Goblins
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The core idea here is that Welder is tolerably good right now and so are Sulfur Elemental and Jester's Cap effects. We're presumably looking at a Mentor and combo meta. To deal with turn 1 kills, you need blue. To deal with Mentor, you need red and/or fast kills. Lackey is not good right now: you can't rely on a 1/1 connecting and running enough removal to change that risks having a bunch of dead cards against combo. So we're going to run strong effects like Tinker, Trinisphere, and blue draw. To deal with the gaping weakness to aggro Shops, we're going to maindeck Rakdos Charm and Dack. This has the side-effect of giving us a solid game one against Dredge.
Goblin core:
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Earwig Squad
1 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
2 Goblin WelderDisruption:
4 Rakdos Charm
2 Dack Fayden
1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Goblin SharpshooterGood cards:
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Time Walk
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Tinker
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Trinisphere
1 Wurmcoil EngineMana Base:
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Mountain
3 Badlands
3 Volcanic Island
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Strip MineSideboard
1 Dack Fayden
1 Shattering Spree
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Null Rod
2 Mindbreak Trap
4 Mental Misstep
2 Pyroblast
2 Illness in the RanksThis has done reasonably well, but not great, on Cockatrice. Game one people tend to be caught very off-guard by Goblins casting Ancestral Recall or Dack Fayden. Post-sb, there's a lot of removal and Lackey is not a good card. Earwig has unsurprisingly overperformed. It's plausible that something like Control Slaver with a random Earwig Squad would be a superior variation on this. Alternatively, this might be entirely the wrong route to try as 5C Shops can support both Welder and Cap alongside a better aggro clock already.
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@socialite The OP in that thread has made clear that he doesn't want the color blue in his deck. The thread isn't about finding the best deck that runs Goblin Lackey, it's about the OP's aesthetics.
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After some testing against @Stormanimagus and others, I've updated the list a bit:
Goblin core:
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Earwig Squad
1 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
3 Goblin WelderDisruption:
3 Dack Fayden
1 Illness in the Ranks
1 Stingscourger
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 TrinisphereGood cards:
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Time Walk
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Tinker
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 MindslaverMana Base:
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Mountain
3 Badlands
3 Volcanic Island
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Strip MineSideboard
1 Dack Fayden
1 Shattering Spree
1 Grafdigger's Cage
4 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Mental Misstep
2 Pyroblast
1 Mad Auntie
1 Surgical ExtractionI'm still not a huge fan of the sb. The main deck has overperformed all night. Welder + Trini/Wurmcoil/Slaver has been an all-star winning games I had no business winning. 3x Dack is as good against shops as you'd expect. Dark-Dwellers have also outperformed expectations. Earwig Squad is as good as I remember it being. More than anything else, this deck makes sequencing difficult for an opponent and it always has many different lines of attack.
Thirst for Knowledge just costs too much for the deck, so it was cut for another Dack who just does way more and keeps doing it.
Illness attacks from a different angle since people tend to bring in all of their critter removal against Goblins.
Rakdos Charm looks better than it is. RB is a bear to get with 4x Cavern in your manabase. I might be messing up not including ONE in the sideboard. It had no business being 4x main. Nihil Spellbomb also interacts better with Welder.
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@AmbivalentDuck said:
The core idea here is that Welder is tolerably good right now and so are Sulfur Elemental and Jester's Cap effects. We're presumably looking at a Mentor and combo meta. To deal with turn 1 kills, you need blue. To deal with Mentor, you need red and/or fast kills. Lackey is not good right now: you can't rely on a 1/1 connecting and running enough removal to change that risks having a bunch of dead cards against combo. So we're going to run strong effects like Tinker, Trinisphere, and blue draw. To deal with the gaping weakness to aggro Shops, we're going to maindeck Rakdos Charm and Dack. This has the side-effect of giving us a solid game one against Dredge.
