This is the LAST core set... I very much so expect to see a lot of power especially considering the short lived standard nature of this set. These are my hopefuls (I picked some of my favorite one drops from each color, left out thoughtseize since it was just printed however):
I would probably add an Obelisk of Urd or 4 into the deck since you are all clerics. Patriarch's Bidding as a 1 or 2 of would probably be awesome in a casual format since again you are all clerics. Edgewalker could allow you to just empty your hand.
Also you should add 4x Master Apothecary to this deck, that card is nuts since he ignores summoning sickness and makes your creatures god mode other than to destroy effects and -1/-1 (which obelisk helps for as well)
You could also cut some of the black creatures and go down the Soul Sister route (Soul Warden, Soul's Attendant, Suture Priest) and have a nice chunk of lifegain/Damage and invest into some way to play off the lifegain... (Maybe 1 or 2 Vizkopa Guild mage for a table kill with a lifelinking Doubtless one or just damage whenever some1 plays creatures)
1 of Eight-and-a-Half-Tails can't hurt.
I would probably cut the Scion of Darkness and the 4 clerics that go with him ass that seems very flimsy, especially in multiplayer.. but of course depends on your playgroup.
Burn is the best budget deck, and manaless dredge is another very good choice. We have a local player that plays manaless dredge and consistently beats anyone without a dedicated board. I dedicate 3-4 cards due to just him. Manaless dredge is better than ever with Treasure Cruise ban, as maindeck relics and RIP's should be mostly gone. I have dropped my sideboard as mentioned and now have to rely on Force of Will a lot of times to counter his dread return a lot of times.
The deck is flimsy, but so is burn. Both decks have a single card that they literally can't beat and you just have to deal with that playing those decks.
Burn - 50-300$ (Do you want Goblin Guides, do you want fetchlands to power a lavamancer? 50$ for the Swiftspear/Eidolon Pure burn route, 150$ for the Goblin Guide/Swiftspear/Eidolon Route without fetches, 225-300$ for the Lavamancer/Guide/Swiftspear or Eidolon/Fetchland route)
Manaless dredge - 150$-ish
Currently I have 2 spell pierce and 1 pyroblast. I am also messing around with spell snare too instead of the blast. I believe Misdirection is going to still be very relevant as I expect lightning bolt to dip but hymn to tourach to make a comeback and misdirecting that is generally game barring the worst brainstorm lock in history of mankind.
This is good for goblins because decks like Jeskai Stoneblade were pretty untouchable if they resolved even 1 cruise. Other decks like U/R delver and burn also get worse (cantripping is now weaker hurting burn with eidolon and U/R delver with their high amount of burn was powerful). These 3 decks will be hurt a lot.
But decks like BUG delver and Shardless BUG are horrible matchups for goblins even without TC. Also decks like charbelcher, omnishow, reanimator are just awful matchups for goblins and will always remain so unless you overcommit your board to them for g2/g3 (if you win g1, count your blessings). Goblins will be back to tier 1.5, they were definitely tier 2. But the true offender of goblins remains, Deathrite Shaman which will continue to hold down the gobbies.
Me and one of my friends discussed what could get goblins out of its hole. He suggested Recruiter but I think it would just turn us into another combo deck, albeit a midrangy grindy deck that can combo off at any point in the game with just 1 card in hand. Wizards may be scared of allowing it but it would definitely make goblins VERY powerful and likely a T1 deck again, but not the only deck anyone plays. They could also give us a goblin land card a la dryad arbor which could allow for some insane turn 1 vial plays. The true problem lies in cards like deathrite shaman, it would be cool if we could get some kind of 1 mana drop goblin with the shaman-like power and reach (maybe tapping to bring goblins from the yard back to your hand or tapping to sac goblins for tarfire effect). We need something very powerful to become relevant, nothing very good will do on its own.
If you look at goblin decks, almost all the cards are forever old, and its hard to compete when every other deck gets new things year after year and you are playing more or less the exact same deck for a decade.
Like the guy said above a lot of decks have gotten new tools while goblins have not.
