Tribal with a bit different rules

Eldariel · Joined: 15 Jun 2006 Posts: 191

I'm pretty pissed at the present rules of Tribal so I was thinking of having rogue Tribal tournaments with a bit different rules for Legacy. Those work for Standard, no doubt, but they seem just a tad poor for Legacy. I want to legalize all tribes, but that means I'll have to axe a lot of cards. The point of this thread is to get an idea of which cards I should axe. So far, out of the tribes that'll be legal, but aren't presently:

Goblins:
Goblin Lackey
Goblin Piledriver
Goblin Ringleader
Siege-Gang Commander

Some tribal-cards need to stay legal to not remove the point of Tribal, so I tried to take away the most harmful ones while letting Warchief live. Lackey is a given, Piledriver is a bit too strong in a tribe that's already strong, Ringleader is pretty incredible in a bit slower format and as long as Warchief and Vial remain, SGC can't be safely allowed. Kiki-Jiki is no problem without all the CiPT-creatures, Matron won't be that crazy, Gempalm isn't that nuts, Skirk Prospector and Warchief should be alright. So, I hope with that, Goblins could be allowed to make Goblin Sligh-like decks possible and enable some long-forgotten cards like Goblin Grenade. If you disagree, feel free to point out any potential dangers, I'll take the DCI approach of 'rather too careful than broken format'. This leaves Empty the Warrens largely scary still, so that might be something else to consider axing. (Note: Legacy-rules already axe Goblin Recruiter, hence him not being listed there)

Elves:
I only really see one cultrip, Priest of Titania. I suppose, all the mana-elves are good, but Priest is really the hub of the deck. With Priest gone, Elves should be fair and Channeler still allows for heavy acceleration duties. Perhaps axing some of the redundant mana Elves if that looks necessary, but meh, we'll see I guess. EDIT: Wellwisher might go too if people find it too monotonous to play against. It's still rather weak, but it can be annoying.

Zombies:
To be frank, I have no idea why they're banned in the first place, but I guess turn 1 Ritual-6 power worth of guys is a bit scary, and they have a good number of tribal boosters. Perhaps these guys should get a probation period without bannings, but if things get out of hands, axing Undead Warchief and maybe Carnophage seems doable.

Slivers:
Oh boy, there're lots of scary Slivers out there. I think the bulk of it should be keeping them playable while not neutering them too bad, so I think Crystalline, Sinew, Winged, Sedge and perhaps Hibernation should go. Something like that anyways, few pumpers and then the stupid-good ones (Crystalline, Winged, to lesser extent Hibernation), leaving still enough to build a tribal, but making it a bit less scary.

Wizards:
These are hard, since I don't know if they're even that broken, but I guess some Wizards are just plain annoying and might require the axe. Sooo, Grim Lavamancer, Patron Wizard and perhaps Dark Confidant would be good. The problem with Wizards aren't the tribal Wizard-effects, but the overall quality of Wizards available. Perhaps Meloku should get the axe too, or maybe Meddling Mage deserves to die or maybe I should kill Vedalken Shackles. Anyway, I'm not sure what to do here.

Perhaps few other tribes, Rebels might deserve to have Lin-Sivvi banned for a format like this and Daru Spiritualist out of Clerics might have to go to make the life-combo bit less consistent, although I'm again less-than-certain if it's a problem.

But yea, I think allowing all tribes will be good for allowing some of the more obscure cards of the common tribes to see light of the day while preventing the strong mainstream decks from dominating. One more thing I'd like to do is to allow sideboards, since what's the point of having to play Anarchy MD just so you don't lose to Worship? Perhaps some of the strongest colour-hate like Anarchy, Dystopia and Chill should get the axe as well? But yea, comments? I'd like to make the format as enjoyable as possible, sorta like those casual formats people build for their own playgroups, so ideas on how to make it more fun? Of course, the more playable tribes exist, the more interesting it should be.

Oh, and the tribal banned list:
* Engineered Plague
* Tsabo's Decree
* Circle of Solace
* Endemic Plague
* Peer Pressure
* Skullclamp
* Extinction
* Slate of Ancestry
* Artificial Evolution
* Umezawa's Jitte
* Unnatural Selection
* Story Circle
* Martyr of Sands
* Enduring Renewal

I think at least Enduring Renewal, Martyr of Sands, Artificial Evolution, Slate of Ancestry and Unnatural Selection have no business being up there in Legacy. Tribe-hosing effects obviously belong and Jitte I can understand is annoying to play against, especially in an all-creature format. However, think of any other non-creature cards that would need to be banned? I'll start having these tourneys after the rules have been ironed out.

EDIT #3: One more thing, I intend to also allow cards that generate a token of some type in that type of tribal. So Call of the Herd counts as an Elephant for the purposes of counting towards the 20 and heck, God's Eye - Gate to Reikai counts as a Spirit. Even if they give opponent tokens like the Hunted creatures or Forbidden Orchard, they count for that tribe. I think this change is great as it gives few rarer tribes more creatures to work with (most importantly, Elephants, Squirrels and Saprolings). Maybe I should even apply some degree of manual errata to complete these things? That would mean, Faerie Noble would be a Faerie and the old Kobold-lords would be Kobolds and our poor Orc General would actually be an Orc, Zombie Master would be a Zombie and so on. That would be a lot of text, but make few older tribes more doable (especially Kobolds) and more flavourful. None but few of the clearly tribal cards would get an errata, of course, I'm not going to go through the entirety of the Magic-cards, that'd be stupid, require lots of effort and be mostly in vain, but few old tribal-cards still have the wrong tribe because of now-extinct policies, which is something that could be changed rather easily.

