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By: Kumagoro42, Gianluca Aicardi
Apr 26 2013 12:44pm
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 Welcome back to Tribal Apocalypse, the PRE where the sword is still mightier than the pen.

   Table of Contents 

  1. Last Week on Tribal Apocalypse...
  2. The High Price of Winning
  3. RexDart's Show and Tell
  4. Planeswalkers in Tribal Wars
  5. Announcement Time!
  6. What's Next

 Singleton week, guys! Woo-hoo! And the Gatherling filter prevented us for accepting irregular decks this time (something that, while entering the decklists from this year's events, I found out was happening more than a few times in the past. You, cheaters! Or, more likely, just careless.)

 And yep, the relocation to Gatherling.com has finally ended, and the Season Leaderboard is now complete, with slug360 currently sitting on the (Iron? It surely has Spikes) Throne. Look at all those beautiful, tiny numbers composing the picture of this year's balance of powers!

 I've also renamed the Top 8 Lockout to Top Players Lockout, since now it'll involve three different kinds of Top Players: the All-Time Top 8 from the Google Age (aka the 2011 and 2012 events, as shown here); the current Top 8 from the Gatherling Seasonal Leaderboard; and all the past and reigning Ultimate Champions and Players of the Year. As AJ noticed, mihahitlor is the only players to qualify for all three categories. Should we give him more severe lockout rules, as a reward? :P

 Shout-out time: you MUST (as in: it's an order!) read the brilliant Tribal articles by the very brilliant Cotton Rhetoric, like this one about predicting the next small tribe to get a populate treatment. Look for Rex's and mine comments at the bottom!

 And remember to register for Ham on Wry II, the second annual BlippyTheSlug-organized gathering to celebrate the legacy of the one and only Erik Friborg. Heads-up: since Ham on Wry this year is on a Saturday, in order to give the Tribal players the chance to participate without remorse, Tribal Apocalypse's starting time will be anticipated to 15:00 GMT on May 4, as part of a full Hamtastic Day which will begin with Eurodrive! at 12:00 GMT. Do all the three events in a row and you'll get a special prize! (I just made this up, but it's true!) Also prizes for people who'll rank high on Ham on Wry using a Classic Tribal Wars deck.


LAST WEEK ON TRIBAL APOCALYPSE...

  • Event Number: 3.15, Week 120 BE
  • Date: April 20
  • Attendance: 15
  • Rounds: 3
  • Special Rules:  Tribal Singleton (only 1 copy of each nonbasic land)
  • Winner: romellos (Knight)
  • Other undefeated: filegott (Sliver)
  • 1 Loss: Gonzzy (Construct), _Kumagoro_ (Snake), Malum (Merfolk), slug360 (Wall), justcanceled (Goblin)
  • Special Prizes: Underdog Prize to The_DK (Bird)
  • Tribes: Bird, Construct, Goblin (x2), Human (x2), Knight, Merfolk, Sliver, Snake, Vampire, Wall (x2), Warrior, Zombie
  • Event link (with all players, pairings, standings, decks, and results): here it is

 Let's put our hands together for the first victory of the year of another of our best players, romellos! A clean feat achieved with this very efficient Knight deck:

 

 Behold the reunion of Stoneforge Mystic with her beloved blades after a very long time! Enough with using her only to fetch lame stuff like Shuko for the Kor's shady combo agenda! Well, enough only as far as Singleton events are concerned, of course. Otherwise, we'll be back to 4 copies of her and 4-5 blades in every possible deck of every possible week. Broken card is broken.

 Another "stylishly linear" kind of deck ended 2nd place (after crushing my own ambitions, sigh), Sliver by filegott:

 

 It's an excellent build indeed, with a subtheme of putting stuff in the graveyard (lands with Mox Diamond and their own sacrifices, Slivers with Homing Sliver and Entomb, both with Gifts Ungiven), then take it back later (lands with Life from the Loam, Slivers with Genesis and Volrath's Stronghold, both with  Eternal Witness). All assisted by some powerful removal pieces, including a few money cards. As you'll see from RexDart's audio commentary, in one game these devious Slivers got my honest (?) Snakes thanks to a killer Life from the Loam/Wasteland recursion.

