How do we miss them... not.

 But what's even curiouser are the unique members: Obsianus Golem was the original Golem; Prodigal Sorcerer was the original Wizard; Scryb Sprites was the original Faerie (in green!); and of course, Sengir Vampire was the original Vampire, and Giant Spider was already there as the original Spider.

   

Some of these tribes would become more interesting along the road. Others would get some much-needed fashion advice.

 What to do with all of this? Well, a more detailed article possibly, as I always love these kinds of trips down the memory lane. But maybe also a theme week next year. Wouldn't that be cool? A week devoted to the very roots of the tribal side of the game, with only the Original Tribes allowed (maybe excluding too obvious Elf, Goblin, and Human), to see how far they went from there in these (gulp!) nearly 20 years. Maybe with a special prize for using the very Original Members in the decks. Not a lot of those are still played these days. I believe the longest success histories are Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, and Lord of Atlantis.

    

Unless you count the 19-year tenure of Giant Spider as "Again With That Stupid Thing!" as a success.

 But enough with the (distant) past. Let's talk about the (recent) past.

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• Event Number: 2.50, Week 102 BE
• Date: December 15
• Attendance: 22
• Rounds: 3 (for technical reasons, should have been 4 actually)
• Special Rules: none
• Top 4: gbagyt (Human, undefeated); morpphling (Goblin, undefeated); Jerkburton77 (Ninja, undefeated); Dolane97 (Vampire, 1 loss)
• Special Prizes: Endangered Prize and Up-and-Coming Prize to Jerkburton77 (Ninja); Semi-Virgin Prize to Malum (Weird); Topical Prize to Gq1rf7 (Elemental)
• Tribes: Construct, Demon, Efreet, Elemental, Elf (x2), Goblin (x3), Human (x3), Kithkin, Kor, Merfolk, Ninja, Rogue, Shaman, Shapeshifter, Vampire (x2), Weird
• Event link (with all players, pairings, standings, decks, and results): here it is

 A little classic stuff, a little novel stuff. And a little returning stuff. Congrats to old glory gbagyt for coming back to 1st place (and to the tournament) after 90 weeks! Last time in the long, long forgotten Event 12 was with Knight. This time with this Human build that brings our real-life counterpart tribe to the record 9 wins, leaving Elves (8 wins) and both Goblins and Walls (7 wins each) behind. I should find a name to these four, uber-successfull tribes. The Usual Suspects? The Hatetastic Four?

 

 Love the Commander feeling of all those 1-of and legendary guys. With this lifegain-heavy build, gbagyt also got the Felidar Sovereign achievement (while specialist Chamale brought back his 250-card monstrosity to finally unlock the Battle of Wits one, plus the Helvault one while at it).

 And here's at 2nd place another of the Hatetastic Four (guess I chose the name, after all), namely Goblin by morpphling, who comes a-swinging directly from Brazil:

 

 A few interesting choices here: Goblin Fireslinger over Goblin Guide seems bizarre, but Ember Hauler is solid, as is the pauper-inspired Mogg Flunkies. And you gotta love the unexplored (pun intended) interaction between Goblin Grenade and a forgotten card like Tuktuk the Explorer. Even when oh so slightly moved to almost-midrange, aggro Goblins still rock (morpphling even managed to go one step up of his original placement after the playoff round). Also, they make for unbelievable cheap builds. And when I say "unbelievable", I really mean it. Check the price for this deck, then don a hat, then tip it to Senhor Morpphling.

 A break from tradition comes at 3rd place: newcomer Jerkburton77 (a warm welcome to you, sir!) using Ninja, at their very first Top 4 result (yet undefeated, which earns them the Up-and-Coming Prize nonetheless) during the course of their 7 appearances within the Blippian Era.

 

 We see one of the recent, strong Planechase 2012 addition here in Silent-Blade Oni (surprisingly, no Sakashima's Student. Budget issues? The deck is strongly budget-friendly, a couple Students would cost more than the whole list). And great flavor with both the support cards, Artful Dodge and Sai of the Shinobi. A definitely strong deck that still doesn't lose track of a more Vorthos-like sensibility. Good job, sir.

 Fourth place, another newcomer (we had plenty this week: a salute to jimbilly517 too, coming 5h place with Human): fellow West-European (he's French) Dolane97 with Vampires.

 

 Solid Rakdos build with a good balance between early pressure and mid-game options. We'll have the chance to see it in action in a bit (see below).

