[Deck] Goblins [Archive] - Page 9

Davran

02-28-2012, 09:03 AM

I just played against an interesting iteration of Goblins and lost 0-2. Albeit I was playing a deck with a bad Goblins matchup, but the deck was interesting none-the-less.

The guy was running... wait for it... Goblin King. Mountainwalk is more relevant in the meta these days with more and more red around, right? But that's not all he was running... wait for it... Blood Moon. Blood Moon itself was what wrecked me game two, but I had an Elspeth down with four 1/1 tokens, and then blam, Mountainwalked right into Elspeth and then right into my face.

I really liked the concept. There are several really good Goblins that benefit from lord pumps, namely Mogg War Marshal, but also Warren Instigator and Siege-Gang Commander. Albeit, I usually only run SGC as a one-of in most of my Goblin builds these days, but the Goblin swarm + lord pump is still interesting.

Insert metacrusher Blood Moon. On its own, it wins games. Combined with Goblin King, it gets even better.

I doubt I'd run more than 2 Goblin King's, and I'm not sure what the right number of Blood Moon's would be, or if they should even be maindecked...

What do you guys think?

I'd much rather have Goblin Chieftain than Goblin King...haste is relevant much more often than mountainwalk. Mogg War Marshal is really only good at chump blocking, even with a lord. I'd much rather have a Warren Instigator in that slot and force my opponent to have an answer.

As for Blood Moon, there have been 3 in and out of my board pretty much since I put this deck together. I find that they are in more often than they are out...and everyone seems really surprised to see them.

I've never thought to main deck them for one reason: Goblin Ringleader. Not to mention that there are a non-zero number of matchups where it is just a dead card. It is definitely something people should consider out of the board as mana bases get greedier and people start to run even less basic lands.

Hanni

02-28-2012, 09:20 AM

Davran

02-28-2012, 11:49 AM

I wasn't suggesting running Goblin King instead of Chieftan. I was suggesting to run them both. Somthing like a 4/2 split or something. 2 King seems sufficient since the deck can Matron it up if it wants to make all of its guys unblockable. Then maybe another 2 more in the board or something. MWM turns into two 2/2's for 1R with a lord in play, which is really good, and even better when that 4 damage is unblockable.

I'm not sure what the numbers should look like without a bunch if testing, or whether or not Blood Moon main is worth it. That's why I brought it up for discussion. It does *seem* better as a sideboard card, but I'm not entirely sure that's the case. MD Moon wrecks a lot of decks right now, and it has amazing synergy with Goblin King.

I'm not sure this deck benefits from running 6 lords. I think if King has a place it's in the board, and even then only against certain match ups.

As for War Marshal, he doesn't actually do anything, which is a big negative in his column. Assuming we don't touch the "core", take a look at the other creatures recent lists have been running:

Gempalm Incinerator - Straight removal.

Stingscourger - Answers many threats that we otherwise can't reasonably deal with.

TukTuk Scrapper - Artifact hate in the main deck is really important in the current meta given the number of W/x decks running around with Stoneforge Mystics and Batterskull.

Tarfire - Kills a large number of problem creatures. Also gives us a little bit of reach for those last couple points of damage.

I don't see how Goblin King or Mogg War Marshal is better in any of those slots. In a post board game the king may be relevant, particularly if you expect something like Engineered Plague or Firespout out of your opponent...but against an unknown deck I would much rather have the versatility offered by the cards listed above than a random lord. If the meta shifts back to Zoo style decks War Marshal gets much better...but I'm just not seeing that right now.

orcanmail

02-28-2012, 02:50 PM

Do not underestimate MWM. He pumps gempalms, chieftains pump the extra goblin, Siege Gangs can sac them for 2 damage, sharpshooters as well, he adds to piledrivers. He helps recover from board sweepers. In fact he is central to a goblin swarm with chieftains strategy which is mono red aggresive. I play 3 MWM, 3 Instigators, and 3 Piledrivers as my 2 drops ( Tinkerer and Stingscourger SB ) and with Tarfires and fanatics with Gemplams for removal, my lackeys and instigators have more chance of connecting into chieftains, matrons, ringleaders and siege gangs. Early board pressure from Swarm Goblins, made possible with MWM.

4 Tarfire
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Lackey
3 MWM
3 Instigators
3 Piledrivers
3 Gempalms
4 Chieftains
4 Matrons
4 Ringleaders

18 Mountains
4 Wastelands

SB
4 Aether Vials
2 Tormods Crypt
2 Relic
3 Pyrokinesis
Tinkerer
Stingscourger
Sharpshooter
Tuktuk Scrapper

Ringleaders are more effective, basic lands can't be stifled, and aether vials can replace mogg fantastics / tarfire if versus control. The idea of swarm goblins is to put on early pressure with must answer lackeys, instigators, piledrivers and chieftains, backed up by removal to get goblins through to drop matrons and ringleaders or SGC.
2 SGC

orcanmail

02-28-2012, 02:52 PM

yeah i missed off 2 Siege Gang commanders from the above list!!!!!!!! add them for 60 cards. :eyebrow:

Ace/Homebrew

02-28-2012, 08:34 PM

I'm agreeing with Davran...
Goblin King in the sideboard if at all. Blood Moon is great against the DTB but Burn, Elves, and U/R Delver have been doing quite well and the card is dead against them. I like it in the board right now in case it's a dead card in the match.
My experience with Mogg War Marshal is as a defensive card for when the meta is filled with faster aggro or bigger threats. I like Warren Instigator better right now.

It's not so much that I think Aether Vial is holy... I've completely cut it in testing and dropped it to 3 for an event. But I cannot imagine playing Vial Goblins with the Vial's in the sideboard (for all the reasons Davran and others mentioned).
@ Orcanmail - It sounds like your meta is full of combo. If I had a 50+% chance of playing combo each round, I'd want my vial's out of the maindeck too. However in most meta's I'd say that's a poor call.

@ScatmanX - Is Word of Seizing better than Act of Aggression? Act seems better in most situations I can think of other than as a top deck late game.
I've been using your list against the Stoneforge Mystic decks around here with a high success rate. It sounds like you are still searching/testing to fill 2 spots in your list. May I recommend Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker? I've spoken out AGAINST him in the past, but having access to him is like giving Goblins a Snapcaster Mage. He gets into play through Instigator -> Matron most times and by that point he's getting you your next goblin card already.

ScatmanX

02-29-2012, 07:20 AM

@ScatmanX - Is Word of Seizing better than Act of Aggression? Act seems better in most situations I can think of other than as a top deck late game.
I've been using your list against the Stoneforge Mystic decks around here with a high success rate. It sounds like you are still searching/testing to fill 2 spots in your list. May I recommend Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker? I've spoken out AGAINST him in the past, but having access to him is like giving Goblins a Snapcaster Mage. He gets into play through Instigator -> Matron most times and by that point he's getting you your next goblin card already.
I was not really serious about Word of Seizing, but it is certainly better than Act. You can grab a Batterskull (not only the Germ token), you can Grab Jace with 12 counters on it and win, you can grab a Mother of Runes and give one of your guys Pro G/W to swing, then kill it with anything. You can even take a Fetchland that someone would pop to use Swords on your combat step. And being uncouterable and unrespondable is just awesome in today's meta...
That said, I'm not going to play it for now. Maybe on the next small tournament I go.

About the 2 missing slots: Yes, you can suggest Kiki, and that's the card I had in right now. That and the 3rd Gempalm (along with 2 Stingscourgers).
The only thing I want to figure out right now is if the deck can benefit from running 1/2 Chrome Mox, or the Tarfires can slow down the game enough so we don't need it.

@Blood Moon / Goblin king thing: It may work sometimes, but it seem too "cute" right now, and is something I don't think we need. I mean, in what MU's it would be relevant? And also, taking a removal on your King once you attack with your team hurts today just as much as it hurt on the past, and is something I don't want to be doing.

chuck2657

02-29-2012, 03:31 PM

I've been testing out a different list over the past few days on MTGO. I'm not convinced it is stronger than the MR list currently accepted, but it has been interesting. The following are the changes I've tried.

-4 mountains, +4 chrome mox
-4 vial, -4 tarfire, +4 chalice of the void, +4 goblins of your choice (I've tested 2X MWM and 2X goblin king most heavily...goblin kings performed poorly, searching for another two slots to replace them).

First, the moxes. I believe the current MR build benefits more from chrome mox than when it has been tried in the past. It obviously plays well with instigator, and seems to play better with chieftain than war chief. Chieftain builds just seem more viable with having to discard a goblin, versus war chiefs. The turn 1 openers help, but just as useful is being able to hit your 3cc slot on turn 2. 3 may be the correct number, but they really do allow for some broken openings, and the chieftain builds seem better able to recover from card advantage than the previous ones running piledriver/warchief.

Secondly, dropping non-lackey t1 plays for adding a MB chalice. When i prepared to test the changes, I assumed I would miss vial most. In practice, I've missed the tarfires much more. The deck runs low on removal (even with 4 gempalms and 1-2 stings) without it, and there are plenty of times which you wish you had a tarfire for a delver/mancer/bob/MoM/stoneforge/etc. The moxes help compensate for the lack of removal to a degree, as it allows you to utilize more aggressive openings. Also, not pumping goyfs can be usefull. Nevertheless, relying on 4 removal (which is slow and circumstantial) and 1-2 bounce has been an issue.

MB chalice will need more testing. It wrecks many decks in the format, as most decks have their curve weighted low. Often times, it makes 1/3 to 1/2 of the cards in their deck dead - especially removal - and works great against snapcasters. Yet, it obviously has weak MUs as well. It isn't great in the mirror, and is all but dead to (some versions more than others) metalworker decks.

The biggest boon of MD chalice is that it gives goblins a shot in many combo MUs. It does limit what you can run in your board (cranial, extripate, pyro/REB, relics, etc.), yet it makes many of the MUs the hate is there for better. Simply boarding out the tarfires/vials for chalice would be another option, but chalice seems to work best while running chrome mox.

There is obviously a cost to all of this. The MUs which are traditionally the best for goblins (control decks with heavy elements of blue), are harmed by the changes. The card disadvantage from chrome mox, and not having a vial in these MUs both hurt. And as stated, the lack of removal is an issue. Nevertheless, the current setup has performed better than I had initially expected, and seems to give goblins a chance in some of its worst MUs.

In any case, if anyone else would like to test the current configuration and let me know the results, it would be appreciated. I will post my full list later if anyone is interested - it is still in flux. Again, I am not claiming the list is preferable (or even equivalent) to the present standard. The results, however, have been encouraging, and better than one would initially expect.

lordofthepit

02-29-2012, 03:33 PM

It's not so much that I think Aether Vial is holy... I've completely cut it in testing and dropped it to 3 for an event. But I cannot imagine playing Vial Goblins with the Vial's in the sideboard (for all the reasons Davran and others mentioned).
@ Orcanmail - It sounds like your meta is full of combo. If I had a 50+% chance of playing combo each round, I'd want my vial's out of the maindeck too. However in most meta's I'd say that's a poor call.

In a metagame where there's too much combo to run Vials in the maindeck, you should reconsider why you're playing Goblins at all.

ScatmanX

02-29-2012, 07:47 PM

fimo

03-01-2012, 01:21 PM

chuck2657

03-01-2012, 01:43 PM

@Chuck: Nice to see you're trying something new. Try going to a tournament with it to see how it goes. I guess Swapping Vials for Moxes will make you flood, so I'd cut 1-2 Mountains.
Concerning removal, you could replace Tarfire with some 2cc goblins, like Sparksmith, Ember Hauler, os splash B for Warren Weirdings. And even something like 1-2 Arc Trail or Sudden Shock.

If Chalice is worth playing, do you think 1-2 Thorn of Amethyst could be Chalice5-6?

Hope to hear some news soon.

Edit: hell, if you constantly reach 4 mana by turn 3, even Murderous Redcap could kill a Stonefoge.

Warren Weirding seems to be the obvious choice, and perhaps I will try a black splash for it. I am hesitant to splash with moxes (it seems they wreak enough havoc on the deck without worrying about discarding a red card for RR to play an instigator), but it appears to be the best option.

I like the idea of thorns, and against combo they would be somewhat simliar - each would slow down the deck. Against control (or typical 3 color blue decks), however, chalice turns out to be more of a CA piece, as it will make a third of many decks completely dead. It usually works out to be a weird form of eventual CA.

I am also weary about going over the traditional 25/6 non-goblins in the deck, but I will try a few different things with my builds. I lack the cards to splash online, and I lack the chrome moxes in paper, but perhaps I will snatch a few up. In any case, I will post future dailies online, or when i compete in RL events with the modified lists.

ScatmanX

03-01-2012, 01:44 PM

does anybody play the kiki-jiki/lightning crafter combo? is it satisfying enough?
I did some testing with aeter vial in sideboard and food chain MD and a full playset of both kiki-jiki and lightning crafter. Also, I played 4 ancient tomb and 3 chrome mox. I have to admit that I playtested only against maverick but it s very promising something like 80-90% wins. The AVAILABILITY of a combo engine (extra win condition) capable of killing turn 3-4 (even T2 with the ideal hand) is great. The problem of lackey not connecting against creatures decks is much less of a concern and there is even the possibility of racing combo decks.
Didn t test with control decks yes but I guess that the possibility of having aeter vial/REB/Leyline of Lifeforce shouldn t make it a big problem. The deck is able to play similarly to a normal vial list anyway
There was a thread about food chain goblins a while back. I played the deck on a tournament some years ago.
I ran 4 Food Chain, Lackey, Instigator, Matron, Ringleader, Warchief
3 Kiki-Jiki, Lightning Crafter
2 Siege-Gang, Piledriver, Skirk Prospector
1 Sharpshooter, Goblin Pyromancer.
lands/moxes
I guess it was something like that.

The deck has hability to go off T2 with a hand of Mox, red card, Taiga, Ancient Tomb, Food Chain, Matron, and I did it twice in that tournament, once trough a Trinisphere.

Though the deck is awesome, it is quite inconsistent, and is hurt more by removal and counterspell, since you don't have Vial.
I'd suggest you to try it out. is hell of fun, and NO ONE will see it coming.
SB Suggestion:
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Trinisphere
3 Artifact hate
3 Faerie Macabre
4 Leyline of Lifeforce/Summoning Trap

(nameless one)

03-01-2012, 08:15 PM

For those removing Vial from the main list, has anyone considered running Grafdigger's Cage on that slot? It shuts down anything from Reanimator to Green Sun's Zenith to Snapcaster.

GoboLord

03-03-2012, 11:22 AM

...not to mention that it it's like a kick in the balls for Dredge.

Vandalize

03-03-2012, 01:00 PM

...not to mention that it it's like a kick in the balls for Dredge.

Nice to see you back mister.

But Grafdigger's Cage is everything a Dredge player wants to see in a hate-sideboard. It doesn't stop dredge from building it's graveyard, and it can be blown out with ease.

Still, for goblins it's a good card, as it stops Snapcaster Mage, Green Sun's Zenith (and Natural Order, to a lesser extent).

I'd say a split with Tormod's Crypt would be as good as it can be. Something like 3~2 Cage/Crypt

wert

03-03-2012, 11:14 PM

I am wondering there is still a case for Mogg Fanatic, it isn't all that exciting but it still can deal with plenty of naughty creatures, Dark Confidant, Noble Hierarch, Delver etc. It let us keep Tar Fire in reserve and keep the goblin count up for Gempalms. However, it is rather silly to play it as 1-of. Maybe Ember Hauler would be more appropriate.

What about some of the old favourites like Bloodmark Mentor, Spikeshot Elder? I think it is really a good idea to play with a 1-of either Goblin Sharpshooter, Lightning Crafter, Sparksmith or Spikeshot Elder in every deck.They are running removal or can ping the opponent every turn. Spikeshot is looking more and more attractive now with the Chieftains, but finding mana for it in early turns might slow us down too much.

I would love to play Wort, Boggart Auntie or Boggart Mob but I want to stay mono red. Not sure if they are playable just using the vials? Thoughts about this?

I am also wondering about some other techy goblins that is possible as an 1-of. Goblin Shortcutter, Intimidator Initiate, Thick-Skinned Goblin, Akki Underminer, Caterwauling Boggart, Zo-zu The Punisher, Tuktuk the Explorer, Murderous Redcap. All of them have some degree of playability but I suppose a right fit must be found.

Amon Amarth

03-04-2012, 12:38 AM

Holly

03-04-2012, 05:34 AM

Hello everyone.
I'm new to this forum, just registered myself but I'm reading here for a few weeks.
A few friends of mine and I decided to make a jump from casual Magic to Legacy and I'm settling for my little green friends.
I'm playing Magic for 15 years now, with a break of 3 years, but like I said, just casual, mostly drafting. I was interessted in Legacy a few years ago, but couldn't afford to spent my money on it.
So my experience is near to zero in competive playing but I do think, that I'm not bad (in opposite to my english skills).

We're aiming to go to a tournement next month, so I hoped you guys could help a little with my decklist. I don't know about the Metagame here in Germany, since I just know what my friends are playing.

My list, mostly copied from the Scatman;

17 Mountains
1 Barbarian Ring (getting cut for an other Mountain since most of the times it pings me for 2-3 before it gets wasted)
4 Wastelands

4 Lackeys
4 Vials
1 Prospector
2 Tarfire
1 Stingscourger
3 Incinerator
4 Winstigator
4 Chieftains
4 Matron
1 Sharpshooter
1 Lightning Crafter
2 Tuktuk Scrapper
4 Ringleader
1 Kiki-Jiki
2 Siege-Gang Commander

And I think here is my problem, im trying to put to much in the "toolbox".
The Crafter was a Piledriver before, and the Prospector was an other Tarfire.

I'm thinking about getting 2-3 Chrome Mox in there, cutting the Crafter, Kiki and maybe the Prospector.

Another problem of mine, I cannot decide for a Sideboard. Too much I want, to litte space.
4 Blood Moons
3-4 Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast
3-4 Fireblast
3-4 Piledriver for racing combo (but this is a race we're supposed to lose anyway..)
and something for graveyard hate aswell, thinking of Cage & Crypt.
1 Tinkerer, if I need more versus artefacts
1 Stingscourger, if needed versus Show n Tell etc.

So probably it would look like, 4 Blood Moon, 1 Tinkerer, 1 Stingscourger, 4-5 for graveyard hate, 3 Pyroblast, 2 Fireblast and just give up on the Combo Matchup.

An other Goblin I haven't tried out till now is the Sparksmith, maybe for the Sharpshooter? But the latter was most of the times just awesome.. Sparksmith Sideboard and boarding in for Sharpshooter versus Maverick etc.?

Thanks in advance and I hope you can help me with the few decisions I still have to make.
Oh and sorry for my english, I hope it's quite readable.

Final Fortune

03-04-2012, 06:51 AM

I haven't tested Cage yet but I'm not hot on it. Against Dredge it gives them time to Study and Loot to SB cards and then kill you. It's not bad but I think I still prefer Crypt.

In regards to removal, I'm running mono-Red and there are quite a few options for removal. Tarfire, Ember Hauler, Fanatic, Sparksmith... so good! Not sure what I'm going to run with but I'll post a list sometime soon-ish.

I play Dredge regularly, and I think Grafdigger's Cage is far more resilient to anti-hate with the exception of Chain of Vapor into a discarded Cabal Therapy, because you don't want them to play Ancient Grudge over Oxidize (etc) and let them Dredge into their answers as opposed to draw into them.

ScatmanX

03-05-2012, 07:01 AM

Back to goblins!
60 people, 6 rounds.
Ran my core list, with 3rd Gempalm and Kiki-Jiki on the 2 flex slots.
Sb had 3 Needle, Tinkerer, Sharpshooter, 2 Knesis, 2 Anarchy, 4 Faerie Macabre, 1 CotV, 1 MB. Trap.

R1 – Bye
1-0

R2 – Aranha with UWr Stoneblade
G1 – He mulls, I keep Mountain, Waste, Vial, 2x Instigator, Tarfire, Matron, Ringleader. He FoW Vial, I play Waste, Tarfire a Stoneforge, and draw 2nd Mountain T3. He tries to block Instigator with a Snapcaster, but I have a 2nd removal, and get Matron + Kiki + Gempalm, He concedes.

Side: -4 Instigator, +3 Needle, +1 Tinkerer

G2 – I keel 1 Mountain with 2 lackey, vial, tinkerer, Chieftain, Matron, Ringleader. Vial Resolves. I play a lackey 2nd turn, while He hadStoneforged for Jitte. His 3rd turn I eot activate Vial, and He Cliques, but let me keep. I draw a land, Gempalm Stone, and attack with both Lackeys. He let the 2 resolve. I drop Tinkerer (so He would have to attack with Jitte to kill it) and a Ringleader. He Snaps and Brainstorm, trying to find Warth, but next turn I have him almost dead already, and He can’t keep up.
2-0

R3 – Wstax
G1 – I play Vial. He plays plains. I play land. He plays Suppression Field. I activate Vial and Cycle Gempalm in response. I play Chieftain, hit for 4, drop Ringleader. He drops the White Muse. I draw a 4th land, Vial Chieftain paying 2, then cast Stingscourger, and hit for 17.

Side: -3 Tarfire, -1 Gempalm, +2 Anarchy, +1 Tinkerer,+1 Shooter.

G2 – I mull a 1 lander with lackey, then a 0 lander, and keep 4 Lands and Matron. He goes T1 City + CotV@1, T2 Trinisphere, but misses his 3 land 2 or 3 times in a row. I Matron for Ringleader, play it, getting Chieftain and Tuktuk, having drawn Vial. I destroy CotV and play Vial.He plays 3 for a Mox. I get another tuktuk that get Trini and Mox, getting 4 dmg out of the deal. He gets to play a Tabernacle 2/6 guy, that stalls forever, until He Geddons me out. I had kept a Mountain in hand, and had 2 Vials already. He died 2 turns after killing my board.
3-0

R4 – Shimi with TES
G1 – I mull into lackey, connects into something, hit again and Wasteland, but He Iggy loops me T3.

Side: - +4 Faerie, +1 CotV, +1 Trap, +1 Tinkerer, +1 Shooter, -1 Ringleader, - 3 Tarfire, -2 Stingscourger, -2 Tarfire
G2 – I keep Lackey, Instigator, Kiki, Chieftain and 3 mountains. T1 lackey gets kiki and play Insti. Eot I copy Instigator, my turn play and copy Chieftain, dropping him to 2. He Iggy’s me. Trap, Faerie, CotV, Sharpshooter or Tinkerer would have gotten me the win here.
(while writing the report I just realize I dealt 21 dmg to him on t3. That 3+6+6+3+3. Holy crap. Need to pay more attention on my games…)
3-1

R5 – Edson with Shot in the Dark
G1- I mull to 5 on the draw, keeping 3 lands, Matron ,Ringleader. T1 I draw Tarfire, T2 Instigator. He plays land, Mox, Jace and Bounce it. I Tarfire jace and replay Instigator. I play Ringleader into 2 cards, and it’s FoW Fow. Instigator connect into Matron into Tuktuk, and win from there.

Side: +2 Anarchy, +3 Needle, +1 Shooter, +1 Tinkerer, -3 Tarfire, -2 Stingscourger, -2 Gempalm.

G2 – I should have played Lackey T1, but lead with Vial. He has explosives active T2, so I lose a lot of tempo, and he gets Thopter combo out, with StP backup.

G3 – I play mountain. He plays Seat of Sinode, Top, Mox Opal. I Waste the land. He uses Top, but loses Metalcraft, and plays U. Sea. I think I had lackey now, that connected, but I had only Tinkerer and Instigator. He does not play land. I hit for 3. He plays fetch. Eot I Tinkerer Top, to make him waste mana, but he had StP for it, so it only worked once. I draw something like Matron or Ringleader, that gets me more guys, and win 2 turns later (With Matron for Tarfire =D). He had Humility on his hand, but I had Anarchy ^^.
4-1

R6 – Alex With hive Mind
G1 – I mull into Mountain, Mountain, Lackey on the play. 1st card is Siege-Gang Commander, but he has a T2 Emrakul. I don’t draw Stingscourger and lose.

Side: +3 Needle (fetch) +1 Shooter, +1 Tinkerer, -4 Tarfire, -1 Gempalm.

G2 – I mull into mountain, mountain, mountain, lackey. I draw Stingscourger and Instigator only. He has T3 Emrakul, which I bounce, and T4 Emrakul, that kills me.
4-2

I really liked this list, and don’t want to change anything. We’re awesome against anything except combo. 4 Tarfire,3 Gemplm 2 Stingscourger are awesome.
Next time I’ll nail this shit.

wert

03-05-2012, 07:55 AM

liamb

03-05-2012, 10:22 AM

Here's my approach:

17 Mountain
4 Wasteland
1 Barbarian Ring

4 Goblin Lackey
3 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
2 Siege-Gang Commander
4 AEther Vial
4 Goblin Chieftain
2 Stingscourger
2 Tuktuk Scrapper
4 Tarfire
3 Warren Instigator
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Goblin Sharpshooter

SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Goblin Tinkerer
SB: 3 Blood Moon
SB: 2 Faerie Macabre
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 Chalice of the Void
SB: 2 Anarchy

Went 2-2-1 (w-l-d) last Saturday (17 peeps)

R1 (Stax)
Lost G1, Won 3 turns long G2, and won epic G3: t2 Ghostly Prison, t3 second one, t4 third one(!). Me - Anarchy :laugh:

R2 (Bant)
Lost G1 (Mulligan to 5), won G2 (Moon) and G3 (straight aggro, 3 tarfire for his creatures)

R3 (Nic Fit)
Lost G1 and won G2 (Kiki shines). We draw G3.

R4 (Pun-Mav)
Ok - this is my second time playing against this deck and this player. Again I lost 0-2. I did some bad sideboard changes - should just got in Fae, Extraction and Anarchy. Instead I sided in Blood Moons and greavehate.

R5 (Reanimator)
2-1 for reanimator player. All games lasted 3 turns. Extractions should be 3rd and 4th Fae (yeah FoW ftw -.-)

Scatman-X - are Needles that good? I mean I imagine that this is good call against Mav (Knight, Mom). I really need to tune in my sideboard. I think I'll cut Reb/Pyro...

ScatmanX

03-05-2012, 10:33 AM

@ScatmanX
Congratulations and thanks for posting the reports!
I just got back into playing goblins.

Pile driver is dropped completely, right?
Boartusk Liege from the sb too? I like it when it comes in from sb, it is beyond bolt range and helps to toughen the others.
Thanks.
Piledriver got the axe and is not missed.
Boartusk on the other hand could be a 1-off on the side. Was just testing if that config is good. I really like him.

...
R4 (Pun-Mav)
Ok - this is my second time playing against this deck and this player. Again I lost 0-2. I did some bad sideboard changes - should just got in Fae, Extraction and Anarchy. Instead I sided in Blood Moons and greavehate.
...
Scatman-X - are Needles that good? I mean I imagine that this is good call against Mav (Knight, Mom). I really need to tune in my sideboard. I think I'll cut Reb/Pyro...
I'd never pud Faerie or Extraction against them. Moon and Anarchy, if you have it, are the ones to go to, and maybe Tinkerer.

Needles I'm still testing, but seemed very promising against UW.
They appear to be good against Maverick, but they really aren't... that's sad.
I may drop it to 2, but Pyroblast are completely fine too.

liamb

03-05-2012, 10:46 AM

I'd never pud Faerie or Extraction against them. Moon and Anarchy, if you have it, are the ones to go to, and maybe Tinkerer.

Hmm... Interesting to see that. The reason behind extraction and Fae is to remove punishing fire. Those can also shrink KotR sometimes or even remove 4 copies of it.
But you are also correct - Blood Moon also shuts Groove/fire combo, but he always have some outs by fetching basic forest and plains (quasali, gsz).

I still think that I can beat Pun-Mav - just need to playtest more and find the perfect solution for it.

Anyway Goblin Wizard looks good on paper.

(nameless one)

03-05-2012, 11:03 AM

ScatmanX,

I tried looking for your current list, buying can't find it. Would it be cool to post it again please?

I've always loved Kiki-Jiki as it can "reuse" ETB effects.

ScatmanX

03-05-2012, 11:06 AM

Hmm... Interesting to see that. The reason behind extraction and Fae is to remove punishing fire. Those can also shrink KotR sometimes or even remove 4 copies of it.
But you are also correct - Blood Moon also shuts Groove/fire combo, but he always have some outs by fetching basic forest and plains (quasali, gsz).

I still think that I can beat Pun-Mav - just need to playtest more and find the perfect solution for it.

Anyway Goblin Wizard looks good on paper.
Usually P.Fire Mav run only 1 Basic forest, and the rest is non basic. If the list you play against has more, and play to get them, maybe you could play differently.
The reason I don't like Surgical/Faerie, is because they can play around it quite easily, and when you have a target, it means they killed a guy already...

Goblin Wizard does look awesome, giving us a Vial for any cost and a Pro-White enabler, but is quite expensive at 4cc...

jrw1985

03-05-2012, 12:04 PM

Anyway Goblin Wizard looks good on paper.

Don't do it!!!!!

That card is awful trash. Every time you cheat Gee Wiz into play you're essentially NOT putting a Ringleader or SGC or whatever into play. That's like spending money on goods to barter with. Just buy what you want to buy!

He'll usually be dead before you can even use him, and his secondary ability isn't as relevant as you think it is. He just takes up a slot that could actually be useful.

orcanmail

03-05-2012, 04:13 PM

ScatmanX

03-05-2012, 06:25 PM

Piledriver got the axe and is not missed.

How can piledriver be completely axed? with 10 removal ( 4xgempalm, 4x tarfire, 2xstingscourger ) and with 2xSGC, 3x MWM as pumps and 4x Chieftains mainly for haste, he is still a main finisher that needs to be dealt with.
Piledriver is an early threat that like lackey needs to be dealt with. He wins me games.
Wrong.
He is not an early threat. He does not have to be dealt it, they just need to kill your other guys.
You're talking about Instigator. HE needs to be dealt with turn 2.

Basara

03-05-2012, 10:33 PM

GoblinSettler

03-05-2012, 10:47 PM

I was able to play some Legacy this weekend and finally tried out 4x Chieftain. I really like it.

Thanks everyone who pushed that idea.

On the subject of Goblin Shortcutter, I have been thinking about this, too. Enough to pick up a playset in case. However, after consideration, it seems to be very much like a Stingscourger where no one has to pay mana the following turn. When combined with mana-denial I choose Stingscourger. Not to forget the utility of bouncing a large creature that was cheated into play.

In a more aggressive, speed-oriented list, I could see an argument made for Shortcutter.

ScatmanX

03-06-2012, 06:00 AM

In a more aggressive, speed-oriented list, I could see an argument made for Shortcutter.
Indeed, Shortcutter is really nice, but Stingscourger gives you tempo, because the opponent has to replay the card (8 mana for another Batterskull Germ)
I could see myself running a 1-1 Split, but can't see many situations where I'd want Shortcutter instead of Sting.

chuck2657

03-06-2012, 07:45 AM

Wrong.
He is not an early threat. He does not have to be dealt it, they just need to kill your other guys.
You're talking about Instigator. HE needs to be dealt with turn 2.

