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Pendelhaven is indeed a nice idea - even more so in a build with Warren Instigator and without too many pump-lords.Quote:
Originally Posted by BigBopper
It's been a while, but I once tested a singleton Gaea's Cradle in a Rg built. I didn't test it much, but it I was pretty nice most of the time. Don't know why I ended up not playing it (or not sharing testresults) though...
So you joined the green side of the force! Sweet =DQuote:
Originally Posted by feline
About your list, 2 things:
- I understand the will of playing 4 Gempalm + 4 Incinerators, but with only 10 R sources to cast them, you'll often get in trouble. At least 2 of those Ports should be trimmed down.
- Siege-Gang Commander is too good not to run in a list with 3-4 Piledrivers. It nets you lots of T3 kills. Also, if your goal is to connect Lackey early, he's one of the best guys you want to put down.
@Panddlehaven: It does sound a quite nice idea, Specially as Cristian said, on an Instigator build. Let me know how it goes if anyone tries it. (Same goes for Craddle. I'd suggest a Chieftain build with the this one, since Craddle would actually add collorless).
1. Karakas is dead versus a lot of decks.. I do mostly have a 1/1 goblins however since I run about 12 1/1 goblinsQuote:
Originally Posted by BigBopper
2. Cavern of Souls disadvantages: Price of Progress, Wasteland, Back to Basics, not being able to two for one your opponent with Lackey, not being able to play colored non creatures spells with it (including Gempalm Incinerator, Tarfire and Warren Weirding). Of course resolving your card advantage engine is very good, but do we really need four CoS for that? I think three copies would do just as fine. Control decks have never been a serious problem for Goblins.. I'm not worried about counter magic but about a shitload of removal and discard.
3. If your opponent is not removing your Chieftain or Warchief you are prolly in a winning position anyways. If you have Boartusk Liege on the board your opponent prolly has Engineered Plague out.. cancelling each other out. Pandelhaven in it's worse situation is a land that produces G.. How good is Wasteland when there's nothing to waste? or a Rishadan Port in the late game? At the very least Pandelhaven will allow me to cast Krosan Grip.
1. I don't agree with 'being dead', because it generates mana, but I agree with you. (And sometimes it can save Krenko)Quote:
Originally Posted by Avatara
2. For me the best of Cavern is not against control, but against Combo (SnT, High Tide, Reanimator) because a T1 uncounterable Lackey can (and had) lead to many fast wins.
3. Agreed.
I've been interested in Re-Empowering Lackey in light of all the DRS and removal in the format. This has been frequently discussed on this board, and the most common solution suggested has been to run more spot removal, namely Tarfire. Here's what I don't like about removal though:
- it will only help Lackey connect once
- the spot removal which is most synergystic with goblins (Gempalm, Tarfire) aren't very efficient on thier own. Tarfire is just a Shock, and Gempalm is blanked if you have a slow hand (Vials + 3drops).
While both cards can be excellent in certain situations, neither makes a sustained impact on the game. Tarfire is only good in the earliest turns, and gempalm is pretty bad if you're behind in the game. And, ultimately, in a world of Lingering SOul tolkens and Tarmogoyfs, neither of these cards is great at dealing with the many early threats we face. Spot removal alone doesn't seem like the answer to our woes.
So I thought, What is it I really want to do?
Well, I want to make it so Lackey can kill a DRS AND deal damage to an opponent, and I want the effect that enables this to be efficient and this effect needs to generate card advantage (this is Legacy after all).
Rancor
Ah, the Urza's Legacy staple of Enchantress/Atog decks everywhere. Rancor is a (surprisingly) unplayed card in Legacy that for one green mana gives your creature a power bump and allows your creature to roll combat damage over to your opponent. Once that creature dies in combat, or is bounced, or removed from the game, or is hit with spot removal, or if the Rancor itself is Disenchanted, Rancor happily returns to your hand rather than languishing in your graveyard. It's then ready to be re-cast on what ever you were fortunate enough to cheat in to play.
I brewed up a list to try and take advantage of this fine card and played it at my local tourney last night.
