Oversoul
The Tentacled One
Well, a new core set is coming out. And there’s also a supplemental set called “Jumpstart” that has its own thing going on. Both of them were supposed to have been released already, but technically, at the time I’m writing this, their release date hasn’t arrived just yet. Also, I have cards from both. Well, last time I did one of these reports, I combined the latest standard set with a concurrent-ish supplemental product. It seemed to work. Saved me some time. So let’s try it again? Honestly, I still only have a foggy idea of what’s in these sets. Something, something, pandemic, something, something.
Two new sets are about to come out, right around the corner. Or perhaps they’re already here. Whatever. New sets. The big one is Core Set 2021 and the other one is Jumpstart. They’re new. They have new cards. Some good reprints too, but those don’t factor into my report. There, I’ve said what’s going on. Introduction is out of the way. Brevity is the soul of wit. Move along, move along.
Another Digression (I really don’t plan on making this a recurring feature)
In my previous update report, I added a new preface about the Companion mechanic. In particular, I needed to address the ease with which the card Kaheera, the Orphanguard could be used as a companion in this format. I assumed that this was a one-off oddity. Past reports haven’t come with developments that needed their own special sections like that. However, since my previous report, two new developments have emerged with implications for Tribal gameplay. Neither one is directly connected to the new core set, but both are worth addressing.
Firstly, Wizards of the Coast made a rules change to the Companion mechanic. Now instead of being able to cast your companion from outside the game, you can pay 3 at sorcery speed to put your companion into your hand from outside the game. This dramatically weakens the mechanic. A couple of the companions would still definitely be worth it in Tribal formats, but this is a big deal anyway, and makes me feel a lot better about not recommending a ban on Kaheera in my previous report.
The second development is rather awkward. On June 10th, Wizards of the Coast announced that they’d be banning seven cards as “racist” across all sanctioned formats. I’ve already expressed my own thoughts on this in general and don’t want to bring that into this report. Regardless of what stance any of us might have with regard to this issue, the question I want to stick to here is what this means for Tribal formats.
Most of the seven banned cards are inconsequential in most Magic formats anyway. There are two possible exceptions, one of which is a corner-case for highlander (or lowlander) formats in general, and one of which is relevant to Devil Tribal. The first card of interest is Crusade. While the universal +1/+1 boost to white creatures is still available with Honor of the Pure, it is conceivable that a “white weenie” deck in a singleton format might want both cards. I don’t think that the “white weenie” archetype is especially prevalent as a gameplan for most tribes, but it’s worth mentioning. If enough players were playing in casual tribal formats, it’s likely that some of them would be affected were they to lose this card. Five of the other six are almost completely irrelevant for our purposes. But if one is interested in Devil Tribal, the loss of Stone-Throwing Devils would be severe. While Devil Tribal should be mostly red, there are a couple of black creatures in there, and Stone-Throwing Devils is arguably the tribe’s best one-drop.
Most non-sanctioned player-maintained committees that curate rules for alternative formats have been following WotC’s lead on this matter and banning the “racist” cards in their formats. For anyone trying to actually organize any kind of structured Tribal gameplay, I leave that decision up to you. I don’t make the rules. I just write the reports. My own recommendation would be not to ban these cards. But I’m biased. If you do choose to ban these cards, the main point to keep in mind for Tribal gameplay is that a single tribe gets somewhat weaker with this change. I don’t think that this would drop Devil Tribal into a lower tier, and a monored deck using this tribe would be unaffected. But overall, it is significant in this one case.
New Tribes
Dog: Well, Mark Rosewater finally won. He’s been saying for years that he keeps trying to get “Hound” changed to “Dog” but always gets outvoted. I’m kinda torn on this one. On the one hand, “dog” is actually the original creature type on Snow Hound all the way back in Ice Age, so the intent all along had probably been to make “dog” be the name to use for these guys, before Team Hound orchestrated a coup. On the other hand, Mark Rosewater has been campaigning for this on the basis that “hound” is a subset of the more general “dog.” This is backwards. He is wrong. This information is easily verifiable and his failure to correct his own ignorance on the subject over a period of decades conveys a very annoying level of arrogance and I kinda wanted Team Hound to win just to spite him. On the one hand, perhaps a victory for Team Dog indicates a new level of interest in actually making this a strong tribe, which would be a nice change. On the other hand, it might not be worth the inevitable deluge of unfunny “good boy” quips. In case it isn’t clear: none of those are funny. Every single one is unfunny. If you’re doing this, then you should stop. Anyway, I’d previously estimated Hound Tribal as being Tier 4. So that should be the expected baseline for Dog Tribal. We’ll see if the new cards do anything to change that.
