The First Law of Mentat: A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it, and flow with it.
Starcitygames’s Duel for Duals is over, and Vial Goblins is officially the deck to beat. It was played by 8 players with varying lists, and it put two players into the top 8. Here is the complete metagame breakdown, by number of players piloting the deck and then by placing breakdown.
Goblins: 8 (1, 6, 9, 11, 12, 18, 23, 34)
Reset High Tide (Solidarity): 5 (4, 10, 13, 33, 46)
Landstill: 5 (17, 22, 29, 30, 35)
Mono-White Control (Rabid Wombat): 3 (7, 21, 37)
Sligh: 3 (28, 31, 51)
Suicide Black: 3 (48, 50, 59)
R/G Survival Advantage: 2 (3, 5)
Belcher: 2 (15, 36)
Goblin Sligh: 2 (27, 32)
Affinity: 2 (39, 43)
3 Color Threshold (G/U/W Gro): 2 (41, 44)
Psychatog: 2 (47, 55)
U/W Fish: 1: (2)
Reanimator: 1: (8)
Mono-Black Discard (Flush): 1: (14)
Gamekeeper/Colossus (The Game): 1: (16)
Wayfarer White Weenie: 1: (19)
Angel Stompy: 1: (20)
U/W Control: 1 (24)
U/B/G Threshold: 1 (25)
G/W Aggro: 1 (26)
Scepter Chant: 1 (38)
Enchantress (Solitaire): 1 (40)
Mirari’s Wake: 1 (42)
R/G Beats: 1 (45)
Elves!: 1 (49)
Burn: 1 (52)
RWU Aggro-Control (Blue Pants): 1 (53)
Counter Sliver: 1 (54)
Angel Stax: 1 (56)
Astral Slide: 1 (57)
U/B Fish: 1 (58)
Goblins is the #1 deck in the format right now, both in terms of showings and performances. Goblins tied with RG Survival Advantage to put the most players in the top 8, and it had the most players overall. It also put all but one of its players into the top half of the field, placing more players in the top half than Landstill and Solidarity. Beyond Richmond, Goblins have consistently placed in top events in the past few months, the highlight of which is winning GenCon. Despite the deck’s performance there is wide variability in the maindeck and sideboard of winning lists, and none of them are theoretically optimal. Most of the Goblins decks do not have good ways to deal with Engineered Plague: Goblin King can stop one Engineered Plague, but you need double King to deal with double Plague, and most decks that run Plague can find it easier than you can find double King. Most Goblin maindecks are also missing Goblin Pyromancer and Rishidan Ports, and so they have to overcompensate in the sideboard to try and beat Landstill. With 4 Wastelands and 4 Rishidan Ports you have a greatly increased ability to get their life total critical before they can Wrath of God, at which point any alpha strike involving Goblin Piledriver or Goblin Pyromancer becomes lethal. Goblin Pyromancer is also extremely good when you need to race combo and really skews combat math.
Because they lack the tools to win game one, the Goblin decks have been compensating with sideboarded cards. The main consequence of this is that none of the current Goblin decks are prepared to face the mirror match, even though the mirror match is the most likely matchup at the moment. Out of the two Goblin decks in the Top 8 of Richmond, there was a grand total of 1 card to board in for the mirror, and Siege-Gang Commander is not even a bomb in the mirror because he costs 5. Without Ports to beat up on Landstill and Pyromancers to help race Tide, the two Goblin decks had to run Cabal Therapy, Patriarch’s Bidding/Living Death and Scald. These cards should be replaced by gems like Pithing Needle which will help immensely against the field (Time Vault anyone?) and extra Goblins hate.
So you want to win the mirror, huh? You absolutely need access to 4 Gempalm Incinerators out of the board, and hopefully some of those should be main. You need multiple Goblin Sharpshooters as well, and a Sparksmith as well if you can find room. The more ways you have to remove your opponent’s threats, the better off you will be. Double Sharsphooter will mean your opponent cannot keep a single creature around, and if that happens you will get a sizable life lead. Gempalm Incinerators break that up easily and remove Piledrivers at instant speed. Also, lose the Lightning Bolts (isn’t Gempalm Incinerator strictly better than Bolt?) and Umezawa’s Jittes. Not only are they awful against anything running Red, but many of the aggro matchups, the mirror especially, are going to be decided by who has more threats. You want at least 30 Goblins in the main to maximize your Goblin Ringleaders The last thing you want to see flip out of a Goblin Ringleader is a Jitte.
