Chalice is, first and formost, great against Storm. Is that relevant? Not very. Storm will never be more than 10% of the field. What else is it important against? It has limitted playability against Delvergoose decks since they live and die by their 1-drops, but they'll usually have a counter to answer Chalice and Goyf to play around it. Plus, if you keep a Chalice hand against them they just might blind-flip a Delver T2 and just cruise to victory with it anyway. I don't think Chalice is very important, but it is a card that can steal games against the right deck. One of the advantages to playing Chalice is that your opponent will probably side-out some counterspells against you, since Goblins has a way of playing through those (Lackey, Vial, Cavern). So Chalice probably has a better chance of resolving G2 than you'd initially think.Originally Posted by Stephan/
I was playing Pithing Needle just to see how effective it would be. I discovered that it was only OK in the MUs I faced with it, but not over-powered. Against Junk it shut off Top, but then his draws were good enough that he eventually got a Deed, so Needle was kind-of a wash. And that's a real problem with a lot of SB cards. Every SB card takes 1 goblin out of your deck, so you can't really side in too many cards if they're not going to make a big impact on the game.
Really, as of right now, there is only 1 card I really want in my SB, and that's Rest in Peace. I've been waiting and waiting for a card that can shut off Thresh and RiP is that card. My only question is whether to run 3 or 4. I want to run 4, just because it's so powerful, but since it's a little slow a faster piece of GY hate might also be necessary, so maybe only 3 RiP +1 Surgical or whatever.
Otherwise, Seal of Cleansing is a great, proactive answer to Control, Equipment, and SnT combo, which is another reason to run W.
Between Thalia, RiP and Seal it seems like W has an awful lot to help Goblins in an awful lot of MUs.
That's enough from me for now. I'm off to vote. Merica.
Here's what I'll be running tonight:
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
2 Rishadan Port
4 Mountain
2 Taiga
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Arid Mesa
4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Mogg War Marshal
2 Stingscourger
2 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Skirk Prospector
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Goblin Chieftain
1 Goblin Piledriver
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Tin Street Hooligan
1 Tarfire
sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Pithing Needle
1 Pyroblast
1 Pyrokinesis
1 Angel of Despair
2 Stingscourger
2 Tin Street Hooligan
I don't really feel like splashing into another color, except that I dislike tuktuks, hence green for Hooligan.
I expect the majority of the field to be composed of fair decks, so I dropped my white package last night for more goblinness. If I read the metagame badly, I'll be severely punished. If not, I don't want to be playing Thalias just to side them out hald the time. Seems like way too much trouble for me, though I do agree with jrw1985 that white has too much to offer.
On a side note: currently looking for new ideas on a blue splash. Thoughts? Spell Pierce? Izzet Charm? Flusterstorm?
this one is a bit shorter due to time restrictions. 4 round, 16 man tournament.
round 1:
g1: opponent starts brainstorming for two turns. i had mulled to 6 and had kept a slow hand. turn 3 i resolve a matron, and put him on show and tell. search for scourger. he bolts me on the head, and proceeds to burn me out of the game with the help of snapcasters.
g2: i mull to 6 and keep a slow hand. tarfire remove his goblin guide. after that, he grim lavamancers me out of the game.
loss
round 2:
g1: rishadan port prevents him from making any real play. i see lingering souls and swords, only. had no idea what he was playing. there were also swamps and bayous at sight.
g2: he thoughtseizes me removing a key lackey, but rishadan shows up along with double wasteland, there wasn't really a game here.
win
round 3:
g1: he starts with a noble hierarch, i lead with a lackey that eats a FoW. i had put him on maverick, but it was actually a bant control/combo natural order deck. he concedes when I get a nice board.
g2: this game goes long, as the board gets to a point of triple tarmogoyfs vs activ e krenko, and I stabilized at 4 life only. I had a gempalm at hand ready for any damage he could try to force through, but in one turn I made two key mistakes: one, I tapped out, for pure dumbness (blanked out for a second, dunno what happened), and then I manage to forget to make tokens pre-combat and keep from killing him in one atack. he topdecks elspeth, makes a flying goyf and wins. this was really embarrassing, and a real bad beat I manage to produce for myself. yay. I think this is what americans call "a punt".
