[DTB] Vial Goblins

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Iggy Pop/TES/Solidarity

+4 Pyrostatic Pillar
+4 Chalice of the Void
-3 Gemplam
-3 Pyrokinesis
-2 Mogg Fanatic

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Against Iggy Pop and Solidarity Sharpshooter is worse than Mogg Fanatic but you keep him in against TES to have an out to slow EtW.

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Survival

+3 Disenchant
+1 Goblin King
-1 Goblin Tinkerer
-1 Mogg Fanatic
-2 Goblin Piledriver

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Mogg Fanatic is quite good in this match because Survival builds are very reliant on Birds and Elves for mana, I suppose Fanatic goes down in value against builds with Vial but I'm not sure what the norm is for Survival. I'd cut the 3rd Driver before Fanatic.

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Vial Affinity

+1 Goblin King
+1 Goblin Tinkerer
-1 Mogg Fanatic
-1 Goblin Piledriver

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Piledriver is awful in this matchup because you need to try and assume the control role because Affinity is a much better beatdown deck than Goblins. This matchup is very tough against Affinity players that have a clue. You also want to board in Disenchant because its better than Piledriver.

For the mirror take out Piledriver over Fanatic because its better to have more answers to Lackey and other goblins down the line than a terrible 1/2 creature.

As for your sideboard in general if the only white card in your sideboard is Disenchant then you should be running the green splash because Tin Street Hooligan is much better than Tinkerer. If your running the white splash over green due to card availability then thats fine.

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Originally Posted by Gekoratel

As for your sideboard in general if the only white card in your sideboard is Disenchant then you should be running the green splash because Tin Street Hooligan is much better than Tinkerer. If your running the white splash over green due to card availability then thats fine.

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I totally agree with the green splash and as soon as I get some Taigas, I would definitely run green. Thats probably my only reason for running white, I have plateaus and not taigas.

I wasn't really thinking about putting in the disenchant or krosan grip against Affinity. It probably was late at night and I wasn't thinking straight. Your definitely right though, they would go in.

I'm just curious, what is your opinion of the Goblins vs Affinity matchup in Legacy?

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Originally Posted by nickrit2000

I'm just curious, what is your opinion of the Goblins vs Affinity matchup in Legacy?

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Goblins is favored regardless of the Splash. An early Pyrokinesis and Wasteland is usually enough that they can't recover from it mana-wise.

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Originally Posted by Tacosnape

Goblins is favored regardless of the Splash. An early Pyrokinesis and Wasteland is usually enough that they can't recover from it mana-wise.

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Unless they have the critical turn 1 Darksteel Citadel. That's an absolutely pivotal play against Goblins. Still, in my experience with Rg Goblins w/ 3 MD Tin Street Hooligans, I've been nothing but smashing Affinity. Tutorable removal, even if it requires me to kill my Warchiefs occasionally (this is the one MU where that happens), is just so good. Also the fact that it enables me to blow up their Needles naming Vial is awesome, Vial in Goblins>>>>Vial in Affinity thanks to the whole 'card advantage' thingy the deck has going on. Of course Affinity is going to win a bunch of games where it can be aggressive enough and Goblins don't have a fast-enough start to counter, but those are definitely a minority.

I've had different experiences playing Goblins vs. Affinity, in tournament settings I have had a pretty good record against Affinity because most people that play the deck are terrible. In testing against my friend who actually knows how to play the deck the numbers have been much worse. The key cards in the Goblins vs. Affinity matchup are Tin Street Hooligan, Pyrokinesis, and Goblin Sharpshooter.

If you are running 3 Tin Street's main then I could see having a favorable matchup but I am only running 1 so its not that great for me. Of course if your running 3 Tin Street's I assuming you don't have Pryo but Tin Street is slightly better in that matchup.

The average game in this matchup is that Affinity beats down in the early game until the Goblin player can finally stablize and try to slowly eat away at Affinities board. In this position it is where Goblin Sharpshooter truly shines because you can make attacks where a lot of creatures will trade and come up on top. The problem is that even if you do stabilize the board with Goblins Affinity has usually got in enough damage that your dead to a topdecked Fling. This means you can't just sit around until your really in control because you are giving them more turns to draw Fling.

