In this episode we are Dirkless. Whoa, that looks like a real word. Playing the role of Dirk in this episode is Thomas, Mike's brother, who you may remember from the episode that discussed how Time Spiral had several hints about the tribes that were going to appear in Lorwyn. Okay, so he's not playing the role of Dirk. He's playing the role of Thomas. He's a natural for the role, oddly enough.

Since it's Tribal Month here on the Mana Pool, we decided we should do more than just focus on the tribes everyone knows. Elves and Goblins get all the glory. What about some of the lesser known tribes? Speaking of which, what makes a tribe a tribe? Is it a number? The presence of a “lord” of some type? Or is it all psychological? We'll discuss all this and more, as well as go into a few other areas of tribal concern.

Spaceninja posted in the Pimp My Deckbox thread about his Pegasus deck and asked what everyone's favorite B-list tribes were. So of course we had to rattle off a few of those. Thanks for the inspiration!

And speaking of B-list tribes, we take a look at Brian's deck built around the Assembly-Worker creature type (quite possibly a U or V-list tribe) and Thomas' deck built around Skeletons. Boy are they, um, resilient.

Brian's Assembly-Worker Deck

10: Forest

4: Urza's Factory

3: Urza's Mine

3: Urza's Power Plant

3: Urza's Tower

1: Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers

4: Assembly-Worker

4: Woodland Changeling

2: Game-Trail Changeling

2: Joiner Adept

1: Seedborn Muse

1: Kamahl, Fist of Krosa

2: Garruk Wildspeaker

2: Door of Destinies

2: Riptide Replicator

2: Doubling Cube

1: Mindslaver

2: Doubling Season

3: Reap and Sow

3: Recross the Paths

2: Sylvan Scrying

3: Luminescent Rain

Thomas' Skeleton Deck

20 Swamp

Artifacts

2 Banshee’s Blade

2 Bonesplitter

3 Demon’s Horn

2 Carrionette

2 Corrosive Mentor

2 Drudge Skeletons

3 Flayed Nim

2 Kjeldoran Dead

4 Lim-Dûl’s High Guard

3 Skeleton Scavengers

3 Unworthy Dead

2 Bad Moon

1 Drudge Spell

2 Unholy Strength

3 Lose Hope

2 Steal Strength

2 Night’s Whisper

Music for this episode: The Nightlife by ARDEN

Check out ARDEN at www.myspace.com/thebandarden

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Welcome back to Tribal Month! This time, we start off with a quick discussion of the Eventide Booster Pack preview that showed up on the Magic website for a few days. Here's the link that worked for us after they took it down, hopefully by the time you read this it'll still be working. Be sure to run your mouse over the Overbeing of Myth to see the full text.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=magic/preview/evepack

Next up we have the results of the first Old School vs. New School Tribal Decks Overly Long Named Thing, Onslaught Soldiers vs. Lorwyn Soldiers! Who won? Well you'll just have to listen to find out, won't you? Remember, we went with an almost Highlander deck for each one, only including cards that dealt specifically with Soldiers from each block, with one Captain as a four-of. The Captains were chosen by a vote on the forums, so thanks very much for everyone that participated in that. You can keep voting for non-Soldiers if you like. There was a bit of a problem with this format though. The Lorwyn Soldiers are woefully underrepresented, so we decided to allow for backup from Knights (slightly better class of soldier, right?), flavorful cards from the Lorwyn block (Coordinated Barrage, Daily Regimen), Kithkin cards (Wizened Cenn, Kithkin Harbinger), and finally non-rare Changelings (Changeling Sentinel, Avian Changeling). They also get two Captains, just to keep the numbers the same. The Onslaught Captain is Daru Warchief, and the Lorwyn Captains are Kinsbaile Borderguard (unanimous vote!) and Cenn's Tactician. The full decklists will be published in the Tribal Month thread on the forums (also where you can vote for the rest of the tribes), found here:

http://cardshark.freeforums.org/tribal-month-t179.html

In honor of Tribal Month here on the Mana Pool, we decided to dig around and find a tribal deck we could bring Out of the Deck Box for your listening pleasure. Since 3/4 of us have Zombie decks, we decided to go with that. Here are the decklists for those lovable undead guys.

