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By: Tribal Apocalypse, Tribal Apocalypse
Feb 13 2015 1:00pm
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 Welcome back to Tribal Apocalypse!

   Table of Contents 

  1. Last Week on Tribal Apocalypse...
  2. The High Price of Winning
  3. Announcement Time!
  4. What's Next

Check the full archive for the "Diaries of the Apocalypse" series


THOUGHTS OF A TRIBAL HOST
by Kumagoro

 Did you buy any Fate Reforged card for your tribal decks yet? Last week, when they were legal for the first time, we had our first Myr/Ugin combination, which was nice to see. Except if you were sitting at the other side of the table.

  

 Speaking of crazy stuff and first things, do you realize that on March 28AJ_Impy and vantar6697 will grant their first 10 tix prize to the player who cleared the most achievements? Which so far means our resident Hong Kong lady Michelle_Wong, who achieved a grand total of ONE achievement so far. If you're fine with Michelle winning 10 tix like that, go ahead, don't try and best her.


LAST WEEK ON TRIBAL APOCALYPSE...

  • Event Number: 5.05, Week 214 BE
  • Date: February 7
  • Attendance: 18
  • Rounds: 4
  • Subformat: Underdog
  • Winner: mihahitlor (Soltari)
  • 1 Loss: m4vis (Myr), AJ_Impy (Avatar), Winter.Wolf (Rhino), ScionOfJustice (Kor)
  • True Underdog Prize: Winter.Wolf (Rhino)
  • Tribes: Avatar, Berserker (x2), Centaur (x2), Fish, Kor, Minotaur, Mutant, Myr, Plant, Rat (x2), Rhino, Shapeshifter, Soltari, Sphinx, Thopter
  • Event link (with all players, pairings, standings, decks, and results): here it is

 First win of the year (lots of firsts this week!) for mihahitlor, who takes back from romellos (who's apparently taking a vacation after last year's feat) the position of most successful player in 5 years of Tribal Apocalypse, with a mindblowing 24 first places. All essentially on a budget, event, thanks to simple monocolored decks like this Soltari one.

 

 While waiting for interviews to romellos and Invitational winner MisterMojoRising, we can revisit miha's own one here.

 Now let's take a look at those appropriately colorless, Ugin-sanctioned Myr (also featuring his Eye, of course), courtesy of m4vis the Kingslayer.

 

 Ugin popped up in AJ_Impy's monowhite Avatar list too, that made Top 4 while pairing the Spirit Dragon with the other colorless walker.

 

 I like this list very much, there's several interesting interactions like the semi-forgotten World Queller with the still mostly obscure Hallowed Spiritkeeper (the C14 cards have had a really poor diffusion online). And Soul of Theros doesn't get much love, too, but it can be crucial, and also a good fit for the Spiritkeeper. I'd like to play this list myself, as it is, and that rarely happens to me, even with AJ's brews.

 

 By the way, did you notice that Ugin and Karn are, like, the two most relentless "good guys" of all the walkers? They're like, I don't know, these:

 

Except, you know, picture them while fighting Eldrazi and Phyrexians.

 From white and colorless to 5-color: To round out the Top 4, we have Winter.Wolf with True Underdog tribe Rhino, which recently took attention thanks to the Siege variety. And there's also Chromanticore here, because... I didn't really get why? Any word on that, Paul?


THE HIGH PRICE OF WINNING

  

 Here's the prices of all the featured decks, courtesy of the amazing Deck Pricer from mtgGoldfish (MTGO Traders prices as of February 13, 2015):

 The Top 10 Cheapest Decks that Went Undefeated

  1. morpphling's Goblins, $2.35, 2nd place on Event 102
  2. Gq1rf7's Goblins, $3.32, 1st place on Event 154 (cheapest event winner)
  3. MisterMojoRising's Insects, $3.55, 2nd place on Event 201
  4. Gq1rf7's Goblins, $3.58, 1st place on Event 169
  5. Gq1rf7's Goblins, $3.70, 1st place on Event 145
  6. Gq1rf7's Goblins, $4.12, 2nd place on Event 141
  7. Gq1rf7's Assassins, $4.18, 1st place on Event 147
  8. Trickerie's Golems, $4.31, 1st place on Event 138
  9. Gq1rf7's Vampires, $4.38, 2nd place on Event 188
  10. arcbounddaylabor's Goblins, $4.46, 1st place on Event 111

 NOTE: not adjusted to current prices; data collected since Event 85. 


ANNOUNCEMENT TIME!

 Just to remind you of a few things:

 

 Cockatrice Wants You! And Badger, too! Be the first to win a match with these new eligible tribes and you'll win a 1-tix certificate from MTGO Traders. Remember: only tribes with at least 3 members are effectively considered tribes in Tribal Apocalypse (since tribes that field an equal or greater number of Changelings than actual members count as Shapeshifter decks). Tribes with exactly 3 members are allowed to play in Underdog events with 8 slots filled by Changelings, whereas nobody else (but, of course, Shapeshifter decks) can play with more than 4 Changelings in those events. And of course this will happen only as soon as the Changelings will work on V4 as promised.

