[Deck] Goblins

[Ace/Homebrew]

That's all I needed to hear.

Agreed. Kiki is win more. He's a blast to play with but I'd rather be holding a SGC every time. How many games are you going to win turn 3 because your Lackey let you drop Kiki turn 2?


(it's zero)

[FoxBlade]

Agreed. Kiki is win more. He's a blast to play with but I'd rather be holding a SGC every time. How many games are you going to win turn 3 because your Lackey let you drop Kiki turn 2?

(it's zero)

Turn 3 kills don't happen that often and with Mental Misstep running its going to happen even less.
I feel that turn 1 lackey/vial lost a huge punch, which in turn is going to make warren instigator a bit more powerful.

However you can still get turn 3 kills with kiki off of lackey:

Turn 1:
Mountain->Lackey

Turn 2:

Mountain->PileDriver , attack with lackey - drop kiki (-19)

EOT opponent's turn-> Piledriver token (kiki has haste and token stays until your EOT phase)

Turn 3:

Mountain-> create second pile driver token swing with 3 piledrivers + lackey for 22 pts of damage (even more if you drop chieftain or warchief).

Secondly, in the lists that I've run - Kiki does NOT replace SGC (I run 3 SGC along with kiki). Again Kiki isn't win more he just answers certain situations that other goblins cannot, for example in games I have:

1. The game locked in equilibrium (I do not have enough to do lethal because opponent has enough blockers and would come out on top if I attack his bigger creatures) played Kiki and copied another pile driver creating more piledrivers than my opponent could block to swing for the win.

2. The game locked in equilibrium (I do not have enough to do lethal because opponent has enough blockers and would come out on top if I attack his bigger creatures) played kiki copied SGC to create 4 bodies and chump blocked for several turns until I could swing for the win.

3. The game locked in equilibrium (I do not have enough to do lethal because opponent has enough blockers and would come out on top if I attack his bigger creatures) had kiki and the end of my opponent's turn copied SGC and during my main phase copied SGC again to swing for the win.

4. The game locked in equilibrium (I do not have enough to do lethal because opponent has enough blockers and would come out on top if I attack his bigger creatures) played kiki to create another copy of WI during opponent's EOT and another one during my main phase before swinging with more WI's than they could block.

5. Had moat played on me - used kiki to copy matron to grab lightning crafter (in one game even created an infinite loop with kiki-crafter-skirk prospector)

6. vs. Board Sweepers - used kiki to copy matron in response to get ringleader (or just copied ringleader, or anything that I needed really) to recover faster.

7. The game locked in equilibrium (I do not have enough to do lethal because opponent has enough blockers and would come out on top if I attack his bigger creatures) played kiki copied Boartusk liege/chieftain end of my opponent's turn and beginning of my main phase giving my goblins another +2/+2 making my creatures bigger than theirs enabling me to establish board control.

8. The game locked in equilibrium (I do not have enough to do lethal because opponent has enough blockers and would come out on top if I attack his bigger creatures) opponent plays firespout, used kiki to copy Boartusk liege/chieftain to put all my creatures just out of range of firespout.

Those are the things that I've done with him and in each of those situations SGC alone could not have saved me and in some cases he would only delay the inevitable for 1 turn which wouldn't always be enough time.

[lordofthepit]

Why do most people think Goblins will get weaker after New Phyrexia, citing Mental Misstep as the main reason?

On one hand, Goblins has 2 of the scariest one-drops in the format in Aether Vial and Goblin Lackey; but on the other hand, it does not depend on them to win games the way combo decks do. Goblins has a pretty varied mana curve and is very much capable of playing an attrition battle. With only 8 one-drops (which largely derive their value from the early game), sometimes an opponent will have a Mental Misstep or two in hand and have nothing useful to use them all. In other matchups, it might rip a Mental Misstep too late.

Certainly, in a vaccuum, other decks make better use of Mental Misstep, but in practice, I imagine the presence of Mental Misstep will make the format less favorable for combo and perhaps increase the presence of Stompy type strategies, which should benefit Goblins overall.

