[Deck] Goblins

[orcanmail]

Do you really need 4 Pyrokinesis?

I think that those 6 slots should be evenly split on anti-storm (chalices) and anti-artifact Krosan Grip/Ancient Grudges.

A Sideboard question,

Given 3 slots to pyrokinesis, 3 slots to relics, 1 tinkerer and 1 anti e-plague boartusk liege for my mono red deck, i have 7 slots left.

To date i use 4 chalices and 3 thorns, but with blue delvers / cliques, brainstorms and jace I was wondering if it would be better to pack 4 REB and 3 pyroblasts. I don't see the point of only playing 2 REBs, 7 would blow some decks away but would leave me vulnerable to storm.

It's a meta choice, so what decks are we all seeing at the moment?

[GoboLord]

A Sideboard question,

Given 3 slots to pyrokinesis, 3 slots to relics, 1 tinkerer and 1 anti e-plague boartusk liege for my mono red deck, i have 7 slots left.

To date i use 4 chalices and 3 thorns, but with blue delvers / cliques, brainstorms and jace I was wondering if it would be better to pack 4 REB and 3 pyroblasts. I don't see the point of only playing 2 REBs, 7 would blow some decks away but would leave me vulnerable to storm.

It's a meta choice, so what decks are we all seeing at the moment?

Metagames are wuite different from place to place, but you can bet that you will find tons of BGx decks on any tournament in the near future.
i.e. I'd dedicate thse 7 slots to Jund, Junk, The Rock, BUG Delver, BUG COntrol, Shardless BUG and Team America.

[liamb]

I predict that while Jund decks will be on the rise, the popularity of RUG tempo decks (Canadian threshold) will shrink. Also we should see lots of other BGx decks like (all BUG variants, Nic fit and Rock). The tendency here is very distinct. Abrupt decay, Dethrite Shaman, Liliana of the Vail and Thoughtsize dominates in world-wide meta. I also witnessed lots of Punishing Fire decks.

Esper blade and UWx control variants should stay strong. I also think that we will see less GWx decks (which is highly likeable with current trends).

Elves are the only tribal deck that will stay at very top tiers.

We could see some movement in fast combo decks like Belcher and Undercity Informer/Balustrade Spy Decks. Show&tell decks not leaves behind. Other than that we can suspect storm and around-storm decks like tendrils decks and high tide. I’m not sure about destination of dredge and reanimator.

So for the unknown meta I would not leave home without:

3-4 REBs/Pyroblasts (Jace, Snapcaster Mage, Clique, Show and tell)
4 Graveyard hate pieces (Goyf, Shaman, Pun-fire, dredge, reanimator)
4 Combo hate pieces
3-4 slots of choice

[magicmerl]

Metagames are wuite different from place to place, but you can bet that you will find tons of BGx decks on any tournament in the near future.
i.e. I'd dedicate thse 7 slots to Jund, Junk, The Rock, BUG Delver, BUG COntrol, Shardless BUG and Team America.

Aren't Thalia and Rest in Peace good enough vs them? I certainly know that one of my problems is oversideboarding.

And when I play storm I feel woefully underprepares without Thalia AND Chalices. That seems like the minimum.

I don't like REB since it's often just worse than the goblins you are cutting for them.

[GoboLord]

Aren't Thalia and Rest in Peace good enough vs them?

I honestly don't know, since the variety of decks with this combination of problematic cards (Decay + DRS) is huge. I think both cards are a save SB choice vs. BGx-ish decks, but I can't imagine you will blow them up only with those two.

I don't like REB since it's often just worse than the goblins you are cutting for them.

Me neither - even less so when considering that the majority of BGx decks are non-blue. I totally agree with you here.

I havn't found a solid SB yet, but I can definitely say that we don't want Pyrokinesis in a "black meta". Pyrokinesis tends to be quite bad against creature-based decks with discard-spells. Apart from that I think that Boartusk Liege is a very good choice right now, since its not the range of Abrupt Decay, Punishing Fire,Lightning Bolt and Inquisition of Kozilek AND gives you a nice out on E.Plague. Other viable cardchoices against DRS & friends would be spotremoval in forms of Dismember and Swords to Plowshares. For those who are willing to splash black, Perish should be very attractive right now.

