Tribal is back on the menu, boys (and girls)!

[Krishnath]

In honor of WotC's position on the tribal type having changed:



Here are a few tribal cards, I cooked up.

Burreton Spear 1W
Tribal Artifact - Kithkin Equipment (U)
When Burreton Spear enters the battlefield, you may pay . If you do, create a 1/1 white Kithkin Soldier creature token and attach Burreton Spear to it.
Equipped creature has first strike and vigilance.
Equip Kithkin
Equip 3

Prophetic Runes 2U
Tribal Sorcery - Giant (U)
Scry 3, then reveal the top card of your library. If it is a Giant or land card, put it into your hand. If it is not a Giant or land card, put it into your graveyard and draw a card.

Drain the Vein 3B
Tribal Instant - Vampire (C)
Destroy target nonblack, nonartifact creature. Gain 2 life.

Feathery Interference 2WU
Tribal Instant - Bird
Counter target spell unless its controller pays 1 for each bird creature you control.
Gain 3 life.

Thoughts? Comments? Critique? Constructive Criticism?

[Sporegorger_Dragon]

Um, Krishnath?

Favor of the Mighty

????

[Krishnath]

Um, Krishnath?

Favor of the Mighty

????

Oh, sorry. Problem is that I am doing some Jumpstartesque stuff in MSE, so it snuck in there by accident. I'll remove it. >.<

[spacemonaut]

I like these.

Prophetic Runes filtering for land cards and giants seems nonblue, even in Kaldheim. This might be more at home in red. "Giant or sorcery" might work. That also works in red though, so this one has hybrid spell potential (2{U/R}?)

Drain the Vein is very pretty and on theme.

[Krishnath]

I like these.

Prophetic Runes filtering for land cards and giants seems nonblue, even in Kaldheim. This might be more at home in red. "Giant or sorcery" might work. That also works in red though, so this one has hybrid spell potential (2{U/R}?)

Drain the Vein is very pretty and on theme.

Scry 3 and greater is pretty much only in blue. Had I used the "Look at the top N cards of the library, reveal X and put it into your hand, then put the rest on the bottom of your library in random order" I could have put it in red or green. Besides, blue needs more ways to dig for land.

[Legend]

Prophetic Runes is a little funky, but it makes sense and doesn't break pie.

[spacemonaut]

I like these.

Prophetic Runes filtering for land cards and giants seems nonblue, even in Kaldheim. This might be more at home in red. "Giant or sorcery" might work. That also works in red though, so this one has hybrid spell potential (2{U/R}?)

Drain the Vein is very pretty and on theme.

Scry 3 and greater is pretty much only in blue. Had I used the "Look at the top N cards of the library, reveal X and put it into your hand, then put the rest on the bottom of your library in random order" I could have put it in red or green.

Hmm, somehow I thought Titan's Strength scried 3. Guess I remembered wrong.

Besides, blue needs more ways to dig for land.

I'm not sure I agree; blue can dig for land with card draw. That said, this card can let you dig for an arbitrary card type by scrying a card to the top that doesn't meet the filter criteria, and putting the card you want second. Which ... might be a design weakness, now that I think about it? The other pattern you mentioned wouldn't do this.

[Krishnath]

I'm not sure I agree; blue can dig for land with card draw. That said, this card can let you dig for an arbitrary card type by scrying a card to the top that doesn't meet the filter criteria, and putting the card you want second. Which ... might be a design weakness, now that I think about it? The other pattern you mentioned wouldn't do this.

I wouldn't call a Tribal card that lets you dig for the tribe or makes it easier for you to cast cards belonging to that tribe in the future arbitrary.

[spacemonaut]

I wouldn't call a Tribal card that lets you dig for the tribe or makes it easier for you to cast cards belonging to that tribe in the future arbitrary.

I'm not calling the card arbitary. What I mean is: the card ostensibly looks like it's supposed to make it easy to find a Giant or Land, but really it can specifically find me anything I want out of the three cards I see. So it helps me find any arbitrary card of any arbitrary type, not just Giants or Lands.

Revisiting the spell's instructions:

Scry 3, then reveal the top card of your library. If it is a Giant or land card, put it into your hand. If it is not a Giant or land card, put it into your graveyard and draw a card.

Do I want that Giant or Land I saw? Put it on top, reveal it, and put it into my hand.

Do I want the Artifact I saw? Put it second from the top, put a non-Giant non-Land on top. Reveal the non-Giant non-Land, mill it, and draw the Sorcery.

(Do I see a Giant or Land but want to keep it secret instead of revealing it? Put a non-Giant non-Land on top and the Giant/Land under it second from the top, reveal it, mill it, then draw my Giant/Land.)

As long as I see at least two cards that aren't Giant/Land cards, I can get whichever of those three cards I want from the top of my library.

[Krishnath]

I wouldn't call a Tribal card that lets you dig for the tribe or makes it easier for you to cast cards belonging to that tribe in the future arbitrary.