Two new sets are about to come out, right around the corner. Or perhaps they’re already here. Whatever. New sets. The big one is Core Set 2021 and the other one is Jumpstart. They’re new. They have new cards. Some good reprints too, but those don’t factor into my report. There, I’ve said what’s going on. Introduction is out of the way. Brevity is the soul of wit. Move along, move along.
Another Digression (I really don’t plan on making this a recurring feature)
In my previous update report, I added a new preface about the Companion mechanic. In particular, I needed to address the ease with which the card Kaheera, the Orphanguard could be used as a companion in this format. I assumed that this was a one-off oddity. Past reports haven’t come with developments that needed their own special sections like that. However, since my previous report, two new developments have emerged with implications for Tribal gameplay. Neither one is directly connected to the new core set, but both are worth addressing.
Firstly, Wizards of the Coast made a rules change to the Companion mechanic. Now instead of being able to cast your companion from outside the game, you can pay 3 at sorcery speed to put your companion into your hand from outside the game. This dramatically weakens the mechanic. A couple of the companions would still definitely be worth it in Tribal formats, but this is a big deal anyway, and makes me feel a lot better about not recommending a ban on Kaheera in my previous report.
The second development is rather awkward. On June 10th, Wizards of the Coast announced that they’d be banning seven cards as “racist” across all sanctioned formats. I’ve already expressed my own thoughts on this in general and don’t want to bring that into this report. Regardless of what stance any of us might have with regard to this issue, the question I want to stick to here is what this means for Tribal formats.
Most of the seven banned cards are inconsequential in most Magic formats anyway. There are two possible exceptions, one of which is a corner-case for highlander (or lowlander) formats in general, and one of which is relevant to Devil Tribal. The first card of interest is Crusade. While the universal +1/+1 boost to white creatures is still available with Honor of the Pure, it is conceivable that a “white weenie” deck in a singleton format might want both cards. I don’t think that the “white weenie” archetype is especially prevalent as a gameplan for most tribes, but it’s worth mentioning. If enough players were playing in casual tribal formats, it’s likely that some of them would be affected were they to lose this card. Five of the other six are almost completely irrelevant for our purposes. But if one is interested in Devil Tribal, the loss of Stone-Throwing Devils would be severe. While Devil Tribal should be mostly red, there are a couple of black creatures in there, and Stone-Throwing Devils is arguably the tribe’s best one-drop.
Most non-sanctioned player-maintained committees that curate rules for alternative formats have been following WotC’s lead on this matter and banning the “racist” cards in their formats. For anyone trying to actually organize any kind of structured Tribal gameplay, I leave that decision up to you. I don’t make the rules. I just write the reports. My own recommendation would be not to ban these cards. But I’m biased. If you do choose to ban these cards, the main point to keep in mind for Tribal gameplay is that a single tribe gets somewhat weaker with this change. I don’t think that this would drop Devil Tribal into a lower tier, and a monored deck using this tribe would be unaffected. But overall, it is significant in this one case.
New Tribes
Dog: Well, Mark Rosewater finally won. He’s been saying for years that he keeps trying to get “Hound” changed to “Dog” but always gets outvoted. I’m kinda torn on this one. On the one hand, “dog” is actually the original creature type on Snow Hound all the way back in Ice Age, so the intent all along had probably been to make “dog” be the name to use for these guys, before Team Hound orchestrated a coup. On the other hand, Mark Rosewater has been campaigning for this on the basis that “hound” is a subset of the more general “dog.” This is backwards. He is wrong. This information is easily verifiable and his failure to correct his own ignorance on the subject over a period of decades conveys a very annoying level of arrogance and I kinda wanted Team Hound to win just to spite him. On the one hand, perhaps a victory for Team Dog indicates a new level of interest in actually making this a strong tribe, which would be a nice change. On the other hand, it might not be worth the inevitable deluge of unfunny “good boy” quips. In case it isn’t clear: none of those are funny. Every single one is unfunny. If you’re doing this, then you should stop. Anyway, I’d previously estimated Hound Tribal as being Tier 4. So that should be the expected baseline for Dog Tribal. We’ll see if the new cards do anything to change that.
Last edited: