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 Welcome back to Tribal Apocalypse!

   Table of Contents 

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

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

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THOUGHTS OF A TRIBAL HOST
by Kumagoro

 Good news, everyone! Battle for Zendikar cards are finally working within Gatherling! A big thank you goes to longtimegone who made the solitary, amanuensis effort of writing each of them into the system, and now he's working on an automatic updater that should be ready by the time the next set hits the shelves. Good job, good sir.

BFZ is in da house!

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LAST WEEK ON TRIBAL APOCALYPSE...

• Event Number: 5.48, Week 257 BE
• Date: December 5
• Attendance: 21
• Rounds: 4
• Subformat: Underdog
• Winner: Lordpipas (Berserker)
• Other undefeated: Yokai_ (Berserker)
• 1 Loss: Generalissimo (Kor), Bazaar of Baghdad (Berserker), ScionOfJustice (Satyr), totalhate (Rebel), mihahitlor (Soltari)
• Underdog Prize: Golden_Lin (Badger)
• Tribes: Advisor, Artificer, Avatar, Badger, Bat, Berserker (x4), Giant, Insect, Kobold, Kor, Minotaur, Rebel, Satyr, Scout, Soltari, Vedalken, Wolf, Wurm
• Event link (with all players, pairings, standings, decks, and results): here it is

 A very big "congratulations!" is in order to Lordpipas, who finally made his long-standing dreams of victory into a reality. The first of many such instances, we hope! All thanks to the Berserkers, that were in a particularly positive week: of 4 registered lists, 3 ended up in Top 4. This is LordPipas's.

 

 Yokai_'s 2nd-place version typically involved some green, too (and a lot of off-tribe help), raising the deck's price considerably. Cheaper wins!

 

 Among the Top 8, the only list that wasn't kind of red-based (even Generalissimo's Kors was, now, c'mon!) was totalhate's Rebel.

 

 But of course, we couldn't do a proper job of chronicling the week without mentioning the first attempt at breaking the Badger! Golden_Lin wasn't very lucky with this list (which didn't manage to win a single game), but the effort is certainly admirable. Now every tribe has been played at least once!

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THE HIGH PRICE OF WINNING

  

 Here's the prices of all the featured decks, courtesy of the amazing Deck Pricer from mtgGoldfish (MTGO Traders prices as of December 11, 2015):

• Lordpipas's Berserkers: $5.84
• Yokai_'s Berserkers: $185.48
• totalhate's Rebels: $191.52
• Golden_Lin's Badgers: $56.99

 The Top 10 Cheapest Decks that Went Undefeated

1. mihahitlor's Warriors, $1.95, 1st place on Event 233
2. morpphling's Goblins, $2.35, 2nd place on Event 102
3. JogandoPelado's Berserkers, $2.80, 1st place on Event 248
4. Gq1rf7's Goblins, $3.32, 1st place on Event 154
5. MisterMojoRising's Insects, $3.55, 2nd place on Event 201
6. Gq1rf7's Goblins, $3.58, 1st place on Event 169
7. Gq1rf7's Goblins, $3.70, 1st place on Event 145
8. Gq1rf7's Goblins, $4.12, 2nd place on Event 141
9. Gq1rf7's Assassins, $4.18, 1st place on Event 147
10. mihahitlor's Goblins, $4.22, 1st place on Event 240

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

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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.

 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 2015. The quarter will end December 26. By that date, the player or players who registered the greatest number of different tribes will get a 5-tix certificate from MTGO Traders. Congratulations to last quarter's winner, Generalissimo!

 The Achievements (sponsored by AJ_Impy and vantar6697): Unlock the greatest number of Achievements from this list and AJ and vantar will grant you 10 tix per quarter! The current quarter will end December 26. Players with the same number of achievements will split the prize. 10 more tix will be given at the end of the year to that whole season's Achievement Master. Good luck and congratulations to last quarter's Achievement Master, Generalissimo!

 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!

 Wanna test your deck? Tell us when you're online, and look who else is there and when! All of this here!

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 WHAT'S NEXT

 The upcoming Tribal Apocalypse events of the Blippian Era (every Saturday at 17:00 GMT):

• 5.49 (Week 258 BE), on December 12: Regular
• 5.50 (Week 259 BE), on December 19: Regular
• 5.51 (Week 260 BE), on December 26: Pure

Check out all the rules for the sub-formats!

Check out the full Tribal Calendar for 2015!

Vote for your favorite Board Sweeper on the Topdeck Awards!

SEE YOU ALL IN THE TRIBAL ROOM!