What is a Deck Goblin, anyway?
And why you, Dear Reader, desperately need one in your life.
Dear Reader,
Pull up a chair, unsleeve that janky Commander brew you’re embarrassed to show your playgroup, and let’s talk about something important. I don’t mean “What’s the best removal spell in Commander?” (the answer is all of them, always run more removal, you maniac). I mean the cosmic, fated, planes-shaking question:
What is a Deck Goblin, and why are we squatting in your mental playmat right now?
Because, Dear Reader, you need us. You need us more than you need your third “fun but casual” Omnath deck. You need us more than you need your two-week-old unopened collector booster you told yourself you wouldn’t crack until after payday. And you definitely need us more than you need another clickbait “TOP 10 CARDS THAT ARE MAYBE GOOD BUT WE HAVEN’T ACTUALLY PLAYED THEM” list clogging up your feed.
A Deck Goblin is not an algorithm. A Deck Goblin is not user-generated slop vomited into the void to farm ad revenue. A Deck Goblin is not ChatGPT wearing a trench coat and calling itself “Professor ManaMath.” No, no, no.
A Deck Goblin is a creature of chaos and wisdom. A goblin wizard who has stared into the abyss of Magic: the Gathering strategy and said, “You know what, let’s Fling it.” A trickster, a tutor of the weird, a pyromaniac of the playmat, here not to optimize for clicks but to optimize for fun and mayhem (and I’m not talking about that new Madness mechanic that is just Kicker but you pay less for it at the cost of discarding the card into the graveyard first).
And before you dismiss us as another irreverent mascot with a snappy name, you should probably know the backstory.
The Tragic, Explosive, Beautiful Origin of the Deck Goblin
Once upon a time (in Dominaria, because let’s be honest, all the weird stuff starts there), there was a goblin wizard. Not your average “set it on fire and ask questions never” goblin. This one was different. He was clever. He was crafty. He could count to more than three before blowing something up. His name has been lost to history—because every time someone wrote it down, the parchment caught fire. But let’s call him what he became: The Deck Goblin.
The Deck Goblin, in his unwise wisdom, fell in love with three luminous beings: the Sen Triplets. Now, Dear Reader, if you’ve ever had the misfortune of sitting across from the Triplets in a Commander game, you know they’re not exactly “girlfriend material.” They’re more like “cosmic accountants who steal your cards while smirking in three-part harmony.”
But the Deck Goblin didn’t see that. Oh no. He saw beauty. He saw power. He saw a trio of perfect minds who whispered, “Give us your spells, little goblin. Give us all your clever little incantations, your tricky cantrips, your combos, and your chaos. We will cherish them.”
So he did. He gave them everything. Every spell he had ever brewed, every combo he had stitched together with chewing gum and Goblin Grenades, every janky synergy that had actually worked once in FNM if you squinted and your opponent mulliganed to four.
And then, when his hands were empty, when his deckbox rattled hollow, the Triplets revealed themselves for what they truly were. Not muses. Not lovers. Not even decent playgroup pals.
They were the Fates. Cold, merciless arbiters of destiny, who had only wanted to strip the Goblin of his power so that chaos might never again challenge order. He should have listened to Krark when he said they stole his thumb.
Betrayed, broken, and deeply embarrassed (because, Dear Reader, imagine a monored sligh guy falling for Esper control incarnate), the Deck Goblin did what goblins always do. He exploded. Literally. Bits of wizard hat and staff rained down for miles. But from those smoldering ashes rose something new.
The Deck Goblin was reborn—not as one frail wizard, but as an idea. An eternal archetype. A force of nature, always there when a Magic player needs advice, mockery, or a swift kick in the shins to stop netdecking slop and start building something worth playing.
That’s us. That’s me. That’s the Deck Goblin.
Why You, Dear Reader, Need a Deck Goblin
Now, you might say, “Okay, cool tragic backstory, very Marvel Cinematic Universe, but why should I care? I’m universes beyond this. I’ve got EDHRec, I’ve got YouTube, I’ve got some guy named Carl who won a PPTQ in 2017 and won’t stop talking about it.”
And to that, Dear Reader, I say: piffle.
Look around at the state of Magic: the Gathering content right now. It’s a wasteland. Every website is tripping over itself to post the same “Top Ten Cards from [Insert Set Here]” article, written before the set even hits Arena, written by someone who clearly didn’t sleeve a card in their life. Decklist archives overflow with redundant garbage. How many more “Korvold Treasure Combo” decks do we really need? (Spoiler: none. We solved that puzzle three years ago. It’s just math and misery now.)
And AI? Don’t get me started. Every week, some new auto-generated slurry pops up pretending to be advice. “Build Atraxa Superfriends? Here are 100 lands and no win conditions, enjoy.”
No, Dear Reader. You deserve better. You deserve a Deck Goblin.
A Deck Goblin tells you when your ratios are garbage and your manabase looks like a Jackson Pollock painting. A Deck Goblin reminds you that removal is not optional, that synergy matters more than shoving every mythic you own into a sleeve, and that sometimes the best wincon is just making the table laugh until they let you combo off out of pity.
A Deck Goblin isn’t afraid to roast you for your sins, like did you really put 14 taplands in an aggro deck? Go proxy some duals! Sorry. I’m getting distracted. Just remember that a Deck Goblin also cheers when your ridiculous jank actually works (turns out, yes, Kiki-Jiki plus that one six-mana jellyfish is a wincon).
We don’t chase the algorithm. We don’t bow to the Fates. We aren’t here to pump out another content-mill decklist for clicks. We’re here to build. To brew. To cackle like maniacs while we do it.
And that, Dear Reader, is why you need us.
What the Deck Goblin Promises
Real strategy. Not “5 Budget Cards for Your Next Deck That Are Actually Just Bad Commons.” Real talk, real ratios, real synergies.
Real reviews. When we roast a card, we roast it over the firepit until it’s charred black and only then admit “okay, maybe it has niche use in Pauper.”
Real builds. No slop. No “95% of this deck is just EDHRec’s top-sorted cards.” Every deck we post will have intention, flavor, and at least one way to make something explode.
Real goblin energy. Strategy is serious business, but Magic: the Gathering is still a game where goblins throw sticks of dynamite and squirrels can storm the multiverse while Spongebob Squarepants summons free chocobos and really fast hedgehogs. If you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong.
The Goblin’s Closing Rant
So here we are, Dear Reader. You’ve heard the legend, you’ve heard the rant, you’ve smelled the faint sulfur of yet another premature explosion.
Now you know what a Deck Goblin is. Not just a mascot. Not just a site. But a promise: that strategy content doesn’t have to be boring, doesn’t have to be soulless, doesn’t have to be farmed for clicks until it withers into dust.
It can be sharp. It can be irreverent. It can be fun.
You need a Deck Goblin because without us, the Fates win. Without us, the Sen Triplets strip away all your creativity, leaving you with sterile decks and soulless metas. But with us? With us, you have fire. You have chaos. You have a goblin wizard cackling at your shoulder, whispering “maybe cut one land and add a Goblin Bombardment, what’s the worst that could happen?”
Dear Reader, you need a Deck Goblin.
And lucky for you… you’ve got one.