[Deck] Goblins

Fimo : I am a an of krenko + hastelords, but i have to say that the last tournament i copied max tietze's list and i felt very very comfortable with it losing in the finals. Now i'm not planning to change deck configuration.

About siege-gang commander, the most obvious reason to run him over krenko is that a t2 siege-gang cheated in through lackey is much more impactful than krenko. This may not matter against fair decks when lackey isn't likely to connect, but against combo you need immediate pressure and sgc is much more faster than krenko when lackey can connect.
The combo matchup is another reason to run piledrivers, because he is the best 2 drop against combo apart from thalia. I think i wouldn't go lower than 3 piledrivers, and if I'm going to run thalia i would cut some mogg war marshals before cutting piledrivers.

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Originally Posted by fimo

GoboLord, I don t want be misunderstood here let me put it another way. What I can see from looking at decklists on the net, including this forum, is that the large majority of goblin players are piloting the same list or very similar lists. BUT from my experience in playing all sort of goblin lists I can say that there is not a flat out best goblin list. GoboLord, your statistical analysis shows it clearly: jim Davis/Max Tietze variant is NOT the far most succesfull list and my playtesting confirms this. It is a solid solid list but it is by no means the best. Then back to my question: why is it that most people play that list or a very slight variation from it????

My criticism comes about from the observation that the most played a list is not the best list. I do not see the reason why most players would play that list if it is not the clear best.

I cannot explain this trend with my playtesting, in fact I found PD and SCG to be underperforming as compared to krenko and thalia and I had much more succes in tournaments with thalia/krenko. Is this my playstyle? Is it my meta? Very probable. But again: from a staitstical point of view there should be a part of the people that feel more confident with a type of list and another part of people that feel most confident with another if both were valid choices. Instead, the great majority plays 3-4 piledrivers and no krenko. The only explanation I can give to this trend is that since goblins is an old archetype and piledriver and SGC have been two undiscussed (and well deserved) staples for a long time they are seeing still tons of play now more for a nostalgic feeling than for a solid deserved place in today's metagame. But again I am not attacking anybody, I just want to discuss and listen to your point of view, I enjoy better these sort of discussions than the regular "how many SB pyrokinesis should I play?"

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A few things:

- GoboLord's analysis shouldn't be taken to be anything more than what it is: a summary of results posted in public fora. His analysis does not, and can not, prove which list is the most successful because the data necessary to show that simply does not exist.

- You see no reason why most people would pilot that list if it was not "clearly" the best. Well, lots of reasons, one of them being that there is no such thing as a "clear" best list for any deck. The reality is that factors like individual player skill, luck, local meta, and all kinds of similar variants are more important to players' success with an archetype than having the "perfect" list which, because of aforementioned variants, simply doesn't exist even in the abstract. Because there is no such thing as the perfect list, most people will gravitate to a more generic build using cards that have proven themselves over time, rather than fine-tuning it in an effort to arrive at the most ideal list imaginable. (This goes for the pros, too: Tietze is not a particularly heavy Legacy play-tester, spending most of his time on Standard, so he runs a very simple Goblin list, the same one he's been running since the stone age, even though he probably knows that he could improve on it.) Put simply, most people don't have the resources to playtest their way to the best list possible for their given meta, so it is perfectly reasonable to use their available resources working with a list that contains as few unknown factors as possible. Magic is extremely complicated, and small adjustments can have lots of unintended effects on the way a deck works, so for most people it simply is not worth it to branch out into all kinds of supposedly creative--but possibly very bad--secret tech.

- The reality is that it is possible to win with any reasonably viable deck, if you are a good enough player and understand the tools you're using. Tietze is a great case in point. He posts excellent results repeatedly in spite of the fact that his list almost certainly contains a few sub-optimal card choices (running 4 Piledrivers, for example). Seeing that kind of success makes a lot of people think that the list is more optimal than it is, so my guess is there's a measure of that happening too.

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Originally Posted by EluThingol

A few things:

- GoboLord's analysis shouldn't be taken to be anything more than what it is: a summary of results posted in public fora. His analysis does not, and can not, prove which list is the most successful because the data necessary to show that simply does not exist.

- You see no reason why most people would pilot that list if it was not "clearly" the best. Well, lots of reasons, one of them being that there is no such thing as a "clear" best list for any deck. The reality is that factors like individual player skill, luck, local meta, and all kinds of similar variants are more important to players' success with an archetype than having the "perfect" list which, because of aforementioned variants, simply doesn't exist even in the abstract. Because there is no such thing as the perfect list, most people will gravitate to a more generic build using cards that have proven themselves over time, rather than fine-tuning it in an effort to arrive at the most ideal list imaginable. (This goes for the pros, too: Tietze is not a particularly heavy Legacy play-tester, spending most of his time on Standard, so he runs a very simple Goblin list, the same one he's been running since the stone age, even though he probably knows that he could improve on it.) Put simply, most people don't have the resources to playtest their way to the best list possible for their given meta, so it is perfectly reasonable to use their available resources working with a list that contains as few unknown factors as possible. Magic is extremely complicated, and small adjustments can have lots of unintended effects on the way a deck works, so for most people it simply is not worth it to branch out into all kinds of supposedly creative--but possibly very bad--secret tech.

- The reality is that it is possible to win with any reasonably viable deck, if you are a good enough player and understand the tools you're using. Tietze is a great case in point. He posts excellent results repeatedly in spite of the fact that his list almost certainly contains a few sub-optimal card choices (running 4 Piledrivers, for example). Seeing that kind of success makes a lot of people think that the list is more optimal than it is, so my guess is there's a measure of that happening too.

