The one thing I don't understand is why people believe that "Tribal" is going to affect all enchantments. This is ridiculous. Surely Tribal is a supertype which will effect the subtype group in some way or another? I think the problem with Tribal lies in the fact that what we've seen of it so far is an entirely superfluous supertype with an entirely superfluous subtype. I cannot believe that it will remain so by the time Lorwyn has come and gone.
Tribal's not a supertype, it's a type, but that's been talked about to death already. If you want to know why, do an ask wizards search for "Tribal." I think it's the May 14th one that answers it.
The thing with tribal is that, as clunky and unintuitive it is, it's by far the least clunky and intuitive way they could do it. Just sticking creature types onto non-creature permanents is a complete rules nightmare. You can't have a non-tribal enchantment that's a goblin because that's prevented by the same rules that do things like make sure Mistform Ultimus isn't a forest. Different card types have different subtypes because it stops weird things from happening with the rules.
The other solution that's been proposed with tribal is to have seperate subtypes that apply to non-creatures that associate them with a creature type, similar to how arcane associates instants and sorceries with spirits. The problem with this is that you end up with a whole mess of suptypes to memorize. Kamigawa just had arcane, so it worked, at least from a complexity standpoint (it had other problems, but that's not what I'm talking about). If they could just, as had been suggested, have "Whenever you play a goblin or booger spell" instead of "Goblin spell" with goblins including non-creatures, that could be fine. But you wouldn't have just that. Booger could only apply to instants and sorceries, or enchantments, for the same reason that Goblin could only apply to creatures. You you'd have goblin creatures, and booger instants and sorceries, and other types of enchantments and lands. And then you have another four different types for treefolk, and elves, and merrow, and so on, and you now have about 40 different subtypes to remember and you have to remember that booger is the goblin one, and some other weird name is the treefolk one, and it becomes a mess. It's much better to just say that anything associated with a goblin is a goblin, whether it's a creature or not.
Of course, even if it's relatively simple, Tribal is still a kind of awkward way to do things. It clutters up the typeline a lot, involves some awkward errata on older cards to make sure they only effect creatures and you don't accidentally give a tribal enchantment flying or something like that. It is fairly grokkable at a basic level, but as soon as you look any deeper than that it becomes incredibly confusing, especially with the whole type-supertype issue. So even if tribal's the simplest solution to having non-creatures that still associate with goblins, the question is, is it worth it?
Personally, I think the idea has potential, but I agree with others that it's messy and causes a lot of problems if done badly. But I'd say at the very least, let's see what Wizards does with it. If it's just six different variations of arcane and Lorwyn is the new Kamigawa, then Tribal was a mistake, Wizards will probably admit it eventually, and hopefully Jelly Block, or at least Rock Block, will be better. And if it does work, then awesome, and maybe Lorwyn will be the set that Champions and Onslaught should have been. I'm going to take the same approach that I'm taking with Planeswalkers: I'm a bit worried, but I'm going to be optimistic and hope they knows what they're doing. Wizards tends to learn from their mistakes in the past in my opinion, even if they do create plenty of new mistakes to replace them, so I expect this to work a bit better than arcane did.
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No, but they would be, if they were printed now. In fact, the ones that get reprinted are going to look silly because Wizards won't be willing/able to tack on "Tribal" even though they should.
I think what Wizards was going for here was not to say that the enchantments or whatever have properties of the creatures in their typelines, but rather that those spells are used by that particular race or class. For example, perhaps the rebels of the future are unique in that they prefer to Bound their enemies in Silence rather than actually fighting them, so being thus Bound becomes associated with fighting against Rebels. Similarly, for your Goblin Torch argument, perhaps that's the only kind of torch Goblins use, so when someone else sees it, they think, "Oh, that's one of those Goblin spells." It's more for flavor than anything, since there aren't a whole lot of new design applications I can see (it basically seems like Arcane, but it's able to pump Tarmogoyf).
I think what Wizards was going for here was not to say that the enchantments or whatever have properties of the creatures in their typelines, but rather that those spells are used by that particular race or class. For example, perhaps the rebels of the future are unique in that they prefer to Bound their enemies in Silence rather than actually fighting them, so being thus Bound becomes associated with fighting against Rebels. Similarly, for your Goblin Torch argument, perhaps that's the only kind of torch Goblins use, so when someone else sees it, they think, "Oh, that's one of those Goblin spells." It's more for flavor than anything, since there aren't a whole lot of new design applications I can see (it basically seems like Arcane, but it's able to pump Tarmogoyf).
Exactly.
In Final Fantasy, the White Mage couldn't cast ICE, and the Black Mage couldn't cast CURE.
The spells that the White Mage could cast were called White Magic.
The spells that the Black Mage could cast were called Black Magic.
Bound in Silence isn't a Rebel, but it is a Rebel Enchantment -- that is, an Enchantment specific to the Rebels.
We're planeswalkers. We can use any kind of magic. But those normal creatures -- they can only use the magic associated with their tribe, or class, or whatever.
