Let's brew: Garth, the renaissance man (background tribal)

[Gentle Giant]

> Me: They say Garth is one badass mother..
> Mods: Shut your mouth!
> Me: I'm only talking about Garth
> Mods: Then we can dig it!

I'm not the only one catching the background tribal fever, and Crazy Monkey's list looks slick. However, whereas that takes the, much more functional, mechanical focus, I'd like to prod your minds on how we can sell Garth to the world as the renaissance man that he is.

First, a quick look at all the backgrounds:

All background cards

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

I heard he tames dragons up in the mountains!

1 Acolyte of Bahamut

1 Dragon Cultist

Death 'n shady business

1 Agent of the Iron Throne

1 Criminal Past

1 Cultist of the Absolute

1 Haunted One

1 Scion of Halaster

1 Street Urchin

Dethroner of kings!

1 Agent of the Shadow Thieves

1 Guild Artisan

1 Hardy Outlander

1 Sword Coast Sailor

Such a smart guy

1 Candlekeep Sage

1 Clan Crafter

So mysterious..

1 Cloakwood Hermit

1 Feywild Visitor

An adventurous soul

1 Dungeon Delver

1 Far Traveler

1 Passionate Archaeologist

A real man of the people

1 Folk Hero

1 Inspiring Leader

1 Master Chef

1 Popular Entertainer

I heard he once slew a demon with his bare hands!

1 Flaming Fist

1 Raised by Giants

1 Tavern Brawler

1 Veteran Soldier

No one really knows him, but they say he used to be a king?

1 Shameless Charlatan

1 Noble Heritage

Approximate Total Cost:

Now, that's a lot of stories to tell! 😅

Still, not enough for a deck though. The goal of it all being to show everyone what a badass Garth is. Some themes that I had in my mind were:
Groupies/fans: cards that represent people who already idolize him. Perhaps through buffs, gifts , always coming back, or sacrificing themselves for Garth.
Adventures/badassery: Perhaps solo'ing dungeons, or winning fights.
Influence others: Such a popular and fearsome man must have his ways on the battlefield, creatures cowering before him, amazing feats of magic.... I'm missing better fitting/more intimidating, grandiose cards here.

Support-wise, we can obviously run quite a lot of enchantment 'impulse' cards for card advantage, because we need to get those backgrounds out there. Not sure what other support can neatly fit the theme of Garth being the centre of the deck. We're gonna need some thematic form of ramp to make sure we can keep him around at all times though

What themes/cards spring to your mind, fellow Nexus goers?

[Crazy Monkey]

Might be overly mechanical for the concept, but Reki, the History of Kamigawa, Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain and Sythis, Harvest's Hand were on my list for a 5-color backgrounds concept, and at least Reki could be argued as a groupie. I was also considering an enchantment based ramp package around Wild Growth or Fertile Ground effect would play well with Enchantress's Presence effects, but doesn't really fit the thematic approach.

[folding_music]

love this <3
Spin into Myth - what happens when you go up against a real legend
Strength from the Fallen - Garth of the many backgrounds preparing to avenge his fans

[RxPhantom]

Hmmmm....is there a way to tell a story here? Or, perhaps, did Garth slay some or all of these other notable people and assume their identities? Perhaps Evil Twin or Identity Thief could convey this? Or is Garth a sociopath like Heath Ledger's Joker? The story of his scars is always different. Maybe a little mix of both? Or maybe I'm going too dark and Garth is simply a teller of tall tales.

The core idea you've put forth is evocative for sure.

[Serenade]

Birgi, God of Storytelling // Harnfel, Horn of Bounty telling his stories as another groupie. Does her ability work with his? (Casting a copy vs. casting a spell?)

You might include the legendary sorceries as spells and stories he has experienced along the way.

[DirkGently]

I find these really amusing, so I'll give my quick analysis of how viable each background is in a background-tribal shell.

