Commander 2017 - Tribes revealed?
Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation forum
Posted on July 29, 2017, 3:09 p.m. by Ska4Life1989
So after looking for any other spoilers I noticed this:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/products/commander-2017
On the products coming page the background seems to confirm:
Dragons, Cats, Vampires? and unsure on the last... demons maybe?
Thoughts? :D
I know that Wizards said the decks aren't based on the color pie, but it would make sense if it was mono-U Wizards. We already have WUBRG Dragons and W/G Cats "confirmed", and if the Vampire deck is B/R, it would leave U as the only color to appear only once.
July 29, 2017 4:22 p.m.
I want esper zombies so bad; I hope that's what we get. She doesn't look like a zombie tho :(
All of the lead legends have the type Avatar; so Edgar Markov would make sense since he created the vampire race. I'm not sure how you'd get a Human Avatar. Adam and Eve? Lmao
July 29, 2017 4:50 p.m.
That Vampire deck had better be Mardu. We already have enough Rakdos Vampire Commanders.
Everybody also wanted Esper Zombies, the last deck is probably Dimir/Esper. Doesn't look like Zombies though.
WotC needs to get it together. Since when is Cats one of the most popular Tribes? Dragons? Cool. Vampires? Cool. Cats? No.
July 29, 2017 5:13 p.m.
Cats is fairly popular as a tribe since there are some pretty cool mono white cats (and green white). And they've appeared in a ton of blocks, but they don't feel over done like dragons or vampires yet.
Also am I the only one who wants the last tribe to be B/G/U Fairies? Like that'd be great.
July 29, 2017 6:05 p.m.
Oloro_Magic says... #10
I wouldn't mind some new fae cards either, rogues though also sounds cool as we could get some new fae there as well
July 29, 2017 7:37 p.m.
I hate the idea of cat tribal, and it is far from being "iconic".
They should have stuck to the popular tribes; They're popular for a reason.
July 29, 2017 9:37 p.m.
I know it's next to impossible but I keep hoping the fourth commander is the female howlpack alpha from Innistrad and we can finally get a proper werewolf commander.
July 30, 2017 12:17 a.m.
About cats, it seems like Wizards was thinking about a quirky choice and decided "cats XD". It isn't really daring or funny. It just comes across as wasteful. Just think, we could've had a angel, zombie, or werewolf commander in good colors that actually supported the tribe, but instead they pick cats.
In any case, I feel as though the last tribe is giving off a kind of Innistrad vibe. It reminds me of Lunar Mystic. It also makes me think that it could be the person referenced in the flavor text of some cards like Forsaken Sanctuary - the leader of some crazy cultists or something.
One thing is almost guaranteed - no DFCs. The printing process is different and not easy to incorporate, so only dedicated sets (Innistrad, FTV transform, etc.) are really worth it. We might still get a werewolf commander (though it seems very unlikely), but we are almost certainly not getting a Bloodline Keeper in the vampire deck, and it's probably going to spike in price as a result.
July 30, 2017 4:36 a.m.
Ska4Life1989 says... #15
Just checked and there are no Bloodline Keepers in stock in the UK so I am guessing your right about that!
July 30, 2017 6:14 a.m.
Winterblast says... #16
The cat deck is imo a very interesting one because the commander boosts the creatures from the command zone. There's a lot to be done in GW with a free +3/+3 starting at turn 1. Double strikers, infect, extra boosts and Berserk...this can be an interesting aggro deck in a format that usually doesn't favour aggro
July 30, 2017 6:39 a.m.
That grandeur mechanic is hot garbage, imo. I am assuming no one on the dev team has played vs orolo and dealt with that dumb.
July 30, 2017 4:02 p.m.
griz024 maybe we will see some cards that lock down, or cancel effects from the commander zone.
July 30, 2017 4:31 p.m.
I can only hope. I applaud the effort on wotc's part, messing with the cmd zone is interesting dev space, but it appears they havent learned from darevi or orolo. Abilities from the cmd zone completely neuter a whole range of avenues for dealing with a deck' strategy
July 30, 2017 4:45 p.m.
Winterblast says... #20
It could be so easy if Sheldon changed the tuck rule again. But as hard as abilities in the command zone are to shut down...the dragon ability with reducing the casting cost by 1 is crap. Dragons are still expensive and won't do anything in the very early game. I'll probably just get ramos and taigam as singles and buy the cat deck as a whole. I just hope they print some good completely new cats there.
July 30, 2017 4:57 p.m.
The Ur-Dragon is a big letdown. His CMC is too high to be a viable commander. That isn't even getting into bitching about how he fits into the lore, and why Scion and Pops share the Dragon Avatar type. If they had made him a Dragon God with some sort of dragon related devotion that might have made a little more sense, and resulted in a more interesting commander.
July 30, 2017 8:28 p.m.
I expect this to be a low power year. There isn't anything, yet, that looks extremely powerful. This is probably just a fun year. Perhaps some Pubstomp Commanders.
