Influence Counter app

A good friend of The Spoils has created a nice little Influence Tracker for Android phones.

How to become an OP Manager

Right on schedule, Will Clark's first Blarg post is now live! Be sure to read his take on Gen-Con 2009 here.

Running Great Demos

A great article for anyone who wishes to help share The Spoils with other gamers or card players by demonstrating to them just how great The Spoils is. In this article you will learn what you need to run a demo as well as learn some tips on how to conduct the demo itself.

Beardy Justice

The Blarg is alive and kicking! Be sure to read Terence's first blog here and find out how he became the first Beard of Great Justice.

Drawing vs. Discarding

...While it is certainly possible to do both, The Spoils tends to lend itself to players focusing on either drawing or discarding as combining the two makes for some very strange deck constructions. So which is better...?

An Introduction

The Blarg is alive and kicking! Be sure to read Ken's exciting first article here!.

Research Investment OTK

Swedish Champion Hampus Eriksson takes you on a guided tour through "Research Investment" land. Enjoy the ride!

A Brief History

The second Blarg post is now live! Be sure to read Michael's exciting first article here!.

MegaCon 2012 - Open R&D

This year at MegaCon, in Orlando Florida, we have decided to involve our dedicated players even further in our creative process.

Warning Shot!

Terence Dorman has taking over the lead on article content, and the future is looking bright!!

MegaCon 2012 - Feb 17th - 19th, 2012

The Spoils will be at MegaCon this year! John Westcott (along with Ken Pilcher) will be in the card gaming room (230 C & D) holding events throughout the duration of the Con. There will be constructed, Draft, Sealed and a Precon events! You can talk about it here!

The Evil Alliance

What better time to spoil a new card? Discuss in the forums your thoughts as to the details of this new faction. Participate in the debate here!

Fall Limited Championship

After taking the summer off, The Spoils seasonal championships are back - and this fall local gaming establishments will be hosting the Fall Limited Championships. So join the fun!

Seed-3 preview

We now have one of the great warriors of Marmothoa. Octo-Ba-Ba will stop at nothing to do what needs to be done. Once there is blood spill his appetite for death and destruction becomes insatiable and everything in his path had better watch out. If dealing with his great armor wasn't enough, his pin point accuracy with his trident is sure to wreck havoc on any opposition.

Competition Winner!

We have found a winner of a unique forum avatar, but we would still like to hear your opinions and wishes for the future of the The Spoils homepage!

German Nationals 2011

It is time for another round of German Nationals, so get ready to battle once more for the spoils of war!!

Homepage Renovation!

We are updating the spoils homepage, voice your opinion, gain influence, win a unique forum avatar!

Gen Con videos

Team Covenant has put together a few videos from the US Nationals at Gen Con 2011.

We know that these videos are not exactly the freshest of news, but thought we would share them with you all the same :-)

Australian Nuggets

Good Games in Australia launches a special NEW PLAYER PROMOTION. And will also be bringing the Aussie players a string of Championships.

Seed-3 preview

Seed 3 is wrapping up here in the offices and we want to give you a little more of a taste of what is coming down the pipe.

So please meet "Iohane" - she is a tricksy character not too keen on showing what she is all about, so you will have to puzzle your way to her!

Essen Spiel

Again this year we look forward to meeting many new players at the Essen Spiel game fair in Essen, Germany.

But this year we´re not only offering demo games – we have also something for players that look for some competition!

The fair takes place October 20-23 – and you can find us in hall 6 at booth 6-416. Come join the good times :-)

Software update COMPLETED

The software update has finally been all updated - and everything should be back to normal. Do let us know by posting in the forum or writing to "info (at) arcanetinmen (dot) dk" if you discover some odd corner of the site that isn't working.

We hope you will enjoy the new layout of the forum.

The software update has proven to be more difficult than our external programmer had thought it to be. But he is working on it and hopefully it will be back to normal soon (but not making any promises at this time...)

The forums and Player Portal should be functioning, as well as all the pages should be functioning - they just don't look as pretty right now.

We hope you will bear with us a little longer!

OCTGN Online Play

Johan "Bizze" Bisenius has put together a beginner's guide for playing the Spoils online through OCTGN. This is not officially supported, but we do hope that you will have fun playing anyway :-)

Seeking community help

We are looking to produce a series of "Help Docs" or "How-To guides" and are wondering if some of our good community members out there might be interested in helping with this?

