---

 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

 Midnight Hunt's preview season proceeds. As expected, the Werewolf presence is not so overwhelming, compared to the other monsters (and, of course, the Humans). Vampires, Spirits and Zombies have intriguining new members as well. But far from the spotlight, there's also a couple new high-profile cards for one of my (and Maro's) favorite tribes: Ooze. With every passing year, the slimy fella are putting a better and better lineup. In the Underdog event last week, I managed another third place with them, but the top is still proving elusive. It's true that there are several ways to build them, and one could easily take more outlandish combo routes involving Necrotic Ooze or The Mimeoplasm or Prime Speaker Vannifar – as I did in the past.

  

 But more and more the tribe is focusing on +1/+1 counters synergies. It's their whole shtick now: Oozes eat and grow, accumulating counters. Forgotten Realms added the excellent Ochre Jelly, which interacts winningly with the Oozes' signature enchantment, Hardened Scales: with it on the board, a 2/2 Jelly becomes immortal, if not exiled. The five-Ooze team seems solid right now, with Predator Ooze especially doing so much work in Tribal Wars that one might wonder if it wouldn't be the case to include a way to tutor it up. The games with an early Predator Ooze, particularly when equipped with Rancor, are rarely lost, since not many decks run exile-based removal.

    

 Predator Ooze was an Innistrad native (from Dark Ascension), and Midnight Hunt has so far added a mythic and a rare to the blobby ranks. The former is the five-drop Consuming Blob. It's a powerful, self-replicating, Tarmogoyf-like threat. But it doesn't seem to fit the monogreen aggro lineup above. For one, it doesn't use +1/+1 counters. And trying and maximizing different card types is disruptive of the deckbuilding. We could easily run some amount of fetch lands, but what else? We don't have sacrificial enchantments or artifacts, and only so much space to allocate to instants and sorceries. Plus, Biogenic Ooze takes all the five-mana slots already, and it's infinitely more impactful. This Blob is not the guy.

 But what about the seventh legendary Ooze? (They've become kind of commonplace in the past couple of years). Meet Slogurk, the Overslime!

 Now, this is a three-drop that might warrant a blue splash. It has the largest body from the first turn, native trample, and built-in protection of a sort – it's not great tor return to hand a Slogurk with many counters on it, but it's still better than losing it entirely. Plus it also gives back three of the lands that made it grow to begin with, so we can do it again. And about that, Slogurk's growing ability definitely requires an environment with fetches. I wouldn't necessarily try and put together a self-milling deck for it, because the other Oozes wouldn't benefit from that, but that's clearly another way to build a Slogurk deck. There have to be some juggling around of the numbers. In the "+1/+1 counters matter" lineup, the three-drop slot already has eight strong members; weirdly enough, it's the two-drop Scavenging Ooze the weak link right now, but we need a good two-drop for curve. Plus Slogurk is legendary and tends to come back, so running a full playset is not ideal. Back to the slime-covered drawing board!

---

LAST WEEK ON TRIBAL APOCALYPSE...

• Event Number: Week 556 BE
• Date: September 4
• Attendance: 10
• Rounds: 3
• Subformat: Underdog
• Winner: Bandit Keith with Phyrexian
• 1-loss: ThyShuffler with Bard, _Kumagoro_ with Ooze, AJ_Impy with Ranger, Generalissimo with Artificer
• Dark Horse Prize: AJ_Impy with Ranger, ThyShuffler with Bard
• New Repopulation Award: lovetapsmtg with Mercenary, Takeoutree with Hippo
• Up-and-Coming Prize: Bandit Keith with Phyrexian
• Tribes: Archer (x2), Artificer, Bard, Berserker, Hippo, Mercenary, Ooze, Phyrexian, Ranger
• Event link (with all players, pairings, standings, decks, and results): here it is

 It had to happen sooner or later: the Phyrexians infection ended on top for the first time, while piloted by Bandit Keith. It's an infect build with the interesting new addition of Wild Shape from Forgotten Realms, as a way to make the infect critters larger (and, sometimes, more resilient). It doubles down on Modern Horizons' Scale Up.

 

 The battle for the first place was between two Unhallowed tribes anyway, with ThyShuffler's Bards coming at second place. That's a feat for a new tribe that didn't get a ton of older cards retconned into it. Although, this deck is based around Dueling Grounds prison-like state, combined with the combo of Madcap Experiment and Platinum Emperion, plus the classic endless removal created by the interaction of Punishing Fire and Grove of the Burnwillows. So the Bards are mostly there to sing songs that praise these cards.

 

 Here's another recent addition doing well from the get-go: Ranger, conceived by AJ_Impy as a quirky Glimpse of Tomorrow list. It's safe to think this subtype was not meant to remain confined within D&D settings, anyway, which the few retcons kind of prove. We'll get more of them.

 

 Shout-out to Generalissimo and his Artificers. It's a Yorion, Sky Nomad companion list, so there's a lot going on in there, but mostly it's the tribe's signature artifact shenanigans, now reinforced by the presence of Oswald Fiddlebender.

---

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 September 10, 2021):

• Bandit Keith's Phyrexians: $95.36
• ThyShuffler's Bards: $73.06
• AJ_Impy's Rangers: $57.67
• Generalissimo's Artificers: $122.97

 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.

 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):

• 11.36 (Week 557 BE), on September 11: Pioneer
• 11.37 (Week 558 BE), on September 18: Modern
• 11.38 (Week 559 BE), on September 25: 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.