[Deck] Goblins

[Olaf Forkbeard]

Stingscourger is better than Tin Street Hooligan I wholly agree. That's a straight typo; I will fix that. They were inverted in location on my paper list. As for Tin Street Against storm you can call that a mistake. It's definable =.

I could see that. I agree that Krenko is very good in that match-up, but I don't actually think Siege-Gang is that much worse. As for the more probable reason is your base build supports Chieftain, where as I really, really value Warchief's cost reduction. I tend to board out Lackey in this match-up to make up for it.

I could try Pithing Needle against Sneak & Show. Literally just forgot it was a card. I am not a fan of the card, I have had poor experiences with it in the past, so I tend to dismiss it.

Don't know what to say about RUG delver that hasn't been explored. Careful play with 3 Relics and 2 Pyrokinesis is all I've ever needed against them. It's close, but I find I win it more than I lose it. Slightly Favorable.

My board just in general is excellent against dredge. I board in about 10-12 cards. Relic, Thalia, Containment, Pyrokinesis, Stingscourger.

[GoboLord]

Pithing Needle is great right now. Other than Sneak Show I bring it in against
* Lands (naming Thespian Stage or Molten Vortex)
* Death & Taxes (Mother of Runes, Stoneforge Mystic, Equipments)
* Miracles (Sensei's Divining Top)
* Infect (Inkmoth Nexus - although Im not sure if that is correct when playing so much manadenial, including Port, Wasteland and Blood Moon)

RUG Delver could be slightly favorable. I just have a lot of respect for the deck because it is so powerful. Also, most of my experience comes from times when they were playing the full playset of Fire//Ice - which seems to be a thing of the past now.

What are your thoughts on thalia vs. Ethersworn Canonist in the MUs you listed? Where would you bring the one or the other in? And which one do you feel is better in those MUs?

[sampi]

Canonist is huge vs storm. Especially if they aren't running decay in the side. It takes them two turns just to deal with it.

From memory my current SB is

1 krenko
3 pithing needle
2 magus of the moon
3 relic of progenitus
2 pyrokinesis
1 sudden demise
1 Goblin sharpshooter
1 stingscourger
1 Krosan grip

Considering moving sharpshooter and stingscourger to the main so I can put in some more combo hate. Not having positive results vs storm lately


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[Olaf Forkbeard]

What are your thoughts on thalia vs. Ethersworn Canonist in the MUs you listed? Where would you bring the one or the other in? And which one do you feel is better in those MUs?

I think Thalia is more effective in both of the combo match-ups. Though I'd rather run the first Ethersworn before the fourth Thalia.

Edit: Additional note. I think Ethersworn is better against Omnitell by a noticeable chunk. But just ol' Sneak and Show Thalia does more.

[Sandro95]

Scenario 1:
My opponent keeps his 7 and goes first with tropical island + Glisterner Elf. On my turn 1 I open with Caverns + lackey. I have the following cards in hand when I pass the turn: Aether Vial, Goblin Lackey, Goblin Piledriver, Gempalm Incinerator (drawn this turn), Wasteland, Mountain. On his turn my opponent drops a fetchland and attacks.
What would you do?

I would block. I'd happily trade lackey for either the elf or a pump spell. On t2 (assuming they pump) I'd play Piledriver over vial/lackey/waste, as to enable a t3 lackey + gempalm.

Scenario 2:
I go first with Mountain + Goblin Lackey. On his turn 1 my opponent cracks a fetchland for Tropical Island, plays Noble hierarch and passes. On my turn 2 I draw a card and my hand looks like this: Goblin Piledriver, Mogg War Marshal, Goblin Matron, Pyrokinesis, Mountain, Rishadan Port. I attack with Lackey , he Blocks with Hierarch and plays Invigorate.
What would you do?

I would let lackey die, and then play MWM. I want to get as much value out of pyrokinesis, but more importantly I want to answer the cards that matter, i.e. the threats. MWM is a better blocker than piledriver, and I'd rather play the control role here. next turn they'll likely play a threat that you can pyrokinesis along with the hierarch. There's an argument for porting over MWM, to stop them from protecting a potential Blighted Agent with Vines of the Vastwood, but I don't think it's worth it.

