so im going to be playing goblins in my first legacy event next weekend (channelfireball $500), and potentially the cfb 1k if i enjoy it enough, with the following list:
I also like cutting either 1 mountain or 1 POrt to make room for 1 Karakas, just because you're running 4 MD Legends and it's always nice having a random out to Emrakul/Grizz.
In your sideboard I'm not a huge fan of Cannonist or Needle. I prefer Chalice of the Void as combo hate just because it's faster against Storm which is a major player in my meta.
I also like a 2/2 split of RiP and Relic of Progenitus, just because they're very similar but Relic is better in multiples due to the cycling and it's immune to color-screw.
I think this deck will serve you well. Best of luck!
switeced thalia in for thorn of ametist , it did the job before and wil do the job again
I will tell you right now that this is a very bad idea. Thalia is an additional beater, where amethyst is not. Thalia can be vialed in, where Amethyst cannot.
its doesn't kill deathrite shaman/stone forge /mystic delver because it was to slow I didn't have tarfire on hand when I needed it, and when i used goblin matron for it i was already to late to make a change.
Quote from Kenny Dungar, 1st Place SCG Minneapolis August 4th, 2013 »
The biggest change from my decklist last year is Tarfire. Tarfire is a really potent card. Now, Shock is a hysterically underwhelming card in Legacy. Even worse, it's a Shock that pumps Tarmogoyf. However, being able to find Tarfire with Goblin Matron or Goblin Ringleader is a totally different story. Although Gempalm Incinerator yields card advantage, it's more difficult to activate, and your opponent can often remove a Goblin or two and ruin the effect. Sometimes you really need a creature off the board right now, and Tarfire does the job. Depending on the metagame, I would consider adding another Tarfire. If there's a lot of Delver of Secrets, Dark Confidant, Deathrite Shaman, or Stoneforge Mystic being played, Tarfire can really screw up your opponent's opening play.
I feel like you are dismissing it too soon. Weirding isnt a bad card, but its also not red. You only have 2 B producing lands and unless you fetch and cast it after the fetch resolves, you stand a risk of having a wasteland eat your land. Do you really want to bring in perish against BUG just to hit a deathrite shaman or two?
Tarfire just hits so much: Delver (either side), Stoneforge, Deathrite, Confidant, Revoker, Mirran Crusader, just about any x/1, just about any x/2.
But anyway, Thalia was actually why I've reappeared (FYI, those of you who were trying to convince me diplomats weren't the way to go, you did the rarest of forum things and succeeded). I was wondering what the consensus on her was. Not whether to run her, that seems like a no brainer to me, but whether she should be 3 in the main or 3 in the board?
My simple question is how much you expect you'd want her game 1? If I went to a SCG event in my area, I would go 3 MB. I say that because I know how much people love storm here. Were I to be in a different meta, I may not.
the decks that are dominant in my meta are:
ur/delver
rudelver
{shardless} bug
jund
junk
maverick
a few dredgers an a couple of show and tell.
Here is what Tarfire can hit (my memory gets a wee haz
UR delver- All of their creatures
RUG Delver- Delver of secrets
Sharless Bug- Deathrite Shaman/Shardless Agent
Jund- Deathrite/Dark Confidant/Bloodbraid Elf
Junk- Deathrite/ Ooze (?)/ KotR/Stoneforge
Maverick- Arbor/ Stoneforge/ Knight/ Crusader/ Teeg/ Mom (force them to use her and the tarfire the target or her)
Dredge and SnT, it probably isnt as good for, but it makes for easy boarding slots in these.
Hmm... while I like Warren Weirding, I don't like thorn of over thalia. The white has never been an issue and it gives access to other versatile board cards like Wear//Tear.
Yeah, I agree that the white splash is the first and best colour to add into goblins.
Warren Weirding was a card I ran a long time ago back when I was splashing black. Stingscourger I think made Warren Weirding obsolete. Since Thalia was printed I switched from black to white and never looked back. And that manabase splashing both..... I just don't think that black gives you anything that makes the destabilised manabase worth it.
But anyway, Thalia was actually why I've reappeared (FYI, those of you who were trying to convince me diplomats weren't the way to go, you did the rarest of forum things and succeeded).
I was wondering what the consensus on her was. Not whether to run her, that seems like a no brainer to me, but whether she should be 3 in the main or 3 in the board?
There isn't a consensus on that yet, and I'm not sure there ever will be. I'm certainly still on the fence, since I love thalia, and love what she does for me, but my best results have been with her in the SB.
Round 1: Mono-W Death and Taxes
Game 1: He keeps me off my lands with waste and port, serra avengers quickly seal the deal (L)
IN: 3 wear//tear, 3 pyrokinesis
OUT: 3 thalia, 2 piledriver, 1 stingscourger
Game 2: lackey -> chieftains + marshal -> chieftain kills him turn 4 (W)
Game 3: He plays a veteran armorer (unexpected), followed by stoneforge, a batterskull and a jitte. I dont draw my artifact hate and die (L)
0-1
Cards I wanted: Anarchy, tuktuk scrapper
Round 2: Fish
Game 1: he gets flooded, barely plays anything. Goblin swarm ends this pretty fast. (W)
IN: 2 wear//tear
OUt: stingscourger, goblin sharpshooter
Game 2: I get stuck on 2 colorless lands, but double vial keeps me going. he plays a ratchet bomb, but decides not to kill my vials so he can keep his cursecatchers. He gets out three lords, but war marshals followed by krenko allow me to stall until i deal 21 in one turn. (W)
1-1
Cards I wanted: -nothing-
Round 3: UWR Miracle/Top/Counterbalance
Game 1: lackey goes nuts, and double cavern lets me play through his counterspells. He dies turn four without much resistance. (W)
IN: 2 Pithing Needle, 3 wear//tear
OUT: stingscourger, goblin sharpshooter, 1 tarfire, 2 gempalm incinerator
Game 2: He counters some stuff, I play needle on top and stick a thalia. He entreats for 1, but thalia's first strike and tarfire precombat deal with that. Hes at 5 and plays humility, and i grind out the last 5 with 1/1s. (W)
2-1
Cards I wanted: -nothing-
Round 4: Mirror!
