Do you know “that guy”? You know who I’m talking about… the guy who walks into your local hobby shop every Friday with a suitcase of Magic cases and a crate of miniatures that needs to be hauled around by forklift. The guy that walks in and trades the really “cool” looking Prowling Leopardman for Jimmy’s Voodoo Manipulator? The guy that lines up all his Scarab Warcharms in a big row and gives you a big thumbs up as you walk by with the starter and three boosters you have bought to construct your army with.
We all know someone like this, though usually not as extreme. We all know the infuriating feeling of sitting across from Mrs. Suitcase as she pulls out a legion of the most expensive pieces and proceeds to crush your face. Well… its time to fight back. One alternative is to fight fire with fire. You could hop on E-Bay buy the singles you need for your favorite warband and engage in an “arms race” building up your arsenal and implementing a strategy of mutually assured destruction to whomever decides to foolishly face you in the next Edge tournament. This strategy can be effective (and fun!), but it requires a fair amount of disposable income.
The other problem with the strategy is the little blue monster. It can fetch anywhere from $40-$70 dollars online these days. You know… the Scarab Warcharm. Amazingly, even at these prices, the little buggers are in high demand. Online dealers are sold out in many locations and players are trading kingdoms for the piece. To make matters worse the piece is expensive for a reason; many of the top warbands including Brighthammer Beats, The Chessmaster, various Valor/Madness bands, and Valor/Passion bands all utilize the warcharm. If you have to shell out $120-$200 dollars just for a small portion of your warband it doesn’t leave you with much room for the rest. If you are a multi-billionaire or use Scarab Warcharms as paperweights this article isn’t for you.
Many players think Dreamblade is a great game, but they don’t want to feel “left out” of competitive play because they don’t have the same kind of budgets as some of the other players at their local store. Being able to use any piece is certainly an advantage, but it is not an advantage that is insurmountable. Often times forcing yourself to build under certain constraints (from a certain aspect, one lineage, with a theme, or of course, on a budget) can actually make you a better warband designer and will almost certainly make you a better player. Skill and creativity can often overcome even the biggest bank account. I have seen many players throw down hundreds of dollars for a deck of Magic cards or a copy of the Chessmaster only to get trounced many times by players that are better at the game: money isn’t everything, but you need a game plan to be successful on a budget.
“Budget” warbands mean different things to different people. Some people think a budget warband should be all commons, or maybe one or 2 uncommons thrown in, others think “budget” is any warband that is under a certain dollar amount, others might be happy to see warbands as long as they are competitive and don’t include Scarab Warcharms. At the end of the day I will try to post as many viable versions of the warbands I construct in this article so players from all financial situations can have a shot at playing Dreamblade in a competitive environment. Most of the time if you spend more your warband will be better (though in some cases it will just be different). Each warband will have 2-3 versions. The versions will be Ultra-Budget, Budget, and Charmless.
Version 1: Ultra-Budget
No Rares
0-2 Uncommons
These warbands are designed for players on the tightest budgets with a local scene that doesn’t have a lot of trading. Often, budget players can get rares that the community views as “less desirable” by trading. This is a great way for a budget player to make some awesome warbands without draining their bank account. Sometimes, trading just isn’t realistic and you will have to make do with a rare-less warband The ultra-budget warbands are designed for you. Not all the warbands in this article will have an “ultra-budget” version because some bands are built around a particular cheap rare. Ultra-Budget warbands are great because not only are they cheap to build, but you get to wipe smug grins off Mr. or Mrs. Suitcase and his or her legion of Scarab Warcharms.
Version 2: Budget
0-2 Rares
0-4 Uncommons
While you might not win the Chicago 10k with these bands, they are certainly good enough to kick some serious tail at your next Edge tournament. If played well, these warbands can take you far.
Version 3: Charmless
No Scarab Warcharm
Total cost less than $75.