Mystic/Batterskull isn't too bad. I find that Young pyromancer/equipment, abrupt decay, deathrite shaman, true-name nemesis, and treasure cruise have all been nails in the coffin for this deck. I miss the days of esper stoneblade as that was one of my better matchups with my build, but the new american stoneblade list with Young Pyromancer is pretty much unwinnable. Goblins will always be playable but it is a slightly high variance deck (no top of deck fixing... ponder/brainstorm/top) and relies heavily on not getting bad luck with ringleaders to win.
That is a good choice Tyger, the force of will's can go pretty much anywhere. Also Jeskai Ascendancy Combo is another good Modern/Legacy deck as hinted at by the SCG IQ win this past weekend in legacy.
Don't invest 1200$ into goblins right now, as Lormador said it's not a very well situated deck right now. Merfolk is also a pretty horrible deck to run in legacy.
The only deck you can take and do well in both modern and legacy right now is U/R Delver, but the deck is slightly underperforming (even though it regularly top 8's) based on how much it is played. It should only get better as time goes on however as people start to drift away from it and hate on the combo meta that has been evolving. The bad news for U/R delver is that the deck runs about $2200 and the modern variant will cost you another $200 for the different lands and counterspells.
I am currently building a Miracles deck to get away from goblins (Still need 2 tundra's and 1 more Karakas for it to be complete). I won't sell my goblin deck I will just keep it around as I love the deck, if it ever gets any love to sleeve it up for another go.
I just recently took goblins to 9th at the SCG Invi Qualifier in Seattle this month (12/14) and decided to take the old school list with Warchiefs instead of this new aggro port-less variant. I have tried out both pretty extensively and found that ports are pretty much required for the current metagame unless you can get lucky on your variance and hit the nuts hands with the aggro lists. Also the aggro list (with instigators/pendelhaven/chieftains) seems to be able to handle the stoneblade decks pretty well which I struggle against pretty badly with the list I used. In the 8 rounds I played, I only played against 2 fair decks and 6 combo decks. Goblin sideboard has gotten much stronger against combo as of late and I felt like those were good matchups for me, except for the one I won by luck (against charbelcher 2-1) which is an awful matchup. I honestly feel goblins are a horrible deck to take down an event right now as they have 2 builds that can beat any deck out there but each variant has gigantic weaknesses to 1 side or the other. Aggro struggles mightily against combo while the more control-ish list struggles against the fair decks with new draw engines (Treasure Cruise). I don't think I will be bringing goblins to another major event sadly unless we get some love or the meta shifts, and I was glad to take it to one last event with good results during a meta shift where goblins can survive for a short time.
The number one card that I have been struggling against with my goblin list is Young Pyromancer Stoneblade lists, it has been eating up my deck locally and is likely going to cause me to shelve my deck locally even. If anyone has a list that can come out to at least 50% with Jeskai Stoneblade please share it
I played in both prerelease tournaments at my local shop with 35ish in both tourneys. Boros won first one and I played dimir control to a very sad finishing of 2-4. The second one I decided to try Aggro because the first one had a lot of Boros in the top 8 and went with gruul.
I actually only obtained 2 red permanents in 5 booser packs with some spells and pulled simic guild leader with the 3 of 2 drop 1/3 pumper.. One of my red permanents from the boosters was a rubblehulk giving me 2 of those, 1 prime speaker, 1 stolen identity and several of the 4 drop tramplers and a lot of simic evolvers which gained trample from the other card. My 1/3 blue pumpers actually held Boros off quite well with gruul charms being a board wipe vs. the decks runnin a lot of Skyjets and hasters. Control decks fell constantly.. Never lost a game to any of those.. I finished the night 5-1 and overall first place by opw% of less than .05. My only loss was a sweep when I got mana screwed twice.. And other than that I swept the 4 opponents and lost 1 game to another gruul deck. RUG definitely seems great if u can pull the cards
R
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Lightning Bolt
U
Vendilion Clique
Ponder
W
Wrath of God
Path to Exile
B
Damnation
Inquisition of Kozilek
G
Tarmogoyf
Rancor
Also you should add 4x Master Apothecary to this deck, that card is nuts since he ignores summoning sickness and makes your creatures god mode other than to destroy effects and -1/-1 (which obelisk helps for as well)
You could also cut some of the black creatures and go down the Soul Sister route (Soul Warden, Soul's Attendant, Suture Priest) and have a nice chunk of lifegain/Damage and invest into some way to play off the lifegain... (Maybe 1 or 2 Vizkopa Guild mage for a table kill with a lifelinking Doubtless one or just damage whenever some1 plays creatures)
1 of Eight-and-a-Half-Tails can't hurt.
