A 1/1 is pretty easy to kill... if you can block
it. Of course, if your opponent has multiple
creatures, you can lock one out of blocking only
to find that your Frenzied Goblin is charging
into the other one. My advice? Don't think of
this card as a creature. It's not, really.
You're not going to get more than one use out of
this, so throw it down in anticipation of an
upcoming strike with a bigger creature. You may,
in the early game, get to sneak in some hits
with it, especially if you've got burn to keep
the other side of the board clear or if your
opponent just doesn't have a lot of creatures.
The fact that it's a Goblin, and can therefore
benefit from all the Goblin tribal effects in
the game (including haste!) helps too. But this
is a cheap one-time trick that makes a 1/1
decent, not something you can bank on.
I used to play with this guy in Standard FNMs
back in the era of the original Ravnica block.
The early parts of that Standard season were
very open and diverse, but later on it became
rather unfriendly to small-creature decks. This
guy, though, offered surprisingly much
throughout different parts of the season, as
there were many strategies that tried to defeat
red decks by casting a bigger creature as early
as possible. In modern Standard, that's true
again, and as such Frenzied Goblin is worth
considering again. I'm not sure he's quite up to
first-choice level for decks that have a lot of
actual removal spells, and similarly in larger
formats he hasn't proved to have quite as much
impact. Nonetheless, the very fact that he
exists forces anyone who doesn't fear red decks
because they have high-toughness walls to
reconsider.
Today's card of the day is Frenzied Goblin
which is a one mana Red 1/1 that allows you to
pay a Red whenever it attacks to prevent a
target creature from being able to block that
turn. This is a solid addition to a goblin or
aggro Red build as it is a one mana 1/1 with a
supported type that adds some combat
manipulation which can seriously disrupt
attempts to defend against any heavier hitters.
Overall this is a creature that will see some
play across formats and for the low mana cost to
play and activate the effect can be an effective
tool in many situations.
In Limited this is a 1/1 for one which is
always worth having in your deck and the effect
adds a threat in the later game by allowing your
creatures to get past a minimal defense. If
using Red this is a reasonable early pick in
Booster and automatic inclusion for Sealed.
This little guy is a lot more trouble than he
looks at first glance. If you've never played
with him or against him, at first you might not
think twice about a little 1/1 that can make one
thing not block for one red. The truth is,
however, in aggressive red decks, that extra
little bit of reach is exactly what they need.
It puts the opposition between a rock and a hard
place. Do they deal with the bigger threat and
let this guy go unblocked, continuing to screw
up blockers, or do they use their blocker to
kill the goblin, letting a bigger guy go
through, putting their life total dangerously
low against a fast red deck? He's not flashy,
but he knows his job, and he does it well.
