[Deck] Goblins

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hyped

I'm not a fan of Chaos Warp as Progenitus, Iona, and Sphinx were all immune to it, and I think I'll leave both them and Anarchy at home until enchantress becomes more common. I think I could have done much better if I had gotten some match ups like Zoo and Stoneforge Mystic, orif I had brought my Mindbreak Traps with me. Overall it was a fun learning experience and I still plan to take goblins to my next tournament.

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Interesting thoughts about Chaos Warp. It seems like Warren Wierding is the only real answer our deck has to those cards. I agree that Chaos Warp is probably great against singleton Moats though.

As for Mindbreak Trap, my experience with the card has been mixed. I see a lot of combo in my meta and the TES player is usually ready to Silence/Chant/Duress me before going off. In your case, he likely would have used the Thoughtseize on your Trap and the result would have been the same. I think Thorn is quickly becoming more relevant given the amount of Hive Mind running around right now, and it also has limited application against other decks.

Reanimator has been a problem for me too, and I'm really considering switching my board to 4x Leyline of the Void despite playing mono-red. It gets bonus points for being equally good at hosing dredge and aggro-loam which are popping up everywhere lately.

Why everyone forget Goblins after Mental Misstep appearance? -.-''

Anyone have the list of the guy who played againd Caleb Durward in the last SCG Legacy Open?? I see 3 Warren Weiding in play :)

The US Metagame and You!

StarCityGames is kind enough to publish statistical breakdowns of its events, specifically stating the number of decks in the field and the winning percentages of those decks. I decided to compare the lists over the last 4 posted events, going back to GP Providence...
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/new...+Alix+Hatfield

What I saw wasn't much of a surprise, but it spoke volumes about the metagame. The single most popular deck going back to the GP is clearly Merfolk. The single most popular strategy is Stoneblade. Stoneblade is a strategy because it fits into many many different shells, and UW, BW, Bant and Esper Stoneblade decks were all present in large numbers. NO RUG and Zoo are probably the next two most popular decks. Dredge and Affinity are both surprisingly popular also.

The glaring absence is storm combo. Ad Nauseum was unusually popular in the SCG Invitational, but seldom seen beyond that tournament. Hive Mind and Painter Stone were sporadically popular, but not yet in large numbers.

The assumption I'm drawing from this data is as follows-
1) Playing blue hate is a good idea. With Merfolk super popular and blue prominently featured in NO RUG and most Stoneblade decks (as well as growing strategies like Reanimator and Hive Mind) we should really start boarding in REBs and Pyroblasts. There's just too many targets for them to be overlooked.
2) Playing Ancient Grudge is a great idea. Stoneblade is everywhere and Affinity is still one of the most popular decks. Having a couple 2fer1s in your sideboard will go a long way.
3) Pyrokinesis is awesome against everything but Dredge and HiveMind (it even burns Jin in Reanimator).
4) Dredge and Reanimator aren't going anywhere. GY hate and edict effects are still very useful.

Using what I now know, how can I improve upon my sideboard?
Sideboard:
1 Chalice of the Void
2 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Pithing Needle
1 Krosan Grip
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Extirpate
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Pyrokinesis

First, what I'm sure of-
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Pyrokinesis
Both great cards. Neither going anywhere.

Second, what I'm uncertain of-
1 Krosan Grip
2 Extirpate
2 Surgical Extraction
KGrip is randomly good against E Plague and enchantress, while still useful against Stoneblade
The GY hate is too narrow. Neither are especially good against dredge, and both are terrible against manaless dredge, which is gaining steam. They're decent against Reanimator though, and any deck running Loam. But against Dredge you probably want something that can nuke the whole yard

Finally, what I think needs to go-
Sideboard:
1 Chalice of the Void
2 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Pithing Needle
There is so little Storm Combo being played these days (and I've run into so little of it at my local shop) that I really think these need to go. Chalice is underpowered now that I run Mental Misstep. Thorn is fine but it's not THAT good against control decks. Needle is just too random. you could almost always side it in but seldom need to. And with all the artifact hate from the Ancient Grudges you won't even need Needle to turn off Grindstones or Mishra's Factories anyway. In these 4 slots I believe 2 REBs and 2 Pyroblasts would serve me better.