[FoxBlade]

Well I have been testing vs. mental misstep online (only vs. decks that run blue btw). Losing a turn 1 lackey/vial really hurts the tempo and it has really made turn 1 lackey and vial really weak.

Losing your turn 1 vial before mental misstep meant that they had to answer with FOW or Daze in some cases, which means it was a 2 for 1 trade. Now it's 1 for 1 trade.

Losing vial on turn 1 means you lose a lot of tempo and vs. decks that run counters, means you lost your ability to cheat cards in and get around their counters. Not to mention that after turn 1 (possibly turn 2 at the very latest) vial losses its effectiveness.

The same is true for lackey, after turn 1 he becomes much more easy for our opponents to deal with, which means he's not very effective if he doesn't hit play the first turn.

[Amon Amarth]

Why do most people think Goblins will get weaker after New Phyrexia, citing Mental Misstep as the main reason?

On one hand, Goblins has 2 of the scariest one-drops in the format in Aether Vial and Goblin Lackey; but on the other hand, it does not depend on them to win games the way combo decks do. Goblins has a pretty varied mana curve and is very much capable of playing an attrition battle. With only 8 one-drops (which largely derive their value from the early game), sometimes an opponent will have a Mental Misstep or two in hand and have nothing useful to use them all. In other matchups, it might rip a Mental Misstep too late.

Certainly, in a vaccuum, other decks make better use of Mental Misstep, but in practice, I imagine the presence of Mental Misstep will make the format less favorable for combo and perhaps increase the presence of Stompy type strategies, which should benefit Goblins overall.

I think people are somewhat overstating the importance of Vial/Lackey in some ways. Goblins is a Ringleader deck and it has been these last few years. That's why we play up to 24 lands. We know that our 1 drops will get dealt with in many games. The blue decks playing Mental Misstep are still going to have problems with Goblin Ringleader.

[Humphrey]

I have to agree, that losing a lackey isnt that big of an issue, because he gets answered real quick anyway usually. Its not that the opp has now 7cards+Mental Misstep in hand. If they now have MM, they might not have a 1drop or STP.
But Vial is usually more hard to remove and it might hurt a lot. On the other hand, I won lots of games without having any 1-drop.
Anyway as mentioned before, im going to play MM for myself to counter opposing ones or removal on our guys.

What in my opinion the worst thing with MM is, it counters Pyroblast, so it weakens that SB option, specially against Merfolk.

Anyhow I wonder how our Merfolk matchup has changed, because I expect a big comeback of it.

[Tacosnape]

Okay, look. It's really this simple.

Mental Misstep is a nightmare for Goblins because it -does- depend on its Lackeys and Vials. Can it win a game without resolving either one? Absolutely it can. But being unable to resolve them makes you a slow deck with very little disruption and very inefficient permanent removal. On top of this, if you fail to resolve either, your manabase disruption is FAR more inefficient. Lackey and Vial both allow you to cheat Goblins into play, which frees you up to Port and Wasteland until your heart's content.

Goblins has always been a deck that has two means to deal with an opposing deck's strategy, whether it's the entire deck's synergy or a single Goblin-stopping card:

1. Disrupt their manabase and don't let it happen.
2. Play around it.

Both of these strategies are very heavily reliant on sticking a Lackey or an Aether Vial on the board.

If you want to run Goblins anymore, you -have- to run Mental Misstep in it. Even if it's just to counter Mental Misstep. My list is U/R and boards Daze, just to give me more chances on the play to sneak through defenses. Does it absolutely suck that Goblins has to maindeck four more cards that don't fit in with the manabase now? Unquestionably. But at the same time at least there's a free counter in the deck now.

[GoboLord]

@ Taco:
I respect you for your valuable comments in this board but I want to correct you this time:
The way you are sketching the "Mental-Misstep-problem" ist too much black-and-white in my eyes. You are right that the impact of MM on Goblins should not be underestimated but you also have to consider two things:

a) not every deck will run MMs
b) The fact that a deck runs MM does not mean that we will never again resolve Lackey and/or Vial. Our chance to open with either Lackey or Vial is twice as high as our opponent's chance to have MM on his opening hand. Plus, MM loses most of it's effectiveness after round 3, because that's about the time we don't desperately need Lacky and Vial anymore. Thus (depending on whether or not our opponent has a Brainstorm or Ponder), MM must be among the top 10 to 13 cards of their library to be effective.

