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By: Kumagoro42, Gianluca Aicardi
Jan 13 2023 11:03am
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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


LAST WEEK ON TRIBAL APOCALYPSE...

  • Event Number: Week 623 BE
  • Date: January 7
  • Attendance: 10
  • Rounds: 3
  • Subformat: Underdog
  • Winner: Yokai_ with Advisor
  • 1-loss: GringoP with Sheep, ThyShuffler with Bard, AJ_Impy with Pirate, Takeoutree with Citizen
  • Dark Horse Prize: ThyShuffler with Bard
  • Up-and-Coming Prize: Yokai_ with Advisor
  • Tribes: Advisor, Aetherborn, Archer, Bard, Citizen, Devil, Illusion, Nightstalker, Pirate, Shapeshifter
  • Event link (with all players, pairings, standings, decks, and results): here it is

 First event of the new season! And look at that beautiful array of all-different tribes! These days achieving "singularity" is more common than it used to be, but in a 10-player event using the Underdog pool, it's still notable. Also notable: we opened the year with an Up-and-Coming Prize, as Advisor at last got its first ending on top after all these years. The winning list by Yokai_ is a four-color creature-only domain build centered around Scion of Draco, with Umori, the Collector as companion, and featuring a whole bunch of well-known multicolored Advisors like Gaddock Teeg, Kethis, Leovold, and even Glenn from the controversial The Walking Dead's Secret Lair drop.

 

 Here's another entry worth discussing. GringoP's deck was meant to be Sheep, leveraging the tribe's own Gatebreaker Ram within a build that emphasizes all the new lands with the Gate subtype that have been printed since its introduction in Return to Ravnica. Problem is, the deck only includes 11 Sheep in the face of 15 other creatures with the changeling ability. This means that, according to the rules, we're in the presence of a Shapeshifter deck – especially since no deck in Underdog events can field more than 4 changelings, 8 for tribes that require them because they don't have enough members otherwise. The only way to smuggle more than 8 changelings in your deck is to go and build a Shapeshifter deck. Unfortunately, Gatherling cannot help with detecting these anomalies anymore, since the changelings from the more recent sets aren't recognized as such. We must make sure to be aware of how the changeling rules work.

 

 To be clear, the whole Sheepgate was not really a big issue. An accidental Shapeshifter deck doesn't represent a problem, if not for the occasional Dark Horse Prize misplacement: for instance, ThyShuffler's Bard deck was the correct Dark Horse Prize recipient last week; but not to worry, the oversight will be promptly amended this week. 


THE HIGH PRICE OF WINNING

  

 Here's the prices of all the featured decks (MTGO Traders prices as of January 13, 2023):

  • Yokai_'s Advisors: $137.06
  • GringoP's False Sheep (Shapeshifters): $10.98
  • Takeoutree's Citizens: $52.72

 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. -DiamondDust-'s Dinosaurs, $0.98, 2nd place on Event 539
  2. mihahitlor's Warriors, $1.95, 1st place on Event 233
  3. morpphling's Vampires, $2.25, 1st place on Event 285
  4. JogandoPelado's Berserkers, $2.80, 1st place on Event 248
  5. kokonade1000's Berserkers, $2.95, 2nd place on Event 354

 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 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 in a specific format, they will not be allowed to register the same tribe and deck in that format again for 3 events (i.e. they'll have to register a different deck three times before coming back to the undefeated one). 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):

  • 13.02 (Week 624 BE), on January 14: Pioneer
  • 13.03 (Week 625 BE), on January 21: Modern
  • 13.04 (Week 626 BE), on January 28: Commander 1v1

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.