The main reason you don’t want to play non-Goblins is because the bar is set too high. Talking about Goblins in Extended, Mike Flores has this to say about Flametongue Kavu:
“Anyway, I understand the numbers seem odd, particularly in regards to the Flametongue Kavus and Chrome Moxes. Here’s the thing: You play with this card Goblin Ringleader, and he is awesome, but sometimes he turns over Flametongue Kavu and that is very bad. It is bad because Flametongue Kavu is the best creature in your deck, and now he is suddenly the worst bottom card of your library that you could think of having. Therefore you need the maximum number of Flametongue Kavu because especially during your turbulent turns 3-6, when you first ramp then leave your Aether Vial on four counters, intent on pumping out both 2/2 haste FoFs and angry 4/2 FTKs, the Invasion Block is at war not only with your opponent, but in your deck itself.”
Now, in Legacy the bar is set even higher because of cards like Goblin Lackey and the need to have even more Sharpshooters and Incinerators. Your options, cards like Jitte and Lightning Bolt, accomplish the same role as those Goblins, but interact badly with Matron and Ringleader. If you’re going to play those cards they are going to need to be a 4 of, but 99% of the time when you draw or flip over (via Recruiter) a Jitte you are going to wish it was another creature. Honestly, there is no appreciable reason to want a 4 mana equipment in a deck whose curve essentially tops out at three. You have Sharpshooters, Incinerators, Sparksmiths and Mogg Fanatics for removal, and just by the virtue of swinging with men you’re going to kill your opponent well enough. For every time Umezawa’s Jitte or Lightning Bolt do something useful, they’re going to pop up in a Ringleader stack 4 or 5 times and you’re going to wish they were a Goblin, or that you had a good Goblin to fetch with Goblin matron.
On a similar note, if you can’t beat Goblins, go home. Don’t waste your entry fee (you’re more than welcome to give me some money as thanks for this thrifty tip). It simply does not pay to beat the rest of Tier 1 when you can expect Goblins almost as often as the rest of the Tier One combined. The best example of this is the #2 placing deck at Richmond, U/W Fish. This deck was a good metagame call, and a solid deck on its own merit. Previously people like Daniel Spero and myself have been posting Fish lists that probably lose to Goblins. Bryan Ramsaroop’s list beats Goblins (assuming it does not get mana screwed the way it did in the finals), and has game against the rest of the field. It took second. There’s a lesson in there somewhere. Bryan ran Sword of Fire and Ice over Umezawa’s Jitte because it is a much better topdeck, and probably better overall versus Goblins. That list has tons of creatures that just stomp on the color Red in general and Goblins in specific. Because you can expect to see Red decks everywhere in the future, I would take a look at this deck when trying to figure out where you want to go in the future. This was an example of good metagaming, but don’t go overboard. Bryan got away with it because his hate was flexible and targeted as broadly as possible. It is not safe to load up on something like Blue Elemental Blast maindeck (at least in an unknown meta) because at least half the time your Blast will hit nothing but air. At least Galina’s Knight is a 2 mana bear against Landstill and White Weenie.
If you want a good jumping off point for your adventures with the little red men, whether you’re going to play the deck or test against it, here is Josh Silvestri most recent Vial Goblins decklist:
Vial Goblins
Creatures:
1 Sparksmith
1 Goblin Pyromancer
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
4 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Lackey
Spells:
4 AEther Vial
Lands:
10 Mountain
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Plateau
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
Sideboard:
3 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Pithing Needle
4 Disenchant
Josh actually cuts the Goblin Kings, and that logic makes plenty of sense (double King is much harder to find than double Engineered Plague), but he also cuts the Siege-Gang Commanders, and that I do not agree with. Without Siege-Gang Commander, you only have 1 Goblin Sharpshooter and 1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker to go to the dome with. Many of the Survival decks can seal the deal at 2 or 4 life and I have found myself unable to push through multiple Wall of Roots or Tradewind Riders, especially while unable to keep a Goblin Warchief in play. For 99% of matches, Siege-Gang Commander is probably a win-more card. Before you make any changes to the list, test it. You could squeeze in a few Chrome Moxen, and there is probably room to tweak the number of maindeck shooters, but keep the core of the deck intact. The core of the deck wins games and the rest is just metagaming.
