[DTB] Vial Goblins

[(nameless one)]

It still amazes me how many garbage lists appear on this thread running subpar goblins with subpar reasoning behind them, that run 0-2 Warren Instigators on grounds that "I don't like them" or "They don't suit my playstyle." This is nothing more than an unwarranted resistance to change.

Warren Instigator is ungodly amazing. For two red, you get a guy who strikes fear into the hearts of the masses. If he gets removed, he gets removed. Big deal. If he hits, he breaks games open. If he doesn't hit, you force the opponent to play defensive against a deck with a fantastic long game.

I've been running 4 Instigators for quite awhile now and wouldn't change this for the world.

I'll agree Chieftain's overrated. I'll agree that most everything that's come along for Goblins in the last year's overrated. But Instigator's a monster. If he doesn't match your playstyle? Change your playstyle. Learn to play with him.

Even though I haven't had any success running Instigators, I am still trying to chase them. I recently acquired my 4th one along with my playset of Guides.

Anyways, maybe I need more practice on running Instigators. Anyhow, would you like to share your list along with an ideal sideboard for an evershifting meta? Thanks.

[Arsenal]

Scroll back a page or two, you'll find it.

I'm curious to know for those running Mono-red, are you really comfortable with only 22 land, 6-8 of which are non-red mana producing? I suspect you're leaning on Lackey/Vial/Instigator to power out actual threats, but still, there's a lot of RR spells running around. Have you ever found yourselves wanting to up the Mountain count and bring the total land count to 24? That's what I'm currently running and am rather skitish about dropping down to 22.

[bakofried]

How comfortable are you guys with a 3/3 split of Scourgers and Incinerators? I love the bounce; especially due to the synergy with Lackey. But having straight-up removal is golden. Should I tip the scales in either direction?

[jrsthethird]

Played the build I posted a few days ago at Vestal, went 4-3. I lost to JonBarber in the mirror, which I believe I had a chance to win both games and just really fucked it up. Not going to go into it because I should've known better. Also lost to stupid ANT with turn 1 kill (misplayed the first game as well =/; I did no testing against ANT so I had no clue really what was best to do). Third loss was to a deck with Hexmage/Depths combo as well as Living Wish, Thoughtseize, Smallpox, Hymn, Bloodghast, Mox Diamond, etc.; don't know what it was called.

[JonBarber]

Played the build I posted a few days ago at Vestal, went 4-3. I lost to JonBarber in the mirror, which I believe I had a chance to win both games and just really fucked it up. Not going to go into it because I should've known better. Also lost to stupid ANT with turn 1 kill (misplayed the first game as well =/; I did no testing against ANT so I had no clue really what was best to do). Third loss was to a deck with Hexmage/Depths combo as well as Living Wish, Thoughtseize, Smallpox, Hymn, Bloodghast, Mox Diamond, etc.; don't know what it was called.

You lost to TES, not ANT. Close enough.

I got into the top 8 at the 78 man vestal tourney. I'll post what I used tomorrow as well as a mini report. There was another R/b goblin deck to top 8 as well. Good stuff.

[FoulQ]

Scroll back a page or two, you'll find it.

I'm curious to know for those running Mono-red, are you really comfortable with only 22 land, 6-8 of which are non-red mana producing? I suspect you're leaning on Lackey/Vial/Instigator to power out actual threats, but still, there's a lot of RR spells running around. Have you ever found yourselves wanting to up the Mountain count and bring the total land count to 24? That's what I'm currently running and am rather skitish about dropping down to 22.

I've been running 23: 17 mountain, 4 wasteland, 2 rishadan port. With x4 warchief x3 sgc x2-3 chieftain x3-4 instigator. And that has worked fine for me.

[Mantis]

This is nothing more than an unwarranted resistance to change.

This post struck me like no forum post has ever done. Perhaps I have been making excuses not to improve my Goblins deck as I was havnig tons of success with it (winning or splitting 4 out of 5 tournaments I played it). However, I am now planning on donig well in GP Madrid and that is something different than winning local tournaments. You just can not afford to let yourself be hold back by trivial things like suboptimal preferences and emotional attachments. There is no prize for the player who designed the coolest deck or has the most funky Matron suite, all that counts is winning lots of matches and losing few. This is achieved through running the most powerful, consistent and synergystic strategy, right now I believe Taco's build outperforms the other lists on all three.

