---

 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

---

THOUGHTS OF A TRIBAL HOST

by Kumagoro

 We're deep into August, the height of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, the midpoint between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox. Celtic witches just celebrated Lughnasadh, northern Christians Lammas. How many Magic cards are explicitly dedicated to summer? Just four, it turns out. All in green, the color of nature and the seasonal changes.

   

 The oldest is Summer Bloom, originally from Portal. It references the summer harvest, which is what all the above-mentioned festivities are about, so it's the most topical of the group. It also has a history of competitive play, being a way to ramp to five mana on turn two, in the right land-heavy build, or combined with mass land seekers.

 Midsummer Revel is not the right card for this time of year, because the midsummer, somewhat counterintuitively, is the solstice, so between June 20 and 22 in the Northern Hemisphere. It's been inspiration to great works of fiction, from A Midsummer Night's Dream to Midsommar.

 Sakiko references summer only as an epithet. She's the rival of Shizuko, Caller of Autumn, the other Shaman of the Orochi people of Kamigawa.

 Finally, Veil of Summer is known for being I believe the only hate card to warrant a ban in Standard. Poor blue and black decks were mistreated too badly by this specific countermeasure. I can't find if this poetic expression is a reference to something, or just for the shielding the blooming summer gives to the green-aligned loyalists.

---

LAST WEEK ON TRIBAL APOCALYPSE...

• Event Number: Week 551 BE
• Date: July 31
• Attendance: 9
• Rounds: 3
• Subformat: SilverBlack
• Winner: ThyShuffler with Vampire
• Runner-up: AJ_Impy with Druid
• 1-loss: Nagarjuna with Merfolk, Bandit Keith with Goblin, Deonmag with Zombie
• Dark Horse Prize: -DiamondDust- with Advisor
• Tribes: Advisor, Druid, Goblin, Insect, Merfolk, Sliver, Vampire (x2), Zombie
• Event link (with all players, pairings, standings, decks, and results): here it is

 Our first no-rares-allowed SilverBlack event came and went, and as it often happens with new formats, Vampire proved to be the easy solution. ThyShuffler's monoblack list included the very best of common and uncommon Vampires, which are all cards the Legacy version of the tribe would also happily run, with the sole exception of Bloodhusk Ritualist. There's also a deathtouch theme, exemplified by the presence of Vraska, Swarm's Eminence.

 

 Druid is more of an unexpected build, which still arrived all the way to the final round, thanks to AJ_Impy's piloting skills. The tribe typically gets overshadowed by their Elf subset, to the point that it's often pointless to run it as Druid. So it's especially cool to see it almost triumph while left to its own devices. This list actually features five different races of Druids: Dryad, Elf, Human, Merfolk and Vampire. The thing that links most of these is the magecraft ability word, making them a perfect payoff for the Chain of Smog combo (with Chain of Acid as a secondary enabler). Simply by targeting ourselves with Chain of Smog, we can generate infinite magecraft triggers. With Witherbloom Apprentice on the battlefield, that's game right there. Sneaky Druids.

 

 Here's what another classic tribe like Merfolk looks like in SilverBlack. And they look pretty good, I would say, and Nagarjuna would agree. It's a creature-only blue-green build that's the only one to exploit the fact that both Ancient Ziggurat and Unclaimed Territory are legal in the format.

 

 The most out there brew was this Insect list by ChNidox. Our bug friends don't have too many competitive lineups in Legacy; things unfortunately don't turn for the better when you force them to lose their rares.

---

THE HIGH PRICE OF WINNING

  

 Here's the prices of all the featured decks, courtesy of the Deck Pricer from mtgGoldfish (MTGO Traders prices as of August 6, 2021):

• ThyShuffler's Vampires: $4.50
• AJ_Impy's Druids: $2.12
• Nagarjuna's Merfolk: $2.80
• ChNidox's Insects: $0.61

 The Top 10 Cheapest Decks that Went Undefeated

1. -DiamondDust-'s Dinosaurs, $0.98, 2nd place on Event 539
2. SirFalcon2008's Goblins, $1.54, 1st place on Event 389
3. mihahitlor's Warriors, $1.95, 1st place on Event 233
4. morpphling's Vampires, $2.25, 1st place on Event 285
5. morpphling's Goblins, $2.35, 2nd place on Event 102
6. JogandoPelado's Berserkers, $2.80, 1st place on Event 248
7. kokonade1000's Berserkers, $2.95, 2nd place on Event 354
8. MisterMojoRising's Beasts, $.3.01, 1st place on Event 484
9. Gq1rf7's Goblins, $3.32, 1st place on Event 154
10. Bandit Keith's Soldiers, $3.48, 1st place on Event 422

 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 Beasts, $3.01, 1st place on Event 484

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

---

ANNOUNCEMENTS

 Just to remind you of a few things:

 The Dark Horse 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. Tribes currently eligible for the award: Beholder, Starfish.

 The New Repopulation Award: Play all rounds of a Tribal Apocalypse event with a tribe that's been played only three times or fewer, and you'll get a 1-tix certificate from MTGO Traders. The list of eligible tribes is here (the leftmost column, from the end). Tribes that didn't exist before this season aren't eligible.

 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 five times before coming back to the undefeated one). This means a different tribe; in some cases, specific combo or archetype-defining cards will also be locked out. 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).

---

 WHAT'S NEXT

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

• 11.31 (Week 552 BE), on August 7: Underdog
• 11.32 (Week 553 BE), on August 14: Standard
• 11.33 (Week 554 BE), on August 21: Modern
• 11.34 (Week 555 BE), on August 28: Legacy

Check out the ban lists and the event calendar.
Next banned and restricted announcement: October 1.
Current watch list: Conspicuous Snoop, Crippling Fear Shrieking Affliction.

SEE YOU ALL IN THE #TRIBAL ROOM!

 

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