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Creature — Goblin
When this creature enters, search your library for any number of Goblin cards, reveal them, then shuffle and put those cards on top in any order.
1/1
"Next!"
Ban history
Stacks your deck with Goblins — powerful and slow; banned in Extended 2003 and Legacy since 2004.
- Banned in Premodern
- On or before May 2018
- On earliest archived list; likely since 2012 founding
- Category
- Power
- Research
- Research confidence: Medium confidence
- First printed
- First printed in Visions (3 February 1997).
Why it’s banned
Power level / play time (no published rationale).
Official reason
No official reason published.
Community & historical context (not an official statement)
Analytical/community: stacks every Goblin on top of the library; with Goblin Ringleader (Apocalypse) it becomes a huge card-advantage/combo engine, and resolving it is slow (Draftsim; Chronicles). Banned in Extended (Dec 2003 announcement, effective 2004) and in Legacy since its September 2004 split (Goblin Recruiter is still banned in Legacy).[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
The story
Goblin Recruiter (Visions, 1997) became a problem once Onslaught-era Goblins such as Goblin Ringleader arrived: it stacks the deck for big card advantage and long, fiddly turns. Wizards banned it in Extended at the end of 2003 and on Legacy's first independent list in 2004, where it remains. Premodern, with Goblins a tier-one archetype, has banned it on every archived list; no reason was published.
Premodern changes
- On listOn the earliest archived Premodern ban list.[6]
Other formats (Wizards)
Related cards
Sources
- Draftsim: The Premodern Ban List: All 33 Cards Banned (A.L. Walser, 2026-04-24) — community
- Premodern Chronicles: Premodern Banlist (2026) — community
- MTG Wiki: Banned and restricted cards/Timeline
- MTGBans.info per-card timelines (effective dates; site's AI-generated rationales NOT used)
- MTG Wiki: Legacy
- Wayback: premodernmagic.com/banned-watched/ 2018-05-06 (34 banned, 5 watched)
- Scryfall card data (printings, release dates)
- premodernmagic.com legal sets endpoint
Research as of 18 October 2026.
In our decks
Not in any of our curated decklists yet. Find similar cards.
Played in tournaments
Share of published Premodern decklists that play Goblin Recruiter (main or sideboard): 2,950 lists from paper events and MTGO in the last 90 days, through .
Not seen in any of the 2,950 tournament lists from the last 90 days. Browse the meta.
Printings (6)
Every tournament-legal paper printing (no gold-border, World Championship or oversized cards). Hover or tap a row to preview that printing.