I want to say again that I do not think that MM's impact on Goblins should be taken lightly.

[Vandalize]

Lol man, I've just been playing against NLT and Team America, and everything I'd like to say is: Daze is so much better than MM (I'm using that build with CM + WI, as usual).

MM can get Vial and Lackey. Sure, but it can't get a T1 Instigator, or T1 Piledriver followed by T2 Chieftain/Warchief (which are situations where Daze would simply be annoying as hell).

Warren Instigator IS a beast against this new-staple-piece-of-shit-controlish-decks based on MM. Really, no matter what comes in matter of Countermagic, I'll always fear Swords to Plowshares more than counterspells.

We do have 32+ goblins in the deck, and one of the best card advantage engine in Legacy, so the point is: just drag it to late game, if possible. We can EASILY play 1+ threats every turn (unless you run 24+ lands, lol).

Just modify your point of view in a Goblins list. We have have a goddamned tribal synergy and one of the best damage dealers in Legacy (Hi, my name is Piledriver). If we don't give a shit about MM, or any other countermagic that comes out, and just play our main strategy straight foward (killing your opponent), goblins might rise again.

I'm not kidding, I've beaten multiple 2x MM openers just by laying down a WI, where a Swords to Plowshares or any other damned removal would perfectly stop me. Test the damn card for a long while, and he won't disappoint you.

[P-AiR]

Vandal, great to hear about your recent successes against MM. Are you still using the same list as post #634? How have you been finding the decklist? Has 4 removal been too few? I hope you're right that Goblins will rise again as we've been somewhat under the radar lately, rarely appearing in the top 8s of SCG Opens.

I am entertaining the idea of using that decklist but would love to try and find a way to integrate green for krosan grips. That would mean less hovels/badlands and possibly mountains for fetches and taigas. Has that ever crossed your mind? Primarily, I always try and cover all bases and become prepared against troublesome artifact/enchantments i.e. moat, humility, pernicious deed, equipment, sneak attack, etc.

[GoboLord]

Well, then just kick B splash for G to run Krosan Grips + friends. You could also spent 4 SB slots for that: Thus: Being Rb in MD and having Taiga, K.Grip, K.Grip, K.Grip in your SB

[BKclassic]

Hey guys,

So looking at the top 16 for last weekend's SCG 5k (right here), there may yet be hope for Goblins in the Mental Misstep Metagame. Looking at these results, 2 things strike me as favorable for Goblins:

1. Blue decks are surpressing Storm combo, the real nemesis of Goblins.

2. The decks to beat are Merfolk, Uw Landstill and Team America. While these lists have a new tactical advantage over us with the addition of Mental Misstep, these decks are only running spot removal and don't have sweepers to keep Goblin swarms in check.
-Uw Landstill- this matchup seems like it should be winnable with only minor changes to the deck. They don't have any sources of card advantage against us, no sweepers or hate beyond Pithing Needle in the board.
-Mefolk- this match up is much closer now, but should be winnable with good sideboard cards. Keeping their Vials inactive will probably be crucial since we they will probably counter ours.
-Team America- If we can overcome Mental Misstep and Tarmogoyf, 1-2 Pernicous Deeds aren't going to save them. No Plagues in the board.

There seems to be a hole in the meta for swarm aggro if we can overcome our dependency on 1 drops to win the game. Like everyone else is saying, Warren Instigator seems pretty good.

[Nelis]

I'm not kidding, I've beaten multiple 2x MM openers just by laying down a WI, where a Swords to Plowshares or any other damned removal would perfectly stop me. Test the damn card for a long while, and he won't disappoint you.

I don't find this a real argument against MM unless you played against decks that substituted their removal for MM (which is stupid if you ask me). Its obvious that an unanswered Instigator is good game whether your opponent plays MM or not.