I'm old school, about as OLD school as they get. think 4th Edition/Ice Age old school. Unfortunatley in the "Real world" you cant Incinerate your bank manager and sadly now I have joined the ranks of the older population, and my time is taken up by things like reasearching Mortgage Refinance Rates and where to get the best possible mortgage quotes. I have however discovered the joys of Online Forex Trading which at least allows me to keep the bills in check!
Now all we need is a killer Aura along the lines of:
Gift of the Trees
GG1
Enchantment - Treefolk Aura
Enchant Treefolk creature
Enchanted Treefolk has Shroud, G1: Regenerate and +1/+1
Give me that and a reprint of Ebony Treefolk and we're off to a good start.
Tribal themed Aura's that are more powerful than usual but can only enchant their respective tribe.
That is so linear it hurts. Talk about letting Wizards design our decks for us!
I am all for Tribal, especially if it's like Kamigawa... but I don't want it to be anywhere NEAR as prevalent. I actually like modular blocks. Who WOULDN'T play that aura in a Treefolk deck? That's an auto-include.
That is so linear it hurts. Talk about letting Wizards design our decks for us!
I am all for Tribal, especially if it's like Kamigawa... but I don't want it to be anywhere NEAR as prevalent. I actually like modular blocks. Who WOULDN'T play that aura in a Treefolk deck? That's an auto-include.
That entirely depends on what else there is to make such a deck viable. As most experinced players know, you can't build a deck around a couple of good cards unless the rezt of your deck is also solid.
Point being, yes it's clearly a strong card in a treefolk deck, but it's ONLY good in a treefolk deck. If there aren't enough good Treefolk to warrant running it (and thats a skill dependent decision every player needs to make themselves) then it's it'll be a good card without a home. It's also not an auto include for a number of reasons, just a strong pumping enchantment with narrow application.
Nonetheless, I do actually agree with you in principle. I don't want wizards forcing deck designs onto us by giving bombs to specific tribes etc. I'd much prefer a more open style of play where the players have to decide how best to make use of the card pool rather than have a join-the-dots type format where there's a clear push towards specific decks.
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I'm old school, about as OLD school as they get. think 4th Edition/Ice Age old school. Unfortunatley in the "Real world" you cant Incinerate your bank manager and sadly now I have joined the ranks of the older population, and my time is taken up by things like reasearching Mortgage Refinance Rates and where to get the best possible mortgage quotes. I have however discovered the joys of Online Forex Trading which at least allows me to keep the bills in check!
for those skeptics among you re: tribal being good for card design, consider the following made up cards as an example of what can be done in this design space.
Pulsewood Grove
Tribal Land - Treefolk Forest
T: Add G to your mana pool.
Ancients of Pulsewood Legendary Tribal Land - Treefolk
T: Add G to your mana pool.
1G, T: Untap target Treefolk permanent.
Photosynthetic Flourishing 2GG
Tribal Enchantment - Treefolk
Whenever mana is added to your mana pool, if that mana is produced by a Treefolk card add an additional G to your mana pool.
Rampant Dendrification 1GG
Tribal Sorcery - Treefolk
You may search your library for a Treefolk permanent of converted mana cost 2 or less and put it into play tapped.
Pulsewood Branchweaver 1G
Creature - Treefolk Druid
T: Add G to your mana pool.
1/3
Razorleaf Wind 2G
Tribal Instant - Treefolk
Deals X damage to all flying creatures, where X is equal to the number of Treefolk permanents in play.
Barkblight 2B
Sorcery
Destroy up to 2 target Treefolk permanents, they cannot be regenerated.
Tainted Sun 2BB
Enchantment
Treefolk permanents come into play tapped. Treefolk permanents do not untap during their controller's untap step.
Drown the Roots U
Instant
Counter target Treefolk spell.
Make of that what you will. Hopefully thats a fairly convincing demonstration of why Tribal card types is good for magic design. I think it opens up alot of elegant design space. Yes, its almost definitely possible to create most of these cards (but not all, which is important) without using Tribal templating, but its alot easier to do it with tribal and there's a whole world of suggested and implied design that grows out of this as well.
How about blending tribal with another popular design theme, multicolor.
Stone Sundering Roots RG
Tribal Instant - Treefolk
When you cast ~ you may sacrifice any number of mountains and/or forests. You may add R or G mana to your mana pool for each mountain or forest sacrificed this way. This mana may only be spent to cast Treefolk spells or to pay the activation costs on Treefolk permanents.
Burntwood Branchweaver RG
Creature - Treefolk Shaman
T: Add R or G to your mana pool.
2/2
Burntwood Grove
Tribal Land - Treefolk
When ~ comes into play, tap an untapped Treefolk permanent that you control.
T: Add R or G to your mana pool.
Canopy Fire Blazebolt XR
Tribal Sorcery - Treefolk
Deal X+2 damage to target creature or player. Spend only mana produced by Treefolk cards to play this spell.
Now I have no idea what the cards in Lorwyn will look like but I think tribal is generally a good direction to go in for both Lorwyn and future sets. R+D is correct to say that it is a huge design space that they can revisit successfully several times. It makes good templating easier. It combines well with other design themes and mechanics. Its simple to understand but deep enough to do interesting things with.
for those skeptics among you re: tribal being good for card design, consider the following made up cards as an example of what can be done in this design space.
