Magic Memories: Goblin King (and his kingdom)

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.
Yeah, especially in hindsight, it seems weird to let Tinker run amok for so long. Even when it wasn't broken it was "just" very good. PT: New Orleans really demonstrated how nuts the card was. The card was always such a ridiculous design combining the most broken mechanics- cheating on mana AND tutoring. Like, what? I guess the weird history of the Extended banned list, Tinker was somewhat overshadowed by Necro which had been around for longer and had that historical dominance so a lot of the bans were just "ban cards to put The Skull back in line", banning Hippie, Rit and Vault before finally banning Necro and Consult. It's also really difficult to figure out what was actually broken at the time, even with hindsight: they printed a lot of really fucked up cards in the first decade of the game so there were Necro decks, Academy-based decks, other combo decks based on other broken cards, Tinker decks after the fact, Oath decks (which really aren't problematic till Orchard is printed but it's banned at the same time as Recruiter) Gobbo Combo decks with a bunch of ridiculous cards, etc etc etc. So I'm a willing to give them a benefit of the doubt that, at the time, I can see why they did what they did. Still, I think something like Monolith and Oath didn't need to be banned. Monolith IMHO was possibly overkill and Oath was able to be combated by the decks that existed and even with the addition of Orchard over the next few years could have been combated and maybe even a healthy part of the metagame, able to combat the rising Affinity menace that surfaced only a few months later.

Honestly, this is super off-topic but what the fuck Tinker? Even after the recent Initiative craze in Vintage Tinker is still the top deck and has been, mostly, that way at least since around Mirrodin block. At least when the egregiously broken Gush isn't legal as a 4-of. Which says a lot about that card. anyway.

But I agree that big waves of bans are generally not great. I think it's understandable in Urza block Standard/Extended/Vintage and Mirrodin Block/Standard Affinity that those were warranted but even then they might have been able to take a less heavy-handed approach.

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.
Nice find! What a blast from the past! I'm glad these sort of things still exist somewhere. But it illustrates a great point- basically just be sure to put a Ringleader every 4th card, draw like 16 cards or something and kill your opponent. The "time constraints" meme needs to die. The order of the cards doesn't really matter. If you kill your opponent next turn it doesn't really matter if you took a minute or two to stack your deck lol. This should be pretty obvious but this stupid idea keeps getting parroted everywhere and it annoys me to no end. There is no official announcement of anything like this being an issue or any evidence of people playing the deck (myself included) of that being a problem.

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

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.
This is absolutely revisionist history. Though IIRC I remember seeing arguments about not unbanning Recruiter before Top's ban based on logistical issues (on The Source) so it might have been around for even longer. I think the "time" arguments are just garbage. Any large tournament is going to run to time each round, doesn't matter if Top exists or not. People love taking a million years to resolve Brainstorm and Ponder and add in DRC it is just obnoxious. I don't think trying to combat these sorts of issues is very productive because it is a player/skill issue and not really a problem with the cards. Top was just broken with Mentor and Miracles. It's that simple. You don't (and SHOULDN'T) invent reasons (other than they're just not true and don't reflect reality) to strengthen your argument to ban cards because they have all sorts of knock-on effects like muddying the waters for the discourse of banning cards. The "logistical" issues has bled out into every single argument about whether or not you should ban or unban something. Not good.

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.
100%. Recruiter basically always kills you. Whether its quickly (like vs aggro or combo decks) or slowly (like control) you are dead all the same.

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.
Yeah the piles are pretty inconsequential and as long as you have a Ringleader hitting a Ringleader it doesn't matter how you stack 'em. If you're getting disrupted its a little bit more tricky. But these days it wouldn't matter because Recruiter only needs to be a Worldly Tutor. If you expect weird things you can just put more Recruiters in the stack or more Snoops. Recruiter into Kiki, 1 million Snoops and finally Recruiter into Sling-Gang. EZ PZ. It's about the same as Doomsday or even more compact. But, anyway, control decks can't really beat Snoop regardless. Two draw-4 Ringleaders is enough to put 'em in the trash.

I'm not super annoyed they banned Recruiter and Tomb at the time in Extended because I had a decent amount of success against decks with just Vial Goblins. I think the deck was pretty good. Better with Recruiter for sure but it wasn't unplayable at least.

Though I must say I never considered them banning fewer cards during late 2003. All those cards are broken but maybe they could have balanced the broken decks yet to come? An interesting idea, at the very least.
 
There is a lot to respond to in this thread that I'm still trying to process but a lot of really great stuff! I would like to say that my interactions with you about MTG have been the best, bar none, on the internet over the last 20+ years. You're very thoughtful and knowledgeable about these topics which, to be completely honest, delights me. Great, great stuff.

Getting back to the topic of specifically Goblin Recruiter himself, I think I've come around to the position of unironically unbanning him in Legacy. I think with the lightning speed printing of sets, giving more tools to non-Tribal decks, that Recruiter would be healthy (at least in the sense of deck diversity) in Legacy, occupying a sort of niche like Elves but being much better at grinding out card advantage. I think it's finally time for the king (hehehe) to reclaim his throne. The new norm is just really busted stuff happening very quickly and then some decks trying to take advantage of the Tomb decks and also not losing to Delver. I think Recruiter Goblins could easily do both if it takes inspiration from the Vintage version that is basically just Turbo Snoop. That deck has had pretty decent success in modern Vintage even with all the broken stuff though it is still underplayed IMHO.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Yeah, especially in hindsight, it seems weird to let Tinker run amok for so long. Even when it wasn't broken it was "just" very good. PT: New Orleans really demonstrated how nuts the card was. The card was always such a ridiculous design combining the most broken mechanics- cheating on mana AND tutoring. Like, what? I guess the weird history of the Extended banned list, Tinker was somewhat overshadowed by Necro which had been around for longer and had that historical dominance so a lot of the bans were just "ban cards to put The Skull back in line", banning Hippie, Rit and Vault before finally banning Necro and Consult.
One of the earlier threads I did in this series was on Necropotence, and I think that at some point I broke down my own mixed feelings on that. Necropotence is one of my favorite cards ever, but I was always more fond of the stuff before Necropotence became tied to the Illusions + Donate combo. I really liked the "Lauerpotence" deck. It seems that Necropotence transitioning from an engine card for control decks and suicidal hand-sculpting tool for high-risk aggro decks into a dedicated combo enabler was inevitable, so I can't really be too sore about the card getting banned. I also always thought that a lot of great tools existed to beat Trix decks in Extended back when WotC started banning cards to curtail them. Sometimes it's wrong to say that we should just let the metagame adjust rather than banning a card, and I've only ever had very limited information on this, so it's possible that I'm just wrong, or that the problem would still eventually have warranted a ban. I also think that it's crazy to ban Dark Ritual before banning Necropotence, so there's that too.

Perhaps if Necropotence had been banned earlier, the use of Mana Vault as a Tinker enabler would have gotten Tinker banned sooner. Then again, they'd already banned Memory Jar instead of Tinker before that, so probably not.

