Lord of War

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

Today at MTG Realm, we would like to yatter a bit about some of the cool new cards in the re-started Core Set, Core Set 2019.  Quite specifically, the five rare tribal lords.  A "lord" is an informal term that refers to any creature or other permanent that confers boons to other members of the same creature type, typically without conferring such bonus to themselves.  In Core Set 2019, there is one Lord in each colour :

• Valiant Knight (W knights) — Grants other Knights +1/+1, activated ability (3WW) to grant Knights double strike

• Supreme Phantom (U spirits) — Grants other spirits+1/+1.

• Death Baron (B zombies) — Grants skeletons and zombies +1/+1 and deathtouch

• Goblin Trashmaster (R goblins) — Grants goblins +1/+1, activate ability to destroy an artifact when you sacifice a goblin.

• Elvish Clancaller (G elves) — Grants other Eleves +1/+1, activated ability (4GG, Tap) to tutor another copy of itself onto the battlefield.

When Core 2019 releases on July 13, 2018, and before the large Fall set on October 5, 2018, there is a metric ton of cards in Standard format, but are we able to double down on the above Tribal Lords ?  Ixalan / Rivals of Ixalan was a block that did have a tribal theme, but restricted to Pirates, Dinosaurs, Merfolk and Vampires. 

There does exist however, some cards which may assist in a tribal theme should you want to move forward with the aforementioned Core Set 2019 Lords -

Arcane Adaptation (2U) - forcing all your creatures to creature type
Metallic Mimic (2) - +1/+1 counters on named creature type when they enter the battlefield
Radiant Destiny (2W) - conditional (City's Blessing) named creature type you control gets +1/+1 and vigilance
Vanquisher's Banner (5) - named creature type you control gets +1/+1, card draw upon casting that type

The most apparent choice may be Zombies.  There was a time, not that long ago, where Zombie tribal did climb to the top tier before the wheels fell off when some choice cards from Magic Origins / Shadows Over Innistrad block rotated out.  There are two Lords, or more specifically, a tribal enchantment and a Lord, in Amonkhet which may be shoed in to build a Zombie Tribal decklist -

• Liliana's Mastery (Amonkhet) - Zombies you control get +1/+1.
• Lord of the Accursed (Amonkhet) - Grants other zombies +1/+1, activated ability (1B, Tap) zombies gain menace

There is also a handful of other useful cards to support this theme as well which we will not go into, but do want to make a point that Embalm and Eternalize are two existing mechanics which also may be of use here.

Happy Brewing !
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