Not only is this card absolutely hilarious and flavorful… but wow. It’s rare, sure. But if you can get 73 of these puppies. How do you stop the clowns? It plays out like this:

Turn 1: Play a resource
Turn 2: Play a resource, play a party clown
Turn 3: Play a resource, pay 1 (to play another clown), play another part clown
Turn 4: Play a resource, pay 3 (to play 3 more clowns)
Turn 5: Play a resource, pay 7 (to play 7 clowns)

Interesting… isn’t it. If you can get somewhere between 50-75 of these guys, I actually see this as potentially being a viable deck. Yeah, one shriever attack clears the board away. But… If you if you wipe 10 off the table. You’ve got to be able to clear the board every 3-4 turns or you’ll get steam rolled. This is very interesting. Here I come 75 clowns!

Zach

]]> http://teamcovenant.com/07/28/2010/gloamspikes-revenge-party-clowns/feed/ 6 http://teamcovenant.com/07/02/2010/the-spoils-tcg-gloamspikes-revenge-exclusive/ http://teamcovenant.com/07/02/2010/the-spoils-tcg-gloamspikes-revenge-exclusive/#comments Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:54:25 +0000 Zach http://teamcovenant.com/?p=6507 The Spoils is back baby! For those of you who don’t know, The Spoils TCG is a tournament card game originally made by a start-up company called Tenacious Games. After some financial issues it was sold to Arcane Tinmen (maker of Dragonshield Sleeves). Arcane Tinmen has been working on the fourth set of The Spoils for the past few months and it is set to release at GenCon 2010.

*The Spoils TCG was the first game that Team Covenant blogged about and sold singles for online.

That being said, I come to you today with a Gloamspikes Revenge Exclusive Preview that we have been kindly given thanks to the fine folks at Arcane Tinmen: Cantankerous Claywork!

This card is a 7-drop (costs 7) from Hell. He really has everything he needs to be a critical element of just about any sealed or draft deck. For starters, he’s a 7-cost with stats to back it up. Not only that, but he can attack even if you just played him. There are all kinds of ways to use this.

If you attack with everything else first and leave 7 open, it’s likely that you can drop this guy and put your opponent in a very bad situation. Thanks to his beefy 5 health a lot of removal cards are null and void and a lot of characters would just get smoked by this guy. Assuming they have anything left to block with it’s unlikely they’ll want to throw whatever they haven’t already used at this guy.

Let’s not forget about that other text on this card. If he attacks, all your other characters suddenly gain 1 strength and 1 life! This could be huge. Not only is this guys stats worth 7 and the fact that he can attack right out of the gate, but you suddenly get +1/+1 every turn this guy attacks. You can only really see how much this messes with battle tactics if you truly experience it. The number of cards that suddenly become stupid hard to kill with an extra life or strength is crazy.

As far as constructed goes… I’m not certain this guy will see too much play. He almost fits nicely into a typical SIN (Strength in Numbers) build, but thanks to his threshold that doesn’t quite work. He could definitely be played in an elitism deck to boost basic nodes, beefy elves, toolbox elves, etc. Your opponent almost has to remove this guy first, or face the consequences of +1/+1 all game.

I’d like to note here how wonderful it is to see this card. There are several reasons. First, he’s a great card. Second, the art is absolutely gorgeous and flavorful. Finally, this card it a testament that the quality and flavor of this game did not die with the last breath of Tenacious. This game is back and poised for a takeover of the card gaming world starting with GenCon 2010!

That being said, we are currently working on updating our singles in our store for The Spoils. We have a lot of things in stock that show out of stock and really just need to clean up those pages that we’ve had since the early days back in 2007. We will make announcements over the next few weeks when things get updated. Also stay tuned for a Spoils podcast, more exclusive previews, and as always all the news for The Spoils TCG.

