Skirk Fire Marshal
Tapping five Goblins to deal 10 damage to every creature and every player is a board wipe with a tribal entry fee, and the protection from red is the engineering that lets it survive its own blast. Onslaught's Goblin deck was the format-defining swarm of its block, the kind of board that routinely had five untapped bodies sitting around by the midgame, so the requirement that reads as steep on paper was the natural condition of the exact deck this card was built to live in. The trick is the symmetry-breaker: the wielder takes 10 along with everyone else, but a Goblin army of one-toughness creatures dies to its own ability regardless, which makes this less a one-sided sweeper than a closing button. You build a wide board, you point ten damage at every face, and the protection from red ensures the Marshal alone walks away to finish the job. It is a Goblin card that punishes Goblin mirrors and a finisher that converts a stalled tribal board into a lethal threat the opponent cannot race. The body is incidental; what matters is that the most explosive activated ability in the set is gated behind the one tribe most likely to pay it, and the protection clause is what keeps the gun from going off in your own hand.



