I dunno, if I had a Clique in hand and my opponent was playing Gobbos with a Vial @4, I would probably hold onto it to pluck the Ringleader from him if I didn't need to lay it down to have a body on the field.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zay
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I dunno, if I had a Clique in hand and my opponent was playing Gobbos with a Vial @4, I would probably hold onto it to pluck the Ringleader from him if I didn't need to lay it down to have a body on the field.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zay
Against Faeries you vialed in Ringleader in your upkeep in an attempt to not draw into a land. That isn't really a valid stategy. I understand that you were worried about drawing land, land, land, lackey, but unless you've stacked your deck recently you have no control over whether your ringleader will be clearing lands or not. And even if your Ringleader does blank 4 lands, there's no guarantee that the fifth card you draw for your turn won't be a land also. Basically, unless you know what the top cards of your library look like, Ringleader in no way affects your probability of drawing a land for the turn.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoboLord
But that's not really the issue. Clearly the factor that made Vialing in your upkeep a misplay was the presence of Vendilion Clique, and since you knew you were against a faerie deck you could have played it better. However, I'm not going to rag on you too hard because your opponent was clearly in control over how they played their Vendilion Clique. You weren't. Since you had a Vial online at 4 counters there in no way in the world that your opponent was going to use that Vendilion Clique at any point other than in response to your Vial activation. Usually Clique comes down at the end of your draw step, putting the best card in your hand at the bottom of your library and giving you a lesser topdeck. There was still the possibility you opponent would have played him then, to which you could have responded with Vial. But by taking the initiative you took away your ability to be reactive.
So, Vialing Ringleader in your upkeep doesn't change the probability of you drawing a land for the turn, so it was a mistake to lose your ability to be reactive with Vial to do so.
Against Ooze, how did you lose the second game? With the game state you described it seems pretty clear that you would Pyro the Goyf, pitching Matron, then connect with Instigator to put Ringleader and whatever else you draw into play. I would pitch the Matron since the only card I could see myself fetching with Matron would be a Ringleader. You're out of cards in hand. He's the obvious choice.
G3 you said you kept a risky hand. I'm guessing that means WI and no 1 drop. WI is great against combo when you absolutely know he'll be getting through T3, but against decks with creatures it's pretty slow keeping him as your only way to cheat goblins into play. You probably should have mulled to a 1 drop in that situation, especially since you were on the play.
@ GoboLord
Against Faeries: I probably would not have vial'ed in the Ringleader during my upkeep. My reasoning is that I would have drawn for the turn and then Ringleader during mainphase because this way I can see 5 cards total. Like what jrw1985 said, you can't control what is in that top 4 cards, so I would have drawn for the turn (irrelevant if it's a land because Ringleader would have put it on the bottom anyways). The option for seeing more cards off the top of your deck seems to be ideal since you were pretty low on cards.
Against Ooze Survival: I agree with jrw1985, pitch the Matron to Pyrokinesis and let WI bring in Ringleader to refill your hand.
I think your opponent played well. I don't think there's a good way to navigate around Clique in this situation - playing around it seems like as big a hindrance to Goblins' game plan than walking into it. As Zay mentioned, about all you can do is try to draw Clique and Stifle out with Vial activations.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoboLord
Assuming they don't have White mana up for Swords, I guess the least risky line of play is option B, where you guarantee both WI triggers, Matron into SGC.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoboLord
Option A has a lot of potential, chances are Ringleader hits some more Goblins, but the issue comes up of what are you going to hit? More Lackeys and WIs isn't spectacular with an otherwise empty hand; Gempalm is good to have in hand, but isn't good with a WI trigger hanging on the stack. Matron and Piledriver are pretty good flips. Ringleader, and SGC are optimal. There's a big chunk of your deck remaining that's Aether Vials, Pyrokinesises and Lands though.
When you weigh Matron and SGC on board versus Ringleader and a mystery goblin on board, I'd take the sure thing and go with SGC.
Option C definitely seems suboptimal against a deck running Thoughtseize and Cabal Therapy, because if you Matron on your turn and pass back that gives them a dangerous amount of information and another turn to potentially Mind Twist you.
