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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

 First of all, Gatherling is now up to date again with the latest sets (including Legendary Cube Prize Packs), and will remain so forever, because now the process is automatized! Woot! Big thanks to longtimegone for all the programming work.

 The Underdog exceptions are also fixed! Now Badger, Harpy, Homarid, Masticore, Mongoose, Octopus, Rabbit, Squid, and Whale all correctly allow for 8 Changelings. Fixing it unveiled a mistake made in last week's event, which was Pure, yet allowed a Masticore deck with Changelings that shouldn't have been there. Completely missed it since the player skipped the normal registration and headed directly to the placeholders, so Gatherling couldn't warn him that Masticore is not allowed in Pure (since it's, by necessity, never "pure").

 This brings us to the clean-up project I have in mind, which means searching for and fixing on Gatherling all the tribes with placeholders from the past, what, 6 months? Since when Gatherling started to fall behind on the new sets. I'll need some help looking for the lists that need the placeholders to be removed. Maybe it's just about searching for Darksteel Relic or Relentless Rats, but sometimes there were different placeholders because more than one missing card was involved.

Now this stupid thing will finally cease to perturb the statistics.

 Finally, a piece of news: apparently, the Community Super League, that will run every Thursday for nine weeks starting on April 26, will feature Tribal Wars as one of the formats! This is unlikely to bring the actual format back, but it might generate interest for Tribal Apocalypse. Many thanks to pfirpfel for telling me about that, as I don't really follow the streaming world, but he does, so he'll try to contact the participants and raise awareness about TribAp. If any of you can do the same, you'll be very welcome! (Also, pfirpfel, come back to a TribAp event one of these days!)

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LAST WEEK ON TRIBAL APOCALYPSE...

• Event Number: 6.15, Week 276 BE
• Date: April 16
• Attendance: 18
• Rounds: 4
• Subformat: Pure
• Winner: mihahitlor (Shaman)
• 1 Loss: Yokai_ (Warrior), BrunoDogma (Human), AJ_Impy (Zombie), ChNidox (Wolf), ScionOfJustice (Wizard)
• Underdog Prize: Golden_Lin ( Masticore)
• Tribes: Elemental, Elf, Goblin, Human (x3), Myr, Rat, Shaman (x2), Sliver, Warrior, Wizard (x2), Wolf, Zombie (x3)
• Event link (with all players, pairings, standings, decks, and results): here it is

 Thanks to the latest mihahitlor's first place, Shaman is now the most successful tribe after the usual suspects Human, Goblin, Elf (way after them, to be honest). It's one of my favorite tribes, has what's possibly the widest range of playable of all tribes and the greatest variety, spanning from fast aggro builds with Rage Forger, to something like this:

 

 And to celebrate the Shadows over Innistrad (and its evaluation, that should have been released as I write this), here's a couple Innistrad tribes that reached the top last week. First, a Zombie list by AJ_Impy (who just barely fails to achieve three wins in a row), entirely built around a huge, wonderful chain of interactions: so Putrid Imp and Necromancer's Stockpile pitch Scourge of Nel Toth, which then comes into play by saccing two among Gravecrawler, Bladewing's Thrall and Prized Amalgam, at which point both the Thrall and the Amalgam will instantly come back too, while Gravecrawler, which is able to trigger the Amalgam by itself, will be able to join the party as well. All with a mana expense that ranges between 0 and 2 CMC.

 

 Then a fast and furious Wolf deck by ChNidox. Those lupines can hit hard, with a little help from their aura friends.

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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 April 22, 2016):

• mihahitlor's Shamans: $147.05
• AJ_Impy's Zombies: $205.40
• ChNidox's Wolves: $43.18

 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! 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!

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 WHAT'S NEXT

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

• 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
• 6.19 (Week 280 BE), on May 14: Regular

Check out all the rules for the sub-formats!

Check out the full Tribal Calendar for 2016!

SEE YOU ALL IN THE TRIBAL ROOM!