[Deck] Goblins

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Originally Posted by Nelis

I'm sorry but those are no serious counter arguments. How are you going to play that ringleader without mana? Do you always expect a turn one vial or Lackey?

If I play Goblins, especially in a 23 land build, I don't want my deck thinned. I need my lands. And why is pain not relevant, you don't always win on turn 4 with Goblins. Please give me good reasons why fetch is preferred over a fetchless manabase. Otherwise I don't see why you would chance getting screwed by stifles and fetchpain even if the downsides of deck-thinning and fetch-pains are marginal.

Oh, Just in case someone brings up the wasteland argument. The best answer to wasteland is not playing less non-basics but more.

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Before I start I want to clarify that I'm talking about Sander's decklist, which is MONO RED in MD with BLACK cards in SB.
The most important reason not to run 4 Auntie's Hovel and 4 Badlands is that you give away information. I don't want my opponent to know what color I splash. As anectodal evidence I'll quote my opponent from yesterday's Round 2: "If I had seen the Badland in G1 I had boarded Leyline of Sanctity."
Especially combodecks want to know what hatecards they need to prepare for. B-splash (or rather: Cabal Therapy) is a rare choice for Goblins nowadays. With 4 Hovels and 4 Badlands they see discard coming and the card loses it's surprise value. I mean: if you don't expect discard in a Goblin deck you will use your Ponder and Brainstorm far different than if you do expect it.
Same goes for Canadian Thresh or Elves or Maverick: lets say they see your B splash in G1, then they will expect and try to play around Perish.

I'm not saying that Stifle @ fetchland is NEVER relevant, but we have about 30 better targets for the card (Wasteland, Vial, Lackey, Piledriver, Matron, Ringleader, Siege-Gang). SO, Stifle @ fetchland is a bad move in 99% of the games you play, just like Wasteland @ Mishra'S Factory when your opponent has a Crucible of Worlds in play. I think that both plays MIGHT be relevant in VERY SPECIAL cases.
I agree with you that Wasteland is not an argument against nonbasics, since even mono R goblin lists run more non-basics than basics. We always have enough waste-able targets, unless you cut Cavern of Souls from the deck.
Fetchpain is almost never relevant, unless you run 7 or more fetchlands. I suggested 5-6 btw.
We can argue about thinning out the deck, but that wont get us anywhere. You say you want to draw lands. I say I want to draw goblins. We are both right, but neither of us has point in the fetchland vs. Hovel discussion.

I have been over this topic many times and I'm not willing to warm the wholöe thing up again. We've had an exhaustive discussion about that issue at aboput page 10-30 of this thread.

Fair enough, if its only for a sb I could agree. I can get into your argument against combo decks. But if you play fetches your opponent should wonder why.

Why is it bad for us for green creature decks to hold back their creatures because they expect perish?

My biggest 'fear' is that my first land will get stifled especially game one but maybe I fear stifles too much. If you think of going for them main then I would definitely go for a fetchless manabase.

If you think of going for cabal Therapy main main then I would definitely go for a fetchless manabase.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

I will bite. How did you come to this theory? Seems counter intuitive.

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I think I have read it on this forum. Its been something I've known so long I can't remember any specifics but it always stuck with me.

In a way, it also has to do with Stifle and Waste land. Throughout my magic-life I've been screwed too often by Tempo decks that Stifle my turn one fetch and Wasteland on my turn 2 dual because I wanted to take the 'save' route by going basic then dual.

The most obvious reason to play more fetchlands over 4 badlands and 4 aunti'es hovel is price of progress. Against burn, fetching for a basic land is 1 damage while every nonbasic you drop is potentially 2 damages for you. Burn is not very popular, but now that we run 4 cavern of souls we should try to prepare our deck also against it (chalice , thorn of ametyst or thalia in sideboard are all good choices).

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Originally Posted by Nelis

I'm sorry but those are no serious counter arguments. How are you going to play that ringleader without mana? Do you always expect a turn one vial or Lackey?

If I play Goblins, especially in a 23 land build, I don't want my deck thinned. I need my lands. And why is pain not relevant, you don't always win on turn 4 with Goblins. Please give me good reasons why fetch is preferred over a fetchless manabase. Otherwise I don't see why you would chance getting screwed by stifles and fetchpain even if the downsides of deck-thinning and fetch-pains are marginal.

Oh, Just in case someone brings up the wasteland argument. The best answer to wasteland is not playing less non-basics but more.

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Let's say for the sake of arguement, that you are running 23 lands, and maxing out 4 Caverns, Wastes and Ports. That leaves you 11 slots. That's NOT ENOUGH to run 4 Mountain, 4 Aunties Hovel and 4 Badlands. I guess you run only 3 Hovels. That gives you 7 black sources for your spells, which is not enough.