4 Lackey
3 Vial
3 Rancor
3 Warren Instigator
3 Piledriver
3 Mogg War Marshal
3 Chieftain
3 Warchief
4 Matron
4 Ringlead
1 Krenko
2 Tarfire
3 Gempalm
1 Stingscourger
3 Wasteland
3 Cavern of Souls
4 Mountain
4 Taiga
6 Fetch
SB
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Pyrokinesis
2 KGrip
1 Tin Street hooligan
I initially wanted to cut Vial entirely, but I couldn't overlook the fact that Vial is so vital to your manabase, so i only shaved one. I played Winstigator so I could get more advantage out of Rancor, and of course I had to play Piledriver with it too. I was warry of playing SGC due to my low land count, so I played MWM and Krenko instead. I think playing SCG is a very viable option though.
R1 Affinity
He played T1 land, go. I played T1 Vial. He played T2 Revoker on Vial. I played T2 Winstigator. He played T3 Chrome Mox, Ornithoptor, Arcbound Ravager, giving him a board of...
2x Artifact Land
Chrome Mox
Revoker naming Vial
Ornithoper
Arcbound Ravager
T3 I played Rancor on my Winny and attacked for 6. Normally in this situation the Affinity player would just chump with the Ornithoptor then sac it to pump the Ravager, but Rancor's trample meant Winny would still get through with both first strike and regular damage. So he elected not to block. He could have saced every non-Ravager permanent he had to pump Ravager and block Winny with it to prevent damage from getting through, but that would have been a 6:1 trade for him, and I would have gotten Rancor back anyway. Winny put in 2 guys, i Gemplamed the Revoker, and won soon thereafter.
G2 Was much like G1. He went T1 land go. I went T1 Lackey. He went T2 blocker. i blew it up with T2 TSH and connected. game.
R2 Elf Combo.
G1 I kept an opening hand with 2 Vials, a Gempalm, and 3 drops. I lost.
G2 I had an opening 7 of Lackey, Winstigator, Piledriver, Pyrokinesis, and 3 lands. All experience goblins players know and hate these Hands. There are 4 elements needed for a Great starting hand: land, cheater (Lackey/Vial), removal, and CA (Matron, Ringleader, Krenko, SGC). This hand had 3, but would lose if I didn't draw into some CA. Well, I didn't draw into some CA. He went off despite me wiping his board once. When i connected with Winny I had nothing to put into play. :(
R3 TES
He kills me G1, then I Trap him games 2 and 3.
R4 Tin Fins.
I kill him G1 as he does nothing. He kills me G2 but doesn't see any of my SB cards. G3 was weird but good. I was on the play and my first 7 had Winny, a couple 3 drops and lands but no hate. It was the same sort of hand I lost G2 with. I mulled to 6 and had 1 land, 1 Relic, and no cheaters. So i mulled to 5 and had 2 land, 1 Mindbreak Trap, 2 4drops. Mulled to 4 and had 2 lands, Chalice, and something else. I played Chalice @ 0 t1 and played draw go with him. His deck was so heavily reliant on 0cc artifacts that Chalice @ 0 effectively shut him down for a long time. I eventually lost, being unable to find a clock or more relevant hate.
Rancor : It was clearly awesome against Affinity, it would have been great against Elves (You aint blocking THIS Lackey with a Llanowar), and the other matches were combo so Who Cares?
I came into the tourny ready to beat on some creature decks, then wound up facing 3 combo decks and affinity. But I really liked having Rancor in there regardless. I would certainly recommend trying it out to other Sourcers that feel like throwing in a curve ball.
If you try out a Rancor build please let us know how it goes!
Awesome!Quote:
Originally Posted by jrw1985
Will certainly be testing this out!
Hey there, fellow Warchiefs!
I want to tell you a story: at the end of year 2012 I started a project on the German Vial-Goblins board. I wanted to make use of what is called “collective intelligence” to develop a single best Goblin decklist. So what did I do? I asked people to design and discuss the best Goblin-decklists against each of 6 decks (Maverick, UW Miracles, Esperblade, RUG Thresh, Goblins and Sneak Show). The product – thus the “best” list - would be an averaged list that contains averaged numbers of all the cards that are good in the respective 6 match-ups. Well, working with people instead of raw data turned out to be much more difficult and time-consuming than expected.
