[DTB] Vial Goblins

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Originally Posted by Nessaja

Pyrokinesis is a bad topdeck against Affinity, you would want it in your opening hand, but even then it's not that amazing. Just board in the Krosan Grips or don't board at all.

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Ok yeah, I've only played the match a couple times and both times pyrokinesis was rather dull. But I'm not sure if a 2G Vindicate is worth passing up on, or if 2 engineered explosives are worth passing up on, since I feel we are forced to play the control role in the matchup because there deck is faster but shallower. There are a also a lot of potential goblins to side out: weirding, lackey, piledriver come to mind immediately. I usually side out those three in some way depending on a lot of miscellaneous factors. I'm still undecided about the explosives though.

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Originally Posted by Nessaja

Pyrokinesis is a bad topdeck against Affinity, you would want it in your opening hand, but even then it's not that amazing. Just board in the Krosan Grips or don't board at all.

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I think Krosan Grip is not good at all against affinity and I would never board it in. I would probably just board in the pyrokinesis from the board and any tin streets.

I don't understand why you guys don't like pyrokinesis, since it deals with early blockers and kills disciple of the vault which is a very important card in the matchup. I've played this matchup on both sides of the fence and its pretty much a 50/50 spilt, so it can go either way.

The last time I ran into Affinity while playing Goblins I boarded in 3 Grips and 3 Null Rods. The Null Rods were in the board for combo hate and the off chance I played Affinity. It worked out great, the kid almost cried when the judge told him he couldn't tap his lands anymore. Has anyone else tried Null Rod?

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Originally Posted by true story

The last time I ran into Affinity while playing Goblins I boarded in 3 Grips and 3 Null Rods. The Null Rods were in the board for combo hate and the off chance I played Affinity. It worked out great, the kid almost cried when the judge told him he couldn't tap his lands anymore. Has anyone else tried Null Rod?

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yeah i won off a null rod vs affinity before while playing a diff deck. its insane vs them.

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Originally Posted by sauce

yeah i won off a null rod vs affinity before while playing a diff deck. its insane vs them.

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I know it's the shit vs affinity, what about other matchups? I like it vs TES and other combos that use Lotus Petal, LED, Chrome Mox, it buys time while you bash face. I know they can still win but turn 1 Lackey, turn 2 Null Rod and drop Seige Gang off Lackey seems good? I'm just trying figure out if I should leave it in the board or look for something better.

I personally prefer Chalice or Pillar. Chalice can also be sideboarded in against burn and sometimes traditional threshold lists if on the play, but most importantly it allows you to lay it for 0 and goldfish against combo. Pillar is good against ANT decks. I know nickrit2000 likes Pillar, and I've been testing it and it's alright. He is one of the few very experienced goblin players left on the forums, just look way back.

I feel chalice is superior to null rod because it stops lotus petal, LED, and Chrome Mox but costs 0 instead of 2. Also, I feel burn is more common than affinity, but that would technically be a meta call.

And I'm glad I've seen both opinions on affinity. That just makes me feel better about not being sure, haha.

pillar is extremely strong against ANT as long as you can play it fast enough. the opponent typically has to use mystical tutor/brainstorm or others to find a bounce spell to deal with it, all the while taking plenty of hits from the pillar and your field. again, the problem is playing it fast enough.

chalice @ 0 is a good compliment, usually buying enough time to drop the pillar. the biggest problem that I had while playing with these in my SB was that I really wanted to bring in chalice against thresh too. at that point, I wondered why not just have it be maindeck. before I knew it, I just wanted to play a stompy shell and then might as well make it dragon stompy.

in conclusion I would suggest a sideboard that looks something like this:
4 chalice of the void
4 pyrostatic pillar
3 or 4 engineered explosives/krosan grip
3 or 4 leyline of the void/relic of progenitus
~1 tutorable goblin utility (current favorite: goblin wizard)

without giving too much credit to the deck, i think that goblins is quite strong against everything except combo. there shouldn't be much need for answers to other decks. the generic enchantment removal and graveyard hate slots are all that are really needed.

For the record I've been playing goblins since The Dark, so I"ve got plenty of experience. I have to admit Nickrit2000 has played in way more tourneys with goblins then me and therefore has more experience vs a wide variety of decks. I usually bounce ideas of him when I see him. Nick I gotta get your number.