All in all I think unless you are running 3+ Tin Street it is an unfavorable matchup pre-board that only gets worse post-board when they have access to Pyroclasm. I also don't agree with the Wasteland statement because Affinity needs it lands less than you do so I've found early wastelands to be a very weak play unless they are doing nothing on there first turn.

I've played Affinity in Legacy for quite a while when I'm not playing Goblins or some other deck that I'm testing. In my experience with Affinity, I have never lost to Goblins with it. There are a few reasons why I believe I have never lost. The main reason I believe is that I know how to play each deck very well and know the power behind each of them. I know how good affinity and goblins can be when they come out of the gates very fast.


The main problem with Affinity is when they get Myr Enforcer out, b/c it is very hard timfor a goblins player to deal with. You also have to worry about Ornithopter and cranial plating on the board. I believe game 1 is pretty evenly spilt 50/50, but after board when affinity brings in 4 engineered plagues things become much worse for the Goblins player.

One of my friends Mike (Tenniebopper) have played the affinity matchup 4 or 5 times and has yet to win against it. Every Affinity player that he played against was pretty good with the deck which makes the matchup tough.

I'll briefly go into the experience I had with Goblins when I top 8 at the Toronto GP side event last year. I go a pretty good start in game one with an atog in play (another problem card for goblins) and then just berserked him for 22 trample damage when they were at 19 with one 2 blockers. I got very lucky to win game 1. Game 2 was the more exciting game where we both got off to decent starts, but he spend all his wastelands and ports to try to lock in down in fear of plague. We was successful by not letting me cast it during the whole game as I had one in my hand the whole time. As he was trying to lock me down the keep playing my creatures and free myr enforcers which traded 1 for 1 or more with his goblins. Eventually he ran out of gas and I just beat him to his death with arcbound ravager and a frogmite.

I was very happy to win this match, which I think is favored toward the Affinity player in my opinion. I would give this matchup something like a 55/45 ratio in favor of Affinity.

These players were very good that I played as these were later in the tournament and were playing for a top 8 berth.

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Originally Posted by nickrit2000

I've played Affinity in Legacy for quite a while when I'm not playing Goblins or some other deck that I'm testing.

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What does your build look like?

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Originally Posted by kabal

What does your build look like?

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Vial Affinity

4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Great Furnace
4 Tree of Tales
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
1 Glimmervoid
4 Aether Vial
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Frogmite
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Chromatic Star
4 Ornithopter
3 Cranial Plating
2 Atog
2 Bererk
2 Pithing Needle

SB

2 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Sphere of Resistance
3 Krosan Grip
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Engineered Plague


I have gone back and forth with the green splash and the blue splash. I love that blue adds thoughtcast, but gr een gives you berserk and grip in the board which I'm a bigger fan of. This deck is capable of winning on turn 3 which is why I like the aggressiveness of the green splash.

Having been on the losing side of testing Affinity with the blue splash versus Rg Goblins (Eldariel's version) I'm pretty confident Beserk Affinity has a better matchup against goblins, just because it's more likely to win very quickly before goblins can establish its advantage. Still, against Rg Goblins with 3 MD Tin-Streets I'd say it's 55-45 to 60-40 in Goblins favor. Affinity can still win these random games where it just comes out of the blocks really fast and runs the goblin player over, but for the most part goblins just stalls and stalls, removing anything relevent and then winning on the back of a vastly superior card advantage engine.

I just brought this matchup up b/c I play Affinity around these parts. I don't think Affinity is a huge concern not only to Goblins, but the Legacy Metagame for the most part. If players don't bring some form of hate for artifacts I could see Affinity win big tournaments as it is very good and consistent for an aggro deck.

I have 8 slots in my board dedicated to combo b/c thats probably my worse matchup when I'm playing Goblins. I'm not too worried about the other matchups that can come about in a tournament.

Survival has been growing in numbers in my area and that matchup is tough for the most part. Some people tell me that it is 50/50, but I have to disagree with that ratio. I believe its much worse than that.

I'm interested in your experiences and ratio against various Survival builds?

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I'm interested in your experiences and ratio against various Survival builds?

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I've played against Dave Price's RGSA quite a few times and I'm something like 4-1 against him right now so I don't think it's that bad of a matchup. I've also played against different Survival decks in the past the most recent being my matches against bigbear at TMLO2. At that tournament I played him once in the swiss D1 and in the T8 D2. I won both of these matches but they were very tight going to game 3 both times.