Zach

]]> http://teamcovenant.com/07/02/2010/the-spoils-tcg-gloamspikes-revenge-exclusive/feed/ 9 http://teamcovenant.com/04/29/2010/the-spoils-tcg-seed-ii-preview-delusive-strumpet/ http://teamcovenant.com/04/29/2010/the-spoils-tcg-seed-ii-preview-delusive-strumpet/#comments Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:54:38 +0000 Zach http://teamcovenant.com/?p=5542 Today over at TCGplayer.com they revealed an exclusive preview for the upcoming Seed II set for the Spoils TCG. The preview, Delusive Strumpet, has all the qualities you’d expect from a rogue character card. Not only this, but the art plays off of perhaps the best movie of all time… Without further ado, Delusive Strumpet:

A 2/2/3 character for 3 is not anything new or impressive. Neither is the fact that you can play this card any time you could play a tactic. We’ve seen this before in the form of hidden ostrich and such. In fact, a character card who can be played at the time of a tactic and that has flip us is not new. However, there is something peculiar about this card.

When you do use flip up with this character, you get to play a resource. This completely negates the cost of using flip up. In fact, it actually makes it beneficial! Let’s say you have 4 open resources. You can pay those four, with this card being one of the resources face down, to put this character into play. You then get to put an unused resource into play. Now you have an extra resource to use AND a character out. All of this and you get to play the character when a tactic would be played. This can really do some bad things to your opponents math.

Not only that, but this character has a nice way of getting back into the resource pool. Discard a card and flip this card back over. Man is this card tricky! I can now block with this character, assign damage, and then discard a card to put it down as a resource that I can then use. WOW!

Imagine this. You have 5 resources open. Your opponent attacks you thinking there is no way you can successfully block. However, you pay 4, flip this beauty over and play a resource. You then assign damage. If they decide to put damage on this character, you discard a card and flip this over as a resource. End of their turn you use the 3 you now have left to draw a card.

Disgusting. This card was made for sealed. Be sure get in on the early bird special for Seed 2 over at The Spoils website. Check it out here.

Zach

- 2 booster displays of Seed II: Gloamspike’s Revenge
- A full set (one of each card) of Seed II: Gloamspike’s Revenge
- 2 special promo cards, ‘Power of R&D’ and ‘The Spoils Rescue Mission’
- 200 special card sleeves that will not be sold anywhere, ever!

This package deal will ship directly to you upon release. I must say, this is one hell of a deal. 2 booster boxes that are normally $35 each + a full set which is at least 2-3 boxes of rares + the promo’s that you can’t get anywhere else + the sleeves. What a great way to get started back into The Spoils! What’s the catch right? Well there are two of them. First, the deal expires May 8th. Second, there are a limited number of these deals!

So if you are interested, I highly recommend heading here and placing a pre-order for at least one, if not many, of these sets.

Not only did they post this announcement, but they also included a preview from the upcoming set! As an avid Spoils fan myself, I’m really just pumped to the game coming alive after the near death blow under the watch of Tenacious Games. Without further ado, I present to you Woadenworm Gloamspike, Thabbasite Prince.

So the set is named after the revenge of this guy. Surely he’s worth while, right? I would say so. Let’s skip past the cost and the stats and go straight to his card text.

All your face-down tactics gain flip up with numeric cost and threshold equal to their regular numeric cost and threshold.

Come again? Yeah, that’s right. You can now put that Strength in Numbers or Rapine down as a resource early game, play this guy going into a turn you want to use it, and with no cards in hand completely smear your opponents face into the ground. This is just brutal. Fortunately, Josh Lytle the lead designer knows a thing or two about game balance.

The cost of 4 isn’t really hindering, but that threshold of 3 most certainly is. You’ve really got to want to get this guy up and running for him to come into play. There are all kinds of natural limits that come with anything more than a 2 threshold. Due to this you can’t just start with two obsession and not have extra obsession resources taking up room in your deck. At this point you are forced into running obsession in your deck.

