Standard Tribal Decks

Right now there are five main tribal decks in Standard – not that you’d know about it. The five tribes match up to the five colours of the mana pie. Black has Vampires, Green has Elves, Red has Goblins, Blue has Merfolk and White has… Humans? Kor? Knights? Soldiers? Some sort of mix of all four? We’ll figure that out in a moment.

Tribal decks have been attractive since the Onslaught days. Their linear nature makes for powerful synergistic effects once a critical mass of critters is achieved. As tribal decks are often see as sub-par as they are so sensitive to creature-sweepers, tribal decks also happen to be lighter on the hip-pocket.

So what makes a tribal deck? The rule for a pure Tribal decks – ie. a deck legal under the Tribal Wars rules – is simple: one-third of the deck must be of a single creature type. So a 60 card deck must have at least 20 creature-type cards.

Following are four standard tribal decks in Red, Blue, Green and White, and a mono-white concept deck you may find interesting to play.

Standard Tribal Goblins

Goblins are one of my favourite tribes and have a impressive history of tournament viability. Unfortunately, Goblins have made only a single Standard PTQ Top8 that I know of in the two years, which is surprising for a deck that can reliably kill on Turn 4 or 5, even when contested.

Following is what I consider an optimal build of the Little Red Bastards, with notes below.

// 24 Creatures

4 Goblin Guide
4 Goblin Bushwhacker
4 Goblin Shortcutter
4 Warren Instigator
4 Goblin Chieftain
4 Siege-Gang Commander

// 8 Instants

4 Burst Lightning
4 Flame Slash

// 4 Sorceries

4 Lightning Bolt

// 2 Planeswalkers

2 Chandra Ablaze

// 22 Lands

11 Mountain
4 Arid Mesa
3 Smoldering Spires
4 Scalding Tarn

// Sideboard

4 Goblin Ruinblaster
4 Roiling Terrain
4 Tectonic Edge
3 Manabarbs

This deck acknowledges a few things about both Goblins and the Standard format:

* The most powerful thing you can do is land a hit with an early Warren Instigator. This build provides 8 instants, 4 sorceries, 4 creatures, and 3 lands to help you get around any blocker.

* The deck wants to move fast. The card that’s going to slow you down the most is Wall of Omens. Flame Slash acknowledges that, sacrificing instant speed removal for a massive hit to any early, fat-assed blocker.

* The two Chandra Ablazes are due to the fact you regularly empty your hand early and then run out of gas. Goblins are a threat with even two on the table; Chandra lets you restock your hand and charge on in. You can also use Chandra’s first ability to simply start flinging goblins at your opponent’s head, if it comes to that.

* The sideboard does one thing and one thing only; attack manabases. Three and four colour decks are becoming increasingly popular. The 12 card land destruction package, backed by the three manabarbs, are there to crush any colour-sensitive deck.

I tested the deck in the casual room of MtGO for a while and it performed as expected; either a Turn 4 or 5 win, usually off the back of a successful Warren Instigator attack, or the deck folded due to effective spot removal or sweepers. There was one epic game against WUG Allies that went to Turn 14. The deck stalled on 2 mana for 8 turns, during which I simply flung Lightning Bolts and Burst Lightings at my opponent and the allies that mattered. Then a third mana appeared and as a result the board opened up. Two Chieftains later the game was mine.

Overall the deck won about 75% of its matches in the Casual room, a surprising result.

Standard Tribal Merfolk

Merfolk are uniformly loved and loathed as a tribe, largely because they often come backed up with the oft-dreaded counterspell. The great thing about the Merfolk in today’s standard is that you can get them onto the board early and slowly grow them while leaving counterspell mana up the entire time. When you’re playing against decks you know are a removal light, you can also simply push a lot of damage through quickly. This gives the fishfolk a certain amount of flexibility to adapt to their opponent’s gameplan. Here’s the build I’d use if I could afford the Jaces.

