[Deck] Goblins

[jrw1985]

I've been playing Goblins on and off now since early 2010, and I gotta say that of all the decks I've faced with it since then, RUG Delver has given me the most trouble. It wasn't a problem when it was just Canadian Thesh and only ran Mongoose and Goyf and whatever. It didn't put that much of a clock on and could be beaten in the long game, like Zoo. You could just chump block to stay outside of burn range then start turning guys sideways. Delver and Forked Bolt have made that deck about a bajillion times more difficult to beat. And they have all the answers. Burn for our Lackeys, Forces for out Vials, Stifles for our Matrons, Ringleaders and SGCs. And they can just control the game for the five turns it takes them to kill us with a flipped Delver + Burn. Delver having flying just makes it unblockable, which invalidates our long-game stalling strategy.

So, how to beat RUG Delver?

1. Squash the bug. Kill Delver as early as possible. Treat it like a Stoneforge Mystic. You need it dead before it activates. The Delver player is going to get incredible value out of their Delver, essentially killing you for one blue mana. You need them to use their resources on finding another way to kill you. Playing Pyrokinesis and Tarfire will help with this.

2. Play around Daze. If you're on the draw wait until T2 to play Vial. That essentially cuts off 4 of their options for dealing with it (Daze). The same goes for burn spells on Delver. You don't need to lose because you got impatient and couldn't wait a turn to Tarfire a Delver.

3. On the play, cast Vial over Lackey T1. They have 12+ answers to Lackey T1 (burn, force). They only have 4 answers against Vial (force).

4. Don't bother attacking their manabase. They only run 18 lands and only ever need 2 of them. Only bother Wasting them if it's obvious they're getting manascrewed (like they miss a land drop T2) or if you can keep them off a color. The last time I played against RUG Delver my opponent actually Wasted MY untapped Wasteland that I clearly wasn't going to use on him that game. So I naturally activated it in response and targeted one of his dual lands. He either had a Stifle or he just didn't care if he had one less land. Either way, he 2for1'd himself, and he was well aware that he was doing it, and it was probably the right play. That's why you don't bother attacking their manabase.

5. Don't let yourself get 2for1'd. If they're attacking into you with a Goyf that you can kill by blocking, you'd better bet that they're planning on Bolting one of your blockers before damage. You gotta either eat the damage or chump block.


That's all I can think of at the moment. Does anyone else have suggestions for playing against RUG Delver?

[Hof]

I just thought for a second that Shrieking Mogg had flash. Thought it'd be a game changer with Cavern of Souls. Wondered why nobody plays it. Then I checked Gatherer. Then I realized he is unplayable. Now I am sad.

Well. It gets better if you add Vial and Kiki-Jiki to the equation. I never considered that card. I might try it.

And I have a feeling that I should go through all goblins ever printed, because it seems to me that the chance of finding something useful among the old cards is about as good as the chance of seeing useful new goblins printed.

[GoboLord]

I've been playing Goblins on and off now since early 2010, and I gotta say that of all the decks I've faced with it since then, RUG Delver has given me the most trouble. It wasn't a problem when it was just Canadian Thesh and only ran Mongoose and Goyf and whatever. It didn't put that much of a clock on and could be beaten in the long game, like Zoo. You could just chump block to stay outside of burn range then start turning guys sideways. Delver and Forked Bolt have made that deck about a bajillion times more difficult to beat. And they have all the answers. Burn for our Lackeys, Forces for out Vials, Stifles for our Matrons, Ringleaders and SGCs. And they can just control the game for the five turns it takes them to kill us with a flipped Delver + Burn. Delver having flying just makes it unblockable, which invalidates our long-game stalling strategy.

So, how to beat RUG Delver?

1. Squash the bug. Kill Delver as early as possible. Treat it like a Stoneforge Mystic. You need it dead before it activates. The Delver player is going to get incredible value out of their Delver, essentially killing you for one blue mana. You need them to use their resources on finding another way to kill you. Playing Pyrokinesis and Tarfire will help with this.

2. Play around Daze. If you're on the draw wait until T2 to play Vial. That essentially cuts off 4 of their options for dealing with it (Daze). The same goes for burn spells on Delver. You don't need to lose because you got impatient and couldn't wait a turn to Tarfire a Delver.

