I haven't seen something like this yet, so I figured I'd post it.
With Rivals of Ixalan coming out shortly, what tribe do you think is the best represented, keeping in mind both sets? Why? And which tribe has you the most excited?
I am personally the most excited for the new Merfolk cards from RIX, but I nearly hated all of the Merfolk cards in the first set. To me, between the two sets it feels like Dinosaurs is the best represented for a new tribe they wanted to create and make the tool base for, even if they are slow to play in competitive compared to Vampires and Merfolk.
My timmy side loves the Dinosaurs and glad that they do feel and play differently from dragons. I also think to how popular they are we might see Dinosaurs popping up more often now.
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
If one goes by the Geocache event the vampires look like they are winning. All I can say is the D&D campaign that is going to spawn from the plane-shift article is probably going to be my playgroup just shifting in, blowing up the sun and leaving flying on a giant sun bird while giving the middle finger to every single group fighting over the city.
Actually, that brings up an interesting thought about the city. If the city has ancient godzilla sized dinosaurs and the only way those things were under control was the eternal sun artifact, wouldn't that mean they are now completely out of control and are likely going to go rampaging through the city eating everyone? So by extension, it doesn't matter which tribe is our favorite because they all get eaten by giant uncontrollable death machines that just woke up and have a terrible case of the munchies?
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I went with Vampires, just because of the cards from Rivals that are coming out. That with the life gain and removal associated with the colours goes toward that situation.
I think its telling that so far no one has voted for pirates. WOTC just didn't focus when they needed to on that tribe, with too many mechanics and too many ideas floating around that Pirate just feels like an add on key word than a real tribe.
out of all new creature types introduce in it got the biggest amount of buff for tribal in a set
and clearly theres a strong chance we will get more dinosaurs in future sets not just ixalan. and not to mention because of the black one and blue one we might yet to see more dinosaurs involving the colorsUB none of those were in ixalan due to main tribe colors so a 5-color legendary dino might be future thing
(not as much as dragons before you get your hopes up.)
oh one more thing
uh remember how dinosaurs is currently last place in the rivals of ixalan geocache race.
I think its telling that so far no one has voted for pirates. WOTC just didn't focus when they needed to on that tribe, with too many mechanics and too many ideas floating around that Pirate just feels like an add on key word than a real tribe.
Pirates are extremely aggro / tempo based in the set and right now that role is getting overshadowed by Ramunap red. That's really the only reason they aren't seeing more play than they are, because they are actually well equipped to deal with all the other tribes and have the least dependencies on lords. Merfolk are the under dogs by far because they have a strategy, just it's not a very good one without having some way to interact.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Dinosaurs. They're just so cool! I mean, for one, they're DINOSAURS, and two, they are just really fun to play. enrage is a very neat mechanic, and even though as some people have said rightly that many are to slow to play competitively, many aren't (Ripjaw Raptor, Rampaging Ferocidon (Even though it's banned) etc.).
Mechanically dinos work quite well, but they just printed not enough actual "good" cards to make it into a competitive deck (mainly because the lack of 1-2 drops or good utility ; see Contested Cliffs for Beasts and Birds of Paradise.
Enrage is a fine keyword that offers a lot of room to make it good. Doing a lot however makes all damage based removal incredible bad and in constructed a lot of removal outside of red will just not deal damage anyway.
In Limited enrage can be very annoying for the opponent, while its almost blank in constructed, unless you play against Mono Red or tokens.
Still dinos feel like a real tribe, even while weak.
----
Vampires had a lot going for them, but the design of BW vampires in Ixalan is just terrible executed, as they gain a bunch of life here and there, make a bunch of tokens here and there, but theres very little to actually use all that lifegain for something that gives the tribe an identity and they feel extremly weak for being "vampires" (1/1 vampire tokens are just WRONG as a vampire shouldnt be that weak ever, if a random pirate is already stronger).
----
What bothered me the most in Ixalan is that they had no crossover of the tribes.
Especially vampires ... Why no vampire dino ? ... Vampire Pirates ... A vampire merfolk would have been pretty cool (maybe push them in some UGB direction in a "corrupted" form).
Some color combinations didnt have a tribe or actual working theme for them. While the "explore" deck would have been BG, that was just terrible executed as way too many of the cards that supported that are in the uncommon slot and all the explore cards are just good outside of abusing them further, so that deck pretty much never worked out, as you never got it at all and the payoff was also too small (the -2/-2 explore trigger was just way too weak).
Maybe we might get all of that in a possible Return to Ixalan.
----
Pirates with the "raid" mechanic are doomed to be terrible in constructed.