There have already been written about these topics many times on the forums, so in most cases what is needed is just to plow through the forums and dig out the gold!

We have created a specific thread for each of the topics. We would then need one person to spearhead each paper, but will of course encourage all of the community to chip in with good input. And once the first draft of the doc is ready, this can be posted to the forums for further input.

Queensland State Champs - NOW!!

Only a short time to react - so get your faction in gear!!

On September 10th, 2011, Good Games in Brisbane will be hosting the State Championships for Queensland, Australia. And they promise PRIZES FOR ALL!!!

So sleeve your favorite cards and get ready to battle for the throne!

Dissecting Research Investment

Johan Bisenius discusses in great detail the origins and implications of the most prevalent combo deck in constructed today: the Research Investment one turn kill. A combo that has already received a good deal of attention in the forums, Bisenius provides a critical primer for the uninitiated and the pro alike.

Swedish Nationals 2011

On the weekend 8-9th of October the Swedish Nationals will be hosted at Wizard-Games in Gothenburg. There will be one Limited and one Constructed event and we will therefore crown two champions: one Limited Champion and one Constructed Champion!

Fan fiction

Fan fiction: What you are about to read is an excerpt from the famous journal of a Sarcophyle known as Alexander Keets, published in 138 AB amid a boom of negative city-wide reaction towards Sarcophyles...

Enjoy the reading :-)

The Spoils Constructed Nationals Decklists and Limited Results!

See the lists after the jump!

Neil Crompton goes through the various Control and Combo decks in the format, explaining how they work and providing links to decklists to give you an example of what each deck could look like. Most of the decklist links also have more detailed introductions to how the decks work. Click for more!

When Seed 2 was released, we got heaps of new toys to play with, but so far there haven't been any big Open Constructed tournaments to test the latest decks in. From the discussions on the forum here and at other sites, it seems like each area has its own local metagame. That's not a bad thing, but I'd like to get some more global deck discussion going. Hopefully this will help us work out what the best decks are and what sorts of things people will need to prepare for when we're getting ready for big tournaments like GenCon.

Terence Dorman takes us on a witty tour of his judging activities. And urges anybody with a small judge inside to jump on the wagon!

Call for Article Writers!!

Spoils players the world over!

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Ian Spiegel – Blum and I will be taking over as Chief Editor and Marketing Consultant for The Spoils. Essentially, I will be responsible for recruiting writers to create content for the website and will help Kim Maita spread this wonderful game to local stores across the United States.

Thank you to all of you that has sent me emails and/or replied to the thread here. All has been read and weighed and there were many good arguments - and we have reached a decision!

**dum-dum-dah**

**dramatic pause**

All cards stay and no cards are rotated out. We decided that it was indeed too soon to rotate out cards. We will at one point in the future perhaps want to rotate, but it is not this day! And if we do then we promise that it wil be done so that there will be multiple formats, so there will always be a format where you can play with the old cards.

As most of you agreed with the decision tipping this way, then I am sure that it will be well received. But I also hope that the few that thought it would be good to rotate already now, will be able to embrace the decision anyway.

It is time for another article from the vault. This time the focus is on theme decks and on how the Missus gets her way!!

Enjoy ;-)

2nd Edition is about to hit the shelves (street date is June 27th) – and there has been quite a ruckus as to this meaning the end of 1st Edition and 1st Edition Part-2. I have been emailing with some of you already about this – and we are considering if we do indeed want to stick by the original announcement or if reversing the decision could be the right way to go?

So now we would be looking for further input from all of you great guys out there! Please shoot us an email with your reasoning why or why not we should or should not keep 1st Edition & Part-2 in the tournament card pool. Please send to "michael (at) arcanetinmen (dot) com"

Know that we WILL listen to you, our great community, for advice on the matter – but of course when there are two sides to a debate it may be difficult to heed both…

We look forward to hearing a lot of enthusiastic and eloquent defenses for either side of this case!

The day is nearing that 2nd Edition hits the stores around the world. The street date has been set at June 27th - and to celebrate this we are of course hosting a series of release events :-)

Tips, tricks and great ideas to help you promote The Spoils to new players. And if you have further good ideas how to do this, do not hesitate to post them in the forum by following article link at the bottom of the article.

Go spread some Spoils love ;-)

New insightful article for casual or new players looking to improve their game and help flesh out options for cards they might otherwise gloss over.

