[Deck] Goblins [Archive] - Page 21

GoboLord

03-06-2013, 06:37 AM

My last commander just blow out from the list coz he wasn't in my game plan anymore, to put dudes with haste on the board and run in a straight line.
Maybe should I just swap Krenko and a loyalist to make driver stronger.
I can imagine that Krenko is cool in a list with 7(!) haste enablers. Your list is very fast and relies on fast kills - I like that. However, you should definitely try to squeeze in Piley#4 because he is your MVP if your goal is winning fast.
Maybe you could also toy around with 2 Chrome Moxen instead of 2 Mountains. Past has shown that this is a viable choice - however I can't say wether it'S a good idea to run Moxen in the current meta. I think it's worth a try though.

-SGC also suffers a bad story, a lackey t1, linking t2 after a bolt on deathrite, t2 phantasmal image on SGC. And a few turns later, eternal witness on image naming sgc again :( . More seriously, i feel that he is just bad on this metagame. Anyone else feels that way?
I highly doubt that ANYONE on this forum ever had his SGC copied twice in the same game. That's a quite unique story and absolutely NO reason to kick him entirely.

-Bolt is not that bad in gob and a way ahead from Tarfire
-I just cut all the 1 off (krenko and sharpshooter remain coz they are always good)
I wouldn't say it's THAT easy, but in YOUR list running Bolt > Tarfire makes sense to me.
Sharpshooter is not very good right now - even less so in the MD. I would either kick him entirely or move him to SB. Overall I feel like he's too slow and has a narow reach. Maybe kick him for Piley#4?

coz you have to get rid of his tarmo before he refill his GY)
Step 1: Tarfire/Incinerator/Bolt @ Tarmogoyf
Step 2: Sacrifice Relic of Progenitus, draw a card.
Step 3: Tarmogoyf dies. There is nothing that your opponent can do about that (unless he's willing to use Stifle/Trickbind/Pithing Needle/Phyrexian Revoker/Null ROd/Stony Silence on Relic).

Mrheizenberg

03-06-2013, 07:30 AM

Thanks for the reply

Step 1: Tarfire/Incinerator/Bolt @ Tarmogoyf
Step 2: Sacrifice Relic of Progenitus, draw a card.
Step 3: Tarmogoyf dies. There is nothing that your opponent can do about that

I know those tricks but i was trying to explain that if you don't have any removal (or less than the number of tarmo) your opponent CAN refill his GY. With RIP, he is just screwed (no bounce or disenchant in their SB)

@SGC, in my list he's just too slow and i use every mana to put dudes on the battlefield or for mana denial. For the story, it happens to me (during playtests yesterday).

@pily#4 i was thinking about a matron or a ringleader (yes i'm just an heretic awaiting to be burnt to death).

@Sharpy elves is an hard MU in G1 and need it to make it smoother (more and more French players run this deck now). He is pretty amazing during combat phase (offering nice trading ability). Near all of the non-combo deck , in my meta runs (one, a mix or all) Snapcaster/Baleful Strix / Lingering souls or Confident. He is still a viable slot but maybe you are right and his place is in the SB.

I wouldn't say it's THAT easy, but in YOUR list running Bolt > Tarfire makes sense to me.
Yeah, that's the point i was trying to explain.

ScatmanX

03-06-2013, 12:49 PM

fast list
I've been thinking that fast lists might be the way to go now, since we want to have a shot against unfair decks.
The problem I see with yours is that it does not run SGC (the reasoning you gave for taking them out is really bad), because it increases the number of T3 kills (Lackey+SGC+Piledriver). So I present my slightly modified list that I was working on too:

4 Wasteland
4 Cavern of Souls
12 Mountain
2 Chrome Mox

3 Aether Vial

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief

3 Mogg Warmarchall
4 Goblin Piledriver

2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Kiki Jiki, Mirrorbreaker

3 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Stingscourger
4 Lightning Bolt

SB:
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Thorn of Amethyst
2 ReB / Pyroblast

2 Pyrokinesis
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Aether Vial / Mountain
1 Boartusk Liege / Mountain
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Goblin Sharpshooter

The deck can kill T3 quite often. Kiki makes that number go up just as SGC. On this particular list, Krenko might not be worth it, becaming maybe the 4th MWM.
Vial went to 3 in testing. After some research on the last 5 top16 decks on SCGopens, I discovered that Vial was good against 42 of the 80 decks. (I side out Vial quite a lot, while some other people might not, against decks like Burn, Elves, Affinity, so that's why the high number). With that in mind, and thinking of decks I mght face locally, the decision was made.
The strategy against Reanimator/Dredge is to kill them before they kill you.
The Moxes can easily became Mountains. They're there to increase T3 kills.

It's been a while since I've played, and wanted your oppinions on the matter.

B-rad

03-06-2013, 02:22 PM

GoboLord

03-06-2013, 03:04 PM

@ Marcello:
Your list looks fine. The only thing that could be REALLY problematic is having that many cc4/5 spells. Having 8 spotremoval makes your Lackey-connection more frequent, but I think having such a cluncy mana-curve might come back at you sometimes (like when your opponents deal with Lackey somehow, or you dont draw removal spells. Having multiple cc4/5 spells on your hand can make them dead cards. Plus, I neither like Krenko, nor the 3-Vial thing. WHat you say sounds plausible, but my gut-feeling tells me that its wrong.

@ B-rad:
I think you will be fine either your mono-red list from last tourney ( I tested that one and it proved to be very strong against BGx at least) OR a Rb list without fetchlands (something like 4 Auntie'S Hovel, 4 Badlands to support 4 Perish in SB.

///EDIT:
@ Marcello: Yes.

ScatmanX

03-06-2013, 03:06 PM

@ Marcello:
Your list looks fine. The only thing that could be REALLY problematic is having that many cc4/5 spells. Having 8 spotremoval makes your Lackey-connection more frequent, but I think having such a cluncy mana-curve might come back at you sometimes (like when your opponents deal with Lackey somehow, or you dont draw removal spells. Having multiple cc4/5 spells on your hand can make them dead cards. Plus, I neither like Krenko, nor the 3-Vial thing. WHat you say sounds plausible, but my gut-feeling tells me that its wrong.

Well, -1Krenko, +1 Vial is a possibility too.

@ B-rad:
I think you will be fine with eitehr your mono-red list from last tourney OR a Rb list without fetchlands (something like 4 Auntie'S Hovel, 4 Badlands to support 4 Perish in SB.
Because of Shaman? (mainly)

(nameless one)

03-06-2013, 09:15 PM

What's the general consensus with Loyalist? Should I pick them up?

magicmerl

03-06-2013, 09:31 PM

No.

mrblueduck

03-07-2013, 03:21 AM

I'm playing SCG Indy this weekend. Anyone have a list that you think is the most optimal for the metagame? I'm thinking of just sticking to the mono red list I played with in Cincy or moving towards a black splash for perish.

Well here are my last two lists. I built this and we played it at the SCG LA Invitational. I finished 4-4 and friend got 19th.

4 Goblin Lackey
1 Goblin Piledriver
3 Warren Instigator
1 Stingscourger
3 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Matron
2 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
2 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

4 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
13 Mountain
2 Rishadan Port

4 Æther Vial
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Pyrokinesis

//Sideboard
SB: 1 Goblin Sharpshooter
SB: 2 Pyrokinesis
SB: 2 Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Pyroblast
SB: 3 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 Tuktuk Scrapper
SB: 1 Tower of the Magistrate
SB: 1 Blood Moon
SB: 1 Coat of Arms
SB: 1 Pithing Needle

Mana base and higher end was to play more effectively against Abrupt Decay, as BUG was all the rage. The Krenko plan was a solid answer to that.

Current List:

4 Goblin Lackey
1 Goblin Piledriver
3 Warren Instigator
1 Stingscourger
3 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Matron
2 Goblin Warchief
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 SGC/Goblin Settler
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
2 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

4 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
12 Mountain
2 Rishadan Port

4 Æther Vial
2 Tarfire

//Sideboard
SB: 2 Pyrokinesis
SB: 2 Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Pyroblast
SB: 3 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 Tuktuk Scrapper
SB: 1 Tower of the Magistrate
SB: 1 Blood Moon
SB: 1 Zoran Orb
SB: 2 Angel of Despair

Took out a land, due to Abrupt Decay becoming less prevalent. Brought back in Sharpshooter as there has been an uptick in Esper after last GP. Finally dropped Pyrokinesis from MB, as there are less and less targets for it. Swapped out Bolts for Tarfires, mostly a local thing. Currently testing Settler over SGC in last slot. Seems like it could be pretty strong against Helm decks. Angels are a nod to more and more sneak and shows.

Hof

03-07-2013, 04:52 AM

Current List:

4 Goblin Lackey
1 Goblin Piledriver
3 Warren Instigator
1 Stingscourger
3 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Matron
2 Goblin Warchief
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 SGC/Goblin Settler
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
2 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

4 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
12 Mountain
2 Rishadan Port

4 Æther Vial
2 Tarfire

//Sideboard
SB: 2 Pyrokinesis
SB: 2 Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Pyroblast
SB: 3 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 Tuktuk Scrapper
SB: 1 Tower of the Magistrate
SB: 1 Blood Moon
SB: 1 Zoran Orb
SB: 2 Angel of Despair

Took out a land, due to Abrupt Decay becoming less prevalent. Brought back in Sharpshooter as there has been an uptick in Esper after last GP. Finally dropped Pyrokinesis from MB, as there are less and less targets for it. Swapped out Bolts for Tarfires, mostly a local thing. Currently testing Settler over SGC in last slot. Seems like it could be pretty strong against Helm decks. Angels are a nod to more and more sneak and shows.

Looks good to me. I have some experience with Goblin Settler, Kiki-Jiki, and Instigator, and can say with confidence that it can absolutely win some games against slow decks. If Instigator connects, you can surprisingly often find the combo with Matron/Ringleader.

magicmerl

03-07-2013, 03:02 PM

Looks good to me. I have some experience with Goblin Settler, Kiki-Jiki, and Instigator, and can say with confidence that it can absolutely win some games against slow decks. If Instigator connects, you can surprisingly often find the combo with Matron/Ringleader.
First of all, are 'slow decks' the target we should be aiming for in the metagame?

And secondly, back when Kiki was in my deck, I used to matron for Kiki, then Kiki->Matron in their EOT gives you whatever you want, often an Incinerator, but sometimes SGC or Ringleader.

Hof

03-07-2013, 03:54 PM

First of all, are 'slow decks' the target we should be aiming for in the metagame?
Maybe not, but to clarify, all control decks and combo decks that doesn't auto-win by turn 3 fall into this category.
The plan does not work against aggro decks, because Lackey/Instigator will never connect.

And secondly, back when Kiki was in my deck, I used to matron for Kiki, then Kiki->Matron in their EOT gives you whatever you want, often an Incinerator, but sometimes SGC or Ringleader.
That is how it works, but none of those cards you mention can win against a deck that is about to go off or stabilize for control. Instigator - > Matron for Kiki, Kiki etb -> eot copy Matron for Settler, next turn Settler -> copy Settler is often a win.

magicmerl

03-07-2013, 04:28 PM

Doesn't every deck that isn't a non-interactive combo deck run spot removal now?

slave

03-07-2013, 09:07 PM

Doesn't every deck that isn't a non-interactive combo deck run spot removal now?

Even some non-interactive decks run spot removal. Any deck that uses the graveyard has to, now that DRS has arrived.

Couple of questions;
I've been having a hard time against tool-box decks that just fetch an answer, then place their hand on my goblins heads to keep them at arms reach....
How do we deal with Moat-style effects or Solitary Confinement/Glacial Chasm?
Is there a single kill-all we can use in goblins? I've tried Chaos Warp but it's risky (emrakul), and so far it's been less than great.

Secondly, I have been running Chieftain, and find the pump and haste to be invaluable, but quite a few of you run Boartusk Liege, why?
At four mana, is the reason more to do with Vial (Krenko), MU's against Delver - or is it something else?

BigBopper

03-08-2013, 02:30 AM

Secondly, I have been running Chieftain, and find the pump and haste to be invaluable, but quite a few of you run Boartusk Liege, why?
At four mana, is the reason more to do with Vial (Krenko), MU's against Delver - or is it something else?

Liege cc=4 - so abrupt decay is no issue. Most decks playing Engeneered plaque can take care of chieftain, but not Liege. He's got 4 toughness, so bolt isn't an issue either.

Glacial Chasm and lands like these are the reason we still run 4 Wastelands. For Moat and other hate bears I'd suggest Krosan Grip post-board, especially since it's enables TSH!

ScatmanX

03-08-2013, 07:43 AM

How do we deal with Moat-style effects or Solitary Confinement/Glacial Chasm?
Sharpshooter + Prospector can help a ton against those cards. Against Solitary is not unusual for them to have to sac one, to play another one their turn. When that happens, be prepared to insta-kill them. Siege-Gang, obviously, really help here too.
If you know your opponent runs Moat, try to deal the most dmg you can to him on the first 3 turns, then tutor for SGC. Deny them mana, specially double W. Port is your friend here.
If you're REALLY worried about those cards, Anarchy is a great answer to both, coming in against several other matchups.

superspaceshooter

03-08-2013, 10:54 AM

Hello everyone! I too am an avid Goblins player. The first deck I made for a large tournament was Goblin-Bidding back in standard, which I played very poorly. I recall the 1st round of the tournament playing the mirror and learning about damage on the stack (my opponent's Goblin Sledders were MUCH better than mine). I also began to learn the art of sideboarding (when in a postboard game I played Patriarch's Bidding, which unsurprisingly was all downside as my opponent had boarded his out and had a higher threat density, making Bidding's symmetrical effect actually favor my opponent!) After that point I've played Goblins when possible, even winning a box in side event at a Grand Prix with 4 maindeck Goblin Artillery! The first version of Legacy Goblins I played was BR for Cabal Therapies/Warren Weirding and sideboard cards such as Perish/Additional Therapies. I knew at the time of building the deck that a RW build with Thalia had more synergy with its overall gameplan of mana-denial with an aggressive element. I also knew that mana-denial and discard are semi-disynergistic because the point of denying them mana is to make their hand uncastable. However, we're not talking about Thoughtseize here. We're talking about a card that can destroy an entire hand, making it more like a 1-mana Persecute. And clearly the flashback on it fits the theme of the deck (since many of the Goblins are both weak and have already replaced themselves, with my favorites being Mogg War Marshal, Stingscourger, and Goblin Matron to sacrifice.) I did great in the one large tournament I played it in, but am always in the mood to try something a little different. Here's what I may play this weekend:

Mana-Tax Goblins
------------------

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
2 Mogg War Marshal
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Skirk Prospector
1 Goblin Piledriver
1 Stingscourger
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Goblin Chieftain
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
---30 Goblins---

4 AEther Vial
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
---7 Other Spells---

4 Cavern of Souls
4 Rishidan Port
4 Wasteland
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Plateu
3 Mountain
---23 Land---

With a sideboard consisting of some of the usual suspects but not complete. The reason I went towards this list was a postboard plan against combo involving 3 Thalia and 3 Thorn of Amethyst to compliment the 8 mana-denial lands.

In this version I've maxed out the "broken" Goblins since that's the point of playing the deck. Sure, you can get clunky Gempalm Incinerators when no creatures are present, but the times they're good, they're glorious. I really like Mogg War Marshal over most of the Piledrivers against most decks these days, but have left in one Piledriver to mimic the Infernal Tutor -> Infernal Tutor -> Infernal Tutor -> Tendrils of Agony play of Storm decks in the form of Goblin Matron -> Goblin Matron -> Goblin Matron -> Goblin Piledriver with a haste enabler, preferably 1-2 Goblin Warchiefs to make this a reality. Another reason I shaved on Piledrivers was Thalia taking up the 2-drop slot (where it's MUCH better on turn 2 than a Piledriver against almost any deck.) I don't play Krenko because he doesn't have an immediate impact on the board like most of the cards I prefer to play. I understand how delightful Chieftain + Krenko is (by itself killing within 1-2 turns), but the power of the Goblins deck is on the back of its mana-denial + card advantage in the form of threats. The decks that beat Goblins do not care about Krenko. I have 2 Siege-Gang Commanders because the first one always dies, and he's one of the best cards to drop off a turn 1 Lackey. Kiki-Jiki is a nice option and gives you second way to deal with Equipment, which is always nice when you have to beat both an Umezawa's Jitte and a Batterskull, but Jitte is the only must kill, so having 1 Shatter-Goblin is acceptable. Goblin Sharpshooter is one of the worst cards in the deck, but I love the little guy, and he is your absolute best card in a few matchups such as Elves and Charbelcher, while being insane in other creature-heavy matchups, up to and including the mirror.

Anyways, that's the plan this weekend. I had more to say but have lost my train of thought. As for those looking for a new build of Goblins, here is one I've been looking to test:

Izzet Good?
------------

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg War Marshal
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
2 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Tarfire
1 Skirk Prospector
1 Stingscourger
1 Siege-Gang Commander
---30 Goblins---

4 AEther Vial
4 Daze
---8 Other Spells---

4 Cavern of Souls
4 Rishidan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Volcanic Island
2 Arid Mesa
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills
---22 Land---

The idea behind this build is that you can protect your turn 1 AEther Vial or Goblin Lackey from counterspells, but more importantly removal. This is shown more prominently on the play, where a Daze on an opposing turn 1 Swords to Plowshares or Lightning Bolt can be game-winning. If that's all Daze did, it would be decent, but it does oh so much more! Now, most of us are accustomed to Daze's backed up by a Wasteland to give it life into the late game. But with both Wasteland and Rishidan Port, these Dazes are near Force of Wills the entire game. That's the idea anyway. Another takeaway from Dazes is that you can possibly cut cards you had in the maindeck as an answer to very specific situations, such as Tuktuk Scrapper. I realize Daze would prefer a lower curve, which is why I've maxed out on the best cheap options available that also provide the quickest kills to make sure Daze doesn't become another one of those washed up child celebrities in almost any game. So again, the benefits are having the best chance to steal wins with Goblin Lackey, and having a decently versatile answer to combo decks and control decks alike.

Thanks for reading!

jrw1985

03-08-2013, 11:45 AM

Hello everyone! I too am an avid Goblins player....Thanks for reading!

Welcome aboard sss! We're glad to have you on the forum.

I played a similar Rwg Thalia list last night and it worked out pretty well. I only ran 20 lands though, to keep up the threat density.

2 Wasteland
4 Mountain
4 Cavern
3 Plateau
1 Taiga
1 Karakas
5 Fetch

It worked well against Team America but the lack of lands suuuucked against the random-ass Pox deck i got paired against! So it goes.

I like the idea of running Ru Daze Goblins. If you get the chance to test it out please let us know how it goes for you.

Asgar

03-08-2013, 12:42 PM

Got Love for the Daze-Goblins, too. But there are a few things I want to mention.
We win a lot of games through our cardadvange-grind-mid and -lategame. If you run daze, you accept a big Tempo-difficit.
If you focus on getting enablers through such as Lackey against Counter/Spotremovel and Vial against counters, then I think the dazes are better in a list with Warren Instigators and maybe Chrome Moxes, even if that means that you have to cut ports. I love the possibility to get the Sideboardoptions of Tobias Dreger aka. Spell Pierce, Envelop, Gilded Drake. Turning in a deck with Dazes and Spellpierces against combo seems too sweet to me.

markbris

03-08-2013, 04:21 PM

There was a list back a few years ago that did really well at the big gp madrid, I still have the list and ill dig it up. It ran forces brainstorm standstill and stifle. I played it on cockatrice and its god hands are rediculous. You could go lackey, force their removal, drop scg and play standstill. That list was a lot less resilient though.

Avatara

03-08-2013, 05:02 PM

markbris

03-08-2013, 05:31 PM

Yea and thats kind of what I meant, it might as well have been at that point any other blue tempo deck and was probably worse at it than others. The concept intrigues me though. His list is below, you will have to translate a couple cards but as you can see its a weird mixture of a tempo deck and goblins.

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Siege-Gang Comander
3 Cacique trasgo
3 Grim Lavamancer
1 Blood Moon
4 FoW
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
3 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Parada
2 Stifle
4 Fetch UR
2 Fetch UB
2 Fetch UW
4 Volcanic Island
4 Erial
4 Mutavault
1 Isla
1 Mountain

goblinsplayer

03-09-2013, 11:51 PM

I went to Elmira today to play in this 1.5k tournament they have at mythic games. Anyways, the list.

4 Goblin pildriver
4 Goblin ringleader
4 goblin matron
4 goblin lackey
3 goblin warchief
2 gempalm incenerator
2 stingscourger
2 goblin chieftain
3 mogg war marshal
1 siege-gang commander
1 krenko, mob boss
1 tuktuk scrapper

4 aether vial
3 warren weirding

4 badlands
4 arid mesa
4 wasteland
4 mountain
3 rishadan port
3 cavern of souls

I havent updated this list in a while but i managed to go 4-1 and draw into top 8. There were 36 people attending and at noon, we started the tournament. I made changes to the sideboard which you could see here. (finished sideboard)

3 chalice of the void
4 cabal therapy
3 relic of progenitus
2 REB
1 pyrokinesis
2 perish

Round 1 vs BUG landstill
game 1: The first couple turns of the game starts with him casting standstill and going draw, go for a couple turns. Then, I break the standstill with ringleader which i manage to get through with cavern of souls. He plays land, life in the loam, then pass. In a couple turns, he plays a deed, blows it up and casts another standstill. I manage to tear through this one too, then, in a couple of turns, chieftan and krenko take over the game
game 2: I wasteland his color sources and he just scoops. The board was lackey, ringleader, and piledriver for me, double wasteland for him.
1-0

Round 2 vs. reanimator
game 1: I draw the nuts and he cant get a creature in play in time for him to come back. double piledriver and warchief usually do the work.
game 2: He just crushes me with griselbrand and i kept a sketchy hand. I also had no hate at all
game 3: I just keep a hand with stingscourger and he just was on the show and tell plan. I win.
2-0

Round 3 vs jund
game 1: He just goes deathrite, deathrite, tarmogoyf, bloodbraid elf, that's enough to do it
game 2: I eventually win with piledriver and warchief and a bunch of removal.
game 3: Look into game 1. Its pretty much the same except there is a lilianna of the veil involved
2-1

Round 4 vs scapeshift
game 1: I win by just being faster than him and he has no scapeshift.
game 2: he gets to 7 lands and scapeshifts. I do nothing. Nuff said.
game 3: I just play a bunch of creatures and deal him a lot of damage until he deeds me. The board is empty and i topdeck ringleader when he's at one life. It has haste. He reveals the top card of his deck and turns out to be scapeshift.... ironic
3-1

round 5 vs mono black control
game 1: I play piledriver, warchief, into ringleader. That does it.
game 2: he plays a bunch of discard and engineered plague. He puts me in topdeck mode with lily, bob, and factory in play. I scoop
game 3: I get a hyper-aggresive hand and lackey hits. nuff said
4-1

Round 6: I draw in
4-1-1

There are alot of combo decks in the top 8. Shit. I eventually get paired against elves and im on the play because im 4th
top 8: vs elves
game 1; he kills me with craterhoof behemoth.
game 2: I have chalice on one and two. I just play goblins when he does nothing.
game 3: I make an epic punt by swinging with almost all of my creatures and keeping one open. Wow, i'm an idiot.

Eventually, i buy the stuff for RW goblins with some money and 75 bucks of store credit. Overall, i had a good day and im glad i at least got store credit.

Vandalize

03-10-2013, 01:54 AM

How Army Loyalist has been working out for you guys? I heard Trampling First Striking Piledrivers are awesome.

In my testing, it has been nothing but pure awesomeness:

Lands [19]
11 Mountain
4 Wasteland
4 Cavern of Souls

Goblins [34]
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Matron
3 Army Loyalist
3 Warren Instigator
3 Stingscourger
2 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Goblin Chieftain
1 Gempalm Incinerator

Spells [7]
4 AEther Vial
2 Chrome Mox
1 Tarfire

Sideboard [15]
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Pyroblast
2 Pyrokinesis
2 Confusion in the Ranks
1 TukTuk Scrapper

This list is a mess, but can enable very strong openings and I've been having a lot of fun. Give it a try and reach your own conclusions.

Fuwatanity

03-10-2013, 09:45 AM

I went to a GPT in Strasbourg for GP Strasbourg :D yesterday. There were 18 players. The meta was quite diverse (Dredge, Jund, Omnitell, Goblins, Elves, Esper, Belcher, Junk, BUG, ...)
We went there from Germany with 4 people, and met 4 other germans there.

My List:

Creatures (33)
4x Goblin Lackey
4x Warren Instigator
4x Goblin Matron
4x Goblin Ringleader
4x Goblin Chieftain
3x Gempalm Incinerator
3x Goblin Piledriver
1x Skirk Prospector
1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1x Siege-Gang Commander
1x Krenko, Mob Boss
1x Goblin Sharpshooter
1x Stingscourger
1x Tuktuk Scrapper

Spells (5)
2x Tarfire
3x Aether Vial

Lands (22)
4x Wasteland
2x Arid Mesa
1x Bloodstained Mire
4x Wooded Foothills
1x Gemstone Caverns
4x Cavern of Souls
2x Plateau
4x Mountain

SB:
1x Boartusk Liege
4x Chalice of the Void
2x Oblivion Ring
1x Confusion in the Ranks
3x Ethersworn Canonist
4x Rest in Peace

Match 1 vs. Nic Fit with Punishing Fire and Scapeshift(wishboard)+valakut
He was one of those people i came there with and played alot against him. It's kinda frustrating if you travel some kilometers just to play against each others in the first round. Anyway ...
Game 1: I keep a slow start with Vial and some stuff. He drops T1 S.Top and while the game continues I draw bad and Cabal Therapy decimites my hand. Thragtusk keeps him alive and BWish+Pyroclasm cleans the board. Grove + Pfire makes it even worse. GG 0-1
Game 2: Went kinda same, I boarded in 3 RiP, Boartusk Liege, Keeping his Veteran Exploreres from activating and Punishing Fire from returning but the start was too slow, again Thragtusk kills it followed by Primeval Titan getting the Valakut action rolling. 0-2

0-1
-Kinda demotivated I continue to Match2

Match 2 vs. BUG Control(?)
Game 1: I Keep a hand with Kiki, Chieftain, Tarfire and 4 Lands (1 Cavern). He begins T1 Inquisition discarding my Chieftain. I draw Lackey from top (lucky me), he gets innocent blooded. I draw Instigator from top (lucky me (2)), smash him on the field with caverns, my opponent sighs. he drops creeping tarpit and go. I draw Ringleader from top (lucky me (3)) Intigator connects to Ringleader 4 Goblins and 2nd Hit Kiki, he scoops.
Game 2: I board in Boartusk. He starts with Inqusition again discarding my Lackey. Dunno excacly what I had, but it was something like Instigator on field, wasting his only green source, tropical. He can't find another with only brainstorm and no fetchlands. He dies to Instigator triggers with a Deed on his hand. 2-0

1-1
-Now i'm fired up :D

Match 3 vs. Omnitell
I didn't know what he played, haven't scouted him yet.
Game 1: Keep decent hand with lackey, he begins and Preordains with us. I drop lackey. He drops Lotus Petal and Ponders. Lackey connects next turn dropping something (don't know anymore). He whishes for S&T, my next turn wasn't lethal and he drops A.Tomb S&T into Omniscience and combos. 0-1
Game 2: I board in 3 Ethersworn, 2 ORing, 4 Chalice and 1 Confusion in the Ranks. I keep a Hand with 1 Oring, 1 Canonist, 1 Chalice and some Lands+Piledriver. I drop Firstturn Chalice on 0. He Ponders. I draw Instigator from top and play him. He needs some time to find his stuff and I keep drawing Goblins + another Oring, he finally finds Wish into S&T and casts it the turn after but Oring eats it. 1-1
Game 3: Went the same i keep a hand with Plateau Canonist Oring Vial and Stuff. He ponders/brainstorms/preordains the first turns, I cast Vial and didnt want to wait for it to be on 2 to drop canonist, hence he got dazed on my T2. But Oring eats Omniscience again, he sighs and tries to find another one but the Goblins ate him too fast. 2-1

2-1
Top8 i'm coming.

Match 4 vs. Belcher
Again haven't scouted him. He was german too but not one of my mates. He told me he haven't scouted me neither so I begin
Game 1: drop Arid Mesa to not show much of my deck at first, no T1 drop but Instigator and Matron on hand. He shows me Land Grants and his hand being short on 1 Mana to activate Belcher because he had 2 on his hand, dropping one of them on the field having a green Chrome Mox Taiga and Belcher in play and 3 Mana Rite of Flames in hand. I waste his Taiga leaving him with only G. He draws go. I play Caverns Instigator. He draws go. Instigator connects into Matron into Tuktuk destroying his Belcher. He can't come up from that again. 1-0
Game 2: I board in Canonists and Chalices. I keep 2 wastelands, Gemstone caverns, land and stuff and hope for topdeck chalice or canonist if he doesn't kill me T1. I start with Caverns in play removing Wasteland, he thinks the card is funny. He says go without doing anything. I topdeck Canonist and drop him on the field. He was confused at first and next turn instigator connecting into matron tuktuk destroing his LED he dropped after canonist entered the field and a Piledriver followning he scoops. He couldn't believe he lost to Goblins, neither did I :D 2-0

3-1
Nice.

