OK, so it has been a few months since we spoke of my personal favorite card ever: Goblin Welder. While I didn't want to start a new thread since there is still one floating around I figured this was better than necroing a three month old thread. This question was raised: is Welder is a proper fit for the current meta? Well I can give you guys a very resounding... Maybe. I know that's not the clarification we are all looking for, but if you can sit through this wall of text I promise at the end of it you will have a better understanding as to what's the right call for you in your particular meta.
Even though this isn't a primer, or even an article, I'd like to give you a little bit of insight into who I am and why you should have any reason to listen to me!
My name is JP Kohler. I have been an addict er... Magic player for about 12 years. Never really played seriously until 2005. In the past 6 years I have made top 8's, won events, scrubbed out of events and so forth just like most Magic players. Recently, after coming back to the game from a 5 month hiatus, I caught back up with my good friend Nick Detwiler and he shipped me a new Shop list. Boy was I excited, there it was, like my Red Rider BB gun - 4 Goblin Welders. Oh man, I thought, this is it, Welder is back and better then ever (not to be confused with the Hess truck). So i started playing with this list and I was impressed. For the list in question you guys can look at the top 8 results of Nick's last NYSE, posted here:
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=42992.0 Welder was a house in so many matchups. Welder negates some of the biggest threats (in no particular order) that come your way as a Shop pilot;
1. Tinker - While Metamorph has made Tinker bots a ton less scary, Goblin Welder just shuts off Tinker. What are the two most common Tinker targets in Vintage right now?
Blightsteel and Vault. Neither of those routes can be a viable one with Welder in play.
2. Force of Wil l- Early Force of Wills against Prison Shop decks can be crippling to one of your main threats. Sure, Sphere density is great, but if your opponent is able to Force a crucial card in the early game then Spheres can be fought through. Welder makes your opponents Force of Will a card that reads pitch 2 cards, destroy a Mox.
3. Ancient Grudge - This has become the blue pilots go to spell, a three mana two for one that can be used at different times. Again, Welder shines here. The tricks you can do to force Grudges to fizzle (or force the Grudge player to use both ends of it to remove only a single target for a single turn) are just part of why Welder is so good.
We can find plenty more reasons why Welder is good on our own side of the board as well. I'm not going to list everything here but a few of the neatest Welder tricks in Shop decks will involve;
1. Smokestack- If your opponent ever wants a relevent artifact to hit the board for the rest of the game he has to start sacrificing creatures or lands to your Stack. The first time he sacrifices a Mox to Smokestack, his Vault, his Key, his Blightsteel, anything is in the yard, and he has a Mox back.
2. Karn - Ever eat your opponent's entire board of Moxes with Karn? Ever then weld in one of those Moxes for his bomb on the table? For those fortunate enough to say yes, you can all vouch that it's an amazing feeling.
3. Expedition Map- Yea I said it. People are going to call me crazy, hell a good friend of mine was playing this list and when he got Duressed his opponent laughed at him when he saw the Map. I know you guys think the card has no place, but when you drop a Map and either start a Strip lock or snag your one of Bazaar and start the graveyard tricks, I promise you, your opponent will think twice about your Maps.
I could list so many more uses: re-using Black Lotus, recurring Tangle Wire and abusing Bazaar are a few. Welder has an amazing effect on the board and can really hit other opposing strategies hard with his functionality.
So with all this, what's the problem? Why isn't Welder a clear cut choice?
Well it's simple, When Welder is bad... Its awful.
If your meta is going to have really any of the TPS or Oath variants, you might as well just pack it in now. Welder is just awful in those matchups for you. I was playing Mono Red Shops in an event about eight months ago. I wasn't aware of what my opponent was on. I open with Workshop, Ruby, Thorn, Welder pass. Not the most busted Shop hand ever, but I have a Bazaar, a Karn and a Wasteland in hand. That's an amazing opener. Nothing is Forced and I'm looking good. My opponent opens with Tropical Island, Black Lotus, Oath of Druids.... Welder does not look nearly as good as he did before! Of course this is an extreme example, but if you're playing against Oath, you don't want to see Welders on your board or in your hand.
TPS - No matter the variant, TPS is an awful matchup for Welders. They do nothing, they're slow, and they bring you no closer to locking out your opponent or winning the game in the short time you have. Welder also cuts out one of your best options for fighting Storm; Chalice of the Void. You cannot effectively play both. Chalice on 1 is arguably the best play you have against them. This is why Espresso Stax punished TPS. 6 sphere effects with 4 Chalices in the main punished TPS. Losing 4 Chalices is abysmal to this matchup. I went 0-4 in 2 events vs Shawn Anthony on TPS. I lost to him in the swiss, then in the finals twice. They were the only losses I had in both events. Every single time I saw my little red friend, I wished it was a Chalice.
The good thing is TPS and Oath aren't too dominant in the meta at the moment. So Welder still looks like a big positive. If blue pilots think they can get away with 2-3 Grudges main, or 2-3 Trygons main, you can expect TPS to make a real big push again. TPS will punish blue players for their dead cards. If this becomes the case then blue pilots move those pieces of hate out of their main and we might just have to shelve our Welders and just go back to locking people out the old fashion way.
Another pro for Welder is it just flat out beats MUD. Dismember and Metamorph have helped fix that, but an uninhibited Welder just flat out beats that deck.
Dredge is also great, Welding out things to blow up bridges is always fun. I will say I have not got enough testing in with the current incarnations of Dredge and this current Welder deck to say how good the match is for you, but I can say eight pieces of hate doesn't hurt.
I don't want to start a debate that is going on in another thread, but as a quick aside here, even with Welders being as good as they are, I have a hard time not thinking that 5c Stax is just 100% dead.
All in all, I personally think that with the way we are seeing Gush decks evolve, that Goblin Welder is a great call for the current meta. If we start to see a resurgence in TPS, you will see Welder switch to being a much less valuable asset. Until then, sleeve those little red trouble makers up and have some fun!
Edited the title for punctuation, article for grammar - Prospero
