[DTB] Vial Goblins

Mantis' list is quite strange, I have to admit it.
War marshal indeed works against goyfs and it has a wonderful sinergy with Piledriver and Incinerator.
Relics are usually a metagame concern, being a godsend against Tempo Thresh, Team America, Loam, Ichorid, etc. But as I can see, the only deck you played against that revealed Relics as relevant is Eva Green. Sure, there are some more, like enchantress (hitting only Replenish), ANT (hitting only IGG and Cabal Ritual), and ITF (hitting only intuition shenanigans, but you should have already won by that time), but against those relic is just sort of decent, nothing more. If I was you, I'd not play it next time in the same meta.

I'm currently testing this:

// Lands
15 [7E] Mountain (1)
4 [TE] Wasteland
4 [MM] Rishadan Port
1 [TSP] Gemstone Caverns

// Creatures
4 [ON] Goblin Piledriver
4 [US] Goblin Lackey
4 [SC] Goblin Warchief
4 [LE] Gempalm Incinerator
4 [AP] Goblin Ringleader
2 [SC] Siege-Gang Commander
2 [TE] Mogg Fanatic
4 [US] Goblin Matron
2 [MI] Goblin Tinkerer
2 [PLC] Stingscourger

// Spells
4 [DS] AEther Vial

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 4 [AL] Pyrokinesis
SB: 1 [ON] Goblin Sharpshooter
SB: 3 [SHM] Boartusk Liege
SB: 3 [IA] Anarchy

This version has the added bonus of being much more resilent against plague. You're usually siding out the 2 fanatics for Boartusk. This means that post SB I have a grand total of 4 Lackeys and 4 Matrons with thoughness 1, and 3 Boartusks to pump them. It works wonders against plague.

I'm yet undecided about fanatics. They're not fantastic anymore, but they provide a decent utility against a good number of things, like Confidant, Noble Hierarc, Bridges, etc and they're helping Gempalm if it's 1 dmg short. Against merfolk, for example, if that war marshal was a fanatic you could have just pinged Kira, and proceed to wrath the opponent with your REBs and such.
I can replace Mogg with War Marshal, but this way I might have too many 2cc (2 Tinkerers, 2 Stingscourger, 2 War Marshall, 4 Incinerators) and too few 1cc for the curve. I'll test it though.

I strongly recommend NOT to run the 4th Boartusk. You already have a 3of with 4 matrons and ringleaders to get them. the triple RRR is a mess with 8 colorless mana sources, so you really don't want a 2of in your starting grip.

About Anarchy: I'm undecided for this SB slot. I'm testing it cause it's unexpected, and it deals with a good number of things, actually.
A brief list includes:
- From DTB forum: War Monk, Pridemage, Humility, Moat, Elspeth, Soldier Tokens (decree), Knight of the reliquary, Oblivion Ring, Eternal Dragon...
- From Established decks: Progenitus (!!!), Solitary Confinament (and lots of other things from enchantress), Rafiq, everything in death and taxes, Circle of protection:red, Magus of the Tabernacle, Ghostly Prison, Plated Crystalline and Sinew slivers, ...

I'm quite sure I don't want to play 3, but 2, cause you don't need it ever before the 4th turn, and sometimes it's clunky if you want to use your mana denial. It's still in test though, and it's not THAT impressive.

What you guys suggest for my SB in its place? I'd like something to side against combo that's not dead in other matchups, or just conceed the combo matchup, and focus on a game deciding card against some specific matchup. Maybe Blood Moon, Price of Progress?

For the record, I also tested Spitebellows, and it was just quite good as spot removal for monored, but still worse than goblins in the same role, like Stingscourger, Incinerator, Fanatic or War Marshal.
Though I won one game with Spitebellows beatdown against triple plague.. :wink:

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Originally Posted by GreenOne

I can replace Mogg with War Marshal, but this way I might have too many 2cc (2 Tinkerers, 2 Stingscourger, 2 War Marshall, 4 Incinerators) and too few 1cc for the curve. I'll test it though.