@ from Cairo
Totally forgot that WI has 2 triggers. I was thinking it was Lackey for some reason
About the Ooze-Survival thing:
I actually did what most of you would have done: option a): pitch Matron bring in Ringleader. Ringleader revealed 4 lands and all I did for the rest of the game was drawing lands, while he got his Survival online. Vengevines raped me short after.
Still there would have been an better option with Pyrokinesis: Pitch Ringleader, WI connects into Matron; Matron fetches Ringleader. The way I did it I had only 2 creatures (RL and WI), otherwise I would have had 3 (Matron, RL, WI).
Afterall: The best option would have been Matron into SGC. With 3 Lands in play and 2 on hand SGCs tokens would have been able to chumpblock + burn Vengevines.
Thank for your mindful comments so far!
Another topic I want to talk about is my (our) decklist(s) for 2011. Several people already wrote that they will probably pick up Rb lists. So far there havn't been good comments and reasons for that (although I don't doubt that playing black IS good). I already thought about it and have designed a decklist.
//Lands [23]:
8 Wate/Port
9 Mountain
4 Badlands
2 Auntie's Hovel
//Core [26]
...guess what...
//Others [6+5]
3 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Stingscourger
1 Warren Weirding
2 Wort, Boggart Auntie
3 Mogg War Marshall
//Sideboard [15]
4 Leyline otV
4 Chalice otV
3 Pyrokinesis
2 Earwig Squad
2 Tuktuk Scrapper
First of all: I'm not good at predicting the metagame (neither in the US nor in Germany). Because of this I ask people who are better at it and those people told me to expect a control and combo metagame in the future.
* This is why I cut my removal from 8 to 6 slots.
* I wanted to pick up Earwig Squad (I find this card good against control and combo only), therefore I added MWM to increase the chances of being able to "prowl" him into play.
* Wort is a very good card in lategame. She recycles our removal, that's why I play goblin-removal only.
I would probably assume the control role in the scenario against Survival. Just hardcast your Matron, go fetch Gempalm, pass the turn, assume the control role from there. You have a Gempalm, a Ringleader and a Pyrokinesis with a good amount of lands. If you draw buisiness you probably win, if you draw lands you can hardcast Pyrokinesis. This approach is a tad slower and gives him more time to topdeck Survival, but it could force him to play out the creatures in his hand. You lost in an unfortunate fashion, I don't think there would have been too much you could have done to win this game.
Quick Question: Would you keep a hand like this vs control or combo?:
Mountain
Mountain
Lackey
Lackey
Gempalm
Wasteland
Vial
I'm inclined to trow it away because there's absolutely nothing in this hand to put any pressure on.
I would keep this hand.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nelis
Against Combo: Gempalm is a creature and can therefore be used for the beatdown.
Against Control: They will probably counter your Lackey or "waste" an removal for him. Either way: you still have a backup Lackey and Vial (which are both dangerous cards).
Wasteland is attractive in both MUs.
Definitely would keep it. It has all the cards that are nice to see in your opening hand. Just go for it and hope to draw into some form of gas.
In my opinion that hand is just sick, I would keep it in every matchup and rejoice.
You have 10 cards (Matron, SGC, Ringleader) that will make you very happy when you draw them and have quite a lot of draws to find one of these cards, with Gempalm cycling and Wasteland buying you another draw step. Even if you don't draw these and draw a Piledriver, a Wasteland or a Rishadan Port you are still in a very decent position. Keep in mind that Goblins is much better equipped to play the control role than the aggro role.
I don't want to be a know-it-all, but actually playing Ringleader in upkeep does decrease the probability of drawing lands and/or non-creature spells. Let me proof my point with a short example (attention: maths involved!):Quote:
Originally Posted by jrw1985
Lets say its the upkeep of turn 5 and we managed to play a land in each of our 4 mainphases. To keep it simple: non of those lands was a fetchland. So there are 18 lands in our library.
We control Aether Vial with 4 counters and the only card in hand is a Goblin Ringleader.
We didn't play Goblin Matron or Gempalm Incinerator, so our library contains 50 cards (18 of which are lands).
