Legacy Goblins and Testing for SCG Syracuse

I think that many people think of tribal decks being well positioned in the meta and I think that is false. Yes, Plague Engineer has been horrible for tribal decks, but Humans and Goblins have been able to get through a 2/2 on turn 3. While some of the tribal decks are suffering a little too much, others are adapting. Humans has multiple 'lords' like Thalia's Lieutenant and Phantasmal Image, Goblins has Goblin Chieftain and Goblin Trashmaster. Both decks have good, flexible removal for it as well with Swords to Plowshares and Goblin Cratermaker/Tarfire. Humans has ways of just flying over Plague Engineer if they do manage to land a creature that wouldn't die with Mantis Rider. Unlike Humans, Death and Taxes does not have resilience to Plague Engineer and the deck can fold to it too easily.

This post is about where I think Goblins is however, not Humans. I had tried a few different cards for Goblins (each of which I play in Modern Goblins but that's another day) and after a while, I found myself not liking Blood Moon, Piledriver, and Chainwhirler. I found that Tarfire wasn't great anymore because not many decks have main deck x/2s that need to be answered immediately (Plague Engineer). I removed Chainwhirler and Blood Moon from the deck entirely. I dropped the 1 sideboard Piledriver and moved 1 copy of Tarfire to the sideboard. I added 1 Cratermaker to the mainboard and 1 to the side along with 2 Plague Engineer.

In testing for the event the majority of the decks I played against were Stoneblade (1), Turbo Lands (2), Reanimator (2), ANT (3), Miracles (3), Show and Tell variants (5+).

The worst match up for us is Lands. Always has been, always will be. I considered adding Karakas to the deck to help deal with Hogaak and Marit Lage and help us cast Containment Priest but it was too hit or miss because we can't fetch it or tutor it in any way.

Show and Tell decks keep ending up being the most mentally challenging games. You constantly have to go through your head with different questions, like whether or not you Port one turn to cast Cratermaker incase they have Emrakul. I have found that the best way to beat this match up is to try to just have Containment Priest and/or Stingscourger in your opening hand (Karakas would also help here!) and Vialing it in at the right time. Don't forget to protect your hate pieces because it would hurt to have Containment Priest countered when you cast it in response to Show and Tell.

Reanimator is another one of the decks we want Karakas against, but we don't need it (sometimes). Yes, we have Stingscourger but that really doesn't do anything to Ashen Rider. We shine in games 2 and 3 with our hate we also brought in against SNS. Our Storm match up is similar to where we often win games 2 and 3 but straight up lose game 1.

Miracles and Stoneblade are perhaps some of the best things that can happen for us, we can easily win games 1 and 2, there's almost nothing they can do to even slow us down, let alone win.

The list I have settled on is:

4 Aether Vial

1 Badlands

4 Bloodstained Mire

4 Cavern of Souls

2 Earwig Squad

4 Goblin Chieftain

1 Goblin Cratermaker

4 Goblin Lackey

4 Goblin Matron

1 Goblin Piledriver

4 Goblin Ringleader

1 Goblin Sharpshooter

2 Goblin Warchief

1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

1 Krenko, Mob Boss

1 Lightning Crafter

2 Mogg War Marshal

3 Mountain

3 Munitions Expert

1 Plateau

4 Rishadan Port

1 Siege-Gang Commander

1 Skirk Prospector

1 Stingscourger

1 Tarfire

4 Wasteland

Sideboard:

3 Chalice of the Void

2 Containment Priest

1 Goblin Cratermaker

1 Goblin Trashmaster

1 Mindbreak Trap

2 Plague Engineer

2 Pyrokinesis

2 Surgical Extraction

1 Tarfire

Other things that I have considered playing is Karakas (maybe as a 2 of) and Rest In Peace. RIP is better than Surgical Extraction right now and Karakas would help us cast it.

At the event I went 1-3.

2-1 Against UR Delver

1-2 Against Turbo Lands

1-2 Against Stoneblade

1-2 Against UR Delver

In the first round I got there fairly easily, our opponent didn't draw many answers and I drew a lot of answers.

The second round I played against James Hsu from the Cardboard Live team, who I played last year at GP Richmond, and game one he had a turn 4 Marit Lage. Game 2 I was able to Earwig Squad his Dark Depths and then Wasteland his 4th. Game 3 he had a turn 2 Marit Lage.

During the third round Jitte got my removal Goblins in game 1. Game 2 I was able to land Cratermaker pretty early and just win with damage before he was able to keep Stoneforge in play. Game 3 was really weird, I tried to name 'Kor' with Plague Engineer so Jitte wouldn't get counters, but he Swords-ed it before combat. He landed Batterskull and Sword of Fire and Ice in that game after I finally removed Jitte.

Round 4 was interesting, the guy wasn't having a good time and we both missed a lot of triggers because we were a little bit more friendly with each other, just laughing at everything.

All in all I think the event was fun (although super small only 500-some people in it). I picked up some pieces for TES, Food Chain, and Bomberman. Really excited about finishing Bomberman and TES by the end of the year (or one of them by the end of the month) and Food Chain is pretty close too.