I was using 3 Null Rod and 3 Chalice in the SB. I used these in Vintage to stop combo so I figured I'd try it in Legacy. I figured if I open hand Chalice then I'd play it for 0. If I open hand Null Rod, hope I don't die turn 1 and drop it turn 2. Then I could could cast Chalice for 1 when/if I draw one. I went to game 3 against TES last time I played it. On the play I go turn 1 Lackey, and I'm holding Null Rod and Seige Gang(seemed good). He won on turn 1.... So I'm back to wondering? I know Chalice is the shit, I love it. I'm just wondering if there's something better than Null Rod to run with it. I like Null Rod because it rapes affinity as well, it seems since Master of Etherium came out there has been a slight rise in affinity decks. Still I wonder? If Nick says Pillar is good maybe I'll try it again, but it never did anything for me before, except against Suicide Black lol.

Null Rod is good against Affinity, indeed, but Affinity tends to dump its hand turn 2 anyways. On the play, it's obviously devastating. And if you seriously need to devote SB space to Affinity, you should probably play some sort of combo deck, or just not play goblins.

@ TrueStory: Well tournament and testing experience, I'd rather go with tournament experience. Let's ask Nassif about that one.

The problem with Null Rod, Thorn of Amethyst, and Pyrostatic Pillar? Game 3. You will probably lose game 1, and even if you do win game 2, going second in game 3 puts you at a huge disadvantage. If you win game 2, your opponent knows exactly what your combo hate is (again, barring extreme luck), so they will make it their best effort to combo out in their first 3 turns (which is pretty esay for pretty much every combo deck facing no real disruption).

@ Malchar: the problem I have with your sideboard is there is nothing for the mirror. Especially at large events, there will always be goblins. I always see goblins, and things like pyrokinesis are good against other decks too. But of course SBs are always meta-dependent so I can't really judge. Right now I feel gy hate just dilutes the deck's strategy too much. Goyf troubles? Just run more weirding. Loam causing a problem? I'm really not afraid of that engine because I think it is overrated, but that's just me. The only deck you take a real banging from is ichorid then. But I don't give a shit about ichorid, to be honest.

My sideboard for rbg looks like this right now:
4 chalice of the void / pyrostatic pillar
2 engineered explosives
3 krosan grip
4 pyrokinesis
2 tin street (mainly for mirror but has other purposes) (also 1 maindeck)

The only problem I have is playing either pillar or chalice can be underwhelming by themselves, as already stated.

I know not having gy hate is controversial, but bringing in relics against goyf just seems like you are killing your ringleaders, and against loam and ichorid I mean whatever. It basically comes down to, rather win the mirror or ichorid?

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Originally Posted by FoulQ

My sideboard for rbg looks like this right now:
4 chalice of the void / pyrostatic pillar
2 engineered explosives
3 krosan grip
4 pyrokinesis
2 tin street (mainly for mirror but has other purposes) (also 1 maindeck)

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This board was very close to the board I ran when I was running the 3 color version. I did have relic in the board b/c it was very good against Ichorid, Threshold and Aggro Loam which is a tough matchup.

I ran Chalice of the Void for a long time which I liked a lot against combo, but since Ad Naseam came out, pillar seems to be the better option b/c they need to get rid of it in order to combo out a lot of times which makes it a little more reliable.

If you really want to shut combo down, you can run both of the cards, but then you will be eliminating slots for other potential bad matchups.

My R/g Board:

3 Krosan Grip
4 Relics
4 Pyrokinesis
4 Pyrostatic Pillar

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Originally Posted by gamegeek2

Null Rod is good against Affinity, indeed, but Affinity tends to dump its hand turn 2 anyways. On the play, it's obviously devastating. And if you seriously need to devote SB space to Affinity, you should probably play some sort of combo deck, or just not play goblins.

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I would never have SB space devoted to just affinity. I like all my SB cards to be good in multiple matchups- I hear all the cool kids are doing that. My point was I thought Null Rod with Chalice might be good against combo. Null Rod against affinity was an afterthought, but still amazing, I don't care when they dump their hand.

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Originally Posted by FoulQ

@ TrueStory: Well tournament and testing experience, I'd rather go with tournament experience. Let's ask Nassif about that one.

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I might have not said exactly what I meant as far as experience... I've played in lots of tourneys vs alot of shit, but only in Syracuse and once in Binghamton. Nick on the other hand plays in more big events and GPs and actually travels to other cities for events... So I respect his opinion because he has better quality of experience than my own.

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Originally Posted by true story

I might have not said exactly what I meant as far as experience... I've played in lots of tourneys vs alot of shit, but only in Syracuse and once in Binghamton. Nick on the other hand plays in more big events and GPs and actually travels to other cities for events... So I respect his opinion because he has better quality of experience than my own.

