Magic Deck Vortex: Tribal Coffee: The Smaller Tribes.

The Onslaught and Lorwyn blocks are all about Tribal. The problem is that they don’t address some of the smaller tribes. Instead, several of the already large tribes were chosen and further developed in these blocks. I can understand why Wizards of the Coast would do this, but why don’t they develop some of the smaller creature tribes too? They’ve been known to humanize tribes like Elephants, Cats, Foxes, and others, which expanded those tribes and gave us casual players deck building options. But what about Fish, Cockatrice, Crab, Hellion, Gorgon, Monger, Ferret, Eye, Boar, Homarid and Antelope (to name a few)?

And with that said I welcome you to one of my new series: Tribal Coffee. In this series I will talk about anything Tribal related: the casual version, the online version, various alternate Tribal formats and most importantly Tribal Deck Lists. However, if you are looking for a tournament caliber deck for Tribal Online, I would steer clear of today’s article. Today I’ll be picking three uber small tribes and building decks with them.

While there are no hardcore rules for Tribal in Casual settings, there are hardcore rules for Magic Online. I consider casual rules for Tribal to be "must contain 16 cards of the same tribe", these are not formal in any way. Below are the rules for Online Magic Tribal:

With that out of the way, I think it's time to look at one of the tribes I planned out for this article.

My first tribe to tackle is Assassin. This isn't a super small tribe, but you have to understand my inspiration behind picking this tribe. That inspiration was found in Morningtide's Scarblade Elite. I found this card so casually cool that I had to build a deck around it. Given that this series was at the top of my list to write about, I figured I would find a way to put Assassins in it.

A quick aside: There are only four Assassins in Morningtide. And if you look at what is available in Standard, there are only ten Assassins to choose from (1 from Planar Chaos, 1 from Coldsnap, 2 from Time Spiral, 2 from Tenth Edition and 2 from Morningtide). I am predicting that there will be a heavy to medium focus on Assassins in our next block (Shadowmoor). I'm just saying...

So back to Scarblade Elite. There are obvious ways to combo Scarblade Elite:

I think what I really like about Scarblade Elite is that it can destroy any creature. There isn't that typical Assassin clause of "nonblack, nonartifact" in his rules text. That and it only requires a tap in addition to removing a card. There aren't any mana cost requirements to use his ability. It's kind of like the Black version of Grim Lavamancer, except you get to remove one card, not pay any mana and kill a creature instead of dealing damage. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Now I get to build a deck around Assassins. Scarblade Elite is an immediate inclusion. To begin let's look at all of the available Assassin cards in Magic: the Gathering. Assassins span three colors: Black, Red and Blue.

Merfolk Assassin is in mono-Blue with Stalking Assassin and Ramses Overdark in Blue-Black. I'm not really sold on any of the Blue ones; however Ramses Overdark would work well with any self-recurring Aura (like Rancor). And Merfolk Assassin would work well with any card that grants Islandwalk. In fact, I think I already have a deck or two in the database using Merfolk Assassin + War Barge. Let's move on.

This means I’m going to stay mono-Black. There are 24 different Assassin cards in Black to choose from. Below is a quick breakdown by ability for each Black Assassin:

Assassins that Tap to Deal Damage or Give -X/-X:	Assassins that aren't restricted by color (can affect black and artifact creatures)	Assassins that tap to destroy creatures:	Assassins that destroy upon coming into play:
Abyssal Hunter (taps to damage) Kiku, Night's Flower (taps to damage) Lys Alana Scarblade (taps to give -x/-x) Nightshade Assassin (comes into play effect) Silent Assassin (activated ability, no tap required) Weed-Pruner Poplar (upkeep effect)	Abyssal Hunter Big Game Hunter Final-Sting Faerie Hunter of Eyeblights Kiku, Night's Flower King's Assassin Lys Alana Scarblade Nightshade Assassin Royal Assassin Scarblade Elite Silent Assassin Unliving Psychopath Weed-Pruner Poplar Wei Assassins	Hunter of Eyeblights King's Assassin Notorious Assassin Rathi Assassin Royal Assassin Scarblade Elite Stronghold Assassin Tsabo's Assassin Unliving Psychopath Zombie Assassin	Big Game Hunter Final-Sting Faerie Nekrataal Orzhov Euthanist Serpent Assassin Wei Assassins
Assassins that care if a creature is tapped:	Assassins that sacrifice themselves to kill creatures:	Assassins that care if a creature was already dealt damage:	Assassins that don't kill creatures:
King's Assassin Rathi Assassin Royal Assassin	Garza's Assassin Zombie Assassin (bad)	Final-Sting Faerie	Suq'Ata Assassin (poison counters)

The lists are really just for reference for you. However, to keep the deck as good as possible against all decks I am going to keep the Assassin selection in my deck as unrestrictive as possible (i.e. not limited by nonblack and nonartifact clauses).

