Goblins are one of the most iconic creature types in Magic history. Whenever a new set rolls around you can rest assured some of these little green guys will be there to spark some mayhem. They’re also one of the most mechanically spammable in-game. Thanks to their low mana costs and high synergy, you can often fill a board with Goblins in no time. This week, an enterprising player discovered a combo with Spinner of Souls that takes the idea of Goblin spam to the next level. What if you could cast over 20 Goblins from your deck in a single turn? That’s exactly what this list offers. This combo is an early Holiday gift for Goblin lovers, to be sure.
The Spinner Of Souls Goblin Combo
This combo, appropriately enough, comes to us via MTG Creative Combos on Twitter. They also released an Arena gameplay video showing the list in action. The idea behind the deck is quite simple, but it’s still a very niche interaction overall.
To pull off the Spinner of Souls Goblin combo, you first need the titular Spider in play. You also need Skirk Prospector, a one-mana Goblin who can sacrifice your Goblins for mana. Finally, you’ll need a third Goblin to get things going. Sacrifice that Goblin to Prospector, and Spinner will trigger. You’ll then dig through your deck for a creature and add it to your hand. The secret to this deck’s success is that, outside of one copy of Spinner, every other creature in the deck is a one-mana Goblin.
This means that once you sacrifice one Goblin, you’ll draw another. You can then play it immediately, using the red mana generated by Prospector. Rinse and repeat, and you can cast and sacrifice every single Goblin in your deck. That’s 27 Goblins in total, assuming you don’t count the initial Prospector.
This is a pretty impressive play, but how does it actually win you the game? It all comes down to the Goblins themselves. 15 of the Goblins in the deck are capable of dealing one damage to any target when they die, so that gets you most of the way there. To get that last little bit of damage, the deck relies on Exuberant Fuseling. This is a Trample creature that scales up in power as your Goblins die. If you start your combo turn with this in play, it can easily swing in for 20+ Trample damage. You’ll also need to give it Haste via Torch Courier.
On The Hunt
So that’s how the Spinner of Souls Goblin Combo works. It’s pretty simple once you understand all the moving pieces. What you’ll likely have noticed is that this combo is completely reliant on the titular Spider, yet there’s only one copy of it in the deck. This setup is necessary to avoid the deck bricking during the combo, but it also makes things very inconsistent by default. To address this issue, the deck also runs a number of tutor effects.
Eldritch Evolution is probably the best of these. It turns any of your Goblins in play into the Spinner in your deck for just three mana. The only slight downside of a card like this is you get two-for-one’d if you run into a counterspell, but it’s not a huge deal. The other options are less ideal, but still necessary to ensure the deck functions consistently.
Invasion of Ikoria puts Spinner right into play as well, but requires five mana to do so. The upside here is that Invasion can also grab any of your key Goblins for three mana, which can come in clutch at times. Last up is The Huntsman’s Redemption, which only tutors to hand but also has two other effects that can help you out too.
That really is the whole deck. You tutor up Spinner of Souls, you drop Prospector and a Goblin, and you pop off. It’s a wildly unconventional strategy, but one with a surprising amount of power behind it. One notable drawback, however, is the deck’s reliance on Exuberant Fuseling to close things out. As many pointed out in the Twitter comments, throwing in Impact Tremors would allow the deck to win without that. MTG Creative Combos agreed, so that seems like a no-brainer switch for a version two of this list. I’d probably sub them in for the four Foundry Street Denizen, personally.
Something Completely Different
This is one of the most creative MTG Combo decks I’ve seen in a while. It stands out even in Pioneer, a format that has been no stranger to powerful Combos in recent times. Spinner of Souls had clear combo potential from the get-go, and it’s awesome to see it utilized in such an offbeat yet effective strategy.
That said, is the deck actually a good fit for Pioneer as it currently stands? Sadly, the answer is probably no. The glaring weakness with this deck is that if the Spider gets removed, there isn’t much you can do. Because aggressive Prowess decks are one of the best things to be doing in the Pioneer format at the moment, everyone is running removal that can deal with Spinner of Souls incidentally. This, alone, makes playing the combo deck an incredibly uphill battle.
Ultimately, I don’t see this deck taking off in a major way. Current Pioneer is simply too aggressive and hostile to allow for its Goblin-spamming shenanigans. That said, it is still an incredibly cool deck. I doubt the day will ever come when slapping down 27 Goblins in one turn is no longer fun and hilarious.
