Tribal - What is it and Where'd it go?
General forum
Posted on June 24, 2015, 7:48 p.m. by JRaynor
Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment - They're all variant speeds of the same conceptual idea.
Planeswalker, Creature, Artifact - These are things. Dudes and magic items basically. I get it.
Then there's Tribal... o_O So when I first looked at a Tarmogoyf I was pretty surprised to find that Tribal was an actual card type and not just a sub-type like human or merfolk. So what is tribal supposed to be? If it was so important an aspect of the game as to be an entire card type... why isn't it around anymore?!
Tribal was a Lorwyn block thing when there was high interaction inside of creature tribals (goblins, elves, merfolk, faeries, treefolk, kithkin, etc.), notably from the harbinger cycle (Boggart Harbinger) which could fetch any card with the specified tribal (Tarfire).
June 24, 2015 8:06 p.m.
NoPantsParade says... #4
But weren't there Eldrazi cards later? Not of This World and All Is Dust?
June 24, 2015 8:06 p.m.
JWiley129 Ohhhh I see the parallels now. It makes a lot more sense suddenly. A Creature type related spell. gotcha. And yes it does seem rather clunky. I can understand giving up on it, though it's a fun idea.
June 24, 2015 9:02 p.m.
I still hope tribal comes back. And JWiley129, the better question is why isn't Goblin Grenade tribal? Besides it being 14 years too early.
June 24, 2015 9:10 p.m.
TehCoopeh - unfortunately for you, Maro has said they aren't supporting Tribal so there won't be any new Tribal cards printed.
June 24, 2015 9:11 p.m.
I had not cued in to the non-goblin nature of Dragon Fodder and so on, nor had I heard they're cutting Tribal out entirely. Sad days. It's no more "complicated" than enchantment creatures...
June 25, 2015 12:16 p.m.
shinobigarth says... #10
Another reason is they didn't want to have unforeseen things happen with it like Boggart Shenanigans being able to be used for Goblin Grenade which totally works but they didn't hunk about that being possible. Maro talked about it in a podcast one time and was saying he's annoyed at how they have to specify "_" creature all the time now instead of just the creature type because of the tribal thing and not wanting non creatures to be used for things that flavor wise should be a creature.
July 15, 2015 1:57 p.m.
Well no. They are still supporting Tribal. Maro said they would use it, like Hybrid Mana or mechanics like that where it fitted.
JWiley129 says... #2
Tribal was a card type that you can put on non-creature spells to give them creature subtypes. E.g. Bitterblossom, Nameless Inversion, etc.
Tribal is no longer supported because Wizards realized that it just adds too much complexity to the game. As an example: Why isn't Dragon Fodder a Goblin spell? It makes Goblins, so why isn't it a Tribal Sorcery - Goblin? What about Army of the Damned? Why isn't it a Tribal Sorcery - Zombie?
It added something that Wizards didn't want to have to police or deal with people complaining about.
June 24, 2015 8 p.m.