General Generic Tribal

japahn

japahn

I'm looking for a way to support some tribes including very few poisonous cards. Looking at my cube, there is critical mass for:
  • Goblins (R)
  • Humans (all)
  • Warriors (WBR)

And, with some effort, other tribes could get critical mass running only cards that are cubeable by themselves, keeping the Poison effect to a minimum:
  • Soldiers (W)
  • Wizards (U)
  • Shamans (RG)
  • Vampires (B)

I'm fine with dedicating 2-3 slots per color so each of these tribes have a Lord or some other linear effect as a nod to play them (Goblin Chieftain, Champion of the Parish, Chief of the Edge) but I don't want this cube to be mainly tribal, just have an extra layer of synergy that cares about the creature type line at a low opportunity cost.

What do you think of running generic tribal cards that can be picked up for any tribe? The best ones to do that are artifacts, so any drafter can use them, but some colored ones look interesting as well:



And to help with critical mass, there are some Changelings and clones that are commonly used anyway:



Ideally, the effect I want to achieve is:
- 1-2 decks per pod have minor tribal themes (say, RG Beatdown with Krenko, Mob Boss, Siege-Gang Commander and Goblin Warchief doing cute things)
- In about 50% of the drafts, a dedicated tribal deck is drafted, running the generic tribe enablers (White weenie running mostly Soldiers with Adaptive Automaton, Harsh Mercy, Mutavaultand Obelisk of Urd)
- Once in a blue moon, someone puts together Shriekmaw, Mulldrifter, Flickerwisp, some clones, changelings and the tribal cards and makes a crazy 4-color Elementals blink deck that's bad but loads of fun.
- In a fateful day, a guy running Wizards tribal will make 6 illusions with Meloku the Clouded Mirror, convoke Obelisk of Urd and swing for 20 the next turn.

Do you think this will play well? I'm most concerned with the colored generic tribal cards, which are pretty much guaranteed to be sideboarded most of the time.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
The problem with tribal is the incentive cards suck unless a good part of your deck supports that tribe, and picking cards that supports that tribe usually means you have to ship better cards. So you water down your cube with payoff cards that end up making your deck worse. The two exceptions to this are zombies and humans. Humans because there are simply so many of them, especially in white, where you can run multiple Champion of the Parish without watering down the card quality in the rest of the color. Zombies are great because there are a few lords that are simply playable without further support. Cemetary Reaper makes his own zombies, Risen Executioner is a resilient threat, and Diregraf Captain has deathtouch, which at least makes it a good blocker, unlike other lords. There are also a lot of excellent zombies that you'ld want to run anyway, like Gravecrawler or Sidisi, Undead Vizier, making this tribe much better than any other.

The only fix I can think of is making your own lords, and making sure those lords are playable on their own.

Of the generic tribal cards you list, I like Obelisk of Urd, which has been good in my cube, the rest is meh, because you really need a tribe for them to do anything. Obelisk of Urd isn't really exciting when it hits only one creature, but +2/+2 is a sizable bonus, and even a few creatures receiving the bonus is enough for it to matter.

I like all of the critical mass cards, except Chameleon Colossus, because I hate protection as a static ability.
 
GoblinSpy

GoblinSpy

It can be done. Nonpoison tribalplay is pretty much the first virtue of design in my cube. Hi btw, I'm a sometime lurker but I think I can help here.

Here are some things I have learned from my time building and playing a non-poison tribal cube -

1 Non-tribal play will be played even if you only have tribal creatures (and that's ok).

2 Players will often draft multiple tribes that help eachother if given the chance. Besides changelings, multiple creature types is a really good thing and there are some cards that really help with this in my cube.


3 Some tribes may need support by other ways of design, or rather you can tailor some of them to help support archetypes in your cube (my soldiers can support generic aggro, token, heroic, and probably some other things as well).


