Goblins in the current metagame

[Bongo]

With the metagame slowing down with the latest restrictions, I think it's a good time to play Goblins again. It crushes Fish, has a good Workshop matchup and can fight Drains with the right tools.
Although it may seem like a simple deck, I think there are quite a few intricacies in building Goblins.
There are three big questions:


1. Which disruption piece is the best? Chalice, Thorn of Amethyst, Blasts maindeck, Leyline of the Void or Null Rod?

2. How many disruption slots do you use? What is the minimum amount of Goblins needed?

3. Splash black or no? If so, what do you splash? Black sideboard cards?


The current build I'm tinkering with:

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Stingscourger
1 Warren Weirding
1 Earwig Squad
1 Goblin Tinkerer

4 Aether Vial
4 Chalice of the Void

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mana Crypt

4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
5 Mountain
3 Badlands
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire


Sideboard:

4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Thoughtseize
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Leyline of the Void

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

I would strongly suggest 4x earwig squad, if it gets prowled, it beats a lot of the tier 1 decks.

[MrJolly]

1. Which disruption piece is the best? Chalice, Thorn of Amethyst, Blasts maindeck, Leyline of the Void or Null Rod?

I use Null Rod main, and Thorns in the sideboard.

3. Splash black or no? If so, what do you splash? Black sideboard cards?

I do for 4 Earwig Squad main and 3 Extirpate in the sideboard.

Here's my current list:

4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Earwig Squad
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Null Rod
2 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Stingscourger
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lotus Petal
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Badlands
6 Mountain
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

Sideboard
4 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Extirpate
3 Smash to Smithereens
2 Pyrostatic Pillar
1 Shattering Spree
1 Goblin Welder
1 Gaea's Blessing

[waywreth]

Ron -
What's your anti-ichorid plan?  I see the extripates and they could be useful, but overall, it looks to be a tough matchup.  Since you do play black have you thought about using Leyline in the board?

[credmond]

It might have enough ichorid hate as is. 5 wastes (hitting bazaar), 4 mogg fanatics (hit bridges and cabal therapy fuel), 3 earwigs (hit dread return), and 4 thorns (hitting any hate spells that ichorid brings in) and extirpates (to further target bridges, cabal therapies, and dread returns) may be enough to make it a match tilted in goblins favor. Keeping ichorid off bridges will be key in the matchup and mulliganing to hands that slow the ichorid player down (thorns, fanatics, extirpates, or wastes in them) instead of trying to just aggro race will also be key.

The problem with Leyline is that you don't pack the counterspells to fight the 10 or so countermeasures ichorid brings in to fight that card. If you test and you find that you still don't have enough ichorid counter-measures I would look into pithing needle and yixlid jailer before leyline.

[Lurker101]

Creatures:28
2 Goblin Recruiter
2 Goblin Welder
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Lackey
2 Goblin Matron
1 Stingscouger
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Earwig Squad
Non-Mana Artifacts: 8
4 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Aether Vial
Other:4
4 Leyline of the Void
Mana: 20
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox ruby
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
10 Mountain
4 Wasteland
1 Stripmine

Sideboard:15
2 Magus of the Moon
4 REB
4 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Warren Weirding

I find this build to be more disruption heavy.

[MrJolly]

The times I've faced Ichorid in tournaments, it's been pretty easy beating Ichorid. Maindeck, I have 4 Wastelands and 1 Strip Mine to deal with Bazaar. 4 Fanatics to deal with Bridges, and Earwig Squads to clean up whatever, as long as I get it early enough. The Extripates are just an added help against it.

[Dante]

Just to note that Goblins recently split for 1st in a 315 person tournament in Italy.

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=36116.msg508183;boardseen#new

[Soon-Man]

Rite of Flame seems like a natural fit for this deck. Has anyone tested it out in Vintage?

[kicks_422]

Why? You have so many accelerants available in Vintage, all of which are better than Rite of Flame. Outside of Lotus and Moxen, you have Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Lotus Petal, SSG's, etc.

[Soon-Man]

I'm not saying you take out Mox/Lotus. But artifacts that only make colorless don't let you cast your spells first turn. rite of flame with a mox gets Warchief out turn 1.

[eightywpm]

So does SSG and in the mid/late game it doubles as a 2/2 beater.

[Bongo]

Just to note that Goblins recently split for 1st in a 315 person tournament in Italy.

