New approach to Goblins

[RecklessEmbermage]

Disclaimer: Somebody probably had this idea before me. I just haven't seen it anywhere.

This list is an attempt to successfully play earwig squad in vintage, using a RG Beats shell. It uses playable, hateful goblins and earwig squad as meat and combo killer:

4 mogg fanatic
4 goblin vandal
4 tin-street hooligan
4 vexing shusher
3 dark confidant
4 earwig squad

3 rancor
2 scullclamp
1 sensei's divining top
3 pithing needle
1 demonic consultation
2 diabolic edict

4 simian spirit guide
3 chrome mox
4 bloodstained mire
3 wooded foothills
3 mountains
3 bayou
1 strip mine
4 wasteland

Attempt at sideboard (disregarding ichorid):
3 duress (oath, combo)
2 cabal therapy (oath, combo)
3 stingscourger (oath, DSC, Tombstalker)
2 REB
2 Pyroblast (side out 2 clamps, 2 rancor (or fanatic, if non-confidant tez) for 4 REB-effects against tezz)
2 jitte (fish)
1 swamp (wastelands, oath, combo)


The list obviously is quite rough. And it's meant to be budget. I will test it for the first time this weekend.

Between 8 artifact-hating goblins, 3 needles and earwigs to remove time vaults and grindstones, I assume I won't need rods. Am I hopelessly wrong?

This set-up should be brutal against stax, while hopefully still handling blue combo/control and opposing creature decks fairly well. Rancor helps trading in the aggro match-ups and makes prowling easier. I guess it needs a sideboard geared towards ichorid, if ichorid is a contender in the meta (it isn't in mine, yet).

The mana should be fairly stable. Post-board, it can provide for turn one duress without being exposed to wasteland. Should I just maindeck that swamp?

Ideas?

[RecklessEmbermage]

After some testing, I'm using the following list:

4 mogg fanatic
2 goblin vandal
4 tin-street hooligan
4 vexing shusher
4 dark confidant
4 earwig squad

3 lightning bolt
1 sensei's divining top
3 pithing needle
2 umezawa's jitte
1 demonic consultation
1 demonic tutor
2 diabolic edict

3 simian spirit guide
3 chrome mox
4 bloodstained mire
2 wooded foothills
2 mountains
1 swamp
1 bayou
2 badlands
2 taiga
1 strip mine
4 wasteland

It's a decent tempo deck, that can land a confidant or shusher t1 and follow up with potent disruption on consecutive turns. It has a favorable match-up against ScepterChant, because of the massive artifact-hate, but lacks a way to deal with artifacts at instant speed, hence it looses to a scepter imprinted with chant with 2 mana open or a resolved tinker for DSC, since my clock is too slow to race a robot. I have a somewhat bad match-up against RGW zoo and RG beatz, since my creatures are generally underwhelming. Maindeck jitte helps a lot here though.

I cut rancor for lightning bolt, to deal with early blockers in a more efficient way and being able to burn out the scepterchant deck after it has established a lock. Rancor would frequently sit in my hand, due to difficulties in finding green mana. Playing double rancor was very hard with this manabase.

Dark confidant performs very well, as does shusher (shusher into earwig squad is very potent against blue decks). Mogg fanatic is situational, but still the best 1cc creature to turn on earwigs. Vandal and hooligan are obviously situational, but vandal generally performs worse than hooligan.

The top is good enough as a one-of, needles are very good, edicts frequently cost a mana too much and the jittes, while dead in some matc-ups, are strong enough against aggro that I would like to include the pair of them main. Clamps vere cut, as I have too few creatures that survive being equipped. 10-12 goblins are enough to trigger earwig.

The clearly weak part of the deck is its manabase. I sometimes loose because I cannot find RG/RR for shusher while getting access to my secondary colors, even when the opponent plays no mana-denial. This has lead me to consider less than four wastelands. Chrome mox generally performs better than spirit guides.

To have better game against oath and aggro, I will try cutting green for white. That would give me access to hide/seek and stp. I'm considering goblin legionnaire to take hooligan's spot. It would be worse against control decks but is strong against aggro, is a better enabler for earwig and should make clamp playable.