Whereas with fetches you could run 6 fetches, 3 mountain and 2 badlands, which effectively gives you more black sources.

It also facilitates triple colour decks with the addition of a single dual land (hello Krosan Grip).

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Originally Posted by GoboLord

Sideboard
4 Chalice
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Relic of PRogenitus
3 Sulfur Elemental
1 Tuktuk Scrapper


Round 1: Death & Taxes (0-2)
Round 2: MUD (2-1)
Round 3: Omniscience (2-0)
Round 4: Death & Taxes (1-2)
Round 5: Dredge (0-2)

Thoughts
* Cabal Therapy was worth the slots. It's a very good card. I mostly included it to against Show & Tells and that's what I used it for (as you can see).
* Sulfur Elemental: I chose to play the Elementals over Pyrokinesis, because I had a very clear view of my metagame and I expected to Death & Taxes as the only aggro deck. Sulfur Elemental first looked superior to Pyrokinesis, when I only need it for THIS specific matchup. However, it turned it that it wasn't nearly as good as looked on the 1st glance. Here's a little exercise:

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Yeah, I agree with you that Pyrokinesis is much better than Sulfur Elemental in that matchup. My other thoughts are, no Prospector and no Sharpshooter even SB? I mean... really?? I really like both vs DnT (and Prospector vs dredge) so, perhaps your final build hurt you vs the decks you faced? I mean, is the 2nd Stingscourger really that much better than the option on the 1st Sharpshooter?

Also, I can get with Cabal Therapy, but do you really need it vs combo, given 3 Thalia and 4 CotV vs combo already?

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Originally Posted by magicmerl

Let's say for the sake of arguement, that you are running 23 lands, and maxing out 4 Caverns, Wastes and Ports. That leaves you 11 slots. That's NOT ENOUGH to run 4 Mountain, 4 Aunties Hovel and 4 Badlands.

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If the goal is to always have access to black, and to counter Wasteland with redundancy, why play the 4 Mountains? You can't fetch them to protect your mana base so why not cut them for 4 Blood Crypt or something similar (Graven Cairns perhaps)? Then the percentage of getting black when you need it is higher than a fetch land manabase although still exposed to Wasteland (while dodging Stifle).

A lot of these decisions come down to personal preference. It appears Goblin decks running a fetch land mana base tend to position higher than Goblin decks running 100% non-basics. I'm sure popularity effects this trend greatly but popularity also tends to favor the better strategy.

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Originally Posted by Ace/Homebrew

If the goal is to always have access to black, and to counter Wasteland with redundancy, why play the 4 Mountains? You can't fetch them to protect your mana base so why not cut them for 4 Blood Crypt or something similar (Graven Cairns perhaps)? Then the percentage of getting black when you need it is higher than a fetch land manabase although still exposed to Wasteland (while dodging Stifle).

A lot of these decisions come down to personal preference. It appears Goblin decks running a fetch land mana base tend to position higher than Goblin decks running 100% non-basics. I'm sure popularity effects this trend greatly but popularity also tends to favor the better strategy.

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Wastelock
Back to Basics
Price of Progress
Blood Moon
Veteran Explorer


Yes, even Veteran Explorer. You know how much it sucks for a mana-denial deck to get double Therapied and have your opponent get 2 free lands ahead of you?

I guess Blood Moon isn't a problem 99% of the time, but when I was playing MD black spells (Warren Wierding) I ran a basic swamp so I could still cast things under Moon or with Waste protection. Helped in several games!

Is there any successful Vial deck, which has low or 0 basic lands? I don't think so.

And...if a red-based deck dies to a blood moon...It would be one of the biggest shame in the history of Legacy.

I do not think there is. I know for me the reason is more about my meta and less about what would possibly improve the deck Mana wise. I mean I know 3 decks with Path to Ex, one with Back to Basics, anyone that borrows my burn deck is going to be playing Price and there is I think a total of 7 decks out of about a 35 meta that have Wastes.

Now if you look at that spread and do not even add in uncommon cards like Veteran Explorer or Ghost Quarter you see a list that will punish quite hard a deck that runs nothing but Non basics. Wasteland is often given as the golden fear when thinking about running Basics and non basics but I think about this,

Turn four, you have opened, have Port, Cavern and a Dual on the table. The other guy has burnt out most of your cheat critters and you are thinking this game might go into turn 7 or 8. He the drops Price and you now have lost 6. Thats shorting the clock in his favor. Game ends not long after with a loss.

