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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. Announcements
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

 New creatures are coming at us from every direction these days. I realized I never processed the five special creature cards from the M19 Gift Pack, released last November.

  

 

 Let's see, they're all high-CMC finishers. The Phoenix is pretty bad, in that its toughness is miserable and it keeps requiring re-casting. The Dinosaur is a huge trampler, so at least it provides a fast clock once it's online. The Angel gives indestructible to your attackers, which makes the combat phase hard to disentangle for the opponent. The Vampire seems good enough, even if his body is a bit small for a six-mana creature; but he does two separate, both useful things: gains you life and kills a creature when dying, which can be abused (I don't get why he's biting himself in the art, though; that's usually associated with giving the vamp's blood to someone to turn them, but that's not what the card does, feels like art that was meant for a different creature entirely). Finally, the Turtle of all types might just be the best of this lot (as strange as is that they chose Turtle as an iconic blue creature). It's hexproof, so it's a safe investment, and has a huge body that can easily withstand and kill any ground-based attacker that it forced to swing, so in this regard it works as continuous removal. It feels like a good finisher for control decks, and certainly an excellent Turtle.

 In other news, Boars got their exclusive restricted to tribe card, effective immediately (well, as soon as Ravnica Allegiance will be on Gatherling; there's been some technical issues there, the database they used to acquire new sets changed format, so they had to rewrite the capture software accordingly. It's almost there). End-Raze Forerunners is almost as good a Natural Order target as Craterhoof Behemoth, so it became necessary to restrict it too. Of course it'll not be restricted in Standard, where I'm not even sure Boar Tribal can be built, so it would be the same as banning it, which seems excessive. (I checked, there's actually five Boars in Standard. They're even all fairly playable, but I doubt we'll see them played as a tribe too often).

   

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LAST WEEK ON TRIBAL APOCALYPSE...

• Event Number: 9.03, Week 420 BE
• Date: January 26
• Attendance: 11
• Rounds: 3
• Subformat: Legacy
• Winner: Deonmag with Scarecrow
• 1 Loss: Generalissimo with Shaman, Bandit Keith with Goblin, ThyShuffler with Human, JackSlagel with Human, AJ_Impy with Assembly-Worker
• Underdog Prize: lovetapsmtg with Azra
• Tribes: Assembly-Worker, Azra, Bird, Goblin (x2), Golem, Human (x2), Scarecrow, Shaman (x2)
• Event link (with all players, pairings, standings, decks, and results): here it is

 First Scarecrow win in Legacy non-Underdog, sixth overall, and half of these were at the hand of Scarecrow specialist Deonmag. Cloudpost decks are getting a bit too popular lately, and they have got stronger and stronger over the years, so we might want to do something about that. It's an important archetype in Legacy, though, so I was thinking to phase Cloudpost out for a month once in a while. We can do it next March, and AJ_Impy's proposed name of "March: Off the Machines" is pretty clever. Later we can apply the same idea of "one month shutdown" to other key cards that twist the meta too much. Like, I don't know, Mountain.
 Anyway, Scarecrows don't even need 12-Post per se (they just want Cascading Cataracts, formerly known as Crystal Quarry, to drop Reaper King), but Ugin and All Is Dust surely do, which is kind of the greater issue.

 

 Generalissimo and I were playing our Shaman deck based on Meren of Clan Nel Toth. We'll report about the whole thing in the upcoming Building Lab. In the meantime, Generalissimo ranked first of the 2-1s.

 

 Humans came in two variety. ThyShuffler ran the monored, hyper-aggressive ones...

 

 ...while JackSlagel went for a more midrange-oriented Jund build, with tons of disruption and removal and Lilianas. One of the most expensive builds we've had in recent memory, but it sure pays off.

 

 Finally, here's a Cloudpost flavor you don't see often: Assembly-Worker. And what do you know, they're amazing when there's enough mana to pump into them, especially Cogwork Assembler copying things like Spine of Ish Sah and going infinite with Candelabra of Tawnos. And AJ_Impy knows all too well how to pilot this kind of deck.