It's also really difficult to figure out what was actually broken at the time, even with hindsight: they printed a lot of really fucked up cards in the first decade of the game so there were Necro decks, Academy-based decks, other combo decks based on other broken cards, Tinker decks after the fact, Oath decks (which really aren't problematic till Orchard is printed but it's banned at the same time as Recruiter) Gobbo Combo decks with a bunch of ridiculous cards, etc etc etc. So I'm a willing to give them a benefit of the doubt that, at the time, I can see why they did what they did. Still, I think something like Monolith and Oath didn't need to be banned. Monolith IMHO was possibly overkill and Oath was able to be combated by the decks that existed and even with the addition of Orchard over the next few years could have been combated and maybe even a healthy part of the metagame, able to combat the rising Affinity menace that surfaced only a few months later.
I agree that it's tough to untangle what the real problems were in that era, and what the best solutions would have been, even with hindsight.

I also think that there's an unfortunate pattern on display with these bans over time, where WotC decided that a card was too big of a problem, banned it, then after the deck continued to be a problem, they'd forever afterward still view the card as a problematic one. In the case of the Trix deck, they banned Dark Ritual and Mana Vault in March of 2000, and the deck stuck around with strong enough performances that a year later they banned Necropotence too. But they never unbanned Dark Ritual, and eschewed reprinting it in any products that would place the card into a tournament format. Would Dark Ritual have necessitated a ban in some later Extended rotation? Maybe. Would it have been banned in Modern? Well, Seething Song is banned in Modern, so I suppose so. But I find it suspicious that the deck that seemingly took the card off the table and flagged it as "broken" forever afterward was also a deck that kept going strong in Dark Ritual's absence, and even got Necropotence banned.

This also happened with Goblin Lackey. There's a case to be made that Goblin Recruiter really was a problem, really did warrant a ban. But Goblin Lackey was never unbanned and was never reprinted in any regular Magic products. It makes the situation look like WotC still held a grudge against the card, even though banning it didn't do anything to stop the deck it had been a part of. As with other cards like this, there's some plausible deniability involved. Perhaps the performance of Vial Goblins in Legacy made WotC wary of Goblin Lackey. It's just weird that it seems like it's happened a lot. There's an innocent explanation for any given example I could name.

Honestly, this is super off-topic but what the fuck Tinker? Even after the recent Initiative craze in Vintage Tinker is still the top deck and has been, mostly, that way at least since around Mirrodin block. At least when the egregiously broken Gush isn't legal as a 4-of. Which says a lot about that card. anyway.
Heh. Yep. Tinker and Tolarian Academy are two cards that have remained the most egregiously broken for the longest amounts of time. I remember other cards being cited as some of the most broken, like Yawgmoth's Will, Gush, Fastbond, Skullclamp, Demonic Consultation, Necropotence, and even Lurrus of the Dream-Den. But eventually some change happens that diminishes the relevance of those other cards. Aside from some obvious cards from 1993, Tinker and Tolarian Academy are the two that just keep being comically overpowered, no matter how much time passes.

This is absolutely revisionist history. Though IIRC I remember seeing arguments about not unbanning Recruiter before Top's ban based on logistical issues (on The Source) so it might have been around for even longer. I think the "time" arguments are just garbage. Any large tournament is going to run to time each round, doesn't matter if Top exists or not. People love taking a million years to resolve Brainstorm and Ponder and add in DRC it is just obnoxious. I don't think trying to combat these sorts of issues is very productive because it is a player/skill issue and not really a problem with the cards. Top was just broken with Mentor and Miracles. It's that simple. You don't (and SHOULDN'T) invent reasons (other than they're just not true and don't reflect reality) to strengthen your argument to ban cards because they have all sorts of knock-on effects like muddying the waters for the discourse of banning cards. The "logistical" issues has bled out into every single argument about whether or not you should ban or unban something. Not good.
I'm perhaps a bit of an extremist on this matter, because I contend that even Shahrazad should not be banned over logistical concerns, and I think that most people are willing to concede that one. But yeah, my point was more that even if one grants that certain cards need to be banned over logistical issues, Goblin Recruiter isn't one.

Yeah the piles are pretty inconsequential and as long as you have a Ringleader hitting a Ringleader it doesn't matter how you stack 'em. If you're getting disrupted its a little bit more tricky. But these days it wouldn't matter because Recruiter only needs to be a Worldly Tutor. If you expect weird things you can just put more Recruiters in the stack or more Snoops. Recruiter into Kiki, 1 million Snoops and finally Recruiter into Sling-Gang. EZ PZ. It's about the same as Doomsday or even more compact. But, anyway, control decks can't really beat Snoop regardless. Two draw-4 Ringleaders is enough to put 'em in the trash.
I'm not super annoyed they banned Recruiter and Tomb at the time in Extended because I had a decent amount of success against decks with just Vial Goblins. I think the deck was pretty good. Better with Recruiter for sure but it wasn't unplayable at least.
Yeah, and that carried over to Legacy.

Though I must say I never considered them banning fewer cards during late 2003. All those cards are broken but maybe they could have balanced the broken decks yet to come? An interesting idea, at the very least.
If I were retroactively given all the changes that I thought sensible in the ban list decisions back then, I'm sure that some broken deck would have emerged that would have changed the format and still impelled some ban at some point, whether one of the cards I chose to leave untouched or some other card. Still worth it. :p

I think Stephen Menendian called the principle "narrow tailoring."

There is a lot to respond to in this thread that I'm still trying to process but a lot of really great stuff! I would like to say that my interactions with you about MTG have been the best, bar none, on the internet over the last 20+ years. You're very thoughtful and knowledgeable about these topics which, to be completely honest, delights me. Great, great stuff.
Thanks!

Getting back to the topic of specifically Goblin Recruiter himself, I think I've come around to the position of unironically unbanning him in Legacy. I think with the lightning speed printing of sets, giving more tools to non-Tribal decks, that Recruiter would be healthy (at least in the sense of deck diversity) in Legacy, occupying a sort of niche like Elves but being much better at grinding out card advantage. I think it's finally time for the king (hehehe) to reclaim his throne. The new norm is just really busted stuff happening very quickly and then some decks trying to take advantage of the Tomb decks and also not losing to Delver. I think Recruiter Goblins could easily do both if it takes inspiration from the Vintage version that is basically just Turbo Snoop. That deck has had pretty decent success in modern Vintage even with all the broken stuff though it is still underplayed IMHO.
I don't think I'd said so yet, but my position on Goblin Recruiter nowadays is that it deserves to be unbanned because it would enable Goblin decks to do their best and I don't think that they'd be dominant. At the very least, it would act as an upgraded version of Boggart Harbinger. And more realistically, I think that it would shift Goblin decks into leaning more on Turbo Snoop combos. I think that this would make Goblins generally the better tribe for creature-based combos, but Elves would still have stuff like Natural Order, Gaea's Cradle, and Glimpse of Nature. There'd still be room in the format for both archetypes to exist.

Notably, the printing of a Squee that combos with Food Chain would seem to make Food Chain Goblins possibly a relevant deck again, but I don't think that Food Chain is still worth the cost it imposes in deck construction, so Food Chain Goblins would remain a historical relic.
 
