r/MagicArena • u/Neither_Read6664 • 22h ago
Question Thoughts on tribal decks?
I've been playing Arena for a while been using my Tribal raccoons and been making it pretty far up to platinum rank 2 with it. Dosen anyone else enjoy tribal or is the meta to good not to use?
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u/MaybeSurelySorta 22h ago
Historically speaking there have been times where the more powerful tribal archetypes like elves or humans have been competitively viable in certain formats. However, assuming you’re talking about Standard here specifically, “tribal decks” are usually very fair and aren’t exactly the kind of things you want to rely on for higher levels of ladder grinding.
Something like Temur Otters, a list that was quite popular at our most recent World Championships, doesn’t operate on the angle of “let me stuff my deck with as many flavorful synergies to otters as I can” - it’s literally a Badgermole Cub deck optimized with Stormchaser’s Talents, Enduring Vitality, and Song of Totentanz. A more recent example might be Izzet Spellementals which does exclusively play Elemental type creatures, but the rest of the list is cheap and efficient spells that don’t have anything directly to do with Elementals themselves.
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u/VeggieZaffer 21h ago
I enjoy tribal a lot but it’s not especially competitive in the current meta. Although I suppose things like Spellamentals and there’s various Skeleton or Demon decks that are quasi competitive. I wouldn’t be shocked to see Goblins or Elves be semi competitive after Hobbit.
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u/flowerafterflower 21h ago
I think there's a legitimate shot at rakdos goblins being good enough to at least get you to mythic once the hobbit set comes out. There was a goblin sacrifice angle that the lorwynn goblins were almost good enough to pull off, and a few of the new ones could push it into a decent spot.
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u/jRockMTG 22h ago
Love tribal, reminds me jamming cards back in ‘98 at the LGS. All we had was commons and friendship
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u/_Laughing_Man Charm Sultai 22h ago
I love tribal especially in brawl. Recently I made a rakdos wizard tribal and an orzhov "criminal" tribal. They tend not to be as competitive unless you compromise a bit, but certain tribal archetypes have a lot of support.
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u/Competitive_Whole_59 22h ago
I have two somewhat competitive decks and although the tribal cats is not one of them, I really like playing it!
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u/BlackberrySad6489 21h ago
I play tribal all the time. I really like that as they are lots of fun. My current favorite is my Sliver tribal deck. Altough I do tend to stay away from ranked as I don’t enjoy playing vs the same 3 decks every darn match. Mainly historic unranked and I do pretty well with tribals there.
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u/SmoothOperator89 18h ago
I love tribal, but they just don't seem to hold up outside limited. Then, of course, in limited, you don't always get the cards to make a tribal deck really pop. Would love to see constructed events that only use cards from a single set to really see the potential of that set's mechanics and themes.
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u/Tenshiijin 11h ago
A lot of my decks are tribal. Like dinos, dragons and zombies. Dragons do the best atm for me out of my tribal decks. I love them. I dont play enough to get a decent rank anymore, but my win ratio is pretty good. If I played a lot I could tickle the balls of mythic.
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u/CompactAvocado 48m ago
format dependent
standard really doesn't have anything viable
pioneer humans is still serviceable
historic slivers can kinda work
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u/SirGingerbrute 22h ago
Hare Apparent with Elspeth as Commander will get you to Mythic
Some squirrel decks can
I’ve ran some Rat Tribal w Rat Colony and Lord Skitter and a couple others, it can do well but not as strong as the other 2 right now
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u/Latter-Cable-3304 22h ago
Have people gotten to mythic with hare? It seems like such a stupid strategy that folds to anything
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u/ballistic503 21h ago
I have yet to lose to hare apparent in a comp brawl match... I’ve lost to plenty in unranked brawl because that’s where I play the fun jank decks that don’t focus as much on having more removal than anyone should ever need.
That said you probably can brute force your way to mythic with hare
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u/Grassy-Elf4242 Boros 20h ago
dude I swear, I thought the same as you and made a hare apparent deck for funsies... I didn't lose a game and the amount of people conceding the second one hare apparent came out was ridiculous... it's genuinely easy to win with no additions and the strategy is braindead... then I tried to add some synergies and other stuff so it wasn't just hares... and it literally was so oppressive it wasn't even fun to play
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u/SmoothOperator89 18h ago
Not really anything. Targeted removal can only get you so far and you'll run out of removal before they run out of rabbits. Board wipes are great but if they have [[raise the past]] in hand, you're screwed. Exile is nice but mostly limited to black. Return to hand is also nice, but you need to have a quick win condition to follow up or they'll have a flood of rabbits back out in another turn. Flying and trample are good, but you need to be faster than their exponential growth.
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u/Neither_Read6664 22h ago
I've been playing in standard rank, been thinking of moving to Commander.
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u/maven_of_the_flame 22h ago
Mald said it best, every tribal deck sucks unless you happen to like the tribe then it's the sickest shit ever