---

*** Tribal Apocalypse: Week 65 BE ***
 To combo or not to combo

 Welcome back to Tribal Apocalypse, the hypertext link that will tell you everything about Tribal Apocalypse, the only Tribal Wars tournament in the whole MTGO scene!

 Fifth week of March, fifth event of the month: after last week's 2HG extravaganza, we're back to normal, with an event that balances Combo and Aggro, like it often happens in Tribaltown, while Control tries to make the best of what it's given.

• Event Number: 13 (2012), 65 (all-time)
• Date: March 31
• Attendance: 20
• Rounds: 4
• Special Rules: none
• Top 4: romellos (Wizard, undefeated); mihahitlor (Kithkin, undefeated); SBena (Knight, 1 loss); gbagyt (Elf, 1 loss)
• Special Prizes: Endangered Prize to sadisteck (Zubera)
• Tribes: Bat, Cat, Cleric, Druid, Elder, Elf (x2), Faerie, Kithkin, Knight, Kor, Merfolk, Samurai, Scout, Spirit, Vampire (x2), Wall, Wizard, Zubera
• Virgin Tribe: Bat by vantar6697

 So, after 65 Blippian events, how's the situation in the tribes' Hall of Fame? Well, in the all-time ranking, Wizard just surpassed Cat at the Top 5 spot after a long chase; Knight entered the Top 16 zone while Kithkin is now just on the outskirts; and Elf, well... it hit 1500 points, the double of the 3rd tribe (Human) and still 600 points ahead of the 2nd (Goblin). It looks like nothing will ever stop Elves in Tribal. And it's not merely a matter of popularity. Look at the Zombies, for instance: they have been played 54 times since Event 11, which makes them the third most played tribe after Elf (73 times) and Human (69 times). Yet while Elf and Human are also two of the most successful tribes in the tournament, Zombie is tragically at the 42nd place in the Hall of Fame (scoring a meager 3 results over 65 events). So it seems Tribal players really like Zombies, but either they are a bad, bad tribe after all, or something has been done very wrong so far.

 Anyway, did someone say Wizard?

 

 First of all, congrats to romellos for scoring his first win in Tribal Apocalypse! He's the 33rd player managing to end an event at 1st place, which means more than half the events have been won by a different person. I don't know about you, but to me this is an amazing thing. This Wizard build features Isochron Scepter at its centerpiece, with Silence as a budget replacement of the classic Orim's Chant combo lock. Lightning Helix is the secondary target of choice for the Scepter (no Counterspell in the deck, though), and with all those instants, the Wizard base kind of automatically orients itself towards Snapcaster Mage (or, worst case scenario, Grim Lavamancer) and Delver of Secrets as a "finisher". Fun fact: the deck runs three Magic Invitational winner cards: Meddling Mage (Chris Pikula), Shadowmage Infiltrator (Jon Finkel), and Snapcaster (Tiago Chan). Adding Dark Confidant (Bob Maher) and maybe Voidmage Prodigy (Kai Budde) it would become a full tribal base with the effigies of famous pro players!

 The other undefeated deck (due to technical issues chez Blippy, this tournament didn't use the official DCI Reporter rankings, so the final standings have been calculated afterwards, based on the usual criteria but with a different math) was this Kithkin deck by mihahitlor:

 

 It looks like last week's 1st place deck by Kithkin specialist VictorBike triggered an answer from mihahitlor, who's a Kithkin expert himself (he frequently runs the lil' guys among the Modern crowd of Eurodrive!, where they even ended 1st place once). The main differences between miha and Victor's builds are Kinsbaile Borderguard over Kithkin Zephyrnaut, and the absence of the uber-expensive (yet immensely strong) Figure of Destiny.

 We find another white aggro deck at the third place, piloted by another white aggro specialist: SBena, here handling the whitest of Knights.

 

 Another knack of SBena are the artifacts, so a Puresteel Paladin build is really his cup of tea. This deck screams "Stoneforge Mystic was here" at the top of its lungs, but it looks like it can do well even without her. Hero of Bladehold holds the place of scariest girl around, and Mortarpod is often a secret, final weapon you don't see coming. SBena's Knights were beaten by mihahitlor's Kithikin in a final aggro showdown entirely set on flat terrain.

