When two tribes go to war....

I've spoken about tribal decks many times in the articles I've written on this blog. A tribal deck is one that uses creatures of all one type as it's main theme.

Common tribal decks are Zombies, Soldiers, Elves, Goblins, Vampires, Dragons, Angels and more recently Humans.

Most of the main creature types in magic and some of the lesser ones will have been turned into tribal decks at some point by someone. There are even builds for creature types that do not have a legend to use as a commander such as Werewolves.

Way back in the days of Alpha, Beta etc tribes were backed up by Lords.

Lord of Atlantis is a perfect example of this. You can see from above how the card changed over time. The image on the left is the Alpha version of the card on the right is the Time Spiral version.

You can see how he gives Other Merfolk +1/+1 and islandwalk. Something to note is that these early lords gave their bonuses to any Merfolk whether they were controlled by you or your opponent.

In 2007 as part of an update to creature types the Lord type was dropped. However, it still remains as a generic term for any card that gives bonuses to a single type of creatures.  Note also how Merfolk Sovereign only gives bonuses to creatures you control.

As well a creatures that boost your tribe there are usually spells that will assist your tribe as well. Merrow Commerce and Summon the School are good examples of this.

Merfolk actually have surprisingly few of these types of spells. Some tribes have a lot more, Zombies for example, others may have none.  So in order to make tribes work better we turn our attention to Artifacts. There are a series of artifacts that can be placed into ANY tribal deck and if you ever intend to play tribal then it pays to make sure you have a set of them.

Brass herald and Adaptive Automaton are the two tribal staple artifact creatures. You can see that they both act like lords. Adaptive Automaton actually becomes the chosen type while Brass Herald lets you dip into the top four cards of your library to find more creatures of your chosen tribe.

At first glance Caged Sun might look like a functional reprint of Gauntlet of Power, However, there is one important difference; Caged Sun only affects creatures you control and lands you tap whereas Gauntlet of might affects everyone.

Konda's Banner is great but it does affect all the creatures on the battlefield not just those you control. Although a well build tribal deck should get more bang out of such a card than your opponents will.

Obelisk of Urd is one of the newest tribal artifacts to be produced by wizards. It acts like a super lord giving +2/+2 to creatures you control of the chosen type. It can also be cast cheaply by using the Convoke ability.

Eldrazi Monument and Akroma's Memorial both give extra bonuses in the form of abilities to your creatures. The Monument does have a downside but that shouldn't amount to too much of an issue in a tribal deck.

These three, Belbe's Portal, Cryptic Gateway and Urza's Incubator, are all designed to make it easier to put creatures from your chosen tribe into play.

 I've saved the best two cards until last:

Door of Destinies.

You need to get the door out early and note it only has a charge counter placed on it when you cast a creature of the chosen type or a spell that specifies it is tribal like two Merfolk spells above.

Of course cards like Power Conduit, Surge Node and Energy Chamber can help to increase the number of charge counters on Door of Destinies. 

However you do it putting multiple charge counters on the Door means a huge boost for creatures in your tribe.

Coat of Arms

This is a lot more complex as it affects every creature on the battlefield not just those you control.

At it's simplest if you have 5 merfolk in play then they each gain +4/+4. If two of those were wizards and your opponent had a wizard in play then your two merfolk wizards would gain an extra +1/+1 and your opponent's wizard would gain +2/+2.

Where Coat of Arms excels is if you drop a large number of creatures at once or you manage to produce a night on infinite number of creatures.

Play Army of the Damned when you have Coat of Arms in play and your opponents will be facing an army of thirteen 14/14 zombies.

So there you have it. All the tribal artifacts that you can use in any tribal deck collected together just for you.

I hope you find that useful.

Until next time may you top deck the last card you mentioned.

Phil

The Shadow Falls

So the pre-release weekend for Shadows Over Innistrad has been and gone and the full set list is now available for all to peruse.

So as I did with Oath of the Gatewatch I thought I would give my thoughts on some of the cards the set contains with respect to being Commander playable.

