Welcome back to Tribal Apocalypse!
Table of Contents
- Last Week on Tribal Apocalypse...
- The High Price of Winning
- Smawatts' War Report
- Show and Tell
- Announcement Time!
- What's Next
Check the full archive for the "Diaries of the Apocalypse" series
THOUGHTS OF A TRIBAL HOST
by Kumagoro
So, we did it: 200 events since when BlippyTheSlug took over from Flippers_Giraffe all those years ago (ok, four years ago. It's a lot in MTGO time!) And I could say now the same things I said 2 years ago (I'll update those statistics about the winning tribes by event 250, because I like that threshold better; long story short, Elves are no more number 1, Goblins are, the first three places reversed), except with two years more under my belt. It occurred to me that I'm running this show since event 92 now, which makes me the longest-standing Tribal host in history. Who would have thought, uh? If you're interested, here's the moment I took over from the immortal Blippy. But this column exists from even longer, documenting tribal feats since event 40.
Last week was special also because it was the first time we tried the Vintage Tribal Wars format, as detailed below. More power than expected showed up, making it a wild, wild ride. I even had a Mox Emerald myself! (Which is the only Mox the winning decks didn't feature at all. That could mean something.)
Well, it costs less than Noble Hierarch.
And on top of all that, it was Halloween! Four years of Tribal Apocalypse in the Blippian Era, four editions of the Halloween Special with the Spooky Tribes, which is now the most ancient special format we use. For your comparative pleasure, here's the first edition, the second edition, and the third edition. And here's a Halloween-themed Magic artwork from this creepy article.
Art by Jung Park. The only one from that collection that wasn't deeply disturbing. Seriously, did you see the fetus inside Living Wall?
LAST WEEK ON TRIBAL APOCALYPSE...
- Event Number: 4.43, Week 200 BE
- Date: November 1st
- Attendance: 16
- Rounds: 4
- Subformat: Halloween!
- Winner: romellos (Spirit)
- 1 Loss: ScionOfJustice (Vampire), AJ_Impy (Demon), Ranth (Spirit), mihahitlor (Zombie), smawatts (Zombie)
- Underdog Prize: vantar6697 (Rat)
- AJ's Halloween Prize: fliebana (Demon)
- Tribes: Demon (x3), Rat, Spirit (x2), Vampire, Zombie (x9)
- Event link (with all players, pairings, standings, decks, and results): here it is
It's a romellos year. 7 wins in the past three months alone make it really clear who's this season's boss. For the Vintage Halloween extravaganza, he came nearly fully powered with these Spirits.
Nobody else was undefeated. The highest-ranked among those who weren't was ScionOfJustice with his equally powered Vampires.
Zombies, as it's typical for them, were the most popular and least successful of the lot. We'll see smawatts doing well enough with a Time Vault build in his War Report. You'll also see Ranth commenting on his Spirits on this week's Show and Tell. AJ_Impy piloted his Demons into the money, then gave the special Halloween Prize he was in charge of (consisting of one symbolic copy of Spirit of the Night) to these other Demons by fliebana, judged the most original build of the event.
And the lonely Rat by vantar6697 was the only Underdog tribe present. Also the only tribe that wasn't Zombie, Spirit, Demon, or Vampire. Power to the Underdog! Which is this week's format! (And if you were wondering, this was the first Underdog event we held. Also a long-standing tradition, it appears).
THE HIGH PRICE OF WINNING
For once, due to the peculiar nature of the event and the involved economics, her are the prices for all the decks in the event, courtesy of the amazing Deck Pricer from mtgGoldfish (MTGO Traders prices as of November 6, 2014):
- romellos's Spirits: $951.59
- ScionOfJustice's Vampires: $629.08
- AJ_Impy's Demons: $172.53
- Ranth's Spirits: $914.99
- mihahitlor's Zombies: $8.46
- smawatts's Zombies: $92.32
- csrrcr's Zombies: $2.31
- Deonmag's Zombies: $58.11
- fliebana's Demons: $802.03
- hexalite's Zombies: $15.60
- LeilaPari's Zombies: $66.85
- milegyenanevem's Demons: $475.27
- MisterMojoRising's Zombies: $7.48
- ML_Berlin's Zombies: $55.71
- vantar6697's Rats: $32.81
- _Kumagoro_'s Zombies: $241.97
So, an ample range of deck prices was present, with the extremes being romellos, Ranth, and fliebana at one end, and csrrcr, MisterMojoRising, and mihahitlor at the other, the latter managing to end in the money with an $8 deck. In Vintage. I'm impressed.
The Top 10 Cheapest Decks that Went Undefeated
- morpphling's Goblins, $2.35, 2nd place on Event 102
- Gq1rf7's Goblins, $3.32, 1st place on Event 154 (cheapest event winner)
- Gq1rf7's Goblins, $3.58, 1st place on Event 169
- Gq1rf7's Goblins, $3.70, 1st place on Event 145
- Gq1rf7's Goblins, $4.12, 2nd place on Event 141
- Gq1rf7's Assassins, $4.18, 1st place on Event 147
- Trickerie's Golems, $4.31, 1st place on Event 138
- Gq1rf7's Vampires, $4.38, 2nd place on Event 188
- arcbounddaylabor's Goblins, $4.46, 1st place on Event 111
- Coolcat1678's Elves, $5.13, 2nd place on Event 149
NOTE: not adjusted to current prices; data collected since Event 85.
WAR REPORT
by Smawatts
Write-up unavailable, but here's the video commentaries for the Time Zombies matches nonetheless:
Round 1: Against vantar6697 with Rats.
Round 2: Against AJ_Impy with Demons.
Round 3: Against hexalite with Zombies.
Round 4: Against ML_Berlin with Zombies.
SHOW AND TELL
To celebrate the crazy, powered Vintage environment, here's Ranth commenting on a replay of a game of his where a crazy, powered start happened with his Spirit's Puzzle deck.
ANNOUNCEMENT TIME!
Just to remind you of a few things:
Cockatrice Wants You! And Badger, too! Be the first to win a match with these new eligible tribes and you'll win a 1-tix certificate from MTGO Traders. 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 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. And of course this will happen only as soon as the Changelings will work on V4 as promised.
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 fourth quarter of 2014. The quarter will end December 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 at least 1 match and at least a total of 3 games 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. The current card is... Kusari-Gama! 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 5 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):
- 4.44 (Week 201 BE), on November 8: Underdog
- 4.45 (Week 202 BE), on November 15: Regular
- 4.46 (Week 203 BE), on November 22: Tribal Commander
- 4.47 (Week 204 BE), on November 29: Pure
Check out all the rules for the sub-formats!
Check out the full Tribal Calendar for 2014!
Vote for your favorite Elf on the Topdeck Awards!
SEE YOU ALL IN THE TRIBAL ROOM!
6 Comments
Waited all week to see SMAWatts respond to that Null Rod. Was not disappointed.
AJ, Null Rod was a good call to include for Vintage.
I should have tutored for it G1 versus you, but I made the wrong call there. Having maindeck reactive answers coupled with the vintage tutor package seemed a good way to go especially considering the lack of sideboards.
I was amused!
And you didn't see me react when I found out later that you were only running 1 copy of Leyline of the Void, yet you managed to have it first hand against me 2 games out of 3. :P
'Give me lucky generals!' :)