Who doesn’t love a solid tribal Goblin deck in MTG? I certainly do!
Today, I’ll be sharing one of my favorite Commander decks to play, Muxus, Goblin Grandee:
Muxus (and Krenko for that matter) are incredible tribal Goblin Commanders to build around. In fact, I could easily swap Commanders and play either / or with this 99. I, personally, really enjoy playing EDH decks where my Commander sits at the top of the curve for a couple of reasons…
Firstly, it means I don’t need to include as many high drops in my 99 because I’m always guaranteed to have one sitting in the Command Zone.
Secondly, I can prioritize keeping my curve low to the ground and smooth from a deck building perspective. As a 60 card specialist who’s been dabbling in Commander, I think this way of building feels a little bit more natural to me as a player and so I often default to building with my Commander being a powerful monster at the top of my curve.
I’d rather fill my deck with cheap efficient spells and mana fixing and have my powerful payoff waiting in the Command Zone. I also love Commanders that generate board or card advantage of which Muxus does BOTH.
Muxus certainly qualifies as powerful payoff since any of the 50+ Goblin creatures it flips from my top 6 cards will all be ‘hits’ and put directly onto the battlefield. Let’s take a look at the list:
As you can see my deck is VERY heavy on its theme: Goblin Tribal.
I also like that the deck was a lot of fun to collect, put together, and ultimately to play. I first saw the card Muxus built by NRG circuit ringer, Zach Allen, who was kind enough to let me play it a couple of times in a pod up at RIW. I wish I had a copy of his 99 to include, as his list was the inspiration for mine because I had such a blast playing it that I wanted a copy of my own to sling around with.
I tend to build my Commander decks around the cards that I have and acquire the cards that I think are incredibly fun and flavorful in the deck.
Since I only own one Mana Crypt and Muxus isn’t my most flavorful Mana Crypt deck I choose to omit it.
On the other hand, I have a playset of Ancient Tombs from when I played Workshops in Vintage so I’m happy to include it since I had an extra in my playables binder. When I play Commander I’m not super concerned with maximizing the power of every deck I play, so much as not missing out on opportunities to play with favorite cards from yesteryear or exciting new cards from recent sets.
I tend to use my gauntlet of Commander decks as an opportunity to collect and play with all the neat cards I like much more so than thinking of it as 99s that need to be ‘optimized.’ A little perspective on how a former Pro approaches building decks. So, there are plenty of opportunities to create a more powerful version of Muxus, but I’m happy with its overall power to flavor ratio right now.
One thing I encourage trying is to include as many flavorful cards as possible and be real stingy about including cards that are not flavorful (unless they are personal favorites or great synergy). I’m playing 37 basic Mountains, 50 Goblins, 3 spells that reference goblins, and only 10 non-Goblin cards total.
Let’s start with the non-Goblin squad. It’s basically just mana acceleration to help me deploy my Golbins more quickly and a couple of swarm tribal payoffs.
I always played Sphinx’s Revelation decks in Theros Standard so I never got a chance to cast Purphorose, God of the Forge. It’s sweet in multiplayer since it tags each opponent for 2 whenever a creature (including my Goblin Tokens) enter the battlefield. It’s too sweet not to play.
I’m also not going to pass on the opportunity to play Skullclamp in a creature deck that has multiple free sacrifice outlets and 1/1 token generators in multiplayer.
More like, Pyre of Goblins! Pyre of Heroes is one of those cards that’s designed to reward players for playing a Tribal deck, which I am. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, just tap it, enjoy a Red Birthing Pod for Goblins, and flavor be damned in this instance.
I play nine one-drop Goblins in my deck. I wish I could play more but the quality I’m looking for in a single R with Goblin Typing doesn’t exist yet.
Goblin Vandal is a spicy Goblin themed card that’s great at attacking opponent’s early drop mana Rocks directly. It’s also a nice way to answer a Sol Ring, with pure unadulterated vandalism!
A Whopping 18 two-drop Goblins in this red aggro deck. I always want to create pressure and springboards I can synergize with as quickly as possible. Aggressive decks are not easy to play well in multiplayer and it’s really important to identify threat players to target and attack their life totals hard early on.
