If you like to unite under a common purpose and form an Alliance to overwhelm your opponents, then Ally tribal is the right deck for you. Let’s see how with unity we can overcome every challenge.
I love tribal decks because they combine synergy and flavor and of course power. On top of that you can find many unique cards that support a tribe and can be great budget options as those cards work only on a specific tribal deck and are bad to unplayable to any other deck. That’s why I will try building and presenting a series of decks for all those who share the love for tribal decks.
Allies were first introduced in Zendikar, reused inWorldwake and returned in the Battle for Zendikar block. They represent individuals (people or creatures) that have joined together under a common purpose and fromed an Alliance. The natural leader of the Allied forces is no other than General Tazri, an Ally commander that has a 5-color identity and thus supports all Allies.
General Tazri on EtB becomes an Ally tutor that brigns any Ally into our hand, while by paying 
at instant speed, she buffs Ally creatures we control with +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of colors among those creatures.
Many Allies have powerful EtB effects or EtB triggers, so an EtB strategy can multiply our deck effectiveness. Another strategy that complement to the Ally Tribal + EtB strategies is Blink, as we can repeatedly bounce our creatures to get multiple EtB triggers. Moreover, blinking General Tazri let us repeatedly tutor the Allies we need into our hand so we can have great consistency.
Synergy Diagram
I always like to make a simple synergy diagram in order to deeply comprehend the potential and the strategy areas that are supported by the commander when I choose top-down building.
Let’s analyze the main goals of the deck:
- Add the best Allies. Our priority is to add the ones with powerful EtB effects or the ones that have powerful EtB triggers.
- Add EtB support. With our strategy build upon Ally EtB effects/triggers we need ways to multiply that triggers or cards that care about EtB.
- Add Blink strategy cards, as Blink is another way of getting EtB effects/triggers.
For the sake of flavor some of the choices are not optimal, but are (usually budget friendly) alternatives that fit greatly the Ally tribal theme.
The deck:
Ally Tribal
Comparative Analysis
Let’s see how the deck compares to the general ratios of my deckbuilding guide.
37 Lands
12 Ramp: Circuitous Route , Harabaz Druid , Arcane Signet , Sol Ring , Beastcaller Savant , Patchwork Banner, Cultivate , Chromatic Lantern , Mina and Denn, Wildborn , Rampant Growth , Inga and Esika, Tarnation Vista
8 Target Removal: Tuktuk Scrapper , Murasa Pyromancer , Masked Vandal, Tajuru Archer , Invasion of New Capenna , Crib Swap , Nameless Inversion , Hagra Mauling
2 Board Wipes: Crippling Fear , Cleansing Nova
2 Graveyard Recursion: March from the Tomb , Rally the Ancestors
2 Graveyard Hate: Bojuka Bog , Agadeem Occultist
3 Tutors: General Tazri, Tazri, Beacon of Unity, Munda, Ambush Leader
4 Protection: Ally Encampment , Hero of Goma Fada , Kabira Evangel , Lae’zel’s Acrobatics
9 Card Draw: Sea Gate Loremaster , Distant Melody , Reconnaissance Mission , Malakir Soothsayer , Shamanic Revelation , Realmwalker (kinda), Inga and Esika , Kindred Discovery , Beast Whisperer
3 Finishers/ Surprise /Alternate win conditions: Resolute Blademaster , General Tazri , Tajuru Warcaller
As we see form the comparative analysis, the rates per category are good. Card draw is at 9 and apart from that there is no score below the optimal low average and we see 3 categories that are above the optimal max average.
Deck Highlights, synergy and flavor options:
Ramp
Harabaz Druid has amazing synergy with our deck since it is an Ally that works as a mana producer but also as a color fixer. In a 5-color Ally tribal deck, adding X mana of any one color where X is the number of Allies we control, is powerful.
Beastcaller Savant is also a great Ally mana dork since it adds one mana of any color and it has Haste so we can use it right away. This mana can only be used to cast a creature spell, but at least in Ally tribal, our deck is creature-heavy.
Chromatic Lantern is a great color fixing mana rock that is optimal in 5-colored decks.
Mina and Denn, Wildborn let us play an additional land on each of our turns and has ,Return a land you control to its owner’s hand: Target creature gains trample until end of turn. The first ability is very powerful for ramp while the second provides an extra utility.
