Modern Vial Goblins - August 2019

There are a bunch of ways of building Goblins in modern, this is a BR Vial Goblins list. That being said, there are also a bunch of ways of building BR Vial Goblins. Jim Davis recently played a list of Vial Goblins at MC Barcellona with the new additions to Modern (Goblin Matron and Goblin Ringleader). With these legacy staples, only now is Goblins a competitive deck instead of a joke of an aggro deck.

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Jim Davis played cards that I disagree with being playable (such as Knucklebone Witch) so I am working on my version of the deck. I started with trying to duplicate what legacy Goblins can do, but because we lack Goblin Lackey, Wasteland, Rishadan Port, and Goblin Sharpshooter from the list we need to make up for the rest of the powerful cards. I found that Ghost Quarter and Field of Ruin become Wastelands (and almost Strip Mine) because of the small amount of basics your opponent is playing in Tron, Humans, Hogaak, Dredge, Phoenix, and more. We have to replace the irreplaceable Goblin Lackey, this was the most difficult card to find a Modern playable version of. I think that instead of playing a cost reducer like Frogtosser Banneret or a one mana goblin like Knucklebone Witch, we want more tempo with Thoughtseize (or Inquisition of Kozilek, but the former is better). Goblin Sharpshooter shout be Modern legal but the next closest thing is probably the Blood Artist-esque Pashalik Mons. We don’t need this card but we certainly enjoy playing it.

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Otherwise, I am personally playing the exact same other 51 cards from my Legacy Goblins list. This is probably massageable where you might want to play a few other goblins in the mainboard that I am not playing. Another thing you might want to replace are Tarfires with Warren Weirdings. They both do similar things but are not better than one another all of the time. Warren Weirding is better for the current meta because it kills Hogaak, Phoenix, and big scary Eldrazi pieces. Tarfire on the other hand kills Plague Engineer and most other creatures. Something else to try is Wrenn and Six to abuse our land destruction.

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In the sideboard we need a bunch of graveyard hate cards like our playset of Surgical Extraction and two Ravenous Trap. Not only are we wanting the Ghost Quarters and Field of Ruins but against Humans, Tron and most other decks that play greedy mana based we also have Blood Moons lined up for them. Against decks like Storm, Phoenix, Cheerios, and Pyromancer we have Chalice of the Void. We play Plague Engineer because it is so powerful against Tribal decks. We also have access to the best Goblin artifact remover, Goblin Trashmaster. In addition to all the other cards I have mentioned regarding our hate for Humans, we also have the powerful Goblin Chainwhirler. The Chainwhirler spot, I believe, is the easiest to switch out with another graveyard hate card.

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The one thing to remember is that there are a bunch of different ways of playing this deck; if you don’t like one list, try another!

Spells:

4 Aether Vial

2 Earwig Squad

4 Goblin Chieftain

4 Goblin Matron

1 Goblin Piledriver

4 Goblin Ringleader

2 Goblin Warchief

1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

1 Krenko, Mob Boss

1 Lightning Crafter

2 Mogg War Marshal

3 Munitions Expert

1 Pashalik Mons

1 Siege-Gang Commander

1 Skirk Prospector

1 Stingscourger

2 Tarfire

4 Thoughtseize

Lands:

1 Swamp

2 Blood Crypt

4 Bloodstained Mire

4 Cavern of Souls

3 Field of Ruin

4 Ghost Quarter

3 Mountain

Sideboard:

2 Blood Moon

3 Chalice of the Void

1 Goblin Chainwhirler

1 Goblin Trashmaster

2 Plague Engineer

2 Ravenous Trap

4 Surgical Extraction