Pulsewood Grove
Tribal Land - Treefolk Forest
T: Add G to your mana pool.
Ancients of Pulsewood Legendary Tribal Land - Treefolk
T: Add G to your mana pool.
1G, T: Untap target Treefolk permanent.
I still think that Dryad Arbor is a bit more elegant than a tribal land, and a tribal land, not being a spell, is probably not even worth attempting.
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I have to disagree, Seds. There is reminder text on Dryad Arbor just to tell the player which aspects of creatures and lands do and don't apply to a card that is both.
I wish Wizards would stop being so darn cute and just make a good set of Magic cards. We don't need new crap. We just need new cards.
I still think that Dryad Arbor is a bit more elegant than a tribal land, and a tribal land, not being a spell, is probably not even worth attempting.
oh come on, now you're just being stubborn. A tribal treefolk-forest has exactly 2 more words on it then a basic forest, that pretty much defines elegance. It is most definitely worth doing because it increases interactivity, it would still count as a treefolk permanent for all the cards that cared about that.
for those skeptics among you re: tribal being good for card design, consider the following made up cards as an example of what can be done in this design space.
Pulsewood Grove
Tribal Land - Treefolk Forest
T: Add G to your mana pool.
Ancients of Pulsewood Legendary Tribal Land - Treefolk
T: Add G to your mana pool.
1G, T: Untap target Treefolk permanent.
Photosynthetic Flourishing 2GG
Tribal Enchantment - Treefolk
Whenever mana is added to your mana pool, if that mana is produced by a Treefolk card add an additional G to your mana pool.
Rampant Dendrification 1GG
Tribal Sorcery - Treefolk
You may search your library for a Treefolk permanent of converted mana cost 2 or less and put it into play tapped.
Pulsewood Branchweaver 1G
Creature - Treefolk Druid
T: Add G to your mana pool.
1/3
Razorleaf Wind 2G
Tribal Instant - Treefolk
Deals X damage to all flying creatures, where X is equal to the number of Treefolk permanents in play.
Barkblight 2B
Sorcery
Destroy up to 2 target Treefolk permanents, they cannot be regenerated.
Tainted Sun 2BB
Enchantment
Treefolk permanents come into play tapped. Treefolk permanents do not untap during their controller's untap step.
Drown the Roots U
Instant
Counter target Treefolk spell.
Make of that what you will. Hopefully thats a fairly convincing demonstration of why Tribal card types is good for magic design. I think it opens up alot of elegant design space. Yes, its almost definitely possible to create most of these cards (but not all, which is important) without using Tribal templating, but its alot easier to do it with tribal and there's a whole world of suggested and implied design that grows out of this as well.
How about blending tribal with another popular design theme, multicolor.
Stone Sundering Roots RG
Tribal Instant - Treefolk
When you cast ~ you may sacrifice any number of mountains and/or forests. You may add R or G mana to your mana pool for each mountain or forest sacrificed this way. This mana may only be spent to cast Treefolk spells or to pay the activation costs on Treefolk permanents.
Burntwood Branchweaver RG
Creature - Treefolk Shaman
T: Add R or G to your mana pool.
2/2
Burntwood Grove
Tribal Land - Treefolk
When ~ comes into play, tap an untapped Treefolk permanent that you control.
T: Add R or G to your mana pool.
Canopy Fire Blazebolt XR
Tribal Sorcery - Treefolk
Deal X+2 damage to target creature or player. Spend only mana produced by Treefolk cards to play this spell.
Now I have no idea what the cards in Lorwyn will look like but I think tribal is generally a good direction to go in for both Lorwyn and future sets. R+D is correct to say that it is a huge design space that they can revisit successfully several times. It makes good templating easier. It combines well with other design themes and mechanics. Its simple to understand but deep enough to do interesting things with.
Of the cards you made to "sell" Tribal as a mechanic, you didn't list a single card that actually navigated new design space. You post served only to lessen my like of Tribal cards in general. I like Bound in Silence because of the synergy it already has with Rebel abilities, and how they actually make use of the card's Tribal type without having to be modified to work around it. In general, though, the idea sounds extremely shallow. Every single spell you listed can be printed as is, without the "Tribal - Treefolk" aspect and, aside from 2 of the last 3 cards, would be be exactly the same. The design space being "freed up" would be limited to just these types of cards, and would require an entire block to be built around it to be even reasonably good, or else they'd up the power level to the point that they were broken in Standard so people would play them without making them a theme. This is, in my opinion, far too shallow of a design pool to merit an entire new card type.
Of the cards you made to "sell" Tribal as a mechanic, you didn't list a single card that actually navigated new design space. You post served only to lessen my like of Tribal cards in general. I like Bound in Silence because of the synergy it already has with Rebel abilities, and how they actually make use of the card's Tribal type without having to be modified to work around it. In general, though, the idea sounds extremely shallow. Every single spell you listed can be printed as is, without the "Tribal - Treefolk" aspect and, aside from 2 of the last 3 cards, would be be exactly the same. The design space being "freed up" would be limited to just these types of cards, and would require an entire block to be built around it to be even reasonably good, or else they'd up the power level to the point that they were broken in Standard so people would play them without making them a theme. This is, in my opinion, far too shallow of a design pool to merit an entire new card type.
