[Deck] Goblins

[FTW]

Great result Ken!

It's interesting he's running 0 SGC and 13 "2 drops" plus the 2 Tarfires and Canonists in the board. That's a lot of early game interactivity and few dead cards stuck in hand. Maybe this is the way to still run the explosiveness of Chieftain+Krenko without cutting too much at the 2-drop spot, re: older discussion on Gobolord's stats.

I've been thinking of Tarfire for a while now as a way for "Caverns, Lackey, Go" to still compete in a format with "fetchland, Deathrite, go". Glad to see it putting up good results. I really like the idea of "shock your Squire, waste your dual, Ancestral for free off Lackey trigger". Seems like a good way to win at Magic.

[jrw1985]

So Goblins wins SCG Minneapolis. Meanwhile I went 5-4 and didn't even money. Embarrassing. When I saw the winning deck list my heart sank because his deck was extremely similar to mine except he included a W splash. We both ran 3/2 splits of Warchief/Chieftain and Gempalm/Tarfire. We both ran Krenko and Sharpshooter main. The only differences were he played one more Piledriver, one less MWM, and +3 Thalia +1 Land, while I ran Prospector, Tuktuk, and siege gang commander. Having access to W for Wear/Tear would have won me two rounds I lost to RiP/Energy Field. After this tournament I can say without a doubt that the W splash is the way to go. There are too many enchantments and artifacts in the format to not have access to a card like wear//tear. And Thalia is still a powerhouse that is well worth three slots MD. I love that the winning deck didn't run SGC. I'm still pissed at myself for not playing enough this summer to realize that monoR wasn't the way to go. I recommend all of you run a W splash at this point. It gives you answers to combo, enchantments, graveyards, and artifacts. It's definitely the way to go from here on out.

[GoboLord]

So Goblins wins SCG Minneapolis. Meanwhile I went 5-4 and didn't even money. Embarrassing. When I saw the winning deck list my heart sank because his deck was extremely similar to mine except he included a W splash. We both ran 3/2 splits of Warchief/Chieftain and Gempalm/Tarfire. We both ran Krenko and Sharpshooter main. The only differences were he played one more Piledriver, one less MWM, and +3 Thalia +1 Land, while I ran Prospector, Tuktuk, and siege gang commander. Having access to W for Wear/Tear would have won me two rounds I lost to RiP/Energy Field. After this tournament I can say without a doubt that the W splash is the way to go. There are too many enchantments and artifacts in the format to not have access to a card like wear//tear. And Thalia is still a powerhouse that is well worth three slots MD. I love that the winning deck didn't run SGC. I'm still pissed at myself for not playing enough this summer to realize that monoR wasn't the way to go. I recommend all of you run a W splash at this point. It gives you answers to combo, enchantments, graveyards, and artifacts. It's definitely the way to go from here on out.

I agree.
I think a good topic for discussion would be if Thalia is better for the MD or the SB. And more specific:

(1) what role does the metagame play in this issue?
(2) What cards complement Thalia the best?
(3) Which cards can be cut in favor of Thalia?
(4) In line with the we should also discuss Ethersworn Cannonist (I'm still amazed that just 1 week after I thought: "Hey, Canonist!" this guy comes across in a winning list; there must be something about this guy).

I'd like to hear your oppinions on the questions above.

[Dice_Box]

Cannonist I think is a strong choice for the sideboard. It works in this deck. I mean you have Vials to drop things, our biggest hate card is a not played but cycled and one spell a turn on our side leaves more mana open to use Ports. It is also great hate for combo alongside Thaila. I mean I have not tested it yet, but in hindsight it just seems to tick all the boxes.

[LeoCop 90]

I still believe that the best list with splashes is R/G/W.

I can't convince myself to run tuktuk scrapper main deck while tin street hooligan is much more acceptable, while in sideboard krosan grip is the real answer to annoying artifacts/enchantments, because the decks that play them usually have a lot of counters.

This leads to last max tietze's list (more or less) : the only real questions for me are thalia in main or side, some tarfire or full set of gempalms, 1 chieftain or zero.

About another topic, I'm sad that no goblins were printed in from the vault: twenty... our deck is a big part of magic's history, and once completely dominated the format. Moreover there is only one red card.... Char.

[BigBopper]

I still believe that the best list with splashes is R/G/W.

I can't convince myself to run tuktuk scrapper main deck while tin street hooligan is much more acceptable, while in sideboard krosan grip is the real answer to annoying artifacts/enchantments, because the decks that play them usually have a lot of counters.