I'll be testing this:

4 mogg fanatic
3 goblin legionnaire
4 vexing shusher
4 dark confidant
4 earwig squad

3 swords to plowshares
1 sensei's divining top
3 pithing needle
3 duress
2 thoughtseize
1 demonic consultation
1 demonic tutor
3 hide / seek

2 simian spirit guide
4 chrome mox
4 bloodstained mire
2 wooded foothills
1 mountains
1 swamp
1 scrubland
3 badlands
3 plateu
1 strip mine
2 wasteland

4 chrome mox is a little greedy, but I'll have both legionnaire and hide / seek as good cards to imprint. I can now deal with enchantments and artifacts at instant speed and board in additional artifact hate (goblin vandal, the 4th needle and possibly rack and ruin) when needed. Against aggro, I'll drop duress for jitte and probably the fourth legionnaire and thereby avoid loosing my first land to waste (the maindeck wants t1 badlands, while I can go for t1 mountain when I no longer want first turn discard).

If you have any input, I'd be grateful (195 views so far and no feedback is a little disappointing). If not, I'll continue testing and tweaking regardless.

[vassago]

Where's your warren instigator?   

[BruiZar]

I'm not sure if this is the right direction to take this deck. Earwig Squad is very strong and so is Hide/Seek but it does put you on a lot of colors when you also play tin-street hooligan. I think I would rather run Lackeys and the more conventional Goblins over stuff like Goblin Vandal and Mogg Fanatic. Mogg Fanatic isn't going to give you card advantage. All it will ever do is kill a lone Dark Confidant or hose an Ichorid player. Also, Lightning Bolt has to go. Replace it for more threats. Also, shouldn't you atleast put in Piledriver? He's the fastest clock you can get and together with Earwig it really ups the must-deal-with threats. Also, I'd consider Stingscourger because its very strong even though it doesn't hit Sphinx of the Steel Wind or Inkwell Leviathan. You can still return Dark Confidant, Tarmogoyf or Welder for a turn and trample them or win time. If you want to replace your mogg fanatics, legionaires and lightning bolts I'd run Sharpshooter which also take care of everything mogg fanatic takes care of. Also, you need hasty goblins so either Warchief, or the other hasty goblin maker..

Toss in a playset of Null Rods because you need the time in this deck. Exchange the Chrome Moxen for that. This way you can either go T1 creature, T2 Earwig or T1 or T2 Null Rod. If you are still going for Umezawa's Jitte I would definately include Warren Instigator because of its double strike ability to quickly ramp up the counters on him. If you do this, include Chalice of the Void instead of null rod because A) You don't have to use your mana for other goblins, B) You can always drop chalice first turn after you put your own moxen into play. Just be sure you Needle/Hooligan their Time Vault. Simian Spirit Guide becomes alot better with Instigator



ps: Can you play kicker if you lackey out a card with kicker on it? If so, I would consider Goblin Ruinblaster from Zendikar to compliment your Wastelands.

Goblin Ruinblaster

Creature - Goblin Shaman   
Haste
Kicker -  
When Goblin Ruinblaster enters the battlefield, if it was kicked, destroy target nonbasic land.
2/1

I would cut white all together even though you lose Hide/Seek and Plowsharer. Edict and Earwig should be enough, you can't afford a 4 color mana base.

As for your sideboard, I would add more Ancient Grudge, especially if you're not running Null Rods (just destroying moxen is a good enough reason to run it, especially with wastelands.) Maybe even in the main but I'm not sure if there would be any room for it.

If you intend to stick with white I would also look at Mirror Entity.

[RecklessEmbermage]

Bruizar: Thanks for the ideas.

Kicker is paid when the spell is played, thus not working with lackeys.

I have played 4X eawigs in goblins, and it worked fine. Such a deck is full of creatures that needs to be dealt with or creates card-advantage, making earwig a piece of the creature-rush that just happens to win against combo decks.

I was trying for a different approach here though. I'm expecting oath to be big in my next summer tournament (we only play 2 a year where I live -it's a small place), and goblins cannot race oath unless they get a god-draw. Therefore I'm looking for a shell to combine earwig with disruption, protection and tutors to make it less of a long-shot to prowl it early enough to matter. So far I've tested it in RG beatz, which is powerful but too shaky for my taste (3 colors and the deck does not topdeck well) and I'm going to test the TMWA list you see there, as well as UB rogues (Force instead of shusher and rootwater thief to back up earwig).

These decks are all weak against aggro though, which is a very real concern in my meta, and I may go back to playing more traditional goblins, like you suggest, but with 6-7 duress effects main and 2-4 shushers between main and side. The idea of equipping instigator with jitte is certainly a compelling reason to do so. If I do, I'd still play chrome moxen and pithing needles rather than rods. Reason being that goblins want acceleration over many turns (rather than, say, dark ritual) and my meta is non-proxy and practically non-power, making null rod less important.

