[DTB] Vial Goblins

You can Gempalm, Sharpshooter, or SCG your Pyromancer away before the end-of-turn comes around so you avoid Wrathing your squad.

Goblin Replica is technically tech for the UW Scepter matchup if you want to run it. I found it was awful in Extended, but I havn't tested against a UW Scepter Legacy list yet, so YMMV. (It's probably good against Disk if anyone still plays that.)

How good was maindeck King for you? Pyromancer is retardedly good in the mirror, and every time a King hits it just dies instantly, so the evasion almost never comes into play. (Yes, technically, you can kill a Pyromancer before it Wraths your opponent's board, too, but you're supposed to play it after they tap out to play a Ringleader or a five-drop. Setting up a lethal Goblin King is a lot harder.)

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Goblin Replica is technically tech for the UW Scepter matchup if you want to run it. I found it was awful in Extended, but I havn't tested against a UW Scepter Legacy list yet, so YMMV. (It's probably good against Disk if anyone still plays that.)

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Yeah, i thought of that too, however it's like playing rgsa against scepter-chant. If the scepter is there, you are already too late. But ok, who plays scepter-chant anyway in a landstill-meta?

The king...hmm.
Not particulary good. It is golden against RGSA or any deck playing mountains and perhaps burning wish/pyroclasms. Didn't see any of those however. And indeed, it's no combo finisher against other matchups.
I preferred it over pyromancer since it is playable on it's own and only costs 3. It's not a bad drop, but no killing machine either. Maybe if you play more cards like SCG, it will be.

:cool: I just like playing with 'the king'. Now getting a beta one...

Has anyone tested Goblin Legionnaire in the r/w version? He just seems too good to leave out. Plus the deck needs more two drops, and the sparksmiths aren't as strong as I'd like. I know the casting cost doesn't work well with warchief, but I think the card's just too crazy to be ignored.

Getting the White mana is the problem. The deck is mana HUNGRY. It doesn't need getting Wasted on the 3rd turn and having one land in play. Or worse yet not having the White mana to cast him cause you have a Mountain and a Waste as your land.

Thats true, but it's possible to run twelve white sources (8 fetches plus 4 plateaus), not to mention that color is irrelevant once you draw a vial. I know that most r/w versions avoid running a full set of plateaus just cause of the potential target for a wasteland, but you have to play them anyway once you go and board in the disenchants/StP's. I don't see why you can risk the plateaus game 2 but not game 1.

Are most Goblin players even sticking with the White splash? I assume that many people are switching over to Mono Red because Pithing Needle and Goblin King take White's place.

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Are most Goblin players even sticking with the White splash? I assume that many people are switching over to Mono Red because Pithing Needle and Goblin King take White's place.

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It's true that the white splash is becoming less common (I actually prefer the monored build anyway), but I just thought it was interesting that the legionnaire hasn't shown up in any of the decklists i've seen with the white splash.

By the way, could someone tell me what's a safe number of non-goblin cards to board in without significantly weakening the ringleader? The other day I boarded in 9 cards against a landstill deck and ended up getting a total of one goblin off three ringleaders. I probabably would have won the match if I hadn't boarded in anything at all.

Pithing Needle makes the white splash indeed a bit obsolete. However I wouldn't really like want to cut swords to Plowshares and I also think the deck can easily afford the white splash. The only have color requirement is for Kiki-Jiki. Enchantment removal remains highly suggested in my oppinion. Needle is good against alot, but there are some really nasty enchantments like Chill, Engineered plague, Reverence and Moat that are increasing in popularity.

I have been playing against HBSpulse in Mol with almost the same deck, the biggest difference was that he ran Jitte and I ran Armageddon. And that made his deck better in the mirror of course. The first one is broken against other aggro decks, while Armageddon improves your game against Landstill alot.

edit:
About the Goblin Replica thingie: Why not go for Goblin Tinkerer instead?

Okay, I have another question. In my current meta, there is very little solidarity (if any), so I think its safe to take the pillars out of my sideboard. What would a descent monored sideboard look like in a meta with mainly landstill, ATS, RG survival, 2-land belcher, sligh, reanimator, gro and a bunch of random aggro decks (angel stompy, ug madness, wg threshold, etc.) look like? Currently I've found that reanimator and belcher are my worst matchups, though I have some trouble with landstill and survival decks.

