Contender Series: Deckbuilding – Upgrades

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: Choosing Upgrade Cards 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 (coming soon!)

Check out other tournament related articles:
Participating in your First Tournament
How to Run a Local Tournament

Having already chosen the Objective cards and Gambits that will be getting you Glory, let’s look at what you’ll be spending it on (and therefore generating Spent Glory): Upgrades. Before we look at the various flavors of Upgrades and I attempt to roughly rank their reliability, I have a few general pieces of advice you should keep in mind while selecting your cards.

Focus on Reliability

Think about how likely you are to gain the benefit of a given upgrade and try to pick ones you can control. Some players shy away from defensive upgrades unless they are particularly powerful (-1 damage, +1 defense dice, etc) since you can’t control if or when the effect will come into play. An offensive upgrade will be more reliable in many cases (so long as it doesn’t come with too many caveats) since you can put it on a fighter you know you’re about to attack with, and in a situation it will be helpful. You can get away with an attack upgrade that requires you to have a supporting fighter since you can control that to some extent, but a defensive card that requires the same is much worse because you can’t often force a defensive support, especially since your opponent will know you have that upgrade on that specific fighter. You want to be able to say your upgrade card ‘did its job’ at the end of a game – did that +1 damage allow a hit to take a fighter out of action? Even if it happens only once, you feel like it benefitted you. A defensive upgrade or a reaction upgrade could possibly happen multiple times, but realistically may never happen all game and will have been a ‘waste of glory’. Obvious exceptions include defensive upgrades that disincentivized your opponent from targeting you in the first place, but this is an area that is worth thinking about when choosing cards. Is this upgrade’s effect going to be felt most times I spend glory for it? If the answer is no, look for other options unless that effect is huge and wins you the game.

How many Upgrades should I take?

Similar to what I discussed in the Gambits article, you are allowed to take 20 or more power cards, so long as at least half are Upgrades. You could potentially take 11 or more Upgrades, but I would suggest staying with only 10 for the same reasons that I will not re-hash here. You can, in some cases, get away with more considering the Salvage rule (+++++covered quite well here+++++) but I would strongly recommend taking 10 only unless you have a lot of deckbuilding experience and fully understand the risks you are taking.
++++++++++(https://determinedeffortblog.wordpress.com/2023/04/21/plan-a-or-plan-b-theorycrafting-salvage/)

A Key Word on Plots and Keywords

I’ll repeat what I said in the Gambits article here as well. Your objectives, Gambits and perhaps your Warband or Deck Plot Card will potentially reference certain Keywords. Say you need two or more fighters with a Keyworded Upgrade in enemy territory. Or perhaps you need a fighter with a Keyworded upgrade to make a successful attack action. Maybe a Gambit is restricted to a fighter with a Keyworded Upgrade. Whatever your ‘Package” contains, you’ll need to ensure that you take enough of those Upgrades to make their use and scoring likely/worthwhile. If you don’t think you can score those Objectives with the number of Keyworded Upgrades you’ve chosen, you need to either find a way to make space for more of those Upgrades, or redo your Objective deck. Make sure your deck supports itself internally!

React, Don’t Act

Wait, didn’t I say the opposite about Gambits? Yes I did! But the scenario is different here. I want a Gambit that I can play when I choose to and make the action out of sequence (or apply the effect for a subsequent activation). Reaction Gambits are bad because you can’t play them when you want. Reaction Upgrades are a little better because they don’t eat the hand space after you’ve played them, and a little worse because you have to pick which fighter gets to react. But “Action” Upgrades are generally not great. Think about it this way – you might have a card that says “Action: choose a feature hex within 3 hexes of this fighter and move that feature token 1 hex”. This effect is cool, could score you some Objectives, or deny an opponent. But it takes an Action. One of the 12 that you have all game. And you have to have the upgrade in hand, have the glory to buy it, place it on the correct fighter to make use of it, to meet its condition, and then spend the activation to use the upgrade (and that’s an activation you can’t spend charging, going on guard, or anything else you might feel the need to do). Some actions are still worth it, often Attack Action Upgrades, but you have to really like the effect of the action in question. A Reaction Upgrade can trigger multiple times and doesn’t make your other actions less efficient. So while I don’t generally prefer Reaction Gambits over action Gambits, I prefer Reaction Upgrades a lot more than Action Upgrades.