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Man, thank you for this post. Extremely clear and well written. I think you pinpointed wery well two things that I failed to consider:
- the "flattering factor" of playing a list similar to that of great goblin players like Davis/Tietze
- the fact that not everybody is a maniac like me in trying to continuosly fine tuning the list. And for good reasons. As you say, fine tuning the list may not even have a great impact on the deck performances since many factors are involved, first of all, the player' skills.

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Originally Posted by fimo

if we agree that there is more than one decklist which can be equally powerfull why do 80% of the goblins players play with the same 50 years old list +/- minor changes? That list that I am referring to is the jim Davis/Max tietze list. Either that list is MUCH more powerful than the others or there is something strange here. And if we agree that their list is not MUCH more powerful than others, why do most people don t deviate from that? Or deviate only slightly from that? It cannot even be playstyle because I don t believe that such a large proportion of goblins players have the same playstyle.

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I've tried out a lot of different lists. I've tried Mox/Winstigator. I've run Rb with Therapy and Leyline. MonoR (portless, because I was a scrub then). Rw. Rg. Rwg. Krenko/Chieftain.

One thing I learned very early on in playing constructed magic (standard as it happen, but the principle applies to legacy too) is that your ego doesn't matter. Scrubs all over the world want to win their THEIR list, as if the fact that they innovated their list makes it twice as much of a win.

I tried Max's list as a 1-off experiement (my list was already a bit close to his, but making the change required me to move Thalia to the SB, a card I have advocated in this thread as much as you are currently defending Chieftains). My local meta is a bit combo oriented, so I was hesitant to make the change. I did it anyway. And I won the tournament. Not with my list. With his.

Now, one tournament is a small sample size, and not enough to lock conclusions in stone. But Max keeps putting up results, and what's more, other people are *also* putting up results with his list. I think it's clear that his list is the 'first among equals' when it comes to goblins in the current meta.

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Originally Posted by fimo

Long story short: I think that it is important to keep in mind that is a good idea to try out major changes with the list.

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Yes, it's fine. But as GoboLord says, you ALSO have to be prepared to kill your babies. You tried radical idea X in a large tournament. And you got your head handed to you? Maybe the idea isn't as potent as you theorycrafted it.

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Originally Posted by fimo

it is not enough to swap a SGC for a krenko to test the power level of krenko. The list may need to undergo great changes and that may end up being actually a good idea!

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Look, I was in EXACTLY the same boat as you when Krenko was spoiled. How he was SO powerful that he was warping the card choices around him. There were pages of discussion about how many lords were the right number to run to make him broken. And slowly over time, that number went from 4, to 3, to 2, to 1. And now it's optional as to whether people run 0 or 1 chieftain and 0 or 1 krenko in their lists.

You seem to think that you're lifting the scales from our eyes with your radical notions. You're not. We have tested him, and found him wanting.

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Originally Posted by fimo

Don't be afraid to test a list with 0 piledrivers. Piledrivers were fantastic in a world where merfolk was a deck to beat. Piledriver was fantastic in a world where the most unfair creature your opponent could cheat into play was a (blue) progenitus. Now that merfolk have disappeared from this world and emrakul and griselbrand have joined the party it may be a good idea to even cut piledriver completely. Seriously, nobody gets hurt if you try. And at the same time wizard gave us a 2cc thorn of amenthys with legs to play with (thalia).

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You're exactly right, and you can see that this discussion has actually taken place in this thread. The 'is it ok to cut Piledriver' conversation has is recognisable in it's modern form 'how many two drops should you run', which contains within it the implicit arguement that it's ok to swap out Piledriver for Thalia if you want to do that.

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Originally Posted by fimo

Same thing for krenko. SGC has been then only decent playable "fatty" for a long time. Now that another goblin with high potential has been printed (krenko) people shouldn t be afraid to play with him.

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Dude. I could respect you making this arguement before M13 was released. But Krenko has been out for over a year. You come across as a little arrogant in thinking that people haven't tried him for themselves.

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Originally Posted by fimo

GoboLord, I don t want be misunderstood here let me put it another way. What I can see from looking at decklists on the net, including this forum, is that the large majority of goblin players are piloting the same list or very similar lists. BUT from my experience in playing all sort of goblin lists I can say that there is not a flat out best goblin list. GoboLord, your statistical analysis shows it clearly: jim Davis/Max Tietze variant is NOT the far most succesfull list and my playtesting confirms this. It is a solid solid list but it is by no means the best. Then back to my question: why is it that most people play that list or a very slight variation from it????

My criticism comes about from the observation that the most played a list is not the best list. I do not see the reason why most players would play that list if it is not the clear best.

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I'm more than happy for you to suggest a better list for discussion. I'm open to the idea that a monoR list or a Winstigator list or even a chieftain list is as good or better.

I don't think you can cite GoboLord's analysis as a justification for running 3 + Chieftains though.

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Originally Posted by fimo

I cannot explain this trend with my playtesting, in fact I found PD and SCG to be underperforming as compared to krenko and thalia and I had much more succes in tournaments with thalia/krenko.

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What decks were you playtesting against and what were your results? What mattered in each matchup?

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Originally Posted by fimo

if we agree that there is more than one decklist which can be equally powerfull why do 80% of the goblins players play with the same 50 years old list +/- minor changes? That list that I am referring to is the jim Davis/Max tietze list. Either that list is MUCH more powerful than the others or there is something strange here. And if we agree that their list is not MUCH more powerful than others, why do most people don t deviate from that? Or deviate only slightly from that? It cannot even be playstyle because I don t believe that such a large proportion of goblins players have the same playstyle.

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I've tried out a lot of different lists. I've tried Mox/Winstigator. I've run Rb with Therapy and Leyline. MonoR (portless, because I was a scrub then). Rw. Rg. Rwg. Krenko/Chieftain.

