Upstart Goblin – #SRL-EN033
Draw 1 card, then your opponent gains 1000 LP.
Date Reviewed: April 25th, 2024
Rating: 3.50
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is awful. 3 is average. 5 is excellent.
Reviews Below:
King of
Lullaby
Hello Pojo Fans,
Upstart Goblin is one of the easiest Throwback Thursday choices we will ever have. This will be a short entry.
Normal Spell that is one of the better Spell Cards in the game whether at one or three. Draw a card, your opponent gains 1000LP. That one card is likely to benefit you FAR more than your opponent gaining 1000LP. The only way I can see this hurting you is that it gives them enough LP where, regardless of what happens in your turn, they are able to activate some kind of LP-paying effect like Solemn Warning. The second would be if you used this in Extra Time and couldn’t overtake the LP lead you’d given them and you lose that way: both scenarios are highly unlikely.
Upstart Goblin is great, regardless of how many you can use, but since it’s at 3, any deck can play a set and if they have three slots they likely should.
Advanced- 4/5
Art- 3.5/5
Until Next Time,
KingofLullaby
Crunch$G
Throwback Thursday for this week, instead of looking at the old Goblin monsters that aren’t very good, we’ll look at an old Goblin Spell despite having no synergy with the archetype: Upstart Goblin.
Upstart Goblin is a Normal Spell that lets you draw a card and give the opponent 1000 LP. Simple enough here, really. You get a free card, and the opponent only gets LP. The LP gain shouldn’t matter if you aren’t dedicated to OTKing anyways and the LP won’t slow down how fast you win, or if you do OTK and can do way more than 8000 damage anyway. The best use of this card once upon a time was to make it to where you were technically running a 37 card Deck for the extra consistency. Now, it’s Droll bait as that card has seen a rise in popularity over the years. Now, you’d only run it if you just want free Spells to activate for Decks like Endymion for the Spell Counters or Sky Strikers just to put Spell Cards into the grave. You can still run it if you need to fill out space in your Deck, though Pot of Desires, Prosperity, and even Extravagance seem to be better to use for most Decks than this. It has its purpose still, but I doubt you’ll see people using it just to fill Deck space, and more instead to use it for a free and easy Spell to activate.
Advanced Rating: 3/5
Art: 3.5/5 A fairly charitable Goblin, nice wallpaper in the back.
Mighty
Vee
One of the most feared cards in Yugioh history is back with a mild vengeance. Upstart Goblin is this week’s Throwback Thursday subject; as it’s a Goblin card, you can search it with Goblin Biker Dugg Charger, though I have no earthly idea why you would. Upstart Goblin has a single non-once per turn effect, drawing you one card then granting your opponent 1000 life points. Much like its infinitely stronger grandparent, Pot of Greed, Upstart Goblin reflects the Yugioh community’s unusual relationship with draw cards. While drawing is a very commonplace (if not mandatory) mechanic in other card games, drawing in Yugioh has traditionally been seen as extremely limited, with draw cards being put on a pedestal. Upstart Goblin has had a bizarre history, being limited in the TCG in 2002 before slowly coming back to three in 2007, only to be limited again in 2016 and freed once more in the January 2024 banlist. On paper, Upstart Goblin is yet another broken draw card: it’s not once per turn, and the only drawback is giving your opponent a seemingly inconsequential 1000 life points. Indeed, getting a consistency boost was considered well-worth it, resulting in it being hit twice; the meme of “37 card decks” was a very real deckbuilding philosophy. So why is it back and seemingly nobody cares? The simple answer is that Upstart Goblin, and one-for-one drawing as a whole, have much less value in modern Yugioh. In ancient times, when Upstart Goblin was more valuable, combos were far less consistent, so that little boost in consistency meant the whole world. Modern decks are much more consistent, eliminating the need for Upstart Goblin; in fact, you’d rather use that space on a high-impact Hand Trap or boardbreaker. A less-discussed drawback is the 1000 life point bonus. More decks than you would think cut it very close to dealing 8000 damage with their bread and butter kill boards (Swordsoul and Zoodiac, for example), so with Upstart Goblin, you had a very real risk of missing lethal, letting your opponent mount a comeback. That’s not to say Upstart Goblin is useless– decks like Endymion and Sky Striker, which want to spam Spell cards, appreciate Upstart Goblin’s free draw. It’s not an omnipresent drawing staple anymore, but Upstart Goblin is yet another relic of our complicated relationship with the simple act of drawing. Just don’t tell Bill and Professor Oak!
+”Free” non-once per turn draw
+Loads the Graveyard for Spell-based decks like Sky Striker and Endymion
-Slot is often better used for Hand Traps
-Redundant if your deck is already consistent
-Can make you miss lethal with some standard combos
Advanced: 3.5/5
Art: 2.5/5 The art itself is nothing spectacular, but before you feel bad for the kneeling dude remember that he tried to loan shark Goblin of Greed first!
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