Tribal: The Commander Archetype, Explained

What Tribal Decks Actually Do

A tribal deck (increasingly called typal in official Wizards language, though almost nobody says that at a table) is built around creatures sharing a type, plus lords and payoffs that reward the concentration. Elves, Goblins, Zombies, Vampires, Dragons, Slivers, Merfolk, Angels, and dozens more all support real decks.

The strength of the archetype is that its payoffs stack multiplicatively. One lord giving plus-one-plus-one is modest; three lords is a board of creatures that are each three points bigger, and it happened without any single card doing anything spectacular. The weakness is the mirror image: the deck is a house of cards against a wrath, and against targeted removal aimed at the lords rather than the bodies.

Which Colors Fit Tribal

Uniquely on this list, tribal has no home colours: the creature type picks them. Elves are green, Goblins red, Merfolk blue, Zombies blue-black, Vampires black, Angels white, Dinosaurs Naya, Faeries Dimir, and Slivers and Dragons sprawl across all five. Choose the type first and the colours follow automatically, which is why this is the friendliest archetype for a first deck.

Top 10 Tribal Cards

The cards that define the archetype rather than the ones winning this week. If you are building tribal for the first time, these are the effects to understand before anything else.

1. Cavern of Souls A land that makes your chosen type uncounterable. Expensive, but no other card protects a tribal deck's key spells this cleanly.
2. Path of Ancestry The budget-friendly version of the same idea, adding a scry whenever it pays for a creature of your type.
3. Vanquisher's Banner An anthem that also draws a card for every creature of your type you cast. Fixes the archetype's card-advantage problem.
4. Herald's Horn Cost reduction plus a free card off the top each upkeep when it hits your type. Cheap and consistently excellent.
5. Kindred Discovery Draws whenever a creature of your type enters or attacks. The most explosive draw engine available to any tribe.
6. Coat of Arms Every creature gets plus-one-plus-one for each other creature sharing a type. Enormous, and symmetrical enough to be dangerous.
7. Shared Animosity The one-sided version for attackers only, which usually converts a developed board into lethal on the spot.
8. Metallic Mimic A two-drop that names your type and puts a counter on every one that follows. Works in any colour.
9. Urza's Incubator Two generic mana off every creature spell of your type. The single biggest cost reduction available to tribal decks.
10. Patriarch's Bidding Returns every creature of the named types from all graveyards. The archetype's post-wrath reset button.

Top 10 Tribal Commanders

Ten command zones that support the strategy, spread across the color combinations it lives in. The color identity shown is what each commander lets you play in the other 99.

1. Edgar Markov WBR Vampires. Makes a token from the command zone on every Vampire cast, which is unmatched value for a tribal commander.
2. The Ur-Dragon WUBRG Dragons. Cost reduction on Dragons and a free permanent from hand on every Dragon that connects.
3. Sliver Overlord WUBRG Slivers. Tutors any Sliver repeatedly, which makes the deck the most consistent tribal build in the format.
4. Lathril, Blade of the Elves BG Elves. Makes tokens on damage and converts a wide Elf board into a drain that ignores blockers entirely.
5. Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver UB Zombies. Turns every Zombie death into a Decayed token and a card, which is the whole aristocrats overlap in one commander.
6. Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca UG Merfolk. Three abilities that convert a Merfolk board into unblockable damage, cards, and counters.
7. Gishath, Sun's Avatar WRG Dinosaurs. Puts Dinosaurs directly from library to battlefield on combat damage, and a single hit often ends the game.
8. Najeela, the Blade-Blossom WUBRG Warriors. Tokens on attack, and with five colours available she takes infinite combat steps.
9. Muxus, Goblin Grandee R Goblins. Digs six deep and puts every Goblin found onto the battlefield at once.
10. Kaalia of the Vast WBR Angels, Demons, and Dragons. Cheats one onto the battlefield attacking, every combat, from turn four.

What to Watch Out For

Tribal decks lose to board wipes harder than anything except go-wide, and the lords make targeted removal unusually effective too. Build in recursion (Patriarch's Bidding is in the archetype's top ten for a reason) and resist filling the last ten slots with weak creatures purely because they share a type. A bad card is still a bad card when it is on-theme.

Frequently Asked Questions

TurnZero HQ tags every deck you track with one of these archetypes, so your win rate is broken down by what your decks are actually trying to do, not just which commander is on top of them.