@drizzt: What do you wan't the STP for sooo badly? I can't think of too many matchups where I#d wan't to board out goblins for it.

Generally I think that this dec, as a dec that relys so heavily on synergie can be severly weakend even by boarding in good cards for the matchup. I think affinity is a good comparison here. Besides Solidarity I can't think of any dec against which I'd like to bring in 8 cards.

Whenever I start boarding heavily I tend to remove some, if not all ringleaders.

@White Splash: Who is still seriously considering this? I have found that being subject to wasteland can flat out lose you games against Landstill(crucuble). I doubt that Disenchant out of the board is worth the risk of getting locked on 2 mountains. The only enchantment that is truly a problem is engineered plague, and atm there is no viable black dec.

This is the decklist I ran at a local tourney placing 2nd.

Vial Goblins

4*Wasteland
4*Wooded Foothills
2*Bloodstained Mire
2*Plateau
6*Mountain
2*Plains

4*Aether Vial
4*Goblin Lackey
4*Goblin Piledriver
4*Goblin Matron
4*Goblin Ringleader
3*Goblin Warchief
3*Gempalm Incinerator
2*Siege-Gang Commander
1*Goblin Sharpshooter
1*Kiki-Jiki, Mirrorbreaker
1*Skirk Prospector
1*Goblin King
1*Goblin Tinkerer
4*Lightning Bolt
3*Armageddon

sb:
1*Armageddon
4*Swords to Plowshares
4*Tormod's Crypt
3*Disenchant
3*Red Elemental Blast

As you can see I ran 29 goblins maindeck. When I needed StP i boarded Armageddon and an obsolete goblin out (King or Tinkerer, depends of the opponent's deck). So I still keep 28 goblins maindeck and have plenty of removal. 28 might be low, however I always seemed to topdeck alot via Ringleader and I don't really think that was coincidence. With that board I have 11 removal spells in my deck (4*StP, 4*Bolt and 3*Incinerator).
Those extra StP's really shine when forcing through an attacking lackey.

StP also answers the threats that Bolt doesn't, like Exalted Angel and Silver Knight. Synergy is of course a surplus, however I think the raw power of StP makes up for the lack of synergy with the deck. Plus it is probably a metagame choice, I think.

About the Landstill match-up. I played Landstill twice in that tourney and I crushed them both with Armageddon. If there is a card Landstill hates to see resolve (even with Crucible on the board) it is this one. Your opponent won't Armageddon in a Goblin deck, so you can use some random fodder as counter bait.
The only danger is that the Landstill player disenchants your Vial in response. Maindeck Armageddon is not very good in the mirror, but I expected more Landstill and Survival advantage decks.
I don't think that the white splash weakens the deck much. The splash isn't very deep and white opens some nice options.
I think both versions (white splash and mono-red with Needle) are fine. But when you go mono-red, Rishadan Port feels like a must-have.

First of all, there are around 10,000 things wrong with the list you just posted.

1: There are Lightning Bolts in your deck. Good God, thats horrible. Not only is it not a goblin and has bad synergy with Ringleader, its just a bad crad for this deck to run. This deck is built on card advantage. Go with it.

2: I know that you were trying to influence people to run the white splash, but there is a reason why they don't.

3: Kiki is probably one fo the best cards in this deck. There was an article on SCG all about Kiki and his power, explaining what i found out like 2 weeks ago. (Not really the Intruder Alarm part, I'm not sold on that yet.)

4. There are only 3 Incinerators and only 3 Warchiefs in this fucking deck. Were you high when you decided to cut a Warchief? ::sigh:: Grow a brain.

5. 29 GOBLINS!?!?!?!? Seriously? I run fucking 37 and still am not all that satisfied with Ringleader everytime.

6. Armegeddon seems unbelievably poor in the main. If you want to cut Goblins from the main, don't do it on a situational card.

7. You are running basic Plains, and only 3 maindeck cards that use them.

8. You have no way to fetch to basic Plains....and frankly if you did I would yell at you for it. Take them out.

9. Your silver bullet set-up is horrible. Tinkerer? Unless you are staring down a field of Landstill, I really don't see the point. Even in that case you should probably run Zo-zu. He kicks Landstill's ass.