 But enough with aggro, let's dive head first in the world of extreme combo now! And when you say combo, you say Ayanam1 of course, especially if the combo is not one you see often around these parts.

 

 Remember when Dragonstorm decks used to play a full set of Dragonstorm? Past in Flames makes that not necessary anymore, since you can Intuition the two of them and cast Dragonstorm from the graveyard (with Past in Flames even raising the storm count). This means you will need 13 or 14 mana to go, but apparently it's not an issue with all those Rites of Flame and Seething Songs and Spirit Guides. The other twist of the deck is to use Dragon Spirits over simple Dragons (Bogardan Hellkite? That's so 2006), with Kokusho as the primary goodgaming target (what's this, Kokusho envy from my deck last week?). The deck did its trick three times, but was stopped by SBena's Knights.

 The other crazy combo deck of the week was from another of the current Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, DirtyDuck:

 

 From a classic Legacy combo like Dragonstorm to another well-known archetype, Cephalid Breakfast. And just like in Ayanam1's case, there's a twist, designed to exploit the Kors, or better the Queen in Exile, Stoneforge Mystic. That's exactly the kind of Stoneforge shenanigan I was thinking of when I was absolutely against making her disappear entirely from the meta. Indeed, which equipment looks more inconspicuous for her to tutor up than Shuko? I mean, how many times we've seen Shuko played at all? And yet, here the lame shuriken is a crucial part of the Cephalid combo, targeting  Cephalid Illusionist again and again in order to self-mill the entire deck, triggering the very elegant win-con created by The Mimeoplasm (brought back by Dread Return via sacrifice of 2 Narcomoebas and the Illusionist himself), copying  Murderous Redcap with some 50 counters courtesy of Lord of Extinction. An endgame where you don't have to wait for a combat phase, or even attack at all, is always safer. And of course, the basic companion piece for the Illusionist was an old-school Kor too: the infinite phantom-damage-redirecting Nomads en-Kor. And if things go south with the combo, the deck can always play like a Stoneforge blade build, strapping Sword of Fire and Ice and Batterskull on apt carriers like Kor Duelist, Looter il-Kor, or Infiltrator il-Kor. Dirty's Cephalid Kors managed to beat other combo decks like Nagarjuna's Splinter Twin Faerie and my own Wall deck. But again, SBena's Order of the White Beating was able to stop it.

 The second deck that stopped me, instead, was a familiar presence throughout Tribal Apocalypse: sadisteck's Zubera combo deck, winner of the Endangered Prize for the sixth time (the third this year alone).

 

 As I said to sadisteck himself, this deck might become a force to be reckoned with if only that mana base was a bit better: all those tap lands and non-fetchable lands really don't help a 5-color build. But once Lifeline, Fecundity, and a sacrifice outlet are online, the whole Zubera tribe will rock your world like no one else.

 And speaking of alternative prizes, vantar6697 grabbed the Virgin Prize again, this time by bringing Bat to war for the first time:

 

 The Bats themselves do very little other than, well, fly. The sacrifice engine fueling Grave Pact (through Altar's Reap and  Skeletal Vampire, which is a very cool card, by the way, even not considering the flavor) looks somehow interesting, but apparently wasn't enough to make the Chiroptera consistent. Still a good way to see different cards being played, which is the main goal of the whole Virgin business after all.

 And the goal of my renewed Elder challenge was to give 1 tix out of my pocket to whoever would manage to score at least a match with the terrible, terrible Elders. And guess what, apparently third time's the charm:

 

 Yes! They did it at last! Elders won a match! After GWN and Discorde's attempts, justcanceled brought the result home and conquered the tix, by essentially thinking outside the box and not trying to cast the clunker dragons at all. This actually looks like a very complicate build, where the very risky Nefarious Lich turns Nourishing Shoal into card drawing (by pitching the green Elders), so you can end with enough cards to fuel a huge Sickening Dreams (with Noxious Revival taking it back if needed). Well, what's important is that the Elders got their win, so now they can rest in peace in the Walhalla of the useless junk.