As you will see, there are several warbands that have finished in serious money at the DragonCon 10k. A pilot that really practices with these bands can beat multitudes of wealthy players. “Less than $100” is a bit of a nebulous criteria. Different stores and web sites price pieces differently. This is more of a theme rather than a strict standard.
Learning from “The Past”
One of my favorite Magic the Gathering authors, Mike Flores, is a historian of Magic. One reason he is a great deck designer is that he can pull from a wealth of intellect: the players of the game from the past. Flores can identify strategies that worked and strategies that didn’t and find common themes to pull them together. This historical focus combined with quite a bit of creativity and personal innovation allows the creation of masterpieces.
Dreamblade is new, it doesn’t really have much history yet, but we can still pull from the knowledge of others to create our warbands. In my coverage of the DragonCon 10k in Atlanta Georgia I posted a complete list of warbands that made day 2. The list was pretty extensive since all decks that were 4-2 made it. On the list were several budget warbands that are worth considering before we make our own.
Jason Hager and his team developed a band they have called “Snakes on a Plane”. As the designer of the “Chessmaster” I don’t have much room to criticize naming conventions, but I prefer to call the band Carrion Weenie since it describes what the band does.
This band is a wonderful example of a “budget” minded warband. It uses only 5 rares none of which are that expensive. Jason and 3 of his friends piloted this band from day 1 to day 2 without anyone missing the cut, that’s 4/4 or 100% for the mathematically challenged. Compare that to the Chessmaster’s results of under 50% of its players clearing to day 2. DragonCon is a relatively small sample size, but it is hard to argue with a 100% success rate.
This all said I think we can make some improvements on a very good band in the same way many individuals have made some obviously strong improvements on my original Chessmaster list.
First we have to figure out what this band does. The strategy seems to be to overwhelm your opponent with early efficient creatures gaining early turns and board position. The Inspired Samurai and Carrion Spiker come in late in the game as the huge beaters to finish your opponent off.
Early game pieces include:
Barbstrider
Cannibal Pariah
Hive Pincer
Late game pieces include:
Carrion Spiker
Night Queen
Eater of Hope
Inspired Samurai
The Night Queen seems to have been included as a “blade sink” since only the Hive Pincers have any blade abilities in the band (given it is a really good one). The pilots at DragonCon commented that in nearly every game on Day 1 they were able to Purge at least one piece from their opponents’ reserves. I don’t know that this means it is worth including especially since it is a rare. Taking a piece out of your opponent’s reserves helps if your opponent is depending on getting that piece into play but most of the time an opponent either has multiples of the piece or the piece is not specifically crucial to the overall strategy. For example: the Chessmaster has very few if any pieces that are individually necessary for the band’s success. The best candidates are the Voodoo Manipulator and the Dreadmorph Ogre, but the band usually spawns these at its first opportunity and bands that play Night Queens often don’t get a chance to purge until the mid to late game when these pieces are already out.
-1 Night Queen
Carrion Spikers seem to be critical to the band’s success but I actually don’t like including three. The Carrion Spiker is certainly a late game piece, but if you have 4 or less creatures in your graveyard the Spiker is less than optimal. It is worse than the Blight Rat at 3 creatures or less dead and only the same at 4. The Blight Rat doesn’t see much competitive play so at 4 dead the Spiker probably shouldn’t either. This means that you don’t want to waste your time with this guy until later in the game when he is actually worth the 7 spawn.
In my testing with the band I’ve found that it is very seldom that you spawn all 3 Spikers and even MORE seldom would you WANT to spawn all 3 spikers.
-1 Carrion Spiker
I understand why the Inspired Samurai is in the band and it serves a purpose but it is contrary to the purpose of the band, play early creatures and get them traded with your opponent’s bigger less efficient creatures. We still can use some to protect our Spikers but three is just excessive.