New Judge documents

With the convention time being rolled out before us, our Judge of Great Justice has also put together some great new must-reads for all of you judges (and other rules enthusiasts) out there!

The two new documents can be found in the download section - or right below:
The Spoils™ Rules FAQ
The Spoils™ Judge Behavior Document

It's time for one of the biggest gaming conventions of the year, meaning it's time yet again for some of the biggest Spoils tournaments of the year!

To ensure that these tournaments go as smoothly as possible I'm looking for up to three capable judges to help me run these exciting events.

After the success of the Winter Limited Championships, we here at The Spoils are proud to announce that we are continuing the Seasonal Championships.

Gen Con will be opening up for registration for events at Noon (US Eastern time) on May 1, 2011.

And The Spoils will of course be represented with a lot of great tournaments and a general good time!

The website will be down for about an hour today (Wednesday April 27th) between 10pm and 2am (US Eastern time = 6am and 10am GMT).

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

There has been several guesses as to which cards will be in 2nd Edition and which cards will be out.

Now you can stop guessing - but nothing comes free; you have to work for it :-)

This year we are offering events for both the new and experienced player. So regardless if you just started playing or have been winning for a while, there is something for you.

This year our headline event is something spectacular:
We at The Spoils will pay for you to go to Gencon!!!!!!

...One night while parent-sitting, I mentioned to her I had this hilarious card game tucked away and that we should play. Needless to say we both loved it, and the next day we drove around the greater Chicago suburbs looking for any cards we could find...

An insightful article on the changes The Spoils has gone through - and a small push for us all to get into the swing of things!

This article could perhaps even serve as intro for The Spoils on other gaming sites/forums...?

Arcane Tinmen went on a roadtrip to Cartamundi to oversee the print start of 2nd Edition - a drive of 1900 kilometers back and forth to correct the press one tenth of a millimeter.

We brought a camera along and snapped some photos to share with you all to give you a little insight into what we are doing.

Rules FAQ

The Judge of Great Justice (aka our Head Judge Coordinator Terence Dorman) has put together a Rules FAQ with the help from the good people "kallisti" and "Hordak".

It is required reading for anybody wanting to get a better grasp of the rules. Not just for judges - we dare say that anybody will be enlightened by reading this, as it has a lot of examples the leaves you with a better understanding of how The Spoils is played.

Download the Rules FAQ in the Download section.

The month of March will see Spoils visiting both the GAMA Trade Show and Megacon. You can read more about each by following the links below:
• GAMA Trade Show - March 14–18
• Megacon 2011 - March 25-27

Volunteers
If you are in the neighborhood and could be interested in helping out, then please contact Kim at "sales-usa (at) thespoils (dot) com"

Our good friends at the Good Games chain of stores in Australia will be doing Tournaments and demos at Armageddon Expo Sydney this weekend.

If you are in the neighborhood, then come join the fun :)

You can read more about Armageddon Expo here.
And about the Spoils event specifically here.

The Winter Limited Championships are about to kick off!!

Check out the website for a WLC near you.
Best of luck to you all - and have a great time!!!

In the upcoming Winter Limited Championship we will be treating all participants to a special EPIC card!!

In today's article you will get a sneak peak of the card along with an inside story from the creator of the card.

We don't want to spoil anything, but just say that he's fast and a vampire. Man, that is one fast vampire. Whoosh!!!

A new batch of wallpapers have been added in the download section.

Time to re-pimp your screen!!!

Just a quick note to say that The Spoils will be represented at these two events:
• GAMA Trade Show - March 14-18
• Mega Con - March 25-28 (booth 535)

A very, very, very casual deck - but it is good fun anyway.
Enjoy the reading :)

Are you willing to brave the cold to prove that you are the best Limited Player?

This winter The Spoils is bringing back on of the most beloved tournaments from the olden days.

Gilded Yurt may be one of the craziest cards in Seed II and really highlights the depth found in this game. The Yurt enables a whole range of powerful combinations and strategies...

We are in the process of preparing a reprint of 1st edition and Part-2 cards - and we thought it could be cool to update some (or all) of the reprints with new flavor text.
And for this we would like to hear your input

The flavor text can be anything cool. It can be something out of your own head - or it can be a memorable quote from a movie, book, tv-series, commercial, game, song, politician, artist, philosopher, celebrity, constitutions, famoues texts or anything else that is cool, fun, interesting - there are no limits!!

Check out this special holiday "treat" we have for you.