I fully agree. Some players are intelligent enough to look at the board state, but I am amazed at how many times the turn 2 piledriver gets forced/dismembered, while people ignore chieftains and instigators. Piledrivers can swing into an open opponent for ridiculous amounts in the later turns. Yet at the end of the day, it often functions as a win-more card against non-combo, as it doesn't create CA and can chump blocked (and killed) by a bear. Unblocked lackeys and instigators are what break games open, and resolved chieftains improve everything from stingscourgers, to instigator, to mogg war marshal.

I played goblins in paper twice at small tournies in the past week, but my paper list still is mostly stock (although I have cut the vials), so I won't bother. I will, however, relay how my altered list with MB moxes and chalices has been doing.

My list is the following.
21 Land(ish)
13 Mountain
4 Wasteland
4 Chrome Mox

4 Chalice of the Void

4 Gempalm incinerator
4 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Warren Instigator
3 Goblin Warchief
3 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Mogg War Marshall
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Stingscourger

SB:
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Magus of the Moon
3 Pyrokinesis
2 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Goblin Sharpshooter

Notes: Magus in the board was an experiment, to try with chalice at 1. Overall, Bloodmoon would have been a better fit. Magus did stick around most games, but a pridemage/grip/etc. combined with removal still can take Magus out...so blood moon would have stuck around as well. The extra few damage from the body was seldom relevant; blood moon seems to be the better choice in the majority of cases. The rest of the board (outside GY hate and the sharpshooter) did not perform greatly. It needs work, but I would prefer to keep it MR, and not having the 1CC slot open harms the board...so the options are limited.

In any case, onward to the matches.

RDW - Game 1
I win the roll, and see a chalice and mox in my opening 7. My opponent keeps as well. I open with chalice at once, and although he casts a pair of Keldon Marauders, a MWM and the subsequent tokens block the combat damage. I hit another MWM and ride the damage between them and a chieftain to victory despite my opponent's full grip.
1-0

Game 2
I get lucky with seeing the same combination of chalice + mox again, and we both keep our opening 7. Yet, this time the opponent had a Smash to Smithereens as an answer. A turn turn two chieftain dies to chain lightning, but I play a MWM and a warren instigator on turn three. A matron searching for a ringleader are cheated into play, and my opponent is quickly overwhelmed.
(2-0)

Match 2, Bant
I win the roll and keep a decent opening 7, as does my opponent. I lead with a t1 lackey. He responds with a GSZ fetching an arbor (not sure if he lacked removal or misplayed). I gempalm'd the arbor and cheat in a Siege-Gang, and chieftain on turn 3. He doesn't recover.
1-0

Game 2
We both go down to 6. I play a t2 instigator, and my opponent misplays on his fetches into a turn three magus. He's left with a forest and mountains, and doesn't recover.

2-0

BUW. Esper-blade colors, but it seemed to run heavy on discard and light on counter-magic.
Game 1
We both keep out opening 7 ...mine is a dangerous set that is mox heavy (mox mox, mountain, sting, lackey, instigator, gempalm). He leads with a turn 1 Mom, and I play a mountain, double chrome mox, lackey and cycle a gempalm targeting mom. I've destroyed my hand, which now consists of a mountain and a matron. Luckily, he lacked an answer for my lackey the next turn, and I was able to fetch a ringleader via the matron and cheat it into play with the lackey. Not sure if this was the right play to keep the hand (it was very risky), but I was more risk tolerant since I was on the draw. Going t1 instigator and gempalming to force MoM to tap on t2 may have been the better play.
1-0

Game 2(on the draw)
I mull and keep a hand of lackey, 2 magus, chieftain, and 2 mountains. My t1 lackey is removed by StP. My opponent drops kor firewalkers on turn 2 and 3, and I proceed to chain 3-5 CC cards. I drop a lackey on turn 4, which causes my opponent to hold one firewalker in reserve. Besides that though, I die on turn 10 only having played the two mountains and two lackeys. Not a terribly close game.
1-1

Game 3 (on the play)
I keep a slow opening 7 of 2 MWM, 2 mountains, a warren instigator, a ringleader, and a matron. I would have preferred a lackey or mox, but figured it was sufficient to keep on the play. My turn 2 instigator is removed to a swords, and my opponent follows up the play with thalia. I play a turn 3 magus when my opponent has a swamp and two tundras. I've draw lands, my hand curves out nicely, and I appear to be in a great position. My opponent plays a t3 Bob, and I search for a gempalm to remove him, and succeed the next turn. On my opponent's t5, however, he top deck's a jitte and kills magus with -1/-1 counters. T6, I land a ringleader (which proceeds to hit 4 mountains), but he plays double mettling mage (one naming matron, the other siege-gang) and connects his jitte. I block with a ringleader and gempalm his other mage eot. During my next turn, I tuktuk the jitte away and soon swarm him.
2-1
3-0

Enchantress. This is a deck that I have little experience playing against (it's been a few years), and I was quite surprised to see it. In any case, I should have played differently in match two for sure, and possibly in match 1.

Game 1.
I go to 6, as does my opponent. He starts off with a wild growth on a Savannah. I play a mox and a instigator. On t2, he plays a sterling grove and I play a chalice for 1 and connect with the instigator. He plays Enchantress's Presence on t3, but he dies before he is able to get a moat setup.
1-0

Game 2.
We both keep 7, I'm on the draw with a decent 7 (chalice, mount, warren, chieftain, chalice mox, matron). I make a mistake trying to chalice off 1 in this MU instead of racing; I was perhaps too afraid of elephant grass. In any case, it didn't matter as solitaire confinement (later followed by moat and enchantress' presence) hit the table on turn 3.
1-1

Game 3.
I didn't see a land until I mulliganed to 3. Regardless, it is a tough MU even if I hadn't been mana-screwed.
1-2

3-1

Overall, the list seems like it needs another mountain. The 3 goblin war chiefs have not been great, and could easily be replaced. The list further (as stated earlier) lacks sufficient removal, and is overly reliant on gempalm for providing it. The SB also needs refining.

Nevertheless, Chrome mox feels strong. It occasionally ruins a hand, but it makes hands without lackeys potentially keepable. I am not sure on chalice, but a turn 1 mox and chalice randomly wins many matchups by itself. Combined with blood moon, it makes an "oops, I win factor". Unfortunately, it also means you can't run relic/shattering spree/pyro/REB in your board, and you can't run tarfire in the main.

If anyone is interested, I can list how I boarded in each MU. Also, if anyone else is willing to try out a similar list, let me know how it treats them.

ScatmanX

03-06-2012, 10:36 AM

Nice Report Chuck.
Just some comments:
- Against Enchantress it seems that G1 you did the right move, but R2 you should have gone 1st with Instigator, than Chalice.
- You can cast Shattering Spree under Chalice@1. CotV will only counter the original spell, but all the copies will resolve.
- We have to find something better than Knesis here. Add the CA-Disadvantage from Mox, and you're in bad shape. I've run Arc Trail to some success, but others didn't liked it...

orcanmail

03-06-2012, 06:00 PM

Wrong.
He is not an early threat. He does not have to be dealt it, they just need to kill your other guys.
You're talking about Instigator. HE needs to be dealt with turn 2.

interesting. for a long time piledriver was considered core for goblin decks, there must have been a reason. the 2cc slot is very competitive and it seems warren instigator as a choice or not determines the direction of the deck
true piledriver on his own is weak, it is why i advocate playing MWM as it often means piledrivers are pumped up. warren instigators later on in a game are weak goblins. if you don't run piledriver where is your threat except for chieftains which are often removed, or just through weight of numbers.
don't get me wrong, all i want is for goblins to win and all goblin players are my friends scatmanx, it's just that in my experience piledrivers win me games and do i really need more than 4 lackey effects? My 2cc slots are reserved for MWM, piledrivers and stingscourgers, no room for warren instigators. Convince me why warren instigators should be played? i really feel that instigators / piledrivers are a core question to the future of the deck. i accept that chieftains and not warchiefs are needed in the current legacy meta.

Ace/Homebrew

03-06-2012, 06:39 PM

Pro Blue is not really relevant in this meta...

IMO, if your opponent dedicates their first turn to kill your Lackey, they will be more upset to see a turn 2 Double Lackey than a turn 2 Piledriver because they have to IMMEDIATELY kill it or play a bigger threat. If you follow up with a turn 3 Chieftain then their blocker is probably too small. If you use some of your own removal then your board quickly gets way bigger than anything they can cobble together.

Winstigator demands an immediate answer whereas Piledriver can connect one or two times before he's a problem. Winstigator also lets you find and play an immediate answer to a problem if it connects and you are holding Matron. Need a Stingscourger? Tuktuk? SGC? Kiki? Chieftain? Piledriver can't do that.

Piledriver is a great creature when Merfolk and Rhox War Monk are around, but I haven't seen either in a while. Piledriver is an excellent finisher but Instigator sets up a win.

Basara

03-06-2012, 08:14 PM

I just play 1 Piledriver in my deck , as a tutorable target from matron , some times you need to put a lot of pressure and close up the game with a 11/2...

wert

03-06-2012, 09:27 PM

interesting. for a long time piledriver was considered core for goblin decks, there must have been a reason. the 2cc slot is very competitive and it seems warren instigator as a choice or not determines the direction of the deck
true piledriver on his own is weak, it is why i advocate playing MWM as it often means piledrivers are pumped up. warren instigators later on in a game are weak goblins. if you don't run piledriver where is your threat except for chieftains which are often removed, or just through weight of numbers.
don't get me wrong, all i want is for goblins to win and all goblin players are my friends scatmanx, it's just that in my experience piledrivers win me games and do i really need more than 4 lackey effects? My 2cc slots are reserved for MWM, piledrivers and stingscourgers, no room for warren instigators. Convince me why warren instigators should be played? i really feel that instigators / piledrivers are a core question to the future of the deck. i accept that chieftains and not warchiefs are needed in the current legacy meta.

One point is that with 4 chieftains, The warren instigators are big hitters too on their own right with double strike. 2/2 double strike is no way a poor draw late game. I like MWN, but it does need Pile-driver to be really useful and 8 cards slots is really too much. Running just a single Pile Driver without MWN seems pointless in my opinion.

Davran

03-07-2012, 09:00 AM

Winstigator demands an immediate answer whereas Piledriver can connect one or two times before he's a problem. Winstigator also lets you find and play an immediate answer to a problem if it connects and you are holding Matron. Need a Stingscourger? Tuktuk? SGC? Kiki? Chieftain? Piledriver can't do that.

I couldn't agree more. This line of play has won me plenty of games. People always underestimate what the deck can do and what kinds of answers we have access to. Don't forget that you can Matron for Tarfire too...I won a game that way when my opponent foolishly let my lone Instigator through to go to 1 life (he had lethal on board the following turn).

Piledriver is fantastic when your opponent is running Merfolk, or you have a board full of goblins to his Progenitus. It seems the format is moving away from those decks at the moment, so we should be moving with them instead of clinging to cards that shine in a different meta. I've had several recent games where I've drawn into a second Piledriver and wished it was literally anything else in my deck.

ScatmanX

03-07-2012, 10:34 AM

@Orcanmail: Pretty much what Ace said. Instigator is the one that demands an answer turn 2, not Pilly.
I play this version of the deck because I want to beat the 3 decks most played around here: UW, Canadian/UR, Maverick.
Against UW, they have to have answers not only to lackey, but to Instigator. On the play, you usually connect. If they can remove both, that means that Chieftain can stick around.
Against Canadian, they need to use a removal on them, where against Piledriver they can kill the Warchief. That means that, against this version, another goblin can live. Also, if they don't kill him even better. I'd rather have an Instigator connecting then a Piledriver. Even if it's for 5 or 7 dmg, which is not likely, since this deck has lot of removal.
Against Maverick we're not likely to connect either, and I don't like any on the MU. The difference is: a small Piledriver they can let trough, and block the other guy. I big one they can block and kill. But an early Instigator they can't let trough.

I guess I'm forming a point in my head now: The Piledriver list has more ways to explode, while the Instigator list is better at grinding the game out. I don't like to overextend (specially against UW that runs Wrath), and that is exactly what you have to do with Piledriver. Or you can try to alpha strike at once, with the risk of a removal spell ruining your plan.

The Warchief/Piledriver list is still very good, but my experience tells me that the Instigator build is more well positioned right now.

@Piledriver being good versus Merfolk: Yes, he is. But have you guys played against Merfolk with Instigator? He's totally bonkers. It completly fucks the math up with 1st strike, and is a must block creature, while Piledriver is more defensive, once that if you attack into some lords, you'll lose your other guys. Also, Tarfire is insane, and kills EVERYTHING. I can't see why the Piledriver build would be better against it, specially now that they run Dismember and such.

Davran

03-07-2012, 11:38 AM

@Piledriver being good versus Merfolk: Yes, he is. But have you guys played against Merfolk with Instigator? He's totally bonkers. It completly fucks the math up with 1st strike, and is a must block creature, while Piledriver is more defensive, once that if you attack into some lords, you'll lose your other guys. Also, Tarfire is insane, and kills EVERYTHING. I can't see why the Piledriver build would be better against it, specially now that they run Dismember and such.

I haven't played against fish recently (our local fish player moved away)...but I used to run WInstigator as a 2-of back in the Mental Misstep era and I can confirm this. I remember play testing the match about a million times and being forced to leave Piledrivers back due to Mutavault more often than I cared to.

@Scatman/others: Do you guys side your Tarfires out against RUG/Thresh/Team America? I've been finding I still want them in to deal with Delvers and other small threats...but the extra point of toughness on a Goyf has been a problem for me more than once.

ScatmanX

03-07-2012, 12:37 PM

@Scatman/others: Do you guys side your Tarfires out against RUG/Thresh/Team America? I've been finding I still want them in to deal with Delvers and other small threats...but the extra point of toughness on a Goyf has been a problem for me more than once.
Against Canadian (RUG Delver), no. The best plan they have against you is the fast Delver plan. 1 Tarfire can disrupt that. To bad it makes their 2nd best plan against us (the multiple goyf play), better. But we're still favorable with our rock solid manabase.
Against TA, if they have Dark Confidant, maybe leave 2. If it's just Tombstalker and Goyf, get them out of there.

lord09

03-07-2012, 12:59 PM

Mind posting your latest list ScatmanX?

Mantis

03-07-2012, 01:10 PM

I haven't played against fish recently (our local fish player moved away)...but I used to run WInstigator as a 2-of back in the Mental Misstep era and I can confirm this. I remember play testing the match about a million times and being forced to leave Piledrivers back due to Mutavault more often than I cared to.

@Scatman/others: Do you guys side your Tarfires out against RUG/Thresh/Team America? I've been finding I still want them in to deal with Delvers and other small threats...but the extra point of toughness on a Goyf has been a problem for me more than once.
Play Lightning Bolt instead of Tarfire, in combination with Mogg Fanatic, Gempalm or Siege Gang it can easily dispose of Goyfs. The same is true for Tombstalker. If you are playing Tarfire instead of Bolt you are doing it wrong. You don't even have to side out Bolts against Thresh or RUG, although depending on your sideboard you could swap them out vs Team America.

wert

03-07-2012, 02:07 PM

Play Lightning Bolt instead of Tarfire, in combination with Mogg Fanatic, Gempalm or Siege Gang it can easily dispose of Goyfs. The same is true for Tombstalker. If you are playing Tarfire instead of Bolt you are doing it wrong. You don't even have to side out Bolts against Thresh or RUG, although depending on your sideboard you could swap them out vs Team America.

Well, in all cases, Lightning Bolt is better than Tarfire on paper. But why are we using Tarfire. Why, because Tarfire is matron tutorable and ringleader friendly. Moreover 2 damage is good enough to deal with 2 main threats, SFM and Delver. A tarfire in hand in better than lightning bolt in the deck.

Yuri8

03-07-2012, 04:53 PM

Mantis

03-07-2012, 05:51 PM

Well, in all cases on paper, Lightning Bolt is better than Tarfire on paper. But why are we using Tarfire. Why, because Tarfire is matron tutorable and ringleader friendly. Moreover 2 damage is good enough to deal with 2 main threats, SFM and Delver. A tarfire in hand in better than lightning bolt in the deck.
You can always run 3 Bolt, 1 Tarfire to be able to Matron. Even though SFM and Delver are both killed by Tarfire and Bolt equally, Bolt is just plain better as it kills Jace, Knight, Tarmogoyf, Vampire Nighthawk, Batterskull in combination with Instigator or Gempalm, Merfolks when there are 2 lords out, opponents on 3 life, Kird Ape, Wild Nacatl, Keldon Marauders etc. etc. The times where Goblin Ringleader netting you a Shock that wins you the game you would otherwise lose are 1 in a thousand maybe. Most of the time Ringleader wins you the game regardless, then there are quite a few games you will lose regardless of Ringleader because your opponent combo's you out or whatever, then there are those extremely rare games where you need that 2 damage spell. Shock isn't even block constructed worthy and then to think that Shock would pump Goyf as well. Tarfire is way too cute, just play good cards if you want to win.

Davran

03-08-2012, 09:19 AM

You can always run 3 Bolt, 1 Tarfire to be able to Matron. Even though SFM and Delver are both killed by Tarfire and Bolt equally, Bolt is just plain better as it kills Jace, Knight, Tarmogoyf, Vampire Nighthawk, Batterskull in combination with Instigator or Gempalm, Merfolks when there are 2 lords out, opponents on 3 life, Kird Ape, Wild Nacatl, Keldon Marauders etc. etc. The times where Goblin Ringleader netting you a Shock that wins you the game you would otherwise lose are 1 in a thousand maybe. Most of the time Ringleader wins you the game regardless, then there are quite a few games you will lose regardless of Ringleader because your opponent combo's you out or whatever, then there are those extremely rare games where you need that 2 damage spell. Shock isn't even block constructed worthy and then to think that Shock would pump Goyf as well. Tarfire is way too cute, just play good cards if you want to win.

I don't see how Bolt is some huge advantage over Tarfire given that we're still trying to 2-3 for 1 a Goyf/Knight/Tombstalker. In the case of smaller threats like Delver and Mystic, both Bolt and Tarfire get the job done equally well as you point out, so why not play the card that we can tutor for and/or draw off of a Ringleader?

Yes, occasionally Tarfire is dead simply because it is Tribal. However, Bolts on the bottom of your deck or stuck in your library are equally dead no matter what the current game state is.

The addition of some sort of burn spell seems to be a good idea in the current meta...whichever spell you happen to prefer. It gives us another source of removal and increases the number of options we can take on any given turn.

Davran

03-08-2012, 09:27 AM

Mind posting your latest list ScatmanX?

I think Scatman and I are playing similar lists. Here's mine if you're curious:

4x Wasteland
18x Mountain

4x Goblin Lackey
4x Warren Instigator
4x Goblin Chieftain
4x Goblin Matron
4x Goblin Ringleader
3x Gempalm Incinerator
2x Tuktuk Scrapper
2x Siege-gang Commander
2x Stingscourger
1x Goblin Piledriver

4x Aether Vial
4x Tarfire

My sideboard varies depending on the event (as it should)...but I usually run something like this:

2x Tormod's Crypt
1x Relic of Progenitus
3x Blood Moon
1x Goblin Tinkerer
1x Goblin Sharpshooter
4x Thorn of Amethyst
2x Pyrokinesis
1x Boartusk Liege/Pyrokinesis/Tormod's Crypt/Some other card

Occasionally, the Pyros and the extra slot are Red Elemental Blast if I'm expecting a lot of blue decks.

wert

03-08-2012, 09:53 AM

4x Wasteland
18x Mountain

4x Goblin Lackey
4x Warren Instigator
4x Goblin Chieftain
4x Goblin Matron
4x Goblin Ringleader
3x Gempalm Incinerator
2x Tuktuk Scrapper
2x Siege-gang Commander
2x Stingscourger
1x Goblin Piledriver

4x Aether Vial
4x Tarfire
I am playing something similar for a couple of days. -1 Piledriver, -1 Stingscourger, +1 Goblin Sharpshooter, + Kiki-Jiki.

My sideboard is kinda of similar too, frankly I am not sure if it makes sense.. I think I am not sideboarding effectively. I think I messed up a couple of times, sb Blood Moon unnecessarily. Anarchy is hard to cast but it gives a out against nasty white enchantments. Any suggestions? Some advice against the more common matchups?

My Sideboard :
2x Faerie Macabre
2x Relic of Progenitus
3x Blood Moon
2x Anarchy
1x Goblin Tinker
3x Pithing Needle
2x Boartusk Liege

On the subject of Bolts, 4x Tarfire don't seems to be enough. Alot of times, I am wishing of some at hand. Maybe we can add bolts on top of the 4 tarfires, or the other way round if you prefer.

I also encounter a opening that I don't have a solution to. The opponent opens with Mother of Runes, followed by Stone Forge Mystic into Jitte. It is almost GG.

Davran

03-08-2012, 10:29 AM

My sideboard is kinda of similar too, frankly I am not sure if it makes sense.. I think I am not sideboarding effectively. I think I messed up a couple of times, sb Blood Moon unnecessarily. Anarchy is hard to cast but it gives a out against nasty white enchantments. Any suggestions? Some advice against the more common matchups?

My Sideboard :
2x Faerie Macabre
2x Relic of Progenitus
3x Blood Moon
2x Anarchy
1x Goblin Tinker
3x Pithing Needle
2x Boartusk Liege

It really depends what you're playing against. I'm curious where you're bringing the Leiges in. I occasionally run one as a 5th lord against Punishing Maverick...but I often don't want to see a second.

As far as Blood Moon - these usually come in against decks with greedy mana bases. RUG, BUG and to some extent, Maverick are all good matches to side them in for. You don't really want them against fast decks like any sort of combo without some way to speed it out (some people are trying Chrome Mox).

I see a fair amount of combo (unfortunately) and one burn deck makes a pretty regular appearance, so that's why I run Thorns of Amethyst. In your case, it looks like you're relying on Pithing Needle...which is likely better in a wider spread of matches.

I haven't tried out Faerie as they do little against dredge. I like to keep my hate as broad as possible, and a turn 1 Crypt is just as good against reanimator. The singleton Relic is there on the off chance that my opponent is running a Surgical Extraction.

On the subject of Bolts, 4x Tarfire don't seems to be enough. Alot of times, I am wishing of some at hand. Maybe we can add bolts on top of the 4 tarfires, or the other way round if you prefer.

I am hesitant to further dilute the deck with non-goblins even though this is occasionally true for me too. Remember that we are trying to win primarily through the combat step and off of the card advantage that is Ringleader.

I also encounter a opening that I don't have a solution to. The opponent opens with Mother of Runes, followed by Stone Forge Mystic into Jitte. It is almost GG.

Yeah, that is a pretty rough hand to deal with.

I find the best course is usually to kill mom on sight...allowing it to give the rest of their team pro-red at will is much more dangerous than whatever else they can play. Even if they open like that, they're still not hooking up the Jitte and swinging until turn 4, so you've got some time to find an out.

I always hope for Tarfire in my opening hand against Maverick for situations like this.

orcanmail

03-08-2012, 01:03 PM

Piledriver x WInstigator talk: Noone mentioned that playing piledriver allows you to play rishadan port. Instead of comparing just cards you should compare whole strategies of deck. I dunno which one is better, but port+piledirver are doing god job for me so far (in last 5 tournaments no worse score then X-1-1).

This partly what i meant by instigator or piledriver determining the deck strategy, because double red prevents playing ports and winstigator / chieftain decks become more aggro and less control than warchief / piledriver.

I have opted for in between chieftain / piledriver / MWM so i can still play ports, and if chieftains are removed as they often are i still have MWM/Piledrivers for damage rather than just 1/1 instigators and 1/1 nearly everything else (execept for a few 2/2 ringleaders and SGC).

also for extra removal in addition to tarfire, gempalm incinerators and 2 stingscourgers, i would use mogg fanatics if i felt it necessary.
Lightning bolts not being tribal as already said cannot be ringleadered or matroned and can end up on the bottom of the deck and dead. And if i really wanted removal for removals sake i would splash white for swords to plowshares and use fetchlands into plateaus, as bolts are neither tribal nor do they deal with large creatures.
All in all i prefer tarfire to lightning bolt or swords to plowshares in Goblins.

jrw1985

03-09-2012, 12:23 PM

It's been a good while since I've played, so last night I sleeved up some goblins and headed to the local weekly legacy tourney.

The Decklist

4x Wasteland
3x Rishadan Port
9x Mountain
6x Fetchlands

4x Goblin Lackey
2x Warren Instigator
3x Goblin Chieftain
4x Goblin Matron
4x Goblin Ringleader
3x Gempalm Incinerator
2x Tuktuk Scrapper
2x Siege-gang Commander
1x Stingscourger
2x Goblin Piledriver
1x Mogg Fanatic
3x Goblin Warchief

4x Aether Vial
3x Tarfire

Sideboard

4x Leyline of the Void
2x Blood Moon
4x Mindbreak Trap
2x Chalice of the Void
1x Pyrokinesis
2x Anarchy

R1 - GBr Veteran Explorer
I got both games pretty easily, and a third game for fun since the first 2 were so quick. He was playing an experimental build and trying out some new cards. It turns out Veteran Explorer really helps a deck with 9 basic mountains.
1-0

R2 - GBW (Rock?)
My opponent was fairly new to legacy, didn't use his KotR's optimally, and wasn't playing an optimized decklist. So , yeah I won in 2. The best play was game one when I was on the draw. He led with a fetch, I with a lackey. He fetch up a Savannah, played a swamp, and a Bob. I played a Waste on his dual, Mogg Fanatic'd his Bob, and connected with Lackey. Good T2 that put me wayyyy too far ahead. I did make a misplay by casting a Vial T1 in G2 instead of a T1 Lackey. It was a missplay because he was playing an aggressive deck that missed it's 1-drop T1. That meant he'd either have to play removal or a blocker T2, and I had answers for blockers. Playing the Vial just made me slower, since I obviously Vialed the Lackey in T2. Silly play. You almost always need to favor putting pressure on with Lackeys T1. The only obvious exception is against UW control builds. They have too much removal, so you're usually better off starting with a Vial to ensure you can land threats down the line.
2-0

R3 - UW control
G1 was pretty epic. I attacked him down to 2 life when he landed a Jace and Brainstormed twice a turn for 3 turns in a row to stabilize and started to go ultimate with Jace. At one point he considered giving me a Matron with Jace's fateseal. It was weird because that seems like an auto-bottom. He eventually made the right play and put it on the bottom, which was too bad because I would have loved to Tarfire him off of it.
G2&3 I landed some excellent Ringleaders and overwhelmed him, even though I made a TON of misplays. Either way, I was able to use Wastes and Ports to keep him off W mana. Then the Ringleaders drew me like 3 apiece. Whallop. The most crucial decision I made was to NOT hardcast a Matron T3. I has 2 Aether Vials at 1 counter each, so I just waited 2 turns to Vial my Matron in and Vial in Ringleader the following turn. The fun thing about facing down control decks is that you can do that. There's no clock, and they probably have a counterspell in hand, so you've nothing to lose by waiting it out. It wasn't like he was going to drop a Moat or something in the meantime. Plus, I had a Port out that was slowing his development.
3-0

R4 - Cloudpost
G1 - Cloudpost doesn't really do anything until about turn 4, at which point it just wins. I landed a T1 Lackey and used it to put a bunch of dudes into play T2 and T3. When he hardcast his T4 Kozilek I just bounced it with Stingscourger on my turn, then turned everything sideways for exactsies. Thank you Piledriver.
G2 - I mulled and had a slow Vial start. He got out an Ulamog and that was game.
G3 - I kept a really slow opening 7 with a Vial and Piledriver as my T1/2 plays. Fortunately my opponent mulled to 5 and had no gas, so I actually took it pretty easily. But, had my opponent's 5 been better, I probably would have lost.

All in all, I was very happy with the deck yesterday. My sideboard was kinda useless, but the maindeck was great. Tarfire was fantastic, as was Instigator, as was piledrive, as was Port. I think running a 2/2 split of Piledriver/Winstigator works very nicely. You need the Piledrivers to just end the game at a moment's notice, and you need to use Winstigators to ramp up your early combat pressure. Winstigator is great T2, Piledriver is great T3&4. I don't think either needs to be a 4-of right now.

wert

03-10-2012, 01:30 AM

It really depends what you're playing against. I'm curious where you're bringing the Leiges in. I occasionally run one as a 5th lord against Punishing Maverick...but I often don't want to see a second.

As far as Blood Moon - these usually come in against decks with greedy mana bases. RUG, BUG and to some extent, Maverick are all good matches to side them in for. You don't really want them against fast decks like any sort of combo without some way to speed it out (some people are trying Chrome Mox).

I see a fair amount of combo (unfortunately) and one burn deck makes a pretty regular appearance, so that's why I run Thorns of Amethyst. In your case, it looks like you're relying on Pithing Needle...which is likely better in a wider spread of matches.

I haven't tried out Faerie as they do little against dredge. I like to keep my hate as broad as possible, and a turn 1 Crypt is just as good against reanimator. The singleton Relic is there on the off chance that my opponent is running a Surgical Extraction. Boartusk Liege is the case of liking a card but not finding space for it in the main. I used it against those burn heavy U/R delver decks and it works great against Punishing Maverick as well. Faerie are better than crypt imo, can't be countered, instant, no mana to use. If there is more space, I would use 4.

I had tried to experiment with sideboard and wonder if it is feasible running 4x Chalice of the Void and 4x Thorn of Amethyst. The problem with Chalice is that I have to side vial out. Both together, it gives those Counter/Burn/Combo/Reanimator all sort of inconvenience. The trouble is casting CotV fast enough. Maybe to use them effectively, we have to use Chrome Mox as suggested a few pages back. But I don't like Chrome Mox's card disadvantage and quite hesitant to try it.

Current Sideboard
2x Faerie Macabre
2x Tormod's Crypt
4x Thorn of Amethyst
4x Chalice of the Void
2x Anarchy
1x Goblin Tinker

Not sure it makes more sense that the last one. I want a sideboard that is useful against the broadest spread of decks. Should I somehow put Blood Moon and Pyrokinesis back on?

I am hesitant to further dilute the deck with non-goblins even though this is occasionally true for me too. Remember that we are trying to win primarily through the combat step and off of the card advantage that is Ringleader.I have to point out most of the sideboards are non goblins so if a card is useful enough and with no viable goblin alternatives, it should be given due consideration for the main. I mean no cards should be rejected purely because it is non goblin. I don't want to cut Tarfires in favour of bolts. I am thinking of more bolts on top of 4 tarfires.

I find the best course is usually to kill mom on sight...allowing it to give the rest of their team pro-red at will is much more dangerous than whatever else they can play. Even if they open like that, they're still not hooking up the Jitte and swinging until turn 4, so you've got some time to find an out.

