This post reflects my feelings perfectly. I am really hopeful they do their job correctly and understand that elves, goblins, slivers and zombies are more than beaten at this point and don't need more tribal support than what already exists, and that angels, cats, snakes, werewolves and plenty of other tribes that have some support need a push to be playable in Commander.

"Easy button" is exactly why they'd do them, IMO

True, but popular and interesting are 2 different things. They're not necessarily mutually exclusive, but with only 4 of 5 otherwise potential options, it seems more likely that they would diverge from the normal/typical choices. Those being:

W = Soldiers
U = Merfolk(and/or Wizards)
B = Zombies
R = Goblins
G = Elves

Those are the typical tribes people think of for mono-color. If only 4 are made, that means that 1 of the above mentioned tribes/colors could be left out.

Jeyal had a good point:


It seems likely that there might be some sub-tribal support. Much like how Elf Warriors are the tokens typically made in the tribe, while Bramblewood Paragon is both an Elf and a Warrior, and gives a buff to Warriors (which a very decent chunk of Elves are already).

Personally I'm a bit tired of seeing both W/G and B/G options for Elves, with Selesnya and Golgari having 4 options each, and yet there is no W/B/G Elf that could allow for an Abzan Elf build.

Not to mention that the Mono-Green Freyalise deck was an Elf tribal deck already. There isn't really a shortage of most of the above mentioned tribes as they've gotten some support in some form or another between Block releases as well as the supplemental ones.

Really hoping that they diverge a bit and shy away from the most saturated tribes in the game, especially the ones that will continue to get support in constructed for the rest of time. (For example, Elves and Zombies are eternal while something like Allies or Slivers won't likely see future support for story reasons)

Lead developer Gavin Verhey tweeted that one of the tribes will be a surprise.

Definitely agree with what's been said in this thread so far. I wonder if we'll get some more changrling cards. Bird tribal fly back to me...

maybe we'll get some crazy tribal combos like Zombie Angels or Elf Clerics or Hydra Goblins

Maybe we'll get Mutavault reprints?

I need more Gorgon support!!

But I'll be fine with whatever is printed as long as it isn't slivers. That needs no more support.

So taking the complement, 3/4 tribes will not be surprising.

I was actually thinking about this & Cavern of Souls. I wonder if they will look at reprinting some of the earlier, slightly harder to find creature class enablers like Riptide Laboratory.

I like the idea of mixing Classes and Types in the decks. A Wizard theme gives you all 5 colours and about 40 different creature types (granted Human & Merfolk make up 66% of all wizards but that one deck can give you Human support, Merfolk support and Wizard support in the same deck without really stretching.), but you could also go into some of the more obscure ones like Artificer or Advisor and still come up with a decent theme or sub-theme.

Also, I did a search for "Creature type" and you could make a case for a deck wthat has multiple types as its focus. Generally people tend to go mono-tribe and leverage all the bonuses of that tribe. I wonder if it would be possible to make a deck where it would be beneficial to you to have as many different named creature types as possibe on the battlefield. Things like Angelic Armaments, Nim Deathmantle, Adaptive Automaton all bestow or allow you to choose specific creature types. Coming up with a set of cards that works off that would be fun. Not sure how they would word it to get around the Changeling issue but it could be an interesting direction.

Edit: Working off some flawed logic, could you argue that a deck full of animated lands could be a tribal theme?

If all of those lands animate with the same creature type, yes (e.g. Celestial Colonnade ally and enemy color cycles). I do have a Hazezon Tamar deck that is man-land themed, but it doesn't really function as tribal since there isn't a unified creature type to leverage (instead I leverage "land matters" cards like Genju, Zendikons, Magemarks (enchantress sub-theme), landfall effects (e.g. Retreat to Kazandu) and goodstuff land effects (e.g. Terra Eternal).

not man-lands but I did an animated land Elemental tribal once.

Confirmed, one of the new decks will include 10 new Phelddagrifs.

The deck name will be "Get In Loser, We're Going Questing"

Yeah, this is the angle I was thinking off. Seem a bit farfetched now that I've worked through the idea.

Another thought for the surprising "tribe": Legendary. Ok, not a tribe or a class but something that 1.) totally fits this particular product and is difficult to do in normal releases as Kamigawa showed and 2.) allows to reprint a lot of potential generals without having to develop a specific theme to accomodate them. A 5c "legendary" deck suddenly gives you 10-15 new Legend-themed support cards over all colours which would be pretty sweet.

Omnath, Locus of Rage works pretty well for it and I have some other ideas going in my brain now. I think I'll rebuild it.

My Saskia "League of Legends" deck would LOVE more Legendary tribal support!