This leads to last max tietze's list (more or less) : the only real questions for me are thalia in main or side, some tarfire or full set of gempalms, 1 chieftain or zero.

Green lets you also play Ancient grudge, which is a house vs. all kind of SFM based decks. TSH > Tuktuk, K.Grip > Wear/Tear.
I play Canonist for quite some time in SB (only 2 Thalia) and it serves completely fine for me.
About Chieftain: My SB choice would be Boartusk Liege-he's a tutorable answer to Plaque and can't be P.Fired, nor Abrupt Decayed.

[EluThingol]

I agree.
I think a good topic for discussion would be if Thalia is better for the MD or the SB. And more specific:

(1) what role does the metagame play in this issue?
(2) What cards complement Thalia the best?
(3) Which cards can be cut in favor of Thalia?
(4) In line with the we should also discuss Ethersworn Cannonist (I'm still amazed that just 1 week after I thought: "Hey, Canonist!" this guy comes across in a winning list; there must be something about this guy).

I'd like to hear your oppinions on the questions above.

1) ANT is often an underplayed deck because people just don't like the variance, get bored fiddling with themselves while everybody else is interacting, and because they don't want to be "that guy." But as Legacy gets more popular people are starting to get over that and see ANT as a reasonably affordable and extremely powerful option, and you're seeing it more and more. Main-decking Thalia keeps Goblins from sacrificing an enormous percentage of Game 1's against combo decks. Also, a little appreciated point about Thalia is that she does incredible work against the aggro-control decks--RUG, BUG, and Deathblade, which are often so efficient in the early game that Goblins has a hard time getting its feet under it and finds itself under enormous pressure because of Delver, etc.
2) Thalia is such a house in Goblins because Vial and Cavern provide two ways of getting her past countermagic. But the biggest compliment in the deck is Port. Thalia-Port is one of the most deadly answers to the decks I mentioned in #1.
3) This is always tough, but I think reducing the PD count to 2 is right. I disagree completely with eliminating maindeck artifact hate, though. There is a school of thought that would say if you're bringing in an additional "control" element like Thalia, and if you're cutting into your tribal synergy to do it, you should be doing something to make your remaining Goblins stronger and more aggressive. That's what Dungar did and I think it's the right call. At the end of the day you're still winning with little red men, and if you're cutting into your goblin cards you had better make the remaining ones bigger and faster, i.e., get on the Chieftain-Krenko plan.
4) Canonist is amazing. Still, I would be wary of using just creature permanents against Storm. As an artifact creature, Canonist dies to every kind of spot removal, so I would proceed with caution. That said, all of it except Mindbreak Trap dies to both Abrupt Decay and discard as well, so maybe the overwhelming constraints she imposes on the game state make her worth the risks.

On a different topic, went 3-1 at the local tourney tonight, testing with 2 Lightning Crafters. He was a house whenever he showed up. In one game, I was able to Vial him in on top of a blocking Ringleader, use his ability on himself because of Warchief, and grab three goblins off the top including a life-saving Gempalm. It was the most ridiculous Hail-Mary play I've ever accomplished. Oh, and the maneuver also got me a SGC that I was able to drop to buy me a bunch of time. All in all, I really liked his effect, until I ran into an opponent smart enough to use his removal on the Champion target and 2-for-1 me. So it's a fun tool, and extremely effective at times, but not perfect. I will say that having 6 targets for Vial on 4 feels a whole lot better than having just 4, expecially since your opponent always knows what the deal is.

[magicmerl]

I couldn't help but notice Ken's Deck is a 61 card list. Must not have been able to find that last card to cut. Nor did it have a shatter goblin in main or side. Looks like he was relying on Pithing Needle and Wear to handle Stoneforge.

As you can see here, his list was 60 cards with only 2 Piledrivers.

I think a good topic for discussion would be if Thalia is better for the MD or the SB. And more specific:

(1) what role does the metagame play in this issue?
(2) What cards complement Thalia the best?
(3) Which cards can be cut in favor of Thalia?
(4) In line with the we should also discuss Ethersworn Cannonist (I'm still amazed that just 1 week after I thought: "Hey, Canonist!" this guy comes across in a winning list; there must be something about this guy).

I'd like to hear your oppinions on the questions above.

