[DTB] Vial Goblins

Yesterday I tested the UGR ***** match-up and the Life from the loam match-up with the following list.

2 taiga
2 badlands
4 mountains
3 bloodstained mire
3 wooded foothills
4 wasteland
4 rishadan port

4 goblin lackey
3 mogg fanatic
4 goblin piledriver
4 tarmogoyf
4 goblin warchief
4 goblin matron
4 goblin incinerator
4 goblin ringleader
1 goblin king
2 siege-gang commander


4 aether vial

I must say it dramatically increases your match-up.
What I found out was that mid-game my goblins were either burned to a crisp or that I had to throw away gobs to protect me from opposing goyfs before I played the goyf myself. Now I can make midgame a stalemate and get to end-game where my card-advantage gobs do the work.
Altough I don't have to many illusions about the post board match-up (pyroclasm is massive card advantage for the ***** player) I do think it's a step in the right direction.
Post board I am thinking about several options.
Smother -> handels everything but mongoose
Dralnu's crusade -> effectively limits the power of burn. fire/ice wouldn't be card advantage any more and pyroclasm would only kill the little guys.
Advantage of the crusade is that there is fairly little enchantment hatred in our meta game and that most ***** player side out some counters post-board. The fact that it is rather slow does not really matter because you are aiming on the late game instead of just racing.

general note: I think it just shows how insanely powerful the goyf is.

Goyf this and goyf that... I'm sick to back teeth of eevrything just throwing him into a deck and assuming it makes it better (whether it does or not, just let me have my little moment of ranting peeps!)

I was saying to anusien the other day, i would rather be the guy beating up on all the goyf players than actually playing it. Now i have heard people claim that thresh is still a 50/50 match up for goblins... but goyf really does make it harder.

What i have found playing tog against thresh (especially the new UG incarnations) is that 2cc answers are not good - by this i am refering to counterspell and mana leak. my opponent looked like he was about to cry when i cast a circular logic and he thought his 2 snares would be good enough to protect the threat. They fall over to spellsnare and that's not what we want. Their opponent should be punishing them for playing narrow cards like snare - adding another 2cc creatures to the main (in addition to your piledrivers) just gives their snare more outs when it would otherwise be fairly piointless.

When i have played tog, what i really wanted was a 1cc answer to the threat once it had hit the table. reaching 3 mana to cast deed was all very well and good when that happened...

swords to plowshares would have made a difference in all games i have played so i think the white splash is still as good as it has always been.

it puts a tear in my eye when i see people mentioning "goblin fish"... i hope i am proved wrong and that it becomes a top tier deck (who am i kidding!)

pyrokinesis seems to be good in the main deck now (for those opting for mono red). it can put a dent into an early and greedy empty the warrens player and gives you a large amount of burn to point at opposing goyfs! One thing i found with incinerator was that it would go in the yard and pump the goyf and the burn would be less than required. Pyro'k actually removes the creature while dealing 4 to it. This is enought o kill an early goyf and start punching through damage, it won't fall over to snare and a daze can just be shrugged off. (i have been testing it with sucessful results anyway!)

or we could take the deck into an aggro/combo route. Though this might put a slight tilt on the game against threshold (i hear that deck likes to play against combo), it does give you some more outs against other combo. It also gives you 2 games plans against thresh. Variety is the spice of life!

When i talk about aggro/combo, i mean somethign like dirsty kitty from extended. Just to throw out come cards that could be included:

Rite of flame, Chrome mox, ?Land grant?, Ancient Tomb...

this gives yout he option of going beat down or combo. A problem with this i have found in the past (as i am sure many others have) is that you end up with a little bit of one and a little bit of the other (aggro and combo) and not enough elements on one on it's own to persue one route to victory. Only some testing will tell i guess - right now i jsut want to get some ideas out there.

I will certainly be testing the Dirty Kitty route and let you guys know how things go.

Any comments/criticisms/flames - feel free (try to keep the flames to pm's though peoples!)

Slobad23

And i was so happy with my long post - i thought that someone might come back with something constructive/informative and we could have a lengthy discussion with interesting points and perhaps some tea and crumpets...

but i threw it all down the toilet by talking to a known legacy player about legacy because i had some ideas about legacy... once more? yeah alright... legacy

Sorry Zulander - i'm just finishing up some work and am tired and, therefore, sarcastic!

