Welcome back to Tribal Apocalypse!
Table of Contents
- Last Week on Tribal Apocalypse...
- The High Price of Winning
- Announcement Time!
- What's Next
Check the full archive for the "Diaries of the Apocalypse" series
THOUGHTS OF A TRIBAL HOST
by Kumagoro
The Tribal Evaluations keep coming! Battle for Zendikar: done, Oath of the Gatewatch: done, and I'm about to catch up at last with newcomer Shadows over Innistrad (probably going live tomorrow). Then I'll just need to do Commander 2015, aka Legendary Cube Prize Packs, as we call it online.
Speaking of tribal accounting, a few tribes have recently crashed the 50-member wall and thusly lost the Endangered status, fully becoming Greater Tribes. Unsurprisingly, these are the four main tribes from BFZ block: Eldrazi, Drone, Ally and Kor. So now the Greater Tribes are 50, the Endangered Tribes are 133. We can see Artificer (which actually already has 50 members offline, but we count the online status for our purposes), Centaur and Rebel are very close to the mark. I don't know that Rebel will ever come back, though. Last time we saw them, it was Time Spiral block and only as a reprise of Masques and Onslaught. But we're bound to come back to Dominaria at some point, right?
Also, in last week's comment section, Bazaar of Baghdad brought to my attention the fact that we still have Beck/Call in the general ban list. It was removed from circulation immediately upon release, due to the redundancy with Glimpse of Nature provided by the Beck side. As a result, the very harmless Call side never got a chance to be used. Since Elves haven't been around much lately, and Beck is actually not as easy to cast as Glimpse, I'm thinking we could unban the whole thing. Then, if Elves start rearing their ugly heads again, we can just acknowledge the situation and re-ban it, the way we did with Goblin Lackey. Any strong argument against?
Hey, that looks like The Gitrog Monster on the Beck art! Another reason to unban it!
LAST WEEK ON TRIBAL APOCALYPSE...
- Event Number: 6.14, Week 275 BE
- Date: April 9
- Attendance: 12
- Rounds: 3
- Subformat: Regular
- Winner: AJ_Impy (Human)
- 1 Loss: Yokai_ (Warrior), AEFabricio (Berserker), ScionOfJustice (Soltari), Socanelas (Sliver), TLR (Human)
- Underdog Prize: ScionOfJustice (Soltari)
- Tribes: Berserker, Human (x3), Plant, Rogue, Shaman, Sliver, Soldier, Soltari, Warrior, Zombie
- Event link (with all players, pairings, standings, decks, and results): here it is
Look at that: Two wins in a row for AJ_Impy for the first time in his tribal career! Our tribal guru is really on fire these days, and takes the throne again with this Human aggro list (sort of not the usual thing you'd expect from AJ). Beaters, removals, lifegaining: win. Sounds simple, no? It's not.
It was an all aggro week, anyway. Top 4 were ScionOfJustice with Isochron Soltari (which were the only tribe eligible for the Underdog Prize, go figure), Yokai_ with this Warrior deck, and newcomer AEFabricio with a similar one but declined in the Berserker case. Then, right before yet another red burn-aggro by TLR – Human, this time – we also got Sliver, which is aggro again (what were we saying about the proliferation of combo and reanimator?), but at least we didn't feature the little suckers in a while, so here they are, courtesy of Socanelas.
And it didn't have much luck (except against me!), but I liked Bazaar of Baghdad's Rogue list featuring red and green Rogues but not black ones. Very high profile, but it does everything high profile Rogues do, like hit hard with a True-Name Nemesis equipped with Cloak and Dagger, clone it through Sakashima the Impostor, exchange stuff with Daring Thief and Starke of Rath, accelerate the proceedings via Shardless Agent, and of course exploit the Pestermite/Splinter Twin combo, used merely as one of the options rather than a centerpiece.