As a final note on Gloamspike, I can see him working really well in those odd decks that you hate to be paired up against at a tournament.  A deck that commonly goes through most of their deck, loops, etc. could really exploit this and see some really big gains. An example would be the banker deck that won at GenCon last year. I know when we were testing it we initially had a build with Arcanist for the late game and this guy makes it even more viable. Now I can throw all those important tactics into resources early thanks to Free Trade Agreement and not have to worry about having access to them down the road. Plain and simple: A good player one day is going to make or break this card and I’m excited to see it happen.

Long live The Spoils!

Zach

You know, when it rains, it pours. And when it RAINBOWS, it SHINES REALLY BRIGHTLY.

I’m not sure if the above comparison works, but regardless, in addition to MonCon, we’ve upgraded our store. You’ll notice the following:

• a much more refined, simple interface
• improved speed and general function
• safer checkout
• better system for sorting out what you want
• a much, much more pleasant experience
• MonCon registration page (you know you want to register!)
• a store run by fanatical Monsterpocalyse players
• prices as low as a Mollok Groundbreaker

We hope that this upgrade will be a marked improvement. If anyone has any questions or suggestions, please let us know. As always, it is your support that keeps us going – and that makes things like MonCon happen!

Much love,
Team Covenant

At some point along the way we realized that to do the community site how we had always intended to do it, we would have to somewhat start over with it. At that point in time we decided to only fix major areas of concern on the open beta community and start anew on a new community site.

After months of taking all of your opinions and deciding what to incorporate and what not to incorporate along with strengthening some of the best qualities of the site, we are almost ready to go into closed beta for the new community site, version 1.0 .

In our recent newsletter we invited subscribers to be the first to apply for one of the 15 spots and we saw a better than expected response. However, for those of you who don’t subscribe to the newsletter we wanted to give you a chance to apply. To apply to become a closed beta tester, please send an email to community@covenanttcg.com with the following information:

Name
Age
How long have you been on the beta version of the community site?
What do you primarily use the community site for?
What’s your favorite feature of our current community site?
What’s your least favorite feature of our current community site?
Why do you think you should be a beta tester?

If you have any questions, feel free to ask and we will answer below. I look forward to seeing your applications and getting your thoughts on our new community.

Zach

Now you might be wondering… Steven was in full time school this entire time? Why yes, yes he was. And yet somehow he managed to graduate and be a fanatical monsterpocalypse player. I will be gone for a week after my wedding and I imagine, in light of celebration, that it is likely Steven might be passed out for that entire week. If he does awaken, I am sure you’ll be able to find him on vassal incessantly.

Regardless, upon my return and Steven’s sobering we (along with Tim, Jonathan, John, Phil, and some others) will be back like never before to bring in the new year. To be honest, I really think some of the things that will start to be announced the week I get back will blow your mind. Let’s put my promise to the test.

For those of you whose wish to offer a congrats, the comments below are all yours.

Thanks again for your support,
Zach

- Exclusive content (contests, blogs, etc.)
- Exclusive promotions – be the first to find out about new promotions and get exclusives only given to subscribers
- Giveaways – we cannot tell you exactly what we will be giving away over the next few newsletters, but we can say that it’s worth signing up
- News and updates – if we have any major updates (can you say launch of the non-beta community?) you’ll be the first to hear about it

You can sign up here (or on the sidebar):

If you were signed up for any of our other newsletter systems, we have actually already added you and you should have an email confirmation in your inbox waiting for your reply. Once you confirm your subscription you will start receiving the Team Covenant newsletter. If you aren’t sure if you are signed up, go ahead and sign up again. Our system will check your entry against our records and if you are already there, you will simply stay signed up once (none of this receiving four or five emails).

We implemented the confirmation system because we wanted to be sure that you were only getting the emails if you actually wanted to be getting them. If you have any questions or ideas, feel free to post below. As always, thanks for your support,

Team Covenant

Thought Crime is an interesting beast. The text:

Cost – Play this only in response to a tactic being played. Pay X, where X is its numeric cost.
Effect – Duplicate the tactic. Terminate the tactic.