“Roll a die: on a result of…”

Be VERY cautious about this type of Upgrade. Gambling with your Gambits is bad enough, as described last article, but this may be worse. For starters, the effect is telegraphed. Your opponent know you have this upgrade, and which fighter it is on. They can work around the effect it has and choose make it harder for you to trigger. This is true of all Upgrades, but in the case of the Gambler’s Upgrades, you can’t even guarantee you’ll be able to make the thing happen! Sure reducing damage or getting a push can be a big boon, but if you can’t guarantee it will happen then you risk losing a game when you’re depending on it. Second, these are worse than their Gambit flavor because you had to spend glory to get them. Imagine spending on of your more previous resources on a card that doesn’t even do anything when you fail the roll! Talk about a major bummer, dude.

A Note on Illusions

Illusions are a specific kind of Upgrade that can be played without spending glory, making them effectively a persisting Gambit. They do have a few downsides: they go away after the fighter is chosen by any gambit (yours or your opponents’), the fighter who has them takes damage, or the current round ends. That said, they can be pretty effective in the early rounds of the game. Say you had a Gambit that said ‘Choose a fighter. In the next activation, They have +1 defense’. Not a bad Gambit to play when you know you’re about to each a charge, right? An Illusion of this same effect will last for more than just the next activation, should the fighter avoid damage. There is potential counter-play if the opponent can choose them with one of their Gambits, but Illusions can be quite useful in certain scenarios. I wouldn’t overload on Illusions (unless you have some great Objectives or Gambits that require them – see the Keyword section above), but including a few and hoping to use them to get the glory snowball rolling early in the game isn’t a bad idea. It also increases the odds of having an opening hand full of “Gambits” since they’re somewhat of a Gambit-lite.

Types of Upgrade Cards

OK, now that those are out of the way, let’s look at the categories of Upgrade cards, and their relative ranking in my unprofessional opinion