[Potdindy]

I havn't found a solid SB yet, but I can definitely say that we don't want Pyrokinesis in a "black meta". Pyrokinesis tends to be quite bad against creature-based decks with discard-spells. Apart from that I think that Boartusk Liege is a very good choice right now, since its not the range of Abrupt Decay, Punishing Fire,Lightning Bolt and Inquisition of Kozilek AND gives you a nice out on E.Plague. Other viable cardchoices against DRS & friends would be spotremoval in forms of Dismember and Swords to Plowshares. For those who are willing to splash black, Perish should be very attractive right now.

Yay! So Goblins gets to add another color to its mana-base. Perish does seem good as the only guys we have trouble with a lot are green...except of course Delver and Stoneforge...anyone else?

How much storm is being played? It seems that that is such a bad mu obviously, like everyone says. Would it be worthwhile to ignore that and focus on the games we can win, such as Jund, BUG, and RUG?

[ScatmanX]

Just to contribute a bit:
Played a 4 rounder last weekend.Expected combo decks and midrange, with 1 or 2 elves/goblins, so came up with this:
4 Wasteland
4 Cavern of Souls
14 Mountain

4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief

3 Warren Instigator
2 Mogg Warmarchall
2 Goblin Piledriver

1 Goblin Chieftain
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Krenko, Mob Boss

3 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Tarfire
1 Stingscourger

SB:
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Thorn of Amethyst

3 Kinesis

2 Tuktuk the Explorer
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Sparksmith
1 Tuktuk Scrapper

Round 1 - Spiral Tide
He wins the race T4 (with me having a T4 hand)
2nd Game I have Instigator T2, with hate T3, killing him T4
3rd game had Lackey, then Thorn (FoWd) then Chalice, then win.

Round 2 - Spiral Tide
He wins the race.
2nd game Lackey wins with 1 Chalice after.
3rd game I kept Thorn, Chalice, Warchief, Ringleader, 2 Waste and Mountain. He counters Thorn (that I play first), then CotV resolves, that fortunately buys me enough time to get more mountains and dudes.

Round 3 - Affinity
game 1 - He mulls to 5 and rolls me over.
Game 2 - Sharpshooter rocked, so the Kinesis I kept. If killed 2 guys in response to a Metalcrafted Shock, taking only 2 dmg. I ended the game with 1 life.
Game 3 - I should have mulliganed. He had lethal on T3, killing me on T4.

Round 4 - Burn
game 1 - I'm on the play, and make him burn Lackey, then Instigator, then Warchief, but then I have a lot of mana and overwhelm him.
game 2 - I set CotV@1, but it is quite useless. a Vortex kill us both while I drew nothing.
game 3 - He kills lackey, but leaves only a Goblin Guide to block my Instigator. Tarfire takes care of it and I win.

I can only say that I'd play this again, probably finding a place for a 3rd MWM somewhere. Those 7 combo hate cards can sure hold down combo, and the goblin package was quite awesome too.

[andrebonotto]

Just to contribute a bit:
Played a 4 rounder last weekend. (...).

Congratulations, Marcelo.

Some quick questions, regarding sideboarding:

1) When sideboarding against the two first decks, I assume you sided out your 7 removals to bring in your 7 combo-hate cards, right? Or did you do anything different?

2) How did you sideboard against the other two decks?
(3x Pyrokinesis + 1x T. Scrapper against Affinity? What did you take out? / 3x Chalices againts Burn? What did you take out?)

3) And how does Tuktuk the Explorer work/what is he intended to do? Was he able to do it?

[Mr. Froggy]

I'm curious about Tuktuk as well...

[GTetraKai]

I have a tournament tomorrow and it just feels like my list is all over the place:

4 AEther Vial

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
2 Goblin Piledriver
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Goblin Chieftain

2 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Tarfire

1 Boartusk Liege
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Legion Loyalist
1 Stingscourger
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Tuktuk the Explorer
1 Wort, Boggart Auntie

4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Cavern of Souls
12 Mountain

SB:
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
3 Pyrokinesis
1 Stingscourger
1 Tuktuk Scrapper

Last month, three of the five decks I played were running Decay, so this month, I'm going with a MD Boartusk. Also, I want to try out Wort with an attempt to abuse her upkeep ability. Last, I want to try out the new gobo from GTC. But, now that I have the list laid out in front of me, it just seems like I'm going in too many directions. I guess I'm going to run with what I've been testing and see how it works out.

[Eleven]

I'm curious about Tuktuk as well...

