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By: Kumagoro42, Gianluca Aicardi
Jul 26 2013 2:28pm
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 Welcome back to Tribal Apocalypse, the PRE where Walls don't have ears, so they can't hear you scream.

   Table of Contents 

  1. Last Week on Tribal Apocalypse...
  2. The High Price of Winning
  3. RexDart's Show and Tell
  4. Magic 2014's Best of
  5. Tribal Lab: The Insect Project!
  6. Announcement Time!
  7. What's Next

 Hello my tribal friends, whatever your tribe is! Today's I'm happy because I just finished writing my M14 tribal evaluation (which might or might not be already published by the time this will), and I found out that most of those new creatures are a veritable bunch of crap, so I won't have to agonize over buying stuff, for once. I'm still in the early phase of the rebuilding of my own collection, you know. So I don't need more sought-after cards in my current life, I've plenty of those already. In fact, all in all, I think there's only 3 cards that I really want from M14, and they're all green, and they're all Timmy cards, so that's another reason to be happy. Here, I'll show you.

  

 Amazing, uh? Okay, they're all mythics, but let's hope they won't be super-chased mythics. There's also another green card that I want/need, and actually trumps all of them. In fact, it's the only card that really matters in the entire set. I'm talking of... *drum roll*...

 Now let's just hope the set will be drafted a lot, so that the Ooze's price will be contained. Wait a minute... did I say that there was little of interest there? I was kidding! It's an amazing set! Full of Magic player's best friends, the Slivers! Go draft it now! Anyway, RexDart is also talking about the newest cards and what they'll do for the tribal side of things, and you can read all about it here. And now for something completely different, Walls and a Spanish person.


LAST WEEK ON TRIBAL APOCALYPSE...

  • Event Number: 3.28, Week 133 BE
  • Date: July 20
  • Attendance: 20
  • Rounds: 3
  • Special Rules:  Tribal Singleton (only 1 copy of each nonbasic land)
  • Winner: slug360 (Wall)
  • Other undefeated: pk23 (Goblin)
  • 1 Loss: justcanceled (Angel), romellos (Knight), Gonzzy (Construct), mihahitlor (Vampire), Nagarjuna (Vampire), _Kumagoro_ (Shaman), ML_Berlin (Soldier), FuriouslySleepingIdea (Angel)
  • Special Prizes: Underdog Prize to ChNidox (Drake)
  • Tribes: Angel (x2), Construct, Drake, Elf (x2), Goblin (x2), Knight, Nightmare, Shaman (x2), Soldier, Vampire (x3), Wall, Warrior, Zombie (x2)
  • Event link (with all players, pairings, standings, decks, and results): here it is

 He did it again: slug360 won another event (his 5th this year, 6th overall, not counting the Invitational), and he's still saying that it's all just luck. But in this case there may be some truth in it, because the other finalist, pk23, had to leave early before getting to play the final. We were in Singleton week (which is driving me crazy because half the people who took the quick survey so far indicated it as their favorite format, and the other half as their least favorite! It's really divisive, I guess. By the way, take the survey, please! It'll only require 30 seconds and I need to know as many opinions as possible); and Slug was doing his best NemesisPardigm's impression by playing Walls. Actually, you know what? I think enough time has passed since the last time Nemesis played in the tournament (February 2012), so I thereby declare that the Walls are no longer to be considered his exclusive domain. I'm saying this because I really want to play with them, they fit my style of stopping attacks to ramp into big stuff (yeah, I loved battlecruiser Magic back in the ROE age). Anyway, slug was just using them to ramp into planeswalkers, this way:

 

 As for pk23, he played a jack-of-all-trades Goblin singleton deck we already saw.

 

 First of the seconds came justcanceled with this nice Angel build that looks like a miniature Commander deck, in that it really has a bit of everything. But yeah, especially reanimator's tools. Angels haven't been seen a lot in Singleton, but boy, they have a strong lineup if you commit to it, especially if you go 5 colors, like justcanceled boldly did.

 

 Another tribe that I don't remember a lot in past Singleton events is Construct. Here Gonzzy piloted them to Top 8.

 

 Non-prize to whom tells me why I gave that name to an artifact deck. And that's it.


THE HIGH PRICE OF WINNING

 As in the past, nothing particularly useful to do the math for this week, as Singleton decks hardly respond to definite price patterns. Just go and check some prices for Modern Masters cards, you know you want some Knight of the Reliquary or City of Brass or Elspeth, Knight-Errant (she's 7 tix, guys!). And check how sweet the Spirit Avatar's prices are (click on them).