 And indeed, because of Sliver cruelty, among the second-level decks of the week there are my own Simic Snakes, which at some point (right after I owned slug360's very scary Walls) were almost dreaming of once again confirming the Year of the Water Snake prophecy.

 

 I like how this is sort of a miniature World of the Snake, with all their tricks in singleton form, like Opposition/Sosuke's Summons or a little ramping into a big guy, the equally UG-flavored Simic Sky Swallower. A word about this guy. I always liked him, but then when it was time to choose a fattie, he was always passed over by something else. But lately, he really grew on me. His most direct rival is Empyrial Archangel, of course, but the Leviathan has a few things over the mighty Angel: more penetration power due to trample; a faster clock; a reduced cost if you need to hardcast him (7 mana of which just 2 colored is way easier to attain than 8 mana of which 4 colored among 3 different colors.) Plus there's a case where you might want to take 8 damage and be able to swing for the win next turn.

 Another card this deck made me rediscover, or rather outright discover since I never used it before, is Whirlpool Whelm, part of a 6-card bounce system the deck use to buy some time (and wow, only in Singleton formats you get to do an AEther Mutation! So empowering!) I don't know why this little bounce spell isn't played more, because I found it amazing: the chance to put an opponent creature on top of their library for 2 mana makes for a huge tempo advantage, and we all know that clash essentially equals to scry 1 (for the opponent too, but that's fine.) I've used consistently Into the Roil to buy me time in midrange decks with no creature removal available, but I'm starting to think that the Whelm may be better. See, that's what Singleton brings to you: the re-evaluation of forgotten/overlooked cards!

 But since I mentioned it, here's what our Ultimate Champion was running.

 

 Ah, the Walls. So unassuming, so powerful. And so hated-feared, possibly because of this guy? But ramp apart, their strength is in the way they stop attacks while at the same time providing a little something that might be highly strategical. The parade of Walls from any Magic era in slug's deck is very interesting.

 But the main support here comes from another very discussed type of card: planeswalkers. I remember the first time I saw them (during a period in which I wasn't actively playing Magic but would still follow the new sets being released and brew and test decks by myself on Magic Workstation). Back then, the main problem I had with them is that I couldn't really tell when and why I would need one in my deck. And this is still true, somehow. Apart from a few that are more clearly build-around-me as they call for specific cards or mechanics (Venser, Koth, partially Liliana), most walkers are just guys for all seasons. When is more correct to include Gideon Jura or Big Jace? The answer is: always, of course. Or better, any time you can, color and cost permitting. Curve considerations apart, indeed, is there a type of deck that wouldn't care about Vraska's Vindicate ability? Or Tamiyo's control/draw shenanigans? Or a free semi-Fact or Fiction every other turn?

 This is something that still partially bothers me to this day, but I came to love both them and playing with them. They're the ultimate strategic card, little battle stations you have to learn to use at the best of their potential. I think their commercial success, besides their huge marketing appeal, comes from the fact that they speak to all the psychographic profiles. Timmy loves to play with these sorts of mini-me that do all kinds of amazing things every turn. Spike clearly sees (the best of) them as efficient cards, and skill-intensive, as you can't just drop one of them and think they'll do all the work for you; they certainly attract the opponent attention almost in any case, but they're also frail (probably the most frail card type in the game)  and need to be defended properly (in this sense, a Wall deck is clearly the best home they can find in Tribal Wars.) And Johnny, well, he still doesn't like their type very much, but he likes SOME of them A LOT. Plus, they're Doubling Season-powered cards, and that's always a plus for Johnny.