-1 Inspired Samurai
In place of these creatures we should add more blade abilities that help us kill things on efficient creatures. The best candidate for this is the Hive Pincer but the warband already includes 3 so we need to branch out to another aspect, since we are already playing Valor the Ardent Zungar seems like an excellent choice. The Zungar is a little easy to disrupt and kill and the blade ability can be useful, but not in all situations. Therefore, I wouldn’t suggest including 3, rather 2.
+2 Ardent Zungar
We took out a lot of “fat” so we need some way to use up extra spawn points. The best piece for burning spawn points on a relevant ability is easily the Voodoo Manipulator. The manipulator is a bit expensive at 8 spawn but it is a much stronger late game piece than an extra Carrion Spiker which is replaces.
+1 Voodoo Manipulator
The budget version cuts another Carrion Spiker and the Voodoo Manipulator so you are playing the prerequisite number of rares and replaces them with a Thunder Sultan and Hawk-Eyed Instigator. Thunder Sultan isn’t nearly as good as the Voodoo Manipulator at keeping pieces away but it can be very effective when only playing one Carrion Spiker because you need to protect your Spiker better. To do this it is often better to form a wall down the middle and expel individual miniatures into your Carrion Spiker on the back lines or to break up a group of 4 miniatures your opponent has so you can use your Hive Pincer’s blades.
The Hawk-Eyed Instigator is great for bringing disrupted weenies back into the fight if your opponent is foolish enough to disrupt rather than destroy your small pieces.
There isn’t really an “ultra-budget” version of this band since it requires the Carrion Spiker to remain distinctive. If you like the feel for this band keep reading because there is another band that is agro that does have an ultra-budget version.
Mike Donovan, an English teacher new to Dreamblade, didn’t have the same collection as many players that made it to day 2 but with some ingenuity and good play he finished in the money at DragonCon.
This band plays a lot like the Chessmaster without all the expensive pieces. The Inscribed Axebeast plays like an Eater of Hope that comes out a bit more conditionally. If you want to play a “controlling” style warband in fear rather than an “agro” band I highly suggest playing budget Chessmaster. The band loses some by not playing all the rares and uncommons that the original band does but it is still quite strong without them.
This band only uses 1 rare… a Scarab Warcharm. Seeing as this is not an option for many of us we will remove it.
-1 Scarab Warcharm
After the removal of the Warcharm the band is totally rare-less! This is quite a feat to do so well with a rare-less warband. That said I think the band makes some mistakes in some of the choices it makes. It also uses 8 uncommons which will need to be “slimmed” down to make it ultra-budget.
First is plays Hellshrieker. Hellshrieker is awful. It has a good blade ability and only costs 4 spawn but it has 1 power. 1 Power is one of the unforgivable sins of Dreamblade. Brighthammer Avenger and Fleshless Reaper may have 0 power, but Ambush and Charge give them a de facto power of 6. The Hellshrieker is pretty worthless on its own. It can’t kill anything besides Hive Pincer, Boneclan Hunter, and Barbstrider and other Hellshriekers and all the other minis cost less than it does. With another source of fear in the army (Horrid Poltergeist) it is unnecessary to include this tentacled monstrosity.
-1 Hellshrieker
The Ardent Zungar is an excellent agro piece, but in a band that has a lot of blade abilities, we are better off with the sturdy Runetagged Brawler.
-1 Ardent Zungar
+1 Runetagged Brawler
This warband plays pieces all over the curve but it doesn’t play enough little creatures which are inherently powerful because they replace themselves in spawn cost. You know I love the Voodoo Manipulator and it is cheap enough on the secondary market for it to feel like a budget rare, plus people usually don’t want multiples so it is easy to trade for one.
+1 Voodoo Manipulator
+1 Cannibal Pariah
To make this band a “budget” band all we need to do is to cut some uncommons since in our “charmless” version we are only playing one rare. We are going to play an extra uncommon in place of one of the rares so we will play 5 uncommons and 1 rare in the final version.