// 23 Creatures (20 Merfolk)

2 Cosi’s Trickster
2 Enclave Cryptologist
4 Skywatcher Adept
4 Halimar Wavewatch
4 Coralhelm Commander
4 Merfolk Sovereign
3 Venerated Teacher

// 10 Instants

2 Into the Roil
4 Spell Pierce
4 Deprive

// 2 Enchantments

2 Training Grounds

// 3 Planeswalkers

3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

// 22 Lands

10 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Halimar Depths

// Sideboard

4 Flashfreeze
3 Mind Control
4 Lullmage Mentor
4 Negate

Some points below:

* Coralhelm Commander is a beast. I really didn’t expect it to be that good, but it is. Sure, he’s no Lord of Atlantis, but the fact he also becomes a 4/4 flyer is great as he often takes games by himself. He’s also easy to pump while keeping counter mana up.

* My experience has been that, in general, opponents want to get the most out of their removal spells by using them in response to levelling. As a result they often make the fatal mistake of allowing you to untap after playing your Coralhelm, hoping to get extra value after the pump. But the Commander’s level-up cost is so efficient that keeping open a Deprive or Spell Pierce is easy to do. I don’t expect this gameplay-style error to continue indefinitely.

* Training Grounds is good, but not great. It’s very, very good if you can get it down and a Cryptologist levelled quickly. I often felt I wanted to see one of them; I never, ever, ever wanted to see two.

* To be honest, the deck wins games because of two cards: Jace and Deprive. The fishfolk just happen to be extremely mana efficient to play and level around Jace and Deprive. You rarely care that you’re bouncing back a land because you don’t need all that much mana. But then again, if you can afford Jace, why are you going rogue with Merfolk?

* The sideboard does two things; grabs Baneslayers, and builds in some linear value through Lullmage Mentor. If you can get him and stick him, he can quickly overwhelm the board on his own.

As I don’t own Jaces on MtGO, I tested the deck in the casual room with more Into The Roils instead. The deck held its own, at one point winning eight straight games in a row. I think people still underestimate the power of two blue mana. Has it been so long?

Standard Tribal Elves

Elves see a lot of competitive play in Standard and Extended. Elfball is still a major threat in Extended, and Eldrazi Green was highly visible before Rise of the Eldrazi came out. Here’s a slightly different build for Elves, one that tries to pretend that Lightning Bolt exists in the format.

// 28 Creatures

4 Llanowar Elves
4 Joraga Treespeaker
4 Joraga Warcaller
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Nissa’s Chosen
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Mul Daya Channelers

// 8 Instants

4 Vines of Vastwood
4 Strength of the Tajuru

// 4 Planeswalker

4 Nissa Revane

// 20 Lands

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Oran-Rief The Vastwood
10 Forest

// Sideboard

1 Omnath, Locus of Mana
1 Eldrazi Monument
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
3 Naturalize
4 Acidic Slime
4 Mold Shambler

Some things to consider:

* 20 lands may seem low, but when you have 16 other mana sources, it’s really not that bad.

* And what are you really going to do with all that mana? Strength of the Tajuru seems an absolute natural in this deck, spreading the love around appropriately.

* What’s better than a 10 point spread of Strength of the Tajuru? Dropping the whole thing on your Jagora Warcaller of course! Instead of giving five Elves a +2/+2 counter, why not give them all +10/+10 instead? It really does break the system.

* In this deck Vines of Vastwood is as much a counterspell as anything else. Yes, you may ‘get in there’ for an extra four points of damage. But most likely you’ll be protecting your Archdruid or Warcaller from spot removal.

* Poor Nissa Revane. If it weren’t for Lightning Bolt she’d see heavy play. There is, however, no reason not to put her in the deck. Lots of things we play die to Lightning Bolt. Just because a planeswalker does doesn’t make it a terrible card.

* The sideboard is designer largely for testing and land/planeswalker destruction. If you find in your matchups you’re suddenly faced with all this mana and nowhere to stick it, try running a couple of Eldrazi in your deck. Omnath is also a total mind-crush against some decks. The Shambler/Slime package are for incremental card advantage and planeswalker/mana denial, depending on the matchup.

I haven’t had the chance to test this build yet, but I expect it would be a blast to play.

Alternate Vampires

Vampires are the new kids on the block, but beware of sparkly things, as they often suck. You can easily find a PTQ level vampire deck on the interweb. So here’s a concept deck designed around some of the other, not quite as cool, vampires.

