General Tribes in a Can

[LadyMapi]

It's pretty much a given that tribal strategies are pretty parasitic, and kinda suck in Cubes unless you really warp your environment around them. But that got me thinking about cards that let you do nifty tribal stuff without demanding that you go all-in. To that effect, I searched Scryfall for, like, an hour for explicitly tribal cards that either A) make appropriate tokens or B) work just fine on their own, without any other cards in their tribe in your deck. So, here are the most interesting ones that I found, leaving out cards like Xathrid Necromancer that I actually see people talk about:



The flip sides are:



And who can forget Pack Rat?

 

[ravnic]

Some more

 

[Brad]

All a little low-mid powered in non-tribal mode.

 

[Jason Waddell]

I think the prevalence of a given tribe in your cube can impact your card selection. If your cube already incidentally has 50 humans (that are good without the creature type mattering), you could toss in a couple humans-matter anchors without making the whole setup parasitic.

 

[LadyMapi]

I think the prevalence of a given tribe in your cube can impact your card selection. If your cube already incidentally has 50 humans (that are good without the creature type mattering), you could toss in a couple humans-matter anchors without making the whole setup parasitic.

That's very true - I guess part of what I was looking for were cards that don't really need you to have a bunch of incidental cards in that tribe. Stuff with a solid WCS.

Take this little Wolf Tribal package:



If you manage to draft all three of those creatures, you can grab a few more incidental wolves/werewolves and be happy-ish. If you only see Silverfur Partisan (for example), you have the opportunity to pivot and just grab pump spells (since it makes bodies whenever you pump it and it replaces itself on removal). Contrast that with Elves, where all of the Elf tribal cards are pretty bad if you don't get your hands on a critical mass.

I was actually pretty strict with what cards I picked out - I wanted cards that would be solid even if you never saw another card in that tribe. There are a few that I found that might tip over to being decent if you did see a small pool within their tribe (skipping over the ones that people already added that I missed):



There are also a surprising number of cards that turn random cards into Vampires, if you care about that:



---

Though the mention of incidentally having 50 humans made me think of the colorless cards that let you "force" a tribal deck if you just happen to draft a bunch of Treefolk (or whatever):

 

[japahn]

Generic tribal payoffs are sweet! I use them in my cube as a compact, non-poisonous way of supporting the tribes (Humans, Wizards, Zombies, Goblins, Elves).


One concern is that these cards seem to signal that a certain tribe is supported, but then if you only find 3 wolves, you just kind of have to pivot into good stuff to perhaps salvage the draft. They look like signposts, but are actually traps.


To be nitpicky, in some of these cases, I think you're seeing false synergy:




Silverfur Partisan requires being targeted to do something besides being a Grey Ogre. Sure, if becomes a Centaur Courser with Nightpack Ambusher, but I would not include Silverfur Partisan in my deck because of Nightpack Ambusher. It's actually bad in the Nightpack Ambusher deck, as you don't want to run many spells that need to be cast main phase.



Lullmage Mentor does very little even in a merfolk deck - if you have 7 merfolk out, you've already won - you're just prolonging your opponent's suffering.

 

[LadyMapi]

Fair... but the thing about Silverfur Partisan is that it affects any instant/sorcery spell that might target a Werewolf/Wolf, so it gives you some insurance against targeted removal.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

I'm surprised no one mentioned:

This card is the quintessential tribe in a can. It creates an army of on-rate tokens without any trouble, it converts creatures controlled into card draw, and it doesn't need a single other member of it's tribe in the deck to be good. I would argue that Zombie Tribal would not be remotely playable in any cube without a tribal emphasis if it weren't for Cryptbreaker. No other card does what it can at its rate.

 

[LadyMapi]

I did say that I was leaving out cards that everyone talks about.

 

[Dom Harvey]

o_O

 

[LadyMapi]

In all seriousness, what would you have to change about Pack Rat to make it not GRBS?

 

[Chris Taylor]

Just make the tokens not have the copy ability

 

[Kirblinx]

In all seriousness, what would you have to change about Pack Rat to make it not GRBS?

Probably just make it a */* rat without the ability. I think the exponential gain makes it interesting, but they fact that if you kill one, then they can still keep coming is the real problem. If they make 2 tokens over two turns then you kill the original then they have spent 6 mana and 2 cards on 2 x 2/2's, which feels fine. Card would still be a removal check, but at least then it isn't a 'turn 2 removal check'.

The penny pincher cube had some tribes in a can:


Krenko is a true tribe in a can. Card can just go off even without the need for more goblins. Mastery seems fine by itself but does make you think there would be more Zombies in the cube. Splicer's are just great cards and let you put in things like Precursor Golem to have extra purpose instead of just being lots of power in one card.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

In all seriousness, what would you have to change about Pack Rat to make it not GRBS?

You don't have to change anything about it you just have to play every Shock.

 

[frostymoose]

 

[ravnic]