Chaos Wins!

My latest creation is an oldie but a goodie way back from Kamigawa block. The Samurai are a relatively small tribe but have solid synergy and can put together a nice swarm attack when backed by quality removal.

Note that Classic Tribal Wars is no longer a format. It has been supplanted by Legacy Tribal Wars, which is appreciated by those of us who don't feel like stuffing the likes of Library of Alexandria into every single deck we make. The homogenization of the format was already bad enough thanks.

The samurai tribe is comprised of 3 colors: White, Red and Black. White is the primary color of this tribe and making a samurai deck without it seems like you're tabling the best cards it has to offer. I considered going mono-white but the power level of the aggressive deck I was trying to create wasn't quite where I wanted it to be. I perused both black and red for filler and found red to be a better fit.

The deck:

Creatures

4 Hand of Honor
4 Kondo's Hatamoto
4 Samurai of the Pale Curtain
3 Ronin Houndmaster
4 Brothers Yazamaki
3 Nagao, Bound by Honor

Spells

4 Lightning Bolt
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Oblivion Ring
3 Wrath of God
1 Call to Glory

Land

4 Plateau
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Arid Mesa
2 Rugged Prarie
2 Mutavault
2 Wasteland
3 Plains
1 Eiganjo Castle
1 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep

This is a lower curve oriented creature rush as opposed to some kind of pricey control deck. Quick early drops are here: Hand of Honor, Kondo's Hatamoto and Samurai of the Pale Curtain are the earliest threats, followed by some legendary creatures that augment them. A host of removal is available: Swords to Plowshares for difficult threats, Lightning Bolt a versatile stopper of finisher, Oblivion Ring for utility and Wrath of God as a board reset.

This deck is simple in design but stands up nicely to annoying graveyard recursion and can give knight and vampire decks fits with both plow and Samurai of the Pale Curtain in the deck. The samurai can get out of hand quickly against decks lacking enough removal. Plenty of honor to go around here.

Rogues are a nefarious newer tribe for the Tribal Wars game. Although introduced very early, they became quite viable with the release of Llorwyn block, and Morningtide increased their power level significantly.

Rogues can take advantage of their unique prowl keyword ability to get into play very quickly. They strike fast with cheap early drops, many of whom have some form of evasion. We can precipitate that by tempo effects that can stall out slower lumbering opponents. Control cards like Paralyze are cheap effective ways of dealing with larger blockers and force the opponent to make choices about either making their blockers viable or slowing down their deployment. Pestermite combos nicely with this effect.

On top of that Rogues can use typical removal like the under-costed agony warp for quality combat tricks and recoil to remove anything truly problematic. Discard is compounded with cards like Thoughtseize or the effects of Oona's Blackguard or Prowler.

Rogues - Classic Tribal Wars

Creatures

4 Nightshade Stinger
4 Oona's Blackguard
4 Oona's Prowler
3 Stinkdrinker Bandit
1 Sygg, River Guide
4 Pestermite
3 Earwig Squad

Spells

4 Paralyze
3 Thoughtseize
4 Agony Warp
4 Recoil

Land

4 Watery Grave
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Urborg Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Mutavault
2 Wasteland

Because of a very low curve that functionally tops out at 3 mana, we can afford to go very lean on land. Only 22 in this deck, which gives us room for more removal. In fantastic lore rogues are fast, strike without warning and do damage very quickly. This deck is no different.

Goblins has been a popular tribal deck in any format since the early days of sligh. The tribe was considered underpowered however until Onslaught block was released and the Scourge set specifically catapulting a once marginal tribe into one of the most powerful.

I basically lifted the below list straight from an extended season way back in 2003. The original deck was coined Gob-vantage. It combined the deck stacking ability of Goblin Recruiter with the card drawing power of Goblin Ringleader that led to explosive combos of hasted Goblin Piledrivers attacking for well over 20 damage all in one turn.

Goblins - Classic Tribal Wars

Creatures

4 Goblin Lackey
3 Mogg Fanatic
3 Skirk Prospector
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Goblin Recruiter
1 Sparksmith
3 Gempalm Incinerator
3 Goblin Warchief
2 Goblin Matron
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
3 Goblin Ringleader
2 Siege Gang Commander
1 Goblin Assassin

Spells

3 Rites of Initiation

Land

10 Mountain
2 Goblin Burrows
2 Wasteland
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Pendelhaven
2 Ancient Tomb

The combo is outlined in the linked article. The paragraph explaining it is here:

"Turn two Goblin Recruiter puts the following cards on top of your library: Goblin Warchief, Goblin Ringleader, Skirk Prospector and three Piledrivers. You draw and play the Warchief and on the next turn you play your Ringleader and put the Skirk Prospector and three Piledrivers in your hand. With the remaining mana you cast a Prospector and sacrifice your Ringleader, Recruiter and Prospector to cast all three Piledrivers and attack for the win."

