Armies Against Arda: The Great Goblin "Precon"

Hey there, and welcome to something special: the EDHLAB blog staff is uniting to produce a series of build-your-own The Hobbit “precon” decks, using only cards available from Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and any other Middle-earth affiliated products. Since the latest set did not receive any “real” precon decks, unless you count the as-yet unknown Battle of the Five Armies box product coming early next year, we decided to challenge ourselves to create decks that highlight a theme present in The Hobbit. In this article, I’ll be tackling black-red Goblin Kindred. Let’s have a look!

Up in the Misty Mountains

In The Hobbit, many of the Goblin creatures are built around the amass mechanic, where a player makes an Army token of a particular creature type, with stacked +1/+1 counter buffs representing the enlarging of a horde of footsoldiers. Fortunately for this deck, these work in tandem with the amass Orcs cards from the first Lord of the Rings set. The only quirk is that the Army creature type cross-contaminates; if you start with a Goblin Army, and amass Orcs, the token becomes a Goblin Orc Army, and vice-versa. This is a go-tall strategy with a unique twist, and though you already see which commander I chose to build around, there are a couple of options for the leader of this deck if you’d like to switch it up.

Slash Them, Bite Them

Bolg, Erebor’s Reckoning is the clear loser of the three. It’s not even a great payoff for your actual gameplan — buffing up multiple creatures doesn’t do much, considering you’re putting several eggs in an Army-sized basket.

My first crack at this theme was building a deck with Great Goblin, Foul-Hearted at the helm. In terms of making the Army token itself a consistent presence, this is a great option: access to a repeatable amass engine in the command zone helps make sure you actually have an army to enhance, and giving that army token trample makes that consistent token a consistent threat as soon as possible. At five mana, however, having this creature removed even once is devastating, and twice is game-losing.

The Great Goblin is the clear winner. At three mana, it comes out the fastest and suffers the least if removed, and while the direct damage only hits one opponent at a time, it’s a much better payoff than the paltry buff Bolg offered. The real strength is in the second static ability, which gives you an impulse draw as some small recompense if other Goblins, Orcs, or your big Army token are destroyed. With the commander selected, let’s move into the deck itself!

Down in the Deep of Goblin-Town

Your Goblin Army token is at its best when you can continue to scale its power and toughness over the course of a game reliably. These creatures will help smooth out your gameplay by giving you some way to amass as often as possible. Bothersome Noisemaker amasses one after every noncreature spell, and with 34 in the deck, you should be able to cast one relatively often. Moria Scavenger is similar, amassing one every time you discard a creature to its ability, and there are 28 creatures, meaning that, as long as you’re able to keep drawing cards, you should see creatures often enough to not have to worry about triggering this effect. Lastly, Misty Mountains Rider amasses every time you attack, and you’re in the attackiest color in all of magic — this one is a no-brainer. With all three of these cards, your commander will be pinging opponents one at a time and applying pressure as evenly or as targeted as you choose.

The second ability from The Great Goblin works when your Army token, Goblins, or Orcs die, so you’re going to need a few ways to sacrifice creatures. Bolg’s Company is easily the best option available, since it doubles as a ramp spell that generates mana equal to its casting cost as long as you can sacrifice a Goblin. Gorbag of Minas Morgul is more flexible, but with less potency; the Goblin or Orc you sacrifice has to deal combat damage to a player first, but when it does, you either get to draw a card or creature a Treasure token after your creature dies. Finally, Rhovanion Rampager is a new creature from The Hobbit that not only sacrifices creatures and becomes a threatening creature of its own, but it even acts as a form of boardwipe insurance by amassing when it dies as well.

Having one big token to swing around is fun, but it’s a slow way to win a game of Commander. These cards help speed the process up. Along the Crooked Way is a new enchantment that does triple duty in this deck; it recurs a creature from your graveyard, which is a helpful ability for a deck that wants to sacrifice creatures, and it amasses your Army when this recursion happens and every time a creature leaves your graveyard afterward. Its activated ability gives the Army token menace, forcing your opponents to commit more resources to defend against it. Both Great Ugly-Looking Goblin and Warg Rider also grant menace to your Army, and Warg Rider has the bonuses of extending the benefit to any Orc or Goblin and amassing your army every time you enter combat. It’s the big-value “reprint” of this precon for a good reason.

In aggressive, combat-oriented decks, it’s important to have a few different cards that immediately intensify the pressure you put on the board, particularly in an attempt to go for the winning turn. Orcish Siegemaster gives your Army and any other Orcs and Goblins you control trample, and when it attacks, it gets a boost to its power equal to the greatest power among creatures you control, potentially doubling the damage your Army can put out. Assault on Osgiliath is a great mana sink later in the game, giving you plenty of room to grow your Army, and giving your board of Goblins and Orcs haste and double strike — two great keywords to close out a game. Lastly, My Precious may not be as potent in terms of one-shotting the table, but giving your army hexproof and unblockable solves the problem that go-tall strategies often run into by removing the option to block your big creature altogether.

Goblinses will Get It

If you want to retain Middle-earth only flavor for your Goblin Army brew, here are some suggestions for big-ticket upgrades.

Orcish Bowmasters is a no-brainer as it speeds up the rate at which your commander pings your opponents and pressures your opponents’ value engines. The one caveat to this famously busted creature is, paradoxically, it tends to be weaker at lower power levels where players draw cards far less frequently.

This one is reserved for the real high-rollers: Argonath, Pillars of the Kings, or The Ozolith for the uninitiated, is one of the best possible upgrades for this deck. Any time you sacrifice your Army token, the counters are preserved on the Pillars, and you can place them all back on a fresh Army token once you’ve amassed again, meaning that your army almost never truly dies, so long as you keep this artifact around.

The Reaver Cleaver — I’m pretty sure that’s what those Dwarven inscriptions say — is another double-duty enhancement for your massive Army token, giving it trample and letting it generate mana for you when it deals damage.

The Grey Rain-Curtain

And that wraps up the Goblin Kindred, amass-themed deck built entirely with cards from Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and a Middle-earth-themed Secret Lair that I do not remember at all. I hope you enjoy our themed precons for The Hobbit! If you take this deck out for a spin and play against other precons from this challenge, or the previous Lord of the Rings precons, let us know how they perform!

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