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=36116.msg508183;boardseen#new

No disrespect to the Goblin player (he must have been a good player), but that list seems terrible. No disruption besides the Wasteland package? Archaeologist main? Festering Goblin and Clickslither in the board?

@MrJolly: What was the reason you chose Null Rod (and no Vial?)

[wiley]

No disrespect to the Goblin player (he must have been a good player), but that list seems terrible. No disruption besides the Wasteland package? Archaeologist main? Festering Goblin and Clickslither in the board?

Before ridiculing it you might want to remember that the field was expected to be flooded with fish.  They would take care of combo, hence no/little disruption needed (remember that he does run 1 earwig squad in main 3 in side and 4 extirpates), and the deck needed to have as many combat tricks as possible (burrows, shooter, clickslither, fester etc.).  The archeologist and vandal are both tutorable, the former can help against robots far more than the latter.

Honestly I like that build a lot.  I wouldn't run it in a US meta but for European metas it looks very solid.  Try to look at the larger picture before saying a deck is good/sucks, it helps in more ways than one.

[LordHomerCat]

No disrespect to the Goblin player (he must have been a good player), but that list seems terrible. No disruption besides the Wasteland package? Archaeologist main? Festering Goblin and Clickslither in the board?

Before ridiculing it you might want to remember that the field was expected to be flooded with fish.  They would take care of combo, hence no/little disruption needed (remember that he does run 1 earwig squad in main 3 in side and 4 extirpates), and the deck needed to have as many combat tricks as possible (burrows, shooter, clickslither, fester etc.).  The archeologist and vandal are both tutorable, the former can help against robots far more than the latter.

Honestly I like that build a lot.  I wouldn't run it in a US meta but for European metas it looks very solid.  Try to look at the larger picture before saying a deck is good/sucks, it helps in more ways than one.

Agreed.  The european Meta is a lot different and in that big of a tournament, you can expect to play more than a couple creature decks.  Also, in another thread, someone mentioned that he faced Fish like 5 or 6 times on the day.

[Bongo]

I don't think you need fancy stuff like Goblin Burrows and Festering Goblin against Fish, as Goblins has a really good matchup against it anyway.
You say that in a "fishy" metagame you don't need disruption (because Fish takes care of Combo), but there is a pretty big chance that you don't face Fish every round. Without disruption, you're going to have a hard time against every other deck.

The coin-flipping nature of Archaeologist is also something which can bite you in the ass. I would rather play Goblin Tinkerer, Welder or Stingscourger against Robots. Only 3 Vials also makes me skeptical, since it's one of the best cards in the deck.

[wiley]

It isn't like he has 0 protection vs combo, that lone jester's capping squad that can be tutored and played on the second turn (lackey -> matron/ringleader, squad) can destroy a lot of combo decks and even if it doesn't it should throw enough of a wrench into the works to buy some time.  What other decks does he need a super amount of disruption for?  With painter he can vial in a stingscourger in response to the stone activation.  Against bomberman he has sideboard extirpates and more earwig squads, without the combo he should win in a ground game (thanks to his copious amounts of combat tricks).  I doubt he prepped for leyline/helm combo and I'm blanking on any other kinds of combo that are actually played.

The tournament was supposed to be overwhelmed with fish, so unless you got paired against storm withing the first 2 rounds you had a good chance of never seeing it the rest of the day.  He probably went a little overboard on the combat tricks, but that just shows metagaming.  I could only see two reasons for the archeologist over tinkerer (he has scourger and welder isn't as useful in situations where you want plain old destruction), 1) he didn't have any tinkerers around or 2) he wanted the chance of a reusable effect (remember that vandal would be eating everything except robots).  Whichever it is I would personally prefer tinkerer as well, even though it would only take out one robot.

The number on vial is questionable, however I have never run into serious problem by only running 3.

[Bongo]

Let's focus on building a Goblin list for a more diverse metagame. Clickslither, Festering Goblin and Goblin Archaeologist may have been right for that particular tournament, but I don't think we should take that list as the new standard.