g3: natural order turn 3, progenitus, gg.
loss
round 4 I considered to drop, but ultimately decided to play anyway to try to wash away the bad beat. didn't really work...
g1: he spirit guides a guy turn 1 that grows whenever i gain life. turn two he makes his guy huge and puts me into single digits. I play the tempo game with double vial active, and a single sintgscourger puts him away from the game. he concedes once i get n active krenko.
g2: vials and lackeys do the goblin dance, at least once for the whole tournament. it was a terrible match for him, as we had seen absolutely none of his berserks.
win
what i learned: perhaps i've been playing too much control at standard, cause I'm actually playing as a tempo/control player, not an aggro. my friend who watched me play said that I should consider approaching the deck on a different manner: insted of searching for reactive cards, I should search for proactive cards. instead of minding my points of life, I should be consideringmy opponents. perhaps that even reflects how I built my deck: full of answers, shallow on piledrivers/instigators. dunno. maybe it's time for me to ponder.
it was also frustrating to see so many mulligans in one single night. I have to say I mulled 2 out of every 3 hands. I dunno how deckbuilding could help reduce my mulligans. the deck i played is posted right above.
another thing that occurred to me is that thalia would have helped me the games i won, but not the games i lost. I dunno what deckbuilding decisions could have improved my chances on the games I lost (counterburn and, sadly, natural order/progenitus). though, for sure playing more "all-in" aggro would certainly help.
I agree with your friend. From your deck above it looks like you went for a tool box and sacrificed a lot of aggro/tempo generating cards to do that.
So my advice: -1 Krenko, -1 Tarfire, -1 Chieftain, -1 Stingscourger, // +3 Piledrivers and +1 SGC
I think you'll also see yourself taking less mulligans. I really suggest the 3 Piledrivers for sure, simply because you have 3 MWMs. Piledrivers are just fantastic and MWMs buff them up considerably.
I don't think you need instigator in this meta, in fact I think GobboLord is right about wanting to have more removal. I love instigator and he was fantastic just before I quit playing (and recently picked up the deck again), but he doesn't seem to be as strong of a choice to include right now. A lot of people are packing lots of removal in their decks (+ Snapcaster) and their creatures are generally bigger. So I think having more removal seems to be a stronger choice.
I know I told you to ditch the tarfire and 1 stingscourger, but that's because I just don't think they are strong enough removal cards. I think you should keep at least 1 stingscourger though, maybe one on the SB for SnT decks at least.
Has anyone an opinion about Seal of Cleansing? Has anyone found it better than Krosan Grip? I ask because I am torn on that issue. I Need a good card vs Esper Blade and Helm/RiP Combo and I think both are great :)
I really like grip: I'm already splashing green for tin-street and don't like the other cards white has to offer. I don't want my answer to energy field to be so easily countered, even if that means it is available faster
Matt Bevenour in real life
But vs Esper Grip can get discarded before it helps. Seal is pro active. Was discard a problem for you when playing against Esper?
Opinions all around! It'll take a while for me to make my point about Seal of Cleansing, but bear with me.
I played last night with a Rw list with 3 Thalia main and 3 RiP, 4 Seal of Cleansing in the SB.
I played against a Storm deck last night and lost G1 off a no-lander mull to 5, but I had a Lackey so just hoped to topdeck a Mountain and race. No such luck. Shoulda mulled to 4.
G2 I sided in 4 Chalice, 3 RiP, 1 Grafdigger's Cage.
SB was...
4 Chalice
3 RiP
1 Grafdigger's Cage
4 Seal of Cleansing
3 Pyrokinesis
I really like how Storm decks now are much more reliant on their graveyard than they were before Past in Flames was printed because it makes GY hate much more side-able against them. It was always a bit of a gamble siding Leyline against storm because if it wasn't in your opener it was just going to be a dead draw, so if you actually got the chance to race them you might find Leyline ruining your game. RiP is almost always castable against Storm, and in this match RiP shut off Snapcaster, PiF and Cbal Ritual.
