The Great Goblin EDH Deck Guide: Three Builds, Go-Wide to Combo

The Great Goblin is a three-mana Rakdos (black-red) commander who deals 2 damage to an opponent whenever you put counters on a Goblin, Orc, or Army, and hands you a card whenever one of them dies. We built him three times on the same 40-card engine: a go-wide list that wins through amass and combat, a list that adds sacrifice altars and a three-card loop, and a list with tutors, fast mana, and the Conspicuous Snoop combo. The commander himself costs about sixty cents.

For you get a 3/2 Goblin Noble with two triggers. Whenever you put one or more counters on a Goblin, Orc, or Army you control, he deals 2 damage to target opponent. Whenever another Goblin, Orc, or Army you control dies, you exile the top card of your library and may play it until the end of your next turn.

Three details in that text decide how every list below is built.

Count events, not counters. "One or more" means one trigger no matter how many counters land. Amass (put +1/+1 counters on your Army token, creating a 0/0 Army first if you don't have one) deals the same 2 damage at amass 5 as at amass 1. That's why Mauhúr, Uruk-hai Captain is in all three lists for bigger bodies and never for burn: he adds counters, not triggers. The deck wants many small, separate counter placements.

Each creature triggers on its own. If counters land on five Goblins at once, he triggers five times. With Metallic Mimic set to Goblin, every Goblin you make enters with a +1/+1 counter, and entering with a counter counts as putting one on. Tap Krenko, Mob Boss for six tokens and that's six triggers: 12 damage, split however you like.

Any counter works. The text says counters, not +1/+1 counters. Blight, the Lorwyn Eclipsed mechanic, has you put -1/-1 counters on a creature you control, and that triggers him too. Blight a 1/1 Goblin token and you get 2 damage for the counter, then a card when the token dies from it.

The catch is the word target. Each trigger hits one opponent, not the table, which is the misread we flagged when we ranked The Hobbit's new commanders. In a pod that makes him a finisher and a bargaining chip rather than a burn engine. You choose who takes each 2, and the table notices who you keep choosing.

The second ability is what keeps the deck running. Tokens count, chump blockers count, and the exiled card stays playable through your next turn, so a Goblin that dies on someone else's turn is still a card you get to use.

Forty nonland cards appear in all three lists, and they do three jobs.

Counter events. Taurean Mauler is a Changeling (it has every creature type), so it's a Goblin, and it takes a counter whenever an opponent casts a spell: 2 damage on other people's turns. Bothersome Noisemaker amasses Goblins 1 whenever you cast a noncreature spell, March from the Black Gate amasses whenever your Army attacks, and Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin puts a counter on himself every time he swings. Scuzzback Scrounger lets you blight 1 on each of your turns and pays you a Treasure for it, which is the token trick above on a timer.

Deaths that pay twice. Uglúk of the White Hand is the quiet star. He's an Orc, and he gets two counters whenever one of your Goblins or Orcs dies, so every death is also a counter event. Add Boggart Cursecrafter (1 damage to each opponent per Goblin death) and Boggart Mischief (each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1), then feed a single 1/1 token to Skirk Prospector. You get a mana, a card, and a life, while one opponent is down 4 and the other two are down 2 each.

The sacrifice outlets (ways to sacrifice a creature on demand) are cheap and everywhere: Prospector, Goblin Bombardment, Sling-Gang Lieutenant, and The Hobbit's Bolg's Company, a 2/2 that taps and sacrifices another Goblin for . Skullclamp on a token is three cards for , and Pashalik Mons adds a ping for every Goblin that dies.

Bodies and recovery. Krenko, Mob Boss and Howlsquad Heavy make the Goblins, Goblin Warchief and Frogtosser Banneret make them cheaper, and Goblin Matron finds the one you need. Bloodline Bidding returns every Goblin in your graveyard after a board wipe. Two Hobbit legends round it out: Azog, Moria's Ruin can destroy your own creature to amass Goblins equal to its power and draw you a card, and Bolg of the North sacrifices one creature to shoot another, amassing with any excess damage. Those four Hobbit cards are each under fifty cents at the time of writing.

The go-wide list is the fairest of the three. It runs 36 lands, no tutor (a card that searches your library) beyond Goblin Matron, and nothing that wins out of nowhere.

What it has that the other two trim is the full amass package from Tales of Middle-earth. Mordor Muster, Orcish Medicine, Foray of Orcs, and Grishnákh, Brash Instigator are all cheap cards with amass stapled on. Next to Bothersome Noisemaker, a two-mana Mordor Muster is two separate amass events: 4 damage and a card. Assault on Osgiliath is the finisher, worth only one trigger of burn but double strike and haste for every Goblin and Orc you control.

The Lorwyn Eclipsed Goblins supply blight on demand. Champion of the Weird pays 1 life and blights 2, at sorcery speed, to make an opponent blight 2. Grub's Command copies a Goblin, destroys an artifact or creature, or both, and Eclipsed Boggart looks four cards deep for a Goblin, Swamp, or Mountain.

The token makers here are the ones that attack. Siege-Gang Commander brings three Goblins, and Siege-Gang Lieutenant makes two hasty ones every combat while your commander is out. Legion Warboss has mentor, which puts a +1/+1 counter on a smaller attacking creature, so its own token is one more trigger. Moria Marauder and Gorbag of Minas Morgul turn Goblins that connect into extra cards.