I guess he can be good for Engineered Plague and Supreme Verdict, because having a 5/5 creature after a clean board has to be good, anyways I'm curious too if it was good or not :)

[GoboLord]

I have a tournament tomorrow and it just feels like my list is all over the place:

4 AEther Vial

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
2 Goblin Piledriver
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Goblin Chieftain

2 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Tarfire

1 Boartusk Liege
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Legion Loyalist
1 Stingscourger
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Tuktuk the Explorer
1 Wort, Boggart Auntie

4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Cavern of Souls
12 Mountain

SB:
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
3 Pyrokinesis
1 Stingscourger
1 Tuktuk Scrapper

Last month, three of the five decks I played were running Decay, so this month, I'm going with a MD Boartusk. Also, I want to try out Wort with an attempt to abuse her upkeep ability. Last, I want to try out the new gobo from GTC. But, now that I have the list laid out in front of me, it just seems like I'm going in too many directions. I guess I'm going to run with what I've been testing and see how it works out.

I'm so looking forward to hear your oppinions about all those 1-offs after the tourney.
Could you report about the performance of them and present your results here?

//Edit:
I assume that, if your meta has a large % of BGx decks, you will also frequently see Deathrite Shaman. This card effectively counters Wort's upkeep-ability. You first have to name/target the creaturecard in your graveyard that you want to resurrect. Then your opponent has the chance to remove this creature via Deathrite Shaman (his "green" ability). So, if you think that your opponents are smart enough to notice this interaction, I would suggest not to play Wort.

[woremak]

I've also been playing with a black splash, and here are two things that I am currently thinking:
1. Against non-red Abrupt Decay/Deathrite Shaman decks Krenko has been very good for me. They have very little removal for him and he effectively races on his own. I kind of prioritize getting and resolving him over everything else in that matchup now.
2. I've also put Earwig Squard back in my sideboard, because against decks like Miracles and certain Enchantress builds it strips them of their fast win conditions, allowing you to eventually beat them with card advantage.
3. I think some number of Tarfire is definitely right, as much as it pains me to say it, and I think that number might be 2. It kills a large amount of the format presently, but it's literally Shock with downside so it's very hard for me to work up the courage to play more than one.
Anyway, just some thoughts, figured I'd put them out there. I did some testing against BUG Nic Fit, BUG Delver and BUG Shardless Agent (although without Ancestral Vision) and came to these conclusions.

[GTetraKai]

Alright, so I just finished up a 14-man, four-round tourney at my LGS. I ran the list posted a couple posts previous. Here's the breakdown:

Round 1, versus Belcher.
Game 1, opponent is on the play and mulls to 6. He's able to resolve a Belcher, but can't activate it. While he was crapping out on his draws, I resolved Lackey into Cheiftan, Piledriver, then Loyalist. Swing with the team for the win.
Sideboard: +3 Mindbreak Traps +1 Scrapper, -1 Wort, -1 Scourger, -1 SGC, -1Boartusk
Game 2, opponent is on the draw. I keep a decent hand with 2 lands, a couple 3 drops and Mindbreak Trap. Opponent opens with a Gitaxian Probe, sees the Trap and facepalms. I proceed to resolve 2 Piledrivers and Cheiftan in the following turns.
1-0

Round 2, versus Bant brew (?)
Game 1, I'm on the play. Cavern, Lackey, Go. Opponent does have a blocker for his first turn play. Turn 2, Lackey cheats in Kenkno. Turn 3, I drop Warchief, make a bunch of goblins and swing. Opponent scoops.
Sideboard: +3 Kinesis, +2 REB, +1 Pyroblast, -1 Loyalist, -1 Scrapper, -1 Scourger, -1 Tuktuk, -1 SGC, -1Boartusk
Game 2, he's on the play. I keep him locked down the first couple turns with a port. Eventually, I Matron up Wort and Vial her in. Realizing the Tarfire in the 'yard, he EOT'ed STP. He proceeds to beat me with Noble Hierarch, Squadron Hawks, and Vendilion Clique.
Game 3, the first couple of turns involved triple Wasteland and keeping one of his lands locked down with a Port. He resolves a Cold-Eyed Selkie and I EOT Pyroblast, pitching a Ringleader (I think it was a Ringleader... can't remember and didn't write it down). He attempts to Force it, and I have the REB to counter. Krenko plus Warchief win it for me.
2-0

