Please note: This article was written for the first edition of Warhammer Underworlds and as such some information may not be applicable to Embergard/Second Edition. The new Contender Series for Second Edition can be found here!

This article is a part of the Contender Series, the goal of which is to encourage players to begin participating in Organized Play events, attending tournaments and Grand Clashes, and overall up their competitive game to improve as players and ultimately win more often. While I am not personally some competitive ace taking home glass every weekend, I do have advice to help get newer players off the ground and set you on the path to success, and also can point you to better players than myself where you can get more focused advice when you’re at that stage. I will attempt to keep this article series ‘timeless’, so while I’ll reference specific warbands, cards, and mechanics occasionally, I want it to be relevant for years and so will try to refrain from focusing too much on today’s current competition climate. With those things said, let’s dive into this article’s main topic: general considerations for Nemesis and Championship deckbuilding

Check out the rest of the Contender Series for more competitive pointers:
Warband Choice
Deckbuilding Overview
Deckbuilding: Objective Cards
Deckbuilding: Gambits
Deckbuilding: Upgrades
Board Choice and Placement
Objective Placement
Mulligan
Fighter Placement
So you won the roll-off, do you choose to go first or go second?
Practice

Check out other tournament related articles:
Participating in your First Tournament
How to Run a Local Tournament
Counterplay series: how to prevent your opponent from scoring

You’ve chosen your warband for that event you’re planning to win. Your next step is to put together a deck for them! My advice for this varies depending on which format your event will be using for deckbuilding rules.

Rivals

If your event is in the Rivals format, you can probably skip this article after this paragraph since you have very little to do here. If your warband came out in Beastgrave or later and you want to win your event, use their faction-specific Rivals deck/warband cards. In very few circumstances should you play a Universal Rivals Deck instead if your goal is a glass trophy. If you’re bringing an older warband, check out my recommendations for Universal Rivals Deck choices for Shadespire and for Nightvault. See you next time!

Nemesis

If your event is using the Nemesis format, you will have some deckbuilding to do. I covered some Nemesis deckbuilding basics is a previous article, but we can expand upon this for the most competitive angle in order to win an event. The first thing to pay attention to is the list of eligible Universal Rivals Decks – you’re only going to be allowed to pick one, and it has to be from the allowed options for the current Nemesis ruleset. Check here to see the current Nemesis rules, which detail which Rivals decks/seasons of releases are valid in Nemesis.

The warband you have chosen is going to work better with certain Rivals deck pairings, and the meta is going to favor some Rivals decks over others. The most basic question to ask yourself is ‘which Nemesis pairing has the most overlap with my faction goals and strengths?’. Ideally the Rivals deck you choose has upgrades and gambits that let you score your faction objectives, and vice versa, as well as being particularly strong in areas that your faction is weakest in. If your warband struggles with surge objectives, make sure the Rivals deck you choose has quality ones. If you are planning to take a lot of Rivals deck-specific power cards (especially if they have unique keywords), make sure your warband deck can afford to leave power cards at home to make enough room for them. If your warband has great Upgrades but weaker Gambits, choose a Rivals deck with particularly strong Gambits to offset this.

Once you have chosen your best pairing with your warband, it’s time to pick out cards. I went through a more detailed method in the article above, but I’ll echo the most important info here:

• Choose your objective cards first. Your deck should end up with 6 surge objectives and 6 end phase, unless those end phase are REALLY good and you have weaker surges. You want to get the snowball rolling as well as have the best chance of seeing all 12 throughout the game.
• If you must take a ‘score this in the third end phase’ card, limit yourself to only 1. You don’t want to draw into these in the first round, and the more you take, the likelier that is to happen.
• If you’re struggling to pick between two objectives, choose the one you can score more reliably, even if it’s worth less glory. Sure, you might get that 3 glory bomb that wins you a game once a day, but 1-2 glory you’ll get every time will win you more games across the whole tournament.
• You should stick to 10 gambits and 10 upgrades. In very few scenarios should you take more than 20 power cards if you’re trying to win. You don’t want to reduce your chances of seeing your best cards!
• Make sure you pick the power cards that let you score your objectives. Some cards might make you hit more reliably or do more damage, which is nice, but if your objectives all relate to non-aggro things then these may not be what you include first.
• If you need keywords for your objective cards, you’ll need to include enough of that keyword in your power deck that you are likely to see them when you need them in order to score.
• Like objective cards, when making your last few card cuts, focus on reliability in power cards. Sure, a card might be situationally awesome, but how often is that situation going to happen in your games? A card you can play and get the benefit of in every phase of the game or with every fighter/each territory etc is better across a tournament than a powerful card with lots of restrictions.

Championship

If your event is in the Championship format, you’ll do things along a very similar vein as above, but with extra cards allowed. Let’s cover the specifics.

First thing to do is determine what cards are ‘in rotation’ at the time of your event. Cards that are too old will not be eligible, but everything else that’s allowed in the Championship format document will be open for you to take.

Grand Alliance cards are a pool within that et that you can take if your faction is a member of the specific Grand Alliance. You’ll need to determine which GA your warband belongs to and only look at the GA cards that match them.

In Nemesis, you have to choose a single Universal Rivals Deck to pair with. In Championship, you can use them all with the exception of those that contain a ‘Plot Card’. You can only have one Plot card in your deck (aside from your warband’s one, if it contains one), so if you take a card from a Universal Rivals Deck that contains a Plot, then you are unable to take from others that also have a Plot. This is known as ‘Plot Lock’ and so a key to making a successful Championship deck is choosing your Plot deck wisely. Follow similar guidelines as stated in the Nemesis section above.

You will also need to take a look at the most recent Forsaken and Restricted list known colloquially as the FaR. If a card is Forsaken, you are not allowed to take it in Championship. is a card is Restricted, you can take it, but beware! You only get 3 restricted slots! It may be worth picking which three you want as a first step before doing all of your objective selection, or you may find you don’t have room for that all-important ploy you wanted. In my experience, if I’m torn between two restricted cards, I prefer to take a restricted Objective over a restricted Power card – you’re pretty likely to see all of your objective cards every game, but a power card might not get drawn in a game at all (or maybe only once in a best of three) if you don’t have extra draw card tech in your build to help find it. Unless the power card is very strong and very reliable, it could be safer to pick the objective you’re more likely to see more often. But it’s going to be a decision based on your individual risk/reward tolerance. If torn between a Gambit and an Upgrade for your last Restricted card, I tend toward the Gambit since it’s more likely to be playable when you need it.

Wrap

Those are the basics of deckbuilding for each major format! If you are playing in a competitive event that is using Relic, Alliance, Arena Mortis, or some other format then this may not be helpful (but I’d love to hear how it went afterwards). If you’re struggling to find where to start building a deck, you might benefit from looking at community resources like The Battlemallet Nemesis Deck Library or other people’s published decks at Wunderworlds and UnderworldsDB. I’ll cover each of the three card types in greater detail in subsequent articles, but that’s it for this installment of the Contender Series. Let me know if you have any feedback or specific questions. Now get out there and spend your glory!