Inga and Esika gives our creatures vigilance and turns them into mana producers for creature spells. Moreover, it also provides us with card draw as long as three or more mana from creatures was spent to cast it. It works greatly in creature tribal decks and has even bigger gravity in multicolored decks.
Tarnation Vista has great synergy with our Ally Tribal as it works wonders in 5-color decks that have multiple monocolored creatures, providing a great mana boost.
Patchwork Banner is one of the best cards for Tribal builds as it combines ramp and tribal support. Being both a mana rock and a Tribal Anthem gives us amazing value for its mana cost. Of course it is a top pick for our Ally Tribal!
Target Removal
Tuktuk Scrapper is exceptional in destroying artifacts since it triggers on Ally EtB and on top of that if that artifacts are put into a graveyard this way (which is the most usual) it deals damage to that artifact’s controller equal to the number of Allies we control. It can be a secret finisher in Ally tribal.
Murasa Pyromancer is exceptional as repeatable target creature removal as it triggers on Ally EtB and it deals damage to target creature equal to the number of Allies we control.
Tajuru Archer is exceptional as repeatable target flying creature removal as it triggers on Ally EtB and it deals damage to target flying creature equal to the number of Allies we control.
Invasion of New Capenna // Holy Frazzle-Cannon is a nice flexible removal and has the potential to become a great tribal support card as the Holy Frazzle-Cannon has “Whenever equipped creature attacks, put a +1/+1 counter on that creature and each other creature you control that shares a creature type with it.”
Nameless Inversion and Crib Swap count as Allies so they have amazing synergy with our deck. They can be tutored by our tutors that search for Allies and that includes our commander General Tazri so we have easily access to target removal.
Board Wipes
Crippling Fear is a great budget mass removal for tribal decks as it can clear the board of our opponents while leaving ours intact.
Graveyard Recursion
March from the Tomb is an amazing mass graveyard recursion spell for Ally tribe as it can return any number of Ally cards with mana cost 8 or less directly into the battlefield.
Rally the Ancestors works greatly with our EtB strategy as we can return a massive army of Allies from our graveyard to the battlefield at instant speed and many EtB triggers in our deck can turn the tides of a battle or even prove lethal for our opponents.
Graveyard Hate
Agadeem Occultist not only removes target creature card from an opponent’s graveyard, but with 
we put it on the battlefild under our control as long as we control enough Allies to match its mana cost. Great utility and can be used repeatedly.
Tutors
General Tazri is our commander and we can easily tutor any Ally into our hand with EtB, which is a powerful effect alone, that can be greatly amplified by our blink and EtB trigger multiplying strategies.
Tazri, Beacon of Unity is not an Ally (which is weird) but she is still a great tutor for Ally tribe, since with 
at instant speed we can look at the top six cards of our library and reveal up to two Cleric, Rogue, Warrior, Wizard, and/or Ally cards from among them and put them into our hand.
Munda, Ambush Leader has a mini tutor effect (look at the top four cards of our library for Ally cards and put them on top of our library in any order) but it triggers on Ally EtB so we can easily trigger it each turn.
Protection
Ally Encampment is an exceptional land for Ally tribe since it produces onle mana of any color for casting Allies and with 
, and sacrificing it, we return at instant speed an Ally we control into our hand.
Hero of Goma Fada gives creatures we control indestructible until end of turn on Ally EtB, a very welcome protection that encourages us being aggressive.
Kabira Evangel gives creatures we control protection from the color we choose until end of turn on Ally EtB, which is a very powerful protection.
Lae’zel’s Acrobatics is a great mass blink spell that may provide us with many EtB triggers. With a bit of luck, we can double those triggers and the value we get from them. Being at instant speed means it can protect our board too and that makes it a great inclusion for our deck.
Card Draw
Sea Gate Loremaster can be an amazing repeatable card draw source since it has “: Draw a card for each Ally you control”
Distant Melody is great in any creature tribal deck with blue color as all of them run a good number of creatures, thus providing us a good number of card draw.
Reconnaissance Mission is an enchantment that greatly help us with card draw since we can expect to attack with many creatures and deal many times damage to a player and thus draw many cards from it.
