Building on a Theme: Tribunal Glory

Welcome back to the Building on a Theme series, where we take a look at the Theme Decks released alongside Houses of Morrowind! Today, we’ll be talking about the Tribunal Glory deck and finding ways to tweak it - all while adding only Commons and Rares to keep it budget-friendly.

Tribunal Glory v1.0 2x Execute 2x Ghostgate Defender 2x Illusory Defenses 2x Almalexia’s Disciple 1x Bruma Profiteer 2x Evermore Steward 2x Kvatch Soldier 3x Poetic Armiger 2x Temple Conjurer 3x Tresspasser’s Bane 3x Vivec City Pilgrim 1x Wardcrafter 2x Burning Touch 3x Clockwork City Pilgrim 2x Crushing Blow 2x Feasting Hunter 2x Indoril Mastermind 2x Tree Minder 1x Archcanon Saryoni 3x Bonewalker 1x Cursed Spectre 1x Dres Renegade 1x Edict of Azura 2x Grand Inquisitor 1x Hive Defender 3x Lightning Bolt 3x Mournhold Pilgrim 1x Northpoint Captain 2x Restless Templar 3x Tribunal Oathman 2x Dren Bodyguard 1x Indomitable Ordinator 1x Light of the Three 2x Piercing Javelin 1x Fate Weaver 1x Golden Saint 1x Tel Vos Magister 1x Dark Harvester 2x Temple Patriarch 1x Power of the Almsivi 1x Shrine Guardian 1x Therana’s Lawman

Tribunal Glory’s Game Plan

The Tribunal Glory deck is a lot of fun because it can function both aggressively or defensively depending on the situation. It has a good amount of early plays but can also take it slower with its supply of removal and Prophecy cards to hold off more aggressive opponents.

In addition, creatures with Exalt, a new ability from Houses of Morrowind, provide flexibility. This deck even has Temple Patriarch to turn those creatures into real threats! While we make edits to help this deck become more consistent, we’ll also be making sure we’re maxing out our Exalt creatures to get the highest amount of value from the Patriarchs.

At the end of it all, we’ll hopefully have a deck that can play aggressively and use its removal to disrupt the opponent’s game plan, but also have reliable defensive options.

Which Removal to Play?

For starters, let’s alter this deck’s available removal. Execute is great, but I’ll be cutting them in favor of Grisly Gourmet, which I like a lot more in a deck that wants to play creatures and be aggressive too. As far as defensive options go, Burning Touch, Trespasser’s Bane and Illusory Defenses might get the job done but there are more consistent options - some of which the deck is already playing.

More copies of Edict of Azura would be nice if you can get your hands on them; until then, we can get by by maxing out Piercing Javelin, Crushing Blow and adding a full set of Sorcerer’s Negation which gives this deck more ways to Silence powerful effects while outright destroying smaller creatures.

Streamlining the Magicka Curve

As mentioned, I really want to make sure this deck takes advantage of the power of Exalt combined with Temple Patriarch. Therefore, we should probably play three copies of it! We can also easily add a third copy of Ghostgate Defender, Almalexia’s Disciple, and Temple Conjurerer. Each of these are reasonable early plays with a powerful bonus if we want to hold them for later, all while making Temple Patriarch even more of a power play.

For consistency’s sake, let’s also max out two of our other solid two-magicka creatures, Wardcrafter and Bruma Profiteer, and two of our three-magicka creatures, Indoril Mastermind and Feasting Hunger.

To make some space for all these additions, let’s look at some other cards we can cut; Tree Minder stands out because it lacks flexibility and we aren’t ramping to a whole lot at the top of our curve. Northpoint Captain and Cursed Spectre can get cut as well (especially since we have Sorcerer’s Negation for Silence now), and Dren Bodyguard isn’t exactly a standout five-magicka creature since it compares unfavorably to Phalanx Exemplar outside of Arena when we can choose our own cards. Exemplar would be a fine substitution if you have access to Return to Clockwork City. Restless Templar can also be removed now that we have a third Feasting Hunger, considering cards like Bruma Profiteer, Vivec City Pilgrim and Tribunal Oathman also gain us health.

Finally, two of our most powerful cards in the mid-game, Hive Defender and Golden Saint, deserve to be played in threes. Hive Defender remains one of the best cards to halt early aggression and is especially important for us since it can protect any Exalt creatures we play early on so they can survive until the Temple Patriarch turn. Golden Saint is just a fantastic turn six play if we’ve been able to maintain any aggression and with the Patriarch on the following turn, our opponents could be pressured right out of the game.

The one-ofs, Fate Weaver and Dark Harvester, can be removed since they are pretty strictly defensive, and Dres Renegade can easily make way for one of the Hive Defenders. Power of the Almsivi can be our last cut; while it can be an incredibly strong Control play, we’d like to have a strong board presence of our own by turn eight with this deck!

With those changes, our final deck list is complete! Let’s take a look at the updated version:

Tribunal Glory v2.0 3x Ghostgate Defender 3x Almalexia’s Disciple 3x Bruma Profiteer 2x Evermore Steward 2x Kvatch Soldier 3x Poetic Armiger 3x Sorcerer’s Negation 3x Temple Conjurer 3x Vivec City Pilgrim 3x Wardcrafter 3x Clockwork City Pilgrim 3x Crushing Blow 3x Feasting Hunter 3x Grisly Gourmet 3x Indoril Mastermind 1x Archcanon Saryoni 3x Bonewalker 1x Edict of Azura 2x Grand Inquisitor 3x Hive Defender 3x Lightning Bolt 3x Mournhold Pilgrim 3x Tribunal Oathman 1x Indomitable Ordinator 1x Light of the Three 3x Piercing Javelin 3x Golden Saint 1x Tel Vos Magister 3x Temple Patriarch 1x Shrine Guardian

With a stronger early curve, streamlined removal and the full Exalt package, you’ll be ready to crush your opponents - but be sure to keep experimenting with other cards to find out what works best for your preferred style of play!

Until next time, I hope this article helped you and best of luck on the ladder!