We close out this week with what may be one of the strangest hits to happen this time around: Upstart Goblin, which is now Limited to 1.
 
By this point, everybody should know what Upstart Goblin does. Almost as old as the game itself, and popularized by Patrick Hoban, it let you do one very simple thing; draw 1 card, at the cost of giving your opponent 1000 Life Points. Effectively, this meant you could slim your Deck down to 37 cards, if you were willing to give your opponent a little bit of health in exchange for the consistency boost.
 
This hit came as a bit of a surprise, as Upstart Goblin has gone without a hit for many years now (having only been Limited and Semi-Limited at the earliest points in the game), so it’s a wonder as to why now all of a sudden it warranted Limiting. It’s likely that Upstart finally got a hit because the big three Decks of the previous format, all of which had some issue with consistency, ran triple Upstart Goblin as compensation. Another possible factor was the Monarch FTK Deck that was mildly popular. Regardless, Upstart Goblin is now Limited, meaning you can only slim your Deck down to 39.
 
Was this a necessary hit? Not really. Upstart Goblin is overall a fair card that gives you a consistency boost with a fair trade-off (especially in today’s game where Life Points are a very valuable resource). However, it will cause people to be more creative with the last three slots in their Deck (or, if you didn’t run Upstart, it may convince you to find that one weak link that you could replace with a single Upstart).
 
Rating: 4/5

Hello Pojo Fans,
 
We knew this was going to happen sometime. Draws that have very little drawback to the player using the card(s) in question rarely miss getting hit at one point or another by the ban list.
 
Upstart Goblin is easy to use, any deck in the game can use it if they want to, and its able to be used 9 times out of 10. Draw a card, your opponent gains 1000 Life Points, not much of a drawback, especially if you are setting up/have set up your field. It was a card that you could run 3 of and slam any of the copies down the moment you drew them. It needed to be limited to lessen the draw pool for other decks and even the playing field to be more towards archetype support and other draw power that is more evenly balanced.
 
Advanced-4.5/5
Art-3/5
 
Until Next Time
KingofLullaby

Back when Spell Ruler was still called Magic Ruler, Upstart Goblin was MRL-033. This Normal Spell was reviewed first of 3 previous times on 9/23/2002. It makes me wonder if anyone reading this hadn't been born yet. Anyway, it scored a 2.13/5. This isn't surprising because there were much, MUCH, better drawing options that only provided advantage to you and got you more cards. Upstart Goblin only gives you one draw and your opponent 1000 Life Points. But then all those other options got banned and their replacements cost too much, weren't good enough, or themselves got banned. Upstart Goblin became the only reliable option that could work in any deck. And now it's limited too. I am not sure why there is such universal hatred for generic draw power, but there is. Life points are somewhat meaningless since game ending fields deal like 10,000 damage per turn. I bet they end up increasing the starting point to 10,000. In any case, this card is good, and since it can be run in any deck, it will score well. Happy Friday!
 
P.S. I'm opening up a case of Shining Victories today for my sad little YouTube Channel. Watch that later if you feel like laughing at my luck.
 
Score: 3.5/5
Art: 4/5 Pitiful Human!
 
-WarlockBlitz

Upstart Goblin 

Upstart should never have been made. It serves no purpose except to minimize deck counts. 1000 lifepoints means nothing and is a small price to pay for percentage points gained. If a deck count is still necessary, this card should be banned. I don’t know what the purpose was to limit the card to 1, when the plight is still the same. Players use it to lower their decks from 40 to 39, and that’s it. There’s no way to rate this card besides for that purpose. 

Advanced: 5/5
Future Potential: 5/5

Card: Upstart Goblin

Status: Limited (One per deck)

Part of the fun of having a banned and restricted list, is that it makes players think outside the box; instead of everybody playing the same overpowered cards, we have to get a bit more creative. Upstart Goblin, though an oldie, helped with that. It only gives you one card with the drawback of giving your opponent 1000 Life Points (Yup, I'm so familiar with this card that I didn't even have to look it up), that one card can make a big difference. And, for better or worse, it fills the void left behind by better cards like Pot of Greed and Graceful Charity. But now, even this card is feeling the burn; now you only get to play one in your deck. That might not be such a bad thing nowadays, since most deck themes come with their own card-fetchers, but consider those poor players who are either new to this game or are playing on a budget: this card, played in threes or even tows, is solid gold for them. I personally don't feel the need to throw this card in my decks, but extra drawing power never hurt anybody. And like I said, one card can make all the difference in a game.

Final Score: 3/5 for card, 3/5 for the restriction (Yeah, I'm on the fence on both topics)

Tune in next week when we reveal even crazier changes to the banned/restricted list!