Sideboarding-
Merfolk +Pyrokinesis, REB, Pyroblast (7)
Stoneblade +Ancient Grudge, Pyrokinesis, KGrip (7)
NO RUG +Pyrokinesis, REB, Pyroblast
Zoo +Pyrokinesis

For mono-red, Shattering Spree is a good alternative to Ancient Grudge.
Pyrokinesis had always been our staple SB card. I do not see this changing any time soon.
Frankly, there really is no point of having only one Krosan Grip against enchantments. You have a better chance of having a single lord as your token one-off against E. Plaque, which is the only scary enchantment used lately anyways. Though, I guess you did get lucky on your last tournament with a single Krosan Grip.
Surgical Extraction is competing with Relic of Progenitus for Graveyard Hate and in this meta, targeting specific key cards are sometimes better than removing the entire grave. A good dredge player can normally recover from one, maybe even two nukes. The only good answer against dredge is Leyline of the Void, which essentially makes manaless dredge fold.

My SB would probably look like this (mono red):
3 Chalice of the Void (Zoo, combo Elves, etc)
3 Pyroblast
3 Pyrokinesis
3 Shattering Spree
3 Surgical Extraction
I already have two Chieftains MD so I feel decent against E. Plague. Otherwise, I'd probably have a Boartusk Liege or another Chieftain in my SB.

Honestly, I have not played works weeks do to work and GRE study, so I have not had the time to fine tune my SB, or my deck in general.

The last time I used Chaos Warp. I warped a Ghostly Prison into a Moat. That is what I get for gambling. D:

Just a few points:

Boggart Shenanigans in SB is my favorite answer to Engineered Plague and any other mass destruction strategy (sweepers). Just make sure you find it and cast it early (note that it can be put into play with Lackey). It is often very difficult for an opponent to deal with your Goblins AND with Shenanigans.

I think REB is stricly better than Pyroblast now because Spellskite is seeing some play.

Surgical Extraction is very good against Dredge, because it can remove all 4 Bridges, something Crypt or relic normally can't do.

I for one think that Pyrokinesis is just a little overrated. I'm not saying that it isn't good, I just think that it improves only fair matchups that isn't Goblins major problems. Removing creatures is one of the things Goblins is actually good at. I would rather improve matchups against, say, Dredge, HiveMind, and other kombo. Against Affinity, another difficult matchup, I would rather have artifact hate. I might play 2 Pyrokineses in the main, but as a SB card I have never really liked it. (runs for cover)

First of all:
thanks to jrw for your analysis - this one is very helpful. (in fact: you're doing this quite often and nobody ever thanked you)

Here's what I think about it:

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Originally Posted by jrw1985

The assumption I'm drawing from this data is as follows-
1) Playing blue hate is a good idea. With Merfolk super popular and blue prominently featured in NO RUG and most Stoneblade decks (as well as growing strategies like Reanimator and Hive Mind) we should really start boarding in REBs and Pyroblasts. There's just too many targets for them to be overlooked.
2) Playing Ancient Grudge is a great idea. Stoneblade is everywhere and Affinity is still one of the most popular decks. Having a couple 2fer1s in your sideboard will go a long way.
3) Pyrokinesis is awesome against everything but Dredge and HiveMind (it even burns Jin in Reanimator).
4) Dredge and Reanimator aren't going anywhere. GY hate and edict effects are still very useful.

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I know that this part is about assumptions. I want to correct some of these:
1) I agree with you that blue hate is a good idea and REB/PYblast serve that purpose very well. I disagree though that REB is need (or that you even have room for it after G1) against Stoneforge strategies. In this MU you want to aim for their very few creatures and possibly kill their equipments. Here you need Ancient Grudge and Pyrokinesis (and I wouldn't even recommend that one). No room for REB.

