[Deck] Goblins

[cooljets]

I am not an expert on Chrome Mox, so take everything I say with regards to that, but I have tested them lightly. 2-3 years ago I was experimenting with 1 and 2 Moxes in the main and was pretty unimpressed. I have watched several players try them out, and have played the mirror against them numerous times and my opinion hasn't really changed. My thoughts are Moxes adds a lot of unneeded variance to a deck already with an unreasonable amount of variance. Mox is by far the worst top deck you can get, and double Mox openings are vomit inducing. Pro-mox supporters often counter with "well vial is a bad topdeck." Well yes, it isn't very good, but a turn one Vial is by far the best opening you can get ( other than Goblin lackey with Mental Mistep, that opening was messed up). Turn one Vial is so strong, I can not stress this enough. One of my friends who I showed how to play Goblins over the last few months, has watched me play several maches and never understood which I while consistently lead Vial over a turn Lackey. He decided to try this approach and came back to me, and basically said the deck operates so much smoother with that opening line. When you have Vial and Mox in your hand, it just makes Mox look much sillier, since you probably should be slamming the Vial.

Let's be honest, Vial is good, but Winstigator via Chrome Mox or Lackey with Tarfire backup can often be the much better turn 1 play. I have also used Mox to drop both Vial and Lackey on turn 1. Losing a card to Mox isn't that bad, as long as you can get that Ringleader to trigger.

I'll test a similar cooljets' list. Just minor tweaks.

Differences: +1 Tarfire -1 Tuktuk
Sideboard: +1 Warren Weirding +1 Tuktuk Scrapper +1 Krenko, Mob Boss -1 Wort, Boggart Auntie -1 Stingscourger -1 Earwig Squad.

Krenko is definitely better than Wort. They both require a turn to function (Krenko loses summoning sickness in the upkeep). Krenko can add pressure immediately, while Wort will use mana to cast the recovered Goblin. Wort is better if you want to recover removal, but Krenko can fill the board quickly, at no tempo loss.

Show and Tell is kinda big around here. Earwig Squad is nice, but I probably should be playing Ashen Rider instead. I'll test both.

My local meta has slightly shifted away from the equipment decks, in this case I may also go back to 4 Tarfire (which are so important) and put the 2nd Tuktuk in the sideboard.

As far as Show and Tell goes, I would recommend more Stingscourgers in the board instead of Ashen Rider. It seems so silly to have a card in your sideboard that isn't even a goblin and is good for exactly 1 matchup. Drop Chalice on 1, name Sneak Attack with your Therapy, and hold up your Matron/Scourger, you should be fine.

I know Wort probably isn't the best use of space, but I just wanted to try her out. I think the main reason to include her IS to reuse the removal spells though. Infinite Gempalm seems very fun.

[mrblueduck]

Let's be honest, Vial is good, but Winstigator via Chrome Mox or Lackey with Tarfire backup can often be the much better turn 1 play. I have also used Mox to drop both Vial and Lackey on turn 1. Losing a card to Mox isn't that bad, as long as you can get that Ringleader to trigger.

I guess this is really at the core of why I post here so little. I am not trying to be mean, but I feel not enough people really understand what they are talking about, or why they are choosing to play certain cards. Everyone can see that in a gold fishing scenario a Mox into Instigator is a much stronger/faster start, but approaching it like that is just not helpful. What they need to be looking at is: is that a Instigator + Mox Opening, really better than a Lackey opening? In goldfish mode, one is much more powerful. But in reality they operate almost the same exact way. If you connect you are way ahead, however more likely they will eat removal or get stonewalled by a 1/2. That 'ideal' Mox line also eliminates playing Vial turn one, which even with a turn one Instigator, is often a better option. Also looking at even more precise opening such as the one you suggested of Lackey + Tarfire + Mox you can see just how little Mox continues to do early game. That hand operates often exactly the same as a good old fashion Lackey and Tarfire hand. You don't really want to play out tarfirewith your Lackey, as you are mostly targeting Delvers, and DRS, of which you playing directly into Daze unnecessarily. So tarfire is often a better turn 2 play which you could just do without a Mox.