Maybe they could be printed without the Treefolk subtype, but then they wouldn't interact with Battlewand Treefolk.
Of the cards you made to "sell" Tribal as a mechanic, you didn't list a single card that actually navigated new design space. You post served only to lessen my like of Tribal cards in general. I like Bound in Silence because of the synergy it already has with Rebel abilities, and how they actually make use of the card's Tribal type without having to be modified to work around it. In general, though, the idea sounds extremely shallow. Every single spell you listed can be printed as is, without the "Tribal - Treefolk" aspect and be exactly the same. How does that free up new design space?
I understand where your criticism is coming from but your just wrong about to say it about the sample cards I made up.
Just looking at 1 of them:
Rampant Dendrification 1GG
Tribal Sorcery - Treefolk
You may search your library for a Treefolk permanent with converted mana cost 2 or less and put it into play tapped.
I provided this example to illustrate why a treefolk land is meaningful. You could use this to search out all sorts of different treefolk cards, not just lands (like Rampant Growth, which this is based on) or creatures (like Chord of Calling for example). This card can't really be templated in any other way except as is and it requires a fairly large pool of tribal treefolk cards to be of any worth. Using the tribal mechanic this can be templated very elegantly, with just 1 sentence on the card.
The point of tribal is that it adds more information to a card that can interact with other cards. Its not a mechanic in its own right, its just a vector for information. Putting more information on cards increases the potential interactivity they have with other cards. Its not a revolution, its an evolution. Its slightly on the linear side of things (as opposed to modular), so maybe thats a fair criticism for those of you who don't like linear design. For those of you saying "this doesn't do anything new", thats basically exactly the point. It increases the number of interactive elements on a card without having to add anything mechanically new to the card. The actual innovativeness will have to be found on individual cards themselves not resting on the shoulders of "tribal" itself (since it doesn't do anything by itself). If you find my own sample card designs not innovative, thats also a fair criticism, but keep in mind I just came up with these in a few minutes to prove a point. A whole set filled with tribal stuff has alot of room for innovation and it designs very well so you might find some really nice surprises if MaRo and his crew did a good job.
I understand where your criticism is coming from but your just wrong about to say it about the sample cards I made up.
Just looking at 1 of them:
Rampant Dendrification 1GG
Tribal Sorcery - Treefolk
You may search your library for a Treefolk permanent with converted mana cost 2 or less and put it into play tapped.
I provided this example to illustrate why a treefolk land is meaningful. You could use this to search out all sorts of different treefolk cards, not just lands (like Rampant Growth, which this is based on) or creatures (like Chord of Calling for example). This card can't really be templated in any other way except as is and it requires a fairly large pool of tribal treefolk cards to be of any worth. Using the tribal mechanic this can be templated very elegantly, with just 1 sentence on the card.
The point of tribal is that it adds more information to a card that can interact with other cards. Its not a mechanic in its own right, its just a vector for information. Putting more information on cards increases the potential interactivity they have with other cards. Its not a revolution, its an evolution. Its slightly on the linear side of things (as opposed to modular), so maybe thats a fair criticism for those of you who don't like linear design. For those of you saying "this doesn't do anything new", thats basically exactly the point. It increases the number of interactive elements on a card without having to add anything mechanically new to the card. The actual innovativeness will have to be found on individual cards themselves not resting on the shoulders of "tribal" itself (since it doesn't do anything by itself). If you find my own sample card designs not innovative, thats also a fair criticism, but keep in mind I just came up with these in a few minutes to prove a point. A whole set filled with tribal stuff has alot of room for innovation and it designs very well so you might find some really nice surprises if MaRo and his crew did a good job.
The reason that Tribal as a card type is so limiting is that it cannot, on its own, create new cards. Every single Tribal card to date is a modification of another card type to correspond to an existing creature type. Sorceries and Instants offer nearly endless design spaces because they have specific sets of rules that governs how each interacts with its environment. Because it is the only card type that cannot exist on its own, Tribal has much more in common with a mechanic than other card types. It would be just as elequent to word such cards exactly the same way, but just take out Tribal as a card type, but have them keep whatever subtype creature type they had. We already have Arcane as a spell subtype, Locus as a land subtype, and Shrine and Aura as enchantment subtypes; why not just add the list of creature types to these lists?
Treefolk Haven
Land - Treefolk
Tap: Add GG to your mana pool. Use this mana only to cast Treefolk spells.
Enclosed Treetops GGGG
Sorcery - Treefolk
Search your library for a Treefolk permanent card and put it into play tapped.
I was not meaning to criticize your card-building skills, only point out that Tribal is at most a mechanic, likely even a block mechanic, and simply does not open the design space that something considered for the position of card type should.
I understand where your criticism is coming from but your just wrong about to say it about the sample cards I made up.
Just looking at 1 of them:
Rampant Dendrification 1GG
Tribal Sorcery - Treefolk
You may search your library for a Treefolk permanent with converted mana cost 2 or less and put it into play tapped.