One thing I learned very early on in playing constructed magic (standard as it happen, but the principle applies to legacy too) is that your ego doesn't matter. Scrubs all over the world want to win their THEIR list, as if the fact that they innovated their list makes it twice as much of a win.

I tried Max's list as a 1-off experiement (my list was already a bit close to his, but making the change required me to move Thalia to the SB, a card I have advocated in this thread as much as you are currently defending Chieftains). My local meta is a bit combo oriented, so I was hesitant to make the change. I did it anyway. And I won the tournament. Not with my list. With his.

Now, one tournament is a small sample size, and not enough to lock conclusions in stone. But Max keeps putting up results, and what's more, other people are *also* putting up results with his list. I think it's clear that his list is the 'first among equals' when it comes to goblins in the current meta.

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Originally Posted by fimo

Long story short: I think that it is important to keep in mind that is a good idea to try out major changes with the list.

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Yes, it's fine. But as GoboLord says, you ALSO have to be prepared to kill your babies. You tried radical idea X in a large tournament. And you got your head handed to you? Maybe the idea isn't as potent as you theorycrafted it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fimo

it is not enough to swap a SGC for a krenko to test the power level of krenko. The list may need to undergo great changes and that may end up being actually a good idea!

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Look, I was in EXACTLY the same boat as you when Krenko was spoiled. How he was SO powerful that he was warping the card choices around him. There were pages of discussion about how many lords were the right number to run to make him broken. And slowly over time, that number went from 4, to 3, to 2, to 1. And now it's optional as to whether people run 0 or 1 chieftain and 0 or 1 krenko in their lists.

You seem to think that you're lifting the scales from our eyes with your radical notions. You're not. We have tested him, and found him wanting.

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Originally Posted by fimo

Don't be afraid to test a list with 0 piledrivers. Piledrivers were fantastic in a world where merfolk was a deck to beat. Piledriver was fantastic in a world where the most unfair creature your opponent could cheat into play was a (blue) progenitus. Now that merfolk have disappeared from this world and emrakul and griselbrand have joined the party it may be a good idea to even cut piledriver completely. Seriously, nobody gets hurt if you try. And at the same time wizard gave us a 2cc thorn of amenthys with legs to play with (thalia).

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You're exactly right, and you can see that this discussion has actually taken place in this thread. The 'is it ok to cut Piledriver' conversation has is recognisable in it's modern form 'how many two drops should you run', which contains within it the implicit arguement that it's ok to swap out Piledriver for Thalia if you want to do that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fimo

Same thing for krenko. SGC has been then only decent playable "fatty" for a long time. Now that another goblin with high potential has been printed (krenko) people shouldn t be afraid to play with him.

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Dude. I could respect you making this arguement before M13 was released. But Krenko has been out for over a year. You come across as a little arrogant in thinking that people haven't tried him for themselves.

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Originally Posted by fimo

GoboLord, I don t want be misunderstood here let me put it another way. What I can see from looking at decklists on the net, including this forum, is that the large majority of goblin players are piloting the same list or very similar lists. BUT from my experience in playing all sort of goblin lists I can say that there is not a flat out best goblin list. GoboLord, your statistical analysis shows it clearly: jim Davis/Max Tietze variant is NOT the far most succesfull list and my playtesting confirms this. It is a solid solid list but it is by no means the best. Then back to my question: why is it that most people play that list or a very slight variation from it????

My criticism comes about from the observation that the most played a list is not the best list. I do not see the reason why most players would play that list if it is not the clear best.

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I'm more than happy for you to suggest a better list for discussion. I don't think you can cite GoboLord's analysis as a justification for running 3 + Chieftains though.

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Originally Posted by fimo

I cannot explain this trend with my playtesting, in fact I found PD and SCG to be underperforming as compared to krenko and thalia and I had much more succes in tournaments with thalia/krenko.

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What decks were you playtesting against and what were your results? What mattered in each matchup?

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Originally Posted by LeoCop 90

Fimo : I am a an of krenko + hastelords, but i have to say that the last tournament i copied max tietze's list and i felt very very comfortable with it losing in the finals. Now i'm not planning to change deck configuration.

About siege-gang commander, the most obvious reason to run him over krenko is that a t2 siege-gang cheated in through lackey is much more impactful than krenko. This may not matter against fair decks when lackey isn't likely to connect, but against combo you need immediate pressure and sgc is much more faster than krenko when lackey can connect.
The combo matchup is another reason to run piledrivers, because he is the best 2 drop against combo apart from thalia. I think i wouldn't go lower than 3 piledrivers, and if I'm going to run thalia i would cut some mogg war marshals before cutting piledrivers.

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For a long time I thought that a 1/1 split of Krenko/SGC was right, since because of matron you could have 5 effective copies of each and tutor for the right one in each situation. However, just like with KikiJiki, I came to the realisation that Krenko was a little bit 'win more' (even though when you 'go off' with him he's just ridiculously powerful). So I'm trying to just win, not win-more.

I want to lackey in SGC. I want to be able to defend against Jitte/Batterskull. I want to be able to shoot down opposing creatures. I'm already winning with 4 goblins in play, so I don't NEED to go from 4 to 8 goblins, or 16, or 32, as fun as doing those things is.

Not that it matters for the discussion, but i'm happy to play krenko in my edh goblins deck with krenko as a general.
People laughed at first when they saw a mono-red edh, until after some time i tuned my list abit and started crushing them all :) if you love goblins and krenko, you should try it.

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Originally Posted by magicmerl

You seem to think that you're lifting the scales from our eyes with your radical notions. You're not. We have tested him, and found him wanting.

Dude. I could respect you making this arguement before M13 was released. But Krenko has been out for over a year. You come across as a little arrogant in thinking that people haven't tried him for themselves.