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I don't think that both Stingscourgers and Incinerators are turn 2 drops by definition though. Only in the scenario where you can resolve a turn 1 lackey they are. More often then that you want to keep them in hand to deal with serious threats. Mogg War Marshall on the other hand is a very solid T2 drop in a lot of occasions.

I was looking at the REB's and found them quite alright, but more often then that I wanted to use them as anti-counters in which case a Vexing Shusher works just as good or better it seems.

I currently have

1 Sharpshooter
3 Boartusk Liege
3 Vexing Shushers
3 Goblin Tinkerer
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Pyrokinesis

Which seems to cover most of it, though I must admit Anarchy looks like it has a lot of uses as well (Moat, Humility).

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Originally Posted by Nessaja

Which seems to cover most of it, though I must admit Anarchy looks like it has a lot of uses as well (Moat, Humility).

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All I know is that looking at opponent's face, right after you destroyed their Progenitus with monored gobbos is priceless.

Relic aided me in 3 game wins, 2 against Eva Green and one against ITF. Turning their best card, Goyf, into a liability is awesome. Not to mention it cycles into the cards you really want to see so youdont have to run filler such as Fanatic. If I were to run the deck again I would only change the sb. Anarchy seems good, I think Ill run some of those next time if I can find room.
What about:
3 Liege
4 Chalice
4 REB
3 Anarchy
1 Relic

And there you see another advantage of Relic, clears up sideboard space. Also I dont like Pyrokinesis, I want it against Goblins and Elves and both dont see nearly enough play.

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Originally Posted by Mantis

Relic aided me in 3 game wins, 2 against Eva Green and one against ITF. Turning their best card, Goyf, into a liability is awesome. Not to mention it cycles into the cards you really want to see so youdont have to run filler such as Fanatic. If I were to run the deck again I would only change the sb. Anarchy seems good, I think Ill run some of those next time if I can find room.
What about:
3 Liege
4 Chalice
4 REB
3 Anarchy
1 Relic

And there you see another advantage of Relic, clears up sideboard space. Also I dont like Pyrokinesis, I want it against Goblins and Elves and both dont see nearly enough play.

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Don't you want to run as many Goblins in Goblins as possible, to max out Ringleader?

I understand that concern, but flipping over Fanatic usually isn't that exciting anyway as it's bad in general but especially bad in the lategame. Also, once I'm throwing my Ringleaders out there, it's hard to stop the onslaught spare for Plague or Moat or something and then it doesn't matter how many Goblins you flip anyway. That said, Relic not being a goblin sucks with Ringleader, but I found that the pro's outweighed the cons. Relic deals with the bane to Goblins existance and the reason Goblins is almost pushed out of the metagame entirely: Goyf. The fact that it's huge against Aggro Loam and Ichorid is just a nice bonus.

Anyway, I can understand anyone not wanting to run Relic, but I love it. I'll keep running it as it has proven itself worthy to me on many occasions.

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Originally Posted by Nessaja

I must say I agree with you on Mogg War Marshall, as of now it looks like he's replacing the Mogg Fanatics, even though his role is entirely different, he fits nicely in the deck and has good synergy.

I'm not sure though, I'm currently testing with 4 Mogg War Marshals I'm just unsure if their powerlevel is good enough. They've been pretty decent at stalling and making sure that my Incinerator does enough damage (running 4 as well) . Seems like the Piledriver way (throw more goblins at a problem) seems to work quite decently.

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I'm going to quote numbers at you guys again and disagree that War Marshall's can replace Fanatics. While War Marshall's are undoubtedly good for dealing with Goyf and awesome synergy and such, they are not a one-drop. For Goblins to be a threat, I still maintain that you need to pose a threat right from turn 1 and that means running a minimum of 10 one-drops to give you a decent chance of drawing them in your opening hand.

