Look for a very in-depth two part series on this very topic to go up on SCG as soon as Craig thinks its important.
I find this interesting since I played against Machinus with his list from day 1 and I was up 5-2 with UGW Thresh. I wonder what he thinks about this. You are probably talking about his winning list from Day 2 which I know is different than his day 1 list, but still its got to give you some insight into why the matchup isn't terrible from the Thresh player's perspective.Originally Posted by Bongo
Vial, Warchief, Piledriver, Lackey, Pyrokenisis, StP, Disenchant...
I would put the matchup squarly at 60/40, with the build making up a 5-10% variance (more Enforcers and Needles = good) Mages and more cantrips that aren't mental note = bad.
The counter vials(If they don't have needle), lackey, piledriver (if they have a suboptimal hand), warchief (If the damage is way to much). These cards are very good in the early game against gro and the have to deal with them and if they do then they have to start worrying about matron,gang-bang,and ringleader.
I cannot type.
Edited for grammar, spelling, punctuation and truth.
~ Team Unicorn Motto
Competent White Splash Threshold players will usually beat bad Goblin players with bad builds. A revelation, I know. But against a strong Goblin player with a good build, my money's on Goblins.
AEther Vial
Wasteland
Goblin Ringleader
Gempalm Incinerator
Tormod's Crypt
Siege-Gang Commander
With support from Rishadan Port, Warchief and Matron? It's pretty fucking miserable.
Against Red Splash with 4 Pyroclasm and 4 BEBs in the sideboard, I'm inclined to think Thresh will win.
Pretty much, yeah.
You play between 8 non-counter answers to all of these except Vial. Most of the time these will not be must-counters. If someone is countering your warchief, unless they're at really low life, they're probably bad.
Vial is the only thing that truly swings the game in Goblin's favor. Obviously it has to be answered, but it's not a matter of "baiting".
These are situationally must-counters, and in those situations, they're not bait. Baiting is tricking someone into countering something that doesn't need to be countered. This can be reasonable against a rogue deck, but when you're playing the most popular deck in the format, you should not be able to bait good players.Pyrokenisis, StP, Disenchant...
Early one morning while making the round,
I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down;
I went right home and I went to bed,
I stuck that lovin' .44 beneath my head.
I do agree with your statement about the situational removal spells not being great bait. I normally use piledriver, warchief, or tinkereer as bait.
Read what he posted again, Calosso. That's exactly what he was saying.
Well, I'll tell you what I think. My day 1 list was a pile of shit and that's why I played my real Goblins deck on day two. Anwar, I think my monored list is at least 55% vs UGW - and that's against very good players.
Thanks, I mis-read his statement.
From what I've heard, Machinus' article should be very good. My article was supposed to be an overview. My forte is not writing about all the various configurations and their merits; I find that I'm a lot better at conceptualizing and writing about tempo and tactics. The Goblins vs. Thresh match is a VERY interesting one and it always goes to the better prepared player.
One of the most salient points I think I make in the article is that Goblins can keep just about any hand they open with, but Threshold must mulligan into a Lackey answer. That shows just how much of an advantage Goblins has simply going into the match.
Again, what combo decks? I assume Bomholt would've been playing Iggy Pop; what else? (Oh, and if they're better than you, the testing probably isn't terribly accurate.)
That doesn't sound right. What was your build like?...obliterates me with Red Threshold because my anti-creature elements outweigh my anti-combo elements.
I disagree. Enforcer is actually pretty poor against Goblins, for a few reasons. Firstly, you can't rely on it, because of Gempalm and sometimes StP. Secondly, by the time you can assemble four mana, the game may have already been won or lost - if you've survived that long, odds are good that you can win within a reasonable amount of time using the more efficient creatures. If the Enforcer was a draw spell, a removal spell, or a counterspell, it could actually help you get to that position. Enforcer also makes mana denial far more relevant than it should be (more on that later). It's the first card I board out.
Cantrips, on the other hand, are very good. The more draw spells you have, the more control you have over the cards you draw; the ratio of land to spells (again, this is relevant to just how good Goblins' mana denial is), the numbers of threats and answers, and the type of answers. This is the fundamental concept of the deck, and it applies just as well in this matchup as in any other.
On the subject of what actually constitutes a threat from Goblins, a large number of things can be threats but at any given time only some of them are and they are not necessarily must-counters.
You have four basic answers in your deck: Counters, removal, Pithing Needle, and creatures. Some threats are answered by most of these (Goblin Piledriver). They are not must-counters. Some threats are answered by very few of these (Aether Vial). They are often good to counter. But only two are immune to all of your other options (Ringleader and SGC). They are the only must-counters in the deck. They also happen to be the most expensive cards in the deck.
So if you can't accept Piledriver not being a threat, it is. But it's the kind of threat that gets answered by creatures at a better than one to one ratio, often much better. A threat that has often already been answered before you play it because you can't make a favorable attack even with an extra creature. Of course, to simplify things, some people prefer to say that it isn't a threat.
Removal is rarely a threat, because Werebear is rarely key to my survival. By the time Goblins is in a position to have a big enough horde of creatures on the board that I have to have blockers, I've either got a Mongoose or enough Werebears that they can't remove them all. Gempalm is annoying because it's actually card advantage, but not nearly as good as you all seem to believe. Swords is decent but very rarely good enough to waste a counterspell on. Pyrokinesis is much worse.