2) AGREEAGREEAGREEAGREE. Awsome Grudge is Awsome. There's no denying that.

3) Pyrokinesis is not awsome against UW Stoneblade. I find that your "regular" spotremoval (Gempalm, Tarfire, Stinger) is enough and on top of that less risky since you don't need a pitch. You can't handle Jin Gitaxias once it has emptied your hand. Most often you will see other beasts enter the battlefield, since Sphinx and Blazing Archon are still more effective against Gobs.
This however does not mean that Pyrokinesis is a bad card. I just want to prevent that someone overestimates it or uses it wrong.

4) Dredge and Reanimator can (in my oppinion that's based on testing against those decks alot) hardly be beaten without Leyline of the Void. Dredge doesn't care even if you pack less than 5 non-Leyline-GY-haters. Meaning: They rarely have problems with other hate than Leyline (unless you pack 6+ of them).
As for Reanimator: Rishadan Port is your friend in this MU. This deck rarely drops more than 3 lands and they really like to fetch for U-Sea (read: Wasteland-target). Their Reanimation spells are all Sorcery Speed and Reanimate is the worst of them (because they lose life). So: In G2 you have to drop a Leyline on Turn-0 and keep them away from 3 lands (Show and Tell) or drop Lackey/vial on Turn 1 and keep them away from 2 lands.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jrw1985

Using what I now know, how can I improve upon my sideboard?

First, what I'm sure of-
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Pyrokinesis
Both great cards. Neither going anywhere.

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Not sure about Pyrokinesis. This one can in my oppinion better be a playset of Perish. The MUs where you want Kinesis are running tons of green creatures...well, Merfolk doesn't, but I think we should absolutely prefer REB over Kinesis here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jrw1985

Second, what I'm uncertain of-
1 Krosan Grip
2 Extirpate
2 Surgical Extraction
KGrip is randomly good against E Plague and enchantress, while still useful against Stoneblade
The GY hate is too narrow. Neither are especially good against dredge, and both are terrible against manaless dredge, which is gaining steam. They're decent against Reanimator though, and any deck running Loam. But against Dredge you probably want something that can nuke the whole yard

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About Krip: random. Cut it. Seriously: have you seen E. Plague around these days (read: Goblins is a "dead deck" again)? Against Stoneforge you need 3 Ancient Grudge (which is basically 6-in-3 against 3-4 nasty artifacts).
GY-Hate: if you spend 4 slots then let it be Leyline. Extractions/Extirpates are good against Hive Mind though, but then again they are useless if they didn't cast Intuition.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jrw1985

Finally, what I think needs to go-
Sideboard:
1 Chalice of the Void
2 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Pithing Needle
There is so little Storm Combo being played these days (and I've run into so little of it at my local shop) that I really think these need to go. Chalice is underpowered now that I run Mental Misstep. Thorn is fine but it's not THAT good against control decks. Needle is just too random. you could almost always side it in but seldom need to. And with all the artifact hate from the Ancient Grudges you won't even need Needle to turn off Grindstones or Mishra's Factories anyway. In these 4 slots I believe 2 REBs and 2 Pyroblasts would serve me better.

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AGREEAGREEAGREE on every letter you typed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jrw1985

Sideboarding-
Merfolk +Pyrokinesis, REB, Pyroblast (7)
Stoneblade +Ancient Grudge, Pyrokinesis, KGrip (7)
NO RUG +Pyrokinesis, REB, Pyroblast
Zoo +Pyrokinesis

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This is what your SB has come to: boarding 7 cards in almost every MU. This isn't good. Well, some MU are hard to win with less that 7 cards from board, but often you can rely on what you have in MD: removal + manadenial.
* Against Merfolk 3-4 extrablasts should be enough. Ports deal with Mutavaults. 6+ removal burn down nasty Lords. you don't really need another 7 cards from SB.
* Stoneblade: against UW SToneblade I wouldn't go for the Kinesis (as described earlier). Against GW SToneblade/Maverick Kinesis is fine.
* NO RUG: I understand why you want Kinesis here (although I think Perish is better in this MU, since it kills almost always their entire board + reaches Progenitus and Goofy). I don't understand what you use the Blasts for!?

