I'm sure most everyone on this forum thought of themself as the answer to this.Quote:
Originally Posted by dethangel666
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I'm sure most everyone on this forum thought of themself as the answer to this.Quote:
Originally Posted by dethangel666
I was going to say dethangel666 was.... but I thought it was off topic so I didn't post it. This question is actually very difficult to answer since Goblins has been around for sO.. so long that it becomes difficult to pinpoint the correct play for every situation and every permutation of the Goblin deck. Frequently different Goblin players top8 depending on metagame, match ups and so on.Quote:
Originally Posted by jrw1985
I find that when piloting Goblins, a lot of how well you do depends on your opponent ability to comprehend Goblin's strategies. Your worst enemy is a player that has piloted a Goblin deck before because that player will know exactly when not to attack and also know to keep your goblins off of the board. You will also find that your important goblins like Warchief and Lackey will never stay on the board for too long which ruins the fun for the Goblin player.
There are a lot of Goblin players out there and I'm pretty sure all of the Legacy veterans have piloted a goblin deck in one form or another making outstanding Goblin players hard to find. Instead of looking at that player's list or watching that player's videos, you are better off just picking up the deck and learning it while reading about questions you have on the board. It'll probably be faster than finding a "really good goblin player" since it is a fairly easy deck to learn.
I was going to say GobboLord.Quote:
Originally Posted by jrw1985
Your answeris making this issue "on-topic" (although the question was off-topic).Quote:
Originally Posted by jin
I agree with you that Goblins is a very easy deck to learn, but it is a hard way to optimize your results, your list and your playingstyle.
Most of what it means to be good on Goblins has to do with experience. Let me give an example:
Goblins have a very wide range of cardchoices for their sideboard. You need a lot of experience to know how each sideboard card is interacting with a) your deck and b) in the MU where you need them. Plus, I find with experience you can make a lot of cardchoices irrelevant for your sideboard. e.g. it may be an option to pack Perish in SB to fight Zoo. With some experience you can beat them without it. The same is true for Red Elemental Blast and Merfolk.
I find that Goblins is a good deck to collect experiences with because you can be sure that it will be(and has been) a strong deck in the format for very long. This is not true for decks like Vengevival and ANT. Goblins have a lot of rather tough MUs which can be made good just because of your experience with the deck (which your opponent hasn't, just because his deck is unlikely to have a long history in legacy).
I don't know if I have made my point clear, but in summary I would say that in the case of Goblins: SKILL = EXPERIENCE² + X
I think it's difficult to play goblins most effectively, because a goblin-player has so much choices to make. Especially when playing a control-ish role.Quote:
Originally Posted by jin
Things like Matron-searches and Sharpshooter interactions are harder choices than i.e. Zoo will ever have.
Have you played Zoo? Zoo is a bully, but they have to cower to a 1/1 Lackey. They can't even attack to an open field with Vial at 1 without mana open for removal. It's pretty tough to fight a competant goblin playing with Zoo as there are endless waves of green men tangling up your cats. Against combo, you are scared shitless and against Countertop, you are fighting the Firespouts and trying to keep them off Counterbalance. Zoo has it pretty tough since all it can really do is do damage, but sometimes even that is impaired.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom T
Also, I didn't say you can play it effectively, I just said you can learn how to play it. You can learn the basics faster by picking up the deck rather than watching a really good goblin player. I agree that goblins has a lot of choices but I really don't think Matrons or Sharpshooter activations are the most difficult part of playing goblins:
Matron ==> Ringleader; Sharpshooter shooting ==> in response to a creature about to hit the yard.
It's really THAT simple. The most difficult part about goblins in today's metagame is how do you keep a mass of goblins on the table without your opponents killing off your favourite ones...
I miss fighting landstill. It was so easy back then, you just swing mindlessly and tank the factory damage.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tacosnape
I've probably watched 30+ people play Goblins, and I can say with the utmost confidence that I have never once seen a really amazingly good Goblins player. I -always- see mistakes. From good players, no less. I always wonder in the back of my mind if I'm that much better to spot the mistakes, or if I make the same mistakes when I play it and just don't see it (Which I suspect is the case), but I am sure of this: Goblins, while being one of the easiest decks to pick up, is probably among the top two or three most difficult to master, because not only is it often a taxing exercise in combat math, it can also be very demanding from game to game to learn who has inevitability and how defensive or offensive you should play and when.
