A former Pro Tour winning strategy, Atarka Red is a mostly mono-red goblin tribal deck that splashes green to gain access to Atarka’s Command. The idea of the deck is simple. Get down as many creatures as possible as quickly as possible, then pump the team to swing in for large amounts of damage. It was already a strong deck when it first came out, but when you give it access to the Pioneer card pool it suddenly goes up a notch.

As I said above, the first part of the deck is getting down a lot of creatures to go nice and wide. Goblin Instigator and Goblin Rabblemaster allow us to build our board fairly quickly, giving us a decent number of 1/1 tokens. The Rabblemaster also fits in with another part of our battle plan – having multiple attackers. Creatures like the above mentioned Rabblemaster, as well as Goblin Piledriver and Foundry Street Denizen, can put out large amounts of damage. The Piledriver in particular can grow into a real beast, easily getting into double digits worth of power.



But all the power in the world will do us no good if our opponent can just chump block us. That’s where Legion Loyalist comes in clutch. When attacking with two or more creatures (something we should be doing often) this goblin soldier suddenly gives out trample and first strike, while also making tokens less than useful for our opponent. Alternatively, you could always just get rid of any pesky X/1 blockers with a well-timed Fanatical Firebrand (or just use them to hit face), as well as a single copy of Frenzied Goblin.

We also run one non-goblin creature in the form of Burning-Tree Emissary. This is mainly to help us get as many creatures out of our hand asap, but it also makes surging our Reckless Bushwhacker a lot easier to add to the damage output. Our final creature in the deck is Goblin Ringleader as a late game way to refill our hand and redouble the pressure after a board wipe.

Finally, a playset of Atarka’s Command acts as an additional pump effect as well as a source of direct damage to finish off the game. We can also stop our opponent from gaining life if need be, or even ramp up if the situation calls for it, although most of the time we are going to be pumping and doming. The mana base gives us enough green sources to cast our Commands with Stomping Ground and Rootbound Crag, as well as additional pump effects from Castle Embereth. We then round off the mainboard with nine Mountains.


Creatures (36)
4 Fanatical Firebrand
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Legion Loyalist
1 Frenzied Goblin
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Goblin Instigator
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Reckless Bushwhacker
3 Goblin Ringleader

Spells (4)
4 Atarka's Command
Lands (20)
4 Stomping Ground
4 Rootbound Crag
3 Castle Embereth
9 Mountain

Sideboard (15)
4 Destructive Revelry
4 Goblin Chainwhirler
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
3 Fry
When it comes to a sideboard, we start off with a full playset of Destructive Revelry to handle pesky Enchantments and Artifacts, as well as four copies of Goblin Chainwhirler to deal with token decks and to act as a pretty strong beater. Fry gives us a good answer to White or Blue Planeswalkers, while Ghor-Clan Rampager can help us trample over if the ground gets too clogged up with creatures.