[Deck] Goblins

First of all, thank you guys for all your nice comments!

@liamb, Justin and movingtonewao: i'm glad to hear your constructive opinions about my sb choices, as said i'm a really old mtg player (i've started playing this game when i was 8 in 1993) but with not much recent tournament experience, so my sb choices were more driven "by guts". I'll surely keep in mind your suggestions against dredge.
About the usage of Thalia against canadian, i must say i totally agree with what jrw1985 has just written above. In my few tests i found Thalia awesome if timely dropped at turn 2, while almost as horrible as a lonely goblin piledriver if played at turn 4 or later. If RUG has a creature in play, it will be probably bigger than Thalia, so i wont attack neither block with her not to have her killed badly. In addition, she may even help dazes to be better in late game against my sb spells, when i could consider playing a Pyrokinesis to get rid of a delver or a big tarmo since she would tax me as well. I think it's a really debatable choice though

@Cleston: yep, i'm totally in love with Mwm, happy to play him in pauper too :)

One last thing: in that last tournament there were a bunch of BUG, 2 of them making their way to top8s and running 3-4 engineered plagues in sb. How do you usually face these decks? I mean, i had 3 grips for them and RIP-combo decks but i was thinking about running a single Tuskboar Liege in sb... it can't be abrupted nor hitten by IoK and i think it would greately help... what do you think about it?

Davek, a Chieftain in the Mainboard is better than b.liege in the SB. The 1/1 pump is enough and it is rare that the opponent draws 2 E. Plagues.

I noticed this today and thought I'd post the link in the Goblins thread.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...-legal-targets

Basically, you need to be careful with your Stingscourgers off of SnT. If you drop Sting and your opponent drops Omni your Stinger's EtB trigger fizzles because it doesn't have a legal target, and the trigger fizzles without priority passing. So you opponent will have priority and an empty stack. AKA- You can't K-Grip their Omni off of the Stinger trigger if Stinger doesn't have a legal target.

You've been warned.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jrw1985

I noticed this today and thought I'd post the link in the Goblins thread.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...-legal-targets

Basically, you need to be careful with your Stingscourgers off of SnT. If you drop Sting and your opponent drops Omni your Stinger's EtB trigger fizzles because it doesn't have a legal target, and the trigger fizzles without priority passing. So you opponent will have priority and an empty stack. AKA- You can't K-Grip their Omni off of the Stinger trigger if Stinger doesn't have a legal target.

You've been warned.

---

He'll get priority regardless if you drop nothing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tammit67

He'll get priority regardless if you drop nothing.

---

The point is you can't pull off the k-grip trick with stingscourger, so it isn't a catch-all solution when you have Grip in hand.

Capisce?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jrw1985

The point is you can't pull off the k-grip trick with stingscourger, so it isn't a catch-all solution when you have Grip in hand.

Capisce?

---

I'm sure you know this, but the safe thing to do would be to drop a Matron, War Marshall, Ringleader, or Stingscourger instead, especially if you have a Vial on 1 or 2 (or a Cavern of Souls in play) to ensure that you can resolve a Stingscourger in case your opponent does drop a creature.

Then again, it's a pretty rare situation where you have a K-Grip, a Vial/Cavern, and multiple CIP Goblins in hand with enough mana to play Grip.

What about Zealous Conscripts against Show decks? Steal Omni and then swarm, presumably enough to win. Or steal Emrakul.
Am I missing something or because it's only temporary it doesn't seal the game? It's at least hardcostable compared to Angel of Despair.

Also combos with Kiki-Jiki.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kudos

What about Zealous Conscripts against Show decks? Steal Omni and then swarm, presumably enough to win. Or steal Emrakul.
Am I missing something or because it's only temporary it doesn't seal the game? It's at least hardcostable compared to Angel of Despair.

Also combos with Kiki-Jiki.

---

When he passes the turn, you return the permanent to his control. So it's preeety much just nets you a turn (not even that against Sneak Attack or Hive Mind...)..

Played in a little 11 man tourney last night. Went 4-0 without losing a single game. Good stuff. Played the Rwg deck I've posted before with 3 MD Thalia, TSH, Karakas, Krenko.

