By Johan Bisenius

Background
I started playing The Spoils during summer 2009. My first deck was Rogue/Gearsmith and I posted it on the forums to get some feedback. I got a lot from different people and continued with the design on my own during autumn and winter. I tested several new decks during this time and in the end I had two good candidates for the Swedish Nationals – The Rogue/Gearsmith and a mono Warlord that seemed to crush all opposition within 10 minutes or so. I felt unstoppable.

Then there were qualifiers… I entered the constructed qualifier with my mono Warlord and won every match, until I met the Shop Owner with his mono Banker deck. Those of you who have read the forums are perhaps already familiar with my encounter with this guy. We faced off twice during that tournament and I lost both rounds, the latter was in the finals. Suddenly my deck seemed sluggish and all the cards had so high a cost that I lost out to the Banker removal cards and all the while my opponent could revive stuff through Montgomery Blatherscythe that cost me even more to kill. I needed to rethink my strategy.

I decided to look to the meta-game and find out what decks out there could finish this Banker deck off. My eyes rested upon Strength in Numbers and Writ/Bile decks. I decided to build them both and try them out. The only problem was that I couldn’t test it on the Shop Owner himself and with our restricted community, there weren’t enough people playing mono Banker either.

Bernie, aka “La Sin Grail”, was one of the first people who helped me with my Rogue/Gearsmith deck, so I turned to him to hear his thoughts about my decks and we ended up discussing different approaches to the Writ/Bile deck. My idea was running some cheap characters to recur with Montgomery Blathescythe in addition to the Writ/Bile engine, but Bernie had another idea and showed me an untested design that contained almost no characters at all. It was a bit frightening, but at the same time it was a nice challenge for me, and so I took most of that design with me for play testing.

The testing went well, but still my Rogue/Gearsmith had a higher win percentage. The SiN deck also won every match I played and I hadn’t completely decided on which deck to use for Nationals, until I started to hear rumours that the Shop Owner and some other good players had started teching against my Rogue/Gearsmith. Since I play full sets of Martial Artists and Martial Arts Trainees, I could only guess that this would mean mass removal. This was also going to hurt my SiN deck, which contained mostly weenies. In other words, it was a perfect opportunity for me to discard the designs with a lot of characters in them and focus on La Sin Grail’s strategy with almost no characters. I was also mindful of The Spoils playoff rules, regarding Influence. With Writ/Bile, I should be able to win a war of attrition if I couldn’t win on the Biles. My decision was made.

There were two things I was wary of: 1. A deck sporting Strength in Numbers and Tactician Vacation could kill me off in the early game and I wouldn’t have had a chance to build up much control. Especially the combination of Strength in Numbers and Tactician Vacation would make any Limited Liability a dead card and I would have to rely on a flipped up Flabbergasting Philosopher to brace the impact. Not a very solid strategy. 2. A Rogue deck containing Master Scavenger could easily destroy my combo by scouring my discard pile. I had suspicions there would be players teching this card, but I hoped my deck would be faster in setting up and I could keep at least one Writ in hand to respond to the play.

Finally, the deck needed a name. Since I played with all trades except Rogue, I simply named it “Everything but the Rogue”.

The Day of the Nationals
A Nationals in The Spoils was something I’ve been longing for a long time and my spirits were high when I entered the shop where it would be held. Soon, my spirits fell a bit. We were only 11 players! People from Gothenburg didn’t show up at all and other players from nearby cities didn’t either. Still, there were a lot of skilled players present, so the opposition would still be good.

Because of the structure of the qualifiers, I had “byes” for my first two rounds of constructed. I spent my time talking to the other players with byes and did some scouting of decks. No one seemed to play Master Scavenger that I could see, but I saw one SiN deck and that particular player had won over my deck during play testing.