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I by no means intent to be arrogant and I apologize if I sounded that way. Of course, I am sure that everybody has tested krenko but I have been loughed at for not playing SCG and I have been loughed at for playing no piledrivers from other "sopposed to be pros" magic players. "Only a fool could play a goblin list without the most broken 2 drop: goblin piledriever". Because +2 trigger for every attacking goblin is something I "couldn t" missed out on. Especially if I swapped it for a white non goblin creature called thalia.
My point is that my playtesting has proven differently. If yours didn t I respect that. But you should respect mine. It seems to me that the 60 card list of Davis/tietze gets too much advertisement as compared to what my playtesting shows it is worth. I would love to see thalia lists at big SGC events as I would love to see a mox/WI lists. Instead, I only see the same list putting up results. Since I don t believe that is the flat out best list (hey, I may be wrong on this) I wanted to understand the reasons for it.
If one has never played goblins before It would look like there is only one dominant list. Despite the SGC success of Max Tietze I wanted to point out, especially to new players that it is ok play something different. GoboLord analysis shows in fact that there are many different playable variants. I am not trying by no means to say anything new here. Everybody knows that already. I just felt like it was a good idea to stress this point, that s it.

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What decks were you playtesting against and what were your results? What mattered in each matchup?

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D&T is VERY big in my meta and with the good results it is putting on recently I think it will be bigger and bigger, especially at big tournaments. One among many of the reasons I stopped playing with piledrivers was that I got tired of it sucking against thalia. I mean seriously, thalia is supposed to be good against non creatures decks, and my big beater +2 trigger-boy piledriver is not even able to TRADE with her? that is SO depressing. I swapped PD with thalia because I like her fitting in the goblin plan "survive untill you get to cast ringleaders". She works good alongside MWM and mana denial in this plan. And for the damage output I am missing from cutting piledrivers I am conpensating with extra lords. And I like that thalia has an immediate impact on the board. Hey, I am not saying that everybody should switch to this configuration but can I say that it worked wonders in my playtesting? Unfortunatelly I have no chance to attend big events in USA for the time being so I will not be able to know how it performs in huge tournaments. I hope at some point I will go to something big in Europe though.

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Originally Posted by fimo

D&T is VERY big in my meta and with the good results it is putting on recently I think it will be bigger and bigger, especially at big tournaments. One among many of the reasons I stopped playing with piledrivers was that I got tired of it sucking against thalia. I mean seriously, thalia is supposed to be good against non creatures decks, and my big beater +2 trigger-boy piledriver is not even able to TRADE with her? that is SO depressing. I swapped PD with thalia because I like her fitting in the goblin plan "survive untill you get to cast ringleaders". She works good alongside MWM and mana denial in this plan. And for the damage output I am missing from cutting piledrivers I am conpensating with extra lords. And I like that thalia has an immediate impact on the board. Hey, I am not saying that everybody should switch to this configuration but can I say that it worked wonders in my playtesting? Unfortunatelly I have no chance to attend big events in USA for the time being so I will not be able to know how it performs in huge tournaments. I hope at some point I will go to something big in Europe though.

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Thalia + Port/Wasteland really is an outstanding combination for Goblins. And really, Piledriver kinda sucks. Now, I say that as somebody who still runs three of them, so it's not like I've dumped the card, but he's often a pretty easy cut.

One thing I will say is that the guy at my LGS running D&T right now absolutely hates Piledriver. He's good against them, actually. Whatever the case, though, you have to make decisions based on what's working in your meta. There's one store in particular here where everybody plays some kind of Storm/Combo deck, so when I'm there I always move Piledriver to the SB and just maindeck Thalia. It's an easy switch to make in those situations, so you don't owe anybody any explanations as far as that goes. It's just smart Magic, and after all the point is to win against the guy you're actually facing, not against "the field," generically speaking. To paraphrase one French diplomat, there are no general opponents, only particularopponents. The Tietze list (again, he's my favorite example) might be the best one against some massive regional meta in Atlanta, or against the Legacy meta "in general," or against Mr. Faceless Generic Opponent playing with Unknown Deck v. 1.0, but it's not optimal against any particular meta.

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Originally Posted by EluThingol

both postings on this page

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I agree with you on both of your postings.
Also, compliments for adapting to the "tradition" of the thread to post comments that have actual content and in which you explain yourself well (that's what most people are doing, and that's one of the reasons why I enjoy this thread so much).
However, there is one thing that I have to disagree with:

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There's one store in particular here where everybody plays some kind of Storm/Combo deck, so when I'm there I always move Piledriver to the SB and just maindeck Thalia.

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I my oppinion it's not correct to move Piledriver to the SB in a combo-heavy metagame. Maybe combo is not your only concern, but ion general I find Piledriver a extraordinary important card vs. combodecks because he can set up a very fast clock with relatively little board-presence. i.e. usually PD + 1 or 2 other goblins are enough to finish your opponent, which leaves your mana open for Manadenial and/or anti-combo-SB cards (be it Pyroblast, Cabal Therapy or CHalice of the Void).

On a different note:

After my last tourney (and also taking my recent analysis' results as well as insights from a few fellow Warchiefs into account) I've brewed a list. Explanation on some cardchoices can be found below.