On a different note, I would like to advertise a new goblin: Boros Recruit. I have been testing it in the place of Fanatic with a surprising amount of success. It completely rapes Keldon Marauders, Ball Lightning, Spark Elementals and those other randoms that burn decks like to throw at you. It helps to take a somewhat defensive route until I get Pyromancer out to accelerate into 20-ish points of damage. Don't toss him off, the first-strike is surprisingly useful.

Anyways, he can't be any worse than the other one-drops available right?:wink:

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Originally Posted by dr4g0n

For Goblins to be a threat, I still maintain that you need to pose a threat right from turn 1 and that means running a minimum of 10 one-drops to give you a decent chance of drawing them in your opening hand.

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I agree, but as you said - a threat - that doesn't include a 1/1 first striker or any of the other crap around. And heck, even mogg fanatic started to be a borderline threat for a long time. He hasn't been what he used to be. I'd rather have an effective turn 2 drop then a half assed turn 1 drop just so you can curve out.

Maybe its just my metagame, but I run it because I've been running into a lot of burn lately, so Recruit solves a lot of problems. It's presence usually makes at least 6-8 cards dead in their hands, so I find it worthwhile. I'm just offering a suggestion especially as most of the other one-drops aren't really up to standard either.

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Originally Posted by dr4g0n

Maybe its just my metagame, but I run it because I've been running into a lot of burn lately, so Recruit solves a lot of problems. It's presence usually makes at least 6-8 cards dead in their hands, so I find it worthwhile. I'm just offering a suggestion especially as most of the other one-drops aren't really up to standard either.

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What kind of awful burn are you playing against? Doesn't fallout kill him along with everything else preventing their creatures from landing? And how does he do anything to Marauders?

Anyways, for a more useful one drop, why not Goblin Grappler, I think someone brought it up earlier, but it is a nice little one drop, that doesn't get worse with more one drops (lackey). He clears paths for them, or piledrivers, and helps just walk through things like goyf, and he can pull utility creatures out of hiding. My money would be on him or prospector as alternatives to the goblin formerly known as "fantastic".

I've had decent success with Frenzied Goblin as a one drop. With Mongoose no longer being a legit threat, he serves as a decent drop early on who takes out a blocker later on.

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Originally Posted by Goblin Snowman

I've had decent success with Frenzied Goblin as a one drop. With Mongoose no longer being a legit threat, he serves as a decent drop early on who takes out a blocker later on.

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This seems like the best option. I always felt like Frenzied Goblin was overlooked. He makes a Goyf on the other side look silly, at least.

At any rate, he's better than Fanatic or Recruit.

Relic is the best option for dealing with Goyf at the 1CMC spot, nothing comes close. Relic won me the tournament while I'm quite certain I wouldn't have won that tourney if I played Frenzied Goblin instead. Also, Relic severely hindered the Fetchland Tendrills player when I was beating him down as I now basically stopped Ad Naus (constant pressure made his life pummel) and IGG so he only had Doomsday left which is quite hard to set up.

I'm not even convinced I'd run something like Frenzied Goblin over Fanatic. That said, I'm eager to hear the results and I'll be the first one to admit if my assesment was wrong. My advice to anyone is, give both War Marshall and Relic a shot in your maindeck if you have some spare testing time.

A few questions:

1. Is Chalice strong enough to merit a slot in the SB?
Against which matchups do you side it in?

2. Is artifact destruction in the SB necessary? If so, which one?

3. What are the bad matchups for Goblins *postboard* (accounting for both your deck as well as the opponents)?

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Originally Posted by Bongo

1. Is Chalice strong enough to merit a slot in the SB?
Against which matchups do you side it in?

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My experience is that it is indeed strong enough to run still, although that depends vastly on how random opposition you face. I bring it in against Burn, Elves, Sligh-varieties (as long as they run low curve [that is, don't suck], obviously), Storm, Belcher (Chalice at 0 + LD + fast win is pretty much your best plan in both), and some Threshold-lists (the modern Countertop builds have a bit too varied CCs for it to be effective though).

