Season 18 brings with it a host of interesting and powerful cards, enabling new, interesting, and competitive decks.

This isn’t about one of those decks

You guessed it, folks, it's goblins! Goblins are easily among my favorite tribes in all of Magic, and their prominence in one of my favorite blocks, Lorwyn, got me thinking... "Wait a minute, Goblin Matron can search for Tribal spells!"

Hmmm... well, Tarfire is quite good at killing Delver of Secrets, Warren Weirding is a tutorable Edict that, on occasion, can be used aggressively, and Nameless Inversion is a pretty great way to kill X/3's.

But 5 mana for a 1/1 and a removal spell? That's far from optimal, even if you account for Matron's flexibility. No, for this deck to really work, we're gonna need ways to bring that cost down...

Bingo. With a Frogtosser Banneret on the battlefield, we can cast Goblin Matron, then Warren Weirding OR Nameless Inversion, and for only 3 mana! Now that's a pretty good deal.

Ok, great, so how do we win from there? Well, once we've gotten our value, we can start to play Magic as Richard Garfield intended. Combat damage.

Wait, what's that last card? That's what I thought when I saw it, it seems perfect for a deck like this. In most matchups, our opponent will sideboard in Slagstorm, Flaying Tendrils, or something along those lines. Basically, even if they're at a low life total, they can stabilize by wiping our board. With Quest for the Goblin Lord and 6 lands (which is quite reasonable for this deck's long game plan), drawing a Matron means we can instantly do 8 damage by finding a Chieftain. This potency comes with a downside however, and drawing this late-game when you needed action is disappointing. That alone makes this card heavily matchup-dependent, and one of the first on the chopping block when sideboarding comes around.

So I keep talking about this long game plan, why? Well, as it turns out, goblins aren't all about attacking. Sure, in some matchups, you'll find that you just need to kill the opponent fast, but the truth is, this deck is slower than infect, slower than dredge, slower than RDW. In these matchups, we're forced to reevaluate our game plan and find a way to exhaust all of their resources while keeping our own topped up.

Which brings me to what might be my favorite card in the deck

This card right here. Ends. Games. It's like divination on steroids that comes with a 2/2 body for free! Spoiler alert: in the end, almost half the deck is goblins. So for 4 mana, you draw an average of 2 nonland cards (which can be threats or removal), and you also get a 2/2. Late game, when both players are topdecking, this is the card you pray for almost every time.

Now, we're almost done with the core of the deck. Let's take a look at each strategy

Aggro for Short Games

Card Advantage for Long Games

Removal to Make Short Games Long

Now, many of these fit into multiple categories, but I decided to place them into the category I found myself using them the most in my playtesting.

But this is honestly a boring use of Goblin Matron. With Goblin Matron, we can add common sideboard cards into our mainboard as 1-ofs, in what I like to call the Goblinbox portion of the deck. These are generally useful goblins that just aren't useful often enough to run more than 1 of.

The Situationals

But just because these cards are good in some matchups doesn't mean they're goblin-box-able, for a card to be box-able, I'm looking for one of three qualities.

1. It's a strong card that ends game quickly once played

2. The niche it fills is common enough that I'll be looking for a solution often

3. It's good against a deck or card that this deck struggles against in game 1

To save us all some time, I'll just give a brief justification for each card:

1. Siege-Gang commander adds a ton of power to the board, often instantly turning on Quest for the Goblin Lord and presenting a lethal threat. Into the box it goes!

2. Vexing Shusher is our silver bullet against counter-everything decks, but, surprisingly, I find that these decks are somewhat uncommon in the Season 18 Meta, and that this deck performs somewhat well against counterspells, running headfirst into them with cards like Goblin Warchief, then recuperating the card disadvantage with a ringleader. No box for you!

3. Goblin Cratermaker fills such a large niche I'm reluctant to put it on this list, but if you're using Goblin Matron just to kill an X/2, you'll just use Tarfire. That being said, this easily goes into the box and I would go as far as to add a few more to the sideboard

4. Skirk Fire Marshal is very, very niche. If the board stalls, our deck has a tendency to stall out. If the opponent is at 10 or less life, however, Skirk Fire Marshal represents a way to kill them that dodges removal and works at instant speed. Despite it's instant-win nature, I'm gonna say it doesn't go into the box because a board stall is less common than you may think in Penny Dreadful (in my experience)

5. Wort, Boggart Auntie is the answer to the tons of removal opponents tend to board in. Once the opponent runs out of cards, we can cast Wort and slowly begin to rebuild our presence. If we get even 2 cards off of her before she dies, we're put at such an advantage we can easily take over the game. However, because the massive removal case is more of a post-board thing, she doesn't go into the box

6. Goblin Ruinblaster kills Mishra's factory. Turns out a 2 mana 3/3 blocker actually just turns off all of our attacks. It's played in affinity, it's played in control, and it's massively annoying in both cases. Into the box

7. Auntie's Snitch is a way for our deck to stay aggressive and maintain a clock in the face of heavy removal. The best part is, unlike the similar Pyrewild Shaman, we don't have to spend mana for its effect! Honestly, it's a fine beater in most scenarios, rarely a dead card, so it gets in

8. Goblin Trashmaster is our silver bullet against artifacts, but it's also a fine draw as just a 4 mana lord with minor value potential. Into the box it goes

To recap:

The Goblinbox:

And now we're FINALLY ready to build the deck

And here it is! 3 duress for storm, 3 cling to dust for dredge, as well as any grindy matchup, and you're pretty much done! Of course, this version of the deck isn't quite tuned to it's fullest potential, but I'll be working on it, and my next post will most likely be an update to this deck, which cards were better or worse than I thought. With all that said, see you on the battlefield!