Playtesting encompasses a wide range of techinques that, when employed properly, will turn your mediocre decks into Top 8 decks.

Learn more about finetuning your decks so you will gain the upper hand!

Wherever you go, regardless of what game you are playing, you will always hear players talking about the metagame. You will hear them talking about how they changed their decks to counter the metagame, or how the metagame shifted when the new set came out...

ASS flyers

Flyers on the Afternoon Saturday Spoils have been added to the download section.

Tutorial for new players

We have persuaded our good friends at Team Covenant to let their fine tutorial on The Spoils be available to everybody free of charge.

So check out the tutorial for yourself.
And feel free to pass on the link to as many people as possible!

Our good friends at GameOx in Poland has created some nice new wallpapers for your computer screen.

These can be found in the download section.
Enjoy :-)

The Spoils will be hitting Essen Spiel again this year. Come join the fun at booth 6-226.

Play a draft, help us demo and get new players into The Spoils or just drop by for a chat :-)

New Zealand Nationals will take place in Auckland on October 10th, 2010. It will be an open event - so everybody bring out your cards and get gaming!!

Today's is the long awaited release of the new expansion Seed II: Gloamspike's Revenge. We hope you will enjoy the new set and that it will help bring in a lot of new players! To celebrate Seed II we are temporarily changing the theme of the top menu. Enjoy this and enjoy the new set :-)

The prerelease page has been updated with the info we have on stores hosting Seed II prereleases.

If your store isn't on the list then do get in touch with us to have the store added.

The first stores have signed up to introduce The Spoils to new players. See the list of events here.

If your local store isn't on this list, then consider contacting them and ask if they need any help in setting up a Starter Event.

The Spoils Tutorial

Looking for a streamlined effective way to learn The Spoils TCG?

The Definitive Spoils Tutorial paves the way for easy entry into the amusing, outrageous, and elegant world of The Spoils.

The release date for Seed II: Gloamspike's Revenge has been set at September 20th.

Prereleases can be hosted on Saturday 18th or Sunday 19th. Help your local store make this event a success!

Will Clark is having his hands full with all the OP activities, so in his stead please join us in welcoming Terence Dorman as new Head Judge Coordinator. Terence will be in charge of all judge activities including certifying new judges.

Nick Dorman of Team Hopper takes you on a guided tour through the events at Gen Con. Enjoy :-)

The Seed-2 package deals will start to ship in Mid-September.

Over the next week we will be sending out emails to everybody that has ordered these deals.

The Spoils will be at Dragon Con again this year with tournaments and demos around the clock – including the Dragon Con Championship.

The most important vessel in The Spoils universe right now has got to be "Atlantic Concert" since it is carrying the Seed-2 product destined for USA

Organized Play

After talking with many players and store owners about what they wanted to see from The Spoils in the area of organized play, Red and Will have come up with many ideas for OP. Read on to see the first of them!

Gen Con is almost upon us - soon all will be revealed!! Before that happens, here is another preview from the new set.

Will and Red have taken a look at the new card pool - and spend many weeks carefully balancing their first deck using card from Seed-2. Read here for full insight into the total deckpool of cards used.

Everybody loves a good pirate tale: Daring high sea adventure, swashbuckling, action, romance, scoundrels, and night time raids. This article explores the building of theme decks within The Spoils.

Tournament Uploads

It is now possible for Tournament Organizers to upload tournaments to the Player Portal.

Tournament Organizers

If you are a Tournament Organizer for The Spoils, then now is the time to sign up for Player Portal privileges.

With GenCon approaching ever closer it gives reason to look into some of the decks that made the game good: the various archetypes of the game before "the crash".

At Gen Con we will be running multiple events including our first US Nationals, PreRelease events for the new expansion Seed-2: Gloamspike's Revenge, bundles of drafts, Liquor Tourneys etc. etc.

After talking at length with the bosses, Red and Will would like to announce that those players that placed 2nd at any State Qualifier can now also participate in the State Championship.

Also, we are extending the 3-judge system to this event. If you played in, and did well at a State Qualifier, we want you to be able to play.

The Spoils will be attending Origins 2010. Origins is held in Columbus, Ohio from June 23-27. We will be demoing the game to new players as well as hosting tournaments with some nice prizes :-)

Over the past many months we have been working behind the scenes in building a portal where players will have access to all of their player data including personal information, tournaments, wins & losses, rating and ranking.

The road to US Nationals starts here and ends with a Big TV and Glory.