Gob-vantage was a solid deck back then in Extended and in Classic Tribal Wars almost nothing changes. The vast majority of goblins hasn't really improved since then with apologies to beaters Warren Instigator and Goblin Chieftain. The cards in this version are basically the same with some sideboard concessions main-decked since card swapping isn't allowed in Tribal. I moved the Assassin and Sharpshooter into the main deck and added some sac lands, landkill and a Pendelhaven.

Gob-vantage is arguably the most potent tribal deck in the format right now. It has all the tools to win, and it can also do it very quickly with the ability to reduce an opponent with a significant life and board advantage to zero in a single turn.

I have a particular affinity for the rats tribe. It's a tribe with a ton of fluff and flavor. There are a large number of legends to choose from, and the discard sub-theme is a potent way of maintaining board control with otherwise sub-optimal and tiny creatures.

Some of these cards are powerful in any deck. Ravenous rats has been a tournament staple for years: Elegant card advantage attached to a 1/1 body. The legends have also seen some play, Ink-Eyes is a bomb and in this format is almost always going to have something good to grab out of a graveyard, especially if you just forced your opponent to dump a pricey creature with Hymn to Tourach. The Nezumi's are both quality cards that leverage board strength while generating card advantage as well. The Cuthroat can finish an opponent all by himself without even attacking while flipped to legendary form.

For removal options black has plenty to choose from. Nameless inversion is a good choice for this format as it can kill mid size creatures and then wipe any buff effects generated by tribe bonuses as well. The Disk is pretty much required in any mono-black deck as we have otherwise no other options for dealing with nasty show stoppers like Story Circle or problematic artifacts. Crypt rats are an earthquake/hurricane on a stick. I'm a big fan of creatures that double as removal in this format. It keeps those precious removal slots in play for either more removal or toys to help the cause.

I crammed Sword of Fire and Ice into this deck. I think the buff effect is necessary with so many small bodies. The +2/+2 is nice of course, but the card draw and removal aspect makes it one of the best equipments legal in this format.

Classic Tribal Wars - Rats

Creatures

3 Sewer Rat
3 Nezumi Graverobber
3 Nezumi Shortfang
4 Ravenous Rats
3 Crypt Rats
3 Marrow-Gnawer
2 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni

Spells

4 Nameless Inversion
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Nevinyrall's Disk

Land

1 Pendelhaven
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
2 Swarmyard
2 Mutavault
2 Wasteland
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
10 Swamp

Rounding out the land we see staples like Wasteland and Mutavault (with fear!). I like Swarmyard and will always use this land when applicable in tribal wars. Pendelhaven is a nice touch here with so many 1/1 creatures available.

Rats are small but the disruption results of discard spells can be brutal to an opponent. If you can wipe their hand early they will have no answers to your endless horde of rodents.

Djinn are another set of genies in the M:TG universe that initially had a big presence in Arabian Nights and have seen some limited support since then. They have decent support as a creature type but suffer from being lumbering in terms of overall casting cost. This is not an insurmountable problem. This deck plays like a control deck with a significant amount of land. It looks to curb threats early on and then take over the game late.

Thoughtseize is used here to keep this deck in the game early. It can take out early threats, removal that my opponent will use or to protect our Nevinyrall's disk before we get a chance to use it.

Spells

4 Agony Warp
2 Loxodon Warhammer
3 Nevinyrall's Disk
3 Thoughtseize

Creatures

4 Fledgling Djinn
4 Old Man of the Sea
4 Juzam Djinn
4 Djinn of Wishes
4 Mahomotti Djinn

Land

4 Polluted Delta
4 Watery Grave
4 Underground Sea
4 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Diamond Valley
2 Wasteland
1 Reflecting Pool
4 Swamp
4 Island

For our creature base we have a host of Djinn's at our disposal. Fledling Djinn and it's elder brother Juzaam are cheap efficient beaters. Djinn of Wishes and Mahomotti fill up the top of the curve. Old Man of the Sea was ret-conned to be a Djinn and this deck takes advantage of that as it fits nicely into the 3 slot of the curve. We have some tricks we can use with his ability: Combat tricks with Agony Warp are something we can pull off if we desire; like stealing a more powerful creature and then feeding it to our diamond valley, or stealing an enemy blocker and feeding it to an incoming attacker. An equipped Loxodon Warhammer can also let us grab something more substantial, or we can just beat face with it and recoup any life lost from the dark djinn's in our employ.

If you can stay alive early the massive genies can take over the game. A resolved Djinn of wishes with mana to spare can wreak havoc on an opponent. Using the ability to dump expensive attackers into play, even during an opponents turn can overwhelm an them quickly.