 And these were my Shamans, a Kiki-Jiki build that I like for a multitude of reasons (because it's Shaman, because it's a Birthing Pod deck, because there's my beloved Kiki-Jiki, because I paid 3 tix for my own Kiki-Jikis and now they're almost 26 tix each, so I'm probably selling one right now as you read this):

 

 The fact that it's a deck with only creatures and lands (except for the 4 Pods) makes Mul Daya Channelers a force to be reckoned with, as shown here against milegyenanevem's Merfolks:

 The final game of the same match, where the Birthing Pod had an active role:

 And here's the very close, decisive game of the match I lost to Dolane97 and his Vampires, despite the Pod having an active role (or trying to). My chances for a Top 4 placement evaporated after that anti-climatic endgame. Good games overall, though.

 As for our resident tribal guru AJ_Impy, this week he felt like building a Construct deck then piloted it to a 2-1 score (along with me and jimbilly517, as already mentioned, plus _BIG_BROTHERS_ with Elf, romellos with Kithkin, bdgp009 with Goblin, and ellmaris with Vampire).

 

 And here's his comment about it: "This is a fun little aggro-combo deck. The main body works as an aggressive Robots build, using 0-mana bodies pumped by Steel Overseer, Adaptive Automaton and Tempered Steel. Tucked in behind that is a Matryoshka Hulk combo using Summoner's Egg to cheat Protean Hulk into play, Hulk to fetch four Disciple of the Vault, all the 0-cost Constructs and if necessary Thermal Navigator as a sacrifice outlet, which then get thrown in the enemy's face at instant speed for the win. Sadly the replay for the aggro win game was unretrievable, but here's a
combo win". And the win is game 3 against current all-time #1 player mihahitlor, who was piloting a Human build (without much success this time).

 Finally, AJ's complementary colors for Malum, who brought his RTR-reinforced, 5-tribesmen Weird deck to the field, and up to winning the Semi-Virgin Prize. And that's actually not weird at all, since most of the other players were using well-known, popular tribes (shame on them).

 

 And that's it.

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THE HIGH PRICE OF WINNING

 Also known as: how much do the Top 4 decks cost? As of December 21, 2012, here's the answer (MTGO Traders prices; the cheapest version of each card is always used; basic lands count zero):

• 1st place, gbagyt's Humans: $164.31 (nonland cards: $36.79; tribal base: $20.17)
• 2nd place, morpphling's Goblins: $2.35 (nonland cards: $2.25; tribal base: $1.36)
• 3rd place, Jerkburton77's Ninjas: $11.68 (nonland cards: $8.76; tribal base: $7.72)
• 4th place, Dolane97's Vampires: $115.82 (nonland cards: $48.96; tribal base: $48.03)

 And we have a new Wise King! Two weeks after ellmaris's feat with his 5-buck Vampire Top 4 build, the bar has been furtherly raised (or, well, lowered) by morpphling's Goblins to an unconceivable 2-bucks-and-a-few-pennies (and this time it's an undefeated deck!). This in a week where no Top 4 deck went over the $200 threshold, with another one, Jerkburton77's Ninja build, being a little over 10 bucks. Good job, everybody.

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REXDART'S DECK TECH SERIES

 Christmas break! In the meantime, you can check all the past installments here.

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AHMET'S GAMES BAZAAR

 Holiday break, as well! Our contributors will come back after they finished celebrating whatever they celebrate.

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COMMANDER TRIBAL!

  So, the last event of the year on December 29 will be the long-awaited Commander Tribal. I agonized about the rules for a while now, with people from all sides (Commander experts, 100cs specialists, Tribal players) telling me to ban this and that. Then it just occurred to me: these 1v1 Commander Tribal games will just have to be Commander games, nothing more (in fact, the tables will have to be set as Commander structure, Commander format, 30-minute 2-out-of-3 match). If anything, they are Commander games with a built-in limitation: the need to include 33 tribal creatures in the main deck. And that's it: you manage to have 33 creatures of a single type in your main, Commander-legal deck, you'll be fine. No need to find much more complications about that. The regular Commander pool of cards (Sol Ring! Strip Mine! Survival of the Fittest!) is already defined by the client, and the official Commander banned and restricted list automatically applies (remember that Primeval Titan is banned now, while Kokusho, the Evening Star is allowed, but not as a Commander). Let's just add the Tribal banned list and our usual additional banned and restricted list (columns B to D of this page), mainly to limit the Trifecta of Doom as we use to do in normal Tribal games.

 Also, let's just ban the choices too easy, so we can see some variety: Elf, Goblin, Human, Wizard and Wall are not allowed as tribes. Single members can be included in the deck or as a Commander though.