I say close the thread and declare jrw1985 the winner.Quote:
Originally Posted by jrw1985
Goblins is similar to Storm based Combo decks in that both of them live and die off of how well they can manage their mana. Goblins has such a spread out curve and so many mana accelerators it can be hard to plan out your next few turns. That's not even factoring in things like Wasteland and Port which also suck up mana. It's really difficult.
Maybe that's why when I'm not playing Tendrils or Dredge, I'm playing Gobbos :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Amon Amarth
It was discussed here.Quote:
Originally Posted by flrn
In my personal opinion and experience (albeit very short), Goblins is the most fun deck to play. It doesn't really have a worst or best match up, only a bad or good pilot.
There is one factor that's missing here. Luck... Sometimes even a real skilled player can fall to bad luck (some examples: awful topdecks of yours, good foe's topdecking, mulligan and no Leyline of the Void, topdecking a Leyline of the Void [this is so awful, lol], etc...).Quote:
Originally Posted by raindrainxi
I'd say magic is about 80% skill + 20% luck.
well actually, as with all card games, luck is always a factor.
Hey there my fellow Goblin Warchiefs,
Yesterday I participated in our monthly Legacy tournament. I ended up 2-0-4 after 6 rounds – rather bad result. But that’s exactly what I want to focus on in this report: people tend to write reports only when they performed good, but our darkest days are those from which we can learn the most! Yesterday there were several factors involved in what drove me to write this bad-day-report. Here we go:
//Lands [22]
14 Mountain
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
//Core [26]
4: Vial, Lackey, Piledriver, Warchief, Matron, Ringleader
2: Siege-Gang Commander
//Flex Slots [7+5]
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Skirk Prospector
3 Mogg War Marshal
1 Goblin Chieftain
//Sideboard [15]
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Pyrokinesis
1 Vexing Shusher
1 Boartusk Liege
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
As I said: I want to focus only on the MU that turned out in my opponents favor. I will first describe the course of the match and then take a look at what went wrong there.
Round 1 - Aggro Loam
G1: He wins
G2: I win
G3: I win
2-1
Round 2: GW Survival
Game 1: I know what he is playing. He goes first. So I mull into a hand that can effectively deal with his manasources (Hierarch and non-basiclands). My decision turns out to be good, but he seems to know what my plan is. In the course of first 4 turns he has 3 Noble Hierarchs, while I had only 1 Bolt and 1 Incinerator for them. He fetches on basiclands only, so my double Wasteland are plain useless. Still this game last pretty long. When he goes for the Iona + Retainer “combo” I have Aether Vial @ 3 and my army is somewhat able to frighten his Iona, it can’t launch for an attack, neither can I. With Survival of the Fittest he gets to fetch some Tarmogoyfs and wins a few turns later.
IN: 4 Pyrokinesis
OUT: Goblin Chieftain, 3 Lightning Bolt
Game 2: I follow my philosophy from G1 and mull down to 5 to find mnanadenial and removal. He scoops on turn 5 because Pyrokinesis ate his Noble Hierarch and Quasali Pridemage, Wasteland destroyed Horizon Canopy, Rishadan Port tapped his lonely basic forest and Sharpshooter lay waiting for more Hierarchs.
Game 3: Again I have to take mulligan into manadenial + removal, nevertheless I have T1 Vial. Double port shuts his mana off after Gempalm and Pyrokinesis cleared the board. I find myself with only Warchief in play, Vial @ 3, Matron and Sharpshooter in hand, and 2 Ports/2 Mountains in play, while my opponent has 3 Forests and 1 Plains.
Meanwhile some spectators came to watch us playing. One of them (sitting next to me) was commenting on my moves: “good”, “nice”, “what else can we expect from a goblin player with YOUR experience?” and the like. Well…I’ll come back to this later. Let’s return to the game.
I tapped Vial for Matron @ Ringleader. Then I made a poor move: I played Ringleader to hopefully find Piledriver and attack for 12. Instead I found nothing. In my EOT he discards Iona and goes for Retainer. I’m unable to use my Ports in his upkeep, so I allow him to have access of W to cast Retainer. His combo finishes me off. I lost just because I was too greedy…because I didn’t play that Sharphooter on my hand and keep Port + X to seal away his W mana.
