Magic Memories: Goblin King (and his kingdom)

[Oversoul]

I happened across my old Magic Memories thread for Mogg Fanatic. Although I did dedicate part of that thread to the card's role in Goblin-based decks, most of the thread touched on topics unrelated to the Goblins archetype, Goblin Tribal, Tribal Goblins, or whatever you want to call it. So I thought it might be fun to do a Magic Memories thread more focused on the Little Red Guys That Could.

You can probably guess how this is pretty different from all of my other Magic Memories threads. I've been doing these in Single Card Strategies because they're card-specific. And which goblin should I pick? A case could be made for a lot of these guys.

Goblin Lackey has probably had the most prominence over the longest period of time, but it wasn't there from the beginning and it was unavailable in some formats where goblins did quite well without it. Muxus, Goblin Grandee is perhaps the signature powerhouse of the deck, but the card is still quite recent. Goblin Piledriver is responsible for some great moments, but didn't exist back in the 90's and has been partially superseded in recent years. Goblin Matron has been one of the most consistent inclusions in decks, but isn't really exciting. Goblin Recruiter is arguably the most potent enabler in the tribe, but is banned in Legacy. I feel like there are pretty strong cases for some others too: Skirk Prospector, Siege-Gang Commander, Goblin Warchief, Conspicuous Snoop, and even some of the newer legendaries. And personally, I'm also partial to Mogg Raider, Goblin Rabblemaster, and Goblin Chirurgeon. All good cards, and none of them really exemplify my full history with Goblins decks. I figured maybe I should just go with Goblin Grenade. Who doesn't love a good Goblin Grenade?

Mulling all this over, I decided that there is a right answer here. Goblin King isn't just the original tribal synergy. And if it had just beaten the other cards to the punch, that might not be enough. It's also been one of the most reprinted, most iconic, and most prolific. It paved the way for the mechanic of other tribal "Lord" cards and has had some of the more nuanced effects on shaping decks. Long live the king.

 

[Oversoul]

I'm accustomed to the Revised Edition version of Goblin King, which has a notable difference from the Unlimited Edition version I showed here. The original version of Goblin King in Limited/Unlimited printings had a type line with "Summon Goblin King." But in Revised Edition and every core set through Eighth Edition, the line is "Summon Lord." These earliest printings were before my time, but it's worth noting that Goblin King was unique among the three original tribal-themed cards. For comparison, here are Lord of Atlantis and Zombie Master.


These days, all three cards belong to their appropriate creature types. But originally, Lord of Atlantis was not a merfolk and Zombie Master was not a zombie. Also, the original core set, as printed, only had a single merfolk card and a single zombie card (Scavenging Ghoul was not a zombie yet). Goblin King stood out in two ways from the beginning.

1. It was a goblin itself. This meant that not only did Goblin King's abilities affect other copies of Goblin King, as is now the case once more, but Goblin King actually boosted itself in the same vein as later cards like Muscle Sliver. That's right, even with no other goblins on the field, Goblin King was originally a 3/3 mountainwalker. This was apparently an oversight, as WotC changed the type line in 1994.
2. Unlike the other two lords, Goblin King got two other members of its tribe instead of just one.

Until recently, I hadn't given much thought to that first point, because I just hadn't heard from anyone who played Goblin King in 1993 before the card was nerfed. I guess it was pretty decent. As for the second point, well, it probably wouldn't matter much because by Fallen Empires in late 1994, there were more options for Goblin decks anyway. But conceptually, it does matter in the sense that with the establishment of the four-card rule, you couldn't just fill a deck with Merfolk of the Pearl Trident. But with a playset of Goblin Balloon Brigade and a playset of Mons's Goblin Raiders, alongside a playset of Goblin King back when Goblin Kings still boosted Goblin Kings, yeah, there was the potential for a real deck in there. You could play a reasonable, proper tribal deck in 1993 and 1994 right up until Goblin King was changed to be a lord. And some people did just that.

 

[TomB]

I played against a deck back then that packed Blood Moon to enable Mountainwalk against non-red decks that had non-basic lands. This was just before the creation of Standard, which changed everything, pretty much.

 

[Oversoul]

Blood Moon was key in some of these early Goblin decks, especially since Goblin King was one of the only strong cards associated with the archetype. We'd get nine more goblins (not counting Goblin Rock Sled) in 1994, but I don't think that Goblin Artisans or Goblin Flotilla were especially relevant, even at their absolute zenith. Goblins were still pretty lackluster in terms of their abilities, but so were most creatures at the time. Goblin Wizard was a cool experiment, and something I've tried to use effectively myself, but it always felt a bit too situational and a bit too expensive for what it did. However, this did pave the way for better versions of the same effect. The only other goblin from this era to have lasting influence was Goblin Chirurgeon, which is still a pretty good card. I've won many games because Goblin Chirurgeon made it difficult for my opponent to get rid of my other goblins.

The real improvements at this stage weren't coming primarily from new goblins, but from new tribal synergies. Goblin Caves, Goblin Shrine, Goblin Warrens, and Goblin Grenade all came out in the latter half of 1994, and they hold up surprisingly well to this day. In particular, I used Goblin Warrens as a kid and sort of abandoned it in the early 00's, but renewed my interest in the card with the advent of Pashalik Mons. But the real gamechanger was Goblin Grenade.


The ability to nuke a potential blocker or outrace your opponent was nice. But the card did something else too. Alongside Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning, it meant that if opponents couldn't stop your mountainwalking goblins from getting through, they might easily fall within lethal range of your direct damage spells.

 

[Oversoul]

I've decided on an interpretation of the timeline here that I pretty much made up on the spot just now, but I think it works. The first chapter in the story of Goblins concerns their earliest decks, starting from when Goblin King itself was the only synergy the tribe had and progressing slowly, culminating in the release of Fallen Empires and some of the best cards that cared about goblins up to that point.