Match 5 vs. Elves.
We draw into Top8. No Game.
I go get something to eat and come back for the T8.

Quarter Final:
Again against my mate with the Nic Fit ...
Game 1: I waste a taiga and he Pfires his own Veteran (kinda greedy) which lost the game for him. My T1 Vial, T2 Instigator which connects later into RingleaderS and drop Piledriver, he drops Deed with 2 mana open I attack for potential dropping him on 2 HP, he should have known I got a Tarfire with Ringleader, he takes the damage and dies. I told him he knew I had Tarfire, he said "Oh, right ..." but was lost for him anyways. 1-0
Game 2: I mull on 5. I have a nice hand with Vial Instigator Chieftain but get swiped by wish Pyroclasm. I slowly recover, dropping matron T3 getting Ringleader who got Cabal Therapy'd. I topdeck another one who revealed me Gempalm and Piley. But 1 Thragtusk drop followed by Titan again killed me. 1-1
Game 3: I have to mull to 5 again. Slow start, making some pressure but getting killed by 2 Thragtusk who enter the field in 2 following turns,SCG can't help, he gets Pfired and the next turn he drops Titan. I scoop. 1-2

What I got from yesterday:
Warren Instigator was my MVP. Gemstone Caverns best card in Legacy! :D RiP wasn't that good, but I haven't played MU where it would have rocked. Ethersworn can be better over Thalia, because I kills Omniescience Combo and you can't play around it with other combo decks like Hightide. Another Goblin list made it to the Top8 dropped at Quarter Finals aswell. He played the standard list with Warchiefs. He dropped against Belcher. Overall i'm happy with the RW and Instigator+Chieftain over Warchief+MWM, you have way more agressive drops. One Lackey can be handled but if you smash a T2 Doublestrike Lackey on the table they often don't have a second answer. Followed by Chieftain is beast.
Too bad I didn't won the 3 byes, Final was Belcher vs. Esper, don't know how it ended, we went back home because the Trial started at 14:30 and we finished at 21:30 having to drive ~2,5h back home again.

Strasbourg is an interessting city and I'm looking forward to the GP there. Maybe I see some Goblin Buddys play and hopefully win there ;)

Mr. Froggy

03-10-2013, 04:04 PM

I finished 1st at my LGS with my Gobbos :)

Rnd 1: Miracles 2-1
Rnd 2: Belcher 2-0
Rnd 3: Burn 2-0

:)

jrw1985

03-10-2013, 07:02 PM

I must point out a misplay I just watched on SCG live:

Goblins V Loam Control. Goblins on the play G3.

T1 Goblins plays Lackey off Caver.
T1 Loam plays Wooded Foothills then Mox Diamond. Plays Thoughtseize off Mox and Goblins player reveals Wasteland, 3 other lands, and a Chieftain. Pretty bad hand. Loam player takes the Chieftain.
T2 Goblins player rips a Matron! Rejoice! Then he plays Plateau or something and attacks into the Wooded Foothills, and Loam player fetches up a Dryad Arbor and blocks. The goblins player had seen Dryad Arbor in G2 and was well aware it was in the deck. He should have played the Wasteland before attacking instead of Plateau, since Waste would have allowed him to kill the Dryad before blocks, connect with Lackey, and grab Ringleader with Matron. Instead he slowed his clock way down and blew his chances of winning.

magicmerl

03-10-2013, 09:43 PM

goblinsplayer

03-10-2013, 11:31 PM

Could someone give me a solid white goblins list that is good in a metagame with alot of combo, deathrite decks, and other?

Fuwatanity

03-11-2013, 07:10 AM

@Fuwatanity, thanks for the writeup. Som thoughts:

Match 1 Game 2: You board in 3 RiP, Boartusk Liege, but I see the following cuts for you:
3x Gempalm Incinerator
1x Skirk Prospector
1x Goblin Sharpshooter
1x Stingscourger
1x Tuktuk Scrapper

Why did you not board the 4th RIP and 2ORings as well?
1x Boartusk Liege
2x Oblivion Ring
4x Rest in Peace

Match 2 Game 1: One of the real strengths of Goblins is how well it mulligans. Why did you think that a turn 3 2/2 was a good hand? You are dead to almost any deck in the format with that opener. Do you think in hindsight you should have mulled to 6?

Match 3 Game 2: "I board in 3 Ethersworn, 2 ORing, 4 Chalice and 1 Confusion in the Ranks." What did you SB out? That is a lot of cards. It looks like overloading on hate is good even if it severely dilutes the goblin core of the deck eh?

Quarter Final: How did you SB for Nic Fit?

I did board in boartusk, 2 rings and RiP in the Quarterfinals.

In Match 2 Game 1 I played pretty risky on top deck, should have lost it with that starting hand that's true, but I was in the mood to gamble and it turned out well :D
ingl
Match 3 Game 2 I boarded Gemstone Caverns, Tuktuk, Skirk, Sharpshooter, 2 Tarfire, 3 Gempalm and either 1 Kiki/SGC or Ringleader, dunno anymore. It was UR Omnitell, so the only real thread was Omniscience, which left me with enough time, once i have a oblivionring, confusion or ethersworn in hand. So i guess it's not too bad to overload vs this deck. Also, most of the cards i boarded out were useless in the matchup anyways.

superspaceshooter

03-11-2013, 11:27 AM

1k Tournament Report: Presented by superspaceshooter
-----------------------------------------------------

Without further adieu, the decklist:

Thrablins'
----------

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
2 Mogg War Marshal
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Skirk Prospector
1 Goblin Piledriver
1 Stingscourger
1 Goblin Chieftain
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
---30 Goblins---

4 AEther Vial
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
---7 Other Spells---

4 Cavern of Souls
4 Rishidan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Arid Mesa
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Plateau
3 Mountain
---23 Land---

2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Rest in Peace
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Confusion in the Ranks
2 Pyrokinesis
1 Boartusk Liege
---15 Sideboard Cards---

And on to the matches:

Round 1: Mono-Red Burn

In playtesting, this seemed like a decently unfavorable matchup.

Game 1: On the play, I get down an AEther Vial on turn 1. He drops a Goblin Guide and starts the attack. I cast a Mogg War Marshal on turn 2, ticking up the Vial, and then get a clean double block on the Guide (which gave me some lands.) Turn 3 I Matron for something to speed up my clock, and Vial in a Thalia against his 2 Suspended Rift Bolts. He pays 2 mana to drop me to 11 and passes the turn without a 3rd land. I'm able to assemble a lethal attack force before he can burn me out.

Sideboarding: +2 Pyrokinesis, +1 Boartusk Liege, -1 Goblin Sharpshooter -1 Tuktuk Scrapper, -1 Siege-Gang Commander

I was trying to speed the deck up a bit, not worrying about potential Ensnaring Bridges.

Game 2: He starts off with 2 Goblin Guides, and while my hand is reasonable with a Vial and a good curve of Goblins, I barely lose to a Barbarian Ring fueled by a Fireblast.

Game 3: I mulligan to 6 and open a hand with a Plateau, Goblin Lackey, and the rest gas. I keep. I play my land and Goblin Lackey and pray. He plays sac-land, sacs it, gets a Mountain...and casts a Goblin Guide! I'm not out of the woods yet...oh wait, what's this? He's attacking? And revealing a second land? Oh glorious day! I Lackey in a Chieftain and play a War Marshal, and although a later Vexing Devil does do a good job defensively, I'm able to force his burn on my neverending supply of creatures until victory!

1-0, 2-1

Round 2: Esper Stoneblade

Game 1: On the play, he Forces my turn 1 Lackey. My turn 2 Lackey, on the other hand, sticks. He brainstorms quite a few times, but the majority of his plays were Vendilion Cliques and Lingering Souls, while I played semi-cautiously and just won with 1/1 Goblins, holding back some reserves.

Sideboarding: -2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +1 Pyroblast +1 Red Elemental Blast

Thalia isn't super hot against Stone-Blade I presumed, and I wanted a couple decent reactive spells for Cliques, Jace, and of course Brainstorm if necessary.

Game 2: I get a couple Vials down early, stuck on 1 land. He plays a Stoneforge Mystic off of Swamp and Tundra, but I use my only other land in the game, a Wasteland, to destroy the Tundra. So we're both on 1 land for the longest time, but again, I have 2 Vials. By the time he gets his second land and can flash in a Batterskull, I'm able to swing with enough creatures (2 Matrons, 2 Ringleaders, 1 each of Chieftain and Warchief, Siege-Gang and his followers, and probably 2 Lackeys as well to win through a blocking Batterskull.)

2-0, 4-1

Round 3: RUG Delver

Game 1: I play Cavern of Souls on Goblin, cast a Goblin Lackey, to which he Forces pitching a Spell Pierce...turn 2 he stifles the Lackey's ability off of a Volcanic Island. He misses his second land drop. I make an impressive board the following turn and he scoops.

I saw: Force of Will, Spell Pierce, Volcanic Island, and Stifle. Presuming he was on RUG Delver, this was my sideboarding:

Sideboarding: -3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben -1 Goblin Sharpshooter, +2 Relic of Progenitus +2 Rest in Peace

I should have also boarded out a Tuktuk Scrapper for maybe 1 of the Thalias or a Pyroblast too.

Game 2: He stifles a few of my spells, including my Relics (after I was forced to use it against an Ancient Grudge.) He loses in combat a few times thanks to the power of Chieftain not revealing his pumping (because it's not MODO!) His Mongoose holds off my army for a bit until I either make it too big or draw another graveyard depleter. Rest in Peace.

3-0, 6-1

Round 4: Goblins

Game 1: He Tarfires my first 3 Goblin Lackeys (with me on 1 land after a mulligan). I quickly die to multiple Goblin Piledrivers.

Sideboarding: -3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +2 Pyrokinesis +1 Boartusk Liege

Game 2: I cycle an Incinerator killing his Warren Instigator, and have a fairly good curve and good cards, but he has an AEther Vial and an equally good draw. The 2-3 cards extra that he plays every turn plus insane Goblin Ringleader-hits puts the game out of reach.

3-1, 6-3

Round 5: Goblins

He's my friend playing the same deck. It's a 6-round tournament, and 4-1-1 is good for top 8. We can either split this round and both try to win the next round, or he could concede to me and still make it at 4-2 with a win the next round (since he had insane tiebreakers.) Since this was strictly better, we went with it. I would give him a split if he won and didn't make it.

4-1, 6-3

Round 6: Split against BUG

4-1-1, 6-3

My Goblin friend loses to the Esper Stoneblade player I beat earlier.

Top 8: RUG Delver

Game 1: I knew he was playing RUG Delver. My hand is: Goblin Ringleader, Goblin Matron, Goblin Warchief, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Mountain, Arid Mesa, Rishidan Port. I wanted to play around Stifle, but as I sacrificed my fetchland on the play, I realized Wasteland was far more likely. He Wastelands my fetched Plateau. Turn 2, I drop a Mountain and pass. He doesn't have another land!!!??? I play Rishidan Port and pass, with all 3-drops and above. He hits a Volcanic Island and Brainstorms in response to an end of turn Port. I miss my third land. He begins to draw out of it while I miss my 3rd land for the rest of the game (until the final turn, of course when it's too late per the usual.)

Sideboarding: -3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraban -1 Tuktuk Scrapper, +2 Relic of Progenitus, +2 Rest in Peace.

Not sure why there's a Goblin Sharpshooter still in there though :0

Game 2: I feel like I have a decent start, but he quickly assembles 2 Tarmogoyf, 1 Nimble Mongoose, and 1 Scavenging Ooze. This illustrates perfectly why you board in all of your graveyard-hate and almost none of the Blasts.

Result: 5th place
Prize: $40.00

What I learned: Splashing seems very bad in Goblins. Not only does it ruin your Goblin count, but also hurts the land base a lot. Fetchlands deal damage, get Stifled, help opposing cards such as Deathrite Shaman and Tarmogoyf, and are there to fetch dual lands that get Wastelanded. The cards I was splashing, Thalia and Rest in Peace, are replaceable by effects already available in Mono-Red, without having to babysit your manabase (Thorn of Amethyst and Relic of Progenitus for instance.) The black splash for Warren Weirding is respectable, since it's a Goblin, but again, the manabase takes a hit. I am going to work on a mono-red list very soon!

That's it for the tournament report, I hope you all enjoyed it!

"And have a wonderful day!" - superspaceshooter

Mr. Froggy

03-11-2013, 03:59 PM

My list:

4 Goblin Lackey (would never cut this guy, no way ever, allows for things that are WAY TOO unfair, ie:T2 SGC, Ringleader)
4 Gempalm Incinerator (deals with creatures that are too big for my small 1/1s)
4 Goblin Warchief (accelerates the deck too much, would never drop down to below 4)
4 Goblin Matron (tutors for everything needed G1)
4 Goblin Ringleader (Recall on legs, 'nuff said)
3 Goblin Piledriver (allows for T3 kills, it BEATS face)
2 Goblin Chieftain (haste and a lord, not much more can be said other than its hyper-aggressive)
2 Siege-Gang Commander (5/5 for 5, versatile but mana cost is high, 2 is a good number)
1 Skirk Prospector (acceleration and it gives game vs Dredge G1, I'll take it)
1 Stingscourger (get rids of SO many problematic things, I love this guy)
1 Goblin Sharpshooter (meta call, a lot of Elves at my LGS so I keep him main)
1 Tuktuk Scrapper (I hate Jitte)
1 MWM (my LGS didn't have many, but I might switch it for a Sparky from the SB since it deals with Entreat the Angels tokens)

4 AEther Vial (Blue Mage's nightmare, gave me my wins vs control decks)
2 Tarfire (simply amazing in the deck, deals with SO many things and is tutorable, one of my MVPs)

4 Cavern of Souls (tailor-made for Goblins, would never go below 4)
3 Rishidan Port (mana-locks the opponent, but 4 is too many since the deck can get pretty mana-hungry)
4 Wasteland (kills ALL problem lands in Legacy, never go below 4)
4 Arid Mesa (fetches Mountains/Plateaus)
2 Scalding Tarn (fetches Mountains/Plateaus)
2 Plateau
4 Mountain

My SB:

3 Thalia (combo & unfair decks)
3 RiP (Reanimator/Dredge/graveyard decks)
1 Relic (same as RiP, but I add it since I like to have at least 4 SB hate vs Dredge and such)
2 Sparky (kills things with high toughness)
4 Pyroblast (I hate Blue, ie:kill Jace, counter Snap, etc.)
2 Others (haven't decided yet)

What are your thoughts? I think I'm starting to become pretty good with Goblins, its an amazing deck.

aequi

03-11-2013, 04:07 PM

After reading the last pages, I would like would to try this built:

Lands (22)
4x Cavern of Souls
3x Wasteland
2x Rishadan Port
7x Fetches
4x Mountain
2x Plateau

Creatures (32)
4x Goblin Lackey
4x Goblin Matron
4x Goblin Ringleader
4x Goblin Warchief
4x Goblin Piledriver
3x Gempalm Incinerator
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2x Mogg War Marshal
1x Skirk Prospector
1x Stingscourger
1x Krenko, Mob Boss
1x Siege-Gang Commander

Spells (6)
2x Tarfire
4x Aether Vial

Sideboard:
4x Rest in Peace
3x Oblivion Ring
3x Swords to Plowshares
2x Pyroblast
2x Pyrokinesis
1x Goblin Sharpshooter

Unfortunately I dont' have time to test much. And when I test, it's only against Infect-Combo, Stiflenought and U/W Control. There is not so much Legacy play in my city...

Thanks for your opinion for my list, do you have any suggestions? Maye cut a Warchief for a Chieftain?

alphastryk

03-11-2013, 04:18 PM

After reading the last pages, I would like would to try this built:

~decklist~

Thanks for your opinion for my list, do you have any suggestions? Maye cut a Warchief for a Chieftain?

Did you mean to have 4 Warchiefs in the decklist then? I'm seeing 4 Chieftains... if that's what was Intended, yes, I'd cut a Warchief for a Chieftain. :)

I prefer more toolbox-y builds, so I would want less Piledrivers to sneak a Legion Loyalist and another Mogg War Marshal in.

aequi

03-11-2013, 05:40 PM

Did you mean to have 4 Warchiefs in the decklist then? I'm seeing 4 Chieftains... if that's what was Intended, yes, I'd cut a Warchief for a Chieftain. :)

I prefer more toolbox-y builds, so I would want less Piledrivers to sneak a Legion Loyalist and another Mogg War Marshal in.

Ooops, yes it's 4x Warchief main ;-)

goblinsplayer

03-11-2013, 09:44 PM

how do you guys feel about the black goblins splash? It seems good if show and tell keeps on doing well.

superspaceshooter

03-12-2013, 03:33 AM

how do you guys feel about the black goblins splash? It seems good if show and tell keeps on doing well.

Well, Warren Weirding is decent, but does not have an effect that isn't repeatable by a card like Stingscourger. In fact, in testing against Reanimator, Stingscourger putting the card back into their hand proved to even better than killing it!

Other black options such as Cabal Therapy do have merit, particularly against Hive Mind or Omniscience versions of Show and Tell, but again, red still provides pliable answers such as Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast and a bevvy of cards to put into play off of Show and Tell to beat certain versions, such as Confusion in the Ranks or Thorn of Amethyst.

Here's how I see splashing in Goblins:

Black: Probably the best splash. Warren Weirding is fantastic, Cabal Therapy can be insane, and Perish is terrific out of the board.

Green: Tin Street Hooligan is a nice upgrade to Tuktuk Scrapper, but its disynergy with Goblin Warchief and AEther Vial/Goblin Lackey is a let-down. It gets much better in the "Winstigator" builds that run Chieftains over Warchiefs, especially considering its cheap body fits that deck's aggression a lot better. Krosan Grip is the premier sideboard card for the green splash, fitting the theme of trying to make all of your effects uncounterable (whether they be tied to lands, made uncounterable by effects such as Cavern, Lackey, or Vial, or have Split-Second.)

White: Thalia helps to beat your worst matchups, and combines with Wasteland and Rishidan Port to lock slower opponents out of the game. Vial and Cavern of Souls make Thalia even better. Rest in Peace works as the selling point of the splash in the sideboard.

Blue: Blue doesn't really offer up much of an answer card in the maindeck or sideboard that you don't already have access to. Counterspells are unnecessary because of the Blasts (I don't really want to counter much outside of Show and Tell.) Bounce is likely worse than just killing a problem Enchantment/Artifact out of the Green Splash.

Summary:

Black Splash: Great tutorable Goblin, sick hand disruption, insane sweeper against decks like RUG and Elves.
Green Splash: Best variant of Shatter-Goblin (if played properly), best answer to Moat/Engineered Plague/Counterbalance/Ensnaring Bridge/etc.
White Splash: Best maindeckable answer to Goblins worst matchups, best graveyard hoser.
Blue Splash: No obvious redeeming qualities to make up for a butchered manabase (compared to straight mono-red that is.)

Geeksire

03-12-2013, 05:10 AM

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is having an awesome Spring Break (and for the one's who are not, I hope you are having a good day as well but I would like your opinion on my upgraded deck that I have been working during these couple of days.)

Here is my deck:

Artifact: 4
4x Aether Vials

Creatures: 34
4x Goblin Lackey's
4x Goblin Matron's
4x Goblin Ringleader's
4x Goblin Warchief's
4x Goblin Piledriver
3x Gempalm Incinerator
2x Mogg War Marshall
2x Stingscourcher
1x Goblin Chieftain
1x Goblin Lookout (Give some +2/+0 to my Goblins so they can do much more than being 1/1's or 2/2's.)
1x Lightning Crafter (Love exiling my Matron or Ringleader so I can do it again, if he dies : D)
1x Legion Loyalist (Play him out once I get my Piledrivers and with haste! BAM!! GG!!)
1x Krenko, Mob Boss
1x Siege-Gang Commander
1x Skirk Prospestor

Lands: 20x
4x Auntie's Hovel
8x Mountain
4x Cavern of Souls
4x Rishadan Port's

Spells: 2x
2x Tarfires (Thinking of removing one Tarfire to have three Stingscourchers: should I do it or not?!?!?!)

Sideboard: 15x
3x Earwig Squad
3x Mindbreak Trap
3x Relic of Progentius (Thinking of replacing these with Rakdos Charm's)
2x Angel of Despair (Thinking of replacing with Thorn of Amethyst or something else.)
2x Pyrokinesis
1x Tutuk Scrapper
1x Goblin Sharpshooter

I have been giving a lot of thought and this is what I came up with! I have been thinking of putting Rakdos Charm's but am not quite sure on them. If I were to get them, I think I would replace them for my Relic of Progenitus or run two and two of each. Also, Earwig Squad is a arrow-to-the-heart when it comes to exiling those pesky cards I hate so much but in reality, what is Earwig Squad used for in Legacy Tournaments? Combo decks? There have been Cabal Therapy and Surgical Extraction but those are not cards I would want to draw when I use Ringleader. Nonetheless, there has always been something else that has been bothering my about placing in my deck:

Why is there a damn difference between Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast? What is better and don't both do the same thing...

Avatara

03-12-2013, 07:27 AM

ScatmanX

03-12-2013, 09:06 AM

There is no difference for Goblins; only for Storm combo decks. Since Red Elemental Blast can target non blue spells while pyroblast can't.
Actually I came once across a situation where ReB costed me the game where Pyroblast would have won. I was on the draw against Merfolk. He played land, I played Lackey. He played Phantasmal Image and copied Lackey. Since it was Red, Red Elemental Blast could not target it. Pyroblast would have killed the red Phantasmal Image lackey, and I'd have won.
Nevertheless, there are decks that play Cabal Therapy, so splitting them is a good idea.

I think the discussion about Caverns is valid. Do you mind posting where I can find the list, and f there is, matchups and comments? Thanks.
Edit: Got it. Nevermind. 20 lands sounds awfully low for the deck with the splash, even without Caverns....

superspaceshooter

03-12-2013, 12:27 PM

Actually I came once across a situation where ReB costed me the game where Pyroblast would have won. I was on the draw against Merfolk. He played land, I played Lackey. He played Phantasmal Image and copied Lackey. Since it was Red, Red Elemental Blast could not target it. Pyroblast would have killed the red Phantasmal Image lackey, and I'd have won.
Nevertheless, there are decks that play Cabal Therapy, so splitting them is a good idea.

I think the discussion about Caverns is valid. Do you mind posting where I can find the list, and f there is, matchups and comments? Thanks.
Edit: Got it. Nevermind. 20 lands sounds awfully low for the deck with the splash, even without Caverns....

This occurred for me as well at a SCG: Open, but the Image was Vialed in and able to block my Goblin Piledriver.

Pyroblast can kill Phantasmal Image if it's not blue, whereas Red Elemental Blast cannot. But I still split them up for these reasons:

1) Cabal Therapy (very unlikely)

2) Meddling Mage (I can see decks wanting to get around Cavern of Souls by making you unable to cast your Goblin Ringleaders.)

3) Surgical Extraction (very unlikely)

There are more reasons I can't recall, but suffice to say that the reasons for splitting are rare, but may add up to help someday. Then again, I've already had my Red Elemental Blast almost cost me an important match by not being Pyroblast...

Does anyone have a good reason why Red Elemental Blast does something Pyroblast doesn't?!

Sandro95

03-12-2013, 02:01 PM

Does anyone have a good reason why Red Elemental Blast does something Pyroblast doesn't?!

There's a whole article about it! :) http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/21311_City_of_Brass_Painting_the_Town_REB.html

Geeksire

03-12-2013, 02:28 PM

@Geeksire you could start by explaining why you made the changes to Enrico Fanciullini (1st out of 38) list that I posted two pages ago. Rakdos Charm allows you to connect lackey through DRS (which is very relevant right now), cleans graveyards and destroys artifacts. I think we can argue if Cavern of Souls is being over hyped.. the meta game has adjusted to it and goblin is now tier (2-)3; decks run more removal and stuff like DRS or even sweepers. Before decks adjusted it gave us an edge, but I dunno if that still outweighs the disadvantages (Wastelands not being able to cast non goblin splash cards). Enrico Fanciullini placed 1st place (which is as far as I know the only list that did so recently) without it so there might be some truth to the argument.

There is no difference for Goblins; only for Storm combo decks. Since Red Elemental Blast can target non blue spells while pyroblast can't.

/edit: in the past opponents often had to two (Force + pitch) for one our lackey.. now they often can't counter it because of CoS; so they just one for one it with a removal spell (or simply block it with DRS 0-1). We kinda lost early game card advantage there. I dunno if it's always the best choice to play an uncountable first turn lackey versus aggro-control.

Regarding the changes I made to Enrico was mostly the inspiration I got from his deck since it did great in tournament style, but in no way did I change it to be a replica of Enrico Fanciullini. (I should have gave credit to him, but was late at night when I posted this.) The only things I made "changes" to "my" deck are the Earwig Squad (which I never knew about until you posted it--works great,) the amount of lands he had, and the Lightning Crafter. The Lightning Crafter was a card I had never put in my deck since it was not fast enough but when I saw Enrico achieve 1st place, somebody who used this specific card, I thought it could do great things in my deck as well as Earwig Squad--both worked wonders in my deck!

Nonetheless, I have always loved splashing black in my deck and for somebody to say that I made changes to Enrico Fanciullini's deck should know that I am not a person that comes on this forum to make a copy and change a wee-bit of someones work to be mine. Be respectful the next time you say something like that and as for myself, I should make sure to give credit where it is due.

superspaceshooter

03-12-2013, 07:02 PM

There's a whole article about it! :) http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/21311_City_of_Brass_Painting_the_Town_REB.html

Thank you! These things actually matter a lot to me...when you are constantly grinding a deck (especially in Legacy), you want to know the perfect cards. Here's the rundown:

Red Elemental Blast is better against cards like Misdirection and Spellskite.

Pyroblast is better against Phantasmal Image.

Postboard, I don't expect too many Misdirections and Spellskites, but certainly could see Phantasmal Image, particularly against Merfolk (where you are boarding in these types of cards.)

In Goblins, Pyroblast is better than Red Elemental Blast. If I'm using up 4 sideboard slots for Blasts, 3/1 in favor of Pyroblast might be perfect (since it's better but you don't want to get COMPLETELY stonewalled by "name a card" effects. If you even slightly expect anyone to play one against you in a tournament, go to 2/2. In the dark, maybe 3/1 as mentioned in favor of Pyroblast.

B-rad

03-12-2013, 07:38 PM

Pyroblast can be misdirected to itself where red blast cannot be

Mr. Froggy

03-12-2013, 10:28 PM

How often are you gonna see Misdirection though? :P I haven't seen it in AGES :P

EDIT: I run a 4/0 split in favor of Pyroblast, actually. I like them quite a lot.

superspaceshooter

03-12-2013, 11:31 PM

Pyroblast can be misdirected to itself where red blast cannot be

This is also not the case. A spell cannot target itself. Of course, it can be misdirected to any permanent, so it's true that Red Elemental Blast is better against Misdirection. I would even wager Misdirection a fine card for Legacy because of Abrupt Decay and Hymn to Tourach being decently popular. I'm just not sure there's a matchup that would want to board in Misdirection against you (as the Goblins player.)

I just realized that Misdirection works against both Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast (since you can redirect them to Misdirection upon its resolution, thus countering them in a sense), so that's not even a good reason for Red Elemental Blast over Pyroblast. Spellskite is still a reason though.

Dice_Box

03-13-2013, 04:47 AM

I just realized that Misdirection works against both Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast (since you can redirect them to Misdirection upon its resolution, thus countering them in a sense), so that's not even a good reason for Red Elemental Blast over Pyroblast. Spellskite is still a reason though.
It can be yes but a REB can only be redirected to another blue spell. This means one way or another something is going away. With P'blast you can have it target something that is not blue and fizzle.

GoboLord

03-13-2013, 06:13 AM

Alright, that discussion is startiung get out of hand :-D
I add the link to the OP (Sideboard > Others > Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast).

@ B-rad:
I would like how your decklist (whatever it looked like) treated you at the last SCG toruney, which was - last weekend if I'm not mistaken?

superspaceshooter

03-13-2013, 04:52 PM

I just want to make sure people know how Misdirection effects work. Basically, Misdirection can redirect a spell's target to itself if it itself (Misdirection) is a legal target. Since Misdirection is blue, it can redirect both Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast to itself upon its resolution. When the spell it redirected goes to resolve, it fizzles due to not having a target (since Misdirection is no longer on the stack). If we're talking about a Misdirection effect that isn't blue, like Ricochet Trap, then it wouldn't be able to redirect Red Elemental Blast, but of course could redirect Pyroblast. So a rundown of what Misdirection can and can't redirect:

Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast: Yes, it can redirect these to itself since it's blue.
Abrupt Decay: No, because Misdirection isn't a nonland permanent.
Essence Scatter: No, because Misdirection isn't a creature spell.

I hope this helps!