Goblin core:
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Earwig Squad
1 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
2 Goblin WelderDisruption:
4 Rakdos Charm
2 Dack Fayden
1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Goblin SharpshooterGood cards:
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Time Walk
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Tinker
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Trinisphere
1 Wurmcoil EngineMana Base:
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Mountain
3 Badlands
3 Volcanic Island
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Strip MineSideboard
1 Dack Fayden
1 Shattering Spree
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Null Rod
2 Mindbreak Trap
4 Mental Misstep
2 Pyroblast
2 Illness in the RanksThis has done reasonably well, but not great, on Cockatrice. Game one people tend to be caught very off-guard by Goblins casting Ancestral Recall or Dack Fayden. Post-sb, there's a lot of removal and Lackey is not a good card. Earwig has unsurprisingly overperformed. It's plausible that something like Control Slaver with a random Earwig Squad would be a superior variation on this. Alternatively, this might be entirely the wrong route to try as 5C Shops can support both Welder and Cap alongside a better aggro clock already.
You claim that you need Blue in order to deal with turn one kills, but all of your answers to turn one kills are in your board AND do not require Blue Mana. Sure broken cards are broken, sure Dack Fayden is a nightmare for workshops, my deck attacks on a different angle against Shops. I still fail to see the NEED for Blue even after reading this entire topic you posted. If you don't like my list, fine, but don't claim that you NEED Blue to deal with turn one kills and then play Misstep and Mindbreak Trap as your answers AND only have them in your board.
I believe in my testing I have only lost to Storm once and it was he out drew me, sure it happens its Vintage. I'm not claiming wither list is better I'm just stating that I still don't see the need to play all these robust cards in a Goblin deck. -
@msg67183 The point of his post was to justify making a separate thread from yours because you didn't want to add Blue and he did. He wasn't putting you down.
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@DeaTh-ShiNoBi said:
@msg67183 The point of his post was to justify making a separate thread from yours because you didn't want to add Blue and he did. He wasn't putting you down.
People often make threads for things like a green splash in Mentor Gush. And those disagreements are pretty parallel to this one. Sylvan Library genuinely does take that deck in a different direction.
@msg67183 said:
You claim that you need Blue in order to deal with turn one kills, but all of your answers to turn one kills are in your board AND do not require Blue Mana.
And that's a fair point. Blue went in for restricted cards, Spell Pierces, and Dacks, but the Spell Pierces didn't quite make it to the current version. Dack has definitely overperformed for me, though.
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I've made a few updates. This is now essentially 5C Goblins, which turns out not to be as painful as it sounds. Matchups are respectable across the board right now. The win rate is probably inflated by the fact that nobody really knows how to play against this deck.
Goblins:
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Earwig Squad
1 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Goblin Dark-DwellersDisruption and Engine:
3 Goblin Welder
3 Dack Fayden
1 Illness in the Ranks
1 Stingscourger
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Trinisphere
1 Ancient GrudgeSearch and Good Stuff:
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 MindslaverMana:
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Mountain
2 Badlands
2 Volcanic Island
3 Mana Confluence
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Scalding TarnSideboard
1 Shattering Spree
1 Tin-Street Hooligan
4 Mental Misstep
1 Mad Auntie
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Sulfur Elemental
2 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Containment Priest
2 Thalia, Guardian of ThrabenMain notes... Earwig Squad continues to be the card you play Gobs for. Welder decreases the opportunity cost of having to run a bunch of sub-Mentor cards. The Welder package is pretty solid, though I continue to second-guess the maindeck Wurmcoil. Just a reminder that Tin-Street is better-supported than it looks since Cavern can make the green for it. This is certainly better than the other Grixis decks I've played around with, but I'm not sure if this is something that should see significant play in the meta.
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@AmbivalentDuck this deck looks awesome.
i'm still losing to turn 1 lackey every game, not much changed in 10 years
still trolling, just on youtube instead of the mana drain.
youtube.com/bocenterprises -
@Juggernaut-GO Thanks!