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 April 14, 2016):
The Top 10 Cheapest Decks that Went Undefeated
- mihahitlor's Warriors, $1.95, 1st place on Event 233
- morpphling's Goblins, $2.35, 2nd place on Event 102
- JogandoPelado's Berserkers, $2.80, 1st place on Event 248
- Gq1rf7's Goblins, $3.32, 1st place on Event 154
- MisterMojoRising's Insects, $3.55, 2nd place on Event 201
- 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
- mihahitlor's Goblins, $4.22, 1st place on Event 240
NOTE: not adjusted to current prices; data collected since Event 85.
ANNOUNCEMENT TIME!
Just to remind you of a few things:
Cockatrice Wants You! Be the first to win a match with the last orphan tribe and you'll win a 2-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 second quarter of 2016. The quarter will end June 25. By that date, the player or players who registered the greatest number of different tribes (except Human, Elf and Goblin) will get a 5-tix certificate from MTGO Traders. Congratulations to last quarter's winner, 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.
Wanna test your deck? Tell us when you're online, and look who else is there and when! All of this here!
WHAT'S NEXT
The upcoming Tribal Apocalypse events of the Blippian Era (every Saturday at 17:00 GMT):
- 6.15 (Week 276 BE), on April 16: Pure
- 6.16 (Week 277 BE), on April 23: Regular
- 6.17 (Week 278 BE), on April 30: Singleton
- 6.18 (Week 279 BE), on May 7: Underdog
Check out all the rules for the sub-formats!
Check out the full Tribal Calendar for 2016!
SEE YOU ALL IN THE TRIBAL ROOM!
15 Comments
It amuses me that there were two Orim's Chant aggro-combo decks in the top four, using different combos.
I purposely let readers figure out the "not simple" part of your deck, while putting the Soulfire Grand Master picture out there. :)
Is there a typo in AJ'S deck, it has 62 cards in it.
Nope, it has 62 cards in it. Something Robin88 pioneered: The limiting factor being the percentage of creatures, it allows for more utility.
Yeah, several players followed Robin's example. 62 is the new 60.
Wow, nice list, AJ. Belated congrats! Lifegain was likely a good meta call, and obviously the list is more robust than simply that categorization.
"I don't know that Rebel will ever come back, though. Last time we saw them, it was Time Spiral block and only as a reprise of Masques and Onslaught. But we're bound to come back to Dominaria at some point, right?"
They brought back Allies and Slivers which are far more linear. Why not Rebels? It is merely a question of how, not when.
Rebels are the Rebel searchers though, and that isn't going to be a featured mechanic when Wizards wants to reduce shuffling in general. I say this even as Rebels are one of my favorite tribes, and I think they might be Modern viable (though it would have been much easier if the format was Masques-on, like "Extended Plus" was.
How it is done matters.
The question is whether we'll come back to Dominaria anytime soon. Rebels are strictly linked to a storyline from there. Also, is that storyline still on? Does the "Rebellion" still exist? Can't tell. (It's the same for Allies, by the way. Once the Alliance on Zendikar is over – is it? – they'll cease to exist).
Until last year, they had Core Sets as a place where they could print cards from whatever plane, including good old Dominaria. Now that option is gone, so in order to print specific stuff they have to find themselves in the correct environment.
The Rebels appeared on Mercadia, Rath (Now overlaid on Dominaria) and Dominaria repeatedly (In Jamuraa during the Keldon invasion, Otaria during the time of the Cabal and the Order, and all across the desolate wastelands of Time Spiral)
We'll ever go back to Mercadia? With the bad name that block has not being a great selling point, and it being something from before the new order, the new visual design and the neo-walkers, I can't say that it seems likely, but it's still one of the planes.
Despite what AJ remarked below your comment, I agree that it is a tough sell. But I don't think anything is off the table when it comes to expansions these days and rebellion is a widespread idea that can take a variety of forms.
Just as soldier and warrior are types that run through a variety of sets, rebels could appear as types in any story where they are appropriate.
Yeah, it's true that they could just slap a Rebel subtype on rebels from any storyline. I hadn't thought of that. They might even be inspired by Star Wars in the next years/decade.
Ya never know :)