[DTB] Vial Goblins

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Originally Posted by b4r0n

I've been liking Earwig Squad too. Not only is he still a fat beater against a resolved Plague, but he prevents further Plagues from coming down. The same can be said for Goyfs/Firespouts/etc. Also, unlike Extirpate, you don't have to find a way to get that card in the graveyard first.

In regards to the combo matchup: I've basically given up on it. Chalices and Pillars and Thorns can buy you time and maybe win you game 2, but you're still likely to get blown out in games 1 and 3 (barring some sort of ridiculous luck). Also, I haven't been seeing nearly as much combo recently (probably due to the high number of people playing Counterbalances), so I'd rather devote sideboard slots to beating the decks that I can reasonably hope to beat (aka the rest of the metagame).

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I only have one issue with not having combo hate, and this might be kind of weird, but what else is there for the sideboard? Earwig Squad, really? I guess I'll try it...maybe a mad auntie too...I would rather not talk about earwig squad too much though because it has been beaten to death in this thread.

I have to agree with you b4ron that I am also seeing less and less combo, but I'm just not sure what to replace it with, I was thinking of just upping everything.

TBH I haven't really tested therapy very much. I originally planned for it to work with extirpate, but since that card has proven to be terrible for me and goes against basic goblin philosophy I probably will drop therapies. I've read before that therapy is only effective against combo and isn't worth the dilution in the control or aggro control matchups. This was from teeniebopper years ago, and of course he is goblins master but this was years ago. Not sure, wondering what other people think about it....my original intent for the card was a combo answer AND answer to decks with EPlague, that I can just cast and not have to worry about conditional things like Earwig Squad.

About CotV: Is this card still worthwhile to board in against thresh? I know in earlier discussion people were boarding it again. But obviously it has lost some effectiveness with people cutting cantrips. This alone might make me think twice about CotV because sure it helps against combo by allowing you to lay it and goldfish, but it was also useful as a "question" for thresh to answer. Is this card still good against modern thresh lists?

Haha, and of course CotV rapes the always-present first round burn :)

CotV is good agains't Thresh, bu I side in only if I'm on the play.
CotV is great agains't Combo, so I always side in.
CotV is great agains't whateverNought. So many 1cc's...
CotV is great agains't Burn, so always side in.

I guess it's still worth it's slots.

This might be a crazy idea, but once M10 hits, or heck, probably even right now, is it worth considering going back to the white splash for sideboard combo hate? I mean just turn your board into something like this:

4x Disenchant
3x Abeyance
4x Orim's Chant
4x Silence

With basically the mono-red decklist + plateau's in the main.

Against combo you'd sideboard out the Ringleaders, Relics, Fanatics, and removal for the 11 "pause" effects.

Then just try to beat down while hitting them with a "no spells" effect every time they tried to combo. An extra 2-3 turns should provide enough time to win, and Ringleader seems like an obvious choice to take out since you don't have a long term plan or need to recover from removal here, and the extra non goblins make it weaker anyways.

Funny I said I wouldn't talk about Earwig but this is what I have to say: In the thresh matchup I'm boarding out fanatics which is one of the biggest Earwig enablers. And of course you can't really rely on lackey as an enabler. So I'm hesitant on earwig, but I'm trying to find something suitable to complement KGrips in dealing with plague and other things like it, preferably a goblin. Haven't found anything yet really, might have to settle on suboptimal garbage like mad auntie.

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About the 11chants in sb...
And I think somebody tried an 8chant thing in white weenie somewhere on the source. Or someplace, I don't remember where. It failed. It is a bad idea. How are you going to beat goyf.dec, especially without the StP (you implied there is no StP)? And let's set up a game situation. Against combo...you play chant while they are comboing. They shrug their shoulders, pass the turn to you, ready to combo next turn. Now what?

It's the same reason I figured out extirpate is bad in goblins. And bad in sui, in my opinion. These cards are naturally reactive cards. You are playing a proactive deck, and these cards stray from the ultimate goal of a beatdown deck. The funniest thing about it is, these 11 cards might actually be worse than 4 chalice and 7 other combo hate cards, as chalice allows you to goldfish and doesn't disrupt your own strategy. And nobody in their right mind is playing 11 combo hate cards.

TL;DR: No.