I provided this example to illustrate why a treefolk land is meaningful.
The point is: this is nothing new. Yeah, it's cute, you can search any treefolk permanent with a card like this, but frankly... why is this exciting in the slightest? It's nothing like hybrid mana, for example, which is an instant eye-catcher. I think making a new card type is a huge thing, to be done only when there are fundamental changes said new type could bring.
Of course there's new design space that comes from the Tribal card type, but in my honest opinion, it's boring, overly linear design space. Plus, outside of a tribal block, the Tribal type would hardly ever matter, which makes Tribal cards incredibly limited in scope.
It would be just as elequent to word such cards exactly the same way, but just take out Tribal as a card type, but have them keep whatever subtype creature type they had. We already have Arcane as a spell subtype, Locus as a land subtype, and Shrine and Aura as enchantment subtypes; why not just add the list of creature types to these lists?
I think they're avoiding that for rules reasons. Declaring that the set of creature subtypes can be applied to any card type would be messy. Creating a new card type that does nothing but has all of the creature subtypes has its own inelegant aspects, but in the end, it's less likely to cause problems.
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That's because its a type in rules only. In spirit, its a supertype.
That's true, and I think an important thing to keep in mind. I feel like part of the reason people are against Tribal is not necessarily because they think the concept is bad, but because they think it's a very small gain to do something as big as introduce a whole new card type. People keep acting like this is some huge move that's drastically overrated or something.
Keep in mind: Assuming Tribal is going to be in Lorwyn (if it isn't, the argument is all hypothetical and has nothing to do with the treefolk in the first place), Wizards has spent no time hyping it outside of Future Sight. They've created a huge buildup about Planeswalkers, have adds with giant announcements about the block being elf-heavy or the return of merfolk and mention how exciting and popular the tribal theme (tribal here being creature types matter, not the card type) is, yet they haven't so much as hinted at the possibility of another card type besides Planeswalkers that also has relevance to the creature types. If they saw Tribal as a huge new type and really believed that Lorwyn was introducing two new card types to Magic, then I'm pretty sure they would brag about it having not one, but two new card types. Sure, you could argue against that with Bound In Silence, or say that they did it to keep people guessing about the new card type, but I personally think that the real reason is that, despite technically being a new card type for rules reasons, Tribal is not that big a deal. It's more of an interesting little utility mechanic that they can play around with some design space and make a creature type themed block that doesn't have too many extra creatures (unlike Onslaught) than a huge new addition to the game or a massive marketing feature. It's a new card type purely for technical reasons.
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Still irked that they could've somehow (perhaps dramatically) re-written the typing rules so that Tribal isn't necessary as a Type. Somewhat like say mana source and interrupts. Perhaps they could've isolated the non-creature types that actually matter (basic land, equipment) and put them in a different category than types, then let any card take on what was previously known as "creature" types.
The point is: this is nothing new. Yeah, it's cute, you can search any treefolk permanent with a card like this, but frankly... why is this exciting in the slightest? It's nothing like hybrid mana, for example, which is an instant eye-catcher. I think making a new card type is a huge thing, to be done only when there are fundamental changes said new type could bring.
Of course there's new design space that comes from the Tribal card type, but in my honest opinion, it's boring, overly linear design space. Plus, outside of a tribal block, the Tribal type would hardly ever matter, which makes Tribal cards incredibly limited in scope.
Let me play the devil's advocate and say that Hybrid Mana is also essentially nothing new. Its basically just a rehash of a mechanic thats been around since the start of the game - colorless mana. Colorless can be paid with any color of mana, hybrid can only be paid with 2 types so in essence its just a more restricted rehash of an already existing mechanic.
My point isn't that hybrid mana isn't a cool, exciting, or a successful mechanic (because I think it is all 3) its just that you can almost always find a way to reduce innovations to the more mundane component parts from which they are originally inspired.
I also think people should drop the idea that tribal is a new card type. Its just a new label. Nobody blinks when they introduce a new label type for creatures (like when they retro-actively revised the creature types in the core set a couple of years ago). This isn't desecrating any sacred cows, its just opening up new options.
I do agree that tribal is by its nature a linear type of design space. I personally kind of like linear as long as it isn't taken too far, I enjoy building around strong synergies instead of just making "pile of good stuff" kind of decks. That's just a matter of opinion though, I certainly wouldn't hold it against someone who dislikes linear and is much happier with modular design.
I think people aren't quite understanding my argument. I think that Tribal as a card type won't be in Lorwyn at all. Everyone just assumes there will be Tribal cards in Lorwyn because it's the new theme, but I personally think it's just a theme, and that Bound in Silence was a red herring entirely.
I think people aren't quite understanding my argument. I think that Tribal as a card type won't be in Lorwyn at all. Everyone just assumes there will be Tribal cards in Lorwyn because it's the new theme, but I personally think it's just a theme, and that Bound in Silence was a red herring entirely.
I highly doubt this. MaRo confirms that tribal will be a theme, and why else would they have printed a Tribal Aura -- of a relevant tribe, no less -- in Future Sight?