Remember when jrw1985 (Jon) did the same thing? Sometime last year he designed the “average goblin list” on basis of all existing decklists he could find (read the reference in the OP when you are interested in the list).
Well, being the lover of numbers, graphs and statistics that I am, I picked up the idea again. I wanted to find out which cards contribute most to success of goblin decklists. What’s different this time is that I made use of a statistics program called “SPSS” that can easily handle huge amounts of data (unlike most people) and provides a variety of analyses. So the kind of question I’m asking would be
“How does the number of Goblin Warchiefs in a decklist correlate with it’s success”
I then compare the average success (= win-percentage) of lists with either 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4 copies of Warchiefs to each other. And not only that. I (or rather: SPSS) did exactly that for virtually all cards you see frequently enough, namely:
Basic Mountains, Duallands, Fetchlands, Karakas, Ports, Skirk Prospector, Piledriver, MWM, Winstigator, Thalia, Sharpshooter, Chieftain, Krenko, SGC, Lightning Bolt, Tarfire, Stingscourger, Gempalm Incinerator…
I did not include the following cards in the analysis because I wasn’t able to find enough lists that did featured LESS THAN 4 COPIES of them:
Aether Vial, Goblin Lackey, Goblin Warchief, Goblin Matron, Goblin Ringleader, Cavern of Souls, Wasteland
I collected data by scanning tournament reports and typing in decklists as well as the results of single matches. E.g. I encoded a match that was lost 1:2 the following way: I calculated how many % of the games were won (1/3 = 0.33 which is 33%). So results would either be 0.00% (lost 0:2), 33.33%, 50.00% (1:1), 66.66% (won 2:1) or 100% (won 2:0). I did not include “ID-matches”, but only matches that were actually played. Furthermore I only included cards from the maindeck, since SB choices appeared to be too diverse to get reliable results out of them.
Since you most often find tournament reports about moments when goblin decklists perform WELL there is a certain bias in those result, which is reflected by the relatively high average win-% of all decklists combined: 63.59%.
I’m sure everyone is curious about the results, so I won’t hold them back any longer (please note that I’m presented a pre-selected set of results. i.e. I excluded some information for various statistical reasons. However, if you are interested in the dataset as well as an exhaustive output of results you can send me a PM).
TOTAL mean win-%: 63.59%
TOTAL matches recorded: 166
TOTAL number of decklists: 26
Total number of lands
99 records with 22 lands have a mean W% of 64.73%
42 records with 23 lands have a mean W% of 64.02%
Decklists with 19, 20, 21 or 24 lands were excluded due to insufficient number of records or high standard deviation.
Interpretation of results: The number of lands does not have any notable impact on your win-%.
Rishadan Port
25 records with 3 Rishadan Ports have a mean W% of 71%
59 records with 4 Rishadan Ports have a mean W% of 65%
Decklists with 0, 1 or 2 Rishadan Ports were excluded due to insufficient number of records or high standard deviation.
Interpretation of results: Decklists with 3 Rishadan Ports were more successful than lists with 4 copies. The latter performed slightly above-average.
Fetchlands
49 records with 0 Fetchlands have a mean W% of 65%
31 records with 5 Fetchlands have a mean W% of 70%
Decklists with 4, 6 or 7 Fetchlands were excluded due to insufficient number of records or high standard deviation.
Interpretation of results: Playing mono-red (or at least without fetchlands) slightly improves the performance of a decklist. Having 5 fetchlands improves the performance of a decklist to a greater extend.
Dual lands
56 records with 0 Duallands have a mean W% of 65%
53 records with 1 Dualland have a mean W% of 66%
Decklists with 2, 3 or 4 duallands were excluded[…]
Interpretation of results: Playing either a mono-red built or a build with a light splash seems to have a small impact on performance of the decklist.
