[Deck] Vial Goblins

[1GoblinLackey]

I count 16 spells in your current sideboard. Maybe Piledriver is better in main deck if you don't run 1 already.

For the Eternal week-end in Paris, I would prepare two different sideboards in case you attend the Trials on Friday or not. The meta changes a lot.

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Yeah I know there's 16: I'm looking for advice for how to make it 15 Putting piledriver in maindeck seems obvious, but I'm really not sure what to cut for it. Possibly the 3rd war marshal?

Do you have to register for the trials? I'm only signed up for the saturday event.

[jrw1985]

@fourbirr: man, you're doing a good job here. Thanks for keeping this alive.
I'm a bit secretive because of Paris but will be back soon.

Just a comment regarding the last discussion, there is also the option of playing TSH without fetches. At Prague me and a fellow chieftain played TSH me with just 4 caverns for G. It worked very well for me, mostly because when you're not facing artifacts it is not a horrible card. That said Gobbolord tested it and completely hated it
Oh, and agree on siding a land out against combo.

And guys, please don't run fetches if you're monored. Some much more inteligent people than I have proven to me that its not worth it because of deck thining/ dmg/ interaction and more. It is not worth it.

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Yeah for some reason I keep posting monoR lists with fetches and it really isn't a major benefit. Just playing with a hypergeometric calculator shows that 2 fetches only increases your chance of drawing an extra goblin with Ringleader by like 3% or some non-consequential number. I think with this being Legacy we're all just trying to squeeze every last drop of value and consistency out of the deck. Increasing your chance of drawing goblins seems great in a vacuum. I don't think the one damage per fetch hurts us in functionality since legacy games are won on board position, with the only exception maybe being the Burn MU. I also don't think Stifel is a problem. The only downside I see is shuffling back non-Gobbos bottomed by Ringleader. However, that same downside becomes an upside following a Terminus or Fateseal, and it is an irrelevant issue when Matron tutors and shuffles anyway.

So it is true that there is very little upside in running fetches in a monoR deck, but it is also true that the downside is negligible. Opening on a fetch still feels good to me, and I think I'll keep playing them, even in monoR.


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[Fourbirr]

Yeah I know there's 16: I'm looking for advice for how to make it 15 Putting piledriver in maindeck seems obvious, but I'm really not sure what to cut for it. Possibly the 3rd war marshal?

Oh ok. Then yeah, Piledriver maindeck and 2 Mogg War Marshall seems the best option with your list.

Do you have to register for the trials? I'm only signed up for the saturday event.

Yes, you have. Registration for the trials are on the same page, see here.

[ScatmanX]

Found it.
Deck thining is a myth
Very good read. Recommend to everyone thinking about using fetches in a mono colored deck.

[jrw1985]

Found it.
Deck thining is a myth
Very good read. Recommend to everyone thinking about using fetches in a mono colored deck.

Great article. Thanks for sharing. For those who didn't read it the article basically says that deck thinning doesn't even net you an extra card mathematically until after turn 20. So you're not realizing the benefits of drawing extra spells instead of lands until the very late game, and you wind up paying 4+ life for that one extra spell.

I guess an important question to ask is whether that potential extra card is worth feeding your opponents' DRS and losing 4+ life.... and maybe whether the small risk of Stifel should be considered.

It still feels like such a marginal discussion though. Is that marginal advantage even an advantage when you consider external factors?


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[yotrixxx]

I'd be willing to offer the below as very stock mono red.

Piledriving
MB
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Cavern of Souls
11
4 AEther Vial
4 Goblin Lackey
1 Skirk Prospector
4 Goblin Piledriver
2 Mogg War Marshal
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Siege-Gang Commander / Krenko, Mob Boss
4 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Tarfire
1 Stingscourger
1 Goblin Sharpshooter

SB
4 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Pyrokinesis
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pithing Needle
1 Tuktuk Scrapper


This should be sufficient for an unknown meta, it has rather wide coverage. As for optimization, that is meta dependent, but this core should get you going enough in every direction to be able to tune after 1 or 2 local events.

Thanks so much this is where ill be starting, except i really want to play seige gang and krenko so i will make one cut somewhere to be able to play one of each, could i go with 22 lands instead of 23 in a mono red build?