I am sick of typing now....................I repeat: GROW A BRAIN!

Zo-Zu! I totally forgot that guy was a goblin! I see tons of landstill so I think I may start mainboarding one copy. One question though: When should I matron for the zo-zu as opposed to a ringleader? Obviously, the earlier in the game, the better, but what if he resolves, they plow him, and I end up in top deck mode because I didnt go with the ringleader? Should I just stick with the wastes, ports, and ringleaders in the main for dealing with landstill? If I move zo-zu to the sideboard, wouldn't I be better off replacing him with better hosers like ruination?

The problem I always had with Ruination over Zozu was the fact that Zozu can be tutored for and can be caught with a Ringleader. Goblin King makes him bigger and Warchief makes him cost less and gives him haste. The fact that Zozu himself actually has synergy with the deck makes him a far better choice.



I'm trying.....

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Originally Posted by Evil Roopey

First of all, there are around 10,000 things wrong with the list you just posted.

1: There are Lightning Bolts in your deck. Good God, thats horrible. Not only is it not a goblin and has bad synergy with Ringleader, its just a bad crad for this deck to run. This deck is built on card advantage. Go with it.

2: I know that you were trying to influence people to run the white splash, but there is a reason why they don't.

3: Kiki is probably one fo the best cards in this deck. There was an article on SCG all about Kiki and his power, explaining what i found out like 2 weeks ago. (Not really the Intruder Alarm part, I'm not sold on that yet.)

4. There are only 3 Incinerators and only 3 Warchiefs in this fucking deck. Were you high when you decided to cut a Warchief? ::sigh:: Grow a brain.

5. 29 GOBLINS!?!?!?!? Seriously? I run fucking 37 and still am not all that satisfied with Ringleader everytime.

6. Armegeddon seems unbelievably poor in the main. If you want to cut Goblins from the main, don't do it on a situational card.

7. You are running basic Plains, and only 3 maindeck cards that use them.

8. You have no way to fetch to basic Plains....and frankly if you did I would yell at you for it. Take them out.

9. Your silver bullet set-up is horrible. Tinkerer? Unless you are staring down a field of Landstill, I really don't see the point. Even in that case you should probably run Zo-zu. He kicks Landstill's ass.

I am sick of typing now....................I repeat: GROW A BRAIN!

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1) I fail to see why Bolt would be worse than say: Mogg Fanatic. Bolt is just much more flexible, can steal wins when the board gets stalled, kill bigger crits, can act as an alternate win condition,...
The only plus for Fanatic is its synergy with Ringleader, but Bolt is just the better card. I played with Fanatic at first, but they just didn't do that much for me, so I swapped them.

2) I'm not trying to influence anyone. I'm just saying that there are things that Needle doesn't answer and they are growing in popularity.

3) I never said anything about Kiki.

4) You only need one Warchief on the board. The second one is not much more than vanilla 2/2. Besides there are 4 Matrons in this deck for a reason. And how often do you lose 3 Warchiefs? Exactly, never. Besides i hate to see more than one Warchief in my first hand. A fourth Incinerator should indeed be added. I never said my decklist was perfect.

5) I'm satisfied with the approximately two cards I draw from Ringleader each time. So I don't see your point. I'd rather not add some subpar Goblins to increase my draws.

6) Armageddon is not a situational card, because the card is highly abuseable with Vial.

7+8) A W/R fetchland still doesn't exist where I come from. But you're right I might as well take the plains out.

9) Tutorable artifact removal is never wrong. In fact I've seen a lot of Vedalken Shackles lately in my meta. Zo-Zu doesn't really affect the board and will probably only get plowed or wrathed away.

Btw you are wrong when you say this deck is about card advantage. This deck is about card advantage AND tempo advantage AND synergy AND a versitality of threats. it's the combination of these four elements what makes this deck tier 1 material. You might be going more for the card advantage, while I go for the versitality of threats. I think each deckbuilder has a bit space to add some personal elements without hurting the core of the deck.

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1) I fail to see why Bolt would be worse than say: Mogg Fanatic

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Ringleader, Lackey, Piledriver ...

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4) You only need one Warchief on the board. The second one is not much more than vanilla 2/2.

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Perhaps it's just me, but I like to play 4 copies of the cards I always want to draw asap

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Besides i hate to see more than one Warchief in my first hand.