(1) I think it really comes down to how much you are prepared to sacrifice G1 to the unfair decks like Dredge and combo. Thalia makes you a worse goblins deck, but she hurts the opponent more than us, and is AMAZING at our worst matchups. Without Thalia, it's very hard to beat a good storm player G1, which means that we HAVE to get lucky twice post board, once when they are on the play.
(2) We already know: Wasteland and Port
(3) We already know: Piledriver
(4) Yeah, that's pretty crazy. Looks like CotV is optional.....

[ScatmanX]

All in all, I really liked his effect, until I ran into an opponent smart enough to use his removal on the Champion target and 2-for-1 me.

The 'Champion' mechaninc does not target a creature, so your opponent can respond to the trigger, but once you chose the goblin you're Championning, there's nothing he can do about it. You choose the goblin on the resolution of the trigger.

Edit: Kenny wrote on SCG about his deck: http://www.starcitygames.com/article...onna-Hate.html

[Humphrey]

I still believe that the best list with splashes is R/G/W.

I can't convince myself to run tuktuk scrapper main deck while tin street hooligan is much more acceptable, while in sideboard krosan grip is the real answer to annoying artifacts/enchantments, because the decks that play them usually have a lot of counters.

This leads to last max tietze's list (more or less) : the only real questions for me are thalia in main or side, some tarfire or full set of gempalms, 1 chieftain or zero.

About another topic, I'm sad that no goblins were printed in from the vault: twenty... our deck is a big part of magic's history, and once completely dominated the format. Moreover there is only one red card.... Char.

Im still testing the RWu configuration which gives you access to spell pierce, which can handle a lot of problematic cards and its unexpected.

In FTV, i had hopes for Port :(

[Dice_Box]

Edit: Kenny wrote on SCG about his deck: http://www.starcitygames.com/article...onna-Hate.html

Thanks for the link. It is worth the time to read. The thing that makes me think the most is the dropping of SGC. I am of two minds about it. I concede the point about vial, but its still one of the hardest cards to answer that we have.

[GoboLord]

I read this article too and I like it. I think that the author over-estimates the value of Pithing Needle, but that's really the only thing I would argue about (and even then I can see that Pithing Needle is a reasonable choice when you expect UW Miracles).
I'm glad to read some words on Wear//Tear, which I havn't been able to test yet (mostly because I know my local meta very well and that much artifact hate doesn't make sense for my purposes - but whatever...different story).

I'll put the link to the "good reads" section, together with THIS.
Enjoy.

[Bichon_Blitz]

It was good article, especially for someone getting into Gobs for the first time. I have to disagree with vial>lackey turn 1, against a blind opponent. They have to have removal, or deathrite. That's an interesting discussion to have, and no doubt vial is a better turn 1 play against a good many decks. And if I'm holding tarfire, better believe lackey is getting played.

[jrw1985]

At long last, time for My super-mediocre tournament report from SCG Minneapolis.

First and foremost I must address something that has caused me much anguish this past week: I played a bad deck at SCG Minneapolis. I squandered my opportunity to do well in this tournament by going into this tournament with misconception about what was important in the format currently. My main misconceptions were as follows: 1) Mono-Red goblins without fetchlands will make DRS and LftL worse and is therefor THE way to play goblins AND 2) Blood Moon is the ultimate sideboard card and will squash all these all-duals mana bases.

I was wrong. So very, very wrong. Yes, playing Mono R makes DRS worse, but only ever-so slightly. If you don't feed fetches into their graveyard you are still Wasting and they are still fetching, so you're not going to mana-screw them anytime soon by running Mono R. That's just faulty logic. And worrying about recurring Wastelands is fucking stupid too, because you're still running 12 Waste targets in a mono R build, and running a splash gives you better options for just turning off the GY and stopping Loam from recurring anyway.

Blood Moon, while a house, is not the cure-all I wished it would be. First off, 50% of all DRS decks play basics anyway, and they'll probably play around Waste G2 given half a chance, so hoping to fuck them over with Blood Moon is basically hoping that they make play errors (which isn't Good Magic). The decks with the shakiest manabases are also the decks that rely most heavily on the Graveyard. So, really, against these decks you want to side in grave hate, not Blood Moon.

My List

4 Vial
4 Lackey
2 Tarfire
1 Skirk Prospector

2 Pilediver
4 MWM
1 Stingscourger

4 Matron
3 Gempalm
3 Warchief
2 Chieftain
1 Sharpshooter

4 Ringleader
1 Krenko
1 Tuktuk Scrapper

1 SGC

4 Cavern
4 Waste
4 Port
10 Mountain

SB
3 Chalice
2 Mindbreak Trap
3 Relic
2 Pyrokinesis
3 Blood Moon
2 Pyroblast

OK, now compare My list to the Winning list...