Match 1 - Bye
"1-0"

Match 2 - Bye
"2-0"

Match 3 - Isac (Arcanist Banker control and covert beatdown)
My first round of the tournament was match 3 and Isac was up-paired to face me. Isac was a relatively new and young player and had never beaten me before. I was fairly confident that I would take him on and win. Boy, did I get a shock… I got a fairly good hand and could play a Gold Summit and Free Trade Agreement. During Isac’s turn, he virtually exploded! First he plays Property Condemner, sapping my Gold Summit and then he starts pouring out resources and begins to hand control me. Ritual of the Screaming Cheese takes one Selective Gluttony from me and other cards further disrupt my hand during the following turns, one of them being Cryptic Athenaeum. Because of FTA, he can easily get threshold for it and my spirits have reached rock bottom. Trying to hold on I stare across the board at his fearsome Wrinkly Rabbit, blown up to gigantic proportions. I cannot seem to find a Limited Liability or removal and I start to pay three to desperately draw for any of it, while the Rabbit keeps hammering at my Influence.

Not too many turns pass before I have 12 Influence left and the Rabbit along with the rest of his critters can finish me off. I manage to draw a Limited Liability with my final resources and I’m relying on Isac to use FTA to set two resources. If he does, I will have the opportunity to turn the game, because I also have drawn into Walk the Plank. Unfortunately, he chooses that we both may draw two cards and the Rabbit bites down hard at my throat.

This was a great blow to my moral, because this was the final round of constructed before the draft and I was not so sure about how that would go. However, I was very impressed with Isac’s playing. He really had an answer to everything I tried to do. 2-1

Drafting
My loss in the previous round got me a seat between the Shop Owner (to the left) and another one of the staff who has several championship titles from various card games. I wasn’t counting on getting passed any bombs with that setup.

The drafting seemed very random at first. My first choice was drafting Banker cards, then Arcanist and then both Gearsmith and Rogue. Some good cards were passed along, like H07 P3pp3r and several covert Arcanist characters. Nothing game breaking though. I started profiling my choices to prepare for a three-Trade deck.

My final deck has 1 Obsession and 1 Deception for starting resources and I chose Moist Cave of the Darkpump for my Faction, to better cycle my deck.

Match 4 - Draft 1 - Kettil
Kettil is the one playing the SiN deck, but now we’re drafting and I’m not afraid of sudden OTKs. He claims to be happy with his choice of deck. I guess I’m fairly happy as well, but I have no clear strategy apart from inflicting covert damage over time. With only four tactics in the deck, the single copy of Wanton Wizard seems very situational, but beggars can’t be choosers.

In my match against Kettil, I manage to get a first turn covert Shrouded Demon. Round two his twin joins the fight, but Kettil sits on a cache of Warlord removal tactics and my demons are short-lived. An Unflinching Bowman temporarily disrupts my attacks and kills off my weenies, but soon I draw some of my sturdier Gearsmith cards and I can press on. He gets another Bowman and then yet another, but by that time I have already entered pounding state and my beefy characters tear down his defences and in the end his Influence. 3-1

Match 5 - Hampus (Gearsmith/Banker)
Since my previous match ended quite early, I was able to watch Hampus face off against the Shop Owner. I had a good grasp on Hampus’ deck and I believe I saw a whopping five Flabbergasting Philosophers. I needed to think well before attacking if he had four or more resources left. The danger lay somewhere else though, namely in his multiple copies of Runic Tattoo Artist. Ah yes, this little critter really messed up things for me. After the third turn, my biggest characters couldn’t attack anymore, because the Flabbergasting could easily get enough Strength and Life to survive any attack. I also couldn’t play Strangulate because of this. Fortunately, I had two coverts that could repeatedly inflict damage. Before long Hampus got out an Inconspicuous Golem with the ability to block at least one of them, but I managed to bounce it and discard it using Encumber. After that my coverts could strike unhindered and in the end it spelled game for me. 4-1

Match 6 – Johan Nilsson a.k.a. Nicol Bolas (Arcanist/Banker)
Well, well, I was up against the Shop Owner albeit with a draft deck. His first turn play was Treasure Brokerage and over the first rounds of play he literally started pouring resources onto the table. A Pilgrimage Auditor would make combat difficult for me, but the following turn I managed to play a Titillating Contortionist. If I could just keep it alive, combat would surely swing in my favor.