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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 February 1, 2019):

• Deonmag's Scarecrows: $13.44
• Generalissimo's Shamans: $61.79
• ThyShuffler's Humans: $37.78
• JackSlagel's Humans: $188.79
• AJ_Impy's Assembly-Workers: $62.81

 The Top 10 Cheapest Decks that Went Undefeated

1. SirFalcon2008's Goblins, $1.54, 1st place on Event 289
2. mihahitlor's Warriors, $1.95, 1st place on Event 233
3. morpphling's Vampires, $2.25, 1st place on Event 285
4. morpphling's Goblins, $2.35, 2nd place on Event 102
5. JogandoPelado's Berserkers, $2.80, 1st place on Event 248
6. kokonade1000's Berserkers, $2.95, 2nd place on Event 354
7. Gq1rf7's Goblins, $3.32, 1st place on Event 154
8. MisterMojoRising's Insects, $3.55, 2nd place on Event 201
9. Gq1rf7's Goblins, $3.58, 1st place on Event 169
10. Gq1rf7's Goblins, $3.70, 1st place on Event 145

 The Top 5 Cheapest Non-Goblin Decks that Went Undefeated

1. mihahitlor's Warriors, $1.95, 1st place on Event 233
2. morpphling's Vampires, $2.25, 1st place on Event 285
3. JogandoPelado's Berserkers, $2.80, 1st place on Event 248
4. kokonade1000's Berserkers, $2.95, 2nd place on Event 354
5. MisterMojoRising's Insects, $3.55, 2nd place on Event 201

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

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

 Just to remind you of a few things:

 The Underdog Prize: During any event of the regular rotation (but not necessarily during the one-time special events), all players who are running an Underdog Tribe are eligible for a 1-tix credit certificate from MTGO Traders. 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.

 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 New Kids on the Block Award: When a new tribe is introduced in the game, or reaches enough members to be played as a proper tribe (i.e. at least 3 members, so you can build a deck that features 4 copies of each plus 8 Changeling creatures), the first player to score a match win with it will get a 3-tix certificate from MTGO Traders. You'll need a hard win, not a BYE or a win by no-show of your opponent. There's currently one eligible tribe for the award: Sheep.

 The Repopulation Award: Some tribes get played only once (to get the New Kids on the Block Award) and then forgotten. Never again! Register one of the following tribes three times in different events, then play all rounds of those events with them, and you'll get a 3-tix certificate from MTGO Traders. The list of these tribes, established May 5, 2017, is as follows: Antelope, Goat, Incarnation, Monger, Nightstalker, Ouphe, Rabbit, Salamander. Already cleared: Atog, Crocodile, Homarid, Jackal, Leech, Licid, Manticore, Metathran, Moonfolk, Octopus, Orgg, Ox, Processor, Siren, Slith.

 The Hamtastic Award: The Biodiversity Prize dedicated to the memory of Erik Friborg rewards each player who registers 10 different tribes (except Human, Elf and Goblin) during the year with a 3-tix certificate from MTGO Traders. You can go on and win the prize multiple times in the year, but you need to keep playing different tribes! (So if you manage to register 50 different tribes in one season, you can get up to 15 tix!)

 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.

 We're on Discord! Join us from here, chat about tribal things with other tribal players and arrange tribal games on MTGO all week long! (Or your can just keep using our Google Sheets bulletin board).

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 WHAT'S NEXT

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

• 9.04 (Week 421 BE), on February 2: Underdog
• 9.05 (Week 422 BE), on February 9: Standard
• 9.06 (Week 423 BE), on February 16: Modern
• 9.07 (Week 424 BE), on February 23: Legacy

Check out the ban lists and the event calendar
SEE YOU ALL IN THE #TRIBAL ROOM!

Art disclaimers. Revel in Riches art by Eric Deschamps; Herald of Anafenza art by Aaron Miller.