Round 3 versus WGB
Game 1, opponent on the play. Plays a fetch and gets a Savannah and passes the turn. I play a Lackey with gets an EOT STP. He casts a turn 2 DRS and passes. Turn 3, I Wasteland his only green source and pass the turn. He proceeds to turn 3 Bitterblossom and beat me in the air while I'm stuck on one Mountain.
Sideboard: +3 Kinesis +1 Scrapper, -1 Scourger, -1Tuktuk, -2 Piledriver
Game 2, I'm on the play. I was able to stabilize against a DRS and Bob/top until my opponent reminded me that Mutilate is a card. That, and 3 'goyfs did it in for me.
2-1

Round 4 versus another WGB (Junk, I believe)
Game 1, opponent is on the play. His series of plays was T1 Top, T2 Bob, T3 Jitte, T4 SFM finding a Batterskull. My series was T1 Lackey, T2 Vial with Lackey cheating in a Cheiftan, T3 Matron finding a Ringleader. I keep Vial on 2 with Scourger in hand. During his T5, he tries to equip the Jitte on SFM and I Vial in the Scourger. He responds with using the SFM to play Batterskull. He then tries to equip the Jitte onto Bob, and in reponse I Tarfire it. Turn 5, I cast a Ringleader, revealing Krenko, Scrapper, Cheiftan and Wasteland. He scoops.
Sideboard: +1 Scrapper, +1 Scourger, -2 Piledriver
Game 2, opponent plays. He leads with Karakas and passes. I cast a Vial and pass. He plays a fetch and cracks it for a Savannah which I Wasteland the next turn. A couple turns later I Vial in Krenko with a Warcheif in play and make 5 goblins to which my opponent snap plays his EPlague at the beginning of his next turn and Pithing Needles my Krenko. On my turn, I cast a Ringleader that reveals a bunch of lands and a Vial and get in there with my "1/1". Over the course of a couple turns, I get him down to 5 life. He casts EE, set to 3, with one land untapped. I top deck a Scrapper and blow up his EE and pass. He taps his Karakas to cast Lingering Souls and at EOT I Vial in Wort, getting me back a Matron with which I tutor up a Chieftan and ride him to victory.
3-1

After thoughts:
The only game I was really nervous about was the Belcher matchup, game one. As we were sitting down, one of my friends mentioned what I was up against and I contemplated conceding game one because I knew he couldn't beat me post board. I'm glad I played it out. I was able to check out the Bant deck in action during the 45min I was standing around after my first round victory and I saw what it could do with Cold-Eyed Selkie, Noble Hierarchs and equipment. I knew that I had to side in as much removal as I can without watering down my own threat density. I had no idea what my third round opponent was even playing, I guess WGB good stuff, because it didn't look like Junk to me. My forth round opponent, after the match, showed my the 2 Decays he couldn't cast. I don't know why he didn't hit my Vial with one. I had that Wort in my hand for what seemed like forever, waiting for him to tap that Karakas for mana. When he did I was able to capitalize on it. Its really tough trying to talk to my opponents after games to see where I can improve and what mistakes they think I made. Mainly because I'm an American living in Japan and I don't speak the language.

Legion Loyalist, the one time I played him, seemed like a win-more card. It would have been sweet to resolve it against my round 3 opponent who was playing Bitterblossom, but I was stuck on one Mountain and couldn't draw an out to save my life. Game 2 of the match, I think he sided them out because I didn't see one after that first match. I kept him in during my forth round only because my opponent showed me the Batterskull. He was definitely the right card to bring, though, with most of the decks today were running some form of token generation (Batterskull, Bitterblossom, and Lingering Souls).

Quick breakdown of the decks being played today:
Goblins (me)
Stone Blade x2
Bant
Junk x2
Mono Red
Belcher x2
Dredge x2
High Tide

There were a couple other decks out there, but I didn't get to see them. All and all I'm pretty happy with my build. I still think that I have too many one-ofs and may look at cutting either the Scourger in the main and Wort for some removal, most likely. Still, I came in third place... not too bad for my second real Legacy tournament.

[GoboLord]

The only game I was really nervous about was the Belcher matchup, game one. As we were sitting down, one of my friends mentioned what I was up against and I contemplated conceding game one because I knew he couldn't beat me post board.

That's the spirit! Running only 3 Minbreak Traps as Hate against Belcher and still saying something like this is very self-confident.