LIST OF CARDS TO ERRATA:
Kobold Overlord - Change creature type to Kobold, change to affect other Kobolds.
Kobold Drill Sergeant - Change creature type to Kobold, change to affect other Kobolds.
Orc General - Change creature type to Orc Lord, change to affect other Orcs.
Faerie Noble - Change creature type to Faerie Lord, change to affect other Faeries.
Zombie Master - Change creature type to Zombie Lord, change to affect other Zombies.
Baron Sengir - Change creature type to Vampire Lord. Let him affect himself, I'll still have to give kudos to anyone who uses him.

Those are just modernisations. If any of those cards were reprinted, these changes would be made, so it's fair enough to make them especially since they specifically enable this format. Oh, Kobolds aren't lords since the recently reprinted Kobold Taskmaster was a mere Kobold too. Rogharr of the Kher Keep would probably be a Lord, but I'm not gonna bother with him anyways, else I'd have to errata all creatures from Legends. Few more:

Faerie Conclave - Becomes 2/1 Blue Faerie
Treetop Village - Becomes 3/3 Green Treefolk
Forbidding Watchtower - Becomes 1/5 White Wall
Ghitu Encampment - Becomes 2/1 Red Nomad
Spawning Pool - Becomes 1/1 Black Horror

It's really a pity those never got a creature type. Well, luckily we can rectify that mistake. So yea, anything I missed that's worth errataing from a tribal standpoint? Note, these will obviously only be used in the tribal tournaments I host, but I think it really spices the format up until Wizards wakes up and fixes the ancient creature types.

Spyx · Joined: 31 Oct 2004 Posts: 834

axe wellwisher obv Shocked

Eldariel · Joined: 15 Jun 2006 Posts: 191

I suppose I could. Since it's a 1/1 that has summoning sickness, I don't see it being a problem, but I know how much people hate to play against it and since the point is having fun (besides, no self-respecting player is ever gonna play it anyways), it could go. I added it to the list.

Keifru · Joined: 14 Apr 2007 Posts: 21

Ew, banning sinew sliver?

IMO, it would probably be something like heart sliver, crystalline, winged, hibernation and maybe a few others. If you take out sinew, then you kinda HAVE to take out muscle otherwise your a hypocrite xD

Eldariel · Joined: 15 Jun 2006 Posts: 191

Kaesh · Joined: 10 Nov 2004 Posts: 227

I think banning any tribe or banning any creature just because it interacts well with other creatures of it's tribe beats the point of tribal. If you want to play a non-competitive format play homelands constructed :B

Eldariel · Joined: 15 Jun 2006 Posts: 191

ykpon · Joined: 25 Nov 2006 Posts: 9

Eldariel, i think uve banned a lot of not broken cards:
1) gobboz. yes, lackey and ringleader are too powerful for this format. mb piledraiver is but i dont think so. every deck can kill him by removal or simply in block. even monou (did u see a good monou tribal deck?) can counter it. and siege-gang commander... why do u think its imba (specially with lackey banned)?
2) elves. ok, i think ure right here with axing priest. but wellwisher... this is a creature that does nothing and even havent protection from anything so he dies catching any removal.
3) zombies. undead warchief? carnophage? why? if u think dark ritual is too powerful, mb u should ban it not random creatures?
4) slivers. do u really think sedge, winged and sinew sliver should be banned? crysstaline and hibernation slivers undoubtedly should but these ones... mb u should make an errata changing "all slivers have" to "all slivers u control have" to make a mirror match not so boring. then axe winged sliver too.
5) wizards. i think they are good without changes but not imba with unbanning goblins and elves. but i see u want to axe anithing, it doesnt matter what exactly... mancer and confidant are really good but cutting em is like cutting this deck. they both have toughtness 1 so it isnt difficult to kill them for good deck even if wizards play fow and daze. meddling mage... this is creature format not combo one. why do u want to axe mage? meloku. nobody plays meloku in wizards i think. axe it if u want. this deck will lose nothing. and itll lose nearly notjing if u ban shackles and patron.
6) rebels. if u want to make this normal deck bad one u can axe lin-sivvi.
7) clerics. yes, mb daru spiritualist should be banned because it doesnt play in aggro clerics, only in life.dec.
so i think u forgot about a lot of good removal, discard and countermagic that can easily kill nearly all creatures u want to axe before they lose their summoning sickness. remember such cards as stp, lightning bolt, chain lightning, helix, diabolic edict, gempalm incinerator, fow, daze, counterspell and so on... if a deck doesnt include these cards it means this deck is bad not creatures it plays against are broken. imo u should ban only imba artifacts and enchantments not creatures because every good tribal deck must have some slots of removal. u said "the more playable tribes exist, the more interesting it should be". but i dont think putting good decks down to level of bad decks is a right way.

about sb: i think u dont need allowing sb. are u afraid of worship? ban it like already banned story circle. if u allow side ull have to ban too much cards like perish or tivadar's crusade and unban cards like jitte and story circle. i dont think itll be good for format.

about old banned list. i agree with u about unbanning renewal, martyr, evolution, slate and unnatural selection. i think this cards does nothing. i also think u should unban peer pressure because this card is only for mirror matches.

allowing cards generating tokens would be great but i dont thing u should allow cards making tokens for ur opponent. errata of cards that doesnt have creature type they must have looks interesting but there are far more then 6 such creatures and ill be too difficult to take em into account.

sorry for my poor english.