//MANA (22)
4 Wasteland, 4 Rishadan Port
3 Cavern of Souls
2 Plateau
4 Mountain
5 Fetchlands

//CORE (20)
4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader

//CC2 (13)
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Mogg War Marshal
4 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Stingscourger

//OTHERS (5)
1 Skirk Prospector
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Goblin Chieftain
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Mirror Entity

//Sideboard (15)
4 Rest in Peace
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Pyrokinesis
1 Boartusk Liege

* ScatmanX got me thinking about that the full playset of Caverns is probably not needed. Ever since Cavern was printed people were playing the card as a 4-of (for good reasons I must say). However, in line with fimo's call for bravery to test out something new I want to test if cutting Caverns is an option. I think that cutting one might work, when you need to room for colorfixing AND if you want the full set of Wasteland and Ports (which is the case here)
* "my" lists replaces Krenko and SGC with Mirror Entity. After my last tourney I was reminded how annoying it can be losing a game with your bombs in hand, not played out. cmc4 and cmc5 cards can be effectively dead cards if you don't have the means for cheating them into play or playing them naturally. That's why I want my manacurve to play as few spells with cmc>3 as possible. Cutting RIngleader is (of course) not an option, so SGC and Krenko had to pack their things and go. I'm not saying that Mirror Entity is the best replacement there ist, but I think it might work out nicely. The card can (just as SGC) use up you mana at moments when you don't need it for spells or manadenial. Investing only 3 mana is already a crictical power-up for your team. I'm being realistic: the card is not gonna set up an alpha-strike all too often. I'm just curious how my opponents deal with that kind of threat. Mentity does several things for the deck, of which I can't yet judge how important they are: ocassionally protect against removal, ocassionally force your opponent to chumpblock a Matron, ocassionally draw removal, ocassionally mess with their combat math (as people won't know how you will use your mana: for more dudes, removal, manadenial or Mentity).
* I'm not entirely sold on Thalia in SB. Some time back I thought that Ethersworn Cannonist can be a reasonable replacement, depending on what you wnat the 3 slots to do. So I could see myself playing 3-4 slots with any combinatin of Thalia and/or Cannonist. SInce one of my major concerns is RUG thresh, or rather bURG thresh, Thalia could be overkill. RIP is strictly better in the MU. Other than that Thalia has a (storm-)Combo-Hating-Value...however, I find Cannonist to be more effective against (storm)combo.
* jrw1985 and ScatmanX both are convinced that maxing out your goblin count (or: not lowering your goblin count post-board) is a thing. That's why Pyrokinesis is competing with Tarfire as a 3-off in the SB. I'd say that there are only 2 MUs (Goblins and Elves)where Pyrokinesis is strictly better than Tarfire for what they are supposed to do...and both decks don't see play in my local meta.

I'd like to hear what people have to say about those issues (Mentity, Caverns, Thalia/Cannonist, Pyrokinesis/Tarfire). Maybe I'm missing something.

-GL

Mirror Entity can be great if you attack with 3/4 random goblins with some open mana, then if they don't block you vial in mirror entity and make all of them big. Does it count as a goblin for ringleader and matron ?

About Pyrokinesis vs Tarfire : i would always have pyrokinesis in sideboard. It is a house as you said against goblins,elves, but also death and taxes. Against goyf decks i don't think I would prefer to have tarfire because it makes goyfs bigger. I understand that you don't want to lower your goblin count, but i think tarfire is not an impactful enough card to justify slots in sideboard. It looks more as a maindeck card to me.

About Thalia vs Canonist:I think Thalia is better. Vs storm they are more or less equivalent(maybe canonist is a bit better). Vs Omnitell both thalia and canonist are going to ruin their plan if they want to win through omniscience. (canonist is a bit better also here). Vs Sneak and Show thalia can slow them down while canonist does nothing because they don't need to cast more than one spell to win. The same is valid for reanimator. And vs fair decks with a high noncreature spells density (canadian) thalia is better, also because canonist slows down also us, if we don't have a vial in play.

Krenko vs Siege gang comes down very simply to this.

1. With no haste lord siege gang has a much higher immediate impact.
2. Krenko is better long term vs any deck with creatures with 3+toughness or hexproof and especially against lifelink
3. In a deck with no rest in peace, no deathrite shaman and usually no leyline of the void, knight of the reliquary is a very difficult card to beat krenko solves that issue.
4. Speed against combo decks can often be critical. This meaning immediate impact is important for goblins
5. If you want to play krenko, your going to want the fifth haste lord which is of course very hard to fit in. The only options for cuts seem to be mogg war marshal, goblin piledriver both of which are better with the fifth haste lord, or one of your tutor package cards all of which seem pretty critical in certain match ups.

This makes it at least for me a very difficult decision.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GoboLord

After my last tourney (and also taking my recent analysis' results as well as insights from a few fellow Warchiefs into account) I've brewed a list. Explanation on some cardchoices can be found below.


//MANA (22)
4 Wasteland, 4 Rishadan Port
3 Cavern of Souls
2 Plateau
4 Mountain
5 Fetchlands

//CORE (20)
4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader

//CC2 (13)
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Mogg War Marshal
4 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Stingscourger

//OTHERS (5)
1 Skirk Prospector
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Goblin Chieftain
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Mirror Entity

//Sideboard (15)
4 Rest in Peace
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Pyrokinesis
1 Boartusk Liege