I'm not calling the card arbitary. What I mean is: the card ostensibly looks like it's supposed to make it easy to find a Giant or Land, but really it can specifically find me anything I want out of the three cards I see. So it helps me find any arbitrary card of any arbitrary type, not just Giants or Lands.

Revisiting the spell's instructions:

Scry 3, then reveal the top card of your library. If it is a Giant or land card, put it into your hand. If it is not a Giant or land card, put it into your graveyard and draw a card.

Do I want that Giant or Land I saw? Put it on top, reveal it, and put it into my hand.

Do I want the Artifact I saw? Put it second from the top, put a non-Giant non-Land on top. Reveal the non-Giant non-Land, mill it, and draw the Sorcery.

(Do I see a Giant or Land but want to keep it secret instead of revealing it? Put a non-Giant non-Land on top and the Giant/Land under it second from the top, reveal it, mill it, then draw my Giant/Land.)

As long as I see at least two cards that aren't Giant/Land cards, I can get whichever of those three cards I want from the top of my library.

How is that any different from other and cheaper blue "search the top N of the library" spells? Only real difference is that if one of the cards are not a giant or a land you put it into your graveyard, and even that is not that unusual. The card doesn't do anything that blue can't already do, and do cheaper.

[SecretInfiltrator]

Regarding scry 3 putting things firmly into blue: Track Down was a Core Set common.

How is that any different from other and cheaper blue "search the top N of the library" spells? Only real difference is that if one of the cards are not a giant or a land you put it into your graveyard, and even that is not that unusual. The card doesn't do anything that blue can't already do, and do cheaper.

The issue is that the card has a lot of text that efficiently can be covered with "Scry 3, then mill a card. Draw a card."
The checking is rather pointless and actually the card gets worse if played with Giants since you cannot keep your drawn card secret if you only find lands and Giants.

[spacemonaut]

What @SecretInfiltrator said. : )

To elaborate: the power level is fine. If it was a blue spell for 2U that said "scry 3, mill 1, draw 1", that would be fine. The issue is that it's a card that gives the appearance of being for finding Giants and Lands (because it namedrops those types), but it is not actually better at finding those cards than any other card, since if you just use it slightly differently you can use it to get any kind of card at all. It also gives the appearance that you reveal the giant/land you draw, but if you just put it second you don't have to do that at all. (The fact it gives you more power of choice if you're not playing Giants is also a big deal, but it's not the core problem so much as a clear sign there's a serious glitch in the design.)

Cards should work the way they look like they work. If a card gives the impression of being well suited to finding X, it should follow through on that impression. It should find me X, it should find me X better than anything else (or not find me anything else at all), and should work best if I'm playing X (or not work at all if I'm not).

Different templates that work just fine at finding Giants or Lands, are better at finding those than other types, and don't work as well if you're not playing or finding Giants or Lands:

"Scry 3, then reveal the top card of your library. If it's a Giant or Land card, put it into your hand." (no mill, no replacement draw.)
or "Look at the top three cards of your library. You may reveal a Giant or Land card from among them and put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order."

[JovialJovian]

I was never clear on why Tribal had fallen out of favor in the first place, beyond that it should probably have been a supertype rather than a type.

Burreton Spear seems quite weak to me, 1CC for a 1/1 first strike vigilance is not a great rate, and I think and uncommon equipment giving first strike and vigilance could cost 2 and equip for 1, so the Equip Kithkin restriction and the costly regular Equip feel unwelcome. The set would need STRONG Kithkin support for me to pick this in a draft. Compare Viridian Claw.

Prophetic Runes feels like an Ice Age design to me. Yes the card works, yes it's pretty good, yes it's function fits the color pie, but you could accomplish the same effect with fewer words by making the ability less flavory. Ice Age was full of those, perfectly serviceable cards that have extra text. I would play it.

Drain the Vein is on-theme, but it's quality is reliant upon the set it's appearing in. It compares unfavorably to Terror for example, but if the set is a bit slower, super-premium removal like Terror might just break things. Depending on the set, Drain the Vein could be THE premium black removal common, or a late-pick.

Feathery Interference is going to be a feel-bad in a lot of cases, when you'll end up paying 4 for 3 life. I don't think it would be out of line to make a Bird token, then try to counter a spell, then at least you're getting a guaranteed 1 for your counter attempt.

[Krishnath]

I do see your points @SecretInfiltrator and @spacemonaut, but I would argue that finding and revealing one of the two could also be tactically advantageous in certain situations. But I can see where you're coming from and your arguments are solid.

@JovialJovian The argument from Maro was that a lot of old cards (such as Orcish Oriflamme) refer to a creature type in their title but didn't have the tribal type and that players would get confused. Of course, they severely undervalued the intelligence of players back then, and these days when they are aware that most newer players actually start out learning the game by playing commander with their friends, a notoriously complex format, they have realized their error. This is also why they have started to slowly up the complexity of newer sets, and it might have been a contributing factor in the release of Time Spiral Remastered, considering that the original Time Spiral was one of the most complex blocks they ever made.