Back to G2: I kept my 7 on the play and played T1 Chalice @ 0, then T2 Thalia. He eventually had to Tendrils me for 12 to stay in the game, but I swung back for 15 and sealed the deal. He was too far behind to make a comeback with Ad nauseum.
G3 on the draw I mulled to 6 and kept a hand with Mountain, Chalice, Thalia, RiP, Grafdigger's Cage and MWM. Kinda keepable. He Duressed me T1 and took Chalice. I played Cage. He CT'd T2 and named Thalia. I ripped a W source and cast RiP T2. Then I started playing goblins and was setting up to win, so he needed to Ad nauseum out. He dumped his hand at 18 life to cast Ad nauseum, but because of the RiP he wasn't able to recurr spells from the GY OR get max value out of his Cabal Rituals. He wound up going down to 1 life and then scooped because RiP had shut off the mana he needed to chain Tutors together (CR only netted him 1 mana) and stopped him from recurring tutors through Past in Flames. I won this game because my opponent had a lot of disruption in his hand, so instead of just going off he tried to disrupt me. This is fine and good against counterspell decks, but against permanent-based disruption it sucks, because the discard slows the storm player down while also offering no answer to resolved hate permanents. And, clearly, I had an excellent hand, and I got lucky by ripping the W source T2 to cast RiP.
R4 I played against UW control with SFM, Batterskull, and Supreme Verdict. I sided in all 4 Seals for G2. They were pretty disappointing. First of all, Seal sucks against Top. Secondly, it is very easy for Batterskull to play around a resolved Seal, and Seal needs to be in play in order to disrupt BS. Basically, against Top and BS you want Seal to be a K-Grip. Fine. No big deal.
However, here's where it starts to get tricky, because running Thalia + RiP makes the deck very dependent on its W splash. If you want to run K-Grip you'll obviously need a G splash. This didn't really matter before the printing of Cavern of Souls, but now that Souls is here it's pretty much a necessity. If you're trying to splash G AND W your manabas is going to wind up looking like this...
4 Cavern
4 Waste
2 Plateau
1 Taiga
1 Karakas
4 Mountain
6 Fetchlands
Now that's not a terrible looking manabase, but is making it a lot more difficult to find the color you need when you need it.
But, thinking about it, I guess it doesn't seem That bad, does it? I mean, I could easily cut my MD Tuktuk for a TSH to utilize the G splash MD and still run the W splash (not that I'm convinced that TSH is really that good, but enough people play it that it can't possibly be like, Way Worse than Tuktuk or anything). Thalia is easily sided out against UW Control because they're never really stuck on mana.
So, back to your original question, Is Seal of Cleansing better than K-Grip? No. But W is such a crazy powerful splash that I'm torn between making due with Rw and Seal or increasing the vulnerability of my manabase with a Rwg Grip build. In a perfect world Grip would just be W. But it isn't. The W splash is just crazy powerful right now because of the printing of RiP and Thalia.
K-Grip > Seal of Cleansing
but
W splash > G splash
Hmmmm.... Here's what I'm thinking. Maybe I'll try out the manabase I listed above and drop 2 or 3 Seals for Grips in the SB. I still want to have some Seals because they're fast, I don't have to leave mana open, they can be played off SnT and they're cheaper, but having 2 or 3 K-grip for Equipment MUs cannot possibly be a bad thing.
Shoot, I've talked myself into it. I'm gonna go for the Rwg build!
Thanks for the Great and insightful answer. I thought of a GWR splash and thought that the mana base should look like this one:
7 Fetches
2 Plateau
1 Karakas
1 Taiga
4 Cavern
4 Wasteland
3 Mountains.
You have 6 Lands and 7 Fetches - not bad. And with 7 Fetches instead of 6 you increase the green splash. Gobolord proposed that combination if you want to go RWG on our German boards :-)
Thanks again for the great testing ;)
Not particularly. Either I got tin street or prospector or siege gang or Incinerator to deal with the equipment/guys equipped or i got grip. Sometimes you just draw into after discard. While I wouldn't call seal 'proactive' (most certainly a reactive card), you mention a good point, but one that hasn't been an issue for me just yet.
