I have not tested Nature's Claim because I am out of drafting because of money issues (I sold most of my cards except for goblins/merfs). I don't own them currently, as weird as that sounds. But I think they have potential. It would take a lot of testing to decide on them over reliable grip however.Originally Posted by GoboLord
Tunneler doesn't look very good to me. Possibly in a lackey-based build, something like 4x instigator, 3x siege-gang, 2-3x stingscourger, 1-3x chieftain (maximize SGC tokens and instigator double strike), possibly some lightning bolts, possibly soaring seacliffs and/or that red land that makes one creature not block (forgot the name), and 2x tunneler. Pyrokinesis 4x out of the side for lackey connections, possibly a transformative sideboard away from the lackey build. Potential splash for weirding.
This build will fare better against combo but I'm afraid its worse than the other variants of goblins in other matchups. Columbus meta requires MWM, and lackey builds don't have room for him unless you are cutting core cards.
(for the record the other acceptable variants I see are swarm goblins, toolbox goblins, and standard goblins which is what I usually stick to)
ETA: I will note that I tested frenzied goblin back when the goyf craze was at its peak. Every deck seemed like aggro-control UGx with goyf. I thought it would be SO hot and some awesome secret tech paired with my other secret tech, goblin grenade (I even tested trip noose with these two), and I was off to Gencon. All three turned out to be miserably bad at Gencon. MISERABLY. I 0-3 dropped with my horrendous build.
So the whole "can't block" thing, I think is not really that great. Better on paper than in practice.
@ Nidd, I think both are pretty bad, and goblin sideboarding strategies takes a different philosophy. For many decks it's simply, "I'm having a problem with this artifact, so I should play artifact destruction," well, goblins is very rigid in its ultimate gameplan (but very fluid within that gameplan) so a lot of the time the solution is not that easy.
And wasteland 4x in every list without question, please. Port is good in the Columbus meta but not mandatory. If you are not playing a decent number of instigator/chieftain I don't see why you wouldn't run port in MonoR goblins or Rx goblins (3c is a different argument).
Im currently testing Pyrokinesis and im still not convinced. Like a hand with Lackey, Ringleader, Kinesis and 3 Lands after Mull. I play Lackey go, Opponent plays Lynx. I draw another Land..
And i had more of those situations, where it was better to keep the gobs in hand, than pitching into kinesis. Its an awful topdeck, too.
Once i was able to kill 2 Lynx and Pridemage, but that was once in around 10 games.
I dont want to finally decide on that card, and keep testing. But this card looks like some psychological effect, where you remember the situations it shined and forget the situations where it was semigood or crap.
On the nationals ill play Bolts i guess.
So? Just attack and kill Linx. Then proceed do hit land drops, that will win you the game.
If you were on the draw...:
1- If you play Waste/Port, 1 of those 4 lands should do something useful and delay your opponent.
2- If he attacks with Lynx, he will have to a)kill Lackey; b) Cast another guy. Any guy he cast turn 2 you should be able to kill with Knesis, and nail Linx too..
Super Bizarros Team. Beating everything with small green dudes and big waves.
But you obv dont wanna pitch Matrone or Ringleader if ure other cards are lands/vial/Weirdings. Against Merfolk you want to keep Piledriver.
Agreed. So just don't pitch them.
And if you have Vial/Lands/Weirdings, you have stuff to do with your cards already.
The deal with Knesis, is that you don't necessarily want to cast it right away. You shouldn't get anxious to do it. I only got card disadvantage out of it when I absolutely need to kill a guy, in order to not die, or not to get a dangerous life total (for me is 10 against Zoo).
In my last Report I used Knesis against Folk and Zoo, and only once Bolt would have been better.
Super Bizarros Team. Beating everything with small green dudes and big waves.
Casting Pyrokinesis depends entirely on the board state. Ideally, you want to swing in with your team, and use the extra damage to wipe the opponent's team. In particular against Zoo, you can just play board control, using Matrons to tutor up your Gempalms or Siegegangs. Pyrokinesis supplement this strategy well because it removes their meat wall post-combat.
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Expect me or die. I play SI.
