It’s mid 2018 now, and we’ve had some large Legacy tournaments with a decent showing throughout the year – GPs in several countries, Eternal Weekend, and a few others. Given the results in those, we can easily point out the deck to beat in the format, our boogeyman: Grixis Delver Goblins.

Still with me? Good. Asking yourself why are you still reading this and who is this bloke saying that a tier 8938398 deck that no serious player plays is the best deck in the format? Let me help you with that.

First, I’ve been playing goblins almost exclusively since my first Legacy tournament in 2007. Played it when Canadian UGR Thresh was the best deck, in the Zoo era, Survival era, Mental Misstep era, Miracles and Shardless era, and now, in the Delver/Shaman times. What I want to explain in the next few paragraphs is why I think Goblins is great, why it was it able to compete in all those metagames, and why it’s still able to do so.

Fun and Interactive Magic

Goblins is a deck build exactly like Richard Garfield intended: it uses creatures to kill your opponent, has removal spells and lots of card draw. It uses its resources very effectively, and has many tricks up its sleeve, which makes it quite hard to pilot.

One of the most interesting parts about it is that it is often misunderstood as a deck archetype, often being labelled as an Aggro deck. Don’t get me wrong: it CAN be an Aggro deck, being able to kill as early as turn 3, but it also has many control elements and comeback mechanisms, making it able to swap strategies in case we need to do so. Personally, I see it as a Control deck with combo elements.

Let me start with a sample decklist from Jim Davis article Funeral for a Friend in 2014, where he mistakenly declared Goblins to be dead:

Vial Goblins

This is a stock Classic Goblins list that has proven itself quite a lot in the past, and it’s very commonly used nowadays. It has your Vials, Lackeys and Warchiefs to cheat on mana; Wastelands and Ports to abuse the fact you’re paying less for your spells; it has 6 removal spells with more in the sideboard; tutor effects; card draw; the ability to kill your opponent turn 3, while also being able to bury your control opponent in card advantage; resilience against countermagic; it has a toolbox that can get you through a plethora of different strategies, and much more. The bad part though is that this list is extremely outdated. The newest cards in the deck are a set of lands coming out in Avacyn Restored 2012 (which by the way don’t change anything in how the deck is played), and after that, a goblin shaped Shock, being released in Lorwyn, waaaaaaaay back in 2007.

2007 guys.

Just for some perspective, the decks to beat during September 2007 according to The Source were: Threshold, Landstill, Cephalid Breakfast and, the best tribe ever, Elves! Vial Goblins. That’s how far away 2007 is.

I know what you’re thinking now. I wrote above that I don’t recommend the deck. That it is outdated. And if you look up all Goblin cards released from 2007 to 2017, there aren’t many good things to look at. So why do I still think that this can be the best deck?

Well, we can evolve.

How to Adapt

Though this might be fairly standard for most decks – meaning that if there is lots of combo in the meta, maybe Miracles wants to play a few Counterbalances in their deck and if True-Name Nemesis and Marit Lage are running rampant, maybe you want some Diabolic Edicts – this is not the point that I want to make. For Goblins to evolve from the 2007 lists to one that can compete by today’s standards, we need to review our core strategy and examine why it was not working and elaborate a plan of how to fix it.

Let’s quickly run through what is the real core of the deck then: Goblins is a tribal synergy based deck, which means there are several cards that get better if you’re playing with other cards that rely on that synergy – I’m talking about Goblin Matron, Goblin Ringleader, Gempalm Incinerator, Goblin Piledriver, and many more. This means that there are some cards, and a total density, that needs to be kept in the deck. Through all my years playing this, the only cards that form the actual ‘core’ of the deck though, are just these: Goblin Matron, Goblin Ringleader, Aether Vial and Goblin Lackey (and around 30 goblins or more to make it consistent). Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING else, is up for debate.

“What? Are you saying you can play goblins without Warchief and Piledriver?” Yes. “Without a toolbox?” Yes. “Even without Ports or Wastelands???” Yes. “You’re insane!” I play Goblins.

I have played with Deathrite Shaman, Brainstorm and Force of Will in Goblins. Believe me. Anything is possible.

