Typal

For the card type formerly known as tribal, see Kindred.

Typal, also called tribal, is Magic slang for a block, set, deck, or card with a mechanical theme centered around one or more creature types. Examples of typal cards include Imperious Perfect and Arcane Epiphany.

Typal synergies have existed since Alpha, although they were not well supported until the release of Onslaught in 2002. Since then, despite the difficulty of designing for typal gameplay, most expansions have included at least a small typal component. Some sets, such as the Ixalan block, feature typal as a major theme.

Terminology

During the design of Onslaught, R&D internally coined the term "species matters" to refer to creature type–centric themes, then settled on "tribal" as as a better term. For over two decades, "tribal" remained the word of choice.

Since mid-2023, R&D have used the word typal instead, both internally and publicly. According to Mark Rosewater, the change was made due to advice from cultural consultants about unintended connotations of the word tribal.

Rosewater has stated that Wizards of the Coast is not attempting to force a change in anyone else's vocabulary. "Typal" is internal slang only and will never appear on cards. Many players still use the word "tribal".

Disambiguation from kindred

The word "tribal" once also referred to a card type. The decision to move away from the word, though primarily driven by cultural sensitivity concerns, was also an opportunity to disambiguate the card type from the internal slang term. A few months later, the card type was officially renamed kindred.

As a deck archetype

Most typal decks follow an aggro or midrange strategy, combining a large number of creatures with cards that care about those creatures' types. To maximize typal synergy, decks typically have a higher ratio of creatures to noncreatures, and rarely if ever include off-type creatures. The major exception to this pattern is "big tribes", such as Dragons, which tend to fit a smaller typal package into a control or combo shell.

History

Typal cards have existed since Alpha and have been popular since the game's beginning. Originally a niche strategy with little support, typal has grown in prominence and is now at the core of several sets' identities. As of 2007, it was the second most popular mechanical theme of all time.

Typal was first explored in a major way in 2002 with the release of the Onslaught block. Since then, several premier sets have included major typal themes and sub-themes, most notably the Lorwyn, Innistrad, and Ixalan blocks; Zendikar Rising; and Bloomburrow. A number of supplemental products, including many Duel Decks and preconstructed Commander decks, are built around typal strategies.

Most early typal effects were symmetrical, affecting all creatures of a given type, even those controlled by opponents. This has since been retired due to poor gameplay. New typal cards only affect one's own creatures, which better matches player intuition and leads to less tension when casting the cards.

Pre-Onslaught

Lord of Atlantis (art by Melissa Benson) is one of the earliest and most famous typal lords.

Typal has always been a part of Magic, but for nearly the first decade of the game's history, it was only a small part. Before the release of Onslaught, typal decks—though popular with some players—were usually quite weak.

Goblin King, Lord of Atlantis, and Zombie Master from Alpha (1993) are Magic's earliest typal cards, encouraging players to build decks with Goblins, Merfolk, and Zombies, respectively. Alpha contained only two Goblins, one Merfolk, and one Zombie—not including these three lords, which were printed without their respective types. The potential of the earliest typal decks was therefore very limited—although a lack of deck-building restrictions made it possible to play as many (for example) Merfolk of the Pearl Trident as necessary. Subsequent sets added a handful of new creatures for each type, and some new typal payoffs, but not enough to approach competitive viability.

Fallen Empires (1994) was the first expansion organized around distinct typal factions, though this theme was largely creative rather than mechanical. Still, the set did include a few payoffs for Dwarves, Fungi, Goblins, Merfolk, Orcs, Soldiers, and Thrulls.

Goblins were relatively prominent during Magic's early years: ten the first twenty-three expansions included at least one Goblin typal card. Other creature types supported during this period include Elves, Griffins, Kavu, Knights, and Kobolds. Homelands (1995) was notable for featuring creature types that had previously enjoyed little or no support, including typal payoffs for Dwarves, Faeries, Minotaurs, and Vampires; the Odyssey block (2001–2002) would do the same for Barbarians, Birds, Cephalids (now Octopuses), Druids, Minions, and Squirrels.