I’m also going to include some Magewright’s Stones in the deck so that I can keep untapping my Assassins as often as possible. In turn, I’ll be able to stay on top in terms of board advantage. I chose Magewright’s Stones over Thousand Year Elixir because it costs one less mana. Because I’m in mono-Black, my untapping options are limited to artifacts. If I splashed Blue into the deck, my untapping options would open up dramatically.

The final decklist incorporates some combos, some tricks and lots of control. Abyssal Hunter, while expensive, is great at tapping creatures and killing critters with only one toughness. The tapping part is very effective with Royal Assassin who cares if the creature is tapped or not. I threw in one Bonesplitter to work with both the Abyssal Hunter and Unliving Psychopath. The higher their power, the better they’ll be at destroying creatures. I also threw in one Scythe of the Wretched which makes a killer combo with Abyssal Hunter. (Thanks, Cashew!)

Big Game Hunter is the only ‘comes into play’ Assassin in the deck and he cares if the creature has four or more power. Of all of the Assassins in the deck, this card is easily replaced with another Assassin or card. He does work well with Tortured Existence and Null Brooch, both of which are trick cards in the deck.

Tortured Existence is cheap to play and cheap to activate. You can switch out a creature in your graveyard with a creature in your hand. Say Big Game Hunter is in your hand and there aren’t any good targets for it; just ditch him to Tortured Existence and get something from your graveyard that will better suit your situation. Tortured Existence will also help you pick and choose which creatures you’ll ultimately remove from the game with Scarblade Elite.

Null Brooch is the unexpected card in the deck. It would be more efficient with more Madness cards, but its purpose is to keep your opponent from playing cards like counterspells, mass destruction, burn or mill. Null Brooch can’t counter creature spells, but that’s fine. Your Assassins should have the creatures under control. The other thing is the majority of the cards in this deck are cheap to cast. With exception to the Weed-Pruning Poplar, all of the cards in the deck cost four or less. When it comes time to activate the Null Brooch, it shouldn't take out more than one or two cards from your hand.

You’ll notice I have a few non-Swamp lands in the mana base. Each of these lands serve a purpose. Shizo can potentially give Kiku fear. Combined with a Bonesplitter, she can serve as a win condition. Rath’s Edge can either ping your opponent’s creatures, or provide a final point of damage against one of your opponent’s creatures (or your opponent). Volrath’s Stronghold can recur creatures to the top of your library when Tortured Existence isn’t around or applicable to a situation. And finally there’s Unholy Grotto. The only Zombie Assassin in the deck is Unliving Psychopath. Use the Grotto on him. Note: There are actually quite a few Zombie Assassins. If you choose to go that route, include Unholy Grotto in your decklist too.

I think that covers the deck. Test it out, make it your own and have fun with it. If you know your local metagame is full of creatureless burn decks or creatures with protection from black, tweak the deck, add some blue and make it work. This deck won’t play well against either of the aforementioned decks, but no deck is going to work against everything! Except for first turn win decks, but who plays those in casual? I don’t. Do you? If you do, stop it!

Moving on to a much tougher tribe, Squids are in the house and there are only three of them. (Some of them are thanks to the recent Oracle Update). They also all happen to be Beasts. However, let’s keep this all-Squid. Unfortunately, because there are only three of them, I’ll have to borrow some of the Changelings from the Lorwyn block. For my casual purposes, the Changeling ability can fill a role for a tribal deck much like Mistform Ultimus did in the past.

Eck! That’s not very deck building friendly. The poor mana curve… Two of them cost four cc and the other is three. This will be tough.

Fylamarid can be my win condition as he can essentially become unblockable (with a bit of mana investment). At least he has flying. If I slap a power boosting equipment on this Squid, it might just work.

Gulf Squid is great if you want to lock down your opponent’s lands. However, Gulf Squid doesn’t have flash. What can give him flash? Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir is one option. Although, Teferi is as pricey as the rest of my Squids. He may not be a Squid, but if I want to do some fun things with Gulf Squid, I’ll consider him as an option. Winding Canyons is another option.

Sand Squid is like an overpriced locking Icy Manipulator. While he can come in handy to tap down creatures in tight situations, he’s also like a waste of space. Unless, of course, you can multiply him a thousand times and tap down every creature your opponent plays. Followed Footsteps comes to mind, but is it worth it?

To round out my mana base and fill up some Tribal slots in the deck, I’m going to be calling upon two Shapeshifters from the Lorwyn Block: Shapesharer and Mothdust Changeling. They fill the one and two mana curve slots and act as Squids. Technically, they can act as Squid Beasts, but I digress.

