MTG Tribal Apocalypse format completes 10 years of tournaments

With the release of Kaldheim nearby that seems to bring a lot of tribal battle and following with new possibilities to play Magic for free with alternative formats, I present to you today the Tribal Wars, a format that is already 10 years old this month. Very fun, but little known. Whether you are a tribal lover or a deckbuilder looking for a challenge, this format is sure to please you.

Tribal Wars was created by MTGO user _Kumagoro_. Every Saturday 5:00 PM UTC a tournament is held based on certain details of the day. The rules are simple and completely plausible to apply if you and your friends want to play with physical cards. There are also secondary objectives, yes, besides the prize for those who win, also there is a prize for those who complete some challenges such as playing with 10 different tribes or little-known tribes.

I call it a format, but it's more of a style of play. The rules are basically conventional: 60 cards in the deck, 20 life points, matches better of 3, start with 7 cards in hand, have mulligan. What differs are the restrictions: there is no sideboard even if the game is better of 3 and the main rule is to make your deck have 20 creatures from the same tribe. There is a possibility to use creatures with Changeling to replace 4 of these 20, or if the tribe does not have enough members printed in the game you can use up to 8 cards with shapeshifters, other than that, every deck must have 20 creatures that share one type (Enchantment and Artifact are not considered a tribe).

The reason for considering a style and not a format is due to the fact of the pool. Every weekend the valid cards are in a different format: Standard, Pioneer, Modern and Legacy. There is a calendar showing what format it will be on each day so you can plan. In addition to these conventional formats, we have some special events created by the organization such as in the underdog days where only tribes from a list of little used tribes are valid or the Halloween event where only scary creatures like zombies and vampires are used, creating a thematic tone. It has a very small list of bans for equalization and before the ban occurs, the organization warns in advance through a list of accompaniments along with the reasons.

For the 10th anniversary, the celebration event will take place on 12/26/2020. And what will be the format? MOMIR! Chosen by the player who won the most events this year: Bandit Keith.

For those unfamiliar with the Momir format, it is a totally random and very fun game style. both players' decks must contain only lands (60) and you must also have a momir avatar. Once every turn you can discard a card and pay x, by doing this, a random creature token of cost equal x will be placed on the field (cast effects don't work but etb does).

Of course, having fun is already an award as well as learning to create a restrictive and competitive deck, but the financial award is very good for an event that has no registration fee. Currently the events are 3-round tournaments (depends on the number of people but usually stays in 3 rounds) the common prize is made as follows: there is a tix value that is divided most for those who stayed in 1st, a part a little lower for those who were in 2nd and the rest of the tixs are divided for all those who were left with only 1 loss. This gives an average of 4 to 5 tix for the first, 2 to 3 for the second and 1.5 for those who had just 1 loss. Apart from this conventional award, we have the secondary objectives, which are:

Darkhorse prize, 1 tix = In every event, decks that have a check in 3 categories (have less than 50 members, have never won a tournament, have been used less than 50 times) are eligible to be nominated for this prize . If there is more than one deck, a tiebreak is made using the tournament result.

Up-and-coming prize, 3 tix = goes to the player who manages to win a tournament with a tribe that has never won a tournament before.

New Kids on the block award, 3 tix = Any player who wins a game with a tribe who has never won a game before is eligible for this award, but no-show or BYE win is not counted. (Note: currently all existing tribes have already won, unless Wizard creates a new tribe).

Repopulation Award, 3 tix = The first player to play with a tribe three times. You need to play in all rounds of an event to have a tribe marked.

Hamtastic Award, 3 tix = Any player who uses 10 different tribes in the same year is eligible to receive this award, however elves, humans, goblins and eldrazis do not count towards this award. You need to play all matches in the events to be counted. Oh and there is an addendum, this prize is cumulative, that is, if you keep playing with more 10 different tribes you can win 3 more tix, that is, as we have 52 weeks in the year, you can win 5 times the prize that is equivalent 15 tix per year!

Whenever we talk about alternative formats, people already think "ok, how are the decks of that?". So here are some examples of lists of the latest events. We have budget lists to lists of greater purchasing power:

Starting with a deck that I later used on the penny format as well, a bear stompy that runs over the decks that are ahead, with a cost of 1 tix:

The champion of the last Standard tribal, the player ThyShuffler made the humiliated be exalted with a peasant deck:

As I love weird decks a lot, I decided to try in an underdog event to use the Dauthi tribe, yes this is a type of creatures with a theme of shadows, hitting and running, always in the clear budget line:

The champion of the last tribal Pioneer, piloted by the player Nagarjuna with a deck of vampires:

One of the decks from Hallowen's last event, the player Nagarjuna made a tribal of demons, I always listened in commander mesons ideas for a deck like this, there, a tribal of demons:

As I mentioned above, the tournaments take place today at Magic Online every Saturday at 14:00 (Brasília time). On average 10 to 15 people participate who play 3 rounds of best of 3 where the first 2 face off in a final if they tie with 3 wins.

To participate is easy, just create your deck, enter the tournament page on Gatherling and participate on the day and time set. Tournament announcements take place via mtgo chat, or the Discord format.

Here you can see the calendar and this link you have access to all format information, more detailed rules book, and all possible information.

Special thanks:

I would like to thank the player Nydethess, a nice guy who introduced me to this format, explaining to me how the Paranauês happened besides the always interesting tips to improve the deck, thanks man!