It's also worthy of consideration against Enchantress (you'll need to mise to win anyways, and have semi-dead slots already), some Loam-decks (if you're mono-red, your chances of landing it against Lands.dec are fairly good, for example, and it's very strong especially since they're unlike to expect it from you).

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Originally Posted by Bongo

2. Is artifact destruction in the SB necessary? If so, which one?

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Necessary, no. Useful, sure. I'd frankly spend MD space with Tinkerers/Tin Streets rather than dedicate SB slots for it though. If you run green, Grips are obvious. Otherwise, no, other than possibly running an extra or two of your MD arti hate Goblins, I wouldn't run more.

I actually like Tinkerer a lot due to his power to shut down Countertop giving you additional tools to blow through the "lock" (they wish) if the game goes longer, while still dealing with Dreadnoughts, Shackles, opposing Vials, Needles on your Vials (happens occasionally post-board), Jittes (only reason you lose to Fish-type decks ever), and hell, Crucibles if those games go long and you'd rather not have your LD lose its sting. Eh, as you might notice, I quite like having arti removal.

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Originally Posted by Bongo

3. What are the bad matchups for Goblins *postboard* (accounting for both your deck as well as the opponents)?

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Combo is still a nightmare, although obviously Chalice suddenly makes it winnable without them mulling to 4. Generally, combo goes "Win G2 on the play with Chalice+Lackey, and hope to mise G1 or G3." Given that your kill isn't that much slower than theirs, mising is certainly doable.

Other than that, stuff that hates you. If you play against Canadian Thresh with 3-4 SB Pyroclasms, chances are you won't be winning (of course, as most Tempo Thresh builds are cutting down on Pyroclasms, your life becomes much easier). Chalice has a real chance to be a difference-maker here, though it's a pity laying it at 2 isn't a realistic option, since that would truly cut down the dangerous cards (Tarmogoyf, Pyroclasm, Fire//Ice).

If you play against Countertop with 4 SB Plagues and a relevant number of Lackey-answers, your best gameplan is suddenly "Stick a Vial and destroy all their mana." Although as their manabase is a trainwreck, that's not actually entirely impossible, and very few of them can spare the space for 4 Plagues (again, one Plague isn't GG or anything so they really need a double to KO you).

Then there are Ritual-decks, which aren't really bad per ce, but they can mise vs. you with those "Turn 1 Ritual - Plague, turn 2 Ritual - Plague, oh you thought we were gonna PLAY?" hands.

Enchantress still sucks unless you run like...Tranquil Domain or something.

Then there's a bunch of Established decks (I guess I already covered Enchantress) you'd really rather not face like Mono-White Control, Angel Stompy, Faerie Stompy, the like. Basically decks built to beat you. Luckily Gobs aren't dominant enough for decks solely built to beat you to exist, but that doesn't stop a bunch of Tier 2 decks from having a good match-up vs. you, especially if the designs are a bit older and have thus heavily accounted for Goblin-presence.


Short of it: Combo and decks that hate you hard while being coinflips pre-board/ones that have sufficiently resilient manabases to live to drop their hate, and sufficient dig to find it.

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Originally Posted by Bongo

A few questions:

1. Is Chalice strong enough to merit a slot in the SB?
Against which matchups do you side it in?

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I brought up Chalice earlier in conjunction with Food Chain Gobs, as I run Chrome Mox, and Ancient Tomb, so Chalice is easier to resolve at 2, where it tends to do a large amount of good against plenty of decks (sligh, zoo, elves, most combos). In vial gobs it could make a reasonable sideboard choice, as Eldariel stated, though I'd think it would be more meta dependent. Bonus for vial gobs is taking advantage of the Ports already in the list, that work well at keeping the opponent off plays with chalice.

I still don't know about chalice.
We're likely to lose horribly anyway against Storm combo, even with chalices. You already want to board 4 Relic of Progenitus against tempo thresh, are you serously siding out 8 goblins for chalices and relics? And siding in chalices @1 + 4 1cc spells doesn't seem tech.
Against zoo, they still have pridemages to fuck with your chalice, and you're already siding Pyrokinesis.

