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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

 Cockatrice unchained! It happened at last: last week Golden_Lin was the first player to win a match with the only Orphan Tribe left (i.e. a tribe that had never won a match in Tribal Apocalypse) and was awarded a special 2-tix certificate for this. Congrats!

   

 Speaking of which, quick update on the tribes with exactly 3 members, which 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 current list is as follows (it's being updated on Gatherling too): Badger, Cockatrice, Homarid, Masticore, Mongoose, Rabbit. Former members Harpy, Octopus, Squid and Whale have more than 3 members now, so they're restricted to 4 Changelings like everyone else. You can check the list of tribal sizes in decreasing order of membership here.

 Also, Beck/Call is now officially unbanned. It was banned almost immediately upon release for reasons of redundancy with the feared Glimpse of Nature, but it is a bit harder to exploit than Glimpse is, and Elves aren't as dominant now as they were back then (maybe due to Beck/Call being banned? I doubt it, but we'll see).

 Also also, Thought Lash is bugged, working without actually exiling cards from the library, thus becoming something of an "I won" card. Therefore it'll be banned until fixed. This means in this week's Singleton event, too. Speaking of which, this week's Singleton still bans all the the old DCI cards that used to be banned in-client when we were able to use the Legacy Tribal Wars format (so technically, they're still banned in the "official" format, too, whatever that is). We'll unban them in time for the following Singleton event on July 30, but for now, they stay banned so Singleton doesn't suddenly change from the last times we played it. The affected cards are listed here.

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LAST WEEK ON TRIBAL APOCALYPSE...

• Event Number: 6.16, Week 277 BE
• Date: April 23
• Attendance: 18
• Rounds: 4
• Subformat: Regular
• Winner: Bazaar of Baghdad (Wizard)
• 1 Loss: ML_Berlin (Human), ScionOfJustice (Bird), Socanelas (Sliver), AJ_Impy (Construct), Yokai_ (Warrior), pfirpfel (Merfolk)
• Underdog Prize: Golden_Lin ( Cockatrice)
• Tribes: Berserker, Bird, Cockatrice, Construct, Druid, Elf (x2), Human (x2), Illusion, Merfolk (x2), Myr, Sliver (x2), Warrior, Wizard, Zombie
• Event link (with all players, pairings, standings, decks, and results): here it is

 Bazaar of Baghdad won last week's event with a Thought Lash/Laboratory Maniac combo deck in a Wizard shell. It's how we found out of Thought Lash being bugged to begin with, yet BoB and his opponents managed to work out if and when the interaction would've caused a victory with some in-game math. Which was a headache, so as said above, we'll wait for WotC to fix it. They are now aware of the issue, says BoB himself here.

 

 Another combo deck ending in the money was one that BoB has played in the past, too: I'm talking about Aluren/Cavern Harpy/Parasitic Strix here piloted by ScionOfJustice and entirely kept within the Bird tribe, except for the necessary Harpy (which should have the Bird type if you ask me) and a couple Eternal Witnesses. No Imperial Recruiter means a lot less consistency, but the archetype still did well while being considerably fairer.

 

 We check in with Constructs after a while, to find Cloudpost specialist AJ_Impy taking them into a new direction with "counters matter" green cards like Hardened Scales and Curse of Predation. Looks like fun.

 

 Finally, here's the little Cockatrice deck that could. Well, it could win one match, at least, but that was Golden_Lin's only goal. Did you know that the in-client profanity filter censors the word "cockatrice"? And, for some reason, "queen"?

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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 29, 2016):

• Bazaar of Baghdad's Wizards: $307.19
• ScionOfJustice's Birds: $168.25
• AJ_Impy's Constructs: $64.15
• Golden_Lin's Cockatrices: $137.65

 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:

 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):

• 6.17 (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
• 6.20 (Week 281 BE), on May 21: Pure

Check out all the rules for the sub-formats!

Check out the full Tribal Calendar for 2016!

SEE YOU ALL IN THE TRIBAL ROOM!