I always hope for Tarfire in my opening hand against Maverick for situations like this.The sad thing is that it is a fairly common Maverick or even some Stoneblade opening. Tarfiring the mom is just damage control, no real answers. The pressure is totally off while I scrabble for an answer. If they pop out a batterskull, we are really screwed. I got that combo a few times, Jitte on a Batterskull.... sobs. I wish I had more removal at hand. Gemplam is too conditional without Mogg War Marshal. It is not something you can use with a Jitte out, so it is kinda of catch 22. For this reason, I am thinking it might be really worth splashing black for Warren Weirding. I think it really helps Goblins to deal with such situations and not to mention Reanimator or some random Emrakul. The trouble is what to cut for them. Black brings the possibility of one of my favourite goblin, Wort, Boggart Auntie. I am surprised that Boggart Mob isn't played at all, it is a game winner and can be used as with goblins with ETB effects. Black would also have some sideboard support like Perish. Anyone has tried a R/b list recently?

On the subject of Pile Driver, it is still a good card. With haste on, it has the surprise win factor. It is cut only to make space to deal with the other threats goblins can't handle. I want to use it but there is just no space for it. Piledriver by itself is not very useful, it needs lots of support and that support would only comes if lackey connects. The way I played it now, is that lackey and WI are mostly removal/counter baits that the opponent has to deal with. So, it leaves them open to vials and chieftains/ringleaders.

I had stated in previous posts, I really like a one of Goblin Sharpshooter, Lightning Crafter, Sparksmith or Spikeshot Elder. I had tried them out and I think Sharpshooter and Lightning Crafter is the best choices overall. Sharpshooter is far stronger than it looks and can totally mess up the combat play. It would punished the unwary and is a killer against some decks. LC is also very strong, if it is vial in, at the very worst it is another matron or ringleader. I am of two minds on Sparksmith, it do a minimum of 1 damage, it is quicker to cast and but usually you want to cast something else at 2cc. Spikeshot however, can't be used, too mana intensive. I think Sharpshooter combos very well with either Sparksmith or LC and can be certainly used together with great effect. LC/Sparksmith + Sharpshooter can clear almost anything in the field but this combo might be too slow to setup.

@jrw1985
You didn't face off any stoneblade? How do feel about the singleton Mogg Fanatic?

jrw1985

03-10-2012, 12:34 PM

@jrw1985
You didn't face off any stoneblade? How do feel about the singleton Mogg Fanatic?

I faced Stoneblade in R3 (I called it UW Control). I almost won G1, but he was able to Brainstorm into a White source and a removal spell, then followed it up with a Brainstorm and a Jace the next turn, then another BS and Jace's BS the following turn. That allowed him to take board control at 2 life and start fatesealing me. I never drew the Tarfire I needed to end it all.

G2 I won off of great ringleaders and a lack of W mana for him. G3 was pretty much the same too. With 4 Wastes and 3 Ports I was able to jank up his manabase. And with Ringleaders drawing me 3 cards on average I was able to pull far ahead. He wasn't drawing his SFMs either, so I didn't have to contend with active Batterskulls G2 or 3.

The single Mogg Fanatic was great. He blew up a Bob R2 and added some beats R4 with Chieftain and Piledriver pumps. I put him in because I didn't want to run more Gempalms and Tarfires. Sometimes you just want a body on the battlefield. At the same time, you don't want too many 1/1's taking up slots of more powerful spells. I just threw the one in because he's useful in plenty of cases and will never be a complete waste, yet at the same time he's not something that's going to be great in multiples. You don't want to 2-1 yourself to kill a SFM. A Fanatic and a Gempalm works better, or just a tarfire. I also run into Dredge a fair amount at my store (hence the Leylines in my SB), so Fanatic adds a little bit of value against them as well.

ScatmanX

03-10-2012, 12:53 PM

I am surprised that Boggart Mob isn't played at all, it is a game winner and can be used as with goblins with ETB effects.
I wanted to try him out just to see if he work as great as I think with Instigator (drop him on 1st strike dmg, and surprise: you double the amount of guys you have. But it may be just too cute.

If I were to splash B again, the main reason would be Earwig Squad. Ripping 3 cards, + having a 5/3 for 2B is awesome.
Against UW you can take Batter, Jitte and a Jace. There. you won.
Against Maverick you can take equipaments. If you have answers for those already, go for 3 Knights.
Against RUG just take 3 Goyfs and you should win.
Also, if people star boarding things like COP:Red and the like, well, he's black.

He's a machine. Maybe I'll go back to test him...

wert

03-10-2012, 01:18 PM

markbris

03-10-2012, 02:32 PM

I've gotten back into magic in the last few weeks and have started testing goblins again and went with a chieftain build since thats what people were liking. I have to say that I haven't been thrilled with Chieftains at all, its a small sample size I'm sure but the +1/+1 just doesn't seem to be great.

I feel like the problem is that in most matches, if you get out a bunch of dudes then you're probably going to win regardless but without warchief the deck feels alot clunkier/slower to me. Even with 4 instigator/4 lackey unless they connect you can't really explode like you used to be able to with warchief/vial or just warchiefs.

I'm going to do plenty more testing though as well with black builds for weirding/perish.

ScatmanX

03-10-2012, 02:36 PM

markbris

03-10-2012, 02:56 PM

wert

03-10-2012, 03:27 PM

Am I the only that think that Mom + Stoneforge is totally manageble?
I mean. The play Stone, you play a 1 and a 2 drop. The save mana tu vial Jitte, you cast Matron into Tuktuk. They hit once, you use Tuktuk. You just have to have 4 mana or a Vial.
And dealing with mom (one of them. 2 is a bitch) is not that tough. Tarfire/Gempalm something eot, kill it again next turn. Stingscourger helps a lot too, epecially if you don't have to pay mana due to Vial.

@Deadguy: It loses to ringleader. Just play it safe. I think we're favorable.With a decent draw, we can handle the first equipment fine. When their opening have a 2nd piece of equipment, it is rough.

DeadGuy is rough because they do the same opening with Mums --> SFM --> Hymm or targeted discard. They could steal away tuktuk or matron or ringleader. They do have alot of discards and nasty flying faeries or Nighthawk to carry equipment. It could possibly be worse than counters. Definitely not favourable at least, maybe we can work something out postboard.

ScatmanX

03-11-2012, 04:23 PM

Anyone seing the 5th round at SCG?
Players like that (the goblins player) are the reason think the deck is bad...
And he won game 1!
Lets see what happens now...

liamb

03-11-2012, 04:56 PM

Anyone seing the 5th round at SCG?
Players like that (the goblins player) are the reason think the deck is bad...
And he won game 1!
Lets see what happens now...

he was simply bad. he deserves the loss.

Davran

03-12-2012, 09:58 AM

Am I the only that think that Mom + Stoneforge is totally manageble?
I mean. The play Stone, you play a 1 and a 2 drop. The save mana tu vial Jitte, you cast Matron into Tuktuk. They hit once, you use Tuktuk. You just have to have 4 mana or a Vial.
And dealing with mom (one of them. 2 is a bitch) is not that tough. Tarfire/Gempalm something eot, kill it again next turn. Stingscourger helps a lot too, epecially if you don't have to pay mana due to Vial.

I find it manageable too, especially if they go for Batterskull first. You know they're not going to block with the Mystic (unless they hit it with Mom), so use that knowledge to your advantage and attack/use removal accordingly. If they do manage to cheat the Batterskull in, you've got time to Matron for a TukTuk. Hell, one hit off of it isn't really a big deal either. Plus, most lists run the 'skull as a 1-of, so blow it up and you're done.

If they go for Jitte first, they still need the same number of turns to get it active. Again, you have to assume they're not going to block with the Mystic (so they have something to carry the Jitte), so attack/use removal accordingly.

I treat the Mystic --> Equipment play the same way I treat a resolved Dark Confidant. You know it isn't blocking, so do what you came there to do and turn some goblins sideways.

If you're really stuck, run some number of Anarchy in your sideboard. Mom can't do a damn thing about that.

chuck2657

03-12-2012, 11:33 AM

I find it manageable too, especially if they go for Batterskull first. You know they're not going to block with the Mystic (unless they hit it with Mom), so use that knowledge to your advantage and attack/use removal accordingly. If they do manage to cheat the Batterskull in, you've got time to Matron for a TukTuk. Hell, one hit off of it isn't really a big deal either. Plus, most lists run the 'skull as a 1-of, so blow it up and you're done.

If they go for Jitte first, they still need the same number of turns to get it active. Again, you have to assume they're not going to block with the Mystic (so they have something to carry the Jitte), so attack/use removal accordingly.

I treat the Mystic --> Equipment play the same way I treat a resolved Dark Confidant. You know it isn't blocking, so do what you came there to do and turn some goblins sideways.

If you're really stuck, run some number of Anarchy in your sideboard. Mom can't do a damn thing about that.

I have found that resolved batterskulls aren't an issue versus blade-control, but the line of play of Mom + mystic can be a tough opener to deal with from maverick. The problem does not resolve in beating the two card combination, but rather, what happens in subsequent turns.

You can deal with a mom past the first turn, but you're going to generally need (as stated before) two sources of removal to do it. Occasionally, you can get them to block your instigator with a mom and tarfire/gempalm it in response, but often two forms of removal are required. In many MUs this isn't a problem, but against maverick, you're often assaulted with knights, oozes and goyfs in the subsequent turns. Gempalms and stingscourgers that are used to 2:1 a mom are sorely missed when faced with maverick's larger threats. So yes, dealing with that opening is completely doable. But what makes the opening dangerous is not a two-card combo of mom + stoneforge, but lacking removal if the maverick transitions to turn 3-5 must-deal-with threats.

It is also worth noting that the opener is relative, and greatly depends who is on the play, and who is on the draw. If you're playing the mox version and are on the play, t1 MOM and t2 stoneforge doesn't compete with your better openings. T1 instigator/t2 chieftain (with a ringleader or a siege-gang in hand) on the play is an opening that forces the maverick player to answer with removal or lose. And even in the non-mox versions, a t1 swords is a better play for a stoneforge if he/she is on the draw. A turn 1-lackey followed up by gempalm/tarfire/stingscourger can quickly break the game open.

chuck2657

03-12-2012, 11:42 AM

I think Goblins just can't deal with Mother of Runes + StoneForge Mystic into Batter and Jitte. It is a combo that would very tough to break. I can deal with 1 equip, 2 equip is maybe a bit rough. If they have the 3rd, forgot it. :D

I just played a couple of Deadguy Ale and discovered they are even worse matchups because have discards on top of the above. I don't have much to bring against them postboard too. *sobs* The thing is that up to 30-35% of the decks has SFM and almost all of them comes with Jitte or Batterskull. A good number has both or more.

I want to re examine why Chieftains not WarChefs? Basically, Chieftains don't really help when removal is concerned but they can help damage-wise. Warchef helps with speed and maybe 1 turn faster. Shouldn't we play both of them? 2/2?

I've been running 2-3 war chiefs in many builds (and often keep 1 as a search target), but I would rather run 7-8 chieftains. Warchief does not affect vial, tarfire, and instigator (outside of giving him haste...which chieftain does and gives him +1/+1). It makes MWM and siege-gang cheaper, but I'd typically would rather have 2/2 tokens instead of a CC cheaper to cast. Neither affect gempalm directly. Matrons and ringleaders are the two targets war chief helps, but you're also getting less pressure out of them (1/1 and 2/2 versus 2/2 and 3/3). To get proper mileage out of war chief, you almost have to go back to the old build. It certainly has benefits, but against the current meta, I prefer the instigator/chieftain version.

orcanmail

03-12-2012, 01:25 PM

Warchiefs worked because with wastelands and rishadan ports locking opponents mana, and vials ticking up, warchiefs allowed for mana control as we needed less to cast our own goblins. the whole idea was tempo, slow them down, and get ringleaders.
However the opponents seemed to have sped up over the years and i don't see rishadan ports slowing them down enough to warrant the tempo warchief route being as effective anymore. So I fully agree chieftains add more pressure by giving all goblins +1 +1 and still importantly haste for alpha strikes from piledrivers.
I still see piledriver / instigator as a seperate debate to warchief / chieftain.

On another note after mogg fanatic was nerfed we always struggled for enough removal. Tarfires have filled this spot, and now with gempalms and stingscourgers for large creatures i believe the speed and balance of the deck is back. However amongst all this MWM is in my opinion still important for the synergy of holding cards together.

I recently beat maverick with the help of pyrokenisis from the board and it was a delight to see his smirk disappear when i matroned for a tarfire to finish him off! Throw in red blasts and graveyard hate and artifact hate goblins then Goblins are a real threat.
As for ANT decks I have tried Fireblast as a surprise as burn hurts them. Has anyone else tried this card? Is Fireblast worth playing in the SB?

Davran

03-12-2012, 01:43 PM

I want to re examine why Chieftains not WarChefs? Basically, Chieftains don't really help when removal is concerned but they can help damage-wise. Warchef helps with speed and maybe 1 turn faster. Shouldn't we play both of them? 2/2?

What you need to consider is what type of list you want to play.

If you want to take the mana-denial "control" route (i.e. with Wasteland AND Port), Warchief is your man. He maximizes the amount of mana you have available to spend controlling your opponent's mana base while still allowing you to deploy creatures.

If you want to take the aggressive "must answer" threats approach (i.e. with WInstigator), Chieftain is your man. He makes your Instigators big enough to trade with a small Goyf or Batterskull germ and also allows you to push through some extra damage when something connects.

I'm honestly not sure about the viability of some sort of hybrid list that combines those two game plans. Whether or not you choose Warchief or Chieftain should be based on two factors:

1. The amount of colorless mana in the casting cost of your goblins (remember that Warchief has no effect on red mana symbols)

2. The amount of mana you expect to have available for casting goblins each turn.

In my experience, the +1/+1 and haste from a Chieftain has been much more relevant than -1 colorless and haste from a Warchief. Then again, I am playing a list with very little in terms of colorless mana requirements.

I am however planning on finding room for a Mogg War-marshal or two in my list...I've been losing to far to many Gofys lately. I'll post some results when I have them.

Avatara

03-13-2012, 11:36 AM

What do you guys think about the 4 Engineered Plagues in the board of Timothy Tyler Thomason's list who placed top 8 at the last SCG? Here's what he said about it:

Engineered Plague is a bomb against decks like Elves, and is even good against Maverick by picking off Noble Hierarchs and Mother of Runes when set to Human

wert

03-13-2012, 12:59 PM

I have found that resolved batterskulls aren't an issue versus blade-control, but the line of play of Mom + mystic can be a tough opener to deal with from maverick. The problem does not resolve in beating the two card combination, but rather, what happens in subsequent turns.
*snip*
Yes, that is exactly what I had experienced. After I got rid of the Mum + SFM, I find myself often short of ammo to deal with what comes next. Also I wouldn't have much of a board presence. I also think MWM is important to the setup as he can hold up the numbers especially with chieftains in play. But I don't seem to be able to find space for 2-3 of them let alone 4 and the fact they complete with WI at 2cc. I think if I run them, I should run at least 2.

Warchiefs worked because with wastelands and rishadan ports locking opponents mana, and vials ticking up, warchiefs allowed for mana control as we needed less to cast our own goblins. the whole idea was tempo, slow them down, and get ringleaders.
However the opponents seemed to have sped up over the years and i don't see rishadan ports slowing them down enough to warrant the tempo warchief route being as effective anymore. So I fully agree chieftains add more pressure by giving all goblins +1 +1 and still importantly haste for alpha strikes from piledrivers.
I still see piledriver / instigator as a seperate debate to warchief / chieftain.

On another note after mogg fanatic was nerfed we always struggled for enough removal. Tarfires have filled this spot, and now with gempalms and stingscourgers for large creatures i believe the speed and balance of the deck is back. However amongst all this MWM is in my opinion still important for the synergy of holding cards together.

I recently beat maverick with the help of pyrokenisis from the board and it was a delight to see his smirk disappear when i matroned for a tarfire to finish him off! Throw in red blasts and graveyard hate and artifact hate goblins then Goblins are a real threat.
As for ANT decks I have tried Fireblast as a surprise as burn hurts them. Has anyone else tried this card? Is Fireblast worth playing in the SB?
I think you are totally right about the rishadan ports with warchief. No wonder I feel Warchief seems to lose his shine as I had cut out ports totally. To be effective, I should run both or none. I also think the deck lacks removal, but there isn't much effective ones in red goblin shape. I had tried mogg fanatic, surprisingly effective but I got a feeling that slot can go to a better card.

What you need to consider is what type of list you want to play.

If you want to take the mana-denial "control" route (i.e. with Wasteland AND Port), Warchief is your man. He maximizes the amount of mana you have available to spend controlling your opponent's mana base while still allowing you to deploy creatures.

If you want to take the aggressive "must answer" threats approach (i.e. with WInstigator), Chieftain is your man. He makes your Instigators big enough to trade with a small Goyf or Batterskull germ and also allows you to push through some extra damage when something connects.

I'm honestly not sure about the viability of some sort of hybrid list that combines those two game plans. Whether or not you choose Warchief or Chieftain should be based on two factors:

1. The amount of colorless mana in the casting cost of your goblins (remember that Warchief has no effect on red mana symbols)

2. The amount of mana you expect to have available for casting goblins each turn.

In my experience, the +1/+1 and haste from a Chieftain has been much more relevant than -1 colorless and haste from a Warchief. Then again, I am playing a list with very little in terms of colorless mana requirements.

I am however planning on finding room for a Mogg War-marshal or two in my list...I've been losing to far to many Gofys lately. I'll post some results when I have them.
QFT. Very useful observations. I tried the 2/2 mix of Chieftain/Warchief, it make any or much improvement. I am considering dropping some of the "cuter" goblins for some of the more basic ones like MVM. I am hanging on very tightly to Sharpshooter because it can throw the whole combat phrase upside down and is a killer with some decks on his own too. Tokens? Hahaha I think maybe he really has to make way so the deck on the whole flow more smoothly.

Furthermore, I think many a times I didn't adapt my play well enough to the new decklist. Thanks everyone for sharing your insights, it helps me out alot.

Davran

03-13-2012, 01:09 PM

What do you guys think about the 4 Engineered Plagues in the board of Timothy Tyler Thomason's list who placed top 8 at the last SCG?

There's no question that E. Plague is good against elves, so let's consider the assumption that it is also good against Maverick.

The two cards that will be immediately answered by resolving a plague set to "human" are Noble Hierarch and Mother of Runes. Of the two, Mother of Ruins is the only card that is still relevant on turn 3, which is the earliest a typical R/B list could resolve a Plague. There is also a small benefit in terms of shrinking Knights of the Reliquary, but they are usually large enough for this benefit to be irrelevant. Further, Maverick lists tend to run some number of Quasali Pridemage, which they can easily find with Green Sun's Zenith once you spill the proverbial beans on your "tech".

So, it seems that Plague is only marginally useful against Maverick.

What other potential matchups could it be useful in? Certainly not the mirror, as you would also kill your own team. Dredge tends to make a large number of zombies, but even the "slower" LED-less lists regularly "combo" by turn 3, so Plague seems slow. Further, one Plague doesn't outright kill the Zombies...and there would be little time to stick a second. We don't need much help against Fish, U/W Blade is unaffected...you get the idea.

It seems that Engineered Plague as sideboard tech is not all that wise of a choice. Maverick and Elves are equally hampered by a well timed Perish, which is cast the same turn as a Plague and also has an added benefit of killing Goyf and Knight of the Reliquary, two creatures goblins traditionally has problems with that are unaffected by Plague.

For mono-red lists, I find that Pyrokinesis is useful out of the board against elves and maverick. Further, it gives us more options as to what we want to kill.

jrw1985

03-13-2012, 01:24 PM

What do you guys think about the 4 Engineered Plagues in the board of Timothy Tyler Thomason's list who placed top 8 at the last SCG? Here's what he said about it:

Eh. It's slow. Pyrokinesis and Sharpshooter are better against the field (and elves). You weaken your manabase by splashing B for it. It's too slow/underpowered to stop dredge. The only tribal decks being played right now are Elves and Goblins. Did I mention it sucks in the mirror? Unless you're trying to deck them...
But it does kill Mom, Snapcater, lavamancer, Delver, Noble Heirarch, and a couple other randoms. It would be awesome if all these cards were in a single "Human" deck and you could really use Plague to cripple it. Unfortunately all these creatures are supported by Goyfs, SFMs, KoTRs, etc. . So, in any game NOT against Elves, it essentially becomes a 1-1 that isn't very flexible, is slow, and makes your deck less explosive. I can't think of any games I've played recently where a resolved E Plague would have won for me.

ScatmanX

03-13-2012, 02:26 PM

E. Plague has been discussed here before. It was brought up by someone, and GobboLord made some lists with Ancient Tombs to try to maximize it.
It was set as a good card, but that did not warrant sb space. Knesis and Shooter do a better job.

But if you use it, please, against Dredge, 1st name Illusion (narcomoeba), then Horror (Ichorid). Zombie is the last thing...

Davran

03-16-2012, 10:37 AM

Played a small local tournament last night using the following list:

4x Wasteland
18x Mountain

4x Goblin Lackey
4x Warren Instigator
4x Goblin Matron
4x Goblin Chieftain
4x Goblin Ringleader
2x Siege-gang Commander
3x Gempalm Incinerator
2x Stingscourger
2x TukTuk Scrapper
1x KikiJiki, Mirror Breaker

4x Aether Vial
4x Tarfire

Sideboard:

1x Goblin Sharpshooter
1x Goblin Tinkerer
4x Thorn of Amethyst
3x Blood Moon
2x Tormod's Crypt
1x Relic of Progenitus
2x Pyrokinesis
1x Mogg War Marshal

It was a night of horrible misplays on my part...but here's a short report anyway.

Round 1 vs. Hive Mind:

Game 1: I win the die roll and lay on some early beats, getting him to around 8 before he is able to go off. I held a Stingscourger in hand to play off Show and Tell, but he has Hive Mind instead of Emrakul, so we're off to game 2.

Sideboarding: - 4x Tarfire, +4x Thorn of Amethyst

Game 2: I mulligan to six, keeping Lackey, Ringleader, Thorn and a couple lands. I draw WInstigator turn 1, mountain turn 2, and a second Thorn turn 3. I'm able to keep him off of the combo with a well-timed Wasteland and a resolved Thorn (the 2nd gets countered)...right up until my first punt of the night. My opponent finally draws into a City of Traitors when he is at about 6 life, and I pass the turn with a Wasteland up. he has just enough to Show and Tell + Pact through the Thorn, and it's over. A pretty disappointing loss, but sometimes we make mistakes.

Round 2 vs. Some Random Deck:

It's obvious that my opponent is pretty new to Magic in general, and I feel bad for running him over. Props to him for playing well in the face of a tuned deck.

Round 3 vs. Team America:

Game 1: I keep a pretty aggressive hand with 2x Winstigator, Vial, Mountain, Wasteland, Matron and some other goblin I can't remember. My opponent hits me with a Turn 2 Thoughtseize, taking one of the Winstigators. The first connects, but my opponent uses a Stifle on one of the triggers, netting me only the Matron for my trouble. I fetch out a Chieftain, and after a couple more goblin draws we're off to game 2.

Sideboarding: - 2x TukTuk Scrapper, - 2x Warren Instigator, + 3x Blood Moon, +1x Mogg War Marshal

Game 2: I mulligan to 6, keeping a mediocre hand with Blood Moon, Lackey, Mountain, Ringleader, Warren Instigator and a Matron. Lacky meets a Daze, and my opponent follows up with a Dark Confidant. I draw a mountain, cast Insitgator into a Force of Will, and pass the turn. Confidant does his thing, and my opponent passes the turn. I cast Matron, grab a Tarfire, and pass. My Tarfire meets another Force, and my opponent eats his graveyard for a Tombstalker. Ringleader doesn't find me anything useful and I'm dead a couple of combat steps later.

Game 3: I again mulligan to 6, and again find myself with a mediocre hand I can't really justify throwing back. My opponent has turn 1 Delver, turn 2 Thoughtsieze and a Snuff Out for my Chieftain. Tombstalker and Goyf make an appearance the following turn, and I have no way of catching up. I don't see a single Tarfire or Stingscourger, and he correctly counters my Matron.

Round 4 vs. U/W Stoneblade:

Game 1: I keep a hand with 2x Lackey, 1x Vial, 2x Mountain and 1x TukTuk Scrapper. My Vial resolves. Turn 2 I draw a third Lackey and cast the first two. He has Swords for one of them, lays a Factory and passes. I vial in the third Lackey EoT, drawing a Chieftain. I get him to about 8 life before he is able to stabilize with a Snapcaster Mage and another Swords. Vial ticks up to 5, and 2 turns later I draw KikiJiki. He has no answer, and I win a couple of turns later.

As an aside - Kiki-Jiki was pretty crazy here. When I cast him I had a Scrapper on Board, so I was able to eat his Factory when he activated it to block. I also could have copied a Ringleader at will or a Siege-gang Commander the following turn.

Sideboarding: - 2x Warren Instigator, - 2x Stingscourger, + 3x Blood Moon, +1x Tinkerer

Game 2: My turn 1 vial meets a Force of Will, and my opponent runs me over with countermagic and a Batterskull. I wasn't able to find a Tarfire in time, and he had the counter for my last-ditch Scrapper.

Sideboarding: No change.

Game 3: If you can imagine an aggressive draw out of U/W, my opponent had it. He leads off with double Stoneforge, fetching 2 Batterskulls. Turn 4 he sticks a Vendlion Clique, and I'm fearing for the Scrapper in my hand. Instead, he targets himself, bottoms his only card and rips a Brainstorm from the top. Brainstorm nets him a Jitte, and I'm seeing the writing on the wall. My Scrapper resolves, and I make my 2nd mistake of the night. He hits with the Clique + Jitte, then uses the counters to kill my Scrapper. I should have cycled the Gempalm in my hand in response to kill the clique, but I don't. In the end it didn't matter, he still had 2x Mystic, Jitte and 30 life to my empty board, but it was still a mistake.

In hindsight, I probably should have kept Stingscourger in for this match-up and cut the other two Instigators. I needed to maximize my outs for Germ tokens since the deck really has no clock otherwise.

In all, the deck performed well while I did not. On the other hand, my sideboard seems like it needs some work...particularly for the Team America and U/W matches. Blood Moon is great against them...but I have yet to actually resolve one. Further, it's absolutely terrible to be staring down a Tombstalker or Batterskull with a Blood Moon in hand. In many situations it's just plain dead.

I have mixed feelings about Kiki-Jiki. There are a ton of interactions with him, but sometimes it's the absolute last thing I want to draw. I'll continue to test it though - he did outright win me the one game where I was able to resolve it.

I also have mixed feelings about Gempalm. Sometimes it's exactly what I want. In others, it just sits in my hand because I don't have enough goblins in play to make it useful. It's a nice trick, but 3 might be too many. The trouble is, I'm not sure what I would run in its place as removal seems pretty necessary right now.

chuck2657

03-16-2012, 11:40 AM

Davran

03-16-2012, 01:15 PM

Concerning Hive mind...I wouldn't sweat it too much. Even when I was running R/B with 4 pyros and 4 cabals I got destroyed if the pilot was decent. You tend to not have a chance at all game 1. Game 2/3 are also pretty terrible, as you have to keep mana open to blast (or bluff a blast). They'll cantrip until they have 2-3 counters and then go off. Stingscourger is good in theory, but typically they will have enough time to sculpt a hand to win via pacts.

The pilot is a good friend of mine so I've played the match a bunch. Not using Wasteland on the City absolutely cost me game 2, it was a pretty colossal punt. No telling how game 3 would have gone, but it's still helpful to acknowledge mistakes and learn from them.

In general I find the match-up to be abysmal like most other combo matches...but Thorn is a pretty good thing to resolve against them. I even debated holding it until he cast Show and Tell to play around counter magic, but when I drew a second copy I decided to go for it. It's pretty satisfying to watch them pay 2 for a Brainstorm before shipping the turn.

I'm not sure I would board in the blood moons against UW. They tend to run a decent amount of basics, and are likely to already be playing around wastelands. It keeps them off wrath and elspeth (which can be nice...especially wrath), but that is still likely to be 2-3 cards in their deck. It also stops factory (and riptide if they run it), but is unlikely to keep them off jace/CS/clique unless you hit the blood moon early. Also, many lists are running vanilla counterspell, which means they will be hitting two islands early on.

Our local pilot actually runs Mana Leak as I discovered last night. For the most part they are equally effective against us, but I suspect he will regret them at some point in his legacy career. In all, I agree that siding Blood Moon in here is probably a mistake.

Instigators are also a rough call. Most UW lists run 3-4 spell snare. Winstigator and MWM (which you just ran one in the side) are the only two drops. If the UW sides out the snares (which I would suspect) then I think the Winstigators are needed. If the spell snares stay in, then boarding out your 4 2 drops means he will have 3-4 dead cards.

This sums up my thinking pretty well. This particular player seems to keep the Snares in vs. goblins, so the 2 drops are the first things I look to cut. The trouble is that a resolved Instigator puts them on a pretty serious clock since often they really have none of their own. In hindsight, I should have left the Stingscourgers in and taken the other two Instigators out.

I've seen some others running Pithing Needle in place of Blood Moon and it's something I want to try out once I can get my hands on some more copies. Needle seems much more useful in this match-up.

I wouldn't be too discouraged because of batterskull, you can still win games through it.

I actually like it when they go for Batterskull since it leaves me with the greatest number of potential answers. Plus, if I can get rid of the Mystic somehow the thing tends to get stuck in their hand forever.

U/W is just one of those decks that rolls over to some well-timed hate...but it also punishes your sub-optimal draws or play errors pretty heavily. It's frustrating to watch your opponent blunder their way into the win on the back of a pile of counter magic and 15 turns worth of draw-go before they find some sort of threat.

ScatmanX

03-16-2012, 02:31 PM

@Devran: swwt list 60card mirror from mine today =].

In my testing, Instigators should come out on the Draw against UW if you have something great to put in it's place. If you don't, keep them.
On the Play, always side them in again. They're must answer threats, and they trade with Stoneforge if it's their only out. Then something like 1 gempalm, 1 Chieftain, 1 something else could go to the SB.

And do not remove Stingscourger. He just buys the tempo you need to win the game, or the disruption + Dmg you lack. Bouncing germ tokens it's just great, and 2 seems like the number for me, because each one should buy you 2 turns (bounce+replay him), which is enough to win the game.

Keep rocking that list!

Davran

03-16-2012, 02:37 PM

@Scatman:

Thanks for the encouragement and the list. Your last report inspired me to try out Kiki-Jiki and I was not disappointed. I'm pretty happy with the main deck, now I just need to mess with the sideboard some more.

wert

03-16-2012, 04:00 PM

I actually like it when they go for Batterskull since it leaves me with the greatest number of potential answers. Plus, if I can get rid of the Mystic somehow the thing tends to get stuck in their hand forever.

U/W is just one of those decks that rolls over to some well-timed hate...but it also punishes your sub-optimal draws or play errors pretty heavily. It's frustrating to watch your opponent blunder their way into the win on the back of a pile of counter magic and 15 turns worth of draw-go before they find some sort of threat.Totally agreed. I would take Batterskull any day rather than a Jitte. I am more afraid of a Mother of Runes + Jitte.