[1GoblinLackey]

Thanks so much this is where ill be starting, except i really want to play seige gang and krenko so i will make one cut somewhere to be able to play one of each, could i go with 22 lands instead of 23 in a mono red build?

If you make a cut, it shouldn't be a land, especially if you're gonna play a 5 drop like Siege-Gang. Piledriver's always my first instinct, but I don't like him in general, so that might just be me. Shaving a gempalm isn't the worst idea ever either.

I find it interesting that after all of our discussion, there seem to be 2 different lines of thinking with Goblins, always revolving around Piledriver. Are we a deck that has an aggressive game plan, and then can transition into a midrange/control deck (indicated typically be 4 piledrivers, 0-1 finishers), or a midrange-control deck that can transition into an aggressive deck if it gets lucky through lackey hits (indicated typically be 0-1 piledrivers, multiple finishers, more war marshals).

[Fourbirr]

Found it.
Deck thining is a myth
Very good read. Recommend to everyone thinking about using fetches in a mono colored deck.

Brilliant! This is typically the kind of article I was always looking for. Thank you ScatmanX.

After cutting green for Tuktuk instead of Tin Street, I think I'll cut white and go for Thorn of Amethyst and Grafdigger's Cage instead of Thalia and Containment Priest. I hope I'll don't miss her

[Lio]

Another reason why not to play fetchlands in monoR lists are lands-heavy Goblin Ringleader triggers. When we miss with Ringleader and reveal 4 lands, it is truly a shame. But these are 4 lands we don§t have to draw. There isn't much I hate more than cracking fetchland turn or two afterwards and shuffling all the lands back into the deck..ugh. On the other hand when playing against Miracles, we get nice pile of goblins stacked up at the bottom of the deck and shuffle effect help here a lot. But Miracles matchup is favorable anyway.

What is recommended fetchland/duals split to support TSH? Are 3 fetchlands+1 Taiga enough?

By the way, could someone provide me a template for your awesome Google Spreadsheets you all have in signature? I would love to start making statistics. Thanks!

[yotrixxx]

If you make a cut, it shouldn't be a land, especially if you're gonna play a 5 drop like Siege-Gang. Piledriver's always my first instinct, but I don't like him in general, so that might just be me. Shaving a gempalm isn't the worst idea ever either.

I find it interesting that after all of our discussion, there seem to be 2 different lines of thinking with Goblins, always revolving around Piledriver. Are we a deck that has an aggressive game plan, and then can transition into a midrange/control deck (indicated typically be 4 piledrivers, 0-1 finishers), or a midrange-control deck that can transition into an aggressive deck if it gets lucky through lackey hits (indicated typically be 0-1 piledrivers, multiple finishers, more war marshals).

if thats the case can someone provide me with an example of a more midrange/control list that fits my playstyle much better

[menph]

Found it.
Deck thining is a myth
Very good read. Recommend to everyone thinking about using fetches in a mono colored deck.

great to refresh me on this ScatmanX.
i read it last year and totally agreed with it, then i forgot how little is the improvement in actual goblin draws!
i'm still playing fetch even in mono R, because i was sure that Ringleader (virtually giving us 4 more turns each time it land) could significantly change this. the graphs are pretty clear, apparently i was wrong..

this thing make me think about the goblin count in the deck to "optimize" ringleader.
we consider it as a stronghold for our deck building, but since thinning the deck from few lands does not help us drawing more goblins during the game, how big actually is the difference between running 28, 30 or 33 goblin cards in our MD?

If you're not splashing at all, I'd go without the fetches. It can starve deathrite a bit sometimes

Tried yesterday and their DRS was really starving few games and it helped me a lot gaining advantage in the first few turn. sweet!

if thats the case can someone provide me with an example of a more midrange/control list that fits my playstyle much better

in the given list i think you can just cut a couple of piledrivers in order to add the two finishers you are looking for. cut one more if you like to add one more Mogg War Marshall.




Played my updated list yesterday in few MD matches against grixis delver.
Tried to cut 1 mountain in order to leave 1 Pyrokinesis MD, but agree with 1GoblinLackey that i need the 23th land with two 5-drop.
Also not sure about Pyrokinesis as 1-of. I loved it when i was running 2x MD, but as non-tutorable silver bullet i found it a little inconsistent. edit: i'll cut it for one more mountain,

Still need some time to fix the sideboard

4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Cavern of Souls
10 Mountain

4 AEther Vial

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
2 Mogg War Marshal
1 Skirk Prospector
1 Goblin Piledriver
1 Goblin Cheftain
1 Stingscourger
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Kiki-jiki

4 Gempalm Incinerator
2 Tarfire
1 Pirokinesis

[Sandro95]

Hi everyone!

