Goblins in every format!

As anyone who plays Magic The Gathering™ knows, the game is broken up into several formats - each with it's own cardpool, banlist and restrictions.

Here I will provide a brief summary of each format and the goblin decks you can play in them.

Standard:

Due to the rotation of cards in Standard, this is the format that sees the most changes. As new sets are released into rotation the older sets are pushed out. You can always check what sets are currently Standard legal on the aptly named WhatsInStandard.com

I remember fondly a time when many classic goblin staples were all Standard legal thanks to being reprinted in Doninaria and M20. Supported by goblins from War of the Spark and Guilds of Ravnica we had a really strong pool of cards that synerised amazingly together. You can view my standard goblin list from 2019 here.

After rotation, it is not always possible to play a consistent goblin deck in this format. However, any currently playable lists will always be found here

Pioneer:

Pioneer is the newest non-rotating or Eternal format in Magic The Gathering™. All cards from the most recent standard sets going back to Return To Ravnica are legal with the exception of fetch-lands. (Not including banned cards listed here)

This means the power level is greater than that of the Standard format, but not a strong as Modern.

Currently there are two builds that see play in Pioneer. You can go the mono-red route, which tries to play out many cheap creatures and bolster them with lord effects to overwhelm the opponent; or you can play Red-Black which adds graveyard recursion and deathtouch abilities for a slower but much more resilient gameplan..

You can find a list of all the most recent Pioneer decks here

Modern:

Modern is the most popular non-rotating or Eternal format in Magic The Gathering™.

All cards from the most recent standard sets going back to 8th Edition are legal with the exception of cards on a well regulated ban list which can be found here.

Such a large cardpool means the Modern format allows for very powerful decks which would not be possible in the Standard and Pioneer formats.

There are currently 3 different goblin decks that are playable in Modern, the oldest of which is mono-red and known as 8-Whack; named as such due to the 4 copies of Goblin Bushwhacker and 4 copies of Reckless Bushwhacker which the deck uses to buff a wide board of creatures. The deck can be a glass cannon, capable of winning on turn 3 or 4 with the right starting hand, but also easily stopped by some well timed removal spells.

The next deck would be the midrange Red-Black or sometimes Red-Black-Green build. This decks doesn't try to win games quickly but instead tries to out-value our opponent with cards like Goblin Ringleader and Goblin Matron. It can play like a control deck, tutoring answers for a multitude of scenarios and slowly whittling down an opponents life total before finally smothering them under a sea of goblin flavoured cardboard.

Finally, the most popular build is currently Combo.

While it shares many cards with the midrange list and can play the long game, it also includes a turn 3 instant win combo using Conscious Snoop, Boggart Harbinger, Kiki-Jiki and Sling-gang Lieutenant.

This is the goblin deck that posts the most results in competitive tournaments and has drawn most players into the goblin archetype I'm recent years.

You can find the most recent Modern goblin decks here

Legacy:

Legacy is where the power level really takes a jump. This format allows the use of many Reserved List cards which can make the format prohibitively expensive to play. This format allows cards from the entire history of Magic to be played, again with the exception of a regularly updated ban list.

Goblin decks has always been present in the Legacy format. In the past they have been very grindy controlling midrange decks but more recently there have been faster more explosive builds that are much more aggressive than their predecessors.

Goblin Lackey is a key card in Legacy, the unassuming 1/1 body able to cheat in any other goblin from your hand. Legacy goblin decks are typically mono-red but have started to include black and green cards for greater resilience.

There are 3 main goblin builds in Legacy; Midrange, Food Chain and Turbo Muxus.

Midrange is usually red-black and plays much like the Modern midrange deck, with access to some much stronger goblins and supporting spells.

Food Chain adds green for the titular Food Chain enchantment which allows you to sacrifice your goblins to cast bigger and bigger goblins and out-value your opponent,

Turbo Muxus is the newest list in Legacy and runs all of the mana accelleration it can to try and cast Muxus, Goblin Grandee as soon as possible.

All of the current goblin decks in Legacy can be found here

Vintage:

This is the OG Magic format. To say it is prohibitively expensive is an under statement. Every deck plays some, if not all of the fabled Power 9. Decks in this format can and often do win on turn 1. Even if you could afford the cards to build a deck, you would have a hard time finding anyone to play against... in paper at least.

Vintage is much more accessible on MTGO where you can not only afford to build a deck but there are plenty of other players on there.

The Vintage goblin deck is essentially a very high powered version of the Modern Combo list, except that it can use Black Lotus and Mox Ruby to playout the whole combo on turn one. Instead of using Boggart Harbinger it uses Goblin Recruiter to stack the combo or even stack the whole deck if it wants to

You can find current Vintage goblin decks here

Pauper:

Pauper is a very unique format in that it has one very important deck construction rule: all cards must have been printed at common rarity. This creates a unique environment which can actually produce some really strong decks. It does of course also have its own banlist which is monitored and frequently updated.

There are two goblin decks in pauper at the moment; the mono-red burn deck which is technically a goblin deck even though people are refering to it as burn (see my article about it here); and the red-black combo build that uses First Day of Class and Putrid Goblin to make infinate mana and ETB triggers.

Because of the way these decks have been categorised the Pauper burn decks are here 

and the Pauper goblin combo decks are here 

Commander/EDH:

Commander is a different beast altogether. I wont be explaining deck construction or the rules here as it would take me far to long. You can check the official WOTC website here for all that.

As goblin players we play Krenko, Mob Boss. Thats it. 

You might try playing Muxus or Shattergang Brothers or Wort but in the end you will always come back to Krenko. He is the OG goblin commander and he is nuts.

So stop faffing. Get some mountains, get your favourite goblins and slap them into a Krenko deck

This is my Krenko deck
This is EDREC recommended cards for Krenko decks

If you've come this far then thank you for reading. I've spent a while typing this up so I would be really grateful if you could leave a comment bellow. Just so I know someone has actually read this. You could write anything you want. Tell me what formats you play, or what your favourite goblin is. I dont even care if you put what you had for breakfast or just write "i liek goblins", I'd just like to know I haven't wasted hours of my day writing all of this for no one.

Thanks

-Trashman