I have to pay attention to competitive Magic.

That didn’t come out right. What I mean is that since I’m part of the finance community and the podcasting community, it really pays to know what’s going on and get ahead of it. You need to understand the full scope of what’s going on in Magic for your finance calls to be even a little bit accurate. Besides, what do I have better to do than watch coverage all weekend? What’s that? Read to my daughter and take her for walks? That can wait—there’s content to consume.

I want to do Goggly stuff, too, but I need to find the right commander first. Goggles allow me to copy spells when I use the Goggles’ red mana to play them, provided they’re red instants and sorceries. Casting Lightning Bolt isn’t very exciting in Commander. Casting two Lightning Bolts? I can’t rule it out. Surely there are a ton of red instants and sorceries worth doubling. Do I want to do these shenanigans in a Jori En deck so I can draw extra cards like Todd? That would certainly let me play Fevered Visions like Todd, and in a deck that isn’t Nekusar, the Mindrazer to boot. But I think I want a commander that will be good when I don’t have the Goggles. Instead of the Goggles triggering things for the commander, maybe the Goggles can supplement what the commander is doing already. Are there commanders that double red instants and sorceries already so the cards in the deck work with the commander instead of only working with a 5-drop artifact I may or may not draw? I think I found the perfect one.

Speaking of Red Wings . . . actually, I’ve got nothing. We don’t want any flyers in this deck, just Goblins and more Goblins. Since a lot of our Goblins are going to be tokens generated from spells like Dragon Fodder and Goblin Rally, spells we’ll try to double, a doubling subtheme might be in order. Casting Goblin Rally was decent in Limited—I am hoping casting Goblin Rally with a red mana from Pyromancer's Goggles, conspired with Wort onto a board with Doubling Season and Parallel Lives and, what the heck, throw in a Purphoros, God of the Forge, will be decent in Commander. Is that a hundred cards yet? No? Well, we’re getting there. How about I stop talking about the deck and just build it?

Wort, the Gogglemother ? Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (12)
• 1 Beetleback Chief
• 1 Chancellor of the Forge
• 1 Goblin Bushwhacker
• 1 Goblin Chieftain
• 1 Goblin King
• 1 Goblin Warchief
• 1 Guttersnipe
• 1 Mogg Assassin
• 1 Siege-Gang Commander
• 1 Vexing Shusher
• 1 Krenko, Mob Boss
• 1 Purphoros, God of the Forge

• Spells (51)
• 1 Artifact Mutation
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Comet Storm
• 1 Early Harvest
• 1 Harrow
• 1 Increasing Vengeance
• 1 Krosan Grip
• 1 Reiterate
• 1 Reverberate
• 1 Second Harvest
• 1 Wild Ricochet
• 1 Animist's Awakening
• 1 Banefire
• 1 Boundless Realms
• 1 Burn at the Stake
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Decimate
• 1 Devil's Play
• 1 Dragon Fodder
• 1 Empty the Warrens
• 1 Explosive Vegetation
• 1 Goblin Offensive
• 1 Goblin Rally
• 1 Harmonize
• 1 Hordeling Outburst
• 1 Hull Breach
• 1 Krenko's Command
• 1 Magmatic Insight
• 1 Mana Geyser
• 1 Past in Flames
• 1 Praetor's Counsel
• 1 Primal Command
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Reap and Sow
• 1 Red Sun's Zenith
• 1 Reforge the Soul
• 1 Restock
• 1 Rude Awakening
• 1 Skyshroud Claim
• 1 Tormenting Voice
• 1 Beastmaster Ascension
• 1 Doubling Season
• 1 Goblinslide
• 1 Mana Echoes
• 1 Parallel Lives
• 1 Gruul Signet
• 1 Pyromancer's Goggles
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Mirari

• Lands (36)
• 12 Forest
• 12 Mountain
• 1 Blighted Woodland
• 1 Cinder Glade
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Game Trail
• 1 Gruul Turf
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Rootbound Crag
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 1 Temple of Abandon
• 1 Hall of the Bandit Lord
• 1 Kher Keep

Buy This Deck

I like how this looks. This is a Goblin deck with some Gobliny synergy, but it really benefits from casting spells. I packed this deck with spells, cutting down on the creature count by limiting it to Goblins. What’s that? Purphoros isn’t a Goblin? Um, well, all the creatures who aren’t also enchantments are Goblins. Purphoros is just a very good Pandemonium with feet here. Look, I didn’t include Craterhoof Behemoth, Avenger of Zendikar, or myriad other “obvious” cards because I wanted to adhere to a theme, but this is 75%, not “Gobliny-theme-time amateur hour” (if that’s even a real hour), so we still want to pack a punch so we can win against tuned decks. I think we have a good shot. Let’s go over some of my other choices.

I don’t really like Craterhoof Behemoth as a catch-all win condition for any green deck, so I cut it for not being a Goblin and also for being kind of boring. We’re going to swarm opponents with Goblins instead, and we should be able to get the job done that way. We have a lot of ways to copy spells, and we don’t need them to be game-enders because we have a lot of X burn spells to use to our advantage. This is the part where I strongly urge you to give Gaea's Cradle a try if you have one. I don’t advocate for it in 75% decks to the extent that I would put it in the main list. 75% sprung out of me wanting to build a lot of decks rather than spend all of my time polishing one deck, and owning a Cradle is hard to justify these days. If you have one already, it will do work in this deck for sure. If you don’t, don’t sweat it. It’s designed to be a good deck without one. Besides, you won’t draw it more often than every 1 ÷ X games, anyway, so it’s not as though you’ll miss it that much more often. Still, it will fuel our burn spells. Burn at the Stake is an exciting way to win, and I wish you could hit multiple players with it. Oh, wait, you totally can because you can conspire it and use the second copy if you have enough creatures to tap for both copies. Magic can be fun. Make sure you double your tokens as often as possible.

I tried not to have too many green spells because I wanted to focus on Goblins and not run a ton of green creatures to be able to conspire the green spells consistently. Keep the tokens that come with Wort safe if you can, but don’t fret if you can’t copy a Cultivate or something. You’re gaining plenty of value with this deck. Still, watch out for how conspire works. It made sense to skew our “business” spells toward red since we’re a Goggles deck. A lot of the bigger green spells don’t need to be copied. I think the balance is good as is, but I’d still keep a leash on Wort’s tokens. Don’t be afraid to kill her and recast her if you have a mitt full of green bidness.

What do we think? Are we doing ourselves too much of a disservice by sticking to straight Goblins (and Gods, but, shh) or is the synergy going to make us streamlined enough to pounce when others stumble? Should we run a tutor for the Goggles? (No.) Would you play spells like Mana Geyser anywhere else? Leave your comments below. Until next week!