I mentioned last week that I planned to talk about Tribal decks in greater detail. There is a reason to this actually, Tribal seen by many as the best deckbuilding theme is one that has the most detail.

What is tribal?

Tribal is theming a deck around a central tribe in the magic universe. This varies from things like zombies to even just plain birds but can be as specific as kraken or god tribal. The tribe is basically our identifier. Many many many decks are built with this theme because its easy to think and build around when everything is themed around a central tribe.

Why Tribal?

I believe tribal is the most used theme simply because it focuses more on a theme then ever before. Giving us a creature theme narrowing down our selected cards by a large large margin. This narrowing down makes things much easier as a whole. This idea of simplicity is the main strength this time around.

Examples:

There are many many examples in magic but some of the best are the 4 precons central around tribal. The 4 of them not only made solid decks but also introduced a new mechanic central again around theming a tribe. Eminence as it is called made it so whilst the commander was in the command zone it still buffed tribe creatures. A great example is the commander for the Dragon precon known as The Ur-Dragon, He simply makes our dragons cost 1 colorless less, very easy and very simple.

Other themes can be more hidden, Like take a card that doesn’t mention a single creature type at all. This can range from its a vampire and it just has a cool effect, make it the commander and get a bunch of vampire synergy cards. Its not a tough thing to do its just one where we like a lot of cards in a central idea. For instance I have a ninja tribal deck (Which is annoyingly expensive) but its tough to make as there are not many ninjas but its still very doable as a whole.

Simply put just think of a creature type you like and then after that build a deck that centralizes around them. Its this simple theming and fun to build deck ideas that really make tribal loveable, I showed a deck last week that themed around vampires but it very much was meant to be a deck that themes around the core of mono-black, death and resurrections. Where as a tribal deck can go further then that, Id cut out about half the decks cards to make it vampire tribal. The extra mile would getting cards that featured vampires in the art or descriptions to make it extremely vampire tribal. Many tribal decks are built with the effect and idea of the main theme in place, that being said its good to have a subtheme just in case the main one doesn’t work! Its very easy to do and its great as a whole because it makes the tedious and often daunting task of deck building that much easier.

Next week I think Ill post that Ninja deck because I think its a fun one and It a good example of a tribal deck with a sub-theme!