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By: Tribal Apocalypse, Tribal Apocalypse
Jul 17 2014 12:00pm
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 Welcome back to Tribal Apocalypse, the PRE where it's time to remember the fallen.

   Table of Contents 

  1. Last Week on Tribal Apocalypse...
  2. The High Price of Winning
  3. Smawatts' War Report
  4. Announcement Time!
  5. What's Next

Check the full archive for the "Diaries of the Apocalypse" series


THOUGHTS OF A TRIBAL HOST
by Kumagoro

 Yesterday, right before the downtime, I played my last match ever with V3 (against romellos; I was playing the very first deck I built here, a sort of casual Legacy NO-Prog, and he was playing the last deck he played in Tribal Apocalypse). I won't lie, there was some emotion involved for me. The past 5 years haven't been the easiest or happiest of my life, and this little game was one of the few things that made me smile — even when it made me curse and swear. I'm not one of those who think V4 will doom us all; in fact, I think we'll grow accustomed to it, eventually. Still, V3 is everything I've known almost on a daily basis, since that summer of 2009 when I first logged in. I don't know if people still remember fondly V2 to this day, but I know I'll remember fondly V3, with all of its flaws and stupid features. To me, leaving it behind is like saying goodbye to an old friend. And that's all I have to say about that.

 So, welcome to a brave new V4 world. Which for Tribal Apocalypse means a Changeling-less world. Yep, Changelings don't work with V4, meaning they're not recognized as members of your tribe when you build a deck AND launch/join a game. Since we won't start using the Legacy filter again only for this, it's an annoying issue, especially for tribes that otherwise can't be played (I'll let the announcement for the New Kids on the Block Award stand, just to keep in mind which tribes have never been there, but I guess it won't be claimed for the time being). Please check and contribute to my official thread on the forums about the issue. As you can read there, Alison has kindly promised to push for this to be fixed, but let's keep an eye on it.

 To end on a less sour note, M15 is almost with us, so check my Tribal Evaluation (and go Nissa!)

 Also, check Robin88's interview (published last week) and AJ_Impy's interview (to be published probably tomorrow)! Know your frenemy!


LAST WEEK ON TRIBAL APOCALYPSE...

  • Event Number: 4.27, Week 184 BE
  • Date: July 12
  • Attendance: 17
  • Rounds: 4
  • Subformat: Regular Tribal (just plain old Legacy Tribal Wars)
  • Winner: m4vis (Rat)
  • 1 Loss: mihahitlor (Elf), Robin88 (Spirit), romellos (Human), Gq1rf7 (Elf), ScionOfJustice (Elf), MisterMojoRising (Zombie)
  • Special Prizes: Up-and-Coming Prize, Underdog Prize and Special AJ Award to m4vis (Rat)
  • Tribes: Centaur, Dragon (x2), Elf (x3), Goblin (x2), Human (x2), Rat (x2), Sliver, Spirit, Wurm, Zombie (x2)
  • Event link (with all players, pairings, standings, decks, and results): here it is

 Let's start with this: congratulations to m4vis for a great first victory on Tribal Apocalypse! I didn't make in time to put together a "5 Questions With...." to celebrate the accomplishment, so that will happen in the next installment. In the meantime, here's the Rat list that earned m4vis the undisputed 1st place and the rodent tribe their first victory, too.

by m4vis - 1st place and a bunch of other prizes
Creatures
4 Chittering Rats
4 Gnat Miser
4 Ravenous Rats
2 Drainpipe Vermin
2 Nezumi Bone-Reader
2 Skullsnatcher
1 Crypt Rats
1 Marrow-Gnawer
20 cards

Other Spells
4 The Rack
4 Thoughtseize
4 Victim of Night
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Funeral Charm
2 Shrieking Affliction
2 Tortured Existence
2 Wrench Mind
22 cards
Lands
17 Swamp
1 Bojuka Bog
18 cards

 
The Rack

 

 Don't miss the secret (?) tech that gave the deck an edge over many an opponent.

I believe this deck was Modern Tribal Wars, wasn't it?

 For the rest, lots of Elves, Robin was banking again on his Geist of Saint Traft love he declared in the interview, and our seasonal scoreboard leader MisterMojoRising was playing these Living End Zombies.

 

 Vantar6697 was playing this Vanilla Wurm deck, for reasons I don't really understand and I'm afraid to ask.

 

 As for me, I played a Dragon list that thought was going to do well, and did very bad instead (ending with a 1-3 score). 

