[Deck] Goblins

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Originally Posted by Fossil4182

9. Thalia appears to be a a "win more" card in this deck. Between Rishadan Port and Wasteland, Goblins can already generate a pseudo Thalia effect already.

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I haven't tried Thalia, guardian of Thraben yet, but considering it.
I'm a bit sceptical though, like the above quote.

Many players seem to mainboard her instead of Rishadan Port, why is that?
It seems to me that even with 8-7 colorless manasources, Thalia still is playable, especially with cavern of souls as a possible white source.
I like the idea of 3 Thalia along 3-4 Ports, enforcing mana denial as gameplan.
I don't like dropping Ports for Thalia however.

Is it possible that the main reason to drop port in a Thalia-build is Rest in peace?
Thalia can be played through 8 extra sources (caverns and vial), rest in peace cannot.
I guess that the main reason to drop port is to replace it with white manasources?

So basically my question is: Does the inclusion of Thalia and Rip force you to drop Port?
And if so, is the the advantage of both cards so great (in comparison to Port and Relic), that it justifies dropping Port?
White splash has disadvantages to take in consideration, it makes the manabase more vulnerable (also Rip sucks when you dont have W, where relic does not) and tightens deckspace (Thalia takes up cardspace where Port does not).

MD Thalia cannot cooperate with:

Matron.
Ringleader.
Lackey.
Piledriver.
Warchief.
Incinerater.
And, thalia herself.

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Originally Posted by Ingot

Many players seem to mainboard her instead of Rishadan Port, why is that?

Is it possible that the main reason to drop port in a Thalia-build is Rest in peace?

I guess that the main reason to drop port is to replace it with white manasources?

So basically my question is: Does the inclusion of Thalia and Rip force you to drop Port?
And if so, is the the advantage of both cards so great (in comparison to Port and Relic), that it justifies dropping Port?

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I think Thalia is just more efficient than Port. For a paltry initial investment of W1 you make all your opponents' noncreature spells cost +1. This can be a major advantage as your opponent now needs to spend an additional X mana over the course of the game, where X is the number of non-creature spells they want to cast. The more noncreatures their deck is built around, the higher X is. But X is not the real measure of Thalia's impact, because another variable is also important to consider, and that's the numer of turns Y over which they plan on playing their spells. The real measure of Thalia's impact is X/Y, spells per turn. So Thalia is best against decks that want to cast many non-creature spells in a very short window (Combo). These decks want to spend the early turns scultping their hands, then they want to have one big turn where they go off. X is much higher than Y, so Thalia will really hamper these decks if they don't have an answer. G1 they usually don't. Against control decks Thalia's ability becomes less impressive. Y becomes larger since the control deck is playing to win a long game. The X/Y ratio shrinks; Thalia's utility shrinks along with it. Thalia's utility is also diminished against mid-range/tempo decks because they generally run more creatures (reducing X) and play longer games (Increasing Y) so the X/Y ratio falls.

How does Thalia's affect compare to Port's affect? Port's activated ability costs 2 (1 to activate + 1 for the Port itself) and denies your opponent the use of 1 mana or shuts down 1 utility land. Port is extremely flexible because you can activate it when you're ahead to keep your opponent behind, but you can also use it for mana as the game wears on and your opponent gets enough lands in play to make Port not matter anymore. Port's weakness is that it is very expensive and very slow. Over the course of a game Port will cost you 2X to use X times, and will only keep your opponent off of X mana (but not really though, since your opponent can always respond to Port by casting an Instant or Activating an ability). But Port's ability, unlike Thalia's, can be used to prevent your opponent from playing Creatures, which is super relevant when you're playing a battle of attrition on the ground. However, like Thalia, Port is a pretty weak mid-lategame topdeck.

Odds and ends comparison: Thalia and Port both weaken your manabase. Thalia requires you to run fetches and Duals. Port is a nonbasic itself that cannot produce colored mana. Both have alternative uses if their mana-denial affects don't work: Port taps for mana, Thalia swings for 2. Both cards thin your deck of goblins. Thalia because she just isn't a goblin, Port because it requires you to play more non-Goblin lands. Decks running 4 Ports usually run 24 lands. Decks with 3 Thalia MD usually run 22, though some have run 20. Both end up thinning your goblin count. Thalia is terrible in multiples. Port is pretty good in multiples, unless drawing multiple Ports is keeping you off RR mana. Thalia is better against fast decks. Port is better against Mid-Range Decks. Neither is especially impressive against control (though I give Port the edge because it can keep a control player off a color).