I'm also sick and tired of people adding Tarmogoyf to every deck and just assuming its better, I mean seriously, its a vanilla 4/5 or 5/6 dork than can be chumped to high Hell, removed by mass removal, and combo can just win right through the damn thing. Granted a lot of decks packing Tarmogoyf have counters etc (Breakfast, Thresh), but people adding Tarmogoyf to most other decks and justifying it by saying "its flipping Tarmogoyf!!!!1!1ONEONE!!!" just infuriates me. Yes, its the best vanilla beater ever printed, but its still just that, a vanilla beater. I can count the number of Legacy games I've lost to a lone Tarmogoyf on one hand, if a deck cant deal with a 2 CC vanilla beater, then something is wrong, heck, if your the kind of player who plays decks that cant handle it, you probably have your own Tarmogoyfs in your deck to stall the board, included just because "its flippin' Tarmogoyf!!!!!11!1!!ONE!!!!1!". Obviously the card is good, but COME ON people, Tarmogoyf in Goblins??? This whole Tarmogoyf obsession everyone has is really starting to get to me, as for me I'll just keep playing combo decks, ignore your vanilla dork (along with the rest of your board), and leave you wondering why Tarmogoyf, or as some people think it, "teh_moast_borken_cardd_evar!!11!!!11!", somehow let you down.

/rant

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Originally Posted by slobad23

my opponent looked like he was about to cry when i cast a circular logic and he thought his 2 snares would be good enough to protect the threat.

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I had SOMETHING IN MY EYE!!!!!!

Why run goyf in a deck that only plays creatures and lands?

Your just gonna sit and beg your opponent to make your 2/3 non gob better?

Granted he may be worth sbing against decks with Engineered Plague but hes just bad maindeck.

Goyf is amazing.
Goyf in Goblins, not so amazing.
I really haven't touched Goblins in a long time as the deck has been frustrating me to hell and back and making me wish that it wasn't my pet deck for so damned long, so I have no other constructive criticism to offer.

Shteev,
Your signature is hilarious out of context. But once I clicked the link and figured out why the changes were being made, it lost all of it's hilarity and made much more sense. Take the link out and save the funny. Save the funny, save teh world.

I thought Tarmogoyf was in the deck for protection against Tarmogoyf. I used to say that about Counterspells. We have come a long way with this one card.

Why is there all this talk about protecting goblins from tarmogoyf.

You're playing Goblins, the quickest most explosive aggro deck in the format. Threshold should be shitting itself trying to contain you.

The most sure fire way to lose with Goblins is to play it defensively. Although StP and Incinerator can be helpful, the best answer to Goyf is laying down a dozen gobs and running right through it.

hmm.
That sounds like a good idea. I think I am going to clean out my medicine closet as well since the best way to beat an illness is apparently to simply not get sick.

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Originally Posted by Finn

hmm.
That sounds like a good idea. I think I am going to clean out my medicine closet as well since the best way to beat an illness is apparently to simply not get sick.

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Well, you are correct that is the best way to beat an illness.

However, if that was intended as a shot at me (if not ignore this) then that analogy makes very little sense. Tarmogoyf isn't a rampaging disease that leaves Goblins bed-ridden. If anything Tarmogoyf is like a stuffy nose. In your medicine cabinet you already have Tylenol, but you decide to run out and grab antibiotics because you're scared to death. You get more sick trying to blow away your damn stuffy nose than if you just used the cold medicine you already have and then you're completely defenseless when Hepatitis comes in and you've been too busy freaking out about your nose to get your shots.

The point: Building Goblins to beat Tarmogoyf is a bad idea because Tarmogoyf is a very minor problem compared to what some other decks(combo) can do to Goblins.

How very dissapointing this discussion turns out to be.
Did any of you actually test the card?
Does any of you played 100+ games against red ***** since future sight became legal?
What are your ratios?
The match-up has clearly deteriorated with future sight. Before you were quite safe when resolving a first turn vial. Now that's the only thing that gives you a fighting chance.
If your only removal pre-board is incinerator I can assure you that you never can get enough goblins on the table to kill the goyf. I think that if you want to do good with gobs you need a solution.
One option would be to play 4 removal spells in the main (swords for example). I tested that and altough results were a little better, the same problem stayed. You don't get enough time to really get the card advantage of your gobs going. Mid-game is a disaster because you are always on the defensive.
I can understand the fact that running a non-goblin in goblins is strange, but I have no goblin that can take burn, block opposing 4/4's etc without dying. I need something like that to see me through to the late game were my gobs eventually do shine out because of the sheer card-advantage they can generate.
Either you come with a serious alternative or you just keep it to yourself. I was used to a lot more constructive feedback in the legacy metagame forum at the source than some of the posts here above. I am no saying I am right, but at least you can try to prove me wrong with your results and maybe an alternative decklist.

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Originally Posted by Reagens

The match-up has clearly deteriorated with future sight.

