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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

 While the digital world at large is facing the latest thing that's going to kill Magic aka Alchemy, we've established the holiday calendar for Tribal Apocalypse, or lack thereof. The December 18 event will end the season with a Double Tribal special (more on that later). The new season will resume on January 8.

 So what's Double Tribal? I believe we did something like this once, but I want this new iteration to be more shenanigans-proof. Essentially, Double Tribal means you have to play two separate tribes in the same 60-card deck. But this time the tribes can't overlap. Here's the rules summarized:

• Declare two tribes for the deck. The identity of the chosen tribes must be explicitly stated in the comments section on Gatherling.
• Both tribes, if eligible, will count for the Hamtastic Award.
• Both have to satisfy normal Tribal Wars requirements, i.e. one third of the cards in the deck, rounded down, must have the tribe's subtype.
• Crucial point: no overlap between the tribes. Meaning, the first tribe's subtype can't appear on the second tribe. So if you choose Goblin and Warrior in a 60-card deck, you need to have 20 Goblins that aren't Warriors alongside 20 Warriors that aren't Goblins. (Other subtypes don't matter. In the list above, you can include, for instance, both a Zombie Goblin and a Zombie Warrior).
• The pool is Legacy, with all the usual bans that apply to Legacy events.

 Double deckbuilding trouble!

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LAST WEEK ON TRIBAL APOCALYPSE...

• Event Number: Week 569 BE
• Date: December 4
• Attendance: 7
• Rounds: 3
• Subformat: Underdog
• Winner: Bandit Keith with Artificer
• 1-loss: ThyShuffler with Mongoose, Generalissimo with Shapeshifter, AJ_Impy with Rhino
• Dark Horse Prize: ThyShuffler with Mongoose, AJ_Impy with Rhino
• Tribes: Archer, Artificer, Azra, Dwarf, Mongoose, Rhino, Shapeshifter
• Event link (with all players, pairings, standings, decks, and results): here it is

 Second win of the season for Artificer, again with a 80-card, Yorion, Sky Nomad-companioned prison deck featuring a wide selection of everyone's favorite fun cards since the 1990s: Winter Orb, Energy Field, Opposition. Two of those originated in the Urza block, so it should be expected that Urza, Lord High Artificer plays amazingly alongside them, as Bandit Keith demonstrated here. Interestingly, the Artificers only have two other event wins in their records, all achieved in Endangered/Underdog events. The first dates back to season one, its decklist lost in time like tears in aether. The second is fairly recent, Arigal's Stoneforge Mystic build from last year, featuring Hammer of Nazahn and Argentum Armor. This kind of list wasn't picked up by anybody else, it seems.

 

 Here's another ancient tribe, this time one that didn't ever win any events. Mongoose felt sort of abandonware before Modern Horizons gave it its third member after a 19-year hiatus. Now that they've become playable in Tribal Wars, they show up often enough (this was their seventh apperance), their strength being their low-curve resilience, which pairs well with Worship (there's another Urza-era enchantment that sometimes locks the game). For the rest, ThyShuffler's list feels pleasingly quirky, featuring singleton copies of rarely played classics like Doubling Season and Sylvan Library.

 

 We've seen Generalissimo's all-changeling Shapeshifter list before, but it's always a good sight. A deck filled with Dwarves for Magda, Brazen Outlaw, Zombies for Liliana, Untouched by Death, Demons for Mark of the Oni, and of course Dragons for Dragonkin Berserker, Kaalia, Zenith Seeker, and Dragon Tempest.

 

 Rhinos were popular in Underdog at some point – probably after Siege Rhino was released – but have kind of faded a little bit by now. AJ_Impy didn't forget about them, and proved they're still able to perform at the highest levels. It happens almost off the strength of their tribal base alone, especially when supported by Teleportation Circle. Siege Rhino has an amazing ETB, after all, and is not the only Rhino that operates that way.

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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 December 10, 2021):

• Bandit Keith's Artificers: $137.17
• ThyShuffler's Mongeese: $47.14
• Generalissimo's Shapeshifters: $76.39
• AJ_Impy's Rhinos: $130.90

 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.

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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).

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 WHAT'S NEXT

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

• 11.49 (Week 570 BE), on December 11: Standard
• 11.50 (Week 571 BE), on December 18: Double Tribal
• Next season starts on January 8

Check out the ban lists and the event calendar.
Next banned and restricted announcement: January 7.
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.