4 Elementals are really wonky as a tribe, their strength lies in individual cards, it's not enough to give them a general/banneret/land to enable tribalplay. Rogues are just not good enough and also very wonky. Artifact "tribal" takes a lot more cards to support than regular tribal, the enablers are poisony and the rest often goes in value-pick-decks. This can all be circumvented if you don't follow the singletons rule or make your own cards.

5 Forcing tribal spells because they are tribal, or having tribal effects just because they are tribal is bad design unless you plan to lower the whole powerlevel obscenely. Then there are some cards that I do not really have the guts to try yet because they look like they might break everything.





My cube has some other design guidelines that might pollute the purity of my experience and notable among those are - Artificial powerlevel/balance, because not all tribes are created equal so I am very wary of just putting in some of the most powerful cards in tribes.
Maximum interaction (which means cards that are hard to interact with are more likely to be cut, so no planeswalkers, limited shroud, only temporary spells/abilities give unblockable effect).
I also follow the singleton rule atm, I'm aware that it is not a popular thing to do here. And I artificially keep my cube at 450 cards because I think it forces me to really think about what I cut and what I put in and it gives a lot of room for variation.

I usually get about 1 dedicated tribaldeck per session with 6-8 players. Oh and descendants path + countryside crusher is really good

Here is a link to my cube - http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/20008
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
The rules for true tribal in cube are:

1. The tribal pieces must not to be poisonous
2. Incentive synergy for having a lot of these cards.

The only true tribal deck that I've personally seen work in cube is splicers. At the right power level you get efficent threats that just happen to bring along a lord who rewards you in a big way for having a bunch of the same creature type on the board.
 
japahn

japahn

Onderzeeboot said:
The problem with tribal is the incentive cards suck unless a good part of your deck supports that tribe, and picking cards that supports that tribe usually means you have to ship better cards. So you water down your cube with payoff cards that end up making your deck worse.
Click to expand...

I expect Goblin Chieftain to sit on sideboards 3/4 of the time, it is a calculated tradeoff.

Let's define some possibilities so it gets easier to talk about them:
Full tribal - 10+ cards have a creature type or make tokens of that type.
Minor tribal - 5+ cards have a creature type or make tokens of that type.

I expect to get on average 0.5 full tribal decks in a pod and 1.5 minor tribal ones.

The generic and specific tribe enablers would be for Full tribal, I agree they are not good in Minor tribal. Yes, they will stay out in half the drafts, but if they take up 2 slots per color and 5 artifact ones, 15 cards in a 540 cube average 0.42 tribal cards per booster. If you look at the drafts in which someone is picking up the ones in two colors and the artifacts, this average is 0.16 per booster (6 cards, 2 per color not in that player's colors).

Onderzeeboot said:
Of the generic tribal cards you list, I like Obelisk of Urd, which has been good in my cube, the rest is meh, because you really need a tribe for them to do anything. Obelisk of Urd isn't really exciting when it hits only one creature, but +2/+2 is a sizable bonus, and even a few creatures receiving the bonus is enough for it to matter.
Click to expand...


Yes, the Obelisk is reasonable, but I don't expect it to be played outside Full tribal. Coat of Arms, Obelisk of Urd and Harsh Mercy seem to be the best rewards for plaing Full tribal. Patriarch's Bidding and Aphetto Dredging are responses to Wrath, which is a major problem for these decks. Alpha Status might be worth playing in non-tribal - it can make tokens very large, buff respectably a resilient creature - though sadly being open to a 2 for 1 Doom Blade. Oh, it can do broken things with Chameleon Colossus.

And talking about Colossus, I don't consider single-color protection creatures that bad for the environment - they reward sideboard-mindful picks and punish mono colored decks (which are rare anyway, but I find them dull). The real problem is with double protection (Great Sable Stag, Sword of X and Y, Mirran Crusader), which are very non-interactive and single-handedly win games against decks of those colors.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
japahn said:
Let's define some possibilities so it gets easier to talk about them:
Full tribal - 10+ cards have a creature type or make tokens of that type.
Minor tribal - 5+ cards have a creature type or make tokens of that type.
Click to expand...

