Behold the second Tribal Commander event ever! (And the last for a while. I just decided to give the remaining Very Special Event slots of the year, on June 22 and August 24, to as many Duel Events, probably Cats vs. Dogs and Humans vs. Monsters. Stay tuned in the next weeks for more details.)
But before delving into it, I'd like to announce a bit of a retooling of the Clan Leys special prizes. We decided to discontinue the Topical Prize (which didn't feel like it was particularly catching anyone's interest) and merge Endangered and Semi-Virgin together in the newly-formed Underdog Prize, awarded to the deck with more Underdog categories that won at least one match (if more decks qualify, ranking will act as a tie-breaker. Find the complete ruling here.)
All of this is meant to reroute part of the Clan Leys resources (coming from SBena_Bot) to new kind of prizes. Starting with the...
Champion Challenge!
What is that, you may ask. It's a new challenge that directly involves our past and present Ultimate Champions (Ayanam1, slug360) and Players of the Year (mihahitlor; unfortunately, NemesisParadigm isn't attending the event anymore, but it would apply to him too should he come back one day.) Essentially, you can win a special, big prize (to be announced later or kept secret, we don't know that yet, but rest assured it's big enough) by challenging one of the abovementioned gentlemen to a match, and beating them. But it's not just that simple, of course. In order to acquire the right to the challenge, you must do the following:
choose one of the Champion Challenge decks. They are tribal decklists especially built by our triad of champions for this challenge. You can find Ayanam1's featured and commented list here (at the bottom of the article), slug360's here, and mihahitlor's here (this latter link will be active starting next week), and the three decks in text form are here;
assemble the deck as it's listed (there's no cards costing more than 25 tix by design), with the only allowed changes being: switching between an original dual land, a shock land or a tap land of the same colors; and switching any fetchland for another fetchland of your choice (including budget versions like Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds);
play the deck in any Tribal Apocalypse event and end with 1 loss or better. At that point, you acquired the right to challenge the deck's creator at the end of any Tribal Apocalypse event where he'll be available. The challenge is a normal 3-game match where you'll have to use the Champion Challenge deck and they'll use whatever they want. Win the challenge and you'll win the big prize and 100 Hall of Fame points. Lose it, and you can try again but you need to re-qualify. Once you win a challenge once, you can't challenge the same champion again.
Event link (with all players, pairings, standings, decks, and results): here it is
So, Tribal Commander saw the second win in a row by our old flying champion endless_nameless (who adds "airline pilot" to the long list of unsuspectedly fancy jobs we can find within our crowd.) And very appropriately, he was running a Dragon deck.
And yet, endless only won one of the two preliminary tables. Someone else was entering the final table with two preliminary wins, instead: Commander specialist Silvos der Benny, who didn't get to play in the first Tribal Commander event back in December, but joined the fun now with this green Shaman build commanded by our lovely snakegirl Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro.
Among the other table winners, Sliver decks did particularly well, both for justcanceled, who was using Sliver Overlord as his commander, and for Super_Secret_Tech, who opted for this Sliver Legion-leaded list:
Finally, our Ultimate Champion slug360 was the only one to exploit one of the "joined tribes" options available, namely Law & Order, fielding Soldiers and/or Advisors under an Advisor commander (the reason behind these options was to give tribes that couldn't be fielded on their own in a 99-card format the chance to show off their best members and commanders.)
All right, nothing really interesting comes from establishing the total cost of a tribal commander deck (plus, it would give me headache), so let's use this space for a brief update on this week's movers and shakers among cards especially relevant for the Tribal Wars format. Prices are from MTGO Traders as charted and analyzed by mtgGoldfish.
Craterhoof Behemoth is the big mover of the week: +5.11 tix, which brings the impressive beast up to $24.22, thanks to reanimator shenanigans in Standard. If you were holding to some of them, from back when he was just 6 tix (a.k.a. 3 weeks ago), now would be the right time to sell them, because it'll crash down at some point, and it'll make a big noise.
Going down: Vendilion Clique lost 5 tix this week but the Faerie phenomenon is still firmly around $35. Both Predator Ooze (which recently skyrocketed after being seen in more than one next-gen green stomper) and all-time classic Goblin Guide lost a considerable share of their prices instead (35% and 41% respectively), so they look ripe for buying if you don't have them already.
Despite the more optimistic previsions, Force of Will is back to nearly 85 tix. Guess the promo wasn't enough to keep it down. (Ok, granted, this is the original one, the promo one is around $70. Still far from affordable territory under any definition of the term.) Vindicate has also gained a couple tix this week, but it's still around $30, which is almost half what you had to pay for it last summer.