I agree with you that WI should go in the deck but that actually is a testimony for the strength of MM not against it.

[ScatmanX]

There seems to be a hole in the meta for swarm aggro if we can overcome our dependency on 1 drops to win the game.

Warren Instigator is GREAT against all those MUs. I'd suggest, if you play in that meta, to go MonoR, to surpass other decks land-denial plan, and to play Instigator and Mox MD, with something like 7-8 combo-hate, 3-5 creature-hate cads, and the rest for whatever else you want.

In a meta like that, I'd play ReB SB. I know it gets MM'd, but they can't MM Lackey, Vial AND ReB, so we have a good chance of resolving it.

[Gui]

Is the idea of running monoR goblins with maindeck MM discarded?

[ScatmanX]

Is the idea of running monoR goblins with maindeck MM discarded?

No. It is still possible to run 30 goblins with 4 MM and 4 Vial.
I just don't think is necessary, but only my next tournament will tell for sure...

[Vandalize]

I don't find this a real argument against MM unless you played against decks that substituted their removal for MM (which is stupid if you ask me). Its obvious that an unanswered Instigator is good game whether your opponent plays MM or not.

I agree with you that WI should go in the deck but that actually is a testimony for the strength of MM not against it.

People are not replacing the good old 4x Swords to Plowshares staple in Control decks. But they ARE replacing Daze (which is stronger against the Chrome Mox version than Mental Misstep, no doubt). The drawback Daze gives Tempo/Control decks is considerable, especially if they've just missed a land drop (which means that Tarmogoyf/Jace 2.0 isn't coming down as soon as you'd expect).

[GGoober]

Well I have been testing vs. mental misstep online (only vs. decks that run blue btw). Losing a turn 1 lackey/vial really hurts the tempo and it has really made turn 1 lackey and vial really weak.

Losing your turn 1 vial before mental misstep meant that they had to answer with FOW or Daze in some cases, which means it was a 2 for 1 trade. Now it's 1 for 1 trade.

Losing vial on turn 1 means you lose a lot of tempo and vs. decks that run counters, means you lost your ability to cheat cards in and get around their counters. Not to mention that after turn 1 (possibly turn 2 at the very latest) vial losses its effectiveness.

The same is true for lackey, after turn 1 he becomes much more easy for our opponents to deal with, which means he's not very effective if he doesn't hit play the first turn.

To be honest, it's more than a 1-1 trade with MM on Lackey/Vial. If anything, Goblins without Lackey/Vial is like playing ONS standard goblins with Wastelands i.e. very big difference. It's a tough change for Goblins but decks with MM are going to have much more favorable matchups against Goblins where previously they probably had weaker matchups against Goblins. Nothing's going to change that now though. I think Gobs might need to focus more on the strong mid-game now instead of too much reliance on Lackey/Vial. Will upping Chieftains work? To apply more pressure?

[ScatmanX]

Will upping Chieftains work? To apply more pressure?

This.
I tested now some hours my list against Misstep Merfolk, on the draw, and I lost only 2 games out of 15. Several games, they drew 1-2 Missteps mid-lategame, while I bashed face. It's nice to see they can't actually counter everything. There were games where they Missteped my 1st turn Vial, Dazed T2 Piledriver, and I still managed to win. Also, going from turn1 Lackey, to turn2 Chieftain is really cool (with MoX).

That said, I need some help here too. I know post-SB they bring good stuff, like Jitte, and I need something too. I was playing Pyroknesis (to use against Folk, Zoo, Goblins and Elfes), but the CA-disadvantage with Mox was too big. I was going to try Bolts, but after seing how many games the Merfolk player had the Misstep useless mid-lategame, I just don't think it is a good idea... does anyone have a good hint? I'd also like those cards to be useful on other agroo MU's too...
Gues I have a lot of searching to do...

[bakofried]

Hey guys, I'm just checking, but how often do you cast SGC? Is he always cheated into play? I've hardcast just as many if not more times than I've cheated him in, but I wanted to make sure.