What I am trying to say is speed is not the reason Goblins lose. Jamming a Mox and listing dream openings, is not helpful, and really doesn't do anything to help the bad matchups. What Mox does do well is accelerate from early to late game a turn faster. However there are other more pratical options for doing that, of which cards like Mogg-War Marshall and Pyrokinesis are extremely good at it. As a goblin player you often want to play a much slower longer game, and slowing your opponent down is often just as effective without adding the variance that Mox brings. That is why I covet Aether Vial so much, and feel is the often the best card in your opener. It can help you reach late game easier, and maximizes late game card advantage better than anything else your deck does. I would rank Vial the 3rd most important card in the deck, behind Goblin Ringleader 1, and Goblin Matron 2. Lackey is pretty high on that list, but mostly because you are so thin on action turn 1, as hands with Lackey or Vial are much better.


The reason Lackey isnt that great is the last 6-12 months the meta has been littered with SFM, DRS, and Goyf and adding Mox to a list doesn't really address those issues. Anyways, I could write pages on this stuff, but I think I covered it briefly enough to know what I think.

[Vandalize]

My local meta has slightly shifted away from the equipment decks, in this case I may also go back to 4 Tarfire (which are so important) and put the 2nd Tuktuk in the sideboard.

As far as Show and Tell goes, I would recommend more Stingscourgers in the board instead of Ashen Rider. It seems so silly to have a card in your sideboard that isn't even a goblin and is good for exactly 1 matchup. Drop Chalice on 1, name Sneak Attack with your Therapy, and hold up your Matron/Scourger, you should be fine.

I know Wort probably isn't the best use of space, but I just wanted to try her out. I think the main reason to include her IS to reuse the removal spells though. Infinite Gempalm seems very fun.

I add Warren Weirding instead of Stingscourger, which functions pretty much the same way against Show and Tell. The only difference might be Stingscourger being castable off Cavern of Souls. But Warren Weirding is also nice against RUG, for example. Just tradeoffs.

Infinite Gempalm is cute and fun, but infinite goblin tokens seems fine as well, haha.

[GoboLord]

I guess this is really at the core of why I post here so little. I am not trying to be mean, but I feel not enough people really understand what they are talking about, or why they are choosing to play certain cards. Everyone can see that in a gold fishing scenario a Mox into Instigator is a much stronger/faster start, but approaching it like that is just not helpful. What they need to be looking at is: is that a Instigator + Mox Opening, really better than a Lackey opening? In goldfish mode, one is much more powerful. But in reality they operate almost the same exact way. If you connect you are way ahead, however more likely they will eat removal or get stonewalled by a 1/2. That 'ideal' Mox line also eliminates playing Vial turn one, which even with a turn one Instigator, is often a better option. Also looking at even more precise opening such as the one you suggested of Lackey + Tarfire + Mox you can see just how little Mox continues to do early game. That hand operates often exactly the same as a good old fashion Lackey and Tarfire hand. You don't really want to play out tarfirewith your Lackey, as you are mostly targeting Delvers, and DRS, of which you playing directly into Daze unnecessarily. So tarfire is often a better turn 2 play which you could just do without a Mox.

What I am trying to say is speed is not the reason Goblins lose. Jamming a Mox and listing dream openings, is not helpful, and really doesn't do anything to help the bad matchups. What Mox does do well is accelerate from early to late game a turn faster. However there are other more pratical options for doing that, of which cards like Mogg-War Marshall and Pyrokinesis are extremely good at it. As a goblin player you often want to play a much slower longer game, and slowing your opponent down is often just as effective without adding the variance that Mox brings. That is why I covet Aether Vial so much, and feel is the often the best card in your opener. It can help you reach late game easier, and maximizes late game card advantage better than anything else your deck does. I would rank Vial the 3rd most important card in the deck, behind Goblin Ringleader 1, and Goblin Matron 2. Lackey is pretty high on that list, but mostly because you are so thin on action turn 1, as hands with Lackey or Vial are much better.


The reason Lackey isnt that great is the last 6-12 months the meta has been littered with SFM, DRS, and Goyf and adding Mox to a list doesn't really address those issues. Anyways, I could write pages on this stuff, but I think I covered it briefly enough to know what I think.

