.
I'm pretty sure you just win that game if you had Ported him.
Now you didn't know you'd hit Matron off that Ringleader or that he had Dark Depths right away. But I think you're in a fine position that game as long as you get Vial back and keep disrupting him from going off.
2:37:50
Same thing... tapping out instead of holding up disruption. Kill Bob and hold up Wasteland. You cut off his card advantage and would also hold him off that Hexmage blowout. Untapped Wasteland wrecks his deck. Tapping out for Grizzly Bears doesn't do much. Realistically you're probably losing this one either way, but tapping out for Cratermaker seems bad here.
Last edited by GoblinSmashmaster; 10-28-2018 at 03:39 AM.
@kombatkiwi
Thank you for watching my league and writing up an analysis. I have some comments for yours.
I'll address the points you made based on the timestamps you cited:
15:00: the k command is there as a way to get a card into the yard with an energy field in play. Maybe not necessary, but I don't wanna get locked out by a Field if I just don't draw wastelands.
29 piledriver does race combo decently well, just not in the initial moments of the game. He doesn't kill the opp in the first turns of the game without lackey, but he will let you win the turn before they kill you once you've disrupted them. You want him after you've delayed the game via mana denial. Because of the weird context of my hand and board, I believed I probably wouldn't be casting another creature for another 2 turns unless they let me wasteland them. Unfortunately, there aren't any goblins bigger than 2/2s that you can just play on turn 2 then let them kill the opp for you. Just not how we work. The only "disruptive and clocking 2 drop" goblin I can really think of is Grenzo Havoc Raiser (who I do love).
35 I should have done the line that you suggested. Don't really know why I didn't other than I didn't really do the math.
The whole grixis delver match: I'm baffled why you think warchief is bad based on this match. Lackey into warchief in the opener makes my best cards to draw (matron and ringleader, as always) substantially better draws. It's a helluva lot easier to get around daze + wasteland when you have warchief in play. When you make your comment about piledriver and warchief being bad at around 47:30 I think you're crazy. Those cards are what were giving me a chance to win that game. No other 2 + 3 drop combination that I could be running in those slots would win that game. I lost that game to lacking resources as a whole (no card advantage and got blown out early on). On the turn before I die, had I drawn a ringleader or matron, I very very likely just win on the spot. Warchief was giving me the potential to win where no other card really would. I just kinda flooded out instead of drawing what I needed. Had I drawn matron, I could vial matron, get matron, matron for matron again, then finally get piledriver. That is an insane amount of value off of warchief, it would behave as black lotus that gives haste!
Again, at 55:00, a hasty grey ogre...that my opponent bolts because it has a reasonable shot of killing them next turn??
Your shittalking of prospector also completely confuses me the whole league. Prospector is a busted card, I just didn't *need* to use it in a very aggressive way, even though I could. Options are good. It's also the entire reason I won game 2 of UB Omni, basically nothing else would.
"
Piledriver is so great post sb vs combo when you have so many great Goblin cards such as *checks notes* Thoughtseize, Therapy, and Relic of Progenitus"
I still have over 20 goblins in my deck postboard. Yes, the deck does get diluted postboard so piledriver becomes worse, but you also need him less postboard because you now have a plan besides mana denial and racing. The "whole piledriver and skirk are bad" comments here just don't make sense to me. With Piledriver + Skirk, I get to clock my opp for 4, hold up relic mana, and potentially cast any goblin I draw if it's expensive ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Again, options and planning for future matters, and prospector/warchief/piledriver are types of cards that enable you to actually go off when you draw your card advantage or just multiple bodies.
You seem convinced that piledriver is a bad card, but I'm struggling to see a better 2 drop right now other than MWM. Same goes for warchief/prospector in that no other card does what they do nearly as well. If we had a better aggressive 2 drop that did damage faster and earlier, but less explosively, I would consider that over driver. But to my knowledge, we don't. Piledriver the turn after you cast him is generally not great (again, unless lackey). However, the turn after that, he probably kills the opponent.
My argument is that you should just accept this fact and then not play any of them, including Piledriver. Over and over I see that Piledriver seems to be little to no help vs unfair decks and a significant liability vs fair decks, I think you gain a relevant amount of win% by abandoning the idea that the deck must have aggro 2 dropsUnfortunately, there aren't any goblins bigger than 2/2s that you can just play on turn 2 then let them kill the opp for you.
a) Why do you need mana acceleration if your lackey is connecting? You could just directly put down the Matron and RingleaderLackey into warchief in the opener makes my best cards to draw (matron and ringleader, as always) substantially better draws. It's a helluva lot easier to get around daze + wasteland when you have warchief in play.