Mr. Froggy

03-13-2013, 10:49 PM

I finally understand how it works now. :)

lordofthepit

03-14-2013, 01:26 AM

Pyroblast can be misdirected to itself where red blast cannot be

Incorrect: both spells can be misdirected to Misdirection, which has the effect of countering them (when you're choosing the counterspell mode).

REB is better against Misdirection when you're choosing the Vindicate Mode.

jrw1985

03-14-2013, 04:45 PM

This Misdirection thread is badass.

On a serious note, anyone tried out any stupid/fun tech lately?

GoboLord

03-14-2013, 06:52 PM

This Misdirection thread is badass.

On a serious note, anyone tried out any stupid/fun tech lately?

The last "funny" thing I tried out was Boros Charm. It was worth the slot, but then again it's....too cute. It sometimes is a blank draw, where conventional spotremoval isn't.
If I wanted to have some fun with Goblins, I'd be toying around with
* Warren Instigator
* Kiki-Jiki, TMB
* Lightning Crafter
* Krenko, MB
Those guys are always fun to play with.

ScatmanX

03-14-2013, 07:09 PM

The last "funny" thing I tried out was Boros Charm. It was worth the slot, but then again it's....too cute. It sometimes is a blank draw, where conventional spotremoval isn't.
If I wanted to have some fun with Goblins, I'd be toying around with
* Warren Instigator
* Kiki-Jiki, TMB
* Lightning Crafter
* Krenko, MB
Those guys are always fun to play with.
I'd try to have Kiki, Crafter, Prospector and Shooter on my deck, and try to combo-kill my opponent every game.

You could also use Bolts and Goblins Grenades. Always had fun when did that. Nothing better than taking 13 life from someone just like that.

feline

03-14-2013, 08:44 PM

The solution to Deathrite shaman's, I say start running Tarfires, make those lackey's connect, on top of that, it kills Stoneforge Mystic, Grim lavamancer, etc etc etc, still kills enough relevant stuff.

I'm currently toying with
10 mountain
4 wasteland
4 rishadan port
4 cavern of souls
-
4 aether vial
-
4 goblin lackey
4 mogg war marshal
4 goblin piledriver
4 goblin warchief
4 goblin matron
4 goblin ringleader
4 tarfire
4 gempalm incinerator
1 krenko, mob boss
1 stingscourger
[Stingscourger mostly because of opposing Show and Tell]

Other targets are in the sideboard, like:
tuktuk scrapper
goblin sharpshooter
vexing shusher
siege-gang commander
goblin chieftain
[against Engineered Plague]

Avatara

03-14-2013, 09:01 PM

(talkin' about tech) Those of you still running the green splash should considering running a singleton Pendelhaven. I think it's worth it now that DRS is big in legacy.

BigBopper

03-15-2013, 03:47 AM

(talkin' about tech) Those of you still running the green splash should considering running a singleton Pendelhaven. I think it's worth it now that DRS is big in legacy.

I have considered that before. The thing is that a single Pendelhaven is just too random. You don't have it in hand when you need it and with 4 Caverns and Wastelands, I wanna have more red sources to be able to cast Incinerator and or P.Fire (my solution to DRS). Espeiclally since we agree that Chieftain is good right now, Pendelhaven has a big dissynergy...

Avatara

03-15-2013, 06:11 AM

I have considered that before. The thing is that a single Pendelhaven is just too random. You don't have it in hand when you need it and with 4 Caverns and Wastelands, I wanna have more red sources to be able to cast Incinerator and or P.Fire (my solution to DRS). Espeiclally since we agree that Chieftain is good right now, Pendelhaven has a big dissynergy... It's no more random than a single off Karakas. Btw Cavern of Souls is also anti synergistic with every colored sideboard card (and even some in the main deck) and makes you lose card advantage early game (2 for 1 Lackey) yet people still run it as a four off.. Despite a deck placing 1st (out of 38) without Cavern of Souls. I'm not saying to replace a red producing land with mountain. And btw it's not generally agreed upon that Chieftain is better than Warchief.

BigBopper

03-15-2013, 08:05 AM

It's no more random than a single off Karakas. Btw Cavern of Souls is also anti synergistic with every colored sideboard card (and even some in the main deck) and makes you lose card advantage early game (2 for 1 Lackey) yet people still run it as a four off.. Despite a deck placing 1st (out of 38) without Cavern of Souls. I'm not saying to replace a red producing land with mountain. And btw it's not generally agreed upon that Chieftain is better than Warchief.

I can see your point, although a Karakas can do more for me in late game drawn off deck than the Pendelhaven, can it not? Cavern of Souls makes half of the meta having dead hands and draws against goblins-there is no point not to run it, but that's a different story.
I also did not say to play Chieftain over Warchief, but that there is a general consensus in here to have a MD chieftain, other than a card like Sharpshooter, for instance. But I can see me ripping Pendelhaven from the top of my daeck, having my singleton Chieftain in play or post-board even a Boartusk liege...

GoboLord

03-15-2013, 08:17 AM

ScatmanX

03-15-2013, 08:41 AM

List
So you joined the green side of the force! Sweet =D

About your list, 2 things:
- I understand the will of playing 4 Gempalm + 4 Incinerators, but with only 10 R sources to cast them, you'll often get in trouble. At least 2 of those Ports should be trimmed down.
- Siege-Gang Commander is too good not to run in a list with 3-4 Piledrivers. It nets you lots of T3 kills. Also, if your goal is to connect Lackey early, he's one of the best guys you want to put down.

@Panddlehaven: It does sound a quite nice idea, Specially as Cristian said, on an Instigator build. Let me know how it goes if anyone tries it. (Same goes for Craddle. I'd suggest a Chieftain build with the this one, since Craddle would actually add collorless).

Avatara

03-15-2013, 10:13 AM

I can see your point, although a Karakas can do more for me in late game drawn off deck than the Pendelhaven, can it not? Cavern of Souls makes half of the meta having dead hands and draws against goblins-there is no point not to run it, but that's a different story.
I also did not say to play Chieftain over Warchief, but that there is a general consensus in here to have a MD chieftain, other than a card like Sharpshooter, for instance. But I can see me ripping Pendelhaven from the top of my daeck, having my singleton Chieftain in play or post-board even a Boartusk liege...

1. Karakas is dead versus a lot of decks.. I do mostly have a 1/1 goblins however since I run about 12 1/1 goblins

2. Cavern of Souls disadvantages: Price of Progress, Wasteland, Back to Basics, not being able to two for one your opponent with Lackey, not being able to play colored non creatures spells with it (including Gempalm Incinerator, Tarfire and Warren Weirding). Of course resolving your card advantage engine is very good, but do we really need four CoS for that? I think three copies would do just as fine. Control decks have never been a serious problem for Goblins.. I'm not worried about counter magic but about a shitload of removal and discard.

3. If your opponent is not removing your Chieftain or Warchief you are prolly in a winning position anyways. If you have Boartusk Liege on the board your opponent prolly has Engineered Plague out.. cancelling each other out. Pandelhaven in it's worse situation is a land that produces G.. How good is Wasteland when there's nothing to waste? or a Rishadan Port in the late game? At the very least Pandelhaven will allow me to cast Krosan Grip.

ScatmanX

03-15-2013, 10:53 AM

1. Karakas is dead versus a lot of decks.. I do mostly have a 1/1 goblins however since I run about 12 1/1 goblins

2. Cavern of Souls disadvantages: Price of Progress, Wasteland, Back to Basics, not being able to two for one your opponent with Lackey, not being able to play colored non creatures spells with it (including Gempalm Incinerator, Tarfire and Warren Weirding). Of course resolving your card advantage engine is very good, but do we really need four CoS for that? I think three copies would do just as fine. Control decks have never been a serious problem for Goblins.. I'm not worried about counter magic but about a shitload of removal and discard.

3. If your opponent is not removing your Chieftain or Warchief you are prolly in a winning position anyways. If you have Boartusk Liege on the board your opponent prolly has Engineered Plague out.. cancelling each other out. Pandelhaven in it's worse situation is a land that produces G.. How good is Wasteland when there's nothing to waste? or a Rishadan Port in the late game? At the very least Pandelhaven will allow me to cast Krosan Grip.
1. I don't agree with 'being dead', because it generates mana, but I agree with you. (And sometimes it can save Krenko)
2. For me the best of Cavern is not against control, but against Combo (SnT, High Tide, Reanimator) because a T1 uncounterable Lackey can (and had) lead to many fast wins.
3. Agreed.

jrw1985

03-15-2013, 11:13 AM

I've been interested in Re-Empowering Lackey in light of all the DRS and removal in the format. This has been frequently discussed on this board, and the most common solution suggested has been to run more spot removal, namely Tarfire. Here's what I don't like about removal though:
- it will only help Lackey connect once
- the spot removal which is most synergystic with goblins (Gempalm, Tarfire) aren't very efficient on thier own. Tarfire is just a Shock, and Gempalm is blanked if you have a slow hand (Vials + 3drops).
While both cards can be excellent in certain situations, neither makes a sustained impact on the game. Tarfire is only good in the earliest turns, and gempalm is pretty bad if you're behind in the game. And, ultimately, in a world of Lingering SOul tolkens and Tarmogoyfs, neither of these cards is great at dealing with the many early threats we face. Spot removal alone doesn't seem like the answer to our woes.

So I thought, What is it I really want to do?

Well, I want to make it so Lackey can kill a DRS AND deal damage to an opponent, and I want the effect that enables this to be efficient and this effect needs to generate card advantage (this is Legacy after all).

Rancor

Ah, the Urza's Legacy staple of Enchantress/Atog decks everywhere. Rancor is a (surprisingly) unplayed card in Legacy that for one green mana gives your creature a power bump and allows your creature to roll combat damage over to your opponent. Once that creature dies in combat, or is bounced, or removed from the game, or is hit with spot removal, or if the Rancor itself is Disenchanted, Rancor happily returns to your hand rather than languishing in your graveyard. It's then ready to be re-cast on what ever you were fortunate enough to cheat in to play.

I brewed up a list to try and take advantage of this fine card and played it at my local tourney last night.

4 Lackey
3 Vial
3 Rancor
3 Warren Instigator

3 Piledriver
3 Mogg War Marshal

3 Chieftain
3 Warchief

4 Matron
4 Ringlead
1 Krenko

2 Tarfire
3 Gempalm
1 Stingscourger

3 Wasteland
3 Cavern of Souls
4 Mountain
4 Taiga
6 Fetch

SB
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Pyrokinesis
2 KGrip
1 Tin Street hooligan

I initially wanted to cut Vial entirely, but I couldn't overlook the fact that Vial is so vital to your manabase, so i only shaved one. I played Winstigator so I could get more advantage out of Rancor, and of course I had to play Piledriver with it too. I was warry of playing SGC due to my low land count, so I played MWM and Krenko instead. I think playing SCG is a very viable option though.

R1 Affinity
He played T1 land, go. I played T1 Vial. He played T2 Revoker on Vial. I played T2 Winstigator. He played T3 Chrome Mox, Ornithoptor, Arcbound Ravager, giving him a board of...
2x Artifact Land
Chrome Mox
Revoker naming Vial
Ornithoper
Arcbound Ravager
T3 I played Rancor on my Winny and attacked for 6. Normally in this situation the Affinity player would just chump with the Ornithoptor then sac it to pump the Ravager, but Rancor's trample meant Winny would still get through with both first strike and regular damage. So he elected not to block. He could have saced every non-Ravager permanent he had to pump Ravager and block Winny with it to prevent damage from getting through, but that would have been a 6:1 trade for him, and I would have gotten Rancor back anyway. Winny put in 2 guys, i Gemplamed the Revoker, and won soon thereafter.
G2 Was much like G1. He went T1 land go. I went T1 Lackey. He went T2 blocker. i blew it up with T2 TSH and connected. game.

R2 Elf Combo.
G1 I kept an opening hand with 2 Vials, a Gempalm, and 3 drops. I lost.
G2 I had an opening 7 of Lackey, Winstigator, Piledriver, Pyrokinesis, and 3 lands. All experience goblins players know and hate these Hands. There are 4 elements needed for a Great starting hand: land, cheater (Lackey/Vial), removal, and CA (Matron, Ringleader, Krenko, SGC). This hand had 3, but would lose if I didn't draw into some CA. Well, I didn't draw into some CA. He went off despite me wiping his board once. When i connected with Winny I had nothing to put into play. :(

R3 TES
He kills me G1, then I Trap him games 2 and 3.

R4 Tin Fins.
I kill him G1 as he does nothing. He kills me G2 but doesn't see any of my SB cards. G3 was weird but good. I was on the play and my first 7 had Winny, a couple 3 drops and lands but no hate. It was the same sort of hand I lost G2 with. I mulled to 6 and had 1 land, 1 Relic, and no cheaters. So i mulled to 5 and had 2 land, 1 Mindbreak Trap, 2 4drops. Mulled to 4 and had 2 lands, Chalice, and something else. I played Chalice @ 0 t1 and played draw go with him. His deck was so heavily reliant on 0cc artifacts that Chalice @ 0 effectively shut him down for a long time. I eventually lost, being unable to find a clock or more relevant hate.

Rancor : It was clearly awesome against Affinity, it would have been great against Elves (You aint blocking THIS Lackey with a Llanowar), and the other matches were combo so Who Cares?

I came into the tourny ready to beat on some creature decks, then wound up facing 3 combo decks and affinity. But I really liked having Rancor in there regardless. I would certainly recommend trying it out to other Sourcers that feel like throwing in a curve ball.

If you try out a Rancor build please let us know how it goes!

ScatmanX

03-15-2013, 11:46 AM

If you try out a Rancor build please let us know how it goes!
Awesome!
Will certainly be testing this out!

GoboLord

03-15-2013, 01:54 PM

Hey there, fellow Warchiefs!

I want to tell you a story: at the end of year 2012 I started a project on the German Vial-Goblins board. I wanted to make use of what is called “collective intelligence” to develop a single best Goblin decklist. So what did I do? I asked people to design and discuss the best Goblin-decklists against each of 6 decks (Maverick, UW Miracles, Esperblade, RUG Thresh, Goblins and Sneak Show). The product – thus the “best” list - would be an averaged list that contains averaged numbers of all the cards that are good in the respective 6 match-ups. Well, working with people instead of raw data turned out to be much more difficult and time-consuming than expected.
Remember when jrw1985 (Jon) did the same thing? Sometime last year he designed the “average goblin list” on basis of all existing decklists he could find (read the reference in the OP when you are interested in the list).
Well, being the lover of numbers, graphs and statistics that I am, I picked up the idea again. I wanted to find out which cards contribute most to success of goblin decklists. What’s different this time is that I made use of a statistics program called “SPSS” that can easily handle huge amounts of data (unlike most people) and provides a variety of analyses. So the kind of question I’m asking would be
“How does the number of Goblin Warchiefs in a decklist correlate with it’s success”
I then compare the average success (= win-percentage) of lists with either 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4 copies of Warchiefs to each other. And not only that. I (or rather: SPSS) did exactly that for virtually all cards you see frequently enough, namely:

Basic Mountains, Duallands, Fetchlands, Karakas, Ports, Skirk Prospector, Piledriver, MWM, Winstigator, Thalia, Sharpshooter, Chieftain, Krenko, SGC, Lightning Bolt, Tarfire, Stingscourger, Gempalm Incinerator…

I did not include the following cards in the analysis because I wasn’t able to find enough lists that did featured LESS THAN 4 COPIES of them:
Aether Vial, Goblin Lackey, Goblin Warchief, Goblin Matron, Goblin Ringleader, Cavern of Souls, Wasteland

I collected data by scanning tournament reports and typing in decklists as well as the results of single matches. E.g. I encoded a match that was lost 1:2 the following way: I calculated how many % of the games were won (1/3 = 0.33 which is 33%). So results would either be 0.00% (lost 0:2), 33.33%, 50.00% (1:1), 66.66% (won 2:1) or 100% (won 2:0). I did not include “ID-matches”, but only matches that were actually played. Furthermore I only included cards from the maindeck, since SB choices appeared to be too diverse to get reliable results out of them.
Since you most often find tournament reports about moments when goblin decklists perform WELL there is a certain bias in those result, which is reflected by the relatively high average win-% of all decklists combined: 63.59%.

I’m sure everyone is curious about the results, so I won’t hold them back any longer (please note that I’m presented a pre-selected set of results. i.e. I excluded some information for various statistical reasons. However, if you are interested in the dataset as well as an exhaustive output of results you can send me a PM).

TOTAL mean win-%: 63.59%
TOTAL matches recorded: 166
TOTAL number of decklists: 26

Total number of lands
99 records with 22 lands have a mean W% of 64.73%
42 records with 23 lands have a mean W% of 64.02%
Decklists with 19, 20, 21 or 24 lands were excluded due to insufficient number of records or high standard deviation.
Interpretation of results: The number of lands does not have any notable impact on your win-%.

Rishadan Port
25 records with 3 Rishadan Ports have a mean W% of 71%
59 records with 4 Rishadan Ports have a mean W% of 65%
Decklists with 0, 1 or 2 Rishadan Ports were excluded due to insufficient number of records or high standard deviation.
Interpretation of results: Decklists with 3 Rishadan Ports were more successful than lists with 4 copies. The latter performed slightly above-average.

Fetchlands
49 records with 0 Fetchlands have a mean W% of 65%
31 records with 5 Fetchlands have a mean W% of 70%
Decklists with 4, 6 or 7 Fetchlands were excluded due to insufficient number of records or high standard deviation.
Interpretation of results: Playing mono-red (or at least without fetchlands) slightly improves the performance of a decklist. Having 5 fetchlands improves the performance of a decklist to a greater extend.

Dual lands
56 records with 0 Duallands have a mean W% of 65%
53 records with 1 Dualland have a mean W% of 66%
Decklists with 2, 3 or 4 duallands were excluded[…]
Interpretation of results: Playing either a mono-red built or a build with a light splash seems to have a small impact on performance of the decklist.

Piledriver
57 records with 3 Piledrivers have a mean W% of 62%
67 records with 4 Piledrivers have a mean W% of 64%
Decklists with 1 or 2 Piledrivers were excluded[…]
Interpretation of results: Playing either 3 or 4 Piledrivers does not have any notable impact on the win-%.

Mogg War Marshal
113 records with 3 MWMs have a mean W% of 61%
20 records with 4 MWMs have a mean W% of 75%
Decklists with 0,1 or 2 MWMs were excluded[…]
Interpretation of results: Results are hard to interpret since most of the 20 records with 4 MWMs came from the same player. This might reflect an impact of that certain player (instead of the impact of the card itself) on performance.

Stingscourger
127 records with 1 Stinger have a mean W% of 65%
39 records with 2 Stinger have a mean W% of 57%
There were no decklists without at least 1 Stingscourger in MD
Interpretation of results: Playing more than 1 Stingscourger in MD seems to have a negative influence on performance

Chieftain
50 records with 0 Chieftains have a mean W% of 66%
72 records with 1 Chieftain have a mean W% of 66%
24 records with 2 Chieftains have a mean W-% of 51%
Decklists with 3 or 4 Chieftains were excluded[…]
Interpretation of results: Playing either 0 or 1 Chieftain seems to slightly improve performance. Playing 2 Chieftains had an obviously negative impact on results. However, since there are so few records of lists with 3 and 4 Chieftains we CANT conclude an easy rule like “the more Chieftains, the worse the performance”.

Sharpshooter
31 records with 0 Sharpshooters have a mean W% of 63%
135 records with 1 Sharpshooter have a mean W% of 63%
Interpretation of results: Lists with Sharpshooter (in MD) are equally successful as lists without Sharpshooter (in MD).

Krenko
35 records with 0 Krenkos have a mean W% of 66%
119 records with 1 Krenko have a mean W% of 63%
Decklists with 2 Krenkos were excluded[…]
Interpretation of results: Lists without Krenko perform slightly better than lists with Krenko.

Skirk Prospector
30 records with 0 Prospectors have a mean W% of 63%
136 records with 1 Prospectors have a mean W% of 63%
Interpretation of results: Lists with Prospector (in MD) are equally successful as lists without Prospector (in MD).

Siege-Gang Commander
126 records with 1 SGC have a mean W% of 63%
40 records with 2 Prospectors have a mean W% of 66%
Interpretation of results: Running SGC #2 slightly improves the performance of the decklist.

Please be hesitant to interpret these results too much. I did various analyses an NONE of them revealed a statistically SIGNIFICANT impact of any card on WIN-%. This was in almost all cases due to the relatively small number of records that I juggled with. Please keep that in mind when you want to apply the results to actual deck-building. I still think that an educated opinion (like those from experienced players or simply an opinion that is based on logical thinking) is more worth than the results I presented here.

Have fun discussing the results. Questions are (as always) appreciated!

jrw1985

03-15-2013, 01:57 PM

GoboLord, you're a fucking legend.

Here's a question I'd be interested in knowing the answer to:

What was the impact of SGC on win %? That seems like a card where most of the field plays 2 or less, so it should be fairly easy to derive the winningest number.

ScatmanX

03-15-2013, 02:15 PM

You should get a social life Cristian... =p

Thanks for the info.

Cleston

03-15-2013, 02:28 PM

gobolord, kudos for this work. it certainly has its uses, despite the limitations on the number of decks and matches analyzed.

by the way, I have three questions:
- first: how could we help improve this work further, adding more cases to the base?
- second: no comment on tarfire?
- third: are you willing to share this spss file with your fellow warchiefs that know a little bit of this and a little bit of that with the software? :D

GreenShorty

03-15-2013, 03:50 PM

That's a fine piece of hard work. Thanks a lot, Gobbolord, your efforts are greatly appreciated.

This data made me re-think my list. Will be testing a new brew from now on, and then I'll be able to tell if this proved relevant to tuning. =)

Ace/Homebrew

03-15-2013, 09:47 PM

Have fun discussing the results. Questions are (as always) appreciated!
Thank you to Gobolord and to your contributors from the German board! Danke :tongue:

I find it interesting how little it seems to matter whether or not you include Skirk Prospector and Goblin Sharpshooter.

JRW, you tried an 'average' Goblin list before. What did you take away from it?
My fear is that using statistics like this to generate a list will give you a deck that performs averagely against most opponents but won't excel against any.

The more samples that go into this survey, the more real information we'll actually get. Sort of like the search for the Higgs... A few examples did not reveal anything but as the data grew, real patterns and information was shown to exist. Thanks again for your contribution!

superspaceshooter

03-16-2013, 12:11 AM

I played RW Goblins recently, and discovered a few things:

1) Goblins beats other "fair" decks. Diluting it to beat other matchups is not only unnecessary, but detrimental to your good matchups. You aren't playing Goblins to beat Charbelcher, so don't make your deck lose more often to RUG Delver.

2) These added losses to good matchups are due to not only removing Goblins from the deck (and maybe good ones for those matchups), but also weakening the manabase. Dual lands are far worse than Mountains when you don't need the splash color, need Fetchlands to get them (which deal you damage, get Stifled, help opposing Deathrites and Tarmogoyfs, and shuffle Lands/Vials from the bottom of the deck via Ringleaders.) The RB List with Auntie's Hovels/Badlands does get around the fetchland problem for what it's worth.

3) You should only sideboard either Goblin bullets or cards that absolutely win you the game by themselves. If you are boarding a card like Rakdos Charm to get 3 minimal effects (Shatter, Crypt, Lackey Trigger), you're doing it wrong. Usually you are going to cut Goblins for these cards, which makes your whole deck worse, so make sure they're worth it.

4) Mono-Red has all the tools you need...splashing is almost always wrong. If you're playing a fair metagame, the splash is obviously not necessary. If there's combo, there's likely a good sideboard card for your problem. Honestly though, I haven't had a problem with a lot of the different combo decks I've played against (Reanimator, Sneak and Show), even feeling like a favorite mainboard.

5) Why are people cutting Rishidan Port? Warren Instigator...? Rishidan Port has been instrumental in most of my wins against combo, Goblins perceived worst matchup.

I'll post a Mono-Red list soon!

jrw1985

03-16-2013, 12:34 AM

JRW, you tried an 'average' Goblin list before. What did you take away from it?
My fear is that using statistics like this to generate a list will give you a deck that performs averagely against most opponents but won't excel against any.

Playing out an averaged list was interesting. It was last August and I generated the list from Goblin decks that had performed well in large tournaments over the prior 4 or 5 months. The decklist wound up looking like this:

4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledriver
3 Mogg War Marshal
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
1 Goblin Chieftain
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
4 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Pyrokinesis
1 Stingscourger
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Tuktuk Scrapper

4 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
2 Rishadan Port
5 Mountain
6 fetchlands
1 Volcanic Island

Sideboard
2 Chalice of the Void
3 Spell Pierce
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pyrokinesis
1 Stingscourger
1 Gilded Drake
1 Goblin King

The only cards in the 75 that weren't derived from an averaging process were the 3 Spell Pierce. They were supposed to be REB/Pyroblast. It was actually very silly of me to run Pierce over REB, but I felt like it was a ballsy call that would pay off. It wound up not really making any difference.

The Volcanic Island and Gilded Drake wound in there because Grizz was the card du jour and was being hated out of the format (much like DRS recently dropped off the face of the earth in top 8's of SCGs), so a bunch of the Gobin decks I used for the averaging ran Drake. Aside from that there was nothing really questionable in the list. It was just a standard Goblins list. I never quite understood how Goblin King wound up in the SB. He seemed pretty worthless. And a 2nd Stingscourger in the SB was probably a result of about half the decks Mainboarding him and the other half sideboarding him, so he showed up twice in the Averaged list.

Playing the deck taught me a few things. First, it turned me on to how good MWM is. I had refused to play that card for the longest time, but when I forced myself to play it I quickly caught on to the beauty of the endless chumping it provided. So in that regard I felt like I expanded my horizons. The second thing I learned is that basing your deck solely off of what has worked in the past will not prepare you for the future. I could have run a W splash and ran Karakas. I didn't, and I lost to an Elsh Norn one round. I could have run a G splash for KGrip. I didn't, and I lost to Omniscience (the fresh-faced player on the block at that time, which an Averaged list of past decks could NEVER help prepare me for). Running Thalia also would have helped tremendously there. A Goblins player did top 8 that event, with a W splash and 3 Thalia MD.

Since my experience running the Averaged list I've not really cared to go back to it. It's more fun to brew decks that have surprise value and that tackle the format head-on. I think you'll generally be most successful with a goblins list that has a solid core and is tweaked to beat the new, current, popular decks of the moment.

That being said, I believe that the work Christian has put into the statistical analysis is going to build an excellent foundation for many Sourcers and goblins players. I don't think he's purposing a "best" list, but what he's posted should be an excellent framework for other deckbuilders.

GoboLord

03-16-2013, 07:58 AM

What was the impact of SGC on win %? That seems like a card where most of the field plays 2 or less, so it should be fairly easy to derive the winningest number.

* Added SGC's data.
Siege-Gang Commander
126 records with 1 SGC have a mean W% of 63%
40 records with 2 Prospectors have a mean W% of 66%
Interpretation of results: Running SGC #2 slightly improves the performance of the decklist.

You should get a social life Cristian... =p
I tested that social life thing yesterday evening. It was great! I'll definitely be running more of these.

gobolord, kudos for this work. it certainly has its uses, despite the limitations on the number of decks and matches analyzed.

by the way, I have three questions:
- first: how could we help improve this work further, adding more cases to the base?
- second: no comment on tarfire?
- third: are you willing to share this spss file with your fellow warchiefs that know a little bit of this and a little bit of that with the software? :D

(1) Keep posting tournament reports and decklists. Essentially I need 2 things: decklists and reports about the precise result of your matches on the tourney (2:0, 2:1, 1:1, 1:2, 0:2)
(2) There are to few records of decklists with Tarfire.
(3) Sure. Send me your email-adress via PM. I'll give you the file.

@ Everyone: Thanks for the comments and kudos!

Mr. Froggy

03-16-2013, 11:16 AM

I'm gonna add an extra Tarfire to my list, so I can run 3. My opponents always asked me why I would go for Tarfire over Incinerator when I would Matron, the simple answer is it only costs 1. I played vs many decks with x/2s, and boy was I happy when I did. Tarfire your DRS so I can Lackey in a SGC? I'll take it.

On another note, I think 3 Piledrivers is a good number, to me at least. They give Goblins T3 wins because of their hyperaggro mindedness.

All in all, I think this thread is awesome because the people here put so much work into this deck.

GoboLord

03-16-2013, 11:47 AM

UPDATE

March 16th, 2013
* hotlink-ed the #####A.N.A.L.Y.S.I.S.##### (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?19931-Deck-Goblins&p=710310&viewfull=1#post710310)
* added Pendelhaven to the to "To-be-tested" section
* added Rest in Peace + Helm of Obedience to the to "To-be-tested" section

Bichon_Blitz

03-17-2013, 01:28 AM

So, after playing this deck for over a year on cockatrice, building it, and having nowhere to play, I found an LGS (not so local) that has monthly legacy. I ended up winning the whole shebang tonight, my first time stepping foot in the place. I didn't take notes, so this is gonna be pretty non-descript.