I don't think I'd said so yet, but my position on Goblin Recruiter nowadays is that it deserves to be unbanned because it would enable Goblin decks to do their best and I don't think that they'd be dominant. At the very least, it would act as an upgraded version of Boggart Harbinger. And more realistically, I think that it would shift Goblin decks into leaning more on Turbo Snoop combos. I think that this would make Goblins generally the better tribe for creature-based combos, but Elves would still have stuff like Natural Order, Gaea's Cradle, and Glimpse of Nature. There'd still be room in the format for both archetypes to exist.

Notably, the printing of a Squee that combos with Food Chain would seem to make Food Chain Goblins possibly a relevant deck again, but I don't think that Food Chain is still worth the cost it imposes in deck construction, so Food Chain Goblins would remain a historical relic.
I think that allowing Goblin decks "to do their best" (a good way to put it) would be a great goal. I think pushing the envelope on creature-based decks is perfectly fine and actually should be encouraged via ban list management, in an abstract sense. More specifically, I think Recruiter Goblins would occupy the same space as Elves but not really replace them, like you said, because they have different tools and basically a mono-Green deck will have different tools than basically a mono-Red deck. Food Chain itself isn't really worth it right now or after a speculative Recruiter unban. There are big costs to playing Green in your deck as well as Food Chain itself which is just garbage against Blue decks. Even with Squee it's not really worth it. It WAS good many years ago but now playing Green and Food Chain is a liability.

I agree that it's tough to untangle what the real problems were in that era, and what the best solutions would have been, even with hindsight.

I also think that there's an unfortunate pattern on display with these bans over time, where WotC decided that a card was too big of a problem, banned it, then after the deck continued to be a problem, they'd forever afterward still view the card as a problematic one. In the case of the Trix deck, they banned Dark Ritual and Mana Vault in March of 2000, and the deck stuck around with strong enough performances that a year later they banned Necropotence too. But they never unbanned Dark Ritual, and eschewed reprinting it in any products that would place the card into a tournament format. Would Dark Ritual have necessitated a ban in some later Extended rotation? Maybe. Would it have been banned in Modern? Well, Seething Song is banned in Modern, so I suppose so. But I find it suspicious that the deck that seemingly took the card off the table and flagged it as "broken" forever afterward was also a deck that kept going strong in Dark Ritual's absence, and even got Necropotence banned.

This also happened with Goblin Lackey. There's a case to be made that Goblin Recruiter really was a problem, really did warrant a ban. But Goblin Lackey was never unbanned and was never reprinted in any regular Magic products. It makes the situation look like WotC still held a grudge against the card, even though banning it didn't do anything to stop the deck it had been a part of. As with other cards like this, there's some plausible deniability involved. Perhaps the performance of Vial Goblins in Legacy made WotC wary of Goblin Lackey. It's just weird that it seems like it's happened a lot. There's an innocent explanation for any given example I could name.
That's really a huge, understated problem. There is a bias against these old, OP cards that are never given another look because they are "broken" and are never considered due to the history of those cards, ignoring the context. Jar is probably the best one. It's expensive, slow, and is not an easy card to use. But it was "emergency banned" and thus it must be the most broken card of all time which is just absurd. Maybe the best 5 mana card of all time but hardly broken. It's the same with a lot of cards like Earthcraft, Mind Twist or the previously banned Black Vise. These cards will do very little in any format. Lackey would have been fine in Extended after the bans. But they never changed the list. Same with a bunch of cards in Legacy or Modern. Or Vintage for that matter. They rarely ever revisit the bans they make because IDK lol. They just don't card I guess.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
That's really a huge, understated problem. There is a bias against these old, OP cards that are never given another look because they are "broken" and are never considered due to the history of those cards, ignoring the context. Jar is probably the best one. It's expensive, slow, and is not an easy card to use. But it was "emergency banned" and thus it must be the most broken card of all time which is just absurd. Maybe the best 5 mana card of all time but hardly broken. It's the same with a lot of cards like Earthcraft, Mind Twist or the previously banned Black Vise. These cards will do very little in any format. Lackey would have been fine in Extended after the bans. But they never changed the list. Same with a bunch of cards in Legacy or Modern. Or Vintage for that matter. They rarely ever revisit the bans they make because IDK lol. They just don't card I guess.
Not to get too hung up on the Tinker thing, but looking back at this stuff, it's kind of surreal. I don't know which is more bizarre: that Memory Jar was banned instead of Tinker or that Replenish was banned in Extended for almost two years before Tinker was finally banned. And part of me wants to say that it looks worse in hindsight because of all the artifacts that came out in Mirrodin Block and in the years since then, pushing Tinker even further over the top. But really, Tinker came into the world at a time when Mana Vault was legal in Standard, and even with Memory Jar banned, Tinker decks were pretty oppressive with Phyrexian Colossus. Artifacts were already great: it's why Tolarian Academy was broken.

In the Magic Memories thread for Dream Halls, I linked to an archive of the report Mark Rosewater used to showcase how broken Dream Halls was. But that report actually described two matches. The Dream Halls deck won the first of those matches (Brian Selden piloting it vs. Randy Buehler on Suicide Black), but was actually trounced by an Atog deck in the second match (Sturla Bingen piloting the Dream Halls deck against Satoshi Nakamura's "Mono Brown" deck). I saw Tinker/Welder decks put up similar dominating performances myself, so it's no surprise.

Anyway, I do think that WotC stopped caring at some point, and perhaps they never really did. But they're not a monolith, and there were certainly individuals within the company who did care. Mind Over Matter, Replenish, Dream Halls, Entomb, Metalworker, Grim Monolith, Illusionary Mask, Time Spiral, Land Tax, Worldgorger Dragon, and Black Vise were all unbanned in Legacy. It took a while. The era of Legacy unbans stretched from 2007 to 2015, with most of the unbans occurring in 2009 and 2010. It wasn't comprehensive, and it wasn't done at all in the way I'd have preferred, but it was progress. In 2010, one could easily have had the mistaken perception that WotC was ramping up a long-term effort to properly curate and support the Legacy format. In fact, I'm sure that I believed an unban of Goblin Recruiter was right around the corner. Well, here we are in 2023.

I forget if I said it already, but Earthcraft is the one that has always struck me as most egregious. Goblin Recruiter, along with some other cards like Hermit Druid and Frantic Search, is a pretty safe unban now and probably was back then, but there was certainly room for some healthy caution, because the Legacy format of the mid 00's didn't have all the tools we have now to fight against those cards. Mind Twist is a tricky one to evaluate because it's usually not very good but I've seen it perform way above my expectations in some cases, although I lean toward the conclusion that it could safely have been left off the ban list in the first place. But Earthcraft? Earthcraft was 100% always a safe card for the Legacy format, and it's silly to think otherwise.

It would be nice to see a change of philosophy, although when it comes to Magic Memories, I guess I'd say for a lot of cards the damage has already been done. We'll never see what a Food Chain Goblins deck might have looked like in the Legacy format of 2007. We'll never know if a Yawgmoth's Bargain deck could have held their own in Legacy during the Oko/Uro era. We'll never know if Deathrite Shaman might have essentially cancelled out Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer in Legacy. And to some extent, this sort of thing is inevitable. Oh well.

