Recently my seven year old nephew has expressed an interest in learning magic. My decks are a little too complicated for him, so I decided to build some budget decks we could play together. I am trying to keep the mechanics simple and straight forward. The decks need to be engaging to a seven year old mind, so I am going a tribal route with several of them.
The focus of the deck are spells that summon goblin tokens, support creatures, and low CMC damage spells. The Guttersnipe is there to boost the damage spells, and ping opponents. Goblinslide ups the value of Dragon Fodder, Krenko's Command, and Hordeling Outburst. The Arms Dealer acts as removal.
The cards in the sideboard are upgrades for the deck. Goblin Grenade would replace
Reckless Abandon
,
Tarfire
swapped out for Lightning Bolt, and the
Goblin Wardriver
replaced with the Young Pyromancer. Skullclamp would be very useful, but I am unsure what to take out.
The only things I am concerned about are ramp, draw, and non-creature removal. I would like to keep the deck at mono-red to make it easier for a seven year old to use. The decks highest CMC is three, so I felt twenty lands would be sufficient. I can see the deck running out of gas pretty quickly, so I may throw in Faithless Looting at some point to weed out lands in the late game, and give me some more draw. Or some cycling lands like
Forgotten Cave
and
Smoldering Crater
Non-creature permanents are another matter, but the deck is designed to take down someone quickly.
As my nephew is very prone to losing, or damaging his toys I do not plan on including any cards over $1 for his version of the deck.