 End of my little digression on planeswalkers, which Rex is answering with his own, expanded thoughts here. Despite all of this, slug's deck ended with just a 3-3 score game-wise (plus a bye), so it didn't do very well, but possibly due to bad luck (he could tell you something about evil players drawing a bit too consistently into Natural Order!)

 And that's it.


THE HIGH PRICE OF WINNING

 Also known as: how much do the top decks cost? As of April 26, 2013, here's the answer (MTGO Traders prices; mtgGoldfish charts and analysis; the cheapest version of each card is always used; basic lands count zero):

  • 1st place, romellos's Knights: $175.12 (nonland cards: $82.75; tribal base: $6.65)
  • 2nd place, filegott's Slivers: $553.07 (nonland cards: $198.34; tribal base: $5.44)

 The Sliver deck's high price is due to the fact that it includes ALL the 10 original dual lands, which are merciless these days (since when Bayou is 25 tix?), plus of course Force of Will, which is now back to 92 tix even in promo version, which spells the end of any idea that it would become more accessible. About half the price of the Knight deck, instead, is due to two other big bad cards, Mutavault (which is even a bit down) and Wasteland, which in its typical, mad oscillations is currently worth 60 tix (the promo version is actually cheaper!)

 That deck gives us the chance to look at the current prices of the Mirrodin blades, though, so here they are, in descending order (click the names to see the charts):


REXDART'S SHOW AND TELL

 

 Welcome back to Show & Tell, my ongoing audio/video deck tech series covering Tribal Apocalypse and the Legacy Tribal Wars format! This week had the players building and competing with Singleton decks. The Singleton format has now become part of the core monthly rotation of sub-formats in Tribal Apocalypse, and it is certainly the most radically different variant of Tribal Wars played on a regular basis. That means the variant has a lot of room for those interested in playing around with it to develop new decks and archetypes into powerhouses, and I hope it will be interesting to see how it grows over the course of the year.
 
 For once, Vampires and Goblins didn't dominate Singleton. Instead we saw very strong and flexible aggro builds in the spotlight, such as Slivers and Knights. We also saw a strong Wall control deck built around protecting planeswalkers and riding them to victory. (Both Kuma and I have extensive discussions on 'walkers elsewhere in the article, be sure to check it out!)

 This week's Singleton Spotlight Deck is _Kumagoro_'s Snakes. First let me quickly explain how I'll be covering Singleton. The decks are much more time-consuming to feature, they take longer to actually put together on MTGO and then far longer to analyze all the deck's pieces. My preferred method of examining a Singleton deck (and this goes for Commander also) is to part it out into columns, which are groups of cards that share the same or a similar role in the deck. In a pure aggro deck, this may be as simple as looking at the mana curve, but in more complex decks this will involve sorting cards into several themes and sub-themes. Coverage of Singleton events will involve my selection of one Singleton Spotlight Deck to feature. I will still solicit video as normal during Singleton, and will accept any submissions, and they'll be split between Kuma's main article and my section.
 
 So let's check out these Snakes. Kuma and I have both had past success with this tribe, as has slug360, so they have a pretty strong pedigree in Tribal Apocalypse. As you will see in this deck tech, nearly every gameplay theme that Snakes are known for is featured to some extent in Kuma's build: mana ramp, Ophidian abilities, token generation, deathtouch, and more. 

 In practice, this deck appears to have leaned very heavily on Natural Order into Simic Sky Swallower. The games where he got out SSS seemed to go fairly well, but when he didn't, the deck seemed to lack a bit of juice. In the first replay video, we will see Kuma's Snakes taking care of business against Gq1rf7's white weenie Human deck, then against slug360's Wall control deck.