R1 Midrange BUG
G1 I'm on the draw. He Thoughtseizes my 1-drop. T2 he plays Bob. I have Piledriver, Thalia, and Gemplam in hand. My options are either play Piledriver, let him draw 1 card off Bob, then Gemplam Bob the next turn. The other option is to play Thalia, hope Thalia prevents him from casting what he draws, then play Piledriver, then Gempalm Bob. Rt 1 Gives him 1 card, but is pretty susceptible to spot removal. Rt2 lets him draw 2 cards off Bob but gives me a little more disruption. I go Rt 2, casting Thalia. He draws Clique off Bob. I cast a top-decked MWM (a surer bet for getting Gempalm damage through). He draws a fetch off Bob. I Gempalm Bob on my next upkeep, then use Gempalms and Sharpshooter to run his board. His Deathrite Shaman gains him about 10 or 12 life over the course of the game. I grind him out eventually.
I side in KGrips in case of Plague/Deed, and took out TSH and some other junk I can't remember.
G2 We both Mull to 6 and keep 1-landers. I get pretty ridiculous pretty quickly. W

R2 Zombardment, sans Goblin Bombardment
His deck looks something like...
3 Swamp
3 Badlands
3 Bayou
1 Undiscovered Paradise
11 Black fetches

4 Gravecrawler
4 Carrion Feeder
2 Basking Rootwalla
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Putrid Imp
3 Vengevine

4 Faithless Looting
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Entomb

Roughly...

G1 I'm on the play but miss a 1 drop and instead play a bunch of MWMs. At one point I attack into him and he discards rootwalla to Imp, then Rootwalla blocks a Piledriver and pumps. I Gemplam in response to the pump. He then draws a bunch of lands. I find myself with a board filled with Goblins, wayyyy far ahead, but I suddenly freeze up. I've got a great grip thanks to a Ringleader hitting 4 Gobbos, but my grip and board are SOOOOOO GOOOOOD that I lose the ability to figure out what the best line of play is, even though my opponent has few blockers and only 3 life left. I take so long considering my myriad option that my opponent finally just shows me the 2 lands that conprise his hand and scoops. Concession through frustration-boredom! I feel like a High Tide player.

I side in 3 RiP and a Surgical. I side out TSH and Thalias.

G2 He T1 Entombs a Vengevine. I cast Vial. He T2 Putrid Imps and Deathrite Shaman to hit me for 4 with Vine. I t2 Rest in Peace, then start Vialing in MWMs to chump block. He has a lot more pressure on the board than I do, but I get a Warchief and Krenko in play (since I had a decent board position) and start making chumpers. Did you all know Lotleth Troll has Trample? Yeah, me neither. Between troll and imp with flying he beats me down to 3 while I keep trying to make enough chump blockers to keep from dying. On the turn I start with 3 life (he has 19) I activate Vial for Ringleader, ringleader into 3 blanks and a Piledriver, then play Piledriver, activate Krenko, and swing into his tapped out board for the W.

R3 - U Merfolk
G1 his life total goes 20, 14, game.
G2 He has a lot of pressure and a Kira, but he's not able to put enough pressure on me to keep me from building a board and activating Krenko. A hastey Piledriver finally enters the fray to end it.
W

R4 UW Stoneblade
G1 I mull to 6 on the play but he gets mana flooded and I take the W.
I side in K-Grip and Seal of Cleansing and shave the Sharpshooter, a Lackey, and something mediocre. Can't really recal, but 2 Grips definitely were sided in.
G2 He leads with Karakas, go. I Waste it. 2 Turns later he starts casting SFMs off of a Cavern naming Artificer and a Mutavault. He plays 3 fucking SFM without finding a W source to activate any of them. He hardcasts a Jitte. I cavern cast TSH. He finds a Tundra and drops in Batterskull. I fetch Taiga and KGrip it. He brings in Sword of Fire and Ice. I have the 2nd Grip. Earlier, he used his third SFM following a BS to tutor Batterskull for a second time off the top of his deck, which told me he didn't have any more equipment in his deck. So at this point I just had to win through CA. After about 20 turns I finally managed to push through the wall of Snapcasters, Cliques, and SFMs to secure the win. This was a pretty cool, grindy game.

A couple close calls, a little good luck, and a good night of Magic Playing. Rwg Goblins continues to do right by me.

Congrats for the good result jrw!

About TSH, do you think it is better than scrapper? I do not like the fact that you need G open and that it is useless with Vial.

And about karakas, do you think it is really necessary? I guess it is if your meta is full of reanimator and S&T or maybe it is because the sinergy with thalia.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eleven

or maybe it is because the sinergy with thalia.