I am sorry, but your view on Chrome Mox is totally inaccurate and narrow and I must correct you on several points.
First of all, cooljets and me do understand what we are talking about, especially in relation to Chrome Mox. cooljets not only proved that with a great finish at the SGC LA on March 23rd but also with his insightful postings on Chrome Mox (and WInstigator lists in general). Also, I dare to say that I have a good understanding of how the deck works and what its possibilities and merrits are, because I regularily bring the deck to tournaments and I keep testing my own assumptions to work out the deck's problems (which is why I discarded Rishadan Ports and MWM in favor of Winstogators and Chrome Moxen in the first place).
Second, you make it sound like Chrome Mox is just about speed and in-cositency/variance, which is not true at all. The card does not only enable First-turn Winstigators (which is great of course), but it speeds the deck up in general which solves THE major issue of Vial goblins. In comparison with similar, non-goblins our creatures are just 1-2 mana too expensive. While the whole format is juggling with cmc 1, and 2 spells (Brainstorm, DRS, SFM, Goyf, Decay), our effective spells begin at cmc 3 and 4 (Chieftain, Matron, Ringleader). Now Chrome Mox doe not particularily make the deck fast in the sense that it enables gold-fish kills on turn 3 instead of turn 4 (I'm not even sure if that is true, but it is not even relevant). Rather it makes your spells cheaper - or at least occassionally cheap enough to fit in the time-frame of the format (playing a 4 mana spell on turn 4 is Modern magic, playing it on turn 2-3 is Legacy magic).
I have played several hundred games with a Chrome Mox-list in the last year and I can think of only ONE situation where Chrome Mox bit my ass (against a Werewolf Stompy-deck, but that's MU-variance, not a drawback of the card per se). In other words, for me Chrome Mox is either just as good or better than a land-card at any time I draw it. If you want to talk about variance, then my experiences with have been entirely on the right side of the Gauss curve and I am almost certain that thais counts for almost everyone who tried the card. Now you can argue that it is a bad topdeck, but it is rarely worse a topdeck than the landcard you would draw instead.
Also, while I recognize your experience with the deck, you have to see that MTGO is a different testing environment than a local gaming store or even SCG meta-games and I believe that this also has an impact on how you rate Chrome Mox.

Lastly, this

I am not an expert on Chrome Mox, so take everything I say with regards to that, but I have tested them lightly. 2-3 years ago I was experimenting with 1 and 2 Moxes in the main and was pretty unimpressed.

I think you can easily correct your impression by testing the card in 2014 metagame and as a 3-off, instead of refferring to your resulst from 2011/2012 where you tested it as a 1- or 2-off. I mean, one of the major reasons I included Chroem Mox is that everyone-and-his-mother is playing Deathrite Shaman (as a blocker) and Abrupt Decay (a MD answer to Aether Vial that can mean major setbacks and will force us to pay actual mana to play over-pized spells) which didn't even exist 2-3 years ago.

[ScatmanX]

chrome mox post

Thanks for the detailed response id never give.
Just want to confirm everything you wrote by saying that Mox is not only great in Instigator builds, but can also be fantastic in Traditional builds, like my experience on my natz last year. That argues that it does not turn the deck into this glass cannon people are thinking, but rather speeds its plays for it to stay competitive against the Deathrite/Abrupt envirionment.

[jrw1985]

Has anyone tested builds without haste lords? Warchief and Chieftain are obviously awesome once they're in play, but they are often the cards to blame when our mana gets bottle-necked. Since our curve is high enough as it is maybe we could cut down on the lords. I remember someone on this thread had good results with a three lord build recently. Could the number be less (like one of each as Matron targets)? Or could we play an entirely lord- less build?

[Ace/Homebrew]

[Chrome Mox] is rarely worse a topdeck than the landcard you would draw instead.

I understand your point here, but Chrome Mox will ALWAYS be a worse topdeck than a land... always.

Everyone is bringing up good points which is great for the public at large. I do not believe there is *the one correct* way to build Goblins, but it is helpful to see pilots defend their tech. I personally am down on using Mox right now because using a splash for sideboard cards helps against a lot of the decks or cards (Moat) we cannot beat. Using a splash AND Chrome Mox is opening up too many additional angles of attack against our deck. If you are staying in red only, I would use the moxen.

Even though I 3-1'ed my local weekly with cooljets' Mox list, it *should* have been a 2-2 (losing to D+T) with an additional loss against Stoneblade round 4. I beat my D+T opponent because of his misuse of Jitte. My Stoneblade opponent took an EWS with Thoughseize instead of the Mox in my hand. I only had 1 land and no turn one plays...

