MTGNexus

For example, Nalia de'Arnise, Anowon, the Ruin Thief rogue + ninja, Aegar, the Freezing Flame with giant + wizard, or the more recent samurai + warrior collide such as Raiyuu, Storm's Edge. How do people feel about a tribal deck that utilizes more than one tribe? Should there be more cards supporting 2+ tribes?

I personally favor the variety 2+ tribes could bring to the table, adding spice to traditional tribes, and give less-populated tribes like samurai a new home.

Considering I dislike tribal decks in general due to their paint-by-numbers nature, I actually kind of like multi-tribal as a concept. Whether it's either Volo caring about differing creature types or split tribal decks at least adds some variety and spice to things. They're inherently weaker due to having a less focused deck, but power isn't everything.

Cyberium wrote: ↑

1 year ago

For example, Nalia de'Arnise, Anowon, the Ruin Thief rogue + ninja, Aegar, the Freezing Flame with giant + wizard, or the more recent samurai + warrior collide such as Raiyuu, Storm's Edge. How do people feel about a tribal deck that utilizes more than one tribe? Should there be more cards supporting 2+ tribes?

I personally favor the variety 2+ tribes could bring to the table, adding spice to traditional tribes, and give less-populated tribes like samurai a new home.

I wrote about this back on the old MYGCommander.net forums, and also mentioned it in my Tribal write-up in the Variant Commander sub-forum - I have always felt that creature types should be treated like CI - a creature type anywhere on the card makes it viable for decks using those types. A decade ago, my first implementation of this was a mono-Green Jedit Ojanen of Efrava cats and warriors (long before we had nearly enough of either type in Mono-G).

In mono-tribal builds, I prefer a strict tribal theme (all creatures must match the TI - and available TI non-creatures replace goodstuff alternatives - e.g. Broken Visage in Bx Spirit decks replace a goodstuff removal piece). Changelings (and faux-changelings like Metallic Mimic) should only be used in a changeling theme or when a creature type doesn't have enough representatives to fill a deck.

For multi-tribal, I like to try finding the intersect where what each tribe does well fits in the venn diagram's center space. E.g. Ninja-Rogue is the surprise cast (Ninjutsu, prowl, etc.); Artificer-Thopter, Fungus-Saproling, etc. are other examples where the overlap is natural. You can also find more tentative connections with things like Dryad-Druid which both like lifegain and messing with Forests/basics (search and untap - now supported with Dina, Soul Steeper)

OTOH, I'm not a huge fan of the "all tribal" that is nothing more than trying to use Arcane Adaptation type effects just to spam every tribe's Lord in one deck.

The only multi-tribal tribal I've ever attempted is Rakdos, the Showstopper, and it's not unreasonable to suggest that there was nothing tribal about the deck. I just felt obligated to minmax the creature selection thematically. The more tribal a tribe is, the less tribes I'd want in a deck. I'd never do goblins and elves together, for example. Demons, devils and imps though? I just considered it Hell tribal, with no real synergy.

Given Lorwyn et al, I think it was a fabulous idea for WotC to promote dual-tribes instead of individual ones (like Elf/Goblin/Merfolk etc), and +1/+1 in general is probably the least interesting of tribal effects. Dual-tribe also allows flavors like Sylvia Brightspear/Khorvath Brightflame pair to shine.