The second chapter moves forward with the foundation set by Fallen Empires, from 1995 to 1998, stopping abruptly at Urza's Saga. If it's not obvious why the third chapter starts with Urza's Saga, well, I'll address that soon enough. But it was this second chapter that represented my own introduction to Goblins. In this period, we sporadically got new tools for dedicated Goblins decks, but most new goblins did their own thing. From valuable contributors like Mogg Flunkies to generic stuff like Keeper of Kookus to bad cards like Goblin Mutant, there was a lot of variance. Highlights of this chapter might include:

• The advent of Goblin Recruiter at a time when there was no discernible way to exploit the card's ability.
• An uptick in cheap goblins that could have an outsized impact on the board, such as Mogg Fanatic, Goblin Vandal, and Mogg Raider.
• A substantial increase in goblins that had abilities generally falling outside the scope of what a dedicated tribal deck would want. Mogg Maniac was the most prominent example. It's still a good card, but its creature type almost never comes up.
• The printing of some of the best new tools for the tribe, all in the same set, which was not tournament-legal at the time.

Two "Portal" sets were released during this period. The first one didn't actually use creature types in any way, but did introduce Raging Goblin. That wasn't such a big deal: Raging Goblin would get reprinted in Exodus anyway, although the delay might have mattered to some players at the time. For my part, I wasn't playing in tournaments anyway. But yeah, Raging Goblin was pretty good.

And then along came Portal Second Age. This set contained a whopping 9 goblins, 8 of which were brand new to the game. And for anyone who might have been looking to take a Goblins deck to a tournament, I'm sure that some of these cards would have been desirable.


Portal Second Age was intended as an on-ramp for new players, something they'd graduate from and then invest in real cards. None of these cards were tournament-legal at the time.

 

[Oversoul]

Among the highlights of my "second chapter" scenario here is this awkward little goblin.


At the time Visions was released in 1997, and even as new goblins came out with sets like Tempest, there just weren't a lot of reasons to run Goblin Recruiter, because there wasn't a lot that it could do. Of course, Goblin Recruiter would go on to earn a ban in the Extended format as well as in Legacy, but that would take a while. Back in the 90's, it was an interesting card, but a frustrating one, as it simply didn't seem to have a niche. And that leaves me wondering what the goal actually was. When WotC designed Goblin Recruiter, how did they view it? Even though the card existed in 1997 and I saw it while combing my own collection to build Goblin decks, I cannot recall an instance of anyone saying anything about Goblin Recruiter prior to the advent of Goblin Ringleader in 2001. I have no memories of it being considered a good card. I have no memories of it being considered a bad card. Goblin Recruiter, in my hazy recollection, simply wasn't talked about.

On the one hand, four years isn't really that long, and it's not as though I thought to seek out commentary on this card back then. I could easily have simply failed to notice the contexts in which Goblin Recruiter was brought up, either because someone used it successfully or was assessing the card as unplayable. Also, this was all so long ago that the internet isn't very helpful. Sites where the topic might have come up are generally dead by now, and commentary on the card exploded once it became a competitive powerhouse in the Extended format. So I don't remember anything and it also shouldn't be surprising that it would be hard to find anything anyway.

On the other hand, it's difficult to even imagine how I might go about using Goblin Recruiter effectively before 2001, even given the opportunity to try. What goblins would you even stack on top? Goblin King was, at this point, technically not a goblin, so you couldn't build a stack with it. Was there a sensible pile to set up with Goblin Recruiter? If so, what cards would be used alongside it? I'm stumped.

The earliest serious use for Goblin Recruiter that I'm aware of was in 2002, in a deck built by Mons Johnson himself.

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg Fanatic
2 Grim Lavamancer
1 Mogg Raider
4 Goblin Piledriver
2 Mogg Flunkies
4 Goblin Recruiter
1 Sparksmith
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Goblin Ringleader
4 Seal of Fire
2 Goblin Bombardment
4 Terminate
6 Mountain
2 Swamp
4 Sulfurous Spring
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Shadowblood Ridge
4 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port

That list is pretty clever, especially because it pioneered the Recruiter + Ringleader engine. Goblin Lackey was already a well-established staple for Goblin decks, and we'll come back to that one. But yeah, this list is not very strong by today's standards. It's a start, but the whole reason that Goblin Recruiter works here is because of the trio of Goblin Ringleaders.

Of course, there is a website with a message board from 1999 that is still around today, and where discussions were focused on casual play, ranging outside the norms of what was viable in established tournament formats. That's right. Goblin Recruiter was mentioned prior to 2001 right here at the CPA. I knew I could count on you guys!

Up first, there's this thread from March of 2000. It concerns a long-forgotten format that was strikingly similar to the "Tribal Lowlander" concept we'd play some 13 years later. Gizmo ended up playing spikes as his tribe and won the whole event. A user named "Spart" brainstormed a couple of deck ideas for the format, and one of them caused the thread to come up in my search...

But, since I'm a combo player myself, I feel it's my solemn duty to suggest a combo deck as well. Hmmm.... a combo deck based on creature damage.... got it!

Fire Mogg:

4 x mogg maniac
4 x raging goblin
4 x mogg fanatic
4 x goblin recruiter
4 x squee, goblin nabob
1 x will-o-the-wisp
1 x hypnotic specter
1 x masticore

1 x fire covenant
1 x treacherous link
1 x shock
1 x seal of fire
1 x lightning bolt
1 x vampiric tutor
1 x terror
1 x hatred
1 x dark ritual
1 x gamble
1 x demonic consultation
1 x duress
1 x kaervek's purge

1 x badlands
1 x cinder marsh
1 x city of brass
11 x mountain
10 x swamp

This deck can go the hatred route, or the combo with mogg maniac or treacherous link and fire covenant. The consultation is risky and may have to be replaced, I'm considering a plaguelord which would work nicely with all the little goblins, especially the nabob.

All these years later, even at a glace, I can spot some improvements I'd make if I were to actually attempt this concept in this format I just now rediscovered. So the deck has some problems. However, it takes an approach I hadn't thought of, and Goblin Recruiter does make a certain amount of sense here. If you can set up a hand with some cards that present a kill alongside Mogg Maniac, then you might as well stack your deck with Mogg Maniac on top.

