Goblins have been around forever, and have always been a pretty solid build for a fast, cheap deck. Last night I wondered, have there been any sets without goblins? I'm tired of them being the obligatory (often) crappy red weenies in sets.
In my search (which did not include Portal/Starter sets, Duel Decks, Chronicles, etc) turned out about as I expected. Antiquities almost made the list with only Goblin Artisans. The six sets with no goblins are: Arabian Nights, Legends, Homelands, Odyssey, Torment, and Judgment. They were, then, just another creature, until The Dark pushed them as one of the first tribal creatures with cards Goblin Shrine and Goblin Caves. Kobolds beat Goblins for the claim for the first tribal theme, but kobolds didn't stick around. Fallen Empires continued the idea with Goblin Grenade, albeit Elves, Orcs, Saprolings, et al had cards to make a tribal deck. Since then, for the most part, goblins haven't gone away. One could argue that Zombie Master and other "lord" cards have always made valid tribal decks, but I'd argue that a fourth edition zombie deck with four Zombie Masters wasn't as effective or, more to the point of the article, as thematic as a straight-up The Dark/Fallen Empires goblin deck.
The Odyssey block had few standard creature types. No goblins, elves, or merfolk. Instead, there were Nantuko, Cephalid, and Birds, which have seen infrequent use since. This is more interesting when taking into consideration that the Onslaught block, which came out right after the Odyssey block, was all about standard creature-type tribal decks. Onslaught made it possible to build Soldier, Cleric, Zombie, and other decks that could finally be on the same tribal level as goblins.
Just some thoughts, and some trivia.
EDIT: The full spoiler for Innistrad is up: NO GOBLINS!
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