Game 1: he has the nuts and kills me before i can do much. (L)
IN:3 Pyrokinesis, 1 wear//tear
OUT: stingscourger, 3 thalia
Game 2: I have the nuts and he dies before doing much (W)
Game 3: A long, grindy game where the board stalls for a couple turns as i topdeck lands and he topdecks aether vials. I play krenko and get 1 activation before he dies, getting me 7 tokens. I swing with my new army for a while, then he plays siege-gang commander and kills my non-token creatures. After a few more turns of nothing, i get lucky and hit ringleader into chieftain and matron (tutoring another chieftain) and close it out. (W)
3-1
Cards I wanted: more pyrokinesis
At this point there is one round left to play, and im in 8th place with 9 points. Unfortunately, the person in 9th also has 9 points, so I have to play out round 5 instead of drawing into t8 (if the person in 9th wins his match and I draw mine, i have 10 points to his 12 and am out of t8)
Round 5: RUG delver
Game 1: 3 three stifles in a row keep me from playing anything useful, with a flipped delver swinging each turn. Im unable to do much and die to double bolt (L)
IN: 2 rest in peace, 2 relic of progenitus
OUT: 1 tarfire, 1 goblin sharpshooter, 2 gempalm incinerator
Game 2: I start well with thalia and marshal and get him down to 8, but double threshold-ed mongoose keep me from finishing. He plays 2 goyfs, and I fail to stick hate (relic gets stifled and rip gets spell snared), and die soon after (L)
3-2
Cards I wanted: leyline of the void/some other uncounterable hate
All in all, a good first legacy event and I was pretty pleased with the deck. Ill be taking it to a 1k in a few weeks, maybe with a few changes
also, any sideboarding advice would we welcome. thanks!
Round 1: Mono-W Death and Taxes
Game 1: He keeps me off my lands with waste and port, serra avengers quickly seal the deal (L)
IN: 3 wear//tear, 3 pyrokinesis
OUT: 3 thalia, 2 piledriver, 1 stingscourger
Game 2: lackey -> chieftains + marshal -> chieftain kills him turn 4 (W)
Game 3: He plays a veteran armorer (unexpected), followed by stoneforge, a batterskull and a jitte. I dont draw my artifact hate and die (L)
0-1
Cards I wanted: Anarchy, tuktuk scrapper
Round 2: Fish
Game 1: he gets flooded, barely plays anything. Goblin swarm ends this pretty fast. (W)
IN: 2 wear//tear
OUt: stingscourger, goblin sharpshooter
Game 2: I get stuck on 2 colorless lands, but double vial keeps me going. he plays a ratchet bomb, but decides not to kill my vials so he can keep his cursecatchers. He gets out three lords, but war marshals followed by krenko allow me to stall until i deal 21 in one turn. (W)
1-1
Cards I wanted: -nothing-
Round 3: UWR Miracle/Top/Counterbalance
Game 1: lackey goes nuts, and double cavern lets me play through his counterspells. He dies turn four without much resistance. (W)
IN: 2 Pithing Needle, 3 wear//tear
OUT: stingscourger, goblin sharpshooter, 1 tarfire, 2 gempalm incinerator
Game 2: He counters some stuff, I play needle on top and stick a thalia. He entreats for 1, but thalia's first strike and tarfire precombat deal with that. Hes at 5 and plays humility, and i grind out the last 5 with 1/1s. (W)
2-1
Cards I wanted: -nothing-
Round 4: Mirror!
Game 1: he has the nuts and kills me before i can do much. (L)
IN:3 Pyrokinesis, 1 wear//tear
OUT: stingscourger, 3 thalia
Game 2: I have the nuts and he dies before doing much (W)
Game 3: A long, grindy game where the board stalls for a couple turns as i topdeck lands and he topdecks aether vials. I play krenko and get 1 activation before he dies, getting me 7 tokens. I swing with my new army for a while, then he plays siege-gang commander and kills my non-token creatures. After a few more turns of nothing, i get lucky and hit ringleader into chieftain and matron (tutoring another chieftain) and close it out. (W)
3-1
Cards I wanted: more pyrokinesis
At this point there is one round left to play, and im in 8th place with 9 points. Unfortunately, the person in 9th also has 9 points, so I have to play out round 5 instead of drawing into t8 (if the person in 9th wins his match and I draw mine, i have 10 points to his 12 and am out of t8)
Round 5: RUG delver
Game 1: 3 three stifles in a row keep me from playing anything useful, with a flipped delver swinging each turn. Im unable to do much and die to double bolt (L)
IN: 2 rest in peace, 2 relic of progenitus
OUT: 1 tarfire, 1 goblin sharpshooter, 2 gempalm incinerator
Game 2: I start well with thalia and marshal and get him down to 8, but double threshold-ed mongoose keep me from finishing. He plays 2 goyfs, and I fail to stick hate (relic gets stifled and rip gets spell snared), and die soon after (L)
3-2
Cards I wanted: leyline of the void/some other uncounterable hate
All in all, a good first legacy event and I was pretty pleased with the deck. Ill be taking it to a 1k in a few weeks, maybe with a few changes
also, any sideboarding advice would we welcome. thanks!
To reiterate what was said above, you really cannot afford to take out removal against RUG, because you have no answer to a flipped Delver. Tarfire is pretty much the perfect removal card for Delver, though Gempalm has the advantage of being counterable only with a Stifle--so if you're looking for uncounterable hate, that's as close as you'll get. Dealing with Goyf is largely about having something like MWM that can chump him until they have to start holding him back for blocks. From that list, the only thing I can see wanting in is a bit of grave hate, and it's not totally clear what you'd cut for it, though in my experience Sharpshooter doesn't do much there.
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1st. Tarfire against RUG is a keep, just want to emphasize that.
2nd. Nice outcome, congratz
3rd. I really like leyline of the void, since it deals with decks goblins dread, like reanimator, dredge and other grave-reliant decks. To be honest I haven't tested RW goblins, for now I'm aquiring goyfs, and there's not much I can do besides focusing on them. But leyline has always been good to me in mono red... I mean, you don't even have to spend mana to have it in play... and there is no problem to be on the draw. Doesn't get abrupted too, btw.