-1 Pearlthorn Castle
-1 Knight of Strife and Joy
-1 Horrid Poltergeist
The second Pearlthorn is nice, especially with the Knight of Strife and Joy but it can often be redundant. The Knight is an excellent source of skirmish and has good stats but we need to cut something and defender makes him a little finicky. The Horrid Poltergeist is excellent but with the inclusion of the Voodoo Manipulator it is pricy considering all the other options.
To replace the skirmish we can play a Knight of Tomorrow. The Knight costs 5 and is pretty durable making it a decent replacement for the Knight of Strife and Joy. The other two pieces are a little trickier. In this band I like to get a little more power out of the blade abilities and to have something that can function as a beatstick. Knight of Autumn Gate is an excellent choice in the 6 spot to replace the Horrid Poltergeist. The Knight has Appease so including another Cannibal Pariah helps us make sure we have something cheap to Appease.
+1 Cannibal Pariah+1 Knight of Autumn Gate+1 Knight of Tomorrow
Making the Chessmaster Ultra-Budget is very difficult as it basically shifts from a blade and spawn abilities band to an all blade band. As such you need to have pieces with higher power. Twilight Scout, Jack of Blades, Knight of Autumn Gate, and Saint of Roses all increase the overall power of the band. Ardent Zungar, Hive Pincer, Jack of Blades, and Twilight Scout all add additional blade abilities allowing you to more easily make use of all that new power.
No one has won any money events with this band but it is an interesting build that is innovative and has a solid budget concept. It revolves around Fear’s ability to reduce defenses of creatures and Passion’s Ferocity blade ability.
The warband is very straightforward to play and is very aggressive. Players can surge forward destroy all antagonists and cement a lead.
As much as I loveFerocity as an ability, I can’t endorse the Heart Render. It costs so much spawn and does so little. I feel much more comfortable getting behind a Dreadmorph Ogre or Eater of Hope even though they cost more spawn. This warband’s curve is too low anyway so including a few big pieces isn’t that devastating.
-3 Heart Render
+1 Dreadmorph Ogre
+1 Eater of Hope
+1 Cannibal Pariah
The Jack of Blades and Alluring Succubus add a lot to this band through the subtle blade abilities or Lure and Expel. This warband has so much power that it often can’t use it effectively. Expel and Lure help you with this by pulling extra enemies into the “big” combat cell to be dispatched.
-1 Skull Hill
-1 Treacherous Concubine
+1 Jack of Blades
+1 Alluring Succubus
The budget version utilizes the same principles as the original but cuts some of the less important doubles to fit it under the budget constraints. The best replacements are pieces that do more damage and continue with the “swarm” theory of the band. Hive Pincer and a Zombie Enforcer carry this out.
This version uses its uncommons on the “lower defense” theme as much as possible but it might lose too much synergy. It is a very aggressive band that still has a lot of game especially against slow controlling bands piloted by players that are too passive. Cutting the rares drops our spawn curve dramatically and turns us into an “all-or-nothing” early game face-smashing machine.
I could have written mini articles on any one of these warband sets but I wanted to leave space open for individuals to innovate and expand on these band archetypes. The toughest thing about budget building is that each individual reader is coming from a different set of circumstances and must be dealt with differently. For one player a Dreadmorph Ogre might be impossible to get a hold of but for another she might have 2 sitting in a shoebox. In the end seeing lists and understanding reasoning behind the changes I made is the best start to successful budget building. I elected for a “shotgun” approach in this article to jog memories and hopefully inspire some people to make these armies look foolish and juvenile, much like the original version of the Chessmaster does now to some.
To end I’ll list some Fear “budget” rares that are very useful to get. This list is pretty big, but this is mostly because Fear is just so good in set 1. A lot of focus has been on Valor, but I think Fear might really be the power behind the throne in many of the great bands.
Innovation and modification is the spice and life of a competitive collectible game and while you could play lists straight off the internet it is more strategically sound and more fun to modify and build your own. Good luck in your next tournament be it an Edge tournament, 1k or 10k! May you roll all 3s and crush Scarab Warcharms!
