---

 

Welcome back to another week of Tribal goodness, as you will have realized ShardFenix wasn't able to make this week so I stepped in to keep the home fires burning. For those of you who haven't had the chance to take part in this fun event it runs every Saturday at 12:30 EDT in the /join Tribal room the event is sponsored by www.mtgotraders.com. If you're looking for something to do on a Saturday to show off your deck building skills then this is the event for you. 

This week I decided to run one of the new titans, last week I built around Sun Titan and this week I'm back with my giants but this time running a very different build with the grand Inferno Titan.

 

So let's have a look at what's going on in the deck, there are a number of things that make the deck rather interesting the first is Boldwyr Heavyweights which on first look seems like a bad idea they are an 8/8 for and when they come into play your opponent can choose a creature from his library and put it into play it's not so bad vs weenie decks but anything else and you could see Eldrazi or Akroma hitting the table across from you or even worse Shriekmaw which would kill your giant. There are two answers to the problem to minimize the draw back the first is Aven Mindcensor which isn't in our colours today the second is Mindlock Orb which stops your opponent from searching their library all together. It's also very useful these days because a lot of players use fetch lands such as Misty Rainforest and it shuts those down as well leaving them with a land that doesn't tap for mana.

I'm playing the Thundercloud Shamans again this week as they act like a one sided Pyroclasm and are so good vs weenie decks. For the basic run of the mill giant I went with Lowland Giant from Tempest. Next up is Cragganwick Cremator he's a bargain giant for  for a 5/4 he does have a downside that becomes an advantage in this deck, when he comes into play you discard a card at random from your hand and if it's a creature he deals damage equal to the creatures power to target player. Now imagine that if we have Boldwyr Heavyweights in hand, eight to the dome.

Now onto the main giant of the deck Inferno Titan he costs  mana to cast with the following ability

: Inferno Titan gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
Whenever Inferno Titan enters the battlefield or attacks, it deals 3 damage divided as you choose among one, two, or three target creatures and/or players.

Now I'm not so interested in his pump ability as we've all seen that before, it's his titan ability that's very powerful when he enters play you have three damage to assign between creatures and players which is very good and each time he attacks he also triggers this ability as well. So I decided to make the most of this and speed him into play via Seething Song and then while he's in play bounce him for extra damage with Turn to Mist and believe me it's very effective.

To round the deck out I used Propaganda to slow down any weenie decks and Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle in case we get stuck on the wrong side of a Moat. My only artifact and enchantment removal this week is a lone Nevinyrral's Disk, it's a risk but one I was willing to take. 

Well I didn't do so well in the actual event I won my first match against Scartore and his bird deck mainly due to Thundercloud Shaman's wrath effect but after that it all went downhill. Next I played Winter.Wolf who was running clerics and I just couldn't seem to gain any advantage over his deck we had some epic games but Winter.Wolf was in control most of the time. The last deck I faced was piloted by Spider Loc who was also running clerics with a slightly different build and as you may have guessed I lost again due to the same issues I faced with Winter.Wolf.

That's enough about my deck let's move on to the decks that landed in the prizes this week. First up are the decks that went 2-1 

 

I really like how this deck plays using both Soul's Attendant and Soul Warden to start gaining life early on and then using the Master Apothecary to prevent any damage that could get through. Just when you think you have a hold over the deck Emeria, the Sky Ruin kicks in and starts recycling the Benevolent Bodyguard's dishing out protection. The removal package in this deck is truly awesome as well it really is a deck worth trying out.

 

Next is fliebana's vampire deck, the vampires in this deck you need to be very careful of as its sporting the best of the best that the blood suckers have to offer. Starting off with four Guul Draz Assassin's as the weenie removal in the early game you really need to take these guys out before they level up to their top level and start giving out -4/-4 to your main creatures. The gatekeepers are as deadly as ever when you throw in Dark Ritual they can even take out any turn one threats that are ramped into play. Four Vampire Nighthawk's which are really standard in vampire builds these days and then if you can cope with all that you get hit by either Malakir Bloodwitch or Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief. Of course we can't forget the lady of the macabre Liliana Vess and her sidekick Sorin Markov who give the deck that extra bite, literally.