 

 Incidentally, Dragon is the first tribe I played in Tribal Apocalypse in May 2010 (technically, I had played a Cat list in a previous event, but it was a Pauper Tribal event, so Dragon is my first proper tribal deck). Back then, it was about using Summoner's Egg to cheat big reptiles into play. This time, the list felt more powerful, with a fearsome team of midrange Dragons featuring these two bad boys:

 

Not super-money anymore, but still big money.

 All powered by Grim Monolith and Coalition Relic (which made the presence of Covetous Dragon safe) and protected by Slagstorm and Sudden Demise. The deck proved very consistent, able to throw a Thundermaw Hellkite at the opponent's face on turn 3 in almost every game. So what went wrong? I don't really know. I had hoped to meet many fast aggro tribes or Elves, to take advantage of my early sweepers then achieve board superiority with my big flyers. Indeed, I first defeated a Goblin deck, but then I faced two Rat decks in a row, and none of them cared about my strategy — one was m4vis's, the other a Relentless Rats/Thrumming Stone build that apparently only managed to pull its one trick against me (I could feature the list, but it's just the two combo pieces, plus Dark Ritual, Sign in Blood, and Swamps). In particular, m4vis's Ensnaring Bridges were lethal against me, as I couldn't remove them (Steel Hellkite was my solution card) nor attack past them. So I guess it's one more time all about the matchups you get.

 In fact, in the last round, I lost a great match against Dawwy's oversized Centaurs, that were quickly able to escape my toughness-based sweepers and race my Dragons. What were the odds?

 

 Don't forget to check smawatts's War Report, this time commenting on other people's games as well!


THE HIGH PRICE OF WINNING

  

 Also known as: how much do the top decks cost? As of July 17, 2014, here's the answer (MTGO Traders prices; mtgGoldfish charts and analysis; the cheapest version of each card is always used; basic lands count zero):

  • 1st place, m4vis's Rats: $75.20 (nonland cards: $75.12; tribal base: $3.22)

 This is what I'd call an "enhanced budget deck". While the tribal base is negligible, and the mana base is non-existent, there are a few expensive cards that make the deck tick. The more conspicuous one is Ensnaring Bridge, but The Rack is also a card in the 5-tix range (due to having only one version online), and Thoughtseize might not be the wallet-slayer that was before the Theros reprint, but it's still not exactly budget.

 The Top 10 Cheapest Decks that Went Undefeated

  1. morpphling's Goblins, $2.35, 2nd place on Event 102
  2. Gq1rf7's Goblins, $3.32, 1st place on Event 154 (cheapest event winner)
  3. Gq1rf7's Goblins, $3.58, 1st place on Event 169
  4. Gq1rf7's Goblins, $3.70, 1st place on Event 145
  5. Gq1rf7's Goblins, $4.12, 2nd place on Event 141
  6. Gq1rf7's Assassins, $4.18, 1st place on Event 147
  7. Trickerie's Golems, $4.31, 1st place on Event 138
  8. arcbounddaylabor's Goblins, $4.46, 1st place on Event 111
  9. Coolcat1678's Elves, $5.13, 2nd place on Event 149
  10. ellmaris's Goblins, $6.52, 2nd place on Event 103

 NOTE: not adjusted to current prices; data collected since Event 85.


WAR REPORT
by Smawatts

 I love Recurring Nightmare. It's one of my favorite engine cards of all time, but at 15 tickets for a playset I wasn't really able to justify it as a pick up. With Vintage Masters a lot of old favorites have become very affordable and I will say my desire to try out new things in Tribal has increased by a good deal.

 So I was definitely going to make a Recurring Nightmare deck. I wanted to play a tribe were I could get a lot creatures with come into play effects and good value, so I cheated and picked Humans. I needed a combo to threaten with, as what tends to make these type of decks good is having an unbeatable endgame. Yosei, the Morning Star, a part of the sky from the Modern Masters cycle of Kamigawa Spirit Dragons, has a powerful synergy with Nightmare, easily becoming a one-sided Stasis.

 So here is the deck tech I recorded before the tourney:

 Round 1: Against MisterMojoRising with Zombies. Cycling creatures plus terrible cascade spells that cast Living End is a proven powerful strategy. We had some good games but he was just much faster and his creatures were much better in the red zone.