The planeswalkers are problematic too, a top deck elspeth or Jace can turn the tide in their favour.

I usually sided out 2 Instigators against UW, but again I am not sure it is the best call. Stingscourger is needed against them, or else a resolved batter would stop all offensive.

Blood Moon is a sideboard card I feel I had not been playing right. I used to side it in against UW Stoneblade too, but they usually have the minimum number of basics to operate and for their control nature, slowing things down isn't quite as bad for them. Now I used them only against maverick and those tempo based decks. The problem is that those very tempo decks are so fast that sometimes by the time Blood moon comes down, the damage is done.

I love the Kiki-Jiki and Sharpshooter main deck, if the opponent let you run free with them, both of them can win you games straight of the bat. However, sometimes I feel they are "luxury" goblins, something that is a bonus. I am experimenting with cutting them out for something more basic like MVM. I am going in this direction because I feel removal is lacking. Sometimes, I have Gemplams but not enough goblin count and it is very frustrating. I hope that would make better use of Gemplams as they are uncounterable good CA card.

jrw1985

03-16-2012, 04:25 PM

I've been reading the tournament reports from GP Indianapolis and not a single Goblin deck has appeared anywhere. It looks like just about everyone played RUG, UW, Maverick, TES, Spiral Tide, Lands, or Dredge. I'm interested to see some stats on how many of which decks were played, cuz it seemed to be a more homogenous field than usual. And I know those are all the "good decks", but it still seems like a deck like Goblins could have done some serious damage.

Did anyone out there play Goblins at the GP?

wert

03-16-2012, 05:13 PM

Decks that made day 2 @GP Indianapolis

UW Stone Blade – 22
GW Stone Blade – 22
Canadian Threshold – 15
High Tide – 9
Dredge – 9
Bant Stone Blade – 8
Ad Nauseum Tendrils – 5
Belcher – 5
Esper Stone Blade – 5
Reanimator – 4
Red Deck Wins – 4
UR Delver – 4
Zoo – 4
Elves – 3
Hive Mind – 3
43 Lands – 2
BUG Control – 2
RUG No Threshold – 2
Show and Tell – 2
Sneak and Tell – 2
Team America – 2
Tezzeret Affinity – 2
Thopter Sword – 2
White Weenie Stone Blade – 2
Affinity – 1
Aggro Loam – 1
Budget Bant – 1
BW Tokens – 1
Dark Aggro Loam – 1
Dream Halls – 1
Enchantress – 1
Goblins – 1
GW Stone Blade w/ Punishing Fire – 1
Merfolk – 1
Monoblack Control – 1
Naya Fire Control – 1
Painted Stone – 1
The Rock – 1
StifleNaut – 1
Tezzeret Thopter Sword – 1
UB Delver – 1

So, Just 1 goblin survived the cut.

jrw1985

03-16-2012, 08:32 PM

I want to shake that guy's hand.

Avatara

03-16-2012, 11:48 PM

UW Stone Blade – 22
GW Stone Blade – 22
Canadian Threshold – 15
High Tide – 9
Dredge – 9
Bant Stone Blade – 8
Ad Nauseum Tendrils – 5
Belcher – 5
Esper Stone Blade – 5

Is it just me or is Stoneforge Mystic simply more dominant/broken than Vengevine ever was!?

Davran

03-17-2012, 07:49 AM

Is it just me or is Stoneforge Mystic simply more dominant/broken than Vengevine ever was!?

It was bound to happen...you've essentially got a Demonic Tutor in white that also happens to let you dodge counter magic with whatever it is you just tutored up.

That said, while Mystic is pretty prevalent, it's not all that hard to deal with. In our case we're answering it with a fancy Shock...so I can't imagine blue decks are having any problems. Let's be honest...Mystic searching out Batterskull is pretty linear and very predictable. The problem is that Snapcaster Mage is pushing those decks over the top, which is why we're seeing so much U/W/x played right now.

Vengevine on the other hand dodges all of that because you actually want it in your graveyard. As a 4/3 with haste it's not all that spectacular, which is why we're seeing zero of them played now that Survival is banned.

jrw1985

03-17-2012, 12:06 PM

Is it just me or is Stoneforge Mystic simply more dominant/broken than Vengevine ever was!?

I think the difference in perception comes from the way that Stoneforge has slowly ramped up in power and popularity, while Survival kinda took the whole format over after one GP and a few SCG 5Ks.

Also, you didn't go through the whole Day 2 list. There were like another half-dozen SFM decks you missed. :wink:

Anywho, SFM is ridiculously overpowered. I don't think it would be banned though, just because resolving it doesn't guarantee a win (unlike, say, Survival).

Mantis

03-18-2012, 07:54 AM

While I don't think Batterskull and Jitte are impossible to beat, they sure do complicate things for me. If I lose to StoneBlade or Maverick it's generally due to these equipments. My idea is to sideboard 4 copies of Tower of the Magistrate and board them in for the Wastelands when facing a deck with Stoneforge Mystic. What do you guys think about this? Is losing Wasteland against these archetypes a big deal at all?

wert

03-18-2012, 03:23 PM

Timothy Thomason
7th place at a StarCity Dallas, 2012-03-11

//Artifacts
4 Aether Vial
//Creatures
3 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Goblin Warchief
3 Mogg War Marshal
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Stingscourger
//Tribal Sorceries
3 Warren Weirding
//Basic Lands
4 Mountain
//Lands
4 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
3 Wooded Foothills
//Sideboard:
1 Tormod's Crypt
4 Engineered Plague
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Chaos Warp
4 Cabal Therapy

He is still staying with Warchiefs and pile drivers, skipping out Instigators totally. Still running mana denial with Rishadan Ports.

No Tarfire either but at least he has Warren Weirding. Looks outdated, only thing interesting is Cabal Therapy.

His interview (http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/deck_tech_goblins_with_timothy.html)
His featured match (http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/round_6_timothy_thomason_vs_ja.html)....which he lost :P
Quaterfinals (http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/quarterfinals_timothy_thomason.html)....and again.

Too be fair, combo is not a good match up at all.

ScatmanX

03-18-2012, 10:48 PM

Goblins top4 on SCGO!
Sweet, and the list is actually nice.
Just don't know why he didn't killed his top8 opponent 1 turn before he did, but thats fine.
He featured Round4 to.

Steamflogger

03-18-2012, 10:58 PM

Woopwoop! I'm also still watching.
True, I think he was just a bit afraid of swords or countermagic. I'm curious how he'll do in the first game and right now he is mulling. Let's see let's see. The thing I'll definitely take from his games is that Kiki is a pimp.

NecroYawgmoth

03-18-2012, 11:01 PM

...and he mulls to 2 in game 1 against combo... WTF

ScatmanX

03-18-2012, 11:11 PM

...and he mulls to 2 in game 1 against combo... WTF
I just can't stand those commentators speaking all that crap.
I mean, grab a Ringleader from Matron?
C'mon!!!
(I'd probably take Chieftain, to make Nauseam worse, but Instigator is fine)

Steamflogger

03-19-2012, 12:02 AM

Hmm.. very eager mulls. It would have been great to know which hands he put down.

ScatmanX

03-19-2012, 12:07 AM

Hmm.. very eager mulls. It would have been great to know which hands he put down.
Nice to note that Faerie Macabre would have won the 3rd math, while Relic did nothing...

Either way, congrats to the guy.

fimo

03-19-2012, 10:23 AM

glad to see that there are some goblins are performing well!

guys, I have a kinda of blasphemous question... has anybody tried to put in a goblin list a few of those ridiculous non goblin cards? I m referring to unfair things like tarmogoyf/stoneforge...
I m not saying that s actually a good idea, never playtested it myself, but I m curious to hear if anybody has actually had something out of it. Especially stoneforge... I mean we play 1-2 MD artifact hate + 1-2 SB artifact hate only because we fear of what comes out of the opponent's stoneforge... around 4 anti-equippment in the 75 cards. In my experience batterskull is totally doable but jitte creates some problems both because comes out early and because it puts you far behind in board position once it gets counters on. Also, against maverick it doesn t really matter if you tarfire stoneforge because they have plenty of dudes to equip and it is relativelly cheap. However, jitte is legendary...Playing jitte means having an equipment hate + a very strong weapon against non stoneforge decks for which our goblin equipment hate (tuktuk/TSH) would be dead anyway.
I would keep a single tuktuk/TSH no matter what in the 75 cards but after all a couple of stoneforge and 1-2 equipment (of which at least 1 jitte) MAY do something fun. They are good both in the opening hand and as top decks.
Would ringleader become so bad? we are talking about 4 cards after all and I usually don t side ringleaders out when I side 4 cards.

jrw1985

03-19-2012, 10:29 AM

Brett Parise's Goblin Deck

Maindeck:

Artifacts
4 Aether Vial

Creatures
3 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
2 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
2 Mogg War Marshal
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Stingscourger
2 Tuktuk Scrapper
2 Warren Instigator

Instants
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Pyrokinesis

Legendary Creatures
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

Basic Lands
16 Mountain

Lands
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Zuran Orb
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Pyroblast
1 Pyrokinesis
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Anarchy
1 Shattering Spree

4th Place!

If anyone was watching the coverage, Brett was featured a couple times and played the deck very well, in my opinion. He used Kiki-Jiki like a madman, and I think I might have to make a cut or two to get a copy of Kiki and Sharpshooter into my deck again (especially Sharpshooter since that silly spirit token flashback spell is gaining in popularity).

I'm not a huge fan of the 20 lands build. I've always found 22 to be more my speed, but then I use Port too, so my builds are a little more mana hungry. The Zuran Orb in the sb seems like too large of a concession to the Burn MU, but if Brett is on the Source I'd be interested to hear from him how they worked out. I also think that if yuo're going to run 4 pieces of GY hate just go for broke and play Leylines. Then again, I just hate spending mana on non-goblin spells. Brett did use Surgical Extaction very well Game 2 against Storm, but the low land count seemed to catch up to him Games 1 and 3 as he mulled into oblivion in both. Still, I liked his G1 mull to 2, because he knew his opponent was on Storm and was probably trying to mull to an explosive Lackey start, which was the only chance he has to win anyway.

Anywho, congrats to him. Goblins seems to have found a home in the Top-8.

Ace/Homebrew

03-19-2012, 10:59 AM

has anybody tried to put in a goblin list a few of those ridiculous non goblin cards?

YOU should try it and let us know!
I know Jitte was considered too slow when the Warchief list was used. Spending a turn playing and equipping instead of filling the board with 2 or 3 more goblins wasn't considered good enough. But times have changed!

orcanmail

03-19-2012, 12:43 PM

and with changed meta is goblin pyromancer now worth a slot anywhere? a surprise weapon or too slow and risky?

Ace/Homebrew

03-19-2012, 01:58 PM

That actually sounds pretty funny!
First strike trigger with WInstigator => Pyromancer
Now all my goblins hit for 4 or 5. GG

Holly

03-19-2012, 06:07 PM

That actually sounds pretty funny!
First strike trigger with WInstigator => Pyromancer
Now all my goblins hit for 4 or 5. GG

The problem with this trick is:
you need 2 WInstigator and a Matron in hand for it to work properly.
If you have 1 WInstigator which is not getting blocked (which is allready a good sign that you're winning), you need the Pyromancer in your hand, but in (nearly) each other moment you dont want to have it. Only for a situation like this (and a few others), since most of the time it's a worse card than say Kiki/SGC/Sparksmith (I like the last one a lot actually).
So let's say you're lucky, not drawing it, having 2 WInstigator attacking and a Matron in Hand and no one get's blocked... do you really need the Pyromancer to win this game?
Out of the rare situations where you allready have a lot of Goblins in play AND topdeck him, hes a win-more card. Well you could cast Matron & Vial him in, or the other way around, which makes him slighty useful, but I dont think I want to search for him often. (Well versus Combo he could make it).

jrw1985

03-19-2012, 06:49 PM

The problem with this trick is:
you need 2 WInstigator and a Matron in hand for it to work properly.
If you have 1 WInstigator which is not getting blocked (which is allready a good sign that you're winning), you need the Pyromancer in your hand, but in (nearly) each other moment you dont want to have it. Only for a situation like this (and a few others), since most of the time it's a worse card than say Kiki/SGC/Sparksmith (I like the last one a lot actually).
So let's say you're lucky, not drawing it, having 2 WInstigator attacking and a Matron in Hand and no one get's blocked... do you really need the Pyromancer to win this game?
Out of the rare situations where you allready have a lot of Goblins in play AND topdeck him, hes a win-more card. Well you could cast Matron & Vial him in, or the other way around, which makes him slighty useful, but I dont think I want to search for him often. (Well versus Combo he could make it).

I agree with everything above, except the very last line. Against combo you need basically 5 attacking goblins T3 to win with a Pyromancer. Goblins already has a way to do this, and it's Lackey->SGC, Piledriver T2. Pyromancer does what Piledriver and Cheiftain already do but at a higher cost and with a much larger drawback. Piledriver is better against combo any day of the week.

mrblueduck

03-20-2012, 12:59 AM

If anyone was watching the coverage, Brett was featured a couple times and played the deck very well, in my opinion. He used Kiki-Jiki like a madman, and I think I might have to make a cut or two to get a copy of Kiki and Sharpshooter into my deck again (especially Sharpshooter since that silly spirit token flashback spell is gaining in popularity).

I'm not a huge fan of the 20 lands build. I've always found 22 to be more my speed, but then I use Port too, so my builds are a little more mana hungry. The Zuran Orb in the sb seems like too large of a concession to the Burn MU, but if Brett is on the Source I'd be interested to hear from him how they worked out. I also think that if yuo're going to run 4 pieces of GY hate just go for broke and play Leylines. Then again, I just hate spending mana on non-goblin spells. Brett did use Surgical Extaction very well Game 2 against Storm, but the low land count seemed to catch up to him Games 1 and 3 as he mulled into oblivion in both. Still, I liked his G1 mull to 2, because he knew his opponent was on Storm and was probably trying to mull to an explosive Lackey start, which was the only chance he has to win anyway.

Anywho, congrats to him. Goblins seems to have found a home in the Top-8.

I have tested 20 and 21 lands. With zero ports I found 20 pretty acceptable. I have no idea what is correct, but as a goblin player I think you should be aggressively mulling most hands, looking for a turn 1 lackey/ vial play or a turn two MWM or Instigator 'chain' with plays at the 3-4 drop. So having a light land count with the ability to mull correctly was never really something I worried about too much.

I built the deck with three intentions in mind. 1) Be able to beat a stoneforge and Jitte/Batterskull 2) Dont fold to a StP and 3) Be able to beat burn.

I tested a ton of different options, and felt it needed more lackeys. With instrigators being lackeys 5 and 6, ports loses so much value. I kept getting caught with the 8 non basics. So once I dropped the ports, I tried chieftains because of the heavy red, and I immediately found I had a much better match up against burn with these additions, and lackey would not die to SfM.

As for the GY hate, I dont like leyline. I brought in surgical extraction against esper stoneblade, I brought in one relic against maverick, and two relics against RUG. I just felt Leyline was too narrow.

Anyways, my games went.
Game 1 Esper Stoneblade 2-0
Game 2 G/W/B Goyf with Lingers Souls 2-0
Game 3 Re-animator 2-1
Game 4 Maverick (the feature one) 2-0
Game 5 Maverick 2-1
Game 6-7 Draws
Top 8
Semis Esper Stoneblade 2-1
Quarter Finals Storm 1-2

Obviously my last matchup was pretty disappointing.
I felt like I played the Storm matchup pretty well. I had play tested it quite a few times before the match, and knew exactly what I was looking for game 1. In game 3, I got 0 lands on my 6th,5th, and 4th mull, so those were no brainers. As for setting chalice at 0 or 1. On the play game 2, I am pretty sure it is almost always correct to set it at 0. I have tried to set it at 1, and got it durressed or thoughtseized enough to realize that it probably was a mistake.

Anyways, feel free to ask any other questions. For changes in the mainboard sideboard, I would change nothing. I wanted more time to test with a 1 of settler, but really felt running less than two tuk tuk was just asking for trouble. As for the worst cards in deck, sharpshooter sucks in a ton of matchups. But feel it is a necessary evil. And piledriver really disappoints. I sided out piledrivers in probably 75% of my matchups.

GoblinSettler

03-20-2012, 01:43 AM

Anyways, feel free to ask any other questions. For changes in the mainboard sideboard, I would change nothing. I wanted more time to test with a 1 of settler, but really felt running less than two tuk tuk was just asking for trouble. As for the worst cards in deck, sharpshooter sucks in a ton of matchups. But feel it is a necessary evil. And piledriver really disappoints. I sided out piledrivers in probably 75% of my matchups.

First off, congratulations! Excellent play.

My list lately is somewhat similar. So I'd like to offer some feedback on Settler.

-1 Sharpshooter (in the board)
-2 MWM
-1 WI (like this as a one of)
-2 Bolt (see no reason not to be on Tarfire right now)
-2 Pyrokinesis (in the board, again)

+1 Settler (!)
+2 Ports (I like at least 22 land, six colorless probably better than 7)
+1 Stingscourger (I always want a second)
+2 Tarfire
+1 Chaos Warp (Random answer to any troublesome permanent)
+1 Warchief (5th haste source)

(I think I'm missing one card, but close enough. Edit: 3 Tarfires and 3 Vials currently. Fourth Vial in the board to bring in when needed. Extra removal when not.)

The Settler is occasionally awesome, but often gets boarded out for something more appropriate. It seems best as an intimidation tactic. Scary off a Lackey to destroy the basic they just fetched. Attrition later in the game to support the mana denial angle. Demoralizing when you can build a one-sided Armageddon.

I love the card. It is cool to play. Maybe not the best, though.

As an aside, I want to play a deck with 4x Heartless Summoning, 4x Settlers, and 4x Gardeners. 12 Sinkholes.dec

1337erhosen

03-20-2012, 02:02 AM

mrblueduck

03-20-2012, 03:54 AM

Hey mrblueduck, congrats on the finish. Just got two quick questions for you.

1. You say sharpshooter was really bad for you, but it seems as though it would be very good against Maverick and anything with Lingering Souls. Was he effective in those matchups? Or was it too slow? If you don't like him in the main, would you consider boarding him?

2. The choice of Chieftain over Warchief seems like an uncommon choice. How did he perform for you? Did you ever find yourself with things stuck in your hand? And did the pumps matter? Would you like to try fitting some number Warchiefs in the main?

Yea I just wanted to test settler more. It could be win-more syndrome, but there are several times I wish I had access to close a game via matron to settler. As for tarfire, I don't really mind it too much. I think its actually really close which is better, but I gave the edge to lightning bolt because that extra damage is often relevant turn 2 or 3 when kotr comes down.

1) Sharpshooter wasn't really bad, it just isn't good in a lot of matchups. I won an entire match on the back of him 6 for 1ing lingering souls in round 2, and have used him in the past to beat up decks running bitterblossom and Dark Confidant. I just think with lingering souls getting a lot of attention, its necessary to run. However I don't think he is very good against Maverick, as mom will almost always come down earlier, and he cant really kill anything else. So there is some serious limitations with him. I would keep him in the main until tom's deck fades. I however did find myself in really unique situation where I would of won a game in response to a fetch by pyrokensising 4 of my own creatures and activating sharpshooter 5 times. Instead he scoops, as he couldn't combo out. That win would of been epic.

2) I don't mind either builds, I have played the warchief version for around a year, playing it in my first ever competitive tournament, with good results at Knight Ware. Here is my list there.
http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/16612

However after testing alot, I think the Chieftain version is better right now. You get more value out of smaller goblins, and makes it easier to run Instigator, which allow you to cheat in bigger drops that you would cast with Warchief. Out of all the matches, I only got trapped with bigger cards one game. Top 8, game 2. I kept a vial, lackey lackey hand. And my vial/ackey hand walked into an Enginereed Explosives then Batterskull and immetiately after Jitte Yea I took a beating that game.

BigBopper

03-20-2012, 05:38 AM

I was also wondering about MD pyrokinesis. Can't think of how many games I've matroned for Tarfire, 'cause I had only 1 mana open. I also had bad results with Sharpshooter in the last times, that's why I moved him to SB.
I tested Kikki-Jikki with mixed results and also tried Goblin Tunneler, but got the feeling that they are win more cards and not really what I wanted...
Concerning Piledriver: I would hold fast on one, 'cause I tested lately a lot vs. Sneak Attack and figured that I could almost always race them preboard. When they cast show and tell you drop matron. In case of Emrakul you go for Stinger and when Progenitus his the board you grab Piledriver and seal the deal. Usually Sneak Attack comes to late and we can survive an Emrakul haster by saccing lands and goblin tokens ;)
I'm going to test a build with less than 22 lands and see how it works out for me, but usually i think we're pretty mana hungry and need to drop lands in the first rounds, especially when playing vs. maverick, 'cause they have Pridemage for vials.
Surprisingly i finally got to beat Pun. maverick lately with ScatmanX's list-thatnks for that!
Still playing with the thought of some black splash for warren weirding and perish.

liamb

03-20-2012, 06:33 AM

First of all – congratulation on your result Brett – it’s really nice to see good performance of the deck with a similar choices to mine. Anyway I have some questions concerning your 75.

1. the 20 lands issue – ok I get the point – mulligan aggressively and count on cheat-into-play engine. Nevertheless it is still true that goblins is mana-hungry tribe. In my experience very often you need to have those 4-5 mana to win attrition game. This is why you need to be able to drop the land every turn. With 20 lands it’s almost impossible to achieve. When I played warchief-port route I played 23 with good results and I had also saw 24 lands builds. Now with the chieftain/instigator we can drop those 1-2 lands but I think that 22 is absolutely minimum also to ensure low count of mulligan noland hand.
2. Anyway I also had noticed your idea to squeeze the land count to improve the synergy between MWM’s piledrivers and Gamepalm’s. I really like it. I dropped piledrivers and MWM’s completely but I need to rethink it again.
3. Sideboard: Zuran Orb brings more outs in the burn match. Anyway – this is still the race and you give them more targets for their Smash to Smithereens. I think the best way to win the game against Burn is to side out vials, bring in the chalices and beat them as fast as possible. Zuran Orb is also very narrow card and my predictions are that burn will slowly disappear from the meta.
4. Sideboard: Lack of Blood Moons – all espers, bants, rugs, pun-mavs will be in the bad shape when this enchantment resolves. I would drop those Orbs for Moons.

wert

03-20-2012, 08:02 AM

Wow! Congratulation on your nice finish!

1)I am looking at your list and was wondering how you managed to find space for Mogg War Marshal till I see you cut out 2 mountains and use 16R + 4 wasteland. I think it caused you to mull more than you like but maybe it is the way to go. I wanted MWM but just can't find space for them.

2)I like the idea of having pyrokinesis MD. I want more removal and pyrokinesis clears the board for the threats as it cost zero to cast. It solves alot of problems. I think I would try that too.

3)Sharpshooter is a star. He is not only there to deal with 1/1s. Remember you can ping for every creature that goes to the graveyard including your own and tokens. You can kill x/2 this way, and with tarfire, x/3 too. If you vial it in during combat(with chieftian, it changed the whole situation. It is good not only for tokens and elves but combat situations in general. I like him in the MD.

4)Kikki-Jikki, I feel is one of the most "advanced" goblin, to learn to play it correctly isn't easy as it is a match winner in the right hands. Lots of possibilities, piledriver, matron, chieftain, ringleader, lackey, *sharpshooter*, all potentially big plays. It won the Quarterfinals. :D

5)I think 2 Instigators is too few especially how well they worked with Chieftains. On Goblin Settler, it is great for lackey-->Settler but the chances are too low and we don't have the space to make such a situational play.

Avatara

03-20-2012, 09:56 AM

@mrblueduck I dunno if Challice of the Void is a good as you thought in game two. If he would have just thrown the 0 mana cards at the CotV he would have achieved seven cards in his yard earlier. Allowing him to Infernal Turor for (and play) Ad Nauseum thanks to active Cabal Rituals. It was something he didn't realize till after the tournament.

Davran

03-20-2012, 10:06 AM

As for tarfire, I don't really mind it too much. I think its actually really close which is better, but I gave the edge to lightning bolt because that extra damage is often relevant turn 2 or 3 when kotr comes down.

I've been a big proponent of Tarfire lately, mostly because I like being able to search one out with a Matron. Did you ever run into a situation where you really needed the burn and couldn't find one? Similarly, how does the Bolt/Pyro package affect your Ringleaders?

It seems others are also questioning 20 lands - I run 22 and that seems to be pretty stable for me. I can think of only one game with my most recent list where I ended up mana screwed, but I think that's simply due to variance and not an actual result. Do you find you're throwing back otherwise keepable hands due to needing lands?

2x Warren Instigator 2x MWM is interesting - how did you arrive at this split?

As for Piledriver, you mentioned that he was bad for you. I just wanted to point out that I've come to the same conclusion recently, and I've cut them completely from the main and side for the time being. So far I haven't encountered a situation where I've missed them.

Glad to see Kiki-Jiki got there for you. I tried it out for the first time last week and it was nothing short of amazing.

jrw1985

03-20-2012, 10:26 AM

...

...

...

As for the GY hate, I dont like leyline. I brought in surgical extraction against esper stoneblade, I brought in one relic against maverick, and two relics against RUG. I just felt Leyline was too narrow.

...

Obviously my last matchup was pretty disappointing.
I felt like I played the Storm matchup pretty well. I had play tested it quite a few times before the match, and knew exactly what I was looking for game 1. In game 3, I got 0 lands on my 6th,5th, and 4th mull, so those were no brainers. As for setting chalice at 0 or 1. On the play game 2, I am pretty sure it is almost always correct to set it at 0. I have tried to set it at 1, and got it durressed or thoughtseized enough to realize that it probably was a mistake.

...

I used to HATE Leyline. I still do on some level since it is such a stupid card (Stragety: Mull to it or don't). But I don't think it's narrow, it just affects different decks differently. I've never been a fan of attacking the GY of decks with Snapcaster or KoTR/Goyf because those GY hate cards start looking pretty silly when your opponent goes the batterskull route. But against Dredge, Lands, Aggro Loam, and Reanimator Leyline is golden. My favorite Leyline game ever was when i was on the draw against Reanimator. I mulled to 3, Leyline, Lackey, Wasteland. Ripped a Mountain. T2 drew a SGC. Absolutley crushed my opponent. On the flip side, I realized just how much I hated it when I was on the draw against Survival, kept a strong Goblin-filled opener, then ripped Leyline as my 8th card and lost the game. It would have been an easy win had that Leyline been any othe GY hate card.

For the Storm matchup you would have been much better off running Leyline than Relic, but not necessarily better than Extraction. G2 your Extraction was huge, but G3 your opponent was able to get threshold easily and PIF ftw (if I recall). Leyline would have been better in that scenario, so I think it really has some value against combo that other gy hate cards don't.

Chalice @ 0 was absolutley the right play, since it just gets Duressed if you don't. That's still the biggest hurtin' against goblins in the combo MU: On the draw there is very little we can do to prevent our opponent from going off. You basically need 2 essentially free hate cards in your opening hand to be at all comfortable, and you need fast pressure to follow it up. In G2 against Storm you has like REB, Extraction, Chalice at 0 and two Wastelands in order to win it. A Leyline would have kept you alive longer G3, or a Mindbreak Trap would do too.

Enough blabbering from me. Congratulations again and well done!

Avatara

03-20-2012, 10:50 AM

Chalice @ 0 was absolutley the right play, since it just gets Duressed if you don't. That's still the biggest hurtin' against goblins in the combo MU: On the draw there is very little we can do to prevent our opponent from going off. You basically need 2 essentially free hate cards in your opening hand to be at all comfortable, and you need fast pressure to follow it up. In G2 against Storm you has like REB, Extraction, Chalice at 0 and two Wastelands in order to win it. A Leyline would have kept you alive longer G3, or a Mindbreak Trap would do too.

CotV does not need to be answered. Something like Leyline of Sanctity does... CotV did not win him game 2... bad play by his opponent did.

jrw1985

03-20-2012, 12:57 PM

CotV does not need to be answered. Something like Leyline of Sanctity does... CotV did not win him game 2... bad play by his opponent did.

I disagree with you if you are implying Leyline of Sanctity deserves play over Chalice. Leyline doesn't do anything except keep them from killing you. Sure that seems good at face value, but it does nothing to stop a Storm deck from going off, drawing it's library, bouncing Leyline, and killing you. Chalice on the other makes them play around it while going off. Maybe the storm player made some bad plays G2, but if he was sitting across from a Leyline of Sanctity he woud have had been able to build the same storm count you're talking about but also have 4 extra mana to work with (from the resolved Petal and LED) and a clear like of play. That sounds like a path to game winning shennanigans. And maybe Chalice makes storm players think more, thereby increasing their chance of misplays, in ways that Leyline wouldn't.

Oh, and Leyline of Sanctity doesn't do much against Empty the Warrens or Elf Combo, and it can't really be used against slow combo like Enchantress. And you need to run 4 of it, so you can't really diversify your combo-hate. I guess it does hose Burn though.

I will say that Chalice isn't nearly as effective at 0 as it used to be. Every storm deck used to run 10-12 0 drops, now they're usually running 8 and more instants. But anything you keep in your hand will probably get stripped, especially if you're on the draw and don't plan on playing it until T2.

mrblueduck

03-20-2012, 01:54 PM

Everyone seems pretty concerned about my land count, and yes I mulled a ton. Was it because of my land count? I can't really say for sure, but I pretty much took at least once mulligan per match, and as a result set myself up with some pretty explosive hands. I really have no problem with 21 or 22 lands, and felt it was a shame my game 3 in the quarters went down like it did, because it is easy to just point to the lands that game and say 'I told you so'. That game I had a very solid 7 card hand, but it was almost unwinnable against storm, which triggered my painful mulligan to 3 after whiffs on lands. In my 100+ games of testing I never really experienced anything like that, and feel it is a tad unfair that my land count was to blame, when I felt I needed better answers to storm.

Another card people were questioning was Zuran Orb, as they were the only card from the side I never sided in. I had wanted them for U/R delver Pop and Burn. I don't believe burn brings in smash to smithereens against me, but I hold Zuran Orb in my hand until I hit 8-10 life anyways, to avoid that. This build is already a strong favorite over burn, and Zuran Orb really solidifies the match-up. I was expecting around 15-20% of the field to be burn, I was wrong. Would I take out Zuran Orb for next tournament? No, probably not.

Now for the question of Chalice at 0 or 1. Against tendrils chalice at 0 is always correct on the play. However, in this matchup, with only one land in hand, chalice at 0 was in my opinion also the correct play. The opponent almost always brings in discard effects game 2, he just never drew them. Its easy to reflect and say wow I should have done chalice for 1, since I ripped a land and he had no discard effects, but I still like chalice for 0, since it stranded a few cards in his hand, and with a few bs/preordains effects can make getting hellbent harder.

I don't mind running bolts or pyrokensis because of ringleader. Ringleader is fine, usually picks me up 2x cards every time, and never really cared if bolt went to the bottom instead of tarfire to hand.