 Finally, in Round 3, Kuma went up against filegott's 5-color Sliver build. I'm not a big fan of 5-color Slivers in ordinary Tribal Wars, but in Singleton it may be the superior choice. It gives access to the best available Slivers without requiring you to play the most lackluster ones, and your manabase doesn't have to worry about anybody packing 4 Wastelands — though it takes a lot of experience with Singleton to build and successfully play a 5-color deck in the format, as a poor decision about which land to fetch can lose you a match very easily.
 
 Kuma falls behind on life total early under pressure from a Sinew Sliver, but flashing in a Mystic Snake followed by Natural Order into the Simic Leviathan on his turn looked like it might get him back into the game. Unfortunately for Kuma, it is very hard to race when you're at 7 life, and when filegott put enough lifegain abilities on the table it became impossible.

 Coming away from this week, the deck I see the most potential in is the Wall Superfriends deck. The aggro decks are not super-fast or consistent, and opposing control decks are likely loading up on semi-redundant board sweepers, so Planeswalker Control has a chance to survive to the point of establishing its dominating board advantage. This is all theory-crafting, naturally, and we have several more Singleton events this year to see how it all turns out.

 And speaking of planeswalkers, let's talk about... 

PLANESWALKERS IN TRIBAL WARS!

    

 Inspired by Kuma's little discussion on planeswalkers, I wanted to share my thoughts about using them in Tribal Wars. And because there's still a perception that planeswalkers are "money cards", at the end I'll go over a few picks for relatively affordable walkers that can seriously power up your deck.
 In "real" legacy, decks are too fast (and there are too many Wastelands) to be playing 4+ CMC spells all that often. Consequently, only a very few of the most powerful planeswalkers ever see competitive play. But in Tribal Wars, decks are a turn or two slower in general, and walkers are a lot more viable. I completely agree with Kuma that they're among the most difficult cards to play correctly, and you are very likely to use them incorrectly if you don't have a lot of experience with a particular walker. There are four basic features of walkers (putting aside the more narrow "build around me" ones) that I think make them attractive to a deckbuilder in Tribal Wars, and I'll list them in the order of importance: 1. Sweeper-resistance, 2. Flexibility, 3. Incremental card advantage, and 4. Threatening the ultimate.

1) Sweeper-resistance: Ever played against one of AJ_Impy's 8_Wraths.dek specials? An easy way for an aggro deck to fail in this format is for it to rely solely on creatures to win the game. You want to attack along more than one axis, because your opponent likely has more answers to creatures than to non-creature threats. If your board is wiped and your follow-up play is a 2/2 Kithkin, your chances of winning that game are quite low. But if the board wipe leaves behind an Elspeth, Knight-Errant ready to keep spitting out free Soldiers every turn and turning all your creatures into big flying threats to poke through that last chunk of damage? Now we're talking. Walkers in an aggro deck are one of your best tools against control. For this reason, I like to throw a couple copies of Elspeth or Koth into aggro decks as curve-toppers when my deck allows it, and I think both are excellent in this format.

2) and 3) Flexibility & Incremental card advantage: I'll take these two together, since they shine in the same types of decks. Walkers provide incremental advantage like no other card type can. They give you an ability each turn as long as they stay in play, and do it for FREE. They also give you radically different options ranging from aggressive to defensive. For these reasons, midrange decks are among the best homes for walkers. Midrange decks need to survive long enough against aggro to take over with superior threats, while also being able to pressure control decks. Garruk Relentless is a great recent example. He can use his "fight" ability defensively against an aggro deck, or pick off a utility creature, or attack a control player with an endless stream of free Wolf tokens.

4) Threatening the ultimate: A planeswalker whose ultimate basically wins you the game does a lot of things. For one, it forces your opponent to devote resources towards killing it. Kuma mentions Vraska, and despite her ultimate having "win the game" in its text, I think she's a prime example of a walker some opponents will ignore — a deck set up to deal with creatures primarily can likely deal with the Assassin tokens better than it can the walker herself. On the other hand, Big Jace and Ajani Vengeant have ultimates that most decks cannot possibly beat. Unfortunately, this sort of ability plays the best in creature-light control decks. Tribal Wars control decks usually have to rely on the noncreature spell slots for control elements and use a creature as a finisher. One of the reasons slug360's deck this past week was notable is that this usual formula is turned on its head, as the Walls help slow down the aggro opponent while the walkers get to do the work of actually winning the game. 

