!? Yellow Jacket! LOL, haven't been that since before the color change here at the CPA!So, because I'm hungover and my brain is running 2 speeds slower than normal, you're suggesting that creature type cards should be allowed in multiples(up to 4), but other card types should be limited to one? I don't see any problem with that. Anyone else?
There was a color change here? (Don't answer that; I'm kidding.) I actually joined after the colors changed, but there have been enough people that stop by after 15 years of inactivity and inevitably ask if "YellowJacket" is still around.
I guess I wasn't clear earlier. That was actually what I was suggesting. Any tribal creature can have four copies. All other cards are limited to one. Also, I wasn't actually thinking of having a dedicated commander. I think that might limit some good options, based on my understanding of Commander rules (must be Legendary, all cards in the deck must be the same color(s) as the commander.) I guess I was really suggesting more of a tribal / highlander hybrid format.
I just checked this out and it's legal. I built a deck with 10 elves and 10 changeling shapeshifters and started a Tribal Wars game and it was allowed. And just to be sure, I then started a game with a random deck and it gave me an error that I couldn't use the deck in that format because it didn't have 1/3 creatures of the same type. So, as far as MTGO is concerned, changelings count as every creature type.
So this would make every creature type, including the ones with zero printed cards, legal as tribes. Amusing, but not particularly problematic. A Brushwagg deck is going to be a huge disadvantage against, say, a bird deck.
I thought about this for a few seconds and actually, I like this more. Tribal Commander could be interesting, but it would severely limit the number of viable tribes. They'd not only need a legendary creature, they'd also need to fit in creatures of the appropriate colors for the commander. Obviously not a problem for largely monocolored tribes (merfolk) or for tribes with good variegated legendaries (slivers), but for most tribes, it'd be a crippling deckbuilding constraint. If we make it tribal, but stipulate that all cards other than basic lands and creatures of the chosen tribe are restricted, we've effectively forced the game to be even more about tribes.
Yes, I'm in favor of such, as well. I meant for the restrictions I presented as an addition to the tribal / legacy banned list mentioned earlier in this post.
So tell me if I'm following you here. Under the current concept, a deck could be 60+ cards, with a legendary tribe Commander, 1/3 tribal creatures(allowing an original and up to 3 copies of the same creature), and a limitation on all other cards(including non-tribal creatures and excluding basic lands) to no more than 1 of any in the deck. All of this, plus whatever we work out as a "banned completely" list.
One key difference: no Commander. That makes all tribes eligible, not just those containing a legendary creature. It also removes the fancy interactions with commanders that are so format-defining. This is basically just another version of tribal. It's even pretty similar to the tribal highlander special game we did after five or so tribal games. But the highlander aspect wouldn't affect the tribe, just the other cards. The banned list would probably be the union of the Legacy banned list and the Tribal Wars Legacy banned list (see Post #5 of this thread).
So that becomes the next question. Have we decided that goblins, elves, and zombies(and any others, potentially?) are off the table completely, or are we just restricting certain cards, or what's the story? Perhaps we need a list of "approved" tribes or something? It just seems to me that playing Tribal and eliminating three of the most significant tribes going is odd(although I could see the potential for nasty decks), even though I personally have very little interest in playing any of those tribes. And are we restricting tribes to specific players(i.e. Spiderman is building a white/green Human deck, and so no one else can play Humans, or have to play Humans of a different colour combination), or is it handled just as a free-for-all?
Goblins, elves, and zombies were off the table for previous tribal games here, with the exception of the highlander tribal game we played. The distinction is that for that game, which was probably bound to be something of a one-off, was strictly highlander, with no duplicates of any cards, not even the tribal creatures. Under a strict highlander approach, although many tribes would be viable, a whole lot of otherwise viable tribes would be completely eliminated. With modified highlander rules, the creature availability remains the same, but the potential to apply powerful interactions using cards that aren't involved in the tribe is, literally, restricted.
Why? One of the cool things about this was seeing what crazy stuff people came up with. Kithkin won one of the games and I'd never even heard of Kithkin at the time.
It's a power-level thing. I don't remember what the discussion was when the rule was originally put in place, and actually, it was done before some other tribes (faeries, for example) got huge boosts with the printing of later sets. Also, the "can't play tribes that have already been used" rule didn't come until later. People would have been able to just keep playing goblins, elves, or zombies over and over, and one of those three would likely win every game. Banning the three tribes that were far more powerful than the others was a way to encourage diversity.
We had different people happen to pick the same tribe at least once, when two of us both picked wizards. So I guess free-for-all?