Piledriver
57 records with 3 Piledrivers have a mean W% of 62%
67 records with 4 Piledrivers have a mean W% of 64%
Decklists with 1 or 2 Piledrivers were excluded[…]
Interpretation of results: Playing either 3 or 4 Piledrivers does not have any notable impact on the win-%.
Mogg War Marshal
113 records with 3 MWMs have a mean W% of 61%
20 records with 4 MWMs have a mean W% of 75%
Decklists with 0,1 or 2 MWMs were excluded[…]
Interpretation of results: Results are hard to interpret since most of the 20 records with 4 MWMs came from the same player. This might reflect an impact of that certain player (instead of the impact of the card itself) on performance.
Stingscourger
127 records with 1 Stinger have a mean W% of 65%
39 records with 2 Stinger have a mean W% of 57%
There were no decklists without at least 1 Stingscourger in MD
Interpretation of results: Playing more than 1 Stingscourger in MD seems to have a negative influence on performance
Chieftain
50 records with 0 Chieftains have a mean W% of 66%
72 records with 1 Chieftain have a mean W% of 66%
24 records with 2 Chieftains have a mean W-% of 51%
Decklists with 3 or 4 Chieftains were excluded[…]
Interpretation of results: Playing either 0 or 1 Chieftain seems to slightly improve performance. Playing 2 Chieftains had an obviously negative impact on results. However, since there are so few records of lists with 3 and 4 Chieftains we CANT conclude an easy rule like “the more Chieftains, the worse the performance”.
Sharpshooter
31 records with 0 Sharpshooters have a mean W% of 63%
135 records with 1 Sharpshooter have a mean W% of 63%
Interpretation of results: Lists with Sharpshooter (in MD) are equally successful as lists without Sharpshooter (in MD).
Krenko
35 records with 0 Krenkos have a mean W% of 66%
119 records with 1 Krenko have a mean W% of 63%
Decklists with 2 Krenkos were excluded[…]
Interpretation of results: Lists without Krenko perform slightly better than lists with Krenko.
Skirk Prospector
30 records with 0 Prospectors have a mean W% of 63%
136 records with 1 Prospectors have a mean W% of 63%
Interpretation of results: Lists with Prospector (in MD) are equally successful as lists without Prospector (in MD).
Siege-Gang Commander
126 records with 1 SGC have a mean W% of 63%
40 records with 2 Prospectors have a mean W% of 66%
Interpretation of results: Running SGC #2 slightly improves the performance of the decklist.
Please be hesitant to interpret these results too much. I did various analyses an NONE of them revealed a statistically SIGNIFICANT impact of any card on WIN-%. This was in almost all cases due to the relatively small number of records that I juggled with. Please keep that in mind when you want to apply the results to actual deck-building. I still think that an educated opinion (like those from experienced players or simply an opinion that is based on logical thinking) is more worth than the results I presented here.
Have fun discussing the results. Questions are (as always) appreciated!
GoboLord, you're a fucking legend.
Here's a question I'd be interested in knowing the answer to:
What was the impact of SGC on win %? That seems like a card where most of the field plays 2 or less, so it should be fairly easy to derive the winningest number.
You should get a social life Cristian... =p
Thanks for the info.
gobolord, kudos for this work. it certainly has its uses, despite the limitations on the number of decks and matches analyzed.
by the way, I have three questions:
- first: how could we help improve this work further, adding more cases to the base?
- second: no comment on tarfire?
- third: are you willing to share this spss file with your fellow warchiefs that know a little bit of this and a little bit of that with the software? :D
That's a fine piece of hard work. Thanks a lot, Gobbolord, your efforts are greatly appreciated.
This data made me re-think my list. Will be testing a new brew from now on, and then I'll be able to tell if this proved relevant to tuning. =)
Thank you to Gobolord and to your contributors from the German board! Danke :tongue:Quote:
Originally Posted by GoboLord
I find it interesting how little it seems to matter whether or not you include Skirk Prospector and Goblin Sharpshooter.
JRW, you tried an 'average' Goblin list before. What did you take away from it?
My fear is that using statistics like this to generate a list will give you a deck that performs averagely against most opponents but won't excel against any.
