Deck Tech: Gandalf, Goblins' Bane

Gandalf, Goblins' Bane | Art by Francisco Miyara

Last weekend at Magic Con Amsterdam, we got an awesome preview panel showcasing a bunch of new cards from the upcoming Universes Beyond set The Hobbit! Among the handful of new legendary creatures we're going to be excited to build Commander decks around was a nifty mono-red version of the wizard Gandalf.

The descriptive title of Gandalf, Goblins' Bane feels a little bit of a misnomer since the card doesn't do anything with Goblins and doesn't directly deal damage to creatures that would indicate that he was mowing down hordes of the little buggers. But if you start to imagine your future Commander pod opponents as Goblins, things start to become clear.

What Does Gandalf, Goblins' Bane Do?

Gandalf is a creature with an Adventure attached, a sorcery called Flameshape that lets you look at the top two cards of your library and exile them face down. For as long as they remain exiled, you may play them if you control a Wizard. Since Gandalf is indeed a Wizard, odds are pretty high that you'll control a Wizard at some point to play those exiled cards.

Effectively drawing two extra cards is a sweet effect to have in the command zone, but you're effectively drawing three extra cards if you consider the third card is Gandalf, Goblins' Bane himself sitting there in the Adventure exile zone. That's pretty hot for two mana! It's even good for four mana later on if Gandalf returns to the command zone, and it's not completely unreasonable in the late game for six mana.

Gandalf himself isn't too shabby as a creature. For three mana you get a 2/3 Wizard with effectively prowess, with the added bonus of pinging each of your opponents for one damage, which means you'll want to round out the deck with a fair number of noncreature spells, along with some of red's capacity for ramping ping damage up from one point of damage up to real serious burnage to your Goblin opponents' life totals!

The closest analogue to this version of Gandalf, I think, is Tor Wauki the Younger as far as casting spells and pinging your opponent with damage. Gandalf's prowess-like ability won't matter too much early in the game, but if you can give him evasion and cast a flurry of noncreature spells late in the game then commander damage is absolutely on the table, so I expect most Gandalf decks to ping opponents a bunch to keep life totals low so that once you have a big turn you can knock out an opponent or two and be in a position to win a few turns later.

Key Cards for Gandalf, Goblins' Bane

Since the Adventure attached to Gandalf puts cards in exile you can cast later, I've added Nico Minoru, Runaway, who cares about casting spells from exile and deals damage to your opponents! Plus, its activated ability is pretty banger; too bad Nico is a Warlock instead of a Wizard.

Hex Magic and Commune with Lava are some more ways to generate card advantage through moving cards into exile you can cast later. Solstice Revelations lets you exile a nonland card from the top of your library and you can either cast it for free, or put it into your hand, depending on the number of Mountains you control and whether you actually want to cast it then. It has flashback, too!

Next up, I went looking for some Wizard cards that would play well with the strategies the deck was deploying.

Wizards with prowess seemed like a good bet, so I snagged Soul-Scar Mage, the awesome Harmonic Prodigy, and Heartfire Immolator to join the Gandalf posse.

Slickshot Show-Off and Burning Prophet both have prowess-like abilities, while Party Thrasher has nice synergy with playing cards from exile.

Coruscation Mage joins in the pinger plan and brings along their offspring if you have some extra mana. Dualcaster Mage has a ton of great utility in a four-player game where people are going to be casting impactful instant and sorcery spells. Krark, the Thumbless does wild things if you're going to "storm off" and cast a flurry of spells for Gandalf to ping everyone and grow in size.

Emeritus of Conflict is a Wizard that gives you a free Lightning Bolt each time you've cast three spells in given turn. Mysidian Elder and Lindblum, Industrial Regency create a little 0/1 Wizard token that pings your opponents whenever you cast a noncreature spell.

Even though Gandalf won't be attacking all that much in the late game, I did want to include a few spells to help push damage through if I can boost Gandalf to significant size. Untimely Malfunction can turn off up to two blockers for a turn, or it has two other options you can choose, while Gimli's Fury is a pump spell that will give Gandalf trample... or any legendary creature if you cast it on one of your opponents' attacking legends!

