So some friends and I were play testing the other day and this scenario came up.
The active player controls two lands and two Lion's Eye Diamonds. He then casts Infernal Tutor with the two lands, and in response cracks the two LEDs for 6 black mana.
The non-active player says "In response to you breaking the LEDs, I cast Daze."
The active player argues that he can't respond to the LED activations since they are mana abilities. The non-active player says LED is the only mana ability that you can respond to.
We look at the gatherer page and see: "The ability is a mana ability, so it is activated and resolves as a mana ability, but it can only be activated at times when you can cast an Instant. Yes, this is a bit weird."
The non-active player argues that since it can only be activated as an instant, it uses the stack and can be responded to. The active player says that since it's a mana ability, it won't use the stack and resolves before the non-active player gains priority and has the chance to cast Daze.
Since we were just testing, there was no judge. In a tournament setting, how would this work?
What do you guys think of including the new Necrotic Ooze combo in this deck?
Necrotic Ooze 2BB
As long as Necrotic Ooze is on the battlefield, it has all activated abilities of all creatures in all graveyards.
4/3
The combo involves Casting Buried Alive getting the Ooze, Pyrexian Devourer and Triskelion and then reanimating the Ooze. It seems like a perfect fit in this kind of shell, imo.
I'm going to work on coming up with a list this weekend. Just thought I'd gauge opinions beforehand.
Yeah, Land destruction is really unreliable in this match-up since they can combo without any lands. I typically just mulligan aggressively for discard. Hypnotic Specter is the best card you can draw in this match-up; it won't win you the game alone, but if you can play it after a Hymn to Tourach, it will probably secure you the game.
On the draw, I'd be reluctant to keep a hand that didn't involve some sort of turn 1 discard. However, a single Thoughtseize is not enough, you need to be able to follow it up with a Hymn to Tourach or something similar. Keep note of how much they mulligan, though. If they go down to 5 or less cards, a single Thoughtseize may be enough since you can draw into further disruption.
The Storm combo vs. Sui-black match-up is probably one of my favorite match-ups in the format since it pretty much comes down to 100% play skill. I think if the storm player is familiar with the match-up, they are favored, however we are fortunate that most storm players don't know how to play this match-up optimally since we are a relatively small portion of the field, so they don't typically need to prepare for the match-up.
However, if the Storm player is familiar with the match-up, it can become very tough. For this reason, I wouldn't suggest Mindbreak Trap. A good Storm player won't lose to Mindbreak Trap and will either Duress it out of your hand, or Chant you before going off.
If Storm combo were a large factor in my meta, I would test Leyline of Sanctity. While playing T.E.S., I've had several Zoo players play it against me, and it slowed me down several turns. It wasn't enough to stop me from comboing off, but I think, for us, it would be enough time to be able to fully disrupt them with discard and let us win. Not only that, but the Leyline also improves the Burn match-up, which is very tough for us, as well.
Anyway, here's a post I made on the T.E.S. topic on The Source. It might help understand the storm players mindset regarding the match-up and let you better prepare, hopefully:
I am still in the stage of learning this deck where I'm not sure how to recover from discard. This deck has no method of regaining lost cards (besides playing Draw-Go, and against a deck like BG Rock it's not an acceptable out), so what is the best line of play?
As an Eva Green pilot and someone who is learning this deck as well, I hope I can offer some advice, though I'm sure someone more experience like Bryant will know better.
Silence/Chant is surprisingly good here; be sure to play it as early as possible and during their upkeep. While playing Eva Green, I've seen people chant me during their turn more times than during mine, and I don't understand the line of thinking. The entire deck is sorcery speed, so chant on their turn not only protects you, but also stops them from building their board.
Duress is also a good early turn play you should be making. Don't bother saving your discard for later turns, because if a good Sui-black player knows you're playing Storm combo, they'll be mulliganing heavily for discard. Being able to strip the Hymn from their hand can win you the game.