3. On the play, cast Vial over Lackey T1. They have 12+ answers to Lackey T1 (burn, force). They only have 4 answers against Vial (force).

4. Don't bother attacking their manabase. They only run 18 lands and only ever need 2 of them. Only bother Wasting them if it's obvious they're getting manascrewed (like they miss a land drop T2) or if you can keep them off a color. The last time I played against RUG Delver my opponent actually Wasted MY untapped Wasteland that I clearly wasn't going to use on him that game. So I naturally activated it in response and targeted one of his dual lands. He either had a Stifle or he just didn't care if he had one less land. Either way, he 2for1'd himself, and he was well aware that he was doing it, and it was probably the right play. That's why you don't bother attacking their manabase.

5. Don't let yourself get 2for1'd. If they're attacking into you with a Goyf that you can kill by blocking, you'd better bet that they're planning on Bolting one of your blockers before damage. You gotta either eat the damage or chump block.


That's all I can think of at the moment. Does anyone else have suggestions for playing against RUG Delver?

Fellas, read this carefully.

Jon, this is it. I cannot think of strategies other than the ones you proposed. About "playing around Daze": Cavern of Souls, my friend...Cavern of Fucking Souls
Other than that I think you have analysed the MU very well. Especially your tip not to trade 2-for-1 is valuable, since they must try to froce you into such situations (playing the "tempo"-part neccessarily creates card-disadvantage). Therefore the only logic conclusion would be not to play Pyrokinesis. Right now we should make our removal more goblin-shaped to make sligtly more use of Cavern of Souls (e.g. Mogg Fanatic, Sharpshooter and Stingscourger).

Now that I'm writing this...don't you think Lightning Crafter might be cool?

[Marshal]

You can go full on crazy with and Boartusk Lieges and Goblin Goons in the board and 4 War Marshals in the main. Goon is our biggest man and the Liege needs 2 burn spells to die, both card work great with the War Marshal. That would be a sweet deck agents RUG :)

[Ace/Homebrew]

Cavern of Fucking Souls

Picturing this made me laugh

[ScatmanX]

Won an Undergroud and a Tropical today! Fuck yeah.
Ran a crazy list, and beat
1: Merfolk 2-0
2: Maverick 2-1
3: Food Chain Elves 2-1
4: Reanimator 2-0
Top8: Lands 2-0
Top4: BUG 2-0
Top2: Lands 2-1
Total: 14-3
Tomorrow will try to post a report. Head aching too much right now.
But to help on the discussions going on:
RUG is easy. Kill delver, Play Cavern of Souls, use Relic on the Side.
I agree with Jrw, but being 2f1against them is not all that bad. I trade 2-3 goblins for a goyf usually.
3 Relic + 3 Surgical + Cavern got me there against reanimator. If you run Ports, its easier.
cya.

[Johanovich]

(3) Stingscourger literally cannot bounce your own creatures.

You're absolutely right offcourse

Misread the card

[jrw1985]

RUG is easy. Kill delver, Play Cavern of Souls, use Relic on the Side.
I agree with Jrw, but being 2f1against them is not all that bad. I trade 2-3 goblins for a goyf usually.

Yeah, I could stand to use a few more Relics in my sideboard. They are sorta hyper-relevant in a bunch of MUs.

Hmmm...

3 Surgical Extraction
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Mindbreak Trap
3 Red Elemental Blast

That actually doesn't look half bad...

Oh, and about the 2for1's, I was talking about when they attack into you with a Goyf, you double up to block it, and they burn one of your guys so Goyf kills the other and doesn't die himself. That's the sort of 2for1 you need to avoid. You can't block like that unless you have a trick up your sleeve also.

[ScatmanX]

Oh, and about the 2for1's, I was talking about when they attack into you with a Goyf, you double up to block it, and they burn one of your guys so Goyf kills the other and doesn't die himself. That's the sort of 2for1 you need to avoid. You can't block like that unless you have a trick up your sleeve also.

I agree with this. 2f1 when you don't kill his dude sucks.

About Relic: It's awesome now.
I bring it in against Maverick and Canadian (most common), Dredge, Reanimator, Lands (won me 2 games yesterday), some Bug lists (Snap/Goyf/Loam), TA, and some others I can't remember right now.
And that SB is sweet if you already run Knesis on the MD =].