4th. Mindbreak trap kinda sux. I know, it's good against storm. But, seriously, 1 SB MBT won't save your ass from losing to storm most of the times. If they don't play around it with silence or xantid, you might still not draw it. So kinda a waste of space IMO, especially if you're only boarding 1.
5th. Give scrapper a chance, he's bad, but it's the best we've got.
6th. Anarchy isn't worth it, unless your meta is overloaded with D&T, and even so, meh, too slow.
7th. Wear//Tear is nice, but 3 might be too much, especially if you're using tuktuk, I guess.
there was 1 mistake i made when posting my list; in the SB i said 4 rip when it was really 2 rip and 2 relic of progenitus.
also, @aether_lackey, how do you play with leyline? do you generally mull til you you find it, or just deal with a dead draw later?
looking at the following changes to my board:
-1 wear/tear
-1 mindbreak trap
-1 rest in peace (?)
+1 tuktuk scrapper
+2 leyline of the void
EDIT: i cant help but notice that (a) the first page is pretty outdated and (b) the person who started this thread is banned.
Is there someone else in charge of the thread who could update the primer?
there was 1 mistake i made when posting my list; in the SB i said 4 rip when it was really 2 rip and 2 relic of progenitus.
also, @aether_lackey, how do you play with leyline? do you generally mull til you you find it, or just deal with a dead draw later?
looking at the following changes to my board:
-1 wear/tear
-1 mindbreak trap
-1 rest in peace (?)
+1 tuktuk scrapper
+2 leyline of the void
EDIT: i cant help but notice that (a) the first page is pretty outdated and (b) the person who started this thread is banned.
Is there someone else in charge of the thread who could update the primer?
The logic is this: I don't play RiP, and unless I have an insane hand, I'll lose to reanimator and dredge anyway. So I mull until it seems reasonable (meaning leyline or explosive hand). When you have acces to RiP, idk what plan go for, to be honest.
I think that for the most part it's a mistake to think of individual cards. There are really two types of cards that we sideboard. There's Goblins cards, which we can tutor for, and non-goblin cards, which we have to draw manually.
Looking at your list, you have the following:
3 Creature removal (Pryokinesis)
5 GY Hate (2 Relic, 1 RIP, 2 Leyline) - do you mind if I ask why you have split these up? Is it based on a theory, or copying a successful list, or your experience in tournaments?
2 Storm hate (Canonist)
2 Disenchants (Wear // Tear)
1 Arti-hate (Scrapper)
2 Misc (Pithing Needle)
To me the three things that stand out are :
a. Not enough storm hate. Assuming 3 MD Thalia, 5 hate cards isn't enough to swing an unfavourable matchup back in our favour. You really need 2 or sometimes three pieces of hate to stop them from killing you.
b. Not enough enchantment hate. You only have 2 Tear, and you have to draw them manually. Your chances of having one in your opening 7 is 22%, and if you are prepared to mulligan aggressively to 4, that goes up to 54%. If you have 3 Tear in your SB, those numbers increase to 31% and 69% respectively.
c. Pithing Needle basically does nothing for you. It's not a good storm hate card, and it's a pretty terrible answer to Stoneforge Mystic as well (oh noes, now batterskull is *just* a 4/4 vigilance lifelinker...)
I think it's a mistake to run non-goblin cards in amounts fewer than 3 at an absolute minimum. Here's the sorts of things I want in a SB:
7-8 Storm hate (Thalia, CotV, Canonist, Mindbreak)
3-4 Creature sweepers (Pyrokinesis, Sharpshooter)
3 disenchants (Krosan Grip, Wear/Tear, Scrapper, TSH)
3-4 Gravehard hate (Relic, RIP, Leyline)
There are a bunch of other niche things that people can SB for that target things like Moat (Anarchy), Engineered Plague (Boartusk Liege), Planeswalkers/Equipment (Pithing Needle), Show and Tell (Angel of Despair/Confusion in the Ranks) but I think that in general most of those corner cases are handled by having access to enchantment removal in the form of Krosan Grip/Wear//Tear and you're better off just running a sufficiency of the actual removals you need.
EDIT: i cant help but notice that (a) the first page is pretty outdated and (b) the person who started this thread is banned.Is there someone else in charge of the thread who could update the primer?
DF, This thread is pretty active and the OP is still a strong advocate of goblins.
Last night i played against miracles top deck but i lost both games. Is that matchup totally unwinnable or are there any ways to combat it? I am playing thalia MB fyi .
Once you understand the matchup it actually becomes favorable for you.
The main reason being your access to Goblin Matron and Goblin Ringleader providing you with a constant stream of guys post sweeper. You are also virtually immune to their countermagic with the combination of Aether Vial, Cavern of Souls (for which they have no Wasteland), and any unanswered Lackey. Jace is also a weak card against you as you have so many creatures to attack him, and plenty of haste creatures that can attack him even if they sweep your board and play Jace in the same turn! If you played Standard a few years ago with Jace and BBE you might remember that Jace was actually pretty average until BBE rotated. Haste + card advantage is basically the best way to combat him, and you've got plenty of both. Also as deck looking to eventually swarm the board you aren't as concerned with Swords + Snapcaster as, say, tempo decks that only have 12 threats. In addition, your mana denial is excellent at keeping them off balance.
You are definitely looking for Aether Vial hands. Lackey is sometimes good in this matchup, but Aether Vial is always an all-star. Don't play out too many threats at once. You want to basically have just enough pressure on board that you force them to use a sweeper. By saving guys in hand, especially a Ringleader and/or Matron, you insure that you can just rebuild every time. This is especially true with Terminus, as it doesn't actually kill your guys. If you can, leave a fetchland uncracked if you don't have a Matron in hand; by having a shuffle effect available post-Terminus you can disperse all of your guys back into your deck rather than them sitting at the bottom. This will make your post-Terminus Ringleaders more likely to draw plenty of gas.
It's also not really a race to finish them off. You have plenty of time! Don't be afraid to take things slow and heavily deny their mana when you could otherwise play a guy. They do have a ton of basics, so Wasteland isn't at its strongest, but Port is a house in this matchup especially in conjunction with Thalia. It makes their deck pretty clunky. Definitely hit Tundras if they do have to play them out though.
