Deck Construction Rules

1. Players must choose a creature type as the "Tribe" of their deck. Details

   Players may choose any creature type as their Tribe, it doesn't matter if it's a race (e.g. Snake, Elf, Fungus, Wraith, etc) or a class (e.g. Berserker, Druid, Soldier, Cleric, etc). If the Tribe is a class, any race within that class is considered to be a part of the Tribe, and vice versa. This includes cards in otherwise banned Tribes; e.g. if the Tribe is Berserkers, the deck may contain any Human Berserker even though the Tribe Human is banned.

   For a creature to be considered a part of a Tribe, the creature type must be printed on the actual card. In particular, creatures with the "changeling" ability are not considered to be part of any Tribe other than the one printed on the type line (commonly Shapeshifter).

   The Tribe is the principle around which a Tribelander deck is built and will set the flavor and style of the deck.

2. At least 30% of the cards in the deck must be creatures within the Tribe.

3. A Tribelander deck must contain at least 100 cards. Details

   The deck may contain more than 100 cards. If the deck contains 100 cards, at least 30 of the cards in the deck must be creatures in the Tribe; if the deck contains 150 cards, at least 45 cards must be creatures in the Tribe, and so on.

4. With the exception of creature or kindred cards belonging to the Tribe and lands, no two cards in the deck may have the same english name.

5. The deck may contain up to four copies of any creatures or kindred card within the chosen Tribe, and up to four copies of any non-basic lands.

6. Creatures and kindred cards that don't share a creature type with the Tribe are banned are banned from that Tribe's decks.

7. Non-creature cards that create creature tokens outside the Tribe, or can become a creature outside the Tribe, are banned from that Tribe's decks.

8. Cards in the deck may not have any colors in their identity which are not shared with the Tribe creatures' mana cost. (The color identity of each card in the deck must be a subset of the Tribe creatures' mana cost). Details

   A card's color identity is its color plus the color of any mana symbols in the card's rules text. A card's color identity is established before the game begins, and cannot be changed by game effects.
   The Tribe creatures' mana cost restricts what cards may appear in the deck.

9. Planeswalker cards are banned unless they clearly belong to the tribe. Details

   E.g. Vraska is restricted rather than banned in Gorgons and Tamiyo is restricted rather than banned in Moonfolk. A list of recommended Tribes for each Planeswalker will be posted here eventually, but if you're unsure, check with your playgroup.

10. If a creature "works with the Tribe" flavorwise but is not a creature in the Tribe, it is restricted instead of banned. Details

    E.g. Endrek Sahr is restricted in Thrulls and Ratcatcher is restricted in Rats, even though they are not technically part of the Tribe. If you're unsure if a creature should be considered an ally of the Tribe, check with your playgroup.

11. Tribelander is played with Vintage legal cards.

Play rules

1. The start of game procedure for Tribelander is as follows:
   1. Players announce their choice of Tribe.
   2. Each player draws a hand of seven cards.
   3. Players may mulligan. The first mulligan is "free"; i.e. players may opt to shuffle their first opening hand into their deck and draw a new hand of seven cards. Any following mullingan may be taken using the "London mulligan" method.

      London Mulligan rule

      To take a London mulligan, a player shuffles the cards in their hand back into their library, draws a new hand of cards equal to their starting hand size, then puts a number of those cards equal to the number of times that player has taken a London mulligan on the bottom of their library in any order. This process is repeated until a players chooses to keep their hand, or have zero cards in hand.

2. Players begin the game with 30 life.

3. Tribelander uses the normal rules for winning or losing the game, with the following additions and specifications.
   1. Triggered or activated abilities that make a player win the game or make an opponent lose the game have no effect instead.
   2. If a player has fifteen or more poison counters, that player loses the game. (This is a state-based action.)

4. If a player has the choice to perform a series of actions an arbitrary number of times, that player cannot choose to perform that series of actions more than once each turn. Details.

   As an example, consider the interaction between Pestermite and Splinter Twin. A player could normaly may tap an enchanted Pestermite to copy itself and then use the copy to untap the enchanted Pestermite any number of times. In Tribelander the number of loops through that interaction cannot be more than one each turn. In short, most "infinite combos" are banned.

5. Abilities which refer to other cards owned outside the game (Wishes, Ring of Ma'ruf, etc) do not function in Tribelander unless an optional sideboard rule is in use. If sideboards are used, wishes and similar cards may retrieve sideboard cards.

Tribelander is designed to promote social interaction while lightly backstabbing your friends and pouring small quantities of salt in their wounds.

Cards and interactions that might be frowned upon in other multiplayer formats, such as mass land destruction and other types of resource denial are well within "the spirit of the format" in Tribelander.

However, everything isn't fair game even in Tribelander. The following cards have proved themself to be problematic enough to warrant either a restriction (i.e. at most one copy is allowed in decks where the card would otherwise be legal), or a ban (the card can not be played in any Tribelander deck).¹

The following creature types are banned from being chosen as Tribes:

• Angels

• Avatars

• Eldrazi

• Elementals

• Humans

• Slivers

• Vampires

• Wizards

In addition to the Vintage card pool, the following three cards are also legal in Tribelander:

• Rebirth is legal and restricted
• Shahrazad is legal and restricted
• Splendid Genesis is legal and restricted