Still, I do agree that the problem is a big one, and understated. For example, I recently found myself in a discussion of how frustrating it is that Temple of the False God gets shoved into so many EDH precons. Temple of the False God is a bad card in almost any deck. It's unfun and suboptimal. If I'm using a precon as my starting point, I always find myself cutting the card. You know what's a better land? Ancient Tomb. Almost every single time. I'd happily take Ancient Tomb. It's better, but doesn't break the format. Ancient Tomb was originally an uncommon. It's not on the Reserved List. There's no reason that it shouldn't be used in this role and made more widely accessible. And I can't help but suspect that the fact that it was once banned in a format has somehow flagged it as a "broken" card.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
2004 saw three important new developments for Goblin decks, but none of them actually had anything to do with dedicated goblin synergies.

Darksteel introduced two spicy new artifacts that would go on to see lots of use in Goblin decks. Skullclamp should need no introduction. The card was ubiquitous in decks that had lots of small creatures. The card's reign of terror would last a bit longer in the Extended format than it did in Standard. Despite bans in most mainstream formats, Skullclamp would go on to become a staple for Goblin decks in Highlander formats. In some ways, the strong association of Skullclamp with other archetypes and the controversial, short-lived tournament presence of Skullclamp leaves me with little to talk about here. But I do think it's worth noting that goblin-heavy lists using Skullclamp did crop up in Vintage. However, Darksteel also gave us Aether Vial. Skullclamp might have claimed all the early attention. But a couple months later, something else happened.
1677089115106.png1677089127506.png

WotC replaced the old Type 1.5 format with Legacy. This was a big deal that touched on many aspects of the game, and I won't attempt to cover the full scope of the changes. Sticking to goblin-related effects of the format shift...
  • Skullclamp was banned in Legacy. This killed the Type 1.5 Skullclamp Goblin decks. Since there were three or four other Skullclamp decks that were generally better anyway, that's not such a great loss.
  • Goblin Recruiter was a banned in Legacy. This killed Type 1.5 FCG decks. As Saprolingtoken and I have been discussing, Food Chain Goblins remained a decent Vintage deck for some time after this.
  • Mogg Fanatic Goblin Lackey was not banned in Legacy. This one fact instantly made Legacy a far more hospitable home to prospective Goblin decks than Extended.
  • Early Legacy deck brewers took note of the tempo, consistency, and versatility of using both Goblin Lackey and Aether Vial together in the same deck, cheating out goblins while also spending mana to cast more goblins.
Vial Goblins is quite possibly the single most important archetype in the entire history of Goblin decks. Even before Legacy tournaments were underway, this archetype crystallized as the definitive Goblin deck for the brand new format, and it established itself as one of Legacy's earliest decks to beat. Vintage presents an inhospitable environment to creature-based decks, and if a Goblin deck rises to prominence, it tends to fall just as hard in short order. Standard and Extended rotate, and Goblin decks can simply cease to exist when that happens. But Vial Goblins was an archetype that was created almost concurrently with the existence of the Legacy format, and it's still around. Quite simply, no other Goblin deck has that kind of longevity. Precious few tournament archetypes in any format have that kind of longevity. Vial Goblins has had its share of setbacks in that time. There were periods when the metagame was so unfavorable toward the deck that it virtually disappeared. But it got its start in 2004 and it's still going strong over eighteen years later.

The third important development in 2004 came with a single card in Champions of Kamigawa.
1677091885850.png

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker has been mentioned in various Magic Memories threads. As a combo enthusiast, I have to admit that few creatures can hope to rival the utility of this card in combo decks. The Mirror Breaker is, amusingly enough, broken. Even with no other goblins in Magic, Kiki-Jiki would find a home in plenty of decks. But it is a goblin, and that matters. By that, I do not mean to say, "Technically, Kiki-Jiki is a goblin, so I guess it counts." Oh no. The goblin typing of this card has done plenty for it. Goblin Matron or Goblin Ringleader can fetch it. Goblin Piledriver counts it. Goblin Warchief applies a discount to its cost. Skirk Prospector can sacrifice it. The ability to make a hasty copy of any of your other creatures turns many typical goblin board states from good to instantly lethal. Typical targets included Goblin Piledriver, Siege-Gang Commander, and Goblin Sharpshooter. Not every Vial Goblins deck used Kiki-Jiki. But I think that is was usually a strong choice.

The potent goblin printings in Onslaught Block set the stage for a new era in the history of goblins, but it was these developments in 2004 that took what was shaping up to be a chapter and turned it into an epic.
 
Last edited:

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
I don't know if any archives online have records of the proto-Legacy Goblin decks, but MTGTheSource has a pretty early list (March of 2005).

4x Goblin Lackey
4x Goblin Wachief
4x Goblin Ringleader
4x Goblin Piledriver
4x Goblin Matron
4x Gempalm Incinerator
4x Mogg Fanatic
3x Siege-Gang Commander
2x Goblin Pyromancer
1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
4x Aether Vial
14x Mountain
4x Wasteland
4x Rishadan Port

Sideboard:
3x Price of Progress
1x Goblin Sharpshooter
1x Goblin Tinkerer
2x Patron of the Akki
4x Pithing Needle
4x Pyrokinesis
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Once Legacy was established, I know that I personally didn't pay any attention to the Goblin archetype of the Extended format. After all, Goblin Lackey was legal in Legacy. But it's worth noting that in 2004 and 2005, Extended was still the more established, more important tournament format. Without getting too rigorous, it might be worthwhile to show a side-by-side comparison. Here are two Goblin maindecks I semi-randomly picked from tournament records in 2005.

Goblin MatronGoblin Matron
Goblin MatronGoblin Matron
Goblin MatronGoblin Matron
Goblin MatronGoblin Matron
Goblin PiledriverGoblin Piledriver
Goblin PiledriverGoblin Piledriver
Goblin PiledriverGoblin Piledriver
Goblin PiledriverGoblin Piledriver
Goblin RingleaderGoblin Ringleader
Goblin RingleaderGoblin Ringleader
Goblin RingleaderGoblin Ringleader
Goblin RingleaderGoblin Ringleader
Goblin WarchiefGoblin Warchief
Goblin WarchiefGoblin Warchief
Goblin WarchiefGoblin Warchief
Goblin WarchiefGoblin Warchief
Mogg FanaticMogg Fanatic
Mogg FanaticMogg Fanatic
Mogg FanaticMogg Fanatic
Mogg FanaticMogg Fanatic
Aether VialAether Vial
Aether VialAether Vial
Aether VialAether Vial
Aether VialAether Vial
WastelandWasteland
WastelandWasteland
WastelandWasteland
WastelandWasteland
Skirk ProspectorGoblin Lackey
Skirk ProspectorGoblin Lackey
Skirk ProspectorGoblin Lackey
Skirk ProspectorGoblin Lackey
Goblin GoonMogg Flunkies
Goblin PyromancerMogg Flunkies
SparksmithMogg Flunkies
Gempalm IncineratorGempalm Incinerator
Gempalm IncineratorGempalm Incinerator
Gempalm IncineratorGempalm Incinerator
Siege-Gang CommanderGempalm Incinerator
Siege-Gang CommanderSiege-Gang Commander
Goblin SharpshooterSiege-Gang Commander
Goblin SharpshooterPlateau
Chrome MoxPlateau
Chrome MoxBloodstained Mire
ForestBloodstained Mire
Karplusan ForestBloodstained Mire
Karplusan ForestWooded Foothills
Karplusan ForestWooded Foothills
Wooded FoothillsWooded Foothills
Wooded FoothillsRishadan Port
Wooded FoothillsRishadan Port
Wooded FoothillsRishadan Port
MountainRishadan Port
MountainMountain
MountainMountain
MountainMountain
MountainMountain
MountainMountain
MountainMountain
MountainMountain
 