The one thing that you do need to watch out for is if they are playing with the RIP combos. RIP itself is completely dead against you, but it enables Energy Field and Helm of Obedience. Honestly, these are the only things I'm afraid of coming from Miracles. Wear//Tear is a great card from Rw Goblins and you definitely want to be bringing in as many as you have in. Not only will it hit their potential game winning combos, but it hits their Tops; obviously you can't just throw this at a Top because they can put it on top of their deck, so wait until they have to crack a fetchland and in response target their top. If you splash green in addition to white you have an even better option in Krosan Grip with Split Second being amazing.
To sum it up, don't overextend into sweepers and hold onto a Matron or Ringleader. Save a shuffle effect of some sort if possible. Deny mana whenever possible. Aether Vial is a BEAST. Have some sort of way to hit their artifacts/enchantments because they are their best cards against you. You have plenty of time to kill them as they don't really pressure you.
Agreed with rowtheboat. They are a strong countermagic deck, but we have an enormous number of ways of getting past that. Haste creatures are really good at keeping the pressure up, and Matron/Ringleader are excellent at giving us CA.
RIP is annoying, but that's why we run Tear, right?
Last night i played against miracles top deck but i lost both games. Is that matchup totally unwinnable or are there any ways to combat it? I am playing thalia MB fyi .
Agreed with the above. Miracles is quite favorable unless they can pull off RiP combos. Usually Grip/Wear will beat that, if you can draw it. I've gotten Terminus'd 3 times in one game and still beat them. Counterbalance is a joke vs. Goblins. It's one of the few cases where our higher mana curve is an advantage.
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What's the plan against Show and Tell and Omni-Tell decks? Just flat-out race them before they can resolve Omniscience or Emrakul?
Hope to get an early Thalia or Canoness, and then have either a Goblin Matron or Stingscourger in your hand when Emrakul drops?
Sideboard in the Canoness and Chalice games 2 and 3, and try Chalice at 0 to stop Pact of Negation, Chalice at 1 to stop Ponder, Preordain and Brainstorm and slow them down?
Out of our entire playgroup, no one plays either Omni-Tell, Show Tell or Sneak and Show, so I have no idea how to play against these decks.
What's the plan against Show and Tell and Omni-Tell decks? Just flat-out race them before they can resolve Omniscience or Emrakul?
Hope to get an early Thalia or Canoness, and then have either a Goblin Matron or Stingscourger in your hand when Emrakul drops?
Sideboard in the Canoness and Chalice games 2 and 3, and try Chalice at 0 to stop Pact of Negation, Chalice at 1 to stop Ponder, Preordain and Brainstorm and slow them down?
Out of our entire playgroup, no one plays either Omni-Tell, Show Tell or Sneak and Show, so I have no idea how to play against these decks.
Basically you're looking to slow them down with Thalia and mana denial (if you have Chalice, use that too, but don't lean too heavily on it--Thalia is the better hate card here). You definitely want Stingscourger in hand if you can manage it, but he's not much use against the Omni versions. Thalia and Canonist are both nice to "show" against the Omni decks, though, because they often have to just pass the turn at that point.
I've beaten Show & Tell plenty of times, but it's a very unfavorable matchup and you just have to mulligan to a good hand. You only appear to have 5 hate cards to bring in, so board out Gempalm and Sharpshooter. Both are beyond horrible here. Tuktuk sucks too, but at least he's a beater that untaps.
Your best cards here are Thalia, Port, Cavern, Lackey, Piledriver, Stingscourger, Matron, Chalice, and Canonist.
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Hello all! I'm looking to potentially join the red (or is it green) side of things, as I used to run goblins back when I was younger in my days of kitchen table magic! But I had a couple of questions about the deck before I begin to try to assemble all the cards.
1. How do people feel about a black splash for the sideboard? I really like cabal therapy... I don't know if this has been tried.... but I was wondering what the pros and cons of this would be. This could also open up the board to cards like rakdos charm and such.
2. Where do people stand on cards like goblin sharpshooter, Krenko, Goblin Chieftan, and Siege Gang Commander? What are the pros and cons of those?
3. Do Thalia's belong in the main/sideboard? I feel like goblins is a strong deck versus the fair decks/control decks... but where it really gets hosed are the combo matchups. Is that an accurate assessment?
4. My meta is a lot of blue based decks... BUG, Sneak and Show (and Omnishow), Miracles, RUG Delver, and Blade decks are the majority of my meta. How do I build my deck to counteract that? Should I run an additional stingscourger in the sideboard? Should I run a playset of piledriver?
5. Is there a concensus as to which artifact hate goblin is the best?
Sorry if these have been answered already... I've done some digging but I didn't find all the answers I was looking for and there really wasn't an up to date primer (which Im kind of surprised at given how old this deck is!). Thanks for all your help!
1. How do people feel about a black splash for the sideboard? I really like cabal therapy... I don't know if this has been tried.... but I was wondering what the pros and cons of this would be. This could also open up the board to cards like rakdos charm and such.
The black splash was for a while probably the most popular splash, with access to cards like Warren Weirding, discard effects, and Perish, and powerful gravehate in Leyline of the Void. However nowadays the most popular splash is white. The discard in particular was good because goblins really didn't have anyway to interact with combo decks. The printing of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is the big driver towards white though. She is definitely the strongest combo hate card available to you. Having 2 power on board with her puts them under pressure, and you can make her uncounterable with Cavern of Souls on Human, and Aether Vial. White also gives you access to Ethersworn Canonist as another strong hatebear for combo matchups, Rest in Peace for great gravehate, Wear//Tear for artifacts and enchantments, and Oblivion Ring for something you can put into play against Show and Tell decks. Overall I think white has the most relevant and diverse sideboard options. Thalia is actually SO good that she's often played in the maindeck.
2. Where do people stand on cards like goblin sharpshooter, Krenko, Goblin Chieftan, and Siege Gang Commander? What are the pros and cons of those?
