I've never heard of Stone Librande, but this
time I'm more distracted by the weird font this
card is written in. The capital G and K have
weird curly tails that I haven't seen on Magic
cards before, and it's distracting. Maybe that's
why the Kaboomist himself ends up stepping on
his own Land Mines?
Graphic design gripes aside, I do like the idea
of Red being the color that puts noncreature
artifact tokens into play-- an application of
its identity as the "forge" color. I also like
the flavor here, and the fact that the 2 damage
to the attacking creatures is coming from the
Land Mines, which are colorless artifacts, and
thus aren't stopped by Protection from Red,
while the 2 damage to the Kaboomist is coming
from the Kaboomist himself, and CAN be prevented
by Pro:Red if you could somehow grant it. It's
the rules tinker in me. ;) An early Kaboomist
can easily slow down an oncoming weenie rush,
but if you get lucky with the flips, you could
also end up with enough mines to kill a
ferocious 8/8 or worse. As the Geodude card from
the original Pokemon sets taught me, if you keep
flipping until you lose, you'll win an average
of one flip. (Remind me to explain the math to
you some time.) And since you still get a Land
Mine after you lose a flip (you just lose the
Kaboomist) that means on average you'll get two
Mines.That can be very helpful if you find
yourself losing the race on the ground. You
could also just augment the Kaboomist's
toughness, so it survives a lost flip and keeps
mining the ground.
I didn't happen to get a Goblin Kaboomist in any
of my M15 boosters so far, but it looks like a
fun card to build around. I note with interest
that you don't have to invest any mana or even
tap the goblin to get a land mine each turn;
though he himself is a little fragile, there's
probably a defensive red deck or a red-based
artifact-sacrifice-themed combination deck
waiting to be made. Plus the thrill of yelling "Kaboom!"
each turn.
Magic The Gathering Card of The Day: Goblin
Kaboomist
Welcome back readers todays card of the day
is a super flavorful card, a goblin that can get
blown up by its own land mines! Unfortunately as
cool as the card is I don’t foresee it seeing
any meaningful constructed play in standard or
elsewhere, that leaves casual and multiplayer
for this little guy, red has a history of coin
flip cards and goblin is a relevant tribe so
this card has some potential, its wacky random
and can be quite good making it a perfect card
for casual and multiplayer although its power
level fluctuates. In limited it’s a very strong
if it can live as removal is removal and this
card can provide it sometimes. Overall a wacky
but well designed card for casual, multiplayer
and sometimes limited play.
Today's card of the day is Goblin Kaboomist
which is a two mana Red 1/2 that puts a token
into play that can be sacrificed for one Red
mana to deal two damage to a target attacking
creature without Flying plus after placing the
token you flip a coin which can deal two damage
to Goblin Kaboomist. Barring the addition of
Haste or a boost to toughness this will not even
get to attack half of the time and becomes a
three mana spent version of Righteous Blow that
doesn't work on blockers. For Standard this
could be played as a source of some removal in a
very thematic goblin build, but overall this
isn't reliable or efficient enough to see
serious play.
In older formats there are more options for
support to keep this goblin alive which makes it
better by improving the odds of multiple tokens
being created. It takes two tokens to get a
solid value from this, yet most forms of support
cost three mana which leaves this as a turn four
play with another two mana goblin. The awkward
timing requires a fairly specific hand, so usage
in Modern may not be very widespread.
In Limited this is a form of removal, though
it is in play and weak enough to only have
minimal psychological impact. The likely
self-destruction is a serious drawback that
makes this a weak first pick in Booster, though
the low cost and removal aspect make it worth
including for Red decks in Sealed.
Now, I didn't say I like playing Goblin decks.
Those annoy me. I like the flavor of Goblin
cards. They go all out and try as hard as they
can - they're just not very careful. Sometimes
the thing they intended to kill you kills
themselves. Goblins aren't afraid to give their
operatives goofy names like "Goblin Kaboomist".
Usually cards that involve flipping a coin are
not good, because you can't predict or control
the outcome. In the Kaboomist's case, you could
end up paying 2 mana for nothing more than a
single land mine if the flip goes against you on
the first turn. The trick is - how do you make
the Kaboomist survive a lost coin flip? Is it
worth throwing an aura on him or using some sort
of universal +1/+1 effect? Perhaps.
If you're able to keep him alive, it makes
ground combat very tricky for your opponent -
and it only gets trickier the longer it goes.
Amassing several land mines would be akin to
putting a moat around yourself so only flying
creatures can attack you.
I think most likely, the efforts you would need
to go through to keep him around are too much
work for the benefit, but it sure it fun to say
"Goblin Kaboomist" and threaten to blow up
opponent's creatures with land mines!