Not to get too hung up on the Tinker thing, but looking back at this stuff, it's kind of surreal. I don't know which is more bizarre: that Memory Jar was banned instead of Tinker or that Replenish was banned in Extended for almost two years before Tinker was finally banned. And part of me wants to say that it looks worse in hindsight because of all the artifacts that came out in Mirrodin Block and in the years since then, pushing Tinker even further over the top. But really, Tinker came into the world at a time when Mana Vault was legal in Standard, and even with Memory Jar banned, Tinker decks were pretty oppressive with Phyrexian Colossus. Artifacts were already great: it's why Tolarian Academy was broken.
Yeah it's kind of absurd. Worse effects in the same vein of Tinker like Natural Order, Academy Rector, etc. still see play and fetch up worse card types. I guess perhaps they assumed something like Tinker would be a healthy part of the metagame but that wasn't really the case in Type 2. Definitely a head scratcher in retrospect because we know now how good Draw-7's are and in what context they are good in. Though Saga block was rife mana acceleration (as well as Tempest before it) a 5 mana Wheel isn't that great, unplayable in most metas.

Anyway, I do think that WotC stopped caring at some point, and perhaps they never really did. But they're not a monolith, and there were certainly individuals within the company who did care. Mind Over Matter, Replenish, Dream Halls, Entomb, Metalworker, Grim Monolith, Illusionary Mask, Time Spiral, Land Tax, Worldgorger Dragon, and Black Vise were all unbanned in Legacy. It took a while. The era of Legacy unbans stretched from 2007 to 2015, with most of the unbans occurring in 2009 and 2010. It wasn't comprehensive, and it wasn't done at all in the way I'd have preferred, but it was progress. In 2010, one could easily have had the mistaken perception that WotC was ramping up a long-term effort to properly curate and support the Legacy format. In fact, I'm sure that I believed an unban of Goblin Recruiter was right around the corner. Well, here we are in 2023.
Truer words were never spoken. 100% agree with this. They have seemed to stop caring, as a whole, around the SDT or DRS ban. This is (probably) due to a failed attempt to maintain the status quo of Legacy and have no vision or desire to make the format better other than "Blue decks are just the best forever because". I doubt we will ever see any unbans that really shape the meta for the better because from everything that I've seen or heard is that they ascribe to the dumb ideas about why cards are currently banned. It's not 1999 Extended, Jar is fine. Its not PT: Rome, Frantic Search is fine. It's not... uh, never, so Earthcraft is fine. But WotC seems to think otherwise.

Mogg Fanatic was not banned in Legacy. This one fact instantly made Legacy a far more hospitable home to prospective Goblin decks than Extended.
I think you mean Goblin Lackey but I know ya know that. But I do love Fanatic.

Vial Goblins is quite possibly the single most important archetype in the entire history of Goblin decks. Even before Legacy tournaments were underway, this archetype crystallized as the definitive Goblin deck for the brand new format, and it established itself as one of Legacy's earliest decks to beat. Vintage presents an inhospitable environment to creature-based decks, and if a Goblin deck rises to prominence, it tends to fall just as hard in short order. Standard and Extended rotate, and Goblin decks can simply cease to exist when that happens. But Vial Goblins was an archetype that was created almost concurrently with the existence of the Legacy format, and it's still around. Quite simply, no other Goblin deck has that kind of longevity. Precious few tournament archetypes in any format have that kind of longevity. Vial Goblins has had its share of setbacks in that time. There were periods when the metagame was so unfavorable toward the deck that it virtually disappeared. But it got its start in 2004 and it's still going strong over eighteen years later.
Big agree. It's the longest lived Goblin deck, or even just archetype, and it's along the same lines as something like UW Control or Sligh as a classic archetype. think it's hard to overstate how unlikely it is for a synergy based deck that plays three mana 1/1's and four mana 2/2's to still actually be good over this long period of time. In some respects it's due to the synergy with broken cards like Lackey or Recruiter but the deck also is the best Waste/Port/Vial deck, better than D&T imo.
I don't know if any archives online have records of the proto-Legacy Goblin decks, but MTGTheSource has a pretty early list (March of 2005).

4x Goblin Lackey
4x Goblin Wachief
4x Goblin Ringleader
4x Goblin Piledriver
4x Goblin Matron
4x Gempalm Incinerator
4x Mogg Fanatic
3x Siege-Gang Commander
2x Goblin Pyromancer
1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
4x Aether Vial
14x Mountain
4x Wasteland
4x Rishadan Port

Sideboard:
3x Price of Progress
1x Goblin Sharpshooter
1x Goblin Tinkerer
2x Patron of the Akki
4x Pithing Needle
4x Pyrokinesis
That's a pretty standard list around that time though generally if Pyromancer was played it was only as a tutor target. The GP winning list by Jon Sonne looks pretty similar.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
It's not 1999 Extended, Jar is fine. Its not PT: Rome, Frantic Search is fine. It's not... uh, never, so Earthcraft is fine. But WotC seems to think otherwise.
I cracked up at that Earthcraft line. Might have to steal that one. :ROFLMAO:

I think you mean Goblin Lackey but I know ya know that. But I do love Fanatic.
Oops. I guess I had Mogg Fanatic on the brain? Weird.

Big agree. It's the longest lived Goblin deck, or even just archetype, and it's along the same lines as something like UW Control or Sligh as a classic archetype. think it's hard to overstate how unlikely it is for a synergy based deck that plays three mana 1/1's and four mana 2/2's to still actually be good over this long period of time. In some respects it's due to the synergy with broken cards like Lackey or Recruiter but the deck also is the best Waste/Port/Vial deck, better than D&T imo.
I know I saw the use of Port really play a role in the 2010's, punishing control decks for trying to drag Goblins into a long game of attrition. It's easy to overlook the synergistic interactions between those three cards (Wasteland, Rishadan Port, Aether Vial) when the synergies of the goblins themselves are so explosive and get star billing. Thinking about it now, although I knew intellectually that early Legacy Goblin decks used Rishadan Port from the beginning, it wasn't a topic I'd given any thought to. The use of Rishadan Port to set up a key turn by tapping down one land on the opponent's turn and then another land on your own turn, denying mana for countermagic when the opponent needs it most? It can really make a difference. Opponent needed to counter your goblin, but doesn't get to. Aether Vial deploys a second goblin. And if Goblin Lackey threatens to deploy another goblin, so it can't get through unblocked, but if the opponent blocks it, then they're letting something else through instead.