Sharpshooter is narrow, but when he's good he's downright insane. A lot of players will try to find room for one somewhere in the 75. I think most decks will choose Krenko or Commander for their top end bomb. Running both can get a little clunky. So it comes down to preference. Commander is better on his own, and stronger to drop off a Lackey, but tap Krenko a couple times and he quickly overtakes Commander in effectiveness. Something like EoT Vial in Krenko when you have a haste lord out > tap Krenko for a bunch of dudes > untap for your turn > tap Krenko again. That's just crazy strong! Commander gives you an out to something like Moat or Ensnaring Bridge, but 5 cmc is awkward. Krenko being 4 cmc lets you leave your Vial on 4 and have access to not only Krenko, but Ringleaders. They each have their pros and cons, but I would recommend choosing one or the other, and having 1-2 coppies to keep your deck as streamlined as possible. Chieftan is strong. He gives you a way to beat Engineered Plague, and he's especially strong in builds that have Mogg War Marshal and/or Krenko. Warchief reducing the mana cost of your guys is stronger overall, as it frees up your mana to drop more threats or utilize Wasteland/Port. I've seen 3/2 splits of Warchief/Chieftan in builds that have a lot of token generators, but if you don't have too many tokens a 4/1 split is better.
3. Do Thalia's belong in the main/sideboard? I feel like goblins is a strong deck versus the fair decks/control decks... but where it really gets hosed are the combo matchups. Is that an accurate assessment?
I play her in the main personally. She's actually good in a lot of non-combo matchups too, but yes her main purpose is against combo decks. Blue decks in general are powered by Brainstorm and other cantrips, and other highly efficient spells. Thalia slows blue decks down to a crawl especially in conjunction with Wasteland and Port.
4. My meta is a lot of blue based decks... BUG, Sneak and Show (and Omnishow), Miracles, RUG Delver, and Blade decks are the majority of my meta. How do I build my deck to counteract that? Should I run an additional stingscourger in the sideboard? Should I run a playset of piledriver?
You are naturally going to be strong against non-combo blue decks as they are more often than not built to fight each other and the combo decks. They aren't ready to stop your angles of attack. You have real card advantage, mana advantage, and the ability to go over the top. As for Show and Tell decks, Stingscourger is a good answer to them. If you don't have a Stingscourger to show in, then a Matron to tutor one is basically as good, and if not a Matron you might just draw it off a Ringleader you Show in. Stingscourger is weak against Sneak Attack though as they can just replay it. So having something that can hit enchantments is good. As for OmniTell (or whatever people call it these days...) your best option is something like Oblivion Ring. I have seen Angel of Despair which is actually a little stronger to put into play from a Show and Tell as the Angel can win the game on her own, but Oblivion Ring has utility in other matchups where as Angel is only good against Show and Tell. Having access to hatebears, Oblivion Ring, and Pyroblast/REB is basically the most prepared you could possibly be against Omnitell but you might not have room for all of them in the board.
5. Is there a concensus as to which artifact hate goblin is the best?
Personally I think Tuktuk Scrapper is the best. Tin Street Hooligan being 2cmc is better obviously, but its interaction with Warchief and Aether Vial are a big turn off. With Warchief out you can't actually use any green mana to cast Hooligan so you can't destroy an artifact, and with Vial you aren't actually casting him so again you don't get the effect. Scrapper is a little slow though, so I like to have some number of Wear//Tear in my white splash build. The efficiency is very good, but I do think having the option to tutor an answer to something like Batterskull is very important. I like one Scrapper and one or two Wear//Tear.
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Your 37 non-land cards MD are spot-on. This is a great basis for a goblin deck. Your manabase has 23 lands and should look like this...
4 Waste
4 Port
4 Cavern
2 Plateau
4 Mountain
5 Fetchland
I also like cutting either 1 mountain or 1 POrt to make room for 1 Karakas, just because you're running 4 MD Legends and it's always nice having a random out to Emrakul/Grizz.
In your sideboard I'm not a huge fan of Cannonist or Needle. I prefer Chalice of the Void as combo hate just because it's faster against Storm which is a major player in my meta.
I also like a 2/2 split of RiP and Relic of Progenitus, just because they're very similar but Relic is better in multiples due to the cycling and it's immune to color-screw.
I think this deck will serve you well. Best of luck!
I will tell you right now that this is a very bad idea. Thalia is an additional beater, where amethyst is not. Thalia can be vialed in, where Amethyst cannot.
I feel like you are dismissing it too soon. Weirding isnt a bad card, but its also not red. You only have 2 B producing lands and unless you fetch and cast it after the fetch resolves, you stand a risk of having a wasteland eat your land. Do you really want to bring in perish against BUG just to hit a deathrite shaman or two?
Tarfire just hits so much: Delver (either side), Stoneforge, Deathrite, Confidant, Revoker, Mirran Crusader, just about any x/1, just about any x/2.
540 Peasant cube- Gold EditionSomething SpicyMy simple question is how much you expect you'd want her game 1? If I went to a SCG event in my area, I would go 3 MB. I say that because I know how much people love storm here. Were I to be in a different meta, I may not.
So basically: Its a meta call.
540 Peasant cube- Gold EditionSomething SpicyHere is what Tarfire can hit (my memory gets a wee haz
UR delver- All of their creatures
RUG Delver- Delver of secrets
Sharless Bug- Deathrite Shaman/Shardless Agent
Jund- Deathrite/Dark Confidant/Bloodbraid Elf
Junk- Deathrite/ Ooze (?)/ KotR/Stoneforge
Maverick- Arbor/ Stoneforge/ Knight/ Crusader/ Teeg/ Mom (force them to use her and the tarfire the target or her)
Dredge and SnT, it probably isnt as good for, but it makes for easy boarding slots in these.
540 Peasant cube- Gold EditionSomething SpicyYeah, I agree that the white splash is the first and best colour to add into goblins.
Warren Weirding was a card I ran a long time ago back when I was splashing black. Stingscourger I think made Warren Weirding obsolete. Since Thalia was printed I switched from black to white and never looked back. And that manabase splashing both..... I just don't think that black gives you anything that makes the destabilised manabase worth it.
Hooray!
There isn't a consensus on that yet, and I'm not sure there ever will be. I'm certainly still on the fence, since I love thalia, and love what she does for me, but my best results have been with her in the SB.
if you fuse it with a thalia in play, does it cost 2RW? or 3RW?
"Nice to meet you-"
"COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!"
"-hostages!"