The regular chance to draw a land is therefore 18/50= 36,0%
Let's now see what happens if we play Ringleader in upkeep:
We play Ringleader in upkeep. We see 4 cards (It doesn't matter here if there are lands among those cards. Instead of putting those 0-4 cards on bottom of library we could remove them from game and put them on bottom of library after our drawphase - either way: we know that those 0-4 cards won't affect the chance of drawing a land among the remaining 46 cards). The probability to draw a land in drawphase is therefore:
18/46= 39,13% (...when RL reveals 4 Goblins)
17/46= 36,95% (...when RL reveals 3 Goblins)
16/46= 34,78% (...when RL reveals 2 Goblins)
15/46= 32,6% (...when RL reveals 1 Goblin)
or 14/46= 30,43% (...when RL reveals 0 Goblins)
As I said before: The chance to draw a land without interference of Ringleader in a 50-cards library with 18 lands was 36%.
Therefore the chance to not draw a land is decreased in 3 out of 5 possible cases.
I know that the difference is very small, but I think we should profit even from the slightest advantage. (That's a bit like the snow-flake-metaphor: a single snow-flake on a branch does nothing, but a thousand snow-flakes can break it.)
@GobboLord: I don't know if putting Aether Vial in your math would change anything, but I guess it wouldn't, so I agree with your calculations here.
Anyway, regarding on using Ringleader o the upkeep, I wouldn't. Specially if you're afraid of Clique.
The reason behind that is: the card you draw for the turn can make your play different. If you draw a Matron, things could go other way. If you draw a Port/Waste, you could screw him, and make him use Clique before he wanted to, so you can respond with Vial.
The deal is, is hard to figure whether he has Clique or don't, but you did not had to do that.
The safest play (and I'm not saying is the one I would do. I really don't know) would be to pass the turn.
Then, 2 things could happen:
1 - He EOT Cast Clique. So you respond with Ringleader, and hope to get at least 2 good cards.
2 - Make a frown face, and pass. If he does not use Clique, use Vial in HIS upkeep. I have never seen someone that would hold back Clique in that situation. I mean, why wouldn't he cast it? There's no reason. So, before his draw, you get the Ringleader trigger. Oh, you didn't bash for 2, but whatever.
I guess that, if you pass the turn, the opponent might think you have a SGC in your hand, or a Gempalm, so he would definitely cast it.
Everyone is so sure about keeping this hand, but i would be extremely careful in this situation. I hate relying completely on my draws to win me games. In my last tournament, i had two hands almost identical to this one and got destroyed in both of them. In the first, I went on to draw 7 lands in my next 8 drawsQuote:
Originally Posted by Nelis
Well, if you draw 7 lands out off your next 8 cards, there simply aren't much hands that could have been good.Quote:
Originally Posted by TossUsToLions
But hey, you survived until 8th turn, so that should count for something! =D
That is true :smile:Quote:
Originally Posted by ScatmanX
But it was just an example of how relying completely on draws is bad. Yeah, if you draw a ringleader/matron/SGC then you're set. But if you draw a Chieftain, Warchief, vial, lackey, gempalm, land, Mogg War Marshall, Warren Instigator, Warren Weirding, Lightning Bolt, or Piledriver then you basically have nothing. What if your next three draws are Vial, land, Piledriver. That's three turns where you sit there and do pretty much nothing. By keeping this hand, you are taking a chance: Draw one of 10 cards (Ringleader, Matron, SGC) and probably win, or draw anything else and probably lose. And the more draws you go without hitting one of those 10 cards, the greater the probability that you lose becomes.
I am very hesitant about relying on good draws that's why I asked. I'm more of an agressive muliganer, I guess.
Another question. How do you guys treat Stingscourger and Gempalm Incinerator in tems of the deck's curve? Do you look at their CMC and fit them in the curve accordingly or do you look at them some other way?
I treat them as 2 mana removal spells. Typically you will only play them on turn 2 if you can get a Lackey to connect that same turn. Their casting cost doesn't really matter because whether or not you need to use them depends on the game state.
Hmm, if you're running 2 Wort, Boggart Auntie, why not give Lightning Crafter a try? It usually "Champion" a Matron, if it gets removed, you can bring your matron back fetching a Wort, and recover the Crafter shortly after. Seems good in theory, and Crafter is really good against some decks.
If something gets Removed (Exiled) from the game, Wort cannot get it back.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vandalize