b) If your lackey is not connecting then your Warchief is just as bad to resolve through a Daze as a Matron is
At that point in the game (47:30) your opponent has TNN + Aberration, my comment is mainly to address the idea that piledriver is good against TNN, when so often the TNN matchups play toward low-resource endgames where Piledriver can never get through a TNN for any significant amount of damage (like this exact spot).When you make your comment about piledriver and warchief being bad at around 47:30 I think you're crazy. Those cards are what were giving me a chance to win that game. No other 2 + 3 drop combination that I could be running in those slots would win that game. I lost that game to lacking resources as a whole (no card advantage and got blown out early on). On the turn before I die, had I drawn a ringleader or matron, I very very likely just win on the spot. Warchief was giving me the potential to win where no other card really would. I just kinda flooded out instead of drawing what I needed. Had I drawn matron, I could vial matron, get matron, matron for matron again, then finally get piledriver. That is an insane amount of value off of warchief, it would behave as black lotus that gives haste!
Again, at 55:00, a hasty grey ogre...that my opponent bolts because it has a reasonable shot of killing them next turn??
Yes, if your deck has literally zero ways to kill a TNN then Piledriver and Warchief is the only combo that gives you any outs and therefore they are the best draws possible. I'm not saying your deck could have given you better draws in this spot, I'm saying that even though these are your best draws they didn't help you at all and you could have played a deck with different cards in it (e.g. Weirding). The opp kills your warchief at 55:00 not because they're afraid of being 'combo killed', but because they're on 12 with no blockers and you have 4 power in play. You can make an argument that they're supposed to abrade the Cratermaker instead, you have so much mana in this spot that any Matron/Ringleader topdeck is going to pull you far ahead regardless of the Warchief anyway
A lot of your justification for Warchief (and to a certain extent, Driver) seems to be "Well obviously the card is good, I just need to draw X other thing to go with it". You make this point when looking at Warchief in your opener and when TNN is killing you. How many games do you lose where you don't draw that other thing you need and you could have won if Warchief (or Driver) was a different card? In my opinion (from these leagues I watch and from my own testing) it is a relevant amount. (Not to mention the times where you do topdeck the matron but it would have a big enough impact without Warchief)
The only relevant spot for it in the league was that Earwig Squad turn and the relic trick I think? In that omni game you can argue it's the only card that would have won you the game in that exact turn with your opponent at that exact life total (and it's not, if it was turn 1 Fanatic you could just Annihilate 4 lands and 2 vials on the penultimate turn, untap attack for 3 and then ping), but if you had turn 2 Goblin Piker instead of turn 1 Prospector that also would have probably been enough to get the job done. How confidently can you maintain that it's a "busted card" when the majority of the time it never seems to do anything? A 1 mana 1/1 is not a very impactful magic card. Of course you're more likely to remember the fancy times when it gives you SGC lethal and forget that you couldn't kill your opponent for the first 10 turns of the game because your only threat was Mons Goblin Raiders (yes I have Chirurgeon in my list but this league at least shows that both of these 1 drops might suck, not that Skirk is good)Your shittalking of prospector also completely confuses me the whole league. Prospector is a busted card, I just didn't *need* to use it in a very aggressive way, even though I could. Options are good. It's also the entire reason I won game 2 of UB Omni, basically nothing else would.
If you don't draw disruption then you will _generally_ die before you "go off" and if you do draw disruption then you _generally_ aren't drawing multiples of these goblin pieces that enable you to actually have a clockprospector/warchief/piledriver are types of cards that enable you to actually go off when you draw your card advantage or just multiple bodies.
Port, Cratermaker, MWM, Sparksmith, Weirding are all fine if you want to play cards solely for curve reasons.You seem convinced that piledriver is a bad card, but I'm struggling to see a better 2 drop right now other than MWM. Same goes for warchief/prospector in that no other card does what they do nearly as well. If we had a better aggressive 2 drop that did damage faster and earlier, but less explosively, I would consider that over driver. But to my knowledge, we don't.
If you want stuff that is dedicated to attacking, Rabble/Boss
This assumes you have plenty of other resources available or you didn't simply die in the meantime, and essentially all of the legacy format is equipped to fight you on either of those axesPiledriver the turn after you cast him is generally not great (again, unless lackey). However, the turn after that, he probably kills the opponent.
I think the point you are missing is that what piledriver does against the unfair decks is lets us end games against them faster. Against the unfair decks our opponent is time. Sometimes this means we need the hate card in our opening hand. But if they give us any time at all before they do their thing, then we need a way to win in that small opening, and piledriver does this. Piledriver is our proactive argument vs unfair decks as opposed to what we bring in from the sideboard which is reactive.