 But my deckbuilding challenge lives on! Let's see what I could sponsor next... What about another flavor of clunky 5-colored dragons with a very narrow subtype?

  

 

 The Kirins have some advantage over the Elders: the creatures are mid-range flyers with somehow interesting abilities, and most importantly, they are good-looking and not entirely awful. And yet, they have very poor synergies as a tribe: if you cast Infernal Kirin or Skyfire Kirin after Celestial Kirin, you end up destroying all your team (and hopefully also something from the opponent side!). The only one to always interact nicely with the others is Bounteous Kirin, but it also costs 7. And they have all two colored mana in their costs, therefore the mana base is going to be a nightmare (and you can't go the pitching route like justcanceled did with the Elders, as most of them don't cost too much). So I feel confident to do the challenge again, even if I feel like this time is a bit easier: I'll give 1 tix to the first player who will win a match playing a Kirin deck with no changelings (byes or the opponent dropping before completing a game will not count). I'll probably have to surrender my tix quickly this time, but it's all good because having a Kirin deck in the tournament is cool, and the tribal base is slightly more expensive this time (Elders were $0.05 each, but Celestial Kirin is $0.08 and Infernal Kirin $0.14). Go Eastern Dragons or go home!

  Finally, here's the deck I played this time, and which was meant to bring back the Walls in a non-WallDrazi kind of way.

 I actually like this deck a lot, despite the final score of just 2-2. Doubling Season is one of my favorite cards ever,  and I always try to find excuses to build around it. As far as win conditions for the Walls go, the set of cards I put together have some nice interactions: you can either win by casting a Saproling Burst with Warstorm Surge on the board (extracting all the tokens you'll cause 6+5+4+3+2+1=21 damage); or by doubling the Saproling counters AND tokens; or without the Burst entirely, by having Spawning Pit and Doubling Season, hence creating 2/2 creatures for 1. Plus, Spawning Pit kills Academy Rector, who fetches one of the enchantments. The role of the Walls here is the usual mana ramp (which isn't really needed though, sort of a bluff sometimes, with people thinking they have to kill Overgrown Battlement immediately or Ulamog will come), and especially card drawing. I put Shifting Wall to interact with both Doubling Season and Warstorme Surge, and to have a blocker that can discourage attacks (and also just to use a rarely seen Wall), but on second thought a full set of Wall of Mulch would be better. I beated both fliebana's Cats and milegyenanevem's Vampires (a great match with some difficult plays), and lost to DirtyDuck's Kor-phalid combo, which was faster and more reliable, and to sadisteck's Zuberas. This latter matchup was actually very fun, and saw me lose the decisive game due to this card:

 I mean, talk about weird luck: the singleton Nullmage Shepherd sadisteck was running was probably one of the very few cards in the whole tournament able to entirely paralyze my deck. Shame on me for not having a way out which the Shepherd wasn't hosing, but kudos to sadisteck for including her in the deck (and for topdecking her at the right time!).

 Before wrapping up, a note for TrevaWhateva: the Druid deck he was running will be covered in another installment because it kinda anticipates a project of mine which will be discussed... in another installment.

 Also:

ANNOUNCEMENT TIME!

 Two rapid but important announcements. First, I'm adding the nationality to the players' names in the Hall of Fame. I think it's interesting to know the places our Tribal crowd hails from. I've just started to collect the data, so please help me by telling me your country of origin and where you're living (also, check the current list, maybe I got something wrong).

 Second, I want to poll the readers of this article about the Special Week we're having at the beginning of each month, and which is currently Endangered Week alone. If we had to ask Blippy (who, as the Supreme Overlord, always gets the final word) to change that, maybe moving Endangered Week to every other month in order to introduce a second bi-monthly variant, we need to know first if Endangered Week is something you, as players, still like enough. The alternative should be easy to build for every player, and not too gimmicky, but before even thinking of the possibilities, here's a poll with only one question: "Do you like better to keep having Endangered Week every month, or to have it replaced half the times with something different?" Keep in mind that the Endangered Prize would still be a thing in regular weeks (and that's actually more useful to bring diversity to the field on a regular basis, along with the Virgin Prize).

 That's all, see you in the Tribal Room!