Any game I have ever played that has let you duplicate a tactic (or event, etc.) generally leads me into trying to find ways to break it. However there is an interesting limitation on this card:

only in response to a tactic

This really limits this card (in a good way). I know at GenCon this year there were several decks floating around that attempted to duplicate their own tactics over and over again to have some really powerful results. Although I could go in to that here, I’m going to stick to the previewed card.

Another limit on the card is that you have to pay X, where X is the numeric cost. This means if your opponent drops an Operation 1337 Haxor (pardon the english) you can’t just pay 3 to duplicate it. The last limitation is that the threshold is 3, so you are going to have to be going pretty heavy arcanist to make this card usable. Although there are some clear limits to the card, there are some very obvious benefits to the card as well.

When looking at a card, I naturally want to consider constructed first. However, because the card is from a set that is currently largely unknown, it is really hard to speculate the usefulness of a card in constructed. That being said, let’s get to sealed.

I imagine that if you have this card you will almost always save 3-4 resources just in case your opponent drops some big card. Other than making your opponent uneasy, leaving these resources doesn’t really hurt you because you’ll use it to draw and play resources. In the event that they do drop a great tactic, you’re covered.

In sealed there are a few types of cards that are necessary to be successful:
1. Removal – let’s face it, there are some big dudes in sealed. If you cannot remove said big dudes, you lose. Period.
2. Big Dudes – You need a big drop  on turn 2-4 that your opponent has to deal with. If they can’t and therefore don’t have any good cards from 1 above, you’ll win rather quickly.

Although there is more to it, those are the two must haves. In sealed, there are times when you come up a few removal cards short in a particular faction, even though the rest of the cards are great. That being said, if Arcanist is one of those factions, then having this card is almost like having removal, but more versatile (with some timing limitations). In draft, it’s likely that pure removal will be chosen before this card, so it’s not a bad alternative.

Yet, let’s not stop here. The last little bit of the card:

Terminate the tactic

How fantastic. Now not only do you get the benefits, but your opponent just spent resources, a card, AND made a move thinking they could benefit with said card. This could be a game changing move. Let’s consider a few examples with some very commonly seen cards:

1. 1337! – Your opponent drops 1337! thinking they can play something that costs 4 for free and draw a card. You respond with Thought Crime. Now they just spent 3 resources and a card and get nothing for it. You spend 3 and then get to draw a card and your next cost is minus 4.
2. Quotidian Assassination – Your opponent attacks and you choose a blocker. He spends 2 and a card thinking he can remove your character. You respond stopping his tactic, removing one of his characters, and then killing the attacking character because he didn’t remove your blocker.
3. Noble Sacrifice – Your opponent either flips up for 0 (losing a resource) or pays 2 and loses a card. In response you play Thought Crime. Now you get to pick which characters go.
4. Strength in Numbers – Your opponent is going for the win. As pure denial you respond with Thought Crime and stop SIN in it’s tracks

This card could be epic good. Although there is no way to honestly say yet, this card should be good in sealed if you are already going Arcanist. It’s not good enough to go Arcanist because you have this card, but a nice fit if it works in to your current build. In constructed there is never a guarantee of goodness, but it should find it’s way in to a few decks.

Hopefully we will be seeing more previews soon! We will keep you up to day with any information we can get or find. Enjoy,

Zach

]]> http://teamcovenant.com/10/19/2009/the-spoils-tcg-set-4-preview/feed/ 3 http://teamcovenant.com/10/01/2009/cotw-assimilation-center/ http://teamcovenant.com/10/01/2009/cotw-assimilation-center/#comments Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:30:12 +0000 Team Covenant http://teamcovenant.com/blog/?p=520 by Ryan Cohen

Themed decks can be a lot of fun.  There are so many fun character subtypes, such as lawyers, dragons, sarcophyles, soldiers, nodes, horsemajigs, and a whole host of others.  But let’s face the truth—these themed decks are not always very competitive.  Although some of the aforementioned subtypes have cards that provide benefits for having a lot of characters of a particular subtype (like Morale Officer or Paralegal Prodigy), there still is a problem in getting all of those characters out.  There are a few ways to get the key characters into your hand.  For instance, you can use Banker’s drawing power to plow through your deck, or you could use Ecto-Distillation to dump characters into your discard pile then pick them back out with Postmortem Debenture or Revivitate.  Obviously, these combinations can turn out to be grossly inefficient.  That’s where our new card of the week, Assimilation Center, shines.