Sorry for calling you "Scratchman" :-D
You can call me "GogoLord" if you want ;-) That makes us even
My List in MtgOnline:
//Lands
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Badlands
2 Taiga
5 Mountain
1 Swamp
4 Wasteland
//22
//Creatures
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledriver
3 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
3 Goblin Chieftain
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Stingscourger
1 Wort, Boggart Auntie
1 Kiki Jiki Mirror Breaker
//31
//Spells
4 AEther Vial
3 Warren Weirding
//7
//Sideboard
4 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Krosan Grip
3 Pyrokinesis
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Pyroblast
I'm having problems with burn.
Suggestions?
Fetch for Basics. Don't play any land you don't need to.
SB in Thorn for WW and KIKI.
Don't overextend and walk into a sweeper.
Don't play Vial late game if you haven't cast one early, so Smash to Smithereens won't hit you.
Kill him before he kills you.
Super Bizarros Team. Beating everything with small green dudes and big waves.
The best cards against burn are goblin lackey and warren instigator. Your opponent can't let them connect.
Likewise, if lackey connections are big, so are burn creatures. Gempalm is meh but pyrokinesis is actually sideboardable if your opponent is playing 8+ creatures sometimes. Especially if they are playing grim, goblin guide, and hellspark. Saves you turns in the damage race and opens up for you lackies.
However thorns get the job done better probably and 7 nongoblins might hurt. It would need testing for your specific decklist and playstyle if you liked it.
And do you really need 3c? I mean, that's your call. But dropping to 2 colors will help you in that matchup.
ETA: 4x piledriver is also helpful versus burn. The matchup is a race, so lackey connections + piledriver is what wins games.
Last edited by FoulQ; 08-18-2010 at 03:50 PM.
The reason I would splash B for is that it makes Perish available for SB. I dont think Wort and Weirding are worth splashing B. Maybe you can even cut 1 Badlands and the basic swamp for 2 Mountains. That makes you less vulnerable to Wastelands obv.
I was rockin the goblins at a weekly legacy tournament last Thursday.
Creature (30)
2x Gempalm Incinerator
2x Goblin Chieftain
4x Goblin Lackey
3x Goblin Matron
4x Goblin Piledriver
4x Goblin Ringleader
4x Goblin Warchief
2x Mogg War Marshal
2x Siege-Gang Commander
1x Stingscourger
2x Warren Instigator
Land (23)
3x Badlands
3x Bloodstained Mire
4x Mountain
4x Rishadan Port
2x Taiga
4x Wasteland
3x Wooded Foothills
Sorcery (3)
3x Warren Weirding
Artifact (4)
4x AEther Vial
Sideboard (15)
3x Pyrokinesis
4x Leyline of the Void
2x Reverent Silence
4x Thorn of Amethyst
2x Vexing Shusher
Round 1-
GWUB thing with Old Man of the Sea-
He Old Mans a lackey, I gempalm. I play Piledriver. Game 2. Repeat.
2-0
1-0
Round 2-
Survival no Vengivine
Game 1
he's on the play. Turn 1 fetch, Forest. go. I play mountain, lackey, go. He plays forest, Tarmogoyf. Go. I play mountain, and make a huge mistake that I should have known better than to do. I have Gempalm Incinerator in hand and lackey in play. He has a Tamogoyf with only a land in either graveyard, so it's 1/2. I say to myself, "Self, if you attack with your Lackey he has to block, and you can Gempalm his Goyf for the extra 1 point of damage." So I attack with lackey, he blocks, I cycle Gempalm, and my opponent graciously points out that cycling the gempalm adds a Creature card to the graveyard, making goyf 2/3. I hate myself for not knowing how to play against the single most popular beater in the format, and lose the game shortly thereafter.
Game 2
I board in my Leyline of the Voids and reverent silences. My silence hits his turn 2 Survival, but he has another turn 3. It seems like the damage has been done though as he looses steam and I swarm to the win.
Game 3
I don't change my sideboarding. I have a solid, goblin filled opening 7 but no Leyline. I decide to go for it. I'm on the draw. Card #8 is a Leyline. I hate my life. He Retainers an Iona around turn 3 or so, calling red. I have a Vial in play and a gempalm in hand, so I'm still in this. On my last turn I can actually take out Iona if I gempalm into another gempalm, which I don't, but it was still nice knowing I had outs.
1-2
1-1
Round 3
Monoblack
I swarm game 1. He keeps a mana-light hand game 2 and I Port him out of the game.