Could we define this a bit deeper?

I've had tribal decks that occasionally get some incidental benefit from creature types (e.g. humans, zombies, vampires). Stuff like, "I want to draft a black aggro deck so gravecrawler looks good, hey look all of my other black aggro beaters happen to be zombies."

What I think of as a real tribal deck, is a deck where each addition of the tribe to the board is building up this interlocking engine that eventually just crushes the opponent. Its balanced out by the ability of an opponent to shut off key pieces of the engine at critical points via removal or advantageous blocks.

So, something like a board with:




That combination gives 11 power, and each additional splicer (or golem) just adds security for the relic, and another creature to benefit from the master's lord bonus. On the other hand, the whole thing can potentially collapse or be delayed at the worst moment with a well-timed removal spell on the splicer lord or the golem token.

Each addition to the board, represents a powerful increase in tempo; but each subtraction represents a potentially disastrous loss in tempo that an opponent can really leverage with removal.

Are we talking more that type of relationship? And with which tribes?
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I totally forgot splicers and warriors, those are well supported as well. I agree with Grillo on both points.
 
japahn

japahn

I don't want a tribal cube, or one that explicitly supports a couple of tribal archetypes (like Golems). I want to take my good stuff cube, swap some cards for choices that can be slightly worse but still good (I feel like cutting cards is very hard nowadays, so there are a lot of options in the cube reserve), but have a more relevant creature type. Then, on top of that, add light support, in the sense that it takes few card slots, that works for any tribes.

With a critical mass in 5-8 tribes, the light support creates archetypes with the same cards. The big deal with lords is that they are only played if that archetype is being played, but general tribal cards are played if any one of the 5-8 tribal archetypes is played. It doesn't replace the existing archetypes, but adds a new layer of deck variety: Boros Beatdown can optionally be built as Boros Soldiers, Rakdos Midrange could have a Warrior theme.

It seems more natural that way, and more fun to find out you can draft a Warriors deck, when it's not made obvious. I want players to feel they've taken individual versatile pieces and built creative and unique decks. "Look, I drafted Human control!" "Wow, UR Wizards can be really good when the right enablers show up." This is much more interesting than one guy drafted Elves, another Goblins, another Merfolk, and so on.

I like these cards, bumbeh, but Fire-Belly Changeling seems on the weaker side of enablers and I'd need to completely overhaul green to support Elves (are there enough cubeable elves?). I wish Bramblewood Paragon was white, red or black, but the fact it overlaps with +1/+1 counters (another archetype I want to support) is awesome, thanks for the tip.
 
GoblinSpy

GoblinSpy

(are there enough cubeable elves?).
Click to expand...

Besides the obvious 1 drop mana dorks and Rofelos there is a lot that can be done with elves - like tokens (the tokens do not even have to be elves if you want to be sneaky about them being a tribe)



Elves also has some really good utility creatures, and some strange ones as well if you want to try something new



Hunting triad plays really well with bramblewood paragon btw either spawning six power or by enlargening your big guy and giving him unexpected trample.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
japahn said:
I don't want a tribal cube, or one that explicitly supports a couple of tribal archetypes (like Golems). I want to take my good stuff cube, swap some cards for choices that can be slightly worse but still good (I feel like cutting cards is very hard nowadays, so there are a lot of options in the cube reserve), but have a more relevant creature type. Then, on top of that, add light support, in the sense that it takes few card slots, that works for any tribes.

It seems more natural that way, and more fun to find out you can draft a Warriors deck, when it's not made obvious. I want players to feel they've taken individual versatile pieces and built creative and unique decks. "Look, I drafted Human control!" "Wow, UR Wizards can be really good when the right enablers show up."
Click to expand...