I've found the manabase of the deck to be suspect at times because it is very mana hungry so your Wastelands and Ports will work overtime in this matchup. Also unlike most MU's Mogg Fanatic is really good because he kills Birds and Elves which the deck is also reliant on. I've played against the Vial builds less and I think the matchup against those decks is slightly worse than those without(keep in mind I play 1x MD Tin Street).

All variants of survival are good matchups. They run mostly nonbasics and rely on 1 toughness creatures early in the game. Since rofellos needs to have haste, hopefully you can kill off the taiga, since most builds are 3 colored and need other duals out as well all linked to green for roffelos. Krosan Grip is insanely good vs survival.

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Originally Posted by Awesomator

All variants of survival are good matchups. They run mostly nonbasics and rely on 1 toughness creatures early in the game. Since rofellos needs to have haste, hopefully you can kill off the taiga, since most builds are 3 colored and need other duals out as well all linked to green for roffelos. Krosan Grip is insanely good vs survival.

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Listen to this man. He knows what he's talking about.

If you're packing 4 Wasteland, 4 Port, and 4 Mogg Fanatic, you're favored against Survival. You might be 50/50 if Survival wins the die roll. You're a hell of a lot better if you win it. I won a $100 cash tournament with 26+ players in Alabama about a year and a couple months ago running BGWR Survival with four maindeck Engineered Plagues, and I -still- lost a game to goblins where they went Lackey, I went Bird, they went Wasteland, Mogg Fanatic, Swing into SGC.

Attack Survival's manabase. Relentlessly. Survival doesn't do a whole lot for them if you're eating through their ability to produce mana. This matchup is a classic example of why you shouldn't ever run less than 4 Mogg Fanatics.

And if you run a single Sharpshooter? Survival is a chinese buffet for Goblin Sharpshooter.

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Originally Posted by Tacosnape

And if you run a single Sharpshooter? Survival is a chinese buffet for Goblin Sharpshooter.

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Nastiest part is that Survival can't even run his own Sharpshooter to tool on you, because of the aforementioned Fanatics.

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Originally Posted by MattH

Nastiest part is that Survival can't even run his own Sharpshooter to tool on you, because of the aforementioned Fanatics.

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Are there any Survival builds that even run Goblin Sharpshooter anymore?

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Originally Posted by Tacosnape

Are there any Survival builds that even run Goblin Sharpshooter anymore?

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Once in awhile I will see a survival build that does run a main deck sharpshooter, but for the most part this is a card that doesn't see a lot of play in survival anymore.

After practicing against some survival decks, I can see now why the matchup favors goblins. You have wasteland and port to control their mana base along with fanatic, incinerator, and pyrokensis to control their acceleration and creature threats.

Having an sharpshooter in your deck is really good against them, since you can take down most of their creatures with it. I wasn't that confidant with the matchup because I haven't played it too often with goblins, but now I see why this matchup just isn't that bad.

Overall, I don't think sharpshooter should even be in goblins. Generally, sharpshooter is a win more card, and it's incredibly weak to have in your hand. If I had the room to cut I would have gone for a 3rd Tin street. Tin Street is amaaaaazing.

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Originally Posted by Gekoratel

As for your sideboard in general if the only white card in your sideboard is Disenchant then you should be running the green splash because Tin Street Hooligan is much better than Tinkerer. If your running the white splash over green due to card availability then thats fine.

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Affinity is one of Goblins best matchups if you're playing green. Tin St + Krosan Grip + Pyrokinesis + Gempalm = Good matchup.

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Originally Posted by Awesomator

Affinity is one of Goblins best matchups if you're playing green. Tin St + Krosan Grip + Pyrokinesis + Gempalm = Good matchup.

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Please, don't get carried away. Affinity is by far not one of Goblins best matchups, even it your splashing green. I would have to say the matchup is very close to 50/50 against R/G Goblins, and if your mono-red or running the white splash than Affinity clearly has the advantage.

Affinity can explode just as quick as Goblins if not faster. Just because you have a few good cards in the deck against Affinity, does not mean its a good matchup. Just a stupid statement based on a few cards.

lol look at the two affinity forums. The topic they're talking about is the goblins problem.