Matt Bevenour in real life
That's the problem I found with Seal. It isn't reactive or proactive enough. Once you play it, they can just play around it. Or, if you play it after they've played their artifact or enchantment, it's just a slower Disenchant. So it isn't ideal. But the fact that you can SnT it in is relevant. And popping it in response to an ETB trigger after SnT is pretty decent too.
Recently there have been popping up quite a few decks that have been giving me a headache as a Goblins player. I finally tuned my deck and playstyle to be able to convincingly beat Canadian Thresh, Maverick and even had game against ANT when all of a sudden this RiP/Energy Field deck pops up and the Show and Tell became unbeatable with the addition of Omniscience. I set out to create a Goblins build that had game against these decks and quickly realized that if you are tweak the deck to beat these newcomers, your Tempo Thresh and Maverick matchups will suffer as a result. But then this crazy idea popped when searching through the gatherer:
// Lands
3 [P2] Mountain (2)
4 [JGC] Wasteland
2 [ON] Wooded Foothills
4 [AVR] Cavern of Souls
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
4 [B] Taiga
1 [U] Plateau
// Creatures
4 [AP] Goblin Ringleader
1 [DDG] Skirk Prospector
1 [10E] Siege-Gang Commander
4 [AT] Mogg Fanatic
3 [LE] Skirk Drill Sergeant
4 [V09] Goblin Lackey
4 [US] Goblin Matron
4 [LE] Gempalm Incinerator
4 [M11] Goblin Chieftain
1 [PLC] Stingscourger
1 [M13] Krenko, Mob Boss
// Spells
4 [V10] AEther Vial
3 [MI] Worldly Tutor
// Sideboard
SB: 4 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 [ALA] Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 [GP] Angel of Despair
SB: 1 [GP] Tin Street Hooligan
SB: 1 [EVG] Mogg War Marshal
SB: 1 [M11] War Priest of Thune
SB: 4 [B] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 [DKA] Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
SB: 1 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg
So the idea is that the deck plays out like your conventional Goblins list for the most part, aiming to either be very explosive when Lackey connects or grinding out games with Vial and Ringleaders. But there is a bonus element with Skirk Drill Sergeant + Worldly Tutor to net you a cheap Ringleader or Siege Gang. Worldly Tutor seems bad and it might very well be, I haven't tested it nearly enough, but I figured it could help us find the occasional Ringleader to get yourself back into the game.
The real power from Worldly Tutor however, lurks in the sideboard. You can catch an Omniscience player with their pants down by just tutoring for an Angel of Despair and the Energy Field/RiP combo is handled by War Priest of Thune and then a follow up Gaddock Teeg. Even TES is not spared as a Thalia, Gaddock or Ethersworn Cannonist can be fetched easily.
So you end up with a deck that has game against every major player in the format with the powerful sideboard and still maintains a pretty good game against Maverick and Tempo Thresh with the 9 removal spells preboard.
Curious to hear your opinions about this oddball Goblins list. Do note that list is purely theorycrafting, I do not claim it be to be the next Goblins list or anything, but found the idea too interesting to keep to myself.
Also please don't comment on the lack of Piledrivers and Warchiefs, I have been playing without them for like a year now and like the deck this way.
EDIT: Also note that Worldly Tutor has some nice synergy with Goblin Ringleader!
Team R&D
@ Mantis:
Skirk Drill Sergeant seems like one of those cards with an awesome ability that is just not efficient enough for Legacy. You need to pay 3 to use him, which is pretty much the same amount it costs to cast a card in your hand, but the card in your hand is guaranteed to be, you know, a card you're playing. Half the time you use SDS it will blank, meaning you spent 3 to mill 1 non-goblin into your gy. Well, milling 1 non-goblin has a negligible impact on whether you'll draw a goblin your next draw phase, and we don't run a GY strategy that could capitalize on those milled cards either. So half the time you're spending 3 to do nothing. Not too good in legacy.