This is a very different set to Oath with no big Eldrazi. Also there is not one stand out card for me unlike Eldrazi Displacer.

Firstly the Innistrad sets feature double sided cards. This manifests itself in several ways but the biggest is with Werewolves.

Now I'm not a fan of Werewolves in Commander; I think their transformation mechanic is too hit and miss. I recognised though that there are those people out there that would love to make a Werewolf tribal deck. However, we still didn't get that vital legendary Werewolf those people desire, maybe in Eldritch Moon their dreams will be fulfilled.

Instead we got a Planeswalker.

And Arlinn is very playable and I would expect to see her in decks that can play her especially token swarm decks.

There was also one other Werewolf that certain caught my eye.

He lets you draw a card when he comes into play and when he flips he has the potential to become significant in size.  Some may disagree with me and think that other Werewolves in the set are playable and that's fine as I've already said I'm not their biggest fan.

We were also treated to three other Planeswalkers:

In General most Planeswalkers are playable in Commander where their ultimate abilities are more likely to be triggered and these three are no different.

All three feature draw mechanics as their + ability which is never a bad thing in Commander which ever colour combination you are playing.

Werewolves aren't the only flip cards in the set. The poster girl for Innistrad has always been Avacyn but this time round good girl has gone bad.

As a commander she is impressive.  If you have a sacrifice outlet you can play her, give your creatures indestructible, sac one of them, flip her. You then deal 3 damage to all other creatures, which your indestructible creatures will survive, and 3 damage to each of your opponents.

If you have some way to flicker her, like Eldrazi displacer she'll return to the battlefield untapped which means you could repeat the process every turn.

One thing to keep in mind as your Commander she counts as both Red and White for the purpose of your Commander identity.

  

Autumnal Gloom seems to be good at first glance. It has a self mill ability which can work well with an animator type deck or similar and when it flips a 4/4 Trample, Hexproof creature is not to be sniffed at. However, Delerium is not optional and I suspect it'll be too easy to trigger without getting enough use out of the mill ability first. Time will tell I guess.

Here's something new; a land that flips:

Westvale Abbey is in itself an interesting card. It produced White/Black creature tokens which is a fairly rare ability.

Imagine that used in conjuction with Teysa, Orzhov Scion:

So you get to exile a creature and replace the three creatures you sacrificed with three 1/1 flying Spirits. 

However, transforming the abbey into a 9/7 flying, lifelink, indestructible, haste Demon is where I think people will find the most value of this particular card.

I love the move The Thing so this card is especially flavourful for me. Game wise a creature that transforms into a 7/8 bouncing all other non-Horror creatures to their owner's hands is superb.

Play it in a horror tribal deck and transforming it will become a game winning event.

The set, like every knew set, also gave us some new cards to consider as our commanders.

The Gitrog Monster is already proving a favourite from what I can tell but we also get new versions of Olivia, Odric and Sigarda. All of which provide interesting abilities to abuse as your commanders.

Drownyard Temple is the the second of two lands that caught my attention. It''s also possibly the one card I expect people to try and abuse. Note that it returns to play tapped so you'd need Amulet of Vigor to negate that I suspect.

There are three artifacts I've picked out as well. Brain in a Jar let's you play instant or sorcery cards without paying the mana cost. Each time it's used it ramps the casting cost up by 1 so you have to be able to plan around it but it's still a great way to cast extra spells. Note that X is 0 if a spell has X in it's casting cost for the purposes of calculating it's CMC.

The Brain also lets you remove counters to scry. 

All in all a great card and also cheep to cast so can come out early in the game.

Magnifying Glass is basically an expensive way to draw cards or put Clue tokens into play. I've included it because I think other uses might be made of those clue tokens.

Which leads me to the all round stand out that is Tamiyo's Journal. The journal basically says, once you've cast me tutor for any card you like every three turns. If you can put more clues into play, see Magnifying Glass you can tutor more often.

Keep in mind also that clues can let you draw more cards as well so for my Tamiyo's, while not quite a staple, is a must have in a lot of Commander decks. 