Just a little reminder: The presale of Seed II. Gloamspike's Revenge with the super package deals end on May 22nd.

So if you haven't purchased yours already then contact your local retailer or preorder directly with us.

Our new OP Directors Will and Red has taken charge of the driver's seat and are setting a new course. Read more about this and also see the great prize pool we have for you at US Nationals.

With the presale of "Seed II: Gloamspike's Revenge" well on its way we are now offering retailers to host a special event using ALL of the cards from Package Deal 1.

Over the last few weeks we have received a lot of good feedback on our presale for the new expansion for The Spoils!

People are very excited about both the presale and the fact that The Spoils is alive and kicking. And we are needless to say very excited about the whole thing ourselves!

This past week we have signed a lot of new retailers to The Spoils and many of these have asked if we could possibly extend the deadline for the presale of Seed II beyond May 8th because they simply haven't had the necessary time to reach out to their customer base.

We of course want to get this presale deal out to as many as possible too, so after careful thinking we have decided to push the deadline back by two weeks up till May 22nd.

Zach Bunn will be leaving the OP Manager job to dedicate himself to all of his work at www.TeamCovenant.Com. We want to thank Zach for being a great guy and for stepping in and helping us out when the need was greatest.

Will Clark and Red Craig will be taking over from Zach from May 1st, 2010. And we want you to help us welcome them as OP Managers. We have full faith that they will be doing an awesome job of helping grow The Spoils!

RPC Cologne was another succesful event for The Spoils. The booth once again drew a large crowd and on the two days the show lasted soooo many people came by our awesome looking booth.

Now we are giving you the opportunity to preorder "Seed II: Gloamspike's Revenge". And we are topping it off with a very sweet deal :-)

You will also find a card preview of a certain gentleman who has lend his name to the new set!

Phew - it has been a long ride, but we have come very far!

And now we can announce that Seed II: Gloamspike's Revenge has been scheduled to see the light of day at Gen Con 2010.

The games have begun and the first stores have already hosted their first qualifiers - and many more are to come!!

Hordak is back; this time to introduce you to some of the powerhouse RARE ards in the Arcanist trade.

Enjoy his article - and hopefully it will open your eyes to new possibilities!

The newly pronounced Swedish National Champion takes you on a guided tour on his way to glory!

As you can see from the banner on the right we will be having a booth at RPC Köln in April. More info will be available later on.

Casual play in The Spoils is a very different beast from every other format we've attuned ourselves to. Certain combinations work in a casual format that would be outpaced in a competitive atmosphere. Certain cards that are only 'okay' become 'strong' in a casual environment

With the Swedish National Championships still warm, we are already eager to announce the upcoming German National Championship. We will be hosting this with the friendly support of the "Auenland" on the 3rd of July in Dortmund.

TempleCon 2010 was yet another success for The Spoils. Many new players and local stores stopped by the booth and after a quick chat and a demo they were hooked!!

On Saturday the 13th of February the Swedish Nationals will be hosted in Dragon's Lair in Stockholm.

On February 19th and 20th Juan Pablo Bernal demoes The Spoils at OwlCon and hosts a series of drafts as well.

Ladies and gentlemen, fasten your Seed belts, please!

In this fifth part in his series on playing sealed deck Spoils-veteran Hans Joachim Hoeh takes you on a trip to Seed land.

Enjoy the ride!

We are hard at work in getting the new set ready for production. There are still some things that must be done before it is ready for print - follow the link for a production update.

And as a little treat, you will also find a new preview card at the bottom of the article. We hope you like what you see :-)

The fifth and final piece in the the series of articles written by players familiar with The Spoils™ and the mechanics of each of the five trades has now hit our website. Once again the new player will find help in building a good deck without a multitude of rares is his/her collection.

The fifth article unfolds the rage of the warlords!

Organized Play USA

Today Arcane Tinmen is proud to announce Zach Bunn as our new OP Manager for USA. Zach will start work immediately and his tasks involves setting up Organized Play both at the national level as well as on the local scene.

Now we look forward to having you all help us make the tournament scene living and vibrant once more!!

The time has come for the fourth piece in the series of articles written by players familiar with The Spoils™ and the mechanics of each of the five trades. Here is help for the new player to build a good deck without chasing around for rare cards.

The fourth article covers Rogues and Deception..
Have fun :-)

We hope everybody has ventures safely into the new year which we will kick off with the third part in the series of articles written by players familiar with The Spoils™ and the mechanics of each of the five trades. The focus remains on making a deck without having to hunt for rare cards.