Here was my list:

4x Ringleader
4x Matron
4x Warchief
4x Lackey
3x Gempalm
3x War Marshall
2x Piledriver
2x Krenko (I'm in love with this guy, and I want backup in the event he gets removed)
1x Sharpshooter
1x Siege Gang
1x Stingscourger
1x Prospector
1x Chieftain
1x Tuktuk Scrapper

4x Vial

2x Tarfire

6x Mountain
2x Plateau
4x Wooded Foothills
2x Scalding Tarn
4x Cavern
4x Wasteland

SB:
4x Chalice of the Void
3x Rest in Peace
2x Disenchant
2x Pyrokinesis
2x Blood Moon (I forgot to take these out, was messing around the night before on SB. Prob give Thalia a try next time.)
1x Stingscourger
1x Tuktuk Scrapper

Had a big long tourney report typed out, and this is where is restored to after it failed to post...I'll repost tomorrow with more in depth shizz. But I'll prob forget it all.

match 1 punishing jund
W 2-1

match 2 UB tezzeret
W 2-0

match 3 storm
W 2-1

match 4 GWB junk
ID after winning game 1 (draw to save time, i won top seed on breakers)

semi esper stoneblade
W 2-0

final GWB Junk, same deck
W 2-0

goblinsplayer

03-17-2013, 10:22 AM

feline

03-17-2013, 12:23 PM

This might come off as random, but I've been going over the decks I actually play or have played in Legacy, and this is one of the decks I still have/play, for me the most fun tribe that is viable in the format as a strategy, anyhow, I've either lost my mind or something because I've been making huge primers for older, outdated ones over what I have experience with, however when I came across the Goblin thread, I saw that it is totally up-to-date by the same person that started the thread 2 years ago, so I just wanted to say, as a goblin player, thank you, I suppose that really makes you the GoboLord he he!

Bichon_Blitz

03-17-2013, 12:34 PM

by the way, why don't you run 4 rest in peace? It seems really good against alot of things that's good against your deck, for example, tarmogoyf.

I think ideally I would be running 1 more pyrokinesis/thalias, but I never thought to run the 4th RiP. It's by far my favorite gy hate and gives rug and bg fits, sided it in against the junk deck with kotr. One thing to remember is you don't want to side in a ton of non-goblin cards and take out goblins. 34 goblin cards, my ringleaders were hot all night, which was huge. Won an underground sea, which is nice since my collection is pretty garbage when sitting across from an all foil, asian text deck.

magicmerl

03-17-2013, 05:56 PM

Hey there, fellow Warchiefs!
Have fun discussing the results. Questions are (as always) appreciated!
Thanks, this is excellent.

Overall conclusions
1. 2 SGC looks like a better finishing package than a 1/1 split of SGC/Krenko. I will make this change to my list now.

2. Mono-coloured seems much more consistent than splashing, but that's possibly a factor of selection bia by the pilots (i.e. the people running the mono-coloured lists have been playing basically the same list for several years, giving them a significant experience advantage vs the field). More investigation needed.

3. Stingscourger should be in your MD as a 1-of. Chieftain, Sharpshooter and Prospector should be in your 75, but not necessarily MD. Data not presented for Tin Street Hooligan and Tuktuk Scrapper, but my gut feeling is that they fall into the second category rather than the first.

4. The right mix of two-drops is still undetermined out of PD, MWM, Thalia and Instigator (Gempalm and Tarfire seem to compete for these slots too...). Combined with #3 above makes me think that perhaps the right direction is to streamline the deck and cut the number of tutor targets right down, fitting in more 2-drop goblins?

Now for the play-by-play:

Total number of lands
Since 22 and 23 lands both outperformed the average, I think that the only conclusion we can reach is to not run other land counts :). Although there is a slight preference for 22 lands by 0.71%.

Lands: Rishadan Port, Fetchlands, Dual lands
You have 166 matches in total, and only 84 of them are accounted for here in the 3 and 4 port categories. That means that 82 matches must have been played in the 0, 1 and 2 Port decks. There can't be an insufficient number of games played (or the 3 port lists wouldn't have made it). So the only conclusion I can reach is that the 0 port lists have a high variance of results.

I think that a high Fetchland count is the flipside of running Rishadan Ports (i.e. running no Fetches is likely to be the same lists as the people running Ports). Is it possible to explore the 0 port data subset in more detail? It seems like there are three groups of decks: Mono-coloured, Multi-coloured with poor results, Multi-coloured with good results. This means that even when the bad multi-coloured lists are weeded out, an averaged list combining the mono-coloured and multi-coloured results will be inferior to either. As Malcolm Gladwell says, there is no perfect spaghetti sauce. There are only perfect spaghetti sauces (http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html).

Two Drops: Piledriver, Mogg War Marshal
"Piledriver Interpretation of results: Playing either 3 or 4 Piledrivers does not have any notable impact on the win-%."
Actually, because the win pct is so low for 3-4 PD, running 0-1-2 must not have a significant impact on winning either. This makes me think that running FEWER Piledrivers is an unexplored space for goblins in search of alternatives which will provide increased win %. There are several cards competing at the 2 drop: PD, MWM, Thalia, Instigator. And we only really have about 8-9 slots to devote to them, since they compete for deck space with each other on the curve.

"MWM Interpretation of results: Results are hard to interpret since most of the 20 records with 4 MWMs came from the same player. "
Good point. And 3MWM had a negative pct relative to the average. So MAYBE 4 MWM is correct, or maybe it's not a good card...

Tutor Targets: Stingscourger, Chieftain, Sharpshooter, Skirk Prospector

Yep, 1 Stingscourger is the way to go.
despite the lack of data I do think that this shows that Chieftain is best as a one-of tutor target, and isn't even necessary MD.
Again, Sharpshooter is a fringe MD tutor target. This is good info to know.
And Prospector too

What about other tutor targets like Tin Street Hooligan and Tuktuk Scrapper? They are more complicated since they are basically the same card (in different builds) so they will have fewer results, but it's nice to have an indicative win %.

Finishers: Krenko, Siege-Gang Commander
Like the 2 drops, Krenko needs to be interpreted in the context of SGC, since they compete for space with each other. And the results are that 2 SGC is better than a 1/1 split of SGC and Krenko. Good to know. I had been thinking this already, but it's nice to have data backing it up.

Mr. Froggy

03-17-2013, 06:07 PM

magicmerl

03-17-2013, 06:22 PM

I played Rw Gobbos (Thalia SB) at a tourny, it was horrible. -_-
This is tricky, because while Thalia is awful vs Elves and Affinity, once you beat those decks you play a different class of deck.

Channel Fireball's rationale for bringing Wolf Run to the Pro Tour AFTER Wolf Run won worlds (and thus was a known target in the metagame) was that they wanted to win the event, and the slate of decks that they expected to rise to the top of the swiss and make the top 8 were all very beatable by Wolf-run. So they picked the deck that had a harder time in the swiss, to have a better time in the top8.

Are you bringing a deck that will let you top8, or are you bringing a deck that will let you win the top8? Where I play, the decks I want to beat in the top8 are Storm, Stoneforge and BGx.

Mr. Froggy

03-17-2013, 09:59 PM

I love Rw Gobbos, but I wasn't paired against the easiest matchups I could face, lol.

And I know I can Top8 with it, it's an amazing deck.

Avatara

03-17-2013, 10:31 PM

I love Rw Gobbos, but I wasn't paired against the easiest matchups I could face, lol.

And I know I can Top8 with it, it's an amazing deck.

It would be tier 1 (DTB) if it could consistently beat top 8 decks.

feline

03-18-2013, 01:33 AM

Alright Goblins gets an 11th place in DC http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=54157

GoboLord

03-18-2013, 08:17 AM

Overall you have to keep in mind that when something is termed "average perfromance" than this actually means "above average", since most lists that I included in the re records were winning lists/Top8 lists! i.e. If I wrote that "Running 22 or 23 lands does not improve the performance" than I actually phrased that wrong. it must be "running 22 or 23 lands contributes to the above-average performance, but does not catapult the decklist into being eve better than "above-average".
This line of thinking applies to some points you made (and I can see that this is my fault - not yours, since I didn't make this point clear in the original report of the analysis):

Total number of lands
Since 22 and 23 lands both outperformed the average, I think that the only conclusion we can reach is to not run other land counts :). *Although there is a slight preference for 22 lands by 0.71%.
[...]
Two Drops: Piledriver, Mogg War Marshal
"Piledriver Interpretation of results: Playing either 3 or 4 Piledrivers does not have any notable impact on the win-%."
Actually, because the win pct is so low for 3-4 PD, running 0-1-2 must not have a significant impact on winning either. This makes me think that running FEWER Piledrivers is an unexplored space for goblins in search of alternatives which will provide increased win %. There are several cards competing at the 2 drop: PD, MWM, Thalia, Instigator. And we only really have about 8-9 slots to devote to them, since they compete for deck space with each other on the curve.

"MWM Interpretation of results: Results are hard to interpret since most of the 20 records with 4 MWMs came from the same player. "
Good point. And 3MWM had a negative pct relative to the average. So MAYBE 4 MWM is correct, or maybe it's not a good card...
Again: Please be hesitant to draw such extreme conclusions yet. I'll be keeping this kind of work up and present a new, updated analysis once I have some more records to make statements about things like "the correct number of piledrivers" or the "correct number of MWMs".

Now for the things that I liked most about your posting (in fact: I enjoyed reading the whole thing, but I want to highlight some interesting thoughts):

Overall conclusions
2. Mono-coloured seems much more consistent than splashing, but that's possibly a factor of selection bia by the pilots (i.e. the people running the mono-coloured lists have been playing basically the same list for several years, giving them a significant experience advantage vs the field). More investigation needed.
[...]
4. The right mix of two-drops is still undetermined out of PD, MWM, Thalia and Instigator (Gempalm and Tarfire seem to compete for these slots too...). Combined with #3 above makes me think that perhaps the right direction is to streamline the deck and cut the number of tutor targets right down, fitting in more 2-drop goblins?

[...]
I think that a high Fetchland count is the flipside of running Rishadan Ports (i.e. running no Fetches is likely to be the same lists as the people running Ports). Is it possible to explore the 0 port data subset in more detail? It seems like there are three groups of decks: Mono-coloured, Multi-coloured with poor results, Multi-coloured with good results. This means that even when the bad multi-coloured lists are weeded out, an averaged list combining the mono-coloured and multi-coloured results will be inferior to either. As Malcolm Gladwell says, there is no perfect spaghetti sauce. There are only perfect spaghetti sauces (http://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html).

This mono-colored vs. splash thing is indeed an issue. Also, I didn't control for which splash turned out to be most successful (I didn't diferentiate between Rw and Rg and Rwg and Ru and Rb - all of which were among the lists I recorded). Looking forward to get my hands on more data.

About the cc2-dudes: maybe it would be interesting to see how averaged manacost of the respective decklists affect performance. Or rather (to make things easier) I could look at the number of cc2 spells, since that is essentially what you want to know right?

I could provide info about the 0-Port subset, but I havn't got enough records yet. So, being an impatient person myself I must ask you to be a little more patient and wait for the next update.

Well, your example of spaghetti sauces made me hungry (*nomnom*) but I honestly don't get what you mean. Could you try to explain this one with different words (or use a different example)? You can also PM me on that, since I think this is not the kind of topic we should be discussing in the Goblins thread anyway.

jrw1985

03-18-2013, 03:42 PM

Alright Goblins gets an 11th place in DC http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=54157

Finally! Can't say I'm a big fan of the sb at all, but that's a solid md and its good to see a list with a few new cards ( loyalist ). And while I didn't like the sb in total, I do like that he sided utility goblins like mwm and chieftain. I still don't dig on REB, thorn or 2 surgicals as your only gy/combo hate.

magicmerl

03-18-2013, 04:50 PM

Again: Please be hesitant to draw such extreme conclusions yet. I'll be keeping this kind of work up and present a new, updated analysis once I have some more records to make statements about things like "the correct number of piledrivers" or the "correct number of MWMs".
You're right, although I think that my overall conclusion regarding two drops was 'more information needed', which isn't wildly different from yours.

About the cc2-dudes: maybe it would be interesting to see how averaged manacost of the respective decklists affect performance. Or rather (to make things easier) I could look at the number of cc2 spells, since that is essentially what you want to know right?
Actually, I think maybe it's the total number of slots devoted to 2CC creatures that matters. How about win pct for the # for the following?
a: Thalia+Piledriver+MWM+Instigator
b: Thalia+Piledriver+MWM+Instigator+Gempalm+Tarfire(+Bolt+Dismember+Swords)

So in some lists, the total number of (Thalia+Piledriver+MWM+Instigator) would be 9, and you could provide the aggregate win % for decks in that category.

This mono-colored vs. splash thing is indeed an issue. Also, I didn't control for which splash turned out to be most successful (I didn't diferentiate between Rw and Rg and Rwg and Ru and Rb - all of which were among the lists I recorded). Looking forward to get my hands on more data.

I could provide info about the 0-Port subset, but I havn't got enough records yet. So, being an impatient person myself I must ask you to be a little more patient and wait for the next update.
For sure. Do you have a link to your dataset? Just to help with my impatience... :)

Well, your example of spaghetti sauces made me hungry (*nomnom*) but I honestly don't get what you mean. Could you try to explain this one with different words (or use a different example)? You can also PM me on that, since I think this is not the kind of topic we should be discussing in the Goblins thread anyway.
Heh. Actually, it does pertain to goblins. Imagine if you will that there are two 'ideal' goblin decks, one a Rw Thalia based list, and one a monoR list. These two goblins achieve amazing numbers, let's say 70% and all other permutations of the deck do significantly worse. These two lists are played with equal frequency. An 'aggregate' approach would basically halve the white splash, and put things in like one Thalia, fetchlands and no plateau etc etc. Basically the composite deck would be significantly worse than either 'ideal' deck.

So maybe the analysis needs to be open to the idea of there being multiple 'perfect' goblins decks. There is a best Ru deck, a best Rw deck, a best R deck etc.

Bichon_Blitz

03-18-2013, 07:24 PM

I played Rw Gobbos (Thalia SB) at a tourny, it was horrible. -_-

Finished with a score of 1-2-1...

Rnd 1: Stoneblade 2-1
Rnd 2: Elves! 0-2
Rnd 3: Affinity 0-2
Rnd 4: Miracles 1-1-1

The other decks were:
Elves! (beat me 2-0, finished 2nd)
ANT (finished 1st)
Stoneblade
Miracles
(Me) Rw Gobbos
Rg Gobbos
Junk
Affinity
Burn/Sligh

Do you run sharpshooter in your 75? he works wonders against your first 3 opponents. I beat GWB Junk casting war marshall/stingscourger and not paying the echo, wiping out sfm, drs, and bobs. I did take him out MD for awhile, but I see elves growing in popularity, at least in my meta.

Mr. Froggy

03-18-2013, 08:03 PM

Yeah, I do. I love Sharpshooter, the deck just didn't want to work for me this week. :(

Bichon_Blitz

03-18-2013, 08:56 PM

Yeah, I do. I love Sharpshooter, the deck just didn't want to work for me this week. :(

I'll admit I had some pretty nutty draws, like lackey/vial on almost every turn one. All my ringleaders nabbed at least 2 more gobs. In a deck that doesn't run bs/ponder/top/cantrips we can get some pretty bad draws.

Geeksire

03-19-2013, 05:18 PM

ScatmanX

03-19-2013, 07:16 PM

I have been facing my friend for quite a while who has a Legacy Soldier deck, so I have been thinking of using my SB against him but I don't know if you guys have this problem but, I just don't know what to switch in and out. If it is possible, can there be several examples where people show what they switch from their SB to their MD; for example, Storm, Combo, Delver, Zoo, Elf, etc. because I have a really hard time in knowing which cards to put against ANY opponent. I always believe my cards work awesome the way they are and if I remove one or two cards, I feel like my Goblins are going to go astray and lose the game.

If you guys can do this, it will be awesome!
If you show us your decklist and your sideboard, and say against which precise matchups you want help with, it would be easier.
in my list, for instance, against a Soldier deck, I'd bring in 1 Sharpshooter, 1 Tuktuk Scrapper and 2 Pyrokinesis for 3 Instigator and 1 Piledriver (on the draw) or 1 Kiki Jiki, 2 Piledriver, 1 Chieftain (on the play).

magicmerl

03-19-2013, 08:02 PM

Geeksire, it's usually pretty obvious when cards are bad.

Aether Vial - when the opponent is all in faster than you (Belcher, Storm, Dredge)
Goblin Lackey - when the opponent has lots of early blockers AND lots of removal (Zoo)
Goblin Piledriver - Same as lackey (but you cut PD first obv)
Mogg War Marshall - When the opponent is basically creature free
Thalia - When the opponent is mostly creatures
Goblin Warchief - Never cut
Goblin Chieftain - Never cut
Goblin Matron - A couple get shaved vs non-interactive combo decks
Gobling Ringleader - A couple get shaved vs non-interactive combo decks
Krenko - combo decks...
SGC - combo decks...
Tarfire/Bolt/Dismember/Swords - same as MWM
Prospector - vs control decks
Stingscourger - when the opponent doesn't have a big fatty wincon
Sharpshooter - when the opponent doesn't have lots of little dudes
TSH - when the opponent doesn't have the big artifact target

Geeksire

03-19-2013, 08:45 PM

magicmerl

03-19-2013, 10:03 PM

I would think that in that matchup it's as easy as something like this:
- Stingscourger
- 2 Piledrivers
+ 3 Pyrokinesis

ScatmanX

03-19-2013, 10:34 PM

Goblin Warchief - Never cut
Goblin Chieftain - Never cut
Goblin Matron - A couple get shaved vs non-interactive combo decks
SGC - combo decks...
Sharpshooter - when the opponent doesn't have lots of little dudes
I have to disagree with these ones:
Warchief / Chieftain: Just because you said 'never', and that's not truth. There are lists that run a 3-3 or a 4-3 split, that trimming down a number of one of them is not the end of the world.
Matron: Take out all Ringleaders before doing this.
SGC: I want MORE SGC against combo. I want to kill them T3, and SGC allow me to do that by himself + Piledriver + Lackey. I'd rather not throw those T3 kill percentages away.
Shooter: He is way more versatile than that. Ensaring Bridge, Moat, Elephant Grass, Glacial Chasm... they all exist, and Shooter is a great way to play against those cards.

And to some extent: 'Aether Vial - when the opponent is all in faster than you (Belcher, Storm, Dredge)'
I agree against Belcher, and I trim them against Dredge, but again, depends on your deckist. If you are playing against TES or AnT, and you run 4 Wastes + 2-4 Ports, then Vial is quite good, since you can deprive them mana, while developing your board.

magicmerl

03-19-2013, 10:44 PM

I have to disagree with these ones:
Warchief / Chieftain: Just because you said 'never', and that's not truth. There are lists that run a 3-3 or a 4-3 split, that trimming down a number of one of them is not the end of the world.
For sure. I run 4+1, so I wouldn't cut them. If you started with more than 5, it can easily be right to cut some.

Matron: Take out all Ringleaders before doing this.
Good to know. I juts found the 1/1 body really underwhelming vs them. I will try that.

SGC: I want MORE SGC against combo. I want to kill them T3, and SGC allow me to do that by himself + Piledriver + Lackey. I'd rather not throw those T3 kill percentages away.
Yeah, you're right.

Shooter: He is way more versatile than that. Ensaring Bridge, Moat, Elephant Grass, Glacial Chasm... they all exist, and Shooter is a great way to play against those cards.
Sure. Against prison lists he's also good as a source of reach.

And to some extent: 'Aether Vial - when the opponent is all in faster than you (Belcher, Storm, Dredge)'
I agree against Belcher, and I trim them against Dredge, but again, depends on your deckist. If you are playing against TES or AnT, and you run 4 Wastes + 2-4 Ports, then Vial is quite good, since you can deprive them mana, while developing your board.
I don't run ports in my list.

Geeksire

03-20-2013, 12:51 AM

Well for my deck, which has been going through a lot of tinkering. I have decided to get around the idea of making a deck R/B since they are my favorite combination with Goblins, so I got ideas from the man who won 11th place in Starcity Tournament, B-Rad's sideboard, and Enrico Fanciullini who won 1st place.

Here is my deck:

Artifact: 4
4x Aether Vials

Creatures: 34
4x Goblin Lackey's
4x Goblin Matron's
4x Goblin Ringleader's
4x Goblin Warchief's
4x Goblin Piledriver
3x Gempalm Incinerator
2x Stingscourcher
2x Goblin Chieftain (I love having two just in case because any opponent I go against are always going to get rid of our Haste! GOBLINS NEED HASTE! (In my opinion...)
1x Goblin Pyromancer (Used to use Goblin Lookout but after seeing the man getting 11th place with Goblin Pyromancer, I should give it a shot.)
1x Lightning Crafter (Love exiling my Matron, Ringleader, or maybe even Pyromancer with Vial so I can do it again, if he dies : D)
1x Legion Loyalist (Play him out once I get my Piledrivers and with haste! BAM!! GG!!)
1x Krenko, Mob Boss
2x Siege-Gang Commander (Thinking of replacing one of them with Legion Loyalist...)

Lands: 20x
4x Auntie's Hovel
8x Mountain
4x Cavern of Souls
4x Rishadan Port's

Spells: 3x
3x Tarfires

Sideboard: 15x
3x Earwig Squad
3x Mindbreak Trap
3x Relic of Progentius (Thinking of replacing these with Rakdos Charm's)
2x Angel of Despair (Thinking of replacing with Thorn of Amethyst or something else.)
2x Pyrokinesis
1x Tutuk Scrapper
1x Goblin Sharpshooter

Pingu

03-20-2013, 08:38 AM

The metagame where i play is full of jund and junk rock, so i'm having dificult time because that kind of decks completely obliterate goblins, the creatures are much better and "mass removal" as pernicious deed and punishing fire backed up with bolt, hymn to tourach and swords to plowshares is way to much.

Back in extended goblins completely decimates rock decks because of Patriarch's Bidding and Living Death.

Can this cards make the cut to current legacy metagame against Jund/Rock decks?
If so how would you build the deck?

Creatures [30]
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Sparksmith
3 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Skirk Prospector

Sorceries [3]
1 Patriarch's Bidding
2 Living Death

Artifacts [7]
3 Chrome Mox
4 Aether Vial

Lands [20]
2 Swamp
3 Rishadan Port
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Sulfurous Springs
7 Mountain

sb:
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Cranial Extraction
3 Flametongue Kavu
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
2 Sword of Fire and Ice

This a list of Extended [Tp_6th_ChK] is it possible to update it to legacy?

ScatmanX

03-20-2013, 09:30 AM

1 Patriarch's Bidding
2 Living Death

This might actually be a good idea in a jund/junk infested meta, and even agains Esper. I might buy some Living Death's to try this out after I win today's legacy.

Pingu

03-20-2013, 10:25 AM

This might actually be a good idea in a jund/junk infested meta, and even agains Esper. I might buy some Living Death's to try this out after I win today's legacy.

Who would you build the mana base?

ScatmanX

03-20-2013, 11:22 AM

Who would you build the mana base?
This is where I'm at:
Goblin Bidings
4 Badlands
3 Auntie's Hovel
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Mountain
4 Rishadan Port

4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
3 Goblin Piledriver
2 Siege-Gang Commander

1 Goblin Sharpshoter
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirrorbreaker
1 Skirk Prospector
1 Lightning Crafter

2 Stingscourger
3 Gempalm Incinerator

3 Living Death

Sideboard
1 Living Death
4 Pyrokinesis

2 Surgical Extraction

2 Duress
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 ReB
2 Confusion in the Ranks

1 Tuktuk Scrapper

Pingu

03-20-2013, 11:30 AM

This is where I'm at:
Goblin Bidings
4 Badlands
3 Auntie's Hovel
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Mountain
4 Rishadan Port

4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
3 Goblin Piledriver
2 Siege-Gang Commander

1 Goblin Sharpshoter
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirrorbreaker
1 Skirk Prospector
1 Lightning Crafter

2 Stingscourger
3 Gempalm Incinerator

3 Living Death

Sideboard
1 Living Death
4 Pyrokinesis

2 Surgical Extraction

2 Duress
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 ReB
2 Confusion in the Ranks

1 Tuktuk Scrapper

I think it should have at least 1 or 2 more Prospector, you always want this guy on the table before setting up a Living death to clean your guys, also i really like Mogg War Marshal it kinda gives the deck a combo feelling, what do you think?

ScatmanX

03-20-2013, 12:04 PM

I think it should have at least 1 or 2 more Prospector, you always want this guy on the table before setting up a Living death to clean your guys, also i really like Mogg War Marshal it kinda gives the deck a combo feelling, what do you think?
I do agree that the 2nd Prospector would be great.
Don't see the point on MWM tohugh. Ramping?

And the deck does have it's combos:
Prospector + Kiki + Crafter
Kiki + Crafter + Shooter

I'm thinkig to test this one when I get time, and see if the concept is even worth it, then pick up from there.

Pingu

03-20-2013, 12:43 PM

I do agree that the 2nd Prospector would be great.
Don't see the point on MWM tohugh. Ramping?

And the deck does have it's combos:
Prospector + Kiki + Crafter
Kiki + Crafter + Shooter

I'm thinkig to test this one when I get time, and see if the concept is even worth it, then pick up from there.

After resolving a living death the triggers of matron and ringleader gives you more goblins (obvious i know, but bare with me), if you have 1 or 2 warchief on the table and a war marshal on the deck you can go nuts, a situation where you only get few goblins can turn in a kill, because you can use the goblins that you have draw after the ringleader triggers.

ScatmanX

03-20-2013, 01:05 PM

After resolving a living death the triggers of matron and ringleader gives you more goblins (obvious i know, but bare with me), if you have 1 or 2 warchief on the table and a war marshal on the deck you can go nuts, a situation where you only get few goblins can turn in a kill, because you can use the goblins that you have draw after the ringleader triggers.
You're right. Will see what can change for more Prospectors.
Edit before edit: Actually, will test the way it is. Give how the meta is now, I don't see a deck winning after I resolve a Living Death, even if I don't manage to kill my opponent on the same turn.

Geeksire

03-20-2013, 02:55 PM

Pingu

03-20-2013, 05:10 PM

I always loved using Goblin Bidding! It is actually my all time favorite against friends, but the most difficult decision using Patriarch's Bidding and Living Death is the dumb spells that counter them! If you can sideboard them I think it would be awesome but other than that, it is hard to say the least when going against Merfolk or decks that can counter a spell (blue...the bane of all Goblin decks...) Just make sure your deck does not surround Patriarch's Bidding and Living Death. It will be a nightmare if they counter your spell.

My problem is not the "counters" matchups, you can easly sideboard them out for Pyroblast or something else and you still have cavern and aether vial, in my meta most of the decks are junds and rocks and as i said before is virtually impossible winning those matches, with Living death i think that will be almost impossible losing to those decks.

My current List is like this:
4 Badlands
4 Sulfurous Springs
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Mountain
2 Rishadan Port

4 Aether Vial

4 Goblin Lackey
3 Skirk Prospector
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
3 Goblin Piledriver
1 Mogg War Marshal
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Goblin Sharpshoter
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirrorbreaker
1 Lightning Crafter
2 Stingscourger
1 Gempalm Incinerator

3 Living Death

magicmerl

03-20-2013, 05:18 PM

Is building in a slow graveyard based combo really the answer to Deathrite Shaman?

Steamflogger

03-20-2013, 07:04 PM

How much removal are you guys currently running? I'm counting everything from 0 to 2 mana at Instant speed. Most lists I've seen over the last few pages have about 6.
If 6 appears to be the latest state of the art I might be interested in cutting one from my current 7 since I'm looking for a flex slot (Legion Loyalist or Sparksmith).

magicmerl

03-20-2013, 09:07 PM

I just run the 4 Incinerators.

jrw1985

03-21-2013, 11:54 AM

Over the weekend I played a brief 3 rounds.

Lands 2-1
He got the lock G1.
I had a super fast hand G2 and just beat him before he could get the lock.
G3 I had RiP to stop him from recurring and TSH for his Ensnaring Bridge.

Death and Taxes 0-2
I had pretty terrible hands both games and he had SoFaI.

Junk
G1 he plays Top on a 1 lander. I stomp him.
G2 he beats me down with an Ooze.
G3 I for some reason don't side in RiP because I'm dumb and get crushed by KotR x2.

Steamflogger

03-21-2013, 12:16 PM

Oh for some reason wrote "at Instant speed" but also wanted to count Stinger. Well ok, let's say removal (bounce, damage...) that can be cast turn 2 to pave the way for Lackey.

