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I’m going to be judging in the standard portion of the Star City Games 10K weekend. This leaves me free to play in the 5K legacy tournament. Now I had consulted with some friends on what deck to play. Due to school and finals there was no way I could properly test a counter top deck or a threshold deck in time. As for combo, since those decks take a lot of practice to play as well as to build and sideboard, they also were dropped from consideration. As such I was left with aggro decks as my choices. I had been testing eva green for some time, but was told that it might not be the best deck for the tournament. So that left me with either zoo or goblins. I ended up choosing the latter as we lacked taigas and plateaus. The first choice I had was colors and I decided on mono red as I felt that with all the wastelands in the format, blanking 4 lands wouldn’t be a bad thing. It gives you few outs against certain situations as I soon learned.
The list I’ve been using is as follows
// Lands
18 [9E] Mountain (3)
4 [REW] Wasteland
// Creatures
4 [ON] Goblin Piledriver
1 [10E] Siege-Gang Commander
4 [AT] Goblin Matron
4 [AP] Goblin Ringleader
4 [SC] Goblin Warchief
4 [US] Goblin Lackey
1 [ON] Goblin Sharpshooter
4 [TSP] Mogg War Marshal
2 [ON] Skirk Prospector
2 [M10] Goblin Chieftain
4 [LE] Gempalm Incinerator
// Spells
4 [DS] AEther Vial
// Sideboard
SB: 2 [ON] Goblin Sharpshooter
SB: 2 [M10] Goblin Chieftain
SB: 3 [PLC] Stingscourger
SB: 4 [LRW] Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 1 [CH] Tormod’s Crypt
SB: 1 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 [10E] Goblin King
SB: 1 [SHM] Faerie Macabre
Only one siege gang as multiples clog your hand and if you don’t get up to five on vials or five mana you generally don’t get to play him. the prospector sharpshooter combo is here as it can upset games pretty quickly. My friend Nick was working on a land U/W/r landstill deck and we decided to do some testing. We played a 10 game set 5 pre board 5 post board. Here’s how they went.
I was on the play game 1. I open with goblin lackey, which he force of wills. Nick opens with Mishra’s factory which I wasteland. He then plays Plateau and I play another lackey which resolves. He does nothing other than play a land I when I attack with lackey, he fire’s it. I then play an Aether Vial, which resolves. Nick does nothing again and I play another vial. Nick then plays Humility to which I scoop.
0-1
Nick is on the play in this game, mulls to five and opens with engineered explosives for 1. I lead with lackey. Nick plays factory and blocks my lackey hit. I play mogg war marshal. I pay the echo and attack and the war marshal is blocked yielding me a goblin token. Nick then plays Elspeth making a soldier. I cast goblin matron getting gempalm incinerator. Several turns go by with me attacking the Elspeth. I eventuallt draw a second incinerator and clear a path for several goblins. Nick activates factory to block and my second incinerator kills it. A lightning helix buys him time, but soon ringleader along with a chieftain and piledriver finish him off.
1-1
Nick is on the play again and opens with ancestral visions. I lead off with prospector and then a vial. Nick then plays crucible of worlds while I add more goblins in the form of warchief and two piledrivers. However a string of removal takes them down and eventually elspeth comes down with both Nevinyrral’s Disk and academy ruins. When I put no pressure on Elspeth and its ultimate goes off, I scoop.
1-2
I’m on the play for this next game and I lead with lackey. Nick plays Enginereed Explosives for one and passes. I attack and drop in warchief. Nick plays Mishra’s factory. I wasteland it and he responds with the explosives. I drop piledriver and knock him to 14. He then fires my warchief and then drops jace. I drop another pile driver before he drops humility. I try to hang on, but his removal comes through and eventually it becomes clear that I won’t be able to deal him enough damage.
1-3
I start with a mull, but lead with lackey. Nick uses a tundra to suspend ancestral visions. I follow with wasteland and the attack brings in a warchief which brings in a piledriver. A flooded strand is nicks play, and when mogg war marshal comes down he realizes that he can’t kill everything and concedes.
2-3
My sideboarding consists of taking out the incinerators, the prospectors, and the sharpshooter for two chieftains, four thorn of Amethyst, and one goblin king.
Game one of post board, I win the roll and mull to two.
0-1
Game 2 Nick is on the play and leads with EE for 1 off of volcanic island. I wasteland his non-basic and he then drops an academy ruins. I drop lackey and war marshal in rapid succession. He has a factory and I have more guys. Then he drops Circle of Protection: red. The game went downhill from there. It wasn’t long before humility showed up and attacking became futile.
0-2
Nick leads with a fetch while I have turn 1 vial. I use it to get a piledriver into play. I then use it to drop in a chieftain but the piledriver is hit with a swords to plowshare before I can attack. I start to get a decent string of creatures into play, forcing his removal. I get him to twelve, but he cunning wishes for enlightened tutor which finds humility, and I lose.
0-3
I lead with a vial while Nick starts with a fetch. I play a lackey next turn to try and bait counter magic. He doesn’t bite. When I go to attack however, I fires it and I lose 1. I however drop wasteland and take out a plateau leaving him with an island. he plays a tundra and suspends ancestral visions. I wasteland the tundra and drop a warchief off of the vial. It gets in for two. Chieftain comes down of the vial and when ringleader comes down a turn later Nick scoops.
1-3
I lead with double Aether Vial, but he manages to get an early COP: red and I can’t fight through it. Eventually he firespouts everything and I can’t recover.
1-4
My total record 3-7. Not too good all things considered. Looking over the match-up, its about getting down an early vial and cards like thorn of Amethyst. If I can disrupt him early with the thorn and then get guys in away from counters, I can win, but the large amount of removal is a problem. If I don’t push fast, I can lose to humility. If I over commit, I lose to a wrath effect.
Despite this, I think I’m going to stick with goblins. Its a deck that I believe is good enough to do decently at a large event especially if no one has the sideboard hate. Nick was one of the designers of my version, so his sideboard is adjusted accordingly.
That’s all for now and remember, when in doubt give a shout.
Big fan of goblins. Have you tested warren instigator?
Hi this is Dan I am the writer of judge worthy on the Magic arena. I have tested warren instigator. He’s ok, but I’ve found him lack luster in my testing. Having more then 4 lackey effects begins to become tedious as you begin to hit a point in which you get hands with nothing but lackey effects which become problematic.
your artical was well written but i think you should have esplaned yourself more expeshally whith a lot of new players comming into the formate .for exzample why did you board in thorn of amerthist.
Hey Dan,
This is Tom from MTGCast and great article and glad to have you on the network!
If you would like an @mtgcast.com email address, just let me know by emailing me at pitimp@mtgcast.com!
Cheers
Tom
This is Nick, the guy Dan played. I’ll field the quick question on Thorn.
Thorn is a relative sideboard option in that it helps both your control and combo match-up. To be more specific, Thorn assists in beating decks that are forced to resolve 2 or more non-creature spells a turn which buys a goblin deck enough time to reach critical mass on their board. A typical control example would be Brainstorm finding Force of Will or Swords to Plowshares. An Ichorid example would be saccing a creature to flashback Cabal Therapy which in turn leads to tokens->sac tokens to flashback Dread Return. The comparable large increase in cost to resolve spells results in a large amount of gained tempo. As well, Thorn assists in the light LD plan in Dan’s deck since Wasteland + Thorn leads to a soft lock against multi-colored decks that are drawing land light.
As a side-note for all of these games, the pre-board games were played assuming we had no idea what we were playing against. In other words, we were not mulliganing for specific strategies.