[DTB] Vial Goblins

[Gekoratel]

Leylines are a very strong card especially against Flash but I think the problem is that if you don't know what your opponent is playing then Leyline goes down in value. When your playing in smaller local events Leyline is awesome because you know what most people are playing and can evaluate your opening hands accordingly. At a large event like the GP your not gonna know if the questionable 7 with Leyline is better or worse than a 6 card hand.

I've tested the flash matchup quite a bit and you need to mulligan into Leyline or maybe hands that turn 3 on the play. With this strategy I'm about 40-60 pre-board against Jack Flash which isn't awful. But G1 at the GP unless I know what my opponent is plaing I can't mulligan accordingly which is the most important part of the flash matchup. For anyone playing Leyline MD I highly recommend that you scout between rounds.

[Shriekmaw]

I know early on in any constructed GP, it is very difficult to scout since there are like 500 players. You also have to factor in the players that have byes which didn't play in rounds 1-3. I do think scouting gets a little easier when your at the higher tables, but that is usually in the later stages of the GP on day 1 at least.

I think Leyline is a very strong choice for the main deck, because I expect a lot of Fish and Threshold decks there just to beat Hulk Flash. If Vial Goblins can find these matchups, then I can see it getting into Day 2 and possibly having a run. So much of how well your deck does depends on the matchups that you receive during your rounds at the GP.

[aTn]

I'd consider looking at dropping a Fanatic and/or a Gempalm, since you'll probably need those less out of everything else.

For the GP, I'd probably not drop a Fanatic because of the (probably) high number of UWb-Fish present (eat that Bob).

[Awesomator]

I know early on in any constructed GP, it is very difficult to scout since there are like 500 players. You also have to factor in the players that have byes which didn't play in rounds 1-3. I do think scouting gets a little easier when your at the higher tables, but that is usually in the later stages of the GP on day 1 at least.

I think Leyline is a very strong choice for the main deck, because I expect a lot of Fish and Threshold decks there just to beat Hulk Flash. If Vial Goblins can find these matchups, then I can see it getting into Day 2 and possibly having a run. So much of how well your deck does depends on the matchups that you receive during your rounds at the GP.

You scout at the GPT the day before. With the new meta, Leyline will most likely be an okayMD Choice, however, like Gekoratel said, you have no idea what you're up against, and need it in your opener. You dont want to have to mull down to 5 or 6 only to find out that you're playing a mirror match, and you have 4-5 useful cards in hand. The meta will probably be 15-20% Flash, 35-45% Thresh/Fish/Counter Control, 35-50% everything else. I wouldn't MD REB or anything since Thresh and Fish are already good matchups and Hulk can be dealt with. Anti-American, your deck is going to hate the hell out of Hulk Flash, but you have 8 MD dead cards against a lot of decks in the format, and that's dangerous.

[Shriekmaw]

You scout at the GPT the day before. With the new meta, Leyline will most likely be an okayMD Choice, however, like Gekoratel said, you have no idea what you're up against, and need it in your opener. You dont want to have to mull down to 5 or 6 only to find out that you're playing a mirror match, and you have 4-5 useful cards in hand. The meta will probably be 15-20% Flash, 35-45% Thresh/Fish/Counter Control, 35-50% everything else. I wouldn't MD REB or anything since Thresh and Fish are already good matchups and Hulk can be dealt with. Anti-American, your deck is going to hate the hell out of Hulk Flash, but you have 8 MD dead cards against a lot of decks in the format, and that's dangerous.

You can scout all you want at the Trials the day before, but that still doesn't tell you what you will be playing against. You can have a pretty good idea on how many people with play deck x or deck y, but it is doesn't answer Jeff's original question on when to do decide if your hand is good just because it has a leyline in it.

I think you have to evaluate your hand with goblins and then decide if its good enough or not to keep. You don't want to always keep a hand just because it has a Leyline in it.

[Awesomator]

I was actually responding to you saying that it's tough to scout at the GP because so many players have byes.

[264505]

Well, i wouldn't mulligan out of a good 7 unless I knew I was up against flash, a turn 3 or 4 draw with goblins is usually good enough to beat most decks.

[Shriekmaw]

Well, i wouldn't mulligan out of a good 7 unless I knew I was up against flash, a turn 3 or 4 draw with goblins is usually good enough to beat most decks.

I agree, sometimes when you keep a hand that can win on turn 3 or 4 it does beat flash every once in a while. By having some additional disruption in your board, at least that should give you a fighting chance against flash for the most part.

[Awesomator]

I also agree, but for Leyline to be good against Thresh, it has to be in your opener also. If Leyline isn't in your opener, you are drawing 4 dead cards. I like Cabal Therapy in the MD and Leyline in the board. If you are planning on keeping a lot of 7 card hands, you only get Leyline 40% of the time.

[264505]

Cabal therapy is good, but i dont like the whole prospect of whiffing with the card, especially when the blue players all run brainstorm to protect the important cards. It just seems to me like it misses too much and ends up losng you card advantage to flash it back to hit a card. I also dont like the prospect of blind guessing with it. That card IMHO is better out of the board or main in a deck like Affinity that can play it and flash it back turn 1.

[umbowta]

Goblins has the potential to absolutely slaughter every deck in existence that's made to beat Hulk Flash, and could possibly develop something as good as a 40-60 against Hulk without a color splash.

14 Mountain
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland

4 Aether Vial
4 Leyline of the Void

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Siege-Gang Commander

SB:
4 Serum Powder
3 Chalice of the Void
4 Pyrokinesis
4 Red Elemental Blast


The gamble of this deck, of course, is that Goblin hate dies down once Hulk Flash takes over...