 


REXDART'S SHOW AND TELL

 

 Welcome back to Show and Tell, the ongoing audio/video deck tech and replay series covering the Legacy Tribal Wars format and the Tribal Apocalypse PRE!

 Although I give that same introduction every week, the reality is that in writing this series I typically take for granted the existence of the Tribal Apocalypse banned list. Wizards of the Coast no longer updates the format's official banned list (not since they added (Uzemawa's Jitte) in 2010, as best I can recall.) The Apocalypse is the only regular Tribal Wars event, so I've rarely seen any point in building a deck that is legal for Tribal Wars but not for the Apocalypse. There are definitely a few people who are not event regulars who play Tribal Wars in the Casual Room on occasion. But if you really want to build a tribal deck and put it to the test, the Apocalypse is the ultimate crucible. Now, last week, Kumagoro announced the unbanning of both Aether Vial and Goblin Lackey from Tribal Apocalypse. They have remained legal on WotC's official banned list all this time, but now will be showing up in the event that actually matters.

 When I first saw the announcement, the gears went spinning in my brain instantly, and I realized I had way too much to say about these cards to fit into a comment on the article. I think these cards merit expanded discussion, and we're going to start with Aether Vial.

 

 It's a Sol Ring with "Suspend 2", a Cavern of Souls, and a Yeva all rolled into one. Or it's absolute garbage. Which one it is depends on you, and how you build your deck. This card is extremely powerful and has featured prominently in a number of great decks over the years. However it is not universally-played in Legacy among creature-heavy decks. Let's look at what this card really does.

  1.  Adds "virtual mana". Played out on turn 1, you can have it up to 2 counters by turn 3. If your creature-curve is relatively low (and especially if clustered primarily around the 2 and 3 CMC slots), this card functions as a mana rock with upside. But deploying additional threats isn't the only way to take advantage of this "virtual mana". I've written on multiple occasions that budget Merfolk (and other blue aggro decks) are at a distinct disadvantage without this card, because free countermagic like Force of Will and Daze is necessary to simultaneously develop your board and protect it. Without either Vial or free counterspells, you are constantly faced with dilemmas about whether to run out your 2-drop lord to put pressure on the opponent, and facing the prospect of a removal spell or an opponent's superiour proactive spell that you are unable to interact with, or to wait a turn and play it off-curve with protection. You can say "Magic is all about those kind of choices", but the real power of blue aggro decks is that they shouldn't have to make that choice; they CAN do both. Without that tactical boon, they are underwhelming and overmatched by more aggressive tribes. With a Vial on the table, you can Vial in a threat while still holding up Islands for countermagic on your opponent's turn.
  2. Makes your board development independent of your land drops. This is manifested in a number of ways. The Vial doesn't care what color your creature is, so it "fixes" your mana. The Vial doesn't care if you are mana-screwed, you can tick it up each turn and curve out with creatures regardless of any injury the shuffler or your opponent's Wasteland may do to you. The Vial lets you use your own lands for whatever you want — lock out your opponent with Wasteland or Rishadan Port, swing in with Mutavault, or lock every land down under a Winter Orb, and the Vial just keeps on ticking. While I said that the Vial makes budget Merfolk better, it makes fully-powered Merfolk MUCH better, because they can attack the opponent's mana much more effectively with a Vial on the table.
  3. Give "flash" to your creatures. Have something with a great ETB effect that would be awesome at instant speed as a trick? Just want to turn every dude into an Ambush Viper? Vial is there for you. During Pure Tribal where there is less instant speed removal and more sorcery-speed removal, Vial-ing in a creature on your opponent's end step is just great.
  4. Make your creatures uncounterable. This aspect is useful to some extent in all Vial decks, but it's at its weakest for "fair" creature decks. Countering a 6-drop for 0, 1 or 2 mana is a huge tempo swing often akin to a Time Walk, but countering the low-curve creatures played in Vial decks is sometimes less attractive. That said, there are certainly small creatures you will want to push through countermagic, especially creatures with shroud or hexproof that can't be dealt with through spot removal. This effect is far more powerful when used in conjunction with creature-based combos such as in Kor-phalid Breakfast. Those decks can now play both Vial and Cavern of Souls if they like to make sure their combo pieces resolve.
  5. Doesn't count as casting a spell. This is sometimes a drawback (sorry, (Merrow Reejeray)) and sometimes a boon (Silvergill Adept doesn't require the additional cost.) Thinking of broader deckbuilding applications, the Vial allows you to play out a Standstill, or a taxing effect such as Nether Void, while using Vial to develop your board as your opponent sits there paralyzed.