ScatmanX

03-21-2013, 12:55 PM

Report time!
4-0ed my local last night. Feels good to be playing again =]
List:
4 Wasteland
2 Rishadan Port
4 Cavern of Souls
11 Mountain
1 Chrome Mox

4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
3 Goblin Warchief
3 Goblin Chieftain
3 Goblin Piledriver
3 Warren Instigator

2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Kiki Jiki, Mirrorbreaker

2 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Stingscourger
4 Lightning Bolt

Sideboard
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Thorn of Amethyst
2 ReB
2 Chrome Mox

2 Pyrokinesis
2 Relic of Progenitus

1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Goblin Sharpshooter

Round 1 - Punishing Jund
Game 1 - I'm on the draw with Vial, he leads with Shaman into Seize + Hymn. I loose pretty much all my hand. Bolt takes care of Shaman, Piledriver comes in with Vial, while Lackey on the table, and I play Chieftain. He had taken a lot of dmg by himself with a Sylvan Livrary, Seize + Fetches, and falls to 1. He gets P.Fire online, but cannot kill all my dudes because has a fetch and not a R source on the table. Close one.
In: 2 Relics, 1 Scrapper
Out: 3 Instigators
Game 2 - He leads with Shaman, I Bolt it. He plays Goyf. I realize no one had cracked a Fetch. 2nd Bolt kills goyf (Bolt better than Tarfire#1). He plays lilli, I discard something, hit lilli with Chieftain, he makes me sacrifice it, and plays another Lilly. I play Ringleader, draw a bunch, hit Lilly. He is stuck on 3 lands for the whole game. A Kithcne Finks is not enough to stop me, and I win.
(Port was really good on the 2nd game. After Ringleader I Ported the shit out of his black sources, and it was worth it).

Round 2 - Esperblade
Game 1 - I keep a Lackey slow hand, with 2 Wastes, a Port, a Caverns and a Mountain. On the draw I'd have mulliganed this, but on the Play it's actually quite good against Esper. He StP's it from basic Plains, then IoKs me from basic Swamp. Then gets a basic Island and a collorless land. I Port hiw white source every turn, and make all my landdrops. He Snap + IoK me again, taking a chieftain. When I get to 5 mana, I draw a Matron, that gets me a Ringleader (all Cavern protected - he had FoW), and I play it and continue to Port him. He play Karakas. I Waste and continue to Port the W source, playing a 2nd Ringleader. I don't get greedy and keep working on his manabase, ealing 3-5 dmg a turn. I kill him and he shows me Stoneforge and Supreme Veredict.
In: 1 Tuktuk, 1 Sharpshooter, 2 C.Mox.
Out: 1 Piledriver, 1 Mountain, 2 Chieftain
(The Mox came in because the easiest way we can lose to Esperblade is a protected Batterskull on T3. Mox helps solve that problem a little, by casting an Instigator T1 on the draw, or ramping your Warchief, so you can better fight the Batterskull. On the play 2 Mox would come out)
Game 2 - He mulls. I again keep a slow hand, but with 2 Bolts. He IoKs one, but Ringleader remains in my hand. I don't remember much about this one, but I topdeck a Matron T3, and bury him on CA again, with Bolt clearing the way from Stoneforge.

Round 3 - Glimpse Affinity
Game 1 - I keep a 2 lander with Bolt and Instigator on the draw. Bolt kills a dude, Instigator comes down, but I miss the 3rd land drop, and lose from there.
In: 1 Tuktuk, 1 Sharpshooter, 2 Mox, 2 Kinesis, 2 Chalice, 2 Trap
Out: 4 Vial, 3 Chieftain, 1 SGC, 1 Piledriver, 1 Cavern of Souls
Game 2 - I keep Chalice, Trap, Piledriver, Mox, and lands. T1 Chalice@0 go. He does nothing for 3 turns, until he gets to 3 mana, cast Glimpse, the battlecry dude Frogmite, and Thoughtcast, which I Trap. He passes. I play a Ringleader that gets me Lackey, Gempalm, Instigator. He plays a 4/4 guy. I draw Kinesis, play Lackey and Instigator and pass, with 4 dudes on the table. He passes. I eot cycle Gempalm (5 lands now) to kill the 4/4. My turn I draw Ringleader, that gets me 2 dudes. I remove 1 to Kinesis to clear his board and start bashing. Ends in 2 turns.
Game 3 - I keep a hand without hate when he mulls, but with Lackey, Bolt, gempalm, Matron and 3 lands. I play Lackey, and just play land T2. By the end of his 3nd turn he had, Springleaf Drum, 2x of the battlecry dude, Ornithopter, Frogmite and 2 artifact lands, when he plays Ravager. I ponder on what I should do. I opt to Gempalm the 0/1 guy, then let it resolve. Ravager was his only untapped dude. My turn I attack with Lackey, and he blocks. Before dmg he sacrifices Springleaf Drum. I respond it by Bolting the Ravager. This way he needs to sac 3 other artifacts to make it stay alive (Bolt better than Tarfire#2). He decided just to sac Ravager to make Frogmite a 3/3. This way Lackey stayed alive. If he was willing to trade Ravager for Lackey 1x1 I'd be fine with that. He hit me for 2 turns. I cast Warchief in one, an Gempalmed his blocker on the other, connecting with Lackey, searching Kiki with Matron. He does nothing. I play Kiki and pass. He draws something bad, I eot copy Matron, he scoops.
(There was a game where Ringleader revealed a Bolt. It didn't mattered at all)

Round 4 - Monoblack Reanimator Depths
Game 1 - I didn't knew what he was playing but kept a good hand. I led with Vial, he with Needle on Vial off a Swamp. I thought he might be in Pox, and made the following decision. T2 I had Instigator, Piledriver, Chieftain, Ringleadr, and lands. I opted to drop Piledriver, since I thought it would get Innocent Blood'ed or Smallpox'ed. Turns out he did nothing. I hit with Driver + Chieftain, then with both + Ringleader, and re scooped. Still don't know what he is playing.
In: 2x Mox, 1x Scrapper, 1xSharpshooter
Out: 4x Bolt
Game 2: He does T1 Entomb, T2 Reanimate
In: 2x Mox, 2x Chalice, 2x Relic, 1x Thorn
Out: 4x Bolt, 2x Gempalm, 1x Ringleader
Game3: I keep Lackey, CotV, 2 mountains and dudes. He T1 IoKs me and takes Chieftain Lackey connects and I drop Kiki, with just Ringleader of dude.I drew Relic, and should have played it, but opt to go to Chalice (because I had only 2 lands, and Relic would make me always keep 1 up, so I'd not be able to play CotV if I didn't draw a land). He does nothing. I eot Kiki my lackey, then Kiki it again my turn. I hit, ringleader hits the table and reveal Matron. Matron searchef for Chieftain, and he gets into play also. Next turn he searches for Vampire Hexmage, but I attack for 16 copying Chieftain, attacking with Lackey, Matron, Ringleader, Chieftainx2.

I had a blast playing goblins again. It is an awesome deck. The list is geared toward T3 kills. Mox on the side help with that, leading to T1 Piledrivers or Instigators (just remembered G2 against Jund Mox was awesome, allowing me to speed up the Ringleader I had, so the order I played the cards was different). That's also the reason to play Kiki over Krenko.
Well, will be playing a list like this on the near future. Liked every single card.

GoboLord

03-21-2013, 01:41 PM

Report time!
List:
4 Wasteland
2 Rishadan Port
4 Cavern of Souls
11 Mountain
1 Chrome Mox

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
3 Warren Instigator
2 Siege-Gang Commander

Round 1 - Punishing Jund
Game 2 - He leads with Shaman, I Bolt it. He plays Goyf. I realize no one had cracked a Fetch. 2nd Bolt kills goyf (Bolt better than Tarfire#1). He plays lilli, I discard something, hit lilli with Chieftain, he makes me sacrifice it, and plays another Lilly. I play Ringleader, draw a bunch, hit Lilly. He is stuck on 3 lands for the whole game. A Kithcne Finks is not enough to stop me, and I win.
(Port was really good on the 2nd game. After Ringleader I Ported the shit out of his black sources, and it was worth it).

[...]

Round 2 - Esperblade
Game 1 - I keep a Lackey slow hand, with 2 Wastes, a Port, a Caverns and a Mountain. On the draw I'd have mulliganed this, but on the Play it's actually quite good against Esper. He StP's it from basic Plains, then IoKs me from basic Swamp. Then gets a basic Island and a collorless land. I Port hiw white source every turn, and make all my landdrops. He Snap + IoK me again, taking a chieftain. When I get to 5 mana, I draw a Matron, that gets me a Ringleader (all Cavern protected - he had FoW), and I play it and continue to Port him. He play Karakas. I Waste and continue to Port the W source, playing a 2nd Ringleader. I don't get greedy and keep working on his manabase, ealing 3-5 dmg a turn. I kill him and he shows me Stoneforge and Supreme Veredict.

[...]

Well, will be playing a list like this on the near future. Liked every single card.

Congratz on the good result and thanks for the report, I just recorded that one!
Question: Given the passages above, what do you think of running Pendelhaven > Rishadan Port?

ScatmanX

03-21-2013, 01:54 PM

Congratz on the good result and thanks for the report, I just recorded that one!
Question: Given the passages above, what do you think of running Pendelhaven > Rishadan Port?
Thanks.
I haven't really thought of Pendlehaven while playing, buy I can surely say Ports were better on the given scenarios.
When I attacked with Lackey into Ravager, I had a Port on my hand. Had it been a Pendlehaven that would have been played out differently.
What I can say for sure, answering your question, is that I lean way more towards Port than towards Heaven.

FTW

03-21-2013, 11:57 PM

I have to disagree with these ones:
SGC: I want MORE SGC against combo. I want to kill them T3, and SGC allow me to do that by himself + Piledriver + Lackey. I'd rather not throw those T3 kill percentages away.
THIS.
I've outraced ANT and TES a couple times by just going Lackey --> SGC. Back in the day when there was room for cuteness slots, I would actually board IN a 3rd SGC against storm. The matchup is already abysmal so anything helps! Especially good against Ad Nauseam or Griselbrand because that early dent in life means fewer cards for them!!

I would cut Ringleaders before SGC in those matches because the card advantage is not going to matter at all but the explosiveness is one of your best shots! Although I don't see why you'd need to cut either because after cutting all your removal, how many more combo hate cards are you boarding in?

Shooter: He is way more versatile than that. Ensaring Bridge, Moat, Elephant Grass, Glacial Chasm... they all exist, and Shooter is a great way to play against those cards.
This. A guy at my local cardshop loves to play Enchantress. Goblins hates Solitary Confinement. A lot. We can't waste slots on Anarchy. Sharpshooter+SGC means you can actually threaten to finish him off during draw step if he ever lets one Confinement die to play another.

Even better with Chasm. 43lands player Intuitions for Loam+Chasm and laughs at your Goblin deck. You Matron for Sharpshooter and Prospector or SGC. Now who's laughing? Loam player is forced to awkwardly pay the upkeep; looping it means HE slowly dies in between.

Rest in Peace/Helm combo sometimes runs that blue enchantment that lets you only attack if you have cards in your graveyard. That's a huge beating for us, but we can still win with a bit of reach :)

Sharpshooter also screws around with Dredge. If they make the mistake of attacking with Ichorid into an open Sharpshooter, ping one of your dorks exiling Bridges, untap, ping Ichorid, untap. Profit. If they instead Therapy you right away without passing priority (to try to get zombies), respond by pinging your own guy exiling Bridges. No zombies created, therapy and creature now wasted.

And to some extent: 'Aether Vial - when the opponent is all in faster than you (Belcher, Storm, Dredge)'
I agree against Belcher, and I trim them against Dredge, but again, depends on your deckist. If you are playing against TES or AnT, and you run 4 Wastes + 2-4 Ports, then Vial is quite good, since you can deprive them mana, while developing your board.

Some of the deck's turn 4 kills involve turn 1 Aether Vial. There was a bunch of posts about all the variations a while ago. This is not gonna help against Belcher or SI, but against slower combo it actually helps increase the chance of racing. Or, if you don't get a nut draw, you can devote your mana to Waste/Port/casting resistors and just casually tick up Vial. Vial also enables turn 3 Thalia if you can't find a white source, making a hand with Wastelands and Ports keepable.

FTW

03-22-2013, 12:47 AM

Has anyone else gotten frustrated with dorks like DRS pwning Lackey and Abrupt Decay pwning Vial and thought about ditching the Vial Goblins strategy for an all-aggro port from Modern?

I've been playing around with this tentative list. Numbers not perfected yet.

4 Goblin Guide
3 Goblin Bushwhacker
3 Mogg Fanatic
2 Legion Loyalist

4 Mogg War-Marshall
4 Goblin Piledriver
3 Stingscourger

4 Goblin Chieftain
2 Goblin Warchief

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
3 Goblin Grenade

2 Mutavault
4 Cavern of Souls
14 Mountain (or some fetches, mountains and duals if splashing for SB cards)

Ideal Goldfish goes something like this:
T1 1-drop
T2 War Marshall/Piledriver
T3 kicked Bushwhacker+Loyalist/Guide or Chieftain --> lots of damage
And then you have a ton of burn to finish them off.

There are a number of permutations that allow that plan to happen, so it's not entirely Magical Christmasland, and you also have a number of tools to interact with the opponent:

Multiple MD Stingscourger gets pesky Goyfs and other blockers out of the way, screws with Jitte, and otherwise gives you a nice tempo boost. Also randomly gives game 1 outs against Reanimator and other cheatyface.dec. All the haste enablers and Goblin Grenade mean you can actually get some value out of the body too.

Loyalist's first strike+trample turns Piledriver into a serious threat again. No more Piledriver running into brick walls and imploding. Loyalist + Pile + anything else is generally amazing.

Mogg Fanatic hasn't seen play in a while, but there are a lot of x/1s in the format. Takes out Delver, Lavamancer, Bob, Clique, Mom, mana guys, Bridge from Below, Sharpshooter, first striking Thalia, and a number of other problems. Good utility and another 1-drop.

Warchief is borderline useless beyond enabling haste... Maybe the 4th Bushwhacker and some number of Goblin King is better? That also enables Blood Moon out of the SB for Blood Moon + Goblin King LOLOLZ.

Anyway, this is a really rough list. I was just wondering if anyone else has considered switching to an aggro Goblins strategy to adjust to the format?

GoboLord

03-22-2013, 04:12 AM

Anyway, this is a really rough list. I was just wondering if anyone else has considered switching to an aggro Goblins strategy to adjust to the format?

Yes, this discussin came up a few times already and nobody sticked to this approach - for reason, I'd say.
What you built there simply has no advantages over any other Sligh/Burn/Zoo deck. You are playing and Mono R Aggro Deck with underpowered, overpriced creatures. Goblins can generally afford those creatures for 2 reasons:
(1) taking advantage of synergies
(2) manacheating (Vial, Lackey, Winstigator, Warchief)

Well, you turned down your synergies to minimum of 2 interactions (Goblin Grenade + X and Chieftain + X) and literally kicked all of your mana-cheating cards.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying "dont try this at home" or anything like that, but in my oppinion you can't use Goblins for this this all-in-red approach. I mean: in a vacuum, if neither Aether Vial or Goblin Lackey or Goblin Matron or Goblin RIngleader would exist and you would present this deck to anyone...their advice would be like
*cut the chieftains for Grim lavamancer
* cut Warchiefs for vexing devil
* cut piledrivers for Hellspark Elemental
...

Some 2 months ago there was this guy who tested a similar approach. Maybe you can search the thread for this guy and PM him on that topic.
After all, this is the Vial Goblins thread, a deck that is built around Lackey, Vial, Matron and Ringleader. I don't see the point of discussing any decklist that contains neither of those cards - at least not in this thread.

Dice_Box

03-22-2013, 08:01 AM

Been tossing around an idea of late about adding Root Maze to the deck. The reasoning being that you can damage the tempo of any deck running fetch lands and damage some Artifact decks too. Would be a sideboard card with Stomping Ground and Taiga making up part of the mana base. What are others thoughts on this? I mean some of us already splash green for Krosan Grip so I am wondering how this might work out.

FTW

03-22-2013, 10:19 AM

Fair enough. Only brought it up because I remember this discussion surfacing some time back and, at the time, there was more optimism about the potential of a Modern port. I'll search for the guy.

Well, you turned down your synergies to minimum of 2 interactions (Goblin Grenade + X and Chieftain + X) and literally kicked all of your mana-cheating cards.
While this deck may not be playable, let's not go all hyperbole and make stuff up either. Tribal interactions also include Piledriver + Loyalist + cheaper goblins --> lots of unchumpable damage, Goblin King + Blood Moon --> evasion + manadenial, and Warchief + 1-mana hasty Piledriver/Marshall. Bushwhacker + War Marshall, while not strictly a tribal interaction, is also pretty nice. Goblin Guide + Grenade is also 7 damage out of nowhere for 2 mana. Most aggro decks cannot do that without sacrificing two mountains (opponent unlikely to pay the 4 life for Vexing Devil if that low). Also, manacheating is less important with a 1-3 sligh curve.

Is this strategy better than Burn? Unlikely. Is it strictly worse than burn? No, there are still interactions that allow some more explosive and versatile plays than Burn can manage.

(2) manacheating (Vial, Lackey, Winstigator, Warchief)
This was the other point of my post. How effective are you guys finding that manacheating lately? My Vial Goblins has been running into a fair bit of opposition lately.
(Core 26 -1 Pile +3 Gempalm +2 Chieftain +1 Sting +1 Tuktuk +1 Kiki + 1 War-Marshall + 1 Sharpshooter +1 Prospector + 2 Tarfire. 3 Caverns and 2 Ports)

The problem is that if Lackey/Vial/WInstigator get stopped, you get stuck with all this slow stuff in hand. Yeah, our card advantage and utility are amazing, but not so much when we're paying full mana for them....

Don't you find that, with Abrupt Decay everywhere, the format has more answers for Vial than it used to? Most decks did not run MD artifact removal before (aside from Pridemage and Deed), which made ticking up Vial to cheat out 3-drops and 4-drops a "vialable" strategy. But now it's becoming more likely that Vial will die before it gives much value.

As for Lackey and WInstigator, how often are they connecting on the first hit against decks that play fairly? Lately I'm getting most of my connections against combo/reanimator/etc where they don't really care about what you drop. It's been a while since I've stuck a turn 2 Lackey connection against a fair deck. DRS being a 1/2 is pretty ridiculous.

How are you guys dealing with this meta shift?

Pendelhaven is one idea, but it seems really anti-synergetic for everything other than forcing Cheatyface through.

Chrome Mox is another. @ScatmanX, have you thought about running more than 1 Mox MD?

I suppose 4 MD Bolt works too. Is that doing enough to clear away blockers?

On that note, how do you guys mulligan in game 1 against an unknown opponent? I have always mulled a 7-card hand unless it had red mana source + Vial/Lackey. Do you keep slower 7s now and rely less on sticking the turn 1 accelerant? Or is that still Plan A, despite the greater resistance?

ScatmanX

03-22-2013, 11:32 AM

Chrome Mox is another. @ScatmanX, have you thought about running more than 1 Mox MD?

I suppose 4 MD Bolt works too. Is that doing enough to clear away blockers?

On that note, how do you guys mulligan in game 1 against an unknown opponent? I have always mulled a 7-card hand unless it had red mana source + Vial/Lackey. Do you keep slower 7s now and rely less on sticking the turn 1 accelerant? Or is that still Plan A, despite the greater resistance?
1 - 2 Chrome Mox MD:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?19931-Deck-Vial-Goblins-2.0&p=658617&viewfull=1#post658617
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24359-Cambuquira-Report-%96-Sin-City-(Goblins)
There were linked on the primer. Some questions you're asking are answered there.

2 - The deck also plays Gempalms and Stingscourger

3 - I tend to keep some hands without Vial/Lackey if it have a Bolt/Tarfire. On the Play, Instigator/Warmarchall are ok too, not Piledriver. (against unknown opponent)

Avatara

03-22-2013, 11:35 AM

On that note, how do you guys mulligan in game 1 against an unknown opponent? I have always mulled a 7-card hand unless it had red mana source + Vial/Lackey. Do you keep slower 7s now and rely less on sticking the turn 1 accelerant? Or is that still Plan A, despite the greater resistance?I don't think that's a luxury that goblins you can afford in Legacy. Last six round tournament (+one top eight match) I've played resulted in me taking 16 mulligans. If you can't force them to interact with you during the first couple of turns you are often too far behind. (free Time Walks anyone?)

jrw1985

03-22-2013, 11:55 AM

Played my Rgw list in another local last night. Went 3-0

4 Vial
4 Lackey
2 Warren Instigator
4 Piledriver
1 Stingscourger
2 Tarfire
3 Gempalm
1 Sharpshooter
3 Warchief
1 Chieftain
4 Matron
4 Ringleader
2 SGC

3 Rancor

4 Waste
4 Cavern
4 Mountain
1 Karakas
2 Taiga
2 Plateau
5 Fetch

SB
3 Chalice-o-the-Void
3 Thalia
3 Pyrokinesis
3 Rest in Peace
2 K-Grip
1 TSH

R1 BW TinFins
My opponent is new to Legacy, but says he plays a lot of Standard. He seems deliberate in his shuffling and nearly shouts "Cut!" when presenting his deck after shuffling, so he seems to be taking this fairly seriously. He wins the dice roll and contemplates his 7 while I look at a pretty shitty 7. He announces "Do nothing. Pass." Whoa there buddy. Ya gotta give me a chance to mull first. Maybe he's a little nervous. The game's a gimme. He does nothing, and I have T1 Lackey. The only cards I see from him are Swamp and 2 Raven's Crime. I would have put him on a recursive gy deck, something with Worm Harvest and LftL, but I noticed him counting out loud while he looked at his hand that game. That's a tell-tale sign of combo. I don't really know what kind of combo he's playing so I side out the Rancors and bring in Thalias.
Game 2 Starts with him discarding Grizz t1. I have an opening hand with Karakas, which I obviously play T1. I also have Vial and Stingscourger in hand. He reanimates Grizz T2 and draws 14 cards. I bounce Grizz. He reads Karakas. I then play Vial and click it up to 2 and leave it there so i always have the Stingscourger backup and I take my inevitable win.
1-0

R2 UR Delver
G1 we both mull to 5, so I win. It's always fun getting in hand-pissing matches when you're on goblins. You generally have many more ways to refill your hand than your opponent. I was on the play and led with Land, Go. My opponent played a Delver. I played T2 Land, Piledriver. His delver didn't flip T2 but he played a land. T3 I had the Gempalm in hand and knew it was now or never to kill the Delver. I attacked, baiting out the Fire removal on Driver, and I Gempalmed Delver in response to the Fire. I wound up playing a LAckey with nothing in hand to cheat in, but played a Rancor on the Lackey that helped me actually put on a clock. W. For game 2 i decided I really needed Pyrokinesis more than Rancor.
G2 I mulled to 5 but he kept his 7. He played 2 Delvers and I Pyro'd them. but I was stuck on lands and he got there.
G3 I kept a 1-land hand with a T1 Vial. Vial resolved and I rode it the the W.
2-0

R3 UB Tezzeret Control
G1 I Mulled to 5 again! I was on the draw. My opponent played t1 land, Relic. I played land. He played a mana-artifact T2. i played land, Winstigator. He played T3 Tezz and turned Relic into a 5/5. I had Rancor and SGC in hand, so I was going to Rancor my Winny, attack through this 5/5 Relic, cheat in SGC, and shoot Tezz with SGC to off the planeswalker, then re-play Rancor. Of course my oppoenent had to be a jerk about it and Force my Rancor in the first place then win the game. Jerk.
G2 I sided out the Rancors and brought in 2 KGrip and 1 TSH. This game was prety stupid. i played a bunch of goblins. He started getting going too. I played a Warchief and was attacking away. Then I drew a now useless TSH. I was bummed that I couldn't play him for value due to the Warchief, but then I thought 'Fuck it- I'm on the beat-down plan anyway, not control.' So I just cast TSH for R and won by attacking more.
G3 Was pretty tricky. He had me at 4 life with a couple 5/5 artifacts and a Baleful Strix and Tezz @ 1 AND that stupid 0/4 that lets you pay 2 life to redirect an effect to him from another target. I couldn't let him go to the next turn in that position because he'll just make Strix 5/5 and kill me in the air. But I can't hit Strix with removal because he of the 0/4 redirect fellow. But, Strix and the 0/4 are his only blockers and I've built a decent horde. I Matron for TSH and cast it and target Strix. He redirect the effect to the 0/4. 1 blocker. No spot removal in his deck that I've seen, so I attack him with Lackey and Tezz with Piledriver. I have SGC in hand. Strix trades with Lackey, Pile kills Tezz. His turn. I have enough blockers so he can't attack. He casts Jace and brainstorms. He puts back his 2. Time is called on the round. He passes the turn. I hardcast SGC and Vial in a Chieftain. I move to swing with everything since that will be enough to kill him and I don't fear instant speed spot removal, but I hesitate because this means I'm dead to his 5/5's if he has an effect that keeps him alive until next turn. My opponent sees my hesitation. "It's only T1, " he says (of extra turns). Fuck it. I swing with everything. He dies and shows me the Damnation he put back on top with Jace.
3-0

I split and went home. Fun night.

GoboLord

03-22-2013, 12:54 PM

@ Dice_Box:
I added Root Maze to the "to-be-tested" section in the opening post, since I think that card has high potential. However, I don't find it good enough as a SB card against any deck that we currently want to beat. The problem I see here is that after T4 the card is a blank draw. Well, maybe someone can test that one out and tell us what'S the deal with it.

I don't think that's a luxury that goblins you can afford in Legacy. Last six round tournament (+one top eight match) I've played resulted in me taking 16 mulligans. If you can't force them to interact with you during the first couple of turns you are often too far behind. (free Time Walks anyone?)

THIS is so true, my friend.

@ Jon:
Congrats on the great finish. Nice to see (or rather: know) you playing magic again.
Could you share your thoughts on Rancor with us?

FTW

03-22-2013, 02:11 PM

1 - 2 Chrome Mox MD:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?19931-Deck-Vial-Goblins-2.0&p=658617&viewfull=1#post658617
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24359-Cambuquira-Report-%96-Sin-City-(Goblins)
There were linked on the primer. Some questions you're asking are answered there.

2 - The deck also plays Gempalms and Stingscourger

3 - I tend to keep some hands without Vial/Lackey if it have a Bolt/Tarfire. On the Play, Instigator/Warmarchall are ok too, not Piledriver. (against unknown opponent)

Thanks for the links. I've read the primer and many of the tournament reports. It is a great primer, no doubt, but it's more of how to play the deck in general than how to tweak it to address the current meta (what I'm asking about), particularly all the BGx decks.

Turn 2 Gempalm does not kill DRS or SFM :(. Stingscourger works but is awkward (especially on SFM) unless you're cheating out a SGC or Ringleader with that attack. I suppose that's where Tarfire/Bolt come in.

Basically, you guys are saying it is not worth doing any radical shifts to the strategy and some of you are still putting up decent results with these lists. Ok.

I really like the potential of Rancor for forcing those triggers through. JRW, how do you find that card? I notice you sided it out every time.

ScatmanX

03-22-2013, 02:55 PM

Thanks for the links. I've read the primer and many of the tournament reports. It is a great primer, no doubt, but it's more of how to play the deck in general than how to tweak it to address the current meta (what I'm asking about), particularly all the BGx decks.

Turn 2 Gempalm does not kill DRS or SFM :(. Stingscourger works but is awkward (especially on SFM) unless you're cheating out a SGC or Ringleader with that attack. I suppose that's where Tarfire/Bolt come in.

Basically, you guys are saying it is not worth doing any radical shifts to the strategy and some of you are still putting up decent results with these lists. Ok.

I really like the potential of Rancor for forcing those triggers through. JRW, how do you find that card? I notice you sided it out every time.
- If you think you'll face a lot of bug/jund/junk decks, than Mox is a bad idea, since the CA disadvantage will hurt you a lot.

- Didn't realised you were talking about 1cc removal. Well, I don't think the deck need them. Bolts/Tarfire/Dismember/StP are great, but goblins don't really NEED it to win, otherwise there would be no succesfull lists without those. I just like having that cheap removal and reach right now. You don't have to kill a T1-2 DRS or SFM, but sometimes it does help.

- Radical shifts are nice. We welcome them. But the sligh approach of goblins have been tested a lot already, and concenssus is that it is not worth it. You lose the part that makes goblins good, and end up playing a slightly worse tier 2 deck...

- I too like Rancor and would like to see Jon playing more with it. He sided them out because: 1 - TinFins. Rancor does nothing; 2 - UR Delver. The deck has ton of removal, and the possibility to get yourself 2-1ed is huge. Also, his creatures don't usually block, so Rancor would be just a +2/+0 card. 3 - Tezz. Rancor does next to nothing again, though is good against Strix. I'd consider leaving a couple in considering he doesen't have much spot removal. Maybe in place of the Tarfres in his list.

jrw1985

03-22-2013, 04:40 PM

@ Jon:
Congrats on the great finish. Nice to see (or rather: know) you playing magic again.
Could you share your thoughts on Rancor with us?

I really like the potential of Rancor for forcing those triggers through. JRW, how do you find that card? I notice you sided it out every time.

- I too like Rancor and would like to see Jon playing more with it. He sided them out because: 1 - TinFins. Rancor does nothing; 2 - UR Delver. The deck has ton of removal, and the possibility to get yourself 2-1ed is huge. Also, his creatures don't usually block, so Rancor would be just a +2/+0 card. 3 - Tezz. Rancor does next to nothing again, though is good against Strix. I'd consider leaving a couple in considering he doesen't have much spot removal. Maybe in place of the Tarfres in his list.