* ScatmanX got me thinking about that the full playset of Caverns is probably not needed. Ever since Cavern was printed people were playing the card as a 4-of (for good reasons I must say). However, in line with fimo's call for bravery to test out something new I want to test if cutting Caverns is an option. I think that cutting one might work, when you need to room for colorfixing AND if you want the full set of Wasteland and Ports (which is the case here)
* "my" lists replaces Krenko and SGC with Mirror Entity. After my last tourney I was reminded how annoying it can be losing a game with your bombs in hand, not played out. cmc4 and cmc5 cards can be effectively dead cards if you don't have the means for cheating them into play or playing them naturally. That's why I want my manacurve to play as few spells with cmc>3 as possible. Cutting RIngleader is (of course) not an option, so SGC and Krenko had to pack their things and go. I'm not saying that Mirror Entity is the best replacement there ist, but I think it might work out nicely. The card can (just as SGC) use up you mana at moments when you don't need it for spells or manadenial. Investing only 3 mana is already a crictical power-up for your team. I'm being realistic: the card is not gonna set up an alpha-strike all too often. I'm just curious how my opponents deal with that kind of threat. Mentity does several things for the deck, of which I can't yet judge how important they are: ocassionally protect against removal, ocassionally force your opponent to chumpblock a Matron, ocassionally draw removal, ocassionally mess with their combat math (as people won't know how you will use your mana: for more dudes, removal, manadenial or Mentity).
* I'm not entirely sold on Thalia in SB. Some time back I thought that Ethersworn Cannonist can be a reasonable replacement, depending on what you wnat the 3 slots to do. So I could see myself playing 3-4 slots with any combinatin of Thalia and/or Cannonist. SInce one of my major concerns is RUG thresh, or rather bURG thresh, Thalia could be overkill. RIP is strictly better in the MU. Other than that Thalia has a (storm-)Combo-Hating-Value...however, I find Cannonist to be more effective against (storm)combo.
* jrw1985 and ScatmanX both are convinced that maxing out your goblin count (or: not lowering your goblin count post-board) is a thing. That's why Pyrokinesis is competing with Tarfire as a 3-off in the SB. I'd say that there are only 2 MUs (Goblins and Elves)where Pyrokinesis is strictly better than Tarfire for what they are supposed to do...and both decks don't see play in my local meta.

I'd like to hear what people have to say about those issues (Mentity, Caverns, Thalia/Cannonist, Pyrokinesis/Tarfire). Maybe I'm missing something.

-GL

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Thanks for sharing the list but I didn t understand whether you already played with it at a local tournament

- MIRROR ENTITY. I have tested this guy for about a month, I think it was something like a year ago. At that point thalia and cavern of souls was not released but I was toying around with the white splash. I think it was even before krenko was released. Anyhow, I was testing out this guy and mother of runes. I have to say that I liked mirror entity. I then stopped playing the white splash for a long time so I actually forgot abount him. It has the ability of winning games out of nowere, like you play 2 MWM and this guy and you suddenly can attack with five 4/4 guys. The thing I liked the most about him is that he spreads the damage on ALL your dudes. At that point I was playing 4 PD and I liked the fact that I didn t have to focus all damage output on a single guy. It makes your damge output more reliable. And as you say, it messes up combat math A LOT. There were few things I didn t like about him though: (1) he usually does nothing the turn he comes into play, (2) he makes you even more vulnerable to E.plague. Despite my love for krenko, I actually really like the idea of cutting the high casting costs goblins for cheaper ones. Mentity may actually conpensate the damage output offered by cards like krenko and chieftain. I really look forward to hear how your playtesting goes. Maybe for the sake of testing you could upper the mirror entity count? Not much because I think that more than 1 is needed but because it will show up more often so you can conclude something from your testing.

- I share your feelings for thalia SB. Despite the fact that I really like her main deck I am not sure that I would like her in the SB. I think that she fits the main deck very well, she is very flexible, she always does something even in MUs where you dont want her all that much. However, if I were to find room in the SB for a card with a "thalia effect" I would rather play the best possible anticombo cards. I would rather go for chalice of the void, mindbreak trap or ethersworn canonist.

- why would you cut cavern for colorfixing in this list? you can play M.entity with a cavern naming goblins or you can play canonist with a cavern after SB. Sure, incinerator and RIP could hurt. But yeah, playtesting can t hurt. In my opinion, looking at your manabase, you are replacing a cavern with a basic mountain.

- my point of view on the goblin count is that it is a shaky concept. Why would I want a high goblin count? well mainly for ringleader flips, right? I believe that it does not matter that much how many
goblins you flip but what you flip. For instance, we all prefer to flip a matron and a gempalm rather than 4 lackeys. This is an extreme example but it highlights the fact that ringleader is a late game card and it will be most useful if it will flip late-game, game-winning cards. Back to the pyrokinesis/tarfire example, the question I ask myself is: does it matter more that I can ringleader-flip or matron for a tarfire OR does it matter more that a pyrokinesis has a more devastating effect? I think that a tarfire is most useful at the beginning of the game when you kill the blocker for lackey or stoneforge. By the point I can matron up for something or ringleader-flip something I don t think I will be looking for a tarfire. Sure, I will be happy to ringleader-flip it. However, I think that the much more powerful effect of pyrokinesis has an edge over the "being goblin" of tarfire.

P.S.: DISCLAIMER in case somebody brings it up again: I dont mean to sound arrogant and I respect everyone's point of view, even if you prefer tarfire over pyrokinesis, even if you play without ringleaders.
P.S.: as a very minor observation: If you name humans for one of your caverns to cast thalia, you can get a white mana from it to cast an uncouterable mirror entity.


EDIT: another little thing: Mirror entity can turn thalia into a goblin if you are mirring that +1 damage for gempalm incinerator

If you attack with Piledriver and 3 other goblins, and Piledriver's trigger resolves and it becomes 7/2, then you Vial in mirror entity after blocks and activate it for 4, Piledriver would become 10/4, correct?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jrw1985

If you attack with Piledriver and 3 other goblins, and Piledriver's trigger resolves and it becomes 7/2, then you Vial in mirror entity after blocks and activate it for 4, Piledriver would become 10/4, correct?

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Yes. Not to mention that your 3 attacking dudes are 4/4, too.

Anybody tested Goblin Diplomats yet?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GoboLord

I my oppinion it's not correct to move Piledriver to the SB in a combo-heavy metagame. Maybe combo is not your only concern, but ion general I find Piledriver a extraordinary important card vs. combodecks because he can set up a very fast clock with relatively little board-presence. i.e. usually PD + 1 or 2 other goblins are enough to finish your opponent, which leaves your mana open for Manadenial and/or anti-combo-SB cards (be it Pyroblast, Cabal Therapy or CHalice of the Void).