2-0
2-1
Round 4
Belcher
Game 1
Turn 1, I play Vial. He plays 12 goblins. Turn 2 I counter up vial and cast Tinkerer (my list was slightly different than the one I posted, I just realized). He attacks for 12. I block, take 11, and vial a lackey into play. Turn three cast Cheiftain, attack with lackey, put Siege Gang into play. He concedes shortly thereafter.
Game 2
I side in 4 Thorn of Amethyst and 3 Pyrokinesis. He Belches turn 1.
Game 3
I mull to six with a hand of lackey, piledriver, pyrokinesis, thorn and lands. My hand has the potential to get something going off of good topdecks. I pray he's not able to go off till turn two as I cast my lackey. He goes off turn 1 for about 12 guys again. I die shortly thereafter.
1-2
2-2
What I would do differently---
Fuck Leyline of the Void. Seriously. Drawing it as card 8 third game of the second match punished me for keeping a solid hand. Were it a Crypt, Relic, or Planar Void I would have won that game easy. I used to lean on Leyline because Reanimator was a matchup you would see every day. Now it's a fringe deck and recursion strategies are much slower. DON'T PLAY LEYLINE! I'm taking the 4 Leyline out of my SB and replacing with a Crypt, a Relic, And a Planar Void. 4 graveyard hate spots to 3 because it's not as necessary anymore, I feel. Leyline just isn't worth mulling to and is a dead-draw. People kept saying it and I just now am starting to believe them.
I'm adding in Mindbreak Trap. I'm thinking 3 Mindbreak and 3 Thorn in SB, replacing 1 Leyline and 1 Shusher. 6 combo hate cards a little much? Absolutely, but I hate feeling that I don't have a chance against them otherwise. Goblins can only kill turn 4 (turn three under perfect conditions) which is just too slow to expect to win against combo in general. Since it's our worst matchup I feel it should be sided most heavily against. Please feel free to disagree, but I want to hear some solid reasons why, dammit.
First of all, issues with the maindeck. 3 colors yet your running the full set of wastes and ports? My general rule is 4 wastes and 4 ports is okay if playing mono red, 4 wastes 2 ports if playing Rx, and no ports if playing 2 splash. Also, 3 matron?? Matron should be an automatic 4 of.
Next, sb. I'm really not a big fan of thorns or mindbreak trap. They're both pretty bad. Chalice is really the best option. 2nd, leyline is bad now. Since dredge and reanimator are in much smaller numbers, your okay without it. Planar void is definitely the way to go. Reverant silence also seems really bad, but I guess its playable.
You crazy, Boo. Full sets of Waste and Port works just fine. I just ran 50 playtests to make sure, and I only needed to mull 3 times because of being mana screwed. It is not even a problem when you're rocking the duals. Dual lands, Man! And Fetches! No problem! You realize fetches make it so I essentially have 8 Taigas and 9 badlands, right? Tell me how your odds of getting mana-screwed are any different running three color than mono-red. Oh, wait. It isn't. Is it more vulnerable to denial strategies that prey on non-basics? Yes. Does it make Price of Progress scarier? Yes. Will the deck be improved by pulling a Port or two for Mountains? No. It will more consistently have Red mana. I would rather have the mana denial considering we cheat everything into play anyway. I think it works, and I haven't heard any solid evidence to the contrary. I would be open to it though, if anyone actually has a reason that consists of more than their preferences.
Matron- Why do you need 4? I don't need 4. I'm always searching for Ringleader anyway, and I don't just want to draw a bunch of Matrons. having too many Matrons around can be a hinderance. They are only good as chump blockers once they're in play, and many times you just need a goblin in play that actually does something, and instead you're stuck on a Matron. Also (and MOST importantly), running 3 instead of 4 is not going to change the way the deck plays. Matron is not nearly as important as Lackey or Vial.
I haven't had the chance to playtest Chalice. What makes it so much better than Thorn or Mindbreak? Is it that it stops Silences and discard? I want to know why it's better against Combo, especially since I haven't seen successful decks SBing it recently. I just went and looked at the StarCityGames Legacy Open lists for the tourneys all the way back to Madrid. Can you guess how many of the top placing Goblin decks ran Chalice of the Void? C'mon, guess. Ready now? 0. Exactly 0 Chalice of the Voids have been in top placing Goblin decks going back to Madrid. Lots of Cabal Therapies, Traps, and Thorns though. So if you have a great reason for saying it's clearly better than Trap or Thorn, I would love to hear it.