1-2
What went wrong here? Why didn’t I win a MU that I practiced like a hundred times? Why didn’t I beat a list that is 98% the same as the one I practiced with?
First of all: I do not want to blame that spectator who cheered me in G3. If I had found him irritating I could have told him to please be quiet – but I didn’t. I must admit that I somehow felt honored by his “praise” and this is what actually played a role for that poor move. I got arrogant and thought that I was in total control of the game (remember: he had only 5 permanents 1 of them was actually a danger) because I know this MU from the bottom to the top.
What can we learn from that?
* Never ever pass control of a gamestate away so lightly.
* Don’t get arrogant, ever! Especially not when you are fighting a DTB.
* Note that even the audience can influence a gamestate (although unknowingly and indirect). Praise is nice. It’s in human nature to easily adopt positive comments over ourselves without questioning them.
Round 3 - Uwb Faeries
Game 1: I have a gut-feeling that my opponent doesn’t play blue (although I have never seen him before). I have to mull down to 6 and keep a rather risky hand (relying on my gut-feeling): Wasteland, Aether Vial, Warchief, Ringleader, Gempalm, SGC. I go first. Force of will catches my T1 Vial…fuck. I mange to not find a single land among the next 10 cards.
IN: 4 Pyrokinesis, 1 Tuktuk Scrapper
OUT: 3 MWM, 1 Goblin Chieftain, 1 Lightning Bolt
Game 2: I have to take mulligan to 4 because I don’t want to repeat that mistake from G1 (and in part because I didn’t have a land on my first and 3rd hand). He keeps his first hand and greets me with T2 bitterblossom and T3 Jitte. Still he has a hard time killing me. 8-9 turns later he kills me cause I’m not able to find goblins anymore
0-2
What went wrong here?
Goblins can be really scary even with mulligan @ 5. That’s why some players like it so much: it’s just sooo consistant. Our deck is very reliable (most of the time)…at least more reliable than my gut-feeling. My mistake was that I should have mulled down to 5 in G1. G2 is just what I deserved, still it wasn’t easy for him to kill me (even with early jitte), but I don’t feel bad for losing against his draw with me having to mull down to 4.
What can we learn from that?
* Never keep risky hands. Our deck is just too reliable and can be really scary even with Mull5
* Our deck can fight back even with Mull4
* Don’t rely on your gut-feeling (at least it’s MY gut-feeling one shouldn’t rely on)
Round 4 – Goblins
We know that we are playing the mirror.
Game 1: He goes first, I win.
Game 2: He goes first, I win.
2-0
Round 5 – Enchantress
Game 1: I know what he’s playing, so I mull down to 5 to keep a rather fast hand. I’m able to take him down to 11 before he locks me off.
Before I scoop I ask him for how long he’s been playing his deck (cause he’s rather young: ~15). He tells me that this is his 2nd tourney ever. I expect him to be a bad player.
IN: 4 Chalice of the Void, 1 Vexing Shusher
OUT: 3 Gempalm Incinerator, 2 Aether Vial.
Game 2: I take mulligan to 5 to have an aggressive start. All I find is Wasteland, Vial, Chalice, 2 MWM. I go first with Vial and find a land on turn 2 to cast Chalice @1. On turn 3 he has Ghostly Prison. Still I’m able to beat him down to 5 before he locks me off. After the game he tells me that he has a lot of practice with his deck; with this MU in particular; cause he has been introduced to Enchantress by “goldfishing” Goblins a hundred time.
0-2
What went wrong here?
You be the judge, I really don’t know.
What can we learn from that?
* age hardly tells anything about experience
* fast starts can beat Enchantress
* still it is a tough MU
Round 6 – W Moat Staxx (yeah, the one with 4 Moat and 4 Humility)
Game 1: I know what he is playing, however, he goes first and those facts don’t influence my mulligan decisions. I mull down to 5. He starts with Mox Diamond, Ancient Tomb, Trinisphere. On turn 2 He plays Humilty, I scoop.