While I may not min / max my EDH decks too much, I’m certainly not going to pass up on the most powerful Goblin of all time! Stack my deck… Yes please! Also, it’s hard to turn down the best card in a possible deck when it only costs $5. I actually had to buy one because it’s been banned from Legacy forever ago and I didn’t have one! Goblin Recruiter is kind of a “win the game” card in a Goblin deck since it lets us set up an infinite combo with another powerful Goblin two-drop:
Generally, I Snoop into Skirk Prospector and Goblins that net mana like Mogg War Marshall and Impulsive Pilferer and then use Muxus’s ETB to power out an infinite Combo involving Kiki-Jiki and Lightning Crafter to win the game.
Speaking of most powerful Goblins of all time, I also get to play the on-flavor Dockside Extortionist in my deck. Goblins is the only deck where I actually use Dockside, which may be the most powerful spell in Commander alongside Sol Ring and Time Twister. I can’t do anything too abusive with Dockside since I’m not typically replaying it multiple times, but it’s a great surge of mana to power out my horde against opponents with a lot of artifacts, aka most opponents.
Another sweet one I’m excited about trying to track down is Sardian Avenger. Seems like an awesome addition to a Goblin Tribal Commander deck for those games where we don’t draw Goblin Vandal or Trashmaster. I’m planning to cut Goblin Picker for Sardian Avenger once I find one to add.
Goblins are stacked at CMC = 3. I’m playing 14 three drops. Most of them are either lords like:
Or Token Generators such as:
Three drops all tend to be pretty high impact in my deck. Whereas the 1s and 2s are synergy pieces the three drops really take advantage of those cheaper creatures I’ve hopefully deployed on curve to make them better and / or add additional material.
I don’t play many tutors in my decks (because they are so busted and take up an excessive amount of playtime to resolve in a 100 card deck) but the ones I play are always flavorful:
It’s a great feeling when you cast Goblin Matron to find Goblin Recruiter. It’s a very fair way of doing something incredibly unfair! Which is a very cool aspect of playing EDH, being able to do powerful things with cards from all across the history of the game in various new ways.While tutor time can be excessive and stacking a library with Recruiter is excessively so, I’m a goblin who knows his piles and doesn’t need to think it out too much: Snoopy, Prospector, Mana Positive Goblins, and a win condition pile (Lightning Crafter and Kiki Jiki) to Muxus into.
Only 6 four drops and 2 five drops. I’m not looking to ramp out big monsters (other than the Grandee) rather I’m more concerned with creating a swarm of little critters to beatdown my opponents with.
However, these 4+ drops are some of the most interesting and powerful Goblins ever to see print.
I won a GP with Krenko in Limited and I’m happy to sub it in as an alternate Commander from time to time although I think Muxus is better as the Grandee.
I also mentioned comboing off with Lightning Crafter and Kiki Jiki, Mirror Breaker. You can do all sorts of shenanigans with these two including infinite damage as long as you have a sacrifice outlet and Goblin to Champion.
I generally play my list as a beatdown mob deck that can threaten an infinite damage combo if the stars align. In general, I like beating down and playing the politics side of multiplayer and swarm decks certainly give me ample opportunities to indulge both.
I also love the deck shows off the history of Goblins from the past 30 years of Magic because I clung closely to the theme and didn’t go off course often and only for tribal synergy cards and mana fixing.
I also think the curve of this deck is outstanding and I use a similar one in a lot of my EDH decks that have a topheavy Commander in the Zone.
Then my Commander sits at the top of the curve at six. 1%
So 73% of the cards in my deck are land, cost 0, 1 or 2 to play which is a fantastic mana curve.
My biggest regret about this curve is that it could use a few more one drops but Goblin themed ones don’t exist. I could certainly add Gamble, Mana Vault, Wayfarer’s Baulble, Red Elemental Blast and while I’m at it Wheel of Fortune but I like where not adding these off flavor cards lands the power level of my deck.
A lot of Commander decks are on the land-light side. I know it’s tough to find room for all the cool cards we want to play, but we need lands to play our spells! Even with a low curve leading up to Muxus I’m on 38 lands a Chrome Mox. I find that keeps me from mulliganing and missing land drops.
Muxus gives me the feeling of being a Goblin king at the helm of an unruly mob of goblins and its full of cards I’ve enjoyed playing with and against over the past nearly 30 years. Goblins are a huge part of Magic’s identity and flavor and it makes me happy to own and play a Goblin deck from time to time.