 Because of budget concerns, a lot of powerful walkers have been rarely seen in the Tribal Apocalypse PRE. But if you're looking to add a bit of support to your tribe, there are several under 5 tix that could make a big difference for your deck. And remember: you don't need a whole playset of these cards as they just fill a supporting role. Here are just a few ideas (prices are from MTGO Traders.com as of April 26):

 Gideon, Champion of Justice Gideon, Champion of Justice (4.17 tix): Though underwhelming in Standard at the moment, this new walker from Gatecrash seems a perfect fit for Tribal Wars' creature-heavy mirror matches, quickly growing out of hand and forcing your opponent to make questionable attacks into it or face an ultimate that is completely crushing.

 Koth of the Hammer Koth of the Hammer (4.38 tix): Mono-red aggro's best Plan C since 2010, Koth will finish the job when the critters and burn can't, and really shines against a control opponent. Two or three copies at the top of your curve is a great number.

 Garruk Wildspeaker Garruk Wildspeaker (1.59 tix): For the Tribal Wars format, Garruk is the most powerful and versatile of the original 5 walkers. His mana-generation and token-creation are solid in midrange decks. He can be slotted into ramp decks as a spell to take you from 4 to 6/7 mana while also providing a blocker the turn he comes down. And in ramp decks with lots of mana-dorks, his ultimate Overrun ability should win the game.

 Gideon Jura Gideon Jura (3.86 tix): Now down to a fraction of his once-lofty price, the original Gideon should be seeing much more play in Tribal Wars than he presently is. This is a walker I played with constantly in paper magic for more than 2 years, and he was solid against both aggro and control. At worst, he typically kills a creature and fogs the board for at least a turn. At best, he completely takes over a game. Any white-based control or midrange deck should strongly consider a couple copies.

 Finally, remember: the Old Fogey Deckbuilding Challenge is still available! This week is Pure Tribal, so a few decent old-timey tribes and spells are off the table. Still this is a good week to try for the prize! To win the reward of one non-foil, digital copy of Sylvan Library from Masters Edition I, here's what you have to do:

  1. Construct a tribal deck using ONLY cards that were originally printed (in paper Magic) in one of the following sets: Alpha/Beta/Unlimited, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, The Dark, Fallen Empires. (Because these sets were not released online except in Masters Editions and other reprints, please be sure to use the Gatherer online tool to check legality.)
  2. Your tribal identity may NOT be Human or Soldier.
  3. The following cards are BANNED from this challenge: Crusade, Bad Moon.
  4. You must enter a Tribal Apocalypse event with your deck and obtain at least 2 match wins, not counting forfeits or byes.

 Good luck!

 DISCLAIMER STUFF: Only one prize is available. In case multiple players accomplish this in the same event, the player with the greater number of valid match wins takes the prize; if two or more players are still tied, the player whose tribe has the fewest lifetime Hall of Fame points will take the prize. If the players are still tied, a random choice will award the prize. Also: please note that the winner will be determined by reviewing decklists AFTER the event. This means that the winner will not be officially chosen until the announcement is made on the following Friday, within this article here on PureMTGO.com. If you are the winner, you may collect your prize from me by messaging RexDart on MTGO after the winner is announced.

 Check the complete archive of RexDart's Deck Techs here.


ANNOUNCEMENT TIME!

 Just to remind you of a few things:

 The Tribal Achievements: welcome to the second season of the Tribal Achievements! Find new ways to have fun within Tribal Apocalypse, challenge yourself to complete all kinds of strange MTG feats, and make some tix in the process.