Turn 1 Lackey with removal to back it up is still a pretty good play. It's not what it was, though. -
On a tip from @Topical_Island, I tested out Chains of Mephistopheles. I quickly rediscovered something I'd forgotten: Chains has an amazing synergy with Dack.
Maindeck:
-1 Ancient Grudge
+1 Tin Street Hooligan
-1 Illness in the Ranks
+1 Chains of MephistophelesSB:
-1 Tin Street Hooligan
+1 Ancient Grudge
-2 Thalia
+1 Chains of Mephistopheles
+1 Thorn of Amethyst
-1 Mad Auntie
+1 Sudden Shock -
@AmbivalentDuck Yeah. I just put Chains in my Oath sideboard. I play a nightly grudge-match against my wife's Gush Mentor build, and sufficed to say, I am not doing the dishes tonight. Chains alone just destroys Gush, especially Sylvan Gush which hers is. Any people who think Gush should be restricted, who are not running something with this thing at least in their sideboard... well... guys, you have not lived.
(Yeah, Dacking your opponent with Chains in play for basically a Mindtwist every turn... feels dirty in the best way. I actually think this could be the new Notion Thief/Dack combo, since its much cheaper mana-wise.)
Brian Kelly Freudian self-analysis of the day:
I like to express the id that a player would feel without the superego of being like, "oh you have to be nice." -
Yeah, I've been doing WAY better against Mentor since adding Chains. From online testing, the matchup looks markedly better than 50/50. I still attribute a lot of that to people being very confused when turn 1 Volcanic, Welder turns into turn 2 Earwig Squad. I can definitely say that aggro-slaver is no joke, though. I'm actually starting to favor cutting Wurmcoil in favor of another Chains. I want a better Welder package in general, though.
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@AmbivalentDuck I've settled on 2 Chains in the board now. 3 seemed like too many. But one wasn't enough. Just like that nail-biter about those bears... 2 seems juuuuussssst right.
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Chains definitely shreds Sylvan Mentor, though. Unless they have Force, they're toast. And you have plenty of other threats to pull their countermagic with. The only problem is that they can Dack you back, but you have Welders and they don't.
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@AmbivalentDuck That is a problem. Most of my kills are small permanents though. I've already won through Dack, since if I draw an Oath and play it. I likely win? The game I won was just a hardcast Sphinx of the Steel win.
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I'm starting to consider Sundering Titan, Sphinx of the Steel Wind, or Nullstone Gargoyle. I'm not sure Wurmcoil is ever really all that great outside the mid-range aggro-control matchup.
Goblins:
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Earwig Squad
1 Gempalm IncineratorDisruption and Engine:
3 Goblin Welder
3 Dack Fayden
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Trinisphere
2 Chains of MephistophelesSearch and Good Stuff:
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 MindslaverMana:
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Badlands
2 Volcanic Island
4 Mana Confluence
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Scalding TarnSideboard
2 Dread of Night (Experienced opponents will board in their Containment Priests)
2 Shattering Spree
4 Mental Misstep
1 Tormod's Crypt
3 Containment Priest
2 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben -
@AmbivalentDuck it's a minor point, but remember that the Sylvan Library is optional, if you play a Chains of Mephistopheles, it just cancels out the Library, it doesn't force them to lose their hand or pay 8 life or anything
That doesn't mean the card is irrelevant - it's just not any BETTER against Sylvan Library than it is against any other draw spell
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@Brass-Man Sylvan tends to be run in place of Sensei's Diving Top. SDT still enables some selection under Chains while Sylvan does not. In addition, Brainstorm-like effects are worse than Preordain and Ponder-like effects since they net negative CA. Even Gush still allows card selection.
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@AmbivalentDuck That maindeck is 59 cards, what are you missing?
Any chance you could give a super high level of how you sideboard with this?
I'm a little confused about your Dread of Night comment. If Containment Priest is a problem, is 2 Dread of Night going to be helpful? There's no way you can consistently play 2 of them before Containment Priest would stop an Lackey or surprise-block an X-1, is there?