Dirk's Zombies
20 Swamps
1 Lord of the Undead
1 Vengeful Dead
2 Boneknitter
2 Noxious Ghoul
2 Severed Legion
2 Soulless One
2 Twisted Abomination
2 Undead Warchief
3 Shepherd of Rot
4 Festering Goblin
4 Gravedigger
1 Aphetto Dredging
1 Debtor's Knell
2 Bubbling Muck
2 Cruel Revival
2 Dark Banishing
2 Eradicate
2 Patriarch's Bidding
3 Consume Spirit

 

 

Mike's Zombies

17 Swamp
3 Spawning Pool
1 Unholy Grotto
4 Soulless One
4 Stromgald Crusader
4 Twisted Abomination
4 Undead Warchief
3 Bone Dancer
2 Grave Defiler
2 Gravedigger
2 Gravespawn Sovereign
1 Grotesque Hybrid
1 Helldozer
1 Lord of the Undead
4 Innocent Blood
4 Strongarm Tactics
3 Feast or Famine

 

Chewie's Zombies
18 Swamp
2 Barren Moor
2 Unholy Grotto
2 Carrion Feeder
4 Festering Goblin
2 Skirk Ridge Exhumer
2 Rakdos Guildmage
2 Zombie Master
2 Lord of the Undead
1 Zombie Trailblazer
1 Undead Gladiator
2 Vengeful Dead
2 Brain Gorgers
3 Soulless One
3 Undead Warchief
1 Balthor the Defiled
2 Noxious Ghoul
2 Twisted Abomination
2 Gempalm Polluter
1 Nefashu
2 Gravespawn Sovereign
2 Feeding Frenzy
2 Zombie Infestation

And finally, we finish up by taking a quick look at Brian's experience at Regionals, where he piloted, appropriately enough, a Merfolk tribal deck. And since that's a complete episode, we decided to stop there.

Forum thread for this episode:  http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-31-soldiers-and-zombies-and-merfolk-oh-my-t186.html
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This episode's music: Apparently Tribal Month and No-Music Month overlap. I didn't get the memo that they'd both be in June...

Well, this was going to be our first Tribal Month episode, but Wizards went and threw a curve ball at us. There's a big bunch of announcements that appeared this week, and we're here to give you our two cents' worth. Well, there's four of us, so that's eight cents. Don't spend it all in one place. We discuss the changes, talk about some of the things Mark Rosewater said about the changes, and then talk about the changes some more. There's a new rarity (mythic rare!), a land in each booster (one less common), and smaller set sizes from here out (compensates for the other two changes). Also, they're changing up the way preconstructed decks are put together (still the same price though) and how the Magic novels are published (not that anyone's really going to notice). Now that I've typed all that, you can go listen to us rant about each of these tidbits. Find those announcements here:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/20080602

And Rosewater's article here:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr334

Then there's the obligatory discussion about the Old vs. New Tribal War that we're going to wage. Onslaught vs. Lorwyn, with the four tribes that cross over going head to head. Elves, Goblins, Soldiers, and Wizards from each block will attempt to beat the living crap out of the other block's tribe. But each deck needs a captain, and that's where you guys come in. We need you to hit the forums and let us know which option for captain is the best one. You can find those options in the forums, here:

http://cardshark.freeforums.org/tribal-month-t179.html

And last but not least, we bring Dirk's infamous Elf deck Out of the Deck Box, courtesy of a request by Mayshod. And speaking of which, here it is. It might not look utterly terrifying, but in a game consisting of 4-8 people, it's pretty freakin' scary. Trust us all on this. Freakin' scary.

Land

18 Forest

Creatures
1 Allosaurus Rider
1 Civic Wayfinder
1 Elvish Soultiller
1 Seedborn Muse
1 Wren's Run Packmaster
2 Elvish Champion
2 Elvish Riders
2 Imperious Perfect
2 Nath's Elite
2 Voice of the Wood
3 Immaculate Magistrate
3 Lys Alana Huntmaster
4 Heedless One
4 Llanowar Elf
4 Wellwisher
4 Wirewood Channeler

Other Spells
1 Gaea's Anthem
2 Naturalize
2 Privileged Position

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-30-and-now-for-something-not-completely-different-t185.html
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This episode's music: No music again. This is like an episode and a half in length, you'll manage without the music.