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Originally Posted by morgan_coke

This might be a crazy idea, but once M10 hits, or heck, probably even right now, is it worth considering going back to the white splash for sideboard combo hate? I mean just turn your board into something like this:

4x Disenchant
3x Abeyance
4x Orim's Chant
4x Silence

With basically the mono-red decklist + plateau's in the main.

Against combo you'd sideboard out the Ringleaders, Relics, Fanatics, and removal for the 11 "pause" effects.

Then just try to beat down while hitting them with a "no spells" effect every time they tried to combo. An extra 2-3 turns should provide enough time to win, and Ringleader seems like an obvious choice to take out since you don't have a long term plan or need to recover from removal here, and the extra non goblins make it weaker anyways.

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That's sort of a hilarious game to envision. My only point of note is that Swords to Plowshares should be in here somewhere, either main or board or split.

You also lose some other things, like Pyrokinesis, for instance. That said, a Disenchant/Swords/Silence/Chant setup is very intriguing.

I think if it were me, though, I'd maindeck the swords, make my board look like Disenchant/Relic/Chant/Silence in a 4/4/4/3 setup, and go from there. Something like, off the top of my head:

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Plateau
4 Mountain
4 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port

4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
3 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Mogg Fanatic
3 Siege-Gang Commander

SB:
4 Seal of Cleansing (Better against Standstill and Counterbalance)
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Orim's Chant
3 Silence

Hey , just have a quick question about Goblin Pyromancer. if i sac him before I end my turn i don't have to destroy all my goblins still, or do I? sorry if this is a dumb question im new to the whole goblin thing.

You are correct in that if Pyromancer is not in play EOT then you don't need to sacrifice your Goblins.

Thanks :) i was pretty sure. Just wanted to be 100% on that prior to any tournament play.

I was trying so hard not to get involved in any conversations/debates about goblins today... I can't help but wonder why everyone thinks Goblin King is so bad? He pumps all your dudes and if you're lucky enough to get a second one out they pump eachother. I'm playing Rb at the moment(no real answer for Plague), and in some random tourney yesterday he was huge against Plague, and in 2 different matchups I went agaisnt decks with mountains, I hear un-blockable piledrivers are pretty good. All I'm saying is that most of the time I'm dropping him for 2 mana(Warchief) or Vialing him out and giving your team +1/+1 is always good. If they have mountains he's huge, when I board in blood moon he's awesome. Has anyone else tried Goblin King? I'm rocking 3 maindeck. Thoughts?
I'm also running 3 Terminate and 3 Weirdings md. Terminates are always fucking awesome, except when you ringleader into them, they kill Goyfs, Dreadnaughts, Tombstalkers.... You get the picture. Has anyone else tried this? Any thoughts or input people?
I also read that some people don't think Wort Boggart Auntie is worth playing, wtf? A 3/3 fear that let's you get Weirdings and Ringleaders etc. back from your yard and it only cost 4 mana. This card is AMAZING! It has to be killed asap or I win.

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Originally Posted by true story

I was trying so hard not to get involved in any conversations/debates about goblins today... I can't help but wonder why everyone thinks Goblin King is so bad? He pumps all your dudes and if you're lucky enough to get a second one out they pump eachother. I'm playing Rb at the moment(no real answer for Plague), and in some random tourney yesterday he was huge against Plague, and in 2 different matchups I went agaisnt decks with mountains, I hear un-blockable piledrivers are pretty good. All I'm saying is that most of the time I'm dropping him for 2 mana(Warchief) or Vialing him out and giving your team +1/+1 is always good. If they have mountains he's huge, when I board in blood moon he's awesome. Has anyone else tried Goblin King? I'm rocking 3 maindeck. Thoughts?
I also read that some people don't think Wort Boggart Auntie is worth playing, wtf? A 3/3 fear that let's you get Weirdings and Ringleaders etc. back from your yard and it only cost 4 mana. This card is AMAZING! It has to be killed asap or I win.

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Goblin King can open you up to bad bad combat misfortune. If you assume they don't have instant removal for him you can walk right into a trap. And if you play around it, then the king is better suited as something else. Also, there is not that many guys on the board at once, so being unblockable doesn't always make that big of a deal, if you can just kill there 1 goyf you can just swing with driver anyway. And king does not answer double plague. He's ok I guess. But I'd rather play many more things to answer plague even though many of them are nongoblins.