There's also the fact that it's triggered by goblins dying, so to use it you'll have to keep mana open and not cast goblins from your hand. Now I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I know that this deck is built to capitalize on haste and explosive First Main Phases. So running a card that abandons that strategy in favor of a 50/50 chance for putting a random goblin in play seems ill advised. It doesn't fit with the tempo plan of the deck.
Then there's also the fact that he only has 1 ability. 1 expensive, conditional ability. Piledriver has one conditional ability (a much better, freer one) AND a static ability (Pro U). So you're choosing to run a 2-drop with 1 expensive, conditional ability over another 2-drop with more, less conditional, less expensive, better abilities (and I can say with certainty the Piledriver's abilities are better because half the time SDS's ability Doesn't Do Anything).
Hi guys,
first post here in Goblins thread, but long time legacy player. Since the rise of RiP/Helm, I've given my pet deck Ichorid a little holiday and picked up Goblins to smash some face. Past weekend I took the little guys to my first tournament with them. Short report:
R1 Omniscience (0-2)
G1 he ponders and preordains during T1, 2 & 3 and combo's out T4. I attacked as aggresivly as possible, but couldn't kill him in time. He was @ 4 life.
G2 almost the same, but this time he S&T Omniscience into play and casts emrakul T4. I used the S&T to put stingscourger into play. Well, bad luck I guess...
R2 RUG (2-0)
G1 is over in 5 turns. He can't flip delver and I just flood the board with little green men.
G2 is even quicker GG. T2 chalice on 1, T3 RiP = GG
R3 Elves (2-0)
G1 is mine in a couple of minutes. He kept a no-mana hand after mulling to 5.
G2 doesn't take long neither. The elves he drops, I just burn them with Incinerator or Sharpshooter.
R4 ANT (2-1) (Teammate)
G1 was standard ANT. I die T3
I board Chalice & RiP.
G2 T1 chalice for 0 & vial, T2 RiP + piledriver from lackey, T3 Warchief + Piledriver + Chieftain= GG
G3 rinse and repeat.
R5 RUG (1-2)
I'm paired against a fellow teammate (again) and we both know what the other is playing and our playstyles. G1 is a fast one for me.
G2 I board in RiP, Pyroblast & chalice. I see no hate after mulling to 4 and die in a swift fashion. (Hands were: 5 land, Ringleader, Warchief - no lands - all lands - 2 lands, lackey, piledriver).
G3 I mull to 6. Every goblin that hit the board got burned and his delver flipped T4 only, but that was enough for him. I never saw a RiP and the lonely Chalice I had in my opener was countered.
R6 RiP/Helm control (Teammate)
This match will determine wich one goes into top 8. Unfortunately I have to play another teammate. G1 I manage to bring him to 6 but then he assembles Energy field & RiP and that is it for this game.
G2 I board in Pyroblast & Earwig Squad. T1 vial into T2 Lackey into T3 matron and prowl in Earwig to remove his wincons. He scoops and we're off to G3.
G3 is a faster version of G1. T2 he has Energy field, T3 RiP, T5 helm and activate.
I loved playing the little green men, but as long as RiP/Helm & Omniscience is a large portion of the meta over here, I'm not really inclined to repeat this. Unless someone knows how to resolve the enchantments problem? Oh, I'm playing a stock list mono-R MD, with SB:
3 RiP
1 Cage
3 Chalice
2 Pyroblast
1 Tuktuk scrapper
3 Pyroblast
1 Weirding
1 Earwig Squad
I guess both against top and helm of obedience, we could be relying on pithing needle.
It is fast enough cause it drops before being discarded, buys us time until the opponent can deal with it, is a pro-active card that needs no mana being held up, and is flexible enough so you are covered against a bunch of different stuff.
For sure Krosan Grip prevents counterspells, but it also costs 3, being much slower, vulnerable to duress, and has the potential to keep you from playing your guys while holding up 3 mana.
yesterday I made a Top8 in a 100 Players Tournament.
Rg List with 22 land 3 Pyldriver, 3 MWM and 2 Stingscourgers (I'll run only 1 next time).