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Tribal's not a supertype, it's a type, but that's been talked about to death already. If you want to know why, do an ask wizards search for "Tribal." I think it's the May 14th one that answers it.
The thing with tribal is that, as clunky and unintuitive it is, it's by far the least clunky and intuitive way they could do it. Just sticking creature types onto non-creature permanents is a complete rules nightmare. You can't have a non-tribal enchantment that's a goblin because that's prevented by the same rules that do things like make sure Mistform Ultimus isn't a forest. Different card types have different subtypes because it stops weird things from happening with the rules.
The other solution that's been proposed with tribal is to have seperate subtypes that apply to non-creatures that associate them with a creature type, similar to how arcane associates instants and sorceries with spirits. The problem with this is that you end up with a whole mess of suptypes to memorize. Kamigawa just had arcane, so it worked, at least from a complexity standpoint (it had other problems, but that's not what I'm talking about). If they could just, as had been suggested, have "Whenever you play a goblin or booger spell" instead of "Goblin spell" with goblins including non-creatures, that could be fine. But you wouldn't have just that. Booger could only apply to instants and sorceries, or enchantments, for the same reason that Goblin could only apply to creatures. You you'd have goblin creatures, and booger instants and sorceries, and other types of enchantments and lands. And then you have another four different types for treefolk, and elves, and merrow, and so on, and you now have about 40 different subtypes to remember and you have to remember that booger is the goblin one, and some other weird name is the treefolk one, and it becomes a mess. It's much better to just say that anything associated with a goblin is a goblin, whether it's a creature or not.
Of course, even if it's relatively simple, Tribal is still a kind of awkward way to do things. It clutters up the typeline a lot, involves some awkward errata on older cards to make sure they only effect creatures and you don't accidentally give a tribal enchantment flying or something like that. It is fairly grokkable at a basic level, but as soon as you look any deeper than that it becomes incredibly confusing, especially with the whole type-supertype issue. So even if tribal's the simplest solution to having non-creatures that still associate with goblins, the question is, is it worth it?
Personally, I think the idea has potential, but I agree with others that it's messy and causes a lot of problems if done badly. But I'd say at the very least, let's see what Wizards does with it. If it's just six different variations of arcane and Lorwyn is the new Kamigawa, then Tribal was a mistake, Wizards will probably admit it eventually, and hopefully Jelly Block, or at least Rock Block, will be better. And if it does work, then awesome, and maybe Lorwyn will be the set that Champions and Onslaught should have been. I'm going to take the same approach that I'm taking with Planeswalkers: I'm a bit worried, but I'm going to be optimistic and hope they knows what they're doing. Wizards tends to learn from their mistakes in the past in my opinion, even if they do create plenty of new mistakes to replace them, so I expect this to work a bit better than arcane did.
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I think what Wizards was going for here was not to say that the enchantments or whatever have properties of the creatures in their typelines, but rather that those spells are used by that particular race or class. For example, perhaps the rebels of the future are unique in that they prefer to Bound their enemies in Silence rather than actually fighting them, so being thus Bound becomes associated with fighting against Rebels. Similarly, for your Goblin Torch argument, perhaps that's the only kind of torch Goblins use, so when someone else sees it, they think, "Oh, that's one of those Goblin spells." It's more for flavor than anything, since there aren't a whole lot of new design applications I can see (it basically seems like Arcane, but it's able to pump Tarmogoyf).
Exactly.
In Final Fantasy, the White Mage couldn't cast ICE, and the Black Mage couldn't cast CURE.
The spells that the White Mage could cast were called White Magic.
The spells that the Black Mage could cast were called Black Magic.
Bound in Silence isn't a Rebel, but it is a Rebel Enchantment -- that is, an Enchantment specific to the Rebels.
We're planeswalkers. We can use any kind of magic. But those normal creatures -- they can only use the magic associated with their tribe, or class, or whatever.
Eventually, we may see 'Splice onto Rebel.'
That'd be sexy.
Gift of the Trees
GG1
Tribal Enchantment - Treefolk Aura
Enchant Treefolk creature
Enchanted Treefolk has Shroud, G1: Regenerate and +1/+1
Give me that and a reprint of Ebony Treefolk and we're off to a good start.
Tribal themed Aura's that are more powerful than usual but can only enchant their respective tribe.
That is so linear it hurts. Talk about letting Wizards design our decks for us!
I am all for Tribal, especially if it's like Kamigawa... but I don't want it to be anywhere NEAR as prevalent. I actually like modular blocks. Who WOULDN'T play that aura in a Treefolk deck? That's an auto-include.
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That entirely depends on what else there is to make such a deck viable. As most experinced players know, you can't build a deck around a couple of good cards unless the rezt of your deck is also solid.
Point being, yes it's clearly a strong card in a treefolk deck, but it's ONLY good in a treefolk deck. If there aren't enough good Treefolk to warrant running it (and thats a skill dependent decision every player needs to make themselves) then it's it'll be a good card without a home. It's also not an auto include for a number of reasons, just a strong pumping enchantment with narrow application.
