Tribbles Online Masters 2024

by Ross Fertel, Cuddly

7th January 2025

The final day of 2024 (or the first day of 2025 depending on your timezone) saw an Online Tribbles Masters event. We'll take a look at the decks, ask some questions of the players and even look at them in action.

We'll start with Steve Nelson's Rescue Battle Royale 1.8, though there are more Evolves than Battle. The strategy is sound in filling up the discard pile with low value cards so that the high value ones remain for Battle.

Jeremy Benedict is a little more straightforward with a deck titled Shut it Down. Organize, from the latest set Bad Brood Rising, is the key to this deck. This power lets you score points after you have scored points already or activated a Battle/Recue, though surprisingly few cards in the deck do so. There is some defense in this deck with Charm and Discord. Cheat is there to get ahead and Famine is conversely there to slow things down as the situation may dictate.

Here is what Benedict had to say about his deck

The deck I played is something I've been working on that's just intended to shift the meta around a bit and poke at the perennially overplayed powers. It's mainly defensive as its primary powers are Decloak, Charm, Freeze, and Discord, all cards that prevent the activation of other powers. I included Organize cards as a passive scoring engine, though going out is always the scoring goal. Organize (when activated) also doesn't go on top of the play pile, so the "shut down" powers stay active, and Assimilate targeting me might get another of the passive powers in play when that player puts my card on top of their play pile. The highlight for me was in at least one round Charm prevented all or most other players from being able to activate their powers. I've certainly had it affect a section of the table before, but never so well all at once. (I'd have to review the video on which round, but it was brought up in banter.) It's not a deck that's going to win a lot of games, but it's goofy and chaotic and the disruption can be entertaining. Still a work in progress but nothing I'm seriously analyzing.

Matthew Zinno would play Bohemian Rescue II, a deck chock full of Rescues and a lot of Go to make sure those cards are played. Mirror can help the points coming and Fizzbin helps stick around for going out.

Here is what Zinno had to say about his deck

I brought a Rescue deck that had performed well for me before. But in Tribbles, nothing is a guarantee. Cards just did not chain together as well as they might. Twice, I managed to activate a Rescue and despite a large discard pile, I did not find the denomination I needed. I did go out in an early round, but for less than 100k. The big obstruction in this match was Jeremy's interference deck, whose Charm stopped most of my powers (and to a lesser extent, Discord and Decloak).

IDIC Means Appreciating the Borg Too! Mk II by Maggie Geppert has a lot of IDIC as you would expect, adding points for diversity with Assimilate helping out and Validate getting more points from cards in your pile owned by an opponent through Assimilate.

Here is what Geppert had to say about her deck

How well did the deck perform to your expectations?

Honestly, my pre-Validate version of this deck has performed much better. I won several tournaments with it, but this one doesn't work as well

What was the 'crowning moment' of your deck?

It worked best in round 1, when I got both Validates out and assimilated a couple of cards.

Of the decks you faced, which ones were most favorable to yours?

Probably Matt Zinno's deck, since he was running a lot of different powers and had quite a few 100k cards. Compare that to Mat McCalpin's deck, which had five powers and only went to 10k. It was not a good assimilation target.

How offensive/defensive was your deck?

I would certainly call Assimilate an offensive card more than a defensive one. You're literally stealing cards from your opponent's deck.

What changes would you make to your deck?

I should probably ditch the IDIC and focus on Validate, since it always scores points and IDIC only works if you go out. It's definitely a "win more" type of card.

Not only did Mathew Mccalpin limit himself to one set for Trials and Tirbbleation Only, but there are also only five different cards in the deck among three different values! Most of the time will be spent using Poison (or playing Go and then playing Poison) with a few Safety and Time Warps as a contingency. Add in a few Discards and you have a fairly straightforward, simple deck at exactly two hundred cards.

Here is what McCaplin had to say about his deck:

How well did the deck perform to your expectations?

My deck is basic Poison deck, but geared to grab a several achievements, most notably Trials and Tribble-ations and is actually MVB's deck:

Poison Player
Trials and Tribble-ations
Hot off the Presses
Discard Player
Spot me a C Note?
Base on Balls
Safe Timewarp Player
Maximum Trouble
No Big and Go Home

That said, it performed as I expected it to, but I didn't get great Poison numbers. I did hit 100k once and was leading thru the first 3 rounds. I even went out round 2 and 3, which though I have Discards, I don't intend to go out. What were my totals for those 2 rounds? Ross, I am so glad you asked... My crowning achievements were scoring 45 and 47 tribbles in rounds 2 and 3, respectively....Yes 92 total points in 2 rounds. Remember though, going out with low points is often preferred over someone else going out for big points, especially when I was already leading.

Of the decks you faced, which ones were most favorable to yours?

As far as decks faced, I clearly should have been targeting Remo, Steve and Zinno. I did target them but I sent to many shots at Maggie and Jeremy and Jeremy's Charm definitely shut down a couple shots from my Poison, in fact in one round he shut down everybody with it.

Remo was self-feeding his score by Ante-ing 100k Clones for his Qapla's, so it's hard to say if targeting him in the end was a good play but as he pulled ahead winning rounds 4 and 5, I did target him when maybe Steve was the better choice at that point.

How offensive/defensive was your deck?

Poison, I think, is considered Offensive. It gets points during the round as opposed to the end and it puts those poisoned cards into the discard pile so they can't readily be accesses without Rescue or Recycle. This can punish a short stack deck, especially since mine was 200 cards.

What changes would you make to your deck?

I don't plan to make any changes to it. It's one of those that wins if it's targeting the right players in the match, like a Battle / Clone / Confront / Control / Dabo / Fizzbin decks and to a certain extent, Tally decks.

The event would ultimatelygo to Qapla' Your Hands by Remo G, playing the odds which were evidently in favor. Clone is around tostay competitive in the game while Ante spices things up and Go keeps the deck flowing.

Here is what Remo G had to say about his deck:

I laid the smackdown with Qapla' Your Hands a couple months ago in Seattle, so I knew the deck was good. I didn't build it to win though, only to learn how to Qapla'/Ante, which is popular with the VanBreemans. So I built it heavy on the ends (1's and 100,000's), and then filled in the middle with whatever I brought with me from Oregon (I was in a hotel in Bothel when I built it). Sitting next to Justin Ford at Worlds reminded me how good Go is, so I peppered those in. Discard is risky these days with Toxin floating around but is still good, so I put those in as well with not much more thought behind the deck.


The Masters game was very low scoring, which helped me after I blew an early Ante (I anted a 10K from deck instead of a 100K from hand). However, no one else was Qapla'-ing so I knew it would only take a couple well-placed Antes to take the lead. Professor Scott was Poisoning everyone (except me). Comm Decker and Boratus were Rescuing themselves a lot so they were taking most of everyones focus. Maggie was trying to IDIC and won the first round with barely any points at all. Flrazor was hitting EVERYONE with Charm which was fun and unexpected. He was also Freezing powers but didn't get around to freezing Qapla' till it was too late. I won two rounds by Discarding out, after scoring most of my points with Qapla'/Ante.

The deck is VERY smooth and easy. I wouldn't change a thing except maybe add more cards of each power. Small Tribble decks are risky, especially in a big game or with a Trouble pile (neither of which we had). So much fun! Just wish we had more players.

Thanks to the players for their comments! If you want to see all six in action, there is a video below.