That's a pretty standard list around that time though generally if Pyromancer was played it was only as a tutor target. The GP winning list by Jon Sonne looks pretty similar.
I hadn't thought to look for that one. It was a bit further along in the format and I was trying to capture the origins of the archetype, despite the difference of mere months. But Jon Sonne's list is an improvement. It seems that early on, Skirk Prospector wasn't viewed as useful to the archetype because Goblin Lackey and Aether Vial could cheat goblins out and Goblin Warchief could discount them, so sacrificing your goblins to come up with extra mana for casting more goblins seemed too wasteful. The Extended list I posted use Skirk Prospector instead of Goblin Lackey (which, unlike Mogg Fanatic, actually was banned in the format), and I noticed some forum posts on TheSource arguing over the merits of the two. Jon Sonne's list showcases the insight that some one-off goblins are worthwhile in the maindeck as Goblin Matron toolbox slots, such as Skirk Prospector and Goblin Tinkerer. And it also uses more Siege-Gang Commanders because they're so good in multiples.

So yeah, while it's definitely similar to the list I already posted, it is more refined.

4 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Goblin Tinkerer
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Mogg Fanatic
3 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Skirk Prospector
4 Aether Vial
4 Bloodstained Mire
6 Mountain
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:
1 Goblin Tinkerer
2 Patron of the Akki
4 Pithing Needle
3 Price of Progress
4 Pyrokinesis
1 Siege-Gang Commander
 
I hadn't thought to look for that one. It was a bit further along in the format and I was trying to capture the origins of the archetype, despite the difference of mere months. But Jon Sonne's list is an improvement. It seems that early on, Skirk Prospector wasn't viewed as useful to the archetype because Goblin Lackey and Aether Vial could cheat goblins out and Goblin Warchief could discount them, so sacrificing your goblins to come up with extra mana for casting more goblins seemed too wasteful. The Extended list I posted use Skirk Prospector instead of Goblin Lackey (which, unlike Mogg Fanatic, actually was banned in the format), and I noticed some forum posts on TheSource arguing over the merits of the two. Jon Sonne's list showcases the insight that some one-off goblins are worthwhile in the maindeck as Goblin Matron toolbox slots, such as Skirk Prospector and Goblin Tinkerer. And it also uses more Siege-Gang Commanders because they're so good in multiples.

So yeah, while it's definitely similar to the list I already posted, it is more refined.

4 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Goblin Tinkerer
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Mogg Fanatic
3 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Skirk Prospector
4 Aether Vial
4 Bloodstained Mire
6 Mountain
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:
1 Goblin Tinkerer
2 Patron of the Akki
4 Pithing Needle
3 Price of Progress
4 Pyrokinesis
1 Siege-Gang Commander
What I find so interesting is that the same basic structure of the deck has mostly remained unchanged, if not most of the cards themselves. The only big difference is that modern goblin decks play 23/24 lands and the SB has more GY hate and REBs. I believe Sonne was correct about the singleton Prospector. There are just weird situations that come up where saccing a Goblin(s) for mana is actually pretty useful. 1-2 Prospectors has felt good to me.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
Other than Unhinged, which I'll just say doesn't count for our purposes right now, Champions of Kamigawa was the last set of 2004 and its major contribution of Kiki-Jiki finished off the foundation that the year had given the Goblins deck archetype. 2005 and 2006, along with most of 2007, offered comparatively little. Ravnica Block introduced some new goblins, but without any tribal synergies. Tin Street Hooligan is probably the most notable addition. I'm compelled to note that Frenzied Goblin has won me some games in Highlander. It's not bad. Time Spiral Block did a bit better, giving us Mogg War Marshal and Stingscourger.

1678823946914.png1678823928223.png1678823972485.png1678823990176.png

When it comes to goblins, this period was defined by the ongoing general success of the Vial Goblins deck that had been fleshed out by late 2004 in Legacy, some occasional appearances of Food Chain Goblins in Vintage, and the "Goblin Bidding" deck in Extended. I hadn't talked about that last one yet because I never really had experience with it, although I did hear about it. Legacy was a better format anyway. But yeah, the Extended deck didn't have Goblin Lackey or Aether Vial, but could sac goblins to Skirk Prospector, use Goblin Sharpshooter to ping the opponent repeatedly, then use Patriarch's Bidding to bring all the goblins back and do it all over again. Slower and more easily countered than Legacy's Vial Goblins, but I suppose there's a certain charm to it. Goblin Sharpshooter is a pretty fun card.

There's one more important event that took place in this pre-Lorwyn period, and it's a big one: The Return of the King.
1678825557508.png

For the first time in over a decade, Goblin King was restored to its rightful status as a goblin. This meant that one Goblin King would boost another Goblin King. It also meant that Goblin King would benefit from other goblin tribal synergies. Those two effects combine to make Goblin King pretty strong, but they'd been missing prior to the Ninth Edition rules updates.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
In October of 2005, cards from the Portal and Starter product lines became legal in tournament Magic. Earlier in this thread, I mentioned how cards like Goblin Matron and Goblin War Strike weren't initially legal, but reprints in Standard sets gave them tournament-legal status before the rules changed. So the only interesting goblins to really be affected by this change were Goblin General and Goblin Settler. And by late 2005, neither of those were of much interest to goblin decks in any tournament format as far as I'm aware. Goblin General was a worse version of the now-properly-restored Goblin King. Goblin Settler would eventually see some play from this, but I believe that took a while.

Goblin King, existing as a goblin again for the first time in over a decade, found itself in a brave new world. The universal +1/+1 boost and mountainwalk were still quite nice for a Goblins deck to have, but this was no longer the primary reason to be playing Goblins. In fact, Goblin King was now probably only the second best "lord" for the tribe, behind Goblin Warchief. Still, it was worthwhile to run both, especially when the mountainwalk mattered. Some Vial Goblins decks only ran Goblin King in the sideboard and some went so far as to run a full playset in the maindeck. Most split the difference running just one or two maindeck copies of Goblin King. After all, if you needed mountainwalk, you could always have Goblin Matron fetch Goblin King out of the library. Without being too comprehensive, it's worth showcasing a couple of Goblin-based decks from this period, after the big updates had some time to take effect and the handful of new toys had seen print. Here's a Vial Goblins list from 2007.

1 Goblin King
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Tin Street Hooligan
2 Siege-Gang Commander
3 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Mogg Fanatic
3 Pyrokinesis
4 Aether Vial
3 Rishadan Port
3 Taiga
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland
5 Mountain

Sideboard:
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Ib Halfheart, Goblin Tactician
3 Krosan Grip
2 Price of Progress
2 Pyrostatic Pillar
2 Tin Street Hooligan
2 Tormod's Crypt

And here's Goblin Bidding, from the Extended format.