The 2-2-2-3 split at the 2 drop was the most confusing and constantly changing part of the deck.
2 MWM, 2 Instigator, 2 Piledriver, 3 Gemplam.
I think 2 Instigator is correct. I found 3 too be to much, but variance is such a big issue after even 10-20 games, that who knows.
2 Piledrivers. You can't cut them, but you can go to a 1 of. I have found him useful enough to keep in 2, but don't mind 1. There are some matches where you just really really want him, so 1-2 is fine.
3 Gempalm. I don't think I have ever cast him as a 3 drop, ever. There are always unique situations where you should, but they have to be for lethal. I will cycle him for 0 dmg EOT before I cast him. 4 is a much better number, but I needed to make some cuts. And I always get this over tarfire. Just know when to use it, and how to response to StP, and it is much better.
2 MWM. Well this is my left overs. I have tried 0-4, and well had two spots open. I wanted to run 3 copies, but cuts had to be made. I was happy with 4, even though I almost never casted the spell this weekend.

As for other sideboard choices. I don't really like Chaos Warp. I think Anarchy is better in almost ever way, with the one exception of plague. I thought about blood moon, boil, anarchy, and a few other random choices, before settling on Anarchy. I never casted it in the tournament, but did in the official prelim tournament the night before. It can be ridiculously amazing, since no one has any idea it is coming.

jrw1985

03-20-2012, 02:22 PM

CotV does not need to be answered. Something like Leyline of Sanctity does... CotV did not win him game 2... bad play by his opponent did.

Ok, I keep mulling this over, and it's occured to me that Leyline is pretty bad by itself, but it's pretty good if you can land it turn 0 and you have a 2nd piece of combo hate in hand. Since they generally need to bounce Leyline before killing you you have a turn or two extra to land a 2nd piece of hate, and they can't strip that hate in the meantime because you can't be targetted by discard effects. Since you generally need 2 pieces of Combo hate to really have a chance against Storm decks Leyline might be a really good option......

Just a thought.

Davran

03-21-2012, 08:57 AM

The 2-2-2-3 split at the 2 drop was the most confusing and constantly changing part of the deck.
2 MWM, 2 Instigator, 2 Piledriver, 3 Gemplam.
I think 2 Instigator is correct. I found 3 too be to much, but variance is such a big issue after even 10-20 games, that who knows.
2 Piledrivers. You can't cut them, but you can go to a 1 of. I have found him useful enough to keep in 2, but don't mind 1. There are some matches where you just really really want him, so 1-2 is fine.
3 Gempalm. I don't think I have ever cast him as a 3 drop, ever. There are always unique situations where you should, but they have to be for lethal. I will cycle him for 0 dmg EOT before I cast him. 4 is a much better number, but I needed to make some cuts. And I always get this over tarfire. Just know when to use it, and how to response to StP, and it is much better.
2 MWM. Well this is my left overs. I have tried 0-4, and well had two spots open. I wanted to run 3 copies, but cuts had to be made. I was happy with 4, even though I almost never casted the spell this weekend.

It's good to hear that I'm not the only one with issues building this portion of the deck. I really like WInstigator, but like Lackey it's a terrible top deck late in the game. I may follow your lead and try cutting 1-2 and see where that takes me.

As for Piledriver, I'm not sure if 2, 1, or 0 is the "correct" number right now. When fish was widely played and a deck to beat, it was an easy 4-of. Now that Delver is essentially the only blue creature being played and Lightning Bolts are everywhere he's just too easy to deal with.

I've played Gempalm as a body before, but only when I need a blocker or a couple extra points of combat damage. I think 3 is fine, I've never desperately wanted or needed it in my opening hand, and generally drawing 1-2 per game is exactly what we need.

Of all the goblins I've cut recently, I'm starting to miss MWM the most. I definitely think there should be at least 1 copy in most lists...but 2 is probably more useful. The difficult part is going to be finding room.

wert

03-21-2012, 09:31 AM

I followed mrblueduck's with 16 mountains with 4 wastelands and pyrokensis.

Granted I played only about 10 games, it is actually not too bad. Especially if you have vial in the first 7. But it does cause some auto lost sometimes if you can't draw into a 2nd land quick enough when you start off with lackey, no vial. I traded in the 2 mountains for 2 MVM, btw.

Pyrokensis, I only maindeck 1. It is huge as it can come on as an instant, works nicely against Maverick. I think it should be given due consideration as 1-2 of in the MD. Piledriver, I would like to still include it as a 2-of but I can only squeeze in 1.

Is Chalice worth it in the sideboard, even it means taking out the vials and tarfire?

liamb

03-21-2012, 09:41 AM

http://thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=7875&iddeck=57356

interesting approach. Basicly WInstigators are Warchiefs. But low removal count (no bolts/tarfire) is something I don't like.

ScatmanX

03-21-2012, 12:30 PM

Has anybody ever sideboarded in Thorn of Amethyst against UW Stoneblade?
How has it played out?

jrw1985

03-21-2012, 01:50 PM

I'm playing a MonoR build right now and haven't really had many cards to side in for most of my MUs. With a few minor changes I'm going to have even less to bring in. Here's what I'm thinking for a maindeck:

4x Wasteland
2x Rishadan Port
9x Mountain
6x Fetchlands

4x Goblin Lackey
2x Warren Instigator
4x Goblin Matron
4x Goblin Ringleader
2x Siege-gang Commander

2x Gempalm Incinerator
2x Tuktuk Scrapper
1x Stingscourger
1x Mogg Fanatic
1X Goblin Sharpshooter

2x Goblin Warchief
3x Goblin Chieftain
1X Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
2x Goblin Piledriver

4x Aether Vial
2x Tarfire
2X Pyrokinesis

I've got 7 pieces of MD creature removal. I'm already maindecking Artifact and Token hate. Because of this I'm beginning to think a ridiculously anti-combo sideboard could be the way to go. Something like...

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Mindbreak Trap
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Anarchy

Anarchy would be for Enchantress/Maverick. Basically every Storm Combo MU would get the following sided in:

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Mindbreak Trap
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Thorn of Amethyst

I'm basically interested in seeing how Leyline of Sanctity does in protecting my hand while sandbagging a Mindbreak Trap, or giving me two turns to get Chalice or Thorn in play. Has anyone tried something like this? I'm also thinking Leyline of the Void could be Surgical Extraction since that's more playable alongside Leyline of Sanctity.

ScatmanX:
I've received ridicule before for suggesting playing Thorn against control decks (UW Stoneblade). I don't think it's a great line of play because 1) UW Stoneblade isn't often short on mana since they make all their early landdrops with cantrips, 2) SFM plays around Thorn anyway. If you've got time to test it, I'm open to having my mind changed.

Davran

03-21-2012, 02:27 PM

Has anybody ever sideboarded in Thorn of Amethyst against UW Stoneblade?
How has it played out?

I run Thorn in my board as combo hate, but I've never thought to bring it in against U/W Blade decks. They'll have plenty of mana to counter our stuff by the time we can cast it, and it does very little against Stoneforge Mystic, Mishra's Factory and Vendilion Clique...which are the only real clock they present.

That said, it may be useful against Snapcaster Mage flashing back a counter of some sort (i.e. Spell Snare), but I think most U/W players side the Spell Snares out against us anyway.

ScatmanX

03-21-2012, 03:20 PM

BigBopper

03-22-2012, 05:02 AM

I like the idea of having a versaile MD and use up most of your sideboard slots for the combo MU. Vs. Most Aggro decks I usually don't need to board anyways. Playing Maverick Pyrokinesis can be good, but doesn't have to. Vs. bant Pyroblast is quite nice to get rid of Jace. I still believe pyrostatic pillar is a quite nice alternative to Thorn, at least vs. Storm.
Concerning Anarchy I like the idea to get rid of MoR, SFT and Elspeth at one time, while I think it's quite expensive. I could see Flash of Defiance as an alternative vs. Savannah based dacks, at least as long I don't splash black. And 2 unblocked strikes are usually enough to finish them. Maybe a split in the anarchy spots?
@jrw1985: why do you play fetches in your mono-red build. Do you think diluting your library is worth being a stifle target with all the can. thres h running around? (I'm aware of lackey, matron and ringleader being better stifle targets). In terms of ringleader I would argue that the chances of seeing a goblin increase with fewer land count, but every time you fetch, you might shuffle cards from the bottom of your library back up.

ScatmanX

03-22-2012, 08:32 AM

Concerning Anarchy I like the idea to get rid of MoR, SFT and Elspeth at one time, while I think it's quite expensive. I could see Flash of Defiance as an alternative vs. Savannah based dacks, at least as long I don't splash black. And 2 unblocked strikes are usually enough to finish them. Maybe a split in the anarchy spots?
Sweet card against Mav. Too bad it does nothing against Enchantress, WStax, Humility, Progenitus, and many other cards... I prefer Anarchy flexibility. And costing 4 is not that much in a monored build, specially when you don't necessarily have to play it turn 4. And I'd snap keep a hand with 4 mountains + Anarchy against Maverick any day, whie with FoD you'd need some critical mass already on board for it to be usefull.

Davran

03-22-2012, 08:48 AM

Thanks.
I tested some matches against Esper Blade, and Needle (or even Instigator) would be better every time.

Edit: Since I'm on the subject: How are you guys sideboarding against it? I know Blood Moon is awesome, but what else?
Edit 2: Testing is showing that not changing the deck at all is better than adding Needle/Surgical/Thorn here...

I was boarding in Blood Moon against U/W...but lately it has been pretty lack luster. I've come to the realization that they play enough counters to just straight up counter it, and they also run enough basics to pretty much negate its effectiveness. As much of a hoser as it is, I think I'm leaving the Blood Moons out of the board for now and running some Red Blasts instead.

I do bring in a third piece of artifact hate (Tinkerer at the moment)...but other than that I don't think there are any specific cards that really improve the match-up. Like I said above, I think I'm going to give Red Blast a try.

Our clock is certainly better than theirs, but they also have plenty of ways to stall our threats. The biggest thing to keep in mind is that Wrath of God is a card that they play, so there is no real reason to over commit to the board. Wastelands are fantastic here since Mishra's Factory is often their only blocker, especially if you can deal with Mystic right away. I also find that turn 1 Vial is always better than turn 1 Lackey. They have absolutely no way to deal with a resolved Vial and it lets you pull pretty far ahead pretty quickly.

BigBopper

03-22-2012, 08:59 AM

I think it's even more versaile: assuming you have some sort of board, but you are stuck vs. blockers, while your opponent plays elspeth and other hard cards, go for an alphastrike with an unblocked piledriver (pro blue). Then you could use it vs. Mav, Bant, Txresh, BUG and even stoneblade. Cause Goyf, Mongoose and SFM can't block and Snapcaster and Delver are blue. Maybe I try it as a one of SB and see how it goes.

wert

03-22-2012, 09:09 AM

Anarchy is also about the only out, short of Chaos Warp we have against some totally nasty enchantments that could shut us down. Absolute Law, Island Sanctuary, Moat, Humility, Stony Silence,Ghostly Prison,Solitary Confinement and COP Red. Those are not exactly uncommon sideboard cards.

I found Blood moon to be unhelpful against UW too, but super good against those tempo based decks, and affinity. Not too sure I would bring in the tinker because they generally only have 1 batterskull and 1 jitte.

I dropped REB from the sideboard in favour of goblins cards and the needle but took on 4 Thorn of Amethyst, it is not exactly golden but it delays a wide variety of decks from Show and Tell to Combo and Burn. I am still wondering if Chalice is worth it, I tried it a bit but I don't feel good with it.

I got caught out a few times Wrath of God, when I was going to win on the next attack....it hurts like hell. :D

ScatmanX

03-22-2012, 09:09 AM

I was boarding in Blood Moon against U/W...but lately it has been pretty lack luster. I've come to the realization that they play enough counters to just straight up counter it, and they also run enough basics to pretty much negate its effectiveness. As much of a hoser as it is, I think I'm leaving the Blood Moons out of the board for now and running some Red Blasts instead.

I do bring in a third piece of artifact hate (Tinkerer at the moment)...but other than that I don't think there are any specific cards that really improve the match-up. Like I said above, I think I'm going to give Red Blast a try.

Our clock is certainly better than theirs, but they also have plenty of ways to stall our threats. The biggest thing to keep in mind is that Wrath of God is a card that they play, so there is no real reason to over commit to the board. Wastelands are fantastic here since Mishra's Factory is often their only blocker, especially if you can deal with Mystic right away. I also find that turn 1 Vial is always better than turn 1 Lackey. They have absolutely no way to deal with a resolved Vial and it lets you pull pretty far ahead pretty quickly.
My question was jus against Esper Blade, not UW.
I curently want to bring 3 cards in, but am not sure what to remove. Right now I'm thinking of 1 Instigator, 1 Gempalm, and the Kiki Jiki, but not sure about the last one.

jrw1985

03-22-2012, 12:03 PM

@jrw1985: why do you play fetches in your mono-red build. Do you think diluting your library is worth being a stifle target with all the can. thres h running around? (I'm aware of lackey, matron and ringleader being better stifle targets). In terms of ringleader I would argue that the chances of seeing a goblin increase with fewer land count, but every time you fetch, you might shuffle cards from the bottom of your library back up.

I play fetches in an attempt to maximize Ringleader draws. Someday I'll make a spreadsheet to mathmetically show the effect of fetches on Ringleader draws. I'm pretty sure activating two fetches over the course of a game doesn't affect your topdecking in a significant way, but I think it does affect the quality of your Ringleader reveals (since the chance of drawing 1-less land per fetch is multiplied by 4). Anything that makes you more likely to draw 3 rather than 2 goblins off a ringleader is huge for the deck, since Ringleader is really the CA engine that makes everything else possible.

I don't think Stifle is a threat, since it's usually played in decks that are trying to land a T1 Delver (so Stifle is seldom open to kill a T1 fetch). I don't really run that many fetches, so I'll usually have a basic Mountain to lead with anyway if I'm on the draw, and if I'm on the play Stifle isn't a worry at all. Matron also shuffles up the library (and there's no way in hell I'm NOT casting a Matron to prevent lands on the bottom from getting shuffled up) so I see no additional drawback in running fetches.

1337erhosen

03-22-2012, 03:37 PM

The only drawback you failed to mention was the life loss, which after 4 or 5 lands can be very significant in the face of an Insectile Abberation. Obviously you have to weigh the slight damage vs slight card advantage and there is no absolutely correct answer, so it comes down to personal preference in mono-red builds.

fimo

03-22-2012, 07:02 PM

I feel like chalice of the void has been printed to help goblins against combo, I really don t understand why one should have in the sideboard thorn of Amethyst instead of chalice. I cannot think of any MU where I would prefer to have Thorn of Amethyst over chalice of the void... chalice stops things, thorn slows them down. Chalice can be played the first turn for 0 mana dodging discard, Thorn of Amethyst cannot.

@jrw1985: thinning the deck from lands also means not topdecking lands you might need. I hate when I stare at my ringleaders having only 2 or 3 lands on board after the opponent had an answer to my T1 lackey/vial. Playing 22 lands means getting the 4th land drop after 11 cards (5th turn). Playing 20 lands means getting it at the 6th turn. I wouldn t actually "concentrate" further the deck, I want to be able to cast ringleader no later than the 5th turn if plan A (lackey/vial) goes wrong. Otherwise I feel there is no way I can win the game.

Avatara

03-23-2012, 05:19 AM

Chalice can be played the first turn for 0 mana dodging discard, Thorn of Amethyst cannot. That's only partly true. When they are on the play, chances are they will strip it from your hand, before you get a chance to play it. CotV is not a Leyline.

fimo

03-23-2012, 07:10 AM

That's only partly true. When they are on the play, chances are they will strip it from your hand, before you get a chance to play it. CotV is not a Leyline.

Sure, my point is that thorn doesn t have the possibility of dodging discard in situations where chalice can. Giving that we are probably gonna loose G1 against those decks anyway, in G2 chalice is superior while G3 they are probably the same IMO. However, chalice is better against a wider proportion of non-storm decks like affinity, combo elves and burn.

ScatmanX

03-23-2012, 08:50 AM

I cannot think of any MU where I would prefer to have Thorn of Amethyst over chalice of the void
Hive Mind.

fimo

03-23-2012, 08:59 AM

Hive Mind.

you are right on that. But is that a good enough reason? I mean I see more storm/affinity/elves/burn than hive mind

liamb

03-23-2012, 09:12 AM

you are right on that. But is that a good enough reason? I mean I see more storm/affinity/elves/burn than hive mind

I play chalice myself but wait a sec. Why would you side in chalice against affinity? Only to blank their 0 CMC spells? (which are total like 8?) They still can beat you with plating/champion

ScatmanX

03-23-2012, 09:48 AM

you are right on that. But is that a good enough reason? I mean I see more storm/affinity/elves/burn than hive mind
With this I agree.
But would not bring it in against Affinity...

Edit: Has anyone tested Thorn against Canadian (RUG)?
How did it played out?

fimo

03-23-2012, 10:19 AM

I actually always bring in 4 chalice against affinity when on the play, I think they are absolutelly awsome. When you set them @0 they buy you that one turn without creature where lackey connets and wins you the game. they can t play mox opal, memnite and ornithopter. Without ornithopter (flying) cranial plating is less scarry and you usually have one removal for signal pest. etched champion is the real problem but I don t see what to do about it anyway and some lists don t run it. Anyway, without the 0 drops they have more difficulties getting metalcraft.
Against affinity it is a race, if you stop half of their creatures it suddenly starts to look much better. I highly recommend chalice against affinity when on the play. On the draw I wouldn t know.

jrw1985

03-23-2012, 10:38 AM

Went 3-1 at a tournament last night playing the following...

4x Wasteland
2x Rishadan Port
9x Mountain
6x Fetchlands

4x Goblin Lackey
2x Warren Instigator
4x Goblin Matron
4x Goblin Ringleader
2x Siege-gang Commander

1x Gempalm Incinerator
2x Tuktuk Scrapper
1x Stingscourger
1x Mogg Fanatic
1X Goblin Sharpshooter

2x Goblin Warchief
4x Goblin Chieftain
1X Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
2x Goblin Piledriver

4x Aether Vial
3x Tarfire
1X Pyrokinesis

SB
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Anarchy
1 Pyrokinesis

R1 ANT
G1 I was on the draw and kept an explosive Lackey hand. My opponent T1 Duresses me, gets nothing. I play Lackey. he doesn't go off T2. I attack and put a Matron and Piledriver into play. He doesn't go off T3. I attack him down to 10 and put some more stuff in. He draws for T4 and scoops.

Sideboard: +4 Leyline of the Void, +4 Leyline of Sanctity, +2 Mindbreak Trap, +1 Chalice, +1 Thorn
-Pyrokinesis, Vial, Gemaplm, Stingscourger, Sharpshooter, Scrappers, 2 Tarfires

G2 My openning 7 is awful against any deck, so I mull to 6 and hit 5 lands, so I mull to 5 and hit 4 lands, so I mull to 4 and keep a hand with a Fanatic and no hate. Really bad mulls considering the 12 cards I just sided in. I kept those 4, but I really should have kept mulling. Lost.

G3 I mull to 6 and finally draw some hate, but it's just a Leyline of the Void. I thought Leyline might give me time to luck into drawing a Mindbreak or Chalice/Thorn, but no dice. I T1 Mountain. He T1 Duresses me, I Tarfire him in response. I draw nothing worthwhile T2 (Trap/Chalice/Thorn would have been helpful). He goes off T2 through the Leyline. The Ad Nauseum takes him down to 1 life, but gives him everything he needs to win. Damn, that's a good deck.
0-1

We played 2 games for fun afterward, and every game I could never draw any sideboard hate besides the Leyline of the Void (which is or course the wrong leyline to draw). I lost all of those too. Moral of the Story: Leyline of the Void is not enough against Storm combo. You're going to have to mull to a hand with at least 2 pieces of combo hate, preferably Leyline of Sanctity + Trap/Chalice/Thorn, and you're alos going to want some way of putting some pressure on. This MU is just evil for us.

I wonder if choosing to be on the draw could ever be the right decision against Storm? With my build I'm really just hoping to land a T0 Leyline of Sanctity and then draw into something playable. Dunno. I've never really tested the MU and haven't had that many chances to play against it.

R2 Bant
G1 My totally awesome, game changing Pyrokinesis to clear his board gets FoW'd. And I lose. Plus, He GSZ's for that commander card that lets the controller of any creature that deals combat damage to his opponent draw a card, so he snuck a Heirarch through for a little CA there. Nice.
G2 He kinda stalls and draws too many lands. So I get there.
G3 He gets a Jitte hooked up on a Snapcaster, then GSZ's for a Rafiq, swings with Snapcaster, gets double counters, kills 2 of my 4 guys. I can't remember why I didn't block, but it didn't matter. I still had a Warchief in play somehow, and I Matroned looking for Sharpshooter since his board was 2 Heirarch, Snapcaster, and Rafiq (and Jitte with 0 counters). When I searched my Library I realized I had sided out my Sharpshooter for Anarchy this game. Ouch. It would have been a real blowout had I left him in. Instead I grabbed a Piledriver instead, since he could at least Chump the equipped Snapcaster. My opponent didn't do anything relevant his turn. I ripped a Pyrokinesis like a champ and cast it the next turn when my opponent cast a Sword of Red and White, and as he equipped it to his Snapcaster (so he could run past my Piledriver FTW) I Pyro'd his Snapcaster and Rafiq. I swung for lethal on my turn. he had to chum with his last, lonely Heirarch to stay alive as his equipment sat idly by. Then a won. Helluva game.
1-1

R3 UR Delver
G1 I win the roll and keep a hand with Lackey, 2x Winstigator, gas, and 1 Mountain. Well shit, I have a T1 play and just need to rip a Mountain to have an awesome 2 drop. Keep. He has the Bolt for my Lackey. I don't draw another moutnain for like 4 turns. There was one point in the game where I could have gotten back in it. He had a Delver and Lavamancer on board. I Tarfired the Delver to reduce his clock and Stingscourgered the Lavamancer to keep it offline and give me a turn to draw some removal and get back in it. No dice. Lost.
G2 I sided in and drew a Chalice of the Void. I played a T1 Lackey that got bolted, then a T2 Chalice @ 1 that wasn't countered. My opponent scooped with a hand full of 1drops.
G3 I landed a T1 Vial and things just went well for me from there. I was able to burn out his creatures and play/draw more of mine. Vial @3 into Matron into Ringleader is such a beating against UR.
2-1

R4 Punishing Maverick
G1 I Keep a 1 land hand that has 2 Lackeys and 2 Vials on the play. I know he's playing Maverick and has removal a-plenty, and I don't have much for mana resources, so i go the Vial route. I play Vial, he plays a land. I play a Lackey, he Swordseses it. he plays an Ooze. I wind up drawing another Vial and my board is soon Vial @1, Vial @2, Vial @3. I Vial in a Matron and grab a Tarfire, with which I kill his Ooze since there are no creatures in the graveyard for him to remove to pump it. I start hitting Ringleaders soon thereafter. Good times. Even with his recurring Punishing Fires I'm putting way too many green dudes on the tables. I win.
G2 This one's pretty intense too. The biggest play on the game for me was when he cast a KotR with a Scryb Ranger in play too. He had 3 cards in hand, but the way the previous turns had gone it was safe to assume he was holding removal, not creatures. I had 2 Pyrokinesis and 2 Goblins in hand (Ringleader and Warchief). I didn't have the lands to cast the Ringleader, so I pitched my hand to cast both Pyros and clear his board. The game was essentially reset and i just hoped to draw a Ringleader or answers before he landed another fatty. He eventually drew and played a KotR, I had drawn and was sandbagging an Anarchy which I cast to kill the Knight. He had a third KotR to follow up the Anarchy, but I had started to draw gas and his life total was low enough that he couldn't attack. I used Wasteland to keep his Groves of the Burnwillows off the board, and managed to grind out the W.
3-1

The deck worked great. It drew well. I didn't feel I needed any more SB cards than Pyro in most MUs. I think the overwhelmingly anti-combo SB is a good way to go right now, with a few Anarchys thrown in there. I got very unlucky in the ANT MU when I didn't draw my most relevant hate. Still, it was my decision not to mull further. That's a MU where it really is acceptable to Mull into oblivion, cause you just won't win without doing so.

wert

03-23-2012, 10:47 AM

fimo

03-23-2012, 11:29 AM

Obviously, Chalice is a better on almost all levels but thorn allows you to still play your normal game with vials. With Chalice, you have to side out tarfires, vials and lackey to set at 1.

Personally, chalice against affinity is a gamble that you can take if you are on play. If you managed to mull into it and set as 0, you have most likely won the game. But you if don't, you can't race them very well without vial and it is a totally dead card on further draws.

I don t agree. You don t have to side out all your one drops when you play chalice, even in those MU where you would set it @1. You can open with T1 lackey/vial and T2 chalice @1, that is pretty broken. Anyway, I often side out vials when I bring in chalice because vial is bad in those MU no matter what. If you then play pyrokinesis you can use your topdeck lackey to pay the alternative cost. In MU where you need chalice @1 having a dead lackey in hand it doesn t really matter, chalice @1 can win you the game by itself.

Chalice @0 won me so many games vr affinity I wouldn t call it a gamble at all. I think chalice and pyrokinesis are among the best (reasonable) answers to affinity for a goblin SB. However, against affinity I never mull into oblivion to find chalice at any cost... Nevertheless, it justify to keep even a hand without T1 drop IMO.

From my testing T1 chalice @0 on the play is a gg against affinity.

fimo

03-23-2012, 11:50 AM

Davran

03-23-2012, 03:32 PM

Obviously, Chalice is a better on almost all levels but thorn allows you to still play your normal game with vials. With Chalice, you have to side out tarfires, vials and lackey to set at 1.

Personally, chalice against affinity is a gamble that you can take if you are on play. If you managed to mull into it and set as 0, you have most likely won the game. But you if don't, you can't race them very well without vial and it is a totally dead card on further draws.

Chalice set at 1 and Thorn are essentially the same in a lot of match-ups without some way to accelerate into the Chalice. They both come down on the same turn, and they both slow down or stop a combo deck in it's tracks. Objectively, Chalice is better because it's harder to remove from the board once you cast it...but if your only goal is to slow them down long enough to win they both get you there.

As for boarding something like Chalice in against affinity - I'm not sure I agree. Yes, they play quite a few zero drops, but it's the Cranial Plating that's the problem and Chalice does nothing there. I'm happy to let my opponent sit around with a board full of 0/2 dudes and a Mox Opal. I much prefer cards like Pyrokinesis, Shattering Spree, and Pulverize as they deal with the actual threats and not just some useless vanilla dorks. Further, I find that our match-up vs. affinity is already pretty good pre-board, and it only gets better after.

In non-combo match-ups like burn, Chalice vs. Thorn is still a toss up. Objectively, Chalice at 1 stops burn better, but a resolved Thorn is also often GG for them.

jrw1985

03-23-2012, 03:40 PM

@jrw1985: nice done, there is not much to do about the game vr ANT, you had great sideboard against it, unlucky draws. How about the 4 + 2 lords? I think that 6 effects "everybody has haste" is a bit too much. I mean, they loose a bit value when they are on the battlefield on multiples. On the other hand, +1/+1 effects are great and they are never too much. I would see more profitable to include goblin king after the 4 chieftain. Also, it improves the RUG MU quite a lot and RUG is pretty popular right now.
In general your list is a bit of a mix between the "new" WI+chiftain and the "old" piledriver+warchief. Do you think it plays well balanced? Do the priviledges of one conpensate the other or do you feel that sometimes you don t know how to build up your game plan (tempo vr beatdown)? I fear that sometimes you wish to topdeck the +1/+1 ability and you find "goblins cost 1 less to cast" and the other way around.

@fimo: Haste-y goblins are happy goblins. I will take haste over mountainwalk any day of the week. The explosiveness of Goblins absolutley comes from their ability to attack first. Dumping your hand is fine and good and all, but it doesn't much matter if your opponent just Wraths the next turn. Having a board full of haste allows you to overextend and get at least one massive attack off before a board sweeper comes along. Then, after a sweep, you just drop another haste enabler and go back at it.

I think the 2/2 Piledriver/Winstigator split is awesome in the 2-drop slot. And it doesn't confuse the game plan. If anything, it opens more lines of play so you can make the adjustments you need to win the game. Same with the Chieftain/Warchief split. i don't think Warchief is outdated or irrelevant at all, he's just not a 4-of anymore. There will still be times when you need to matron into Warchief in order to cast and activate a Sharpshooter or Piledriver in hand. Chieftain doesn't enable that, but Chieftain has a much broader application in just making all your goblins bigger.

ScatmanX

03-23-2012, 03:42 PM

I much prefer cards like Pyrokinesis, Shattering Spree, and Pulverize as they deal with the actual threats and not just some useless vanilla dorks.
I don't think Chalice of the Void is fighting for the same SB space as Knesis, Spree and Pulverize. Obviously the latter are better against affinity in a vacum, but the deal is Chalice is (acording to him) actually a very good card, on the play, against them.

Final Ritual

03-23-2012, 03:53 PM

I would just punt the storm matchup, I don't believe you can make it an even matchup even with all the hate. I would take those slots and devote them to other matchups.

ScatmanX

03-23-2012, 04:00 PM

I would just punt the storm matchup, I don't believe you can make it an even matchup even with all the hate. I would take those slots and devote them to other matchups.
This is completely fine. I've one that several times. Depends completely on your metagame though.

fimo

03-24-2012, 01:02 PM

I would just punt the storm matchup, I don't believe you can make it an even matchup even with all the hate. I would take those slots and devote them to other matchups.

I don t think that s so black and white, it depends what kind of combo hate you have. I agree with you if you are talking about specific combo hate like mindbreak trap. It is great against storm but it is dead otherwise. However, there are wide range non-specific combo hate that can be boarded in so many MU that I am convinced they are worth the space. I am currently devoting half of the sideboard to those cards (4 cotv + 4 leyline of the void) and I find myself boarding them in enough (especially cotv) to think they are worth the spot.

@ cranial plating is the real thread of affinity: It actually isn t if you resolve a cotv @0 on the first turn and u are on the play. One of these situations are likely to occur:
- they don t have creatures to attack
- they don t get metalcraft for etched champion (if they play it)
- they are mana crewed since their mana base rely also on mox opal and springleaf drum (no creatures = springleaf is a dead card). If they play the planeswalker version (Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas) there is no way they will cast it
- if they play the glimpse of nature version the "combo" runs out of gas
- they cannot block your T1 lackey
- cotv is a better top deck than aether vial in this MU: if the game goes in top deck mode for him (which is likely for affinity) you can cast your top deck cotv for 4 mana @2 which blocks any cranial plating/etched champion he is hoping for.