It reminds me of Kaalia of the Vast. While an extremely fun Commander, (in my opinion), she isn't particularly competitive.
Perhaps it's just my hopes, but I feel like one of the other two decks will be the powerful deck, probably Vampires.
July 31, 2017 1:02 a.m.
Ska4Life1989 says... #23
I am not going to get the cat deck. Seems lame. Probably will pick up at least two of them though... hopefully the Two unspoiled ones are semi-decent. If not I'll pick up the dragon deck as I have the land base needed to at least pick up the speed of it a little...
July 31, 2017 1:42 a.m.
While I sit here and talk trash, I will be buying each deck, like I always do.
To be fair though, I just always buy all of the decks. Buying them doesn't mean I'm happy about them or think they were a good idea, (Cats).
Of course we don't know what cards are in each of the decks. WotC might be trolling us and putting all the best cards in the Cat deck. I guess we'll see soon.
July 31, 2017 9:01 a.m.
Winterblast says... #25
Why are your expectations for the cat deck so low? I think the cats we already have are mostly very good, have a low cost for much value and come in colours that support aggro quite well. I'm really looking forward to adding green to my Brimaz deck with the new commander set...just think about how awful that command zone effect is after a Cataclysm. You can even run Ramunap Excavator with green. I just hope the other two foil legendary creatures (hopefully new ones?) in the cat deck are as good as the spoiled one.
July 31, 2017 9:36 a.m.
Ska4Life1989 says... #26
To be honest I'd never play just white and green as they are my two least favourite colours. I like cats, but not enough to play those colours.
In my opinion I think you would struggle to keep the cat theme up when you make amendments to it. It will probably be strong out the box compared to the others due to the aggro capabilities but the others will be stronger once you adapt the precons
July 31, 2017 9:58 a.m.
darthchriak says... #27
So i was looking at the picture for the vampire tribe and since this set is about making tribes matter as well as printing cards that have been prominent players in the lore but have yet to get a card.... bare with me but how sweet would it be to have the vampire be mardu but also be Edgar Markov the father of effing vampires???? I'm a bit of a Sorin fanboy so i'm biased but still. Wizards please make my wish come true.
July 31, 2017 10 a.m.
Winterblast says... #28
Ska4Life1989 the good aspect of the cats we know by now is that they don't really require much other cats to work. Brimaz makes his own tokens, strong enough for 1WW, but insane if you can get a bonus for the fact that these tokens are of the type cat. Regal Caracal takes two 2/2 lifelink with it, which is good even if there are no other cats in play. Felidar Guardian offers an alternative win, doesn't really matter that it's a cat...we even have a decent infect cat with Lost Leonin and two double strike cats. With green you can play Invigorate, Might of Old Krosa, Triumph of the Hordes, Overwhelming Stampede, Berserk, which are even worse with a free +3/+3 from the command zone.
Of course a tribal deck can't be played by just stuffing all tribal cards in a pile of 100 cards, so I assume the precons are really bad to play out of the box (as always).
July 31, 2017 11:05 a.m.
I know there are good Cats but I guess my expectations were a bit different due to the announcement saying, "most popular, and interesting, tribes!"
I don't find Cats particularly interesting, maybe that's just me.
On popularity....
Dragons come in at #4 most popular. Vampires are #6. Where do Cats fall in popularity? Cats are the 24th most popular Tribe in Magic. Think about that for a minute.....24!!
For reference: 1 - Zombies, 2 - Goblins, 3 - Elves, 4 - Dragons, 5 - Slivers, 6 - Vampires
I understand not doing Elves as the 2014 deck was extremely Elf heavy. Slivers would probably be bad as well, it would be extremely hard to balance with the other Precons. Goblins are an option, but I'm not sure how much more support they need lol, regardless we aren't getting them.
The real kicker here is ZOMBIES!! We want an Esper Zombie Commander, we NEED an Esper Zombie Commander. Why did they pick Cats again? I guess I see the logic though, there are ONLY 23 more popular Tribes in Magic......
July 31, 2017 11:33 a.m. Edited.
It'll have a new version of Trading Post with a bunch of cat related abilities, and it'll be called Scratching Post
July 31, 2017 11:43 a.m.
@maxon haha XD
The cat deck is gonna knock the other decks off the table
July 31, 2017 11:59 a.m.
I dont get the whole cat thing either. But then again i hate cats, so that likely explains it lol
Also, the sexualized lenoin freak me the hell out. Kemba, Kha Regent for example
July 31, 2017 12:35 p.m.
Winterblast says... #34
iAzire it's quite obvious why there isn't a new zombie commander in this set when we just had The Scarab God.
I wonder what they will come up if one of the other decks is indeed vampires. Until now I always felt that vampires might be cool but there simply aren't enough really powerful ones for a whole commander deck. In the past vampires only appeared with abilities like "when X kills another creature, put a counter on it", which is pretty weak and the mass of vampires from Innistrad aren't busted because they are so new that the overall power level didn't allow for a really broken card for a format like commander. How many vampires can we count at the moment that could possibly be used in a somehow competitive aggro deck? 5 to 10 maybe?