And here is why, from what I've seen, some people don't like Wort: SGC has to be killed asap or you will win as well. But SGC has immediate impact. So people say, why not just play SGC #2 or #3 instead of Wort? And the whole "well you can recur ringleaders with Wort, and not with SGC," well, that has been put to the test with kiki-jiki for years, and the verdict is that another SGC is better than 1 kiki-jiki.

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Originally Posted by FoulQ

Goblin King can open you up to bad bad combat misfortune. If you assume they don't have instant removal for him you can walk right into a trap. And if you play around it, then the king is better suited as something else.

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I was going to answer the same thing but the logic is flawed. If you're prepared for removal (as you should be) then it's still a big bonus when it isn't removed. For a 3 mana goblin King isn't half bad. His worst aspect is that he's bad on his own. I think the biggest factor is that there's quite simply no place for him and the 3 mana spot is already quite clogged.

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Originally Posted by FoulQ

Goblin King can open you up to bad bad combat misfortune. If you assume they don't have instant removal for him you can walk right into a trap. And if you play around it, then the king is better suited as something else. Also, there is not that many guys on the board at once, so being unblockable doesn't always make that big of a deal, if you can just kill there 1 goyf you can just swing with driver anyway. And king does not answer double plague. He's ok I guess. But I'd rather play many more things to answer plague even though many of them are nongoblins.

And here is why, from what I've seen, some people don't like Wort: SGC has to be killed asap or you will win as well. But SGC has immediate impact. So people say, why not just play SGC #2 or #3 instead of Wort? And the whole "well you can recur ringleaders with Wort, and not with SGC," well, that has been put to the test with kiki-jiki for years, and the verdict is that another SGC is better than 1 kiki-jiki.

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I see your point with Wort, I have to wait til my upkeep to get something back where as Seige-Gang comes into play with 3 homies. Plus if I have no yard for some reason she's garbage, just like Kiki-Jiki is garbage with no other goblins in play.

As for Goblin King, if you get 2 out before they hit Plague number 2 it does get around double Plague. My friend plays Tombstone all the time, believe me I'm well aware of the dirty combat tricks people can do when you play Goblin King but it seems that good outweighs the bad. Right now I'm really not sure that's why I asked for imput. My main question is if I stay RB what else is there as far as answers for Plague. I tried a RGB build at the Source tourney a few months ago, with Grips for Plagues. I started 3-0 then lost to TES and then 2 decks that beat the shit out of my mana base(stifle, wasteland). So the other thing I'm torn over is which colors to play. If I go RG I lose Weirding and Terminate, Gempalm is a poor substitute as it doesn't kill Goyf, Doran, Tomstalker, Naught... I never palyed Stingscourger in Legacy is it any good? If I stay RB I get the bomb removal but I'm stuck with Goblin King as my answer to Plague?

Your options for plague hate in rb are limited, and honestly it might not even be worth the battle. Goblin King, Earwig Squad, Mad Auntie, Dralnu's Crusade, Goblin Goon. And frankly, all those answers suck compared to Krosan Grip in combination with Engineered Explosives.

I have had many times when my yard isn't full and I'd like to play Wort. But I also have had times where she won the game alone. I personally like 1 simply for threat diversity with SGC.

Goblin King might work for you, but its never worked for me. I use grip+ee and it has worked well because both these cards are often mvps in these matchups anyways (especially ee).

Stingscourger is good but as others have pointed out, probably should not be played in conjuction with warren weirding. I have had major success with it in the past, mainly because it does surprise people. It works very well with wasteland/port but that doesn't come up as often as you'd think.

And playing weirding + terminate + gempalm + fanatic (+sharpshooter?) seems like way too much removal at least for my tastes. tbh I've never really tested terminate, but I've always had problems with plowshares being my primary removal spell and a nongoblin so I think I'll stay away from that devil.

Wort is also immune to Smother and Snuff Out... very handy if there's a lot of TA and Eva Green in your meta game. If they have no other way to remove Wort; recurring Warren Weirding wins the game. Even if they have one or two Engineered Plagues you can still tutor for the Earwig prowl while you lock them down ensuring victory.

I tried discard (Cabal Therapy) as an anti Plague strategy but it failed horribly. The best thing you can do against resolved Engineered Plagues (yes you can't stop top decked ones) with the BR Goblins build is to punch straight through them. Wort & Earwig does that for me.

