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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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THE GREATEST TRIBAL CHANGE OF ALL TIMES! INTRODUCING "TRIBAL POST-APOCALYPSE"!

 For several years now, Tribal Apocalypse has had a serious issue with its player base. To be frank, there has always been a clear-cut division between the Spikes who come to win and the more casual tribal crowd that just wants to see what a Pangolin deck looks like. There are always a few inbetweeners, but the balance has become untenable recently. And that's unfair to both parties involved. It has to be frustratring for the Spikes to be forced to match their fine-tuned top decks with casual fare. It's clearly not a challenge, it's pointless, if not outright offensive. In fact, I should apologize to the Spikes. They come expecting to face a challenge, and instead they often win effortlessly after a boring string of games where, say, a Spirit or Human list makes short work of improbable for-fun-only builds that never stood a chance.

 So, how do we solve this? Well, if you think about it, it's a matter of match-making. If English football had any club in the UK randomly matched against any other, then we'll get non-games where the current trophy holder has to play against an amateur team from a tiny town. Instead, they created the Premier League and the EFL Championship. The top teams compete in the former, the less competitive teams populate the latter, vying for qualification to the upper echelon. And that's exactly what we're gonna do as well. Enter the Tribal Post-Apocalypse.

 What is Tribal Post-Apocalypse, you might ask? Well, it's a second free Tribal Wars tournament, with the same rules as the first, played simultaneously as the regular tournament (that is, every Saturday at 5 PM UTC), awarding much better prizes, but only accessible to the players who qualified for it.

 Right now we don't have the numbers for a full-fledged event yet. When at least 8 players will have qualified for Tribal Post-Apocalypse, everyone will be notified via email, and the date of the first tournament will be set. In the meantime, those players will have to take a break, because from now on Tribal Apocalypse will be the exclusive domain of the more casual competitors. Therefore all players qualified for the top-tier tournament (i.e. Tribal Post-Apocalypse) won't have access to the low-tier tournament (i.e. Tribal Apocalypse) anymore. To avoid confusion, the Post-Apocalypse players will be prevented from registering in Apocalypse events, while Post-Apocalypse events won't allow access to anybody but the qualified players.

 As for the criteria for qualification, they are as follows. In order to be given access to Post-Apocalypse events, a player must clear all three of these goals:

1. have achieved 1st place in a grand total of 75 events or more;
2. have won at least 20 events during a single season;
3. have won at least 5 events in a row.

 You can review the current situation here and here. Of course not many players satisfy these requirements just yet. But to those who already did, I say: congratulations! You worked hard to get there, you made sacrifices and kept coming back to the tournament without ever skipping a beat, always winning winning winning, at all costs, by all means necessary, no matter what, like it's an actual professional competition. Nay, like it's a real war!
 I salute you, Post-Apocalypse players, be proud of a job well done, and we'll see you again in the new tournament. Eventually.

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LAST WEEK ON TRIBAL APOCALYPSE...

• Event Number: Week 613 BE
• Date: October 22
• Attendance: 10
• Rounds: 3
• Subformat: Modern
• Winner: Bandit Keith with Spirit
• 1-loss: KMDBroken with Human, ThyShuffler with Vampire, -DiamondDust- with Phyrexian, Deonmag with Vampire, Yokai_ with Elemental
• Dark Horse Prize: lovetapsmtg with Surrakar
• Tribes: Elemental, Human, Merfolk, Monkey, Phyrexian (x2), Spirit, Surrakar, Vampire (x2)
• Event link (with all players, pairings, standings, decks, and results): here it is

 Let's say hello to a brand new player! KMDBroken brought a Human list, which is somewhat frowned upon, but it's all forgiven because it's a new entry to the tournament. Welcome! (Also, next week I'll talk of a plan to send top-tier tribes to the Post-Apocalypse as well).

 

 The Phyrexians keep coming, and I keep featuring them because we need to know what they can do, in view of their ongoing invasion of the Multiverse. Next year will definitely be Phyrexian 2023. This is -DiamondDust-'s take on the techno-monstrosities. It's a budget-friendly Orzhov list with Phyrexian Missionary for recursion, Plague Engineer for crowd control, and Massacre Wurm as a finisher.

 

 And this is the entirely different Phyrexian deck AJ_Impy put together. It's a quite expensive Defiler of Dreams build where cheap blue permanents are prioritized. It plays on the interaction between Thrummingbird, Combat Research and the final level of Wizard Class. The deck's price is high mostly because Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is there. By the way, with that name, we should put her in our logo.

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THE HIGH PRICE OF WINNING

  

 Here's the prices of all the featured decks (MTGO Traders prices as of October 28, 2022):

• KMDBroken's Humans: $2.64
• -DiamondDust-'s Phyrexians: $18.42
• AJ_Impy's Phyrexians: $350.78

 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):

• 12.42 (Week 614 BE), on October 29: Halloween

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.