For a month or two, I had been playtesting Goblins extensively (for the PTQ season, obviously).

After 0-2ing the Richmond PTQ, and winning the GPT that started after round 2 (lol 0-2 drop!),
I come up with a pretty optimal list of Goblins after talking to Brad Taulbee (who managed to make
it to two PTQ finals, losing to Aggro Loam both times).

Of course, what would any good Magic article be without a decklist?

The Sparksmith got added in to beat Tarmogoyfs/Myr Enforcers/Dorans, etc. I felt having 4 Goblin Matron
was too slow many a time, especially with the number of Cabal Therapies running around (see Dredge/Doran).

Before the tournament arrives, about a week in advance, I ship Tristal a Domain Zoo list, which he proceeds
to smash face with! {e}

Round 1-3: Byes,

walking around the venue, meeting up with various Maryland players, and Tristal and RobRoy.

Round 4: Christopher R. Schaut.

I recognize this guy from the last Rockville PTQ, where he played my friend Hans Mahler in an Ideal mirror, so I auto-put him on Ideal.

Game 1: He wins the die roll, and casts a turn 2 Form of the Dragon off a sacland and double Seething Song. I proceed to sharpshooter him for 5 damage on turn 4 (while being at 5!)

Sideboarding: -4 Gempalm, -1 Ringleader, -1 Sparksmith, +3 Therapy, +3 grip

Game 2: He keeps a weird hand (i think, 3 sacland, wish, 2*prism, star). I therapy him for Sensei Top, because his first play is a sacland, and I don’t really want him recovering from my Therapies. On my turn 2, I lay a Mogg War Marshal, flashback therapy to hit both his prisms, in the meantime, he has drawn another burning wish. The next turn, I Earwig Squad him for 2 confinements and a form, and note that he doesn’t play top, instead playing insidious dreams/draco/explosion.


However, the game ends pretty quickly after that since he is taking 6 per turn.

Round 5: Robert E. Moore.

He is playing some sort of dumb Leaf-Crowned Elder deck (apparently he only had 1 bye, so he managed to win 3 rounds in a row!).

Game 1: He triggers Elder about 6 times, getting Eternal Witness, Doran, Troll Ascetic, but multiple ringleaders just bash him in combo with a pyromancer.

Sideboarding: +3 grip, -3 Fanatic

Game 2: The same thing happens, but he Engineered Plagues for goblin, but I have a goblin king in play, so he still dies to pyromancer.

Round 6: Christian Calcano.

He is playing Doran with maindeck Jitte ;_;

Game 1: It is a fairly tense game that goes back and forth. I Gempalm two early goyfs, and have a bunch of 1/1s in play, but he eventually gets Doran/Shizo/Jitte, and I lose.

Sideboarding: +3 therapy, -1 Matron, -2 piledriver

Game 2: I keep his Jitte in check with Skirk Prospector, so he bites it to a lot of 1/1 tokens.

Game 3: He gets turn 2 doran, turn 3 vindicate, turn 4 witness ;_;

I was pretty pissed after this match, because I don’t think he could have won game 1 without drawing his singleton Shizo.

Round 7: BENJI ASHMAN (AKA FAKEHAT!)

Game 1: Fakehat obvobvobv draws it afgain, and combos me on turn 4.

Sideboarding: +3 therapy, +2 Grip, -4 gempalm, -1 sparksmith

Game 2: I threaten lethal on my turn 4, so he has to wish on turn 3 for pyroclasm, then later fizzles on a desire for 6.

Game 3: He mulligans to 5 and puts up no fight.

Round 8: Jason Imperiale

Dredge idiot, and I know this from reading mtg.com :-p He is also kind of a douche.

Game 1: I obvobvobv lose because he has early darkblast and dredging.

Sideboarding: +4 Extirpate, +3 Earwig, -2 Piledriver, -1 Matron, -2 Ringleader, -1 Pyromancer, -1 Tin Street


Game 2: He mulls to 5, and I just roll him on turn 4 with the 2 piledrivers I left in.

Game 3: He keeps a 7 card hand, but does nothing for the first few turns. I correctly put him on darkblast, when all he does is fetch up 2 watery graves. I finally play into his darkblast so I can extirpate it, and earwig him for 3 narcs, then 2 dread return and an ichorid.


He starts bitching and whining about how lucky and terrible I am to not do anything early and he eventually decks when he can’t make it past my fanatics.

Round 9: Nicolas J. Cuenca

Goblins mirror!

Game 1: He gets stuck on 3 mana, whereas I don’t miss land drops and resolve several ringleaders which end the game in short order.

Game 2: He gets stuck on 3 mana again, but my hand is kind of slow, so I start cabal therapying him to try to stay alive, and eventually draw my one goblin king to lethal him with my mogg tokens.

End of day 1.

I am pretty excited because I am 8-1, so I am in relatively good shape to at least money, if not top 8.

Round 10: Zack Hall

U/W tron. I put this guy on a tron strategy, since he obviously did well in Vancouver with it.

Game 1: He wins the die roll, and leads with a power plant, and chrome mox imprinting condescend. I play a fanatic into his represented counterspell, and sure enough it gets remanded.