July 31, 2017 1:15 p.m.
I think a lot of the reasoning for doing the cat deck, despite its apparent popularity, is because it is a tribe that is missing several things to be a viable tribe. I don't think it would be wise to offer more support for tribes that have what they need to be viable decks.
Honestly, I was hoping they'd go this route, instead of offering popular tribes that already have a good amount of support. Commander is supposed to be a format of diversity and variance, and I would imagine that's something most of us like about it. This does just that; making more options more viable.
I'm very interested to see what colors/tribes are left. I'm hoping Vampires is Mardu, and the other is Grixis. As long as one or the other is true, I will be very happy with this year's Commander products.
July 31, 2017 1:38 p.m.
There's like 13 or 14 W zombie cards though, even with the newest few sets. And a lot of them aren't really worth adding. I don't think Esper Zombies is really necessary.
July 31, 2017 1:41 p.m.
It appears the final tribe is grixs wizards. Spoiled on some Japanese gaming site.
July 31, 2017 1:52 p.m.
griz024 do you have a link to that spoiler? I would interested in seeing that!
July 31, 2017 2:10 p.m.
Ska4Life1989 says... #41
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/6qpdav/c17_tribe_and_color_confirmed/
Dunno how to link sorry!
July 31, 2017 2:23 p.m.
Ska4Life1989 says... #42
Not too much info though, and cant confirm the text. They could still be guessing... Nothing too official.
July 31, 2017 2:23 p.m.
It's probably blue/black cat rogues. You can clearly see in the picture in post #4 that the woman has cat scratches on her face, and those guys in the background are clearly scooping a very large litter box. I'm thinking we're going to see something similar to ninjutsu, except it will be called Pounce.
July 31, 2017 3:23 p.m.
A) that actually would make the most sense because the best wizards are in UBR and RWB kind fits with the whole "weaken things to make your stuff stronger" thing vampires do.
B) nice user name, I'm glad someone picked it up, pick it up, pick it up.
July 31, 2017 3:24 p.m.
Ty Ska4Life1989 great user name, btw. Mustard Plug FTW lol
I forgot to link.
July 31, 2017 3:41 p.m.
Grixis wizards, eh? Seems like WotC can't control their vanity.
Now I'm interested again. Grixis is notoriously cool. I'm also interested in the dragon deck.
Honestly, I'm skeptical that Wizards made the right choice with cats. What's next, dinosaurs? Pirates? Sirens? Oh, wait... At least (2 of) those archetypes will be well supported after Ixalan block. On the other hand, you could blatantly see Wizards cramming cat support in Amonkhet, since they evidently couldn't fit what they needed into the slots for new precon cards.
And hey, vampires confirmed mardu. That's actually really neat, what with what we've seen from Ixalan leaks and gaining access to more lifegain synergies. But if this is going to be another generic life gain commander, even if it is tribal, I'll be a little disappointed.
July 31, 2017 4:58 p.m.
Winterblast I understand that we just got The Scarab God as a new Zombie Commander, but the fact remains that it is still Dimir and not Esper.
mr_naler I understand your desire for increased support to the less popular Tribes. My issue with the entire thing is that Wizards didn't advertise this as such, they specifically said popular Tribes. Cats are not popular.
dbpunk I understand that we don't have too many competitive Zombies. The Precon could give us an Esper Zombie Commander AND additional Zombies. It also opens up Zombie creation in future sets. It would give THE most popular Tribe another direction, a way to make it fresh.
July 31, 2017 11:32 p.m.
DarkLaw honestly I'm kinda hoping for an Elesh Norn kind of deal for the RWB commander. Specifically since weakening creatures is a big deal for vampires.
August 1, 2017 12:30 a.m.
iAzire, I believe part of the reason for this apparent lack of popularity is due to a lack of support. If something is not good, people aren't going to play it as much. I would expect cats to rise in popularity drastically after this releases. Cat tribal currently forces you to play Voltron, and if you're going to play Voltron, there are better options. This was always my predicament. There wasn't a good Commander in GW, which cats definitely wants to be, and I didn't want to play Voltron. The first issue has been handled, and at least it appears that a straight aggro/midrange deck will be possible. I suppose time will tell if this was a good call by Wizards, but I am personally stoked about it, and the general perception of it has been positive imo.
August 1, 2017 3:08 a.m.
I just hate how cats of all things, a sort of joke tribe, managed to take a slot among the most popular tribes in the game, instead of almost anything else. Elementals, angels, zombies, goblins... Whatever.
greyninja says... #2
We were talking a bit about it here if you want to join in! Looks like the fourth tribe may be wizards or rogues or clerics. Likely by the color scheme
July 29, 2017 3:32 p.m.