Reverent Silence does blow, but so many enchantresses and moats are floating around, along with Survival, Propogandas and CoP:R. It gives a chance to wipe the board of certain kinds of control. And it's free, which fits the theme how most of the rest of the deck comes into play. It's not a perfect solution by a long shot, but it seems fairly strong against a lot of the meta.
1. Wasteland is in the top 5 of most played cards in Legacy you don't want to be too vulnerable to it.
2. If you are not able to cheat creatures into play you are screwed.
3. What use is mana denial strategy if you can't put any pressure on the board? 15 'red mana sources' is very little.
The odds that you get mana screwed are way higher than with Monored because it is more easy to hate non-basics than basics. Mono red does not have to worry about its mana base at all. It's basically impossible to get screwed on. Wasteland and Stifle can really screw you.
If you do not land a Vial or Lackey you need at least 2 red mana sources to be able to play anything in the deck.
It seems to me that you rely too much on either Vial or Lackey to sneak stuff in play.
It gets you any card you need at any given moment, thats why you always play 4. The same argument you use for fetch lands can be used here. You have 8 Ringleaders, 8 Piledrivers, 8 Warchief etc. And when I look at your list I see you only run 3 removal (edit: 6, you also have weirdings) so you definitely need Matrons there.
I'm glad more people are starting to realize Leyline of the Void sucks. Because it does.
Last edited by Nelis; 08-19-2010 at 07:32 AM.
Quit playing Legacy but could still play Goblins (Rgw, Rg, Rw, Rb)
ジェームス・ブラウン
I'm staring in the mirror looking at my biggest rival.
so:
-1 Badlands
-1 Fetch
-1 Gempalm
+2 Mountain
+1 Warren Instigator(is viable?)
I never have drop 2cc(except Piledriver).
The degree to which Ports + Wastes are disturbing is not dependent from how many colors you play. You have 6-8 fetches + 2-3 copies of Badlans/Taiga in deck (no matter if you run Ports or not).
What makes 8 colorless mana sources problemetic is the number of RR-spells you run. I'm not saying that you cant support RR at any time, but it makes it harder to play 2 Goblins in one round (let's say: Chieftain + Piledriver) that require RRR. With Ports in deck it's harder to get those RRR.
This is exactly why I find your list strange: you run 5 additional RR spells (Instigator, Chieftain) which I would cut for 1R spells (like more Gempalms and Stingscourger) - if you want to keep them (or run even more copies) I'd think about cutting Ports.
Screwing Goblins is possible, but difficult. Your list in particular is mono R preboard (except from Weirdings), which I find good. I'd even think about cutting weirdings because (as you said) Reanimator is not an omipresent deck anymore.
Common guys, he's seriously trolling.
Yeah, your 2-2 proves that...
Super Bizarros Team. Beating everything with small green dudes and big waves.
Well for starters, I'll use your words:
Chalice is dropped for zero, turn 1, shutting off 12 vital cards in your opponents deck. It dodges duress's better than any other kind of hate, and doesn't touch your tempo. You drop chalice and T1 lackey. Dropping T2 chalice@1 is way more devestating than thorn or any other hate.
Cabal Therpies and Duress are good, but they slow you down. Your not going to STOP combo, and that shouldn't be your plan. You want to disrupt them for long enough to kill them. If your slowing yourself down to slow them down, your right back where you ended up. Not to mention, they play brainstorms and ponders. They'll keep their important cards safe.
Thorn is slow, and can be played through. Its also just about as susceptible to duress as mindbreak trap is.
Mindbreak trap is just well, terrible. Every good storm player will be ready for you to bring in hate against them, and they SHOULD always duress you before going off. Sure you'll catch bad players with it, but chalice is a whole hell of a lot harder to deal with for bad players anyways.
Chalice is also usable in non-combo matchups as well. I often board it in against zoo because a chalice @1 makes our life a lot easier.
So now if YOU have a great reason for saying Trap or Thorn is clearly better than chalice, I would love to hear it.
Agreed!
But why do you bring in Chalice against Zoo? I personally consider every creature in my deck to be more valuable against Zoo than Chalice.
I test this strategy too but I found myself losing one turn for nothing, cause they just switch to playing Goyfs/Pridemages/Knights and destoy Chalice via Pridemage when they have to.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