I like. Have you tried Chrome Mox at all? It would seem to be an awesome accellerant and would make use of those extra Leylines. Also, I agree with the earlier call to up the SGC's to 3.

Maybe
-4 Mountain
-1 Gempalm
+4 C-Mox
+1 SGC

[Awesomator]

Cabal therapy is good, but i dont like the whole prospect of whiffing with the card, especially when the blue players all run brainstorm to protect the important cards. It just seems to me like it misses too much and ends up losng you card advantage to flash it back to hit a card. I also dont like the prospect of blind guessing with it. That card IMHO is better out of the board or main in a deck like Affinity that can play it and flash it back turn 1.

I agree, and have always been against playing the card until Hulk came out. Some MD disruption is necessary now, or you're going to have a horrendous matchup 1/5 of the entire tournament.

[Gekoratel]

In case anyone is interested I ran the Greedy Goblins list that I posted here a week or so back to an 11th place finish. I think it was a pretty good metagame call and as I predicated the only tough part was putting people on decks so I could evaluate the strength of Leyline etc. Here were my matchups:

Day1
R1: Bye
R2: W, Nicol Bolas reanimator - some janky Shallow Grave 2 card combo
R3: W, GW Stax - had Heirarch, 3sphere, tangle wire, crucible and the 2 mana lands
R4: L, Mirror
R5: W, I have the worst memory of anyone can't remember this opponent but I want to say it was Fish
R6: W, UGw Thresh
R7: W, Mirror
R8: L, Mirror
R9: W, Landstill - played by the Canadian master shockwave

So day 1 I managed to totally avoid Flash, even though I tweaked my deck to have a shot I was more than happy to avoid that matchup.

Day2
R10: L, Midrange Rock
R11: W, Dark Boros
R12: W, Burn
R13: W, Flash
R14: W, UGr Thresh
R15: W, UBw Fish

As a whole I would say my finish was primarily due to good matchups but I'm happy that I ran a version that had a shot against one of the predominant decks in the field. I probably could have won my R10 but I made a misplay/judgement call that ended up costing me the match.

Congrats to everyone that made D2, it was nice to see the Virginia and Syracuse guys beause it will probably be a long time until I play Legacy again.

[Awesomator]

In case anyone is interested I ran the Greedy Goblins list that I posted here a week or so back to an 11th place finish. I think it was a pretty good metagame call and as I predicated the only tough part was putting people on decks so I could evaluate the strength of Leyline etc. Here were my matchups:

Day1
R1: Bye
R2: W, Nicol Bolas reanimator - some janky Shallow Grave 2 card combo
R3: W, GW Stax - had Heirarch, 3sphere, tangle wire, crucible and the 2 mana lands
R4: L, Mirror
R5: W, I have the worst memory of anyone can't remember this opponent but I want to say it was Fish
R6: W, UGw Thresh
R7: W, Mirror
R8: L, Mirror
R9: W, Landstill - played by the Canadian master shockwave

So day 1 I managed to totally avoid Flash, even though I tweaked my deck to have a shot I was more than happy to avoid that matchup.

Day2
R10: L, Midrange Rock
R11: W, Dark Boros
R12: W, Burn
R13: W, Flash
R14: W, UGr Thresh
R15: W, UBw Fish

As a whole I would say my finish was primarily due to good matchups but I'm happy that I ran a version that had a shot against one of the predominant decks in the field. I probably could have won my R10 but I made a misplay/judgement call that ended up costing me the match.

Congrats to everyone that made D2, it was nice to see the Virginia and Syracuse guys beause it will probably be a long time until I play Legacy again.

Ohh man wish I could have gone to the GP. Nice work though and a good meta call since Fish was everywhere. Was rooting for you when I heard you were running Goblins. Nice finish and good job winning out.

[Tacosnape]

Nice job on your finish, Gekoratel!

Okay, so, this may have nothing to do with the GP, but we started screwing around with a post-FS RG Goblins list running 4 Dryad Arbor.

Being able to Vial out a Dryad Arbor EOT on turn one results in some insanely fast shit. It gives you the Chrome Mox speed acceleration without the card loss. It also gives you a tiny threat underneath double Plague.

[264505]

The question is what do you drop for it?

If you take out lands then you lose red sources and are there any creatures that goblins can drop without hurting other matchups?

It also seems weak without the vial.

[Tacosnape]

You take out one Goblin and three lands, upping your land count to 24. I took out a Taiga, a Waste, and a Port just to try it out.

It's not really all that bad outside of Vial. It's a fairly decent turn 2 drop when you don't have much else to do on that turn. It makes you a little more vulnerable to mana hate though.

EDIT: I should clarify this. I'm not recommending Dryad Arbor in a format where Flash is banned and Goblins returns to being a deck in everyone's crosshairs. But in a combo-prevalent format where there won't be a shit-ton of creature hate, I like it. Most of what you contend with here is either Plague (And they won't Plague for Dryad Arbor), or STP.

[Phantom]

I agree that it sounds nutty, but might fall under the danger of cool things. I mean, when Goblins has Aether Vial out first turn, Goblins has Aether Vial out first turn. Accelerating into a Warchief is nice, but you were in a good spot anyway.

Considering you'd only get to use both in that fashion ~25% of games, Chrome Mox seems a better call.

I could definitely see it in a build of Goblins running Jitte.

Edit: @Taco: You KNOW that third plague is naming Forest!

[Jak]

Since I hope and think flash will get the axe, how do you think goblins will survive when combo like CRET belcher and TES are back? They are not vulnerable to Leyline so we really have no answer besides discard. Counters are an option, but you don't want to hold back in an aggro deck for counter mana. What do you guys think is a good build/sideboard?

[Jaynel]

Chalice of the Void could easily find its way maindeck if combo becomes prevalent.