Welcome back to Show & Tell, the ongoing audio/video deck tech and replay series covering the Legacy Tribal Wars decks played each week in the Tribal Apocalypse PRE. This past week was Tribal Commander, one of the very special events (seen once per year or so) outside the monthly rotation.In my first video, I extensively cover Silvos der Benny's Shaman deck commanded by Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro. Both Kuma and I are quite familiar with the power of Sachi in regular tribal, as we each earned wins this year with Snake Trap, the Snake tribal ramp deck. Here Sachi heads up a troupe of Shamans, all of whom turn into green-mana Sol Rings as soon as you bring Sachi in from the command zone to the battlefield. Silvos' list is very impressive, with a healthy mix of mana ramp, utility spells, and removal for troublesome noncreature permanents. The best aspect of the deck, which I discuss in detail, is the deck's ability to generate and maintain velocity through card draw, tutors, and other card advantage. The main weakness of the mono-green ramp archetype in Commander is its tendency to keep drawing nothing but mana dorks all game, and Sachi's Shamans get around that nicely with a variety of powerful effects that minimize the chance of the deck stalling out.
The next three videos feature the top table from Round 2, in which Silvos der Benny's deck faces up against Robin88's Sedris, the Traitor KingZombies, slug360's Gaddock TeegSoldiers (it was the "Law & Order" combo tribe Soldiers/Advisors), and Super_Secret_Tech's 5-color Slivers. In the first replay video, we see Silvos get out to a hot start with a big mana advantage.
In the next part, we see Silvos leverage his early mana advantage into a crushing board advantage, maintaining his deck's velocity with the power of Wild Pair and Soul of the Harvest.
Finally, watch Silvos put the game away with some Wild Beastmaster shenanigans.
The Kamigawa Block Deckbuilding Challenge remains unclaimed. This week is Small Time Tribal, in which the Big Shot tribes are not allowed in your 20-creature tribal base. Unfortunately, that limits the options for the challenge a bit: the good Moonfolk are mostly Wizards, and many of the playable Samurai and Ninjas are Human. But there are other approaches, and I can think of at least a few Kamigawa Block tribes that don't have any Big Shot subtypes on their best creatures, including one Orphan Tribe (aka a tribe that never scored any Hall of Fame point) if you want to go off the beaten path a bit. So maybe this is the week to give it a shot!
To claim the prize of one non-foil, digital copy of Sakashima the Impostor, here's what you have to do:
Construct your deck using ONLY cards that were printed in Kamigawa block. This includes both creatures, spells, and non-basic lands. (You may play any available version of a Kamigawa block card. For example, you may play an M10 copy of Pithing Needle, or an Urza's Destiny copy of Sowing Salt.) Ninja decks are additionally permitted to include the following PC2 cards: Silent-Blade Oni, Sakashima's Student, and Sai of the Shinobi. Moonfolk decks are additionally permitted to include the AVR card, Tamiyo, the Moon Sage.
You must enter a Tribal Apocalypse event and get at least 2 match wins, not counting forfeits and byes.
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 beginning with this prize and for all of my further deckbuilding challenge prizes, 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. Because of the large turnout at the PRE recently, and the fact that only Kuma has access to deck lists during the event, this method was chosen to avoid putting stress and delays on the tournament. I will make my best effort to review all decklists, but optionally you may wish to notify me (not Kuma!) by message on MTGO that you are attempting the challenge so that I am certain to examine your decklist, especially given the large volume of players in recent weeks. Good luck!
Check the complete archive of RexDart's Deck Techs here.
The Rules: we 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 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.
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 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 Hamtastic Award: the Biodiversity Prize dedicated to the memory of Erik Friborg has started again, for its 5th edition, and it's back to its original roots: 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. Currently at 6 tribes played: romellos, SekKuar Deathkeeper, and slug360.
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!
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 the one and only 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 Spitting Slug, Molder Slug, Thermopod, and Catacomb Slug). Courtesy of MTGO Traders and 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.
I have to say the champion challenge thingy really doesn't grab me: Deliberately building someone else's deck leaves me completely cold. Lot of complexity there as well, and all for the privilege of using their creation against them?
I'll be interested to see how much takeup there is of this.
I try to leave a fair bit of flexibity in my deckbuilding challenges, for that reason. This is a Johnny/Spike/Vorthos format (in that order IMHO) and there are lots of people who build decks bc they love deckbuilding. Which is great for my feature videos!