Scatman is pretty much on the money about why I decided to side it out each round. R3 I also sided it out because i was siding in 2 KGrip and 1 TSH against an Artifact deck, so I was pretty much getting 3 pieces of spot removal.

Rancor has been interesting. I like it in the MD, but it does get sided out all the time. I really like the surprise value it adds G1. I like that it turns Winstigator into a game-breaking brute. But when I see it getting flipped by Ringleader I gotta think 'That could have been a Tarfire or Legion Loyalist'. That gives me some doubt about running it at all.

I started running Rancor because I wanted a tool to get Lackey past Squires, specifically T1 DRS. However, DRS has taken a huge dip in popularity of late. I saw more combo decks on Thursday night than DRS decks (3:2) which begs the question "Why am I running Rancor MD instead of Thalia?" I think an argument for running Rancor over Thalia is that Rancor gives you more game against more of the field. While Thalia is only going to make your deck better against Combo, Rancor makes it better against Aggro AND Control, so Rancor seems like the better MD option.

After SB though things get strange, because Rancor is supposed to improve your game against decks like Jund and RUG Delver G1. Unfortunately, you have Rest in Piece in the SB which is much better against DRS and Goyf and Goose than Rancor is. And RiP and Rancor are very dissynergistic. You don't ever want to be running both at the same time. Rancor also isn't great with Pyrokinesis. Pyro makes you board out bodies you could connect Rancor to, and Rancor cannot be pitched to cast Pyro. Rancor and Chalice don't get along either. A lot of your best SB cards make Rancor worse, so it's natural to side Rancor out. It also makes sense to side out Rancor a lot just because you don't want to dilute your Goblin count, which starts to happen when you leave Rancors in.

But Rancor still seems like a pretty good card G1. I'm going to keep playing it for a while. I like they way my deck is currently configured. I've yet to even resolve rancor on a T1 lackey. It keeps coming down T3 on Winstigators (which is indeed awesome). There are many game-1's where I hope to topdeck it.

I can't say for certain yet whether or not Rancor should be in the deck because I just don't play enough Magic. 6 rounds a week is not enough playtesting to come to a proper decision.

This past week I played...
Lands 2-1
Death and Taxes 0-2
Rock 1-2
TinFins 2-0
UR Delver 2-1
UB Tezz 2-1

Tinfins and Lands were the only decks where Rancor didn't matter. In all the creature decks i thought it was a good addition. Ultimately it needs more testing, I think.

markbris

03-22-2013, 10:52 PM

Dice_Box

03-23-2013, 05:48 AM

I've been testing the 4 badlands/4 hovel build online and its nice not having to fetch but with wastelands and caverns i really find myself wanting more basics. I might just drop the number of hovels to like 2 and add in a couple fetches. Running 22 land total at the moment.
I have seen this done in a mirror match. It does not work as well as you would think. The issue is not that you don't benefit from having the land, you do, the issue is that half your mana is at risk to Wasteland. If your playing against Pox or a mirror goblins your going to have a hell of a time keeping your mana in the table. Hell it will make taxes harder to play against than they are already. But if it works go for it. But I have seen that mana line up bite a player quite hard. Just keep that in mind.

GoblinSettler

03-24-2013, 01:50 AM

Props to Scatman's latest list, the one with one Chrome Mox main.

Made a couple tweaks to fit my preferences and ended up on top of the swiss after 5 rounds today. Went 4-0-1 then lost immediately the top 4.

Swiss
-----
Goblins: 2-1
UWr Miracles: 2-0
UBr Storm: 2-1
Hive Mind: ID (2-1 played out for funsies)
Reanimator: 2-1

Top 4
-----
Hive Mind again: 1-2
Dead Guy: 1-2 (3rd & 4th played out)

List was -1 Mountain, +1 Port. -3 Instigators, +2 Goblin Settler, +1 TukTuk Scrapper. Different SB.

Learned the hard way that Chalice does not do what I wanted against Hive Mind Pacts. Oops! :eek:

Hof

03-24-2013, 07:36 AM

List was -1 Mountain, +1 Port. -3 Instigators, +2 Goblin Settler, +1 TukTuk Scrapper. Different SB.
Why would you take our Instigator in a deck with Goblin Settler? Settler is not a good card on its own. It needs to be combined with Kiki-Jiki for the win, and the best way to do that afak is Instigator + Matron.

GoblinSettler

03-24-2013, 09:41 AM

Why would you take our Instigator in a deck with Goblin Settler? Settler is not a good card on its own. It needs to be combined with Kiki-Jiki for the win, and the best way to do that afak is Instigator + Matron.

I agree that Instigator + Matron is a great way to grab Kiki-Jiki and something to combo with it. On the other hand, I have not had many good results while running Instigator and rate it as one of the weaker cards in the deck. So, given that I somewhat recently picked up a second Goblin Settler and really wanted to play two, Instigator is where I made the cut.

I would not take my usage of it as an endorsement. It is kind of a pet card.

I do see that by running Chrome Mox, you have a chance of turn one Instigator which is clearly better than a turn two Instigator. Also, they're kind of bonus Lackeys in a meta with lots of removal and blockers. If I had more opportunities to play, I would have run the three Instigators to test them out. They do seem good right now. In the event today, there were several games where I was trying to race combo. An early Instigator could have been the real deal.

On the Goblin Settler side of things, there were two games where hitting Goblin Settler mattered. There were one or two where I had it in hand, but it would not have mattered. You could make an argument for other forms of resource denial being just as effective. Wastes, Ports. But Settler was what I had in hand. I often run Settler as a one-of. Having a second meant it was drawn naturally more often. Fitting two meant making cuts elsewhere though. I don't think two is the right number in an optimal list. But it is fun. For me.

GoboLord

03-24-2013, 11:48 AM

Hey there,

I'm just back from a small GPT (~20 people) in Nijmegen

No detailed report this time, sorry. But here are the facts and some toughts on my decklist:

//Mana [22]
4 Cavern, 4 Waste, 4 Ports
9 Mountain
1 Snow-Covered Mountain

//Core [22]
-4 Warchiefs

//Others [16]
4 Goblin Chieftain
3 Mogg War Marshal
3 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Tarfire
1 Stingscourger
1 Dismember

//Sideboard [15]
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mindbreak Trap
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Boartusk Liege
1 Goblin King
1 Tuktuk Scrapper

Round 1: Steven with RUG Thresh [2-0]
Round 2: Ture with RUG Niv-Magus-Elemental/Kiln Fiend.dec [2-0]
Round 3: Alan with BUG-Ctrl [2-0]
Round 4: Bas with Homebrew-Ctrl [1-2]
Round 5: Aniel with BW Aggro [2-0]
Top 8: Roy with RUG Thresh [1-2]

Rounds 4 & 5 were officially "I.D."s for strategical reason - we played the games out for fun though. I ended up 1st after swiss, getting 5 boosters only to get kicked out of T8.

Thoughts
* Tarfire > Lightning Bolt
* Wanted to have Relic #4, but I don't own it. Filled this slot with Goblin King
* Goblin King was admittedly good. I might stick to him
* Chalice + MBTs were not sided in once (due to lack of combo-MUs). However, I won't kick them since I really don't need the SB-slots anyway
* I'm thinking about cutting Dismember, don't know what I should run instead. Maybe a Lightning Bolt?
* I did a last-minute change and replace my original Dismember #2 with a Stingscourger, which was a good idea.

markbris

03-24-2013, 03:07 PM

I could be missing something but your decklist is only 56 cards? What were the other 4? Piledriver?

I see 22 mana, 18 core with the 4 warchiefs out, and 16 others.

GoboLord

03-24-2013, 03:12 PM

//Mana [22]
4 Cavern, 4 Waste, 4 Ports
9 Mountain
1 Snow-Covered Mountain

//Core [22]
4 Vial
4 Lackey
4 Piledriver
(-4 Warchiefs)
4 Matron
4 Ringleader
2 Siege-Gang Commander

//Others [16]
4 Goblin Chieftain
3 Mogg War Marshal
3 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Tarfire
1 Stingscourger
1 Dismember

//Sideboard [15]
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mindbreak Trap
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Boartusk Liege
1 Goblin King
1 Tuktuk Scrapper

//Edit:
@markbris: Don't quite get your point, but I edited the decklist.

//Edit#2:
Now I understand what you meant. I counted Piledrivers as being part of the 26 core cards. So 26 core cards - 4 Warchief makes 22.

LeoCop 90

03-24-2013, 03:54 PM

Tarfire > Lightning Bolt

I think it is wrong to state this. It is especially wrong if it's based only in the few rounds you played last tournament. Probably you have playtested it a lot, but I'm saying this because I often see tournament reports ending with "this is better than that" or "this is useless", and so on. It's only to remind that every card needs to be playtested a lot and against different decks, and some cards can't even be compared, such as (this is my personal opinion) tarfire and lightning bolt. Neither of them is strictly better than the other, because sometimes you could need to tutor for tarfire or you'd be happy to draw it off ringleader, but other times you just need that one more damage from lightning bolt. I think in the end it's just a question of personal taste ( I prefer tarfire aniway ).

Speaking about removal spells, I was thinking about our deck these days. Over the years it has almost reached perfection, because we have almost all the cards we need for every casting mana cost. The 2 drops and 3 drops slots are filled,as well with the 4+ slots where we have several choices.
I just think it would be nice to have another one cost drop, because we now have only lackey, vial and possibly a single prospector.

I also think we need a better removal spell,because we all know the pros and cons of cards like gempalm,tarfire,bolt, and so on. In particular,we all know that our deck needs a high goblin count to work, but I understood that it also needs a high CREATURE count. The less removal i can play, the more i am happy, because every creature in the deck make the other work better. Assuming this, the only very good removal we have at the moment is Gempalm, since it is a goblin and It replaces itself when used, so that we can draw other creatures from it. For the same reason, in the past i used to run mogg fanatics over tarfire/bolts, but I have to admit that only one damage is not enough.

So,according to the statements I made ( need a one drop, need a better removal), I really would like wizard to print an upgrade of mogg fanatic. They printed the upgrade of raging goblin with legion loyalist, but we really don't need loyalist in the deck. It can be useful in some situations with piledriver, but most of the time it's a bad card.
So wizard, why don't you print this?

Shocking Goblin :
R
Sacrifice shocking goblin to deal 2 damages to target creature or player.
1/1.

Or , if it would be too broken (which I don't think):
R
Sacrifice shocking goblin to deal 2 damages to target creature.
2/1.

They recently printed bombs like deathrite shaman and thalia, so I'm not asking too much. And god knows how I wish thalia was a goblin :)

GoboLord

03-24-2013, 04:18 PM

I think it is wrong to state this. It is especially wrong if it's based only in the few rounds you played last tournament. Probably you have playtested it a lot, but I'm saying this because I often see tournament reports ending with "this is better than that" or "this is useless", and so on. It's only to remind that every card needs to be playtested a lot and against different decks, and some cards can't even be compared, such as (this is my personal opinion) tarfire and lightning bolt. Neither of them is strictly better than the other, because sometimes you could need to tutor for tarfire or you'd be happy to draw it off ringleader, but other times you just need that one more damage from lightning bolt. I think in the end it's just a question of personal taste ( I prefer tarfire aniway ).

I absolutely agree with you. I should have made my point clear, which was

"On this tournament Tarfire was strictly better than Lightning Bolt whenever I drew it/netted it with Ringleader."

Actually all the points I wrote unde rthe head of "Thoughts" were reffering to this tournaments. I need to take more time to watch my words when I'm writing reports...

Geeksire

03-24-2013, 06:36 PM

magicmerl

03-24-2013, 06:47 PM

Comments in bold

Thoughts
* Tarfire > Lightning Bolt. I think that this is true for the first one, since you can tutor for it. But after that, it becomes much more quesitonable (basically coming down to needing to tutor for multiple shocks and being 0.02 of a card for ringleader, vs 3 damage and smaller Goyfs)

* Wanted to have Relic #4, but I don't own it. Filled this slot with Goblin King
* Goblin King was admittedly good. I might stick to him

* Chalice + MBTs were not sided in once (due to lack of combo-MUs). However, I won't kick them since I really don't need the SB-slots anyway. You didn't try CotV vs RUG? Why not?

* I'm thinking about cutting Dismember, don't know what I should run instead. Maybe a Lightning Bolt? Maybe the 4th Gempalm?

* I did a last-minute change and replace my original Dismember #2 with a Stingscourger, which was a good idea. Agreed

Pinoy Goblin

03-24-2013, 08:11 PM

Speaking about removal spells, I was thinking about our deck these days. Over the years it has almost reached perfection, because we have almost all the cards we need for every casting mana cost. The 2 drops and 3 drops slots are filled,as well with the 4+ slots where we have several choices.
I just think it would be nice to have another one cost drop, because we now have only lackey, vial and possibly a single prospector.

I also think we need a better removal spell,because we all know the pros and cons of cards like gempalm,tarfire,bolt, and so on. In particular,we all know that our deck needs a high goblin count to work, but I understood that it also needs a high CREATURE count. The less removal i can play, the more i am happy, because every creature in the deck make the other work better. Assuming this, the only very good removal we have at the moment is Gempalm, since it is a goblin and It replaces itself when used, so that we can draw other creatures from it. For the same reason, in the past i used to run mogg fanatics over tarfire/bolts, but I have to admit that only one damage is not enough.

So,according to the statements I made ( need a one drop, need a better removal), I really would like wizard to print an upgrade of mogg fanatic. They printed the upgrade of raging goblin with legion loyalist, but we really don't need loyalist in the deck. It can be useful in some situations with piledriver, but most of the time it's a bad card.
So wizard, why don't you print this?

Shocking Goblin :
R
Sacrifice shocking goblin to deal 2 damages to target creature or player.
1/1.

Or , if it would be too broken (which I don't think):
R
Sacrifice shocking goblin to deal 2 damages to target creature.
2/1.

They recently printed bombs like deathrite shaman and thalia, so I'm not asking too much. And god knows how I wish thalia was a goblin :)

Regarding removal spells in goblins I have success having 3 PYROKINESIS mainboard, it eats maverick,affinity,elves,d&t and other fair decks alive trust me guys it helped me a lot on my recent top 8's here in our country. Dont think of the card disadvantage from it because ringleader makes up for the card loss and most of the time when you use it it sweeps your opponents board making it a 2 for 1 or even a stunning 3 for 1 hit. Heres my decklist for reference: (theres a typo error there on mainboard -1 piledriver +3 pyrokinesis)- dont flame me on having fetches on a monoR build its just my preference. We have a visitor that day from Germany - Jasper Grimmer plays 4 color deathrite control a very good player, methodological as I may say:smile:
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=10328&iddeck=75283

Avatara

03-24-2013, 11:48 PM

Regarding removal spells in goblins I have success having 3 PYROKINESIS mainboard, it eats maverick,affinity,elves,d&t and other fair decks alive trust me guys it helped me a lot on my recent top 8's here in our country. Dont think of the card disadvantage from it because ringleader makes up for the card loss and most of the time when you use it it sweeps your opponents board making it a 2 for 1 or even a stunning 3 for 1 hit. Heres my decklist for reference: (theres a typo error there on mainboard -1 piledriver +3 pyrokinesis)- dont flame me on having fetches on a monoR build its just my preference. We have a visitor that day from Germany - Jasper Grimmer plays 4 color deathrite control a very good player, methodological as I may say:smile:
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=10328&iddeck=75283Pyrokinesis can only two(or more) for one something when you hard cast it, otherwise it costs you two cards (Pyrokinesis + the removed card).

Dice_Box

03-25-2013, 12:13 AM

Hello again! I wanted to ask a question pertaining to certain decks I went against when I played at a local "funzeez" tournament. I got stomped, no, OBLITERATED by Esper StoneForge deck! I could not counter the damn girl, Jitte weapon always got me, Swords of Plowshares got my Goblin Chieftain or Warchief, and Force of Will just denied me the whole time. Had Tarfire, just discarded it from my hand...I did not know what to do.

Can somebody help me in going against StoneForge...
Death and Taxes? Not an easy deck to beat. For me tho I have 3 sideboard cards I pull out.

First: Pithing Needle (http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/details.aspx?name=pithing%20needle)
This card is useful. Stops planeswalkers, stops Jitte and stops Mystic. The thing about the deck tho is that you need to pick your target. Hitting Mystic might by you some time against Jitte but they might draw it, hit Jitte and they will fetch Sword of Fire and Ice. Still it is a good and cheep card that can help and is good as a reaction to Jitte hitting the table.

Another card to use is Tuktuk Scrapper (http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=201579)
Ok it is not as cheep as other choices but it is a good due to both the triggered ability and the damage it deals. Also think about what it says. "When scrapper or another Ally enters battle". So if you have one already on the table and you play another you can hit two Artifacts for the price of one card.

SB Pyroblast (http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/details.aspx?name=pyroblast)
This and REB are great if you are having issues against blue. FOW can be counted and it is fun to do.

Last is something else to do if you have not had a chance to SB. If Jitte hits the table play/tutor Skirk Prospector. The reason is that then you can block whatever has Jitte on it and then Sac that creature. If you sac it no damage is delt and thus no tokens. Against removal try Thorn of Amethyst (http://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=140166). It is not a perfect fit but it does more damage to them that it will ever do to you. Hope that has helped.

Dice.

Pinoy Goblin

03-25-2013, 12:43 AM

Pyrokinesis can only two(or more) for one something when you hard cast it, otherwise it costs you two cards (Pyrokinesis + the removed card).

we are not on the same page my friend I am refering to the removal issues here on creatures, I dont need to explain furthermore . . .

orcanmail

03-25-2013, 03:37 AM

Dice_Box

03-25-2013, 03:43 AM

Pithing Needle can stop the draw. In all tho it sounds like a painful matchup.

feline

03-25-2013, 03:51 AM

went 3 wins 1 loss at a local legacy metagame tonight, only issue was against affinity because you can't block ornithopter's & Signal pests & other flyers that come out so fast and swing with cranial plating. Other match ups were against U/W control running helm combo, Maverick, & BUG aggro.

The only thing different than most traditional lists was that I was running less 1 of's maindeck for Matron targets, while I also maindecked tarfires.

10 mountain
4 rishadan port
4 wasteland
4 cavern of souls
4 aether vial
3 tarfire
4 goblin lackey
4 mogg war marshal
4 goblin piledriver
1 stingscourger
1 krenko, mob boss
1 siege-gang commander
4 goblin warchief
4 gempalm incinerator
4 goblin matron
4 goblin ringleader
-
2 red elemental blast
2 pyroblast
4 relic of progenitus
1 vexing shusher
1 stingscourger
1 goblin sharpshooter
1 goblin chieftain
1 goblin king
1 tuktuk scrapper
1 tarfire

GoboLord

03-25-2013, 06:04 AM

Comments in bold

@ Tarfire:
I didn't tutor one with Matron on that tourney (and I'm unlikely to do so, since Matron most often searches for Ringleaders I guess). What I was saying there is this:
The tribal*Goyf interaction didn't matter since I didn't target Goyf anyway (and I didn't want to). In fact in one situation I killed a 4/5 Goyf with Tarfire + Relic activation. In this siutuation Bolt wouldn't have been better. I agree that Bolt has it's benefits over Tarfire and I think that is reasonable to play any of them. My personal choice was Tarfire and I was happy with it. That's the whole story.
I guess I will take my time and put this whole Tarfire/Bolt discussion to an end by writing down all PROs and CONs in the opening-post/primer.

@ Chalice vs RUG:
Now that you mention it: I DID side in Chalice against that Niv-Magus/Kiln-Fiend deck. I know from experience that CHalice isn't all too good vs. RUG Threshhold if you have cards like Relic of Progenitus in your board. In this MU I really only side out my Lackeys, which gives me 4 slots. Those 4 cards that come in from the SB should have an immediate board-impact, even if the boardstate is unfavorable for me. What I mean is: I don't want to put down a Chalice when my opponent got more than one beater on the battlefield. Chalice sometimes is a dead draw vs. RUG, where Relic is good in almost all situations as it makes two-thirds of their creatures sit still.
If I didn't have any Relics or other creatures in SB I would probably bring in Chalice.

@ #4 Gempalm:
Never. This card is way too cluncky. I want to have more cc1 removal. 2-3 Gempalms should do the job (in fact I was running 3 Gempalms for the bigger part of my "career" with Goblins, going up to 4 was a try-out-phase without all too impressive results.
My gut feeling tells me that Mogg Fanatic might be a "nice" replacement - but then again, I#m cutting a card with reach on x/5 creatures for a card that eats x/1 creatures and helps finishing of some creatures here and there. In don't know yet what card it will be, but it's definately gonna be a removal with cc1.

---------------
@ feline:
could you please post your results of the single games you played? (like: Round 1: 2-1, ROund 2: 2-0 ...)
I want to record your decklist/results for my analysis.

jrw1985

03-25-2013, 10:51 AM

jrw1985

03-25-2013, 11:01 AM

I also got destroyed by tinfin.

Game 1 i went mountain lackey, he then played and got a griselbrand in the yard, then back into play, kept drawing and playing with chrome moxes, lotus petals and rituals, and eventually tendrills of agonied me. Game over turn 1,

Game 2 i sideboarded in RIP, as i was playing a thalia MD list. I drew and had a plateau and RIP in starting 7, and dropped mountain lackey again, he then played and went silly, dropping grisebrand in yard and then back into play, he drew a tonne of cards and thoughtseized my RIP! Although he didn't finish me off that turn it was effectively over.

My thoughts are i need mindbreak traps, chalices, and leyline of the voids in my SB, whilst thalia maindeck still fine. Of course i'd then not have enough room in SB for other cards v other match ups.

Thoughts? Is tinfin an auto lose? or do we sacrifice SB slots to protect ourselves v storm, tinfin etc and therefore weaken ourselves v other decks?

TinFins is not an auto-lose. It's explosive and all that shit, but there are soooo many ways to attack the combo since there are sooooo many pieces to it.

White
RiP
Thalia : They need to cast a bunch of spells to go off. It doesn't really matter if they draw 14 cards off Grizz if they can only cast 1 of them.

Black
Leyline of th Void
Surgical Extraction
Extirpate
Discard

Blue
Counters

Colorless
Chalice of the Void : they run like 15 lands and lots of 0cc mana artifacts.
Karakas
Pithing Needle : Can't draw off Grizz
Grafdigger's Cage

Red
Stingscourger

My current SB has 9 excellent cards against TinFins (3 Chalice, 3 Thalia, 3 RiP) and my maindeck has answers too (Karakas, Stingscourger). You got answers.

magicmerl

03-25-2013, 03:56 PM

I also got destroyed by tinfin.

Game 1 i went mountain lackey, he then played and got a griselbrand in the yard, then back into play, kept drawing and playing with chrome moxes, lotus petals and rituals, and eventually tendrills of agonied me. Game over turn 1,

Game 2 i sideboarded in RIP, as i was playing a thalia MD list. I drew and had a plateau and RIP in starting 7, and dropped mountain lackey again, he then played and went silly, dropping grisebrand in yard and then back into play, he drew a tonne of cards and thoughtseized my RIP! Although he didn't finish me off that turn it was effectively over.

My thoughts are i need mindbreak traps, chalices, and leyline of the voids in my SB, whilst thalia maindeck still fine. Of course i'd then not have enough room in SB for other cards v other match ups.

Thoughts? Is tinfin an auto lose? or do we sacrifice SB slots to protect ourselves v storm, tinfin etc and therefore weaken ourselves v other decks?
The key cards that matter in our deck are not red :)

Karakas, RIP, Thalia and CotV are what I go with vs them. I MD Karakas and the Thalias, which gives me enough hate cards vs them while also giving me cards vs other matchups.

This is my current SB:
4 CotV
4 RIP
3 Pyrokinesis
3 Oblivion Ring
1 Umezawa's Jitte

feline

03-25-2013, 05:11 PM

Round 1 was against Maverick, game 1 I had to mulligan more so than I have in a long time, I wasn't seeing land until I went to 4, it was dumb. The game was a loss as expected, however I did slowly start to catch up via card advantage with ringleader, however they eventually got out an Umezawa's Jitte & even though I was catching up, that just put the nail on the coffin so to speak and at that point I knew it was over.
~Game 2 & game 3 were both wins, the only specifics I can recall is that I know I brought in a Tuktuk Scrapper & a Sharpshooter from the sideboard & took out a Stingscourger & something else for it, probably a Mogg war Marshal. I used to have artifact destruction access from game 1 but Maverick has gone down over time, even for the local metagame I play at so I no longer maindeck the one, basically it's a local metagame call, sometimes I have 1 main 1 side Tuktukscrapper, sometimes it's just in the sideboard, and that night I wasn't expecting to go against Jitte + alot of creatures deck, especially game 1. Whole match, won it in 3 games, losing the 1st one.

Round 2 was against affinity, and it was traditional, fast affinity, they dumped their hand almost immediately, then got out a cranial plating & put it on a flyer, basically they were fast enough as affinity usually is, to be able to race me, game 1 was basically a blow out, while game 2 a little closer, but they were just faster & I drew no answers, even when I did kill a Signal Pest I couldn't block, they just put the plating on an ornithopter & swinged again, either game I never got to the point of being able to be the aggressive deck, but game 2 I did go down with them at like 8 I believe. They won in 2 games fast.

Round 3 was against BUG midrange, nothing too out of the ordinary, & game's 2 & 3 I even played through Engineered Plague's, though at one point in game 2 an abrupt decay killed a goblin chieftain I sided in because I was expecting the possibility of Plague since they had access to swamp mana, anyhow, the abrupt decay killed the chieftain, in which my other goblins, a war marshall, lackey & goblin token, became 1/1's and promptly died, then the token comes into play, then dies as well of course, lol, luckily however they were low enough that I just finished them off eventually with burn, both game's 2 & 3 were somewhat long for going against a more aggressive version of BUG, my guess is that they might have sided out some of their aggression for more control, cause I only really saw Deathrite Shaman/Tarmogoyf games 2 & 3, and they were not short games. I believe that was won in 2 or 3 games, I don't remember but I think they got game 2.

Round 4 was against U/W Helm / Rest in peace control if you'd call it that. Game 1 went back and forth alot, they cast 2 entreat the angels over the course of a few turns, and literally at some points it was "I'm dead next turn unless" then "they're dead next turn unless" a few times, before it finally finished with me playing a stingscourger to bounce 1 angel token, then swing to get them lower, they sword a token to gain 4 life so they don't die because they attacked the previous turn thinking I wouldn't have topdecked an answer, in which I did matron to stingscourger so I wouldn't die the following turn to the 2 4/4 flyers, there was some terminus involved in there somewhere, I just remember it being a very back and forth, very close game for a multitude of turns that kept tilting one way and then back again. Game 2 came down to a Moat when I only had them at 16 or so, but I got to a Siege Gang & started using the ability to do 2 damage until he was dead, luckily before that he had used some removal so he was in a topdeck mode and didn't have a top out. I believe that was won in 2 games.

GoboLord

03-26-2013, 09:55 AM

Hey there, fellow …Chieftains!?

People who are frequently reading this thread might be wondering: „Huh, why is GoboLord addressing us with “Chieftains” and not “Warchiefs”, as usual?!”
I’ll tell you why!
The past few days I have pondered a lot about Goblins. When I do so, I always read the opening post to remind myself of the “basics of playing Vial Goblins”, so to speak. I stumbled across one sentence, namely:

Goblin Warchief
Warchief - along with Lackey and Vial – is the reason that such heavy creatures as Goblin Ringleader and Siege-Gang Commander are part of the deck. He is very threatening, because of his cost-reducing ability in combination with providing all goblins with haste. This makes him a favored target for removal.
Did you know that…
Some players consider Goblin Chieftain to be equal in power and even cut Warchief to run more Chieftains. I personally think that this is a horrible move. After playing a while without Warchiefs and then returning back to them I can’t express in words how much I missed the cost-reducing ability. I would therefore run Chieftain in addition to Warchief if you (for whatever reason) need (1) additional haste-enablers and (2) pumping (+1/+1).
However, last weekend I was piloting a list with 0 Warchiefs and 4 Chieftains instead. “What a crime”, I thought. How could I betray my own principles? It’s not too long ago that I would have eagerly discussed with everyone who committed such a crime – I mean: not running Warchiefs? Honestly?
Another topic came back to me today when ScatmanX pointed out, that last year it was ME who preached not to run Tarfires, but play Lightning Bolts instead. And this weekend it was MY decklist that featured a full playset of Tarfire but not a single Lightning Bolt. How come?
When I tried to make sense of this, I came to the conclusions that there are some “hot topics” in playing Vial Goblins, that probably never will be resolved. I identified 3 of them:

(1) Warchief or Chieftain? Or both ?
(2) Tarfire or Lightning Bolt? Or something else?
(3) Tin Street Hooligan or Tuktuk Scrapper?

All those 3 topics have 2 features in common: #1 They frequently come up in discussion of decklists and #2 they will probably never be resolved. So, what did I do in my limited free time? I put up a short writing on this topic to sum up the PROs and CONs for each card named above. This will hopefully put an end to those ever-recurring discussions. Also I hope this will be an interesting read for everyone who hasn’t made up his/her mind on those topics.