The current build I'm tinkering with:

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Stingscourger
1 Warren Weirding
4 Earwig Squad

4 Aether Vial
4 Chalice of the Void

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mana Crypt

4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
3 Mountain
3 Badlands
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire


Sideboard:

4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Extirpate
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyroblast
1 Goblin Welder
1 Goblin Vandal
1 Goblin Tinkerer
1 Gaea's Blessing


Earwig Squad has been very good so I upped it to the full four copies. The two utility slots I'm not so sure about, for now I like Stingscourger and Warren Weirding, as they allow you to handle DSC and other fatties (which is one of the deck's weakness) more or less effectively. Stingscourger has the advantage that it can't be countered when Vialed in, while Weirding allows you to kill the creature in case your opponent is able to recast the threat. It's also nice to improve Piledriver damage when cast on your own Goblins.
Or is there a better Goblin for those utility slots?

The 3 artifact destroying Goblins are boarded in against Workshop, I feel like my Game 1 matchup is good enough that I don't need one of those maindeck.
Another big question: Are 22 Mana-Sources enough?

[kicks_422]

Is Vial still a good card in Vintage Goblins? It seems too slow... Or has the format slowed down for Goblins to accommodate it again? I agree that if you're going to run Vial, running Waste/Strip maximizes it.

Leyline of the Void isn't MD material anymore, probably replaced by Chalice of the Void.

[Noah_33]

I find Vial way to slow in the environment these days. I've had a lot of success with Goblins in Vintage and strongly suggest playing Null Rod main deck as it single handly owns sooo many decks. Here is my team's current list:

Team Supreme Goblins

4 Badlands
2 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

1 Stingscourger
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
2 Skirk Prospector
3 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Earwig Squad

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Ruby
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
3 Null Rod
2 Thoughtseize
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk


Sideboard:

4 Shattering Spree
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Planorvoid/Extirpate
1 Thoughtseize
1 Gempalm Incinerator

[kicks_422]

What's your gameplan against Oath? If they get it out early, it would be such an uphill climb, especially the Akroma +  Hellkite versions. Relying on Earwig Squad isn't such a good plan.

Splash green for Krosan Grips out of the SB?

[Bongo]

Is Vial still a good card in Vintage Goblins? It seems too slow... Or has the format slowed down for Goblins to accommodate it again?

I think Vial is still a key card for Goblins. It's what gives you the edge against Drains and Workshops while also being good against Fish. Null Rod improves the combo matchup, but a competent pilot can play around it anyway. Sometimes Null Rod also comes down too late.
If combo is popular, I would play a different deck. If Drains and Shops are abundant, I'd go with the Vial/Chalice package.

[kicks_422]

Another point to discuss, I think.. Is Ringleader really worth it? Especially in builds packing Waste/Strip, It's really difficult to ramp up to 4 mana to cast this guy. Sure, it's sometimes a Recall with a 2/2 body attached, but there are times when it just sits there in your hand helpless. Upping Vial to 4 also cuts it off from non-Ringleader Goblins. I wonder if it could be replaced by the much easier to cast Goblin Recruiter, since most of the time, when casting Ringleader, I hope to draw some specific Goblin with it.

[KingHeavy]

What about something like...


4 thorn of amethyst (or Chalice or Null Rod, tough choice)
1 Lotus
1 L. Petal
1 mox ruby
1 mox jet
3 faerie macabre
2 prickly boggart
4 nightshade stinger
4 frogtosser banneret
4 boggart harbinger
4 earwig squad
1 yawgmoth's will
1 Demonic tutor
1 vampiric tutor
1 imperial seal
3 dark ritual
4 street wraith
3 night's whisper
1 strip mine
4 wasteland
2 ghost quarter
4 bloodstained mire
4 badlands
2 swamp

more of a monoblack rogue deck focused on the earwigs to pick any deck apart.  the bannarets are great and shoul be put in B/R goblin decks any ways. the harbinger is great with the street wraiths and whisper's, more land control with ghost quarter, and reusable earwigs with Yawg's will, plus dark rituals and black tutors for concistency. macabres main for dredge and flying rogues for aggro mirrors.  Easy first or second turn prowled earwigs.  Possible?

I considered a B/R build with SSGs and manamorphose, piledrivers, matrons, and such, but I like innovation as well. or even a B/U build to support all dat blue cheese!

Le'me kno!

