Tribal Showcase: Bring the POWER Of Creatures To Commander.

In Commander, one of the many archetypes available is Tribal. These are decks that are built around one specific creature type. The archetype has gone by a few different names, including Tribal, Typal, and Kindred, being the three most popular terms for it. In this Tribal Showcase, we’ll be looking at some lesser-done creature types. Creature types like Dragons or Elves are super common, but about Myr and Gods? If you want to see some different flavors of creatures instead of the more “stock standard” ones, look no further than this Tribal Showcase.

Tribal Showcase: WUBRG Commanders

Do you enjoy playing decks with all color combinations? This is the perfect section of the Tribal Showcase for you, then! With a WUBRG commander, you have access to all colors, meaning you can play all the best options for your commander. If you opt to play with a more budget-friendly landbase, you can build these relatively cheaply too.

Ezio Auditore da Firenze (Assassins)

As one might expect from a set based on Assassin’s Creed, it introduced a ton of Assassin creatures. One of the series’ most popular characters, Ezio Auditore da Firenze stands out as the best commander choice for Assassins. It lets you easily cheat around the casting costs of expensive Assassin creatures such as Thraximundar and Edward Kenway.

In order to turn on freerunning, you have to deal combat damage with Assassins. So, creatures that are unblockable are the best way to do so. Changeling Outcast is the best way, as it barely costs any mana and it’s usually not threatening enough to be in danger of removal. If you control a legendary Assassin (and you usually do), Brotherhood Spy is unblockable itself. It needs some mana investment, and you have to discard a creature card, but Evie Frye can make a creature unblockable for a turn.

Strangely, Assassins have multiple win conditions outside of traditional combat. Ezio Auditore da Firenze can make a player lose the game once they reach 10 or less life. Etrata, the Silencer has a similar ability, requiring you to exile three cards with hit counters on them. It’s unlikely, but not impossible to win with. You can turn one player losing into victory with Ramses, Assassin Lord, you just have to deal combat with an Assassin the turn they do.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. The deck mostly consists of either Assassin creatures or ways to make them much harder to block.

Urtet, Remnant of Memnarch (Myr)

Myr is not a creature type that would normally be built around, especially since most of them are mana dorks. However, Urtet, Remnant of Memnarc brings it all together. It constantly untaps them, and can easily load up your Myr with +1/+1 counters. This turns simple creatures like Copper Myr and Myr Enforcer into threats once their stats start getting massive.

This deck plays more like a Combo deck, making use of Jegantha, the Wellspring as a companion. So, there are no double pips of any color in the deck. The idea is to untap both Jegantha and Urtet, Remnant of Memnarch to use its ability multiple times a turn. So, cards like Magewright's Stone and Kiora's Follower are especially strong in the deck.

Nearly all your creatures are artifact creatures, so you have multiple powerful support cards to benefit from. Alibou, Ancient Witness gives them all haste and can deal a lot of damage if you have a lot of tapped artifacts. All your creatures will be protected if you control Padeem, Consul of Innovation on the battlefield. Urza, Chief Artificer grants your artifact creatures menace while also making Construct creatures for extra blockers and attackers.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. It runs about all the Myr creatures worth playing, along with various ways to untap your creatures for the combo.

Note: Companions are considered to be in the sideboard, so the main deck is 99 cards, with 1 card being your commander and 1 being your companion for a total of 101 cards.

Tribal Showcase: Bant

The Bant color combination consists of Green, Blue, and White. These two commanders in this part of the Tribal Showcase lean a bit more heavily into artifacts and abusing enter-the-battlefield triggers. They also shine in combat to give an extra boost to your capabilities.

Sophia, Dogged Detective (Dogs)

Sophia, Dogged Detective is a mix of an artifact token deck and a Dog deck. Your Dogs can make Food and Clue tokens when they deal combat damage, which can then be sacrificed to give all your Dogs a counter. With Maskwood Nexus, you can turn all of your creatures into Dogs so everything benefits from your commander, and Academy Manufactor nets you a ton of extra tokens.

Since your creatures are going to be loaded up with counters, there are multiple ways to take advantage of this. You have access to multiple potential one-sided board wipes with both Damning Verdict and Wave Goodbye. There are also cards that give abilities to creatures with +1/+1 counters on them. Some examples include Abzan Falconer, Ainok Bond-Kin, and Longshot Squad.

You want some ways to create tokens outside of your commander so you always have artifact tokens to sacrifice. Transmutation Font can create tokens for free, and you can even use it to tutor for other artifact permanents. With Tamiyo's Journal, you get a Clue token at every upkeep. There are also cards that create tokens when lands enter like Tireless Tracker and Tireless Provisioner to get a big boost of artifact tokens.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. Most of the cards are Dogs, but there is +1/+1 counter support and ways to generate artifact tokens as well.