 The Underdog Prize: During any event of the regular rotation (but not during the one-time special events), all players who are running an Underdog Tribe are eligible for a 1-tix credit on Pennybot. The tie-breakers are first the number of Underdog categories (for instance, a tribe that's simultaneously Endangered and Unhallowed will take the prize over one that's only Endangered), then the points achieved in the final standings. During Underdog events, only the True Underdog tribes are rewarded (those are the tribes belonging to all three categories of Underdog at once).

 The Up-and-Coming Prize: When a tribe wins an event for the first time ever (losing Unhallowed status), its pilot will get a 3-tix certificate from MTGO Traders.

 The Hamtastic Award: The Biodiversity Prize dedicated to the memory of Erik Friborg has started the first quarter of 2015. The quarter will end March 28. By that date, the player or players who registered the greatest number of different tribes will get a 5-tix certificate from MTGO Traders.

 The Achievements (sponsored by AJ_Impy and vantar6697): Unlock the greatest number of Achievements from this list and AJ and vantar will grant you 10 tix per quarter! The current quarter will end March 28. Players with the same number of achievements will split the prize. 10 more tix will be given at the end of the year to that whole season's Achievement Master. Good luck!

 The Top Players Lockout: Every time a Top Player (either a Google Era Top 8, an Ultimate Champion/Tribal Player of the Year, or a seasonal Top 8) will end undefeated, they will not be allowed to register the same tribe and deck again for 5 events (i.e. they'll have to register a different deck or decks 5 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.

 Videos: Send us replays of your games and we'll feature them in these articles! Don't know how? Read this quick guide in 5 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):

  • 5.06 (Week 215 BE), on February 14: Regular
  • 5.06 (Week 216 BE), on February 21: Regular
  • 5.07 (Week 217 BE), on February 28: Pure
  • 5.08 (Week 218 BE), on March 7: Underdog

Check out all the rules for the sub-formats!

Check out the full Tribal Calendar for 2015!

Vote for your favorite Trampler on the Topdeck Awards!

SEE YOU ALL IN THE TRIBAL ROOM!

5 Comments

"...And there's also by Paul Leicht at Fri, 02/13/2015 - 19:20
Paul Leicht's picture
5

"...And there's also Chromanticore here, because... I didn't really get why? Any word on that, Paul?"

Because Chromanticore provides all kinds of fun. 5 color Rhinos, with the flying vigilance, trampling, first striking, lifelinker to top it off gives the deck just a little extra reach. I admit it is more fun than good (cf: my round 3 loss to Ugin.dec with dark depths supercombo against which basically none of my cards were going to have any effect except maybe a hard to find plow) but it does have an appeal to me.

In particularly the evasive lifelinking not only fits well against burn based decks (because turn 3 siege into turn 4-5 chromanticore as an aura on it is a beating very few burn decks will come back from) but also chord of calling for 5 to block something big with your first striker is pretty insane.

More questionable probably is the 6 cost rhino which while fun is hard to get going. And even if you do a well timed wrath can still hurt it a lot if you don't have an escort ready.

I would like to point out that two of my opponents were really new to the format (I think) and another (Michelle Wong) had a great Sphinges deck (UW only) that just had trouble against me largely due to our draws and comeuppance not being so hot against my higher toughness guys. I felt quite sure I was going to lose that match at any moment because she had all the makings of a very tight control deck.

The minotaur guy also gave me some scares starting out a game up and game 2 seemed like a squeaker until I was able to take over with a chromanticore laden siege rhino.

Interestingly this deck is one I was going to bring another time and last minute decided against. This time I had another deck ready to go (initially entered into gatherling.com) and thought about this deck and went with it instead.

Were I to run it again I might tighten up the removal a bit. Winds of Rath is really funny when you have a chromanticore on something but that is a pretty narrow situation. Probably better to just have wrath of god. And while we are at it, I am not 100% sold on Council.

It has some applicability against indestructibles and that's an important thing to note, but it is slow and costs 3 which is a heavy handicap.

Council's drawback is not by AJ_Impy at Fri, 02/13/2015 - 21:52
AJ_Impy's picture

Council's drawback is not hitting lands: being able to exile a Progenitus, True Name Nemesis or any other hexproof/prot everything threat makes the cost and sorcery speed acceptable.

what's up with suncom? is by m4vis at Wed, 02/18/2015 - 13:29
m4vis's picture

what's up with suncom? is that not a thing anymore?

I passed it down to Gordani by Kumagoro42 at Fri, 02/20/2015 - 10:05
Kumagoro42's picture

I passed it down to Gordani last year. I now see there hasn't been a new event since December. We used to have a hard time finding enough players, anyway. Despite the big prizes. I'll look into it.

Suncom by Gordani at Fri, 02/20/2015 - 10:50
Gordani's picture

It's back, well at least preregistration. Need players XD. I got released from hospital and had no internet till this week. Now I'm up and running its time to restart.