I played a small GPT with Goblins today.
There were 12 players and we played four rounds of swiss + a top 4.

This is the list I played:

CREATURES (29)
4 Goblin Lackey
1 Skirk Prospector
1 Goblin Chirurgeon
3 Mogg War Marshal
1 Stingscourger
1 Earwig Squad
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Lightning Crafter
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Gempalm Incinerator
SORCERIES (1)
1 Warren Weirding
INSTANTS (3)
3 Tarfire
ARTIFACTS (4)
4 Aether Vial
LANDS (23)
4 Wasteland
4 Cavern of Souls
3 Badlands
4 Snow-Covered Mountain
3 Arid Mesa
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Karakas
SIDEBOARD (15)
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
2 Blood Moon
2 Pyrokinesis
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Tuktuk Scrapper

R1 Bant Blade 2-0
R2 Helm of Awakening Combo 2-0
R3 BW Pox 2-1
R4 Food Chain 0-2

Top 4 Bant Blade 1-2

The two new cards I tested, Lightning Crafter and Goblin Chirurgeon, both felt okay, although I sed out the latter quite often.
Lightning Crafter was good as an additional curvetopper, and it was nice knowing I had it as an out to a potential Engineered Plague vs Pox.
Goblin Chirurgeon held off a Jitte for a turn vs Bant, and also made his SoFI & Engineered Explosives a little worse.

Karakas continued to prove itself vs the Leovold decks (Food Chain this time). Bouncing it is such a good tempo play, and both players tend to draw a lot of cards anyway in these matchups.
I did draw the second copy vs Pox one time, when another land would have been better. I'm not sure yet how big the cost to playing two copies of a legendary land is, but I think it's the right call right now, as Karakas is very good in the current metagame.

I found a small advantage to playing with Snow-Covered Mountains when my Helm opponent targeted me with Predict, naming "Mountain".

Is Pithing Needle good enough against Food Chain now that they have Walking Ballista instead of Emrakul/other win cons? Without it they have to kill us by attacking with Griffins in the air, giving us an additional turn or two to race them.

[1GoblinLackey]

Hi everyone!

I played a small GPT with Goblins today.
There were 12 players and we played four rounds of swiss + a top 4.

This is the list I played:

CREATURES (29)
4 Goblin Lackey
1 Skirk Prospector
1 Goblin Chirurgeon
3 Mogg War Marshal
1 Stingscourger
1 Earwig Squad
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Lightning Crafter
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Gempalm Incinerator
SORCERIES (1)
1 Warren Weirding
INSTANTS (3)
3 Tarfire
ARTIFACTS (4)
4 Aether Vial
LANDS (23)
4 Wasteland
4 Cavern of Souls
3 Badlands
4 Snow-Covered Mountain
3 Arid Mesa
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Karakas
SIDEBOARD (15)
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
2 Blood Moon
2 Pyrokinesis
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Tuktuk Scrapper

R1 Bant Blade 2-0
R2 Helm of Awakening Combo 2-0
R3 BW Pox 2-1
R4 Food Chain 0-2

Top 4 Bant Blade 1-2

The two new cards I tested, Lightning Crafter and Goblin Chirurgeon, both felt okay, although I sed out the latter quite often.
Lightning Crafter was good as an additional curvetopper, and it was nice knowing I had it as an out to a potential Engineered Plague vs Pox.
Goblin Chirurgeon held off a Jitte for a turn vs Bant, and also made his SoFI & Engineered Explosives a little worse.

Karakas continued to prove itself vs the Leovold decks (Food Chain this time). Bouncing it is such a good tempo play, and both players tend to draw a lot of cards anyway in these matchups.
I did draw the second copy vs Pox one time, when another land would have been better. I'm not sure yet how big the cost to playing two copies of a legendary land is, but I think it's the right call right now, as Karakas is very good in the current metagame.

I found a small advantage to playing with Snow-Covered Mountains when my Helm opponent targeted me with Predict, naming "Mountain".