The Assimilation Center is a truly excellent mechanism for making competitive theme decks.  For the measly cost of 1, you can search and pick a character to put on top of your deck.  When running a deck that relies on character subtype synergy to be fully effective (like a kaiser or investor deck), the Assimilation Center can be invaluable.  The low cost and low threshold means it can be splashed into a deck with the Tournament Faction starting resources.  A fairly sturdy structure value of 4 means that it won’t be eliminated too easily by character attacks.

How do you get Assimilation Center on the board?  All-purpose fetch cards such as Luteoderm Prototype can do the job.  Also, Arcanist’s deck manipulation and Banker’s drawing power can be used to get the Assimilation Center out early in the game.  One thing to be careful of when using the Center is Rogue’s deck milling abilities.  You can combat this by making sure you can always immediately draw the cards you put on top of your deck or watching your opponent’s resources to make sure he cannot use Defenestrate to discard your most valuable characters.

Below, I drafted a quick design for a simple Horsemajig deck that uses Assimilation Center to help keep Judgment Day in full swing:

Characters:
4x Horsemajig of the Apocalypse – War
4x Horsemajig of the Apocalypse – Famine
4x Horsemajig of the Apocalypse – Plague
4x Horsemajig of the Apocalypse – Death
4x 700160x 31f
4x Guardforce Alpha Prime 31f

Items:
4x Luteoderm Prototype
4x Luteoderm Armor
2x Dethmurderbludgeon, the Craghammer

Locations:
4x Assimilation Center

Tactics:
4x 1337
4x Target Practice
4x Hammer Smash
4x Dragon Juice
4x Jacque’s Trap

Resources:
2x Rage
15x Elitism

As each Horsemajig gives a stat boost to all other Horsemajigs on the board, it’s easy to see how a full pack of these ponies could spell serious trouble for your opponent.  700160x 31f is essentially a disposable fetch mechanism to get Luteoderm Prototype onto the board.  Once Prototype is taken out of play, use it to pull and deploy the Assimilation Center.  If you have an Assimilation Center in play, you can use the 700160x 31f to fetch Dethmurderbludgeon.  I only recommend two Craghammers because it is unique and tends to stick around once it enters play.  Since your most valuable resources are the Horsemajigs, the Luteoderm Armors can help keep your ponies alive and kicking.  Keep in mind that 700160x 31f can help you get out the Luteoderm Armors, too.  Combined with Dragon Juice, Guardforce Alpha Prime 31f can be a pretty nasty surprise as well as helping you keep an aggressive play-style.  The tactics are helpful tricks to keep your opponent on his toes—1337 for a bit of acceleration, Target Practice and Jacque’s Trap for character removal, and Hammer Smash for item removal.

This deck is just an example of how you can use the Assimilation Center for a subtype-based deck.  Here are a few other subtypes and key cards to think about:

Subtype:                    Key Cards:
Mercenary                 Tax Attorney
Employee, Investor   Market Oracle, Furtive Investor
Lawyer                      Paralegal Prodigy
Soldier                       Morale Officer, Lieutenant General
Dragon                      Dragon Rider
Kaiser                        LeoKaiser
Sarcophyle                Vander Malagut

Beyond this, you could base a deck around Thief Doyen, Ecto-Manipulators, or whatever you feel like—your imagination is the limit.  Go forth and assimilate!

-ABOUT THE AUTHOR-
Ryan Cohen is a senior at Middlebury College and has been an avid fan of The Spoils since his introduction to it during Open Beta at Penny Arcade Expo 06.  Ryans favorite trade is the Bankers, which may or may not have anything to do with his great ambitions of wealth.