---

And Krenko... and oposing Cliques, Thalias, and random stuff. But using it to activate Krenko twice is just awesome.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ScatmanX

And Krenko... and oposing Cliques, Thalias, and random stuff. But using it to activate Krenko twice is just awesome.

---

Wow that is true... I didn't think about krenko and it looks awesome! I'll have to test it :D!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eleven

Congrats for the good result jrw!

About TSH, do you think it is better than scrapper? I do not like the fact that you need G open and that it is useless with Vial.

And about karakas, do you think it is really necessary? I guess it is if your meta is full of reanimator and S&T or maybe it is because the sinergy with thalia.

---

About TSH, do you think it is better than scrapper?
Not really. Just faster.

And about karakas, do you think it is really necessary?
No. It's outdated tech. But the manabase worked when I ran 2-3 Ports, so running 1 Karakas isn't a problem at all. And I run W, so it's great to have a W source that's also a utility land. Plus, it can get you a double Krenko activation. Or save your Thalia. So it isn't necessary, but it's certainly playable.

Since I am a little hesitant on manabase tweaking, I gotta ask those who are already running Rwg...:


Plateaus:

Do you think running 2x Plateaus are enough? Would I be ok if I lacked the 3rd Plateau/Karakas?

How often were you having any Plateaus Wastelanded?

..

Taigas:

Also, I saw some Rwg lists that used only one Taiga, and used Krosan Grips on Sideboard.

Didn't you have any trouble trying to cast a Krosan Grip and couldn't, for your Taiga had been Wastelanded?

(I know that for TSH, if it happened there would still be the Caverns to generate G, but they wouldn't work for KG.)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by andrebonotto

Since I am a little hesitant on manabase tweaking, I gotta ask those who are already running Rwg...:


Plateaus:

Do you think running 2x Plateaus are enough? Would I be ok if I lacked the 3rd Plateau/Karakas?

How often were you having any Plateaus Wastelanded?

..

Taigas:

Also, I saw some Rwg lists that used only one Taiga, and used Krosan Grips on Sideboard.

Didn't you have any trouble trying to cast a Krosan Grip and couldn't, for your Taiga had been Wastelanded?

(I know that for TSH, if it happened there would still be the Caverns to generate G, but they wouldn't work for KG.)

---

I can't speak for the white splash, but the singleton Tiaga hasn't been relevant for me: when I need the grips, wastelands haven't been present.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by andrebonotto

Since I am a little hesitant on manabase tweaking, I gotta ask those who are already running Rwg...:


Plateaus:

Do you think running 2x Plateaus are enough? Would I be ok if I lacked the 3rd Plateau/Karakas?

How often were you having any Plateaus Wastelanded?

..

Taigas:

Also, I saw some Rwg lists that used only one Taiga, and used Krosan Grips on Sideboard.

Didn't you have any trouble trying to cast a Krosan Grip and couldn't, for your Taiga had been Wastelanded?

(I know that for TSH, if it happened there would still be the Caverns to generate G, but they wouldn't work for KG.)

---

First of all im from Austria and my english is a bit rusty so i apologize for any spelling errors.

I think when you play 1 Taiga, 2 Plateau and 1 Karakas you dont need a third Plateau. If you dont have Karakas you surely can play a third Plateau.

A second Taiga is not necessary in my oppinion because you only want to fetch it and then play for example Grip. And dont forget that TSH can also be brought with a Cavern.

@jrw1985: i'm playing the same deck version (RWG) as you at the moment and i hope i'm going well at the next turnament next week. I will give a feedback.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jrw1985

This is a conversation I've been wanting to have for a while about Thalia vs Thresh.

My experience with Thalia against RUG has mainly been that it gets hit with spot removal immediately after hitting the battlefield. It gets removed so quickly that all it really manages to do is make them pay 1 more for a 1:1. In the early game, when they're mana light, they usually still have burn/counters in hand to deal with Thalia. In the late-game, when they have a board presence, you don't want Thalia in your deck because they have plenty of mana to pay the extra 1, they have bigger creatures than Thalia, and you need to drown them in CA from Ringleader, which Thalia will not help you accomplish.

But, at the same time, I can't ignore the fact that RUG plays nearly thirty non-creature spells and the tempo the deck generates is based off of the efficiency of the cards it runs. An unanswered Thalia can greatly hinder their ability to sculpt their hand and cast reactionary spells. But I still see Thalia as more of a speed-bump than a wall for their game plan.

