Playing with my Token Control deck!

I had the chance this past weekend to get a couple games in for The Spoils TCG with my Token Control deck. You can read about it here. I don't have all the cards I need yet, but the deck is playing exactly the way I wanted it to.

The first game I played it against a Warlord/Gearsmith deck which just so happens to be made of my cards. I was teaching another player how to play and Warlord is an easy place to start. Fortunately the person I was teaching was a quick learner and a veteran of many other card games. He picked it up fast and was able to use some of the better parts of Warlord/Gearsmith deck to good effect.

I won the first game, but that was rather expected considering the Warlord/Gearsmith deck was really just thrown together. Still it was satisfying to see my deck performing the way I had expected. My opening hand was full of starting points for various strategies I have worked into the deck. The name of the deck is Token Control and that is exactly how I played the first game. Throwing down with Qutidian Assassinations and Sudden Osprey I was able to get a well built Red Raven through for some massive early game damage. After trading a few creatures I finally was able to punch through for the win.

The second game I decided that we should swap decks so he would have a decent deck to play with. Of course this meant I would have to play the unfinished Warlord/Gearsmith deck. While it isn't exactly like playing sealed or limited play it is still great practice to play with a non-optimized deck. I didn't get a great starting hand with the Warlord/Gearsmith deck, but I was able to stall a few rounds with a Jacque's Trap which stopped an early rush from a Red Raven.

Halfway through the game it was evident my opponent had learned enough about the game to start playing a good bit better. Then I came to realize just how frustrating my deck was to play against. I pulled off a great research combo with 700130x 3lf only to get sucked a Lugubrious Finger Trap. By this time he had been able to build up a very nice Red Raven with several tokens. A Very Big Hat of Invisibility pretty much meant I wasn't going to block it any time soon.

I was able to get some damage across and brought his influence down into the teens, but I was never really threatening to win. He was getting horrible luck with resources for the game. It wasn't until late game when he finally got a second Obsession in play which started opening doors. 90% of the games with my Rogue/Arcanist deck there are 2 Obsession in play on turn two.

He was able to hold onto the Red Raven long enough to finish me off and I was quite pleased to see a new player pick up my deck and be successful with it. Now I just hope to get some more cards and get some testing done against some tougher decks and opponents.