Every block in recent memory has had some tribal element to play with. From the Rebels and Mercenaries of Masques Block, to the Elves and Zombies in Invasion, to the Cephalids in Odyssey, to the Aboroths in Onslaught, to the Chipmuko and SquizzidanX of Mirrodin, to the Snakes and Samurai of Kamigawa, tribal cards seem to be a permanent fixture of Magic set design. Ravnica continues this trend....
...Sort of.
Okay, not at all.
There aren't any real tribal cards in the set. At least, nothing along the lines of Anaba Spirit Crafter, Faerie Noble, or Iizuka the Ruthless.
While there might not be anything as obvious as that, it's always fun to comb spoilers for the missing piece of your particular tribal puzzle, that card that will put your favorite tribe over the edge. Witness Greg Weiss's deck from last weekend's Pro Tour - seriously, who sees Flame-Kin Zealot as the missing ingredient in that deck? Brilliant!
Ravnica's Tribal Winners: An Incomplete And Random Study
Unpack your Nemata, Grove Guardians and your Verdeloth the Ancients, because Saprolings got a huge boost from Ravnica. The City of Guilds is apparently packed to the gills with fungus - just like the fridge from my college days.
Seriously, though, where's the Janitor's Guild? Clean that [expletive deleted] up before someone gets sick!
The tribe gets so much more powerful that they had to print a crippling, Riptide Biologist-esque Saproling hoser in Vindictive Mob. When I attack with Vindictive Mob, I like to shout, "Out of my way, fungus!" Just like a real vindictive mob would.
Okay, Saprolings don't get that much of a boost. Besides, you can't play them in Tribal Wars anyway, since they aren't creature cards. What else have we got?
Dryads are one of the oldest tribes in Magic. They can be traced all the way back to Alpha's Shanodin Dryads, which at the time were not actually Dryads but Nymphs. They finally have a Lord! Admittedly, Chorus of the Conclave adds about as much to a Lord deck as a Dryad deck, but you take what you can get. If you can get it to stick, all those otherwise god-awful, late-game topdecks (every Dryad ever printed) will actually be quite formidable.
(Score one for the thesaurus.)
For some reason - possibly binge-drinking - I was pretty sure that Viashino as a creature-type had been phased out. That all the Viashinos (Viashinoes? Viashinae? Viashanonomous? Anybody? Quayle?) were now Lizards. After a little research, I think my confusion arose from recent overexposure to Portal's Lizard Warrior, which is functionally identical to Viashino Warrior.
What always gets me is how much Flametongue Kavu outclasses these two "Warriors" - and the Kavu has no training whatsoever! He's no Warrior, Soldier, or even Berserker. He does it with raw talent, hard work, and a little moxie.
Not only was I wrong about the demise of the Viashino, but two spicy Mirage Legends - Hivis of the Scale and Zirilan of the Claw - have retroactively been added to the clan (they're both Shamans, too - paging Sachi!). At the same time, Ravnica brings with it the workmanlike Viashino Fangtail and the I'm-only-playing-it-to-lower-my-curve Viashino Slasher. The set still has Lizards in it, so I guess the main difference between a Lizard and a Viashino is that a Viashino is humanoid. With that in mind, I've developed a little cheat-sheet to help in distinguishing the two creature-types:
Viashino Warrior -> Viashino
Lizard Warrior -> Lizard
Lizard from Spiderman -> Viashino
Lizard from my grade two homeroom -> Lizard
My ex-girlfriend -> Viashino
Her pet Iguana -> Lizard
Hmmm ... Fungus-men, wood nymphs, and knife-wielding lizard-people. "Ravnica sure has some spoooooky tribes," I didn't actually think to myself.
And then it hit me like a ton of Homelands boosters: what could be less timely than a Halloween-themed article?
A Halloween-themed article with a John Bobbitt joke!
Under the moonlight you see a sight that almost stops your heart...
Q: What has fur, howls at night, and plays hockey in Sudbury?
A: Wolves!
I would also have accepted "my cousin."
I know you're probably thinking, "Didn't you just throw together every playable Wolf and call it a deck?" Well, folks, the answer is a resounding, "Basically."
This deck is howlingly bad. If you think I'm only saying that so I can use a bad pun, you are right. It's actually "howlingly mediocre" and "howlingly straightforward" to play. Just put some pants on those wolves and smash face.