Genies are potent creatures. This deck lets us maximize their abilities and exploits them for our amusement!

The efreet deck is a bit limited on creature selection. There are only so many efreet's in print. However the few that do exist are quite powerful. Old school favorites like the Serendib Efreet and Ydwen Efreet are quality undercosted beaters. The elusive Frenetic and Rainbow Efreet's are very difficult to get rid of because of their phasing abilities.

Efreets - Classic Tribal Wars

Spells

3 Echoing Truth
4 Fire/Ice
4 Prophetic Bolt
4 Force of Will

Creatures

4 Frenetic Efreet
3 Rainbow Efreet
4 Ydwen Efreet
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Wildfire Emissary
1 Capricious Efreet

Land

4 Scalding Tarn
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Volcanic Island
4 Steam Vents
1 Reflecting Pool
4 Ghitu Encampment
2 Mountain
1 Island
2 Wasteland

Backing up the creature selection are staples from the blue/red toolbox. Echoing truth is an excellent permanent removal choice that also has the added benefit of harming token decks by removing dupes from play. Fire/Ice is a great utility or removal spell. Force of Will provides protection against threats that we otherwise cannot deal with. Prophetic Bolt is a potent removal option that replaces itself and let's us search for necessary answers.

This deck can come out quick in the damage race and maintain that advantage with evasion. It has trouble dealing with large threats but with just enough tempo and reach can often finish off an opponent before major threats enter the battlefield.

Making a vampire tribal deck pre-Zendikar was a difficult endeavor. You were looking at a number of high casting cost creatures without a whole lot of utility. Sengir Vampire, Moroii and Skeletal Vampire were your all-stars. M10 introduced the powerful Vampire Nocturnus, but it wasn't really until Zendikar that the most efficient members of the tribe showed up. Lots of cheap powerful creatures to fill the 2 slot, and powerful cost effective creatures like the Vampire Nighthawk and Malakir Bloodwitch.

Mono color decks like this can also be challenging in an environment without sideboards. You have to be very careful that your deck can't get color hosed out of the game. Black can leverage hand destruction and artifacts to deal with the necessary problem cards.

Vampires - Classic Tribal Wars


Spells

4 Thoughtseize
3 Urge to Feed
3 Nevinyrral's Disk

Creatures

4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Kalstria Highborn
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Vampire Nocturnus
4 Malakir Bloodwitch

Land

4 Marsh Flats
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wasteland
2 Mutavault
2 Cabal Coffers
11 Swamp
1 Dark Depths

This deck closely resembles the Vampire decks we saw at Pro-Tour San Juan just recently. It obviously has a more powerful pool of cards to draw from though. This deck employs Vampire Nocturnus as a potent weapon to augment the creatures in the deck significantly. Thoughtseize is a more powerful replacement for Inquisition of Kozilek. Nevinyrral's Disk an important staple to deal with problematic permanents that mono-black couldn't otherwise deal with. We also have access to Mutavault, Dark Depth's to combo with Hexmage and Cabal Coffers which allows us to ratchet up the power level further.

The rest of the creatures are right out of Zendikar block constructed: The highborn, gatekeeper and aforementioned nighthawk and bloodwitch.

Vampires is a very powerful tribe and this deck illustrates that while maintaining a strong tribal theme and even employing some cool soft combos. It's a solid deck for the format.

Kobolds were a fun deck building challenge. It's an interesting exercise trying to take advantage of a zero casting cost creature while desperately trying to ensure they don't remain 0/1 weaklings for any longer than a turn.

I considered green as a color option for this deck. Green offered buff effects like Rancor and hand reload abilities like Harmonize. It's also notable that despite all the creatures being red this deck only really splashes it for a few spells. The deck ended up being mostly white. I chose that over green because it allowed for creature augmentation as well as quality removal and utility.

Kobolds - Classic Tribal Wars

Creatures

4 Crimson Kobolds
4 Crookshank Kobolds
4 Kobolds of Kher Keep
2 Kobold Overlord
4 Kobold Taskmaster
2 Mirror Entity

Spells

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Shared Triumph
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Glory of Warfare
2 Ajani Goldmane

Lands

4 Arid Mesa
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Plateau
4 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Kher Keep
3 Mutavault
2 Wasteland

This deck features 12 zero casting cost kobolds and then taskmasters and overlords to buff them. I included Mirror Entity as a quality finisher that doubled as a strong buff. The mana intensity of the effect is less relevant when you can just dump kobolds into play at no cost.

On the utility side I use both plow and rings to deal with just about any threat. Shared Triumph is another efficient buff effect and I used that with Glory of Warfare and Ajani to make the Kobolds as threatening as possible. This deck can consistently ramp up to 3-4 power kobolds. They will indeed get larger if your opponent doesn't use his removal options wisely. Finally I included Sword of Fire and Ice. This deck can really capitalize quickly with card draw effects. It likes buff effects as well. The sword offers both and is another removal or reach option to boot.

