Beasts Tribal

[Holiday]

Introduction
Why would anyone make this deck? Well, I accepted a challange. Here's the background.

Every year my friends and I play a tournament called Tribe Wars (using the Legacy Banned list). This all started because most of my friends had some type of tribal deck and a couple years ago we decided to find out which was the best. Although this is semi casual, the decks are legit and proven. We run lists very similar to the regular legacy builds of decks like Goblins, Merfolk, and Elves. They would (and have been in some cases) be playable and competitive at regular local legacy tournaments.

Tribe Wars has its own rules for constructing decks.
-The deck must have at least 16 creatures of the type (or cards that could produce that creature, such as how Bitterblossom produces Faeries)

-The deck must have at least one tribal interaction.
This means the cards must somehow benefit from being the chosen type as opposed to just choosing the 16 best Wizards in the format and throwing them into a "Wizard deck". Typically this is some type of card that says "All [type] get +1/+1", "[type] spells cost 1 less to play", or "whenever a [type] enters the battlefield..."

-Unfair tribal hate cards are banned (Extinction, Engineered Plague, etc)

-No sideboards. You get 60 cards that's it. Most people just include their creature hate main deck (such as Merfolk running Jittes MD instead of SB).

Decks in this years Tournament
R Goblins
U Merfolk
G Elves (non-combo)
W Soldiers (Last year's winner)
B Vampires
R Dragons (looks much like Dragon stompy)
W Angels (with miracles)
UB Faeries
B Zombies
W Knights
UGRW Slivers
G Beasts

You might be looking at these tribes and thinking, 'how can a deck like Soliders compete with Legacy's versions of Merfolk and Goblins?' While a deck like Soldiers would most likely get stomped by most Legacy decks, it does well in Tribe Wars because of the lack of fast combo, CA control, and other decks that would own it in Legacy. These decks are all surprisingly competitives against one another.

So this year I was challenged to make a competitive Beast deck.


4 Worldly Tutor
4 Descendants' Path

4 Llanowar Elves
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Garruk's Companion
4 Wirewood Savage
4 Leatherback Baloth
3 Anurid Swarmsnapper
3 Krosan Warchief
2 Ravenous Baloth
2 Thragtusk
2 Craterhoof Behemoth

2 Gaea's Cradle
16 Forest


So now, as is cliche, I have to say don't laugh because it actually works and it's been tested.

Ideal Strategy
Turn 1:You start off by playing Forest -> one of your 10 mana dorks.
Turn 2: you are either dropping Wirewood Savage, to start drawing cards, or Leatherback Baloth, for a 4/5 beater on turn 2.
Turn 3: You are dropping a beast if you don't have one out yet or Descendants' Path.
Turn 4: You put out more guys or Path if you haven't played it yet. At the end of your opponents turn or before you draw on turn 5 you play Worldly Tutor
Turn 5: With your tutor you find Craterhoof Behemoth swing for the win with your beasts + mana dorks. They will probably be getting at least +5/+5 and trample.

It's a fragile combo for sure, but there isn't much hand destruction or counters in Tribe Wars.

If you don't have the pieces to the combo your stratgey is actually play very defensively. You play your guys and stay alive by gaining life with Thragtusk and Ravenous Baloth while blocking with Anurid Swarmsnapper and regening blockers with Krosan Warchief.

If you can't get Path to come out and stick around, you can actually just cast your Behemoth with Gaea's Cradle and some of your mana dorks. If none of that works, your backup plan is just to beat down with big, green fatties.

I've tested a number of variations before coming to this list. My first list was actually a RG Beast list that ran Aether Charge and all the low CC beasts I could find. My next version became mono G with a few Overrun. When I noticed I only won with Overrun, it was only logical to switch to Descendants' Path + Craterhoof Behemoth.

Let me know what you think or if you have any ideas. I'll test just about anything. Also, if anyone is interested in seeing the lists for any of the other Tribe Wars decks, let me know. I bet there's some other tribal deck fans out there besides my friends.

[somethingdotdotdot]

This looks like a lot of fun. I really wish my old playgroup was still around because this seems like a really fun format for casual playing. That being said, the format lends itself to having certain elements being abused: specifically the graveyard and board sweepers. I think for a beast deck, you need to look at what advantages the tribe has: almost all of the beasts are rather large. I mean this both in terms of power/toughness as well as converted mana cost. You can actually take advantage of both of these attributes by not overextending. Since most tribal strategies need to have a lot creatures on the board to work, you can use green/black for deed and crime/punishment.