Side:
3 Surgical
3 Relic
3 K Grip
3 Confusion in the rank
3 Pyrokinesis
T1: UW StonBlade 2-1
T2: Belcher 2-0 (he had a game lost for a mistake in his list)
T3: ANT 2-0
T4: Burn 2-0
T5: Pox 2-0
T6: BUG DelverShaman I.D.
T7: BUG DelverShaman I.D.
Top8: BUG DelverShaman 0-2 (never seen the 3rd Land in 2 games)
I'll give you More details as soon as possible.
"Throw enough goblins at any problem and it should go away. At the very least, there'll be fewer goblins."
Hello guys! I'm going to a tournament on sunday, and I know there will be a friend of mine that plays an Infect deck. This is the list he should play: http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/10356#143153
I know infect is not a common deck in legacy, but who can give me some advices to beat it ? I think this is a quite bad matchup for goblins....when i played against mono green infect i lost a lot of times, maybe with blue green i can have more chances.
The only thing that comes to my mind is that i could put more removal spells main deck, but then it would be a bad choice against other decks.
I agree that Infect can be tricky. Hopefully you can just win by winning the dice roll an leading with a T1 Lackey, but in lieu of that you should probably stick to the following.
Wasteland and Port their Inkmoth Nexusesesesessss. Without their infecting Manland they're down to 11 threats. Save your spot removal for the creature cards and use your Wastes/Ports to keep their manlands down. Pithing Needle also works here.
Spot Removal: One of the problems with this MU is that they play a bunch of pump spells, while most of Goblin's removal is mediocre burn. Gempalm is a little too slow for killing a creature that's getting +6/+6 T3. Another problem is that Gobbos' mediocre removal plays right into Infect's plan. They attack you with the unblockable dork, you have 2 goblins in play and a Gempalm in hand so you decide to burn it out and save yourself the poison counters. They Invigorate it in response. Now you take more infect damage and failed to off a threat. Unless you're playing with Terminate this is a common situation in this MU. In order to use your burn against them effectively you'll need to be very careful with it. If they have an attacker that's going to get through and you have a burn spell, resist the urge to shoot first. Just let the damage through. If they have the pump spell they'll go for the W. Cast a Kinesis in response to the pump, don't let them respond to your Kinesis with a pump. Another good strategy is to burn their dorks on your turn. If they want to save them then they'll have to use pumps on your turn that will wear off when it comes time for them to Infect-attack on their turn. But basically it's very important to resist the urge to try and burn out an attacker that hasn't been pumped. If an attacker is going to get through just take the damage, then after damage use your removal. If it gets countered or their dork gets pumped that's OK. You can always cast more removal on your turn.
I'd go with this. Make them waste a pump if they have it. Better than die in case they have 2.
Also, always block when you can, and don't try to burn anything after blockers are designed. Let your dude die. If he tries to pump his, then you can try to burn it. You have 30+ dudes, they don't. Trading 1for1 is not a bad thing.
Last edited by ScatmanX; 11-14-2012 at 10:59 AM.
Super Bizarros Team. Beating everything with small green dudes and big waves.
Surely we should try to kill their creatures during our turn to make them waste a pump, and we should try to destroy or keep tapped their nexus. Blocking their creatures is really difficult because Blighted Agent is unblockable , Ichorclaw Myr gets pumped if blocked and Nexus flies. The only blockable creature is Glistener Elf , but remember that it will often have trample because of Rancor or Berserk.
I actually run a relatively small set of removals in my main deck ( 3 gempalms, 1 mogg fanatic, 1 sharpshooter and 1 siege gang ) and all of them are too slow and weak against infect, except mogg fanatic. I should put in some lightning bolts/tarfires, or warren weirding/swords to plowshares if i am going to splash,but i don't know if i want to change my deck for this particular matchup only.
I think that also the discard strategy with cabal therapy can be useful, against infect like against any other combo deck.
Another question : would you side out Aether Vial against infect ? I find it really too slow, and i think i would side it out also against the green/blue version of infect.
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