Chrome Mox also weakens our mulligans.
I like the card and promote it's use in Goblins. I am just down on it right now...


My second Settler and Pendelhaven have been ordered! Of course I forgot to add Spirit of the Labyrinth to my cart. I'll have to pick one up at my LGS.

::Since I'm editing anyway...
Wort having Fear was relevant against D+T by guaranteeing 4 damage with my opponent at 6 life turn 2 of Turns. I topdecked Chieftain and had enough other creatures to get past all his plus two Moms. He played and equipped jitte a few turns ago but was using the -1/-1 counters in his 2nd main. My opponent's Karakas kept me from using her upkeep ability the entire game...

[GoboLord]

I understand your point here, but Chrome Mox will ALWAYS be a worse topdeck than a land... always.

your opening hand is as follows:

Mountain
mountain
Lackey
Piledriver
chieftain
Tuktuk Scrapper
krenko.

You go First with mountain and lackey
You opponent plays DRS on his First turn.

Now what is the better topdeck in this Situation?

[Ace/Homebrew]

your opening hand is as follows:

Looks like a miscommunication! I had to do a google search to see if there was a consensus... There really isn't.

Definitions of topdeck:

when you have no cards in hand and you rely on the one(s) you draw from your deck
when one "gets lucky" right when one needs it, many times by drawing a card right when you need it
the upper deck of a double-decker bus

I understood topdeck to mean drawing a card with no cards in hand.
It appears you understand it to mean drawing the top card of your library.

If we go with your definition, I am wrong. If we go with mine, I am right...

[OlegtheSuper]

your opening hand is as follows:

Mountain
mountain
Lackey
Piledriver
chieftain
Tuktuk Scrapper
krenko.

You go First with mountain and lackey
You opponent plays DRS on his First turn.

Now what is the better topdeck in this Situation?

Tarfire, because the land could be underground sea and then daze to chieftain from mox.

[cooljets]

I guess this is really at the core of why I post here so little. I am not trying to be mean, but I feel not enough people really understand what they are talking about, or why they are choosing to play certain cards. Everyone can see that in a gold fishing scenario a Mox into Instigator is a much stronger/faster start, but approaching it like that is just not helpful. What they need to be looking at is: is that a Instigator + Mox Opening, really better than a Lackey opening? In goldfish mode, one is much more powerful. But in reality they operate almost the same exact way. If you connect you are way ahead, however more likely they will eat removal or get stonewalled by a 1/2. That 'ideal' Mox line also eliminates playing Vial turn one, which even with a turn one Instigator, is often a better option. Also looking at even more precise opening such as the one you suggested of Lackey + Tarfire + Mox you can see just how little Mox continues to do early game. That hand operates often exactly the same as a good old fashion Lackey and Tarfire hand. You don't really want to play out tarfirewith your Lackey, as you are mostly targeting Delvers, and DRS, of which you playing directly into Daze unnecessarily. So tarfire is often a better turn 2 play which you could just do without a Mox.

What I am trying to say is speed is not the reason Goblins lose. Jamming a Mox and listing dream openings, is not helpful, and really doesn't do anything to help the bad matchups. What Mox does do well is accelerate from early to late game a turn faster. However there are other more pratical options for doing that, of which cards like Mogg-War Marshall and Pyrokinesis are extremely good at it. As a goblin player you often want to play a much slower longer game, and slowing your opponent down is often just as effective without adding the variance that Mox brings. That is why I covet Aether Vial so much, and feel is the often the best card in your opener. It can help you reach late game easier, and maximizes late game card advantage better than anything else your deck does. I would rank Vial the 3rd most important card in the deck, behind Goblin Ringleader 1, and Goblin Matron 2. Lackey is pretty high on that list, but mostly because you are so thin on action turn 1, as hands with Lackey or Vial are much better.


The reason Lackey isnt that great is the last 6-12 months the meta has been littered with SFM, DRS, and Goyf and adding Mox to a list doesn't really address those issues. Anyways, I could write pages on this stuff, but I think I covered it briefly enough to know what I think.