 The Vial has a lot of upsides, but there are clearly limitations. You want not only a low curve, but a concentrated curve. Remember that you can only Vial a creature whose CMC is exactly the number of counters on Vial, so once you tick it up you are losing the ability to Vial in smaller guys. A deck like Sliver, which is heavily concentrated at the 2-CMC slot, can just park the Vial at 2 and go nuts. Merfolk are heavily concentrated at 2 as well, with a few optional choices at 3. Goblins and Allies are both spread out from 1 to 5 CMC, and you will need careful Vial management and strong familiarity with your decklist to use it correctly.

 Another drawback is that you are giving up your first turn to play the Vial. Some decks rely heavily on aggressive one-drops, and therefore will opt not to run it. Cats, for example, is a deck that does NOT want Aether Vial. The turn 1 Wild Nacatl play is so explosive that delaying your board development for even a single turn is not considered desirable. Keep in mind that many of the Goblins lists that are played in Tribal Apocalypse up until now have been much more aggressive than Vial Goblins in Legacy is. If you aren't using Wasteland and Rishadan Port to add a mana-denial plan to your attack, you may not be quite as interested in the Vial for your Goblin list.

 Finally, Vial is a terrible topdeck in 95% of the cases. Having two Vials is fine, in fact it's great in many decks, but not usually when the second Vial comes down late. You will rarely get much use out of a Vial played after the 3rd or 4th turn. The exception is in games where both players had a flurry of land-destruction at the beginning of the game and remain mana-screwed well into what would have been the midgame. Also, if you have a lot of card draw effects such as Goblin Ringleader or Lead the Stampede, it can be worthwhile having a second Vial even in the late game, to power out several threats at once.

 

 Goblin Lackey isn't quite as important an unbanning as Aether Vial, since it is particular to Goblin which, outside of Singleton (where both the cards were already playable, you can see them in last week's pk23 deck), can only be played once per month during the Regular Tribal events.  But it is important to note that with Vial and Lackey both off the ban list, you can now play a fully-powered, no-compromises Legacy Goblin list in Tribal Apocalypse. Most decks ported into Tribal Wars from normal Legacy have to make a lot of concessions in doing so, but Goblins no longer needs to change a thing. Goblins is a Tier-1/Tier-2 deck in Legacy, but having played against it numerous times with Zoo I can tell you that it has problems with matchups against decks with copious amounts of spot removal and bigger creatures (in other words, most of the Tribal Apocalypse metagame!). So despite being a full-power Legacy port, it isn't the clear "deck to beat" in Tribal Apocalypse. Do be aware, however, that Goblins with Lackey will nearly always win too fast for an opponent to rely upon 4 CMC sweepers a la Wrath of God. So plan your weenie-hate accordingly! A turn-1 Goblin Lackey on the play is scary, allowing some of the most ridiculously explosive starts possible with the Legacy card pool. As a rule of thumb, if your opponent has turn-1 Lackey and you have the choice between killing the Lackey or playing a creature that can block/trade with the Lackey, KILL IT. If you run out the blocker, and the Goblin player bolts it or uses a Pyrokinesis on it, you will be too far behind to catch up. If you have no removal spell, never rely on a 1 toughness creature to block a Lackey if you have ANY other option, since a cycled Gempalm Incinerator will clear it. Honestly, you probably should mulligan any hand that can't kill a turn-1 Lackey against Goblins from now on.

 All in all, these changes power up some well-established tribes. Some of you will likely be frustrated by this. But in the current era of Tribal Apocalypse, with most weeks of the month spent on various lower-power special rules events, the power of these cards is likely to be far less oppressive than you think. Aether Vial in particular may open up a lot of interesting design space with previously-overlooked tribes. The uncounterability aspect is scary with creature-based combo, and I think we need to keep a close eye on those combos from here on out. But on balance, I'm excited about the unbanning, and look forward to brewing with it!