2 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
2 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Goblin Warchief
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
3 Mogg War Marshal
1 Stingscourger
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Tarfire
4 Arid Mesa
4 Cavern of Souls
5 Mountain
2 Plateau
3 Rishadan Port
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Wasteland
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Mindbreak Trap
2 Pithing Needle
3 Pyrokinesis
4 Rest in Peace
3 Wear // Tear
Round 1: Mono-W Death and Taxes
Game 1: He keeps me off my lands with waste and port, serra avengers quickly seal the deal (L)
IN: 3 wear//tear, 3 pyrokinesis
OUT: 3 thalia, 2 piledriver, 1 stingscourger
Game 2: lackey -> chieftains + marshal -> chieftain kills him turn 4 (W)
Game 3: He plays a veteran armorer (unexpected), followed by stoneforge, a batterskull and a jitte. I dont draw my artifact hate and die (L)
0-1
Cards I wanted: Anarchy, tuktuk scrapper
Round 2: Fish
Game 1: he gets flooded, barely plays anything. Goblin swarm ends this pretty fast. (W)
IN: 2 wear//tear
OUt: stingscourger, goblin sharpshooter
Game 2: I get stuck on 2 colorless lands, but double vial keeps me going. he plays a ratchet bomb, but decides not to kill my vials so he can keep his cursecatchers. He gets out three lords, but war marshals followed by krenko allow me to stall until i deal 21 in one turn. (W)
1-1
Cards I wanted: -nothing-
Round 3: UWR Miracle/Top/Counterbalance
Game 1: lackey goes nuts, and double cavern lets me play through his counterspells. He dies turn four without much resistance. (W)
IN: 2 Pithing Needle, 3 wear//tear
OUT: stingscourger, goblin sharpshooter, 1 tarfire, 2 gempalm incinerator
Game 2: He counters some stuff, I play needle on top and stick a thalia. He entreats for 1, but thalia's first strike and tarfire precombat deal with that. Hes at 5 and plays humility, and i grind out the last 5 with 1/1s. (W)
2-1
Cards I wanted: -nothing-
Round 4: Mirror!
Game 1: he has the nuts and kills me before i can do much. (L)
IN:3 Pyrokinesis, 1 wear//tear
OUT: stingscourger, 3 thalia
Game 2: I have the nuts and he dies before doing much (W)
Game 3: A long, grindy game where the board stalls for a couple turns as i topdeck lands and he topdecks aether vials. I play krenko and get 1 activation before he dies, getting me 7 tokens. I swing with my new army for a while, then he plays siege-gang commander and kills my non-token creatures. After a few more turns of nothing, i get lucky and hit ringleader into chieftain and matron (tutoring another chieftain) and close it out. (W)
3-1
Cards I wanted: more pyrokinesis
At this point there is one round left to play, and im in 8th place with 9 points. Unfortunately, the person in 9th also has 9 points, so I have to play out round 5 instead of drawing into t8 (if the person in 9th wins his match and I draw mine, i have 10 points to his 12 and am out of t8)
Round 5: RUG delver
Game 1: 3 three stifles in a row keep me from playing anything useful, with a flipped delver swinging each turn. Im unable to do much and die to double bolt (L)
IN: 2 rest in peace, 2 relic of progenitus
OUT: 1 tarfire, 1 goblin sharpshooter, 2 gempalm incinerator
Game 2: I start well with thalia and marshal and get him down to 8, but double threshold-ed mongoose keep me from finishing. He plays 2 goyfs, and I fail to stick hate (relic gets stifled and rip gets spell snared), and die soon after (L)
3-2
Cards I wanted: leyline of the void/some other uncounterable hate
All in all, a good first legacy event and I was pretty pleased with the deck. Ill be taking it to a 1k in a few weeks, maybe with a few changes
also, any sideboarding advice would we welcome. thanks!
"Nice to meet you-"
"COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!"
"-hostages!"
To reiterate what was said above, you really cannot afford to take out removal against RUG, because you have no answer to a flipped Delver. Tarfire is pretty much the perfect removal card for Delver, though Gempalm has the advantage of being counterable only with a Stifle--so if you're looking for uncounterable hate, that's as close as you'll get. Dealing with Goyf is largely about having something like MWM that can chump him until they have to start holding him back for blocks. From that list, the only thing I can see wanting in is a bit of grave hate, and it's not totally clear what you'd cut for it, though in my experience Sharpshooter doesn't do much there.
Nai elyë hiruva! Namárië!
1st. Tarfire against RUG is a keep, just want to emphasize that.
2nd. Nice outcome, congratz
3rd. I really like leyline of the void, since it deals with decks goblins dread, like reanimator, dredge and other grave-reliant decks. To be honest I haven't tested RW goblins, for now I'm aquiring goyfs, and there's not much I can do besides focusing on them. But leyline has always been good to me in mono red... I mean, you don't even have to spend mana to have it in play... and there is no problem to be on the draw. Doesn't get abrupted too, btw.
4th. Mindbreak trap kinda sux. I know, it's good against storm. But, seriously, 1 SB MBT won't save your ass from losing to storm most of the times. If they don't play around it with silence or xantid, you might still not draw it. So kinda a waste of space IMO, especially if you're only boarding 1.
5th. Give scrapper a chance, he's bad, but it's the best we've got.
6th. Anarchy isn't worth it, unless your meta is overloaded with D&T, and even so, meh, too slow.
7th. Wear//Tear is nice, but 3 might be too much, especially if you're using tuktuk, I guess.
Consider this advices are from a mono-red player.
::MODERN:: BG BGx midrange
::COMMANDER:: WBG Karador Witness
also, @aether_lackey, how do you play with leyline? do you generally mull til you you find it, or just deal with a dead draw later?
looking at the following changes to my board:
-1 wear/tear
-1 mindbreak trap
-1 rest in peace (?)
+1 tuktuk scrapper
+2 leyline of the void
EDIT: i cant help but notice that (a) the first page is pretty outdated and (b) the person who started this thread is banned.
Is there someone else in charge of the thread who could update the primer?
"Nice to meet you-"
"COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!"
"-hostages!"
The logic is this: I don't play RiP, and unless I have an insane hand, I'll lose to reanimator and dredge anyway. So I mull until it seems reasonable (meaning leyline or explosive hand). When you have acces to RiP, idk what plan go for, to be honest.