And then there's Whimsical's casual Goblin deck. Sageridder suggested Goblin Recruiter in September of 2000.

have you tried goblin recruiter ?coat of arms might help survive longer.

Thanks for reminding me about that card, mister sagerider sir! It's been nagging me since this morning ...

Exactly HOW does the goblin recruiter work? It says on the card to look for a goblin card in your deck and put on top of your library... clarify for moi. Does it allow for retrieval of Goblin Grenade, Bomb, Bombardment, Caves, Shrine, King, etc., etc., ad nauseaum ... since all those have the word goblin on them ... or is just a cheap way to pull out your maniacs for you to draw next turn?

Recruiter only lets you get something with Creature Type: Goblin, unfortunately.

The recruiter allows you to "stack"your deck. You may only search for cards that goblin is the creature type on.

Anyway, to stick with the topic at hand, Goblin Recruiter searchers for the card type "goblin". Therefore, you check the middle left side of a card, just underneath the picture to see if it says "goblin". If it doesn't, then the recruiter can't stack it.

If this were L5R, then any card with "goblin" in the card type or card name would be a legal target. Too bad it isn't. Come to think of it, there SHOULD be a Goblin Recruiter in that game...

Some fun nostalgia in that thread, but Goblin Recruiter wasn't really going anywhere in that deck, so while the discussion is a cute read, it's moot for my purposes. We're reminded me that Coat of Arms used to be $7 back then, which seems like a lot, but I guess it had not yet been reprinted. And I am compelled to pedantically note that Purple_Jester was incorrect about Anvil of Bogardan in this thread: the card no longer hosed Necropotence.

Finally, here's a weird thread from November of 2000. I mean, the title says that the deck is weird, but I reading through it, I think it's the thread that's weird. Aku Necromancer posted a casual red list.

The concept of the deck, is to quickly get out a few mana producers into play. Tangle Wire should buy you enough time for you to do this. Next is to take out there resources via Stone Rain, Seismic Mage, or even the Grenadiers. The kill comes from getting a Moggcatcher out and each turn fetching the marshalls, and not paying the echoe so you get a small force of tokens. With your red horde, and a timely Trumpet Blast you should put some type of beatdown on your opponent. Goblin Grenade to finish him off. Although it is STRICTLY for casual play, Im just wondering how to make it better, and if it would work.

The idea is wacky enough to pique my interest, but the list itself seems to indicate a lack of experience. Hey, if my own decks from 2000 were posted here, they'd look even worse by comparison. But yeah, the original list doesn't seem viable except in the slowest, clunkiest environments. Anyway, the thread showed up in my search because of Galtwish's tangent.

Goblin Bombardment is the way to go:
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Mogg Maniac
4 Shrieking Mogg
4 Goblin Recruiter
4 Mogg Catcher
4 Goblin Marshall
4 Goblin Bombardment
3 Puppet Strings
2 Fool's Tome
4 Wasteland
1 Shivan Gorge
1 Rath's Edge
1 Keldon Necropolis
18 Mountian

Quickly empty your hand, get a few quick beats in, and then Recruit or Catch your way to victory. Fool's Tome is good for this deck, and Puppet Strings can protect you or allow you to double Catch a turn for 8 mana. Very cool idea Mikeymike, I hope this version at least gives some food for thought.

I have to say, I'm skeptical of this one. Both the original list and Galtwish's version are based on squeezing value out of Moggcatcher. Searching your library will shuffle away Goblin Recruiter's stack, so why use Goblin Recruiter in the first place? Seems like a nonbo. At least the thread is awkwardly funny.

i meant right there what i said was spam! SORRY AKU SORRY SPIDEY! i in no way meant to say that your post wre spam! i meant what i was saying was spam! I"M SOO SORRY GUYS! BTW spiderman i'll watch my foul mouth, sorry. Man i feel terrible, i'm really really sorry you interpeted it that way. man i feel horrilbe i'll edit that right now.

Eh, I prefer Wakefield's deck:

4 Goblin lackeys
4 Goblin Marshalls
4 Goblin Lackeys
4 Goblin marshalls
2 Goblin lackeys
2 Goblin marshalls

4 trumpet blasts
4 Relentless assault
4 trumpet blasts
4 relentless assaults

24 land

Um, Duel? I don't think that deck is legal anywhere. You've got, count 'em, 10 copies of Goblin Lackey. You can't just hide them by putting them on different lines!

 

[Oversoul]

I'm declaring that the third chapter in the history of goblins starts in 1998 with Urza's Saga. Counting the tournament-legal reprinting of Goblin Matron, this set effectively introduced eight new goblins.



Not all of these were winners. But Goblin Matron ended up becoming one of the most important tools in the whole tribe, and Goblin Lackey sort of revolutionized Goblin decks, to the point that Goblin decks in the Legacy format are still largely built around Goblin Lackey. There's a case to be made that Goblin Lackey is the most potent and important card in the history of the tribe. It's been a fixture ever since its release, and when Goblin Lackey was unfavored in Legacy, it also meant that Goblin decks as a whole were unfavored. I'd say that the card's prominence cannot be overstated, but for one glaring issue.

Originally printed in Urza's Saga as an uncommon, Goblin Lackey would eventually get special printings in a From the Vault box product and in a Secret Lair. And that's it. Goblin Lackey has never been reprinted in an actual set. No Standard reprints. No Masters sets. Nothing. Despite knowing this, I'm slightly taken aback, because so many bombs have been reprinted in the past few years alone.

The lack of reprints means that Goblin Lackey got just one tenure in Standard, and has never been Modern-legal. The card was banned in Extended, so I wonder if that's why WotC want to keep it out of Modern. Anyway, I can present a Standard list for a deck built around Goblin Lackey in early 1999, courtesy of Omeed Dariani.

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Patrol
4 Mogg Flunkies
4 Goblin King
4 Ball Lightning
4 Shock
4 Incinerate
4 Kindle
4 Cursed Scroll
4 Wasteland
4 Shivan Gorge
15 Mountain

Sideboard:
4 Bottle Gnomes
2 Torture Chamber
2 Scald
4 Pyroblast
1 Shivan Gorge
2 Shattering Pulse

 

[Ferret]

Now, this might be bad if facing other tribal decks, but have you thought about Coat of Arms?