Also play your Petals, LEDs, Chrome Moxes as soon as you draw them. They won't put you on as fast of a clock as something like Zoo, so you'll have enough life to be able to Ad Nauseam for enough to combo off without needing the artifact mana to add to your storm count. Once you draw an Infernal Tutor, you should be golden, so just play out your hand and dig for a way to win with cantrips.
This should be obvious, but save your Brainstorms so you can protect the cards in your hand.
Be careful about using Empty the Warrens on game 2 and 3, as they may bring in Engineered Plague, Maelstrom Pulse, or Pernicious Deed specifically for that reason.
The main thing you need to do is just keep fast hands. You need to combo before they can disrupt. Slow hands full of Cantrips won't cut it in this match-up. Be careful about mulliganing too much, though. Going below 5 cards is basically conceding and even 5 or 6 card hands will be tough. It's not an easy match-up for sure, but tight play will win it.
Ok, I've posted my list in the Goblins Primer in the Proven section a few times, but didn't quite get the help I was looking for. I fear my list may be too different from traditional builds. If Cabal_chan or any other mod feels my list is too similar to Vial Goblins, feel free to lock this, and I'll continue to post there instead.
Why splash blue?
Goblins traditionally has 3 tough match-ups: Zoo, Storm combo, and mid-range decks. Blue makes mid-range favorable and gives you outs to Storm Combo post-board. Zoo is still a tough match-up (possibly more so now), but the ability to greatly improve two out of three unfavorable match-ups should at least warrant the blue splash as a meta-call.
The main reason for the blue splash is for sideboard options. Spell Pierce allows the Goblin deck to interact with the format's combo decks. Not only that, but blue also lets you play mindgames with the combo player; when you play a Volcanic Island, it is likely the combo player will start playing around Daze, thus slowing them down and letting you race them. Echoing Truth is generally useful for bouncing hate such as Engineered Plague and Ghostly Prison, as well as being useful at bouncing multiple potential blockers and granting you a much better board position than your opponent.
I believe it is generally known that Goblins is great at abusing Standstill, arguably more-so than other tier decks. For that, I won't go into too much detail about this card, but will note that the card advantage provided from Standstill, Ringleader, and pretty much every other card in this deck easily overwhelms many decks in the format.
Pestermite. This is the card I know I'll have to explain the most. Originally just thrown in to combo with Kiki-Jiki and be funny, I soon learned how insane this card is in this deck. Pestermite has great synergy with AEther Vial by letting you Vial in Pestermite, untap Vial, and Vial in another cmc3 creature. In addition, Pestermite can tap down a potential blocker on turn 3 to let Lackey swing through for an additional turn. Pestermite also allows for less powerful, yet still strong plays such as tapping down an opponent's creature before attackers are declared and then chump blocking a second creature, acting as two creatures rather than one.
Pestermite is also the reason the mid-range match-up becomes favorable. Decks like The Rock are traditionally tough due to them running lots of spot removal as well as board sweepers. This exhausts the Goblins deck and lets the mid-range deck finish strong. However, Pestermite gives the deck the ability to stay strong in the late game by comboing with Kiki-Jiki. The combo gives the deck inevitability and can be easily assembled by turn 6 or 7, at which point the mid-range deck will have already used all of its removal to deal with the initial goblin onslaught.
**Do note that beating your opponent down with goblins is the main win condition, not the combo. Although you can combo out on turn 3, swinging with goblins is often the faster route to victory. The combo is best used as a back-up plan.
Why not to splash blue
I wish I could say the blue splash has no downsides, but this unfortunately isn't the case. Splashing blue makes Merfolk less favorable (further testing is needed, but I believe it to be 50/50). You can also likely expect to lose the mirror match. Since the other Goblin deck is just as good at abusing Standstill, you are left with more dead cards than they are, and they get an average of 1 more creature off Ringleader than you do.
