Questions on Goblins, FCG, and Goblin King's place in FCG with errata

[JamesPr]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/feature/273

So, Goblin King can now be lackeyed out, he can be matroned for, he can be recruitered for, ringleadered, ect ect.  Does he even have a place in current FCG lists?  FCG is a beatdown deck more often than not, and he provides more of a beatdown, and helps FCG contend with new versions of Fish that are up and coming that are giving FCG some difficulty.

Also, if he does have a place, is there even more reason now to run Aether Vials in FCG over Food Chain, or is an Aether Vial version of Goblins just too slow to contend with the meta of today?

Also, what would you even cut to play Goblin King?  FCG is a really tight list.

[Telperion]

The new change in Goblin King does add utility to both types of decks, but I do not believe it is worthy for type 1.  It might be useful as a one of in the sideboard to help versus hosers like
Pyroclasm/Engineered Plague, but I feel it's still too slow.  In FCG, you either combo out and win or you go for straight beatdown, in either case an extra point of damage is irrelevant when piledriver is the deck's saving grace.  As of right now vial goblins is still largely unexplored in type 1, but in my limited testing it is capable of keeping up with stax even sans Chalices.  In my opinion, the King's new clothes  :shock: will only affect extended and legacy where blocking is more important.

[Norm4eva]

You have to remember that the most important thing about Goblin King is the mountainwalk.  Against any deck that's playing Volcanics - or in the mirror for that matter - you're playing Soltari Goblin Piledrivers.  This way we're not auto losing because of timely chumping coupled with FoW'd/StP'd Piledrivers or other important Goblins.
On a less attractive note, a series of Kings will give +4/+4 to your team, which means your actual Goblin chains can be shorter.  This makes room in the decklist for... what, exactly?  More support cards?  Disruption for the bad matchups?  Does it change the sideboard at all to know that you could potentially side out Piledrivers if it means unblockable 5/5 SGC tokens and crazy board tech?

[Draven]

Why would you side out PileDrivers? Anything that will hit a piledriver will hit everything else plus when you consider the Blue/Hydro Blasts. I can't see taking out your best beats...

[Norm4eva]

I'd take them out if I thought they'd get Cranial Extraction'd.  Or if I thought they'd get chumped by a series of Decree tokens and then I lose to Disk/Wrath/etc.  It depends on a lot of things.
On The Source the merit of using Goblin King in tandem with Blood Moon was being discussed.  Turning your opponent's manabase to mush, delaying their defense and making your win conditions unblockable seems pretty good.  Nobody necessarily suggested actually taking out 'drivers, but in games 2-3 one could if it were prudent.  The other pieces of FCG are too vital; Warchiefs make things cheap and hasty, Siege-Gangs not only sac for 9 mana but provide utility, Recruiters and Ringleaders cannot come out and even the lower-end guys like Prospecter and Matron still do broken things from time to time.  Piledrivers just swing, and if you're gonna swing for the W what's the difference between a team of unblockable 6/6s vs a grip of 21/2 Piledrivers?

[Vegeta2711]

There is absolutely no point in using Goblin King in a format where your very unlikely to see any common Goblin hosers. The pump becomes pointless (Compared to the other guys you can run) and Mountainwalk is pointless since the only creatures anyone uses to block either lose to you or you have to swarm around anyway (I.E. Losing one guy to DSC usually won't make a difference. Esp. since you had to take a turn casting Goblin King).

[Xyre]

This is only relevant at all in the mirror, and even then, it takes sideboard slots which could go to more important cards which attack decks more prevelant in Type 1. It gives you a way to break a deadlock, perhaps, but he is easily killed and quite irrelevant.

[Lunar]

goblin king would be sketchy in the mirror...id really only want to drop him if I had lots and lots of other dudes out and I was for sure killing the opponent NOW...otherwise I just gave my opponent a lot of mountainwalking goblins...

I could see him as some help against fish decks to shore up that match (even more useful against madness and WTF though) getting your guys bigger to deal with the new fish creatures which are 2/2s and bigger now (it was easier before since all of their old guys were 1/1s and such)

Vial goblins is terrible IMO....Mono Red is as good or better than FCG I think and should be more common now (although i havnt really seen anybody making a logical switch to mono red) Aether Vial actually just hangs the deck up and slows it down a turn or two...9 times out of 10 in testing (yes ive done a lot of serious testing with mono red goblins) id rather have any goblin in my hand than aether vial...one or two umezawas jitte isnt too bad though, and shores up all sorts of matches, its good against fish that runs the jitte too since you have removal for it now (jitte can be terrible for mono red goblins if fish gets it rolling at all)

The idea of MD blood moon with maybe 1 or 2 kings though is an intriguing idea...or at least having both in the SB is kinda cool (remember this is for aggro matchups primarily) It does also allow for that one piledriver to get through a DSC that could be blocking him and it should allow for a faster kill...He could be a replacement for say the second siege gang commander in mono red..testing will have to be done though to see if he is really worth it at all...

The only real argument for not using him before was because he wasnt actually a goblin...whats holding people back now?

[Hi-Val]

I think that Goblin King would actually be quite useful. The main hate that FCG encounters comes in the form of Old Man or Pyroclasm, and Kings pull you right out of the range of both of those cards. I think it's pretty nifty, but I'm not sure what I'd cut to make room for them.