I did some brief testing with Taco's build and I am very optimistic about the findings. I'm hoping do a lot more testing in the upcoming week.
My initial worries were that Rishadan Port will be missed and that splashing black makes you prone to Tempo Threshs disruption suite of Stifle/Waste. My theory right now however; Badlands/Hovel/Fetch make the manabase worse, red lands instead of Ports make the manabase better, net result = 0. The powerloss of no Port is offset by giving you a lot more to do on turn 2, while Goblin Piledriver is not so hot on turn 2, Warren Instigator and Warren Weirding definitely are. I am not entirely convinced with Stingscourger yet and I might like a Mogg War Marshall in that slot, as I find myself often searching for it with Matron. Additionally it has some weird synergy with Warren Weirding that might come up once in a blue moon, though that's definately not the reason to run it.

However, I believe the most is to be gained from the sideboard. The black splash grants access to Thoughtseize and Duress, to shore up both the combo matchup but also are generally nice against hard matchups such as Stax and Enchantress.

I am testing with Taco’s maindeck and this sideboard:
4 Thoughtseize
4 Mindbreak Trap or 4 Duress have not decided yet
4 Relic of Progenitus
3 Perish

No Pyrokinesis, indeed, it probably improves your matchup against Goblins, Merfolk and Zoo, but I believe these matchups are doable and It’s not like Pyrokinesis is going to make these matchups a walk in the park. Look at the other sideboard cards, when boarding in Mindbreak Trap and Thoughtseize, your matchup against ANT goes from something like 30% to 60% (very rough estimation please let’s not start an argument about this). Relic of Progenitus will improve your matchup against Aggro Loam, Tempo Thresh and Ichorid drastically. Perish will drastically improve your matchup against Survival Bant, Elves, Aggro Loam and Tempo Thresh. Your slots are limited and my philosophy is to gain as much percentage points across the field.

My general sideboard lines as they stand now:

Merfolk
keep the way the deck is

Zoo
-3 Piledriver +3 Perish

Tempo Thresh
-3 Piledriver, -2 Incinerator, -2 Instigator, +4 Relic of Progenitus, +3 Perish

Ichorid
On the play: -1 Stingscourger, -4 Warren Weirding, -3 Piledriver, +4 Relic, +4 Seize
On the draw: -4 Warren Weirding, +4 Relic

ANT
-4 Warren Weirding, -1 Stingscourger, -2 Incinerator, -1 Siege Gang Commander
+4 Thoughtseize, +4 Mindbreak Trap/Duress

Surviving Bant
-1 Incinerator, -1 Siege Gang, -1 Piledriver
+3 Perish

Counter/Top
Depends heavily on the list, if they play Mongoose, I’d side in Relic, if they play Hierarch and Qasali in goes Perish. If they play 4 Rhox War Monk I’d keep in Piledriver.

Enchantress
-2 Incinerator, -1 Stingscourger, -1 Warren Weirding
+4 Thoughtseize
If I play Duress -2 Siege Gang, -2 Warren Weirding, +4 Duress).

Mirror
-4 Warren Weirding
+4 Thoughtseize

43 lands:
-4 Warren Weirding, -2 Incinerator, -1 Stingscourger
+4 Relic, +3 Thoughtseize (on the play, side in the 4th for a Relic #4 I guess).

One concern I have with these boarding strategies, is that they might dilute the deck too much, thus making Ringleader less effective.
Very interested to see what you guys think of both this sideboard and the sideboard guide lines. Also, Taco if you find the time, I’d be interested to see your sideboard strats.

[jrsthethird]

You lost to TES, not ANT. Close enough.

I got into the top 8 at the 78 man vestal tourney. I'll post what I used tomorrow as well as a mini report. There was another R/b goblin deck to top 8 as well. Good stuff.

The guy used Ad Nauseum to draw like 20 cards, Burning Wished for Tendrils and killed me. Isn't that ANT? I don't know what TES is so maybe I'm wrong but if not can you explain the difference?

[DrHealex]

One concern I have with these boarding strategies, is that they might dilute the deck too much, thus making Ringleader less effective.
Very interested to see what you guys think of both this sideboard and the sideboard guide lines. Also, Taco if you find the time, I’d be interested to see your sideboard strats.

I wouldn't worry about that too much, I mean the whole point you took those "goblin" cards out was that they were completely useless in the matchup. So the way I see it is that if I hit the SBed non-goblins on a ringleader, it would be just like hitting the "useless" goblin on it.
Sure it still slightly lessens ringleaders greatness, but there really is no way around it... and ringleader is always too good to SB out.