Slivers, introduced in the Tempest block (1997–1998), are an early sign of typal's lasting popularity. Inspired by Plague Rats, every Sliver card rewarded players for running as many Slivers as possible. For the first time, it become relatively easy to build powerful decks around a single creature type. The success of Slivers prompted Wizards of the Coast to include stronger typal themes in future sets, although it would take a few years for this feedback loop to kick in. Together with Licids, Slivers are the first one-to-one correlation of creature types with game mechanics.

Sixth Edition (1999) saw a major consolidation of creature types, which was driven by a desire to better enable typal designs.

By the time Apocalypse (2001) released, a characteristic creature type had emerged for each color: Soldiers in white, Merfolk in blue, Zombies in black, Goblins in red, and Elves in green. These are reflected in the set's two typal cycles, the "envoys" and the enemy-color two drops.

Onslaught–present

Onslaught (2002) was a breakthrough in typal design, the first set ever structured first and foremost around typal themes. Eight creature types across all five colors received support, and design space for typal cards was thoroughly mined. Goblin and Elf decks saw widespread tournament play.

The set's typal focus was proposed by Mark Rosewater, who had long been intrigued by typal strategies but disappointed by their lack of support. When Rosewater became Head Designer in 2003, he made it a goal to include at least a small typal element in every set, something that enthusiasts could build or draft around. Since then, almost every premier set has included at least one typal card, several contain one or two typal-based draft archetypes (e.g., green/white Citizens in Streets of New Capenna), and some are full-blown typal sets.

The consolidation of creature types that had begun with Sixth Edition continued in earnest with the Mirrodin block (2003–2004), which introduced the Human creature type as well as the species/job model. This increased the average number of subtypes per creature, better enabling typal strategies. Later, the Grand Creature Type Update streamlined and updated all extant creatures' types to the contemporary race/class model. Humans would eventually go on to replace Soldiers as white's go-to characteristic type; Zendikar (2009) added Vampires to share the title with Zombies in black.

The outlaw batch in Outlaws of Thunder Junction reflects a growing concern for backwards compatibility in typal themes. (Art by Francisco Miyara.)

The Lorwyn (2007–2008) and Ixalan (2017–2018) blocks followed in the footsteps of Onslaught's all-in typal structure. Lorwyn supported eight species and five jobs, bleeding typal themes across multiple colors (where the Onslaught block had been primarily monocolor focused). Ixalan, a four-faction typal block, introduced a new 3/3/2/2 model of color distribution, with all but two of its draft archetypes being typal.

Lorwyn also saw the widespread adoption of the kindred card type (then called tribal) first previewed in ''Future Sight'', which allowed noncreature spells to have creature types and thus benefit from some typal effects. R&D decided to retire kindred while playtesting Innistrad, after realizing that it almost never influenced games, though it has since appeared on a handful of new cards in supplemental sets.

Innistrad (2011) was the first premier set with a lighter-but-still-prominent typal theme. Roughly half of the set's structure is devoted to typal factions, with each allied color pair connected to a specific creature type. Its typal structure has been reused on every subsequent Innistrad set except Avacyn Restored, and it has proven a better model for typal sets than the heavy-typal structure of the Onslaught, Lorwyn, or Ixalan blocks. Other sets with light-but-prominent typal themes include Zendikar Rising (2020), which introduced the party mechanic, and Bloomburrow (2024).

Typal coupling saw its first set-wide use in Innistrad: Werewolves were coupled with Wolves to compensate for the lower as-fan of double-faced cards. In more recent years, the tool has seen increased use as part of a push toward backwards compatibility, as with Samurai/Warriors and Ninjas/Rogues in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty (2022) and the outlaw batch in Outlaws of Thunder Junction (2024). Party is also a form of typal coupling, albeit a nontraditional one.

Typal sets

A number of blocks and premier sets include typal strategies as a central theme or notable sub-theme. The Onslaught, Lorwyn, and Ixalan blocks are heavy-typal sets; Lorwyn in particular has the deepest typal exploration of any existing set. Sets with lighter, but still prominent, typal themes include Zendikar Rising, Bloomburrow, and most expansions set on Innistrad. Heavy-typal sets have proven more difficult to design than their lighter counterparts.