I went looking for other creatures that "ping" your opponents when you cast noncreature spells to strengthen that strategy, and I recruited Firebrand Archer and Kessig Flamebreather to the cause.

Then I went looking for creatures that could increase the damage output of Gandalf and other pingers, so Hawkeye, Young Avenger, Longshot, Rebel Bowman, and Torbran, Thane of Red Fell came on board.

Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might and Solphim, Mayhem Dominus also significantly boost damage output, and are both resilient to many creature removal options.

Equipment are excellent noncreature spells to enhance the decent number of creatures I have in the deck: examples include Skullclamp for power boost and card draw in the face of removal (or having one toughness); Blackblade Reforged, which can make Gandalf a huge threat in the late game; and Red Mage's Rapier, which gives the equipped creature a Slickshot Show-Off style power boost and makes that creature a Wizard!

For other artifacts and enchantments, I'm running Ruby Medallion to discount red spells, Palantír of Orthanc for potential card draw, or "burn" depending on your opponent's choice, and then there's City on Fire, which will triple damage dealt to a permanent or player. That's hot!

Speaking of hot, there are a good number of burn spells that can help shorten the damage clock for opponents unexpectedly, so I'm running Lightning Bolt, Boltwave, and Flame Rift.

Skullcrack is a good response to an opponent's attempt at big life gain (NOPE), while Volcanic Torrent is a fantastic card to run during one of your "flurry of spells" turns. Wheel of Misfortune puts the screws on the bidding process when you want to burn opponents out, but c'mon, everyone wants to draw cards!

Seething Song provides an excellent burst of mana, while the incredible Flashback lets you dip back into your graveyard for another go 'round on an instant or sorcery. Return the Favor just has a ton of utility, especially if you can pay for both spree effects.

If you draw too many lands or otherwise dead cards, Valakut Awakening can trade them in for a fresh grip, while Monstrous Rage can be a rude surprise for an opponent who thought they could chump block a huge Gandalf with a tiny creature. Then there's Siege Smash, which has a choice for pushing through trample damage, too.

Rounding things out, there's Chaos Warp to deal with any problematic permanent at instant speed with the wild mini-game attached hoping that player doesn't reveal something worse on top of their deck. Dreadmaw's Ire is a fun way to unexpectedly push through combat damage and hopefully destroy a problematic artifact for your trouble; keep in mind, this can be used on an opponent's creature if you want play some politics to get rid of that artifact.

Neheb, the Eternal is usually a great card in decks with significant damage output, but I think it's going to do even more in this deck where Gandalf is pinging each opponent, hopefully multiple times pre-combat and giving your a rush of red mana after combat.

How Does This Gandalf, Goblins' Bane Commander Deck Win?

The deck is going to mostly win through dealing damage to each of your opponents over and over, with occasional combat damage adding to the mix, but I've got a few more spells designed to try and finish out the game.

To get this going, you'll want enough mana to cast Mana Geyser and enough mana to cast Reiterate with buyback, and you'll want your opponents to have at least seven tapped lands. Put Mana Geyser on the stack, and, before it resolves, cast Reiterate with buyback. The copy you make with Reiterate will resolve, giving you at least seven red mana, and then you cast Reiterate with buyback again using that mana, and you'll be netting one or more red mana each time. You'll also be getting triggers from Gandalf or any other pinger in the deck, which should kill your opponents and finish the game in spectacular fashion. I mean, Gandalf is the wielder of Narya, the Ring of Fire and one of the Elvish Rings of Power!

Mizzix's Mastery is another way to have a big, flurry of spells turn if you can cast it with overload, and I tossed in a copy of Grafted Exoskeleton to help provide an out against life gain decks that might be able to gain too much life to let you burn them out by normal means.

Gandalf, Goblins' Bane Commander Deck List

Conclusion

This is a fun deck Bracket 2 (Core) deck that can reasonably burn out your opponents if the game goes long enough, and it isn't purely a "spellslinger" or storm deck like we see so often. If you're looking for a way to win outside of pure creature combat, give it a try once The Hobbit is released! What other cards would you swap into the deck if you were building this yourself?

---

Read more:

Commander Deck Tech: Bilbo, Thief in the Night

Tom, Bert, and William Commander Deck Tech