Goblin Festival MTG Card

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	2
Rarity	Rare
Type	Enchantment
Released	1999-06-07
Set symbol
Set name	Urza's Destiny
Set code	UDS
Number	83
Frame	1997
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	Jeff Laubenstein

Key Takeaways

Goblin Festival excels in creating board presence with repeated Goblin token generation, enhancing swarm tactics.
The instant speed activation offers strategic flexibility, allowing players to disrupt opponents unanticipatedly.
Despite its mana-intensive nature, the festival is a versatile addition, boosting both aggressive and combo-driven decks.

Text of card

: Goblin Festival deals 1 damage to target creature or player. Flip a coin. If you lose the flip, choose one of your opponents. That player gains control of Goblin Festival.

"What are we celebratin' again?"

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Goblin Festival provides a platform for building your board presence by potentially churning out multiple Goblin tokens. This swarm strategy overwhelms opponents and keeps your hand well-stocked with other strategic plays.

Resource Acceleration: By leveraging each festival celebration for Goblins, you’re effectively bypassing the usual mana cost for creature spells. This means you can allocate resources elsewhere, giving you a substantial edge in mana efficiency and tempo.

Instant Speed: The ability to activate Goblin Festival at instant speed is a game-changer. Reacting to your opponent’s moves or end-of-turn shenanigans without committing during your own phase keeps you flexible and unpredictable, often putting your adversary on the back foot.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Goblin Festival requires you to discard a card upon activation, which might deplete your hand, especially if you are striving to maintain card advantage over your opponent.

Specific Mana Cost: This card necessitates a precise mana combination to cast, demanding both red and other colors, potentially limiting its integration into mono-red decks or those with tight mana bases.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With its mana cost on the heftier side for its effect, players may find themselves at a disadvantage in the early game or when they require a more immediate board presence, as there are alternative cards that could be more mana-efficient for establishing control or advancing your board state.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Goblin Festival is a card with wide-ranging applications, easily sliding into various red deck archetypes. Its ability to create tokens offers both offensive and defensive options, making it a flexible pick for players.

Combo Potential: This card is a potent enabler for synergies that revolve around Goblins or token generation. It can serve as a stepping stone to powerful plays, unlocking the full potential of strategies clustered around these themes.

Meta-Relevance: Given that aggressive and fast-paced decks are often prominent in the game, Goblin Festival can become an instrumental part of keeping up with or surpassing the meta-game tempo, providing essential support in matches where speed and board presence are key.

How to Beat

Goblin Festival is an intriguing card that brings a mix of chance and strategy to the table in Magic: The Gathering. Pitting players against each other in a game of chance with coin flips, this card can quickly become troublesome with its potential to dish out damage or churn out Goblins. To outplay Goblin Festival, players need smart tactics and the right card choices.

Counterspells can shut down Goblin Festival before it begins to wreak havoc. Blue decks typically hold cards like Counterspell or Negate to prevent such enchantments from resolving. Alternatively, if Goblin Festival has already hit the battlefield, cards that deal with enchantments directly, like Disenchant or Naturalize, are your next best bet. Red decks can respond with direct damage to their opponent, reducing the reliance on coin flips for victory.

Moreover, employing cards that manipulate or skip coin flips, like Krark’s Thumb, can minimize Goblin Festival’s impact or turn the odds in your favor. Remember, the key to triumphing over Goblin Festival lies in preparedness and maintaining control of the game flow. Thus, by strategically aligning your deck to handle uncertainties, you stay one step ahead in the duel.

Cards like Goblin Festival

Goblin Festival is a unique piece in the tapestry of red spells in Magic: The Gathering, akin to other goblin-themed cards. It invites comparisons with Goblin Game, another card that brings unpredictability to the table. Goblin Festival offers a chance-based effect, requiring coin flips to determine the outcome, introducing an element of chance in strategic play. In contrast, Goblin Game involves players in a guessing game, which translates to a more psychological approach impacting the board’s state.

Additionally, Goblin Lore is parallel in its randomness, allowing players to draw cards and then discard at random, capturing the chaotic nature of goblin mischief. Yet, Goblin Festival edges out by allowing repeated use of its ability per turn, granted enough mana is available. Meanwhile, Goblin Lore is a one-time event with a clear and definitive outcome. Rounding up the comparison, we can look at Toggling, which taps into coin-flipping mayhem as well, but offers it in a creature form which can both attack and defend.

When evaluating the playful anarchy goblins bring to Magic: The Gathering, Goblin Festival holds its own with recurring chances for disruption and the thrilling gamble it introduces to each match.

Cards similar to Goblin Festival by color, type and mana cost

Emblem of the Warmind - MTG Card versions

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Goblin Festival MTG card by a specific set like Urza's Destiny, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Goblin Festival and other MTG cards:

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Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Goblin Festival has restrictions

Format	Legality
Commander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Vintage	Legal
Duel	Legal
Predh	Legal
Penny	Legal

Rules and information

The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Goblin Festival card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.

Date	Text
2004-10-04	If you activate this multiple times in a row so the stack has more than one of this ability on it, the abilities will still resolve even if Goblin Festival leaves the battlefield or leaves your control before they resolve. For example, if activate the ability twice, and after the first flip you lose control of it because you lost the toss, or it leaves the battlefield, then you still flip for the second ability.
2004-10-04	The controller of the ability chooses one of their opponents. If this card changes controllers before the ability resolves, you still pick an opponent of the player who controlled it when it was activated.