First thing you need to do is totals out all of the mana dorks and go with a more nicfit like ramp engine--4 gsz, 4 veteran explorer, 4 cabal therapy. With the explorers you can run a toolbox of creatures like 1 scavenging ooze, 1 eternal witness, 1 primeval Titan. To help with all of the high cc creatures, running 3-4 Sakura tribe elders will help the ramp some more.

As for your tribal synergy, you should go wih straight up card advantage--something like wire wood savage seems very viable. You should also run Garruk, primal hunter as a 2-3 of as they provide card advantage and survive sweepers.

Just some ideas, I'll post a list a bit later.

[Holiday]

First thing you need to do is totals out all of the mana dorks and go with a more nicfit like ramp engine--4 gsz, 4 veteran explorer, 4 cabal therapy.
Thanks for the idea. I've always liked the nic fit package. Deed would also rout a lot of decks in our format.

[somethingdotdotdot]

So I brewed up a list, but a couple of questions: does mutavault count towards the tribal count; can the list be more than 60 cards; and how do the wishes work (if at all).

I put this together on mws and goldfished a couple hands and it wasn't too bad. Here's the list (61 cards to have the required 16 tribal cards).

22 lands:
1 phyrexian tower
1 volraths stronghold
4 bayou
4 twilight mire
4 verdant catacomb
2 wooded foothills
4 forest
2 swamp

4 cabal therapy
4 pernicious deed
4 green suns zenith
3 beast within (makes beast tokens lol)
1 recurring nightmare
2 Garruk, primal hunter

4 veteran explorers
3 Sakura tribe elder
2 Wirewood savage
2 spiritmonger
2 thragtusk
1 ravenous baloth
2 leatherback baloth
4 Garruk's companion

Edit: you can also replace a land with dryad arbor to help the ramp.
Edit2: there's a lot of ramp--maybe -1 sakura te -1nightmare +2 top for consistency.

[Justin]

A few years ago, a store held casual Legacy tribal tourneys, which require each deck to play 20 creatures from the same tribe. I actually won a tourney with GB tribal beasts. It was actually similar to somethingdotdotdot's list in that it was a "Rock" style deck with Pernicous Deed, discard, etc, but with 20 beasts. At that time I played Krosan Warchief, Ravenous Baloth, Blastoderm, and Spiritmonger (I had a two-drop, but I can't remember it now). There has been many better beasts printed since then.

Deed was amazing against other tribal decks because almost all of them played creatures of 3cc or less, while my Beasts were larger and able to survive it. I was even able to fit in some Eternal Witness to recur Deed.

[Holiday]

Oh damn I forgot spiritmonger was a beast! BG is looking strong I think I'm going to test it out this weekend.

How would you use Beast Within? Destroy your opponent's permanents and draw from wirewood savage I guess? Perhaps destroy your own stuff.

And as far as Tribe War rules go, yes you can have more than 60 cards. No, we don't count mutavaults as part of the tribal 16 package, even though they are all creature types. They are great to run though (especially against the damn sliver deck).

As for wishes, that's a good question. It's actually never come up. If we allowed a 15 card sideboard for people running wishes they would have quite a toolbox. They could essentially dedicate all the slots to wish targets.

[somethingdotdotdot]

Beast within is basically a nice removal spell to kill planes walkers and other key spells. The main thing is that its kind of good with deed since the token is cc 0, so if they have only 1 spell at a high cc, you can beast it and hen deed for less, probably keeping your dudes alive. It also combos well with explorer by killing it and giving you ramp + a creature.

[Holiday]

I tested out the Nic Fit package with GB last weekend. Veteran Explorer is awesome in regular legacy where people run very few basic lands but against decks like Goblins, Merfolk, and other tribal decks it seemed to be helping them just as much as it was helping me. I think I might be better off running BoP.

Deed is defintely nasty in this format though.

[troopatroop]

this is a really funny joke lol. Where are your dual lands? Where are your GOOD creatures?

[Holiday]

this is a really funny joke lol. Where are your dual lands? Where are your GOOD creatures?

Welcome to Cavius' Casual and Budget Forum, troopatroop :)