This deck runs 26 Goblins compared to ~34 that are run in more traditional builds. This means for every Ringleader, you can expect to get 1-2 goblins (it averages to 1.73) instead of the 2-3 traditional builds get (2.27 on average). Now, in most cases, the deck easily makes up for this with Standstill, which guarantees three cards, however against decks that are in a better position to abuse Standstill than you, you will be netting less CA than traditional builds. This should be taken into consideration if your meta is full of Goblins, Merfolk, Landstill, Pox, etc. which can also play around Standstill.
The Rest
The rest of the deck is fairly traditional. You've got your Vials, Lackeys, and Warchiefs to build tempo. You've got Ringleaders, Matrons, and Siege-gang to form CA. Piledriver and Chieftain help form the beatdown, and Kiki-Jiki fills whatever role it's need for.
I originally ran 4 Warchief and 2 Chieftain, but later switched to a 3/3 split, and finally to a 4/2 split the other way. This build seems to want more Chieftains than Warchiefs. Perhaps I will retest the split the other way later, but for now, I feel this is right.
Pestermite also fills the role of Gempalm Incinerator, which is why that card was cut. Tapping down a creature for a turn is generally enough time advance your board position enough for whatever you needed to kill to not matter. Pestermite also allows you to deal with large problem creatures, even if your goblin army isn't large yet.
Do note that if he passes priority before cracking the LED, if you pass priority without taking any actions, he can't crack the LED until after the spell on the stack resolves.
Lion's Eye Diamond and Infernal Tutor? Aside from Ad Nauseam, your mana curve is really low, so if you take out some Ad Nauseams and some sickening Dreams, and perhaps a few accelerants you can fit in IT and LED. This could also allow you to combo off without needing Angel's Grace.
You also need some sort of maindeck protection. Orim's Chant, Silence, or Duress would probably be best.
Persecutor has troubles fitting in with the tempo plan. You want to win as fast as possible, before your opponent can recover from disruption and regain board position. You can't afford to be waiting around for a way to kill your own creatures; you lose far to much life with this deck to even give an opponent 1 turn while you wait for the right top deck. Also, Trample is hardly relevant, since Flying basically means Unblockable in this format.
Sure a deck with Persecutor, Bob and Gatekeeper could work, but it would play completely different than Eva Green.
the chrome mox are good but they don't work well with the beseeches and make us even more week to pernicious deed than we already are.
If you want to run terastodon and corpse dance (I never used it) In my list I'd probably cut the viscera seers a jitte and tombstalker or land.
Oh if you have a volrath's stronghold I'd just put it in as a 1 of over a swamp/wasteland or something.
Oh and if you notice my list has a lot of creatures that work well on their own like gatekeeper of malakir, that is so we don't get stomped by zoo.
I mean the zombie infestation might delay them a bit and if you can get a gravepact that might work but there are so many useless topdecks vs. zoo. Carrion feeder especially. The thing can't block.
Wow, this deck has changed ALOT since the OP!
Gatekeeper does seem an obvious inclusion over Fleshbag Marauder, I'll make the switch.
I don't know how I feel about Viscera Seer over Carrion Feeder. The fact that it can block doesn't seem like it makes too much difference since it's role is really just to be a free sac outlet. I'd guess if you're blocking with Seer, you're in a pretty bad board posistion. Scry is useful, especially in the early game, but I think once you get the engine online, your topdecks shouldn't matter too much. I'll test it, though, and come to a conclusion after comparing the two.
I'll move the Fiends to the SB and cut a swamp to make room for 3 Duress.
How has Jitte been for you? It seems with everything coming in and out of the grave, you'd need to constantly pay the equip cost. I have two, so I could try to fit them in, but I'm not sure about it.
I'm going to keep tweaking the deck and use your list as reference. I'll post my new list once I get some testing in.
The active player controls two lands and two Lion's Eye Diamonds. He then casts Infernal Tutor with the two lands, and in response cracks the two LEDs for 6 black mana.
The non-active player says "In response to you breaking the LEDs, I cast Daze."
The active player argues that he can't respond to the LED activations since they are mana abilities. The non-active player says LED is the only mana ability that you can respond to.