Mox crunches dude. It may not be for every build, but it does great work in the list GoboLord and I have been running. See my tourney report, as he mentioned earlier. Dead topdecks don't matter when you have 8 draw 3's in your deck. Making contact with Winstigator on t2 is basically GG against every deck in the format. And with a Mox, we also have 8 ways to force him past a squire (4 Tarefire, 4 Chieftain). Yes, lackey may be more likely to get removed t1 than Vial, but you're forgetting that it's much less likely to get countered since Lackey and Winstigator can stick via Cavern. Vial is good in the grindy matchups but it's underwhelming against combo and we need to come out swinging to steal some game 1's from combo if we ever hope to top 8 an 8 round tourney. Mogg-War Marshall and Pyrokinesis are not helping our combo matchups.

[FTW]

Has anyone tested builds without haste lords? Warchief and Chieftain are obviously awesome once they're in play, but they are often the cards to blame when our mana gets bottle-necked. Since our curve is high enough as it is maybe we could cut down on the lords. I remember someone on this thread had good results with a three lord build recently. Could the number be less (like one of each as Matron targets)? Or could we play an entirely lord- less build?

If this is the concern, instead of cutting down on hastelords, would it be worth testing some Frogtosser Banneret? Curves out more smoothly after your T1 Lackey/Instigator gets trumped but still means you don't have to actually pay 4 mana for Ringleader.

And no respectable tempo player is going to waste removal on Frogtosser.

[OlegtheSuper]

Mrblueduck, do you have any videos with goblins deck or maybe twitch channel?

[Olaf Forkbeard]

If this is the concern, instead of cutting down on hastelords, would it be worth testing some Frogtosser Banneret? Curves out more smoothly after your T1 Lackey/Instigator gets trumped but still means you don't have to actually pay 4 mana for Ringleader.

And no respectable tempo player is going to waste removal on Frogtosser.

If it's not worth removing, is it worth playing? Exception being cards that have already done their value-- Mogg War Marshal, Goblin Matron. Despite what I have just said, I have a few memories of Mogg War Marshal being Swords to Plowshares.

[mrblueduck]

I think I have said all I need to about Chrome Mox. I honestly believe I could write pages and pages on this topic alone, but I think its unlikely to change many opinions at this point. If you think the card helps you, then you should run it. I just urge you to not look at an extremely small sample sizes, like one SCG top 16 as validation for the card. I placed 18th in that exact same event with the exact same record, maindecking Thalias and Mirror Entity, and I am not here exactly recommending either. I mean hell, I top 32ed the previous SCG in California with SB Massacres, and earlier this year won a local 1k with SB Raging River. I even won my first piece of power in a a 5 round GP side event this year with The Dark power house, Goblin Caves out of the board. I have played several hundred sanctioned matches according to Kavu.RU with Goblins ( Ive never played a single sanctioned Legacy match with another deck), and consider my online testing over the last month just a small fraction of the bigger picture. I am all for testing stuff out, so feel free to test Mox at your leisure.

Has anyone tested builds without haste lords? Warchief and Chieftain are obviously awesome once they're in play, but they are often the cards to blame when our mana gets bottle-necked. Since our curve is high enough as it is maybe we could cut down on the lords. I remember someone on this thread had good results with a three lord build recently. Could the number be less (like one of each as Matron targets)? Or could we play an entirely lord- less build?

The current build I am working with, is only running 2 Goblin Chieftains as my haste lords. Three Chieftains is probably the best amount, but occasionally you will play a game where you draw two Chieftains and basically can't win. After you play these games several times, you start to really see how poor chieftain can be. It's possible its just 'part of the deck,' but I have run Mirror Entity on and off in that slot with mixed results.

Mrblueduck, do you have any videos with goblins deck or maybe twitch channel?

I have streamed for some friends through screen sharing software, but I currently have nothing re-watchable. I had plans to do some recording, but V4 kinda put that one on hold. In fact I have only played one daily since it came out, and I nearly timed out. I was multitabling a draft and Legacy and my computer nearly exploded. I don't know if I will be able to run recording software and V4, but I will look into it in the near future. Ohh and don't forget Legacy Dailies are over an hour longer now, since they added extra time for the new client.

[OlegtheSuper]

Mrblueduck, could you say smthing about blue sb for goblins. I'm testing 4 swan songs, 2 flusterstorm, 2 mindbreack troap. It is good enought and I can cast trap for 4 mana. I think in build with 8 lackeys it has to be the best way to deal with combo. And settlers improve this match ups.