I wrote extensively earlier about playing Rwg without Port so I could run Thalia and TSH MD and RiP and KGrip SB. These cards seem to be the best answers to the scary cards in the format. RiP just shuts down the gy recursion game which so many decks are using for their CA now, and KGrip is a house against Equipment, Omniscience, and problematic enchantments (it's no Abrupt Decay though...).

Now running W doesn't force you to drop Port at all. It's very easy to build a Rw manabase that makes room for Port.
4 Waste
3 Port
4 Cavern
4 Mountain
2 Plateau
6 Fetch
Voila. So you can still use 3 Port (or more) in conjunction with 3 Thalia, but you will have a pretty low goblin count (A mere 30!).

RiP is certainly a better card than Relic. Not because there is anything wrong with Relic, but because for the same speed you can generate a much more powerful effect. RiP just turns off the graveyard. For the whole game. You don't need to keep mana open for it. You don't need to remember to activate it each turn. Relic is still cool because it replaces itself and is colorless, but RiP is otherwise a much stronger card.

So while Thalia and Port are pretty evenly matched RiP is clearly better than Relic. So favoring a W manabase accomodates RiP it makes sense to run Thalia and just cut Ports entirely. Make your manabase more splash-friendly.

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Originally Posted by Ingot

I haven't tried Thalia, guardian of Thraben yet, but considering it.
I'm a bit sceptical though, like the above quote.

Many players seem to mainboard her instead of Rishadan Port, why is that?
It seems to me that even with 8-7 colorless manasources, Thalia still is playable, especially with cavern of souls as a possible white source.
I like the idea of 3 Thalia along 3-4 Ports, enforcing mana denial as gameplan.
I don't like dropping Ports for Thalia however.

Is it possible that the main reason to drop port in a Thalia-build is Rest in peace?
Thalia can be played through 8 extra sources (caverns and vial), rest in peace cannot.
I guess that the main reason to drop port is to replace it with white manasources?

So basically my question is: Does the inclusion of Thalia and Rip force you to drop Port?
And if so, is the the advantage of both cards so great (in comparison to Port and Relic), that it justifies dropping Port?
White splash has disadvantages to take in consideration, it makes the manabase more vulnerable (also Rip sucks when you dont have W, where relic does not) and tightens deckspace (Thalia takes up cardspace where Port does not).

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Thalia is still playable while using Rishadan Port, but it does weaken your mana base. If your list is running between 22 - 24 lands, then you're looking at 50% or more of your mana base being non-basic. This assumes it would run:

4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Arid Mesa
2-4 Plateau

Those numbers may be a bit off depending on the results testing or one's own preference. However in a 22 land list, that's 63% - 72% of your mana base being non-basic lands. That seems a bit high to me and may make the deck needlessly vulnerable to Wasteland and Stilfe. While RUG doesn't appear to be as popular as it was even three months ago, its still rather prominent. Additionally, Wasteland is still seeing a tremendous amount of play right now. Personally, I think a lot of decks are running very greedy manabases (just my observation). It depends on how vulnerable you think the mana base should be.

Regarding Rest in Peace. I never played with Thalia in Goblins while Rest in Peace was legal. I played the white splash much earlier (in the month or so following GenCon). You would probably want to run the maximum number of Plateau's in order to ensure that you could reliably cast Rest in Peace since you only have four Plateau and some number of fetchlands.

In addition to your point regarding the alternate methods of playing Thalia - I would only add that most of the Goblins in the deck only require one red mana to cast; so having a number of lands that don't produce red mana such as Rishadan Port and Wasteland isn't as terrible for this deck as it is for Merfolk (which a plethora of UU lords). However, one of the best lines of play for Goblins is the ability to cast multiple cards in rapid succession and overwhelm an opponent which you need a lot of red mana to do. So again, that's a question for testing.

I can't give you a definite answer to your final question as its a matter of preference. However, I would sum it up to you like this:

Adding white for Thalia and Rest in Peace gives you a sphere effect which is really beneficial in some match-ups and mediocre to terrible in others. Additionally, Rest in Peace is probably the best graveyard hate spell ever printed so having access to that is awesome. Getting these benefits comes at a cost. Namely, there is a decrease in the overall synergy of the deck with Thalia and Goblins can't reliably find her (unlike Maverick which can use Fauna Shaman to tutor her). Additionally, it weakens Goblins mana base opening it up to Stifle and greater vulnerability to Wasteland. Mono Red or another color splash can get access to the same sorts of effects as Thalia and Rest in Peace in the form of Thorn of Amethyst and Relic. While neither are direct replacements and in a lot instances not as powerful, they provide the same general effect and aren't strictly worse than their counterparts.