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This.
Piledriver opens up many more turn 3 and turn 4 goldfishes, many of which include Porting/Wasting, and has let me just flat out outrace ANT and TES before (not often but it's possible and embarrassing when the aggro deck does 20 damage first). Gobolord, do you have any data on performance of Piledivers vs no Piledrivers against combo?

I'd run both Thalia and Piledriver to give you more early action and cut "slower" stuff like Chieftain. Or he means he is boarding out Piledrivers to board in Thalias, I'm surprised there is a need to after -3/4 Gempalm -4 Ringleader.

Comments in bold.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fimo

I by no means intent to be arrogant and I apologize if I sounded that way. Of course, I am sure that everybody has tested krenko but I have been loughed at for not playing SCG and I have been loughed at for playing no piledrivers from other "sopposed to be pros" magic players. "Only a fool could play a goblin list without the most broken 2 drop: goblin piledriever". Because +2 trigger for every attacking goblin is something I "couldn t" missed out on. Especially if I swapped it for a white non goblin creature called thalia.
We're talking in circles a bit here. If people have wrong opinions about what is good in goblins, that's ok. You don't have to disabuse them of their misconceptions.

My point is that my playtesting has proven differently. If yours didn t I respect that. But you should respect mine. It seems to me that the 60 card list of Davis/tietze gets too much advertisement as compared to what my playtesting shows it is worth. I would love to see thalia lists at big SGC events as I would love to see a mox/WI lists.
But, Max's list IS a Thalia list. Just run in the SB, not MD. I personally think that the 75 card list is MUCH more important than the 60 card maindeck.

Instead, I only see the same list putting up results. Since I don t believe that is the flat out best list (hey, I may be wrong on this) I wanted to understand the reasons for it.
I'm more than happy to explore this with you. But please accept that I *have* run Max's list sometimes, and your arguement that people just run the same mindless list for years is quite false. People only really started adopting his list after he won a couple of SCG's with it, which happened some time last year. That's a far cry from his list being the same static list from 2008.

If one has never played goblins before It would look like there is only one dominant list. Despite the SGC success of Max Tietze I wanted to point out, especially to new players that it is ok play something different. GoboLord analysis shows in fact that there are many different playable variants. I am not trying by no means to say anything new here. Everybody knows that already. I just felt like it was a good idea to stress this point, that s it.
Yeah, that's fine. I think that the Krenko list has a lot of heavy lifting to do in terms of results to be considered on a par with Thalia, MonoR or Winstigator lists as being both proven AND successful, however. Do you think that is a reasonable comment to make?

D&T is VERY big in my meta and with the good results it is putting on recently I think it will be bigger and bigger, especially at big tournaments. One among many of the reasons I stopped playing with piledrivers was that I got tired of it sucking against thalia. I mean seriously, thalia is supposed to be good against non creatures decks, and my big beater +2 trigger-boy piledriver is not even able to TRADE with her? that is SO depressing. I swapped PD with thalia because I like her fitting in the goblin plan "survive untill you get to cast ringleaders".
And yeah, I think that Thalia and Piledriver occupy the same slot in the deck, and it's perfectly justifiable running one and not the other. In fact, I've long argued that it's right to run Thalia over Piledriver EVEN IF PILEDRIVER IS BETTER simply because that gives you more effective SB slots, which are so precious and in short supply.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by EluThingol

Thalia + Port/Wasteland really is an outstanding combination for Goblins. And really, Piledriver kinda sucks. Now, I say that as somebody who still runs three of them, so it's not like I've dumped the card, but he's often a pretty easy cut.
Yep. Sounds like we're in the same boat.

One thing I will say is that the guy at my LGS running D&T right now absolutely hates Piledriver. He's good against them, actually.
Yeah, I've found that my opponent respect Piledriver much more than I do.

Whatever the case, though, you have to make decisions based on what's working in your meta. There's one store in particular here where everybody plays some kind of Storm/Combo deck, so when I'm there I always move Piledriver to the SB and just maindeck Thalia. It's an easy switch to make in those situations, so you don't owe anybody any explanations as far as that goes. It's just smart Magic, and after all the point is to win against the guy you're actually facing, not against "the field," generically speaking. To paraphrase one French diplomat, there are no general opponents, only particularopponents. The Tietze list (again, he's my favorite example) might be the best one against some massive regional meta in Atlanta, or against the Legacy meta "in general," or against Mr. Faceless Generic Opponent playing with Unknown Deck v. 1.0, but it's not optimal against any particular meta.
When you do that, what cards do you bring in to your SB to replace them?

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by GoboLord

In my oppinion it's not correct to move Piledriver to the SB in a combo-heavy metagame. Maybe combo is not your only concern, but ion general I find Piledriver a extraordinary important card vs. combodecks because he can set up a very fast clock with relatively little board-presence. i.e. usually PD + 1 or 2 other goblins are enough to finish your opponent, which leaves your mana open for Manadenial and/or anti-combo-SB cards (be it Pyroblast, Cabal Therapy or CHalice of the Void).
The question is, which would you rather have vs combo decks, Piledriver or Thalia? Both attempt to help you race, but in different ways. Piledriver trys to be faster than the combo deck. Thalia tries to slow them down to your speed, but at the cost of diluting your colours and goblin synergy.

In general I think that Piledriver doesn't do enough to stop opponents from just killing us on the 2nd or 3rd turn.

* ScatmanX got me thinking about that the full playset of Caverns is probably not needed. Ever since Cavern was printed people were playing the card as a 4-of (for good reasons I must say). However, in line with fimo's call for bravery to test out something new I want to test if cutting Caverns is an option. I think that cutting one might work, when you need to room for colorfixing AND if you want the full set of Wasteland and Ports (which is the case here)
Depends on how many Force of Will decks you will face. If it's half the field, I think that 4 caverns is necessary.