  

I, for one, will be using the Lackey with THESE Goblins! — Kuma

 Sorry there's no videos this week, folks. I've been preparing my tournament report for the Classic Quarter Invitational, which you can read in the second installment of my new Eternal Warrior series here on PureMTGO.com (here's a sneak peek: I made Top 4 and won a pretty big prize package!). I had originally hoped to have time to build and test Insect tribal for this week's Pure Tribal event, but it appears I will be unable to play this week, as my girlfriend and I got a last-minute offer to join some out-of-town friends on a weekend camping trip. This sort of thing happens in Summer time, and is part of the reason I played more frequently in the first half of the year to stockpile points for the Tribal Invitational. My attendance in the event may be a bit less frequent in the second half of the season, but I will continue to follow the twists and turns of Tribal Apocalypse and provide video coverage every week. I've done this every week for over half a year now (even longer if we include my original series examining the common deck archetypes last fall) but I still don't feel burned out, and I think I still have something to offer to this community with my commentary and analysis. So send keep sending me your replays and I'll keep featuring your decks!

 

 Speaking of having something to offer the community, my Army of Telim'Tor Deckbuilding Challenge is still available.... but time is running short! The last week to attempt the Challenge will be August 17, that month's Singleton Tribal event. If the Challenge has not been won by that date, it will be retired and a new Challenge will be implemented. The prize card, Wilt-Leaf Liege, has skyrocketed to over SEVEN tickets on MTGO Traders, so don't lose your chance to win it before this Challenge goes away!

    • Build a Knight tribal deck.
    • Every creature in the deck must have the flanking ability.
    • You may NOT use any card that turns itself into a creature (i.e. Jade Statue or Gideon Jura), "animates" a noncreature permanent into a creature (i.e. Living Lands or Animate Artifact), or creates a creature token (i.e Spectral Procession or Beast Within), unless the resulting creatures or tokens also have the flanking ability (such as the token created by Riftmarked Knight).
    • Your deck must include at least 3 copies of Telim'Tor, if allowed (it won't be allowed during Singleton events, of course: in that case, you'll only need the one allowed copy).
    • You must enter a Tribal Apocalypse event with your deck and obtain at least 2 match wins, not counting forfeits or byes. 

 

 DISCLAIMER STUFF: 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 the players are still tied, a random choice will award the prize. Also: please note that 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.

That's all for this week folks, until next time, may all your Vials tick true and all your Lackeys give birth to Siege-Gang Commander!

 Check the complete archive of RexDart's Deck Techs here.


MAGIC 2014's TOP 10 TRIBAL CREATURES

by RexDart

 So, a new Core Set is being released as you read this. This one appears to have a few goodies in it relating to tribal decks in general, including the return and radical re-imagining of the Slivers, but I think overall it's rather disappointing. As always, I will be examining what I believe are the top creatures for the Legacy Tribal Wars format, covering creatures at all rarities from common to mythic. Since Slivers are a major part of the set, I will cover them in a separate list below the "Top 10". First up then, here's the "Top 10" non-slivers, presented in order of decreasing rarity.

 1. Kalonian Hydra. Types: Hydra. Rarity: Mythic.
 This guy is a tribal lord of sorts for the Hydras, doubling the number of "heads" on your whole Hydra army whenever he attacks. Granted, if you have a Hydra army and untap with this thing without running into a Wrath of God, you should be winning handily anyhow. Still, we aren't completely in "win more" territory, as this one can stand on its own. The 4 toughness puts it out of Bolt range to start off with, and it only needs to hit the opponent twice to kill him. Very few creatures that can win the game that quickly cost under 6 mana.

 2. Fiendslayer Paladin. Types: Human, Knight. Rarity: Rare.
 Part of a cycle of rare color-hosing creatures, this update on Paladin en-Vec has a chance to see play in Knight tribal. Particularly in the Pure Tribal variant, where the removal is all red and black, he has a chance to shine. He doesn't technically have protection from red and black like Paladin en-Vec, but he can still tussle with a Ball Lightning and come out just as unscathed. And in those matchups, the lifelink is going to matter even more, I suspect. Not an absolute lock to see play, but I think he has a strong chance.

 3. Ogre Battledriver. Types: Ogre, Warrior. Rarity: Rare.
 Warriors already have access to this ability with Madrush Cyclops, who has the upside of giving himself haste. But on the other hand, the Cyclops commits you to a full three colors, and also lacks the power-pumping ability. Ogre Battledriver could theoretically be played in mono-red Warriors, taking advantage of the +2/+0 ability to turn something like Goblin Rally into a huge threat. I think its natural home is in a Gruul deck alongside green fattie Warriors like Wolfir Silverheart. You could also follow it up with a Saproling Burst to make four 5/3 hasty Saprolings, which is 20 damage exactly.