Expansion(s)	Typal structure	Supported creature types (primary color/s)
Onslaught block	Heavy typal block supporting nine creature types	Birds (), Beasts (), Clerics (), Elves (), Goblins (), Wizards (), Slivers (), Soldiers (), Zombies ()
Lorwyn block	Very heavy typal block supporting eight species and five jobs	Elementals (), Elves (), Faeries (), Giants (), Goblins (), Kithkin (), Merfolk (), Rogues (), Soldiers (), Shamans (), Treefolk (), Warriors (), Wizards ()
Innistrad and related sets	Light typal sets supporting five creature types, one per allied-color pair	Humans (), Spirits (), Vampires (), Werewolves (), Zombies ()
Ixalan block	Heavy typal block supporting four creature types, using a 3/3/2/2 model of color distribution	Dinosaurs (), Merfolk (), Pirates (), Vampires ()
Zendikar Rising	Light typal set supporting the party mechanic, including a two-color archetype for each of that mechanic's four creature types	Clerics (), Rogues (), Warriors (), Wizards ()
Bloomburrow	Light typal set supporting ten creature types, one per two-color pair	Bats (), Birds (), Frogs (), Lizards (), Mice (), Otters (), Rabbits (), Raccoons (), Rats (), Squirrels ()

Onslaught block

The Onslaught block is Magic's first foray into heavy typal themes. Beasts, Birds, Clerics, Elves, Goblins, Soldiers, Wizards, and Zombies all receive broad support, with a few more creature types showing up in smaller numbers at higher rarities. These eight were chosen for a balanced distribution of color and size. The block also supports Slivers, which appear in Legions with their characteristic typal designs. (Despite Scourge being marketed as a "dragon set", is contains only a small amount of Dragon typal.)

Each creature type is designed for a different play style. These are mostly monocolor and aligned with each color's normal play patterns: blue Wizards use tapping and countering to mess with opponents, green Elves ramp into large creatures, black Zombies use graveyard recursion and -X/-X effects, and white Soldiers and red Goblins both employ go-wide strategies. Some exceptions exist: off-color splash cards like Lavamancer's Skill nudge players to branch into secondary colors, and Clerics are a firmly two-color attrition deck combining white defense with black offense. By modern design sensibilities, however, Onslaught's typal themes are too narrow in their color focus.

The block also has a sub-theme of more open-ended typal gameplay. Onslaught contains twenty generically typal cards like Shared Triumph designed for casual play. A number of cards can change their own or other creatures' types; most notable are the Illusions known as mistform, which act as glue.

Lorwyn block

The Lorwyn block is the most intense exploration of typal themes, combining species and job typal for a deep but complex environment. Lorwyn is focused on creature species, supporting Elementals, Elves, Faeries, Giants, Goblins, Kithkin, Merfolk, and Treefolk, with each species in at least two colors. Morningtide is focused on classes, supporting Rogues, Shamans, Soldiers, Warriors, and Wizards primarily, plus a number of other classes in one-off cards.

The block is complex enough that it contributed to the creation of New World Order, due in part to its heavy use of overlapping typal themes. A number of species pairs with shared colors benefit from typal coupling in cards such as Caterwauling Boggart. Class typal in Morningtide frequently overlaps with species typal—whether implicitly in the kinship and prowl mechanics, explicitly in cards like Stonybrook Banneret, or incidentally in the fact that every creature in the block belongs to a typally supported species. Altogether, it makes for a mind-melting Limited environment.

A number of design choices, such as putting types in multiple colors and adding glue in the form of changeling, were made as safeguards against a prescriptive Booster Draft experience. Despite this, drafts are largely "on rails": if a player starts drafting one creature type, then they're effectively committed to that choice.

Lorwyn and Morningtide are the only typal sets to include kindred cards (called tribal at the time of release).