// 26 Creatures

4 Bloodthrone Vampire
4 Bloodghast
3 Kalastria Highborn
4 Vampire Aristocrat
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Abyssal Persecutor
3 Pawn of Ulamog

// 2 Instants

2 Smother

// 6 Sorceries

2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Consuming Vapors

// 2 Planeswalkers

2 Sorin Markov

// 24 Lands

16 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats

// Sideboard

3 Sign in Blood
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Deathmark
4 Malakir Bloodwitch

Once upon a time there was a deck called Ghost Husk. It basically won on the theory that your opponent would always have to block the Nantuko Husk or risk dying, and as a result always be on the back foot. This desk seeks to recreate some of that, running 8 Nantuko Husks and a number of supporting characters:

* The Pawn of Ulamog is fantastic in this deck, effectively allowing any non-token critter to give your Husks +4/+4. I’ve managed to get the combo out and pumped an unblocked Bloodthrone Vampire from 1/1 to 21/21 by sacrificing my board for the game.

* The Highborn helps you pump out some extra advantage from all the sacrificing going on. I was considering running Mortician Beetle as well, rather than the Abyssal Persecutor. But Persecutor is a win condition on his own.

* Speaking of Abyssal Persecutor, this is the deck that ensures you’ll never, ever have to worry about his ‘drawback’, as you simply have so many ways to kill him.

* I’m not sure why, but I adore Consuming Vapours. It’s a tricky card to play properly, but has many uses – a removal spell, a delaying tactic, an Abyssal Persecutor sac outlet. Certainly a sleeper hit in the future.

* The sideboard is for planewalkers and Baneslayers.

I haven’t had a much of a chance to play this deck, though I expect in practice it’s rather clumsy and not nearly as efficient as the Nocturnus builds. However, if you’re thinking of going rogue and already have most of the cards, give it a try and let me know how it goes.

White Almost-Tribal

There are a lot ways to attack mono-white Tribal at the moment. Certainly there are enough Kor to run an equipment-based build. There are plenty of Humans in white. Soldiers and Knights both have a fair representation as well.

The build below cuts across Humans, Knights and Soldiers, and while it doesn’t have enough of any one tribe to be Tribal Wars legal, it’s certainly a lot of fun to play.

// 24 Creatures (16 Humans only)

4 Student of Warfare
4 Perimeter Captain
4 Knight of the White Orchid
4 Wall of Omens
4 Ranger of Eos
1 World Queller
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Admonition Angel

// 12 Instants

4 Harm’s Way
4 Emerge Unscathed
4 Path to Exile

// 3 Planeswalkers (but they turn into Humans, so it’s ok, right?)

3 Gideon Jura

// 21 Lands

4 Marsh Flats
4 Arid Mesa
2 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
11 Plains

Ok, at first the deck is pretty confusing. What the hell is it trying to do? Defend? Attack? What? To be frank, I’m not sure. What I am sure is that it crush 4 out of every 5 decks it played in the Casual room, repeatedly. Some note:

* Often I would delay playing the Student of Warfare until Turn 2 in order to keep up Unscathed or Harm’s Way mana. This would generally allow me to level it and protect it on Turn 3 as well.

* In general the Knight of the White Orchard are Turn 3 plays. I occasionally made the mistake of auto-playing the land before the Knight, which is a big no-no. It’s almost always worth it to delay playing a third land until your opponent does, and then rip past them to four while thinning your deck.

* Perimeter Captain, Wall of Omens and Gideon all like to make out with each other. Seriously, I’ve gained a lazy 16 life to no ill effect of that particular combo.

* Ranger of Eos fetching two Students of Warfare can be backbreaking for many decks, especially if you can lay down a Student and pump it to ultimate on the same turn.

* The deck is both faster and slower than it looks. An uncontested Student of Warfare gets out of hand very quickly, and a slow deck will just lose to it. At the same time, the sheer amount of card draw and card advantage the deck has helps it in the mid-to-long range.

* Yes, it may be better with Baneslayers. Or another couple of lands. Regardless, it’s great fun to play.