First off, Staff of Domination and Thornbite Staff should be here. I see you have thornbite in the maybeboard, just go right ahead and move it to the mainboard :P

Also, Daretti, Scrap Savant should probably be in the deck. He lets you cycle crap and can recur combo artifacts.

Thanks! I've added Thornbite since I last updated the list on the site. The other two seem kind of slow (though immensely potent under the right circumstances), though. Could you explain what you see as their role in the deck?

So the main way you reach critical mass with krenko is that you get him down with a repeatable untap source and something to produce mana. Staff of Domination says for every 4 mana you can produce, then you can repeat the cycle. So with krenko, Skirk Prospector and staff you only need to produce 5 goblins each tap. And you already have 2. As long as you can do that, you win.

Same goes with Ashnod's Altar. You only need to produce 3 goblins in this case.

Thornbite Staff gives you a win on. While you get infinite goblins, you also produce infinite mana allowing krenko to ping opponents to death then and there. Similarly with staff, once you have the setup you can draw your entire deck.

As for Daretti, he lets you loot up to twice every turn and lets you swap a mana rock for a combo piece in case it is destroyed.

@enpc: Now I get it. I think I was just remembering the staff's mana cost wrong; it could easily be efficient enough to work in here. Staff certainly has a place here. Thornbite has already gone in the physical deck, I'll update the list tomorrow.

I'm less sold on Daretti. The deck has a decent number of artifacts, but without the right ones he just digs. That's nice, but I'll need to test thoroughly to determine if the card filtering is big enough in here to justify a spot, and if his recursion ability turns out to be useful often.

I don't play edh super competitively, but I think I found some stuff that could help.

Lightning Greaves should probably be in here. The shroud shouldn't be too much of a problem because you don't have many things that would target your creatures. Also, it allows you to activate Krenko the turn he comes into play for free.

I know its on your maybeboard, but you should get a Warren Instigator as soon as you can. I play a goblin casual deck and he is an all-star in there.

Mogg Raider can sac your goblins that got blocked to pump up goblins that didn't get blocked. Also he gives you a sac outlet for Goblin Bombardment and Boggart Shenanigans.

Thanks Bricksolr.

Agreed on the Greaves. I just need to figure out what to cut. Instigator should probably be in here as well, I expect that dropping him turn one or two should make it fairly easy to get a couple dudes on the table for free. Lackey does work too, and this is really just a two mana version of it.

I don't think Mogg Raider goes in here, though; the deck only really attacks for lethal anyway unless I'm trying to get a trigger like with Goblin Lackey or someone happens to be open. Hellrider and company push damage through, too so that blockers won't matter. An extra +1/+1 here and there probably won't make a difference.

I don't like Ghost Quarter as much as Tectonic Edge. Edge puts you and one opponent behind in land, GQ only puts you behind.

True. I do like that GQ doesn't require a mana investment or a specific number of lands across the table, though. In truth, I'll probably just end up running Strip Mine and Wasteland instead of either.

You know that with Tectonic Edge, the person you target doesn't have to be the one with four lands right? But yeah, the mana investment is frustrating at times.

Yeah, I know. Still a little annoying. Wasteland is just better!

well yeah, if you have them :P

You might also consider Buried Ruin to get back your combo artifacts.

Oh, damn! I didn't even think of that. Those things are removal magnets to be sure. Thanks!

As for the lands, I don't have them right now, but I can't make this deck do what I want if I'm putting financial restrictions on it. I don't actually own a Mana Crypt, yet... I'm putting aside money with each paycheck.

If you dedicate some slots to Pyretic Ritual and it's ilk you can get Krenko out one turn earlier which really adds up once you start tapping him. They also have great synergy with Empty the Warrens

Stuff to remove

• Goblin Offensive sounds good, Goblins for X, but the 3 other mana makes it 1 Goblin for 4 mana... not great you really have to be late in the game for it to pay off and if it's late game you already lost.

• Moggcatcher also sounds great but 7 mana + haste to get your Goblin Recruiter out of the deck is pretty slow for what your trying to do.

• Battle Hymn is pretty slow as well. It's not very useful for getting krenko out earlier. Best case scenario T1 mountain- Legion Loyalist T2 mountain - Goblin Lackey+Goblin Bushwhacker T3 Mountain- tap out cast Battle Hymn for 3 and play Krenko. To get that 1 mana early on you have to draw 3, one-mana gobbies. Desperate Ritual gets you that 1 mana early without relying on drawing specific creatures

While it is risky and unlikely you could get a T1 Krenko.

• T1 Mountain -> Rite of Flame -> Sol Ring -> Seething Song -> Krenko

Unlikely but would be so awesome.

Krenko is awesome, I love Tribal decks. The main differences noticed at first glance are, Extraplanar Lens + Snow-Covered Mountain . Doubles your mana from Basics for as long as it is on the board. Often allowing you to unload almost your entire hand.