At first, I wanted to have a Steelshaper's Gift toolbox, because equipping Konda's Banner to Voja, the Wolf Token was such sweet overkill. In the end, Aspect of Wolf and Alpha Status offered too much flavor. A veritable flavor explosion, if you will. An unholy miasma of pure Wolf-essence. Okay, I went too far.
Now what? Try next door ...
You try to scream but terror takes the sound before you make it...
Skeletons are so underrated. Not that people are rating them. But if they were, I bet they'd, like, give Zombies and Goblins an A+++++ and give Skeletons an F-.
To me, that is totally unfair. Skeletons are trying their best. Skeletons have to do everything that Zombies do, but they have to do it without any skin. Or brains. Or guts. This fleshlessness is a serious handicap. It has single-handedly stopped more than 8.5 billion Skeletons from crossing the road.
We shouldn't think of them in terms of what they can't do, but in terms of what they can. And that's letting people know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, precisely which bone is connected to the [blank]-bone. The ham-bone is connected to the stink-bone, and so on.
Ravnica adds a couple of tasty new weapons to the Skeleton arsenal. Yes, tasty weapons. Golgari Grave-Troll and Dimir House Guard are quite literally the best Skeletons of all time (with apologies to Jack Skellington, Rattle Me Bones, and Lara Flynn Boyle). Apparently, when magical Skeletons settle down and get over their self-esteem issues, they become security guards.
Lim-Dul: Guards, make sure the prince doesn't leave this room until I come and get him.
Lim-Dul's High Guard #1: Not to leave the room... even if you come and get him.
Lim-Dul's High Guard #2: [regenerates]
Lim-Dul: No, no. Until I come and get him.
My first attempt to build a Skeleton deck involved Drudge Spell and Jokulhaups. I was quite pleased with this one, which I had regretfully dubbed "Skele-haups." There was just one problem: Drudge Spell is ridiculously bad. Compare it to Night Soil to see just how bad. Night Soil can hit any graveyard, only costs colorless mana to activate, and the tokens aren't destroyed when it leaves play. Destroyed and can't be regenerated? How lame is that? At least if it destroyed all Skeletons, and not just Skeleton tokens, there'd be some crazy, Johnny-type use for it. If this card sucked any harder, it'd have to charge.
Okay, I was lying a few sentences back; there were really two problems. Drudge Spell is rotten and Jokulhaups doesn't allow for regeneration. Ooops. Six months worth of deck development down the drain. I guess there won't be any board-sweeping, Skeleton-army-leaving action for me...
... Or will there?
Nevinyrral's Disk sweeps the board in the cheapest way possible, allowing you to leave regeneration mana up. And you can fetch it with Dimir House Guard. Saucy! Add in the Grave-Trolls, some recursion, a little bit of ground-stall, and you get a multiplayer-ready Skeleton deck that promises to put the "Funk" in Functionally Identical:
This deck can play a slow, controlling game, or it can play combo.... Well, combo-ish. If you have a Buried Alive and a Syphon Mind by the third turn, dump three Golgari Grave-Trolls into the graveyard and cast Syphon Mind the following turn (you'll obviously need to have at least three opponents for this to work). Instead of drawing, Dredge back the three Grave-Trolls. That's eighteen cards in the bin, and some big Trolls for the next few turns.
Casting of Bones and Skull of Orm would make a flavorful and overly-complicated draw engine....But they get in the way of Nevinyrral's Disk. Skeletal Scrying is another in-theme card drawer that I snipped because it interferes with the rest of the deck too much.
If your group disapproves of Instant-Win cards like Mortal Combat, feel free to replace it with the fourth Syphon Mind. Or Mortivore. Or Aphetto Dredging. Or Nevinyrral's Disk number five. Go nuts.
Another way to take the deck would be to build it around the Lethal Vapors/Pithing Needle combo, as outlined by Matthew Lubich. All of your creatures regenerate or can be recurred, so Lethal Vapors will be pretty one-sided. It can also be tutored for by the House Guard, which is a bonus. In this scenario, I would definitely add Riptide Replicator (also a Transmute target for House Guard) to show Drudge Spell how real Skeleton tokens are made.
There's more? Yeah, next door ...