You win this one by attacking. The pings soften whoever is ahead, the deaths keep your hand full, and a wide board with Assault on Osgiliath or one big Krenko activation ends it. If you haven't built a deck that has to attack three players at once, our multiplayer aggro guide covers the pacing. What this list can't do is race a combo or shrug off a second board wipe, and that's by design.

The altar list changes 19 cards and the whole texture of the deck. Legion Warboss, Moria Marauder, and the slower Lorwyn cards leave. Ashnod's Altar, Phyrexian Altar, Warren Soultrader, and Goblin Chirurgeon arrive as outlets that cost no mana, along with a better mana base: 34 lands plus Boggart Trawler // Boggart Bog.

The new engine is persist: a creature that dies without a -1/-1 counter on it comes back with one. Putrid Goblin and Murderous Redcap are each a card and 2 damage from the commander the first time they die, before anything clever happens. The clever part is Metallic Mimic. Set to Goblin, it gives the returning creature a +1/+1 counter that cancels the -1/-1, so with any no-mana outlet the creature dies and returns as often as you like, and every lap is 2 damage.

Two warnings. The commander's exile isn't optional, so every lap also removes the top card of your library; count the laps you need instead of announcing "infinite." And Goblin Matron can find the persist half but not the Mimic, which is a Shapeshifter until it's on the battlefield. With no other tutors in the list, the loop shows up when it shows up. Paste the list into our Combo Finder to see every line it's carrying.

The rest of the upgrades multiply triggers. Knucklebone Witch is a one-mana Goblin that takes a counter whenever a Goblin dies, a second Uglúk. Orcish Bowmasters amasses when it enters and whenever an opponent draws an extra card. First Day of Class puts a counter on each creature token as it enters, one trigger apiece, so a Krenko activation becomes a volley. Collective Inferno set to Goblin doubles the commander to 4 damage a trigger, along with Pashalik Mons and Boggart Cursecrafter, though not Goblin Bombardment or Impact Tremors, which aren't Goblins.

The sneakiest card is Black Sun's Zenith. You're the one putting those -1/-1 counters on, so at X=1 it's a trigger for every Goblin, Orc, and Army you control, the commander included, and then a card for every token that dies. Hexing Squelcher protects all of it: your spells can't be countered, and your other creatures have ward, so anything that targets them costs an opponent 2 life.

The combo list swaps another 19 cards and stops being a combat deck by default. Most of the amass spells, both Siege-Gangs, and Black Sun's Zenith leave. In come three tutors that find anything (Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Gamble), two more that find Goblins (Boggart Harbinger, Goblin Recruiter), Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, The One Ring, and fast mana in Lotus Petal, Culling the Weak, Jeska's Will, and Phyrexian Tower, all on 33 lands.

The headline is the Snoop combo. Conspicuous Snoop has the activated abilities of whatever Goblin card is on top of your library, and Boggart Harbinger or Goblin Recruiter puts Kiki-Jiki there. Snoop taps to copy itself, the copy has haste and the same borrowed ability, and you make as many Snoops as you want.

They can attack everyone at once. With Impact Tremors on the battlefield, or Metallic Mimic set to Goblin next to the commander, they don't need to, because every token is damage as it enters. The original Snoop needs haste or a turn on the battlefield first; Goblin Warchief, Goblin Chieftain, and Howlsquad Heavy all provide haste.

The commander adds one wrinkle. If your kill involves Goblins dying, each death exiles your top card, including the Goblin that Snoop is borrowing from. Make every activation in response to the last one, before the first exile trigger resolves.

Goblin Recruiter is just as good without the combo. It stacks every Goblin you want on top of your library, and the commander hands them to you one death at a time. Thran Vigil is a second Mimic for the persist loop on your own turn: a creature card leaving your graveyard puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control. Because that counter arrives separately from the persist counter, each lap is two triggers instead of one.

Fast mana does double duty, since Culling the Weak and Phyrexian Tower both sacrifice a creature: a burst of black mana plus a card off the top. Deflecting Swat, Cavern of Souls, and Hexing Squelcher keep the commander and the combo on the table. This is a deck for pods that expect tutors and compact combos, and it will feel unfair anywhere else.

Pick by what your table considers a fair way to lose. Build one wins in combat and telegraphs it for turns. Build two can end the game from a three-card loop it can't tutor for, which most upgraded pods accept and some precon-level pods won't. Build three tutors for its combo and should only sit down where that's normal.

All three share one soft spot: the card flow lives on the commander. He's cheap to recast, and the first tax only makes him five mana, but a table that keeps killing him turns your outlets back into plain mana. Hold an outlet and a Skullclamp target for the turn he returns.

Then use the targeting. Spreading the early 2s around keeps you out of the archenemy seat, concentrating them is how you actually finish someone, and knowing when to switch is most of the skill in piloting him.

None of the three has a recorded game yet, so everything above is how the lists read, not how they've performed. Whichever you build, record your games and you'll know within a month whether you picked the right one, and run your own version through the deck audit before you sit down. Every Hobbit card here is on the set page with current prices. If you'd rather play Elves or Humans from the same set, our Thranduil, the Elvenking guide and Bard, King of Dale guide use the same three-build format.