I was right. A round or two later the Contortionist had lured the Auditor to block and soon the rest of my increasing army could strike home. 12 damage inflicted after the first attack turned to 11 next turn. Nicol a.k.a. Johan a.k.a. the Shop Owner was defeated. 5-1

Quarter finals - Niklas Good (Rogue/Gearsmith OTK)
Ok, that was it for drafting, now we were back to constructed for the playoffs. I got to play against “Turbo” Niklas, a guy that’s been playing a Thief Doyen OTK deck the last couple of weeks. I wasn’t that concerned about this matchup, because Niklas never seems to draw the resources he needs and thus the deck loses some speed. Also, I have so much removal in my deck that one single guy is easily dealt with. Or so I thought…

Niklas had made some subtle but great changes to the deck. I played the usual game with him, letting Doyen rise to heights of power, before playing a Walk the Plank. Niklas responded with Hidden Sandwich! I hadn’t seen that card before in his build, but of course it was a very logical choice when one needs to protect a single big dude. Doyen is saved and even though I can play Limited Liability the next couple of rounds, I have not enough removal to kill off Doyen. He has a Tri-Pole Magnet attached and since the Sandwich is in his discard pile, I need at least two removal cards to get rid of him. Things start to get exciting (and scary)!

One round later I have no Limited Liability and Niklas sees his chance. His Thief Doyen is at 29 Strength and he starts to wreak havoc on my Influence. With the aid of a Hot Pepper and Tri-Pole Magnet, he is able to hit at least three times and my Influence goes down fast. Luckily I started out with at least 140 Influence, so I’m shaken but not defeated. Since he has no resources left and the Tri-Pole already used, my single Crushing Usury hits home the following round and the threat is gone. After that Niklas’ deck has lost a lot of power and I can start to Bile him, even though I need to deal with an Incriminating Photograph before going for the kill. 6-1

Semi finals - Nicol Bolas (mono Banker life gain and control)
Aw, I feel like dropping a line from Star Wars here, but let’s focus on the report. Nicol was using his regular mono Banker strategy of drawing an insane amount of cards, gaining Influence and filling up his field with an army of Banker characters, especially the annoying Tax Attorney, the bane of all burn decks. With Montgomery Blatherscythe he can recur them all. Since my deck had no real means of attacking, I needed to shut down his life gain engine, namely his locations. My starting hand included a Property Condemner which I kept and the turn after Nicol played his Gold Summit, the Property Condemner worked his magic. This was almost a game breaking move for me.

Nicol soon got a Marduun Baitings and Loan in play and continued getting life, albeit at a much slower pace. When I played my next Condemner, he had Limited Liability. I used the same tactic myself to fend off Nicol’s growing army, getting them back into my deck with Writ of Reclamation. He destroyed my first Gold Summit, but I got more in play and started amassing Influence at a good rate. I cycled my Limited Liabilities and Bask Biles back into the deck, but soon realized that it would take forever to kill him off with the Biles. It wouldn’t even be possible if I couldn’t take out his locations and my only copies of Property Condemner were already on the field, not doing much good.

I started cycling Walk the Planks instead, to keep the threat of the army at bay, but Nicol also played Writ and got his own Limited Liabilitys back. When I played Walk the Plank, he responded with LL and when I then responded again with a WTP, he had another LL available! That tactic simply wouldn’t work. I realized my only option was winning on time and my sole purpose was putting back my Liabilities in the deck and playing one each round, while I waited for the clock to tick in my favor.

Nicol did the best he could to play swiftly and attack. In the end, I had no cards left in my deck and no means of getting any back from my discard pile, having sacrificed my last Writ to get LLs back. When time was finally called, I had two LLs in my hand and could take the win, thanks to my 150+ Influence. The Shop Owner was defeated, but it was a very nerve-wrecking game for me. 7-1

Finals – Johan Disenborg a.k.a. Disen (mono Warlord 2 resource deck)
This was it! The Swedish Nationals finals and my opponent is a guy with several card game victories to his name.