We look at the gatherer page and see: "The ability is a mana ability, so it is activated and resolves as a mana ability, but it can only be activated at times when you can cast an Instant. Yes, this is a bit weird."
The non-active player argues that since it can only be activated as an instant, it uses the stack and can be responded to. The active player says that since it's a mana ability, it won't use the stack and resolves before the non-active player gains priority and has the chance to cast Daze.
Since we were just testing, there was no judge. In a tournament setting, how would this work?
Necrotic Ooze 2BB
As long as Necrotic Ooze is on the battlefield, it has all activated abilities of all creatures in all graveyards.
4/3
The combo involves Casting Buried Alive getting the Ooze, Pyrexian Devourer and Triskelion and then reanimating the Ooze. It seems like a perfect fit in this kind of shell, imo.
I'm going to work on coming up with a list this weekend. Just thought I'd gauge opinions beforehand.
My opponent controls Engineered Plague naming "Goblin" and Leyline of Singularity. He then casts a second Engineered Plague and will name Goblin when it comes into play.
What happens when State-based actions are checked?
On the draw, I'd be reluctant to keep a hand that didn't involve some sort of turn 1 discard. However, a single Thoughtseize is not enough, you need to be able to follow it up with a Hymn to Tourach or something similar. Keep note of how much they mulligan, though. If they go down to 5 or less cards, a single Thoughtseize may be enough since you can draw into further disruption.
However, if the Storm player is familiar with the match-up, it can become very tough. For this reason, I wouldn't suggest Mindbreak Trap. A good Storm player won't lose to Mindbreak Trap and will either Duress it out of your hand, or Chant you before going off.
If Storm combo were a large factor in my meta, I would test Leyline of Sanctity. While playing T.E.S., I've had several Zoo players play it against me, and it slowed me down several turns. It wasn't enough to stop me from comboing off, but I think, for us, it would be enough time to be able to fully disrupt them with discard and let us win. Not only that, but the Leyline also improves the Burn match-up, which is very tough for us, as well.
Anyway, here's a post I made on the T.E.S. topic on The Source. It might help understand the storm players mindset regarding the match-up and let you better prepare, hopefully:
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Pestermite
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Chieftain
2 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
2 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Siege-gang Commander
4 AEther Vial
4 Standstill
Land: 22
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Arid Mesa
3 Volcanic Island
2 Mutavault
7 Mountain
1 Island
4 Spell Pierce
3 Red Elemental Blast
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Echoing Truth
Why splash blue?
Goblins traditionally has 3 tough match-ups: Zoo, Storm combo, and mid-range decks. Blue makes mid-range favorable and gives you outs to Storm Combo post-board. Zoo is still a tough match-up (possibly more so now), but the ability to greatly improve two out of three unfavorable match-ups should at least warrant the blue splash as a meta-call.
The main reason for the blue splash is for sideboard options. Spell Pierce allows the Goblin deck to interact with the format's combo decks. Not only that, but blue also lets you play mindgames with the combo player; when you play a Volcanic Island, it is likely the combo player will start playing around Daze, thus slowing them down and letting you race them. Echoing Truth is generally useful for bouncing hate such as Engineered Plague and Ghostly Prison, as well as being useful at bouncing multiple potential blockers and granting you a much better board position than your opponent.
I believe it is generally known that Goblins is great at abusing Standstill, arguably more-so than other tier decks. For that, I won't go into too much detail about this card, but will note that the card advantage provided from Standstill, Ringleader, and pretty much every other card in this deck easily overwhelms many decks in the format.
Pestermite. This is the card I know I'll have to explain the most. Originally just thrown in to combo with Kiki-Jiki and be funny, I soon learned how insane this card is in this deck. Pestermite has great synergy with AEther Vial by letting you Vial in Pestermite, untap Vial, and Vial in another cmc3 creature. In addition, Pestermite can tap down a potential blocker on turn 3 to let Lackey swing through for an additional turn. Pestermite also allows for less powerful, yet still strong plays such as tapping down an opponent's creature before attackers are declared and then chump blocking a second creature, acting as two creatures rather than one.