Apart from that: Thank you for the report and your helpful insights. I added your report to the list of tournament reports in the opening post.

[ScatmanX]

Congratulations, Marcelo.

Thanks =]

Some quick questions, regarding sideboarding:

1) When sideboarding against the two first decks, I assume you sided out your 7 removals to bring in your 7 combo-hate cards, right? Or did you do anything different?

Exactly that.

2) How did you sideboard against the other two decks?
(3x Pyrokinesis + 1x T. Scrapper against Affinity? What did you take out? / 3x Chalices againts Burn? What did you take out?)

Affinity:
+ 3 Kinesis, +2 Tuktuk the Explorer, +1 Goblin Sharpshooter, +1 Sparksmith, +1 Tuktuk Scrapper
-4 Vial, -1 Gempalm(I think), -3 Instigator
* Here you want to kill their threats really fast. Vial is too slow, and Instigator will never connect, being too slow too. Shooter is nice killing all those x/1 and x/2 creatures, and Sparksmith is extra removal, but the 3rd gempalm was better, so wrong sideboarding by my part. Explorer is great at chumping, and I'm left with a huge dude. A plus is that the token is colorless, so it can block Etched Champion, which is quite a pain for use with Plating.
Burn:
+3 Chalice, +3 Kinesis(he had Guide and Lavamancer, and I want to kill them asap), +1 Scrapper (he could have Ensnaring Bridge.
-4 Vial, -1 Ringleader, -1 Krenko, -1 Stingscourger
*Again, I find Vial too slow for the MU, and they usually have hate for it. CotV must come in, because IF they don't find the hate, you'll probably win. With Vial, that's not truth.

3) And how does Tuktuk the Explorer work/what is he intended to do? Was he able to do it?

He is supposed to help us against midrange decks. Jund, Bug and Goblins (and Canadian, The Rock, and others...) have no way to Exile it, and usually don't have a creature that's bigger than it. It' awesome against Liliana, and fine against Plague (a 4/4 is still quite good). Against those decks he's an all star. Unfortunately against Affinity he did not showed up... Also,quite tricky card to use. I suggest you to give it a try IF those decks appear a lot on your scene. (Not happened in the tournament I played, but that's life...)

Round 1, versus Belcher.
Game 1, opponent is on the play and mulls to 6. He's able to resolve a Belcher, but can't activate it. While he was crapping out on his draws, I resolved Lackey into Cheiftan, Piledriver, then Loyalist. Swing with the team for the win.
Sideboard: +3 Mindbreak Traps +1 Scrapper, -1 Wort, -1 Scourger, -1 SGC, -1Boartusk

Why would you side like this? You want to RACE Belcher (or catch them off guard with Trap) so why would you remove a SGC? He is one of the goblins that allow some number of Turn 3 kills from our deck. You do not want to take him out. Same is true (to a lesser extent) about Boartusk (leading to some T4 kills). on the other hand, cards like Vial, Ringleader, Tuktuk the Explorer, Gempalm Incinerator and Tarfire are awfully slow against them, and therefore mediocre. Also, you have 3 Kinesis on your SB, and the card is often decente against Belcher. 7/11 of their kill conditions is Empty the Warrens, leading to sometimes 8-10 goblins. If you open with a Lackey, and have Kinesis on your hand, you have a pretty decent chance of winning the game, since you prevent a lot of dmg, and will be able to cheat a lot of thing into play (like SGC, that blocks 4 dudes, or a Warchief, to cast Matron, to get Sharpshooter to kill their team Turn 3). So that card needs to come in.
My advice for you against Belcher with your list would be to side +3 Trap, +3 Kinesis, +1 Tuktuk, -4 Vial, -1 Stingscourger, -2 Gempalm Incinerator.

Other than that, nice report and nice finish. Keep writing them.

[GTetraKai]

Why would you side like this?

Because, honestly, I never tested against Belcher and didn't know what I should side in. My mindset was to focus lowering the curve while keeping some game-winning threats. I still had one SGC post-board. I sided in the second Scrapper to give me something to deal with a resolved Belcher because, at the time, I thought it was the right choice. However, in hindsight, I can see where siding in Kinesis would have been the better play. You live and learn. Thanks for the advice, though. I'll definitely make a note of it and use it the next time I go up against the deck.