 In fact, the only other thing to define is the choice of the Commander. I want to provide more options for tribes with poor or no choices in terms of Legendary creatures (quickly reminder for those who don't usually play Commander: you have to put in the sideboard of your 99-card deck a single Legendary creature as your Commander; you'll play it from the so-called Commander Zone all game long, adding 2 colorless mana to its casting cost for each time it will be sent there again after dying or even being exiled; also, the Commander defines the color identity of the deck: you can only include cards with the colors or mana symbols that are featured on the Commander; for instance, Bosh, Iron Golem gives access to red and colorless cards only, and cards with symbols other than the red one, like, say, Swamp, aren't allowed). I'm writing a list of tribes that are allowed off-tribe Commanders (for instance, Ogres can elect any Legendary Goblin as their Commander and Thrulls can elect Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder); you can find it here. In all the other, unlisted cases, the Commander must be of the same tribe of the deck. Have fun! (And if you want to practice Commander skills, there's a new PRE I'm running every Sunday that might help you. I'd sure love to welcome more and more tribal players there!)

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ANNOUNCEMENT TIME!

 Just to remind you of a few things:

 The Rules: we now have a page with all the rules listed, so we won't have to repeat all of them before any tournament. Yay for time saving!

 The Top 8 Lockout: since last week, every time a Top 8 player (either from this year's ranking or all-time) 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 freq: since last week, every time a Top 8 player (either from uently 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 12 cards on watch, none of them reaches an Annoyance Level.

 The Tribal Achievements: Clan Leys, which is in charge of any Special Prize, has launched and is handling the Tribal Achievements: a way to have fun within Tribal Apocalypse, challenge yourself to do all kinds of strange MTG feats, and make some tix in the process. You can find the complete list of achievements here on the Hall of Fame. 38 unlocked, 12 to go. Remember to call in me or vantar6697 as a witness (start with the one that's NOT playing in that moment) before moving on in case of an In-Game or Endgame achievement. That's not needed for Deckbuilding achievements, you just have to declare them.

 The Virgin Prize has ended! And the last tribe standing was... drum roll... Mongoose! Now, this lead to two things: 1. the award has been replaced with the Semi-Virgin Prize, for tribes that've been played no more than 3 times (current list is here); and 2. Mongooses becomes the protagonists of a new, dedicated prize that will remember forever that you all neglected them despite Nimble Mongoose being featured in high-profile, tier-1 Legacy decks. From now on, The Mongoose Pride Prize will 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. Let's show them all what the mighty Herpestidae can do, shall we?

  
Hard to kill, hard to play (apparently)

 Topical Prize rotation! As we have returned to Ravnica, we said goodbye to Avacyn Restored's star tribes, Angel and Demon, and we embraced a whole new set of tribes for the Topical Prize. It's five tribes, each representing a different guild as portrayed in their relative keyrunes: Bird (for Azorius), Elemental (for Izzet), Devil (for Rakdos), Insect (for Golgari), and Wolf (for Selesnya). You don't necessarily have to play them in their guild's colors, but that gets bonus points for style and topicality.

 The Hamtastic Award: the Biodiversity Prize dedicated to the memory of Erik Friborg has started again, for its 3rd edition. Be the first to run 10 different tribes in a row and you'll get 5 tix on SBena_Bot! Current leader: mihahitlor with 9 tribes played, only 1 to go. Remember that 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. After this edition is over, the Award will reset to only 5 different tribes in a row, prize yet to be determined.

 The Volver Challenge is still unclaimed! I'll give 1 tix out of my pocket to the first player who'll win a proper match (no bye, no opponent forfaiting) with a Volver deck featuring 4 copies of each of them.

        
And maybe in the process we'll find out what the hell is a Volver

 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!

 And Slugs for all! To honor the memory of BlippyTheSlug (the longest-run host of Tribal Apocalypse), any new player can ask me for a one-time free treat: a full playset of any and all Slugs ever printed and available online (that is (Splitting Slug), Molder Slug, Thermopod, and Catacomb Slug). Courtesy of MTGO Traders and Clan Leys/SBena_Bot. The gift is meant for players who never took part before on a TribAp event, but I can grant it to recent players or budget players too, at my discretion. So just ask me for that, maybe you'll be lucky.

 What's Next as the upcoming Tribal Apocalypse events of the Blippian Era (every Saturday at 17:00 GMT):

• 2.51 (Week 103 BE), on December 22: Christmas Special. No blue or black color identity or mana symbols (including hybrid mana and Phyrexian mana), allowed on cards, including lands. Special prize for the deck with most Snow permanents.
• 2.52 (Week 104 BE), on December 29: Commander Tribal. Hey, I already talked about it!

 See you all in the Tribal room!