[nero angelo]

My current list:

4 Earwig Squad (Last I heard, prevention is BETTER than cure. Plus, it nets that Engineered Plague... ^^)
4 Mogg Fanatic (Still kills Welders and Confidants.)
4 Goblin Lackey (Still works wonders)
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader (Someone said the meta was warped into slow-pace. Rushing them w/ overwhelming critters would be a so-wise choice)

4 Goblin Matron
3 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Warren Wierding (So we can remove some random fattie GAME 1)
1 Stingscourger (Colossus, Platinum, upcoming Hellkite Overlord)
1 Vexing Shusher (Makes other spells un-DRAINable.)
4 Goblin Piledriver
1 Wort, Boggard Auntie (Need that goblin back?)
1 Goblin Sharpshooter

4 Aether Vial (Free Gobs. Who doesn't want them? Your opponent...)
1 Lotus Petal
1 Sol Ring (After all these times, I still can't find a low priced Mana Crypt.)

4 Wasteland (I run full compliment because I have Maindeck Vials. ^^ )
1 Stripmine (You can't go wrong...)
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Badlands
5 Mountain

Sideboard:

2 Pyrostatic Pillar
4 Leyline of the Void (Last I heard, they still stop/slow Ichorid, Bomberman, Storm (Yawg Will?), Staxx (Weld in and out?)...)
4 Greater Gargadon (Oath. Damn Oath.)
2 Warren Wierding (Extra removal.. Oath. Damn Oath.)
2 Extirpate
1 Gaea's Blessing (Is this really necessary? I mean, we can cycle a 1/3 creature early on, right?)


I know, manabase is low. But I got Vials. In a number of test matches, it is very rare to get mana-screw. ^^

The key is right Fetching. You should not Fetch a non-basic unless you need to. ^^



Considered SB:

REB's and Family - Painters. Fish... Bomberman and to some extent, Control Slaver.
Null Rod - Kills metals. And the format is pouring with them. But, has a very bad synergy w/ Vials.
Thorn of Amethyst - Works wonders. ^^


Not-So-Considered SB:

Chalice of the Void - Though we have Vials, investing mana for Chalice for 1 and up isn't that good, since we are blowing up some of their lands (Wastes, Strips). I rather cast a Lackey/Piledriver, than invest mana for Chalice @ 1.
Goblin King - This is not legacy.


So there. Quite outdated though. I still doesn't have POWER.

[kicks_422]

Not-So-Considered SB:

Chalice of the Void - Though we have Vials, investing mana for Chalice for 1 and up isn't that good, since we are blowing up some of their lands (Wastes, Strips). I rather cast a Lackey/Piledriver, than invest mana for Chalice @ 1.

The point of Chalice is for Chalice at 0, to compliment the Waste/Strip package in mana denial, coupled with Vial to keep tempo while using your own land drops to kill theirs.

[nero angelo]

^

Hmm, but I think, that was overkill. Ofcourse, once again, I am biased because I haven't tried it yet.

We have alternate disruptions on decks that uses Moxens and Lotus.

Storm - Extirpate, Earwig Squad, Leyline of the Void, Pyrostatic Pillar... To some extent, damage done by our critters will put them into "red zone" where they could not optimize using more Necropotence, Bargains and Tutors (exception: Demonic)

Bomberman - Extirpate, Leyline of the Void, Pyrostatic Pillar, Warren Wierding/Gempalm Incinerator to kill Auriok, Vexing Shusher (kills DRAIN power. )

Control Slaver - Mogg Fanatic, Gempalm Incinerator, Warren Wierding, Leyline of the Void, Extirpate, Vexing Shusher once again.

Oath - Hard matchup even w/o Power cards. But we have: Warren Wierding, Greater Gargadon. ^^

Fish - Hardly uses 3+ mana producing power. We can beat them using swarms.

Stax - We have, swarm. Lackey. But if they show up once again, artifact removals is a must. Again... ^^

[2ndMain]

Has anyone considered working Goblin Assault into their deck?

Goblin Assault

Enchantment
At the beginning of your upkeep, put a 1/1 red Goblin creature token with haste into play.
Goblin creatures attack each turn if able.

This seems like it could be pretty good if your already planning on running Sharpshooter.

[nero angelo]

Want to try, but:

Casting cost is NOT reduced by Warchief.

Not fetchable by Matron.

Un-drawable (lol) by Ringleader.

Forces Goblins into suicide attacks



Pros:

Good against Staxx, which we are already good at.

Good against Fish, which we are already good at.

Good against Ichorid, which we are already good at.