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uh? really? ;/

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7+8) A W/R fetchland still doesn't exist where I come from. But you're right I might as well take the plains out.

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What about red fetchlands and plateau? :O

Just my 2 cents

Guys,

Give Drizzt a break! He did well with this decklist in a local tournement (35 players), ending second! He is a very good player only losing to a mirror match that took ages to finish. I know he understands the deck very well.

That said I don't agree with everything in his list, but I've lost to it more then enough to give it some respect.

I would also play 4 Warchiefs, they're amazing, deciding games right there and then.
There doesn't seem to be the need for two Plains so I'd change them to Plateaus.
The Armageddons are really good! Resolving one = end of the game, another victory for the green army.
I still believe the white splash to give the Goblin player an extra edge. Being a Landstill player, my main goal is staying alive and not think too much about the Wasteland plan here! Crucible is one of those cards that gets sideboarded out against the Gobbo's.
I don't know why Bolt is considered a bad card! 29 Goblins is more then enough, so I agree with him here. It takes care of anoying creatures and can be a finisher. I know you want to draw four Goblins everytime you get a Ringleader out but two is great as well.

Greetings,

Odd Mute.

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I am sick of typing now....................I repeat: GROW A BRAIN!

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Jezus, just because someone has a list that differs from the standard one, don't crucify them. It's lame.

Agreed, you should play 4x warchief, etc. And the basic plain is not really necessary. If you decide on playing bolt instead of jitte, well why not.

However, I found his armageddon in the deck a really good choice. It proved to be a 'bom' against any control based matchup or just any deck that doesn't run vial. It's basically only a dead card in the mirror. Armageddon also gives you a chance pre-sb against solidarity. (!)

I saw armageddon kill landstill players instantly. Cop:red or not.

Looking at the other posts, goblins will get tons of hate thrown at them. It is thé deck to beat for the moment.

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Originally Posted by HBspulse

Armageddon also gives you a chance pre-sb against solidarity. (!)

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... The best strategy to beat Solidarity is to play first. You both have the same fundamental turn, and they have to make every single land drop. The first game odds are about 50-50. Also note that Armageddon costs 4, so if they went first, they will go off in response. Unless you did something like Prospector to speed it up a turn, in which case they can always FoW...

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Originally Posted by HBspulse

I saw armageddon kill landstill players instantly. Cop:red or not.

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I saw Ruination and Flaring Pain instantly kill landstill with a resolved Cop:red, and they don't require a white splash...

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Originally Posted by HBspulse

Looking at the other posts, goblins will get tons of hate thrown at them. It is thé deck to beat for the moment.

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So.. you will be playing the goblin mirror often? And your solution is... splash white for MD Armageddon??? [glare]

I'm coming from an Angel Stompy/Landstill player point of view to address some of the things.

@Warchief
Having four of means 80% of the time drawing one in your opening hand, that often produces the "Oops... RRR triple Piledriver for the win." games. This gives opposing deck fits, whether it's aggro, combo or control. However, those alpha strike moments can be ruined with a single StP, which means that you just overextended, and walked into a Wrath or Disk or Wave. Having a second Warchief reduces that chance, reduces Ringleader and Kiki's cost. That one extra colourless mana might not mean that much early on, but after a Gedden, could mean the difference between win and lose.

@Solidarity
With the inclusion of white splash, the only thing you brought in that helps against Solidarity is Geddon. Traditionally, the black splash Vial is much more suited to combat against combo, with x Duress and x Therapy, the deck rips apart Solidarity's hand while maintaining a comstant stream of threats to supplement the clock. The simple fact is that Geddon costs 4, with no Chrome and a single Prospector, it will likely to be casted on turn 4 and no earlier. That alone simply is not enough against Solidarity. (Notice most SB plans containis either 8 Blasts or a combination of Pillars and Blasts.) Against control, Ruination is much better since it doesn't hurt your own mana base that much. (Fetch for basics.)

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6) Armageddon is not a situational card, because the card is highly abuseable with Vial.

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Unfortunately, that IS the defination of a situational card. It's only castable after you established board control and is in a winning position. Otherwise, if you cast it early, most decks can recover fairly quickly. Chances are, without Vial, you wouldn't be inclined to cast Geddon.