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This is true, at least in the case of red Thresh. I don't know about white Thresh. But in the case of red Thresh, they have 8 burn spells and 4 Pyroclasms postboard. This means Incinerator is essentially never going to be big enough to answer Tarmogoyf, and it just absolutely owns the ground against you when it's backed by Mongeese and spot removal. I feel confident saying that those who think Tarmogoyf hasn't turned red Thresh into a distinctly bad matchup for Goblins simply haven't tested the matchup enough. It's really not good. Your main paths to victory in this matchup are getting lucky with land disruption or resolving a first turn Chalice and racing.

It's important to recognize that Tarmogoyf is a very significant problem for you, but I'm not convinced that running Goyfs of your own is the correct plan.

Has anyone tested Goblin Goons maindeck?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Reagens

I can understand the fact that running a non-goblin in goblins is strange, but I have no goblin that can take burn, block opposing 4/4's etc without dying. I need something like that to see me through to the late game were my gobs eventually do shine out because of the sheer card-advantage they can generate.
Either you come with a serious alternative or you just keep it to yourself. I was used to a lot more constructive feedback in the legacy metagame forum at the source than some of the posts here above. I am no saying I am right, but at least you can try to prove me wrong with your results and maybe an alternative decklist.

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Fine, I'll explain as best I can why I think Tarmogoyf is a bad card in Goblins. Based on your complaints about what Goblins can't do I'm guessing you mainly want him in for UGr Thresh. Putting aside the obvious downsides of running extra non-goblins, like that it makes half your deck weaker, how do you see it turning the match up favorable? If their Tarmogoyf ever gets into combat with yours all they have to do is use half a fire or a bolt to kill it. Even Pyroclasm + Bolt will kill it a lot of the time. Your counterparts to that (unless you're running Bolts) are Mogg Fanatic and Gempalm Incinerator, both of which get stopped by Stifle. Ordinarily it might be beneficial that they're killing Tarmogoyf instead of other Goblins but you took those Goblins out of your deck for Tarmogoyf. For these reasons (and because I'd need to play green :cry:) I will not put Tarmogoyf in Goblins. If you decide I'm wrong, what you do in your list for your tournaments is your own business.

@ Godzilla

Of course the match up deteriorated with Future Sight. Threshold got the best green creature ever printed and Goblins got squat, but that doesn't mean that Goblins needs to be completely rethought. IMO a normal Rw list with one sideboard slot for Goyf should still be around 50/50 if you play your cards right and extend properly.

@ Illisus

Goblin Goon is cool but it's inherently a win-more card. Red threshold (which seems to be what everyone's worried about) will just drop creatures you cant kill and then snipe off yours.


I guess I might as well post my list since that will likely answer a lot of questions.

4x Plateau
3x Bloodstained Mire
3x Wooded Foothils
7x Mountain
4x Wasteland
1x Dust Bowl

4x Goblin Lackey
4x Goblin Matron
4x Goblin Warchief
4x Goblin Piledriver
4x Goblin Ringleader
3x Gempalm Incinerator
2x Mogg Fanatic
1x Goblin Tinkerer
1x Goblin Sharpshooter
1x Siege-Gang Commander
1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

4x Aether Vial
3x Swords to Plowshares
2x Disenchant

SB:

4x Orim's Chant
3x Pyrokinesis
1x Swords to Plowshares
3x Meekstone
2x Abeyance
2x Pithing Needle/Disenchant

I could easily see removing the Disenchants main for a 4th sword and 3rd Fanatic if thats what you metagame calls for. While I don't always beat threshold the matches are always close in both directions.

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Originally Posted by Phya

Putting aside the obvious downsides of running extra non-goblins, like that it makes half your deck weaker, how do you see it turning the match up favorable? If their Tarmogoyf ever gets into combat with yours all they have to do is use half a fire or a bolt to kill it. Even Pyroclasm + Bolt will kill it a lot of the time. Your counterparts to that (unless you're running Bolts) are Mogg Fanatic and Gempalm Incinerator, both of which get stopped by Stifle.

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Thanks for your answer, now we can get somewhere.
Just to make things clear. Have you counted the number of gobs in my list? And then count the gobs in your list. Notice anything strange? I still play more goblins than you do... So making my deck weaker? Not weaker then yours I suppose...
I see you explain why tarmogoyf dies easily. I'm not saying it's invincible or something but the mere fact that they have to block it and then spend burn is infinitely better then taking 4 or more damage to the chin or losing a goblin.
Another nice thing is that it makes fanatic and incinerator more dangerous. Because they can lose their goyf when blocked by your goyf. Stifle is rarely an issue, because they will rather stifle a mother or a ringleader.