Raid is just a snowball mechanic. If you can attack, you get benefits, and you are probably in a good spot anyway, as you are attacking.
The moment you cannot attack, you get penalties and it will just doom you do never come back out of that situation ...
Treasures had the issue that they wanted to make it WAY too save. Theres pretty much no remotely playable card at 1 or 2 mana that makes treasures, and all the "fun" starts with 3 mana, but thats just way too late for constructed.
The fact they added a "tap" symbol to treasures killed all the potential cool interaction with Improvise (to get double mana out of them to cast these spells). If they didnt do that, treasures could maybe be a thing (Battle at the Bridge, Herald of Anguish, Whir of Invention, together with Tezzeret could all have been much more playable, but they just went WAY too hard on it, so these cards just couldnt live up to what they could have been ; the deck just saw some glimpses of play, as it wasnt unplayable, but just couldnt compete against the other pushed mechanics).
With Rivals of Ixalan coming out shortly, what tribe do you think is the best represented, keeping in mind both sets? Why? And which tribe has you the most excited?
I am personally the most excited for the new Merfolk cards from RIX, but I nearly hated all of the Merfolk cards in the first set. To me, between the two sets it feels like Dinosaurs is the best represented for a new tribe they wanted to create and make the tool base for, even if they are slow to play in competitive compared to Vampires and Merfolk.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Actually, that brings up an interesting thought about the city. If the city has ancient godzilla sized dinosaurs and the only way those things were under control was the eternal sun artifact, wouldn't that mean they are now completely out of control and are likely going to go rampaging through the city eating everyone? So by extension, it doesn't matter which tribe is our favorite because they all get eaten by giant uncontrollable death machines that just woke up and have a terrible case of the munchies?
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
" Beauty is eternal... so long as it is love...", Romantic,
" WTF!!!", Deranged Hermit
(W/U)(B/R)GForm of Progenitus, Shape of a Scrubland
BRGJund Tokens with Prossh, the Magic Dragon Foil
URGAnimar, the RUG CleanerFoil
RRRFeldon of the Third Path 2.0 Foil
BG(B/G)Not Another Meren DeckFoil
UR(U/R)Mizzix, Y Control and X Burn Spells
(W/U)(B/R)GHarold Ramos - The 35 Foot Long Twinkie (In +1/+1 counters)
UB(U/B)Dragonlord Silumgar
out of all new creature types introduce in it got the biggest amount of buff for tribal in a set
and clearly theres a strong chance we will get more dinosaurs in future sets not just ixalan. and not to mention because of the black one and blue one we might yet to see more dinosaurs involving the colorsUB none of those were in ixalan due to main tribe colors so a 5-color legendary dino might be future thing
(not as much as dragons before you get your hopes up.)
oh one more thing
uh remember how dinosaurs is currently last place in the rivals of ixalan geocache race.
well...
https://www.geocaching.com/promotions/promo/magic/
THE TIDES HAVE TURNED!
Pirates are extremely aggro / tempo based in the set and right now that role is getting overshadowed by Ramunap red. That's really the only reason they aren't seeing more play than they are, because they are actually well equipped to deal with all the other tribes and have the least dependencies on lords. Merfolk are the under dogs by far because they have a strategy, just it's not a very good one without having some way to interact.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Enrage is a fine keyword that offers a lot of room to make it good. Doing a lot however makes all damage based removal incredible bad and in constructed a lot of removal outside of red will just not deal damage anyway.
In Limited enrage can be very annoying for the opponent, while its almost blank in constructed, unless you play against Mono Red or tokens.
Still dinos feel like a real tribe, even while weak.
----
Vampires had a lot going for them, but the design of BW vampires in Ixalan is just terrible executed, as they gain a bunch of life here and there, make a bunch of tokens here and there, but theres very little to actually use all that lifegain for something that gives the tribe an identity and they feel extremly weak for being "vampires" (1/1 vampire tokens are just WRONG as a vampire shouldnt be that weak ever, if a random pirate is already stronger).
----
What bothered me the most in Ixalan is that they had no crossover of the tribes.
Especially vampires ... Why no vampire dino ? ... Vampire Pirates ... A vampire merfolk would have been pretty cool (maybe push them in some UGB direction in a "corrupted" form).
Some color combinations didnt have a tribe or actual working theme for them. While the "explore" deck would have been BG, that was just terrible executed as way too many of the cards that supported that are in the uncommon slot and all the explore cards are just good outside of abusing them further, so that deck pretty much never worked out, as you never got it at all and the payoff was also too small (the -2/-2 explore trigger was just way too weak).
