Tribal

Comprehensive Rules
Game Concepts
Parts of a Card
Card Types
300. General
301. Artifacts
302. Creatures
303. Enchantments
304. Instants
305. Lands
306. Planeswalkers
307. Sorceries
308. Tribals
309. Planes
310. Vanguards
311. Schemes
Zones
Turn Structure
Spells, Abilities, and Effects
Additional Rules
Multiplayer Rules
Casual Variants

See also: Tribal (theme).

Tribal is a card type first introduced in Future Sight. Creatures and tribals share the same set of subtypes.

From the Comprehensive Rules (Innistrad)

• 308 Tribals
  • 308.1. Each tribal card has another card type. Casting and resolving a tribal card follows the rules for casting and resolving a card of the other card type.
  • 308.2. Tribal subtypes are always a single word and are listed after a long dash: "Tribal Enchantment — Merfolk." The set of tribal subtypes is the same as the set of creature subtypes; these subtypes are called creature types. Tribals may have multiple subtypes. See rule 204.3k for the complete list of creature types.

Rulings

• Tribal is not a permanent type. However, a tribal card can become a permanent if another of its types allows it to do so.

• Many Lorwyn cards refer to specific creature types. These cards may affect tribals, depending on what they say and what they do. For example, using "Goblin" as our creature type:
  • If a card uses "Goblin" as a noun (that is, without following it with a word like "card" or "spell"), it actually means "Goblin permanent." It can affect any Goblin permanent in play, including a Goblin tribal.
  • If a card says just "Goblin creature," it can affect only a Goblin creature in play. It can't affect a tribal.
  • If a card says "Goblin card," it can affect any Goblin card not in play, including a Goblin tribal card.

• If a spell asks whether you control a Goblin, it's asking whether you control a Goblin permanent. It won't count Goblin spells you control (including itself).

• If a card with multiple types has one or more subtypes, each subtype is correlated to its appropriate type.

• When one or more of a permanent's subtypes changes, the new subtype(s) replace any existing subtypes from the appropriate set (creature types, land types, artifact types, enchantment types, spell types, or planeswalker types). It won't affect the subtypes from any other set, and it won't affect the permanent's types.

• If a permanent ceases to be one of its types, the subtypes correlated with that type will remain if they are also the subtypes of a type the permanent currently has; otherwise, they are also removed for the entire time the permanent's type is removed.

• The Onslaught card Artificial Evolution can change the creature types of a tribal.

• Many older cards have received errata in the Oracle card database to work sensibly with tribals. For example, instant and sorcery cards can't come into play. If an older card was printed with a wording that allowed you to put a Goblin card into play, it now specifies that you can put a Goblin permanent card into play.

Discontinuation

It seems that the Tribal card type is being discontinued. Mark Rosewater announced its death knell, when it wasn't used in Innistrad (which had a strong tribal subtheme).

Trivia

• Tribal was featured as rules card 5 of 5 in the Lorwyn set.

References

Card types
Groups	Supertypes	Card types	Subtypes
Spell (non-permanent)		Instant	Trap	Arcane
		Sorcery
Permanent	Basic, Legendary, Snow, World	Artifact	Equipment, Fortification, Contraption
		Creature	(…)
		Enchantment	Aura, Curse, Shrine
		Land	(…)
		Planeswalker	(…)
Miscellaneous		Tribal	(…)
		Plane	(…)
		Phenomenon
	Ongoing	Scheme
		Vanguard
Obsolete	Mono, Poly, Continuous	Interrupt, Mana Source, Summon

Contributors

GeoMike, Hunter61, Lithl, Magic Mage, Merope