Other than that, nice report and nice finish. Keep writing them.

Thanks! We have a Tournament every month. If we can talk the owner of the new LGS down the road into it, we may have a second one a month. Hopefully, I'll get the chance to write more.

[B-rad]

Hey guys. Played in SCG Open Cincinnati yesterday and just wanted to share my thoughts on the deck, why I played what I played, and what I feel like is the best moving forward. I ended the day at 5-3-1(59th place for a whopping 50 bucks!) but honestly felt like the build I played was very close to where it should have been and pretty much all my losses were in tough 3 game battles.

Main

4 Aether Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg War Marshal
4 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
3 Goblin Piledriver
3 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Tarfire
1 Skirk Prospector
1 Stingscourger
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Siege-Gang Commander

4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
4 Cavern of Souls
10 Mountain

Sideboard

3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Mindbreak Trap
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Angel of Despair
2 Pyrokinesis
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Grafdigger's Cage

The night before the tournament I made a bunch of changes like cutting the Warchiefs for Chieftains, adding Tarfires, and cutting all the fetches from the deck. Basically, my goal going in doing this was to make Deathrite Shamans as bad as possible against me and playing a much more aggressive list as I expected a bunch of Jund/Combo decks. The sideboard was phenomenal and the only card I didn't bring in all day was the 1 of cage. On to the tournament.

Round 1 Sneak and Show

g1 He forces both my early lackeys and spell pierces my vial. He draws infi cantrips and I die soon after.
+3 ReB +2 Angel of Despair -3 Tarfire -2 Gempalm
g2 I keep a 1 lander with vial lackey prospector 2 war marshal chieftain and end up alpha striking for like 25 all with 1 lowely mountain.
g3 I have pretty much the nuts opener with mtn port cavern chieftain war marshall ReB Angel and win easily after he SnTs
1-0

Round 2 U/W/R Geist Delver

This deck is just basically a worse RuG delver against us. Just throw all your men in front of a geist and use your spot removal on delvers. I don't really remember the games but I won easily and didn't sideboard a single card.
2-0

Round 3 Charbelcher
g1 I'm getting the combo vibe from this guy and we both mul into oblivion. He goes to 5 on the play and I go all the way to 4 with lackey matron and 2 lands. He doesn't play a land and just says go turn 1 and 2 while I lackey in a matron and tank. I end up getting sharpshooter putting him on charbelcher and it ends up paying off as he was setting up an empty plan. He is able to cast and activate a belcher andddd the 2nd card is the Taiga. I untap, play some dudes and alpha. Game 1 on the draw against belcher on a mul to 4....awkward.
+3 Mindbreak Trap +1 Tuktuk Scrapper -2 Tarfire -1 Gempalm -1 Stingscourger
g2 we each go to six and i have 2 mtn lackey chieftain war marshall mindbreak. He plays draw go for a turn or 2 while I'm dropping Lackey. Then he triple spirit guides + desperate ritual into belcher <--- only 2 spells He drops LeD next turn and kills me and I see he brought in Red Blasts for my potential Mindbreak Traps.
g3 I mul into oblivion and don't find a trap or anything and die to 16 goblin tokens.
2-1

Round 4 RuG Delver
g1 I win the roll and resolve 2 vials and crush.
+3 Relic -2 Lackey -1 Piledriver(on the draw, Lackeys come back in on the play)
g2 We get to a very serious log jam and I can't get past his wall of Goyfs and he eventually finds a rough/tumble and kills me.
g3 I mul to 5 and never see a relic or vial and die
2-2

This ended my top 8 Dreams so I'm not going to go into too much more detail but I did face Jund 3 times after round 4 and learned a lot about the matchup. I went 1-1-1 against it and my board strategy changed as the day went along. I was originally boarding out a couple Lackey's and a Pile for 3 Relics but figured out it was wrong. It was making my Ringleaders much worse so I decided to try cutting Vials. I took out 4 Vials and a Stingscourger for 3 Relics and 2 Pyrokinesis and this was much better. Vials were getting gunned early and it makes Hymn to Tourach so much better when we play a vial. This change drastically improved the matchuo and I won every game where I had a Relic on turn 1.

Overall Thoughts:

Like I said earlier this list was very close to where it needed to be. Tarfire was solid and I think 3 is the right number. Krenko was the absolute worst card by a mile and it was bad every time I drew it. I think he's better in a warchief build and I wished all day the he was the 4th Piledriver.

