New Tribal Commander Speculation
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on May 1, 2017, 2:11 p.m. by vbfabled
For those of you who don't know, this year's official commander decks are going to be tribal, not linked to color, and there will only be 4 of them. My question is: what tribes do you think or hope are getting decks this year?
Personally I'm hoping for a werewolf, because Ulrich of the Krallenhorde Flip is not cutting it.
There's another discussion on the topic here which has a lot of speculation on the new commander decks
May 1, 2017 2:41 p.m.
I'll repeat my thoughts from the other thread:
I really like the idea of job-based tribal. Especially if Wizards does a Dungeons and Dragons tie-in, with Warrior, Wizards, Cleric, and Rogue tribal decks.
May 1, 2017 3:21 p.m.
I want it to be tribes that don't have a lot of support but are still relevant (the need a solid legendary to lead them).
Hopefully it's not decks that have tons of support: goblins, elves, Ally's and slivers.
I hope that one of the decks is a tribal spirit deck. We have enough spirits for it we just don't have a tribe specific legendary to lead them.
May 1, 2017 3:45 p.m.
Wee_Dragonaut says... #7
I think Wizards and Spirits are reasonable choices for Tribal Commander decks. They are well-liked, have decent support, and have been begging for proper commanders for years. Tribes I would really like, but are less likely are listed below:
- Rogues
- Saprolings
- Forests (wouldn't that be cool?)
- Clerics
- Cephalids
- Goats
- Sphinxes
I think we will get at least 1 typical tribe (like Elves or Goblins), so I dearly hope WotC does something special with them, like colorshift them. I am also confident we will not see a Werewolf commander. Think about it: have we ever seen a packaged product with double-sided cards in them?
May 1, 2017 4:07 p.m.
@xrex479, we usually get 56 new cards from each of the commander releases, but they're spread put over five decks. If they still print 56 new cards across the four decks; we may see a lot of support that wasn't there before
@Wee_Dragonaut, the tokens are double-faced XD XD XD XD XD XD
May 1, 2017 4:35 p.m.
greyninja true but I don't think we'll get tribes that are unknown. Vashino, jackal, etc.. clayperce I really like that idea, because I don't think WTC would just throw out some random tribes without giving some sort of overall flavor to the block.
May 1, 2017 4:45 p.m.
Wee_Dragonaut,
I know Wizards hasn't ever done DFCs in supplemental products, but there's actually a perfect candidate for a single-sided Werewolf Commander: Tovolar.
The relevant lore: The Mondronen howlpack is composed of around sixty werewolves who are said to control a dark, bloody magic of nature. Their alpha Tovolar is a mute, silver-furred werewolf who leads his pack on revels of carnage and howling songs, and who never seems to revert to human form. The Mondronen wolves historically stayed far from centers of civilization, only preying on farmlands, rural communities, and remote monasteries. But as Avacyn's protective wards have diminished in strength, it's said that the Mondronen territory has grown closer to cities, and that their dark magics may soon spill over into genteel life.
Besides never transforming, another cool thing about Tovolar is he's got some definite Black color pie in him, and a Jund Commander would allow us to run ALL the Werewolves, including the original Black ones from Dominaria.
May 1, 2017 4:53 p.m. Edited.
Raging_Squiggle,
Totally! Though I'm holding tight to Squirrel Warriors, Squirrel Wizards, Squirrel Clerics, and Squirrel Rogues ...
May 1, 2017 5:13 p.m.
Maybe I can still get Tovalar too ... Weresquirrel seems likely.
May 1, 2017 5:13 p.m.
greyninja They said in the announcement that there would be 56 new cards released.
While I enjoy the theorycrafting like everybody else, I don't think it will be odd Tribes, or Tribes with little support. The announcement also states, "this year's theme isn't based on the color wheel but some of Magic's most popular, and interesting, tribes!"
Most popular and interesting. Key words in my mind.
May 1, 2017 7:45 p.m.
iAzire,
True, but "interesting" is in the eye of the beholder.
All,
FYI, here are the most popular tribes.
May 1, 2017 8:07 p.m. Edited.
I'm assuming since they've done Elves in the 2014 Pre-con, we'll be getting some other tribes.
Personally hoping to see Dragons as one of the decks.
May 1, 2017 9:39 p.m.
Yes I expect Elves to be left out, thus we have 4 decks.
- Esper Zombies
- 5 Color Dragons
- Jund Goblins
What else?
May 1, 2017 10:38 p.m.
Hopefully we see merfolk in bant, jeskai, or temur
They might wait on dragons until iconic masters
May 1, 2017 10:53 p.m.
Merfolk, Vampires, Dragons, and Zombies is my guess.
I think Slivers will be too op, and would easily hold the highest value of the 4 decks based on synergy alone.
Colours may surprise us for each tribe perhaps to shake things up. For example 5 coloured dragon commander is very obvious, few ever consider a tri or quad coloured dragon deck.
May 1, 2017 11:56 p.m.
CChaos merfolk would probably be bant because we have legendary creatures to make that color combo.Thrasios, Triton Hero and Sygg, River Guide
I also think vampires would be mardu because we have the 2 vampire families from inistrad lead by Sorin and Olivia. The lore would be that they had to join forces because of the eldrazi. Or they could be grixis for all I know.
Zombies might be esper because of amonkhet giving us black white zombies and we already have blue black zombies so we might get an esper legendary to combine them.
May 2, 2017 12:41 a.m.
Steelspike says... #22
xrex479 - Brago, King Eternal and Geist of Saint Traft would like a word with you
May 2, 2017 8:22 a.m.
After a couple hours of discussing some of the possiblities, logically trying to think through it. It makes most sense to distribute them by colors, but colors NOT being the defining trait, more of a happen-stance.
I believe there will be a 5 color deck, a 3 color deck, a 2 color and a Mono color deck, all of popularized tribes in magic, or tribes that already have some support or popularity. Artifacts is not a tribe but one could be based around artifacts is a consideration.
The way I reached this conclusion was, I thought like a designer and magic player, and then I threw that out and thought like someone in wizards, and stuck basically to what they do most of the time, stick to what they know, or wing it.
My predictions are
- 5 color, Slivers
- 3 color, Elementals (RUG) or Spirits (Bant)
- 2 color, Vampires (BR) or Werewolves (RG)
- Mono color, Kors (White).
Of course the most POPULAR Elves, Goblins, Merfolk, and Humans are easily likely, but as for EDH popularity and playablity, and what Wotc would do is where I based my estimates.
May 4, 2017 4:49 a.m.
Steelspike I already talked to them and we agreed that a tribal spirit relationship won't work the way we thought it would. Brago, King Eternal works best for combo decks. Geist of Saint Traft is too selfish, he likes to be played Voltron or control (without the aid of spirits).I prefer my tribal leaders to have abilities that focus on spirits. Cloudhoof Kirin is my ideal spirit leader. If only he was blue white.
May 4, 2017 11:52 a.m.
Not to mention they only cover the U/W spirits, but there's a ton of cool tribal spirits from Kamigawa in green, red, and black.
May 4, 2017 11:56 a.m.
Will361405 says... #26
I feel like dragons should be in here, and personally I really want to see giants, and just for fun I'd love to see changeling tribal
seth_boniface says... #2
I want slivers but I doubt we will get it, it'll probably have elves
May 1, 2017 2:33 p.m.