---

Sorry about a late response, but I haven't really checked this thread in a couple days. I have played Thalia against RUG Delver, and yes, they often bolt it immediately. However, this isn't always the case. Sometimes they don't have a bolt spell, or they already used it on your turn one lackey and then they have to cantrip to find removal, while paying one more.

I think that Thalia works better in a goblin deck that also runs Ports. Wasteland+Ports+Thalia can really squeeze them out of a game. Porting a land on their upkeep prevents them from casting creatures, ponder, forked bolt, and paying taxes on their instants.

Ultimately, the decision to run Thalia in Goblins is a metagame choice. I hope that we can all agree that she is good against UW Control variants and combo decks. There seems to be some debate as for how good she is against RUG Delver. Certainly, she dilutes your goblin deck in a bad way against aggro and can be a poor choice in some metas.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by andrebonotto

Since I am a little hesitant on manabase tweaking, I gotta ask those who are already running Rwg...:


Plateaus:

Do you think running 2x Plateaus are enough? Would I be ok if I lacked the 3rd Plateau/Karakas?

How often were you having any Plateaus Wastelanded?

..

Taigas:

Also, I saw some Rwg lists that used only one Taiga, and used Krosan Grips on Sideboard.

Didn't you have any trouble trying to cast a Krosan Grip and couldn't, for your Taiga had been Wastelanded?

(I know that for TSH, if it happened there would still be the Caverns to generate G, but they wouldn't work for KG.)

---

@andrebonotto
My 22 land Rwg manabase has looked like:
4 Mountain
4 Wasteland
4 Cavern
1 Karakas
1 Taiga
2 Plateau
6 fetch

I run so many W sources because I play 3 Thalia MD, plus 3 RiP and 1 Seal of Cleansing in the SB. If I have 7 W cards in my 75 I'm sure as shit going to have a way to cast them. If you don't play as many W cards as I do then you can run fewer W sources. If you don't have the third Plateau/Karakas that should be fine. You can probably just play another fetchland. I would still want at least 2 W sources (not counting Cavern) just because Wasteland is a Thing and you don't want to pick up losses just because you thought you could get away without duplicate W mana sources.

Plateaus and Taigas get Wasted all the time, of course, but so do Caverns, Ports, and tapped Wastes. Cavern is often the jucier target for control decks just because they want active Counterspells. People have pretty much stopped playing Price of Progress and Wastelands don't get recurred nearly as much as they used to. Snapcast + Surgical, Deathrite Shaman, Ooze; these have all been punishing GY recursion decks that have a slow control game. GY decks need to be fast now because they just don't have the time to fuck around establishing locks that they used to. So playing a 1-of Taiga isn't really a problem because you either sandbag it until you need it, or you need it against decks that don't run Waste.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Korvo

First of all im from Austria and my english is a bit rusty so i apologize for any spelling errors.

I think when you play 1 Taiga, 2 Plateau and 1 Karakas you dont need a third Plateau. If you dont have Karakas you surely can play a third Plateau.

A second Taiga is not necessary in my oppinion because you only want to fetch it and then play for example Grip. And dont forget that TSH can also be brought with a Cavern.

@jrw1985: i'm playing the same deck version (RWG) as you at the moment and i hope i'm going well at the next turnament next week. I will give a feedback.

---

@Korvo: Your English is better than my German. 2 years of German and all I ever used it for was ordering at a McDonald's in Hamburg, then feeling like an idiot when I ordered ein Gross Mac und zwei Coken and the cashier says "EinMAL Gross Mac und ZweiMAL Coken?" and I realized I've utterly failed at basic comprehension.

I agree with your assessment of the manabase. 1 Taiga is enough when all you're playing is 2 KGrip and a TSH. As I was saying above though, if you plan on running more G cards you're going to need to run more G sources. I know it's an obvious observation, but your manabase needs to be able to survive a Waste or two and still play your 75.

Best of luck at your tournament! I've been finding the Rwg build very effective and the inclusion of Thalia has made for some very interesting and powerful T2s. And let us know how it goes! It's always great to hear tournament reports in this thread. I've always loved reading and writing them, and a few misspellings or grammar errors won't turn me off.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Justin

Sorry about a late response, but I haven't really checked this thread in a couple days. I have played Thalia against RUG Delver, and yes, they often bolt it immediately. However, this isn't always the case. Sometimes they don't have a bolt spell, or they already used it on your turn one lackey and then they have to cantrip to find removal, while paying one more.