First of all, this has all been done in the past. Going through the metagames mentioned before: In the survival era, the optimal deck in my view would run Lightning Bolts Maindeck and play Pithing Needles and Nature’s Claim sideboard. During the Mental Misstep period playing with Chrome Mox and Warren Instigator was great against people playing with less removal. If Control is the best strategy, than having a full playset of Rishadan Ports and having 32+ Goblins in your list is the best strategy to bury them late game. During the time Combo was more abundant, some lists with Thalia maindeck were giving good results.

Let’s try doing this for the 2018 meta:

According to The Source we have a list of 20 decks that usually place well in events this year. In order they are:

Grixis Delver, Czech Pile, DnT, Miracles, BUG Delver, Elves, Eldrazi, AnT, Turbo Depths, Stoneblade, Dredge, BUG Control, Lands, Maverick, Grixis Control, UR Burn, Food Chain, SnS, Dragon Stompy and Reanimator. What can we get from this?

Most of the decks play Deathrite Shaman and/or Cantrips;

Several different combo decks;

3 Decks with decent manabases;

A few good matchups we don’t need to address much.

Here’s an extensive list of what we want to do against all those matchups:

Not die; Kill them.

Having understood that complex list, let’s go by how to accomplishing that.

Against control decks you can jump to step 2, since you can kill them much faster than they can kill you.

Against Tempo Deathrite decks, to not die we need to kill their creatures, because they can kill us. For that we need cheap removal to go around their taxing counters. Their creatures are: a 1/2 that doesn’t need to attack, a 3/2 that flies, a 2/1 that doesn’t need to attack, a 5/5 that we can block all day, and fun and interactive True-Name Nemesis. The common thing about the first three is that they all die to Tarfire. They also run multiple low resistance creatures, so Pyrokinesis is quite good there. Even better, the new kid on the block, Goblin Chainwhirler, is a house against them.

So if Step 1 is jamming lots of removal in our deck, then Step 2 is: playing cards that kill them. To do so we have to cast cards. Goblins, as mentioned, try to cheat on mana with cards like Lackey and Aether Vial, to be able to cast our 3, 4 and 5 drops. Unfortunately Delver decks have lots of tools to try to counter or destroy those cards, in which case we would be stuck with the plan of actually casting our 3, 4 and 5 drops. So what is the best way to do it? One of the ways is packing our deck with even more ways of cheating mana, and one of my favourite ways of doing it is with Warren Instigator.

He gives us more chances to cheat on (a LOT) of mana, while also being a considerable threat even if paired only with a Goblin Chieftain. Secondly, I’d like to introduce a new and revolutionary concept to all of you. Its called: Stable Manabase. I’m trying to beat a deck that can by turn 2 have Wastelanded me, seen my hand, shaped theirs, and deployed one or two threats. I do not want to lose games because I’m running fewer Basics than I could. And I’m not naive enough to think that my strategy of using two of my own mana (Port + 1) to deny my opponent one mana for one turn, with his deck having a much higher velocity and lower curve than mines, is a winning strategy. I can’t slow their game down, so I need to speed mine up. If only there was some kind of fast mana available in Legacy…. Hm…

Chrome Mox helps the deck gain the much needed speed it requires to compete in today’s metagame. The card disadvantage is usually offset by both the speed (who needs cards when your opponent is dead?) or by actually raw card advantage coming from ringleader and such.

The last thing I want to go through before the deck is Goblin’s weak spots. Being able to kill the fastest at turn 3 does not cut it against most of the combo decks out there. To be able to have a shot against unfair decks, we need to dedicate a lot of sideboard space to them. And those need to be the best and fastest cards at what they do.. This leaves us with just a couple of slots to work against fair decks. A circumvent around that is playing with a few cards that are usually sideboard material in the maindeck. The usual go-to cards are Pyrokinesis, which is awesome at dealing with creatures, and Thalia, which is great against combo but put serious constraints on the manabase. My favourite card to play maindeck nowadays is, specially now that we’re also running fast mana, Blood Moon. Blood Moon is amazing against over ten of the decks I mentioned before that we want to beat, and it coming to the maindeck makes it an even harder lock against most of those decks. Even if they can still cast spells after it, their game will be severely slowed down, making Moon still a very decent card. Turn 2 Blood Moon can win games even against stable manabases.

