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!