 

[Oversoul]

Now, this might be bad if facing other tribal decks, but have you thought about Coat of Arms?

The card was brought up on one of those old threads. As for my own decks? I think it's like you say: bad if facing other tribal decks. Goblins get so many great synergies of their own that they outclass almost all other tribes handily. So why offer your opponents a leg up in the first place? In an environment where it's your Goblin deck against non-tribal decks, sure, Coat of Arms can be broken.

When I first picked up a copy of Coat of Arms in 2000 or so, it immediately went right into my Sliver Queen deck. Not using Coat of Arms in my Goblin decks could probably be attributed to always having it in some other deck instead, and not having enough copies to run in every deck. Later on, well, Coat of Arms does cost 5 mana, which is pretty steep. I think that it's almost always simply been too far outside the curve for the Goblin decks that have competed in tournament formats. Casual play is another story, and Coat of Arms does make your goblins hit stupidly hard. I see that it's in almost 40% of Krenko, Mob Boss decks on EDHrec, which probably shouldn't surprise me.

Now here's the followup question. If you are going to use a 5-drop artifact in your Goblin Tribal deck, but you only get to use one, which one do you pick?

 

[Ferret]

I'll be honest: I didn't know that Eldrazi Monument even existed - I've been out of it for a while...combined with something like Goblin Warrens that card would be insane...

 

[Ferret]

Looking back on my old Goblin deck, I used to have a few Blood Moons in it to deal with my friends' Maze of Iths (Mazes of Ith?). Just keep making more goblins via Warrens and use the Goblin King/Blood Moon combo to swing for the win...

 

[Oversoul]

Looking back on my old Goblin deck, I used to have a few Blood Moons in it to deal with my friends' Maze of Iths (Mazes of Ith?). Just keep making more goblins via Warrens and use the Goblin King/Blood Moon combo to swing for the win...

Goblin Warrens is a card that I sort of abandoned early on, then rediscovered in 2019 because of Pashalik Mons. Fallen Empires mostly gets a bad rap these days for its overly niche and underpowered cards, but I think that some of the cards in the set hold up pretty well, despite a general lack of recognition. Even 28+ years later, Goblin Warrens is still pretty nice.

 

[Oversoul]

Following Urza's Saga, the next several sets added a bunch of new toys for goblins, although most of them are more like curiosities than staples. From the bizarre Goblin Spy to the deplorably situational Goblin Masons to the tantalizing Moggcatcher, the options just kept expanding. One of the most interesting cards in this chapter might be Goblin Marshal, a card that is still pretty good, looks like it could have been great, but never really seemed to establish itself as a strong top-end card for Goblin decks. Even back in 1999, a bit token-generator wasn't really the top-end that goblins needed to close out games. Evasion, haste, and damage-boosting were more important.

And then along came Goblin Ringleader. As I mentioned, it appears that the Recruiter + Ringleader engine didn't really catch on at first. I think that if the two cards had been printed closer together in time, they might have revolutionized Goblin decks. It is a very, very good engine. And really, even in formats where Goblin Recruiter wasn't available, Goblin Ringleader was effective, so long as it was being used in a dedicated Goblin deck.

The third chapter in Goblin history comes to its conclusion with most casual and tournament decklists coalescing around Goblin Lackey, Goblin Ringleader, and Goblin King. And if that's where it all ended, Goblins would have gone out on top out of all "tribal" archetypes, but with the caveat that decks focused on synergies within a creature type just were generally not very good. It's probably the case that goblins and slivers were the only two tribes to get enough key pieces to break free from utter mediocrity by 2001. Tribal synergies were not in a satisfying spot, and although casual players can try to make anything work, I can attest that it was an uphill battle. WotC recognized this, and began trying to improve the quality of cards that cared about creature types. This led to the tribal paradox of Odyssey Block. The block took place on a different continent from previous stories, and the designers chose to illustrate this, in part, by bringing in new focal creature types. So while goblins had previously been the dominant creature type for red, Odyssey Block had zero goblins, and featured a tribal theme of dwarves in red, instead of goblins. Good news for dwarves, but bad news for goblins. However, despite delivering some goodies, there was no way that Odyssey Block alone was going to see dwarves displacing goblins in the broader context. Goblin Tribal was probably still the most successful and most effective of all these archetypes.

With no new goblins coming out, the third chapter ends in a weird spot. Goblins had become better than ever, but they were in the midst of a dry spell when it came to anything new.

 

[Oversoul]

I'm defining the fourth chapter of Goblin history as starting with Onslaught in 2002, and it really shouldn't come as a surprise that this set and its entire block represented a watershed moment for "tribal" decks in general, and for goblins foremost among them. I suspect that it's pretty well-known at the CPA anyway, but for those who weren't around or have forgotten, Onslaught Block was the major Standard three-set block for Fall of 2002 and Winter/Spring of 2003. Set on the continent of Otaria, the overarching theme for the whole block was that creature types mattered. New decks that utilized mechanics based around creature types emerged, and most existing decks of this sort got vastly improved tools. Other than a handful of previously supported creature types being disregarded here, Onslaught Block represented a rising tide for tribal decks. A few tribes were a few losers, but everyone else won, and won big, with more high-quality tribal support, more incentives to make your deck care about a specific creature type, than pretty much the entire history of Magic up to this point. Seriously Onslaught Block is, for our purposes, a big deal.