A kobold deck can be a challenge. But this one rises to it. Like its fantastic namesake, this is a quality deck that can swarm the opposition handily if not treated with respect.

I guess maybe I should do these in alphabetical order? It's not intentional but my next deck just so happens to be tribal Barbarians. B is for beat down.

Barbarians are a neglected tribe. They've had some solid contributors but kinda fell by the wayside compared to the likes of warriors, soldiers or knights. That doesn't make it a bad deck, but the quality cards aren't as obvious or as curve worthy.

Still, the tribe has some power. There are enough quality aggressive creatures to form the early core and then a host of legends that can really tie the deck together. Balthor the Stout is a personal barbarian glorious anthem that can attack/block and breath fire to boot. Lovisa Coldeyes can make the deck stomp quickly. Just note that her effect is global and not just limited to the barbarian tribe.

Red/Black works well for this tribe as it ties together the best of the creatures. It also offers great removal options like Terminate and Bituminous blast. The nature of this deck also allows for some powerful equipment that we can take advantage of.

Barbarians - Classic Tribal Wars

Creatures

4 Shivan Zombie
3 Balthor the Stout
4 Undead Gladiator
3 Jeska, Warrior Adept
2 Pardic Arsonist
2 Lovisa Coldeyes
2 Godo, Bandit Warlord

Spells

3 Thoughtseize
4 Terminate
1 Konda's Banner
1 Tenza, Godo's Maul
3 Bituminous Blast
3 Nevinyrral's Disk

Lands

4 Badlands
4 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Swamp
2 Mountain
1 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
2 Mutavault
2 Wasteland

The deck plays pretty straight forward. Get some early damage in with cheap creatures and then magnify them with buff effects with either additional legends that make your army more powerful or equipment that does the same. The Blast fits in nicely here and can remove a threat and accelerate a creature into play. I like Nevinyrral's disk for needed artifact and enchantment removal or as a necessary sweeper to deal with protection creatures.

This deck is land hungry and we're running 25 lands to address that need. 2 of them are mutavaults and can attack and block and as an added bonus benefit from both Balthor and Lovisa's buffs. We also benefit from a couple of quality legendary lands with can make any one of our 10 legendary creatures all the more powerful.

This deck can get out of hand for an opponent in a hurry. With careful play you can make this deck work for you.

I occasionally play Magic Online in the casual room (you're welcome to guess my screen name) and make it a habit of playing Classic Tribal Wars when I do. It's far and away my favorite format since it offers a lot of cool variations on deck construction without becoming entirely degenerate. Not that I hate competitive magic mind you, but if I'm going to do that I'll stick to tournaments and the Standard or Draft queues.

Classic Tribal Wars is not a perfect format. It still has a number of problem cards that I'd wish otherwise didn't exist (I'm looking at you Aether Vial). Regardless, despite some of the irritating elements of this format there is a lot of room for creativity. Today I present an outstanding example of this. I feature not Goblins nor Elves but rather Aurochs. Yes, I've created a cow deck.

Aurochs - Classic Tribal Wars

Creatures

4 Woodland Changeling
4 Bull Aurochs
4 Aurochs
4 Rimehorn Aurochs
4 Aurochs Herd

Spells

3 Fires of Yavimaya
4 Search for Tomorrow
3 Nameless Inversion
4 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Jund Charm

Land

2 Wooded Foothills
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Taiga
4 Bayou
2 Snow-Covered Mountain
4 Snow-Covered Forest
2 Snow-Covered Swamp
2 Wasteland
2 Mutavault

Aurochs are fun but not just because you get to kill your opponent with cows. They are fun because they are beefy (pun intended) creatures that can swing for a lot in larger numbers. One thing I wanted to accomplish was making sure they swing for as hard and as fast as possible. A great way to accomplish that is to make them hasted cows. Please see Fires of Yavimaya.

Of course the rules of tribal enforce the deck to be 33% creatures of the same type. Since only 16 Aurochs exist we have to cheat. The Lorwyn changelings let us to do that. Woodland changeling isn't a great card, but it lets the deck exist in this format. I'll take it. Backing up the cows we have some mana acceleration and fix and some removal options. Jund Charm is a nice sweeper that also can be used as growth effect on our trampling cows. Maelstrom pulse (or Putrefy if you're on a budget) works well for permanent removal that we can't otherwise deal with. I like Nameless inversion for my spot removal since I can fetch it with Auroch's Herd if necessary. It also turns my Auroch's Herd into a ball lightning in a pinch. Pretty slick.

So that's our cow level. Probably isn't going to beat goblins, but maybe on a good day. See you in the casual room.