Scenario 3:
My Situation: Vial @2 and 1 Rishadan port in play as my only Land. Mogg War Marshal, Piledriver, Chieftain and Pyrokinesis in hand. No creatures in the board.
It's my opponents turn and he has noble hierarch, pendelhaven, tropical island d and inkmoth nexus in play + 4 cards in hand. He activates nexus out of tropical, pumps it with Pendelhaven and attacks. I have no infect counters before his attack.
What would you do?

Definitely take it. There's no need to fear the three points of damage, and trying to kill the nexus here is a vey high risk, low reward play. Either they have a pump spell (likely), in which case you essentially wasted one of your best cards (killing hierarch only here doesn't count for much), or they don't (unlikely). The thing is, even if they don't have it, all you accomplished was a 2 for 2 with one of your best cards against them.
If they elect to use a pump spell (putting you dead to a second one) I would pyrokinesis the nexus. Assuming Pyrokinesis and Dismember are the two cards they might play around, they would already be safe from either once the first pump spell has resolved, so they would likely go for the kill (playing around double pyrokinesis/dismember doesn't seem very good here). If they don't pump it, I would try to kill it after combat. You don't get the hierarch this way, but they already have plenty of mana, and you need a way to deal with nexus. They will likely pump it in response, but I think that's about the best thing you can get out of your pyrokinesis at this point. Then you can vial in either MWM or Piledriver, + Chieftain on your turn and start racing. Hopefully you also draw a land for port, which would actually put you in a decent position to win the game.

Miracle Control
Chalice of the Void does a better job of shutting down Miracles than any other card. Of course Earwig Squad is a house here too.

If you're talking about the monastery mentor version, then chalice is definitely a great card against them. However, if they're on a more Lossetesque build, it's less impressive.
They'll often side in Wear // Tear or Disenchant against us anyway, and Chalice stops some of our own cards as well. If you're playing Pithing Needle or Surgical Extraction vs them, that's a bit of an issue, and Tarfire is actually quite adept at killing their creatures. More importantly however, that version is not as stacked with one-drops. If you can get chalice online before top it's great, but it can also be quite underwhelming, and few of our cards are actively bad against them (read: they're threats).
The reason I like EWS here is that it answers the cards we actually lose to, but that's another topic.

Grixis Tempo/Delver (TCDecks: Grixis Pyromancer)
Again, Chalice is a bomb. Sharpshooter does work here too.

I agree that both Chalice and Sharpshooter are great here, although both are a lot better against certain grixis builds (aggressive U/R builds splashing for therapy are very different from the four color grixis lists with DRS, Angler and Decay, for example.

Ad Nauseam Tendrils
Chalice

I agree that Chalice is great here. What I'd like to add is a bit of an explanation as to why. In short there are two types of hate cards against storm. The first are cards that slow them down, allowing us to race or lock them out. The second one are the cards that actually lock them out (EWS taking away their Tendrils is an example of this). CotV can fill both roles very well, is easy to cast, and excellent in multiple copies.

[Olaf Forkbeard]

Yep. Even after all this time playing the deck, I'm still down for ideas on how to board against Shardless. Played a lot of games last night trying all sorts of things for the sake of testing. I won 2/15 games (all testing was done post board). Contrary to the top post, I don't think this favors the classic shell. I don't feel like I can really affect them without Chieftain and Pendelhaven, and that goes contrary to the classic shell's game plan.

What I'm losing to:

Strong mana advantage from them, as they don't seem to miss land drops.

I can't keep more than 3 creatures in play. They run several kill spells post board sprinkled with pseudo board wipes (Golgari Charm, Toxic Deluge, Maelstrom Pulse). This translates to Goyf never dying unless I have a Relic, which his rough.

I'm being buried in card advantage post Hymn to Tourach. It usually makes me stumble until Visions to go off.

Lists I've seen run either Pithing Needle, or Null Rod, or both in their board. More ways to stop Vial is really bad for us. I did try several games via boarding out Vial, something I usually reserve for Pernicious Deed decks, but it seemed to help a little here. I'm not a fan of them having 5-6 ways to interact with it profitably.