The Exhaustive Part

But of course, no deck is complete until you mess around with it a little, testing a bunch of different cards and different builds, so this is where we get thorough. For this segment, I will be looking at every card that either is a goblin or has the word "goblin" in it's rules text, with color identity black or red, that's legal in Penny Dreadful.

Here's the complete list:

https://scryfall.com/search?q=ci%3C%3DBR+f%3Apd+%28t%3Agoblin+OR+o%3Agoblin%29&unique=cards&as=grid&order=edhrec

And here's the cards that catch my eye the most:

The Maybes

1. Knucklebone Witch: Can easily balloon out of control through just the death that happens in combat, but, if our opponent just decides to slagstorm, we're back in the stone age. The 1-drop slot of this deck is pretty powerful as-is, with Skirk Prospector, Mogg Fanatic, and Quest for the Goblin Lord, so it's hard to justify another 1-drop that sometimes just sucks.

2. Dark-Dweller Oracle: Sometimes it gets to be late in the game, and we really just want to draw, say, Goblin Ringleader. As-is, the deck has 7 draws that would get there (4 matrons and 3 ringleaders), but Dark-Dweller Oracle opens the door to many more possibilities. With this card, a Mogg War Marshal can draw up to 3 cards. Not only that, but this card can make bad attacks much more profitable, enabling you to sacrifice the blocked creatures, then cast those cards in the second main phase. That being said, in it's current form, this deck doesn't really have a ton of ways to create many creatures we don't care about, so this is a maybe. If the deck ever gains more small, insignificant creatures, then I'll reconsider

3. Stingscourger: As it stands, the deck doesn't have much of a way to deal with anything big, like a massive Magnivore, and, as long as the opponent is playing any creatures, this card has the potential to set the opponent a ways back. That being said, the decks that this deck needs the most help with, this card is underwhelming against two of the worst matchups this deck has, Storm and Dredge.

4. Hordeling Outburst: 3 goblins, 3 mana. It's efficient, but the 3-drop slots is quite competitive. However, the value is hard to ignore here, especially with a Goblin Chieftain. It's worth trying out, but I anticipate it will often be boarded out against decks that like to Slagstorm.

5. Goblin Assault: This card provides a constant clock against decks that are countering or killing everything else I play, which is rather powerful, but it forces attacks, which can suck against stuff like dream trawler. Worth trying out, probably won't do great

6. Arms Dealer: This seems nuts in some matchups, 2 mana for basically a repeatable bone splinters. It kills magnivore, it kills drakes, but the only problem is that the strongest decks in the format don't really care about it. Absolutely worth a try

7. Mad Auntie: Can make some attacks better, but if you're trying to protect against removal, the removal's just gonna hit this instead. That being said, the base rate of 3 mana for a 2/2 lord is absolutely worth trying

8. Boggart Harbinger: With Goblin Matron being such an amazing draw, bad Goblin Matron can't be too bad. The only problem is that it's super, super slow. That being said, turn 3 harbinger, turn 4 ringleader is quite the curve. I think this is probably playable in the deck, but drawing it does feel sort of bad

9. Murderous Redcap: 4 mana is a lot, but a 2/2 that sticks around and kills a creature is not bad at all. If there were more creature decks going around, this might be sideboardable, but, as it stands, this card kinda stinks

10. Goblin War Party: Draw it with lots of creatures? Make them bigger and attack. Draw it with no creatures? Get some. Draw it with lots of mana? Do both. Pretty strong card either way, and the flexibility makes this a nice topdeck. Probably pretty playable

11. Ib Halfheart, Goblin Tactician: Can turn your mountains into creatures, which can help close out the game. Also, makes the goblins way way way harder to block. Honestly, I don't know quite how good this is, I'll have to try it out

12. Lightning Crafter: I think this card is a trap. The value of being able to shoot down creatures is good, but this card is gonna die, and 4 mana for a removal target is too much for this deck

13. Boggart Mob: This is more interesting, because, even though it champions, you can get value from it the turn you play it, so as long as it resolves, you're gonna get something from it. Maybe one in the mainboard.

14. Fodder Launch: Not enough good creatures in the format, kills big creatures, but most decks playing big creatures are decks that have one creature at a time, and at that point, Warren Weirding is better.

15. Patron of the Akki: I actually like this a lot. It dodges sorcery speed removal, you can sacrifice a Matron to cast this for 3, and it hits hard basically the turn you play it. Worth trying one on the mainboard

16. Chancellor of the Forge:`Waaaay too expensive. You never want this in your opening hand, and drawing it later is often bad. I wouldn't play this in the deck at all