IN: 1 Vexing Shusher
OUT: 1 Gempalm Incinerator
Game 2: I mull down to 5 and keep a hand with only Skirk Prospector, but lots of Wastelands/Ports. I am able to effectively shut his mana off while my lonely Skrikprospector beats him down to 11. With 6 lands and 2 Ports I play Goblin Chieftain (with 2 Lands and 1 R from Skirk Prospector) to be able to tap 2 lands in his upkeep. This was a poor move cause I could just have tapped 3 lands, attack for 4 and use Skirk Prospector’s mana for Port activation in his upkeep. I tap 2 lands (Ancient Tomb, Plains), although he has 2 Plains. He plays Mox Diamond and Ancient tomb from hand and casts Moat. I regret not having tapped those 2 Plains of his. On my turn I play SGC. On his turn he play Armageddon. I regret having sacrificed my Prospector (cause he is on 5 meanwhile, because of his Ancient Tomb). I don’t find lands anymore to make use of SGC’s tokens.
0-2
What went wrong here?
I clearly do not have enough experience with this MU. Plus, this is my first tourney playing Skirk Porspector (not having practiced his interaction before). This shows me that I have to practice a) the Staxx-MU and b) the use of Skirk Prospector.
What do we learn from that?
* Skirk Prospector is a good way to fight Armageddon
* Staxx can be very fast in locking us away
* Staxx is somewhat vulnerable to mandenial (to Port in particular, cause they have hard times to provide WW).
I hope you found this rather unusual report helpful. Although it’s more fun to report good results we should note that we can learn much more from our mistakes than we want to admit. Plus, bad performance happens quite often and by evaluating on the tourney and the matches in particular one can avoid making mistakes over again. This might also be helpful for other players in the sense that they might be able to avoid those mistakes.
First I'd like to say your report was great. I've been talking to my teammates and have always said how people don't write useful tournament reports. Stories of victory seem like a glory hog's way of gloating. This is how tournament reports should be written since people need to discuss where the flaws in the card choices or plays are. Stories of victories are useful to show how the deck works, but I'm sure the primer does that better. We don't need more of those. We need more adaptation and in order for that to happen, we have to analyze the flaws.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoboLord
Let me first say this. When I read your report, I notice you mulligan quite aggressively for specific hate. I think I have to disagree with this line of play since if you start off with 5 cards every game, you are effectively nullifying one of your own Ringleaders. I only mulligan for land and 1-drop and it seems to work very well. I don't mullligan for hate... shit happens.
Now referring to your tournament, please note that when I say "you," I don't mean you specifically, but Goblin players in general.
Round 2: I think you saw your own flaw. To elaborate though, when a Goblin player has their lock on, they should never break it especially if they have a board advtage. Just keep swinging until they break out, then do your thing. You don't need to rush into Goblin Piledrivers because every turn you get, you get to draw also.
Round 3: Poor intuition game one. You knew it was risky. Sharpshooter should have demolished him. What happened?
Round 5: You weren't prepared, you need Anarchy.
Round 6: It's called Dutch Stax. Again, you need Anarchy and ALWAYS PORT COLOUR MANA. I doubt Smokestack will hurt you much. You play Mogg War Marshall and you can get permanens out way faster than he can.
I hope I helped.
You can't win the all.
I've played Golbins in an event with 58-59 people yesterday. Usually i don't play goblins but because I traded must of the stuff I just went with it. I copied gobolords list because he made top 8 at the dutch legacy champs. The only changes i made: -1 skirk prospector +1 incinerator and sideboard -1 vexing shusher +1 boarktusk liege (compared to the list in his last post).
Short report:
Round 1: UGW bant agro
Game one my lackey gets countered but warchief + piledriver give me enough speed to win the game
Game two: I port him out of the game while beating for 3 each turn; he had a Jitte in play so I took thing slow and kept him of his green mana for most of the game
It's really nice to see how you can play agro in one game and play control in the other.
Round two Dark Horizons
Game one my ringleaders+matrons are to much for his removal and discard
Game two he gets plague+deed+beats
Game three he gets a plague again and a hymm hits my liege. I manage to clear the board with a playset of piledrivers in the extra turns, we are very close to killing each other but we both don't draw our outs
Round three: Counterthopter
Game one I get a fast start an kill him before he can muster any defense.
Game two he gets an early thopter foundry, I search for the scrapper but he has a second foundry; I would have won the game if he had not countered my sharpshooter but I did not expect the blue elemental blast. He gets a humilty so I concede to save time
Game three I have a fast start but his early removal slows me; he gets a counterbalance and a moat at 11 life. I resolve a vail to get the siege gang I tutored for, but because I am holding to I decide to play one of the (which obviosly gets countered), I was affraid of humilty; when the vail gets to 5 I want to kill him in 1 shot so when I got my 12th mana I activate my vail; he kills some of my golbins to make sure I cant kill him, finds humilty the turn after that and kills me with Jace
In hindhsight it would have been an easy win if I just held on the SCG and used on of them in his end step and the other one in my turn.