This third article will be all about Gearsmiths and Elitism.
Enjoy :-)

Here is the second installment in the series of articles written by players familiar with The Spoils™ and the mechanics of each of the five trades - and with the focus on making a deck without having to fill your deck with rare cards.

This second article one will cover the Bankers.
Enjoy :-)

This will be a series of articles written by a player familiar with The Spoils™ and the mechanics of each of the five trades. Besides the articles you will also find decklists and how to play those decks.

Over the next couple of weeks we will be posting articles on each individual trade. The first one will be on the Arcanists.

We hope you will enjoy them - welcome to The Spoils™

We'll be kicking off the year with another round of tournaments and events with the help of David Weesner and our friends at TempleCon.

David will be running 4 tournaments and non stop drafts throughout the weekend, so sign up and get ready for some great events and lots of prizes.

We'll also be unavailing another small sneak peak of what is to come in the new set so don't miss out!!

Bernie "La Sin Grail" Mako returns with another fantastic edition of his "Drafting Better" series.

Drafting Better 102 is the second part of a series designed to provide some help drafting to players of The Spoils. As you'd expect, 102 is still introductory level, but follows up some of the concepts from Drafting Better 101. This class, it's time to talk about some basic signaling, reading, and actual picking!

Ever wanted to own a cool Spoils t-shirt? Or a coffee mug with your favorite card art on it? Now you can!

Roll 2 Dice, in association with Arcane Tinmen, are proud to be able to offer you officially licensed The Spoils™ merchandise!

The Spoils™ is an awesome card game, with some fantastic and bizarre artwork. Through Print-On-Demand (POD) websites, like Zazzle.com, we will be bringing you tons and tons of cool Spoils gear, from t-shirts to fridge magnets to posters and even skateboards!

Hi, I'm Johan, former Swedish National Champion in Yu-Gi-Oh, and now passionate dabbler in The Spoils TCG!

This article will cover one of the first steps you take as a player in The Spoils – determining what trade or trades to include in the first deck you build.

The first staggering steps

Even before I started playing The Spoils, I knew what trade NOT to play – Banker. This had nothing to do with the current state of the global economy, it's just that the local store owner that talked me into trying the game had a mono Banker Control deck (mono meaning it contained only a single trade), and that deck was undefeated. I immediately wanted to build something that could beat it, but I didn't want to use the same strategy.

Josh Lytle

You may want to check out the Open R&D forums.

Kimberly Maita

GenCon 2009 was a major victory for the resurrection of The Spoils. Not only did we see a renewed interest in the game but our 2-player Starter Kit was flying off the shelves! Let's recap a few of the high points of the convention:

Ed. Note: The broken "full story" link should now be fixed... sorry for the inconvenience!

Will Clark

At 5:30am on Friday I awoke and drove with my friend, Red, to Kinkos to print off the deck registration sheets for the Sealed event that evening. We got to the convention hall at 7 and prepared ourselves for the massive amounts of demos we would do that day. The hall opened and the rush hit us like a brick. Red, myself, a guy named Brendan, and his girlfriend Amy were selling 2-Player Starters left and right. Every now and then we would mention the Sealed event that was going on that night.

The Spoils will be making an appearance at Dragon Con 2009. We have teamed up with our good friend Jeff Millegan from Heroes Cards, Comics and Games.

Jeff will be running several tournaments as well as non-stop demos and casual games, so stop by for yet another good time!

Event Schedule:

Friday:

• Demos will be running from the time the doors open until they close... if they close.
• 4-person mini-tournaments with running starts for all new players using free preconstructed decks.
• 6pm: The Spoils Sealed Deck (1 comp.pack + 3 boosters drawn from all sets)

Saturday:

• Demos and deck building all day from open to close
• 4-person mini-tournaments with running starts for all new players using free preconstructed decks.
• 6pm: The Spoils Constructed format

Sunday:

• Demos and deck building all day from open to close
• 4-person mini-tournaments with running starts for all new players using free preconstructed decks.
• "Beat the Pro" ongoing tournament. New players get a chance to play and beat "old pros"; small prizes, but the better the Pro, the better the prize.
• 6pm: The Spoils Constructed format

Monday:

• Demos and deck building all day from open to close
• 4-person mini-tournaments with running starts for all new players using free preconstructed decks.
• "Beat the Pro" ongoing tournament. New players get a chance to play and beat "old pros"; small prizes, but the better the Pro, the better the prize.
• 12pm: The Spoils Draft format (1st+Part2+Seed)

Pros needed!