I don t see any reasons for not bringing it in. If you also have pulverize in the sideboard is good for you but you can bring them in both :smile:

woodjt5

03-24-2012, 05:34 PM

Went 2-2 with goblins in the Legacy portion of the SCG Invitational yesterday. Should have been 3-1, but I made a TERRIBLE play and punted against Maverick. Here's the list I played:

4 Aether Vial

3 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Goblin Chieftain
2 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
2 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Stingscourger
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Mogg War Marshall
3 Warren Instigator

1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

2 Tarfire
1 Pyrokinesis

17 Mountain
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:

4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyrokinesis

First round (actually the 5th round, but first round of Legacy) I beat Bant. Game one he forced my turn 1 Lackey and landed two knights, but I was able to get enough goblins to chump a knight and kill it with a Gempalm. Eventually I was able to make several Ringleaders with Kiki-Jiki and overwhelm his remaining knight with a critical mass of goblins. Game 2 he mulled to 5, but had a path for my lackey and a swords for my instigator. Thankfully, I was able to vial in a second instigator EOT and trigger in matron and then a Siege-Gang. Kiki-Jiki made an appearance as well, and it got ugly from there.

Round two was against Maverick. game one on the play i mull to 6 but play a turn 1 lackey. He plays a turn 1 mom which gets gempalmed on my turn and I trigger in a turn-2 siege gang. He scooped on his next turn. I don't remember much abotu game two but he was ahead the whole time and won rather comfortably.

In Game 3 I made probably the worst play of my magic life. I have a lacky and 2 mountains in play. He taps out and plays a knight with 0 lands in his graveyard. I have tarfire and a Siege-gang in hand, with a few other cards and a mountain. Immediately I know that I want to shock the knight and swing in to drop the siege-gang, which would have wrapped the game up. I draw for turn and its a wasteland. For some unknown reason, maybe just out of habit, I waste his Tundra without thinking, and then tarfire his knight. Obviously, the knight lived through my shock and I just pass the turn, completely bewildered by my mistake. Eventually he lands an Elspeth and flies over with the Knight (which should have been dead). I died with him at 3 life.

Completely tilted, I play the next round against Michael Jacob, who is on Esper Stoneblade. Both games are long and grindy, and both turn on the same play. He handles my early pressure but I am able to kill his equipment and build a decent board presence. Then, in both games, he is able to use the combination of lingering Souls and Cabal therapy to just destroy my hand and eventually win with Batterskull. In game one, he even recurred the Batterskull with Academy ruins. In Game two, he cabal therapy'd my first Sharpshooter and was able to equip a Jitte before I could find and land my second.

In the Final round, I played against Michael Flores's Cephalid Breakfast deck, which can be seen here: http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/deck_tech_cephalid_breakfast_w.html

In game one he leads with ponder on turn 1, and then stoneforge for batterskull on turn 2. I figure he's just playing stoneblade, and I build enough Board presence to kill him by turn 5, but he combos off on his turn 4. I had never seen his deck, so taking 50 damage to the face was not something I thought was coming. Game two I draw two surgical extractions, taking his one mana combo guy and then his lord of extinction. I eventually kill him with a Piledriver and Chieftain. I win Game 3 by using vial to flash in a stingscourger targeting a combo piece, and then vialing in a sharpshooter on my turn and playing a chieftain, which lets me mow down all of his guys.

Because I went 2-2 in standard, I needed to 3-1 legacy to make day two. The deck played very well and I SHOULD have made it, if not for my terrible misplay. As for the Warchief-Chieftain split, it was originally 4-1 with more Chieftans but I decided on Friday morning that I wanted a second Warcheif. After playing in the event, I think I want 3 of both, but I'm not sure what to take out. Giving your guys haste is SO important, and they even work well together and in multiples. I might take out the maindeck pyrokinesis for it. Also considering moving the stingscourger to the sideboard in favor of another War Marshall. Tarfire was great all day as well, so maybe I should have a third. I'm not sure...but I enjoyed the deck and had a great time playing this weekend, which was my first big tournament experience with the legacy format.

fimo

03-24-2012, 05:52 PM

@woodjt5: I can see that you have 2 sharpshooter in the 75. I think sharpshooter is a awsome in the metagame right now since lingering soul is kind of fashion

Humphrey

03-24-2012, 09:46 PM

if one decides to play 8 leylines in the board, how about adding 2-3 serum powder to get them reliable?

wert

03-25-2012, 05:25 AM

fimo

03-25-2012, 06:25 AM

@fimo
About chalice with affinity, would you side it in if you are on draw? Personally, I think the chalice is far more effectively with builds that plays with chrome mox. A turn 1 Chalice@1 is backbreaking to alot of decks.

I wouldn t side in the whole playset on the draw. I think I would prefer vials even though I might be wrong. On the draw, I would probably set it @1 or @2, aiming to nullify his top deck Signal Pest/glimpse of nature/Dispatch/Vault Skirge/cranial plating/Arcbound Ravager/jitte. It heavily depends on what I see they play the game before. In general, they are not a bad top deck IMO. Warren instigator is pretty hard to have it connect since they have so many creatures so I would probably do -2 WI, +2 cotv.

ScatmanX

03-25-2012, 06:54 AM

Warren instigator is pretty hard to have it connect since they have so many creatures so I would probably do -2 WI, +2 cotv.
Still, they have to block it, and it kills almost every creature of their deck. Sounde good to me.

wert

03-25-2012, 07:57 AM

fimo

03-25-2012, 08:02 AM

Still, they have to block it, and it kills almost every creature of their deck. Sounde good to me.

you are right that WI is not a dead card. However, I think that it is spot removal that hurts them the most. I think that if they can decide what creature to sacrifice to block WI is not such a loss for them because they have so many creatures. they can chump block with their 0 cc creatures untill they find a cranial plating/etched champion. (Which they don t have if you play cotv @0 on the play, in this case WI gains so much more value and I wouldn t side it out). From there either they equip cranial plating to a flyer for the win of they nullify WI with their etched champion. WI cannot start attacking before the 3rd turn even if you find it in the opening hand, maybe it is too little pressure on the draw. Also, I feel like cotv is a better top deck as compared to WI.
In general I would say that the greatest weakness af affinity is that they rely on the top deck more than most other decks and since early in the game. Chalice of the void can block their top decks and therefore I think it is valuable even when you are on the draw. I play the full playset of WI main deck so a split 2+2 with chalice seems reasonable to me on the draw but I agree that when on the draw may be more a matter of taste.

fimo

03-25-2012, 08:27 AM

Chalice is a great sideboard card against many decks but I still don't think it is best with affinity. On the draw, they would dumped almost their entire hand on the first turn with 0 and 1ccs. By the time, you put them in @1 and @2, they would have already casted what they could cast. .

Affinity is not the reason to put chalice in sideboard. All I m saying here is that chalice is an amazing card to have because of the combo MU. However, it finds application outside combo which makes it even more valuable and worth the spot in the sideboard. I am totally convinced that you should board in as many as you have in SB when you are on the play against affinity. When on the draw, I still think that it deserves a couple of slots. Affinity is one of the fastest aggro in the format (faster than us) so if they are on the play and they have cranial plating + a couple of flyers they will probably win regardless if your library contains 2 more WI or 2 cotv. However, if they don t have a broken hand so they cannot close the game immediatly because they don t have cranial plating in their opening hand for instance, I think that a split 2WI + 2cotv is more reasonable than 4WI. It is not like it is an enormous difference but in those situations I think cotv can do more.

orcanmail

03-25-2012, 11:28 AM

Sideboarding is a huge issue. I've started to play a mono red toolbox goblin main deck so i don't need any goblins in the sideboard. This gives the space to dedicate my sideboard against combo and in particular storm combo.

My current sideboard is then

3 Pyrokenises ( only non combo slot )
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mindbreak Trap
4 Leyline of Void ( I assume this is better than 2/2 relic/crypt )

I know thorn and pyrostatic pillar are useful but are they too slow v Storm Combo?

I find other decks I have a chance against and by dedicating 12 slots in my SB to this otherwise almost unwinable match up, i hope to have some chance!
Otherwise in a tourney eventually Goblins has no chance when they meet this deck and we are just accepting eventual defeat.
Any thoughts?

fimo

03-25-2012, 02:11 PM

@orcanmail:
I think that mindbreak trap is too narrow. If you want to dedicate also those 4 spots to combo hate I would go for Thorn of Amethyst which is a little wider or a split between Thorn of Amethyst and extra graveyard hate.
I would say that right now Thorn of Amethyst is a bit better than pyrostatic pillar because burn is still popular.
I think that leyline of the void is the way to go if you want to dedicate 4+ sideboard spots to grave hate

jrw1985

03-25-2012, 09:25 PM

Top 8 of a ~35 player Legacy tournament

Hello there Sourcers! I played the Trusty Goblins at a Legacy tournament yesterday. I had a great day and did some interesting things with my deck and sideboarding.

The Maindeck

9 Mountain
6 Fetchland
2 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland

4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Chieftain
2 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Warren Instigator
2 Tuktuk Scrapper
2 Goblin Piledriver
2 Goblin Warchief
2 Tarfire
2 Pyrokinesis
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Stingscourger
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Mogg Fanatic
1 Gempalm Incinerator

The Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Anarchy

Yeah, you read that sideboard right.

R1 - BUW (GP winner)
G1 - I kept my opening 7 with 2 Winstigators. My opponent mulled to 6. He played a T2 Stoneforge. I Tarfired it. I played a Winstigator that went farming. The 2nd Winstigator got through, and I got the win.
Sideboard: Nothing
G2 - I Tarfired another Stoneforge Mystic that had searched up a Batterskull. I forgot to keep him off 5 mana, allowing him to play the skull, but I had enough removal to keep it from being attached to anything. This was a bit more of a grind, but I got there.
1-0

R2 - GWB
G1 - I opened on a Lackey T1. My opponent played T1 GSZ into Dryad Arbor. I'll bite. I swung in with Lackey. He chose not to block. I cheated in Warchief, cast Sharpshooter, and pinged his Arbor. Interactions like these are why I still run Warchief in addition to Chieftain. Easy Win.
Sideboard: Nothing
G2 - I got a Maton and Ringleader cheated in while using Port to keep him off a third mana. I kept hitting him for three a turn and Porting him down so he only had 2 mana to work with. I couldn't draw a 1 or 2 CC goblin, so i just kept hitting for 3 a turn. Eventually I got bored and decided to just play a Ringleader from my hand and not use Port in his upkeep. This let him back in the game and made it interesting. I still won, but really the right line of play was to just keep porting him down and hitting for 3 a turn, rather than take the risk of letting him back in the game.
2-0

R3 Spiral Tide
G1 My opponent Mulls to 6. I lead with a Lackey. I get some guys on the board and cheat in a Tuktuk to blow up a Candelabra. My last turn I played a Warchief and attacked. I had a Lackey and Winstigator attacking, so three cheats coming my way. My opponent was at five life. One of his lands was a fetchland. I had one mana open and a Tarfire in hand. With my three cheats I played a Matron, tutored a KikiJiki, cheated the Kiki Jiki, copied the Matron with a Matron token, tutured up a Piledriver, cheated it into play, and cast Tarfire to drop my opponent to 3 life. Then i lost the game on his turn. While he was taking his 10 minute long winning turn it occured to me that I had him dead on the board, but I misplayed/punted and lost because of it. Did you see what line of play would have won me the game on my turn? Had I fetched up a Sharpshooter instead of Piledriver I could have pinged my opponent for 1 (Warchief) (4 life) then Tarfired him with my 1 open mana (2 life) then untapped Sharpshooter when the matron token died at the beginning of the end-step, deal 1 more damage with Sharpshooter (1 life) then he wouldn't be able to use his fetchland, or if I timed it right I could have pinged him to death after his fetch. Either way, he would have been dead or unable to go off, and I probably would have won. Bummer.
Sideboard: 4 Leyline, 4 Leyline, 2 Mindbreak Trap, 2 Chalice, 1 Thorn, minus Vial, Pyrokinesis, Stingscourger, basically worthless goblins etc etc.
G2 I open on a hand of 2 Leyline of the Void, 1 Leyline of Sanctity, 1 Thorn of Amethyst, 1 land, Piledriver, Warchief. My opponent is clearly shocked by the amount of hate I've brought in. Unfortunately I miss my T2 land drop. Sad. I don't put enough pressure on the board quickly enough. He Echoing Truths the Leyline of the Voids, Repeals the Leyline of Sactity, and Repeals the Thorn, then goes off. I just wasn't able to put on pressure to go with my hate. Lost. So sad.
2-1

R4 GBR
G1 I won by dodging Pernicious Deed. He played Veteran Explorers which really helped me thin my deck and unload multiple Goblins per turn.
Sideboard: NOTHING!!!!!!!
G2 Mulled to 5, couldn't get back in it. That happens.
G3 This one was just a goblin explosion.
3-1

R5 Spanish Inquisition
For those who don't know (I didn't), this deck is a Storm deck that uses Cruel Bargain as a draw engine. http://www.mtgfanatic.com/Decks/ViewDeck.aspx?ID=130168&Page=1&PageSize=25
G1 I was able to disrupt his combo when I Stingscourgered his Wild Cantor and Wasted his Bayou, but he was able to go off with like 4 Rituals then Tendrils me for 10, then again for 12.
Sideboard: Same as Spiral Tide. 13 cards.
G2 I chose to be on the draw this game, which left my opponent mighty confused. I chose the draw because I figured his didn't have anywhere near as many answers as I had disruption, so I could draw more hate as the game went on. My opening hand had Leyline of the Void and Leyline of Sanctity. My opponent scooped turn 0 because he hadn't sided in Empty the Warrens, as he wasn't expecting LoSanctity.
G3 My opponent chose to play. I mulled to 5 and had to keep an explosive Lackey hand that didn't have any hate. My opponent played a Summoner's pact for Wild Cantor which he then cast off a Bayou. He played tried to go off, casting 1 Cruel Bargain, then another, and he just didn't have the mana he needed to go off. He had to settle for playing out the permanent mana sources from his hand including a LED and Chrome mox to pay for the pact his next turn. On my turn I Wasted his Bayou to keep him off G mana. On his upkeep he had to crack the LED and discard his hand or else lose. I played a Lackey and won.
4-1

Top 8 GB
G1 I pooped out a bunch of goblins and he scooped.
Sideboard: NO SIDEBOARD!!!!!!!!!!!!
G2 He ripped my hand apart with double Cabal Therapy. I kept drawing lands and Vials. When i had 3 Vials in play he hit em with Maelstrom Pulse. Kitchen Finks and Thrun closed it out for him.
G3 I kept a hand with Vial and removal but no Matron/Ringleader. He hit my hand with discard and played removal on the guys I got in play. When I hit a Ringleader it revealed land, land, Vial, Pyrokinesis. A Thrun and a Grave Titan wrapped things up for him. And with that my tournament was over.

Thoughts: The maindeck was fucking awesome awesome awesome. Seriously. Awesome. I only sideboarded in 2 of 6 matches. Tarfires killed SFM and Ooze all day. Mogg Fanatic was relevant when my opponent fetched up a Dryad Arbor. Rishadan Port was useful. Piledriver killed a Thrun. Gempalm helped even out the Card Advantage Kitchen Finks brought in. The 2 Maindeck Pyrokinesis were great every time I drew them. I loved the maindeck and felt it had the upper hand against every creature-based deck I faced.

My loss against Spiral Tide was unfortunate. I made a misplay that cost me the game G1, and I just wasn't able to put enough pressure on G2 due to keeping a 1 land hand. So it goes. In the Top 8 match I faced down a deck with a bunch of cards for which I just didn't have the necessary answers. Maelstrom Pulse, Pernicious Deed, Kitchen Finks, Thrun, all are very difficult to deal with. And I just didn't have the gas to grind that match out. Would a black splash be worth it just for Weirding and Perish in the Sideboard? It would certainly help with Thruns and Oozes and KotR, but I'm not sure exposing my manabase to Wasteland is really worth it at this time. If Thrun starts making more appearances it might be worth it to run B. Would my deck have been better with a B splash? Yes, it would have. With access to B I would have been able to replay my Leyline of the Voids against Time Spiral, and Weirding and Perish would have given me better outs against G decks. The Anarchys in my sideboard never saw play, even in the MUs with W creatures.

And the Combo hating sideboard? It was great. It really was. Since I didn't need any SB cards for most of my matches it made perfect sense to overload the SB against the worst MUs I could face. Could it be changed/improved? Yes, but Leylines really are a beating. The fact that they can stop the T1 combo is pretty relevant, and not to be belittled. I might actually change the Sideboard to have 4 Mindbreak Traps instead of 2. It would have been good to have more of them after Time Spirals, and good to have more T0 interactions.

All in all, it was a great tournament.

ScatmanX

03-25-2012, 10:36 PM

I have a Report too!!!

100 and some people, 7 rounds+top8.

Took my stock MD, playing 21 lands to see how it went. The removed Mountain became a Sharpshooter. Throught the games the Mountain would naver make me happier than Shooter. Don’t know how it would be going down to 20, but that’s something to try out.

Round 1 – GW Maverick
Game 1 – He leads with Forest, me with Vial. He plays Pridemage, I Tarfire it. He plays Finks. I get Chieftain + Stingscourger, to connect for 2nd Cheftain. He re-plays Finks. I Vial a 3rd Chieftain, and another Stingscourger, and swing for the win. That’s what I call tempo.

Game 2 – I keep 4 Mountains, Waste, Vial and Anarchy. 5 Turns later I had not drawn a goblin, and Anarchy a 2/2 guy and a Shield of the Oversoul equipping a Finks. I chump Twice the Finks, until finnaly draw a Mtaron - >Ringleader -> 3 good goblins, and win. Wastelanded his G source twice.
1-0

Round 2 – UBG Control
Game 1 – He FoW Vial, but Lackey not, and it connects, bringing Matron for Ringleader (which I never cast because had only 2 lands then, and only 3 for the rest of the game). Next turn he kills lackey with soething, and I matron for Gempalm. He gets Liliana. Chieftain kills it. Then Another one hits, and hits again, and he dies. Nothing much here.

Game 2 – We get a random deckcheck, and he had written a card he wasn’t playing. Game loss…
2-0

Round 3 – Canadian (yeah, it is not called RUG)
Game 1 – I lead with Lackey. He Bolts. Intigator. He Chains. Instigator. He Bolts (with only 1 Volcanic into play). I get stuck with 3 lands, and Matron for Gempalm (Kiki, 2tuktuk, Ringleader on hand). He Brainstorms, fetchs and play Mongoose. I Gempalm and miss the land. He hits and play mongoose. I find land, he has Daze. He plays 3rd Mongoose. 2 turns later I die after a FoW. (I kill 2 Delver here with Tarfire)

Game 2 – I mull and keep 2 lands, Vial, Lackey and guys. He FoW Vial, kills Lackey, and plays an 5/6 Goyf. I get Blood Moon only after he finds a Goose. I topdeck a Stingscourger, that wins me a turn, but I’m down to 3. I chump Goose 5 turns in a row, never being able to play 2 guys or killing it. I draw Vial, Moon and then 2 lands, and lose. (I kill a Delver with Tarfire somewhere)
2-1

Round 4 – Goblins (Warchief, Fanatci, Warmarchall)
Game 1 – I play Vial, he plays Lackey. I gempalm it. He plays Warmarchall. I don’t really know what happened then, but Instigator > Mogg, and Vial > Lackey on the match. Matron got me Ringleader. I Tarfire him twice and win.

Game 2 – I keep 3 Mountains, Knesis, Instigator, Sting, Matron. He plays Lackey. I pass. He hits with Lackey, and get Ringleader (getting Shooter and Warchief), and play Fanatic and Prospector. I Knesis Ring, Lackey and Fanatic, to play an Instigator. He play Warchief (mana from Prospector). I play Chieftain and hit. He Knesis them, and play Matron (still 2 mana) for Gemapalm. I Tarfire Warchief. Don’t really know what happens. He gets a Vial, and so do I. When he goes to 3, on my endstep, he tries Sharpshooter, but I was holding Tarfire for it. 2 turns later he found some lands, got Ringleader and Siege Gang (after 2 Moggs). I Vial Shooter only when he was tapped out eot, and my turn Matron for Kiki, pay 5 for it, copy Shooter, clear his board, and win next turn.
3-1

Round 5 – Canadian
Game 1 – He leads with Mongoose. I play Lackey. He kills it. I play Instigator. He Thought Scour. I pass (6 cards on his yard). He hits, kills Instigator with Forked Bolt, and play Goose. I stumble on 3 lands again, and Matron for something, then he hits me again. I try to play something, he FoW, and hits again. I pretty much die.
Game 2 – I keep a bad 1 lander (bad decision) with Vial. It get FoW’d, and Extracted. I brik on lands for 3 turns, and he draws only lands. Then I draw a land, and gets 2 Instigator Snared and 1 Forked Bolted. He had then Sylvan Library and Goyf. I get a 3rd land and play Blood Moon. 5 mana FoW counter. Next turn I play Matorn. 5 mana FoW counter. Next turn I die to a 2nd goyf.
3-2

Round 6 – Merfolk
Game 1 – I keep 2 Vial, 3 lands, Tarfire, Gempalm. He Daze a Vial, the 2nd resolve. My turn 4 I hardcast Tuktuk because had drawn only the 2 of them and lands to chump a 2/1. He had 2 2/1 guys only, but I was going low. With 4 mana he plays Coralhelm, and up 3 times. In response to the 3rd, I Tarfire. He FoW. I Tarfire, he FoW. Next turn I get a Ringleader, Vial and play Chief and hit. He hits and bring me to 3. I find another Chief, play him, and kill him with Ring, another Vialed Tuktuk and 2 Chieftains.

Game 2 – He plays Vial. I pass. He plays Chill.

Game 3 – I keep 2 mountains, waste, 2 Lackey, Tarfire and Gempalm. Lackey resolves and connects, getting me the 2nd one. He plays the 2/1 guy. I gempalm, drawing Chieftain, and a 2nd for my turn. Both come down from Lackeys. He plays a guy, I Tarfire, and hit. Next turn he died.
4-2
Round 7 – Hive Mind
Game 1 – I keep a bad hand against him, and he wins.

Game 2 – I have a T2 Thorn, that he Fow, and T3 Instigator. He plays Monolith. Instigator gets Matron for Tuktuk that destroys Monolith. Next turn he passes, and I just roll him.

Game 3 – I Keep Mountain, Waste, Lackey, Sting, Matron, Ring, Surgical. He plays Volcanic and pass. I Waste. He Brainstorms and pass without lands. My Lackey eats FoW. We pass for 2 turns. Instigator eats FoW. He gets a land, and Ponder. I pass. He plays Tomb. I play Chieftain. He Intuitions for Hive Mind. I remove all of them from the game. He SnT ofr Emrakul. I bounce it. I Matron for a 2nd one, and win 2 turns later.
5-2

That wasn’t my best show, but was really happy with the deck again. The SB against Canadian need work, and Relic (like some already play) is the way to go. But Surgical is still nice, entering some other random matchups.
I Used Thorn because there should be more Hive Mind than TES, and so it was.
Anarchy is awesome, but it might not be needed.

@jrw1985: Nice to see someone with the balls to play that SB. Imo 4 Mindbreak traps is a must, and I don't really like Leyline of Sanctity (I play with Tide, and have played with TES) and is the worst card you can have if you can't protect it.
Suggested Anti-Combo hate: 4 MB Trap, 4 LotV, 3 Thorn, 2 Chalice, 2 Anarchy.

GoboLord

03-26-2012, 12:43 PM

Wow, 3 reports in a row! Nice one!

Hey fellow Warchiefs,

this is my first report in …a year, maybe? Well, it will not be very detailed, but still its has some messages. There we go…

It was Saturday evening when my friends and I playtested for the upcoming event (The Dutch Masters 2012). Our meta-predictions were quite clear: Esperblade, Esperblade, Esperblade, some Mavericks and (as usual in the Netherlands) Storm Combo in all varieties. I wanted to be one of those Storm Combo decks, so my quest for this evening was: beating Esperblade. Simple.
After a few matches with Storm Combo vs. Esperblade we rotated and Ruffy (aka. I am the brainwasher) wanted to improve his skills with Canadian Threshold by testing the Esperblade MU. Well…after a few games he angrily shouted: “THOSE DAMN F***ING SPIRIT TOKENS!”
I was like…”Wow, so tokens are cool again, huh?”. Some hours (~03.00 a.m.) and several beers later Toby suggested: “Hey Chris, I don’t like Maverick. I want to go wild with Storm Combo. And I want YOU to go wild with Goblins. Let’s do it the old* way. The right way.” (* He was pointing at our good results last year this event. I top-8-ed with Goblins, he top-4-ed with Combo)
Ok, 03.30 a.m. – time for deckconstruction. This is what we tinkered:

//Lands [22]:
17 Mountains
1 Snow Covered Mountains
4 Wasteland

Aggro-Power [31]:
4 Vial
4 Lackey
3 Piledriver
3 Mogg War Marshal
4 Warchief
3 Chieftain
4 Matron
4 Ringleader
2 Siege-Gang Commander

Removal [7]:
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Stingscourger

Sideboard [15]:
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Blood Moon
3 Pyroblast
2 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Shattering Spree
2 Anarchy

I know, I know….this list may raise some questions.
(1) Piledrivers?
Yes. Piledrivers. The plan was to go wild. Piledrivers go wild. I wanted to ASK question, not to ANSWER them – at least preboard. Plus, I’m in love with MWM again – Piledrivers profit from MWM.

(2) MWM?
I thought: “If Lingering Souls is cool, MWM is even cooler.” I mean: 4 Tokens for 3BW is worse than 3 Tokens for 1R (or even R), right?

(3) Warchief
+ Piledrivers + MWM = Aggro.

Pretty old-school, right? I loved it.

(4) Anarchy
They were supposed to wipe Maverick.

(5) Leylines
I was sick of those 2-3 Relics in MD. I mean, let’s be honest. They never actually WON you games. Thes just made it harder for your opponents. Plus, they don’t affect Dredge and Reanimator the slightest. So I wanted a card that gives them really, really hard times. Leyline seems perfect since it is under-represented today (which means that Dredge doesn’t prepare quite well).

And here comes the report:

Round 1: Chris with Dredge
Game 1 was over before it started. Although he took mulligan to 5 he rocked me.
Game 2: Leyline. Scoop.
Game 3: A single Nature’s Claim couldn’t handle double Leyline.

1-0 (2-1)

Round 2: Matthias with UWR Homebrewed Control
He totally beat me. There is no denying that I had 0 chances of winning this match. In game 2 he even mulled to 5 and used FoW for my Turn-1-Lackey. So he actually started with only 3 cards on hand. Let me explain what his deck does:
2 Wrath of God, 2 Firespout, 3-4 Grove of Burnwillow + 3-4 Punishing Fire, 4 Swords to at Plowshares, at least 2 Elspeths, 3-4 Snapcaster Mages.
I boarded in Bloog Moon, but he had Meddling Mage (@ Blood Moon) on turn 2! Very well played – since I sided out my removal spells…

1-1 (2-3)

Round 3: Pim with Burn/Sligh
In game 1 I mulled to 5 and I was 1 turn away from winning. He burnt me.
I won game 2 with 11 life left. He drew too many lands.
In game 3 I had to mull to 5 again, not drawing a second land for 4(!) turns. Still, I was one turn short from winning. He was on 2 life when he topdecked the lethal Lightning Bolt.
So I lost a absolutely winnable match due to mulligan.

1-2 (3-5)

Round 4: Maarten with ThopterFoundryBalanceControl
Thanks to Piledriver I am too fast for him in game 1 .
In game 2 Humility slows my damage-output. A Few turns later he has Enlightened Tutor @Moat which seals the deal. For game 2 I sided in 3 Pyroblast and 3 Artifact-haters. After I’ve seen Humility and only very little countermagic I decided that Tuktuk won’t do its job and Pyroblast would not be necessary to resolve my spells. I exchanged them for 4 Leylines and 2 Anarchy in game 3. I started game 3 with double Leyline. After that I gave him some time to resolve both Moat AND Humility, because I had Anarchy in my hand. I build up my army while his Jace fatesealed me every time. After he tapped himself out for Sensei’s Divining Top, + activation + Thopter Foundry I resolved Anarchy. My Piledriver ate Jace in one hit. A few turns later he conceded with the words “I didn’t expect that you would win after I resolved my Moat.”.

2-2 (5-6)

Round 5: Jeroen with Esperblade
In game 1 he had a Ponder out of an Usea. I had an Aether Vial on turn 1. On his turn he dropped a flooded strand and passed the turn. “Oh boy…storm combo…” I thought. So I wasted his underground Sea and passed. For the rest of the game he had only Stoneforge mystic which got immediately nuked by Lightning Bolt. The way was free for piledriver, mogg war marshall and Goblin Warchief…everything played of the single mountain I had on turn 1.
In game 2 he had Lingering Souls blocking my way…well chumpblocking actually, cause Warchief, Piledriver and Tokens gave me a comfortable boardposition. His Jitte was ShatteringSpree’ed, his Batterskull was Tuktuk’ed. Game Over.

3-2 (7-6)

Round 6: Frank with ComboElves
In game 1 he went off on turn 3.
In game 2 he went off in turn 5 on 6 life.
I was chanceless without any useful sideboard card against him.

3-3 (7-8)

Round 8: Rw Goblins
I knew his list from some scouting between the games and I knew that he had an ugly removal-package: 4 Swords to Plowshares, 2 Lightning Bolt, 2 Pyrokinesis and X Gempalm Incinerator (all in MD) and 2 Mog Fanatic and 1 Sharpshooter in SB.
I guess one can say I won this game by experience. He fell for some obvious traps of mine and did very bad combat-math, which costed him many resources. Luckily I didn’t’ see any Pyrokinesis and I was able to cut off his white-splash with my Wastelands.

4-3 (9-8)

That’s it for the moment. I’m not too much into the deck again, so I won’t draw any conclusions from my results. However I’m willing to answer any upcoming question.

fimo

03-26-2012, 04:55 PM

jrw1985

03-26-2012, 05:34 PM

I have a Report too!!!
@jrw1985: Nice to see someone with the balls to play that SB. Imo 4 Mindbreak traps is a must, and I don't really like Leyline of Sanctity (I play with Tide, and have played with TES) and is the worst card you can have if you can't protect it.
Suggested Anti-Combo hate: 4 MB Trap, 4 LotV, 3 Thorn, 2 Chalice, 2 Anarchy.

Nice report.
My sideboard had less to do with my balls and more to do with me never having anything to side in against creature heavy decks other than Pyrokinesis. So I thought, 'Fuck it! Just put 2 Pyros in the MD and devote the SB to Grave and Combo Hate.' I don't especially like Leyline of Sanctity either, but against Belcher and Fast Storm (AKA not High Tide) it's essentially a Mindbrak Trap that can't be discarded or chanted, since it's a T0, free effect that makes you not lose.

There is definitely room for improvement in the SB. I think Trap and LoS might take up 8 slots, just because having those T0 interactions is crucial. That would leave me with three open SB slots, which could either be REBs or CTs (protecting the Leylines/Traps from counter/discard) or they could be W or G hate (Perish/Anarchy). I'm already thinkig of putting the B splash back in to have answers against Thrun. He good.

Wow, 3 reports in a row! Nice one!
.