Is Pithing Needle good enough against Food Chain now that they have Walking Ballista instead of Emrakul/other win cons? Without it they have to kill us by attacking with Griffins in the air, giving us an additional turn or two to race them.

Chirurgeon is a spicy idea for sure! I'm skeptical it's better than running a second Prospector, but that's me assuming that most of its benefit is from being a sac outlet. I imagine it's a card that could either dominate a game by keeping a lord alive, or do virtually nothing.

Without the therapies in the 75, I feel like you might be overdoing it with 3 badlands and 6 fetches. It seems like overkill to essentially just cast the Warren Weirding, and occasionally EWS if you don't have Cavern. If you've gone deep enough on black to cut ports entirely, I'd really want to delve deep into black's sideboard suite. I'd want to look at Perish, Rakdos Charm (which now that I've been reminded of its existence, seems amazing), Thoughtseize, maybe even as far as Hymn to Tourach (though that might be too ambitious).

Speaking of sideboard cards: How do people feel about just jamming 3-4 Leyline of the Void? Looking at a lot of the recent lists that have 5-0'd online, many are running Leylines, across many archetypes.

I also have seen Sudden Demise in lists more often. What is this a response to? It doesn't kill TNN, so is it just for D&T and Elves? How is it not worse than a second Sharpshooter in most situations?

[Sandro95]

Chirurgeon is a spicy idea for sure! I'm skeptical it's better than running a second Prospector, but that's me assuming that most of its benefit is from being a sac outlet. I imagine it's a card that could either dominate a game by keeping a lord alive, or do virtually nothing.

Without the therapies in the 75, I feel like you might be overdoing it with 3 badlands and 6 fetches. It seems like overkill to essentially just cast the Warren Weirding, and occasionally EWS if you don't have Cavern. If you've gone deep enough on black to cut ports entirely, I'd really want to delve deep into black's sideboard suite. I'd want to look at Perish, Rakdos Charm (which now that I've been reminded of its existence, seems amazing), Thoughtseize, maybe even as far as Hymn to Tourach (though that might be too ambitious).

Speaking of sideboard cards: How do people feel about just jamming 3-4 Leyline of the Void? Looking at a lot of the recent lists that have 5-0'd online, many are running Leylines, across many archetypes.

I also have seen Sudden Demise in lists more often. What is this a response to? It doesn't kill TNN, so is it just for D&T and Elves? How is it not worse than a second Sharpshooter in most situations?

Yeah, I'm not sure if Chirurgeon is good enough, but I want to try it. The idea is that it will help protect Krenko and Lightning Crafter from Fatal Push.

I agree with your points regarding the manabase as well, I definitely have more black sources than I need. However I want to keep the number of red sources high too, and don't think I need a fifth Mountain.

I've actually been thinking about Leyline as well. It should be very good against Reanimator, and Surgical is a bit worse now that I'm not running discard spells. I don't think I would run the full set though, but can see myself playing it as a two of. What I wanna know is if it's realistic for us to hardcast it against Lands, because that would make the card a lot better in my opinion.

[Stevestamopz]

Yeah, I'm not sure if Chirurgeon is good enough, but I want to try it. The idea is that it will help protect Krenko and Lightning Crafter from Fatal Push.

I agree with your points regarding the manabase as well, I definitely have more black sources than I need. However I want to keep the number of red sources high too, and don't think I need a fifth Mountain.

I've actually been thinking about Leyline as well. It should be very good against Reanimator, and Surgical is a bit worse now that I'm not running discard spells. I don't think I would run the full set though, but can see myself playing it as a two of. What I wanna know is if it's realistic for us to hardcast it against Lands, because that would make the card a lot better in my opinion.

If you're looking to just cast it and not mull to it, Planar Void is a lot better (although worse against Decay obvs)

[Sandro95]

If you're looking to just cast it and not mull to it, Planar Void is a lot better (although worse against Decay obvs)

Planar Void is a cool card, but it is not a turn zero uncounterable answer to Reanimator, which is the main draw to leyline for me. However, it's not worth it to mulligan for graveyard hate in matchups such as Lands, and if you can't hardcast it there you're suddenly playing graveyard hate for reanimator and similar all in decks alone, in which case I'd rather have something that works against more decks.