 4. Scavenging Ooze. Types: Ooze. Rarity: Rare.
 Usually I only cover NEW cards in this feature. Why do I break the rule now? It is undeniable that budget limitations put some constraints on what tends to get played in Tribal Apocalypse, and with the price of Ooze likely to plummet as a result of this reprint, M14 is making this "accessible" to a much wider number of participants than before. In a format where all players have 20 creatures in their decks, the lifegain ability is going to do some work. So the Ooze can do its job hosing graveyard-based decks like Reanimator, Dredge, and Kor-phalid Breakfast, while still being a powerful card against the run-of-the-mill aggro decks.

 5. Witchstalker. Types: Wolf. Rarity: Rare.
 The other color-hosing creature in the cycle that I expect to see play, this is primarily useful because of the hexproof. It does have some issues, as the 3-drop slot is VERY crowded in Wolf tribal. It obviously competes against Wolfir Avenger, but in some games you'll like the hexproof better than the ability to execute a heavily-telegraphed "ambush" of an opposing creature. Pure Tribal is where the anti-black ability is likely to shine, but hexproof plus a decent toughness are always valuable. Any Wolf deck running auras would certainly favor it, and it's nice with Wolfir Silverheart.

 6. Dragon Egg. Types: Dragon. Rarity: Uncommon.
 This card, while not very exciting, fills a key role in Dragon decks. ANY low curve Dragon has a shot to see play, and one that can chump block and come back for more is interesting. I've played Woodland Changeling in Dragon decks before just to have a low drop, and I'd be happy to play this too, especially in Pure Tribal where changelings are banned. If the opponent actually spends a removal on this, all the better, as that's one less you'll have to worry about when you start casting your haymakers. In the late-game the firebreathing could theoretically become relevant, so it isn't completely dead at that point, but you'd have to do some work to "hatch" the egg — I wouldn't recommend straining yourself trying to include ways to do that, but if you are already playing Earthquake or Firespout in your Dragon deck (a good idea, in my opinion) then all the better.

 7. Warden of Evos Isle. Types: Bird, Wizard. Rarity: Uncommon.
 A natural fit for the more synergistic UW Bird decks, the ones based around the Onslaught avians, and that's why I include it. But going outside the box, I suppose it also shaves a mana off some flying Wizards if you really want to accelerate into some Niv-Mizzet. You may find a use for this in some sort of mostly-Faeries Wizard deck with Spellstutter Sprite, Glen Elendra Archmage, Vendilion and/or Mistbind and/or Puppeteer Clique, Sower of Temptation, and Oona all benefitting from the discount. But is that enough to warrant tapping out for a three-drop on your turn? As a frequent Faerie pilot, I have my doubts that this plan will fly, but it certainly makes the sky-high CMC Fae look a lot more playable if you want to mix things up.

 8. Young Pyromancer. Types: Human, Shaman. Rarity: Uncommon.
 Mono-red human aggro is often burn-heavy, and stands to gain a lot of value from his ability. In Shamans, how about using it with the Punishing/Grove combo? That combo is annoying enough already, and if you're flooding the board with tokens every time you recur Punishing Fire to kill an opposing creature, you are in pretty good shape. This is the sort of small, repeatable value that a Jund Rock Shaman deck might enjoy.

 9. Elvish Mystic Types: Elf, Druid. Rarity: Common.
 A bland functional reprint of Llanowar Elves. I actually take personal offense at this card, since their attempt to rid any references to Dominaria in the core sets has now made it so that I can't play my Alpha Llanowar Elves in Standard. Boo! Anyhow, this joins Llanowar Elves and Fyndhorn Elves as another functionally-identical mana Elf, just in case Elves really needed it. Do Elves need to add the ninth or tenth one-drop accelerator? It might be better than Arbor Elf, as Arbor Elf doesn't work with your special lands, but most of those either come into play tapped or otherwise can't cast a turn-1 Elf anyhow (such as Gaea's Cradle). Nevertheless, I'm 100% sure this will see play.

 10. Deathgaze Cockatrice. Types: Cockatrice. Rarity: Common.
 OK, the set is pretty bad if you pull out the Slivers. I can't even reach ten. But this WILL definitely see play... once they print a third Cockatrice. This is only the second one ever printed, so the tribe isn't Tribal Apocalypse legal quite yet. But is this an indication that Cockatrice is a creature type back on their RADAR? More to come?