[Talanos]

Squash the bug. Kill Delver as early as possible. Treat it like a Stoneforge Mystic. You need it dead before it activates. The Delver player is going to get incredible value out of their Delver, essentially killing you for one blue mana. You need them to use their resources on finding another way to kill you. Playing Pyrokinesis and Tarfire will help with this.

Is anyone still playing Tarfire MD?

[GoblinSettler]

Is anyone still playing Tarfire MD?

1 Tarfire
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Pyrokinesis
3 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Stingscourger
2 Mogg Fanatic

I switched from running multiple Tarfire to all but one being Lightning Bolt. Things play out about the same, with Bolt being a better top deck later.

Two main deck Pyrokinesis have really performed well.

[ScatmanX]

Tournament report here for anyone who's interested.

[Mantis]

While initially I was really psyched about Cavern of Souls, I am not so sure anymore. Not being able to use Gempalm, Bolt and Siege Gang activations has come up more often than I anticipated. The uncounterability obviously really helps in a lot of matchups, so I'm torn. Anyone else came across similar problems or have your findings been nothing but encouraging?

[movingtonewao]

Tournament report here for anyone who's interested.

this was a good read!
I freaked out when i first saw 3 pyrokinesis in the sideboard, that would've been big card disadvantage but I'm glad it worked out for you when they mattered.
I'd like to point out that one Gaddock Teeg just invalidates all your Pyrokinesis. If you read my tournament report some pages back, I nearly fell to that.

I have a couple questions for you though.
1) I know you didn't face any SnT (sneak and show, hive mind) decks but if you did, what would bring in and take out after sideboarding? In playtesting I've been dying to flying spaghetti monsters left and right. Any tips on how to approach this matchup would be great.
2) Any changes you would have made to your decklist if you could do it all over again? Personally I would cut the Warren Instigator count by 1 and add a Chieftain, since 7 "lackey effects" mean you're likely to connect but have nothing juicy to put into play. But I'm basing it on theory and you're the one who played the games, so I'd like to hear your suggestions and reasonings.

[mrblueduck]

Another tournament report. This time from a 75 man Legacy side event at GP Anahiem. I ran the SCG Sac list going up to 21 lands cutting a SGC and three mountains for 4 caverns. I was a little hesitant on the Caverns, but now feel comfortable recommending them. They were pretty fantastic.

Match 1 - Sneak and Show
G1 A quick hand with lackey, Instiagator, and Matron led to a fast enough start to fade a turn 4 Sneaked in Emrakul.
G2: Turn 1, land, petal, petal, Show and tell, Emrakul. Scoop.
G3: Mulled into Lackey. Lackey trigger into Matron fetching up Stingscurger, which ended the game.
1-0 (2-1)

Match 2 – Sneak and Show
G1 Lackey into Matron into Stinscurger again won the game.
G2: Well this was probably one of the most interesting games I have ever played. In keeping with the tradition of mulling myself into oblivion, I mulled to three cards no lands. Lackey, Pyroblast, Sharpshooter and was able to beat a turn 3 and 4 show and tell. Take that Griselbrand!
2-0 (2-0)

Match 3- RUG Delver
G1: A pretty tough matchup before Caverns now becomes a good matchup as long as Caverns is in play. A turn 5 MD Pryokenesis took down two flipped delvers and stole the match.
G2: A turn 1 delver, turn 2 flip. Held onto Pryokensis until something else hit the board, and on 11 life finally was able to double up on delvers. Once again it ended the game.
3-0 (2-0)

Match 4 – Tendrils Storm
G1: Lost before my third turn.
G2: Mulled into Lackey with Wasteland backup. Good enough to steal one game.
G3: Lost before my second turn.
3-1 (1-2)

Match 5 – Aggro Loam
G1: Gambled with aggressive matrons. Grabbing chieftain and then Ringleader. After ringleader blanked I could have attack and bring him to around 6 or 7 but hoped for a relevant top deck that never came.
G2: I blew my chance to win against a slow start and couldn’t beat a good one. Wasteland, Lightning Bolt, EE, and Assault made this a quick L.
3-2 (0-2)

Match 6 – BUG with Goyfs and Tombstalkers.
To be honest, I don’t really remember these games too well. Two of the games were pretty close. Game two I was facing down two goyfs and able to Pyrokenesis them and then activate relic. That ended in a blowout.
4-2 (2-1)