Creatures (31)

3 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
2 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Goblin Warchief
3 Mogg War Marshal
1 Stingscourger
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

Lands (23)

4 Mountain
1 Arid Mesa
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Plateau
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
2 Wooded Foothills

Spells (6)

4 Aether Vial
2 Tarfire

Sideboard

2 Pithing Needle
2 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Rest in Peace
1 Mindbreak Trap
3 Pyrokinesis
3 Wear

We both ran 3/2 split on Gempalm/Tarfire AND Warchief/Chieftain. But where I played SGC the winning player (Kenny Dungar) had the huevos to cut the 5 drop entirely. While I was running around with 1 answer to Artifacts, he played 3 answers to artifacts AND Enchantments. While I played MD Skirk, Tuktuk, and SGC, HE played 3 Thalia, keeping the curve lower, and playing a 23rd land instead of a 4th redundant MWM.

And He was right. The proof is in the pudding. He X-1 or better over 12 Rounds, while I went 5-4 over 9. Missing the W splash killed me in multiple matches. Fer Reelz. I got stuck on the idea that playing MonoR was the way to go, but I didn't bother testing Rw as well to see how they compared. Considering that I nearly top 8'd in April with a Rwg deck you'd think that I would have gone into the event favoring a splash to begin with. But NoooooOOOOoOOO. I had to try and prove that MonoR was good enough, nay, Better than a Rx splash, and I got a heaping bowlful of out-of-the-money to show for it.

Onto the report.

R1 Burn
G1 I was on the draw and kept a terrible opening 7 that didn't have a 1-drop but did have a T2 MWM and a good curve. I figured there were a lost of decks that wouldn't punish me too badly for this slow-start since I had chump-blocker extraordinaire T2. Instead my opponent T1 Vexing Devils and I have to pay 4 life to stop it since I can't stop it from hitting me for 4 T2 anyway. I lose rather quickly from there.
I side in Chalice
G2 I keep a Lackey hand that doesn't have Chalice. Lackey gets bolted. Vial gets Smashed to Smithereens. 2 Devils come down. I don't pay 4 life to kill either, and one of them winds up getting through at one point, meaning I made a huge mistake by not paying the 4 life off the bat. Stupid me. A Miraculous Thunderous Wrath hits me for 5, and I'm pretty much fucked. I lose in a gloriously firey fashion. Hooray for losing to terrible cards. When burn is good, it is real good.
0-1

R2 TES
G1 On the play a T1 Lackey is followed up by a T2 Port. Port keeps him from going off until his life total is 12. He goes off without mana in his pool with Ad Nauseum and kills himself. I'll take it.
I sided in Relics, Chalices and Traps, and took out spot removal (but not Sharpshooter)
G2 He made me discard my hate T1 and went off T2. Onto game 3!
G3 Lackey + Waste + Port beat his mull to 5. Much winningness.
1-1

R3 Shardless BUG
G1 I'm on the play and and he casts 2 Forces in the first 2 or 3 turns, so his hand is pretty much decimated and he can't turn the game around as I keep throwing goblins at his face. I don't recall many details but Port definitely did some work this round.
I sided in Pyrokinesis and Relics and took out random bad stuff, can't recall what.
G2 I keep an opening hand with Relic and Lackey. He starts off with DRS. I start with Relic to nullify his mana T2. T2 I play Lackey. T3 he plays Goyf. T3 I attack with Lackey into Goyf because I think Goyf is a 1/2 since Relic is shrinking the yards and he used DRS on something at some point too. Well it turns out there was confusion over when DRS exiled and I can't actually kill Goyf with a Relic activation. Boo Urns. Lackey gets eaten by Goyf but I have a 2nd relic to keep the graves at 0. Without a graveyard he can't mount an offense and I'm able to take this pretty easily.
2-1

R4 Esperblade
G1 He doesn't like his hand, but he keeps it. I have to battle through a Batterskull and a Jitte but I manage to make it happen. He peters out and I get Port online. It turn out he kept a hand full of 4 drops and Port just shut off his options.
G2 was another grindy affair where I had to win through a jitte. But I did. I'm awesome.
3-1

R5 Miracle Helm
G1 He gets out Energy Field. I lose!
G2 I Port the shit outta him and I win!
G3 Moat!
3-2
Hmmmm... This seems like a match where a W splash might have been a little tiny bit helpful...