What's keeping me in it or winning it:

Lackey hitting. This is kind of a "duh" though.

Chaining Ringleaders. This tends to occur in games where I don't get Hymn'd.


Don't get me wrong. I'm happy with 3/4 top decks being positive match-ups. I've just never been so conflicted on information I have versus information I'm being told. I just don't see how this match-up is even. I have memories of losing just as often on the Winstigator build. I have to be doing something wrong, as currently I'm more confident in my storm match-up. At least I know what to do there.

I'd like to note that I don't think I'd be so confused if others were in the same boat as me.


Mainboard
4x Wasteland
4x Rishadan Port
4x Cavern of Souls
3x Wooded Foothills
3x Bloodstained Mire
3x Mountain
1x Taiga
1x Plateau

4x AEther Vial
4x Goblin Lackey
1x Skirk Prospector
3x Goblin Piledriver
3x Mogg War Marshal
1x Tin Street Hooligan
4x Goblin Matron
4x Goblin Warchief
4x Goblin Ringleader
1x Siege-Gang Commander

2x Tarfire
2x Gempalm Incinerator
1x Stingscourger
1x Goblin Sharpshooter
2x Pyrokinesis

Sideboard
3x Relic of Progenitus
3x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2x Containment Priest
2x Mindbreak Trap
1x Stingscourger
1x Tin Street Hooligan
1x Pyrokinesis
1x Pithing Needle
1x Krenko, Mob Boss

How would you board? Play versus Draw?

[jrw1985]

Jim Davis streamed Goblins a while ago and had some really beautifully grindy games against Shardless. I can't find it right now but it would be a great resource to help you approach the MU.

Does anyone have a link to that video?

[GoboLord]

First of all, I would like to ask you why you feel running Chieftains over Warchief is Contrary to the game plan? I have full replace them years ago and never looked back. I didnt even wastes a thought on cutting Chieftains even when I put ports back in the deck recently. Looking at all these creature based decks and considering that hardly anyone is actually attacking our manabase (a Condition under which Warchief is sometimes better than Chieftain) Chieftain's value has increased a lot. I am regularily coming home From tournament State Ing that Chieftain was one of the MVPs.
My very positive Attitude towards that card aside, it helps you following one of your strategies against Shardless BUG (Connecting with Lackey). Also in this very resource-intense MU, there is a huge difference between cumpblocking Shardless Agent with your 1/1 matron and threatening to kill it. Chieftain makes this difference.

On your boarding question (both play and draw)
-1 Stingscourger
-1 Sharpshooter
+1 Tin Street Hooligan
+1 Krenko
If you were on a mono Red build I would consider -2 Kinesis, +2 Relic. Kinesis makes Hymn to Tourarch more effective and being hit by Hymn makes Kinesis less attractive as you are more limited in what to exile. Why I would bring in only in Mono red builds: here you have chances of actually stealing all lands in your opponents graveyard away to cancel DRSs manaramp. When you are using fetchlands yourself this is not a realistic goal.

[Olaf Forkbeard]

Chieftain enables a strong aggressive plan and a poor defensive one. I don't want my blocks to be dependent on him not getting taken out as well, otherwise I'm putting myself in a scenario to get two for one'd.

Warchief is a turn the corner card. It allows me to, more efficiently, drop my threats / blockers into play faster than my opponent can deal with them. It can play aggro, and control, I appreciate a turn the corner card. Straight from defense to aggression.

There is an argument to be made that making my creatures more efficient in size versus cost has the same effect. I admit I could be overvaluing the cost reduction, but Warchief has gotten me out of a lot of tight binds that I just don't think Chieftain could have done because my cards were cheaper.

All of that said, I will try it again on Thursday night and report my findings.


As for the boarding, why wouldn't you consider Relic?