Pestermite is also the reason the mid-range match-up becomes favorable. Decks like The Rock are traditionally tough due to them running lots of spot removal as well as board sweepers. This exhausts the Goblins deck and lets the mid-range deck finish strong. However, Pestermite gives the deck the ability to stay strong in the late game by comboing with Kiki-Jiki. The combo gives the deck inevitability and can be easily assembled by turn 6 or 7, at which point the mid-range deck will have already used all of its removal to deal with the initial goblin onslaught.
**Do note that beating your opponent down with goblins is the main win condition, not the combo. Although you can combo out on turn 3, swinging with goblins is often the faster route to victory. The combo is best used as a back-up plan.
Why not to splash blue
I wish I could say the blue splash has no downsides, but this unfortunately isn't the case. Splashing blue makes Merfolk less favorable (further testing is needed, but I believe it to be 50/50). You can also likely expect to lose the mirror match. Since the other Goblin deck is just as good at abusing Standstill, you are left with more dead cards than they are, and they get an average of 1 more creature off Ringleader than you do.
This deck runs 26 Goblins compared to ~34 that are run in more traditional builds. This means for every Ringleader, you can expect to get 1-2 goblins (it averages to 1.73) instead of the 2-3 traditional builds get (2.27 on average). Now, in most cases, the deck easily makes up for this with Standstill, which guarantees three cards, however against decks that are in a better position to abuse Standstill than you, you will be netting less CA than traditional builds. This should be taken into consideration if your meta is full of Goblins, Merfolk, Landstill, Pox, etc. which can also play around Standstill.
The Rest
The rest of the deck is fairly traditional. You've got your Vials, Lackeys, and Warchiefs to build tempo. You've got Ringleaders, Matrons, and Siege-gang to form CA. Piledriver and Chieftain help form the beatdown, and Kiki-Jiki fills whatever role it's need for.
I originally ran 4 Warchief and 2 Chieftain, but later switched to a 3/3 split, and finally to a 4/2 split the other way. This build seems to want more Chieftains than Warchiefs. Perhaps I will retest the split the other way later, but for now, I feel this is right.
Pestermite also fills the role of Gempalm Incinerator, which is why that card was cut. Tapping down a creature for a turn is generally enough time advance your board position enough for whatever you needed to kill to not matter. Pestermite also allows you to deal with large problem creatures, even if your goblin army isn't large yet.
So, although
Him: spell, pass priority
You: Krosan Grip, pass priority
Him: break LED
is legal
Him: spell, pass priority
You: pass priority
Him: break LED in response to first spell
is not.
You also need some sort of maindeck protection. Orim's Chant, Silence, or Duress would probably be best.
Edit: Lotus Petal, too.
+2 Hypnotic Specter
+1 Smother
+1 Edict
You could instead change a slot to another Gatekeeper, Nighthawk, Shade, etc. Basically, just play more of your other cards.
Sure a deck with Persecutor, Bob and Gatekeeper could work, but it would play completely different than Eva Green.
Wow, this deck has changed ALOT since the OP!
Gatekeeper does seem an obvious inclusion over Fleshbag Marauder, I'll make the switch.
I don't know how I feel about Viscera Seer over Carrion Feeder. The fact that it can block doesn't seem like it makes too much difference since it's role is really just to be a free sac outlet. I'd guess if you're blocking with Seer, you're in a pretty bad board posistion. Scry is useful, especially in the early game, but I think once you get the engine online, your topdecks shouldn't matter too much. I'll test it, though, and come to a conclusion after comparing the two.
I'll move the Fiends to the SB and cut a swamp to make room for 3 Duress.
How has Jitte been for you? It seems with everything coming in and out of the grave, you'd need to constantly pay the equip cost. I have two, so I could try to fit them in, but I'm not sure about it.
I'm going to keep tweaking the deck and use your list as reference. I'll post my new list once I get some testing in.