Round 2 - The Billionaire: The Spoils TCG Online Tournament

[zbunn24]

I just finished playing my second round for The Spoils Online Tournament and barely walked away with a win against a Warlord Rush deck. I posted a full round report here, but I wanted to see if anyone had some thoughts on ways I could counter the warlord rush.

Currently I'm starting 1 Obsession, 1 Deception and going into Rogue. I'm looking at various tools that get me past the initial rush and into the mid game where I think I can get absolute control over the warlord rush. Any thoughts?

Zach

[Bizze]

I think it's really interesting (and fun!) that you have that much success with the Billionaire deck. However, I think that the Warlord rush decks seen in the Gen Con top were not enough prepared for item-heavy (or item-focused) decks. Also, I saw none that had any good answers for Party Clowns. This makes your Billionaire deck a rogue deck in dual meaning.

I'd definately put Drygulch in there. Relying almost solely on Hollow Moose for removal doesn't seem like a good idea to me. If your opponent gets rid of the Moose, what's your follow-up?
I really don't see the need for Yoink! in your deck. While it could be a very nice surprise in some situations, I don't know how many gears are really played and I would sooner remove the character instead of moving the gear. So:
-4 Yoink!
+4 Drygulch

You don't have that many resources and that will limit Drygulch some, but in most situations you don't need more than a threshold of 3.

As for the faction card, I'd recommend the Tournament faction for tournament play, especially now with the aggro Warlord meta. Since you say you want to reach the mid-game, an extra five influnce could be what makes that happen.

[zbunn24]

Yeah, I think item removal is something that is lacking in the environment in general. There are som really silly items to deal with though so I don't expect it to last forever.

I do agree that they don't have a direct answer for clowns. I know I ran into a dragon's quarters and there is always shriever attack, so once it's an issue people will prepare for it. The bigger hurdle is that there might be one or two people running clowns out of every 64 players in an event. You can't pack too much specifically for those decks.

As for Dry Gulch, it's definitely a consideration. I may have to include some additional resources to make my deck a bit more consistent and to make dry gulch really pop. I'll certainly be testing with the tournament faction as well. Thanks for the response!

Zach

[Bizze]

In our meta (Stockholm, Sweden) there are Ass decks, Mono Arcanists with Wand and a very potent RI OTK deck. You have to include item destruction. Strange that so many decks at a global scale lack that... Even at Gen Con...

What I don't understand is why those aggro Warlord decks won't include a single Balking Foecrusher... It's searchable with the Crest making it better than Shriever Attack and at one it won't take up much space in the deck. The trigger when paying to sacrifice him means pesky cards like Blatherscythe will not bring up a brother or anything at all, really, so it's just not a mass removal tool.

Am I the only one running him in aggro Warlord?

I really love your Billionaire build though. If I had the Clowns, I would build it after Nats, but I don't even have a playset yet... ^_^;
Drygulch would work with Servile as well, so if you want to cram more resources in there, you probably wouldn't need to add a full playset. It depends on how much you like those Quotidian Assassinations... And as I said earlier, I really don't understand Yoink! at all... Well, not over permanent removal at least. ^_^

[zbunn24]

I'm very used to seeing a double elitism opening with one of the primary turn 1 drops being toolbox -> craghammer. Yoink! pretty much shuts that down. If I start seeing lots of SiN decks again I'll probably go back to Yoink!

Zach

[Bizze]

Hmm... Well, that could certainly warrant the Yoinks. We've had Craghammer come and go in our meta, but even so, removal on that Toolbox Elf would probably delay the hammer for a while. Yeah, you won't get the benefit of the Hammer yourself, but I find removal to be more versatile than such a niche card. Still, I can see how you don't want the opponent to be able to sacrifice the Hammer for the Moose over and over in the mid-game. Still, it costs some to play it each turn and your Clowns are cheaper. ^_^

[Lekkit]

You can't sacrifice the hammer for Hollow Moose more than once, since it's an extra cost to destroy the card and therefore the hammer's replacement won't trigger.