I recall Mark Rosewater noting that tribe-focused decks prior to this were usually pretty hard to construct, not very competitive, and still enormously popular. Onslaught Block was how WotC began the process of course-correcting the strength of tribal synergies. In some sense, this meant that the few creature types with any established history of success would now have to share that success with a bunch of other creature types. However, in practice, the tribes that were already robust seemed to gain the best new toys anyway. Throughout this thread, I've been covering why goblins worked. And I mentioned slivers, a type that got a later start, but had its own specific gimmick that made it arguably even better than goblins. Other than those two, some notable attempts to make tribal decks were sparse. Elves got a little support in the 90's and Priest of Titania was able to turn this into the "Elfball" archetype, which attempted to get lots of elves and make enough mana to throw a lethal Fireball at the opponent's face. Merfolk saw some early success with Lord of Atlantis enabling River Merfolk to get through unblocked against most opponents, and experienced a resurgence with "Fish" decks in the early 00's using Static Orb + Opposition to lock opponents down. Rebel decks, powered by Lin Sivvi, were a dominant force in Standard, but generally confined to that specific format. And that's about it. But with the boost from Onslaught Block, suddenly birds, beasts, walls, soldiers, clerics, dragons, wizards, beasts, insects, zombies, and centaurs got significant support, as did the aforementioned goblins, elves, and slivers. These sets also had an unprecedented number of cards that worked with creature types generally, such as allowing players to choose a creature type for an effect.

I don't know if goblins should be considered the biggest winner out of all this, but I suspect that they were. Goblin Piledriver, Brightstone Ritual, Goblin Warchief, Gempalm Incinerator, Siege-Gang Commander, Goblin Sledder, Skirk Prospector, Goblin Burrows, Sparksmith, Goblin Lookout, and Reckless One all came out in these sets. Goblin War Strike, which had previously only appeared in Portal Second Age got a reprint in a tournament-legal set. Any one of these would have been a decent tool to add to the Goblin arsenal. Getting all of them over the span of several months was transformative.

• Siege-Gang Commander became the new best Goblin Lackey payload.
• Goblin Warchief was arguably even better than Goblin King.
• Skirk Prospector enabled some of the most fun shenanigans that goblins could offer.
• Perhaps most importantly, Goblin Piledriver proved to be insanely powerful.

And that's just the start of this chapter. The next few years would have some other major developments for goblins.

 

[Oversoul]

2003 was a momentous year for goblins. I already mentioned Gempalm Incinerator, Goblin Warchief, Goblin War Strike, and Siege-Gang Commander. Those tools empowered Goblin decks to some of their best Standard tournament decks, as well as resulting in the banning of Goblin Lackey in the Extended format. Goblins would also make a splash in Type 1.5 and even in Vintage (Type 1). It was the synergy of Goblin Lackey with the new Scourge goblins that got the attention of WotC at the time, but it retrospect, the rise of Goblin Ringleader might have been the more important story here.

Once Mons Johnson introduced the Goblin Recruiter + Goblin Ringleader engine, it was used as the basis for a more robust Extended deck called "Gobvantage." Here's Tsuyoshi Ikeda's list.

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Recruiter
4 Goblin Piledriver
3 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Goblin Warchief
3 Goblin Ringleader
3 Goblin Matron
3 Skirk Prospector
2 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Sparksmith
3 Rites of Initiation
20 Mountain
2 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors


Other than the lands and the three copies of Rites of Initiation, everything in this deck was a goblin, and could be stacked by Goblin Recruiter. Assuming that the opponent hasn't done a very good job of keeping the board state from accruing too many goblins, it's not at all difficult for this deck to deal lethal damage. But it occurs to me that perhaps not everyone reading has seen the engine in action. The key to the whole thing, and this wasn't available in the Mons Johnson version, was the use of Goblin Warchief and Siege-Gang Commander, preferably helped along by Goblin Lackey to cheat out the Siege-Gang Commander, to help flood the board with goblins in the first few turns. Once that was accomplished, Goblin Recruiter could arrange the library to stack all three copies of Goblin Ringleader with right goblins between them. Skirk Prospector could pitch other goblins (usually tokens) to ensure that enough mana was available to keep casting Goblin Ringleader, and this would build a huge hand full of goblins, with Goblin Warchief making them cheaper. From there, the other important detail other than Goblin Warchief was Goblin Piledriver. You needed enough of them to get in unblocked that they'd deal lethal damage. Rites of Initiation was used to help this along

If the Gobvantage deck that emerged in the wake of Scourge had been the end of the story, it would have been an interesting footnote in the history of tournament Magic, and Goblin Recruiter would be a forgotten oddity. In fact, I never actually saw this early "Gobvantage" archetype in action myself. But I did see both of the decks that succeeded it.

Mirrodin was not a great set for new goblins. With the minor exception of Spikeshot Goblin, it really didn't offer any actual goblins that would be of interest to tribal gameplay. But it did come out with three new cards that would transform the Gobvantage deck from an aggro deck with a neat trick into a devastating aggro-combo deck: Seething Gobvantage.


With the mana burst from Seething Song and Chrome Mox, the whole Gobvantage engine and gameplan could be rushed out faster. And while the threat from Goblin Piledriver in this scenario was just as relevant as before, Seething Gobvantage had an alternative route to victory in the form of Goblin Recruiter + Goblin Charbelcher. Stack the top of the library with goblins, then shoot the opponent with Goblin Charbelcher. Throw in Ancient Tomb and Skirk Prospector and this whole process can be extremely quick, whether the kill is through beatdown or direct damage. Here's Akira Asahara's list.

2 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Recruiter
3 Goblin Ringleader
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Goblin Warchief
2 Siege-Gang Commander
3 Skirk Prospector
4 Chrome Mox
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Seething Song
4 Ancient Tomb
17 Mountain

Seething Gobvantage was pretty good, but the more memorable Goblin Recruiter deck, for me at least, was Food Chain Goblins.


Other than Goblin Warchief, the key pieces that made this deck function had been around for a while. Food Chain came out even before Goblin Ringleader. In principle, there's no reason that a Food Chain Goblins deck couldn't have been built in 2002 or even back in 2001. It doesn't seem that anyone ever tried, or if they did, it's lost to memory. However, Goblin Warchief really does smooth all this out a lot, and perhaps it was seeing what Skirk Prospector and Seething Song did for the Gobvantage deck that clued deckbuilders in to the potential of Food Chain. Here's Tom Guevin's list from Pro Tour New Orleans.