TOP 5 NEW SLIVERS

 First off, all these Slivers are asymmetrical, now affecting only your Slivers. This will be a nightmare when you mix and match them with the old ones in Sliver mirror matches, which definitely will occur in Tribal Wars. In fact, such a heavy push for Slivers makes it very likely that new players may show up to the event with Sliver decks much more often than before, and they were already relatively popular among Tribal Apocalypse's newcomers. So how do these Slivers add to existing Sliver decks? Do they push those decks in different directions than before? Let's take a look. And this time, I WILL rank them in the order of power I believe they have from 5th to 1st.

 5. Blur Sliver
 This costs one more than Heart Sliver and lacks the upside of Firewake Sliver (a Fires of Yavimaya throwback from Time Spiral). But I strongly suspect that hyper-aggressive Naya Sliver builds will start to displace the blue-based ones focused on Crystalline Sliver and free countermagic — especially among players who don't own Daze and Force of Will. So while I still think the older variants are preferable, if Sliver mirrors become very popular the older ones will become a potential liability and this one will probably find its way into decks.

 4. Bonescythe Sliver
 This is a two-mana discount off the price of Fury Sliver, shifted into white. This is basically a lock to see play in the more aggressive Sliver decks, provided they don't mind going up to 4 mana. Double strike is great when you need to close out a game quick on an empty board, and also great in creature mirrors where it makes your guys very hard to profitably block.

 3. Syphon Sliver
 If my personal tastes in Sliver decks were all that mattered, I'd put this guy one spot higher. But I'm one of the few people that like Esper Slivers. Bant Slivers have been much more popular among the "fully powered" Sliver builds, and the card at #2 is likely to push even more people in that direction. But Syphon Sliver's ability to help in a race can't be overlooked, and this can produce some absolutely enormous lifeswings. The aggro-control Sliver builds are great againsnt combo and control, but can be lacking against fast aggro. The Bant builds solve this by getting beefy, but Syphon Sliver can bring you back out of burn range, and that has its own advantages.

 2. Predatory Sliver
 Muscle Sliver, Sinew Sliver, come here and meet your 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th club members. For people that primarily want to smash faces in with their Sliver army, this will be the most played of the new Slivers. On the surface at least, this seems likely to make the cut in the Bant lists, and certainly in the Naya ones that will be soon to come. But you should be wary of clogging that 2-drop slot too heavily, especially in the Tribal Apocalypse events where Aether Vial is banned and is not the upside it is in real Legacy. Thankfully, one of your old 2-drops just got a nice discount...

 1. Galerider Sliver
 Yep, that's a one-sided Winged Sliver. For one less mana. And it's still blue, so feel free to pitch those redundant extra copies to Force of Will all day long. If you don't have the free countermagic, this is still quite nice, as you can drop this turn 1 into a turn-2 Quick Sliver, leaving the mana open for countermagic if needed while speeding your development up an entire turn. Winged Sliver was being played in all the blue-based variants, and this guy immediately replaces those. If you felt compelled to play Plated Sliver before just to have a 1-drop, you may even want to cut those now and make room for something else.


TRIBAL LAB: THE INSECT PROJECT!

 Previously on The Insect Project: RexDart and I decided to set ourselves to a preposterous goal: taking the Insect out of Underdog. What follows is the continuation of our debate about the best way to go there. Episode 1 is here, episode 2 is here.

 KUMA: All right, here we are, back to discussing the Recurring Nightmare-based Insect deck while we wait for a good test of the Rock variant that will happen next week during Underdog. Tomorrow is Pure Tribal, instead, and that means no white exilers, so I’ll try and see what a new round of Hornet Queen's recursion will do for me. To recap, my current list had:

  • 4 Hornet Queen: the basic recursion/Entomb target;
  • 4 Deadbridge Goliath: the midrange beater/board keeper, doubling as finisher from beyond the grave when scavenged on a Hornet token;
  • 4 Necropede: fast enough, you kill it, it kills something, and it’s a secondary win-con via infect (you recur it and/or scavenge the Goliath on it);
  • 4 Scute Mob: easy come easy go, bait removal, occasionally grow big in late game if you recur them back;
  • 4 Skylasher: fast, solid, work as pseudo-removal, come with good bonus abilities;
  • 4 Recurring Nightmare: the engine;
  • 4 Entomb: to feed the engine as soon as possible;
  • 3 Tortured Existence: secondary engine; it works this way: you have a Queen or Goliath in hand, you discard it to the Existence, take back the chump blocker you just traded with, rinse, repeat;
  • 6 removal slots currently occupied by 3 Abrupt Decay, 3 Damnation;
  • 23 land slots currently including 3 Swarmyard, 1 Phyrexian Tower (yep, I bought it at last!).