Landstill has been hailed as the premiere control deck in Legacy, yet its best showing at Richmond was not even in the top 16. The top-placing Landstill deck, piloted by Paul Lynch to 17th place, was a very untraditional build, splashing red for Pyroblast in the board as an alternative to Meddling Mage versus High Tide. Lynch placed just above the two White Weenie decks, and the next Landstill deck is not until Justin Timoney’s build at 22. This is supposedly one of the top decks in Legacy, and it only puts one player in the top third, where Solidarity had one and Goblins put two decks into the Top 8. What is wrong here?
The first issue is the the manabase. Most Landstill builds run 24 lands with 6-8 manlands. That simply is not enough good mana sources. You need 26 lands, and manlands should only count for half now that people are learning to waste Tundras before Factories. At Richmond I ran with a UWr Landstill build (35th place), trading Disenchant and Fact or Fiction for Fire / Ice. I went 0-2 on the day versus White Weenie, supposedly one of my better matchups. Even though I had the same basic land count and number of ways to get White mana as the traditional Landstill build, several times I was Wastelanded out of white mana and beat down. This sealed the deal for me. There is no way 24 lands will let you win consistently when Swords to Plowshares, Gempalm Incinerators, Wastelands, Rishadan Ports, and Lightning Bolts are all aimed at your lands, and you absolutely need to hit Wrath of God mana on turn 4. Traditionally Landstill mised out wins with people being unable or unwilling to try and fight a mana war against a deck packing Crucible of Worlds, but today that simply is not true with Wasteland being as prevalent as it is, and White Weenie and Goblins both packing Wastelands.. Landstill cannot afford to rely on Crucible of Worlds to try and stand up against White Weenie or Goblins, because if it has to cast Crucible on turn 4 to cast Wrath of God turn 5, you are often already under 10 life. This problem is exacerbated with Goblins realizing that running Rishadan Ports is a good idea; it can use Aether Vials for mana and tap out all its lands for Wasteland and Rishadan Port. Landstill decks probably need 2 basic Plains at the minimum, because you absolutely need an unstoppable way to get WW to Wrath. Having the ability to win without nonbasic lands would also be very helpful.
Still not convinced? There are now decks in the format that can beat Landstill at the mana game. The most hyped of these is Stephen Menendian new Stax build versus Landstill. Stephen Menendian has created what Landstill fears most, a deck that uses Crucible of Worlds better than Landstill can, and that lets it beat the pants off Landstill. Even White Weenie with Weathered Wayfarer can get 4 Wastelands in a row and almost lock you out of a game. Oh yeah, and Goblins is starting to run 4 Rishadan Port and 4 Wasteland. Ouch.
The main problem with Landstill is not that it is intrinisically a bad deck, but rather that it runs no good cards. It can win when everything goes well for it, but that is a big if. Landstill has 56 ways to not lose and 4 Mishra’s Factory added in as an afterthought. There are few cards you’re actually excited to see in your hand, and those are usually Wrath of God and lands. Landstill has no nut draw, it just has average draws and poor draws. It automatically loses the poor draws unless it mulligans, and is only about 50-60% to win with the average draws, depending on the matchup.
As a direct contrast, I tested against Stephen Menendian and his new Stax-style Flame Vault deck on day one of Richmond. That deck is built to abuse the nuts draw, and when it draws a perfect hand almost nothing can beat it. Almost every opening, he’d laugh and exclaim, “That’s so SAVAGE!”. (To be fair, Menendian thinks everything he is working on is the nut high). Look at the absolute best Landstill hand: Fetchland, Island, Mishra’s Factory, Force of Will, Standstill, Brainstorm, Swords to Plowshares. That is not even all that great: your plan game 1 is to Force of Will their Aether Vial, Swords their first drop and cast Standstill. Then you need to find lots of gas in your next few draw steps, including a Disk or a Wrath of God. You need one of those cards early but you never want to see them in your opening hand, especially because they are dead so often. At the end of all of that, you need to start cracking fetchlands for Tundras and put your manabase in danger.
