[DTB] Vial Goblins

[Shriekmaw]

I actually run 24 lands in Goblins and either that or 23 lands is the right number for Goblins. But I'm 24 lands was the best in my testing. That way you can support 4 Siege-Gang Commanders which gives you the most awesome late game ever. 4 Rishadan Port and 4 Wasteland is obviously amazing too.

But I prefer a lot of land, because I believe I can outplay most of my opponents and make up for the possible manaflood that way anyway. I hate to be mana screwed and lose a match that way.

You can also lose the game by getting mana flooded which is something to keep in mind. You may be able to outplay your opponents in your local metagame, but in the GP I would beg to differ.

I may be an expert in the Legacy format, but pros are still pros and they are pretty damn good.

I believe you play the best magic you can and what happens, happens. Going with the mind set of thinking you can just outplay everyone leads to problems, because it makes you keep less than stellar hands on the assumption that you can just outplay everyone.

[Justin]

Flood and screw are equaly awful. I think that 24 land are too much concerning that we run lackey and vial with are great cards for put cards in play with poor mana, not to mention that warchief helps us too. I think that 22-23 land are good.

I agree with this. Getting flooded really stinks and too many lands also weakens your Ringleaders somewhat. I would not play 24 lands in Goblins unless I was expecting a lot of decks with recurring LD (Wasteland via Life from the Loam or Crucible of Worlds) such as Aggro Loam, 42 land, and some Landstill builds. 22-23 lands sounds right, and I've been pretty good with running just 22.

[Ectoplasm]

On the subject of posting RGB decklists, here's mine:

4x Lackey
4x Warchief
4x Fanatic
4x Piledriver
4x Matron
4x Ringleader
4x Vial
2x SGC
2x Weirding
2x Incinerator
1x Hooligan
1x Wort
1x Sharpshooter
1x Mad Auntie

22 lands: 3-3 taiga/badlands, 7 fetch, 4 waste, 5 mountains and considering cutting one for a swamp.

SB:
4x Relic
3x Grip
3x Cabal Therapy
1x Earwig Squad
1x Gaea's Blessing
2x Choke
1x Vexing Shusher

Mad Auntie is just the 'random tech' slot that gets bounced around often, might just cut it entirely and play a 3rd weirding. I used to play 3-1 weirding/incinerator but I found out I really like the incinerators so I decided to play more.

I don't know, this list just seems solid, although a bit conservative maybe? It's been serving me well for a while now.

[Shriekmaw]

Since a lot of people don't like to look back and find my list here it is again. If you simply want it, please just pm me and I'll give it to you. I try to do my best to help the Legacy community any way possible.

RBG Goblins:

4 Mountain
4 Wasteland
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Badlands
3 Taiga
4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Matron
3 Goblin Piledriver
3 Warren Wierding
2 Gempalmn Incinerator
2 Seige-Gang Commander
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Tin Street Hooligan
1 Wort

SB

2 Engineered Explosives
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Krosan Grip
3 Relic
4 Chalice of the Void

[Mantis]

You can also lose the game by getting mana flooded which is something to keep in mind. You may be able to outplay your opponents in your local metagame, but in the GP I would beg to differ.

I may be an expert in the Legacy format, but pros are still pros and they are pretty damn good.

I believe you play the best magic you can and what happens, happens. Going with the mind set of thinking you can just outplay everyone leads to problems, because it makes you keep less than stellar hands on the assumption that you can just outplay everyone.

Right, no Legacy GP here anytime soon (I live in Holland), all we get is Limited GP's...

I rarely lose games because of getting mana flood because I play 4 SCG, 4 Matron and 4 Ringleader thus maximizing on awesome topdecks in the lategame if I am just sitting there with a ton of land on board. I found that 24 lands was perfect as it allows me to actively use Wasteland and Port and not worry about manascrew. Also, Team America is becoming more prevalent and Loam is pretty big here and I think it's a good thing to have lots of lands against those decks.

With 4 Siege Gang in the deck this allows for the maximum of busted Lackey --> Siege Gang opening hands. I found that I could only justify running 4 Siege Gang with 24 land otherwise they would just sit in my hand too often.

So actually my land theory is a double edged sword, preventing you from manascrew and opening up to SCG which in turn allows for more busted opening hands. But perhaps it's a personal preference and while I do think 22 lands is too few, 23 lands is defendable choice as well.

EDIT: I just read and remembered about the Ringleader argument and while that must certainly not be ignored I still get 2+ Goblins off a Ringleader stastically speaking, that should usually be enough in a war of attrition.

[ScatmanX]

About the lands, I'm currently running 21. It's a really bold choice, and I'm considering going 22. I can justify running 3 Siege-Gangs with 22 lands, because of 4 Warchiefs, 3 Frogtossers and 4 Vials. It's been working quite nice.

A little off but:
Have you guys noticed that we've gone from DTB to DTW this month? What happened? or is this usual and I haven't realized earlier? The only 2 DTB are ThreshThreshThreshThreshThresh and Landstill, with all their variants. Are they getting better at kick our asses, or fewer people are playing goblins today?

[Koala]

About the lands, I'm currently running 21. It's a really bold choice, and I'm considering going 22. I can justify running 3 Siege-Gangs with 22 lands, because of 4 Warchiefs, 3 Frogtossers and 4 Vials. It's been working quite nice.

I think 21 enough, you run 4 Warchiefs, 3 Frogtossers and 4 Vials, besides LACKEY. We don't wanna reveal lands in ringleader FoF.

[Shriekmaw]

I think 21 enough, you run 4 Warchiefs, 3 Frogtossers and 4 Vials, besides LACKEY. We don't wanna reveal lands in ringleader FoF.