Game two you open with a fetch, but alas you have no Basics. You get your lands and you play them, but soon after your looking again at a turn 4 clock, the reason, Price. A cheap card in a cheap deck that anyone can put together and come along to a game. I mean most of the cards in burn at Modern legal so its a good transition deck.

Now blood moon will not really hurt us, if anything it opens doors for us, but Price and Back to Basics, well they are not exactly rare and they hurt. Waste is just icing.

So I guess the moral of my long winded and mostly unnecessary post is, run basics. This is legacy, you will need them.

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Originally Posted by Tokugawa

And...if a red-based deck dies to a blood moon...It would be one of the biggest shame in the history of Legacy.

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You do realize that you don't lose the game when Blood Moon resolves? I mean even if suddenfly your Rishadan Port and Wastelands, and fetchlands, and Badlands, and Autnities Hovel are all Mountain...then what?

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Originally Posted by Tokugawa

Is there any successful Vial deck, which has low or 0 basic lands? I don't think so.

And...if a red-based deck dies to a blood moon...It would be one of the biggest shame in the history of Legacy.

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My list only runs 2 mountain. I don't know if you consider that 'low' or not.

Gobolord, he was saying that we sholdn't fear Blood moon, when someone listed it as a non-basic hoser. You guys are agreeing with each other.

local turney again, same list as last time, for reference:

4 Goblin Lackey
4 vial

4 thalia
3 Mogg War Marshal

1 Stingscourger
3 Gempalm Incinerator

4 Goblin Matron
3 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Warchief

4 Goblin Ringleader
1 krenko
1 lightning crafter
1 tuktuk scrapper


Lands
4 Wasteland
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Rishadan Port
3 Mountain
1 karakas
2 plateau
5 red fetches



R1: mono black pox: 1-1
R2: aggro loam: 1-2
R3: D&T: 2-1
R4: aggro loam: 2-0
R5: mono red sneak attack/through the breach: 2-1
R6: aggro loam 2-1



ended up 4-1-1 and got into prices. After the first 2 rounds I was demoralized and I wanted to drop but luckily I stayed and it turned out to be a good decision...never give up!
I have no idea on why I met so many aggro loam, it is a rare deck in my meta but somehow I managed to get paired with it half of the matches. I thought me a lot though. Devastating dreams is a card and it hurted so badly... However, they have too few creatures to stop a lackey and a piece of grave hate seals the deal. Game 1 kill cofidant and keep rishadan-porting them away from having RR and it is game.
The main deck is going to remain like this, it works smoothly and I cannot pinpoint something I don t like.
When I dropped the green splash I was really concerned about not finding a good enough replacement for TSH and krosan grips. However, the white splash gets the job done and overall a more stable manabase outweights the power level of the second color splash in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by fimo

The main deck is going to remain like this, it works smoothly and I cannot pinpoint something I don t like.

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Nice to see that you've found a list that suits you. Also, thank you for reporting the results. I Agree with you strategy vs Aggro Loam. Stingscourger is a very good card against them, if you want to prepare for that MU better.

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Originally Posted by GoboLord

I Agree with you strategy vs Aggro Loam. Stingscourger is a very good card against them, if you want to prepare for that MU better.

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can you elaborate a bit more on stingscourger? are you thinking about neglecting the +1/+1 counters of countryside crusher/scavenging ooze?

Found a trick the new rules let us do. When I played on Tuesday, I had a few free games. One was against a blue deck that I locked with Thalia. He hit her with unsummon and then I put another down with Vial. (Had one in hand and one on the table.)

He went to town in the vial tap trigger and beat me with some instant's. Here is a very particular situation where we can use the rules to our advanced.

Thalia in the table.
Removal targeting Thalia.
Response, tap Vial, enter second Thalia, kill the one that is the target of the removal when she resolves.
The removal spell has no target and fizzles, we lose a Thalia but her effect never stops.

Anyone see anything I missed?

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Originally Posted by fimo

can you elaborate a bit more on stingscourger? are you thinking about neglecting the +1/+1 counters of countryside crusher/scavenging ooze?

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Exactly. Crusher, Ooze and Knight of the Reliquary... all of them are quite slow and need some time to get going (just think about how annoying it is for your opponent to relove a KotR, then use it to fetch some lands for let's say 2 turns, then - as soon as KotR has build up a body to attack with - you bounce it. Stingscourger (and Warren Weirding if you are willing to splash B) is a very good answer to those cards. Not at last because of his reach (Gempalm Incinerator, Lightning Bolt and Tarfire will never actually kill one of those critters). Stingscourgers body is also important as it can timewalk them: bounce one critter, block the other AND he can ocassionally attack, if you got a Warchief or CHieftain in play. As you already said: keeping them from RR (and RRR) is essential. However, this won't work for long, so you better need to end the game quickly. Stingscourger provides the tempo-advantage that you need for this MU. As long as they don't resolve Devastating Dream or Seismic Assault, everything is fine. After all, none of their beater has trample or any other kind of evasion. They are just big.
I mean, I don't know how exactly Aggro Loam decks look like nowadays, but back then when the deck became popular I always felt well equipped for the MU (not at last because I've favored Stingscourger#2 over Gempalm #4) and I think that some things have to go seriously wrong for you to lose the match.