This is what I would suggest (based on you analysis):

4 Leyline otV
4 Perish/Pyrokinesis
1 Sharpshooter
3 Ancient Grudge
3 REB/PYblast

I consider Sharpshooter a Goblin-Shaped Pyrokinesis. Not that they do the same things, but they are basically boarded for the same MUs:
Merfolk, non-U Stoneblade, Elves, NO RUG, Affinity.

About Perish: I myself stick to Perish right now. If you think of it: for the MUs where you would miss Kinesis (that is: where Kinesis is better than Perish) you have other cards to board. e.g.:

* Merfolk: here Kinesis is clearly better than Perish. But you have REB and Sharpshooter, which is enough
* Affinity: here Kinesis is clearly better than Perish. But you can board Grudges and Sharphooter.
* Reanimator: Kinesis > Perish, but not good enough to board to be honest. Leyline and REB get you there.
* Dredge: same.

In other MU where you want to have Kinesis, Perish is much better since it cleares the entire board:
* GW Stoneblade (Maverick)
* NO RUG
* Elves
* Zoo
* Canadian Thresh (Kinesis doesn't do a thing in this MU!)
* Bant (you don't even board Kinesis here, do you?)

@GoboLord what you think about Goblins deck have their own pack of Mental Misstep??

@ moon_mtg:
Mental Misstep in Goblins....well. jrw1985 has had success with it. If I were to embed them in the maindeck I'd probably just pick up his list. Me however don't like them as a MD card. I've always been in favor of running 6+ removal in MD. Thus, if I had room for 4 non-Goblin spells in MD I'd almost always pick Lightning Bolts (since it's better than Mental Misstep in dealing with creatures). On top of that Lightning Bolt is virtually never a dead card, while Mental Misstep can be quite useless sometimes. Well...this is only about comparison "Mental Misstep vs. Removal" cause I think you don't really need more in your MD than creatures, creature-removal and manadenial (and once in a while artifact-hate).
However...I didn't test Mental Misstep much in MD, thus I can only refer to jrw's success with it and conclude that they are a viable choice.
Mental Misstep as a SB-card: I tested that and were not happy with it. The MUs Mental Misstep was dedicated to (Canadian Thresh, Elves, Zoo, Combo, Dredge) were not improved the slightest. However, back then I didn't run Rishadan Ports (due to the WINstigator-Mox-Tech) in MD. jrw however said that Rishadan Ports are essential if you want to get the best out of Missteps. Maybe that's why they dissapointed me.

@ jrw1985: What's your name? I find it stupid to call you "jrw" whenever I'm refering to you (which ist quite often)
@ Everyone: My name is Christian. Pleased to work with you.

@GoboLord
My name is Jonathan, but for brevity's sake you can call me Jon. I'd like to thank you too, Christian. You've been a good sounding board and have continuously had excellent contribution to this thread. You had some really good points about sideboarding recently, especially pointing out that I'm probably bringing in too many cards. I agree with you, and I'm going into more detail about SB strategy later though.

@ moon_mtg
Since I've been running 4 MM maindeck I'll field this one. I think MM is amazing, and I wish more Goblins players adopted it. I've found that it is an awesome card G1, made even better if your opponent isn't playing blue. Having a Lackey or Vial in your opener is still the most important thing though. You just want to be lucky enough to have a 1drop and MM. If you're on the play, have a Lackey and MM in hand, and your opponent isn't playing blue, you've basically just won the game. Especially against Zoo.

Running 4 MM main makes sideboarding trickier though. Since it takes up slots it forces goblins out of your deck. And once you sideboard you really need to choose between siding out MORE goblins or taking out the MMs. Generally, siding out MMs seems like the preferred option, but there are occasions where you'll have to bite the bullet and side out more goblins than you'd care to.

