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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Type 2 Goblin Deck
September 11, 2009

I started playing Magic around Odyssey block, so my first real knowledge of archetypes came during the Goblin frenzy of Odyssey block. I tried to build my own Goblin deck, but never quite succeeded in capturing the spark, so I gave up.

For the longest time, I avoided fixing Goblin decks here in the garage as well, haunted by my own failure, but with the advent of Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, I feel like the Goblin gestalt has changed enough so that I'm ready to give it another go.

Good Morning,

I'm looking at facing a tournament next month and wanted to get your thoughts on a standard Goblins deck that stands a chance in the big leagues. Any thoughts you have on improving this would be much welcome. I'm trying to keep the budget around $50 ... so the 8 dollar Aunties Hovel aren't making it into the deck, sadly. (I already have the savage lands). I think its biggest weakness is going to be against fliers, as I currently don't have anything in that direction... but the damage produced from Lightning Crafter and Murderous Redcap can take out some of the weaker fliers... and Terminate for those nasty Broodmates. The deck is originally based off of Boggart Shenanigans and I'd like to keep that definitely... (mostly so I can say "Shenanigans" in a crazy irish accent).

26 Creatures

2x Wort, Boggart Auntie
4x Goblin Deathraiders
4x Mad Auntie
4x Goblin Chieftain
4x Lightning Crafter
4x Bloodmark Mentor
4x Murderous Redcap

12 Other Spells

4x Boggart Shenanigans
3x Goblin Assault
2x Terminate
3x Shared Animosity

22 Lands

2x Savage Lands
12x Mountain
8x Swamp

Sideboard

3x Gutteral Response
2x Goblin Outlander
2x Terminate
2x Chaotic Backlash
2x Fodder Launch
2x Stenchskipper
2x Bituminous Blast

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ah, the boggarts. Let's see what we can do here.

Now, your objective is to generate plenty of damage through Boggart Shenanigans while Wort, Boggart Auntie minimizes the losses you incur doing it. Sounds good.

For starters, I don't like Goblin Assault here. Yes, it makes tokens for you, and yes, you usually want to attack each turn anyway, but with it on the board, you can NEVER leave back blockers, except maybe the one token you made this turn, IF you don't have a Chieftain out. Not only that, but it forces you to use Lightning Crafter's tap ability before your combat step or not at all, and it pretty much guarantees you can't use Mad Auntie's tap ability effectively. It's also fairly slow, and it's three mana-- you have two Lords and the Shenanigans competing for being dropped on turn three. Having too many cards of one converted mana cost can interrupt a deck's flow-- you're stranded until your third turn, at which point you have to struggle to figure out what needs to be played first.

To alleviate this, replace Goblin Assault with Dragon Fodder. Trust me, a turn-two Fodder followed by a turn-three Chieftain hurts BAD for the guy across the table.

Speaking of faster starts and cheaper cards, allow me to suggest the poster boy for Goblin acceleration in Lorwyn block-- Frogtosser Banneret. Turn two Banneret, suddenly on turn three you have enough mana for an Auntie and a Bloodmark Mentor, or better still-- a second Banneret, an Auntie, AND a Boggart Shenanigans. Ouch! I would drop Shared Animosity for that little 1/1 with haste.

Also, if you're that interested in silly Boggart card names in an Irish accent, you can't overlook Caterwauling Boggart. The guy also helps you attack more productively.

It's obvious that this is going to be a shorter deck fix than usual, but that's only because this deck was already solidly put together when it arrived. There just wasn't that much wrong with it, really. Sometimes a small tweak is all it takes to make a struggling deck perform.

Good luck!

~BMoor