Malakir Soothsayer has ,Tap an untapped Ally you control: You draw a card and you lose 1 life. It is quite expensive for what she does, but it is an Ally and the card draw can be repeatitive so it may be worth it.
Realmwalker is great in any kind of creature tribal decks and of course in Ally tribal it can shine even more because of the EtB strategy and the creature-heavy theme.
Beast Whisperer offers great card draw on tribal creature decks since most of them are creature-heavy decks. It works great with EtB multiplyiers.
Kindred Discovery is also great in creature tribal decks and works greatly with EtB multipliers too. It also provides card draw on attacking, so it promotes aggro and can give us amazing value.
Finishers/ Surprise /Alternate win conditions
Resolute Blademaster gives our creatures double strike until end of turn on Ally EtB, and massive double strike is always great for finishing moves.
Tajuru Warcaller gives our creatures +2/+2 until end of turn on Ally EtB, en effect that alone is good, but if we trigger it many times can be devastating for our opponents.
General Tazri is our main finisher since we have constant access to her and she can easily buff our creatures to a point where every Ally becomes a great threat. A fitting role for our general. For the Alliance!
Other synergy pieces
Great Allies
Jwari Shapeshifter is a cheap Ally clone that copy any Ally on the battlefield. We can copy our best one depending on the situation and optimize our play.
Kalastria Healer is great for draining our opponents since we can have multiple EtB triggers.
Ondu Cleric can provides us with great amounts of life, since on Ally EtB we may gain life equal to the number of Allies we control, which is always important.
Hagra Diabolist can be a secret finisher as on Ally EtB we can have target player loose an amount of life equal to the number of Allies we control.
Kazuul Warlord can buff our Allies with +1/+1 counters on Ally EtB and what matters is that those counters stay on our Allies so they can stack an make our army powerful.
Bala Ged Thief is our discard master, with enough EtB triggers it can be a real trouble for our opponents and force them to discard their best cards.
Allies That Provide Keywords : 10 cards
Allies that provide keywords on Ally EtB are great for our deck. Some are better than the others, but all contribute to a deck with amazing synergy and power.
EtB Trigger Doublers : 3 cards
EtB trigger doublers are a powerhouse for our deck since we run many powerful EtB effects.
Blink Strategy : 3 cards
Brago, King Eternal is worthy of a special mention since he can repeatably mass blink our Allies whenever he deals combat damage to a player and we can get amazing value from it. Another Round is a mass blink spell that has flexible casting cost and the more mana we can dump, the more value we can get out of it, in the form of mulitple mass ETB effects. Great synergy with our Ally Tribal Blink strategy! The other cards have already been analized earlier in the article.
Ally Token Producers : 4 cards
Ally token producers provide us with more Allies which means more EtB and we can get amazing value from them.
Infinite Combo
Turntimber Ranger and Maskwood Nexus are part of an infinite combo that results in infinite EtB, infinite creature tokens and a infinitely large Turntimber Ranger. The combo can be explained here (EDHREC). With infinite EtB we can even win in the same turn with numerous ways.
Land Color Fixers
Unclaimed Territory, Secluded Courtyard, Path of Ancestry and Ally Encampment are important color fixers for our 5-color identity.
Let’s see some more statistics about our deck. Some important info to care about is the mana curve and the card type distribution, as it can help us understand better our deck and may indicate where there is space for improving it.
Mana Curve
The mana curve seems more middle-range centered that usual, with many drops on 4-5 drop positions, a spike at 4 drops and an absence of 7+ drops. That reflects the fact that we count on Allies with strong EtB effects that mostly exist in that range.
Card Type Distribution
The Aplly Tribal Card Type Distribution shows the dominant tribal creature-heavy theme. Other categories have lesser presence with Sorceries at 9, Artifact at 7, Enchantment at 4, Instants at 6, and Battles at 1. No Planeswalkers are present for the time.
Of course statistics and comparative analysis are great tools but they don’t always tell the whole truth, since many factors like synergy and combo pieces are hard to be measured numerically. For example in this deck, with all the deck build around General Tazri that can consistently tutor our Allies, the true power of the deck lies in synergy and that is not reflected in statistics.
Update v1 (Outlaws of Thunder Junction)
Update v2 (Bloomburrow)
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If you like my tribal series, you can check my other tribal decks.