Like I said, MM is amazing G1, but postboard there are many cards that will serve you better.

My Sideboard (with GoboLord's suggestions taken into consideration)
4 Leyline of the Void (God, I still hate this card, but against Dredge you gotta mull to hate anyway)
3 Pyrokinesis
1 Perish
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast

The easiest MUs to sideboard for are things like Merfolk or HiveMind; blue decks that don't really rely on 1drops. Here you just side out MMs and side in 4 blasts. Against merfolk you can also side out cards like TinStreet Hooligan or Warren Weirding for Pyrokinesis (which unlike GoboLord I still think is pretty good against Merfolk). Even with Blasts and Kinesis in you're still running 27 Goblins, a significant advantage over their 20 Merfolk... Actually, now that I think of it, having 3:2 creature advantage over Merfolk is probably a major advantage. With 4 Red Blast cards sided in you have answers to their creatures and counterspells. Maintaining the creature advantage might be more important than siding in removal.

Boarding against Zoo is a quandry. MM is sooo gooood against Zoo when you're on the play, but pretty mediocre on the draw (where you'd probably prefer a Pyrokinesis). So, depending on whether you're on the draw or play, and whether you've seen more 1drops or 2drops, you can side out all your MMs for Pyrokinesis and perish, or you can just mix it up.

Stoneblade decks are pretty easy to side against. MM comes out, Ancient Grudge comes in, and I'll usually take out a Stingscourger and bring in Pyrokinesis. Pyro has a huge advantage of letting you burn out a Stoneforge before it can get online. Stingscourger does too, but it allows them to fetch up more equipment and live to block and cheat Batterskull into play.

Dredge is an interesting deck to board against. Obviously 4 Leylines come in and the MM go out against the manaless version. Against traditional Dredge MM is a very live card, and probably shouldn't be boarded out. In this case Leyline will replace utility or removal Goblins, since spot removal is kinda useless against a dozen Zombies. You've now lowered your count to 26 Goblins, but a Leyline or MM should give you plenty of time to establish a clock.

NO RUG is such a broad deck that it's difficult to board against. Sometimes you'll want a Red Blast, sometimes Perish, sometimes Pyrokinesis, sometimes MM. The best bet then (when there are just too many OK options) is to keep your deck as basic as you can. Keep that Goblin count at 30! Board out MM for Pyro and Perish and be done with it. Sure, they have counterspell, brainstorms, and Jace, but you can get through all of those with pure redundancy. This is an occasion where you need to let your deck just do what it does, and you should be OK.

Reanimator- This deck can end effectively lock you out of the game T2. Better then to decrease their chances of winning as much as possible and hope you have time to play catch-up. REB, Leyline, and MM are all very live in this match. MM can't be boarded out because too many of their business spells are 1cc (Reanimate, Entomb, Careful Study, Hapless Researcher, Brainstorm, Ponder, Discard Spells). REB can counter their counter on your Weirding or Stingscourger and can also kill Jin Gix before their first end step. And Leyline forces them to go the Show n Tell route (risky since they have so little mana AND Show n Tell is vulnerable to REB). This is a deck where I think cutting down to 22 Goblins is necessary (unless you like cutting Vials, which I don't). You don't need Gempalms anyway, and you can find a few goblins to shave off (or Vials, I guess).

I think, as a rule of thumb, that you can side out more Goblins the fewer win conditions your opponent plays. For aggro MUs keep as many bodies in as you can. Having redundant bodies is good against control too. It's combo decks that we really need to board most heavily against, because if we can't stop them from killing us they will before we have a chance to kill them.

@GoboLord
You said earlier that siding in 7 cards was too much. Why is 7 too much (as opposed to 4,5, or 6)?