Brenard, Ginger Sculptor (Golems)

Golems are an interesting creature type as there aren’t too many Golems, and even fewer that are actually playable. However, there are good cards that create Golems and give them abilities such as Blade Splicer and Master Splicer. The commander, Brenard, Ginger Sculptor gives your Golems boost as well. It also lets you reuse the enter-the-battlefield triggers when they die, as Brenard, Ginger Sculptor can bring them back as a 1/1 Food Golem (that also stat boosts it to a 3/3).

To help create more Golems, there is a sub-theme of Blink in the deck. With permanents such Teleportation Circle and Conjurer's Closet, you can keep blinking your creatures to keep getting triggers of them. You have mass blink available too with Waterbender's Restoration and Eerie Interlude to keep making more Golem tokens with your various Splicers.

There is some extra silly stuff you can do in the deck. Most notably, Displaced Dinosaurs will make your artifacts enter as 7/7 creatures. This includes the Food Golem copies that Brenard, Ginger Sculptor creates when the original creature dies. Creatures with evoke are sacrificed, but if your commander is on the battlefield, you essentially get the effect twice. One Mulldrifter turns into a draw four for just three mana. If Night of the Sweets' Revenge is on the battlefield, all your copies turn into mana dorks, and when you sacrifice it, you can give all your creatures a massive stat boost.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. Though this is a bit more optimized of a build, you can easily build a strong budget version with a weaker mana base and by replacing a few of the more expensive options in the list.

Miscellaneous Commanders

These last two commanders don’t fit into the other categories of this Tribal Showcase. In fact, one of them doesn’t even use a creature type that has more than a small handful of creatures, but the ability to play a Tribal deck with them. Both of these are a relatively new kind of Tribal deck that before didn’t have a way to build a cohesive deck with (and one, not at all).

Kratos, Stoic Father & Atreus, Impulsive Son (Gods)

For Gods, it utilizes a pair of partner commanders in Atreus, Impulsive Son and Kratos, Stoic Father. Kratos is the card that interacts with Gods, gaining experience counters as they attack or die. It spreads out +1/+1 counters to your Gods, while Atreus can draw you a lot of cards to keep your hand full of action. If you can’t draw into your best Gods, you can use Invasion of Theros instead.

There are other ways to get experience counters outside of your commander. Katara, Waterbending Master nets you one whenever you cast spells on your opponent’s turn. There aren’t too many instants, so don’t rely too heavily on her. Otharri, Suns' Glory gives you an experience counter whenever it attacks, making for a very easy way to stack more on yourself. You can use Aetheric Amplifier to double the number of experience counters you have (or the counters on a creature if you want).

This deck is very combat-focused, so there are multiple ways to get extra combats. Aggravated Assault is the only permanent that provides a way to always have an extra combat ready to go. You can get two extra combats from Full Throttle. World at War gives you an extra combat, and lets you cast it for free on your next turn.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. There are plenty of Gods with strong effects, and many ways to do a ton of damage across multiple combats.

Missy (Cybermen)

This is a different kind of Tribal commander. It is something that would normally be impossible since there are currently only four Cyberman creatures in the game. Enter Missy. As with the source material of Doctor Who, rather than playing with Cybermen, you’re turning your opponents’ creatures into your Cybermen army. There are still traditional Cyberman creatures in the deck, such as Cyberman Patrol and The Cyber-Controller.

The best cards in the deck are ones that force all players to sacrifice a creature. Cards like Demon's Disciple, Chain Devil. and Accursed Marauder are a few of the examples. This makes just one creature turn into four 2/2 creatures on your battlefield so long as Missy is around. Alternatively, you have spells that force mass sacrifice such as Innocent Blood and Barter in Blood. If you cast a board wipe, Missy will see all the creatures dying, so you essentially gain control of all creatures as face-down 2/2 creatures.

Normally, you can’t turn these Cyberman creatures back face up. But, there are still ways to flip them over. Once you do, they become their original selves. Ixidor, Reality Sculptor gives your face-down creatures a stat boosts and can flip them up for just three mana. You need to attack with at least six power worth of creatures, but Ugin's Mastery can flip your creatures over when you do. Ghostly Flicker can blink two of your face-down creatures and bring them back face-up to take advantage of those creatures.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. The deck is a heavy Control deck that utilizes forced sacrifice to keep battlefields cleared and your battlefield loaded with 2/2 Cyberman creatures.

In Conclusion

This Tribal Showcase went over some lesser-appreciated creature types. It can be a bit boring to go for the popular stuff like Dragons or Humans. They’re not bad, but sometimes you want something with a little more spice! There might be fewer options in the way of support cards, but that also makes it fun to build with. The fewer support cards, the more spice you get to add to make the Tribal deck work.

Tribal decks are a lot of fun to build, as is finding synergies between creature types, which can be a challenge when there are a lot of creatures within that type. You also have the aspect of deciding what outside support to bring in to support the deck and archetype. Building Tribal decks is a great time, and the decks shown here are just the tip of the iceberg of what’s possible.