I hadn’t really scouted his deck so the only thing I knew before the match was that he played just his two starting Rage for resources and that he probably had a play set of Tactician Vacations that could screw up my Limited Liabilities or Writ of Reclamations, depending on the situation. Because of his threshold, I didn’t have to worry about Strength in Numbers, so at least I should be safe during the early game.

I thought Disen would play very aggressively in the beginning, but he took it fairly easy, only playing two characters and then setting quite a lot of resources. I don’t know if that meant that he didn’t draw enough characters, if he had a lot of flip-up cards or if he simply didn’t want to overextend in regards to my Walk the Planks. Whatever the case, I soon learned that Disen’s deck was focused on hitting items and locations, so my early rounds became rather difficult. My Gold Summits and Free Trade Agreements made quick journeys to the discard pile and I had an early Influence problem. However, I managed to keep at least one Gold Summit alive and started drawing some cards. As soon as I hit my copies of Limited Liability, I could start gaining control.

Disen used Tac Vac at some point, but he never targeted my Writs, so even though I lost a location or got hit for some Influence damage at some point, I could still keep the engine running.

Over the course of the match I had hit him for 15 with three Biles when I suddenly realized he wasn’t playing the Tournament Faction. He was playing Hall of Great Justice! It meant I was only one Bask Bile away from victory and eager to go for the win, I started playing a bit more aggressively. Using the regular means of draw power the deck was built for; I got two Biles in my hand and played one. Tac Vac delayed my victory. I passed the turn and waited for the first opportunity for me to respond and then played my second Bask Bile. Disen was out of Tac Vacs and the match was over! 8-1

Even though we were so few players for such a big event as Nationals, I was completely spent and it had taken all the skill I had to come so far. Afterwards, I thought about the deck’s weaknesses and strengths and what cards I got no use out of. If I would enter with a Writ/Bile deck once more, I would build it a bit differently. It was great having the Toxic Cultivators and All-Nighters as a means to go for the kill in one single turn, but I honestly didn’t use that loop during the tournament and only got it off once during play testing. Still, it was a fun deck to play and it really had you on edge most of the time during the early game and in my cases just as often in the late game.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this lengthy report. Hopefully it will spur some of you to write more about this great game!

/Johan Bisenius

Decklists:

"Everything but the Rogue"

Faction:
Tournament Faction

Resources:
2 x Greed (starting)
2 x Greed
4 x Exploitation
2 x Rage
4 x Violence
1 x Neurosis
1 x Arrogance

Characters:
4 x Erotic Assassin
2 x Flabbergasting Philosopher
2 x Property Condemner
1 x Spitting Sarume
2 x Toxic Cultivator

Items:
4 x Inside Information
4 x Free Trade Agreement
1 x Humiliating Torture Apparatus

Locations:
4 x Gold Summit

Tactics:
4 x Limited Liability
4 x Karmic Cake
4 x Writ of Reclamation
4 x Selective Gluttony
2 x Crushing Usury
2 x Walk the Plank
4 x Desserted Island
3 x Bask Bile
1 x Blow Up
1 x Hammer Smash
4 x Shriever Attack
2 x All-Nighter

Draft

Faction:
Moist Cave of the Darkpump

Resources:
1 x Obsession (starting)
1 x Deception (starting)
4 x Deception
6 x Elitism

Characters:
2 x Shrouded Demon
1 x Wanton Wizard
1 x Nefarious Horror
1 x The Abominable Hamster
1 x Flagitious Denouncer
2 x Agile Highwayman
1 x Affectionate Dollkeeper
1 x Titillating Contortionist
1 x Dazzling Trapezist
1 x Harbinger of Anguish
1 x Sly Bilker
2 x Casino Kingpin
1 x Mundane Pupil
2 x Inconspicuous Golem
1 x Cowering Golem
2 x Velocious Golem
1 x Terra Cotta Flagellator
2 x Massive Erecting Golem

Items:
2 x H07 P3pp3r

Tactics:
2 x Encumber
2 x Strangulate
1 x Roulette Wheel of Doom
1 x Runic Reinforcement
1 x Essence of Elitism