If you want to be the pro to beat at the above "Beat the pro" events, then send a private message to Jeff. His username on the boards is 'tgrtrax'.

Gencon '09 came and went, and The Spoils saw a lot of love. To celebrate the game's return to Gencon, The Spoils team would like to have an article contest. Please tell us about Gencon for those who did not or could not attend this year! Submit an article about The Spoils booth, events, or tournaments by 8/31/09.

What good would any contest about The Spoils be without some fabulous prizes? Michael has opened the prize chest for this winner-takes-all contest.

• 5 Metal Micromajig Tokens
• 1 Uncut sheet
• Choice of 25 random foil cards, or 15 random foils & one booster box display, or two booster box displays.

Winner chooses the set for the booster prize if booster option is chosen.

Photos can be included with your article and, while helpful, will not impact the winner we choose. The article can be of any length within reason. The chosen winner will be announced in the forums prior to posting to the home page. We will contact the winnner for choice of prize option 3. Articles are to be received no later than Midnight Eastern Time on 8/31/09 at earley207 at roadrunner dot com.

Best of luck to everyone!

The Spoils staff

Thank you to all the hard-working people that helped make The Spoils look really, really good at Gen Con. We couldn't have done this without you! Being all the way over in Europe, I didn't get the pleasure of meeting any of you – but Kim (who ran the booth) tells me she was really, really happy with the help she got.

The return of The Spoils was very well received at Gen Con. Many retailers came by the booth and were really happy to see the game back on its feet. Plus many new players tried the game, bought product to take home, and some even tried the game out in the 64 player sealed event. Although there is still a long way to go before the rescue mission is a full-fledged success, we have with your help taken a crucial step forward.

Kim is still on her way home to California – but we will be back with a more in-depth report as soon as we can.

Take care all - and thank you again!

Michael

Work has begun on a new expansion. And Josh Lytle has talked us into making an Open R&D forum where he will be bouncing ideas for cards, concepts and abilities off of the forum community.

Making a new set is of course a long process with R&D, playtesting, art creation, layouting, production and finally shipping to all locations. By doing this we are treading the first important steps - all the while giving you the chance to participate. We hope that you will all want to participate and perhaps set your own thumbprint on the new cards.

Michael - Arcane Tinmen

As you can see from the banner to the right The Spoils will be part of Gen Con 2009. There we will be hosting both tournaments and demo games as well a participating in the Weasel Con Games and working with the Gen Con VIG-program.

By doing all of these things at Gen Con we intend to rekindle the flame and spark renewed awareness and interest in our beloved game – and to bring many more players into the game.

The tournament schedule for Gen Con looks like this:

• The Spoils Sealed Deck: Friday, August 14th from 6pm-12am
• The Spoils Constructed Format: Saturday, August 15th from 6pm-12am

Prizes for each of the two tournaments:

1st place: Nintendo Wii + 12 booster displays (4*1st ed./4*Part2/4*Seed) + Uncut Sheet + Top-8 foils

2nd place: 9 booster displays (3*1st ed./3*Part2/3*Seed) + Uncut Sheet + Top-8 foils

3rd-4th place: 6 booster displays (2*1st ed./2*Part2/2*Seed) + Top-8 foils

5th-8th place: 3 booster displays (1*1st ed./1*Part2/1*Seed) + Top-8 foils

9th-16th place: 9 boosters (3*1st ed./3*Part2/3*Seed) + Random foils

Drafts

Drafts can be played at any time outside of the tournament schedule mentioned above. So grab hold of your fellow players and sit down for a good time!

Demos

Demos will be done at our booth each day from 10-6 (10-4 on Sunday), so drop by if you are new to the game. Or if you would like to help with the demoing!

Not going to Gen Con?

For those of you not going to Gen Con rest assured that we are also working on making other larger tournaments.

By Bernie Makino

Hello class, and welcome to Drafting Better 101. Let's put on our thinking caps on and… stop before I trigger flashbacks to grade school. This guide is designed to take you, the beginning to average Spoils player, and help you in your quest to get better. After all, to the victor go The Spoils!

