Welcome back to Tribal Apocalypse!
Table of Contents
- Last Year on Tribal Apocalypse...
- The High Price of Winning
- Announcements
- What's Next
Check the full archive for the "Diaries of the Apocalypse" series
INTRODUCING THE 2023 CALENDAR!
Habemus calendarium! Check it out! The way I composed it, we'll have:
- 12 Underdog events
- 8 each of Modern, Pioneer and Legacy
- 4 Standard, roughly one month after each premier set release
- 2 each of Commander 1v1, Penny Dreadful and SilverBlack
- 5 special events, including the four Season Festivals (with Halloween for autumn and Yule for winter – which was formerly known as Christmas) and some still undefined celebration for Magic's 30th anniversary.
There might be some moving around to do for the Standard event corresponding to Wilds of Eldraine, which doesn't have a release date yet (whereas we'll probably do The Lost Caverns of Ixalan in January 2024). And that's a grand total of 51 events, so the 50-tribe Hamtastic Award record set in 2022 by -DiamondDust- is now beatable!
LAST YEAR ON TRIBAL APOCALYPSE...
As you probably surmised from the calendar, the Invitational is gone. Competitive attitudes are best left in the past, so the leaderboard will now be used uniquely to determine top player lockouts. Still, we had a leaderboard for season 12, and the Top 3 players deserve at least a shout-out with one of their winning lists.
Number 3, with 226 seasonal points and 5 first places (Elemental, Archon, Giant, Elemental, Phyrexian): AJ_Impy.
Number 2, with 240 seasonal points and 10 first places (Goblin, Phyrexian, Druid, Dryad, Human, Angel, Ranger, Minotaur, Cleric, Human): Yokai_.
Number 1, with 297 seasonal points and 7 first places (Fish, Angel, Assassin, Phyrexian, Warrior, Artificer, Scout): ThyShuffler. Kudos!
For the records, the most winning tribes have been Human with 7 first places, followed by Phyrexian with 6, while tied at third place we have Angel, Giant and Spirit with 4. This seems enough to me to finally and officially move Phyrexian out of Underdog, effective immediately. Especially with the next few premier sets being bound to add more powerful new members to the tribe.
THE HIGH PRICE OF WINNING
Here's the prices of all the featured decks (MTGO Traders prices as of January 6, 2023):
- AJ_Impy's Elementals: $367.25
- Yokai_'s Dryads: $115.37
- ThyShuffler's Phyrexians: $71.49
The Top 10 Cheapest Decks that Went Undefeated
- -DiamondDust-'s Dinosaurs, $0.98, 2nd place on Event 539
- SirFalcon2008's Goblins, $1.54, 1st place on Event 389
- mihahitlor's Warriors, $1.95, 1st place on Event 233
- morpphling's Vampires, $2.25, 1st place on Event 285
- morpphling's Goblins, $2.35, 2nd place on Event 102
- JogandoPelado's Berserkers, $2.80, 1st place on Event 248
- kokonade1000's Berserkers, $2.95, 2nd place on Event 354
- MisterMojoRising's Beasts, $.3.01, 1st place on Event 484
- Gq1rf7's Goblins, $3.32, 1st place on Event 154
- Bandit Keith's Soldiers, $3.48, 1st place on Event 422
The Top 5 Cheapest Non-Goblin Decks that Went Undefeated
- -DiamondDust-'s Dinosaurs, $0.98, 2nd place on Event 539
- mihahitlor's Warriors, $1.95, 1st place on Event 233
- morpphling's Vampires, $2.25, 1st place on Event 285
- JogandoPelado's Berserkers, $2.80, 1st place on Event 248
- kokonade1000's Berserkers, $2.95, 2nd place on Event 354
NOTE: not adjusted to current prices; data collected since Event 85.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Just to remind you of a few things:
The Dark Horse Prize: During any event of the regular rotation (but not necessarily during the one-time special events), all players who are running an Underdog Tribe are eligible for a 1-tix credit certificate from MTGO Traders. 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.
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 New Kids on the Block Award: When a new tribe is introduced in the game, or reaches enough members to be played as a proper tribe (i.e. at least 3 members, so you can build a deck that features 4 copies of each plus 8 Changeling creatures), the first player to score a match win with it will get a 3-tix certificate from MTGO Traders. You'll need a hard win, not a BYE or a win by no-show of your opponent. Tribes currently eligible for the award: Beholder.
The New Repopulation Award: Play all rounds of a Tribal Apocalypse event with a tribe that's been played only three times or fewer, and you'll get a 1-tix certificate from MTGO Traders. The list of eligible tribes is here (the leftmost column, from the end). Tribes that didn't exist before this season aren't eligible.
The Hamtastic Award: The Biodiversity Prize dedicated to the memory of Erik Friborg rewards each player who registers 10 different tribes (except Human, Elf and Goblin) during the year with a 3-tix certificate from MTGO Traders. You can go on and win the prize multiple times in the year, but you need to keep playing different tribes! (So if you manage to register 50 different tribes in one season, you can get up to 15 tix!)
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 in a specific format, they will not be allowed to register the same tribe and deck again in that format for 3 events (i.e. they'll have to register a different deck three times before coming back to the undefeated one). In some cases, specific combo or archetype-defining cards will also be locked out. A list of the current lockouts is maintained here.
We're on Discord! Join us from here, chat about tribal things with other tribal players and arrange tribal games on MTGO all week long! (Or your can just keep using our Google Sheets bulletin board).
WHAT'S NEXT
The upcoming Tribal Apocalypse events of the Blippian Era (every Saturday at 17:00 GMT):
- 13.01 (Week 623 BE), on January 7: Underdog
- 13.02 (Week 624 BE), on January 14: Pioneer
- 13.03 (Week 625 BE), on January 21: Modern
- 13.04 (Week 626 BE), on January 28: Commander 1v1
Check out the ban lists and the event calendar.
SEE YOU ALL IN THE #TRIBAL ROOM!
Art disclaimers. Revel in Riches art by Eric Deschamps; Herald of Anafenza art by Aaron Miller.