 The Hamtastic Award: the Biodiversity Prize dedicated to the memory of Erik Friborg has started again, for its 6th edition: be the first to run 10 different tribes in a row and you'll get 5 tix on SBena_Bot! You have to play all the rounds of an event in order for the tribe to be added to your sequence. If you repeat a previous tribe, your whole sequence resets. And the freshly crowned winner of the 5th edition is... we don't know yet, but we'll find out on May 4, in occasion of the Hamtastic Day, when romellos and slug360 will fight for the prize right before that day's TribAp event (which will start at 15:00 GMT, remember!) They both reached 10 tribes in a row, and now they'll have to do a faceoff using one of those, chosen by the opponent!

 The Mongoose Pride Prize!  As the last tribe standing after everyone else had been played at least once, Mongoose has become the protagonist of a dedicated prize that will remember forever that you all neglected them despite Nimble Mongoose being featured in high-profile, tier-1 Legacy decks. The Mongoose Pride Prize will permanently award 1 tix (at SBena_Bot) to everyone who'll just... play Mongoose. That's right, you just have to play them and you'll get 1 tix, till the end of times. Well, there's just one clause: you have to win at least one match with them within the event (byes and forfeits don't count). Let's show them all what the mighty Herpestidae can do, shall we?

  
Hard to kill, hard to play (apparently)

 The Champion Challenge: challenge one of our Tribal Champions, and win an Egg of Tarmogoyf (aka a Future Sight booster, courtesy of SBena_Bot) and 20 points in the seasonal leaderboard! In order to do that, you must: 1) choose one of the Challenge Decks; 2) end X-1 or better with it in a Tribal Apocalypse event; 3) beat its creator in a challenge! Follow this link for the complete ruling and the decklists.

 The Bringer Challenge is on! A new, crazy pentacolored challenge has been issued! After Elder, Kirin, Nephilim and Volver, it's time for a true heavy weight, the kind I like best: be the first player who'll win a proper match (no byes, no opponent forfeiting) with a Bringer deck featuring 4 copies of each of them, and you'll win 1 tix and admiration, both from me!

            
C'mon, this time is alluring!

 The Top Players Lockout: every time a Top Player (either a Google Era Top 8, an Ultimate Champion or a seasonal Top 8) will end undefeated, they will not be allowed to register the same tribe and deck again for 4 events (i.e. they'll have to register a different deck or decks 4 times before coming back to the undefeated one). With "deck" is meant a specific, recognizable archetype (e.g. Wall-Drazi), which in some case will be linked to a specific combo card (e.g. Helm of Obedience). A list of the current lockouts is maintained here.

 The Watch List: some particular, archetype-defining cards have been put into a specific Watch List, giving them Annoyance Levels based on how frequently they show up and their degree of success. Once a card gets to Level 3 or more, it'll be banned until enough weeks will have passed to make its appearance ratio acceptable again. So far, with 13 cards on watch, none of them reaches an Annoyance Level.

 Videos: Send me replays of your games, please! Don't know how? Read this quick guide in 6 easy steps and start saving your tribal feats for posterity!


 WHAT'S NEXT

 The upcoming Tribal Apocalypse events of the Blippian Era (every Saturday at 17:00 GMT):

  • 3.16 (Week 121 BE), on April 27: Pure Tribal (no off-tribe creatures, no Big Shot Tribes nor T9 cards allowed)
  • 3.17 (Week 122 BE), on May 4: Tribal Underdog (only Underdog Tribes allowed) — Part of the Hamtastic Day, with anticipated start at 15:00 GMT
  • 3.18 (Week 123 BE), on May 11: Regular Week (just plain, old Legacy Tribal Wars)
  • 3.19 (Week 124 BE), on May 18: Tribal Singleton (only 1 copy of each nonbasic land)

Check out the full Tribal Calendar for 2013!

Take the Tribal Survey!

 See you all in the Tribal room!