If you don't agree we should discuss this, since Aggro Loam seems to be a deck in your meta.


@ Dice:
It works exactly as you described and it'S important to watch out for those situatiuon but I don't think that "not breaking the chain" of increasing spell costs by :1: is too important for us.

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Originally Posted by GoboLord

Exactly. Crusher, Ooze and Knight of the Reliquary... all of them are quite slow and need some time to get going (just think about how annoying it is for your opponent to relove a KotR, then use it to fetch some lands for let's say 2 turns, then - as soon as KotR has build up a body to attack with - you bounce it. Stingscourger (and Warren Weirding if you are willing to splash B) is a very good answer to those cards. Not at last because of his reach (Gempalm Incinerator, Lightning Bolt and Tarfire will never actually kill one of those critters). Stingscourgers body is also important as it can timewalk them: bounce one critter, block the other AND he can ocassionally attack, if you got a Warchief or CHieftain in play. As you already said: keeping them from RR (and RRR) is essential. However, this won't work for long, so you better need to end the game quickly. Stingscourger provides the tempo-advantage that you need for this MU. As long as they don't resolve Devastating Dream or Seismic Assault, everything is fine. After all, none of their beater has trample or any other kind of evasion. They are just big.
I mean, I don't know how exactly Aggro Loam decks look like nowadays, but back then when the deck became popular I always felt well equipped for the MU (not at last because I've favored Stingscourger#2 over Gempalm #4) and I think that some things have to go seriously wrong for you to lose the match.

If you don't agree we should discuss this, since Aggro Loam seems to be a deck in your meta.

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I agree with it. stingscourgers and MWM will buy you all the time in the world to get the matron/ringleader engine going. The aggro loam I faced were less beatdown though. They played chalice main board, punishing fire, dark confidant, devastating dreams, knight of the reliquary and burning wish. I didn t see neither ooze nor crusher. I guess there are quite different approaces to the decklist. However, my game losses were due to either punishing fire lock or due to mana screw (devastating dreams, loam-waste, abrupt decay-vial). I was actually not 100% confident about what to cut from the main deck to make room for 3 pieces of grave hate (1 relic + 2 rest in peace) and 2 disenchant. I sided in disenchant because I was fearing sesmic assault and engineered plague, at worst I could have destroyed sylvan lybrary or mox diamond (they are color hungry). I cut 3 thalia, 1 tuktuk, 1 gempalm incinerator. What do you think about it? I ended up regretting cutting 3 thalia because she slows them down a lot but I did not want too many white spells and I didn t know what else to cut. Were the 2 disenchant too paranoic to side in your opinion?

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Originally Posted by fimo

I agree with it. stingscourgers and MWM will buy you all the time in the world to get the matron/ringleader engine going. The aggro loam I faced were less beatdown though. They played chalice main board, punishing fire, dark confidant, devastating dreams, knight of the reliquary and burning wish. I didn t see neither ooze nor crusher. I guess there are quite different approaces to the decklist. However, my game losses were due to either punishing fire lock or due to mana screw (devastating dreams, loam-waste, abrupt decay-vial). I was actually not 100% confident about what to cut from the main deck to make room for 3 pieces of grave hate (1 relic + 2 rest in peace) and 2 disenchant. I sided in disenchant because I was fearing sesmic assault and engineered plague, at worst I could have destroyed sylvan lybrary or mox diamond (they are color hungry). I cut 3 thalia, 1 tuktuk, 1 gempalm incinerator. What do you think about it? I ended up regretting cutting 3 thalia because she slows them down a lot but I did not want too many white spells and I didn t know what else to cut. Were the 2 disenchant too paranoic to side in your opinion?

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Sounds like Jeff Hoogland's 4C Loam list, which he claims has a very good matchup against Goblins. I imagine Devastating Dreams completely annihilates the deck.

I'm not really sure I understand the point of this discussion. Aggro-loam gets totally destroyed by Rest in Peace. Punishing Fire, Countryside Crusher, Life from the Loam. Nerfed.