R6 Miracles
G1+2 I Port him a bunch and all that jazz. I Port his W sources before combat on my turn to force his Terminus so that I can then Vial in a Ringleader and still get an attack phase. I also Vial in Tuktuk in response to Top draw activations. i also Port fetches in response to Top draw activations. I'm awesome.
4-2

R7 Burn
G1 he burns me down to 5 then he draws 8 lands in a row and I win. Variance!
G2 I have too many Lackeys that he needs to burn and I take the W and sweet sweet vengeance is mine. But I still wish I won R1.
5-2

So, last year at SCG Minneapolis I was 5-2 going into round 8 when I played a Miracles player and then lost out of the money. Any chance of that happening this year?

R8 Miracle Helm
G1 Energy Field
G2 Energy Field
Deju Fucking Vu
5-3
G2 I mulled into oblivion because I was getting really terrible hands and was just looking for something winnable. Just like last year.

R9 Huntmaster Jund
G1 Huntmaster of the Fells + Punishing Fire runs the board.
G2 Relic + Port stifles his advancement.
G3 I kept a so-so 7 with a bunch of utility goblins. Ringleader blanks twice. Grove + Punishing fire gets online and that's all she wrote. Once again, I fail to money from 5-2. Bogus.
5-4

Props
Port
Tarfire
Relic

Slops
Not having Thalia, Wear // Tear, RiP
Losing to Energy Field twice because of my Mono R build
Miracle Thunderous Wrath (seriously?)

So there you have it. Play Rw. Play Thalia main. Play Wear // Tear. That's just the way to go with Goblins these days. You need an out to Moat. You need to be able to kill Enchantments. Someday you'll thank me for this. This is legacy. Play the most powerful cards available. Don't fool yourself that mediocre cards are better. Better cards are better.

The End
-Jon

[Ayotte]

Ah, jrw, I think I was your round 9 opponent. I was playing punishing fire nic fit, and yes, huntmaster + punishing fire is really hard for you to beat. I'm sure it was me because I remember your ringleaders blanking in game 3 :)

Nice meeting you; sorry to take your $50. It was a fun match, despite being a pretty bad matchup for you.

[f|i[p]]

Although I ran a mav list instead of goblins and took 10th in the last 70 player tourney, I thought I lacked the practice and training to be a successful goblin lord for now...How ever I think I'm decided on trying my luck with goblins on the next months tourney..

I actually have a similar list to the champ, but only run 22 lands,1 less port and waste, and 2 pyroken main instead of tarfire... used to run pyroken because of maverick and the likes.. it makes it an easier match up game 1. I ran 1 less port and waste because I seemed to get mana screwed out of red constantly and 22 lands seemed to work very well for me so far...

However on his article, it seems that tarfire really has their merits... I do have to reconsider, ... But now it seems that there are more Jund and patriot decks running around...I have a few questions..

What is our match up analysis vs Jund.. and patriot? What do we typically board out and in...

[magicmerl]

Hi Jrw, thanks for the report.

At long last, time for My super-mediocre tournament report from SCG Minneapolis.

First and foremost I must address something that has caused me much anguish this past week: I played a bad deck at SCG Minneapolis. I squandered my opportunity to do well in this tournament by going into this tournament with misconception about what was important in the format currently. My main misconceptions were as follows: 1) Mono-Red goblins without fetchlands will make DRS and LftL worse and is therefor THE way to play goblins AND 2) Blood Moon is the ultimate sideboard card and will squash all these all-duals mana bases.

I was wrong. So very, very wrong. Yes, playing Mono R makes DRS worse, but only ever-so slightly. If you don't feed fetches into their graveyard you are still Wasting and they are still fetching, so you're not going to mana-screw them anytime soon by running Mono R. That's just faulty logic. And worrying about recurring Wastelands is fucking stupid too, because you're still running 12 Waste targets in a mono R build, and running a splash gives you better options for just turning off the GY and stopping Loam from recurring anyway.

Blood Moon, while a house, is not the cure-all I wished it would be. First off, 50% of all DRS decks play basics anyway, and they'll probably play around Waste G2 given half a chance, so hoping to fuck them over with Blood Moon is basically hoping that they make play errors (which isn't Good Magic). The decks with the shakiest manabases are also the decks that rely most heavily on the Graveyard. So, really, against these decks you want to side in grave hate, not Blood Moon.

I agree with all of your reasoning here. This is pretty solid stuff.