I think that Thalia works better in a goblin deck that also runs Ports. Wasteland+Ports+Thalia can really squeeze them out of a game. Porting a land on their upkeep prevents them from casting creatures, ponder, forked bolt, and paying taxes on their instants.

Ultimately, the decision to run Thalia in Goblins is a metagame choice. I hope that we can all agree that she is good against UW Control variants and combo decks. There seems to be some debate as for how good she is against RUG Delver. Certainly, she dilutes your goblin deck in a bad way against aggro and can be a poor choice in some metas.

---

@Justin: Enough beating around the bush. Thalia v RUG- Play her G2 or not?

I'm leaning towards not playing her G2. I don't think she does enough against their spells, and she sucks against their creatures. I'd rather sandbag my Plateaus for a midgame RiP than expose them to Waste early to land a T2 Thalia. Basically, Thalia just isn't the W card I want G2. I want RiP.

I've noticed that my RUG opponents have brought in Sulfur Elemental and taken out some Counterspells because 1) Cavern makes counters useless and 2) Thalia dies to the Elemental. So RUG players at least seem to think Thalia is worth fighting against. But I find this strange because, as I've said, they usually have answers for her anyway.

Seriously, I'm going to scour the Thresh forum to see how often Thalia is fucking them over. I don't think she is.

@jrw1985
Nice report and congratulations by your results. Still I have one question: Was Thalia relevant in any game? Where you found yourself happy by grabbing her in your main deck?

@Justin, jrw1985
I understand that the fact they have an answer is relevant, but I don´t think that this is the point. Look, Magic is about people having answers for your cards, the archetype that usually don´t do this is called combo, and that is not RUG. I believe the most interesting point you guys brought is how good she is in the early game and how good in late game she is. I guess Thalia is really good against combo decks, because gives us a good time to build our table and win, but against other tempo decks it sucks, mostly because she slows you one turn, and lets face it, goblins has the worst creatures in combat, LOL, so they will play they creature, win in the fight, and if needed, kill her. Even in T2 I would like another goblin, and in the late game, as jrw1985 said, she is really bad =/

Thalia + ports really seem nice.

Cya.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tammit67

(...) the singleton Taiga hasn't been relevant for me: when I need the grips, wastelands haven't been present.

---

...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Korvo

(...) A second Taiga is not necessary in my oppinion because you only want to fetch it and then play for example Grip. (...)

---

...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jrw1985

(...) My 22 land Rwg manabase has looked like:
4 Mountain
4 Wasteland
4 Cavern
1 Karakas
1 Taiga
2 Plateau
6 fetch

(...)

Plateaus and Taigas get Wasted all the time, of course, but so do Caverns, Ports, and tapped Wastes. Cavern is often the jucier target for control decks just because they want active Counterspells. People have pretty much stopped playing Price of Progress and Wastelands don't get recurred nearly as much as they used to.
Snapcast + Surgical, Deathrite Shaman, Ooze; these have all been punishing GY recursion decks that have a slow control game. GY decks need to be fast now because they just don't have the time to fuck around establishing locks that they used to. So playing a 1-of Taiga isn't really a problem because you either sandbag it until you need it, or you need it against decks that don't run Waste.

---

On the Taiga issue:


Well, it appears to exist some concordance on the suficiency of running only one Taiga (in order to run, for instance, 1x TSH MD + 2-3x Krosan Grip on SB).

The reasoning behind this can, then, as I understand, be summarized into:

• The scenario where I would want to use my Taiga to play Krosan Grips occurs against decks that don't run Wasteland. Therefore, there would not be the need to have a subtitute :g:-source to cast the Grips, since my primarly and only one would not be destroyed.

Ok, that makes sense as a general "rule of thumb".

However, when raising the question regarding Taiga, I also had in mind another scenario:

• To face a BW/BGW deck and fear that Wasteland/Sinkhole/Vindicate could eliminate my only :g:-source, the one which would make it possible for me to Krosan Grip their Explosives/Deed/Eng. Plague.

On this case, my concern was that even if I waited to fetch the Taiga only when I had a Krosan Grip in hand, this Taiga would end up being used only one time, before it gets destroyed.

But then, I realized I was assuming I would need/want to cast a Krosan Grip for the second time in the game.

That realization made me want to pose another question for those who have experience on matches against this kind of deck:

• Q: How often do you cast (or want to) a second Krosan Grip in the course of a game against a BW/BGW deck?

(Assuming you're playing 3x copies of the card on SB)


P.S.: And what do you mean by saying to "sandbag a card"?