From there it almost doesn't matter what the rest of our deck is, as long as Aether Vial is part of the plan. A bunch of durdly goblins is enough to get the job done.

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Originally Posted by fimo

I was actually not 100% confident about what to cut from the main deck to make room for 3 pieces of grave hate (1 relic + 2 rest in peace) and 2 disenchant.

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I think that it's a mistake to try an fight the deck on too many fronts. I'd settle for hating the graveyard and having creature removal for their crushers and bobs. So in your shoes I'd just bring in the 3 GY hate (I personally run 4) and I'd take out cards like Sharpshooter, Prospector and 1 MWM.

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Originally Posted by fimo

I sided in disenchant because I was fearing sesmic assault and engineered plague, at worst I could have destroyed sylvan lybrary or mox diamond (they are color hungry).

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This line of play sounds fine on the surface of things, but I think you are better off attacking the GY instead, since that's where the REAL power of their deck lies. p.s. I think that Wear // Tear is just strictly better than Disenchant for us. And you don't want to oversideboard too much, since that slows the deck down a whole heap and you run the risk of having the wrong answer to their threat, since they attack along multiple axes (Bob=card advantage, Goyf/Crusher=huge beater, Loam=CA, Devastating Dreams=mana denial + creature control, Seismic Assault=creature control, Engineered Plague=creauure control, Pyroclasm=creature control).

I personally see us as two midrange decks fighting each other, so I see the battle as a card advantage war. That means not caring about 1-for-1 answers. I want to be able to 'turn off' their engines. Seismic Assault and Devastating Dreams are incredibly fair cards if the opponent doesn't have access to Life from the Loam. So by answering Loam we can kinda answer all three of them. Dark Confidant is answered by our normal removal mechanisms (so I wouldn't SB out Gempalms).

Once their CA engine is nerfed, it's just a matter of us systematically playing around mass removal (i.e. don't overextend into sweepers and run out of gas).

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Originally Posted by GoboLord

@ Dice:
It works exactly as you described and it'S important to watch out for those situatiuon but I don't think that "not breaking the chain" of increasing spell costs by :1: is too important for us.

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Then again, you'd have to wonder about the MU... if the opponent cast Unsummon on Thalia while you have an untapped Vial @ 2, regardless of whether you have another one in hand, you can conclude one of three things:
1) He is bad at Magic
2) Somehow card disadvantage favours his gameplan
3) He needs to cast some cheap instants sans-cost increase ASAP and is trying to create a brief window where he can do stuff cheaply (e.g. Tin Fins going Dark Ritual -> Entomb -> Goryo)

In the case of 1 and 2, you win anyway. In the case of 3, this new Legend trick is pretty freaking awesome.

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Originally Posted by magicmerl

I'm not really sure I understand the point of this discussion. Aggro-loam gets totally destroyed by Rest in Peace. Punishing Fire, Countryside Crusher, Life from the Loam. Nerfed.

From there it almost doesn't matter what the rest of our deck is, as long as Aether Vial is part of the plan. A bunch of durdly goblins is enough to get the job done.


I think that it's a mistake to try an fight the deck on too many fronts. I'd settle for hating the graveyard and having creature removal for their crushers and bobs. So in your shoes I'd just bring in the 3 GY hate (I personally run 4) and I'd take out cards like Sharpshooter, Prospector and 1 MWM.


This line of play sounds fine on the surface of things, but I think you are better off attacking the GY instead, since that's where the REAL power of their deck lies. p.s. I think that Wear // Tear is just strictly better than Disenchant for us. And you don't want to oversideboard too much, since that slows the deck down a whole heap and you run the risk of having the wrong answer to their threat, since they attack along multiple axes (Bob=card advantage, Goyf/Crusher=huge beater, Loam=CA, Devastating Dreams=mana denial + creature control, Seismic Assault=creature control, Engineered Plague=creauure control, Pyroclasm=creature control).

I personally see us as two midrange decks fighting each other, so I see the battle as a card advantage war. That means not caring about 1-for-1 answers. I want to be able to 'turn off' their engines. Seismic Assault and Devastating Dreams are incredibly fair cards if the opponent doesn't have access to Life from the Loam. So by answering Loam we can kinda answer all three of them. Dark Confidant is answered by our normal removal mechanisms (so I wouldn't SB out Gempalms).

Once their CA engine is nerfed, it's just a matter of us systematically playing around mass removal (i.e. don't overextend into sweepers and run out of gas).

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I have nothing to add since magicmerl explained my thoughts, which are:
* attack their graveyard (and their critters), not their enchantments/artifacts
* Tear//Wear is better than Disenchant
* play around those 2-3 Devastating Dreams with Vial and Matron/Ringleader