Expansions set on Innistrad

Supported type	Colors	Mechanical through line
		Innistrad and Dark Ascension	Shadows over Innistrad	Eldritch Moon	Innistrad: Midnight Hunt	Innistrad: Crimson Vow
Humans		Go-wide, Equipment	Auras and Equipment		Coven	Training
Spirits		Flying, Humans dying into Spirits			Disturb (Humans → Spirits), flying	Disturb (Spirits → enchantments), flying
Werewolves (coupled with Wolves)		Proto-Daybound/Nightbound		TDFCs with one-time mana costs to transform	Daybound/Nightbound
Zombies		Self-mill, graveyard as a resource, go-wide			Decayed	Exploit
Vampires		The "Slith" ability	Madness		Opponents losing life	Blood tokens

Almost every expansion set on the plane of Innistrad features the typal sub-theme first introduced in the Innistrad block. Innistrad's five supported creature types—Humans, Spirits, Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies—capture a "monsters vs humans" theme as part of its top-down Gothic horror design. Each is centered in an allied color pair; typal themes thus occupy roughly half of an Innistrad set's overall structure, being centered in five of ten draft archetypes. Even within a faction's colors, typal payoffs are less frequent than in heavy-typal sets like Lorwyn; Innistrad's monsters and victims tend to be mechanically cohesive even without typal rewards.

Ixalan block

The Ixalan block is a heavily typal faction block designed around Pirates, Dinosaurs, Merfolk, and Vampires. It introduces a 3/3/2/2 model of color distribution: Pirates and Dinosaurs each show up in three colors, while Vampires and Merfolk only show up in two. Eight of the two-color draft archetypes in Ixalan are typal, excepting only white-blue and black-green.

The 3/3/2/2 model introduced significant design challenges for Limited. The three-color factions are inherently more flexible in Draft: drafting a green Dinosaur card leaves a player open to either green-white or red-green, but taking a green Merfolk card leads only to green-blue. To compensate, the development team pushed Vampires and Merfolk for a slightly higher power level, but ended up making them overpowered. The lack of glue also creates a siloing effect.

Zendikar Rising

Spoils of Adventure (art by Zezhou Chen) depicts the four classes that comprise a party.

Zendikar Rising features the batching mechanic party, which collects the four iconic Dungeons & Dragons classes Cleric, Rogue, Warrior (Fighter), and Wizard. Unlike most typal themes, party incentivizes diversification of types—though the set also supports more traditional typal strategies for Clerics, Rogues, Warriors, and Wizards as standalone creature types. Of the ten two-color draft archetypes, six are designed either around the party mechanic or around a specific type.

The color distribution of party is uniquely imbalanced. Green is tertiary in all four creature types. Each other color is primary in one creature type, secondary in another, and tertiary in a third, with the final creature type being absent. Black, for example, is primary in Rogues, secondary in Clerics, and tertiary in Warriors, and contains no Wizards. The reverse is also true: Clerics are primary in white, secondary in black, tertiary in blue (and green), and absent from red. A mostly green vertical cycle of changeling-like cards can fill any role in the party.

Party proved difficult to balance for Constructed. Keeping any four creatures on the battlefield in a Constructed game is a tall order, let alone four creatures with unique, specific types.

Bloomburrow

Bloomburrow features ten animal factions, one for each two-color pair. Its typal theme stretches wide without delving deep: every faction has typal payoffs, but only a small number, and they're skewed toward higher rarities and more aimed at Constructed formats. Limited gameplay, while it can involve typal payoffs, leans more on each faction's mechanical theme. Glue exists in the form of the "Duo" cycle.

According to Mark Rosewater, Bloomburrow is the best-designed typal set but still ran into some familiar problems. Many players found the draft environment prescriptive; even though mixing animal types was possible, the cards themselves failed to signal this.

Design considerations

Typal is a linear, A/B mechanic. It's difficult to design and balance, especially for high-level Constructed play and for sets with heavy typal themes like Onslaught and Lorwyn. It is often interwoven with other mechanical themes—for example, a set featuring Goblin typal might tie Goblins to a sacrifice archetype; building a deck around a specific creature type therefore results in a synergistic, cohesive deck, even if the actual typal payoffs are few or none.

A typal theme usually exists in at least two colors per creature type. This allows for Limited typal play, since monocolor decks are hard to pull off in Limited. It also enables a wider variety of typal decks in Constructed formats.