The main difference between Legacy and Vintage (besides [[Yawgmoth’s Will) is that Vintage decks, control decks especially, play with good cards. In Vintage every deck is potentially a combo deck, a lesson Legacy desperately needs to learn. Legacy control decks are too slow and too worried about not losing. Look at Andy Probasco Gifts list, which placed three people into the Top 8 at Richmond Vintage. There are only three “Don’t Lose” cards in the maindeck: 1 Engineered Explosives and 2 Pithing Needle, and Pithing Needle only counts for half. Gifts focuses on winning now because it can. Vintage Gifts can afford to not worry about losing because it has the ability to win now instead of turn 40. This is a philosophy that Legacy should look to follow. If Landstill is going to survive as an archetype it needs to make its manabase more robust and its kill condition more impressive.
In the current Legacy format, I would not run a deck that tries to win with or even hold onto creatures. The reason why traditional powerhouses like Psychatog and Exalted Angel have not caught on is because it is a bad time to be playing creatures. The Top 8 had the following creature removal maindeck: 8 Gempalm Incinerator, 8 Swords to Plowshares, 8 Flametongue Kavu, 3 Goblin Sharpshooter, 3 Wing Shards, 3 Wrath of God. That Top 8 does not even include any Landstill decks which pack at least 10 ways to remove creatures. The format is very unfriendly to all creatures that are not Indestructable, and even then you are likely to run into Swords to Plowshares. If you are building a new deck, you should avoid a creature-based kill condition. We have two excellent finishers for control, in Mana Severance + Goblin Charbelcher and Time Vault + Flame Fusillade, as well as combos that have not been found or published yet. These are all more efficient and powerful than any creature-based kill condition, and players have been skimping on their artifact destruction packages. Sure Pithing Needle can wreck these combos (if you do not remove it), but who plays Pithing Needle. Everyone, right? Actually, no. With combos like the Flame Vault deck coming around, players should be playing Pithing Needle, but they are not. Here is the official Pithing Needle count:
Pithing Needle count
9th place Vial Goblins ran 3 sideboarded
12th place Vial Goblins ran 3 sideboarded
14th place Flush (Mono-black Rack) ran 4 sideboarded
18th place Vial Goblins ran 3 sideboarded
19th place Weathered Wayfarer Weenie ran 1 main and 1 sideboarded with Enlightened Tutor
20th place Angel Stompy ran 3 sideboarded
28th place Sligh ran 2 sideboarded
38th place Scepter Chant ran 4 sideboarded
39th place Affinity ran 2 sideboarded
41st place G/U/W Gro ran 3 sideboarded
43rd place Affinity ran 3 sideboarded
51st place Sligh ran 3 sideboarded
53rd place Blue Pants (R/W/U Zoo) ran 3 sideboarded
That’s it. No Top 8 decks ran any, relying on decks packing Goblin Charbelcher to end up in the loser’s bracket. Pithing Needle is a good card, people. It shuts down Umezawa’s Jitte and Sword of Fire and Ice, Mishra’s Factory and Nevinyrral’s Disk (and most people don’t run Akroma’s Vengeance in large numbers), Aether Vial and Goblin Sharpshooter. It is also key in beating the Flame Vault deck and helps to beat Jacob Orlove’s Zombie Infestation deck (without Zombie Infestation, it’s a bad reanimation deck). Go ahead and invest in a set of Pithing Needles; it will be a Constructed staple for a long time.
I want to highlight some interesting decks and techy card choices. Obviously, the first deck to look at is Jacob Orlove’s Top 8 Reanimator deck:
Creatures (8)
Lands (19)
Spells (33)
- 4 Duress
- 3 Reanimate
- 3 Intuition
- 4 Exhume
- 4 Zombie Infestation
- 4 Careful Study
- 4 Burning Wish
- 4 Cabal Therapy
- 1 Last Rites
- 2 Mox Diamond
Sideboard
He has already written about the deck. The idea is that the deck combines two powerful engines, Zombie Infestation + Squee, Goblin Nabob and Akroma, Angel of Veangance with Reanimate. He can race Goblins by pumping out blockers with Zombie Infestation and swinging for 6 with Akroma while still blocking with her. Burning Wish for Sickening Dreams and Pyroclasm also gives him outs versus Decree of Justice tokens and Goblins. The main advantage the deck has is that it has a very fast clock. Undisrupted he’ll kill in three turns with minimal mana commitment, allowing the deck to utilize a very strong discard component. The two different kill engines combine to make most forms of hate unrealistic: you need a combination of Swords to Plowshares and Nevinyrral’s Disk to deal with just Akroma + Zombie Infestation, and you have to do it through his discard. The manabase is also rock solid, which makes it much harder to deal with. People are coming to tournaments unprepared to deal with the color Black, and this deck takes strong advantage of that. Because the deck is very powerful and proactive, it makes a strong choice in most fields.