Good to see you back on the goblin train! I must say, with all the creature decks running around, I really think Goblins can exploit the format. And, ya know, they're super fun to play.

Thanks for sharing your experiences!

I see that jrw1985 plays only one gempalm. I also sadly kept cutting them one after the other. did you miss more copies of him? he is the best on paper but too often I wished it was any other removal.
I like gempalm less and less in the chieftain build, maybe because I don t play any MWM. Is gempalm + MWM a package? I mean can they really work well on multiple copies if one of them is missing?
I actually think that a good 3 perish in SB would help incredible much in the meta right now against maverick and canadian that are among the most played decks. Not sure about WW other than a 1-of matronable.

How did kiki-jiki play out? did he deserve not to be a SGC?

Aren t 3 5cc goblins too many? did you ever get stuck with them in the hand and wished they were something else?

Tarfire is just too good. It's better than Gempalm by miles right now. The lone Gempalm will probably be becoming a Warren Weirding or two.

Kiki was great. He gives the deck a lot of reach if you play him right (activating in response to removal, not before... Activating him in the end step so the token stays around for the next turn)

I actually like having Kiki as another 5cc, because he allows you to be sneakier with your Vials once the game wears on.

GoboLord

03-26-2012, 06:49 PM

Thanks for sharing your experiences!
@GoboLord: were you happy of lightning bolt? did you wish they were tarfire at any time?

Let's see.
I didnt see a single Tarmogoyf on my opponents' tables so Tarfire would have done the same as Lightning Bolt.
I did not want to tutor them up at any time.
I did not have Lightning Bolts in my Ringleaders at a time when I needed removal.
Oh..almost forgot. I burnt an equipped Thopter token with Lightning Bolt. Tarfire would not have been enough here.

When comparing Tarfire to Lightning Bolt you should not look at tournament result because they are evenly useful in most situations. It's hard to weigh their pros and cons against each other when you do not have (1) a very clear idea of what your meta looks like and (2) what your deck should be doing. I wanted to be as aggressive as possible. Therefore I took it as simple as: 3 dmg > 2 dmg
That does, however, not mean that this is the right way to look at things.
If you are not sure which card is better, I'd suggest you to run both (or maybe Tarfire as a tutorable 1-of).

markbris

03-26-2012, 09:04 PM

Thanks for sharing your experiences!

I see that jrw1985 plays only one gempalm. I also sadly kept cutting them one after the other. did you miss more copies of him? he is the best on paper but too often I wished it was any other removal.
I like gempalm less and less in the chieftain build, maybe because I don t play any MWM. Is gempalm + MWM a package? I mean can they really work well on multiple copies if one of them is missing?
I actually think that a good 3 perish in SB would help incredible much in the meta right now against maverick and canadian that are among the most played decks. Not sure about WW other than a 1-of matronable.

How did kiki-jiki play out? did he deserve not to be a SGC?

Aren t 3 5cc goblins too many? did you ever get stuck with them in the hand and wished they were something else?

@GoboLord: were you happy of lightning bolt? did you wish they were tarfire at any time?

I don't think 3 5cc goblins are too many esp with 2 winstigators or more. I haven't played the chieftain build too much though but with warchief i always liked having 3. Pretty much cuz lackey into scg 2nd turn is usually gg against everything but combo.

As for gempalm, I've never been a huge fan but have never really gone below 2, I feel like somewhere between 1-3 is the right number. You def have to have at least 1 because its just so sick to tutor for when you need it. I feel like to use alot of them though MWM def needs to be included and I just dont feel great about MWM right now.

Lastly for RUG I'm going to try rolling 3 Perish and 2 Warren Weirding SB with 4 tarfire, 2 gempalm, 2 weirding MD. I feel like if I just have a bunch of removal in there I can grind it out but I haven't tested this yet so I could be way off.

wert

03-27-2012, 10:38 AM

@GoboLord
You are brave man to leave Tuktuk Scrapper in the sideboard if you are expecting tons of Esperblade. But I guess the matchup you faced justified your choices. And why no Sharpshooter anywhere in your 75? He surely would be useful against spirits.

I have been running 16 mountains + 4 wastelands for a week, on the whole it seems workable. With vial out, all is fine. Without a vial, it is sometimes frustrating to stuck with 3 lands and not able to ringleader. In exchange, you do get more relevant cards in the first 7. On Gemplams, I replaced the 2 mountains with MVMs, so it is certainly more effective now.

Avatara

03-27-2012, 12:11 PM

@GoboLord I have been running 16 mountains + 4 wastelands for a week, on the whole it seems workable. With vial out, all is fine. Without a vial, it is sometimes frustrating to stuck with 3 lands and not able to ringleader. In exchange, you do get more relevant cards in the first 7. On Gemplams, I replaced the 2 mountains with MVMs, so it is certainly more effective now. I think you are exaggerating... it's not like you would always have one of those two mountains in your opening hand, nor would you top deck them every game.

GoboLord

03-27-2012, 12:27 PM

@GoboLord
And why no Sharpshooter anywhere in your 75? He surely would be useful against spirits.

I dont necessarily have trouble with spirit tokens, but Sharpshooter should be inluded - I agree with you here.
For the next tournament I will kick those 3 Pyroblasts for 1 Sharpshooter and 2 copies of a super-secret-tech against Canadian and Ur-Delverburn. I tell you what this card is if testing reveals that it is indeed useful. For now it's just an (probably embarassing) idea.

orcanmail

03-27-2012, 12:37 PM

A question / some observations

So mogg fanatic is good against bridge from below
stingscourger against emrakul
tuk tuks against jittes and batterskull

but my question, how to get rid of progenitus? ok, i try to keep their mana down and race with piledriver, but can we remove progenitus? For example would perish do the trick in a black splash? e.g. does progenitus die to boardsweepers?

jrw1985

03-27-2012, 12:39 PM

Ace/Homebrew

03-27-2012, 12:40 PM

For example would perish do the trick in a black splash? e.g. does progenitus die to boardsweepers?

Yes Perish works for a black splash.
Anarchy works if you are mono red.

Edit - Beaten by jrw =)

jrw1985

03-27-2012, 01:38 PM

I need some Input on this:

Suggested Sideboard

4 Leyline of the Void
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Mindbreak Trap
1 Perish
2 Anarchy

Dredge: 4LoV 2SE
Combo: 4LoV 2SE 3LoS 3MT
Snapcaster/Eternal Witness/Kitchen Finks/Gathering Souls/Intuition: 2SE
Thrun/KotR/Mom: Perish/Anarchy

The sideboard wants to give us t0 answers to combo/dredge, the 2 fastest decks in the format. I understand why people play slower SB cards with more reach, but I don't think it's necessary. Goblins MD beats just about every other creature-based deck without sideboarding anyway. Anarchy and Perish just provide help in the obvious places. They could just as easily be REB if there's more U in your meta than creatures. Surgical Extraction provides a lot of reach against decks trying to abuse spot-GY recursion. The only thing this SB doesn't address in BUG control, but that deck only pops up once in a blue moon to crush a metagame, then disappears.

Anywho, I'm splashing B again to run Weirding (too much Thrun) instead of Gempalm probably, and that allows Perish to be played too. Gempalm is just a little pricey for what it does, big creatures are a little too big for it, and Tarfire is better against small creatures. Gempalm was really meant for killing 3-4 toughness critters, which Pyrokinesis is also better at anyway.

GoboLord

03-27-2012, 03:29 PM

jrw1985

03-27-2012, 04:29 PM

I can't say wether your combo-hate is cool or not, but I think that you are overdoing it with gravehate.
Against Dredge Leylines otV are enough. Surgical Extractions (as a 2-off) don't improve your chances on winning significantly.
Yes, you want to use Extractions against Snapdude, Finks, etc. but I don't see that happening. I just don't see any card in MD that should be replaced with Extractions after G1. I think Extraction is too situational to have an huge impact.

Yeah, I think 4 Leylines should usually be enough, but I wanted Surgicals to act as additional free Combo hate. Leyline is obviously pretty easy to play around. Surgical at least has surprise value (can be used in response to Cabal Ritual to stop Thresh, that sort of stuff). That has been a problem, the obviousness of Leylines. Your opponent just needs to find an answer, then bounce or destroy the Leylines, and you're left with no further interactions.

Part of me just want to run 4 of both Leylines and Mindbreak Trap, then use the last three spots fro REB to protect them from bounce.

ScatmanX

03-27-2012, 05:09 PM

Don't run those awful W Leylines... please...
It is never going to win you any game, except maybe from burn, but even then, CotV is better.

Humphrey

03-27-2012, 05:29 PM

if one decides to play 8 leylines in the board, how about adding 2-3 serum powder to get them reliable?

this question was not a troll.
if u decide to run 4+ hate, then why not improve the leylines?

About B-splash, Virtue´s Ruin is also nice.

Nameless Two

03-27-2012, 05:30 PM

Besides being turn 0 answers, they are also answers that don't slow your clock that bad.

Chalice on turn 2 means no Warren Instigator, and since piledrivers are no longer 4-ofs, turn 4 kills will often come from the Instigator.

I'd go for Mindbreak Trap #4 perhaps....

But also consider running Thoughtseize/Cabal Therapy if you're splashing black. Taking out a key combo spell can slow the game perhaps just as well. They'd have to search for a replacement copy instead of an answer to your answer.

On a side note. Since big creatures appear to be problematic; Sparksmith?

Perhaps 2 or 3 alongside a set of gempalm incinerators, MWM, a Sharpshooter and perhaps 2 Basilisk Collar, probably warchiefs over chieftains in this configuration?

They can even help to deal with Goyfs, Knights, Scavenging Ooze, Batterskull (to some extend)

They aren't particularly good against combo or burn ofcourse, but I guess that's where the anti-combo sideboard plan comes from?

Just a thought...

ScatmanX

03-27-2012, 06:18 PM

this question was not a troll.
if u decide to run 4+ hate, then why not improve the leylines?
I'd really like someone to test that for me...

Besides being turn 0 answers, they are also answers that don't slow your clock that bad.

Chalice on turn 2 means no Warren Instigator, and since piledrivers are no longer 4-ofs, turn 4 kills will often come from the Instigator.
CotV is to play on your 1st turn for 0. For 1 when against High tide only. And against Tide you can easily play Instigator on 2, then Chalice on 3, since T3 kill from them happens not very often.

wert

03-27-2012, 09:17 PM

Here is the list I am playing with for the last week with just 20 lands. It isn't altogether unworkable, but at this point, I can't really say it is the best way to go as you can be short of lands at times. I think it warrants more testing.

Pyrokinesis is a card that I think is quite worthy of maindeck. It gives great tempo and much needed removal at the same time. Sharpshooter is another card that I think should be somewhere in your 75, unless it eats removal, it wins games by itself.

//Lands
16 Mountain
4 Wasteland
//Goblins
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
2 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Stingscourger
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Warren Instigator
1 Mogg War Marshal
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Goblin Piledriver
//Removal
2 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Tarfire
1 Pyrokinesis
//Artifact
4 AEther Vial
1 Basilisk Collar
SB: 2 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 Faerie Macabre
SB: 1 Goblin Tinkerer
SB: 2 Anarchy
SB: 1 Stingscourger
SB: 1 Pyrokinesis
SB: 4 Chalice of the Void
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
Critique and suggestions please. :smile::smile::smile:

markbris

03-27-2012, 09:47 PM

Put me in the camp of 20 lands is not enough, back in the day with 4x warchief most of us were running 21-23 land and now with chieftain and stuff like Tuktuk maindeck we are going to 20? Warchief isnt there to lower the curve anymore and I just don't feel like its going to work out overall even though it did for the guy at SCG.

orcanmail

03-28-2012, 02:13 AM

On the issue of 20 lands, sure chieftain builds mean we're not running warchiefs like we used to, but then we are running warren instigator and have more lackey effects to help drop out higher casting cost goblins. Also by dropping ports i don't need extra mana to run them in addition to casting goblins.
dropping from 22 to 20 lands has allowed me to fit in those extra couple of goblins and put on more pressure.
i guess it needs extensive playtesting.

Malakai

03-28-2012, 04:08 AM

People have been trying to tune Goblins to be able to beat the combo matchup for a about six years now, and they have never succeeded. The best thing you can do is have 4 Wasteland, 4 Rishadan Port, and 4 of those Piledrivers everyone seems to be cutting.

Your time is going to be a lot better spent by figuring out how to beat RUG, UW, and Maverick consistently than it will be trying to figure out a 50/50 sideboard for a matchup that already has a 20/80 game 1.

To put it another way, there are 8 decks in the DTB section. Of those, three of them are combo: Sneak Attack, Reanimator, and Burn. Concentrate on crushing the other 5, then turn to these and ask yourself what you can do with the space you have remaining. My guess is you'll have to choose two, and just dodge the other one.

GoboLord

03-28-2012, 08:49 AM

But also consider running Thoughtseize/Cabal Therapy if you're splashing black. Taking out a key combo spell can slow the game perhaps just as well. They'd have to search for a replacement copy instead of an answer to your answer.
I think NamelessTwo is right here. On my last event I've wittnessed a Goblin Player wrecking Storm combo with two Therapies (although I'd say the game was already over after he flashbacked the first one). I know this case was special but he hit 8 cards with 4 (if you count the flashback) Cabal Therapies. This card is a bitch. I'm playing storm combo for a while now and Therapy has replaced the conventional discard-spells because it's just soooo much better. In Storm Combo you have Gitaxian Probes to target your Therapies right - in Goblins we can profit from the huge amount of creatures enabling flashbacks.
My message is: Run Therapies!

On a side note. Since big creatures appear to be problematic; Sparksmith?

Perhaps 2 or 3 alongside a set of gempalm incinerators, MWM, a Sharpshooter and perhaps 2 Basilisk Collar, probably warchiefs over chieftains in this configuration?

They can even help to deal with Goyfs, Knights, Scavenging Ooze, Batterskull (to some extend)
I have been toying around with Sharpshooter, Sparksmith and Basilisk Collar and it is not much mor than a cute trick. You need a combination of several cards to get going. After all they don't do much more than a well placed Anarchy or Perish. While Sharphooter has potential to win you games single-handedly against (a situation that I have never had in ~5 years of playing the deck) Basilisk Collar and Sparksmith are not the best way to deal with huge creatures.

eople have been trying to tune Goblins to be able to beat the combo matchup for a about six years now, and they have never succeeded. The best thing you can do is have 4 Wasteland, 4 Rishadan Port, and 4 of those Piledrivers everyone seems to be cutting.

Your time is going to be a lot better spent by figuring out how to beat RUG, UW, and Maverick consistently than it will be trying to figure out a 50/50 sideboard for a matchup that already has a 20/80 game 1.
I want to add something to what Malakai said.

First: He is right, we can't go much further than a 50% post-board combo MU. Last year when I practiced the storm-combo MU with this SB
4 Mindbreak Trap
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Earwig Squad
4 X
I had a result of ~60% postboard (taken together ANT and TES).
However, the games I won were those where I had very fast opening-turns. So I'd say that if you want to beat storm combo you should go through the following steps:
(1) Count your MD-cards that do NOT improve an aggressive strategy and may hinder your turn-4 -kills (thats the slowest we should be aiming at).
(2) Do not place more anti-combo-cards in your SB than you have cards to board out.
I would say that in conventional builds it comes down to this:
OUT: 4 Vial, 3-4 removalspells
IN: 7-8 anti-combo-cards that have manacosts of 0 or 1.
Beat them by speed. Speed is your most valuable weapon (I'm looking at you, Piledriver).

Second: I dont agree with Malakai on the second paragraph.
You should indeed keep other DTBs in mind when building your SB, but I feel very unconfortable whenever I have more than 4 cards to bring in post-board, because this means that we have to side out 4 cool cards from our MD. And as jrw1985 said: our deck is good enough to beat most aggro- and midrange strategies with it's maindeck.

orcanmail

03-28-2012, 11:16 AM

I can easily board out 4 vials, 3 gempalms, 2 stingscourgers, and 2 tuk tuks against storm combo, and board in 4 mindbreak traps, 4 leylines and 3 chalice of voids, with 20lands ( 16 mountains, 4 wastelands ) that still leaves me with

4 lackeys
3 tarfires ( storm combo doesn't like burn either )
1 mogg fanatic
2 warren instigators
2 piledrivers
3 MWM
4 matrons
4 chieftains
4 ringleaders
2 SGC

To finish them off as quickly as i can.

( For those doing the maths, sharpshooter and 3 pyrokenesis make up the remaining 4 slots in the SB after 11 storm combo hate )

jrw1985

03-28-2012, 12:11 PM

Don't run those awful W Leylines... please...
It is never going to win you any game, except maybe from burn, but even then, CotV is better.

I did get 1 win off of them against Spanish Inquizition, and they're practically GG against Burn, but, yeah, they are kinda awful.

this question was not a troll.
if u decide to run 4+ hate, then why not improve the leylines?

About B-splash, Virtue´s Ruin is also nice.

No, I don't think playing Serum Powder is the way to go. Ever.
Also, Perish is now strictly better than nature's Ruin, since Perish says they can't be regenerated (Thrun) while Nature's Ruin doesn't.

People have been trying to tune Goblins to be able to beat the combo matchup for a about six years now, and they have never succeeded. The best thing you can do is have 4 Wasteland, 4 Rishadan Port, and 4 of those Piledrivers everyone seems to be cutting.

Your time is going to be a lot better spent by figuring out how to beat RUG, UW, and Maverick consistently than it will be trying to figure out a 50/50 sideboard for a matchup that already has a 20/80 game 1.

To put it another way, there are 8 decks in the DTB section. Of those, three of them are combo: Sneak Attack, Reanimator, and Burn. Concentrate on crushing the other 5, then turn to these and ask yourself what you can do with the space you have remaining. My guess is you'll have to choose two, and just dodge the other one.

1. I want to be the one to figure it out. 4 Waste/Port/Piledriver just doesn't do it against any Combo except High Tide.
2. I believe the MD is already well tuned to be favored against most other creature-based deck in the format (most, not all... I think Nic Fit is a problem since removal+discard+Deed+Thrun is pretty relevant against gobbos). So now I want to figure out how to make it so favored against combo that G2 and 3 are locked up.
3. High Tide ought to be in DTB. It has been a beast recently. Burn, Sneak Attack, and Reanimator have all but disappeared as of late. Storm Combo is still what worries me the most right now.

Humphrey

03-28-2012, 12:24 PM

I think Serum Powder is good, if you already have 8 Leylines. But I dont think Leylines are good, though.

Virtues Ruin is not Natures Ruin mate

http://static.starcitygames.com/sales/cardscans/MAGPO1/virtues_ruin.jpg

jrw1985

03-28-2012, 01:44 PM

Ace/Homebrew

03-28-2012, 02:12 PM

I prefer Anarchy to Virtue's Ruin

orcanmail

03-28-2012, 06:57 PM

so in tonight's tourney I beat storm combo! auto loss first game then sideboarded 4 mindbreak traps, 4 leyline of voids and 4 chalice of void and took the next 2 games.
main deck was fine against rest of field and only needed my SB 3x pyrokenesis against them.
Way to go is anti combo sideboard and toolbox goblins maindeck, either mono red or black splash for weirdings and perish.
20 lands also worked fine.

jrw1985

03-28-2012, 07:40 PM

ScatmanX

03-28-2012, 08:02 PM

On my report last page I beat Hive Mind to. Not impossible.
And Surgical Extraction is way better against them then Leyline. Imo their better against other combos too...

orcanmail

03-29-2012, 02:06 AM

In game one he went off round 2, 1-0 down. Sided in 4xCOV, LOV, Mindbreak Trap, Out 4xVial, 2xSting, 2x tuk Tuk Scrapper, 3 x Gempalm, 1 x Fanatic

Game 2 Laid COV for 0 and had lackey into SGC turn 1, turn 2 piledriver and then all over him. I had a good draw.

Game 3 i mulliganed down to 6, dropped Leyline of Void.. When he passed I dropped Chalice of Void for 0. I passed, he passed and i tarfired him at end of his go. Turn 2 I dropped MWM, He passed. turn 3 I dropped chieftain and swung for 4 with 2 token. He played on his turn double dark ritual and tried to bounce my chalice with some blue spell which i mindbreak trapped. He then passed. I wastelanded one of his lands and played warren instigator and was now swinging for 10. If i remember he had taken now 14 from creatures, 2 from tarfire and 2 from his own fetchlands leaving him on 2. He drew a card and scooped.

afterwards he was depressed to losing to goblins but he had never experienced such hate before. I'm not sure if Leyline of Void helped or not, but Chalice and Mindbreak Trap definately gave me the edge.

ScatmanX

03-29-2012, 08:21 AM

Thats a pretty combo hate fulled hand game 3!
Why didn't you hit with Chieftain T3 also? It has haste to...

orcanmail

03-29-2012, 01:12 PM

Thats a pretty combo hate fulled hand game 3!
Why didn't you hit with Chieftain T3 also? It has haste to...

You are right of course. Tired, in a rush and writing it up from memory. Maybe I should start taking notes.

I did attack with my chieftain T3, so he must have only cracked one fetchland so was on 1 life when he scooped.
T1 2 damage tarfire + 1 damage fetchland
T3 4 damage MWM + 2 damage chieftain
T4 4 damage MWM +2 damage chieftain + 4 damage Warren Instigator
Total 19 damage when he scooped at the start of his turn 5

Yes I did have a lot of hate, but that is the point. Without alot of hate from SB you have no chance. I accept I was fortunate with my cards, but it is why I mulliganed as you can't win without hate in your starting hand against storm combo.

The point is that we can win against storm combo, but only with hate, mulligans, and some good fortune AND if we can beat storm we can top 8 again I'm sure in tourneys.

jrw1985

03-29-2012, 02:08 PM

@orcanmail

I like that you ran

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mindbreak Trap

Leyline doesn't stop Combo, but it makes it lose some explosivity, and it must be dealt with if they're going for a line of play that requires recursion.

Chalice @ 0 stops explosive combo, but also can be played @ 1 against a wide array of slower combo (Elves, Tide, Burn).

Mindbreak Trap of course stops Storm cold.

I think that maybe, MAYBE, a Leyline of Sanctity should be in the side too, just to add a little more T0 protection. What's the difference between 3 or 2 non-combo SB slots anyway?

jrw1985

03-29-2012, 02:51 PM

Can I just say I am super-pleased with how Goblin Friendly this Legacy format has gotten?

Goyf = gone
Nacatl = gone

I'll take Ooze over Goyf and Delver over Nactal any day of the week. Those guys were the 2 reasons to not run Tarfire, and they've been replaced by x/2 delvers, oozes, and SFMs. Combo is the only bad MU left, and it's generally confined to Storm combo, making it easier to hate out (versus trying to answer Storm AND 2-card Combo).

Humphrey

03-29-2012, 03:02 PM

I prefer Anarchy to Virtue's Ruin

Well, Ruin is a turn faster and can be cast under Gaddok Teeg.

Ace/Homebrew

03-29-2012, 03:45 PM

Well, Ruin is a turn faster...
I struggle to think of a situation where you'd cast your ruin on turn 3

...and can be cast under Gaddok Teeg.
This is a valid point though =)

fimo

03-29-2012, 03:55 PM

Well, Ruin is a turn faster and can be cast under Gaddok Teeg.

They side out gaddok teeg against us.

It s cool to have a chance to beat combo with little green guys. I appreciate that. But considering other MU... Maverick is the most played aggro deck right now. Is it only me that thinks maverick is not such a piece of cake? I think that MU is pretty even preboard. Maybe slightly favourable post board if one plays perish but still it is quite tough. They have ways to destroy aether vial, spot removal, tons of blockers for lackey, huge dudes, mom that gives protection from red and equipments. Pretty much anything they play must be dealt with. And for most of these things they have a tutor that puts them directly on the battlefield. I think it s a tough MU

mrblueduck

03-29-2012, 04:01 PM

They side out gaddok teeg against us.

It s cool to have a chance to beat combo with little green guys. I appreciate that. But considering other MU... Maverick is the most played aggro deck right now. Is it only me that thinks maverick is not such a piece of cake? I think that MU is pretty even preboard. Maybe slightly favourable post board if one plays perish but still it is quite tough. They have ways to destroy aether vial, spot removal, tons of blockers for lackey, huge dudes, mom that gives protection from red and equipments. Pretty much anything they play must be dealt with. And for most of these things they have a tutor that puts them directly on the battlefield. I think it s a tough MU

Maverick isn't a slam dunk match up that alot of people are claiming, and thats even with Pyrokensis and Tuktuks in the main. I think we are around 60-40% to win assuming you are a very good goblin player, against a good maverick player. By wasting slots on the small amount of combo matchups we may encounter, we are really hurting our chances. RUG is also a very real deck. And they run goyfs, so no. Goyf is still very real, just not alot of them in local 20-30 man tournaments. Relics are crucial to beating them, and cutting all these tools that beat the most popular decks is bad....

fimo

03-29-2012, 04:39 PM

Maverick isn't a slam dunk match up that alot of people are claiming, and thats even with Pyrokensis and Tuktuks in the main. I think we are around 60-40% to win assuming you are a very good goblin player, against a good maverick player. By wasting slots on the small amount of combo matchups we may encounter, we are really hurting our chances. RUG is also a very real deck. And they run goyfs, so no. Goyf is still very real, just not alot of them in local 20-30 man tournaments. Relics are crucial to beating them, and cutting all these tools that beat the most popular decks is bad....

I think that in valuating a MU you can t consider you are a better player than him.
In my testing against maverick relics are not good enough to be boarded in. The problem is that basically any card MD is needed so there isn t much to side out. If anything goes out, something huge (like perish) has to come in otherwise it s not worth it. Sideboarding with RUG is a bit better because there are more cards MD that are not so relevant. In this case I think relic deserves to be sideboarded.

By the way I tested pithing needle and I think is actually worth to be sided in against maverick. It stops anything dangerous on board: from equipments to elspeth to mom. Especially when playing T1 vial, T2 pithing needle on quasali pridemage is often gg.
On the other hand I don t think Anarchy is the way to go. They don t wait for you having 4 lands and it doesn t do anything against equipments and ooze (which became a 3-of). I don t think that maverick should be one of the reasons to include anarchy in side.

ScatmanX

03-29-2012, 04:55 PM

orcanmail

03-29-2012, 05:05 PM

Maverick is why my other 3 sideboard slots are pyrokenesis. I beat maverick in a tourney 2 weeks ago and key to the victory was siding in these 3 cards. ( combined with tarfires, gempalms and stingscourgers already in main )

Mind you I've had problems with pro from red creatures and progenitus, so i may try out black for perish and warren weirdings, instead of gempalms and pyrokenesis.
Of course the splash requires fetchlands and duals making my current mana base less stable at 20 lands only, so as always more fine tuning!

mrblueduck

03-29-2012, 05:17 PM

I think that in valuating a MU you can t consider you are a better player than him.

Yes you are correct. I meant to say, assuming both the goblin player and maverick players are solid/competent its a 60-40 advantage. I wanted to point that part out, because I am reading some of the reports posted the last few days and you see in some of the games the Maverick player makes huge unbelievable errors. Which makes the goblin players think the match-up is much better than what it is. When in reality, it was due to just a player who is bad or just has never seen a how lackey can interact and absolutely take over a game.

By the way I tested pithing needle and I think is actually worth to be sided in against maverick. It stops anything dangerous on board: from equipments to elspeth to mom. Especially when playing T1 vial, T2 pithing needle on quasali pridemage is often gg.
On the other hand I don t think Anarchy is the way to go. They don t wait for you having 4 lands and it doesn t do anything against equipments and ooze (which became a 3-of). I don t think that maverick should be one of the reasons to include anarchy in side.

If you like Pithing needle, then Cursed Totem, is a 1000x times better attacking Maverick. As for Anarchy, it isn't amazing. But when compared to the other often side boarded chaos warp, it hits almost everything warp does, and is much more versatile. It is a good card, and is good hate in a lot of random match ups.

I guess the theory is to make a consisten MD that beats those decks, so you can run 12 dedicated combo cards.
A list with 1 Scrapper, 2 Relics, 2 Knesis, 2-3 Tarfire/Bolts, is very capable of acomplishing that, while still being very good against other decks.

I understand the theory, but in practice it doenst even work. Even with 12 sideboard combos, you still are less than 50-50 against combo. And combo is such a general term, because high tide, is much more resilient than SI or ANT, and can win through hate much easier. I don't want to be a dick, but word to the wise. If you don't want to lose to combo, don't play goblins.

Ace/Homebrew

03-29-2012, 05:18 PM

If your board isn't dedicated to combo hate, I've found Blood Moon to be strong against Maverick. If they failed to fetch a Forest right away it's basically GG.

Mantis

03-29-2012, 05:29 PM

You are right of course. Tired, in a rush and writing it up from memory. Maybe I should start taking notes.

I did attack with my chieftain T3, so he must have only cracked one fetchland so was on 1 life when he scooped.
T1 2 damage tarfire + 1 damage fetchland
T3 4 damage MWM + 2 damage chieftain
T4 4 damage MWM +2 damage chieftain + 4 damage Warren Instigator
Total 19 damage when he scooped at the start of his turn 5

Yes I did have a lot of hate, but that is the point. Without alot of hate from SB you have no chance. I accept I was fortunate with my cards, but it is why I mulliganed as you can't win without hate in your starting hand against storm combo.

The point is that we can win against storm combo, but only with hate, mulligans, and some good fortune AND if we can beat storm we can top 8 again I'm sure in tourneys.
So Lightning Bolt > Tarfire? I mean, your day could have easily been ruined by the storm player going off that turn. The extra damage would have been pivotal in preventing your opponent from getting a fifth and potentially lethal turn.

fimo

03-29-2012, 05:50 PM

If you like Pithing needle, then Cursed Totem, is a 1000x times better attacking Maverick. As for Anarchy, it isn't amazing. But when compared to the other often side boarded chaos warp, it hits almost everything warp does, and is much more versatile. It is a good card, and is good hate in a lot of random match ups.

Yeah it is awsome but only against maverick. Pithing needle is great against another super widely played deck: esper stoneforge/UW stoneforge. It is the aswer against jace and equipment which are crucial for them. Also, they have less way to interact with it as compared to maverick.

@Ace/Homebrew: interesting to hear that but it never worked out for me. They always fetch basics against me and a single hierarch can ruin it all.

Humphrey

03-29-2012, 10:47 PM

They side out gaddok teeg against us.

After u showed them Pyrokinesis Game1? I dont think so. A good Maverick Player keeps his tutorable 1of.

If you want to dedicate more than 4 sb slots to combo, id run 4 Cotv and 3 Earwig Squads

GoboLord

03-30-2012, 08:18 AM

I understand the theory, but in practice it doenst even work. Even with 12 sideboard combos, you still are less than 50-50 against combo. And combo is such a general term, because high tide, is much more resilient than SI or ANT, and can win through hate much easier. I don't want to be a dick, but word to the wise. If you don't want to lose to combo, don't play goblins.