That said, I will take other decks for a spin when they look fun. Slug360's is one I ownall the cards for, and looks fun to play. Vengevine is among my favorite cards ever and I'm yet to make it work in Tribal. It's a bit less fun not to solve the puzzle myself, but I could see giving slug's list a run.
It's exactly this: there's a lot of deckbuilding challenges already. This one is another thing entirely. It's not for Johnnies, it's for Spikes (that's also why it gives Hall of Fame points, and the prize will be somehow Spike-related too.) Like MaRo always says, if something doesn't sound interesting to you, it's because it wasn't meant for you.
I like the champion challenge idea with the creator's deck, but not sure if it will encourage too many people to play with those decks and therefore decreasing the diversity of decks.
Maybe there is another way to implement this idea? like only the undefeated players can get the right to challenge or someone who unlocks a number of achievements?
I like the idea of qualifying with the champions deck, it seems like a fun challenge, especially when one of the decklists looks very familiar to me. Having to use the deck against someone that can use whatever they want seems very rough though (especially when 2 out of the 3 decks are very easy to hate out.)
The alternative would be just, "Hey, end X-1 with a strong deck that's likely to end X-1. Then see if you can use this strong deck to beat one of these guys, who you possibly already beat several times." Since the prize is NOT 1 tix, and the whole challenge is thought for Spike players who want to prove themselves (that's why it's about playing skills, not deckbuilding skills: deckbulding is entirely out of the equation here), there needed to be some difficulty factor.
The Champions have been asked to play ruthlessly, but I'm confident they won't play too dirty against their own creations. After all, they may still be glad to see their decks succeed while piloted by others. :)
Don't worry, I will personally make sure that the challenge will be fair. Like, no Ayanam1 using some mad anti-artifact deck with 4 Fracturing Gust against his Constructs. :) They'll be allowed to use any of their previously established decks, not something built ad hoc for fighting the other deck but that they wouldn't play otherwise in a tournament.
11 Comments
I have to say the champion challenge thingy really doesn't grab me: Deliberately building someone else's deck leaves me completely cold. Lot of complexity there as well, and all for the privilege of using their creation against them?
I'll be interested to see how much takeup there is of this.
I try to leave a fair bit of flexibity in my deckbuilding challenges, for that reason. This is a Johnny/Spike/Vorthos format (in that order IMHO) and there are lots of people who build decks bc they love deckbuilding. Which is great for my feature videos!
That said, I will take other decks for a spin when they look fun. Slug360's is one I ownall the cards for, and looks fun to play. Vengevine is among my favorite cards ever and I'm yet to make it work in Tribal. It's a bit less fun not to solve the puzzle myself, but I could see giving slug's list a run.
It's exactly this: there's a lot of deckbuilding challenges already. This one is another thing entirely. It's not for Johnnies, it's for Spikes (that's also why it gives Hall of Fame points, and the prize will be somehow Spike-related too.) Like MaRo always says, if something doesn't sound interesting to you, it's because it wasn't meant for you.
As I said, I look forward to seeing what the takeup for this is.
I like the champion challenge idea with the creator's deck, but not sure if it will encourage too many people to play with those decks and therefore decreasing the diversity of decks.
Maybe there is another way to implement this idea? like only the undefeated players can get the right to challenge or someone who unlocks a number of achievements?
I like the idea of qualifying with the champions deck, it seems like a fun challenge, especially when one of the decklists looks very familiar to me. Having to use the deck against someone that can use whatever they want seems very rough though (especially when 2 out of the 3 decks are very easy to hate out.)
It seems easy to set up for failure without being particularly obvious about it.
The alternative would be just, "Hey, end X-1 with a strong deck that's likely to end X-1. Then see if you can use this strong deck to beat one of these guys, who you possibly already beat several times." Since the prize is NOT 1 tix, and the whole challenge is thought for Spike players who want to prove themselves (that's why it's about playing skills, not deckbuilding skills: deckbulding is entirely out of the equation here), there needed to be some difficulty factor.
The Champions have been asked to play ruthlessly, but I'm confident they won't play too dirty against their own creations. After all, they may still be glad to see their decks succeed while piloted by others. :)
A fairer competition would make the challenged also play with the same deck.
FWIW, I will use the same deck I'll play with that day (or, if I won't be there, the deck from the previous week).
Don't worry, I will personally make sure that the challenge will be fair. Like, no Ayanam1 using some mad anti-artifact deck with 4 Fracturing Gust against his Constructs. :) They'll be allowed to use any of their previously established decks, not something built ad hoc for fighting the other deck but that they wouldn't play otherwise in a tournament.