 KUMA: Thoughts? Should I put some Blister Beetle in place of some of the chump blockers? Should I replace Abrupt Decays with Maelstrom Pulse?

 REX: First of all, I'm glad you picked up that singleton Phyrexian Tower. It can definitely do some good work in this deck. Let's talk about the creature choices. Scute Mob is one of those that seems great in theory. You can play him early to draw removal or just chump, as you point out. And he isn't a terrible topdeck late, unlike some other 1-drops... but don't overestimate that last part. He doesn't get big until the next turn, so his immediate board impact is minimal, and if you need an immediate board presence, you won't get it. So while he sounds like he fulfills good early and late-game roles, the reality won't match the expectations. He's okay though, since you seem to like him more than me, I'd suggest give him one more event and then give yourself an unbiased evaluation of him afterwards.

 KUMA: Chris, I'm ALREADY unbiased about it: I'm using Scute Mob since the ZEN block! And in the first part of this debate you can watch a few games where it proves that it works like I say it does. :P This said, I'm not particularly enamored of it, but we need 1-drop to minimize early damage as much as possible, and I didn't find serious alternatives yet, so I'm sticking with it for now. It's definitely more flexible than most of the other small Insects we're using, and people are really scared by that "5 +1/+1 counters" clause, and often kills it on sight (which it may appear to defy the purpose of a chump blocker, but it's one removal less for stuff that really matter or the next chump blocker). (Of course, now that our opponents are reading this, they won't kill Scute Mob anymore!)

 REX: Skylasher is the weak link in this mix. I suppose there's some odd chance that the field will be full of Vial Merfolk tomorrow and you'll look like a genius. (They haven't made it to Big Shot yet, right?) Against anything else in the expected field, his set of abilities are underwhelming. His power level is adequate for Standard, but even there he's a sideboard card at best. You can likely do better at this slot.

 KUMA: I'm fine with replacing him, but I still think you fail to see the potential of a flashing Grizzly Bears with reach. Protection from blue is just a bonus in the off-chance that it may be relevant (it's better to have it than not, no?).

 REX: Even though we aren't using the Blasphemous Act combo in this deck (more on that in future installments), I still think Broodhatch Nantuko warrants some consideration. With the white-exilers out of the format for Pure Tribal, any non-black opponent will be very hard pressed to attack through this without giving you Insect tokens as a result.

 

 KUMA: I like Broodhatch Nantuko. I was using a playset of it the first time I tried an early version of this deck last year. I rarely managed to exploit it at its fullest, but I'll give it another try. It interacts greatly with Swarmyard. I also had Acridian back then, which I think is the largest body you can get with a 2-drop Insect. Of course, then you have to pay for it again, and that's bad, because come turn 3 you want to be free to do better things, and if you just let it die, then its presence over a chump-blocking Skylasher is really moot.

 
REX: I would suggest trying out a couple copies of the Blister Beetle. You can chump with him and possibly get marginal value later if you recur him against decks with a bunch of x/1's. The Necropedes are absolutely perfect in this role too, their death trigger loves the world without Swords to Plowshares, and I'd definitely keep the set of them.

 

 KUMA: I'll do -4 Skylasher, +2 Broodhatch Nantuko, +2 Blister Beetle then.

 REX: I'm skeptical of Tortured Existence. It's terrible in multiples, so I would likely cut it to 1 copy. You don't have a great way to keep your hand fueled with creatures to discard to it. I understand what you're getting at, I just don't think the power level is there when you don't have any tools to exploit the discard outlet (such as madness, for instance.) Just binning a Hornet Queen out of your hand to get back a chump blocker may not even be worth a card sometimes.

 

 KUMA: You may be right. Like I said before, I used to run 3 copies Liliana of the Veil in these slots, but I don't have them anymore. Feel free to use it if you do, one day I'll buy her back!

 REX: The rest of your engine looks correct to me, and the removal suite looks fine. My only concern is that Abrupt Decay might whiff against some opponents during Pure Tribal, where mana costs are more spread out than usual. The options for removal in Pure Tribal all have pros and cons. I think I would err on the side of flexibility and use a couple Maelstrom Pulse, as otherwise the deck might have trouble with planeswalkers, for instance. But this could go either way. Damnation is perfect, and I would be tempted to run 4. If we can free up a slot, such as by cutting one or more Tortured Existence, I would add the 4th. When you need it, you need it, and you will kick yourself topdecking Tortured Existence when what you need is something to bail you out on the board. Yeah, there may be situations where a Raise Dead does the trick, but I suspect Damnation will do the trick you actually need much more often.