The other missing piece is simple and cheap, Caged Sun. It gives all of your Goblins +1/+1. It also makes each land that taps for produce one extra. Not just Basics, any land that produces .

In an ideal situation, your Snow-Covered Mountain will each be tapping for 3.

I have to question you now, if you bought Imperial Recruiter would it really help that much? Do you plan on using bounce effects to get multiple uses? Cloudstone Curio is the only thing that comes to mind right now. It would probably be a dead draw most of the time and you would need to ensure both stayed on the field. Krenko should be faster than that.

Anyway, +1 from me. Good job so far.

Oh a couple things I forgot. Coat of Arms is absolutely ridiculous. No other player should ramp as many creatures as you and thus there is very little backlash. It may effect the whole board, but you will benefit most.

You have already included Ashnod's Altar + Beetleback Chief , the only piece you're missing to go infinite is Nim Deathmantle. Simply sacrifice one of the tokens for , then sacrifice Beetleback Chief for , use that to use Nim Deathmantle to bring Beetleback Chief from the Graveyard. He hits the battlefield again creating two more tokens. Repeat the process and you have infinite Goblins.

Just going Infinite could be enough to kill everyone if you have Purphoros, God of the Forge and/or Impact Tremors on the field. If you don't have that, hopefully you have Haste and it should still kill everyone.

I love Goblin Assassin in Krenko. Tap Krenko for goblins, absolute worst case scenario you sacrifice all of them (not that that will happen.) Your opponent, meanwhile, is losing huge chunks of his board. He's a little pricey at five mana, but the ability to wipe out indestructibiliy, hexproof and protection from red simply by tapping Krenko is too good to say no to.

Yes I have to agree with ClockworkSwordfish. Goblin Assassin is absolutely amazing. It can remove all of your opponents creatures and at most all you will ever do, with EXTREMELY bad luck, is sacrifice all of the tokens that just entered the Battlefield with that activation. It will not effect your board state that you had before playing the Assassin.

Thanks everyone!

@Holtzman: Rituals are certainly something I'd considered. The main issue I have with them is that they're god-awful topdecks if I've already played most of my hand. I'd need to do a lot of testing to see if they fit in; getting Krenko out early may be enough of a payoff.

It's really worth exploring.

@iAzire: I opted not to use lens because there have been scenarios where it would have been symmetrical. I haven't seen those decks in a while though, so it may be time! Caged Sun feels slow as a 6-drop. I tried it and found it was dead in my hand pretty often. It's the same reason I don't have Coat of Arms in the list. The main argument for that card is that it's a second Shared Animosity style effect. Again, something to be tested with.

I really do like the Nim Deathmantle combo! It's additional redundancy since it allows me to go off without Krenko on the board. It's also protection for combo pieces which is important.

Imperial Recruiter's main benefit is that he's a tutor in red. He'd basically be Goblin Matron #2. Grabbing Goblin Recruiter sets up a win by itself (get Goblin Ringleader and then the other goblins I need to combo off). More than one activation shouldn't be needed.

@ClockworkSwordfish: The problem I have is that if I'm ahead he seems unneeded (because I'm getting close to going off) and if I'm behind he seems unhelpful (because he can easily bite me in the ass). That's not something I really want from a 5-drop. I had him in the list before and didn't like him there.

Also... if there's something I'm not seeing or if you've tested similar builds to see how this stuff works, let me know! It'd be helpful.

As I said on Reddit, this deck is absolutely awesome.

Is there any reason you don't run Zealous Conscripts? The 2-card combo with Kiki-Jiki is too juciy for me to resist.

I considered it, but decided against it. It's too mana-intensive and it's clunky outside of the combo. Yes it untaps Krenko once or lets me steal someone's commander and sac it, but I simply don't have enough room for another 5-drop. It also isn't a goblin, which means it's very hard to tutor for.

My preferred Kiki combo is with Lightning Crafter and a sac outlet. I can also go infinite with an untap engine, Ashnod's Altar/Mana Echoes and either Siege-Gang Commander or Beetleback Chief (or several other variations of that combo).

One of the things about this deck that is both fun and challenging is that there are many, many different combos. Most of them do the same thing but my solution to mono-red's poor card draw and tutor ability was to run a lot of redundant pieces, and some of them require different lines of play than others.

Thanks for the response. Well-reasoned, and good food for thought for mine.

Consider Donochan's list. With a few minor tweaks, this same list will be run alongside Edric in a 2hg commander tournament in a couple weeks. The list is insanely streamlined, efficient, and fairly resilient (6 counterspells against blue). From my research online, this is kind of the gold standard of krenko as far as I can tell.

Thanks ameuser, I'll check that out. While I'd go with Teferi stax for a tournament environment I'm interested to see other tuned Krenko lists.