He trons up on turn 3, so I get slavered on turn 4, and he gets the lock on turn 5 by a transmuted tolaria west.

Sideboarding: -4 Mogg Fanatic, -1 Sparksmith, -2 Gempalm, +3 Cabal Therapy, +3 Krosan Grip (I leave in 2 gempalms, for triskelion so I can attack past it).

Game 2: He mulligans to 5, and my draw involves: turn 1, land mox, imprint gempalm, piledriver, turn 2, warchief, turn 3 ringleader. That doesn’t last long, even though he plays a sphere of law on turn 3 from a turn 3 signet.

Game 3: He keeps a slow hand, and I get early pressure. He eventually taps low to oblivion ring a piledriver, so I sneak out a warchief. The next turn, he lays a sphere of law, then I untap and pyromancer him for exactly enough through the sphere.

Round 11: Joshua Schneier

Blue Counterbalance variant with Engineered Plagues.

Game 1: I win the dieroll, lay turn 1 prospector, turn 2 sparksmith. He reads the card carefully and slumps back in his chair as he starts laying tarmogoyfs only to see them sparksmithed to death. Not close at all.

Sideboarding: -4 Mogg Fanatic, -1 Pyromancer, +3 Krosan Grip, +2 Dralnu’s Crusade

Game 2: He force spikes my prospector, counterspells my piledriver, then lays a plague. I die to tarmogoyfs shortly after.

Game 3: My hand is ok, I resolve a piledrive ron turn 2, then start laying some small guys like moggs, and he draws 7 fetchlands in a row and dies.

At this point, I’m extremely psyched, since I only need to 2-1 the next 3 rounds to top 8.

Round 12: Matt Hansen.

Cymbro #2, obvobvobv.

Game 1: I draw a tonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn of lands, like 6 after I keep an opener of 3 lands, mogg fanatic, prospector, piledriver.

Sideboarding: -1 Tin Street Hooligan, -2 SKirk Prospector, +3 Krosan Grip

Game 2: I get an early sparksmith, which contains his guys long enough for me to piledriver him to death.

Game 3: I commit the WORST blunder ever, which probably costs me the game. My board is, goblin king, sparksmith, prospector, piledriver, his board is only a chameleon colossus, and he is tapped out.

All I need to do is sparksmith his colossus (since it would take 5 damage since it counts all goblins in play). Instead, I convince myself that I need to sparksmith it and fanatic it. So I lose a fanatic for no reason
which would have been instrumental in keeping his 2nd phantom centaur under control so it would not get cloaked*2.

Instead I lose to that centaur, and Hansen goes on to top 8.

Round 13: Michael Mushaty.

Counterbalance idiot #2

Game 1: I get a fast draw, and roll him, while he does dumb stuff like repeal my chrome mox 3 times.

Sideboarding: –

Game 2: He plays an early goyf, then a forge-tender, then another goyf. I can’t really do anything through his forge-tenders and goyfs, because gempalm incinerator is basically dead.

Game 3: I draw all of my chrome moxen, after keeping a hand with land, land, mox, piledriver, warchief, prospector. He then repeals my mox on his turn 1. After which, he proceeds to go goyf, forge-tender, shackles. At some point, he shackles my mogg war marshal, and chooses to untap his shackles and STEAL THE SAME MOGG WAR MARSHAL AGAIN.

Round 14: Dean C. Bilz

TEPS guy #2.

Game 1: Comboed on turn 4, when he was gonna die on my turn 4, but he won the die roll ;[

Game 2: I am pretty sure that I can’t dodge the bullet again and win this matchup, but in game 2, I decide to matron for a ringleader, whereas if I matron for a mogg fanatic, he just dies.

Round 15: Daniel OMahoney-Schwartz

I recognize his name, since he is one of the 3 people part of Team Antarctica, so I know he is probably pretty good.
He is playing Domain Zoo.

Game 1: I clog the board with 3 mogg war marshals, then ghost quarter his temple garden, which strands his hand full of lightning helixes and vindicates, and shrinks his kird ape to a 1/1.

Game 2: He gets turn 1 ape, turn 2 goyf, turn 3 jitte/tarfire a guy of mine. I lose this one pretty handily.

Game 3: I get turn 1 prospector, turn 2 mogg war marshal which keeps his jitte in check while I build up a critical mass of goblins to goblin king him to death.

All-in all, it’s a pretty good tournament for me, and playtesting paid off in spades, giving me 2 pro points, and 400 dollars.

If I had won one more match, I would have qualified for hollywood, but this is not too bad of a performance for my 3rd GP ever.

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Looking at the pre-rotation decklist, we can see that a few cards are lost for the next season of extended.

In particular, Goblin Matron and Goblin Ringleader disappear from the maindeck, as well as Dralnu’s Crusade and Cabal Therapy from the sideboard.

Looking from Onslaught/MDF type 2 for goblins, we can either run clickslither, or siege-gang commander.

In particular, I would restructure the deck in the following way:

My gut-feeling is that post rotation, Affinity and Tron will be HUGE. You need sprees vs affinity and maindeck sparksmith as a 4-of helps a lot vs them. Grip is an uncounterable way of killing their titans or platinums. Clickslither is a hasty trampling threat that is hard to deal with.