I can say that I have a lot of experience in fighting combo with Goblins - and my experience says that you might be wrong here.
(1) It's not the NUMBER of combo-hate-cards but the QUALITY that counts. I mean: if you only got "bounceable" cards (Leyline, Chalice, Thorn) that makes it easier to play through them. There you need to split you hate, like this: Chalice (bouncable/discardable), Mindbreak Trap (Discardable), Earwig Squad (only "Thoughtseizable").
(2) You can reach a winpercentage of ~60% postboard with the right cofiguration of sideboard cards. AND: 4-of Piledriver is a must. Hate is useless if you aren't fast enough.
(3) I find it absolutely reasonable if Goblins try to improve the combo-MU. The point is (and here I agree with you) that you may not dedicate your whole SB to combo. The key here is to pick cards that are flexible and applicable in other MUs. Like this:
Chalice: Elves Combo, Burn, UR Delver
Earwig Squad: any deck that wins via 2-card combos (Hive Mind, Sneak Show, Enchantress, Painted Stone)
Surgical Extraction: Dredge, Reanimator
Pyroblast: CanThresh, UR Delver
...

jrw1985

03-30-2012, 10:13 AM

R1 Reanimator
G1 I win the roll, lead with Lackey. He plays no land and discards an Iona. I play a Badland and cheat some stuff in play. He plays an Underground Sea and Careful Studies, discarding 2 more guys. I play a Waste on the Sea and keep swinging. W
G2 I mull to Leyline. He didn't side in Show and Tell, and he can't dig to bounce before it's over.
1-0
We de-sideboard and play one for fun before the next round. I use Stingscourger and Weirding to keep his board clear.

R2 RUG Thresh
G1 I mull to 5. Lose.
G2 I side in 4 Chalice of the Void and Perish and take out some irrelevant Goblins (Scrappers, shave a little). I mull to 5 again. Lose again.
We de-sideboard and play for fun again. This time I keep my 7 and am actually well on my way to winning when the next round's pairings are put up.
1-1

R3 Food Chain Elves
G1 I love this deck I'm facing. He splashes W just for Enlightened Tutor. I'm on the draw and have a Lackey but I brick on removal spells, allowing him to get board position and genreate tons of mana with Food Chain into Emrakul. Lose.
G2 I side in Chalice of the Void and Perish. I put a lot of pressure on early with an explosive Lackey hand. He doesn't block because he needs to build his board. I Perish. W
G3 A friendly reminder: If you find yourself facing a Food Chain deck, side in your Mindbreak Traps. Turns out they like sweeping thier board for Brass Herald, and a lone Trap can be GG. I was thinking about this when he was Chaining Heralds together ftw. I did manage to get a Sharpshooter in play with Haste the turn before he won, but because Food Chain removes from the game it doesn't trigger Sharpshooter. Still, sharpshooter was the best choice for Matron as it would keep him from filling his board with blockers or whatever.
1-2
R1 I capitalized on my opponent's mistakes. R2 I drew bad openers. R3 I made a huge sideboarding error that greatly reduced my chances of winning.
I missed the safety of MonoR when a badlands got Wasted on me against Thresh.

On Combo MU:
Earwig Squad is just really really slow. 4 Mindbreak Trap, 4 Chalice seems more and more like the way to go. It doesn't hurt either that a resolved Chalice is GG against RU, Thresh, and Burn.

fimo

03-30-2012, 11:52 AM

Humphrey

03-30-2012, 11:54 AM

Squad alone is to slow, but paired with Cotv you should have the turns to prowl it. Getting Tendrils from the current ANT lists is gg.
Also Squad can be useful in other matches like BUG-Control

About B-Splash: I said it last year, you can safely run 1 Swamp, 1 Badlands and 6-8 Fetches and still be able to have B when you need it.

Here is my current list:

//lands 21
7 Mountain
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Swamp
1 Badlands

//Removal
2 Tarfire
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
2 Pyrokinesis
1 Stingscourger
1 Warren Weirding
2 Gempalm Incinerator

//Base
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Ringleader
2 Goblin Piledriver
3 Goblin Warchief
3 Goblin Chieftain
2 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Gempalm Incinerator
4 AEther Vial
2 Warren Instigator
4 Goblin Matron
2 Mogg War Marshal

//Sideboard
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 4 Chalice of the Void
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Perish
SB: 1 Virtue's Ruin
SB: 1 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Tuktuk Scrapper
SB: 1 Earwig Squad

fimo

03-30-2012, 01:08 PM

About B-Splash: I said it last year, you can safely run 1 Swamp, 1 Badlands and 6-8 Fetches and still be able to have B when you need it.

I want to playtest this. It may be the safe way through wastelands

jrw1985

03-30-2012, 01:21 PM

@jrw1985: how many chalice to do side in against RUG Thresh? Also when on the draw?
I miss the moroR safety as well against wasteland. Do you play black spells MD? I am quite convinced right now that the way to go is to have some BR duals but playing only red cards MD and fetching basic mountains. When against maverick/RUG Thresh side 3 perish and that s it. I think perish is so powerfull against them that it is woth it.

Side ALL THE CHALICE!
But then I'll have less Goblins! Who cares? If you stick a Chalice they can't play 75% of their deck.

I play 1 Weirding MD. I'm going to add 1 Swamp as my 22nd land and 61st card. 3 Perish seems good.

Humphrey

03-30-2012, 01:27 PM

I want to playtest this. It may be the safe way through wastelands

usually i fetch to 2-3 mountains and then grab the swamp. if you need b real quick fetch the badlands.

wert

03-30-2012, 06:03 PM

I don't know if it is just me, I find that Maverick is far from a favourable matchup. Yes, it isn't all that bad, but it is 50/50 at best. Maverick has answers to almost everything we have, and they have better utility creatures via GSZ and lands via KotR. We wouldn't roll over but it is always a good fight. I lost more than a few times to those small little flyers they have, Scryb Ranger, Aven Mindcensor etc. Pyrokinesis helps alot in that aspect, even with that MD, I don't think Goblins have a definite advantage over Maverick preboard or postboard.

Not to mention, they do have some tricky packages available, NO, Royal Retainers, Fauna Shaman--> Elesh Norn, Punishing Fire. Things like Geist of Saint Traft and Elspeth is also kinda of awkward to handle.

Goblins advantage is that Maverick is not geared towards aggro and many of their sideboard cards does nothing against goblins. I find Maverick to be suspected against Vial decks in general too, it took them time to find a pridemage.

This is why I don't think we can be so secured as to use so many sideboard slots against combos. A black splash biggest attraction is the great sideboard options available.

Nameless Two

03-30-2012, 06:27 PM

AND: 4-of Piledriver is a must. Hate is useless if you aren't fast enough....

While Piledriver does allow for a lot of turn 3/4 kill options, the kiki-jiki running Instigator build has some solid turn 4's aswell. (Mostly, Instigator + Matron)

Some of the more obvious ones:

T1 - (hate?)
T2 Instigator
T3 - (hate?) Drop Matron, search for Kiki-Jiki, end of your opponents turn, copy matron, find Goblin Chieftain.
T4 Play and copy Chieftain, swing for lethal.

Required cards: Instigator + Matron

T1 - (hate?)
T2 Instigator
T3 - (hate?) Drop Chieftain + Siege-Gang Commander
T4 Swing for 15 + Tarfire/any other goblin for the kill

Required cards: Instigator + Chieftain + SGC + Tarfire/any other goblin

T1 Lackey
T2 - (hate?) Drop Instigator
T3 - (hate?) Drop Matron - Kiki
T4 Play and copy Chieftain, swing for lethal

Required cards: Lackey + Instigator + Matron

T1 Lackey
T2 - (hate?) Drop Instigator
T3 - (hate?) Drop Goblin Ringleader + Goblin Ringleader + Goblin Ringleader
T4 Drop Goblin Chieftain + play any other goblin/tarfire

Required cards: Lackey + Instigator + Ringleader + whatever 2 drops Ringleader comes up with.... Or Matron -> Kiki ofcourse...

T1 - (hate?)
T2 Instigator
T3 - (hate?) Drop SGC + SGC/Kiki
T4 Chieftain

Required cards: Instigator + SGC + SGC + Chieftain

T1 - (hate?)
T2 Instigator
T3 - (hate?) Drop Kiki + Chieftain
T4 Play chieftain if you didn't have it in hand on turn 3. Swing for lethal.

Required cards: Instigator + Kiki + Chieftain

T1 Lackey
T2 - (hate?) Drop Chieftain
T3 Play Instigator, Drop any 2 power goblin.
T4 Swing for the kill

Required cards: Lackey + Chieftain + Instigator + any 2 power goblin (or 1 power/tarfire if they fetched)

T1 Tarfire
T2 Instigator
T3 Ringleader + Ringleader + Chieftain
T4 Instigator or MWM or chieftain or any goblin + second tarfire and swing

Required cards: Instigator + Tarfire + a rich Ringleader

T1 Lackey
T2 - (Hate?) Drop Matron, find Matron
T3 Play Matron, find Kiki, drop Kiki, copy Matron, find Chieftain
T4 Play Chieftain, copy Chieftain

Required cards: Lackey + Matron, yes, apparently this kills on turn 4 aswell.

T1 -
T2 Instigator
T3 Ringleader + Chieftain + Chieftain
T4 Any goblin or tarfire

Required cards: Ringleader (more chance on double chieftain ofcourse) + Instigator + Double Chieftain + any goblin/tarfire

Ofcourse there are countless t4 kill options, but these are just a few easier ones to show that Instigator builds have some speed against foes without lackey-defense.

The question would be, with hate, is t4 fast enough?

That said, Piledriver still opens up stuff like:

T1 -
T2 Piledriver
T3 Chieftain
T4 Piledriver

T1 Lackey
T2 Piledriver + SGC
T3 win

T1 Lackey
T2 Hate? + Piledriver
T3 Chieftain
T4 Swing again

T1 Lackey
T2 Piledriver + Piledriver
T3 Swing for 11
T4 Swing again

And countless more... so...there's much to be said for both sides.

Don't know if this is of any help, but it might... I just love doing these..

fimo

03-30-2012, 07:46 PM

Humphrey

03-30-2012, 08:21 PM

Steamflogger

03-30-2012, 08:45 PM

@wert (and others with a less combohateful SB)
I also agree. Last tournament I had a hard time facing Maverick 3 times! (2 Punishing)
What do you like to board against Maverick (assuming monored build)? Pyrokinesis, artifacthate, Anarchy? Or even Surgical? I always have the feeling that I dilute my build by siding in too much. Should we settle with 2 artifacthate and an Anarchy to take care of equipments and everything permanent with little suns in the top right corner?

ScatmanX

03-30-2012, 10:02 PM

Tomorrow I will test the 8 Leyline 3 Serum Powder Setup
THANKS!

@wert (and others with a less combohateful SB)
I also agree. Last tournament I had a hard time facing Maverick 3 times! (2 Punishing)
What do you like to board against Maverick (assuming monored build)? Pyrokinesis, artifacthate, Anarchy? Or even Surgical? I always have the feeling that I dilute my build by siding in too much. Should we settle with 2 artifacthate and an Anarchy to take care of equipments and everything permanent with little suns in the top right corner?
If your opponent is not runing Stoneforge (like the ones running Thalia are doing), then just 1 Tuktuk should be enough for the 2 Jitte without tutors they have.

Have anyone tested Relic or Surgical against P.Fire Maverick? How was it?
I may be inclined to use Relic, because it works better with Tarfire/Knesis...

wert

03-30-2012, 10:45 PM

THANKS!
Have anyone tested Relic or Surgical against P.Fire Maverick? How was it?
I may be inclined to use Relic, because it works better with Tarfire/Knesis...
I had used relics, needles, thorn of amethyst, boartusk liege against punishing. Works like a charm. With the right sideboard, punishing is in fact a easier matchup. Their mana base is rather suspect and wastelands can ruin their day.

Nameless Two

03-31-2012, 04:40 AM

@Nameless Two: Interesting caltulations thank you. I think that the most relevant thing is how many cards you need in your opening hand to make a fast kill. As far as I see only your first calculation requires 2 cards and that includes WI... Also, it seems that WI kills leaves more space for hate cards while piledrivers builds would require hate that doesn t cost mana.

Well theres that Lackey + Matron hand that only requires two cards too..(and 3 lands)

I didn't calculate any Vial turn 4 hands, since its mostly sided out I figured?

Oh and Markbris, it says your video's too long.

Btw with Boartusk Liege from the board if you run it, you can even go

T1 Lackey
T2 Hate - Drop Liege
T3 Chieftain
T4 Swing again

required cards: Lackey, Liege, Chieftain

Or

T1 -
T2 Instigator
T3 Liege + SGC
T4 Swing + Sac for lethal

required cards: Instigator, Liege, SGC

Most of the t4 kills I calculated that need just a few cards tend to use Chieftain btw. Although many times fetched off a ringleader/matron will do.

Liege allows for other options

T1 Lackey
T2 Hate + SGC
T3 Hate + Drop Liege
T4 Swing

Req cards: Lackey + SGC + Liege

T1 Lackey
T2 Hate + Liege
T3 Hate + Drop Kiki
T4 Swing

Req cards: Lackey + Liege + Kiki-Jiki

T1 -
T2 Instigator
T3 Hate + Drop Liege + Liege
T4 Either a tarfire or a fetch on the opposing side is by now lethal.

Req cards: Instigator + Liege + Liege + Tarfire/enemy fetch (or pretty much any goblin played on turn 3)

I guess most hands with a lackey or instigator will do the trick by turn 4. Hands with lackey or instigator + matron can certainly do this when not opposed.

If we ever work out a somewhat definite goblin list we might be able to throw in some actual statistics.

Also one final bit:

T1 Lackey
T2 Drop Kiki-Jiki
T3 Drop Matron, Drop Chieftain
T4 Swing for Lethal

This only needs 1 land + Lackey + Kiki + Matron.

markbris

03-31-2012, 09:28 AM

Ok so I'm reposting them game by game. G1 is up now and I'll have the other two up shortly.

http://www.youtube.com/user/brisl003?feature=mhee

Yuri8

03-31-2012, 05:42 PM

Piloted my classic list today to finals in 43ppl tournament today:

4 wasteland
4 wooded foothills
4 scalding tarn
3 rishadan port
2 taiga
5 mountain

4 aether vial
4 goblin lackey
3 mogg fanatic
4 mogg war marhall
3 goblin piledriver
1 tin street hooligan
1 stingscourger
4 goblin matron
4 goblin chieftain ´
4 gempalm incinerator
1 goblin sharpshooter
4 goblin ringleader
1 siege-gang commander

Sb:
1 tuktuk scrapper
2 pyroblast
2 krosan grip
3 pyrokinesis
2 blood moon
2 relic of progenitus
3 leyline of the void

R1 UW blade:
I had nuts both games, every ringleader fetched me 3-4 goblins…
2-0

R2 Sneaky show:
G1 I have vial and port, he intuiton at end of turn for 3 emrakul and SnT in his turn, I show him matron for stingcourger and vial him in play. He then misplays petal in his turn which met Hooligan.
G2 Early lackey puts him under pressure, he firespouts at 8 life. I manage to somehow rebuild my army bud sneakattack me at 3 life.
G3 He struggle to find second piece of combo, while lackey, driver a couple of tokens kill him.
2-1

R3 Uwr thopter:
Opponent predicted field to be mostly aggro, so after WoG, firespout a couple of stp and ensnaring bridge i scope both games.
0-2

R4 UR delver:
G1 he starts with delver, fanatic eat him, next turn vial. He tries to burn me, but eventually tries to burn my goblins. I end game with 11 life…
G2 he starts again with delver, and me again with fanatic but he fow! Delver flips attack me down 11 or so. Then guide and grim join his forces. Grim mets with fanatic, guide with mwm and delver got gempalmend. Next turn ringleader , gg
2-0

R5 Dredge:
G1 keep reasonable hand with fanatic, driver, wasteland etc…opponent had nuts, t3 kill
G2 again hand with fanatic and wasteland, opponent breaktrought half of his library into his graveyard, but no moebas, at this time, out of nowhere I topdeck relic and he scoop(nothing in hand, no lands).
G3 Keep in my opiniom sweet hand: Leyline, relic, lackey, vial, etc but no land. At this point i didnt knew that my opponent will mulligan down to 4. My first land comes probably six turn later while I’m under heavy pressure of 3 putrid imps, golgari thug and moeba. Drop vial, next turn fanatic and mwm, kill him few turns later…
2-1

R6 Dredge:
ID

Top8 teammate with Punishing mawerick:
G1 I keep hand with vial, then have little struggle with mom, but 2 wastelands and ringleader into 3 gempalms made this game easy win.
G2 This was most epic game whole day. My 7 were 2 vial, ringleader, mwm+ lands. He drops mom again, noble and qasali, but he refuses to destroy my vial for 2 turns, because I had two of them(big mistake). Eventually my ringleader get into play showing 2 ringleader and chieftain. Next ringleader brought me driver, tuktuk and lackey. But opponent doesn‘t lag behind, and acomplish punishing fire combo with 10/10 knight.This game end about 20 minutes later in crazy series of topdeck matron for sgc and gempalm->ringleader->stingscouger on his knight. This game required all ringleaders, mwm, gempalms and fanatic in my deck, wow ended with like 20 or so cards in library.
2-0

Top 4 dredge:
G1 I really dont know how I do it, but hand was: 2 fanatic, vial, wasteland, ringleader, mwm etc. Wasteland trade with his city of brass, so he dredges only once each turn. Fanatics take care of two bridges. Ringleader brought me mwm, lackey and gempalm. In the end about 4 tokens and ringleader end his life.
G2 Keep average 7 with Relic on draw->fanatic lol, play him. He did some crazy stuff with 3 careful studies (or looting via led) in one turn, but struggle to find dredger in first two of those. He decides not to therapy me. Second turn relic sealed the game…
2-0

Then we split in final(death and taxes). All in all, it looks I had more lack than intelligence. Fanatic, as always, proved his strenght in my metagame( ah dont forget about mwm). Compared to my little experiment last week 2-4 this version felt lot stronger( changes:-1 mwm -1driver -1fanatic +2instigator +1 kiki-jiki)

fimo

04-01-2012, 07:15 PM

wert

04-01-2012, 11:25 PM

There is a topic I had been thinking of for sometime. There is a number of goblin cards that are not errata as Goblin. I wonder if there is a chance of that happening.

The whole list as far as I can find.
Goblin Burrows
Mogg Hollows
Auntie's Hovel
Brightstone Ritual
Goblin Grenade
Mogg Cannon
Kuldotha Rebirth
Goblin War Strike
Quest for the Goblin Lord
Goblin Bomb
Dragon Fodder
Goblin Bombardment
Goblin Festival
Goblin Kites
Goblin Lore
Goblin War Paint
Rise of the Hobgoblins
Mogg Alarm
Goblin Assault
Dralnu's Crusade
Goblin Caves
Goblin Shrine
Goblin Offensive
Mogg Salvage
Goblin Trenches
Goblin War Cry
Goblin War Drums
Goblin Warrens
Empty the Warrens
Goblin Cannon
Goblin Scouts
Mogg Infestation
Goblin Charbelcher

Did I miss any cards? Which of these cards would you like to see goblinised?
For me, I think Goblin Bombardment, Goblin War Strike, Goblin Warrens, Goblin War Drums, Brightstone Ritual, Dralnu's Crusade would open new lines of play. Goblin lands might not be actually a good thing thou.

Another interesting card that is not goblin but might be good is Moggcatcher

Nameless Two

04-02-2012, 02:40 AM

Is there a nuts SB card against esper stoneblade? something nuts like cursed totem for maverick. I don t really know what to side against them. I used to side REB against UW stoneforge but I feel like it lost value with the black splash. What do you side in against esper blade?

I sometimes had problems against Geist of Saint Traft, especially when they go like T3 geist, T4 elspeth - attack for 9 flying... Any trick to deal with it? Is piledriver is the biggest help here?

Anarchy? In black, Warren Weirding.
Yeah, if they have T3 Geist T4 Elspeth and a bunch of removal, you're in trouble...
warren weirding is pretty nice actually, you can answer their geist with matron for weirding.

Blood Moon might be good too...

Also, wert, I'd like Goblin Grenade.

Yuri, thanks for the report... Keeping 0 land hands? Wow you are brave, counting on your luck like that.

liamb

04-02-2012, 06:51 AM

There is a topic I had been thinking of for sometime. There is a number of goblin cards that are not errata as Goblin. I wonder if there is a chance of that happening.

Goblin Bombardment
Mogg Salvage

Bombardement would be sweet with full set of MWMs. And if it was a tribal goblin enchantment, it would push goblin to the top. Mogg Salvage with its CC as a goblin would also be nice to fight those UW/Esper Blades.

Goblin War Drums - well we allready have Caterwauling Boggart

jrw1985

04-02-2012, 10:28 AM

ok, ive done alot of playtesting against ANT this evening. The best sideboard plan was 4 White leylines+ 3 Surgical Extraction + 2 Pyroblast. The problem is, you absolutely need the white leyline. It protects you against Tendrils, but also more important against discard. With Extractions its very easy to disrupt their PiF or IGG loop. Pyroblast can counter Chains of Vapor or Echoing Truth.

Im not sure yet, if this is the best plan for the goblins sideboard, because i really hate the randomness of the leyline.

Tomorrow I will test the 8 Leyline 3 Serum Powder Setup

I was goldfishing against Ad Nauseum/Past in Flames/ Tendrils this weekend and found that 4 Chalice 4 Mindbreak Trap was decent, but I never felt like it gave the edge. That MU was pretty much 50/50, and I'm nopt a good storm player so I'm sure I was making tons of mistakes against myself. I think if I sided in Leyline of the Void my chances would be improved, since PiF and Cabal Ritual provided many of the winning lines of play. Chalice @ 0 was amazing against them though. On the play, a Chalice at 0 just turns off their LEDs and stops their tutoring shenanigans. I'll try playtesting tonight with Leylines.

Testing against High Tide a Chalice @ 1 is GG. There is nothing that deck can do under a Chalice until it bounces it, which usually requires 2 turns worth of spells (Cunning wish + Bounce). Also, their clock is slow enough that you can always just try to race them with an aggressive hand.

Humphrey

04-02-2012, 11:59 AM

I tested 8 Leylines 2 Serum Powder against ANT last night. I did really like the powder, it helped getting the white leyline on the opening without mullingan into oblivion. Both Leylines really helped in this matchup, but theyre still clunky and dilute the aggro plan. I think 4 Extractions are much more useful than the black leylines.
Same against TES. Black Leyline is useless here and only white leyline doesnt slow this deck significantly.

My conclusion, Leylines are crap (as i expected) and Serum Powder is a nice sb option if you absolutely need hate in your opening hand. (obv)

Im going back to Chalice+Extraction+Pyroblast

Yuri8

04-02-2012, 05:10 PM

Anarchy? In black, Warren Weirding.
Yuri, thanks for the report... Keeping 0 land hands? Wow you are brave, counting on your luck like that.

We discussed it a lot after game, here are my arguments: If he had chain of vapor/any other way to get rid of lelyine I would probably lose anyway, but if I draw a land I will have access to second hate(relic) and vial.

ScatmanX

04-02-2012, 05:21 PM

We discussed it a lot after game, here are my arguments: If he had chain of vapor/any other way to get rid of lelyine I would probably lose anyway, but if I draw a land I will have access to second hate(relic) and vial.
Imo you did right.

markbris

04-02-2012, 11:13 PM

This is the list I'm going to be running for the next couple weeks and probably at the SCG here in Birmingham on the 22nd. I feel like its got game against all of the DTB and thats all I can ask for really at this point. I feel like I'm retaining most of the speed/resiliency of the deck but just trying to butcher the aggro matchups with removal.

Reanimator: 3 Weirdings MD plus Leylines and another weirding in the SB

Burn: Race time plus chalice for help

Maverick: My plan here is to grind em out with weirdings/gempalm/bolt/perish after SB and just do them in with Card advantage and removal.

Blade/Esperblade: Plan is boatloads of removal to keep them off batterskull etc and overwhelm. Sharpshooter in the main plus 1 tuktuk main and 1 sb.

RUG Tempo: See Maverick.

Nic Fit: meh nothing for this, don't really care.

Bant: I wish I could play this all day.

Sneak Attack: Racing time with weirdings to help out.

Dredge: Leyline or bust.

Storm: Chalice plus a lil help with mindbreak.

Mana:
6 Mountain
4 Wasteland
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Arid Mesa
1 Swamp
1 Badlands

Core
4 Goblin Chieftain/Warchief - 2 Each
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Matron
3 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Mogg War Marshal
3 Goblin Piledriver
2 Siege Gang Commander
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Goblin Sharpshooter

4 Aether Vial
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Warren Weirding

Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Perish
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Warren Weirding

ScatmanX

04-03-2012, 07:04 AM

Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Perish
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Warren Weirding
There's no reason for that 4th Weirdings ther not be a Stingscourger. 1 Provide a lot more flexibility, while playing almost like Weirding.
Don't really like the decklist, but we all have our preferences...

markbris

04-03-2012, 05:01 PM

There's no reason for that 4th Weirdings ther not be a Stingscourger. 1 Provide a lot more flexibility, while playing almost like Weirding.
Don't really like the decklist, but we all have our preferences...

I'm going back and forth on stingscourger. What do you see as problems with my decklist?

ScatmanX

04-03-2012, 06:16 PM

I'm going back and forth on stingscourger. What do you see as problems with my decklist?
I don't see any problem. It's just a list different from my approach.
Actually, not running 1 Sting might be a problem, and running only 15 R generating lands, being 1 of them Wastelandable might be one too, but might work.
I don't like and don't understant the 2/2 Chieftain/Warchief Split.
If your argument is: "one is better in some situations, the other is better in others", then I'd say that sometimes you'll be sad to draw one, and sometimes you'll be sad to draw the other. If you don't want to run more then 4 Haste enablers, we should decide which one is better in what matchups, calculate what MU's you're more likely to see, and tune the deck towards beating them. In a list with 3 Piledrivers and 3 MWM, I'd go with 4 Warchiefs.

Humphrey

04-03-2012, 08:42 PM

I agree, in ur list 4 warchief are a lot better than the split. u can run chieftain as matrontarget on top

markbris

04-03-2012, 11:57 PM

I don't see any problem. It's just a list different from my approach.
Actually, not running 1 Sting might be a problem, and running only 15 R generating lands, being 1 of them Wastelandable might be one too, but might work.
I don't like and don't understant the 2/2 Chieftain/Warchief Split.
If your argument is: "one is better in some situations, the other is better in others", then I'd say that sometimes you'll be sad to draw one, and sometimes you'll be sad to draw the other. If you don't want to run more then 4 Haste enablers, we should decide which one is better in what matchups, calculate what MU's you're more likely to see, and tune the deck towards beating them. In a list with 3 Piledrivers and 3 MWM, I'd go with 4 Warchiefs.

Agreed on the warchiefs. I really just wasnt sure what I wanted there. The land count I just need to test and stingscourger as well

Deez_Naughts

04-05-2012, 10:47 AM

Hi guys,

I just wanted to comment on some things regarding deck lists and ideas being put forth, but I will start with a little background about my self.

As an avid Goblins player and Primer writer for over a decade, and having a long list of wins at local and out of town events with this archetype (including a Top 64 Finish at GP Columbus 2007 which was defined and won by "Flash Hulk") I feel I can share some insight based on a multitude of matches and experience.

Though I prefer other archetypes in current competitive Legacy meta's, I feel Goblins is positioned the same as it ever was; a deck very capable of making Top 8's and pulling down wins.

So, on to some thoughts and analysis;

What does Goblins do? How does it work?

Goblins aim is to establish an overwhelming board presence, and deliver a quick alpha strike(s), via cheating. Yes, cheating. The whole premise of the deck, and what was and is the nucleus of the archetype, is cheating mana costs, in an otherwise extremely greedy, mana hungry aggro deck.

Taking the aforementioned into account, I was stunned to see such disregard for Goblin Warchief, and the argument for exclusion of Aether Vial.

I can not stress enough, Lackey, Vial, & Warchief, are the most broken cards in this archetype, as they fulfill and enable the player to cheat mana requirements. I would never consider piloting a Goblins build in Legacy with out these 3x cards as a 4 of.

With the relegation of Mogg Fanatic, and the printing of Warren Instigator, the core aim of the deck has the tools to more aggressively achieve a quick and consistent victory.

Dilution of deck effectiveness

One thing I have seen, tested, and debated ad nausea over the years is what non-creature cards can be run main (aside from Vial), that benefit the deck enough to warrant cutting other Goblin creature cards.

The answer is almost always, none.

Unless you are playing in a meta that is polarized by one specific archetype (much like GP Columbus 2007, where I ran MD Pyrokinesis, for example) there is no reason to play a diluted deck with bad cards like main deck Tarfire, Chalice, Bolt, etc;

If a card does not have a direct synergistic effect to your board position, or the ability to help establish a fast aggro clock, it's bad.

Combo, stop dreaming...

People have been trying to crack the combo match up for Goblins, since the archetype was created, and it cant be done.

You have bad game against combo, accept it, and move on. Trying to fill your SB with hate against combo is pointless; firstly, you will end up using SB slots that could otherwise be more effectively used, and/or changing your main deck into something it should not be. Secondly, if your meta is combo heavy, Goblins is not a good choice if you plan on winning.

That being said, I will share with you a secret on how to consistently beat combo decks; ATTACK. The key to winning is establishing a kill clock ASAP; combo has zero board presence, and hates a fast clock, not your "hate".

Back at GP Columbus 2007 (god I feel like that "living in 82" guy from Napoleon Dynamite....) I got paired against Stephen Menendian playing Hulk Flash.

Game 1, I rolled him by dropping dude after dude, forcing him to FoW and Daze, setting his clock and options back, while setting up a 2-3 turn kill clock.

Game 2 & 3, I sided in Pithing Needles and REB's. Now, in both these games I made the mistake(s) that I see many Goblin players make time and time again. I stuttered my board growth, in order to have REB(s) open. After quickly losing both these games, I had a chat with Stephen, after showing him my hand at the end of game 3. He looked at the creatures in my hand, and said; "wow, you had me, easily". He explained the obvious, but which is not always so, that by trying to hate out your opponents plan while not playing yours, is a fundamental error.

The point is, against combo, stick to what you do well (aggro), an do not focus on what you do bad (counter/hate); rather use/play hate as a supplementary aid, NOT a solution.

That being said.................

NO PILEDRIVER, WTF?

.........I cant believe the lists cutting Piledriver. This guy is a beater that got even better with the printing of Goblin Chieftain.

8x Lord, haste, alpha strikes? Yes please. Protection blue in a increasingly blue Delver environment? Yes please.

Nothing available to Goblins in establishing a fast and consistent clock is better than this guy.

My List

Here is my current list, that I have piloted to victory in two events, and Top 8'ed a few others, all 30+ player meta.

Lands

9 Mountain
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Wasteland

Creatures

4 Goblin Warchief
4 Warren Instigator
4 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledriver
3 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Stingscourger

Spells

4 AEther Vial

Sideboard

3 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Pyrokinesis
3 Blood Moon
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Goblin King
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin Wizard