The more you play the deck, the more you will realize that 21 is not enough land for goblins to be running. I did run 22 lands for a long time, but when I finally added the extra land to 23, I found the deck to be much more consistent.

You play aether vial, goblin lackey, and warchief, but can't consistenly rely on them to help your mana curve. Since you play a lot of mana intensive spells, the land count is very important.

[Ectoplasm]

Down to a DTW :( This is an atrocity!

[kicks_422]

Well, you have to admit that the deck has fallen to the wayside now, especially with the continuous rise of Storm combo. Relic might solve the Goyf problem a bit, and the deck is still fundamentally sound, but Goblins just isn't what it used to be.

[Mantis]

I'm glad, now perhaps less people will come prepared for Goblins which improves our EV against the field. Personally I do not necessarily agree with the DTB/DTW at the moment at all, but that's a different discussion.

[Ectoplasm]

Goblins has been doing just fine in Belgium/Netherlands, recently getting 1 and 2 in a pretty big Belgian tournament!

[Brizentine Empire]

I agree that Goblins just isn't what they used to be. The rest of the decks in legacy have just caught up, and Golbins just don't have the answers for the threats that your opponents pose with aggroloam, threshold, etc. I just tore apart my Gobbos in favor of Swan Thresh, which I believe is going to do much better in Chicago.

[Shriekmaw]

I'm glad, now perhaps less people will come prepared for Goblins which improves our EV against the field. Personally I do not necessarily agree with the DTB/DTW at the moment at all, but that's a different discussion.

This will not effect how people shape there sideboards for larger events, more specifically the GP. The top 2 decks that will be played in Chicago will be Threshold and Goblins like its been in the past with the exception of GP Flash.

This is my personal view, but believe threshold would be a great choice in Chicago if you had 2 to 3 byes going in. My reasoning behind this is that threshold does not preform well against random decks, its very good against the tier 1 decks. This is not to say that someone piloting threshold with zero byes cannot to well, its just harder.

I will be play testing a lot of different decks in the tournaments to come and make a deck selection when the GP becomes a lot closer.

In a unknown field with no byes to work with I believe that Goblins and TES are the best call. Let me know what some others think. This will be my third Legacy GP and hopefully the best one I've attended.

[Mantis]

Just pick up what you are familiar with and the deck which you play best. Also, pick up a build that you tweaked yourself as you will tweak your deck according to the way you play and mulligan your hands.

I find it hard to predict as what will see play in the GP. The determinants for this will probably be what people read about here on The Source and whatever articles may be popping up on SCG.com. For example I think Dreadstill will see much play as Cheon has picked it up. So just keep a close eye on that, but you probably already do.
Also, what people are able to build with their cards and afford is a pretty big determinant.

In any case, I wish you the best of luck in the GP.

[Janet]

I will probably be playing Goblins or Goyf Sligh, just because those are the last couple of decks that I've had the time to test = /

[Ectoplasm]

No matter how you look at it, goblins has an amazing game 1 against anything not combo-based. That has to count for something?
The rest is a metagame call; what do you sideboard? With relic of progenitus hitting everything from loam to threshold and allrounders like K Grip I don't see a reason to discount goblins at all :)

[mossivo1986]

Hello gentlemen. My name is Joel.

I am here to offer two experianced goblin pilots to a discussion/playtesting with a group of gp chicago players testing early on mws, and using ventrilo.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...157#post304157

is the link please let me know on there or pm is your interested/

please have aim avalible and possibly ventrilo as that will be our client we are using mostly.

let me know
-Moss

[Tacosnape]

@Ecto: I'm agreeably a fan of Gaea's Blessing in the sideboard as of late. Not only does it provide a random tricky out to Painter decks, it's also helped me once or twice in stopping a Loam engine in Aggro Loam matchups (And God is it sexy when it randomly cantrips into Warren Weirding.)

So here's my latest question with Goblins to ponder:

1. How bad do you really need basic lands, and why?

Here's my current manabase for RGB:

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Taiga
4 Badlands
4 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port

So I'm curious as to the arguments for basic Mountains. Here are my arguments against:

A. We don't fear Blood Moon or Magus of the Moon. Magus dies to Incinerator, and if they want to drop a Blood Moon just to shut off Warren Weirding, let them go right ahead.

B. We don't necessarily fear nonbasic land destruction (Wasteland) all that badly. Goblins thrives on cheating land destruction via Aether Vial and Goblin Lackey.

C. Do we really fear Back to Basics? Krosan Grip can take it down if we have the mana open, we generally crush MUC anyway (Because, you know, it's so played), and against Faerie Stompy it doesn't matter a whole lot as we pretty much need both black and green on the board to have a fighting chance anyway, as Weirding/Hooligan/Grip are three of our best weapons in this matchup.

And so far, the only argument -for- Mountains is the ever annoying Price of Progress. So I'm curious to hear more.

[ScatmanX]

On Blessing: Guess that 1 of as SB can be very interesting.

On landbuild:
I like having Basics in my deck. Recurring Wastelands have already bored me a lot, so I sugest at least 1 or 2 basic mountains to fetch in the deck. I also don´t like the full 8 Fetchs. The need I have for B or G colored mana isn´t all that much, and I´m always able to get them with 6-7 fetch + 6 duals.

On Tacos argumments:
A. Right. no fear for moon efects.
C. Right. Don´t think I can remenber a game were B2B shut me down, even in a R or RB build.
B. Oposing Wastelands have lost me quite a few games already. I fear them.

Maybe the new card from Conflux, Path to Exile, will be enough reason to run at least 1 or 2 basics in the deck.