4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Recruiter
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Mogg Fanatic
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Skirk Prospector
4 Chrome Mox
4 Food Chain
4 Seal of Fire
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Brass
1 Forest
4 Karplusan Forest
9 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills

Instead of just running three copies of Goblin Ringleader, this deck ran all four. That's because the Gobvantage decks sough to build up enough mana to deploy Goblin Warchief and discount Goblin Ringleader enough that they could use Skirk Prospector to sacrifice goblins and get three copies of Goblin Piledriver on the field. With a few other goblins to get the process started, this would probably be lethal. But Food Chain Goblins doesn't share the constraints. With even a single Goblin Warchief out, Goblin Ringleader can be cast for 2R and exiled to generate RRRRR, effectively turning Goblin Ringleader into its own Seething Song. Food Chain Goblins could run deeper and more potent Recruiter stacks than earlier decks.

There's a lot more that I want to say about Food Chain Goblins. It became a successful archetype multiple formats and was one of my favorite decks for a while. But this touches on a few other topics, and I am uncertain of which order to tackle those in. I'll have to think about it. Anyway, since I was reminded of it and since I bothered to look for it, I'll throw in WotC's own coverage of the match between Tom Guevin and John Finkel at Pro Tour New Orleans. Ever since a website overhaul, it's seemingly impossible to find these old articles, and I had to resort to the Wayback Machine.

For the past several years the biggest weakness in Jon Finkel's Magic game has been Constructed formats. Jon would often find himself flailing for a deck hours before the tournament with little practice and no understanding of the metagame.

To avoid a repeat performance, Jon has joined up with Your Move Games. Not only is he playing one of their decks-Scepter Oath-but he even participated on their mailing list and was an active participant in the team's work on the format.

His opponent is teammate Tom Guevin. Tom developed the Food Chain deck that was undermined by a tech leak. While the rest of the team abandoned the deck in favor of Scepter Oath, Tom stuck to his guns and played his explosive take on the Japanese Gob-Vantage deck.

The two players just tested the match-up against one another the night before when Jon had come out on top. "He beat me three to one last night but I am hoping to change that up a little today."

Both players were already saddled with two losses and Jon seemed cheered by the memory, "Oh yeah, I did."

Game 1

A pensive Jon FinkelJon rolled a die and then Tom went through his dramatic die roll, which involves tossing the die twenty feet in the air catching it and tossing it onto the table. After all that work he was understandably disappointed to lose the roll. "Very huge."

Jon had to send back his first two hands and eventually settled on a one-lander. Tom was fine with his and the match was underway. Jon led off with a Yavimaya Coast and Tom played and used a Wooded Foothills to play Mogg Fanatic. Jon found a Shivan Reef on the top of his deck and was able to Counterspell the Goblin Recruiter that Tom attempted on the next turn.

Jon dug into his deck with Brainstorm and Tom nodded, "At least I'll know how to split the Fact or Fictions..." Jon played a Chrome Mox imprinting a Cognivore and played a Treetop Village but he only had one card left in hand.

Tom played a Goblin Ringleader off of an Ancient Tomb and picked up a Goblin matron for his troubles. When he announced his attack step Jon used the blue end of Fire/Ice to tap the 2/2 haste creature.

Jon had another Brainstorm and was close to being able to play an Isochron Scepter with Moment's Peace. When Tom attacked him on the next turn he activated his Treetop Village and blocked the Fanatic. When Tom stacked damage and shot the Treetop Jon slumped a little in his seat. He needed four mana to play his Scepter and activate it. Tom used the Matron to find another Fanatic and polished off the Village.

Jon did not have his fourth mana on the next turn and had to play the Scepter and hope for the best. Tom played a Goblin Warchief and was about to seek out a Recruiter with another Matron, "I'm going to stack my deck and-Oh wait! I'm just going to kill you."

Instead of the Recruiter, Tom grabbed a Piledriver and played it. The ensuing attack was enough to kill Finkel who needed one more mana to activate his Scepter.

Finkel 0 - Tom 1

Game 2

Stone-Faced Tom GuevinWhile they shuffled Tom teased Jon about getting Magic through the Dark Ages before it had any other superstars, "Johnny was like the Magic Johnson/Larry Bird of Magic. If you are the Larry-I'm sorry. You were Magic Johnson-who was Larry Bird?"

Jon had no answer handy and just shrugged and offered, "Justice?"

Tom train of thought jumped a rail and he shifted the conversation to Game 1. "I thought you were slow rolling the Oath."

Jon sighed, "My first two hands had Oath." As if on cue, Jon had to mulligan again.

Tom kept at Jon, "All you need is two lands and an Oath."

Jon was no doubt aware of all the Naturalizes that Tom had brought in for the second game, "Oath is a better Game 1 plan."

He kept his next six and opened with a Chill thanks to a Chrome Mox imprinting Krosan Reclamation. "That's why he is Jon Finkel!" Tom exclaimed to the onlookers.

Jon was not as impressed, "I don't have much left."

Tom scrunched up his face and had to concede, "At least that Krosan Rec is gone."

Neither player did anything but lay land for a turn. Jon had no turn four mana and played a Scepter imprinting Brainstorm. Tom Mogg Salvaged the Scepter and Jon reminded him to pay the two. Tom had forgotten about the Chill. He had the mana to pay for it but he also wanted to Naturalize the Chill. If he had done them in reverse order he could have done both but he had to pay two for the Salvage despite trying to find a way for the judges to make him take it back.

He untapped and Wastelanded the Yavimaya Coast and Naturalized the Chill sending the turn back to Jon who had no cards and barely any permanents. Freed from under the Chill Tom was able to cast a Goblin Matron for a Ringleader.

Jon ripped an Oath of Druids off the top and played it. He sent the turn back to Tom with a wince, "Kill me?"

"I don't think so." Tom did have another Naturalize ready and cast another Matron for a Warchief. He plinked away for one with his Matron and sent it back to Jon who made a Treetop Village. When Tom played his cards out he was able to attack for eleven but Jon had the Moment's Peace.