[GoboLord]

As I said, Relic is much more effective in a mono red list, because in that case it affects 2 of their key cards (Goyf and DRS). When you are playing fetchlands yourself , the chances of eating all of your opponents and your own lands in early game (in order to cancel DRSs manaramping ability) are pretty low. I wouldnt bring in relic only for goyf alone. My plan here is to deal with the creatures left and right of Goyf, then develop a large-enough boardposition (e.g. with MWM or just landing Krenko for the win) and ultimately overwhelm my opponent.

[Olaf Forkbeard]

You were right on Pithing Needle- I was too fast on dismissing it. It basically solved the Show & Tell problems I was having. It's so important I would strongly suggest mentioning it's potency for that match-up in the primer. It changes the match up about 10% (assuming your opponent knows how to play against goblins).

[Stevestamopz]

You were right on Pithing Needle- I was too fast on dismissing it. It basically solved the Show & Tell problems I was having. It's so important I would strongly suggest mentioning it's potency in the primer. It changes the match up about 10% (assuming your opponent knows how to play against goblins).

Yah, I'm in the same boat. Put 2 in my sideboard and it's actually turned out to be pretty deece.

As for shardless, try Warping Wail. That solves both Hymn + Visions problems and it's pretty to take them down from there. It also counters deluge rather nicely.

[Morkus]

On my side I find Infect and Burn unfavorable with my classic build.
I speak about Burn because I've increase my win ratio against these decks after adding 2 Sudden Shock in my sideboard

Scenario 1:
I try to trade if possible so, I trade Elf and lackey (for eliminating a pump spell)

Scenario 2:
G> I attack with Lackey , he Blocks with Hierarch and plays Invigorate.
Sure I don't kill Hierarch with pyro in response to Invigorate.
The question is: Do I pyro Hierarch before attack to connect with lackey? I don't think so. I don't know what matroning more usefull than keep pyro.

Scenario 3:
You are dead if he has 2 invigorate
Eot MWM
New turn Vial@3 play Chieftain for 6 dmg
If you draw Red mana then question: play pilou for 14 dmg or keep pilou for Pyro (I keep)

[GoboLord]

Yesterday I tested some more games against Infect (this time against someone who only knows the deck from Modern and thus without any knowledge or experience in legacy.
The MU remains unfavorable for me. The Single most problematic card is Blightsteal Agent. I guess it is because I am running so few removal spells in MD (3 Gempalm, 2 Kinesis, 1 Stingscourger). So I had the same idea as Morkus: Sudden Shock. For the next event I am going to put 2 copies in my MD (in the slots that have formerly been occupied by 2 Blood Moon or 2 Warping Wail - I was looking for a replacement anyway).

[ScatmanX]

Posted our scenarios in the infect thread. Maybe they can give us some more feedback, since apparently we have quite a lit of different opinions. (Mines for one has chenged since the begining of the discussion...)

[MattPruner]

Yesterday I tested some more games against Infect (this time against someone who only knows the deck from Modern and thus without any knowledge or experience in legacy.
The MU remains unfavorable for me. The Single most problematic card is Blightsteal Agent. I guess it is because I am running so few removal spells in MD (3 Gempalm, 2 Kinesis, 1 Stingscourger). So I had the same idea as Morkus: Sudden Shock. For the next event I am going to put 2 copies in my MD (in the slots that have formerly been occupied by 2 Blood Moon or 2 Warping Wail - I was looking for a replacement anyway).

Warping Wail also quite nicely deals with blighted agent, as well as basically everything else in their deck. I think me having 3x wail maindeck really had helped the matchup. Ofc sudden shock will be super good in this particular matchup, but i'm not sure that the split second is worth it. Wail has much more carryover into other matchups.

[GoboLord]

Warping Wail also quite nicely deals with blighted agent, as well as basically everything else in their deck. I think me having 3x wail maindeck really had helped the matchup. Ofc sudden shock will be super good in this particular matchup, but i'm not sure that the split second is worth it. Wail has much more carryover into other matchups.

