*** Tribal Apocalypse: Week 70 BE ***
Raise the chalice
Welcome back to the world Tribal Apocalypse! While the debate about the un-banning still inflames the last article (well, sort of), let's complete the reports and have a look at what happened in the one event I still had to cover. A more quiet, secluded event where... I took my third victory, finally! Yay for me!
- Event Number: 18 (2012), 70 (all-time)
- Date: May 5
- Attendance: 12
- Rounds: 3
- Special Rules: Endangered Week (only tribes with 50 members or less)
- Top 4: _Kumagoro_ (Demon, undefeated); mihahitlor (Assassin, undefeated); victorBike (Werewolf, 1 loss); romellos (Werewolf, 1 loss)
- Special Prizes: none
- Tribes: Archer, Assassin, Atog, Berserker, Demon, Moonfolk, Scarecrow, Specter, Werewolf (x4)
- Virgin Tribes: Atog by vantar6697 (highest-ranked); Moonfolk by YizzleStakz
It was a small-attendance event because Blippy was still slumbering after the delightful tour de force that has been Ham on Wry, which meant not enough advertising done during the day. It also meant I stepped in as a host on his behalf, yet I still got to play (but wasn't entitled to any prize) because there was an odd number of registered players. And I played this deck:
That was the last time Demon would be allowed in an Endangered Week (barring reform), since the upcoming return of Avacyn will bring their number well above the 50 quota (they were barely legal already). The deck is sort of a midrange player's wet dream, because it features a lot of tools to stop fast aggro. For starters, it's a Heartless Summoning build, which allows for the big 'uns to come and play relatively earlier. But the MVP of the deck is definitely this card:
I love you, faceless deformed guy who fills the chalice with all that tasty, golden void!
I can't say how much Chalice of the Void hurts the prevalent strategies (not only in Tribal), all devoted to bring threats to the field as quicker as possible. Being a fan of higher casting costs, I'm always filled with a dark pleasure every time I manage to drop an early chalice, thus negating all those trivial cc1 and cc2 spells with gusto! Try and play your stupid Goblin Guides and Steppe Lynxes now! The deck is built around this very idea, so for instance, all my removals cost 3 or more, and of course all the Demons start from cc5 (that's why Heartless Summoning was very much needed). Consume the Meek is another strong card that's especially fitting here, since in the current meta it becomes an instant-speed, one-sided sweeper. In most of the games it was up to the great, underrated Ob Nixilis to seal the deal, helped by some fetch lands and Crucible of Worlds. A good way for me to say "all hail Griselbrand!", in preparation for the Angel vs. Demon ultimate showdown we'll have on June 9, and a couple of articles I'm writing on the subject of angelology and demonology. And it brought me to the top of the 2012 Hall of Fame ranking. Temporarily, don't worry: just wait until Ayanam1 will be back in the fold.
The other undefeated deck was a a well-known build: Assassin by mihahitlor.
It changed very few from the previous Endangered event, where it ended 2nd place as well. Solid tribe, solid deck, expert player.
The big feature of this week, anyway, was the presence of a record FOUR Werewolf decks. And they placed... from 3rd to 6th place, exactly one after the other like trained sled dogs. The only difference in their results was the rating score, since all of them ended with 1 loss over 3 rounds. The higher-ranked was this one by victorBike:
And if you compare it with the 4th place deck by romellos...
...you can see how victorBike's build is actually more budget-friendly, and it also features a couple of less frequently seen tribal members like Lambholt Elder and Mondronen Shaman. While romellos drops any dedicate tribal enhancement (Moonmist) except for Immerwolf, going as far as splashing white for Swords to Plowshares, and including two strong generic suites in Punishing/Burnwillows and a bunch of blades, victorBike just plays the werewolves straight, protecting them with Vines of Vastwood, and making do with a subpar manabase (compare and contrast Evolving Wilds vs. Wooded Foothills, and Kazandu Refuge vs.Taiga). And yet, the two decks performed in the very same way, and victorBike's one even got a better final ranking. My point being: don't freak out too much about not having a stellar collection; it's not always so crucial. By the way, the other two Werewolf decks repeated the same pattern of the previous two, with Gq1rf7 taking the budget, unconventional route (he was playing Master Warcraft! How cool is that?), and Nagarjuna mixing flavorful werewolf stuff (Full Moon's Rise) and the Punishing Fire engine, which frankly is beyond annoying only for the fact that's featured in 2 decks out of 3 now.
Despite having only 12 registered decks, we still had two Virgin tribes, which is nice. The highest-ranked was Atog by vantar6697 (I made a mistake during the tournament, awarding the prize to the wrong deck, so I'll owe vantar his Virgin tix, which I will give him as soon as I see him online).
Not easy to build Atog, since they all chase after different kinds of permanents, and you can't have enough fuel for all of them in a Tribal deck. Vantar went with artifacts (the original Atog, Lithatog, and Megatog) and lands (Foratog, and Lithatog again), completing the ranks with Woodland Changeling. The Wellsprings, Perilous Myr, and Spine of Ish Sah made up the basic artifact fueling, with Myr Retriever bringing everything back, while Horizon Spellbomb helped with the lands.
Also hard to pull off, yet deeply fascinating, was the other unplayed tribe of the week, Moonfolk.
Of the existing 14, YizzleStakz chose some of the most useful, like Soratami Mirror-Mage, with his unsummoning ability, and Soratami Savant, who grants a Mana Leak per activation. Plus the undoubtedly strong Meloku (the only one to see serious play in the past). The activation itself is the issue of the deck, with Training Grounds reducing the mana cost, and both Walking Atlas and the flavorful Patron of the Moon trying to limit the tempo loss caused by the bouncing lands. I'm not entirely sure about some choices (Intruder Alarm and Mimic Vat don't seem particularly interactive here), but Moonfolk aren't a piece of cake to begin with, so kudos for the idea alone.
I'll end with a Scarecrow deck from my fellow citizen (and clan founder) Leys7, who finally took part in the tournament after having been a lurker for 2 years!
This is both a Cloudpost/Amulet of Vigor build (going for the colorless cost of Reaper King) and an artifact deck built around Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. It seems able to do both with ease, but the werewolves didn't agree.
And that's it for this time. I just want to answer Nagarjuna's comment on the forum thread, where he asks to not ban Cavern of Souls (I agree), and proposes to ban a tribe for the next event every time 5 decks with that tribe show up in a single event. That's feasible, but it links back to something Winter.Wolf said in the comment section for last article: it might become complicated for a player to keep track of what legal in a given week, especially when coming to the tournament at the last minute hoping his deck will be fine. Speaking of which, I invite you to read last article's proposal on unbanning and the new Special Week rulings. Keep the debate alive (and not all about Moat: that's the ONE card whose fate we can't decide! :P), and I'll see you in the Tribal room!
1 Comments
This is nice. I want to learn more on this. It is really interesting. - David Slone