By Bernie Makino

This article isn't the most electrifying, exciting, story-telling article that will keep you glued in your chair. Nor does it have top secret deck lists or anything of the sort. If you have an interest in becoming better at the game of The Spoils, however, this is a fine place to start.

I would also like to mention that this article operates under the premise that the game is not immediately about to end. Clearly, if you need to find something to survive another turn, that's more important than following any theory. These principles work best when applied over relatively long games (mostly in limited, but also in some constructed games), and are not always going to determine the correct play. However, during early development and the mid-game, these subtle changes can often translate into wins later on.

By Hans Hans Joachim Höh

Once upon a time there was a TCG that was absolutely amazing. It was hilarious and highly strategical, but it wasn´t sold or played in Germany. So I decided to travel all over the United States to play this game. While doing so I met a lot of very cool guys and girls and had a good time. I won my way onto their tour bus and wrote articles for their web site and the world was a happy place. Then suddenly reality shifted. With Tenacious Games, the inventor of The Spoils, out of business there were no more tournaments, no new sets to explore, no way to meet with my Spoils buddies anymore. But Michael, of Arcane Tinmen wouldn´t have it that way and managed to resurrect the game. So this new reality shift brings me back to writing for you and I want to start with a constructed format strategy article for the old player base, before turning to the limited format to give some advice to the new player base.

Today I am going to present probably the most complicated deck I have built so far....

The Spoils is still alive and kicking. The release of the new 2-player Starter Kit is living proof of that.

We have asked stores across the USA to celebrate the relaunch of The Spoils with us and host a team-tournament using the new 2-player kit which releases on April 27th.

If your local store hasn't already announced this, please tell them about the event. If you have the time for it, then perhaps suggest to the store that you would help them get the event organized. From our end we would certainly greatly appreciate any help you can give the stores to get The Spoils back on its feet!

Interested? Read the "Full Story" for the details....

In April Arcane Tinmen is proud to announce its first release for The Spoils. It is a 2-player Starter Kit featuring two 72 card pre-con decks: Banker/Rogue + Arcanist/Warlord based on 1st edition and Seed cards. The decks are designed to introduce new players to the game. Also included are: one special booster of 13 additional cards, a rules sheet, foil promo cards, a Spoils glossary and a full color map of Luridia.

Everything you need to start playing The Spoils comes packed in one handy, lusciously-illustrated box.

Each starter kit is "n00b tested, 1337 approved" (translation: easy and fun, yet still packed with rich game play)!!

The Starter Kit will retail at $19.95.

We are Joe and Josh (no, not Josh Lytle), and with the support of Michael from Arcane Tinmen, we will be acting as editors and publishers for new article content on The Spoils website.

We hope to bring excitement and exposure to our great game by offering fresh content on a weekly basis. Anyone is welcome to submit an article, and for now the topics are open. We hope in the future to offer regular card reviews, player profiles, tournament reports, and sneak peeks at what's coming to a gaming store near all of us. So send us your articles, and let's get this game really rolling again!

Articles can be submitted to: earley207 <at> roadrunner <dot> com. We will do our best to keep the website content fresh and, with everyone's help, exciting.

May The Spoils live long and prosper. Rage on!

Click "full story" to read more about the new editors!

We have closed our deal with Tenacious Games and we are now the proud owners of all rights to The Spoils! It has been a long, long road to travel but now that we are successful, we are hitting the ground running to bring The Spoils back to life and give it a solid direction.

It is important for us to point out that we have acquired all of the rights pertaining the property of The Spoils – but we did not take with us any of the debts or other obligations that TG may have had. What we did take with us is the heart and soul of the old team. We are very happy to tell you that Josh Lytle will continue to be part of R&D team and that Patrick Meehan will be onboard as a creative consultant. We are currently working on staffing artists, and securing marketing and distribution channels but things are falling into place and we are excited about the progress to date.

We also want to announce now that we are putting the Spoils Cruise back on our calendar! Albeit with one important amendment: Prices will start at $350 for a five-day cruise out of New Orleans in October.

Former qualifiers receive a discount and there are ways to reduce the price even further. And, of course, if you win the on-board tournament, you'll get your cruise fees back! For this event, we have teamed with Gamer Adventures and you can find more details at:

http://www.gameradventures.com/spoils.htm

Finally a word on our organization: We will be looking for alternative ways of doing a lot of things. And we may very well be turning to the loyal community that is the backbone of The Spoils – both for assistance and for inspiration.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Michael

Arcane Tinmen / The Spoils Rescue Mission^TM