 Round 2: Against romellos with Humans. A Bant maverick deck with lots of super powerful creatures, lots of 2-for-1s, and a powerful equipment package. I made a good number of play errors here, like attempting to Nekrataal a Shardless Agent, and I once again played around a card my opponent didn't have, as I assumed that with the Knight of the Reliquary + spell-like lands that a Bojuka Bog would be in his 62. Though I still think it was probably right to play around it without having the information, but ultimately I just couldn't move forward with my game plan if Scavenging Ooze was on the table.

 So it was a 0-2 drop for me. I blame it mostly on misplays, a bit on a sloppy/greedy mana base, and a touch on bad matchups. Kuma suggested that I could do some live commentary on some other matches and I also thought it was a fairly good idea, so here they are.

 _Kumagoro_ with Dragons vs. goffdt with Ripple Rats:

 mihahitlor with Combo Elves vs. m4vis with Rack Rats:


SHOW AND TELL
by RexDart

 

 And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the very last game played in Tribal Apocalypse with V3. *Sheds a tear*


ANNOUNCEMENT TIME!

 Just to remind you of a few things:

 VMA Cards are not yet on Gatherling: Due to the recent change of Gatherer architecture, the data import of the latest set into Gatherling is taking long than usual (the code needs to be rewritten). In the meantime, you can regularly use the cards, but you need to "trick" Gatherling by putting a placeholder in the list, then specifying in a note what VMA card you're actually playing instead.

 Voting on Swords of X and Y Still Ongoing: Do you want the Swords (and Batterskull) to be unbanned in Underdog and Pure? (Remember they're not banned anywhere else, nor will.) We have collected 19 votes out of 30 so far. Current tally is here.

  

 Cockatrice Wants You! And Badger and Siren, too! Be the first to win a match with freshly promoted to tribes Cockatrice, Badger or Siren, and you'll win 1 tix. Remember: only tribes with at least 3 members are effectively considered tribes in Tribal Apocalypse (since tribes that field an equal or greater number of Changelings than actual members count as Shapeshifter decks). Tribes with exactly 3 members, like Cockatrice, are allowed to play in Underdog events with 8 slots filled by Changelings, whereas nobody else (but, of course, Shapeshifter decks) can play with more than 4 Changelings in those events.

 The Underdog Prize: During any event of the regular rotation (but not during the one-time special events), all players who are running an Underdog Tribe are eligible for a 1-tix credit on Pennybot. 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. During Underdog events, only the True Underdog tribes are rewarded (those are the tribes belonging to all three categories of Underdog at once).

 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 Hamtastic Award: The Biodiversity Prize dedicated to the memory of Erik Friborg has started the third quarter of 2014. The quarter will end September 27. By that date, the player or players who registered the greatest number of different tribes will get a 5-tix certificate from MTGO Traders.

 The Tribal Achievements: The new list of achievements for the 2014 season is here. Unlock the most of them by the end of the year and you'll share a 25-tix Jackpot.

 The Champion's Challenge: AJ_Impy, our reigning Ultimate Tribal Champion, has issued a running challenge of his own: play with a deck featuring 4 copies of a card he'll nominate, and win 3 matches with it during a single event, and AJ will reward you with 1 tix (which you'll keep as eternal memento because it's the tix the Ultimate Champion gave you). You'll be required to prove through a screenshot (or calling either me or him as witnesses, but only if we're not playing!) that you actually played the card and/or activated the card's abilities at least once during the event. And the first chosen card is... Sunforger! Good luck, folks!

 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, they will not be allowed to register the same tribe and deck again for 5 events (i.e. they'll have to register a different deck or decks 5 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 us 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):

  • 4.28 (Week 185 BE), on July 19: Tribal Kaleidoscope (only multicolored cards and lands)
  • 4.29 (Week 186 BE), on July 26: Pure Tribal (no off-tribe creatures, complete rules here)
  • 4.30 (Week 187 BE), on August 2: Tribal Underdog (only Underdog Tribes allowed)
  • 4.31 (Week 188 BE), on August 9: Regular Tribal (just plain old Legacy Tribal Wars)  

Check out the full Tribal Calendar for 2014!

Vote for your favorite Equipment on the Topdeck Awards!

SEE YOU ALL IN THE TRIBAL ROOM!

1 Comments

Just realized I never updated by Kumagoro42 at Thu, 07/17/2014 - 17:35
Kumagoro42's picture

Just realized I never updated the final link to the Topdeck Awards. The current votation, for best card drawing, is here.