* "my" lists replaces Krenko and SGC with Mirror Entity.
Intriguing. It has the same 'go big' aspects that Krenko and SGC have, and it solves the problem of being a bomb that's not too high up the curve....

* I'm not entirely sold on Thalia in SB. Some time back I thought that Ethersworn Canonist can be a reasonable replacement, depending on what you want the 3 slots to do. So I could see myself playing 3-4 slots with any combinatin of Thalia and/or Cannonist. SInce one of my major concerns is RUG thresh, or rather bURG thresh, Thalia could be overkill. RIP is strictly better in the MU. Other than that Thalia has a (storm-)Combo-Hating-Value...however, I find Cannonist to be more effective against (storm)combo.
How so? With Thalia they are effectively reduced to brainstorming once a turn, whereas with Canonist, they can do it on their turn and your turn....

* jrw1985 and ScatmanX both are convinced that maxing out your goblin count (or: not lowering your goblin count post-board) is a thing. That's why Pyrokinesis is competing with Tarfire as a 3-off in the SB. I'd say that there are only 2 MUs (Goblins and Elves)where Pyrokinesis is strictly better than Tarfire for what they are supposed to do...and both decks don't see play in my local meta.
Death and Taxes as well?

I'd like to hear what people have to say about those issues (Mentity, Caverns, Thalia/Cannonist, Pyrokinesis/Tarfire). Maybe I'm missing something.
I'd really like to see more of Mirror Entity. Let us know how he tests out. Is he 'win more' ala krenko? Do you find yourself missing the ability to reload after a sweeper with SGC? Or kill a creature? Or prevent combat triggers?
Caverns I think should still be a 4-of, since Force of Will is kind of the backbone of the format (when it's bad, it becomes good again).
Thalia I think is better than Canonist, although I have much more experience with Thalia, so maybe I havn't given the Canonist a fair go.
Pyrokinesis I think is much better than Tarfire. 0 mana is much better than 1. And although it costs 2 cards, you typically kill 2 or more creatures with it, so it's not really card disadvantage. Your SB cards should be situationally powerful. Tarfire doesn's look like a sideboard card to me any more than Shock is a SB card in a Standard deck.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by fimo

- MIRROR ENTITY. I have tested this guy for about a month, I think it was something like a year ago.

There were few things I didn t like about him though: (1) he usually does nothing the turn he comes into play, (2) he makes you even more vulnerable to E.plague. Despite my love for krenko, I actually really like the idea of cutting the high casting costs goblins for cheaper ones. Mentity may actually conpensate the damage output offered by cards like krenko and chieftain. I really look forward to hear how your playtesting goes. Maybe for the sake of testing you could upper the mirror entity count? Not much because I think that more than 1 is needed but because it will show up more often so you can conclude something from your testing.
Good point about engineered plague. I have been seeing that increasingly pop up in opposing sideboards. I guess a Chieftain/Liege would be a more resilient anthem than Mirror Entity.

- I share your feelings for thalia SB. Despite the fact that I really like her main deck I am not sure that I would like her in the SB. I think that she fits the main deck very well, she is very flexible, she always does something even in MUs where you dont want her all that much. However, if I were to find room in the SB for a card with a "thalia effect" I would rather play the best possible anticombo cards. I would rather go for chalice of the void, mindbreak trap or ethersworn canonist.
Really? I think that Thalia is on a par with CotV and slightly better than Mindbreak Trap and Ethersworn Canonist.

- why would you cut cavern for colorfixing in this list? you can play M.entity with a cavern naming goblins or you can play canonist with a cavern after SB. Sure, incinerator and RIP could hurt. But yeah, playtesting can t hurt. In my opinion, looking at your manabase, you are replacing a cavern with a basic mountain.
Agreed

- my point of view on the goblin count is that it is a shaky concept. Why would I want a high goblin count? well mainly for ringleader flips, right? I believe that it does not matter that much how many goblins you flip but what you flip. For instance, we all prefer to flip a matron and a gempalm rather than 4 lackeys. This is an extreme example but it highlights the fact that ringleader is a late game card and it will be most useful if it will flip late-game, game-winning cards. Back to the pyrokinesis/tarfire example, the question I ask myself is: does it matter more that I can ringleader-flip or matron for a tarfire OR does it matter more that a pyrokinesis has a more devastating effect? I think that a tarfire is most useful at the beginning of the game when you kill the blocker for lackey or stoneforge. By the point I can matron up for something or ringleader-flip something I don t think I will be looking for a tarfire. Sure, I will be happy to ringleader-flip it. However, I think that the much more powerful effect of pyrokinesis has an edge over the "being goblin" of tarfire.
Yeah, I agree. I think that how powerful the effect is should trump the 'ringleaderable' nature of the SB card choices.

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I ask it for the second time because i want to be sure: can Mirror Entity, and changelings in general, be tutored for with matron and be flipped by ringleader?

I guess the answer is yes, because the changeling ability says "this card is every creature type at all times", but i want a confirmation.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LeoCop 90

I ask it for the second time because i want to be sure: can Mirror Entity, and changelings in general, be tutored for with matron and be flipped by ringleader?

I guess the answer is yes, because the changeling ability says "this card is every creature type at all times", but i want a confirmation.

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Yes, works with Matron, Ringleader, Gempalm, Lackey etc etc.

Hey guys, I'm planning on going to a big Legacy event this weekend. I'm currently using this list: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=57049 (card for card)

The meta I am expecting is skewed in favor of combo and blue decks (Miracles, RUG, Show and Tell variants, BUG variants). Suggestions for changes to the list?