Personally, I dedicate 6 sideboard slots to combo two of which overlap with the six slots dedicated toward Graveyard hate:

4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Mindbreak Trap
2 Surgical Extraction

I like my hate to be free if possible. I've debate cutting Surgical Extractions for Pyrostatic Pillar if Storm sees a resurgence. Relic of Progenitus was Tormod's Crypt for a while, but with the rise of Deathrite Shaman, Relic seems like the best choice.

I also prefer Relic over Rest in Peace in this archetype because of the cantrip ability and only costing one mana to cast.

Being able to effectively cycle Relic for two mana is really nice and is a great way to remove multiples from your hand. My experience has been that drawing the first Relic, I usually cast it and almost exclusively use the tap ability unless I need to remove both graveyards. If I draw a second Relic of Progenitus (and depending on game state), one can cast it and remove both graveyards and draw a card. This has the added benefit allowing the first Relic to better manage the graveyards. A lot of the time, I just sit with two Relics in play and its really difficult for decks to put more than two cards a turn into a graveyard. I also have the option of drawing up to two cards if I want to dig for more pressure or recover from something (like a resolved Deed).

My thought is that outside of a deck like Dredge or Reanimator, most decks that use the graveyard like RUG and BUG aren't going to board in graveyard hate to answer our graveyard hate. Or if they are, they're more likely to do it if they see Rest in Peace while most players will just attempt to play around Relic. Regardless, there's a moderate to high chance we'll end up with redundant graveyard hate at some point in the game. Relic of Progenitus is better than Rest in Peace in the sense that the card isn't dead if you topdeck it in the mid - late game and you already have a Relic of Progenitus in play. On the other hand, Rest in Peace is flat out redundant if one is in play and you draw a second; its a dead draw until they remove the current copy in play.

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"My thought is that outside of a deck like Dredge or Reanimator, most decks that use the graveyard like RUG and BUG aren't going to board in graveyard hate to answer our graveyard hate. Or if they are, they're more likely to do it if they see Rest in Peace while most players will just attempt to play around Relic. Regardless, there's a moderate to high chance we'll end up with redundant graveyard hate at some point in the game. Relic of Progenitus is better than Rest in Peace in the sense that the card isn't dead if you topdeck it in the mid - late game and you already have a Relic of Progenitus in play. On the other hand, Rest in Peace is flat out redundant if one is in play and you draw a second; its a dead draw until they remove the current copy in play."


Excellent desciptions of both...but would it not be true that against most decks that RIP is useful against, simply having one out is almost game over. So even if you have another, the first is the killer. Dredge, Reanimator, BUG, LOAM are all hit hard if not totally beaten by a resolved RIP and RUG Delver would take a big hit too. So against those decks, if you have one out successfully, you just win...whether or not you have another in hand.

Thanks for the elaborate replies from everyone, much appreciated!

I do not doubt the power of both cards, but am concerned about the reliability of casting them with W.
Minor issue for Thalia, because she can also rely on cavern and vial, bigger issue for Rip, as there are 9-7 white manasources to cast it.
That's less than half (or even a third) of the total lands played.

My concern is being unable to cast Rip when needed, as you both need a W-source and Rip.
Against BUG and RUG, there is more time to draw both, and besides these remain fair decks which you still can defeat without hate.

But against bad match-ups like Reanimator, dredge or ANT, I need my hate to be superefficient.
Having to rely on hate + one of those 9-7 white manasources in hand seems an underestimated downside, especially against these bad combo-matchups, where you need to win fast, or hate fast.

What's the experience with Rip and the manabase against these matchups?

Went 2-3 today at a legacy gpt (more like 1-3 cause of one being a bye) with this list

Core 19
-1 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Goblin Piledriver
2 Tarfire
2 Mogg warmarshall
1 Siege gang Commander
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Stingscourger
1 Kiki-Jiki
1 Skirk Prospector
1 TukTuk Scrapper
1 Goblin Chieftan

4 Aether Vial

4 Mountain
4 Rishadon Port
4 Wasteland
4 Cavern of Souls
3 Bloodstain Mired
2 Arid Mesa
2 Taiga

Sideboard
4 Pyroblast
3 Pyrokenisis
3 Krosan Grip
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Pithing Needle

List has served me well so far (today was the first time I didn't at least 'break even' so to speak), and I feel most of the matches I lost were to sloppy play on my part but was wanting to see if there is a way I can improve my deck. Meta is kind of all over the place at times