1 Goblin King
1 Goblin Pyromancer
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Sparksmith
3 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Goblin Ringleader
3 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Goblin Sledder
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Skirk Prospector
2 Patriarch's Bidding
4 Chrome Mox
2 Swamp
3 Sacred Foundry
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Sulfurous Springs
7 Mountain

Sideboard:

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Disenchant
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Sphere of Law

I defined the fourth chapter in the history of goblins as starting in 2002 with Onslaught, and ending in 2007 with Lorwyn. Looking back, these are possibly the most momentous years for goblins. We had the waves of great new goblins and goblin tribal synergies with Onslaught Block, the advent of Food Chain Goblins, the success of the tribe in Standard, the banning of Goblin Lackey and Goblin Recruiter, the printing of Aether Vial and other new tools, the establishment of the Legacy format and origin of Legacy Vial Goblins, the return of Goblin King (as a goblin), and the continued performance of Goblin decks across multiple formats, month after month. Goblins in Magic were at a kind of zenith.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
The Lorwyn/Shadowmoor double block occupied Standard set releases from October of 2007 to June of 2008. All four sets in this project had a strong overarching theme of recontextualizing the use of creature types in Magic. The race/class structure for creature types, which had been established a few years prior, became fully fleshed out. More new tribal synergies were being introduced than ever before, including more flexible ones that could work with any creature type. We also got "tribal" as a new card type. Virtually all of the most established creature types received major updates, and goblins were no exception...
1678981522246.png1678981628214.png1678981553319.png1678981657080.png1678981748041.png1678981844902.png1678981890613.png1678981922258.png

Despite all this variety, the foundation that Onslaught Block built remained essentially intact. Saprolingtoken has already touched on that point in this thread. Some of the goblins from the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor period are pretty good, and these sets were the first to properly open goblins up to colors other than red. So it was a big deal, but the stuff from before this really stood the test of time more robustly. For instance, I just looked up the most recent tournament tournament results I could find for Legacy Goblin decks. I'm seeing numbers like...
  • 18 out of 33 goblins from before Lorwyn. 0 cards from Lorwyn/Shadowmoor sets. Most of the other goblins came out in the past few years.
  • 22 out of 33 goblins from before Lorwyn. 1 Lorwyn/Shadowmoor goblin in the sideboard.
  • 11 out of 29 goblins from before Lorwyn. 0 from Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, although some are from a bit later.
  • 19 out of 31 goblins from before Lorwyn. 0 from Lorwyn/Shadowmoor.
  • 14 out of 31 goblins from before Lorwyn. 3 maindeck goblins from Lorwyn/Shadowmoor. The rest are from recent sets.
  • 18 out of 29 goblins from before Lorwyn. 0 from Lorwyn/Shadowmoor.
So yeah, a few of the goblins from this period do have some staying power. But despite the heaviest use of tribal themes out of any time in the game's history, almost all of the most successful goblins are either older or much newer. In a way, it could be said that the biggest legacy of this block for goblins is how much the printings here enabled other creature types to catch up to goblins. Elves gained more useful new tools. Faeries and merfolk, which had not been serious contenders before, suddenly became pretty imposing.

But it's not all bad news. The red/white hobgoblins from Eventide didn't really pan out, but the red/black and red/green stuff from the rest of the block seemed to inspire more color-splashing. Lightning Crafter is a combo piece when used alongside Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Boggart Harbinger has had on-again/off-again usage, and would eventually go on to combo with Conspicuous Snoop. Earwig Squad became a useful sideboard card. And of course Mutavault is, well, Mutavault.
 
It was really depressing that in the decade or so after Time Spiral there were basically ZERO Goblins that were playable in the deck. Krenko is fine-ish but not really that great since it's four mana and requires you to untap to do anything and also requires you to have other stuff in play. Obviously, Cavern of Souls is nuts but if you're not using it to cast stuff that's up to snuff then it's value is significantly diminished. Oddly enough, or maybe not, the fortune of the Legacy Goblin decks started in the F.I.R.E. era in Legacy with new, good Goblins printed but also old Goblin cards printed into the newly minted Pioneer format as well as Modern.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
It was really depressing that in the decade or so after Time Spiral there were basically ZERO Goblins that were playable in the deck. Krenko is fine-ish but not really that great since it's four mana and requires you to untap to do anything and also requires you to have other stuff in play. Obviously, Cavern of Souls is nuts but if you're not using it to cast stuff that's up to snuff then it's value is significantly diminished. Oddly enough, or maybe not, the fortune of the Legacy Goblin decks started in the F.I.R.E. era in Legacy with new, good Goblins printed but also old Goblin cards printed into the newly minted Pioneer format as well as Modern.
Since I didn't think this through earlier, I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to think of this "fifth chapter" in the history of goblins. The fourth chapter essentially saw goblins at the peak of their power, with multiple developments that revolutionized the archetype across multiple formats. With Lorwyn being such a huge shift for tribal decks in general, I thought it made some sense to start the next chapter there. And yeah, the Lorwyn/Shadowmoor double feature block was really more notable not for what it did for goblins, but for how it actually gave other creature types a chance to compete. We did get an infinite combo enabler and some niche incentives to splash other colors. It's a start, I guess? But what else defines the fifth chapter? When did it end? What's a good stopping point?

If the focus is on the Legacy format, the goblin deck didn't really get much to work with for about a decade. So I guess that this is a long, uneventful chapter. Branching out to other formats, of course Krenko, Mob Boss was a big development for goblin fans in EDH. It instantly became the goblin commander. Despite the recent waves of broken new commander options, Krenko helms more goblin decks than all other commanders combined, and is still the thirteenth most popular commander overall on EDHrec. Now, EDH is much, much more popular today than it was in 2012, but I was going to bring the format up at some point anyway, and now's probably the right time for it. A lot of the goblins that are perfectly acceptable in EDH and other formats simply wouldn't make the cut in a Legacy goblin deck. Boggart Ram-Gang won me enough games in Canadian Highlander that I'm always kind of looking for excuses to run the card, and it's, well, not that great. But Krenko is the poster child for this issue.
1681315915917.png

If EDH as a format is given weight even close to commensurate with its present level of popularity and influence on the game, then Krenko, Mob Boss isn't merely a major development in the history of goblins. It's bigger than that. Krenko is effectively the card here. My own love for Pashalik Mons aside, it's not even a close race. Krenko outshines all other commanders for goblin decks. And even those of use who buck the trend and put a different goblin in the command zone are probably still going to keep running Krenko in the maindeck.

In Legacy? Yeah, Krenko was OK for a while, I guess. You'd usually want to throw one copy in to tutor for with Goblin Matron, in case you had an opening to make a token swarm and needed to do so. Krenko had its uses in Legacy for most of the 2010's, but generally felt like a grudging backup option.

Over time, we did get some other incremental contributions to the tribe that are worth mentioning. Goblin Wardriver is better known for its use in the Modern format, but did see some Legacy play. Goblin Guide is primarily known for being an aggro staple in other decks, but did see some respectable use alongside the rest of the goblin crew. Goblin Chieftain gets overlooked, perhaps because Goblin Warchief is the better haste enabler and Goblin King is better established and grants evasion. But the card was a fine performer in Legacy goblin decks in its day. Perhaps it's a victim of timing? It seems like if Goblin Chieftain had been released in some set several years earlier or several years later, it would have more recognition. Instead, it showed up at a time when Legacy goblin decks were doing quite well without it, and goblins weren't really a notable presence in other formats. So it fell into a niche role and has had, at best, a kind of also-ran status ever since.

