The Spoils TCG: Conquering Constructed

I have always been fascinated with deck building. I know when I was younger and in school, I would be writing down deck lists all day long, calculating odds, modifying the deck, etc. Then when I got home I would modify my deck for the day and play my friends or my brother. Nowadays I’ve moved past little notes during class and instead use the deck builder on the Covenant TCG community site… This is way better because now my friends and the community at large can comment on and rank my deck.

Each game system presents unique elements and generally a different number of those elements that can be contained within a deck. So, let’s get down to it. Some basics of Spoils deck building:

1. Decks have a minimum of 75 cards, including 2 starting resources

2. You can’t have more than 4 of any one card (other than staple resources)

3. You must pick one faction to include in the deck, which basically gives you specific rules by which you will play

Simple enough… That is until you add in the hundreds and hundreds of cards available for a Spoils deck. A few ‘general’ rules that I follow:

Play with the minimum number of cards.

I’m sure you can come up with a long list of reasons why you should go ahead and play with those 3 or 4 extra cards (with a list at 78 or 79), but unless you are experienced (and even then…) I would highly recommend finding a way to cut it down to the minimum. There are a few reasons for this.

1. Consistency. Generally when I build a deck I have an ideal turn 1. I also have a second best turn 1. If I cannot reasonably hit either of my best options based on odds, I need to find a new turn 1. By adding extra cards, you are making it that much more difficult (according to odds) to get an ideal start to your game.

2. Because the odds are better, you will see the same cards more often. This allows you to begin to see which cards in your deck are actually crucial and that help you win. This will save you a lot of time when testing your deck.

Don’t hinge your deck’s success upon the drawing of any particular card.

When you are first starting out in a game, it is really easy to get distracted by cards with a game-breaking ability. But if you scan through your list and realize that a lot of your cards suddenly become less valuable without that key card, you might consider rebuilding your deck. Which leads me to my next point…

Examine each card in your deck on both a stand-alone and a synergistic level.

The majority of the cards in your deck need to have what I call ’stand-alone value’. Imagine yourself in the middle of a game. It’s your turn and you draw a card. Is that card of any value to you? Does it have the potential to help you succeed regardless of what’s on the board?

What about if you draw that card in your first hand? Will you be able to reasonably play that card within the first 3-4 turns or is it only good for to mulligan? If you don’t see it at first, mulligan, and then draw it what do you do then?

A few examples:

Counter Attack – While yes this is potentially a good card you can’t even use it on your turn. Further, if your opponent has character advantage, it’s unlikely that this card will be very useful. So you have to ask yourself: “Is the potential to get an attack in on my opponent’s turn worth not being able to help me when I’ve already lost character advantage?”

Quotidian Ejector – This card really has a lot of stand-alone value. Regardless of whether you opponent has any characters out, you can play this character. If they try to remove it, you just use it’s own ability on itself. If they do have characters, it’s pure removal. There are very very few circumstances where this card is not a good card to draw.

Next time I’ll be putting up an untested deck list and then taking you along as I prepare it to use at the major Spoils constructed event at GenCon.

I’m sure there are some of you out there who read this and had some disagreements… and I’m glad for it! Please, post in the comments what you agree and don’t agree with. I’m hoping that you’ll enlighten everyone with your skill and knowledge, me included.

Until next time, keep on a-testing!

Zach