::MODERN:: BG BGx midrange
::COMMANDER:: WBG Karador Witness
So that makes your SB this, right?
2 Pithing Needle
3 Pyrokinesis
1 Rest in Peace
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Leyline of the Void
2 Wear // Tear
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
I think that for the most part it's a mistake to think of individual cards. There are really two types of cards that we sideboard. There's Goblins cards, which we can tutor for, and non-goblin cards, which we have to draw manually.
Looking at your list, you have the following:
3 Creature removal (Pryokinesis)
5 GY Hate (2 Relic, 1 RIP, 2 Leyline) - do you mind if I ask why you have split these up? Is it based on a theory, or copying a successful list, or your experience in tournaments?
2 Storm hate (Canonist)
2 Disenchants (Wear // Tear)
1 Arti-hate (Scrapper)
2 Misc (Pithing Needle)
To me the three things that stand out are :
a. Not enough storm hate. Assuming 3 MD Thalia, 5 hate cards isn't enough to swing an unfavourable matchup back in our favour. You really need 2 or sometimes three pieces of hate to stop them from killing you.
b. Not enough enchantment hate. You only have 2 Tear, and you have to draw them manually. Your chances of having one in your opening 7 is 22%, and if you are prepared to mulligan aggressively to 4, that goes up to 54%. If you have 3 Tear in your SB, those numbers increase to 31% and 69% respectively.
c. Pithing Needle basically does nothing for you. It's not a good storm hate card, and it's a pretty terrible answer to Stoneforge Mystic as well (oh noes, now batterskull is *just* a 4/4 vigilance lifelinker...)
I think it's a mistake to run non-goblin cards in amounts fewer than 3 at an absolute minimum. Here's the sorts of things I want in a SB:
7-8 Storm hate (Thalia, CotV, Canonist, Mindbreak)
3-4 Creature sweepers (Pyrokinesis, Sharpshooter)
3 disenchants (Krosan Grip, Wear/Tear, Scrapper, TSH)
3-4 Gravehard hate (Relic, RIP, Leyline)
There are a bunch of other niche things that people can SB for that target things like Moat (Anarchy), Engineered Plague (Boartusk Liege), Planeswalkers/Equipment (Pithing Needle), Show and Tell (Angel of Despair/Confusion in the Ranks) but I think that in general most of those corner cases are handled by having access to enchantment removal in the form of Krosan Grip/Wear//Tear and you're better off just running a sufficiency of the actual removals you need.
Here's my current sideboard:
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Rest in Peace
3 Pyrokinesis
3 Wear // Tear
1 Ethersworn Canonist
DF, This thread is pretty active and the OP is still a strong advocate of goblins.
The main reason being your access to Goblin Matron and Goblin Ringleader providing you with a constant stream of guys post sweeper. You are also virtually immune to their countermagic with the combination of Aether Vial, Cavern of Souls (for which they have no Wasteland), and any unanswered Lackey. Jace is also a weak card against you as you have so many creatures to attack him, and plenty of haste creatures that can attack him even if they sweep your board and play Jace in the same turn! If you played Standard a few years ago with Jace and BBE you might remember that Jace was actually pretty average until BBE rotated. Haste + card advantage is basically the best way to combat him, and you've got plenty of both. Also as deck looking to eventually swarm the board you aren't as concerned with Swords + Snapcaster as, say, tempo decks that only have 12 threats. In addition, your mana denial is excellent at keeping them off balance.
You are definitely looking for Aether Vial hands. Lackey is sometimes good in this matchup, but Aether Vial is always an all-star. Don't play out too many threats at once. You want to basically have just enough pressure on board that you force them to use a sweeper. By saving guys in hand, especially a Ringleader and/or Matron, you insure that you can just rebuild every time. This is especially true with Terminus, as it doesn't actually kill your guys. If you can, leave a fetchland uncracked if you don't have a Matron in hand; by having a shuffle effect available post-Terminus you can disperse all of your guys back into your deck rather than them sitting at the bottom. This will make your post-Terminus Ringleaders more likely to draw plenty of gas.
It's also not really a race to finish them off. You have plenty of time! Don't be afraid to take things slow and heavily deny their mana when you could otherwise play a guy. They do have a ton of basics, so Wasteland isn't at its strongest, but Port is a house in this matchup especially in conjunction with Thalia. It makes their deck pretty clunky. Definitely hit Tundras if they do have to play them out though.
The one thing that you do need to watch out for is if they are playing with the RIP combos. RIP itself is completely dead against you, but it enables Energy Field and Helm of Obedience. Honestly, these are the only things I'm afraid of coming from Miracles. Wear//Tear is a great card from Rw Goblins and you definitely want to be bringing in as many as you have in. Not only will it hit their potential game winning combos, but it hits their Tops; obviously you can't just throw this at a Top because they can put it on top of their deck, so wait until they have to crack a fetchland and in response target their top. If you splash green in addition to white you have an even better option in Krosan Grip with Split Second being amazing.
To sum it up, don't overextend into sweepers and hold onto a Matron or Ringleader. Save a shuffle effect of some sort if possible. Deny mana whenever possible. Aether Vial is a BEAST. Have some sort of way to hit their artifacts/enchantments because they are their best cards against you. You have plenty of time to kill them as they don't really pressure you.
RIP is annoying, but that's why we run Tear, right?
Agreed with the above. Miracles is quite favorable unless they can pull off RiP combos. Usually Grip/Wear will beat that, if you can draw it. I've gotten Terminus'd 3 times in one game and still beat them. Counterbalance is a joke vs. Goblins. It's one of the few cases where our higher mana curve is an advantage.
Nai elyë hiruva! Namárië!
Assuming the following deck:
1 Skirk Prospector
4 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Goblin Piledriver
2 Mogg War Marshal
1 Stingscourger
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Goblin Matron
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
4 AEther Vial
3 Arid Mesa
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Mountain
3 Plateau
4 Rishadan Port
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Wasteland
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Pyrokinesis
1 Relic of Progenitus
3 Rest in Peace
3 Wear // Tear
What's the plan against Show and Tell and Omni-Tell decks? Just flat-out race them before they can resolve Omniscience or Emrakul?