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/m12/138.jpg http://magiccards.info/scans/en/sc/97.jpg
Before I sum up the differences between those cards, lets first look at their similarities!
* both cards cost 1RR
* both cards provide HASTE to other Goblins
* both cards have HASTE themselves
* both cards have a 2/2 body
* every Goblin decklist has at least 4 slots dedicated to any combination of Warchiefs and Chieftains
* both cards have a static ability that is good in multiples

So what are their differences?
Goblin Chieftain provides +1/+1. This is especially appealing when you feel like you need the pumping (e.g. when you expect your MU to be more combat-oriented). This ability is also attractive if you want to be better prepared for Engineered Plague. Lastly, this “lord-effect” is valuable when you want to be able to apply pressure to your opponent even with only few Goblins in play.
Goblin Warchiefs reduces casting costs by 1 colorless mana. This ability is especially attractive when you want your list to be more explosive. Also, when you play additional creatures with higher casting costs (like Krenko, Siege-Gang Commander, Kiki-Jiki) this ability comes in handy, as your other mana-cheaters (Lackey, Vial) might be too slow or not reliable enough to help you cast your larger dudes. A third point (and this is more theoretical) is this: The less basic-lands you run, the more likely it is that you will be short on mana in early- and midgame. Reducing casting costs makes you slightly less vulnerable to manadenial. However, this might not even be of importance if you don’t expect to have too many MU where mana-issues actually matter (e.g. in a combo-heavy metagame or playing with a mono-R decklist). A last point would be to consider the relative benfits of the cost-reduction: while being able to cast Goblin Matron for 1R and Goblin Piledriver for R is always nice, your list might have a number of Goblins that are completely unaffected by Goblin Warchief (Mogg Fanatic, Legion Loyalist, Skirk Prospector, Warren Instigator).
I’m not going to give a conclusion on which one is better – that is something you have to decide for yourself (maybe considering the points I listed). Especially in the case of Warchief vs. Chieftain it is entirely possible to run 5-8 copies, thereby splitting between them.

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/m10/146.jpg http://magiccards.info/scans/en/lw/194.jpg
Similarities:
* both cards cost R
* both cards can destroy x/1 and x/2 creatures (in a 1-for-1 trade)
* both cards are instants
* both cards can target your opponents life points.

Lightning Bolt has a better reach than Tarfire, since it deals 3 damage, instead of 2. This makes it easier to kill Tarmogoyf with a Lightning Bolt (which is really the ONLY creature that you can reach with a Lightning Bolt, but not with Tarfire): Tarfire can never kills a 'goyf. This is because Tarfire is a “tribal” instant spell. However, if for one reason or the other Tarmogoyf does NOT play a role in your considerations (e.g. the meta-game is not all too Tamogoyf-infested and/or your run Relic of Progenitus in your Sideboard), there are benefits to Tarfire over Lightning Bolt.
First, Tarfire is a Goblin, which is relevant for Goblin Matron and Ringleader. This is also relevant if it is somehow important that your decklist does contain a solid number of goblin-cards (and a small number of non-Goblin cards). Especially if you are playing vs. lots of discard-effect, Tarfire is slightly better: it improves your Ringleader (by whatever percentage), therefore making your hands slightly bigger, when non-targeted discard-effects (Hymn to Tourach, Liliana of the Veil, Raven’s Crime) hit you. This means that, especially if you want to dedicate a large number of slots (say 4) to “spotremoval with cc1 and reach 2” you are slightly better off with Tarfire (all other things being equal).
However, there are some unique benefits to Lightning Bolt, of course. Lightning Bolt has a higher reach, which makes it easier to trade in combat situations (think of blocking a Batterskull’ed Germ-Token with a 1/1 creatures). Also, Lightning Bolt does more damage to opponents lifepoints and to Planeswalker’s loyalty-counters. It should be noted that there is comparable cc1 removal available if you only want aim for creatures. However, for reasons of simplicity I will only list them, and not discuss their respective benefits/disadvantages: Swords to Plowshares, Dismember, Tragic Slip, Dead//Gone. Lastly, I want to point out that it is always a reasonable choice to run a singleton Tarfire (as a Matron-target) alongside with any number of Lightning Bolts.

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/wwk/94.jpg http://magiccards.info/scans/en/gp/78.jpg
Here, again, I want to first point out their similarities before turning to their respective benefits.
* both of them are “tutorable” with Goblin Matron
* both cards are “net-able” with Goblin Ringleader
* both cards can destroy an opponent’s artifact
* both cards have power=2
* both cards can be played in mono-R decklists with 4 Cavern of Souls

Tuktuk Scrapper’s ability triggers if he was put into play via Aether Vial OR if he put into play via Goblin Lackey, OR if he was played from your hand, while Tin-Street Hooligan must be cast from your hand to actually Shatter and artifact.
Tuktuk Scrapper has a the small benefit of dealing 1 damage to your opponents lifepoints.
Tin Street Hooligan “net-value” is higher if you run him in MD: in case your opponent doesn’t have artifacts he has a reasonable body-to-mana ratio, while Tuktuk Scrapper is highly “overpriced” for a 2/2 creature. Related to this is the fact that TSH is slightly faster, as he can be cast from T2, while Tuktuk Scrapper is usually not castable before Turn 4. However, this difference should not be stressed too much, since both cards usually are 1-offs, which means that they are unlikely to be among your first 10 cards you draw, anyway.
If your decklist is splashing Green (for whatever reason), Tin Street Hooligan is the better choice. So, in a list that is Rg anyway, you are more likely to be able to cast TSH. Also, TSH is a slightly better choice if you run more Goblin Chieftains than Goblin Warchiefs, while Tuktuk Scrapper is slightly better if your list has more Goblin Warchiefs than Goblin Chieftains.

Thanks for reading. Comments are - as always - appreciated.

//Edit: I just was reminded of the fact that some people get paid for this kind of work :laugh:

ScatmanX

03-26-2013, 10:46 AM

post
I have to agree with you in everything here. Like someone said, there might not be a perfect list, but rather 'perfect lists', and all the cards listed on your post could be on them. (That Ted video was great. Thanks for that)
For me, it boils down to your personal preference and your read on the metagame.

About getting paid, haven't you ever considering writing for a site or something. You have a very good knowledge, obviously, and a tight fun writing. (And of course, people who get you thinking about stuff =p)

jrw1985

03-26-2013, 10:52 AM

Lightning Bolt has a better reach than Tarfire, since it deals 3 damage, instead of 2. This makes it easier to kill Tarmogoyf with a Lightning Bolt (which is really the ONLY creature that you can reach with a Lightning Bolt, but not with Tarfire): Tarfire can only destroy a Tarmogoyf if there are no other cards in either graveyard (which is virtually NEVER the case).

Thanks for the excellent analysis as always, GL!

I just wanted to point out that Tarfire can never actually kill Goyf because of the way the rules stack when it comes to Goyf checking his power/toughness and checking damage. Goyf checks his Power/Toughness first, then checks damage, so by the time Goyf "sees" the 2 damage from Tarfire he's already 2/3 because Tarfire is in the GY (Tribal Instant). It's a convoluted rule, but it's my understanding taht that's how it would work.

GoboLord

03-26-2013, 11:12 AM

@ Marcelo:
Thanks for the reply!
Well, as far as I know people who write for websites/Blogs actually need to write on a regular basis and about several topics. I only write whenever I feel the urge to do so (and I dont want to be driven by something else than that). Besides, I'm an expert on Goblins only. I literally have no experience with other decks (well, I do know the one or two things about storm combo...) and I don't consider myself to be a good player or something. I'm a legacy-nerd....no, even worse: a Legacy-Goblin-nerd.

I just wanted to point out that Tarfire can never actually kill Goyf because of the way the rules stack when it comes to Goyf checking his power/toughness and checking damage. Goyf checks his Power/Toughness first, then checks damage, so by the time Goyf "sees" the 2 damage from Tarfire he's already 2/3 because Tarfire is in the GY (Tribal Instant). It's a convoluted rule, but it's my understanding taht that's how it would work.
Thanks for that - you are right of course. I know this interaction, but somehow while writing this I was thinking of Tarmogoyf as a */* creature (instead of */*+1). Fixed that.

Dice_Box

03-26-2013, 02:35 PM

The reason I personally like Tuktuk Scrapper is that it can kill more than one artifact. If I drop one and kill and Artifact most players leave it well alone. By that point in the game I am dropping things that they think are more of a danger and do not touch it. Thing is with it's effect if you drop a second one, with your first one on the table, the one on the table fires off again. This means for the cost of two cards you can take out three Artifacts. Useful.

Once this is known (Game 3 if you lost game two) then they are more of a target and sometimes a Scrapper can draw fire from another card you might want to keep alive, just because its effect is remembered.

magicmerl

03-26-2013, 07:40 PM

The reason I like Tin Street Hooligan is because sometimes you need to kill an artifact on the 2nd or 3rd turn, or don't have 4 land in play.

Avatara

03-26-2013, 08:00 PM

I just wanted to point out that Tarfire can never actually kill Goyf because of the way the rules stack when it comes to Goyf checking his power/toughness and checking damage. Goyf checks his Power/Toughness first, then checks damage, so by the time Goyf "sees" the 2 damage from Tarfire he's already 2/3 because Tarfire is in the GY (Tribal Instant). It's a convoluted rule, but it's my understanding taht that's how it would work.That's not true.. if Planar Void or Rest in Peace is in play; Tarfire can kill Tarmogoyf

goblinsplayer

03-26-2013, 08:35 PM

The reason I like Tin Street Hooligan is because sometimes you need to kill an artifact on the 2nd or 3rd turn, or don't have 4 land in play.

I have tried tin street hooligan and i personally didnt like it much. It's just a 2/1 with warchief out in play, also, the fact that you run one in your deck, reduces your chance of drawing him. You usually destroy an artifact on the 4th turn with hooligan because you have to matron on turn three and cant cast hooligan. And vial does not work well with it either. I much rather prefer scrapper than hooligan but the krosan grips are very good in the green splash

goblinsplayer

03-26-2013, 08:38 PM

Bichon_Blitz

03-26-2013, 09:16 PM

We shouldn't be worrying so much about goyf. The majority of the time we're chump blocking him and the last I checked, he can only block 1 creature. We should usually be winning against goyf decks by overrunning the opponent (at least I do running 2 Krenkos). Occasionally, yeah, gempalm will kill an early one or they'll be forced to block piledriver but I don't fret if I can't. Red has never been good at large creature kill.

This is why I play tarfire. I'm not terribly concerned if it pumps goyf, it deals very well against drs, sfm, metalworker, mommy runes...you get the picture. And it does this early when gempalm can't a lot of times. And lightning bolt? The amount of times I had a tarfire and wished it was bolt are few. Hope that my opponent falls for it and chumps a 1/1, then tarfire. I can't say the same about the opposite. Ringleader into bolt makes me a sad panda.

Dice_Box

03-27-2013, 07:34 AM

B-rad

03-27-2013, 03:38 PM

Ok call me naive (and I know for sure this has been touched on before) but why run Tarfire over something like Stingscourger or Gempalm? Sting removes a problem, maybe not permanently but at least it removes it and Gem gives you a hit and draw. That draw can save a game for you. Other than the slight cost drop I myself can not see a reason to use a space for Tar over other removal that goblins have at their disposal.

(Chances are in two days you guys are all going to point out stuff I have missed and I am going to end up running them tho... Love magic, always surprising.)

Tarfire is good because it kills DRS turn 1 and lets your lackeys connect. Other reasons its good is it kills flipped delvers(without requiring you to have 2 guys to gempalm it) and also kills SFM without you having to stingscourger it and let them search up another piece of equipment. I've also been in situations against BUG decks where I get them down to a low enough life total where they stabilize with 2 E Plagues or something and having the reach Tarfire provides gives me am out to finish them off(by it being tutorable with matron and ringleader). The card is very good in a lot of matchups and against combo it's an easy card to board out which I like.

Geeksire

03-27-2013, 03:48 PM

Tarfire is an excellent card to use since it has synergy with our decks, but using Gempalm can be pretty annoying in how you need to get creatures on the battlefield to do that sort of damage. I keep at least 3 of each in my deck but there have been times where I wished I had more goblins in play to use Gempalm, this is where MWM can be very helpful so you can have more goblins in play (early since our decks usually do not have a lot of 1 mana drops)! As for Stingscourcher, he is extremely helpful in a deck but at times can hinder yourself when the only removal you have is him in your hand and Stoneforge on the field. (I have ran in to that and had no choice but to return her to his/her hand...)

I think Gempalm is good but the right amount of cards that should be in a deck, I believe, should be around what GoboLord said, "2-3 Gempalms". They may give you card draw but it would be effective if it did damage to a strong creature you want since we need to swarm them.

This is how I see these three removals in being helpful:

Tarfire---Pave the way for your Lackey to get a hit, or to get rid of annoying creatures on the field (that must be low on toughness).
Gempalm---Get rid of huge creatures or small creature, but must be able to get a lot of goblins on the field (Good mid to late-game but can be hard early game.)
Stingscourcher---Allows us to slow down the opponent and also be a douche to Show and Tell and Reanimator decks : D (Really good card, but is better saved for creatures who costed a lot of mana, or who are causing a problem for you to hit.)

goblinsplayer

03-27-2013, 06:37 PM

has anyone here tried warren weirding? I have been playing it forever and it kills DRS just as well as tarfire and also good against show and tell/emrakul decks.

B-rad

03-27-2013, 06:49 PM

has anyone here tried warren weirding? I have been playing it forever and it kills DRS just as well as tarfire and also good against show and tell/emrakul decks.

I always found Warren Weirding to be kind of slow and clunky....Stingscourger pretty much does the same thing vs S+T decks with odds of it being uncounterable being quite high

Dice_Box

03-27-2013, 07:39 PM

I always found Warren Weirding to be kind of slow and clunky....Stingscourger pretty much does the same thing vs S+T decks with odds of it being uncounterable being quite high

Have to agree with this. With Cavern and Vial kicking around I really think that if you can make a creature do whatever it is you want then you are better off taking that route. Some times you can't use a creature to do a deed but when you can I say take that path.

Geeksire

03-28-2013, 09:52 PM

Vandalize

03-28-2013, 10:37 PM

Hello everyone! I wanted to ask you a silly question regarding Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker with his main ability. When it says that I can put a token of a non-legendary creature that I control, does it mean that I have to put a copy of a creature that is on the field, in my hand, or in my library?

Thanks and sorry for the dumb question. My friends were saying it can only copy creatures on the field.

You can only copy creatures on the play. It really makes no sense to copy creatures on your hand, otherwise it would have a clause like: reveal a card from your hand, or search your library for a card.

FoxBlade

03-29-2013, 01:55 AM

Hello everyone! I wanted to ask you a silly question regarding Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker with his main ability. When it says that I can put a token of a non-legendary creature that I control, does it mean that I have to put a copy of a creature that is on the field, in my hand, or in my library?

Thanks and sorry for the dumb question. My friends were saying it can only copy creatures on the field.

Your friends are correct, you can only copy creatures on the battlefield. However, there's a nifty little trick you can do, if you copy at the end of your opponent's turn that token will stick around until the end of your next turn. Using this technique can get you two tokens out on the field at once (with haste mind you) and can sometimes result in a turn 3 kill (if you run piledriver).

GoboLord

03-29-2013, 05:10 AM

Hello everyone! I wanted to ask you a silly question regarding Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker with his main ability. When it says that I can put a token of a non-legendary creature that I control, does it mean that I have to put a copy of a creature that is on the field, in my hand, or in my library?

Thanks and sorry for the dumb question. My friends were saying it can only copy creatures on the field.

A simple rule that you can keep in mind to solve this and similar problems is this:

On the battlefield Goblin King is a creature.
On the stack (while being cast), Goblin King is a creature-SPELL
In any other zone (hand, library, graveyard exile) it's acreature-CARD

jrw1985

03-29-2013, 01:31 PM

Things I learned while going 0-2 last night:

Wastesland should generally be used for mana against Esperblade. They have too many fetches to really mana-screw.

If you can kill/blank Batterskull and Jace then you probably win the Esperblade MU.

Legion Loyalist is exactly as unremarkable as I thought he would be.

Against Storm decks with Cabal Ritual, RiP is good. Against Storm decks with Rite of Flame, RiP is bad.

orcanmail

03-29-2013, 03:54 PM

Just come across a card called boggart birth rite, 1 black mana tribal sorcery to return goblin card from graveyard to hand.

Would this allow us to effectively have more ringleaders and matrons and chain together our deck? Is this a good card?

jrw1985

03-29-2013, 04:35 PM

RogueBuild

03-29-2013, 05:14 PM

GoboLord

03-29-2013, 06:08 PM

I must say I feel vindicated. It only took 5 or 6 years but when Lorwyn was printed, and without a second thought, I put 3 Tarfires (some times 4) in my deck, and nearly everyone said it was a crap card and all i was doing was feeding my opponent's Goyf. Today people are not only supporting the card but questions if they need to include Lightning Bolts (which is what I pulled out to put in the Tarfires and people said I shouldn't be running those either). Guess I was just years ahead of my time...

Yeah...either that or it's because cards like Stoneforge Mystic, Delver of Secrets and Deathrite shaman didn't exist at that time....
6 years ago THE creatue you wanted to beat was Tarmogoyf, which is obviously not the best target for Tarfire.

RogueBuild

03-29-2013, 06:20 PM

there have always been 1 and 2 toughness creatures out there to kill and its not like Goyf has gone away.

GoboLord

03-29-2013, 06:52 PM

there have always been 1 and 2 toughness creatures out there to kill and its not like Goyf has gone away.

There have always been enchantments...and we still don't run Reverent Silence.
It's the IMPORTANCE of the cards that matter, not wether they exist or not.
However, you can make yourself belief that you were way ahead of your time - I'm fine with that. Just dont spam this thread with this non-sense... I mean, honestly, what kind of answer did you expect?

RogueBuild

03-29-2013, 07:14 PM

There have always been enchantments...and we still don't run Reverent Silence.
It's the IMPORTANCE of the cards that matter, not wether they exist or not.
However, you can make yourself belief that you were way ahead of your time - I'm fine with that. Just dont spam this thread with this non-sense... I mean, honestly, what kind of answer did you expect?

GoboLord,

You do miss 1 very important detail (likely because you were rushing to post a rude comment without thinking); on your 2nd turn when you are wanting to swing with a Lackey, ANY blocker is important and therefore worth burning. Is there really any potential blocker that you could say "that creature is so unimportant it is not worth killing it so my Lackey can make contact and I can drop _(insert goblin here)_."

I'm not saying there are not more important 1 and 2 toughness creatures thee days, I'm saying to execute the goblin game plan Tarfire was always a good idea.

Ace/Homebrew

03-29-2013, 07:32 PM

I must say I feel vindicated.
Dude, this is the first post you have ever made in this thread. Who exactly do you feel vindication from? Your friends at home? No one here has ever said anything to you about your idea on goblins.

I must say I feel vindicated.
And you start your first post off like this? That comes across really pompous. Gobolord called you out correctly. Re-read your post in the mindset of someone other than you.

I must say I feel vindicated.
Tarfire is good now. It wasn't always. A cards importance varies over time. Remember when Phyrexian Dreadnought was a thing? Remember when Progenitus was the worst thing someone could grab with NO?

RogueBuild

03-29-2013, 07:53 PM

this isn't the 1st goblin thread. Pretty sure it isn't even the 2nd. Might be the 3rd. but my earlier posts on goblins go back many years now and at least 1 thread of over 200 pages ago. To give you an idea, MoggFans and other sac-able creatures could still deal combat and sac damage. At the time I was running GobLegionaries. Some of us have been playing for more then 5 years.

Seriously? You are comparing a couple cards that are only good when used in combination with other specific cards (some time printed years later) with a card that fills the slot of spot removal in a deck where the simple fact it also counts as a goblin is enough to make it many times more useful then if it didn't.

Do you care to try again and find a better example to support your argument?

Ace/Homebrew

03-29-2013, 08:03 PM

my earlier posts on goblins go back many years now.
Not on this forum.

This (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?4300-Deck-Pox&p=233697#post233697) is the first post you made on this board. You've made 108 since, mostly in Burn and Pox.

I must say I feel vindicated.
That was your first post on mtgthesource in the Goblins thread.
Click on my name and select View Forum Posts (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/search.php?searchid=1045732). You can see where I post too. This information isn't a secret.

I must say I feel vindicated.

ScatmanX

03-29-2013, 08:06 PM

Have to agree with GobboLord here. Tarfire just sucked back then.
Against Zoo? yay, kills Lavamancer. Against Canadian Threshold? Yay, did nothing. Against Counterbalance? Yay, nothing again.

Now most of the decks we face have Shamans, Delvers, Stoneforges and company, so yeah, Tarfire did got better, as Instigator is from time to time, as Piledriver, and many others....

RogueBuild

03-29-2013, 08:54 PM

It did take me a min to figure out why I couldn't find my much older posts but when I went digging I found the reason. This is my 2nd profile here, my 1st I had long ago forgotten the password to and for whatever reason couldn't reset. My 1st profile was DWolf from when I still lived in Austin. On page 24, very top, of the [DTB] Vial Goblins thread you will find 1 of my very old posts taking about some of the card selection issues. When I looked at the profile it says there are 13 posts but only lists the location of that 1. I don't care enough to go digging for others but they are out there.

So while I can understand the hesitance in believing me when I say I said something years ago, the actual information backing my argument is a different issue... When Tarfire was printed people where shooting it down, while still playing MoggFan.

Go figure...

Bichon_Blitz

03-30-2013, 12:35 AM

The eternal formats change with every set added. Just look at what abrupt decay/drs has done. And shallow grave being played again, in a deck with children of korlis, because griselbrand was reprinted (and somehow hasn't been banned, yet). In 6 years, who knows what will happen. Goblins not being playable? Or Legacy on it's deathbed :eek:?

jrw1985

03-30-2013, 11:09 AM

orcanmail

03-30-2013, 12:07 PM

Guys, quit bashing RogueBuild. This is unnecessary.

Does anyone actually have anything to say about Goblins today? I'm playing in a medium sized tourney in like 3 hours and I have like 3 SB slots I need help filling.

MD 3 Thalia

SB
3 Chalice
3 Rip
3 Pyro
2 K Grip
1 TSH
3X

What should the last 3 slots be? Rwg build.

Same as my current SB in my MD Thalia build. I add an extra krosan grip and 2 x surgical extraction as i recently got detroyed by tinfin and griselbrand even when i went mountain lackey. surgical extraction can be cost for 0, and break the combo, so i get to play turn 2!

jrw1985

03-30-2013, 12:40 PM

Same as my current SB in my MD Thalia build. I add an extra krosan grip and 2 x surgical extraction as i recently got detroyed by tinfin and griselbrand even when i went mountain lackey. surgical extraction can be cost for 0, and break the combo, so i get to play turn 2!

I have been running into a lot of TinFins recently....

goblinsplayer

03-30-2013, 01:54 PM

I have been running into a lot of TinFins recently....

Really? because here in the northeast, nobody, literally NOBODY plays tinfins... Anyways, if i was playing in a meta with a lot of tinfins, i would run in my sideboard, assuming that i am running mono red,
3 surgical extraction
3 tormod's crypt
3 REB
3 chalice
1 scrapper
1 chieftain

I think it is time to run crypt because relic is a bit slow and mono red can't run RIP. crypt is faster and has a similar effect to relic.

B-rad

03-30-2013, 03:30 PM

Really? because here in the northeast, nobody, literally NOBODY plays tinfins... Anyways, if i was playing in a meta with a lot of tinfins, i would run in my sideboard, assuming that i am running mono red,
3 surgical extraction
3 tormod's crypt
3 REB
3 chalice
1 scrapper
1 chieftain

I think it is time to run crypt because relic is a bit slow and mono red can't run RIP. crypt is faster and has a similar effect to relic.

I am going to have to disagree. Crypt may be better vs graveyard based decks but you really need some number of Relics vs Tarmogoyf decks. Jund, BuG, and RuG are all pretty tough matchups and relic can do some serious work vs them. I agree with you on the surgicals as I've now put 2 of them in my board to go along with 3 relics as my gy hate package.

SpoCk0nd0pe

03-30-2013, 04:52 PM

Why is warren instigator out? I always liked him a lot because he is such a huge threat for many decks. If he connects with a matron in hand he can do very nasty tricks.

I probably missed the Loyalist discussion, is he playable MD? He certainly is a good SB card in some metas since he really helps with BS.

[edit]did another reading in the thread: Seems like it's 0-1 Loyalist.

Another thing that sprung at me:

Many people seem to be kind of reactionary to opponents deck lists playing many answers (even maindeck pyrokinesis). My goblin philosophy always has been to be as explosive as possible. Just put him under pressure to react, it helps a lot (with cards like instigator/chrome mox, war marshal was always too slow in my eyes).

goblinsplayer

03-30-2013, 06:32 PM

I am going to have to disagree. Crypt may be better vs graveyard based decks but you really need some number of Relics vs Tarmogoyf decks. Jund, BuG, and RuG are all pretty tough matchups and relic can do some serious work vs them. I agree with you on the surgicals as I've now put 2 of them in my board to go along with 3 relics as my gy hate package.

Or splash white and run RIP....

GoboLord

03-30-2013, 07:51 PM

Many people seem to be kind of reactionary to opponents deck lists playing many answers (even maindeck pyrokinesis). My goblin philosophy always has been to be as explosive as possible. Just put him under pressure to react, it helps a lot (with cards like instigator/chrome mox, war marshal was always too slow in my eyes).

I partly agree with your philosophy of building up pressure. Or as Avatara expressed it a few days ago:
If you can't force them to interact with you during the first couple of turns you are often too far behind. (free Time Walks anyone?)
What Avatara said hits the nail right on the head.
Playing Goblins is not only about "being aggressive" or "being explosive". The cards you play need to be good vs your opponents deck/strategy. i.e. It's a little more complicated than saying "card A is better than card B - always". You have to take into account which decks you will likely face and then work out the best strategy against them and picking up the cards that support your strategy best. That's why Mogg War Marshal is probably too slow, or too 'bad' vs. Esperblade, but he is one of THE BEST cards vs. RUG Thresh. Sometimes you are better off with cards that are slightly less aggressive/explosive (as funny as that may sound, talking about a 3-in-1 creaturecard) - as long as they hinder your opponents gameplan (e.g. when an essential lan of an opponent's deck is to 1-for-1 you all day long, you are better off with a MWM than with Winsiogator).

I'm not saying that either WInstogator or MWM are bad or awsome. I'm just picking up this example to show that things arn't that simple. My conclusion would be that we are better off with thinking of the deck in terms of Avatara's suggestions (force them to interact) tnan with just perceiving it as being as explosive as possible (although that is an important element of course).

Dice_Box

03-30-2013, 08:19 PM

When it comes to instigator my view is that hitting turn 3 is far from the same as hitting turn 2.i can see the value of running it but there are better choices for the slot. Stinger or Gempalm come to mind. Of course hitting with it latter in the game can help too but I rather plan for my first 5 turns and fetch Kiki-Jiki and Crafter if the fame goes past that.

Geeksire

03-31-2013, 12:17 AM

Hello everyone! Nice discussions on every end, but I would like to show you something that made me happy today. If you are interested in getting cards that are pretty expensive in Legacy, look no further because for some reason Magic the Gathering is releasing a new block that is called "Modern Masters". For sure it will have Tarmogoyf reprinted and City of Brass but it is all about patience when this block is released. I mean who knows! We might even get some goblins to get reprinted again, and maybe even cheaper than they are right now! Hope this is useful information : /

Good for Tarmogoyf players--bad for us since we have to deal with more decks using that card...
BUT! We will see a greater emphasis and number in Legacy, which is always awesome because I would like my store to always have tournaments every week pertaining to Leagcy (damn you Standard...)

"- There are no land cards in packs, each pack contains a foil"
"- New art for many cards, new token cards"
"- Complete set - 101 commons, 60 uncommons, 53 rares, 15 mythics"

Here's the link! Enjoy!
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/218

Hof

03-31-2013, 01:01 AM

When it comes to instigator my view is that hitting turn 3 is far from the same as hitting turn 2.i can see the value of running it but there are better choices for the slot. Stinger or Gempalm come to mind.

You can't really count Stingscourger or Gempalm in the 2cc slot, because most likely they do nothing relevant unless you have an active Lackey.

Dice_Box

03-31-2013, 02:07 AM

Or an active Piledriver. They work with him too. Stinger takes the sting out of show and tell and sometimes you just need to draw. That's something gempalm is good at.

Hof

03-31-2013, 03:15 AM

Yes, they do a lot and should be included, but when you made a reference to "in that slot" I thought you meant the 2cc slot, as in things to do with your mana on turn two? Instigator is a strong turn two play because it advances board position. Cycling a card to little effect is not what you what to be doing on turn two. That is why I think you are comparing the wrong cards. I don't even know why you would assume that decks with Instigator should not also include some number of Stingscourger and Gempalm.

To those who like Instigator I would recommend checking out Brett Parise's recent Goblins list from the Eudaimonia tournament found in the tournament section. I found it most inspiring.

