Quote from VegasNL »Hi all
New to the Ad Nau deck and I have a question. How do you guys use Spoils of the Vault? General search for a "card-x" or dig for missing combo pieces?
I understand the combo and all but Spoils a bit of a blind spot still for me
Thx in advance!
Spoils is very versatile and you can use it for anything. I have used it to find a 4th/5th land for a combo turn, to find a combo piece, to find a Pact of Negation, etc. It all depends on the game state. In general, you want to evaluate the odds of dying to Spoils against the odds of dying to your opponent if you don't Spoils for the intended card. For instance, if I'm deterministically dead to an attack next turn, I will probably Spoils for my win condition and go for broke. Similarly, if I'm dead to a Death's Shadow next turn and get my Ad Naus hit by Stubborn Denial, I might Spoil for Pact and hope for the best. But you also need to weigh the chances of exiling your own win conditions. Remember that win conditions don't just include Lab Man and Storm. They can also include SSGs if you need extra mana to win on a particular turn. This is where it's important to pay attention to previous scrys/Sleights to the bottom, and be wary of opponent shuffle effects; Field of Ruin can really **** up your probability calculus.
Other "hidden modes" of Spoils include:
1. Spoiling for a card you scried to the top with a Temple or SV. In effect, you use Spoils as a second cantrip to get the card a turn earlier.
2. Plan C win with Lab Man. Have Lab Man in play and cast Grace. Or have Lab Man in play with Unlife. Spoils for a card not in your deck. Win on draw step.
3. As above but done in your main phase with Serum Visions in hand to draw the card.
4. Spoils to break a JTMS/Lantern lock.
5. Spoils for mana (Prism/a land/SSG). This is surprisingly useful if you are getting denied mana or just not drawing mana you need.
6. With Pact trigger on the stack, Spoils for Grace. Useful if your opponent cast a game-ending spell and you had no choice but to counter it even though you didn't have Grace in hand.
I'm sure I'm missing some of its uses. The card is super versatile and I would never play a maindeck without 2. Normally I'd be happy with 3, but Modern has a lot of aggressive decks now (Humans, H1, Affinity, Burn, etc.), and even the controlling decks can quickly turn the damage corner (Jund with BBE, Jeskai with Bolt/Snap/Burn, etc.). This makes Spoils a little riskier.
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