You surely want it against burn and maybe goyf sligh, but that's it.

I'm still not sure if its worth it, but still don't know what else might take its place (at least in monored).

Thanks for the thorough and quick reply!

My experiences with Chalice have been a bit disappointing. It seems nice in theory, but in actual tournament games, I rarely sided them in. Maybe I'm fortunate that there isn't a lot of Storm combo played, but then I would switch decks anyway. Against Elves and Sligh-like decks, I prefer Pyrokinesis, as a second turn Chalice might be too late and RG Sligh can play around it. Maybe there's something I don't see.

Tinkerer is good, but the problem I've encountered is that the summoning sickness is a severe drawback, especially when you're facing something like Shackles or Jitte. Is Shattering Spree an acceptable option for MonoRed?
The theory behind it is: Most decks that pack dangerous artifacts are also running counters, so you want to make sure your artifact hate resolves.

So, for a MonoRed version, what kind of SB would you recommend?
Currently I run:

3 Boartusk Liege (has been good against Plague and Pyroclasm)
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 REB
3 Pyrokinesis
2 Shattering Spree
1 Goblin Sharpshooter

Is there a better silver-bullet Goblin than Sharpshooter?
Also, what's your opinion on Price of Progress?

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Originally Posted by Bongo

Thanks for the thorough and quick reply!

My experiences with Chalice have been a bit disappointing. It seems nice in theory, but in actual tournament games, I rarely sided them in. Maybe I'm fortunate that there isn't a lot of Storm combo played, but then I would switch decks anyway. Against Elves and Sligh-like decks, I prefer Pyrokinesis, as a second turn Chalice might be too late and RG Sligh can play around it. Maybe there's something I don't see.

Tinkerer is good, but the problem I've encountered is that the summoning sickness is a severe drawback, especially when you're facing something like Shackles or Jitte. Is Shattering Spree an acceptable option for MonoRed?
The theory behind it is: Most decks that pack dangerous artifacts are also running counters, so you want to make sure your artifact hate resolves.

So, for a MonoRed version, what kind of SB would you recommend?
Currently I run:

3 Boartusk Liege (has been good against Plague and Pyroclasm)
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 REB
3 Pyrokinesis
2 Shattering Spree
1 Goblin Sharpshooter

Is there a better silver-bullet Goblin than Sharpshooter?
Also, what's your opinion on Price of Progress?

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I'd max the number of Relics and Kinesis, taking out REB. What's your opinion about REB? I actually found it good only against already positive matchups (Merfolk, MUC), so not worth it. What are you hitting with it usually?

Price of progress is a card that sometimes wins alone matchups like 43lands and inficolorlandstill, but it's quite useless even against Countertop (they're often fetching basics to avoid wasteland).

With my list I am currently 3-0 in matches against combo. I think only few people on this planet are competent enough to play combo effectively, thus we actually stand a pretty good chance. Pair that with my REBs sideboard and the fact that I run Port, the new rules nuking LED + Mystical + Ad Naus and I don't think the matchup is the nightmare Eldariel and GreenOne claim. I once read an article from Dave Price where he described he was not afraid of CoP Red with Sligh, similairly I am not afraid of ANT. That said, its probably not in our favor, but Chalice and REB definately give you a good shot.

Enchantress is a bad MU no denying that, I hope 2 or 3 Anarchies can shore that MU up.

My take on the SB is vastly different from the norm here. I build my maindeck to beat the most common decks in the format; hence the Relics main. I build my sideboard to beat the decks I have a bad matchup against. The matchups where I'm even against or where I have a positive matchup, I hope to win on the back of playskill, hence no Pyrokinesis. This explains my preference for REB, Chalice, Boartusk Liege and now Anarchy.

There are no artifacts I am really scared of spare Dreadnought. If it starts showing up in huge numbers again I will consider Tinkerers main/side. I have faced Vedalken Shackles a few times but always managed to play around it and win despite Shackles taking over Warchief.