[Zythe]

Scroll back a page or two, you'll find it.

I'm curious to know for those running Mono-red, are you really comfortable with only 22 land, 6-8 of which are non-red mana producing? I suspect you're leaning on Lackey/Vial/Instigator to power out actual threats, but still, there's a lot of RR spells running around. Have you ever found yourselves wanting to up the Mountain count and bring the total land count to 24? That's what I'm currently running and am rather skitish about dropping down to 22.

The number of lands you run depends on how many ports you're running. If 6-8 lands are non-red producing, then I'm assuming you're running ports and I would think you'd probably want to run at least 23 lands. However, for the builds that opted to drop ports, 22 lands seem fine to me.

My list is R/b packing 2 ports (along with 8 fetches) so I wouldn't ever run less than 23 lands.

[bakofried]

Would you guys suggest Mono-Red, Rb, or RG goblins for a relatively unknown meta?

[Joe_C]

Would you guys suggest Mono-Red, Rb, or RG goblins for a relatively unknown meta?

I would suggest mono red due to being really reliable. If you have no idea on the level of the decks there your board will need to cover a large amount of ground.I play in a fairly aggro oriented meta, I do run into natural order/show and tell deck sometimes, but you can race just about everything out there except a turn 1/2 Iona without holding stingsourger with a vial in play... This is my current list:

// Lands
4 [TE] Wasteland
15 [P2] Mountain (1)
3 [MM] Rishadan Port

// Creatures
4 [US] Goblin Lackey
4 [AP] Goblin Ringleader
4 [SC] Goblin Warchief
2 [ON] Goblin Piledriver
3 [SC] Siege-Gang Commander
3 [LE] Gempalm Incinerator
4 [US] Goblin Matron
3 [PLC] Stingscourger
3 [M10] Goblin Chieftain
2 [ZEN] Warren Instigator
2 [TSP] Mogg War Marshal

// Spells
4 [DS] AEther Vial

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 4 [AT] Pyrokinesis
SB: 1 [MI] Goblin Tinkerer
SB: 3 [10E] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [ZEN] Ravenous Trap
SB: 1 [ON] Goblin Sharpshooter

For an unkown meta, depending on your playstyle you may want to make this list more aggresive in the maindeck by dropping the 2 war marshalls for 2 more piledrivers. The board pretty much covers everything except storm combo which I just take as an "autoloss" unless I can turn 3 someone who has a slow hand.

[bakofried]

Thanks for the advice. Btw, I have 2 options right now:
I can trade for 2 Wastelands.
or
I can trade for 3 Rishadan Ports.
My meta is relatively undeveloped. It's actually classified as "Vintage" but no one brings anything like that, and I like the Legacy format, so I just bring decks for that. But anyway - what should I get first? Ports or Wastes?

[Joe_C]

Thanks for the advice. Btw, I have 2 options right now:
I can trade for 2 Wastelands.
or
I can trade for 3 Rishadan Ports.
My meta is relatively undeveloped. It's actually classified as "Vintage" but no one brings anything like that, and I like the Legacy format, so I just bring decks for that. But anyway - what should I get first? Ports or Wastes?

I would say if you arent going to be able to get your hands on the full set of wastelands I would get the 3 ports. They are useful in a bunch of matchups and can slow your opponent down regardless of them running or not running non basic lands. Turn 1 lackey or vial and then playing port on turn 2 is a really strong play against just about everything out there.... Depending on what you are trading away I would feel the ports are your better choice at this time

[bakofried]

Maybe I should clarify: I already have 2 Wastelands. This would complete the set.

[Joe_C]

Maybe I should clarify: I already have 2 Wastelands. This would complete the set.

In that case, go for the wastelands. They can at least permanently remove any "problem" lands such as tablernacle or mutavault

[Arsenal]

Also, Wastelands have considerably more playability in Legacy than Rishadan Port.

[bakofried]

Ok. Does the Mono-Red version have any ways to deal with Enchantress?

[Joe_C]

Ok. Does the Mono-Red version have any ways to deal with Enchantress?

keep them off WW as much as possible.. run anarchy in the sideboard. thats the best you can do.. ports help alot in this matchup

[bakofried]

Cool. I couldn't think up a response for Moat or Solitary Confinement short of flipping the table...but most of thier scary enchantments are white, aren't they?