The more samples that go into this survey, the more real information we'll actually get. Sort of like the search for the Higgs... A few examples did not reveal anything but as the data grew, real patterns and information was shown to exist. Thanks again for your contribution!
I played RW Goblins recently, and discovered a few things:
1) Goblins beats other "fair" decks. Diluting it to beat other matchups is not only unnecessary, but detrimental to your good matchups. You aren't playing Goblins to beat Charbelcher, so don't make your deck lose more often to RUG Delver.
2) These added losses to good matchups are due to not only removing Goblins from the deck (and maybe good ones for those matchups), but also weakening the manabase. Dual lands are far worse than Mountains when you don't need the splash color, need Fetchlands to get them (which deal you damage, get Stifled, help opposing Deathrites and Tarmogoyfs, and shuffle Lands/Vials from the bottom of the deck via Ringleaders.) The RB List with Auntie's Hovels/Badlands does get around the fetchland problem for what it's worth.
3) You should only sideboard either Goblin bullets or cards that absolutely win you the game by themselves. If you are boarding a card like Rakdos Charm to get 3 minimal effects (Shatter, Crypt, Lackey Trigger), you're doing it wrong. Usually you are going to cut Goblins for these cards, which makes your whole deck worse, so make sure they're worth it.
4) Mono-Red has all the tools you need...splashing is almost always wrong. If you're playing a fair metagame, the splash is obviously not necessary. If there's combo, there's likely a good sideboard card for your problem. Honestly though, I haven't had a problem with a lot of the different combo decks I've played against (Reanimator, Sneak and Show), even feeling like a favorite mainboard.
5) Why are people cutting Rishidan Port? Warren Instigator...? Rishidan Port has been instrumental in most of my wins against combo, Goblins perceived worst matchup.
I'll post a Mono-Red list soon!
Playing out an averaged list was interesting. It was last August and I generated the list from Goblin decks that had performed well in large tournaments over the prior 4 or 5 months. The decklist wound up looking like this:Quote:
Originally Posted by Ace/Homebrew
4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledriver
3 Mogg War Marshal
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
1 Goblin Chieftain
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
4 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Pyrokinesis
1 Stingscourger
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
2 Rishadan Port
5 Mountain
6 fetchlands
1 Volcanic Island
Sideboard
2 Chalice of the Void
3 Spell Pierce
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pyrokinesis
1 Stingscourger
1 Gilded Drake
1 Goblin King
The only cards in the 75 that weren't derived from an averaging process were the 3 Spell Pierce. They were supposed to be REB/Pyroblast. It was actually very silly of me to run Pierce over REB, but I felt like it was a ballsy call that would pay off. It wound up not really making any difference.
The Volcanic Island and Gilded Drake wound in there because Grizz was the card du jour and was being hated out of the format (much like DRS recently dropped off the face of the earth in top 8's of SCGs), so a bunch of the Gobin decks I used for the averaging ran Drake. Aside from that there was nothing really questionable in the list. It was just a standard Goblins list. I never quite understood how Goblin King wound up in the SB. He seemed pretty worthless. And a 2nd Stingscourger in the SB was probably a result of about half the decks Mainboarding him and the other half sideboarding him, so he showed up twice in the Averaged list.
Playing the deck taught me a few things. First, it turned me on to how good MWM is. I had refused to play that card for the longest time, but when I forced myself to play it I quickly caught on to the beauty of the endless chumping it provided. So in that regard I felt like I expanded my horizons. The second thing I learned is that basing your deck solely off of what has worked in the past will not prepare you for the future. I could have run a W splash and ran Karakas. I didn't, and I lost to an Elsh Norn one round. I could have run a G splash for KGrip. I didn't, and I lost to Omniscience (the fresh-faced player on the block at that time, which an Averaged list of past decks could NEVER help prepare me for). Running Thalia also would have helped tremendously there. A Goblins player did top 8 that event, with a W splash and 3 Thalia MD.