When a deck tries to lock me down with other nasty enchantments (Circle vs red, moat etc) I go for the Kiki-Jiki, Skirk Prospector (-1 Mogg Fanatic), Lightning Crafter combo.

Just a few things I learned from my mistakes at my last 38 people tournament. :wink:

I only run 1 Wort for like you said threat diversity. She's really never sucked for me and there's a few times where fear is huge believe it or not. I've been running 3 Terminate, 3 Weirding, 4 Fanatics MD. I haven't run Sharpshooter or Gempalm in a long time. I'd love to run RW for Swords and Disenchant but my broke as doesn't have Plateaus...
I never thought about Engineered Explosives before I think you just convinced me to try RGB again. Before I was only running 21 lands I've gone up to 23 so maybe I won't be mana screwed as easily.
One more question, have you ever tried Ib Halfheart as a 1 of? I ran him in type 2 a while ago and sac-ing lands and the end of your opponents turn for more dudes was always good. I know you're prolly gonna say there's betther stuff to put in that slot but I was just wondering if you or anybody else has tried it in Legacy and if it was any good?

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Originally Posted by Avatara

When a deck tries to lock me down with other nasty enchantments (Circle vs red, moat etc) I go for the Kiki-Jiki, Skirk Prospector (-1 Mogg Fanatic), Lightning Crafter combo.

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I've never seen this before. Let me see if I got it figured out right? You get the 3 Goblins in play, target Crafter with Kiki's ability, champion Kiki away to Crafter Token , shoot them in the face for 3 with Token, sac Token to Prospector, returning untapped Kiki to play and repeat. Thats awesome if I got it right.

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Originally Posted by true story

I've never seen this before. Let me see if I got it figured out right? You get the 3 Goblins in play, target Crafter with Kiki's ability, champion Kiki away to Crafter Token , shoot them in the face for 3 with Token, sac Token to Prospector, returning untapped Kiki to play and repeat. Thats awesome if I got it right.

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Yes that's right.

So... How many of each do you run? Are they MD or SB? Just curious

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Originally Posted by true story

Ib Halfheart

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Saccing lands is never good, goblins is one of the most mana-hungry decks in Legacy right now, you really want your lands to string ringleader/matron madness and shoot stuff with your siege-gang commander.

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Originally Posted by true story

I only run 1 Wort for like you said threat diversity. She's really never sucked for me and there's a few times where fear is huge believe it or not. I've been running 3 Terminate, 3 Weirding, 4 Fanatics MD. I haven't run Sharpshooter or Gempalm in a long time. I'd love to run RW for Swords and Disenchant but my broke as doesn't have Plateaus...
I never thought about Engineered Explosives before I think you just convinced me to try RGB again. Before I was only running 21 lands I've gone up to 23 so maybe I won't be mana screwed as easily.
One more question, have you ever tried Ib Halfheart as a 1 of? I ran him in type 2 a while ago and sac-ing lands and the end of your opponents turn for more dudes was always good. I know you're prolly gonna say there's betther stuff to put in that slot but I was just wondering if you or anybody else has tried it in Legacy and if it was any good?

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I ditched sharpshooter for a year. I readded him a few weeks ago, and I forgot how insane he could be. You should really consider him, especially with 4 lightning bolt fanatics. I actually cut my fourth piledriver for him in my rbg build, but that's a discussion for another day. Not having at least one tutorable gempalm is risky, but I suppose running so much removal its not as important.

23 is the minimum in rbg, in my opinion. I know both nihil and eldariel, among others, prefer 24. I play 23. I actually toyed around with 2 maindeck EEs but I would reccomend against that because it takes away from the strategy of goblins. Anybody else tried this?

Disenchant I think is horrible and I would not shell out for RW if I were you. If you are forced to play RW I would personally go 3/3 split on leave no trace and serenity. And Ib is only good in RW builds with armageddon out of the sideboard, and even then it is only a cute trick against landstill. I have not personally tested Ib though so I can't say much more than that. Just from common sense I would think he's subpar with his many other subpar lorwyn friends like Boggart Mob, Lightning Crafter, and Tarfire.

And about that Kiki/Crafter/Prospector combo...honestly, how reliable is that? All those cards are ehh on their own. It's like, why don't I just play krosan grip instead of trying to assemble a master combo?