White
Far Traveler
Only needs one good target, and it naturally synergizes with Candlekeep Sage.
Flaming Fist
It does the thing. Synergizes with a lot of other combat-oriented backgrounds too.
Folk Hero
There are 2 strong incentives for tribal in backgrounds, so it's not impossible, but tribal is pretty orthogonal to the background strat.
Inspiring Leader
There are quite a few payoffs for tokens in backgrounds, so this seems like a reasonable fit.
Noble Heritage
Doesn't really require work to be solid.
Veteran Soldier
Does work on its own, but also makes a lot of other backgrounds significantly better.

Blue
Candlekeep Sage
Besides Far Traveler it doesn't have a lot of synergies, but it draws you some cards. It's ok.
Clan Crafter
It's nice with Guild Artisan, but otherwise it goes it alone.
Dungeon Delver
Nothing else does anything with dungeons, so this is pretty isolated.
Feywild Visitor
Not as easy to activate as Veteran Soldier, but it does work okay on its own and better with combat and token backgrounds.
Shameless Charlatan
Kind of impossible to synergize with much, but it's a great card.
Sword Coast Sailor
Strong on its own, and synergistic with other backgrounds.

Black
Agent of the Iron Throne
Definitely requires some work, but treasures and creature tokens are both reasonably supported to make it happen.
Agent of the Shadow Thieves
Not nearly as good as Sword Coast Sailor imo. It synergizes decently with other combat backgrounds though.
Criminal Past
Menace is fine, but you probably aren't planning to be creature dense or self-milling.
Cultist of the Absolute
Could definitely be strong in the right circumstance but having support is pretty mandatory. Really wants Veteran Soldier or something.
Haunted One
Even without tribal support it's quite strong, and it gets better with them.
Scion of Halaster
It's not amazing but it doesn't require support.

Red
Dragon Cultist
Bit slower than other token producers, but the reward is pretty strong.
Guild Artisan
Synergizes a decent amount of other stuff, or just provides some mana. Does want combat-worthiness.
Passionate Archaeologist
Not a great payoff and requires doing something unusual. Why is this the most expensive background?
Popular Entertainer
Pretty meh payoff and requires some work, but at least it's not super specific.
Street Urchin
My dislike of the wording aside, it works decently with token support, albeit not as strongly as other options.
Tavern Brawler
It does well without support, and can help a bit in combat sometimes.

Green
Acolyte of Bahamut
So we're just casually making it dragon tribal, eh?
Cloakwood Hermit
Really nice for other token synergies, but potentially kinda difficult to trigger.
Hardy Outlander
Not a great card, but there's a fair amount of stuff buffing up our commander to make it stronger.
Master Chef
Good with combat, good with tokens, but not amazing with anything.
Raised by Giants
Nice for combat focus, kinda pricey compared to everything else though.

Colorless
Faceless One
Included for completeness.

[Gentle Giant]

Concerning Acolyte of Bahamut: is the shivan dragon copy of Garth not discounted by this? I thought it was a funny synergy.

Very nice analysis Dirk: thanks! I too think that dungeon delver is tricky to pull off here, unless we go more heavily into the trope of solo'ing dungeons, which is unlikely to be worth it. Criminal past is too flavourful to pass up, perhaps most of our fans/rivals can be human and/or wizards (for folk hero too)? We'll need to run some creatures aside from Garth anyway.

[aliciaofthevast]

Passionate Archaeologist
Not a great payoff and requires doing something unusual. Why is this the most expensive background?

Probably because of cascade I'd think? Not that I'd personally ever go this deep on this effect.

[DirkGently]

Concerning Acolyte of Bahamut: is the shivan dragon copy of Garth not discounted by this? I thought it was a funny synergy.

True, I missed that. I was grading in a vacuum though so for other commanders it holds true.

[Gentle Giant]

Passionate Archaeologist
Not a great payoff and requires doing something unusual. Why is this the most expensive background?

Probably because of cascade I'd think? Not that I'd personally ever go this deep on this effect.

I'd say Prosper, Tome-Bound and his 'play from exile' friends are the biggest reason, seeing as he's quite popular. Although cascade also works nicely.