For such a deck, I'd start with something like this:

4 goblin lackey
4 warren instigator
4 goblin piledriver
3 goblin recruiter
3 goblin warchief
4 goblin ringleader
4 earwig squad

4 chrome mox
2 pithing needle

4 thoughtseize
2 duress
2 warren weirding
1 demonic consultation
1 demonic tutor

4 bloodstained mire
2 wooded foothills
2 badlands
2 sulfurous springs
2 mountain
2 swamp
3 wasteland
1 strip mine

SB:

1 duress
2 umezawa's jitte
1 goblin sharpshooter
2 extirpate
1 pithing needle
2 ingot chewer
2 rack and ruin
1 warren weirding
3 vexing shusher

Some of my choices (like very little ichorid hate and no power) being related to the nature of my metagame, of course.

On a completely different note: Warren instigator makes goblin king better than it has been. Do you think monored goblins with kings and magi of the moon may be worth a shot?

[the boogie man]

I think that skirk prospector is better than a lot of people are giving it credit for. played on the first turn it attacks and accellerates out squad turn 2. could be sweet.

[Darkenslight]

I wonder how useful Tarfire is in enabling Earwig Squad.  It takes the place of Fanatic, and you can always aim it at your own creatures if necessary.  Only problem I see is that it can't beat each turn.

[MirariKnight]

That would be really useful but unfortunately prowl says combat damage.

[BruiZar]

Btw, I just noticed this cool synergy between Goblin Matron and Warren Instigator. When you attack you can tutor up a goblin with Matron, then in the second attack you can actually put that goblin into play. Thats pretty awesome right? You could tutor up kiki jiki and copy matron and tutor another card, or tutor up earwig and prowl him, or tutor up Siege Gang commander and explode the battlefield with goblins. Anyone of you guys have any cool, more win now kind of applications for Interregator+Matron?

[RecklessEmbermage]

I think that skirk prospector is better than a lot of people are giving it credit for. played on the first turn it attacks and accellerates out squad turn 2. could be sweet.

Additionally, it can pay for the activation cost on vexing shusher and red blasts from the side.

Take a look at this list. Maindeck is all about prowling earwig squad, but after sideboarding, the deck can beat most aggro decks. Particularly red aggro decks:

4 Goblin Lackey
3 Skirk Prospector
4 Warren Instigator
3 Vexing Shusher
3 Goblin recruiter
1 Goblin Warchief
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Goblin Ringleader
4 Earwig Squad

3 null rod

2 Duress
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
1 Demonic Consultation
2 Warren Weirding

4 Simian Spirit Guide

4 bloodstained mire
2 wooded foothills
2 badlands
2 sulfurous springs
3 mountain
2 swamp
4 wasteland
1 strip mine

Sideboard:

Aggro: Cut 6x discard and 3 rods and add:
2 Goblin Warchief
2 Goblin King
3 Goblin Ringleader
2 Siege-Gang Commander

Blue decks:
1 null rod
3 pyroblast

Trouble Permanents:
2 Gate to Phyrexia

Goblin matron with instigator is very strong. Still, I'm inclined to run recruiter, since it plays nicer with earwig if lackey isn't online.

With 8 lackeys, evasion becomes that much stronger. I think goblin king is going to see wider use in goblin decks. It obviously combines rather well with double-striking creatures too.

This kind of sideboarding can only be done where ichorid is not an issue and "workshop decks" is a favorable match-up. In my meta, both bazaar and workshop are too expensive to see play (we don't allow proxies) and combo/control is slower than in powered metas. Hence, artifact-destruction and graveyard hate is less crucial.

[BruiZar]

I like where this is going. I agree with Skirk Prospector, its a very versatile piece of acceleration

[Beralt]

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=27686

Here is a base list played at Norweigan Nationals for reference.

I like the Warren Wierdings- great alternative to Diabolic Edict vs the omnipresent Darksteel/Inkwell.  Thorn in the sideboard is intriguing, I would add Demonic Tutor if your going to go black and possibly cut the Shushers, they seem slow - Instigator is going to be the bomb.

Plenty of other Earwig Goblin decks are listed here from Vintage, many have great ideas:

http://www.deckcheck.net/find.php