As to a liability against fair decks, piledriver attacks through TNN, can trade with angler, attacks through strix, can trade with the "smaller" eldrazi to maybe allow for a gap later on (admittedly, one of the weaker points of this argument). I don't see where this is a "liability". I concede that piledriver dictates other deck design decisions as piledriver wants more to attack with it in order to gain its full potential, so it maybe dictates more war marshals, but then again we already play gempalms which want those too.
I think the point, which I partially agree with, was that Piledriver is bad post-board in the opening hand.
IMHO (and overgeneralizing here) keepable hands can be classified as follows:
1) Turn 1 Lackey
2) Turn 1 Vial
3) 2-drop + hate card
Without one of those, you keep mulling at least down to 5. Ideally you get Lackey or Vial with a hate card and some mana denial.
The problem with Piledriver is it is pretty much the worst 2-drop you could possibly get in those Type 3 openers. You feel bad keeping those hands. There's a great example of one in the videoed matches. Because you're keeping it with a hate card (and possibly mulliganing), you may not have any other goblins in hand (and if you do they may not be attacking until turn 4 or later), so it starts off clocking as Squire. Cratermaker and MWM at least attack for 2.
It also feels bad keeping a Lackey or Vial hand with Piledriver as the only creature to cheat out (because the rest of your hand is mana denial or SB hate). Port, Port, Port. Turn 3 EOT Vial in Piledriver. Turn 4 attack with Squire, go!
Where Piledriver really shines post-board is not in the opener but when you deploy it midgame, after disruption, after developing a bit of a board, when you use it as a quick finisher. i.e. when you get it from Matron or Ringleader and then just win. If you don't want it in the opener but want it as a finisher, is 3-4 copies too many? Running too many copies increases the probability of these awkward opening hands. Would 1-2 get it done without as many awkward openers?
Any comments about my points on your match? Especially the lines vs BG Depths? Pretty sure my lines lead to better outcomes, not just the way those turns panned out, but just in that matchup in general.
You kept tapping out and trying to race, playing the aggro role. I see the temptation. You lacked board presence and had critters in hand. But I think it's optimal to play the control role. They're a land-based combo deck. We play mana denial. You can stall Stage-Depths by Porting Stage. You can straight up counter the combo Wasting Depths in response to Hexmage or Stage. Because you saw his list G1 and know he has no turbo and no alternate win conditions, you can get significant mileage just using Port and Wasteland to stall him from making Marit Lage. He literally cannot apply any pressure as long as you keep disrupting that (and kill Bob ASAP). You can't disrupt him forever and he will eventually draw outs, but there's a sweet spot in between tap-out aggro and having no clock, a place where you can both disrupt him and clock him at the expense of a few less damage. Overall strategically I think that's your best plan against a deck like that. Those turns where you dropped your shields to play 2/2s and then immediately lost certainly highlighted the risks of sacrificing disruption for marginally more board presence.
I have no comments other than you're totally right where depths is considered. Looking back, it looks pretty obvious that I shoulda done what you suggested. I think I was just too focused on getting on board quickly, and underrated port's ability to slow them down. Game 3 I REALLY didn't want my turn 3 to just be kill bob, do nothing, but it was definitely the correct line, I just needed to behave as if I would draw a 3rd land next turn (which I did).
So is the new theory that rabblemaster or warboss should replace warchief, and has it been successfully battle tested?
https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=20540&d=335070&f=LE
Lost in the final to infect, I had no chance
Went 3-1-1 in Swiss, losing to Foodchain (1 game couldn't find Thorn or Port, otherwise I would have won, got 2 times Engineered Plague against me) win against TES, Stoneblade (awesome matchup with the 3 cratermakers) and DnT, drew against the DnT player in the top 8 for a place in the top 8.
Quarterfinals against elves, uuurgh, ah well at least better than against lands or enchantress. Lost game 1 on turn 3, won game 2 and 3 thanks to pyrokinesis and sharpshooter.(and I think my opponent could have boarded a bit better)
Half Finals: enchantress, dammit! On my 2nd turn I drew the component for a turn 3 kill, but I decided to port his wild growthed forest, to be on the safe side and what if he had an elephant grass? Was the good call. Game 2 I lost due to solitary confinement. Game 3 I won due to him mulling to 5. I started with a prospector, ready to jam thorn on turn 2 and follow up with a port. He started with a tundra with a wild growth on it. I post-poned my play and wasted him, causing him to swear alot :-) and I sacced the prospector to land that Thorn on the same turn. Follow up the next turn with a port and slowing grinding it to victory.
Finals: not worth writing about, went so quickly , but my opponent will write a report on the infect thread about that.
Decklist has a mistake, that 1 stingscourger in the side was a 3rd pyrokinesis (I scribbeled alot last minute).
Last minute call I decided to chose 3 catermakers over that 4th warchief (good call). MVP of the tournament, definitely (my japanese, only have one yet )Rishadan Port. There's a reason that picture is on my bank card
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