Hope to get an early Thalia or Canoness, and then have either a Goblin Matron or Stingscourger in your hand when Emrakul drops?
Sideboard in the Canoness and Chalice games 2 and 3, and try Chalice at 0 to stop Pact of Negation, Chalice at 1 to stop Ponder, Preordain and Brainstorm and slow them down?
Out of our entire playgroup, no one plays either Omni-Tell, Show Tell or Sneak and Show, so I have no idea how to play against these decks.
Basically you're looking to slow them down with Thalia and mana denial (if you have Chalice, use that too, but don't lean too heavily on it--Thalia is the better hate card here). You definitely want Stingscourger in hand if you can manage it, but he's not much use against the Omni versions. Thalia and Canonist are both nice to "show" against the Omni decks, though, because they often have to just pass the turn at that point.
I've beaten Show & Tell plenty of times, but it's a very unfavorable matchup and you just have to mulligan to a good hand. You only appear to have 5 hate cards to bring in, so board out Gempalm and Sharpshooter. Both are beyond horrible here. Tuktuk sucks too, but at least he's a beater that untaps.
Your best cards here are Thalia, Port, Cavern, Lackey, Piledriver, Stingscourger, Matron, Chalice, and Canonist.
Nai elyë hiruva! Namárië!
1. How do people feel about a black splash for the sideboard? I really like cabal therapy... I don't know if this has been tried.... but I was wondering what the pros and cons of this would be. This could also open up the board to cards like rakdos charm and such.
2. Where do people stand on cards like goblin sharpshooter, Krenko, Goblin Chieftan, and Siege Gang Commander? What are the pros and cons of those?
3. Do Thalia's belong in the main/sideboard? I feel like goblins is a strong deck versus the fair decks/control decks... but where it really gets hosed are the combo matchups. Is that an accurate assessment?
4. My meta is a lot of blue based decks... BUG, Sneak and Show (and Omnishow), Miracles, RUG Delver, and Blade decks are the majority of my meta. How do I build my deck to counteract that? Should I run an additional stingscourger in the sideboard? Should I run a playset of piledriver?
5. Is there a concensus as to which artifact hate goblin is the best?
Sorry if these have been answered already... I've done some digging but I didn't find all the answers I was looking for and there really wasn't an up to date primer (which Im kind of surprised at given how old this deck is!). Thanks for all your help!
-Shaeffer-
The black splash was for a while probably the most popular splash, with access to cards like Warren Weirding, discard effects, and Perish, and powerful gravehate in Leyline of the Void. However nowadays the most popular splash is white. The discard in particular was good because goblins really didn't have anyway to interact with combo decks. The printing of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is the big driver towards white though. She is definitely the strongest combo hate card available to you. Having 2 power on board with her puts them under pressure, and you can make her uncounterable with Cavern of Souls on Human, and Aether Vial. White also gives you access to Ethersworn Canonist as another strong hatebear for combo matchups, Rest in Peace for great gravehate, Wear//Tear for artifacts and enchantments, and Oblivion Ring for something you can put into play against Show and Tell decks. Overall I think white has the most relevant and diverse sideboard options. Thalia is actually SO good that she's often played in the maindeck.
Sharpshooter is narrow, but when he's good he's downright insane. A lot of players will try to find room for one somewhere in the 75. I think most decks will choose Krenko or Commander for their top end bomb. Running both can get a little clunky. So it comes down to preference. Commander is better on his own, and stronger to drop off a Lackey, but tap Krenko a couple times and he quickly overtakes Commander in effectiveness. Something like EoT Vial in Krenko when you have a haste lord out > tap Krenko for a bunch of dudes > untap for your turn > tap Krenko again. That's just crazy strong! Commander gives you an out to something like Moat or Ensnaring Bridge, but 5 cmc is awkward. Krenko being 4 cmc lets you leave your Vial on 4 and have access to not only Krenko, but Ringleaders. They each have their pros and cons, but I would recommend choosing one or the other, and having 1-2 coppies to keep your deck as streamlined as possible. Chieftan is strong. He gives you a way to beat Engineered Plague, and he's especially strong in builds that have Mogg War Marshal and/or Krenko. Warchief reducing the mana cost of your guys is stronger overall, as it frees up your mana to drop more threats or utilize Wasteland/Port. I've seen 3/2 splits of Warchief/Chieftan in builds that have a lot of token generators, but if you don't have too many tokens a 4/1 split is better.
I play her in the main personally. She's actually good in a lot of non-combo matchups too, but yes her main purpose is against combo decks. Blue decks in general are powered by Brainstorm and other cantrips, and other highly efficient spells. Thalia slows blue decks down to a crawl especially in conjunction with Wasteland and Port.
You are naturally going to be strong against non-combo blue decks as they are more often than not built to fight each other and the combo decks. They aren't ready to stop your angles of attack. You have real card advantage, mana advantage, and the ability to go over the top. As for Show and Tell decks, Stingscourger is a good answer to them. If you don't have a Stingscourger to show in, then a Matron to tutor one is basically as good, and if not a Matron you might just draw it off a Ringleader you Show in. Stingscourger is weak against Sneak Attack though as they can just replay it. So having something that can hit enchantments is good. As for OmniTell (or whatever people call it these days...) your best option is something like Oblivion Ring. I have seen Angel of Despair which is actually a little stronger to put into play from a Show and Tell as the Angel can win the game on her own, but Oblivion Ring has utility in other matchups where as Angel is only good against Show and Tell. Having access to hatebears, Oblivion Ring, and Pyroblast/REB is basically the most prepared you could possibly be against Omnitell but you might not have room for all of them in the board.
Personally I think Tuktuk Scrapper is the best. Tin Street Hooligan being 2cmc is better obviously, but its interaction with Warchief and Aether Vial are a big turn off. With Warchief out you can't actually use any green mana to cast Hooligan so you can't destroy an artifact, and with Vial you aren't actually casting him so again you don't get the effect. Scrapper is a little slow though, so I like to have some number of Wear//Tear in my white splash build. The efficiency is very good, but I do think having the option to tutor an answer to something like Batterskull is very important. I like one Scrapper and one or two Wear//Tear.