I would probably cut the Scion of Darkness and the 4 clerics that go with him ass that seems very flimsy, especially in multiplayer.. but of course depends on your playgroup.
The deck is flimsy, but so is burn. Both decks have a single card that they literally can't beat and you just have to deal with that playing those decks.
Burn - 50-300$ (Do you want Goblin Guides, do you want fetchlands to power a lavamancer? 50$ for the Swiftspear/Eidolon Pure burn route, 150$ for the Goblin Guide/Swiftspear/Eidolon Route without fetches, 225-300$ for the Lavamancer/Guide/Swiftspear or Eidolon/Fetchland route)
Manaless dredge - 150$-ish
Currently I have 2 spell pierce and 1 pyroblast. I am also messing around with spell snare too instead of the blast. I believe Misdirection is going to still be very relevant as I expect lightning bolt to dip but hymn to tourach to make a comeback and misdirecting that is generally game barring the worst brainstorm lock in history of mankind.
My counters currently:
3 FoW
1 Misdirection
2 Spell Pierce
1 Counterspell
1 Spell Snare/Pyroblast (Haven't decided)
4 Counterbalance
But decks like BUG delver and Shardless BUG are horrible matchups for goblins even without TC. Also decks like charbelcher, omnishow, reanimator are just awful matchups for goblins and will always remain so unless you overcommit your board to them for g2/g3 (if you win g1, count your blessings). Goblins will be back to tier 1.5, they were definitely tier 2. But the true offender of goblins remains, Deathrite Shaman which will continue to hold down the gobbies.
If you look at goblin decks, almost all the cards are forever old, and its hard to compete when every other deck gets new things year after year and you are playing more or less the exact same deck for a decade.
Mystic/Batterskull isn't too bad. I find that Young pyromancer/equipment, abrupt decay, deathrite shaman, true-name nemesis, and treasure cruise have all been nails in the coffin for this deck. I miss the days of esper stoneblade as that was one of my better matchups with my build, but the new american stoneblade list with Young Pyromancer is pretty much unwinnable. Goblins will always be playable but it is a slightly high variance deck (no top of deck fixing... ponder/brainstorm/top) and relies heavily on not getting bad luck with ringleaders to win.
The only deck you can take and do well in both modern and legacy right now is U/R Delver, but the deck is slightly underperforming (even though it regularly top 8's) based on how much it is played. It should only get better as time goes on however as people start to drift away from it and hate on the combo meta that has been evolving. The bad news for U/R delver is that the deck runs about $2200 and the modern variant will cost you another $200 for the different lands and counterspells.
I am currently building a Miracles deck to get away from goblins (Still need 2 tundra's and 1 more Karakas for it to be complete). I won't sell my goblin deck I will just keep it around as I love the deck, if it ever gets any love to sleeve it up for another go.
The number one card that I have been struggling against with my goblin list is Young Pyromancer Stoneblade lists, it has been eating up my deck locally and is likely going to cause me to shelve my deck locally even. If anyone has a list that can come out to at least 50% with Jeskai Stoneblade please share it
I actually only obtained 2 red permanents in 5 booser packs with some spells and pulled simic guild leader with the 3 of 2 drop 1/3 pumper.. One of my red permanents from the boosters was a rubblehulk giving me 2 of those, 1 prime speaker, 1 stolen identity and several of the 4 drop tramplers and a lot of simic evolvers which gained trample from the other card. My 1/3 blue pumpers actually held Boros off quite well with gruul charms being a board wipe vs. the decks runnin a lot of Skyjets and hasters. Control decks fell constantly.. Never lost a game to any of those.. I finished the night 5-1 and overall first place by opw% of less than .05. My only loss was a sweep when I got mana screwed twice.. And other than that I swept the 4 opponents and lost 1 game to another gruul deck. RUG definitely seems great if u can pull the cards