Pointed Discussion

Prickly Boggart is pretty good as well. It may not be as versatile, but it is just as useful early game.

Personally, as an avid Zombie fan, I don't believe ~ belongs in a Zombie deck. If you want a one drop in Zombies, I would go with Carrion Feeder due to it's ability to shut off Graveborn Muse, and protect your other 'bies from things like Path to Exile or Oblivion Ring (seeing as how a Zombie in your graveyard can be easily returned via Lord of the Undead or Unholy Grotto).

HOWEVER, in a budget deck, I love ~. It can kill 2/2s, and easily synergizes with other commons (like Carrion Feeder), making it a very versatile turn 1 or turn 0 drop. In a deck, your creature's deaths are usually not a problem, as your usually the one killing everything anyways.

He will fester in my heart forever.

(Card Rating: 4.0) Festering Goblin can be an early game attacker while having the potential to become a pesky 1/1 creature's nightmare. By itself, the Festering Goblin is able to take out a 2/2 creature or finish off a creature granting an extra -1/-1. Because the ability does not do damage, Festering Goblin can get rid of small regenerators like Drudge Skeletons or Will-o'-the-Wisp. One drawback to this card is that the triggered ability is not optional. In other words, if your opponent has no creatures, he can destroy Festering Goblin in order to kill two of yours! In my black/red casual goblin deck, I try not to run goblins with a toughness of 1 that will be susceptible to this gruesome tactic, such as: Knucklebone Witch, Goblin Chirurgeon, etc. Even with the new change in rules from M10, Festering Goblin still is not as effecient as the "all so famous" Mogg Fanatic. The main reason for this is that Festering Goblin requires another card or action to occur, such as death in combat, for the -1/-1 effect to take place. On top of that, Festering Goblin cannot be used to deal 1 damage directly to the opponent like the Fanatic can. If you are running red in your deck, use the slightly better version of this card: Goblin Arsonist. (Posted By: Misago)

I have a love for Zombie tribal, I have played with almost every zombie in MTG and Festering Goblin is one of my personal favorites in mono-black zombie aggro as a solid 1 drop. While I agree with CXA26483 that Carrion Feeder is a great card in its own right, I feel that Festering Goblin fits most Zombie tribal just as well, Festering Goblin is amazing in that when it is comboed with cards like Fleshbag Marauder you may often get a 2 for 1 deal where you destroy two of their creatures for the price of one, and trade your 1/1 in for a 3/1.

Basicly it can trade with a 2/2 right from the start, kill 1/1s with firststrike and snipe off mana excel creatures like birds of paradise, and llanowar elves. While the argument can be made if this card is truely better for zombies since carrion feeder can stop creatures from being exiled, thus making them easier to recover I feel that in most cases you are going to be playing FAST, and most of the time it won't matter if one or two zombies are exiled, especialy since with path to exile your carrion feeder would actully deprive you of the land you would get. If you really need to stop a creature from being exiled you can always respond by using nameless inversion on your own creature. But wouldn't it just be better to use your spell to kill someone elses creature instead of keeping one or two of your creatures from being exiled? Exactely, this is the very argument I use for the Festering Goblin vs. Carrion Feeder debate.

As an additional note, in many games Carrion Feeder's ability becomes much less favorable when cards such as leyline of the void, wheel of sun and moon, Tormod's Crypt,and Bojuka Bog poke up their heads.

I understand that both cards have their merits, If you are going to play mostly zombies with a high cmc that you need to be able to recover from your graveyard then Carrion Feeder may be the better choice,or maybe even outside of zombies with cards like Reas-sembling Skeleton.