Since my experience running the Averaged list I've not really cared to go back to it. It's more fun to brew decks that have surprise value and that tackle the format head-on. I think you'll generally be most successful with a goblins list that has a solid core and is tweaked to beat the new, current, popular decks of the moment.
That being said, I believe that the work Christian has put into the statistical analysis is going to build an excellent foundation for many Sourcers and goblins players. I don't think he's purposing a "best" list, but what he's posted should be an excellent framework for other deckbuilders.
* Added SGC's data.Quote:
Originally Posted by jrw1985
Siege-Gang Commander
126 records with 1 SGC have a mean W% of 63%
40 records with 2 Prospectors have a mean W% of 66%
Interpretation of results: Running SGC #2 slightly improves the performance of the decklist.
I tested that social life thing yesterday evening. It was great! I'll definitely be running more of these.Quote:
Originally Posted by ScatmanX
(1) Keep posting tournament reports and decklists. Essentially I need 2 things: decklists and reports about the precise result of your matches on the tourney (2:0, 2:1, 1:1, 1:2, 0:2)Quote:
Originally Posted by Cleston
(2) There are to few records of decklists with Tarfire.
(3) Sure. Send me your email-adress via PM. I'll give you the file.
@ Everyone: Thanks for the comments and kudos!
I'm gonna add an extra Tarfire to my list, so I can run 3. My opponents always asked me why I would go for Tarfire over Incinerator when I would Matron, the simple answer is it only costs 1. I played vs many decks with x/2s, and boy was I happy when I did. Tarfire your DRS so I can Lackey in a SGC? I'll take it.
On another note, I think 3 Piledrivers is a good number, to me at least. They give Goblins T3 wins because of their hyperaggro mindedness.
All in all, I think this thread is awesome because the people here put so much work into this deck.
UPDATE
March 16th, 2013
* hotlink-ed the #####A.N.A.L.Y.S.I.S.#####
* added Pendelhaven to the to "To-be-tested" section
* added Rest in Peace + Helm of Obedience to the to "To-be-tested" section
So, after playing this deck for over a year on cockatrice, building it, and having nowhere to play, I found an LGS (not so local) that has monthly legacy. I ended up winning the whole shebang tonight, my first time stepping foot in the place. I didn't take notes, so this is gonna be pretty non-descript.
Here was my list:
4x Ringleader
4x Matron
4x Warchief
4x Lackey
3x Gempalm
3x War Marshall
2x Piledriver
2x Krenko (I'm in love with this guy, and I want backup in the event he gets removed)
1x Sharpshooter
1x Siege Gang
1x Stingscourger
1x Prospector
1x Chieftain
1x Tuktuk Scrapper
4x Vial
2x Tarfire
6x Mountain
2x Plateau
4x Wooded Foothills
2x Scalding Tarn
4x Cavern
4x Wasteland
SB:
4x Chalice of the Void
3x Rest in Peace
2x Disenchant
2x Pyrokinesis
2x Blood Moon (I forgot to take these out, was messing around the night before on SB. Prob give Thalia a try next time.)
1x Stingscourger
1x Tuktuk Scrapper
Had a big long tourney report typed out, and this is where is restored to after it failed to post...I'll repost tomorrow with more in depth shizz. But I'll prob forget it all.
match 1 punishing jund
W 2-1
match 2 UB tezzeret
W 2-0
match 3 storm
W 2-1
match 4 GWB junk
ID after winning game 1 (draw to save time, i won top seed on breakers)
semi esper stoneblade
W 2-0
final GWB Junk, same deck
W 2-0
by the way, why don't you run 4 rest in peace? It seems really good against alot of things that's good against your deck, for example, tarmogoyf.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bichon_Blitz
This might come off as random, but I've been going over the decks I actually play or have played in Legacy, and this is one of the decks I still have/play, for me the most fun tribe that is viable in the format as a strategy, anyhow, I've either lost my mind or something because I've been making huge primers for older, outdated ones over what I have experience with, however when I came across the Goblin thread, I saw that it is totally up-to-date by the same person that started the thread 2 years ago, so I just wanted to say, as a goblin player, thank you, I suppose that really makes you the GoboLord he he!