Dice_Box

03-31-2013, 03:40 AM

I ask you then, what from say this (http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Vial_Goblins) list will you take out to put in the Instigator's? I am not disputing their power but I just can not see what you would take out to put in. That slot has Piledirvers and removal in it. I have tried to put in Instigator's before as I can see their power. But every time I try they come out after that weekend and something else goes in in their place.

I will admit tho I am thinking about trying out pulling some of my target cards and trying the deck with fetchlands and Smoldering Spires.

In the end I guess it is up to the player. Maybe a dance on Cockatrice might be in order for me tonight with a Instigator build. Still not my favorite card I am sure he can win games. Maybe I will run 2 of him or something later.

Hof

03-31-2013, 04:11 AM

Dice_Box

03-31-2013, 04:51 AM

I do not play MWM other than in my Food chain deck but thats for another reason altogether. I loath to cut two piledrivers. I want them in my hand as fast as I can get them and if I do not have to waste time fetching them all the better. Pro blue is worth its weight in gold, add on the buffing... Also the little guy draws so much fire, also useful. Last, he can win you a game. That simple. In the end I see him as more useful that another cheat card when I have lackey and Vial for that.

B-rad

03-31-2013, 06:22 AM

Well that list does play two Instigator, so... Anyway, the list is outdated.

What I can say is that I would not play more than two Piledriver, and I would not play any MWM. For me MWM has never been good in testing, and I have sort of come to the conclusion that it is like playing Tarmogoyf in Maverick: It doesn't do anything, and therefore should not be included.

I'm going to assume that you've never played against RUG delver if you think MWM "doesn't do anything." He blocks Goyf and Geese for days so you can stay alive long enough to win the game and gives you the extra dudes needed to gas up incinerators. Also if you are playing the 4 Chieftain 0 Warchief build(which I currently am) you can unload damage out of nowhere. Maybe your meta is straight combo but ill never leave home without at least 3 of him.

Hof

03-31-2013, 07:55 AM

I have played Goblins vs Threshold many times, on both sides of the matchup. MWM has never impressed me much, what can I say. Chump blocking Tarmogoyf and Nimble Mongoose is rarely a problem, more than half of the cards in Goblins can do that in the midgame if necessary. Delver, now that can be a problem.

It is true that Instigator is strongest against combo and control. But even against say a lone Tarmogoyf on turn two I would often rather have Instigator than MWM. Because it has been my experience that Instigator can deter Tarmogoyf from attacking. Maybe he uses a bolt on it. That clears the way for my haste lord next turn. He would never use a bolt on a MWM.

Maybe it is a matter of playstyle, too.

goblinsplayer

03-31-2013, 08:57 AM

I'm going to assume that you've never played against RUG delver if you think MWM "doesn't do anything." He blocks Goyf and Geese for days so you can stay alive long enough to win the game and gives you the extra dudes needed to gas up incinerators. Also if you are playing the 4 Chieftain 0 Warchief build(which I currently am) you can unload damage out of nowhere. Maybe your meta is straight combo but ill never leave home without at least 3 of him.

It also has a nice trick with warren weirding. :)

jrw1985

03-31-2013, 11:27 AM

Went 1-2, Drop, at a 33 player tourney yesterday.

List

4 Vial
4 Lackey
1 Legion Loyalist
2 Tarfire

3 Thalia
3 Piledriver
1 Stingscourger
2 MWM

4 Matron
2 Warchief
2 Cheiftain
3 Gempalm
1 Sharpshooter

4 Ringleader
1 Krenko

1 SGC

3 Wasteland
1 Karakas
2 Plateau
2 Taiga
4 Cavern
4 Mountain
6 Fetch

SB
3 Chalice
3 RiP
2 Pyrokinesis
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 TSH
2 K Grip
1 Tower of the Magistrate

R1 BUG Control
2-0
I sided wrong by bringing in RiP G2. Turns out he wasn't running Goyf or Tombstalker. It didn't matter as I just out-drew him anyway.

R2 Esper Stoneblade
0-2
This is the best deck in the format. It wins GPs and the list is fairly optimized. I've put a lot of cards in my SB to beat it. No dice.
G1 I mulled to a mediocre 6, and a mediocre 6 is generally better than an unknown 5. The 6 was mediocre because it didn't have a 1-drop but did have Thalia. I lost this one pretty handily.
I sided in +2 Grip, Tuktuk, TSH, Tower, - 3 Thalia, Plateau, Stingscourger.
Pretty awesome SB, right? Well, I mulled to 5. He kept 7. I landed a T1 Vial and then we played draw go until he landed a T4 Moat. Then he Jace Fatesealed my KGrips away. Jace ultimate kills me. Blech. I needed REBs or Needle.

R3 Dragon Stompy
1-2

What I'd have done differently....

There are 4 MD slots that I can see dropping: 3 Thalia and 1 Loyalist. Thalia isn't pulling weight. Loyalist blows. Loyalist blows bad. I could see going Rg in the future and dropping W altogether.

GoboLord

03-31-2013, 12:48 PM

Went 1-2, Drop, at a 33 player tourney yesterday.

Thanks for the report!
I wonder why you didn't stick to you Rancor-built. That one looked pretty good to me and you seemed to be happy with it too. I'm not saying that this would have served you better though. Just being curious why Rancors were in your binder.

Tongombo

03-31-2013, 05:52 PM

Played in the GPT Brussels today.

List (based on some of ScatmanX's lists):

4 Cavern of Souls
4 Waste
10 Mountain
1 Port
2 Chrome Mox

4 Lackey
4 Vial
4 Lighting bolt
4 Instigator
2 Piledriver
1 Stingscourger
4 Chieftain
4 Matron
1 Warchief
3 Gempalm incinerator
4 Ringleader
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
2 Siege-gang
1 Kiki

SB:
3 Pyrokinesis
2 Chalice
2 Thorn
2 REB
1 Stingscourger
3 Relic
1 Chrome Mox
1 Sharpshooter

Round 1: WW with Stoneforge, equips (including sword of war and peace), hatebears
G1 He does his Stoneforge thing, Matron fetches Tuktuk from daycare to handle it (Good thing I put him maindeck again at the last moment!). Next he misplays by first playing Leonin Arbiter (no library search unless you pay 2), then Stoneforge (no search!). I get Kiki online and overwhelm him.
G2 He plays Grand Arbiter, making me use Vial only on my turn. The first couple goblins vialed in get plowed. His weenies kill me.
G3 I have the nut draw and kill him really fast. Lackey, Bolt your guy, Siege-gang. It doesn't last long after that.
1-0

Round 2: Sneak&Show
G1 I play some gobbos to start the beats, he show&tells in Griselbrand. I draw some more guys with Ringleader. Next turn I decide to attack into grisel, so I can Gempalm kill it. He draws 7 and show&tells in another Griselbrand. I attack again, try to kill it with Gempalm+bolt. He forces the Bolt. Next turn he plays a third show&tell, giving me siege-gang. On my turn, the goblin horde comes crashing in, Grisel&Emrakul block but siege-gang prevents lifelink and I miraculously win this one through a triple Show&Tell.
G2: I slow him down with Thorns, and have Stingscourger in hand for the Show&Tell. He builds mana. I don't put enough pressure. With enough mana, he plays Sneak Attack, and buddies 7/7 and 15/15 smack me in 1 turn.
G3: See game 2, except faster (turn 3).
1-1

Round 3: RUG
G1: He removes all my guys with bolts, Stifles Ringleader, Goyfs kill me.
G2: I get double Relic going, keeping him off of any graveyard. I overwhelm him eventually.
G3: I misplay my second turn by forgetting Vial (Doh!). I can't kill him in the end, only getting him to 1. Costly mistake.
1-2

Round 4: Elf combo
G1: He goes off turn 3.
G2: Bolt kills his initial guys. Chalice at 1 shuts him down.
G3: Pyrokinesis 1 removes 2 Nettle Sentinels so I can beat. Harmonic Sliver kills Chalice at 1, but I Pyrokinesis his Elves a second time. Win.
2-2

Round 5: ANT
G1: I know he is on combo so I mull to 5 but with T1 Lackey. He goes Petal, LED, Burning Wish, resp. sac LED... Grapeshot you for 3, kill Lackey ?!? So he now has no hand, and a single land. I win eventually.
G2: I play a Chalice and a Instigator. He tries to go off, but says he's too tired and scoops. Whew! Dodged the combo bullet.
3-2

Round 6: EsperBlade
G1: I have a really fast start, and can Port him off of playing a Jitte in time.
G2: He gets an active Batterskull, I get lots of goblins. He is stuck on 2 mana however (fetched blue and white), so finally I Gempalm the Germ, and kill him. He tells he kept a hand with Ponder/Brainstorm/Darkblast, but failed to find a third fetch/land.
4-2

5-2 is top 12 and receives the entry fee back in store credit. Here we go...

Round 7: BUG
G1: Weird game. Turn 1 Lackey gets forced. He tells me he really didn't want to play Goblins, since he didn't test against it at all. I seem to get ahead when I Waste most of his mana, but his single DRS keeps him in the game. I have both Siege-gang and Kiki in hand, and Vial is slowly ticking up. At 4, he Abrupt Decays it. Then he plays Tombstalker. I don't draw a fifth mana. He Hymns me. I lose from there, drawing blanks for 3 turns.
G2 (I boarded wrong here by not bringing in Relics): I keep a hand with Vial, Lackey, 2 Instigator, Chieftain. He still contains them by a combination of DRS, Abrupt Decay, and 3 Goyfs. On the final turn his goyfs are 5/6, me at 3, he at 17. He has active DRS, so I'm dead next turn. I can topdeck Stingscourger to deal 19. But I draw Mountain instead...gg.
4-3

The deck mostly did what it had to do, except when I made the mistakes. Chieftains pumping lackey/instigator helped alot, as well as providing the necessary speed. There weren't any obvious cases where I would have preferred Tarfire over Bolt. All SB cards were used, so can't complain there either.

GoboLord

03-31-2013, 06:28 PM

Thanks for the report. Too bad you didn't get the store credits! However, those games sound like you've had your fun today :-D
My Favorites

Round 2: Sneak&Show
G1 I play some gobbos to start the beats, he show&tells in Griselbrand. I draw some more guys with Ringleader. Next turn I decide to attack into grisel, so I can Gempalm kill it. He draws 7 and show&tells in another Griselbrand. I attack again, try to kill it with Gempalm+bolt. He forces the Bolt. Next turn he plays a third show&tell, giving me siege-gang. On my turn, the goblin horde comes crashing in, Grisel&Emrakul block but siege-gang prevents lifelink and I miraculously win this one through a triple Show&Tell.

Round 3: RUG
G2: I get double Relic going, keeping him off of any graveyard. I overwhelm him eventually.

Round 5: ANT
G1: I know he is on combo so I mull to 5 but with T1 Lackey. He goes Petal, LED, Burning Wish, resp. sac LED... Grapeshot you for 3, kill Lackey ?!? So he now has no hand, and a single land. I win eventually.
G2: I play a Chalice and a Instigator. He tries to go off, but says he's too tired and scoops.

Overall it sounds like you could have performed better by playing better (refferring to G3 vs. RUG and Sideboarding vs. BUG), which is actually a good thing, since you can improve your results next time.

Dice_Box

03-31-2013, 09:24 PM

So kicking around a few idea's and came across Smoldering Spires. So my idea is to use it as a spell to tackle some of the creatures I do not want to deal with. The thought for this is to use a fetch land to pull it in the middle of an attack and render something worthless and hit with say Pile or Lackey. Something that can be done out of the blue for free. So I was thinking if I am going to use fetches I am going to have to splash. I have full Black or green splash at hand but really green is a better choice. Also after seeing Rancor here I thought I might play around with it.

Issues:
I have lost 2 Ports in this build. They where all I could cut.
I have no basic lands. Something I myself hate doing.
Cut two Prospector's, first time I have run with less than 3
The Feches mean Root Maze has to be totally cut (No testing with it yet, still need to order it anyway)
Can run slower due to untested Mana.

Advantages:
Has two (possibly unblockable) Instigator's.
Green Splash opens maindeck possibilities like Rancor and Grip.
Smoldering Spires is a left field card. It is unexpected and can come from no where. Can not be counted either.

Thoughts:
Might cut the last two ports for Basic land or might run a Khalni Garden. I am of two minds about this as I do not think the sudden blocker is worth the cost in deck speed.
I think the mana is unstable but its at this point an idea only so...

What are peoples thoughts on this? I have all the card other than Spires and am open to testing it but can anyone see a flaw I have missed?

Deck list
Cretens:
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledriver
2 Skirk Prospector
2 Stingscourger
2 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Matron
3 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Lightning Crafter
2 Warren Instigator
1 Tuktuk Scrapper

Artifacts:
4 Æther Vial

Other Spells:
2 Rancor
1 Krosan Grip

Land:
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Rishadan Port
2 Smoldering Spires
4 Taiga
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills

//Sideboard
SB: 4 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Goblin Sharpshooter
SB: 1 Krenko, Mob Boss (Might put another Tuktuk Scrapper here)
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 4 Chalice of the Void

Mr. Froggy

03-31-2013, 10:55 PM

If I were to stream myself playing dailies on MTGO, would you guys be interested?

markbris

03-31-2013, 11:02 PM

Yes I would for sure, I've been playing goblins for a few weeks on MTGO now and I have to admit the sledding has been pretty rough. I don't think i've gotten paid in a daily yet, probably like 0 for 4.

Bichon_Blitz

03-31-2013, 11:04 PM

So kicking around a few idea's and came across Smoldering Spires. So my idea is to use it as a spell to tackle some of the creatures I do not want to deal with. The thought for this is to use a fetch land to pull it in the middle of an attack and render something worthless and hit with say Pile or Lackey. Something that can be done out of the blue for free. So I was thinking if I am going to use fetches I am going to have to splash. I have full Black or green splash at hand but really green is a better choice. Also after seeing Rancor here I thought I might play around with it.

Issues:
I have lost 2 Ports in this build. They where all I could cut.
I have no basic lands. Something I myself hate doing.
Cut two Prospector's, first time I have run with less than 3
The Feches mean Root Maze has to be totally cut (No testing with it yet, still need to order it anyway)
Can run slower due to untested Mana.

Advantages:
Has two (possibly unblockable) Instigator's.
Green Splash opens maindeck possibilities like Rancor and Grip.
Smoldering Spires is a left field card. It is unexpected and can come from no where. Can not be counted either.

Thoughts:
Might cut the last two ports for Basic land or might run a Khalni Garden. I am of two minds about this as I do not think the sudden blocker is worth the cost in deck speed.
I think the mana is unstable but its at this point an idea only so...

What are peoples thoughts on this? I have all the card other than Spires and am open to testing it but can anyone see a flaw I have missed?

Deck list
Cretens:
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledriver
2 Skirk Prospector
2 Stingscourger
2 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Matron
3 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Lightning Crafter
2 Warren Instigator

Artifacts:
4 Æther Vial

Other Spells:
2 Rancor
2 Krosan Grip

Land:
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Rishadan Port
2 Smoldering Spires
4 Taiga
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills

//Sideboard
SB: 4 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Goblin Sharpshooter
SB: 1 Krenko, Mob Boss
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 4 Chalice of the Void

I can't imagine playing without tuktuk or tsh. Yyou want to be able to matron for one against batterskull/jitte.

Dice_Box

03-31-2013, 11:15 PM

Good point. Tuktuk was one of the cards I cut to make the changes. Totally few over me that I had given up my tutor ability. Thanks for that.

Edit, dropping a grip adding a Scrapper.

jrw1985

03-31-2013, 11:20 PM

If I were to stream myself playing dailies on MTGO, would you guys be interested?

Fuck yes. i do love watching goblins being played.

kombatkiwi

03-31-2013, 11:52 PM

You cant find smoldering sires with a fetchland because it isnt a mountain

Interesting idea though. I think I wouldnt like it because of the cipt and goblins normally has a way to use all of its mana but let us know how it goes if you test it.

Dice_Box

04-01-2013, 01:54 AM

Right you are. Now I feel half way a fool. Idea was there tho and I still like the card.

As for the Cipt effect, think of it this way:

Smoldering spires (r)
Sorcery
This spell can not be counted
Target creature can not block this turn

(Or another way to put it, no tokens on Jitte this turn.)

Add in that it is a land after you play it and its a bonus. I will have to rethink the deck tho. Ports go back in for one.

GoboLord

04-01-2013, 05:45 AM

//EDIT:
HAPPY APRIL FOOL'S DAY

Right you are. Now I feel half way a fool. Idea was there tho and I still like the card.

As for the Cipt effect, think of it this way:

Smoldering spires (r)
Sorcery
This spell can not be counted
Target creature can not block this turn

(Or another way to put it, no tokens on Jitte this turn.)

Add in that it is a land after you play it and its a bonus. I will have to rethink the deck tho. Ports go back in for one.

That's exactly how you should think about Smoldering Spires (and in fact every "comes into play tapped" land): you should not occupy your landsslots with them, since they are not effective enough as a manasource in the first few turns.
If you want to be going for this "can't block" approach here are some suggestions:

* Soaring Seacliff
* Frenzied Goblin
* Goblin Tunneler
* Apostle's Blessing
* Basilisk Collar
* Mugging
* Legion Loyalist

I think that this might actually work out.
Putting 1 or 2 "can't-block-cards" in your deck might not be effective, but a larger number of them could indeed do the job.
Please let us know how testing goes.

//EDIT:
Jesus, you might even think about running some number of Mox Diamond in case you find yourself running too many Smoldering Spires/Soaring Seacliffs

Here's a possible decklist that I put together just now - that might give you some sort of starting point

//Mana[23]
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port
9 Mountain
3 Mox Diamond

//Can't Block Stuff [17]
4 Soaring Seacliff
4 Smoldering Spires
4 Mugging
2 Legion Loyalist
2 Frenzied Goblin
1 Goblin Tunneler

Goblins [20]
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Warren Instigator
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader

Sideboard [15]
3 Spell Pierce
2 Basilisk Collar
2 Sparksmith
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Chalice of the Void

Dice_Box

04-01-2013, 08:24 AM

Think I will trade out instigator for sensation gorger but in all looks like and intriguing build. I was thinking about grabbing some Mox so this might be the kick I need.

What you think on gorger? Not that many expensive cards I need to cheat in so I think the forced discard might be advantageous.

GoboLord

04-01-2013, 09:02 AM

//EDIT:
HAPPY APRIL FOOL'S DAY

Think I will trade out instigator for sensation gorger but in all looks like and intriguing build. I was thinking about grabbing some Mox so this might be the kick I need.

What you think on gorger? Not that many expensive cards I need to cheat in so I think the forced discard might be advantageous.

Well, since you got only few Goblins in total I think Gorger isn't worth it. If I were to add another card to the deck it would be Aether Vial. Also, cutting WInstigator isn't a good idea. He's really great with all that unblocking-thing and even more so with Mox Diamonds.
I really like to hear how your testing goes. If I were you I would start with this absurdly high number of "can't block" stuff. If you feel like it's too much you could cut 4 of them to replace them with whatever you feel is needed. I think the weak spots are Goblin Tunneler, Frenzied Goblin and Legion Loyalist. The lands are promising since they are un-counterable and help you with your mana-issues that you might have w/o Aether Vial. Also I find Mugging a good card in general, since it can ocassionally remove early Deathrite Shaman and Stoneforge Mystic.

Mr. Froggy

04-01-2013, 06:23 PM

I don't think I'll be able to stream -_- my Internet sucks too much -_-

LeoCop 90

04-01-2013, 06:40 PM

I searched in my collection some goblins with the " unblockable " theme and here's what I found :

Goblin Vandal Goblin War Drums Goblin Kites Slavering Nulls

Firefright Mage Goblin Shortcutter Goblin Grenadiers

Caterwauling Boggart Intimidator Initiate Goblin War Cry

Lowland Oaf Goblin Rimerunner Goblin Sappers

Akki Underminer Goblin Battle Jester Spiderwig Boggart Cabal Slaver

Most of these are clearly unplayable and i posted them just for fun.... Maybe goblin shortcutter is worth some consideration.

Avatara

04-01-2013, 09:36 PM

What good are all those unblockable cards if they just destroy your lackey/instigator or when you are facing combo?

Dice_Box

04-01-2013, 10:04 PM

Ok so here is a rough go at this, most of these I already have. Throwing in Bidding was an idea I had on the way that I think could work if it is needed as a back up. Still a slow way to play with no fetch for it.

Crittens:
1 Earwig Squad
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Warren Instigator
4 Goblin Piledriver
1 Skirk Prospector

Misc:
1 Goblin Chirurgeon (Somehow I just feel one of suits this deck.)

Anti block:
2 Mogg Maniac (or 2 Sledder)
4 Goblin Grappler
1 Goblin Tunneler
4 Frenzied Goblin
4 Smoldering Spires
4 Mugging

Land:
4 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills

//Sideboard
SB: 2 Patriarch's Bidding
SB: 2 Tuktuk Scrapper
SB: 2 Goblin Piledriver
SB: 2 Basilisk Collar
SB: 4 Chalice of the Void
SB: 3 Leyline of the Void

An all red version trades out the Earwig and Prospector for 2 Patron of the Akki. I think the sudden damage it can do in a deck like this makes it worth consideration. Sidebord changes to this:

//Sideboard
SB: 2 Tuktuk Scrapper
SB: 2 Basilisk Collar
SB: 4 Chalice of the Void
SB: 3 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 Sparksmith
SB: 2 Pyrokinesis

In all I think the idea is there but I know it needs some tweaking. I really like this idea, the ability to rip out most of the commonly played with cards and rebuild is quite a lot of fun. Here is my list of cards I think really need to be in this deck:
Goblin Grappler, Goblin Tunneler, Frenzied Goblin, Piledriver, Patron, Matron and Mugging.

The mass of extra land (The 8 taplands) I am against adding. Not that I do not hate the idea but the issue is you can only play one a turn. So if you draw 2 in your opening hand and then 3 in a row your quite limited on your options. If they where normal spells you could pile on 3 in a turn and do something nuts but with the one a turn limit I think it is best to limit them to 4 only as a defence against flood.

The Bidding idea I really want to test. I think bidding with a deck like this might get some traction. The ability to drop everything in a turn and attack is good but it needs a redesign to give the deck more sac targets. I think Sledder might be a good choice but I think doing this runs the risk of maybe watering down the no block idea too much to make either the original build or a bidding build work.

Something about Goblin Chirurgeon seams right in this deck. The card has some useful plays and it helps that you can attack with two or more of your "don't want to lose" (read piledriver) and know they are going to kill something and live. Add it to Patron as a 5/5 and buff you can use each turn with little risk. I feel Kreko needs to be added if this is going to become a common combo in the deck tho and then you need to change things and... yea it is good as a one off kind of thing.

Caterwauling Boggart I think can fit in here well too, mixed with a Kreko build and you would have something crazy going on. Might try that this afternoon.

Anyway food for thought. Oh and Mugging is a great card. I did not know about it before. Thanks for showing me. Anyone want to make some changes?

Dice.

Edit. No haste cards for bidding. Will need to edit.

B-rad

04-01-2013, 10:52 PM

What is happening to this thread.....

GoboLord

04-01-2013, 10:58 PM

What is happening to this thread.....

I thought we were doing this as a kind of "1st of April" joke-thing.
Hope nobody took this stuff serious...?

Dice_Box

04-01-2013, 11:04 PM

I really want to give it a go. Maybe I have made a total fool of myself but has none of you ever wanted to drop the standard deck and try and build something wild? I mean its not going to win massive but it looks like a ton of fun to do. Tell me to shut up if I am being totally trolled hear. (Tho I would have to laugh at that too.)

Edit.
Yep I am a fool. Still going to try and build something with the idea tho.

Avatara

04-02-2013, 01:43 AM

If you are playing Living Death in your board, why not consider playing Burning Wish main deck? This gives you access to Living Death in game one as well as other cards like: Anarchy, Perish, Cabal Therapy etc.

jrw1985

04-02-2013, 09:02 AM

You got Wish Board in my Goblin Deck!

You got Goblin Deck in my Wish Board!

Together they taste like crap.

Edit*
Goblin War-Strike ftw

LeoCop 90

04-02-2013, 09:20 AM

What is happening to this thread.....

I was not serious, just suggesting cards for the build dicebox is trying to play.

Aniway , i'm probably going to a 40 people tournament on sunday and I must still decide wich list to play.

My favorite Goblins are R/G with a little splash only for Tin Street Hooligan main deck and Krosan Grip in sideboard , but I'm worried about the quite high amount of combo that I might face. I played R/W with thalia main deck only once and it didn't convince me, so I' thinking to play R/B with 3 cabal therapy main deck instead of thalia. After all thalia is very good only against storm combo , while cabal therapy is good against any combo deck including reanimator and show and tell. This is the list i might take:

Creatures (29)
-4 goblin lackey
-4 goblin matron
-4 goblin ringleader
-4 mogg war marshal
-3 goblin piledriver
-3 gempalm incinerator
-3 goblin warchief
-1 goblin chieftain
-1 stingscourger
-1 krenko,mob boss
-1 siege-gang commander

Other spells (9)
-4 aether vial
-1 tarfire
-1 warren weirding
-3 cabal therapy

Lands (22)
4 wasteland
3 rishadan port
3 cavern of souls
7 fetches
3 badlands
2 mountain

Sideboard:
-4 relic of progenitus/leyline of the void
-1 cabal therapy
-2 duress
-3 perish
-1 tuk tuk scrapper
-1 boartusk liege
-2 shattering spree
-1 earwig squad

4 mogg war marshal main deck are here to support cabal therapy flashback. I would like to fit in the main deck 1 more chieftain and 1 tuktuk scrapper but if I want to play 3 cabal therapies i really don't know what to cut.
The manabase sees only 3 cavern of souls because I want at least 10 black sources (3 badlands + 7 fetches) but i don't want less than 2 basic mountains and 3 ports.
Post side i have 4 cabal therapies+2 duress+1 earwig squad against combo. Earwig squad is good also to remove problematic cards like Enginereed Plague.
Shattering Spree is here because i often see some affinity in my metagame, and to support the scrapper against Jitte/Batterskull. I have a question about it: the copies I do when casting Spree can be countered ? And can I target the same artifact with more than one copy? ( in case they counter one).
I don't know if to play relic or leyline. Leyline is stronger against tinfins and cannot be countered, but it requires a lot of luck.

What do you think ?

GoblinSettler

04-02-2013, 03:24 PM

I was not serious, just suggesting cards for the build dicebox is trying to play.

Aniway , i'm probably going to a 40 people tournament on sunday and I must still decide wich list to play.

My favorite Goblins are R/G with a little splash only for Tin Street Hooligan main deck and Krosan Grip in sideboard , but I'm worried about the quite high amount of combo that I might face. I played R/W with thalia main deck only once and it didn't convince me, so I' thinking to play R/B with 3 cabal therapy main deck instead of thalia. After all thalia is very good only against storm combo , while cabal therapy is good against any combo deck including reanimator and show and tell. This is the list i might take:

Creatures (29)
-4 goblin lackey
-4 goblin matron
-4 goblin ringleader
-4 mogg war marshal
-3 goblin piledriver
-3 gempalm incinerator
-3 goblin warchief
-1 goblin chieftain
-1 stingscourger
-1 krenko,mob boss
-1 siege-gang commander

Other spells (9)
-4 aether vial
-1 tarfire
-1 warren weirding
-3 cabal therapy

Lands (22)
4 wasteland
3 rishadan port
3 cavern of souls
7 fetches
3 badlands
2 mountain

Sideboard:
-4 relic of progenitus/leyline of the void
-1 cabal therapy
-2 duress
-3 perish
-1 tuk tuk scrapper
-1 boartusk liege
-2 shattering spree
-1 earwig squad

4 mogg war marshal main deck are here to support cabal therapy flashback. I would like to fit in the main deck 1 more chieftain and 1 tuktuk scrapper but if I want to play 3 cabal therapies i really don't know what to cut.
The manabase sees only 3 cavern of souls because I want at least 10 black sources (3 badlands + 7 fetches) but i don't want less than 2 basic mountains and 3 ports.
Post side i have 4 cabal therapies+2 duress+1 earwig squad against combo. Earwig squad is good also to remove problematic cards like Enginereed Plague.
Shattering Spree is here because i often see some affinity in my metagame, and to support the scrapper against Jitte/Batterskull. I have a question about it: the copies I do when casting Spree can be countered ? And can I target the same artifact with more than one copy? ( in case they counter one).
I don't know if to play relic or leyline. Leyline is stronger against tinfins and cannot be countered, but it requires a lot of luck.

What do you think ?

Copies aren't cast but they can be countered. Multiple copies can target the same artifact. When my local meta was full of Stoneblade and Affinity, Spree was my preferred artifact hate too.

If you are planning on bringing in discard too I would go with Relic. Since Relic has more utility in other matchups. If you are going to side out discard for grave hate to keep up Goblin density I would go with Leyline or consider a split between Relic and Surgical Extraction. Leyline is stronger so it comes down to how much Tin Fins and Reanimator you expect to face.