Adapting to your enemies!

So by now, in the metagame, each tribe has a very defined role.
Overworld has it's defensive qualities. Heal the energy, up the disciplines, give the elements. Overworld is all about being constructive - They win the battle by pumping up your creatures instead of bringing down their creatures.

Underworld is the destructive side of things. Where Overworld gives elements, underworld removes them. Where Mipedians manipulates battlegear, Underworld destroys it. Stat and energy destruction helps the Underworld - Instead of making up for their own flaws, such as exhaust and recklessness, they just give their enemies bigger problems to worry about. Their abilities are the opposite of overworld - Intimidate brings down your opponent whilst support brings up your skills. These are outdated examples, but look at Maxxor PoP and Chaor TF - Maxxor is all about making himself hit back harder with a good defense, and Chaor, with fire 10, is all about making monster attacks.

Mipedians are quite unique in that they control the game. With cards like notes of neverwhere, melody of mirage, melodic might, they can control your attack deck, locations, your opponents attacks.. Most of all though, is their supreme battlegear control. Gear glissando, Disarming Theme, Armament Adagio, Tune of Xerium... They can use invisibility to shut down your opponents gear with disarm, or gain initiative with surprise, and manipulate attack damage with strike. Not to mention air is the "control" element. Look at sirocco, ravanaugh ridge, tornado tackle, aerodrone, etc., and they even control the battleboard positioning with things like switch riff and vigorous gust Mipedians are most comparable with the overworld, both of whom share "control"-esque strategies, such as garv, viqtarr, rhyme of the reckless and lomma.

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So I don't want to bore you with a massive article, and I don't want to go on and on about the other tribes. How do danians work? First thing that comes to mind is teamwork, the individual working for the group. But how does it show in the actual gameplay? Danians are about adapting to your opponents. Look at some DoP cards, which are some of the most telling cards there are. Danians have hardly any jumpers or swift-users in the tribe, so they adapt to their weaknesses with song of surprisal. But how else do we do it?

Elementproof

Ahh, Katharaz. The guy revolutionised Danian Elementalists. But what's important here is his elementproof. Elementproof is pulled off the best by danians, and it's because we can adapt to our opponent's strengths (their elements) and use it to our advantage. It started off simple (with cards like kelvedran, song of resilience, HammerDoom Assimilated) but even in modern sets there are great examples of elementproof users (klencka, aureban, tarbok, lobanne)

Illexia

Illexia is an amazing card, for a bunch of reasons, but for fear of being side tracked, I'm going to stick to her first ability. "Adjacent creatures gain "Defender.""
The reason this is so good, is because danians are very resource-dependent. Our muges can be integral to the whole game, and leaving them unguarded is chaotic suicide. Sad, but true, our decks can often (but not necessarily always) have this as a main weakness. Illexia gives all adjacent creatures defender, meaning your nimmei or katharaz can step in instead of your lobanne. This is, again, adapting to a weakness and making it a strength.

Infecting

Infecting creatures - How is this adapting to your opponents? Simple. If you are outnumbered, outgeared, outmugiced and outdone in every seemingly possible way, how do you fight back? You take your opponents creatures and turn them into resources for your creatures. Taking opponents and using them for your own benefit couldn't be more danian.

And finally..

Compost

So you are losing a battle bad, half your creatures are in the discard pile and you have one little mandiblor left. How do you turn this situation around? You tap into the power of the fallen - You use your opponents victories to defeat them. Talk about using their skills against them, huh?

So this is an article on the nature of danian gameplay. Use your opponent's strengths against them, and you'll be in sync with the hive! Sorry it was so long, but I wanted to write this for a while.

~Mandible