Nonetheless, I do actually agree with you in principle. I don't want wizards forcing deck designs onto us by giving bombs to specific tribes etc. I'd much prefer a more open style of play where the players have to decide how best to make use of the card pool rather than have a join-the-dots type format where there's a clear push towards specific decks.
Pulsewood Grove
Tribal Land - Treefolk Forest
T: Add G to your mana pool.
Ancients of Pulsewood
Legendary Tribal Land - Treefolk
T: Add G to your mana pool.
1G, T: Untap target Treefolk permanent.
Photosynthetic Flourishing 2GG
Tribal Enchantment - Treefolk
Whenever mana is added to your mana pool, if that mana is produced by a Treefolk card add an additional G to your mana pool.
Rampant Dendrification 1GG
Tribal Sorcery - Treefolk
You may search your library for a Treefolk permanent of converted mana cost 2 or less and put it into play tapped.
Pulsewood Branchweaver 1G
Creature - Treefolk Druid
T: Add G to your mana pool.
1/3
Razorleaf Wind 2G
Tribal Instant - Treefolk
Deals X damage to all flying creatures, where X is equal to the number of Treefolk permanents in play.
Barkblight 2B
Sorcery
Destroy up to 2 target Treefolk permanents, they cannot be regenerated.
Tainted Sun 2BB
Enchantment
Treefolk permanents come into play tapped. Treefolk permanents do not untap during their controller's untap step.
Drown the Roots U
Instant
Counter target Treefolk spell.
Make of that what you will. Hopefully thats a fairly convincing demonstration of why Tribal card types is good for magic design. I think it opens up alot of elegant design space. Yes, its almost definitely possible to create most of these cards (but not all, which is important) without using Tribal templating, but its alot easier to do it with tribal and there's a whole world of suggested and implied design that grows out of this as well.
How about blending tribal with another popular design theme, multicolor.
Stone Sundering Roots RG
Tribal Instant - Treefolk
When you cast ~ you may sacrifice any number of mountains and/or forests. You may add R or G mana to your mana pool for each mountain or forest sacrificed this way. This mana may only be spent to cast Treefolk spells or to pay the activation costs on Treefolk permanents.
Burntwood Branchweaver RG
Creature - Treefolk Shaman
T: Add R or G to your mana pool.
2/2
Burntwood Grove
Tribal Land - Treefolk
When ~ comes into play, tap an untapped Treefolk permanent that you control.
T: Add R or G to your mana pool.
Canopy Fire Blazebolt XR
Tribal Sorcery - Treefolk
Deal X+2 damage to target creature or player. Spend only mana produced by Treefolk cards to play this spell.
Now I have no idea what the cards in Lorwyn will look like but I think tribal is generally a good direction to go in for both Lorwyn and future sets. R+D is correct to say that it is a huge design space that they can revisit successfully several times. It makes good templating easier. It combines well with other design themes and mechanics. Its simple to understand but deep enough to do interesting things with.
I still think that Dryad Arbor is a bit more elegant than a tribal land, and a tribal land, not being a spell, is probably not even worth attempting.
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I wish Wizards would stop being so darn cute and just make a good set of Magic cards. We don't need new crap. We just need new cards.
oh come on, now you're just being stubborn. A tribal treefolk-forest has exactly 2 more words on it then a basic forest, that pretty much defines elegance. It is most definitely worth doing because it increases interactivity, it would still count as a treefolk permanent for all the cards that cared about that.
Of the cards you made to "sell" Tribal as a mechanic, you didn't list a single card that actually navigated new design space. You post served only to lessen my like of Tribal cards in general. I like Bound in Silence because of the synergy it already has with Rebel abilities, and how they actually make use of the card's Tribal type without having to be modified to work around it. In general, though, the idea sounds extremely shallow. Every single spell you listed can be printed as is, without the "Tribal - Treefolk" aspect and, aside from 2 of the last 3 cards, would be be exactly the same. The design space being "freed up" would be limited to just these types of cards, and would require an entire block to be built around it to be even reasonably good, or else they'd up the power level to the point that they were broken in Standard so people would play them without making them a theme. This is, in my opinion, far too shallow of a design pool to merit an entire new card type.
Thanks IM
Maybe they could be printed without the Treefolk subtype, but then they wouldn't interact with Battlewand Treefolk.
I understand where your criticism is coming from but your just wrong about to say it about the sample cards I made up.
Just looking at 1 of them:
Rampant Dendrification 1GG
Tribal Sorcery - Treefolk
You may search your library for a Treefolk permanent with converted mana cost 2 or less and put it into play tapped.
I provided this example to illustrate why a treefolk land is meaningful. You could use this to search out all sorts of different treefolk cards, not just lands (like Rampant Growth, which this is based on) or creatures (like Chord of Calling for example). This card can't really be templated in any other way except as is and it requires a fairly large pool of tribal treefolk cards to be of any worth. Using the tribal mechanic this can be templated very elegantly, with just 1 sentence on the card.