There was another Treetop Village from Jon and he had to sit back on his mana for Moment's Peace. Tom went off on the next turn with a Recruiter and a Ringleader picking up two Piledrivers, a Sharpshooter and a Prospector. Jon bought a turn with his Moment's Peace but he had nothing to stop Tom on the next turn.

Finkel 0 - Guevin 2

"I figured that after you beating me like fifty times in a row I would get lucky."

"I got really, really lucky to win. Put that in the coverage."

Despite the leaks, Tom was disappointed that Jon did not play the Food Chain deck. "Nobody tutors and thinks ahead like Johnny Magic and that is what this deck does. It is the best deck stacking since David Bachman played Nate Clark!"

 

[saprolingtoken]

Among the highlights of my "second chapter" scenario here is this awkward little goblin.
View attachment 2777

At the time Visions was released in 1997, and even as new goblins came out with sets like Tempest, there just weren't a lot of reasons to run Goblin Recruiter, because there wasn't a lot that it could do. Of course, Goblin Recruiter would go on to earn a ban in the Extended format as well as in Legacy, but that would take a while. Back in the 90's, it was an interesting card, but a frustrating one, as it simply didn't seem to have a niche. And that leaves me wondering what the goal actually was. When WotC designed Goblin Recruiter, how did they view it? Even though the card existed in 1997 and I saw it while combing my own collection to build Goblin decks, I cannot recall an instance of anyone saying anything about Goblin Recruiter prior to the advent of Goblin Ringleader in 2001. I have no memories of it being considered a good card. I have no memories of it being considered a bad card. Goblin Recruiter, in my hazy recollection, simply wasn't talked about.

Just a hunch but I'm almost certain that the card was just designed by Mons Johnson since he was at WotC at the time it would have been made. A huge Goblins fan, I think it's pretty likely he made it to play in his decks and it was probably viewed as a "joke" card (complete with silly art) by everyone else. At least, until it wasn't. I never remember anyone saying anything about Recruiter until around Scourge when FCG popped up in Extended and subsequently Legacy and Vintage.

I loved playing FCG. That deck was really sweet. I don't remember playing much of it in Extended but quite a bit against my friends with the Legacy version of the deck. That was fun, well... sort of. Not exactly sporting but it was fun for me at least.

 

[Oversoul]

Just a hunch but I'm almost certain that the card was just designed by Mons Johnson since he was at WotC at the time it would have been made. A huge Goblins fan, I think it's pretty likely he made it to play in his decks and it was probably viewed as a "joke" card (complete with silly art) by everyone else. At least, until it wasn't. I never remember anyone saying anything about Recruiter until around Scourge when FCG popped up in Extended and subsequently Legacy and Vintage.

You know, I hadn't thought of that, and it's a plausible explanation.

I loved playing FCG. That deck was really sweet. I don't remember playing much of it in Extended but quite a bit against my friends with the Legacy version of the deck. That was fun, well... sort of. Not exactly sporting but it was fun for me at least.

Leave it to the CPA to keep the enthusiasm going strong for this old deck! FCG was pretty awesome. I didn't play Extended, and the deck first made a splash when I was still stubbornly refusing to acquire any of the "new" cards (from sets newer than Prophecy). But I did trade for all the relevant goblins to put together a FCG deck for the old Type 1.5 format, probably virtually identical to what an Extended FGC list would have looked like. Of course, Goblin Recruiter was banned when the Legacy format was created. I did not go the route of trying to modify the deck to omit Goblin Recruiter, but I did have a budget Vintage FCG deck for a bit. I believe that my deck was based on this list by Joshua Silvestri:

4 Food Chain
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
2 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Goblin Matron
3 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Recruiter
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Skirk Prospector
4 Goblin Lackey
2 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
6 Mountain

My vesion was probably missing the playset of Taiga and perhaps had a couple of other differences, but I think that it was pretty close. I wish that I'd tried to find more opportunities to play this deck, but there were complications at the time and I shifted my focus to Legacy so much that a budget Vintage deck just wasn't something I was interested in maintaining anymore.

 

[saprolingtoken]

Big fan of Food Chain Goblins. IIRC I think Josh Silvestri made a primer for Vintage FCG back in the day on The Mana Drain that I remember reading a lot. The deck was pretty good in Vintage at the time. Great against Stax or MUD because you could produce way more permanents than the brown decks could, could combo pretty quickly making you decent against the actual Combo decks and you had access to good SB cards that helped you against a lot of decks. Big Blue Drain decks were kind of tough because Mana Drain itself was brutal and it wasn't easy to grind against them because they often had some sorta combo of their own.

EDIT: forgot this funny story about the Food Chain tech being leaked before PT: New Orleans in 2003

Untold Legends - Pro Tour New Orleans 2003

Thursday, November 4th - Judging from his Magic writing portfolio, he would've had a career as a best-selling author of fiction if he hadn’t chosen to be a “marketing analyst†instead. Same thing, I guess. Osyp Lebedowicz tells you about PT New Orleans.

articles.starcitygames.com

 

[Oversoul]

Big fan of Food Chain Goblins. IIRC I think Josh Silvestri made a primer for Vintage FCG back in the day on The Mana Drain that I remember reading a lot.

I must have read that same primer! I'll have to see if I can find it.

The deck was pretty good in Vintage at the time. Great against Stax or MUD because you could produce way more permanents than the brown decks could, could combo pretty quickly making you decent against the actual Combo decks and you had access to good SB cards that helped you against a lot of decks. Big Blue Drain decks were kind of tough because Mana Drain itself was brutal and it wasn't easy to grind against them because they often had some sorta combo of their own.

That was my impression as well. I think the budget version probably gave Big Blue decks a bit too much leeway to set up, and was slower against dedicated combo decks, but it was strong against the rest of the field.