Maybe we might get all of that in a possible Return to Ixalan.
----
Pirates with the "raid" mechanic are doomed to be terrible in constructed.
Raid is just a snowball mechanic. If you can attack, you get benefits, and you are probably in a good spot anyway, as you are attacking.
The moment you cannot attack, you get penalties and it will just doom you do never come back out of that situation ...
Treasures had the issue that they wanted to make it WAY too save. Theres pretty much no remotely playable card at 1 or 2 mana that makes treasures, and all the "fun" starts with 3 mana, but thats just way too late for constructed.
The fact they added a "tap" symbol to treasures killed all the potential cool interaction with Improvise (to get double mana out of them to cast these spells). If they didnt do that, treasures could maybe be a thing (Battle at the Bridge, Herald of Anguish, Whir of Invention, together with Tezzeret could all have been much more playable, but they just went WAY too hard on it, so these cards just couldnt live up to what they could have been ; the deck just saw some glimpses of play, as it wasnt unplayable, but just couldnt compete against the other pushed mechanics).
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
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I̟̥͍̠ͅn̩͉̣͍̬͚ͅ ̬̬͖t̯̹̞̺͖͓̯̤h̘͍̬e͙̯͈̖̼̮ ̭̬f̺̲̲̪i͙͉̟̩̰r̪̝͚͈̝̥͍̝̲s̼̻͇̘̳͔ͅt̲̺̳̗̜̪̙ ̳̺̥̻͚̗ͅm̜̜̟̰͈͓͎͇o̝̖̮̝͇m̯̻̞̼̫̗͓̤e̩̯̬̮̩n͎̱̪̲̹͖t͇̖s̰̮ͅ,̤̲͙̻̭̻̯̹̰ ̖t̫̙̺̯͖͚̯ͅh͙̯̦̳̗̰̟e͖̪͉̼̯ ̪͕g̞̣͔a̗̦t̬̬͓͙̫̖̭̻e̩̻̯ ̜̖̦̖̤̭͙̬t̞̹̥̪͎͉ͅo͕͚͍͇̲͇͓̺ ̭̬͙͈̣̻t͈͍͙͓̫̖͙̩h̪̬̖̙e̗͈ ̗̬̟̞̺̤͉̯ͅa̦̯͚̙̜̮f͉͙̲̣̞̼t̪̤̞̣͚e̲͉̳̥r͇̪̙͚͓l̥̞̞͎̹̯̹ͅi͓̬f̮̥̬̞͈ͅe͎ ̟̩̤̳̠̯̩̯o̮̘̲p̟͚̣̞͉͓e͍̩̣n͔̼͕͚̜e̬̱d̼̘͎̖̹͍̮̠,͖̺̭̱̮ ̣̲͖̬̪̭̥a̪͚n̟̲̝̤̤̞̗d̘̱̗͇̮͕̳͕͔ ͖̞͉͎t̹̙͎h̰̱͉̗e̪̞̱̝̹̩ͅ ̠̱̩̭̦p̯̙e͓o̳͚̰̯̺̱̰͔̘p̬͎̱̣̼̩͇l̗̟̖͚̠e̱͉͔̱̦̬̟̙ ̖͚̪͔̼̦w̺̖̤̱e͖̗̻̦͓̖̘̜r̭̥e͔̹̫̱͕̦̰͕ ̗͔̠p̠̗͍͍̱̳̠r̰͔͎̰o͉̥͓̰͚̥s̟͚̹̱͔̣t͉̙̳̖͖̪̮r̥̘̥͙̹a͉̟̫̟̳̠̟̭t͈̜̰͈͎e̞̣̭̲̬ ͚̗̯̟͙i͍͖̰̘̦͖͉ṇ̮̻̯̦̲̩͍ ̦̮͚̫̤t͉͖̫͕ͅͅh͙̮̻̘̣̮̼e͕̺ ͙l͕̠͎̰̥i̲͓͉̲g̫̳̟͈͇̖h̠̦̖t͓̯͎̗ ̳̪̘̟̙̩̦o̫̲f̙͔̰̙̠ ̹̪̗͇̯t͖̼̼͉͖̬h̹͇̩e͚̖̺̤͉̹͕̪ ͚͓̭̝̺G͎̗̯̩o̫̯̮̟̮̳̘d̜̲͙̠-̩̳̯̲̗̜P̹̘̥͉̝h͍͈̗̖̝ͅa͍̗̮̼̗r̜̖͇̙̺a̭̺͔̞̳͈o̪̣͓̯̬͙̯̰̗h̖̦͈̥̯͔.͇̣̙̝