Why is 7 too much? Hmm...
I don't really have a rule for that and maybe I just didn't express properly what I meant. Let me rephrase it then:

There is something odd about your sideboard if you need to board 7 cards against every deck thats popular right now. I mean: The more cards you board the worse your Goblin-beatdown strategy becomes (due to lowered Goblin-count). This is even more so if you want to keep in your MMs in G2 & 3. Now that you explained yourself that you happen to side out MMs, things are looking different. Thus: I thought that postboard 4 MMs + 7 non-Goblins are too much.
I myself like to design my SB in a way that you can board few cards that have the same effect as many "OK-cards". To give an example: If I worry about Canadian Thresh I'd rather have 4 Perish than 3 Relic of Progenitus + 3 Red Elemental Blast.

Examples:
I don't think that you need Kinesis for Merfolk if you already have 4 Blasts. I'm not saying that Kinesis is a bad card after all in this MU.
Same goes for Hive Mind: You dont need Extractions if you have REB.
...

Why would you want anything other than the max number of Perish against NO RUG? It doesn't play any blue spells that will beat you. In a sense, it's very similar to the old UGr Threshold decks from years ago. They had no legitimate targets for REB. If you have only 3 Perish SB I can see bringing in a Pyrokinesis.

Actually, you should be running the max number of Perish in your sideboard. That is the reason to run black. Perish trumps all the Knight, Goyf based decks, and there are a lot of them, and significantly increases your postboard percentages against these decks. If you cast Perish with any board presence you should win.

I agree with a lot that was said already. I never really board more than 4 cards per matchup. The only time I would is if I was playing against Combo and even thenthat doesn't hurt too much because your boarding out a couple Ringleaders anyways- those matchups never hinge on card advantage.

I really like Goblin Sharpshooter. Even against heavy removal decks like Zoo I still find it stellar. It's hard to think of situations where it would be good... but whenever I'm looking through my deck with Goblin Matron I often end up getting Sharpshooter even when I planned on getting a Ringleader or whatever. I value it very highly and I want to fit a second one in my SB against removal-less decks like Merfolk or G/W.

I also really like the Rbg splash for Goblins these days because you have the best SB. Wasteland and LD-centric decks seem to be on the decline.

...did I mention how good Sharpshooter is with Perish?

@Amon Amarth
Although I see your point about using the Rgb splash, I found your words (on wasteland to be on the decline) to be untruth. If you look on top 8 decks in metagame section on TCdecks (http://thecouncil.es/tcdecks/metagame.php?format=Legacy) only zoo (3rd spot), Hive Mind (5th spot) and NO RUG (7th spot) not playing Wasteland. While Blade Control (1st), Maverick (2nd), Merfolks( 4th) Bant Aggro (6th) all plays Wasteland. If you add to this landstill decks, loam decks and rock decks and some ideas to add stifle to some current top tier decks (to fight HM) you will get totally different picture that Wasteland decks are on the rise. And that gives me a red light for playing 3C deck.

Discounting decks like Merfolk where you are already favored, you don't need splash colors at all to beat them. Besides, you aren't a true polychromatic deck. You're only playing 2 Taiga and 2 Badlands and a bunch of fetches. Just fetch for Mountains when appropriate.

Tournament Report !

Another Thursday night Legacy tournament is in the books.

Decklist Rgb Goblins
26 Core
4 Mental Misstep
1 Warren Weirding
1 Stingscourger
1 Tin Street Hooligan
3 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin Chieftain
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
22 Land (4Waste 4Port 2Badlands 2Taiga ~6Fetches)

Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Pyrokinesis
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Perish

R1 - Reanimator
G1- He gets a Sphynx of the Steel Wind in play around turn 3. I Matron for a Weirding and only take one hit from it before winning the game. W
I side in 4 Leyline and 4 REB, siding out 3 Gempalm, TSH, Sharpshooter, and then some randoms. I now have 12 hate cards in, just because I need to have answers before he locks me out.
G2- Leyline in my opening 7, but not much gas. He forces something useful I try to play (Matron?), and instead of keeping him off three mana I let him Show and Tell a Sphinx into play again. Sphinx attacks me to 13, then I crack a fetch, which I realize effectively cut down his clock by 1/3. And i die 2 attacks later. L
G3- Leyline in my opening 7, and a little gas. I get some Goblins out, but when I draw a Matron I have a decision to make: Either go for a Ringleader or SGC to put more pressure on, or play defensively and grab a Stingscourger to SnT in (since he can't go the graveyard route with Leyline in play). The turn before I'm going to win he Echoing Truths my Leyline. I REB. He MMs. He draws for turn, and scoops. W
1-0

