Card/Deck What human tribal incentives do you run?

henrizzlebear

henrizzlebear

Hello Riptide,
This is my first time posting here but I have been lurking for a couple of weeks. In that time I have seen human typing regarded as a bonus because y'all regard human tribal as being fairly strong. However, I haven't really seen any mention of human tribal incentives other than Champion of the Parish. How do you run human tribal? What incentive cards do you run?
 
Aoret

Aoret

Developer
Welcome! I can't really help because I'm still on Team Steppe Lynx. I don't think I've seen anyone mention incentives besides the ol' Champ, but I'm almost certainly wrong there.
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

I think Champion of the Parish is the most reasonable inclusion; he grows easily enough in most environs to need little else. I also currently run Xathrid Necromancer because he can generate a lot of bodies after a boardwipe/etc, but he's completely fine to pass on. The trick to "tribal incentives" or archetype/theme incentives in general is to make sure they have alright effects to start with and scale up really grandly in the right hands. Xathrid is playable because even at the worst, he's a 2/2 in a relevant type that gets you a 2/2 in another, perhaps even more relevant type (for black, anyway), all for 3 mana, which is "Fine", and has some (albeit weak) bleed into sacrifice themes (since he replaces himself), maybe even making him "Okay" with little work (and he becomes Really Nice in a human-filled deck!). Aside from those two, though, I'm not aware that any others are really worth it, depending on your power level. I personally also run triple Stromkirk Noble for the (imho) fantastic tension of throwing it down in an environment that is somewhat purposefully "extra" human-filled; that guy is really evasive and encourages a lot of cool lines of play to get him through.
 
safra

safra

I go a little further than RbM does to support human tribal, also including a copy of Mayor of Avabruck and Gather the Townsfolk. (I run four Champions, two white and two black, centering the tribal theme in that colour pair)

The other reason people over here tend to like human tribal is how ubiquitous the "Human" typeline really is. I bet a surprisingly large number of your creatures are already Humans, so if it's easy enough to lean that way during the draft Champion and Xathrid really become 'creatures tribal' which is actually kinda absurd and definitely above-curve. Stromkirk Noble is also really sweet.
 
FlowerSunRain

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
Shit, for some reason I like that idea. Randomly shitting over a creature type is kind of lame, but Replenish for humans on a body if just friggin weird enough to be awesome.
 
Aoret

Aoret

Developer
Kinda reminds me of Open the Vaults which was sort of a card during my first season of competitive standard (although let's be honest I just played jund instead and crushed people with my awesome slot machine of a deck)
 
CML

CML

Contributor
im sure i've run a bunch of "o:human" searches on magiccards.info

rip mayor of avabruck you were better than marion barry
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
So:



I kinda wish these were in fewer colors and converged on fewer strategies (Aggro/Aggro/Midrange/Sac I guess?)
I do still run Xathrid Necromancer FWIW
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
This thread is pretty old, but just chucking in my two cents: I cut Gather the Townsfolk. If you cast it on turn two with a Champion of the Parish in play, your opponent grones, but at any other time it's pretty bad. On the other hand, some people on here run strong sacrifice packages that would love a spell like this create cannon fodder. Do any of you cool sacrifcy people run it? Do you like it?
 
B

blacksmithy

Is this too win-more?

I'm looking at whether it's tenable or not to give Humans one tribal incentive per color, but this is all I'm finding in Blue.
And while we're at it with the janky Human support in INN-block...

Eh? Eh?
 
safra

safra

blacksmithy said:
Is this too win-more?

I'm looking at whether it's tenable or not to give Humans one tribal incentive per color, but this is all I'm finding in Blue.
And while we're at it with the janky Human support in INN-block...

Eh? Eh?
Click to expand...

i tried to make humans relevant in blue by a) running a bunch of Human-typed utility dudes and b) giving blue fliers that could go over the largely ground-based Human world of combat. It makes a little more clear the draft / draft-against dynamic humans/non-humans can have thanks to human density. Mass Appeal is unplayable garbage, though, sorry! Malcontents is not very good either.
 
B

blacksmithy

Yeah, I didn't think those cards were any good either... *sigh*
I really hate designing Cube tribal themes, man. I'm not even sure how I could sharpie Appeal and Malcontents to be playable with, idk, one human instead of 3 or more.
 
shamizy

shamizy

Humans are plenty strong enough that I don't really run any specific incentive cards. They just sorta of come together. Like, if you're Mardu aggro or something, pick up a Dark Confidant somewhere in the draft and just draft low cost guys. Utility Draft the Cavern of Souls and you're set. The only humans matters guy that has performed great is Champion of the Parish who is a two-of in my list. I had Mayor of Avabruck for a while, but he wasn't all that interesting and people didn't really ever do GW Humans and I've since swapped him out. If I'm going to push humans anymore, I'd probably just add another Experiment One and call it a day. Humans are just so incidental throughout cubes that I don't really see a need to explicitly force it with a payoff card.
 
shamizy

shamizy

My numbers after a quick look through my cube are:

White: 17
Blue: 7
Black: 9
Red: 12
Green: 7
Multicolor: 9

That comes out to a total of 61 humans without any explicit support aside from double Champion of the Parish. Most of them slot into other decks as well, which is perfectly fine with me. I like themeless themes the best; those that can just come together naturally. For instance, one time in draft a friend of mine just straight up drafted U/R Wizards after ULD of Cavern of Souls and Riptide Laboratory. I didn't even know that was possible till I looked at all of my incidental wizards in the Cube. It was pretty sweet to see in action.

I just don't really like explicit cards in a draft that give a payoff for a certain thing and are useless otherwise (which is why I ULD Riptide. Also to rep the forum). Like, if no one makes a humans deck, then those human matters cards just aren't going to be good in that draft. I'd rather have cards that can be roleplayers in the majority of my drafts rather than have those that are insane in some drafts and jank in others.
 
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