Maybe you are right about Wail vs. Sudden Shock. Warping Wail underperformed for me during testing, so I discarded that idea already.
It is possible that I am approaching the Infect MU the wrong way. Maybe it is correct not to use any removal spells on Glisterner Elf, since we have enough blockers for that. We have more manadenial than they have Inkmoth Nexus, so maybe I should not use my Wastelands on Tropical Island anymore. With that approach I could use all my removal spells on Blightsteel Agent (at least in theory. In practice there will be situations where using Pyokinesis for non-Agent-creatures and Wasteland for non-Inkmoth-lands is correct).

[Sandro95]

Hi everyone! I played a legacy tournament yesterday (6 rounds of swiss, 37 players)
I was on my usual list, only I cut Chalice of the Void in favor of an additional piece of discard, and to try out some other things.

R1 Food Chain 1-2
R2 Miracles (classic entreat) 2-0
R3 Miracles (classic entreat) 2-0
R4 UB Tezzeret 2-0
R5 Sneak & Show 1-2
R6 Belcher (with Dark Ritual) 0-2

I feel very confident with Miracles now, both with my odds of winning and with how to play the MU. Tezzeret was also much easier this time (remembering to bring in your GY-hate helps).
Food Chain is a very difficult MU, and Emrakul got me both of the games I lost. G2 was won by putting sufficient pressure on my opponent's life total. At one point I had quite a few tokens, a Prospector, and Krenko in play, with Boartusk Liege in hand. I chose to sacrifice some of my tokens to cast the liege, rather than wait until next turn to protect against a discard spell. I have no idea if my opponent had a discard spell or not (since I was hellbent), but he did have a needle for my Krenko, so either way I would not have been able to sacrifice any summoning sick tokens to play the Boartusk Liege. Next turn I drew a matron into Tarfire for one of his blockers and swung for lethal.

G2 versus Belcher was also an interesting one.
I played t1 Lackey, pass.
My opponent played Belcher, 2 LED, and activated, hitting me for... 4 damage.
I untapped with Matron in hand, but there was no play that would win me the game in that spot. Had I had Tin-Street Hooligan in my deck, or a Prospector/Scrapper in hand I could have destroyed the belcher and presumably won the game. It's obviously a very specific scenario, but I admit TSH would have been better here.

None of the new SB cards I tried (Jitte, Perish, and Boartusk Liege) did much to impress (although Boartusk won me one game versus Foof Chain, chieftain would have done the job just the same if not better). The other ones I didn't get a chance to try, although I suppose that says at least a little about them.

[Vandalize]

Sup guys, I haven't played Goblins for years, but I decided to sleeve up those Goblins that were rotting in my bin and I had a real blast.

My list (61 cards):

Mana Sources [22]
4 Wasteland
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Rishadan Port
6 Mountain
1 Ancient Tomb
3 Chrome Mox

Creatures [29]
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
3 Goblin Warchief
3 Goblin Chieftain
3 Goblin Piledriver
3 Warren Instigator
2 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Stingscourger

Spells [10]
4 AEther Vial
4 Blood Moon
2 Tarfire

Sideboard [15]
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Pyroblast
2 Pyrokinesis
2 Pithing Needle
1 Smash to Smithereens

I just jammed 4 Blood Moons maindeck because that card is simply amazing against every deck that's not Miracles. It just gets you free wins, its kind of unexpected in game 1, and it runs along with the mana denial plan. Every single competitive deck today can out grind Goblins, so we need to use every tool we can to net those free scoops.

Played in a local store Legacy FNM and went 3-1 in a 4 rounder:
2-0 Grixis Tempo (Cavern of Souls won me g1 and Blood Moon won me g2)
2-1 Sneak and Show (lost g1 to turn 2 Show and Tell, games 2 I had Pithing Needle +2 Pyroblasts, game 3 I had Chalice for 1 in the first turn followed by Warren Instigator and he didn't have the combo, nor could cantrip into it)
0-2 Eldrazi Stompy (this matchup is impossible, we don't run enough removal and their dudes are all 4/4+)
2-1 Shardless BUG (g3 I had a turn 1 Blood Moon on the play, lol)

I might drop 1 Rishadan Port for another Mountain, as I was color screwed in one of the games (couldn't produce RR).

[Dan Pyre]

Turn1Lackey's Goblin Stream

Turn1lackey's stream up now B)