[Sandro95]

Hi everyone! I wrote an article about building sideboards in Legacy. It's not specifically about Goblins, although some of the examples I use are from my experiences with this deck.
Either way, here it is. I hope you enjoy it!

Sideboarding in Legacy

[1GoblinLackey]

Hi everyone! I wrote an article about building sideboards in Legacy. It's not specifically about Goblins, although some of the examples I use are from my experiences with this deck.
Either way, here it is. I hope you enjoy it!

Sideboarding in Legacy

Nice article Sandro! Applying a lesson from it regarding narrow, but powerful sideboard cards; Two matchups I'm looking to improve for my board is BUG Delver (which I expect will be very popular in Paris, and am scared of), and Burn. The knock-out punch cards for BUG usually involve Moon effects, hence the Blood Moon and Magus of Moon in the side. However, what else could be added that's strong against them? The Primer says that Sharpshooter is impactful, but I don't really see how. It doesn't kill any of their creatures beside snapcaster without help, and is atrocious with a Leovold in play. Looking at Olaf's data set, BUG Delver is quite a difficult matchup, and having played it a couple times, I definitely feel like I have to get lucky to some degree to win. It is nice that hymns are getting shaved for Fatal Push, so that's a bonus at least. Is Chalice worth it in this matchup (my instinct says no). Does anyone have any good tech for them?

As for burn, I don't really know what's good besides Chalice. Perhaps this is a matchup to just one to dodge? Therapy is decent, but also seems awkward in that it exposes you to Price of Progress. Zuran Orb seems way too narrow. Pyro's great against the creature draw, but what helps with the burn-heavy draws?

The top 5 decks I'm expecting for the record are; Miracles, BUG Delver, D&T, Grixis Delver, and BR Reanimator. Maybe Storm/Sneak and Show but we'll see. I feel slightly overboarded for reanimator (9-10 cards to bring in), and underboarded for the Delver decks. Burn and the random combo decks also scare me, but that's reasonable given what I'm playing

EDIT: Some other concerns; I have no out to a TNN, other than Earwigging them out of the opps deck. Should I be jamming in pyroblasts to combat this? The fact that Miracles is playing 3-4 Red Blast effects in response to the rise of BUG and TNN tells me that it's necessary to answer. I could also just go deeper on moon effects and play 3. I also might be overthinking this and just posting my circular thinking as I argue with myself. I've never played at an event of nearly this size, so I'm not sure whether to have a balanced sideboard, or try to aggressively go after the 'decks to beat' and ignore others.

[GoboLord]

I share your few on BUG Delver, it will be a popular choice for Paris and it's a difficult MU.
As for the tech, I really think Blood Moon is too clunky and you ha e to get lucky to knock your opponent out with that.
I discussed this MU with ScatmanX and we found that it's a valid strategy to overload your opponent with threats. You will lose the MU when they can handle all of your stuff, while deploying a fast or even mediocre clock. However, building up your Team is critical here, hence I would suggest to play as many Piledrivers, Chieftains, Krenko and SGCs as you can.
Also, against Delver decks in general I found Carpet of Flowers extremely good. The games you lose are those where you cant get into the game - where you cant put you feet on solid ground. It's not uncommon to lose the games with a Ringleader and a Matron in hand. Carpet not only helps you casting those, but it also frees up your manadenial to some degree

[1GoblinLackey]

I share your few on BUG Delver, it will be a popular choice for Paris and it's a difficult MU.
As for the tech, I really think Blood Moon is too clunky and you ha e to get lucky to knock your opponent out with that.
I discussed this MU with ScatmanX and we found that it's a valid strategy to overload your opponent with threats. You will lose the MU when they can handle all of your stuff, while deploying a fast or even mediocre clock. However, building up your Team is critical here, hence I would suggest to play as many Piledrivers, Chieftains, Krenko and SGCs as you can.
Also, against Delver decks in general I found Carpet of Flowers extremely good. The games you lose are those where you cant get into the game - where you cant put you feet on solid ground. It's not uncommon to lose the games with a Ringleader and a Matron in hand. Carpet not only helps you casting those, but it also frees up your manadenial to some degree

So taking a proactive beatdown role, rather than a reaction role is better for the matchup? That's interesting, as I would guess that the Goblins role would be to survive the early game via removal, rather than bringing the fight to them.