The point of tribal is that it adds more information to a card that can interact with other cards. Its not a mechanic in its own right, its just a vector for information. Putting more information on cards increases the potential interactivity they have with other cards. Its not a revolution, its an evolution. Its slightly on the linear side of things (as opposed to modular), so maybe thats a fair criticism for those of you who don't like linear design. For those of you saying "this doesn't do anything new", thats basically exactly the point. It increases the number of interactive elements on a card without having to add anything mechanically new to the card. The actual innovativeness will have to be found on individual cards themselves not resting on the shoulders of "tribal" itself (since it doesn't do anything by itself). If you find my own sample card designs not innovative, thats also a fair criticism, but keep in mind I just came up with these in a few minutes to prove a point. A whole set filled with tribal stuff has alot of room for innovation and it designs very well so you might find some really nice surprises if MaRo and his crew did a good job.
They're not attempting to do the same thing, though.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
The reason that Tribal as a card type is so limiting is that it cannot, on its own, create new cards. Every single Tribal card to date is a modification of another card type to correspond to an existing creature type. Sorceries and Instants offer nearly endless design spaces because they have specific sets of rules that governs how each interacts with its environment. Because it is the only card type that cannot exist on its own, Tribal has much more in common with a mechanic than other card types. It would be just as elequent to word such cards exactly the same way, but just take out Tribal as a card type, but have them keep whatever subtype creature type they had. We already have Arcane as a spell subtype, Locus as a land subtype, and Shrine and Aura as enchantment subtypes; why not just add the list of creature types to these lists?
Treefolk Haven
Land - Treefolk
Tap: Add GG to your mana pool. Use this mana only to cast Treefolk spells.
Enclosed Treetops
GGGG
Sorcery - Treefolk
Search your library for a Treefolk permanent card and put it into play tapped.
I was not meaning to criticize your card-building skills, only point out that Tribal is at most a mechanic, likely even a block mechanic, and simply does not open the design space that something considered for the position of card type should.
Thanks IM
Of course there's new design space that comes from the Tribal card type, but in my honest opinion, it's boring, overly linear design space. Plus, outside of a tribal block, the Tribal type would hardly ever matter, which makes Tribal cards incredibly limited in scope.
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There could be a spell called Polygenocide that says 'Destroy all Tribal permanents.' That would make the type 'Tribal' matter.
There could also be a spell that says 'Destroy all Treefolk permanents.' Similar, but not.
I am with metamorph. Maybe it 'clogs up' the type line, but other than that, it's not in the way, and it opens doors for stuff down the road.
That's because its a type in rules only. In spirit, its a supertype.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
I think they're avoiding that for rules reasons. Declaring that the set of creature subtypes can be applied to any card type would be messy. Creating a new card type that does nothing but has all of the creature subtypes has its own inelegant aspects, but in the end, it's less likely to cause problems.
That's true, and I think an important thing to keep in mind. I feel like part of the reason people are against Tribal is not necessarily because they think the concept is bad, but because they think it's a very small gain to do something as big as introduce a whole new card type. People keep acting like this is some huge move that's drastically overrated or something.
Keep in mind: Assuming Tribal is going to be in Lorwyn (if it isn't, the argument is all hypothetical and has nothing to do with the treefolk in the first place), Wizards has spent no time hyping it outside of Future Sight. They've created a huge buildup about Planeswalkers, have adds with giant announcements about the block being elf-heavy or the return of merfolk and mention how exciting and popular the tribal theme (tribal here being creature types matter, not the card type) is, yet they haven't so much as hinted at the possibility of another card type besides Planeswalkers that also has relevance to the creature types. If they saw Tribal as a huge new type and really believed that Lorwyn was introducing two new card types to Magic, then I'm pretty sure they would brag about it having not one, but two new card types. Sure, you could argue against that with Bound In Silence, or say that they did it to keep people guessing about the new card type, but I personally think that the real reason is that, despite technically being a new card type for rules reasons, Tribal is not that big a deal. It's more of an interesting little utility mechanic that they can play around with some design space and make a creature type themed block that doesn't have too many extra creatures (unlike Onslaught) than a huge new addition to the game or a massive marketing feature. It's a new card type purely for technical reasons.
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Let me play the devil's advocate and say that Hybrid Mana is also essentially nothing new. Its basically just a rehash of a mechanic thats been around since the start of the game - colorless mana. Colorless can be paid with any color of mana, hybrid can only be paid with 2 types so in essence its just a more restricted rehash of an already existing mechanic.
My point isn't that hybrid mana isn't a cool, exciting, or a successful mechanic (because I think it is all 3) its just that you can almost always find a way to reduce innovations to the more mundane component parts from which they are originally inspired.
I also think people should drop the idea that tribal is a new card type. Its just a new label. Nobody blinks when they introduce a new label type for creatures (like when they retro-actively revised the creature types in the core set a couple of years ago). This isn't desecrating any sacred cows, its just opening up new options.
I do agree that tribal is by its nature a linear type of design space. I personally kind of like linear as long as it isn't taken too far, I enjoy building around strong synergies instead of just making "pile of good stuff" kind of decks. That's just a matter of opinion though, I certainly wouldn't hold it against someone who dislikes linear and is much happier with modular design.
Thanks IM
I highly doubt this. MaRo confirms that tribal will be a theme, and why else would they have printed a Tribal Aura -- of a relevant tribe, no less -- in Future Sight?