Mana denial is also rarely amazing. Sure, I've lost games because I only had one land and it got Wasted. I've also won games because my opponent didn't have red mana or had to mulligan to find it. With the exception of Enforcer (one reason he's bad), Gro has nothing that doesn't cost one or two mana. It also has twelve one mana library manipulation spells that are excellent at finding land. Most (if not all, depending on build) of its spells can be played with basics, and activating Port is likely to hurt Goblins more than Gro.
Goblin players lose all the time because they didn't mulligan. I've won a number of games because my opponent didn't have enough/the right kind of mana, didn't have enough threats, or didn't do anything relevant until turn three.
Did you get that number from playtesting?
I'm pretty sure that I was making the right plays. The only choices in the Threshold v IGGy matchup are really whether to hold back mana for counterspells or to commit to the board - and if you're holding back for counterspells what spells do you aim them at.
Red Threshold
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Counterspell
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Werebear
2 Fledgling Dragon
4 Fire/Ice
3 Pyroclasm
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
3 Mental Note
3 Predict
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tropical Island
4 Volcanic Island
2 Island
Actually Red gives you Pyroclasm, and that is important against SCG, and being able to race Ringleaders if they resolve. Did I mention they're a savage topdeck? Also, Red isnt there for Creature removal entirely, as the Burn just adds to the clock, it just works as removal if needed. Against Goblins, they have a ton of low quality creatures, once you get your clock started, you should over run them. Also, a few burn cards can easily make rediculous wins after something big resolves from a Goblin's side of the table.
An example is this deck...
// Lands 17
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Flooded Strand
4 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
1 Forest
1 Mountain
2 Island
// Creatures 10
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Werebear
2 Fledgling Dragon
// Spells 33
4 Brainstorm
4 Serum Visions
4 Predict
3 Daze
3 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
3 Fire // Ice
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Magma Jet
// Sideboard 15
4 Pyroclasm
3 Flametongue Kavu
3 Krosan Grip
3 Pithing Needle
2 Open Slot
This deck can easily take the mirror down as well as Solidarity. This deck design was taken from Wastedlife, and he has won a lot with this deck. He Top 8's a Lotus Tourney, and he won a Mox. I too have ran this version for a long time, and the only flaw I accumulated was the fact I didnt know how to play against Solidarity with this deck. I recently corrected that flaw by learning how to play against them, and I have won more than I expected. This deck also aims at the head a lot, and can win you games when your allowed to lose, or even win before your opponent gets a chance to do something. White has the same tech this deck has available to to deal with Goblins, and it's called Pithing Needle, Stifle, and BEB.
But you can try Mad Zur's Red build, which is
-3 Windswept Heath
-4 Tundra
-2 Mystic Enforcer
-4 Swords to Plowshares
+3 Wooded Foothills
+4 Volcanic Island
+2 Fledgling Dragon
+4 Lightning Bolt
The two decks have two different Post-Board Strategy against Goblins, the White build involve Stifles and BEB, while the Red build uses Pyroclasm. The White build tries to establish Control early, and the Red build uses it's cantrips to cycle through the deck to find Pyroclasms to turn Games around, and attacking with a couple guys. I personally found the Pyroclasm method works very well because it gives you more reach against Goblins.
ICBE - We're totally the coolest Anti-Thesis ever.
"The Citrus-God just had a Citrus-Supernova... in your mouth."
You have only 8 Answers to Lackey on the play, and no Needle to shut down Vial. Also, your draw engine is janky, as your momentum will not get you answers very well. A lot of Red lists now a days run more Control and a better draw engine. Burn can be used as reach or just general removal. In a deck like that, you should really change it into Mad Zur's version or Wastedlife's. Both have a good combo match-up as well, as are rather fast.
ICBE - We're totally the coolest Anti-Thesis ever.
"The Citrus-God just had a Citrus-Supernova... in your mouth."
If I say that I got it from playtesting, is that really going to change how much weight you give to my opinion? It's what I think about that matchup, and I'm fine with not defending that on this forum.
That seems reasonable. Our testing showed it as 50/50 and was presented as such in our article a few months ago. As for your specific version, I would have to say that you have more insight into that than I would, but it doesn't seem far off from our results.
We stopped working on Threshold despite everybody else's success with it for two reasons. The first is that it wasn't really beating anybody with our then current list. We'd win games sometimes, but it either involved a mulligan error on the opponent's part or all the counterspells being drawn or (my favorite) defeating a Xantid Swarm somehow. The second is that I could be playing a deck with 4 Fact or Fictions, 4 Demonic Tutors, 4 AEther Vials, 4 Goblin Lackeys, and 4 Rishadan Ports. All of these are cards that have been banned/restricted from one constructed format or another. Or I could be playing 4 Dark Rituals, 4 Lion's Eye Diamonds, and that set of degenerate plays. Don't get me started on High Tide - otherwise known in formats past as the best Draw-Go deck in the history of mankind, which just so happened to win on turn 3.
Instead, I'd be playing a deck with simply undercosted creatures and some light control elements - and even those creatures are scalable in size if the opponent really wants to. I understand why people play Threshold, because it's capable of winning, but it's a very underpowered deck compared to Goblins, High Tide, Ill-Gotten Gains, even Affinity.
I'm actually a little curious if anyone testing Goblins has gone to a 25 land build.
When in doubt, mumble.
When in trouble, delegate.
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