People counted R/G Survival Advantage decks out, but they made a strong showing in Richmond, putting two very different builds into the Top 8. One deck runs Burning Wish; that one was slightly outplaced by this build. The first deck is fairly standard, except for Kamahl, Fist of Krosa in place of the Shivan Wurm + Hermit Druid finisher. Kamahl seems like a stronger choice. He can Overrun, but he also comboes with Goblin Sharpshooter to generate a one-sided Armaggedon. The second list is more techy, with a set of Basking Rootwallas, a Shard Phoenix and a set of Burning Wishes. Shard Phoenix seems very very good versus Goblins, because it is an unstoppable Pyroclasm, if a tad pricey. The only problem with that plan is that Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary has a giant target painted on its head. The Basking Rootwallas would also buy time, because he can pump out 3/3 blockers at instant speed, and that messes up combat math and can easily decimate an attacking goblin squad. That build also adds a Gempalm Incinerator, which is nasty when combined with Genesis. Had this deck not been paired against Solidarity in the Top 8, it might have easily won it. Still, it is surprising that the deck lost to Solidarity because it packs a whopping 8 Red Blasts in the sideboard, which I guess just goes to show that Red Blasts alone do not beat Solidarity. I know for a fact that Chalice of the Void for 1 helped the other RG Survival Advantage player beat on Solidarity.
Bonus: Statistical Analysis
I’ve started collecting statistical data on GPT-sized tournaments (and larger) for Legacy the way Pip Stanton did for Vintage. 12 T8s are in with 5 sets of decklists for T8s.
Tournament winning archetypes and decks:
Survival (1):
GWR Survival (1)
Combo (3):
Gamekeeper Salvagers (1)
Reset High Tide (1)
Enchantress (1)
Aggro-Control (3):
UWG Threshold (2)
CounterSliver (1)
Aggro (5):
Burn (1)
Vial Goblins (4)
Four decks have 5 or more Top 8 appearances to their credit. RG Survival Advantage (5 T8), UW Landstill and Reset High Tide (8 T8) and Vial Goblins with a whopping 25 T8 showings. Goblins have taken over 25% of T8s and 1/3 of #1 finishes In spite of this people have not yet started running Engineered Plague. In the 5 T8s I have decklists for Engineered Plague showed up 3 times with 11 copies total, and 8 of those were in one tournament.
Not only is Vial Goblins the deck to beat, but over half the decks in the format plan to swing with lots of creatures. Aggro decks compose nearly 45% of the T8s, and combined with aggro-control is 56%.
If you look at the deck archetype breakdown by month, combo is on the rise and Landstill is on the decline. In July combo placed no people into the T8, but from there it steadily increases its showing. Performance-wise, Reset High Tide is the best combo deck. Reset High Tide (aka Solidarity) accounts for half of combo showings, and it took home the blue envelope once.
By a wide margin, Mountain is played more than any other card. Beyond basic lands, Wasteland is the #1 most played card with Swords probably at #2. Fact or Fiction, expected to be a powerhouse in the new format, shows up in between 0 to 2 decks in each T8s. Fast mana like Lotus Petal and Lion’s Eye Diamond only started showing up in decklists in September (October won’t be calculated until all the data is in). By contrast Mogg Fanatic shows up between 2 and 3 decks per T8, on par with Brainstorm.
That’s all the data I have now, but as a final comment I want to encourage you to prepare your deck for the field. Playing a hate deck in this wide open metagame is a bad idea, but you are almost guaranteed to play a Goblin deck if you make it to the Top 8. If you want to win a tournament, you have no excuse not to be able to beat Goblins. For more information, be on the lookout for the release of the statistical report soon. If you have any data to contribute, the best way is to e-mail me and I’ll make sure it gets posted and added.
Kevin Binswanger
Anusien on The Mana Drain, The Source, StarCityGames.com
[email protected]