[Hof]

I think I have said all I need to about Chrome Mox.

@mrblueduck: Nice to see that you are still playing and improving your own deck. I remember commenting on one of your builds more than a year ago, when you were considering Settler. Really cool that you are playing Settler in your core now. I recently started on MTGO as well and have been playing a budget version of Goblins similar to yours with varying degrees of success (nickname Cartesian). I like to experiment with the deck, I have played paper Goblins with 0 Wasteland before, and even with 0 Vial.

I agree mostly with you on the Chrome Mox issue. Many times in the past I have tested builds with 3 Chrome Mox, and they just never did what I wanted them to do. Maybe its a difference in playing style, because other people seem to like them. For me, something is always missing for them to be really good. And they are especially weak against discard, together with Vials. The dream opening always never happens in real life because it is a 4 card combo: Land, mox, additional red card for mox, Instigator, and Matron or Ringleader to take full advantage of Instigator triggers.

[mrblueduck]

Mrblueduck, could you say smthing about blue sb for goblins. I'm testing 4 swan songs, 2 flusterstorm, 2 mindbreack troap. It is good enought and I can cast trap for 4 mana. I think in build with 8 lackeys it has to be the best way to deal with combo. And settlers improve this match ups.

Uhh, not really sure what your looking for. I am sure there are some smaller regional metas where blue splash is fine, but I think splashing White and/or Black should give you more than enough options. Splashing blue would really depend on what type of combo decks you are facing, as 'combo' is extremely broad. The less we can interact with it, Ie Sneak and Show ( We can interact with plenty) vs Omniscience ( we can not interact with them at all) the better blue splash for counterspells are. On the matter of Mindbreak trap, I find it overall to be extremely mediocre, constantly fluctuating between 0 and 2 copies in my sb. Ethersworn Canonist (As the default combo hate behind Thalias) is often better in that spot, and even more so now that m15 is printed. It really all depends so much on which combos you want to beat, as combo decks like Belcher and Hightide operate on completely different axises.


On a small tangent, I have seen people goblins players splash for blue in the past, but thats when Griselbrand was dominating. People were looking everywhere for answers to that card, and some turned to Gilded Drake out of the board. So maybe you are onto something. I mean blue also gives you access to limited all star Goblin Test Pilot.

[OlegtheSuper]

Uhh, not really sure what your looking for. I am sure there are some smaller regional metas where blue splash is fine, but I think splashing White and/or Black should give you more than enough options. Splashing blue would really depend on what type of combo decks you are facing, as 'combo' is extremely broad. The less we can interact with it, Ie Sneak and Show ( We can interact with plenty) vs Omniscience ( we can not interact with them at all) the better blue splash for counterspells are. On the matter of Mindbreak trap, I find it overall to be extremely mediocre, constantly fluctuating between 0 and 2 copies in my sb. Ethersworn Canonist (As the default combo hate behind Thalias) is often better in that spot, and even more so now that m15 is printed. It really all depends so much on which combos you want to beat, as combo decks like Belcher and Hightide operate on completely different axises.


On a small tangent, I have seen people goblins players splash for blue in the past, but thats when Griselbrand was dominating. People were looking everywhere for answers to that card, and some turned to Gilded Drake out of the board. So maybe you are onto something. I mean blue also gives you access to limited all star Goblin Test Pilot.

Thalia and canonist are too slow. TES, ANT, Belcher, instant reanimator can kill on turn 1-2, S&T can be casted on the same turns(if you on the draw). Thalia without land/hand control or with no comprehensive hate like in D&T does almost nothing with S&T. Canonist does nothing with S&T and reanimator.
For example swan song does very good job with all that decks + very good vs terminus and entreet singe mirakles sbout almost all counterspells.
I think you have to try it;)

Update: swansong and trap are both very good vs elfs . Because we lose to order and glimps.

[jrw1985]

I was poking around Gatherer and just stumbled onto this beauty:

Hearth Charm

Has anyone tried playing it? It looks pretty decent against fair decks. It can let you force a Lackey/Winstigator through. It can completely mess up combat math. And it kills Shardless Agent, Baleful Strix, Phyrexian Revoker and uh.... that's about it. Still, this actually seems fairly decent. But is it doomed by not being a Goblin card?