by Johnny Cycles, January 23rd, 2026

Life has been life-ing this week. Between the holiday on Monday, the snowstorm this weekend to prepare for (and which now seems like it’ll be barely anything), and not getting the Lorwyn Eclipsed cards on MTGO that I needed to play this deck until Wednesday, I’ve not had the time to test Aristocrat Goblins properly.

But that’s okay! I’ve written up the general idea of the deck and two decklists I’m starting to try out for your reading/viewing pleasure. However, I have not cracked the code of the best way to approach an Aristocrat Goblin list.

That’s where you come in! Let me know what you think of my first drafts. What have I forgotten? What have I undervalued? Overvalued? I’ll talk a little about my impressions of the decks so far at the end. In the meantime, comment on this article or email me at johnnycycles16@gmail.com

And, as always, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel to see the gameplay before it gets posted to my website.

For a short preview of the deck in action, check this video out!

Lorwyn Eclipsed brings with it a whole host of Tribal love. Goblins, especially, got some powerful new tools to help what has long been a tier 3 deck in Modern. That being said, Goblins have what it takes to win a lot of matches thanks to its aggressive, synergistic strategy that can flood the board, grow its team with Lord effects, and win either via combat or with the reach something like Goblin Grenade provides.

But now we have a new angle of attack thanks to two new Goblin cards: Boggart Cursecrafter and Boggart Mischief. These two uncommons give us the tools needed to build an Aristocrat-style Goblin Tribal deck.

That’s right. Goblins are high class now!

Decklist – Aristocrat Goblins

by Johnny Cycles
Format: Modern

Creatures (24)

4 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Legion Loyalist
2 Stadium Headliner
4 Boggart Cursecrafter
3 Conspicuous Snoop
3 Hexing Squelcher
4 Rundvelt Hordemaster

Enchantments (5)

2 Goblin Bombardment
3 Boggart Mischief

Spells (12)

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Dragon Fodder
4 Krenko’s Command

Lands (19)

1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Den of the Bugbear
6 Mountain
2 Raucous Theater
1 Swamp

Sideboard (15)

3 Meltdown
4 Thoughtseize
4 Goblin Cratermaker
4 Leyline of the Void

Deck Tech

Primary Game Plan

The Aristocrat strategy is one of my all-time favorite archetypes. If you’re unfamiliar with it, you can read about it here. The TL;DR is that we’re looking to flood the board with cheap creatures and sacrifice them for value, usually in the form of draining our opponent. So when Lorwyn Eclipsed was spoiled, I was immediately struck by the above three cards and the possibility of building an Aristocrat Goblins deck around them.

The first thing an Aristocrat strategy needs is fodder to sacrifice. I’m trying the above spells to fit this need, though there are other options, as I will discuss below.

The second thing the Aristocrat strategy needs is a sac outlet. Goblin Bombardment does double duty as both a means to sacrifice our creatures and as a means of gaining value from those creatures, which happens to be the final thing we need to make this strategy work.

Rundvelt Hordemaster is doing double duty, as well, as a traditional Lord effect and as conditional card advantage for each Goblin that dies.

But it’s the two new Goblins from Lorwyn Eclipsed that add the missing pieces of our Aristocrat Goblin strategy. The former drains our opponent for each other Goblin’s demise, while the later drains and gains in true Blood Artist tradition for each Goblin that dies. And assuming we can use its blight 1, it also brings with it some fodder for sacrifice.

Speaking of conditional card advantage, Conspicuous Snoop helps us never run out of gas…in theory. We are playing a number of non-Goblin spells, which means there will be times old Snoop does nothing but tell us and our opponent what we’re drawing, but the effect is no doubt powerful.

Hexing Squelcher rounds out our Aristocrat package by forcing our opponent to Shock themselves each time they target a Goblin. But let’s be honest, they’ll almost always kill this Goblin Sorcerer first, so it’ll be rare when we get more than one trigger from it, but still. Every little bit of life drain counts with an Aristocrat deck.

Our 1-drop spot features Goblins we’re happy to see on turn 1 or on turn 4. Stadium Headliner is another fodder generator. Note, however, that he brings a Warrior token with him, not a Goblin, so we won’t get triggers from our Boggart duo. However, we can use Goblin Bombardment to sacrifice that token, or, in what is a very rewarding play, we can target it post combat with the blight 1 of Boggart Mischief.

Goblin Bushwhacker can win us games out of nowhere, both when we have our combo assembled and when we just need to punch through some damage. Legion Loyalist is a good value 1-drop that can ensure our team survives combat in the late game, while preventing all those tokens out there from blocking our creatures.

Sideboard

More than anywhere, these cards are in flux. I’ve already made changes to them as I’ve tested the deck. Meltdown is for Affinity and Titan decks. Goblin Cratermaker is a good answer to a lot of what Titan and Eldrazi do. The rest is fairly straightforward.

Other Directions

There are 365 Goblins that are legal in Modern, which means we have a ton of to choose from. Finding the right combination to complement our Aristocrat strategy is the chief goal of this article and my playtesting.

Decklist – Aristocrat Goblins 2.0

by Johnny Cycles
Format: Modern

Creatures (24)

4 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Stadium Headliner
4 Battle Cry Goblin
4 Boggart Cursecrafter
4 Hexing Squelcher
4 Rundvelt Hordemaster

Enchantments (6)

3 Goblin Bombardment
3 Boggart Mischief

Spells (7)

4 Goblin Grenade
3 Lightning Bolt

Lands (19)

1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Den of the Bugbear
6 Mountain
2 Raucous Theater
1 Swamp

Sideboard (15)

4 Thoughtseize
3 Conspicuous Snoop
3 Goblin Cratermaker
3 Goblin Rabblemaster
2 Leyline of the Void

The main changes to this deck are adding these three cards in place of Legion Loyalist, Dragon Fodder, and Krenko’s Command. I also cut Conspicuous Snoop in favor of two more copies of Stadium Headliner, another copy of Goblin Bombardment, and the fourth Hexing Squelcher.

The sideboard has also been tweaked to include more Goblins.

We’ll see if these changes make a difference!

That’s it for now. I’ll add video of the games I’ve played as I edit them over the weekend. I’ll save my impressions and thoughts on Aristocrat Goblins 3.0 for when I’ve posted the matches.

Thanks for reading and watching! Stay safe in this weather if you’re impacted by the snow storm this weekend.