A flying 6/6 for a CMC of 8 is on the low side of what I would expect for that expenditure.

However, it's ability, is not to be sniffed at. There's not bring them back if the Angel of Deliverance leaves play they are gone for good. She can also force your opponents to bounce their commanders repeatedly making them too expensive to cast very quickly. So overall I think she's playable.

Declaration in Stone basically says exile all your opponents tokens that share a name; saprolings, zombies, soldiers, goblins etc. The downside of this card if you use it like that is non-existent. Which is why I think it'll see play. The only issue I have is that it's a Sorcery but then you could always use Brain in a Jar to cast it at Instant speed.

What? Exile all creatures and put a 4/4 white Angle creature token with flying onto the battlefield? As I said before I don't think Delirium will be too much of an issue in Commander so this sweeper rocks. Descend upon the Sinful indeed.

Open the Armory because white needs more enchantment tutors right? Of course it does!

It's Topplegeist's Delirium ability that has me interested. It taps a creature at the beginning of each of your opponent's upkeeps. This alone can completely shut down some decks.

How do you improve Champion of the Parish? Ask Thalia's Lieutenant. Yes it's slightly more expensive to cast but I think she's still sweet in Human decks, probably in a W or GW build.

Because flying creatures abound in Commander. 

Did I mention abusable cards. Now I you need a way to give your creatures Haste so that they can be tapped when they enter the battlefield for mana. If you can do that then Cryptolith Rite is like a slightly less broken Earthcraft.

This is a nice way to get lots of value back from your graveyard, especially after a sweeper or boardwipe. I'm sure Seasons Past will be played in Commander.

Double strike is one of my favourite keyword abilities. Being able to give it to more than one other creature is even better. Veteran Cathar is also a Soldier and a Human. Expect to see him in a Commander deck soon.

Okay so Avacyn's Judgement has to be cast for it's Madness cost but if it is then it's a great way to deal variable damage to multiple targets.

Flameblade Angel completely shuts down a lot of decks where they want to do you lots of damage but do so in large number, for example 40 points of damage from 40 different sources like a token deck. For that reason alone I would play her.

Pyre Hound is a 2/3 Trample that will get bigger and bigger every time you cast an instant or sorcery spell. To be honest I'm surprised this is common.

Structural Distortion lets you exile a pesky artifact or land and it deals a couple of points of damage in the process. Shame it's not an instant but it's still going to see play.

I only chose one mono-blue card, but I think it rocks:

Remember you get to choose the piles when you cast Epiphany at the Drownyard you also get to choose the opponent who gets to decide which you keep and which go to the graveyard. This card is going to give someone headaches.

Behold the Beyond is a triple tutor that put 3 cards into an empty hand. Okay it has a CMC of 7 but that's still not bad if you can mitigate the downside.

A Zombie that produces Zombies and can enter the battlefield as a very cheep giant. I'd play Diregraf Colossus because let's be honest everyone loves Zombies.

Speaking of Zombies. The chance to put into play X number of Zombies and gain X life is not to be sniffed at. From Under the Floorboards would go nicely in my GrimGrin deck.

I hope you noticed that Indulgent Aristocrat reads 'each Vampire you control'. It's easy in commander to produce tokens or steal creatures that can then be sacrificed to pump your little vamps.

An odd spell but it serves to both slap an opponent quite viciously and put cards in your graveyard. For reanimator and dredge decks this could easily be playable.

The number of creatures that you might want to cast with Altered Ego the first that came to mind was Sage of Hours complete with five +1/+1 counters.

Anguished Unmaking exiles a nonland permanent. Get rid of those pesky planeswalkers. An Orzhov staple I suspect.

Ordinarily I'm not a fan of Auras due to their vulnerability. However, I really want to see Geist of St Traft enchanted with Invocation of Saint Traft. For the double angle slaughter.

So there you have it my selection of cards from Shadows. Hopefully that's given you some food for thought. You may not agree with me or think I've left something out. If so let me know.

Until next week......

Phil