“Well, if you’re playing Blood Moon and Mox shouldn’t you be playing Dragon Stompy already?”

No. As you can probably tell, these are completely different decks. Dragon Stompy doesn’t have a turn 3 kill, or lots of card draw or creature removal. Or tutors. Or resilience against countermagic. Here Blood Moon can serve as a lock, yes, but it is often just a tool in the game, and the fear of it makes opponents play very conservatively sometimes, which gives you an edge.

With all that out of the way, here’s my suggested list

Marcelo Winstigator Goblins

Manabase

We have a whopping 23 permanent mana sources, which is more than most decks in the format. That includes 10 Mountains, 3 Moxes and 4 Cavern of Souls for a total of 17 initial Red sources to meet our R requirements. With Turbo Depths, Lands, Sneak & Show and Reanimator all being a reasonable part of the metagame, Karakas fulfils a very important role as hate here. Also, it’s not unusual to bounce Kiki-Jiki to prevent removal or to activate him twice in a turn. Pendelhaven is another interesting one in this monored deck, but its power level is high enough to make the cut. It makes your Lackeys and Instigators able to push through Deathrite Shaman, Stoneforge Mystic, and whatever other small creature being played. Also good against cards such Punishing Fire and Grim Lavamancer. The last singleton is Ancient Tomb because not only does it pair super well with Blood Moon, but we play lots of 3+ drops that Tomb helps cast early, getting our momentum on faster. Ultimately, because the spicy lands are so powerful and because we want so much R to cast our creatures, we’re down to zero Ports and 2 Wastelands. But if you pair those with Blood Moons, the deck still has 5 maindeck land hate, which is more than most.

Unfortunately, playing with all these lands and utility comes with another price. Right now the deck is on 61 cards, and even though that has its disadvantages (I’ve read Chapins article on it), I stand by the position that any cut in the deck (trimming to 22 manasources, getting rid of the 4th Tarfire or 4th of any card, or of any silver bullets) will jeopardise the deck more than help. I’m already missing artifact hate maindeck for instance, and trimming to 60 would make the deck even less flexible, albeit more consistent.

Removal

Again, lots of removal. 4 Tarfire to kill almost all early threats in the format. 2 Gempalm Incinerator because the card is still really good and you need definite answers to bigger creatures, but it being as slow as it is now, I don’t recommend more than 2 in this list. Stingscourger is a Matronable answer to Show and Tell, Marit Lage and Reanimator, while still being quite good while trying to rush your opponent. Lastly, a Pyrokinesis maindeck makes sure that we have more slots available in the sideboard while being one of the most powerful removal spells against decks like Elves, Death and Taxes and Infect. With 3 moxen in the deck though I wouldn’t play more than 2 between the 75. He we can also count Chainwhriler as removal. She’s amazing versus Pyromancer, DnT, Elves, Infect, Mentor, Lingering Souls, and has many more applications that I don’t have the time to go in right now. I wish I could run a 2nd copy, but can’t get around cutting anything right now.

Core

As mentioned before, the real core of the deck is composed only by Vial, Lackey, Matron and Ringleader. The Instigator / Chieftain duo is now replacing the Warchief / Piledriver one because you want to be forcing your opponent to be reacting to you every turn of the game, and Winstigator does it much better than Piledriver.

Bullets

In here we have the last few slots to toy with, which are never enough. We jam bombs – Siege-Gang Commander and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker because they have a better synergy with Goblin Winstigator (Did you know that a hand with Mox, red card, 2 lands Instigator and Matron deals 20 damage by turn 3?). Utility comes in this part as well and we chose Stingscourger, Goblin Chainwhriler and Goblin King as the most important ones, alongside with the 3 Blood Moons.

Sideboard

There are several cards here that are easily interchangeable, but as a rule of thumb, try going for something that costs very little to no mana at all, and that your opponents have a hard time interacting with. Leyline of the Void and Chalice of the Void work wonders against what they’re supposed to beat. So does Pyrokinesis and Sudden Demise. Pithing Needle has too many applications nowadays not to be used (Thespian Stage, Sneak Attack, Griselbrand, Jitte to name a few), specially when monored. Since this list doesn’t play artifact removal maindeck, a Tuktuk Scrapper needs to find its way in the sideboard, and given the high number of land focused strategies, Goblin Settler fills our last slot.

