*Sigh* Seeing Aquitect’s Will in this makes me wish Wizards downgraded the Tribal card-type from evergreen to deciduous like they did with Protection instead of abandoning Tribal completely.
I've always wondered. Do they have to have Tribal on cards to include a race type to non-creatures? Can't they still have Instant-Elf or Enchantment-Dwarf?
Yes. There's a very complex answer, but the short version is that a card that is a card cannot have subtypes (Elf, Goblin, Gate) that do not correspond to its type. Since creature has rules requirements (goes into play, has power and toughness) they created a different type, Tribal, that shares the creature subtypes and could be put on non-creature permanents and spells without turning them into creatures.
I don’t think that touches at all on the relevant question of ‘why does that need to be handled with a type and not a Supertype?’ Why couldn’t Tribal be analogous to Legendary or Snow? Why did it have to be a type of its own, and with all the baggage that brings (Tarmo/Delirium), and why couldn’t supertype have done all of the above special-treatment logic? “If a card has the Tribal supertype, it can have Creature subtypes even if it does not have the Creature type”
*Sigh* Seeing Aquitect’s Will in this makes me wish Wizards downgraded the Tribal card-type from evergreen to deciduous like they did with Protection instead of abandoning Tribal completely.
I've always wondered. Do they have to have Tribal on cards to include a race type to non-creatures? Can't they still have Instant-Elf or Enchantment-Dwarf?
Yes. There's a very complex answer, but the short version is that a card that is a card cannot have subtypes (Elf, Goblin, Gate) that do not correspond to its type. Since creature has rules requirements (goes into play, has power and toughness) they created a different type, Tribal, that shares the creature subtypes and could be put on non-creature permanents and spells without turning them into creatures.
I don’t think that touches at all on the relevant question of ‘why does that need to be handled with a type and not a Supertype?’ Why couldn’t Tribal be analogous to Legendary or Snow? Why did it have to be a type of its own, and with all the baggage that brings (Tarmo/Delirium), and why couldn’t supertype have done all of the above special-treatment logic? “If a card has the Tribal supertype, it can have Creature subtypes even if it does not have the Creature type”
Suffice to say, this has been beaten more than a dead horse on Matt Tabak's (Magic Rules Manager) Tumblr and Twitter, and the answer was no, supertype had rules issues that prevented it.
Also, one of the reasons the Tribal type was invented was so it would show up in the reminder text of Tarmogoyf in Future Sight (along with Planeswalker)
No. Merfolk is pretty much unplayable without Aether Vial and the only playable goblin deck in Modern is Turn Two Tokens which plays mostly cheap commons not included in this product.
Has anyone played these decks against each other yet? Is it a good product (for enjoyment, not value) e.g. are the decks well balanced against each other and did you have fun playing them?
I played three sessions, seven games each. During the first two sessions, whichever played first, won. That sounds bad, but I didn't notice for a while, and there were some close games that I really enjoyed. After about 10 games, I couldn't help focusing on the duel's weaknesses. Both decks play a little differently, but there's not much variety, as most of the special effects don't do anything (Tidal Wave, Rootwater Hunter, Goblin Diplomats), or are on kill-or-be-killed cards (Merfolk Sovereign, Krenko, Mob Boss, etc). That leaves burn, card draw, tokens, and Streambed Aquitects—enough to give each deck an identity, but not enough to mix things up.
The last session was frustrating. Merfolk was totally helpless against Goblin Rabblemaster, Krenko, Mob Boss, and especially Goblin Charbelcher. Master of Waves dies immediately, but an early Goblin Charbelcher is realistically unbeatable. Merfolk would rather play against Boil. The gameplay was unintuitive, as well. In two games, Goblin Rabblemaster refused to attack, stalling the board against 1 power Scroll Thief and friends. Likewise, holding up Essence Scatter is a death sentence outside of corner cases.
For me, the duel held up for 10-15 games. One good session, one solid, and one frustrating. I haven't tried, but the decks appear easy to spruce up with cheap cards—the weaknesses are mostly in the mana curve (Merfolk often starts on turn 3, even after a mulligan, and can't keep up from there) and Merfolk's inability to control or ignore Goblins' repeatable effects.
I don't think I'll play these again, and for reference, I still play Theme Decks from Stronghold, Intro Packs from Magic 2013, and so on.
I don’t think that touches at all on the relevant question of ‘why does that need to be handled with a type and not a Supertype?’ Why couldn’t Tribal be analogous to Legendary or Snow? Why did it have to be a type of its own, and with all the baggage that brings (Tarmo/Delirium), and why couldn’t supertype have done all of the above special-treatment logic? “If a card has the Tribal supertype, it can have Creature subtypes even if it does not have the Creature type”
Suffice to say, this has been beaten more than a dead horse on Matt Tabak's (Magic Rules Manager) Tumblr and Twitter, and the answer was no, supertype had rules issues that prevented it.
Also, one of the reasons the Tribal type was invented was so it would show up in the reminder text of Tarmogoyf in Future Sight (along with Planeswalker)
Aether Vial aside, I think you still get a lot of value out of it.
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
The last session was frustrating. Merfolk was totally helpless against Goblin Rabblemaster, Krenko, Mob Boss, and especially Goblin Charbelcher. Master of Waves dies immediately, but an early Goblin Charbelcher is realistically unbeatable. Merfolk would rather play against Boil. The gameplay was unintuitive, as well. In two games, Goblin Rabblemaster refused to attack, stalling the board against 1 power Scroll Thief and friends. Likewise, holding up Essence Scatter is a death sentence outside of corner cases.
For me, the duel held up for 10-15 games. One good session, one solid, and one frustrating. I haven't tried, but the decks appear easy to spruce up with cheap cards—the weaknesses are mostly in the mana curve (Merfolk often starts on turn 3, even after a mulligan, and can't keep up from there) and Merfolk's inability to control or ignore Goblins' repeatable effects.
I don't think I'll play these again, and for reference, I still play Theme Decks from Stronghold, Intro Packs from Magic 2013, and so on.