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Originally Posted by GodzillA

This is true, at least in the case of red Thresh. I don't know about white Thresh. But in the case of red Thresh, they have 8 burn spells and 4 Pyroclasms postboard. This means Incinerator is essentially never going to be big enough to answer Tarmogoyf, and it just absolutely owns the ground against you when it's backed by Mongeese and spot removal. I feel confident saying that those who think Tarmogoyf hasn't turned red Thresh into a distinctly bad matchup for Goblins simply haven't tested the matchup enough. It's really not good. Your main paths to victory in this matchup are getting lucky with land disruption or resolving a first turn Chalice and racing.

It's important to recognize that Tarmogoyf is a very significant problem for you, but I'm not convinced that running Goyfs of your own is the correct plan.

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Versions in Belgium play 10 burn spells main board (4 bolt, 3 magma jet, 3 fire/ice). Post board they can add pyoclasm and ancient grudge (which makes artifact answers rather unreliable). Ancient grudge is their to slow you down (i.e. no free goblins with vial). Making the match-up nigh unwinnable.
I would have never tested 'goyf in the deck because I agreed with you guys (it's not a goblin, etc etc) but I got tired of testing my other decks and figured why the hell not.
Seriously, test it out. Give me some feedback afterwards. Despite the obvious lack of synergie with most of the rest of the deck it is up until now the most satisfying solution.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Reagens

How very dissapointing this discussion turns out to be.
Did any of you actually test the card?
Does any of you played 100+ games against red ***** since future sight became legal?
What are your ratios?

...prove me wrong with your results and maybe an alternative decklist

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What are your ratios? you're the one offering something new - you should provide the statistics for the rest of us.

it's like me saying "you should all play rift bolt in goblins", someone responds witth "i don't think that is a good idea and offers other alternatives only for you to fire back "riftbolt is good and you prove me wrong otherwise what i say is true"

No one else is offering such a drastic change (other than goblin fish). Im not trying to be shi**y with you, but with such a dramatic developmet to teh deck, you should be the one offering stats to show everyone else why what y ou're saying isnt just a random idea of yours that you're assuming will pan out.

Slobad23

Something that might warrant reconsideration is Stingscourger. Initially dismissed for the lack of relevant targets to hit, here it takes that Tarmogoyf out of equation for a turn for the measly cost of 2 mana and provides a body while at it. Also handles other creatures and bla bla bla, but the main benefit of running it in some quantity would be slowing Threshold down so you can reach the lategame state you so want. It's basically a sorcery Snapback that happens to leave a 2/2 blocker behind.

I think it might at least warrant testing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Reagens

Just to make things clear. Have you counted the number of gobs in my list? And then count the gobs in your list. Notice anything strange? I still play more goblins than you do... So making my deck weaker? Not weaker then yours I suppose...

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I knew this would be an issue. The main difference is that Tarmogoyf is just another creature, he could just as easily have been a Goblin. Swords offers something that only Gempalm Incinerator can compete with, and in the case of Tarmogoyf even Incinerator doesn't come close.

So, what is the better answer to Tarmogoyf, the spell that can be countered, Spell Snared, and burned away... or the spell that has to be Forced or (shame on you if you let this happen) Dazed.

@ Eldariel

He's cool. I'm fairly skeptical of whether the one turn without a Goyf will make a difference as when I lose to threshold they usually have 3-4 creatures in play. I think mono-red builds (god knows why you'd do that to yourself) could definitely find some use out of him. He might even become a staple in the sideboard, who knows? It's a good answer with Vial at 2 to Cephalid Breakfast's combo, if your metagame calls for that sort of thing.

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Originally Posted by Eldariel

Stingscourger

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If you run the Black Splash for Mainboard Therapies, he's some actual hard removal with Peek effect and gives an additional flashback outlet for the Therapy which can create some obscene amounts of Card Advantage.
For testing purposes I might suggest to cut one Mountain going down to 22 lands (I have always been mana flooded in testing and tournaments) and cut a Ringleader (he is more like 2/2 Haste with 'draw a Goblin' nowadays if you run 8 nongoblins spells and take a lot of Goblins out for sideboard hate - he's also sided out frequently) for 2 Stingscourers.

For reference, this is how a testing list might look like:

// Lands (22)
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Mountain
3 Badlands
2 Taiga
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port

// Creatures (30)
4 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Stingscourger
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
3 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Piledriver
3 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Tin Street Hooligan

// Spells (8)
4 AEther Vial
4 Cabal Therapy

// Sideboard
SB: 4 Chalice of the Void
SB: 4 Pyrokinesis
SB: 4 Duress
SB: 3 Open Slots