BMoors's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage



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Pojo's MTG MTG Home Message Board News & Archives Deck Garage BMoor Dolf BeJoSe Columnists Paul's Perspective Jeff Zandi DeQuan Watson Jordon Kronick IQ Aburame Shino Rare Hunter Tim Stoltzfus WiCkEd Judge Bill's Corner Trading Card Game Card of the Day Guide for Newbies Decks to Beat Featured Articles Peasant Magic Fan Tips Tourney Reports Other Color Chart Book Reviews Online Play MTG Links Staff 120x90 Ad Space For Rent!		BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage Tribal Wars Help August 16, 2006 Before I start fixing today's deck, there's something I need to make clear. The format Tribal Wars has been changed from the way Brian here describes it. He is playing in a tournament whose organizer purposely chose to use the old version of the format due to popular demand, but DCI-sanctioned Tribal Wars format now uses different rules. You can find all the details on the official Magic: the Gathering site, but mostly I don't want anyone to read this and get a false idea of what sort of deck needs to be built for such a tournament, only to show up at the day of the tournament and be sent away. Having said that, we can get right into business. Greetings, I am in need of your assistance. A card shop that I buy my cards at is holding a tournament at the end of August. The format is casual Tribal Wars. In case you didn't know, tribal wars is a format that at least 20 cards of your deck must share a creature type. The only banned cards in the tournament are Tsabo's Decree, Engineered Plague, Patriarch's Bidding, Circle of Solace, Skullclamp, Umezawa's Jitte, Extinction, Chrome Mox, Aether Vial, Wrath of God, and Unglued/Unhinged cards. Zombies, goblins, and elves are banned from the tournament. I signed up for the tourney and was pondering of what tribe I should use, then it hit me. Beasts! Beasts are big and have so much versatility. I asked around and people will be using merfolk, soldiers, knights, birds, snakes, white and/or black clerics, humans, shamans, and another beast deck. I got with a friend and tested my r/g beasties out. Here's a decklist that I'm testing out. (28) creatures: Ravenous Baloth-4 Arc-Slogger-4 Blastoderm-4 Krosan Tusker-4 Krosan Warchief-4 Ember Beast-4 Sakura Tribe Elder-4 (8) non-creatures: Lightning Bolt-4 Pyroclasm-4 (24) lands: Forest-11 Mountain-10 Contested Cliffs-3 Sideboard: Naturalize-4 Molder Slug-4 Pulse of the Tangle-4 Boil-3 I have made a few discoveries about this deck. It cannot deal with fast creatures, and the only way I can deal with them is with Pyroclasm and Arc-Slogger. I can't afford to lose a bunch of creatures. This deck can really get going around turn three. Arc-Slogger is good in combat with the ability, despite it's activation cost. Sakura Tribe Elder is my second best option aftter Llanowar Elves, since elves are banned. Beasts are just downright fun! I have a moderate budget so I am not afraid to spend money. The only exception is that, I can't buy cards such as Birds of Paradise, fetch lands, dual lands, and the pain lands. I am not afraid o make changes as long they with the r/g beast theme. I have given thought of adding Hurricane, Earthquake, the fading beasts from Nemesis, old beasts, and/or Burning Wish. Any recommendations from you would be greatly appreciated. The Beast Player Brian The deck looks good from here so far, but I do see a little room for improvement. Also, since Beast isn't exactly on of Odysseys most powerful types, we'll try and add a few enablers. In Tribal Wars, it's not just the quality of your creatures, it's the synergy between them that propels you to victory. First of all, let's take out Ember Beast. A 3/4 for 2R sounds nice, but the drawback is a bit dumb-- what if you have no other creatures? There's better options. And those options include? Fangren Firstborn- The only reason I don't go ahead and just recommend this outright is because it costs 1GGG. Which is actually reasonable for what it does, but in a R/G deck it might be tricky to pull off. Of course, the Firstborn is best used later in the game when you've got a few creatures to swing with anyway, but we'll keep looking. Canopy Crawler- Not only can it grow to impressive proportions if you happen to have a full hand, but even with only one or two counters it can make combat math difficult for your opponent. When blocking, your opponent will have to take into account the fact that ANY creature could grow suddenly at your discretion. Any creature with "Laccolith" in their name- They're all Beasts, and they come in four different sizes. And whenever one is blocked, you can have it deal its combat damage to any of the defending player's creatures instead of the creature blocking it. You can't chump block a Laccolith, as the chumper won't be what's killed; whatever creature the Laccolith's controller wants to kill will be instead. Pick the size of creature you want (the Whelp to lower your mana curve or maybe the Titan for power), and run with it. Berserk Murlodont- And speaking of creatures your opponent won't want to block, the Murlodont makes that true for every creature you've got (except Sakura-Tribe Elder). AEther Charge- This one isn't a creature, but it works so well in your deck. With Ravenous Baloth keeping your creature count low enough to recycle Pulse of the Tangle every time, you could kill your opponent in five Pulses. And even if the damage doesn't help, you'll still have Beast tokens and all the life you gained off the Baloth going for you, so that combo pretty much wins games. Best of all, every piece of the combo is a card you'd play in this deck even without the combo, so feel free to use it instead of another Beast (by my count, you've still got 20 Beasts even after pulling Ember Beast). I just realized that you've got Pulse of the Tangle in your sideboard instead of your maindeck. I'd definitely advise switching it for Pyroclasm in any game where you weren't facing a weenie rush, but since Tribal Wars is all about creatures, then the ability to kill multiple creatures of your opponent's with one card is too good to pass up, especially since so few of your own creatures will die to a 'clasm. Finally, your mana base. It looks good, but 3 Contested Cliffs is a lot for a land that doesn't produce mana and needs you to have a superior Beast in play before its ability becomes relevant. Drop one Cliffs, and add in a few Gruul Turf for consistency's sake. Fill out the rest with Forest and Mountains as you see fit. Good luck at the tournament, and remember to practice your feral snarls! ~BMoor
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