I've been down the incidental tribal road before. I think the soldiers, wizards, vampires, and shamans aren't really worth it. I've personally done vampires before--and I will agree with other posters that its an attractive trap (even when done incidentally). The other three look similar.

Goblins, humans, and warriors look doable, and you could probably cross creature types (e.g goblin rabblemaster). I wouldn't sacrifice power level to make it work, as you are just diluting your cube at that point.

Its hard to grade the generic tribal cards without broader context, but I'm inclined to say "probably a bad idea" for most of them if they are going into a good stuff cube. It looks like you are introducing an inferior synergy based strategy, which your drafters will likely ignore.
 
FlowerSunRain

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
Goblins are awesome for tribal for some simple reasons:

1) A lot of them are already awesome and diverse in their awesomeness.
2) There incentive cards are awesome.
3) They have tutors to make their awesomeness reliable.

Goblin Matron looks poisonous, but totally isn't. Goblins serve many different purposes and even if you only have 3 of them, being able to get the one you want is going to often be pretty important. The card isn't really a goblin incentive card at all, you don't need to be playing a goblin deck, you just need a few goblins that are diverse in purpose that you'd probably want to play anyway. It can also serve as a backup for a certain card, like welder, guttersnipe or heelcutter that your deck really wants to draw.

Krenko and Rabblemaster are strong and thematic incentive cards that non-goblin decks will pick up. You can throw in a bone like Goblin Chieftain or Goblin Grenade if you want a goblin deck specific incentive.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
You are right. Wow, never realized that. I was just looking at the lords, and they suck, but the cards you list are definitely strong enough to be played outside a dedicated goblin deck, yet stronger in a tribal deck. Nice!

 
japahn

japahn

Goblin is already supported, and I intend to include Goblin Chieftain and Krenko, Mob Boss. Other good ones I run, apart from what what was already mentioned:


All of these have been fine before any sort of Goblin synergy was introduced, and they don't all point at beatdown (though most do), allowing me to keep red interesting.

Matron sounds like a good idea, good with CIP synergy. I'll give it a try, but I fear the 1/1 body might be too irrelevant without a Chieftain to buff her or a Siege-Gang Commander to fling her. Although she can fix this herself. And if you run a lot of Goblins, in a singleton format.. well, she's a toolbox, look at the stuff above. There's burn, bounce, tokens, land destruction, artifact hate, anthems, sacrifice synergies. Definitely interesting.
 
japahn

japahn

Warren Weirding, Tarfire and Nameless Inversion look a bit underwhelming unless played with Matron. Any other synergies these tribal spells have with other cards?
 
Lucre

Lucre

How much do you want to shift your cubes focus toward small creature battles and onboard development?
 
japahn

japahn

I want to get much more blocking than the average cube - which isn't too hard really. The main goal is to provide more dimensions of synergy.
 
Lucre

Lucre

Zombies are really neat in that they occupy different space than a lot of other tribal synergy in that they enable graveyard and value aggro decks, but it's not exactly an onboard mechanic like say devotion or normal tribal tends to be. They are also notoriously bad at blocking, even worse than goblins!

Humans are a tribe with a billion good cards but few human-matters cards worth caring about. I love the base BW human aggro decks I've got to play in cube though and I really encourage people seeing what they can get from cubing multiples of human enablers etc. Confidant, Xathrid and Blasting Station really make me smile.

Oddly trading sometimes becomes really unlikely in these board-building environments. Let me explain! A lot of these decks will be playing super equivalent small guys, attacking and blocking will often mean setting your board back to 1 or maybe 0. Now these formats, often encourage having a bunch of dudes in play, waiting to draw your enabler, or waiting till turn 4-5 to drop your lord, people will sit on their boardstate and a lot of these decks don't feel like they are encouraging you to stock up on Jace's Ingenuity to refill your hands. Just something to think about. You may end up with some coldwars. There are tricks around that but I think I'm too tired to get that deep!

I love tribal constructed and even sometimes cube, I wish you luck!
 
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