Tarmogoyf is a really really really big problem for us. It makes all our attacks seem sketchy and very susceptible to getting blown out. Punishing Jund can just sit behind one and pick off all our guys until they have the game in control. Usually you can just ignore one but the 2nd one was almost always gg for me.

Going forward I am probably going to be splashing black just for 3 Perish in the board. Perish seems like it's in a really good spot right now with all the BGx decks and elves running around. Only downside to this is it makes turn 1 Deathrite better because we'll have to play fetches for the splash.

Welp that's my takeaway from Cincy! I'm going to get to working on the black splash as we got SCG Indianapolis coming up in a couple weeks. I will share my list with you guys and would love to hear suggestions!

[Asgar]

Very nice report, i enjoyed reading it!
But there are some things im curious about:
1st 10 mountains seems to
Be a very low number. If you want to tarfire every second turn etc. i wouldnt go below 13 (- 2 Ports and 1 MWM for example if you want to keep up playing rishadan port). You seemed to Mull a lot, was is because you were missing red sources sometimes?
The 2nd thing is you having Problems with Goyf-Stalls and calling Krenko the worst card. If he doesnt get bolted in the first 2 turns he comes in, he is perfect for exactly this situation.

Last but not least: Best Sideboard I saw in a long time! You have quite good chances against each other deck then graveyard.deck and Combo, so i love the 8 anti combo slots, so you have chances against storm, show and tell and spiral tide :)

[GoboLord]

Hello my fellow Warchiefs,

I finally found the time to do some testing for the current meta-game (which is mostly BGx, Stoneblade, Storm Combo).
As always, I wanted to find out

(a) how Goblins are positioned in the meta
(b) how to beat the decks that we are likely to run into

Well, as I have already made in-depth experiences with both the Stoneblade- and the Stormcombo-MU I directed my question at the on the BGx-decks.
In fact, my results concerning Storm and UWx Bladecontrol are the following:

UWx Blade
* problematic cards are: Stoneforge Mystic, Batterskull, Jitte and Lingering Souls
* our valuable cards are: fast spotremoval, instant-speed artifact removal, Vial, Caverns, Matron and Ringleader
* the MU turns out to be unfavorable, as UWx Blade is having quite strong combinations of draws with an amazing frequency, while we can easily lose to oursleves, because we didn't draw the right cards. i.e. UWx Blade somehow manages to ALWAYS draw the right cards, which is not surprising, given it's threat density.

Storm Combo
* the MU is unfavorable, there is no denying it. In general you can say that: the slower their combo is, the more chances you have to win the match
* here's an helpful Overview of Stromdeck sorted by speed:
Spanish Inquisiton >(is fast than) Rgx Belcher > (is faster than) The Epic Storm > Ad Nauseam Tendrils > Spiral Tide > Solidarity > Doomsday
* it very rewarding to test the MU a lot. The more you know about Stormcombo decks, the easier it is to beat them. The games usually last 1-4 turns, and you should be able to play those turns without making a single mistake or wrong decision
* recent trends: TES cut Tendrils from Maindeck, ANT are usually 3-4 colored, there is a new combo-deck that is as fast and inconsistant as Belcher and works very much like the old Cephalid Breakfast

Unfortunately I had until recently nothing to say about the omnipresent BGx decks. Before I start delving into my testing results I first want to give you a short overview of what the different versions of "BGx" are, how they are termed and what they do:

They typical BG-shell is build around those 3 cards:



Jund
* BGr
* Bloodbraid Elf, Dark Confidant, Grim Lavamancer
* Lilliana of the Veil, Thoughtseize, Hymn to Tourarch, Lightning Bolt, Punishing Fire (in some cases)
* aggro/aggro-control

"JunK" and "The Rock"
* BGw
* Knight of the Reliquary, Dark Confidant, Eternal Witness, Kitchen Finks
* Swords to Plowshares, Maelstrom Pulse, Thoughtseize, Hymn to Tourarch, Green Sun's Zenith
* aggro/aggro-control

Team America
* BGu (or rather UBg)
* Tombstalker, Delver of Secrets
* Force of Will, Daze, Ponder, Brainstorm
* aggro/tempo

BUG Control
* BGu (or rather UBg)
* Snapcaster Mage, Vendillion Clique
* spells of all varieties of combinations of removals, discard and countermagic - sometime even entirely without countermagic
* Liliana of the Veil, Jace the Mindsculptor