You start to freeze as horror looks you right between the eyes
You're paralyzed...
Let's turn our attention now to the scariest tribe of all. Members of this tribe are so scary they make Wolves and Skeletons look not-scary. They are perfect organisms. Their structural perfection is matched only by their hostility. They're survivors ... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality. They'll hump you to death, eat your flesh, and sew your skin to their clothes. And if you're very, very lucky, they'll do it in that order. Then, in their bellies, you will find a new definition of pain and suffering as you are slowly digested over a thousand years.
Yes, they are so scary that it takes the plagiarizing of three separate movies to adequately convey the soul-rending, bone-chilling, sack-tightening terror they induce.*
What am I talking about?
Plants. What else?
...Okay, who am I kidding? Other than that poor sap from Invasion of the Body Snatchers (and occasionally Doctor Who), who's afraid of Plants? I'm reminded of a Jeremy Hotz joke about the Maple Leaf as the less-than-mighty symbol of Canada: "Oooh, don't mess with Canada - we might dry up and blow away." Seriously, how hard is it to kill a Plant? I do it all the time when I'm house-sitting.
This deck is either the awesomest deck I've ever made, or the dumbest. I can't tell. That's what you get when you come up with the deck name first and the deck second.
It could have been worse. I originally had Angelic Page, Barrin's Codex, and Private Research in the deck so I could call it "Page & Plant." How's that for synergy? Angelic Page pumps up the Plant guys, and in return the Plant guys get pumped! Meanwhile, Barrin's Codex will draw you cards and the Plant guys will get drawn! What teamwork!
Now that I think about it, maybe that deck would have been better. At least it had some card drawing. Instead, the deck is basically a sub-mediocre beatdown deck that can morph into a unwieldy milling deck at the drop of a very slow-falling hat. How about a sample game? Here goes:
Turn 1: Land, go.
Turn 2: Land, Utopia Tree, go.
Turn 3: Land, Jungle Patrol, go.
Turns 4-22: [hope nothing happens]
Turn 23: Tap all your guys to activate the Hair-Strung Koto. Then sacrifice a Plant Elemental to Altar of Dementia, milling your opponent for three and triggering both Faces of the Past and Vulturous Zombie. Untap all your Plants and put a bunch of counters on Vulturous Zombie. Tap all your guys to activate the Hair-Strung Koto. Lather, rinse, and repeat, until you have no creatures left except for Vee-Zee and then either sacrifice him to the Altar or just swing for serious damage.
If that doesn't work - and how could it not? - you've got Vinelasher Kudzu and Plant Elemental beats to fall back on. Soften 'em up with those two, and deal the killing blow with Big Vultz. Piece of cake. Plant cake.
(Really, though, replace the milling stuff with Savra, Queen of the Golgari, or Grave Pact, or Perilous Forays, or Dense Foliage, or something else that's half-way decent.).
As far as I can tell, Utopia Tree ushered in this new Age of the Super-Plants. I don't mind Plants, but I would appreciate a little consistency from the Creative and/or Rules people. Did you know that Jungle Patrol now produces Plant Wall tokens instead of Wood tokens? I should've explained that earlier. Personally, I like this change, and open-heartedly welcome our new Plant Wall Overlords.
There's just one thing: Wall of Wood is not a Plant Wall. Neither is Wall of Brambles. Ditto Wall of Pine Needles, Wall of Blossoms, and Wall of Roots. Worst of all, Carnivorous Plant is a Wall and not a Plant.
Plant Elemental is, naturally, a Plant Elemental. However, Ivy Elemental is not a Plant Elemental. Neither are Root Elemental, Bramble Elemental, Thorn Elemental, Thicket Elemental, Wood Elemental, Fungus Elemental, or Tree-Bark Elementals. What's the matter? Not Plant enough for ya?
I suppose I can understand that you don't want to errata almost every green creature ever printed. But why Jungle Patrol? What am I supposed to do with all the Wood tokens I bought? Make Plant Wall proxies, I guess.
Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y'all's neighborhood**
As always, thanks for reading!
Chris Millar
Cmillar2 at hotmail dot com
Further Reading (on Wolf tribal and other weak tribes):
* - Alien, Firefly***, and Return of the Jedi.
** - Michael Jackson's Thriller
*** - Yeah, okay, it's not a movie. Sue me.
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