EDIT: forgot this funny story about the Food Chain tech being leaked before PT: New Orleans in 2003

Untold Legends - Pro Tour New Orleans 2003

Thursday, November 4th - Judging from his Magic writing portfolio, he would've had a career as a best-selling author of fiction if he hadn’t chosen to be a “marketing analyst†instead. Same thing, I guess. Osyp Lebedowicz tells you about PT New Orleans.

articles.starcitygames.com

Blast from the past. Reading that takes me on a tangent I was kind of already going to go on anyway, which is how I don't think that the handling of the Extended format back then really made sense, and how that later influenced the Legacy ban list, sometimes in ways that persist to this day. I don't like the decision to ban Goblin Recruiter, but the more egregious issue is the strange leeway granted to Tinker. It's one thing to have a knee-jerk response to the success of FCG, especially after banning Goblin Lackey seemingly didn't diminish the results for Goblin decks. But Tinker being left unchecked for so long is pretty weird.

I do not mean this about Tinker as a mere hindsight thing. There are more broken artifacts in existence now than there were back then. Tinker is banned in Legacy and restricted in Vintage. Despite the restriction, in Vintage Tinker is one of the most dominant forces even now. But I remember a consensus among players that Tinker was broken stretching all the way back to the first printing of the card. There was the Memory Jar deck, but decks abusing Tinker to cheat out Phyrexian Colossus were highly successful right away, and Tinker continued to gain more payloads from there. Tinker decks pretty much dominated Standard when the card was legal. And it was even stronger in Extended. They even nicknamed Pro Tour New Orleans "Pro Tour Tinker." Looking at the history of Extended bans, it seems that between 1999 and 2003, four or five cards were thrown on the altar of "ban this instead of Tinker" in Extended. It baffles me that Tinker wouldn't have just been banned right away. I suppose that there was a period in the middle there where Mana Vault was banned and Tinker decks didn't have as much speed to compete with stuff like PandeBurst, Reanimator, etc. But artifact lands pushed Tinker over the top again. And I guess Tinker did get banned pretty soon relative to Mirrodin came out, but the timing of the Pro Tour really made the potency of the card apparent.

I've griped about banning cards in waves before and I don't want to turn every thread into a version of that complaint, but I guess here we are again. Tinker ruled the format, and instead of just banning Tinker, they also banned Goblin Recruiter, Grim Monolith, Hermit Druid, Ancient Tomb, and Oath of Druids. There's no way that they could have been justifiably confident that all five of those cards would be problems in an Extended format with Tinker banned and Mirrodin cards available. No one has that level of predictive power.

 

[Oversoul]

I must have read that same primer! I'll have to see if I can find it.

Here it is: http://www.archive.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=15231.0;wap2

The primer is not too long and is, if you care about FCG, well worth the read. Seeing the primer again for the first time in a while, I'm reminded that it illustrates a point I hadn't been thinking about at all when I started this thread, but which might be worth reiterating while we're on the subject of the Food Chain Goblins deck.

When Sensei's Divining Top was banned in Legacy, WotC overtly emphasized logistical concerns in their explanation.

In Legacy, Miracles—a deck that is focused on combining Counterbalance and Sensei's Divining Top to control what opponents can or (mostly) cannot resolve—has been the best deck in the format for some time. We were hopeful that this would change over time, but it has not. That alone is not necessarily enough to move to ban a card from the deck, but Sensei's Divining Top comes with its own host of issues that center around the timely conclusion of matches in a tournament setting. The necessity of repeated Top activations to play the card slows down match play and leads to tournament delays. Coupled with the power of the Miracles deck, this is reason enough for us to take action on Top. Therefore, Sensei's Divining Top is banned in Legacy.

The implication there seemed to be that the dominance of the Miracles deck wasn't enough to warrant a ban and that the tendency of Sensei's Divining Top to eat up game time and effect tournament delays also wasn't enough to warrant a ban, but that both factors taken together were enough to warrant a ban. This sparked some controversy, but it did communicate to the players that the tendency of a card to draw out the length of games could, at least when in conjunction with powerful performances, cause a card to be banned in Legacy. It was only after this announcement, never before, that I saw players describe Goblin Recruiter as a card that had been banned for this same reason. And I think that this is revisionist history spouted by players who never actually played with or against the Food Chain Goblins deck. FCG did not have a reputation as a deck that bogged down tournaments due to time issues when the deck was prevalent, and WotC did not make any such statement when the card was banned. Their blurb about the card when it was banned in Extended simply stated that the deck could achieve second-turn kills, and that this was too fast for the format.

Goblin Recruiter’s ability to stack an arbitrarily large portion of your deck allows goblin-based combo decks to kill as early as turn 2. That’s too fast for a healthy environment and the Recruiter is one of several casualties of our effort to eliminate realistic turn 2 kills from the environment.

And when Goblin Recruiter was banned in Legacy, it was lumped in with other card that were banned because they'd already been banned in Extended, and back in 2004 the notion was that Legacy would initially look a lot like Extended. No mention of tournament delays, and if that had been a concern, it's strange that it wasn't mentioned for Goblin Recruiter or any other card, for that matter. So I view the tournament delay interpretation of Goblin Recruiter bans as a presumption based on conflating it with Sensei's Divining Top. Sure, both cards stack the top of your library, but they're entirely different in all other respects.

But I think that the primer should make my point for me. The piles that Josh Silvestri lists are between 6 and 18 cards deep. Because the piles are repetitive and follow similar patterns, they're easy to memorize. And 90% of the time, it's going to be almost the same exact cards anyway, so pulling them out of the library to set up piles isn't too slow of a process either. I didn't practice with FCG that much myself, but I'd estimate that it took me about 5 to 10 seconds to pull out the goblins for building my pile, another 10 to 20 seconds to stack the card for the pile, and then another 30 seconds or so for shuffling once the Recruiter pile has been set up. This is not egregious. Now, if opponents had disruption and tried to use instants to save themselves once the Ringleaders started getting cast, that could complicate things and the game might or might not move quickly from that point, depending on a variety of factors. But that could happen anyway, in almost any matchup!

That's probably too much focus in this thread given over to my complaints about Goblin Recruiter being banned, but before I move on, one more point. WotC emphasized the potential for second-turn kills as a reason to ban Goblin Recruiter, but they banned Ancient Tomb, the very card that boosted speed and changed third-turn kills into second-turn kills, in the very same announcement. The Extended version of FCG wasn't going to be scoring second-turn kills without Ancient Tomb.