Not every creature type supported in a set is pushed for tournament-level play. For example, Giant typal in Lorwyn was intended only for casual players, while Faeries were designed to be competitively viable.

Critical mass and backwards compatibility

Typal themes require not only payoff cards, but an even larger number of creatures of the given type—not just Goblin lords, for example, but also plenty of Goblins. When designing for tournament-level play, only competitively viable creatures count toward this critical mass. R&D tries to err on the side of overshooting, both to avoid missing the mark entirely and to vary the decks available for a given creature type.

Standard is the easiest competitive format to achieve critical typal mass for, requiring about eight to ten playable creatures. Commander, as a 100-card singleton format, needs six and a half times as many creatures, which can be difficult to achieve in one set. Limited wants the common rarity to contain about two to four typal payoffs and about six appropriately typed creatures.

The backwards compatibility of a Constructed typal theme can affect its design. If a great number of powerful creatures and typal payoffs already exist, there's less pressure on the set to carry the typal theme. job typal is thus usually easier to design for than species typal; the most common classes already exist in great volume (though there are some exceptions, like Pirates). On the other end of the spectrum, a new creature type with no existing creatures requires much heavy lifting from a set. Typal coupling can help with backwards compatibility.

"Seeding" is the process of printing creatures in preparation of an upcoming typal theme, for help achieving critical mass. For example, several premier sets leading up to Bloomburrow seeded animal creature types like Mice and Rats. Seeding is not always possible, especially in the case of brand-new creature types like Dinosaurs in Ixalan.

Threshold one vs. scaling

Typal cards exist on a scale from "threshold one" effects, caring whether players control at least one of a given creature type (e.g., Compelling Deterrence or Dwynen's Elite), to "scaling" effects, which reward players for playing as many of a given creature type as possible (e.g., Lord of Atlantis, Goblin Recruiter, or Elvish Branchbender). Threshold-one cards can be playable even in decks with a less monomaniacal typal focus.

Typal cards designed for Constructed play lean more toward scaling effects. Threshold-one effects are used for Constructed "packets", small groups of cards with typal synergies that are meant to be playable in otherwise non-typal decks.

Designing typal themes for Booster Draft requires working around the "silo problem". A card that's powerful in the right typal deck, but weak otherwise, will be drafted late enough that even drafters who want the card can ignore it during their first few picks and reliably obtain it later in the pack. This creates a power imbalance since typal drafters can spend their early picks on cards that are generically powerful and their later picks on cards that are, for them, equally powerful. It also decreases variance. Typal common cards tend to be threshold-one effects, which have a lower barrier to inclusion and are therefore more contested. Uncommons—which suffer less from the silo problem, since they are inherently harder to come by—tend toward scaling effects.

Glue

A typal set needs glue—that is, something to provide cohesion and overlap between its component parts—more than any other kind of set. The most famous example of typal glue is the changeling mechanic first introduced in Lorwyn.

One-off typal cards

Some sets include one-off typal cards without any larger theme. These cards tend to be more powerful in general and to lean into scaling effects rather than threshold-one effects. The power level can be flexible depending on the creature type: the fewer creatures of that type exist, and the weaker those creatures are, the more powerful the typal payoff can be.

Typal commanders

When designing a typal legendary creature to serve as the commander of an EDH deck, color is the most important consideration. Ideally, the card's color identity should touch every color in which cards of that type have been printed—or, if the existing roster of creatures is large and spread over many colors, then at least touch the colors where they're most concentrated.

The legend rule creates tension between Commander and sixty-card Constructed formats when it comes to typal creature designs. Commander players prefer that typal lords be legendary so that they can use them as commanders, while players of sixty-card formats would prefer that typal lords be nonlegendary, so that they can play four copies in a deck without drawing dead cards.

See also

• Lord
• Typal coupling
• Typal land

External links

• Mark Rosewater (June 2, 2025). "Typal Through the Years, Part 1". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
• Mark Rosewater (June 9, 2025). "Typal Through the Years, Part 2". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
• Mark Rosewater (June 16, 2025). "Typal Through the Years, Part 3". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.