Went to a tournament yesterday with about 50 players. I ended up 9th in standings just missing the top8, annoying. I played naya goblins, green and white were for 1 TSH MD, 3 RIP SB and 2 Krosan grip SB.
R1- Zombardment: 1-1. We went into time I had lethal on board the third game but I didn t get one more turn to actually kill him. RIP was completely broken here.
R2- UWr standstill control. 1-1. Again, the time was up so we couldn t finish game 3. He was ahead anyway.
R3- GW aggro. 2-0. He had some weird list, I was all over the place.
R4- MUD. 2-1. He locks me out of the game G1 with an early wurmcoil. I had a vial and lackey stuck in my hand due to a T1 chalice@1. I saw 2 lands the whole game one of which got wastelanded. G2 and G3 an early lackey and pily put too much pressure on the board.
R5- RBW in a controllish list. 2-0. G1 he played an artifact that destroys the lowest costing permanent at the beginning of his upkeep. He kept me locked a while but then I started chaining matrons and ringleaders so that I didn t mind to sacrifice a permanent per turn. G2 I was ahead from the beginning thanks to a T1 lackey.

Take home messages:
- this was the first time I played RIP. I felt so much in control when it was on the board. It doesn t require the thinking of the rest of the GY hate. You cannot misplay it. You play it and then you focus on playing goblins properly. Either they deal with it or the are screwed, very powerful card I will play again with it.
- Next time I want to try out punishing goblins. What is the right number of punishing fire and groove of the burnwillows?

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Originally Posted by fimo

It doesn t require the thinking of the rest of the GY hate. You cannot misplay it.

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This is the best explanation and reasoning for playing RIP that I've read.

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Originally Posted by fimo

What is the right number of punishing fire and groove of the burnwillows?

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Probably 3 PF. Although I would lose the white splash if you go this route...

Merry Christmas all!

I know that i shouldn't use this topic to say random things, but I absolutely have to tell you that today I did a booster draft and picked a FOIL CAVERN OF SOULS ! Now I just have to decide if to sell it or play it in my deck ...
Merry Christmas!

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Originally Posted by Potdindy

Excellent desciptions of both...but would it not be true that against most decks that RIP is useful against, simply having one out is almost game over. So even if you have another, the first is the killer. Dredge, Reanimator, BUG, LOAM are all hit hard if not totally beaten by a resolved RIP and RUG Delver would take a big hit too. So against those decks, if you have one out successfully, you just win...whether or not you have another in hand.

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I suspect you may be overestimating the impact RiP has against bug and Dredge. From personal experience playing Bug against uw miracles, rip is pretty underwhelming compared to Relic. A smart relic player can shut of Shaman pretty effectively and Abrupt Decaying relic puts bug down a card.

If you think rip is gg for Dredge, please take a look in the dredge thread. They're scared of the card, but they always have answers for it, and it comes down t2 - one more turn for therapy to strip it from your hand. The key is (as always) dropping your hate and then killing them before they can find their answer.

So with all this RiP talk I was starting to think about LotV again instead of it. It has a few perks as that its uncounterable and can't be abruptly decayed. Also casting a RiP turn 2 on the draw is sometimes too slow vs dredge. Did some testing against Shardless BUG tonight(preboard) with a list that's up to 3 chieftain and only 1 warchief with 2 Tarfire and it was OK. I went 6-4 in a 10 game set. This version seems more all in than I like to play but maybe that's a necessity these days with BUG having such explosive draws. I'm going to try black splash instead of green for the next week leading up to the SCG legacy open in Columbus and see how that goes. Ill let you guys know how the testing goes and what list I end up on.

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Originally Posted by B-rad

So with all this RiP talk I was starting to think about LotV again instead of it. It has a few perks as that its uncounterable and can't be abruptly decayed.

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I've been thinking about black leyline also, but I'm not a particular fan of the black splash. I'm inclined to test it as a 4 of, but without the black splash to support it.

The way I see it, leylines are only useful when you keep a hand with at least a copy of it, so it doesn't matter if you can hardcast it or not. Just think: would it really matter that you could hardcast a graveyard hate as slow as leyline? It also asks for BB, so you must also consider that you won't be able to hardcast it on turn four (best scenario).

What do you guys think?

Btw, the reason behind my testings would be to open some sideboard slots. There's a significant ammount of graveyard-based decks around my meta, and I'm currently forced to use at least 5-6 pieces of gy hate (relic + cage). Although LoTV forces me to mull agressively, It allows me to fight both the tarmogoyf/mongoose package and those annoying Ionas, Eleshs and such, and for free.