R2 Hulk Rebirth
G1- I have no idea what he's playing, but he leads with a T1 Dryad Arbor to answer my Lackey. I Waste the Arbor and Connect with Lackey. He gets only 1 more mana source this game. I have no idea what he's playing yet. W
G2- I side in Perish. He plays about a bajillion green walls. I play a Sharpshooter. He blows up a Sharpshooter with a Mogg Fanatic before Sharpshooter gets online. He then combos out on me. L
G3- I side in 4 Leylines and take out TSH and Gempalms. Leyline in my opening 7. I play Lackey T1. He plays a fetch. I attack, he fetches for Arbor. i burn out the arbor (with Pyro, removing Piledriver) before blocks and cheat in a Ringleader. He Therapies me next turn, but because of Leyline cannot recur Cabal Therapy on me, and I take it down. W
2-0

R3 Dredge
G1- I'm in the 2-0 bracket and my opponent wins the dice roll, chooses to draw. O Reeelez? But I have like 2 Lackeys so it's on. I play a Lackey. He plays City of Brass. I attack, he Darkblasts. I play a Lackey. He Dredged Darkblast. I attack, he darkblasts. I play a Warchief. Can't Darkblast that! He cabal therapies himself to get a Grave Troll in the yard. I Matron for Piledriver and attack him to 7. He played and activated a Cephalid Colluseum. No Narcomebias on the dredges (one was in his hand which I saw from the Therapy). I swung for the win. W
G2- I sided out some Gempalms and TSH for Leylines. Leyline in my opening 7. He scoops. Says he forgot to side in appropriate hate. W
3-0

R4 UW Stoneblade w/Ancestral Visions
G1- He beats me down to 7 before I'm finally able to deal with Batterskull. He's at 31. I stage my comeback off of a Gempalm (which I may have forgotten to draw off of- DON'T BE LIKE ME! DON'T LOSE TRACK OF THE GAME STATE TO WHERE YOU DON'T KNOW IF YOU DREW FROM YOUR CYCLING OR NOT). I wasted him off of White mana and killed his Stoneforge. He didn't have enough mana to return his batterskull and replay it after that. Sharpshooter hit play and I began to swing freely, knowing that every creature that died would put more of his cards in the graveyard. After taking out one of his mishra's factories with sharpshooter the game was mine. W
G2- Another hard fought one. I sided out my Mental Missteps and Stingscourger and 1 Gempalm for 6 Ancient Grudge and Pyrokinesis. I PLayed Lackey. He Swords to Plowshared it. He took control of the game state from there. There was one moment where I didn't go for glory, and it cost me the game. It was late in the game. He had his batterskull online and was beating me down. I cast a Matron. He had like 4 cards in hand and fetch open. I could have gone for TSH to blow up Batterskull, but I had no Goblins left in hand, so if he had a Spell Snare (which he runs) I would be fucked. So i grabbeb a Ringleader, played it, and drew 1 Goblin off of it. Then lost. I should have just gone for it with the TSH. L
G3- Time was called on about the 2nd turn. I felt good about my hand and the board state, though. Draw
3-0-1
Top 8
R5 Merfolk
G1 He beats me down to 7 before I stabilize and win off of 1 big attack where I had Warchief and Piledriver, then Matroned for another Piledriver. The 17 damage from that swing was enough to kill him. Sweet, sweet Pro U. W
G2 I sided out MM for REB. It was another slow game, but my Gempalms helped me take the board position. One play in particular was the turn I cast Stingscourger to bounce his Coralhelm Commander, then in response to Stinger's echo payment i cycled a Gempalm to kill off the replayed Commander. I took the win and the $20 prizemoney. W
4-0-1