 KUMA: I agree, you sold me on this. All in all, I'll adjust it this way: -2 Tortured Existence, -1 Abrupt Decay, +2 Maelstrom Pulse, +1 Damnation. And also -1 Deadbridge Goliath, +1 Bane of the Living (which is just absurd not to exploit with all that recursion). Let's see what'll come of it!

 TO BE CONTINUED!


ANNOUNCEMENT TIME!

 Just to remind you of a few things:

 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 Hamtastic Award: the Biodiversity Prize dedicated to the memory of Erik Friborg has started again, for its 6th edition: 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.

 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 Champion Challenge: challenge one of our Tribal Champions, and win an Egg of Tarmogoyf (aka a Future Sight booster, courtesy of SBena_Bot) and 20 points in the seasonal leaderboard! In order to do that, you must: 1) choose one of the Challenge Decks; 2) end X-1 or better with it in a Tribal Apocalypse event; 3) beat its creator in a challenge! Follow this link for the complete ruling and the decklists.

 The Top Players Lockout: every time a Top Player (either a Google Era Top 8, an Ultimate Champion or a seasonal Top 8) 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.

 Videos: Send RexDart replays of your games and we'll feature them in these articles! Don't know how? Read this quick guide in 6 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):

  • 3.29 (Week 134 BE), on July 27: Pure Tribal (no off-tribe creatures, no Big Shot Tribes nor T9 cards allowed)
  • 3.30 (Week 135 BE), on August 3: Tribal Underdog (only Underdog Tribes allowed)
  • 3.31 (Week 136 BE), on August 10: Regular Tribal (just plain old Legacy Tribal Wars)
  • 3.32 (Week 137 BE), on August 17: Tribal Singleton (only 1 copy of each nonbasic land)

Check out the full Tribal Calendar for 2013!

Take the Quick Survey about the ban list and the event rotation!

 See you all in the Tribal room!

 

 

 

7 Comments

Good point on the Lackey's by AJ_Impy at Fri, 07/26/2013 - 17:59
AJ_Impy's picture
5

Good point on the Lackey's legality, hadn't considered it was only added to one week out of four. Can't really complain about that unless we see a spike in vial goblins builds.

Yep. And I'm also using it by Kumagoro42 at Sat, 07/27/2013 - 03:05
Kumagoro42's picture

Yep. And I'm also using it like when you parachute vipers to stop a rat's infestation (or something), because if the Goblin decks will be more powerful in regular weeks, the non-interactive combo decks (and that includes Elfball) will have a harder time to end undefeated, because if you just leave the Goblins free to roam, they might win before you're able to say "storm".

I'm worried that we may be in by AJ_Impy at Sat, 07/27/2013 - 04:17
AJ_Impy's picture

I'm worried that we may be in for a stagnant meta with three pillars of extremely fast aggro/burn, extremely fast uninteractive combo, and poor unfortunate souls that get crushed and demoralised. Still, it's always worth getting empirical data. :)

Any thought to keeping Aether Vial out of Pure events? It'd certainly fit the criterion of 'most abused' in its respective colour or lack thereof.

Yeah, I played with the idea by Kumagoro42 at Sat, 07/27/2013 - 12:26
Kumagoro42's picture

Yeah, I played with the idea of having Vial as the colorless representative of the T9, which can either become T10 or we can just took Dark Ritual out, since it's pretty irrelevant (it's in the list only to have something black too. Someone suggested Entomb instead, but it's too specific to me, all the T9 are cards that you use within any strategy).

Anyway, before taking Vial out of Pure, let's have it around for a while. So far, it doesn't qualify as "abused" because it was never played. :)

Oh, trust me, it EARNED that by AJ_Impy at Sat, 07/27/2013 - 12:35
AJ_Impy's picture

Oh, trust me, it EARNED that spot on the banned list originally. I'm willing to take the previous years of precedent prior to that banning from experience rather than a 'never played' which is only true in the most corner-case way of using the language.

Somewhat in the way a by Paul Leicht at Sat, 07/27/2013 - 12:36
Paul Leicht's picture

Somewhat in the way a starving maddened lion isn't a proven mankiller I imagine. :)

These cards are really great. by LindsayKelly at Sat, 07/27/2013 - 19:41
LindsayKelly's picture

These cards are really great. I want to learn more on this. Keep up the good work though. - Michael Courouleau