Round four: UG/w survival
game 1:An early lackey+removal win this game
Game 2: he gets an active Jitte but a combination of bolts, pyrokenesis incinerators and a siege gang leave him withouth guys and me with about 4 power which is enough to kill him in a few turn
Round five: dutch stack
game one I lackey in warchief, lackey and vail to set up a fast turn 3 or 4 kill (he only played a plains so far); he goes: turn 2 moat, turn 3 humility; turn 4 elspeth :(
Game two; when my first attack hits we note that he forgot to shuffle a card from his deck back..akward.. unfortunatly that means a game loss for him.
Game three: Ports and wastelands slow hiim down somewhat but not enough to win before he gets moat and humility again.
I think this matchup is practactly unwinnable; the deck doesn;t see much play, if you want to beat it you'll really need anarchy in the board.
Round 6: ANT
Game 1: I make a turn 1 lackey that puts a siege-gang in play and make a turn 2 piledriver to give my opponent one turn to win. He brainstorms but does not find the out he needs to win
Game 2: I mulligan to a 3 mountain, lackey gang commander hand, while my opponent mulls to 5 as well. The siege gang gets Thoughtseized but I get a matron in pliedrive to put him on a 2 turn clock. A port on my side takes care of his black mana and The final turn he is one or two mana short to win.
My record was 3-2-1 which was okay; I could have prevented the loss against the counterthopter deck but I did not expect to win against the dutch stax deck. If I'd play the deck again I probably would not play anarchy; the sideboard seems perfect to handle survival, combo and most agro decks the only thing I might consider is to play more Combo-hate.
Thanks for that.Quote:
Originally Posted by jin
I aggressively take mulligans in the MUs that are very very tough without enough speed (Enchantress, Staxx). I'd not take mulligan into hate. Most of the mulligan-decisions were based on the fact that the hands was simply not keepable. In the tourney I didnt even notice that I was taking mulligan too much. When I took a look at my notes today I saw those mulligan notes and went like "WTF?". In general I agree with you mulligan-philiosophy - I just couldn't compensate too many bad hands.Quote:
Originally Posted by jin
I know, this was just plain stupid (as I said in my conclusion of this part).Quote:
Originally Posted by jin
Well, its was Uwb Faeries - with U for Daze/Force/Spellstutter Sprite and W for Swords to Plowshares. I did have Sharpshooter after draining his counters and wasting his Tundras. But at that point his Jitte didn't allow me to keep him.Quote:
Originally Posted by jin
Disagreed. Actually the last time Enchantress appeared on oput monthly tourney was like 5 months ago. Yesterday there were 4. Not using Enchantment hate was a meta-call.Quote:
Originally Posted by jin
Yeah, that's what I keep praying each and every Goblin player for like 1 year. It was just a stupid mistake (actually a row of stupid mistakes). And again: disagreed on the Anarchy. It's a metacall again.Quote:
Originally Posted by jin
Well, what I'm saying is you needed Anarchy since you had to face both Enchantress and Stax (you need it in your metagame). I wouldn't expect to need Anarchy either. Yeah, it just seems like it wasn't your day today. I guess Vandalize's 20% Luck got you...Quote:
Originally Posted by GoboLord
With this post I have new found respect for you, GoboLord! :wink:Quote:
Originally Posted by GoboLord
It is one thing to post all accomplishments, but to admit your inadequacies in order for green, inexperienced players such as myself to pick up on is the true sign of a veteran.
With that saying, I like how you demonstrated how to effectively use ports to lock out opponents, it is in this specific area that I am finding myself not maximizing its abilities. Can we discuss more of our experiences on port , and to some extent wasteland, game winning strategies? Thanks!
@Gobolord: Good report. Being able to learn from your mistakes, I have found, is very rewarding. And god damn every time I play against Enchantress it's like they don't even have a life total; I'm always 1 turn away from alpha striking and they just lock me out and there is nothing I can do. Such is life. Did you end up liking the Skirk Prospector? It's always nice to have another 1 drop and the silly things you can do with the guy is so cool.