Um, there's also Goblin Rabblemaster, I suppose. That wasn't until a bit further on chronologically anyway, so I'll come back to it.

And then, of course, there's Warren Instigator.
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Known affectionately by its fans as "Winstigator" and dismissed as "not Goblin Lackey" by its detractors, the card was probably the most prominent new tool specific to goblin decks between Time Spiral Block and the release of Goblin Rabblemaster in 2014. There was a time period in Legacy when Vial Goblins list had a kind of schism between more traditional lists and "Winstigator" lists. Since it wasn't mentioned yet, I suspect that Saprolingtoken might have been on the "it's not Goblin Lackey" side of that divide. And I'll admit that I was too. Also, it seems like my side (our side?) ultimately won out. You don't see too many Warren Instigators in the wild these days. After all, the issue with Goblin Lackey was always that you needed to get it past blockers to see the payoff, not that the payoff was too small. Warren Instigator is the answer to the question "but what if I could get twice the payoff for twice the price?" And that's a question that no one was asking.
 
Krenko is certainly notable as a Commander. It is the 14th most popular on EDHRec as of writing. Krenko is pretty straight forward and can easily shift from a combo approach to more just play a lot of Goblins/tokens/swarm approach. It's easy to build around and very powerful. Certainly notable for that. In Legacy, Krenko was good because if you untapped with it you were really far ahead. That wasn't easy. It's other trait of not being able to be Abrupt Decay-ed was useful though.

There were some Goblins printed that were "fine" at the time but not really good enough to make a difference in the deck's playability. Wardriver, Guide, Chieftain, etc. were just not that great in the deck. They didn't really offer anything new. Hard to add to a deck that has it all, mostly. Of course more powerful, tempo or combo cards certainly helped but these green skinned bros printed in this era didn't do much at all.

I was definitely an Instigator doubter from the get-go and I was proven right but I could have easily been wrong: it is a very powerful effect but two mana is a very big asking price.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
I was definitely an Instigator doubter from the get-go and I was proven right but I could have easily been wrong: it is a very powerful effect but two mana is a very big asking price.
Yeah, it's not a version of the deck that I had much experience with, so I don't feel all that qualified to comment on it. Traditional Vial Goblins decks succeeded by being able to put a lot of aggro pressure on opponents while also being able to go the distance by ramping into more synergies (the card advantage of Goblin Ringleader being especially valuable here) and the use of effective tools to interfere with opponents' resources (Rishadan Port, Gempalm Incinerator, etc.). As the late 00's moved into the early 10's, new archetypes emerged that increasingly demonstrated the capability to disrupt and dismantle the synergy engines of goblin decks with more speed and consistency. Traditional goblins were excellent for outracing decks like Solidarity or outscaling decks like Zoo. They were even able to make the transition to fighting some newer archetypes like Miracles and Shardless BUG. But trying to outrace Sneak & Show or outscale Loam decks became an uphill battle.

My understanding (probably incomplete) for the case behind Warren Instigator in the early 2010's is that the package of Chrome Mox + Warren Instigator + Pendelhaven made for more explosive starts that didn't rely on the synergies between the goblins themselves. A typical "Winstigator" list looked something like this...

4 Goblin Lackey
4 Warren Instigator
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Ringleader
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Chieftain
2 Goblin Warchief
1 Subterranean Scout
1 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Stingscourger
1 Tuktuk Scrapper
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
3 Tarfire
3 Chrome Mox
4 Aether Vial
11 Mountain
2 Wasteland
2 Pendelhaven
4 Cavern of Souls

In theory, the explosiveness of Chrome Mox and the pressure in combat that Warren Instigator + Pendelhaven presented made this faster than the traditional version of Vial Goblins, better able to outrace combo decks or secure wins against decks that could threaten to overwhelm a slower goblin deck. And I do not doubt that there was some window of time during which this was true. I lack the expertise to delve into the specifics, but it's certainly the case that as years passed, this version fell out of favor and decks more resembling the older version of Vial Goblins kept going strong. I'll speculate that "Winstigator" had the problem of doing too much to shore up matches that were already too unfavorable while sacrificing consistent performance in matchups that were favorable. Doing a bit better against Ad Nauseam Tendrils is fine on its own, but not necessarily if it comes with a dip in performance against Delver.

Warren Instigator is an interesting goblin and I've got to admit that the Pendelhaven tech was pretty cool, but ultimately, Goblin players in Legacy moved on from this. Well, mostly. Seems that it resurfaces occasionally if the metagame becomes too vulnerable against greedy goblin decks. But I'm with Saprolingtoken on this one. Still, Warren Instigator is a notable part of the history of the tribe. Also, I think it was a real card used in Modern for a while, probably.
 
It's good to point out that Winstigator was a point of contention and something that Goblin players went back and forth on for awhile. I would personally contend it wasn't that good, ever. I remember lots of debates on MTGTheSource about it but it never really performed consistently. More or less, the issue with Instigator is that it didn't solve the issues with Goblins and was just a bad card in the mid or late game. Instigator, like a lot of other Goblins cards, never solved the problems with the deck.
 

Oversoul

The Tentacled One
As our fifth chapter progressed, the overall Vial Goblins archetype in Legacy stayed more or less the same. Some niche tools became available, but mostly those had better results in other formats. I know that Modern saw some fluctuation in its own goblin decks. In Legacy, things became rather stagnant for Vial Goblins, while the competition kept getting new toys. These were the years during which the goblin tribe virtually collapsed in Legacy. At one point, the biggest saving grace for Vial Goblins was probably that Miracles was so prominently the top deck in the format. Able to flexibly adapt to defeat combo decks, the new breed of tempo decks, and more traditional control decks, Miracles approached dominance, and Vial Goblins was a lousy matchup for the deck. The Sensei's Divining Top + Counterbalance lock did nothing against a resolved Aether Vial or Goblin Lackey. The use of haste made the strategic flow of the Miracles archetype less effective. Terminus was the default weapon against creature swarms, but Goblin Ringleader could get an army rebuilt too quickly for Miracles decks to cope. For most of the early-to-mid-2010's, Vial Goblins took on a lopsided role in Legacy, preying on the top dog in the format but faring poorly against the other top tier performers. The ban on Sensei's Divining Top disrupted this and put Vial Goblins in an even worse position.

There is one particularly noteworthy goblin that cropped up. Goblin Rabblemaster saw use both in red "stompy" lists as well as dedicated tribal goblin decks.
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Deployed quickly with Ancient Tomb, Goblin Rabblemaster provides an army in a can, so the option to use it as a simple source of scaling damage in a deck that doesn't otherwise contain any goblin cards is viable. In a Vial Goblins deck, well, it's no Goblin Piledriver. But a one-off copy of Goblin Rabblemaster was a pretty popular inclusion for a while. It comes with the danger that you are forced to attack with your whole team, but some decks could never effectively punish goblins for this weakness. Goblin Rabblemaster is kind of a hybrid of Goblin Piledriver and Siege-Gang Commander.
 
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