Match 7 – W/U Miracle Control.
Whoever wins gets around 10th, whoever loses gets around 20th outside of money.
Game 1: Caverns is very very good against this deck. That being said, Terminus is very very against my deck. Game 1 wasn’t all that close, I got him to around 10, but double terminus is hard to get through.
Game 2: Got him to one before his Terminus hits. I have lightning bolt, so wait for him to put SDT on top to break the countertop lock. Once he does bolt steals the game.
Game 3: Tells are never a huge part of my game, but this guy couldn’t help himself. With top out he casts Jace, and brains to set up terminus. Then he says, ‘”Wow, I don’t know if Jace will even get me there.” At this point I was 99% he had exactly Terminus on top. So, I just attack for 2 into Jace, and bam terminus. From there I am able to play a few other cards, but yet another Terminus pulls the game further away. I am able to get him to 2, but Entreat ends the game.
4-3 (1-2)

Overall a pretty terrible lineup for Goblins, so I felt good at 4-3 was fine enough.

[GoboLord]

Hey fellow Warchiefs,

another year on university is almost over – so in 2 weeks after my final psychology-exams I’ll have some time to work on the primer (just as promised about 4 months ago ). Those are the changes I was planning to make:

• Revise the „Core“ concept
• Update explanations on core-cards
• Add a paragraph about Cavern of Souls
• Correct typos
• Add a section for tournament reports
• Change the layout
• Extend the sideboard-cards (Others) section
• Revise the “Untested and bad cards” section

Since I’m a team-player I want to ask you guys if you have any suggestions or ideas for the primer. I’m willing to update the primer from time to time, but the following update will be my last update for quite a while (due to time issues). So…if you want me to write about a specific topic please let me know in the course of the following two weeks from now.

On a different note:
Some time ago I asked jrw1985 to work on a blog with me. However, both of us didn’t really have enough time and motivation to do so. I’d like to pick up this idea again. I don’t want to do the work alone because there are other talented writers that might have to say something about goblins, too. So again I’d like to point out that we might work as a team here. Those of you who are willing to write a blog with me please send me a PM. I’m looking forward to work with you!

Greetings,

Christian

[movingtonewao]

I think we need a section devoted specifically towards how to play vs certain matchups. Even something in point form works. jrw's little post about how to beat RUG Delver is a good start. Its not just about sideboarding choices but also about the little tricks during games that help you win in those games (eg: vs delver, dodge daze, stifle)

[GoboLord]

Thank you for your suggeston!

When I wrote the primer I explicitly chose NOT to write somthing on MUs :

The meta is ever-changing while tips and strategies on MUs are something static. so tips for MUs might be outdated a week after they were written. This kind of work should be done in the discussion of this thread. So we should rather discuss problematic MUs when they apprear (like what jrw did with RUG-Delver.
The primer should encourage discussion. The more facts and details I write in there the less we got to discuss. I'm not willing to tell anyone how to play a certain MUs (at least not in the primer).

[movingtonewao]

I understand your reasoning. Rather than mention specific MUs (eg: RUG Delver), why not break down matchups into categories? Maybe you can have a section like:

General tips on how to play goblins effectively:
vs aggro/tempo/midrange/control/combo
- how goblins usually play against aggro/tempo/midrange/control/combo
- what cards will shine vs these decks in general
- sideboarding tips against these decks in general

for example:

goblins vs tempo
example of tempo deck: RUG Delver
- tempo decks tend to want to put a clock on you and ride that clock for a win
- they tend to run a disruption package to protect/support that clock until they win
- they have a low threat density, so most of the time, cards like tarfire, gempalm incinerator, and pyrokinesis can help you deal with their creatures
- if opponent is running blue, beware stifle and daze.

just an idea.

[Davran]

Is anyone still playing Tarfire MD?

Yes. My current list runs the following removal suite MD:

2x Gempalm Incinerator
2x Stingscourger
4x Tarfire
1x Pyrokinesis

I've been thinking about dropping a Tarfire for a second copy of Pyro. In all, Tarfire has never been irrelevant since I started running it.

@ScatmanX - Congrats on your win, and thanks for the nice report! Your list is very interesting. Regarding Chrome Mox - would you run it again in the future?