Leyline does not stop our GY from growing so their Goyfs are still 2/3 or 3/4 and Deathrite has cards for his abilities. So no, Leyline is a bad idea.

Has anyone ever considered Firebolt? It kills Deathrite, Stoneforge etc. for R and can be used again (flashback) in the mid-late game for 4R. It's a burn card with potential for card-advantage; something goblins loves.

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Originally Posted by Avatara

Has anyone ever considered Firebolt?

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Nope.

If you really want to run removal that isn't goblin-shaped Lighting Bolt or Forked Bolt or Pyrokinesis are all better options than Firebolt. You'll probably never get to the 5 mana you need to flash it back anyway.

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Originally Posted by jrw1985

Nope.

If you really want to run removal that isn't goblin-shaped Lighting Bolt or Forked Bolt or Pyrokinesis are all better options than Firebolt. You'll probably never get to the 5 mana you need to flash it back anyway.

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The three damage from Lightning Bolt was only relevant vs Nacatl when Zoo was big. I haven't seen anyone play it ever since. Of course we'll eventually get to five mana... goblins plays a lot of long matches. If this wasn't the case we wouldn't need the Ringleader Matron engine at all; because being all in would be better.

Advantages when compared to Lightning Bolt:

Fire bolt can kill up to two x/2 creatures (card advantage), can kill most relevant creatures that lightning bolt can also kills, has more reach in the late game (4), can be played after being discarded.

Disadvantages when compared to Lightning Bolt:

It can't kill a x/3 creature in the early-mid game, sorcery speed, less reach in the early-mid game

i want to give a suggestion too... what about Leyline of Sanctity as combo hate ? it seems strong against ANT,TES,belcher,High Tide,Burn, Helm of obedience and probably other decks that don't come to my mind.
About grave hate, It's surely a problem that Leyline of the void doesn't affect our graveyard. But the fact that it can't be abrupt decayed is relevant.
Aniway, if you want to run leylines i would suggest like i was doing some time ago to run also Serum Powder. Something like :
4 leyline of sanctity
4 leyline of the void
2 serum powder
2-3 pyrokinesis
2-3 krosan grips

of course with a green splash for grips , seems ok to me.
Or if you want something against show and tell you can just cut kinesis or grips and add some angels of despair or REB.

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Originally Posted by B-rad

So with all this RiP talk I was starting to think about LotV again instead of it. It has a few perks as that its uncounterable and can't be abruptly decayed. Also casting a RiP turn 2 on the draw is sometimes too slow vs dredge. Did some testing against Shardless BUG tonight(preboard) with a list that's up to 3 chieftain and only 1 warchief with 2 Tarfire and it was OK. I went 6-4 in a 10 game set. This version seems more all in than I like to play but maybe that's a necessity these days with BUG having such explosive draws. I'm going to try black splash instead of green for the next week leading up to the SCG legacy open in Columbus and see how that goes. Ill let you guys know how the testing goes and what list I end up on.

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I used to be in camp Leyline but have since left for camp RiP. While it is cool that Leyline is uncounterable, un Abrubtable and all that jazz, it is Not Cool as a topdeck. I'm not saying anything here that we all don't already know, but it stands to be reiterated. Leyline makes your deck worse when you don't have one in your starting hand. This leads to you keeping playable hands without it (Stingscourger hand against Reanimator, MWM/Fanatic hand against Dredge) and then losing like an asshole when you topdeck Leyline t2. It's worth remembering that you don't always need hate to beat GY decks, so siding unplayable cards can turn a winnable hand into a losing one.

My largest critique of Leyline is that it just isn't playable against very many decks. The only reason to run it is to have a GY hate effect that's faster than the fasted GY deck. The fastest GY decks are Dredge, Reanimator, and some Storm decks/draws. Those decks just aren't very big players right now. And while Dredge and Storm Can have explosive T1/2 plays they Don't Consistently win T1/2. Because they don't consistently win T1/2 I don't see a good reason for playing Leyline. RiP can still hose T2/3 wins by all those decks and it also has the considerable advantage of hosing RUG Delver, 'Goyf, and it's just better in general against slow GY decks.

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Originally Posted by Avatara

Has anyone ever considered Firebolt? It kills Deathrite, Stoneforge etc. for R and can be used again (flashback) in the mid-late game for 4R. It's a burn card with potential for card-advantage; something goblins loves.

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Post Deathrite Shaman, I think Tarfire is probably the card that you're really looking for here.