We both ran 3/2 split on Gempalm/Tarfire AND Warchief/Chieftain. But where I played SGC the winning player (Kenny Dungar) had the huevos to cut the 5 drop entirely. While I was running around with 1 answer to Artifacts, he played 3 answers to artifacts AND Enchantments. While I played MD Skirk, Tuktuk, and SGC, HE played 3 Thalia, keeping the curve lower, and playing a 23rd land instead of a 4th redundant MWM.

And He was right. The proof is in the pudding. He X-1 or better over 12 Rounds, while I went 5-4 over 9. Missing the W splash killed me in multiple matches. Fer Reelz. I got stuck on the idea that playing MonoR was the way to go, but I didn't bother testing Rw as well to see how they compared. Considering that I nearly top 8'd in April with a Rwg deck you'd think that I would have gone into the event favoring a splash to begin with. But NoooooOOOOoOOO. I had to try and prove that MonoR was good enough, nay, Better than a Rx splash, and I got a heaping bowlful of out-of-the-money to show for it.

I think that your comment is perhaps being results oriented. Whenever someone does well at a large tournament like this, undoubtedly they had a lot of luck on the day as well. It might well be that all of the differences between his list and yours are improvements (I am most skeptical of the krenko/SGC swap). But it's also possible that you would have produced the same results you did even if you'd sleeved up the identical list that Kenny did.

R5 Miracle Helm
Hmmmm... This seems like a match where a W splash might have been a little tiny bit helpful...

Yep.

R9 Huntmaster Jund
G3 I kept a so-so 7 with a bunch of utility goblins.

Is this a good keep? One of the strengths of goblins is how well you can aggressively mulligan. Did you see this matchup as being attrition based, or revolving around their use of the graveyard?

So there you have it. Play Rw. Play Thalia main. Play Wear // Tear. That's just the way to go with Goblins these days. You need an out to Moat. You need to be able to kill Enchantments. Someday you'll thank me for this. This is legacy. Play the most powerful cards available. Don't fool yourself that mediocre cards are better. Better cards are better.

The End
-Jon

Thanks again for the report.

[ScatmanX]

Report

Thanks for the report.
I don't agree with the dismiss of monored based on a sample of this tournament. I agree with you on Blood Moon, and took a fair share of losses to realize that too.
Some points I'd like to consider though:
- Against Miracles, the Rw version is not THAT better than monored. The only real advantage you have is Thalia, and she is not that backbreaking. Wear/Tear is nice against Energy Field, but Pyroblast/ReB do the same thing, even better. If they didn't show'd up, tuff luck. Also, cutting all Siege-Gangs make the MU way worse, since they do run Moat, and SGC/Shooter, paired with Prospector are our best bets against it (along with manadenial). If you REALLY want to have an edge here, Krosan Grip is the way to go.
- I don't belive Rw does better agains burn, even with Thalia. You play Fetches, that make you pay life, and Plateaus, that boost crappy Price of Progresses. I'd rather not have Thalia.
- You won against TES. Thalia what? I reckon that she is good against combo, but our hate is usually answered (like yours and Kenny's were), and we win because of a fast clock/land disruption/luck/missplays by opponent. I do agree that Thalia makes the matchup better, but it does not make up for inconsistency, leading to:
- The Punishinh Nic-Fit MU. What cards did you bring in here, and which one did you take out? Fizzling Ringleader twice sucks, and sometimes it simply happens that we reveal lands and Vials. But if we overload our SB with hate, that will happen more often. Agains Shardlee bug you sided in Relics and Kinesis - not saying it is wrong - but is it necessary? Does this hate make up for the higher chance of a poor Ringleader?

Just wanted to see if someone else is one the same track as me. Been playing a monored list with Tarfires main, and 2x Boartusk Liege to side in against these 3 collors deck, along with 2x Krenko main, and been having the most positive results. Having 34 Goblins on your deck even after sideboarding feels awesome.

[tesla]

Just wanted to see if someone else is one the same track as me.

I am. Wanted to post almost identical reply as you, but i was too lazy :) 100% agree with you.

[EluThingol]

The 'Champion' mechaninc does not target a creature, so your opponent can respond to the trigger, but once you chose the goblin you're Championning, there's nothing he can do about it. You choose the goblin on the resolution of the trigger.

Edit: Kenny wrote on SCG about his deck: http://www.starcitygames.com/article...onna-Hate.html

Thanks for that clarification, I misread the mechanic text.