"Mental Misstep killed Goblins. Goblins is a bad deck. Goblins with Mental Misstep is even worse."
- Everyone the writes about Magic

"Mountain, Lackey, Go."
- GoboLord (and all of us at some point)

Observations- I'm torn on playing Pyrokinesis against Stoneblade. Killing the Mystic is before it gets online is very important, but so is having card advantage in this MU. Also, considering that the Stoneblade player ran MM, Spell Snare, StP, PtE, and Brainstorm, I definitely shouldn't have sided out my Mental Missteps this match. Mistake.
I realize that I tend to make more mistakes against good players. I'm more likely to forget to draw a card off Gempalm or go for a Ringleader instead of an answer card like TSH. I lost that game either way. I should have just gone for the TSH.

Leyline of the Void- I hate hate hate hate hate this stupid card, but it was in my opening hand literally every single game I sided it in today. So that doesn't suck. But this card is awful trash even though it makes some decks scoop T0. I ran amazingly with it today, but that just means the next time I play with it I'll topdeck it T1 on the draw every time. So it goes.

People try this: Remove 2 Siegegang Commanders and 3 Missteps and add 3 Mogg Fanatics + 2 Chieftains. The results will be stunning! No black splash intended.

ive not seen a discussion about it already - what do you think about goblin grenade? is it playable in legacy? imho the direct dmg is brilliant.

and also, ive always tried to add cards to make colorless dmg cause "protection from red" really can kill us. how about playing Barbarian Ring? ive not enough $ to buy all necessary lands thats prolly why i can play Ring twice. in addition i run 3x Smoldering Spires, made my lackey go through often enough..

Goblin Grenade might be good sometimes, but its too narrow and to risky to run it.
Barbarian deals more damage to yourself than to anything else, and the time you reach threshold in Goblins your probably dead anyways.
If youre running your deck in a casual meta, both cards might be ok, but actually this thread is about competitive lists.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Humphrey

Goblin Grenade might be good sometimes, but its too narrow and to risky to run it.
Barbarian deals more damage to yourself than to anything else, and the time you reach threshold in Goblins your probably dead anyways.
If youre running your deck in a casual meta, both cards might be ok, but actually this thread is about competitive lists.

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Ryan Messick
Winner, 2010 Legacy Championship
View a sample hand of this deck

Main Deck

60 cards

1 Arid Mesa
4 Auntie's Hovel
4 Badlands
2 Barbarian Ring
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Mountain
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Wasteland
21 lands

2 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Stingscourger
2 Warren Instigator
1 Wort, Boggart Auntie
32 creatures

4 Aether Vial
3 Warren Weirding
7 other spells

Sideboard
1 Goblin King
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Lightning Bolt
4 Mindbreak Trap
3 Pyrokinesis
1 Relic of Progenitus
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Warren Weirding
15 sideboard cards

Being a little hasty on your assertion that Barbarian Ring is a bad card, perhaps? I mean, one year ago it was featured in a deck that won a huge tournament (GenCon 2010). If it was unplayable this deck probably couldn't have won a 196 player tournament, right? Also, if you look at this build it is very aggressive, with a high creature count and low land count. Because he runs the 2 Barbarian Rings he doesn't need to run as many removal Goblins, so he's free to pack in goodies like Wort, Kiki-Jiki, Chieftain and Instigator. He doesn't mind taking damage from the rings because he doesn't do much fetching. He doesn't need to fetch because he runs so many duals that he doesn't care about Wasteland, which you can get away with in a Rb build. And because he's running Ring and only 21 land he doesn't use Port, so his which means more of his lands help him produce the mana to cast spells, and make the deck more aggressive overall.

In a world with Mental Misstep this year-old deck might actually have some merrit to it and this might still ber very playable in today's metagame.

Running Hovels instead of fetches is counterproductive when you want threshold.