 

Moving on the next deck was by Spider Loc who was also running a Cleric build it is similar to Winter.Wolf's build in some ways in that it has the Master Apothecary and Benevolent Bodyguard's. But that's where the similarities end as Spider Loc goes for a more combat oriented build with Order of Leitbur and the Battletide Alchemist. It also runs Martyr of Sands which I haven't seen in a while but is by no means a bad card far from it. Instead of using Emeria, the Sky Ruin to bring back the clerics from the graveyard Spider Loc call's upon the aid of the mighty Sun Titan's. Also note that Spider Loc went for more mass removal where Winter.Wolf went mostly with spot removal. It's very interesting to see the take on both decks, when playing them they did feel very similar in the fact that they both left me helpless with not a giant in sight.

 

The deck name really gives this deck away as it does what it says on the tin "Thoughtfree elfball". Yes the elves are back in business this week I was going to say it's your normal Legacy list until I looked a bit harder and noticed that it's missing Nettle Sentinel to go with the Glimpse of Nature's. The deck has a slightly different twist to it in that it ramps up its mana and if you don't die to elf beats the deck can steal all your land with Elvish Archdruid or burn you to death with Banefire and if you're having a really bad day it can do both and kill you with the mana from your stolen lands powered through Banefire or Fireball just to add insult to injury.

 

We have a second elf deck that made it into the 2-1's this week which was played by Melissafey. This is a theme deck that Melissa will be writing an article on so I'm not going to give you any info on it, you will have to wait for her article to get the low down (of course this article may be published after hers so if that's the case you already know all about it).

There was one more deck which I haven't received at the time of writing this article which was for Senjir…J I have no idea what it was, so if your reading this please feel free to add your deck list in the comments section.

Now it's time to look at the top two decks that went 3-0 into the final the first is

 

Now AJ was on a crusade this week to prove a point that something really needs to be done about RDW (red deck wins) and it clearly does. The deck may not have won the event but that shouldn't take away the spot light on how powerful this deck can be I believe AJ had a turn three win off of this beast. Chandra's Spitfire along with Kiln Fiend and Ball Lightning don't really leave you much of a chance and just when you think you survived the turn you get hit by Fireblast taking away those last points of life. Yes the deck is really that good and I'm sure the situation will be discussed in the comments. Can you ban an archetype? You can't ban individual cards to weaken it as its the sum of all the parts put together that make it so strong and fast. You also can't build to fight an archetype in tribal effectively as you will weaken your deck against other archetypes what works for one doesn't work for another.

The other deck that went 3-0 and went through to win the final is..

 

Mangiafuoco piloted a mono white human deck all the way through the event defeating the dreaded red elementals to take 1st place this week. The humans are based around lifegain similar to the cleric decks this week with Soul Warden, Transcendent Master and Serra Ascendant. You then have the knights Knight of the White Orchid which also acts as a mana stabilizer and Student of Warfare who can get silly if you don't take her out early. To aid the humans we have the excellent Exalted Angel which also has lifelink, then Sun Titan for graveyard recursion. If you spend too long playing hit and run with this deck you will eventually wake Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and then your days will be numbered as he crushes all who stand in his way. The other spells in the deck are the wrath effects Day of Judgment and Martial Coup.

We are lacking in something this week if you go back and look at all the decks that made the prizes we have mono white, black, red, green but no blue. I thought this was a bit strange so I looked back over a few of Shard's articles and couldn't find a mono blue deck in sight. I know we have had a few run inn's with Merfolk in the past but that was a while ago.

So I'm going to issue a challenge for next week. Each player that goes 3-0 with a mono blue deck in next week's Tribal Apocalypse event I'll add a Lorthos, the Tidemaker to their prize pool. Now of course I'm not going to make it as easy as that there be rules to this competition mates, the first is that thy deck may not contain Merfolk or Faeries of any kind. You should never trust a Mermaid as they will drag you down to old davey jones locker for all of eternity. Oh and Eldrazi are well out so don't even think about it, you may use artifacts but if you use colorless artifact creatures they can't be your tribe.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to play in the event or not next week, If I don't I'll issue out the octopuses after Shard's Tribal Apocalypse article is published.

I'd like to thank everyone that turned up to play this week especially those I hunted down just before the event started and of course MTGOTraders for sponsoring the event.

See you online Flippers_Giraffe

---

Links

  My PureMTGO Archive / The Rare Drafter July / The Coalition League