Stop me if you’ve been here before: it’s turn 2, your legacy Goblins deck took advantage of the play by turning a turn 1 Warren Instigator into a turn 2 Siege-Gang Commander. Your opponent’s Scalding Tarn, Island, Ponder start indicates a combo deck, but your untapped Wasteland is ready to deny them the resources needed to go off. All according to plan.
A turn 2 15-drop? What can a measly mono-red deck do against such monstrous power?!
Previously, our favorite dark-dwellers have brought along Ashen Rider; uncastable and untutorable, but capable of handling such broken starts. Today, Guilds of Ravnica gives that deck a new tool: the extremely flexible Goblin Cratermaker, illustrated by Svetlin Velinov:
Cratermaker provides a flexible package that Goblin Matron’s tutoring and Goblin Ringleader’s velocity can take advantage of:
- As a tutorable removal spell, it offers additional effective copies of Gempalm Incinerator.
- It provides a less expensive artifact destruction effect than Goblin Trashmaster, particularly relevant against Mono-Red Prison’s Ensnaring Bridges.
- It can be used to destroy colorless Eldrazi creatures like Thought-Knot Seer, Endbringer, and Emrakul herself.
- If none of that is relevant, it’s still a 2/2 for {1}{R} that gets pumped by Goblin Piledriver and counted by Krenko, Mob Boss.
Here’s a new take on Goblins, replacing copies of Tarfire and Goblin Trashmaster with two Cratermakers.
May your Vials be tapped and warrens be empty!
This card preview was provided courtesy of Wizards of the Coast. Thank you!
