Budget Magic: $65 Goblins (Standard)
Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Budget Magic! Aetherdrift is here, which means it's finally time to try out one of the new Standard decks I'm most hyped for in Goblins! Thanks to Foundations and Dominaria United, we have some powerful Goblins in Standard, including Commander all star Krenko, Mob Boss, but the tribe was missing something super important: haste. Aetherdrift solved this problem with Howlsquad Heavy and Draconautics Engineer, either of which can haste Krenko, Mob Boss into play to make a massive, hopefully unbeatable board of Goblins! The best part is that the deck only takes $65 to build! How good are Goblins in Aetherdrift Standard? Let's get to the video and find out!
Budget Magic: Goblins
Wrap Up
First off, I should say that we played today's deck during MTG Arena's early access for Aetherdrift so I don't put a ton of weight in the record since everyone is trying new cards and brews, but over all the deck performed incredibly well. The new additions to the deck, especially Howlsquad Heavy, really change the Goblin equation. We had multiple games where we were able to play Krenko, Mob Boss with haste and immediately take over the game.
While we are very much not a max speed deck, in fact we only have two start your engines cards, I was surprised at how easy it was to hit max speed. We had many games where we played Burnout Bashtronaut on turn one and more or less accidentally ended up at max speed by turn four. While having max speed didn't always matter (some times it was win more, where our opponent was dead the next turn whether we had max speed or not), we also got to see some crazy games where Howlsquad Heavy made an absurd amount of mana, and even had one where Burnout Bashtronaut's double strike mattered! Overall my first impression of max speed is that getting it isn't actually all that hard, but having max speed doesn't always matter.
As such, the one change I'd make to the deck is adding Amonkhet Raceway over Soulstone Sanctuary. We didn't turn Soulstone Sanctuary into a creature once during all of our games (although I'm sure it would happen eventually). It felt a bit slow for the deck. On the other hand, considering how easy it was to hit max speed, Amonkhet Raceway seems perfect for the deck as another way to haste in Krenko or even to just smash in for some extra damage after a wrath.
One last note on the deck, and more specifically, are two Goblin lords Dropkick Bomber and Rundvelt Hordemaster. Both cards are great in the deck thanks to their Goblins buff, but I was surprised at how relevant Dropkick Bomber's sacrifice ability was. We were able to use it to hit max speed by throwing a random Goblin token into the air, and it can even work like a finisher with the extra mana from Howlsquad Heavy letting us give all of our Goblins flying for the turn to alpha strike. Oh yeah, and we can even use the ability like a weird card advantage engine with the help of Rundvelt Hordemaster to impulse draw us Goblins are our other Goblins die!
At the risk of putting too much weight on early access day, my overall impression of Standard Goblins is that the might actually be a real deck. We'll see how much different things looks once we're facing more Sunfalls and This Town Ain't Big Enoughs, but the deck felt fast, synergistic and surprisingly powerful. While perhaps not quite as far as pump spell red decks, we're also much more resilient against targeted removal and probably better at fighting through disruption. Killing on turn four is pretty realistic with the deck. If you're looking for something cheap and maybe even competitive to try in new Standard, or you are just a lover of Goblins, give the deck a try! It's a blast!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive, or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