The Best Deck, Now and Ever

Now that I’ve established why I think this version I described is the best list right now, it might not be for a long time. It might not even be now already. The deck, like all decks, needs to constantly keep evolving. For some it might mean running this list that runs only 16 lands and all 4 ofs. It might be playing Classic with a few changes. It might even be playing with Chalice of the Void maindeck. For me it is this versatility and ability to change and innovate, that makes Goblins the best and most fun deck to play in Legacy.

Addendum

As of writing this article M19 spoilers are up and we have seen a few interesting goblins that might shape the deck in the future, or at least offer some more opportunities to incentivise change. Let’s take a quick look at those cards:

Dark-Dweller Oracle seems very good at first glance. You have Matrons, Ringleader, Mogg Marshall all which are disposable once their ETB has happened. Being able to play lands is a major incentive to play this as well. The sacrifice effect is also good against Lifelink or Jitte counters, which can save your ass sometimes. However, even though this looks very good on paper, in a classic build I’d have some problems with it. It is very mana intensive. Dreamland scenario is hitting a land turn 3, or a 2 drop turn 3 or 4. But when you exile your Siege-Gang Commander or Ringleader, or any silver bullet you don’t want or can’t cast now, and you have lost that card forever. And a mana and a creature. So I’m very on the fence about this one.

Flametongue Kavu Volley Veteran is very interesting. It gets better with a big board, but is already very impactful with just one more goblin into play. Being a 4/2 is also very relevant since it attacks for quite a lot, and the mana on it is quite easy with just 1 Red. The questions regarding this card is whether we need it’s effect, and if we do, if we can afford having a 4 drop with this effect. Our curve is quite high already, and jamming 1 extra 4 drop doesn’t help. But having a removal coming from Vial at 4 is extremely tempting. I’ll be testing a couple of these for sure. Also, there’s a cucumber in the art. Gotta love goblins.

The best goblin in the set is easily Goblin Trashmaster. Being a 3/3 is very relevant against quite a lot of removal, and makes your x/2s dodge those as well because of the Anthem effect. Even better, it has an inbuilt reusable Shatter effect for the price of sacrificing a creature. This is really good for goblins because the problems with our goblin-shaped artifact removal so far were that: You need to splash (Tin Street Hooligan) or it’s too expensive for what it leaves afterwards (Tuktuk Scrapper), they’re for one shot time use (both examples before), or they are plain horrible (Goblin Tinkerer). Goblin Trashmaster, albeit a 4 drop, leaves a significant body in the battlefield and is a good card even if your opponent doesn’t play artifacts. This will definitely see play in the future.

Going Forward

If the good news is that we’ve got some nice toys to play with in M19, the bad news is that, against some decks (AnT, I’m looking at you) we don’t have any card in our maindeck that does anything. If we want to have a shot at beating them we need to flood our sideboard with 10+ cards against combo – because they can usually play around one piece of hate in 3-4 turns.

What I think we’re still missing, and that I really think could bring goblins back to the status it had back in the day, is a cheap goblin shaped combo hoser that works against several decks and is not horrible on it’s own. It seems like a lot to ask, but Death and Taxes got Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Ethersworn Canonist and Sanctum Prelate; Merfolk got Cursecatcher and now Mistcaller. Goblin has zero decent combo hosing cards, and is really hard to put non-goblins maindeck to do that job because it just decreases the overall consistency of the deck against everything else. It’s not much of a stretch to have a card exactly like Eidolon of the Great Revel to be a a goblin. Even the art and the flavour text could be awesome in that one! If it was up to me I’d print a 1R Goblin, 2/1, that has a Leovold lite textbox that works for both players. No more cantriping for anyone!

One can only hope…

Till next time!

Marcelo Scatena

Marcelo is a Goblin aficionado living in London that has been playing with the deck since it came out. Loves the small things in life like having his full black boarded opponent have to read all his cards, to laugh at them, only to proceed to the concede step after 3 Tarfires to the face later.

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