Shardless BUG
* BGu (or rather BUg)
* Shardless Agent, Snapcaster Mage, Vendilion Clique
* Force, Daze, Spell Pierce
* aggro/ midrange

NicFit
* BGr or BGw
* Veteran Explorer + Cabal Therapy, several large creatures, Kitchen Finks
* Cabal Therapy, Green Sun’s Zenith, Pernicious Deed
* control

To learn more about every deck in detail you should check the respective threads on the DTB- or Established Decks board.
I focused my testing on the JUND deck, however, since the strategies and cards of those BGx decks are partly overlapping, we can draw conclusions from this, that may also apply to other BGx-decks.

Results
I figured out that JUND can easily get into “ridiculous mode”, where it draws and lands one threat after another. At first the deck felt invincible, however after some games I could successfully work out a strategy. As Brad already stated above: the goal is to make their DRS as worse as possible. DRS are Grim Lavamancers. DRS are Llanowar Elves. DRS are Squires. The worst thing is, that DRS enables early Bloodbraid Elf into Tarmogoyf/Decay/ Bolt/ Liliana, whatever. DRS is indeed the card that keeps this deck alive. My solution for that was to keep hands that could deal with DRS easily (preboard: spotremoval, postboard: gravehate and/or spotremoval).
Even if you manage to deal with DRS, chances are that your opponent jams down some combination of Tarmogoyf, spotremoval and discard magic. The best way to fight this is to swarm the board. The more creatures, the better. Important creatures here are Matron, Ringleader and Siege-Gang Commander. Postboard the matches were a little more relaxed as I had 13 cards that could effectively deal with their most important threats: Deathrite Shaman and Tarmogoyf.

Here are some ingame interactions/observations:
* Lightning Bolt and Abrupt Decay were most often used against Warchief and Piledriver
* discardspells almost always took away either a Matron or a spotremoval
* landing a Siege-Gang Commander often had some “comeback” effect, as it catapulted me from an unfavorable boardstate to a very favorable one
* Abrupt Decay @ Aether Vial was rarely an issue as JUND wants to shut down Piledrivers and Warchiefs with it.
* Wastelands were only good in combination with a spotremoval @ DRS. When I didn’t have this combination of cards, Wasteland were used for mana, as DRS would profit from it otherwise
* postboard the MUs gets a little easier, because Graveyardhate is the boss. WIth Rest in Peace in play the don't have a considerable clock, since their most important damage-output is cancelled: DRS and Tarmogoyf (Note: I didn't play agains a Punishing Fire-version, but obviously GYH is huge here).

Here’s my list for reference:
4 Wasteland, 4 Caverns
6 Mountain
6 Fetchlands, 2 Plateau
4 Lackey, Vial, Piledriver, Warchief, Matron, Ringleader
2 Siege-Gang Commander
3 Mogg War Marshal
3 Gempalm Incinerator, 2 Lightning Bolt, 2 Dismember, 2 Swords to Plowshares
(this split of removalspells might seem a little odd. I am sure that we want cc1 removal spells against JUND, but I was unsure which one would be the best - also considering other MUs, like RUG Thresh, UWx Blade, other BGx variants. I'm still undecided, but I can imagine cutting another Gempalm Incinerator. Swords to Plowshares is objectively the best removal we can get, but it can only be played from 8 out of 22 manasources of the deck, which might be a problem if you need a reliable removal in the first few turns. Dismember is at the other end: it can be played from every land AND kills every creature - however, losing 4 life isn't the best thing to do when you are playing against DRS + Burn. Lightning Bolt is an in-between thing: it can be cast from most lands of the deck, but has a limited reach).


SIDEBOARD
4 Rest in Peace
2 Boartusk Liege
9 irrelevant cards

Boarding plans
GOBLINS:
+2 Boartusk Liege, + 4 Rest in Peace, -1 Gempalm Incinerator, -3 Mogg War Marshal, -2 Piledriver
JUND:
+3 Engineered Plague, -3 Liliana of the Veil

After all I think the SB-plan Brad proposed would have been better (siding out Vials entirely). Especially in the face of Engineered Plague we want to keep as many x/2 creatures (Piledriver, Warchief, Ringleader, SGC) in the deck as possible.
More testing is needed to figure out how the other MUs work in detail.