So I decided to do some fun things with Gulf Squid. With Crystal Shard and Winding Canyon, you can keep your opponent land-tapped every turn. Call it Squid Stasis. (Previously to this, I had named the deck Calamari R Us). Here’s how it works:

With all three cards in play, during your opponent’s upkeep, activate Winding Canyon. Now use Crystal Shard to return Gulf Squid to your hand. Still during your opponent’s upkeep, play Gulf Squid. Your opponent’s lands are now all tapped after they untapped. As long as you have the mana available, do this during each of your opponent’s upkeeps. If you don’t have any Sapphire Medallions active, this will cost you a total of 5UU every time you do it. Yes, it is expensive, but hopefully you’ll have a Medallion or two to reduce the cost for you. NOTE: They will still be able to play abilities during their upkeep and play lands during their turn.

So if you don’t get the Stasis part of the deck to work, you’re still in for some Squid fun. I added two copies of Shifting Sky so you don’t have to invest in Fylamarid to make him unblockable. Just throw Loxodon Warhammer on him and make him a 4/3 trampling, flying, lifelinking monstrosity that makes a great win condition. I said it might work before: it does. Feel free to substitute any equipment that gives a boost to power. One equipment that was nice but not powerful enough for my tastes was Cloak and Dagger from Morningtide. It’s just as expensive to cast but doesn’t give as much power to the creature. It does, however, give shroud – which is nice insurance against bounce and terror effects.

You can use Shapesharer to make your Mothdust Changeling or itself a Sand Squid until your next turn so you can tap down more creatures. You can even copy Fylamarid if you want but don’t copy Gulf Squid; Gulf Squid is a comes into play creature and thus has no special abilities when already in play.

One card I didn’t add to the deck was Phantasmal Terrain (or one of its many incarnations). Feel free to add it if you want to turn Gulf Squid into an alternate win condition.

The other card choices are pretty straight forward. There’s one copy of Tolaria West to search out your Winding Canyon in case you didn’t draw one already. You could always just add another Winding Canyon in its place but I thought it was fun, maybe a bad choice, but fun nonetheless. Accumulated Knowledge draws you cards at instant speed. Tidings was originally in that slot but I wanted something cheaper since all of my Squids are expensive to cast. If it wasn’t for the Changelings, this deck would be nigh unplayable or permission oriented. Note that permission is an option with Squids. I just didn’t want to go down that path.

Lastly, Misdirection is there because I didn’t go down that path. I needed insurance that my opponent wasn’t going to Fireball me to death and if he did, I would just redirect it to my opponent.

As the section title suggests, the last tribe for today’s Tribal Coffee article is Construct. That’s exciting, right?

Well, what I thought had only nine or so cards now has 45!!! Wow. These Lorwyn inspired Oracle updates sure are changing a lot! I have to give thanks just because they made a limited tribe into a not so limited anymore tribe. *grin*

Now, the deck building options… This is going to be tougher than I thought. There are forty-five Constructs spanning from the zero costed Phyrexian Walker to the nine mana costed Sun Crusher! At least Construct includes Triskelion - my most favoritist (I know that's bad grammar) card ever!

And thus, Triskelion is in. What about the other forty-four cards? Let's see if I can wane them down a bit. Here's the list first:

It's funny to know that almost every one of those cards is a deck themselves. I mean, Stuffy Doll? Viseling? Solarion? Metalworker? Bronze Bombshell? These are all cards that make their own deck. How am I going to combine them into a cohesive, well-playing deck?

After some reviewing, I’ve decided I want to go the +1/+1 counter route. Since a good portion of the Constructs use +1/+1 counters, and I like +1/+1 counters, it just seemed to be the right choice. Here’s my list to work with:

Wow! Look at the time! It seems I can’t end today’s article with a Construct deck. So I guess I need your help. To begin the next Tribal Coffee article, I need you to build me a deck. Please post your decklist in this forum thread. The best deck will be featured and credited to the winner in the next article. Rules to note:

So with all of that in mind, go to it! Let me know what you think of this article and the possibility for a series, post your decklist and description for the Construct Tribe and have fun!

If you were wondering why this series is called "Tribal Coffee", this paragraph is for you! I was looking to energize Magic Deck Vortex with more Tribal Content. An article series seemed the best way to accomplish this since the deck database is already overflowing with Tribal decks. During a sort of Flux Capacitor brainstorming moment, I thought up the name Tribal Coffee. "Tribal" is an obvious part of the name but "Coffee" is a little tricky. You see, Coffee has Caffeine and Caffeine energizes people (and websites believe it or not). The name is not only meant to be interesting and make you wonder what angle I'm going to take on Tribal, but to also indicate to the audience that this is an energentic approach to Tribal beyond the MDV Deck Database.

And thus, if you need to visit your local Starbucks or Caribou Range Coffee before you post your deck in the forum thread, I completely understand.

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