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I've played goblins probably the most of out any deck in legacy. I've been kind of toying around with a lot of different decks recently, but I firmly believe that goblins can just go in any tournament and win.

I always believed that goblins is the one aggro deck that rewards good players because all of the tough decision making that goes on.

On a side note, if you don't expect landstill to show up then I would stick with the 3 color version that I posted pages back in this thread, otherwise I would go with the R/g version b/c I believe it offers the most in terms of solutions to problems that may arise.

@ Nick I know you like Tin Street, I do to I ran him I Survival til Harmonic Sliver came out. Do you ever encounter situations where Tin Street doesn't work because Warchief is in play so you can't pay the G? Just wondering how does he work with Vial? It seems that Tinkerer would be better in some cases... Also have you ever played Blood Moon in the board? Your thoughts on it?

Don´t forget that Relic doesen't simply just huts down Goyf and Ichorid and Loam, but is great against Toombstalker, Eternal Dragon, Eternal Witness, Survival of the Fitest, reanimates, Crucible of Worlds, and so on. Also, it cantrips. Seriously, this and Stingscourer were what made the MonoR version viable again, so don't underestimate it.

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Originally Posted by true story

@ Nick I know you like Tin Street, I do to I ran him I Survival til Harmonic Sliver came out. Do you ever encounter situations where Tin Street doesn't work because Warchief is in play so you can't pay the G? Just wondering how does he work with Vial? It seems that Tinkerer would be better in some cases... Also have you ever played Blood Moon in the board? Your thoughts on it?

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Very seldom I encounter the problem with tin street when a warchief is in play. Plus, its only a 1 of so the problem has never really came up. A lot of times hooligan is just a 2/1 beater which is fine, but his ability has single handly won games/matches.

If you play green, don't play tinkerer its met for a mono-red build that doesn't have any real good options to take care of artifacts. Also, blood moon is meant if you are running a mono-red build of goblins. I can discuss this with you if you want, b/c some of the card choices are complicated to explain over the forms like this.

I would simply retool your goblin deck true story to take a shape similar to mines and go from there.

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Originally Posted by ScatmanX

Don´t forget that Relic doesen't simply just huts down Goyf and Ichorid and Loam, but is great against Toombstalker, Eternal Dragon, Eternal Witness, Survival of the Fitest, reanimates, Crucible of Worlds, and so on. Also, it cantrips. Seriously, this and Stingscourer were what made the MonoR version viable again, so don't underestimate it.

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I know, but what to take out of my sideboard? (#2250)

I personally find Relic not worth boarding in anymore against Thresh since nimble mongoose is basically gone. Really, is it worth it for just tarmogoyf when I could board in a fourth weirding or something like that, or explosives to kill his confidants and maybe counterbalances (as well as plagues if I chose otherwise). I know relic is very good, I'm just having troubles fitting it in my sideboard right now. Maybe I'll cut wort and something and try to get those tins maindeck.

Against Team America or Tombstone or whatever runs Tombstalker: I'm not boarding anything in in this matchup, but I feel this is a good matchup, generally. Any 8threat.dec that isn't NLU I'm not worried about.

Against Landstill (decks that plays eternal dragon, crucible): I'm already boarding in krosan grip for humility/moat/crucible. Boarding in relics for something like eternal dragon seems trivial and killing my ringleaders.

Survival: Already bringing in potentially grips for survivals (and/or explosives, depending). That's plenty of nongoblins and I'd rather shut down the card than the engine, because he can still take advantage of survival without the engine. Granted this deck is nonexistent in my meta, I'll probably lose to it because I have never played against it in a tournament.

Reanimator/Ichorid/Loam: True. So unless these decks ichorid and loam are running rampant, I don't see why you would run gy hate. Of course, many winning decks run it and many of you run it, so I'm open to understanding what makes relic so popular.

I agree with nickrit about tinkerer/tin street. It has been proven time and time again that tin street > tinkerer, and that anybody who has played with tin street extensively knows the warchief thing is irrelevant.

That's what I do! ;p

Actually, I only tacked on "Relic of Progenitus" at the last minute before submitting the post. I prefer Leyline of the Void because it's free and comes out at the perfect time to put the opponent off-balance. I do not think that Goblins should be sideboarding due to Tarmogoyf. I just ended up putting it on because it is a reasonable alternative depending on the meta, and because I had just read a post about how fun Goblin Sharpshooter + Relic of Progenitus can be. As for the mirror-match, I actually like to use Goblin Sharpshooter or Goblin King, either of which might end up in the maindeck as well.

Might as well mix up the conversation a little bit: What is the opinion on Rancor or Berserk (for Goblin Piledriver)?