• Out of Sequence Actions (The fighter with the upgrade can, in circumstances, make an attack or move action often as a reaction) – You get 12 activations per game, and so does your opponent. Unless you have one of these, which allow you, usually as a Reaction, to take another. If it goes off even once during a game, you’ve gained 8.3% action economy. If you manage to have it happen twice or even three times in a game, you can gain substantial advantage in number of attacks, positioning, and so on since you can simply ‘do more’ than your opponent, and during times when you otherwise couldn’t. If you are avoiding an out of sequence action, you’d better have a great reason to give up such a huge potential efficiency.
• Push Cards (The fighter with the upgrade, or some other fighter, when a condition is met, push them x number of hexes) – also often reactions, these allow you to push a fighter, usually your own, and usually after that fighter’s action. In this case, you can attack and then get to safety, or attack and follow the fighter you knocked around. These are great effects. Even better if you can react to another fighter, and so can get supports, prevent an escape, etc. In some cases better than moves because they don’t interfere with subsequent charges. Every warband appreciates positional help, and these cards are usually good to include unless they come with substantial downsides.
• Card Draw (when some condition is met, draw x number of Power cards) – more ways to draw cards is always nice. In an Upgrade, you might even get to do it more than once. This helps you run through you deck and see the cards you want to see at the right time. Again, beware of the restrictions and reaction triggers, but you generally want these cards, if you can spare the Glory to apply them.
• Glory Boosts – Sometimes described as “Objective cards disguised as Upgrades”, this class of card lets you gain additional glory in certain circumstances. Perhaps you get an additional glory for each fighter they take out of action. Maybe you get a glory for holding an objective at the end of the game. If you can apply the upgrade right before your bonus opportunity arises, or get multiple uses out of it, these are a fantastic way to help you score the points you need to win the game. I take these pretty often when they are available, since glory is how you win, and who doesn’t want more?
• Offensive Boosts – This is a very broad grouping that contains multiple subcategories, but these are generally cards that help you attack more effectively. I tend to lump them into Accuracy, Lethality, Weapons, and Utility.
• Accuracy (Plus dice, reroll, “try again”, Ensnare/Cleave, innate symbols) – anything that helps a fighter hit is good, as it increases your damage output and you can plan your activations more reliably. You can also often get multiple uses out of them, so they’re superior to gambit cards, though you need the glory to use them. Still great. Take them if you plan on attacking!
• Lethality (plus damage, grievous, Scything) – these help you dish out more damage when you do hit. This can elevate a good fighter into a great one, or take a lesser fighter up a notch and present more threats your opponent has to deal with. Again, great if you can reliably hit and use it multiple times.
• Weapons – these cards give your fighter a new attack action profile. Perhaps they grant you range 3 when you otherwise wouldn’t have it, more damage or accuracy than a base attack, or some other effect that makes them better than what you otherwise would attack with. You’ll want your new attack profile to provide you some benefit over whatever is printed on the fighter card, but these are often good choices if you have a strong attack to choose, or a set of weaker fighters who could use a little more punch. Note any restrictions (can’t give them to beasts, sometimes not to a large fighter or a leader, etc) but often worth considering in your set of 10.
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• Utility (knockback, drive back any direction, break enemy upgrades, etc) – more situational than the other offensive upgrades, these can still disrupt your opponent and give you an edge. I’m less fond of these, but depending on your matchup you can still do great things with them.
• Defensive Boosts – This is another very broad grouping that contains multiple subcategories, but these are generally cards that help you survive more effectively. I tend to lump them into Defensibility, Durability, and Obstructionism.
• Defensibility (Plus defense, on guard, innates, defense dice rerolls, immune to cleave/ensnare, treat hex as cover hex) – these make a fighter harder to hit, and so can potentially make you take no damage. If they still get through, you;re in trouble, but changes the math on enemy attacks and could cause them to reconsider attacking you in the first place. Generally good for a fighter who needs to live, or a basket you’ve put all your eggs into.
• Durability (Plus wounds, reduce damage) – beware of making somebody into a Large fighter and giving up extra bounty! However, these can help you survive a hit you otherwise wouldn’t and are more consistent than the Defensibility type because you know they’ll do their job every time, rather than just weighing the odds more in your favor.
• Obstructionism (Can’t be pushed/driven back, can’t be chosen by Gambits, reduce dice for adjacent enemies attack, can’t be targeted by range 3+, immune to spells) – again, situational, but depending on the matchup and which Objectives you’re each trying to score, can help you get glory or deny your opponent theirs.
• Direct Damage “Ping” (chose a fighter that meets a condition and deal x damage to that fighter) – more damage is always good, but these Upgrades are usually worse than their Gambit counterparts. The benefit is that you may be able to trigger the damage more than once, but the downsides are A) your opponent knows which fighter they’re on and can work around them, and B) they often come with difficult reaction triggers. In addition, if it’s to taking damage or being targeted by an attack, your fighter needs to survive the hit. It’s hard to shy away from these, but be aware of their limitations and ask yourself how often you’ll really get the benefit. They can work as deterrents though and have play in that space.
• Fighter Token Manipulation (guard, add a move token, remove a move token, stagger, Warband specific resource counters) – a very broad category, with variable efficacy, and therefore difficult to rank as a class. Look at your Objective cards and ask how these help you score, or failing that, how they deny common enemy game plans.
• Mobility (plus move, plus move on a charge, can move through fighters, gains the flying trait) – These matter more depending on the base speed of your warband and how hard you’re finding it to engage/get where you need to be. I usually view these as a warband-specific type of Upgrade, and lean away from them if my move is 4+ unless I have special considerations with my matchup or Objective choices.
• Feature Token Manipulation (flip a feature token, place a stagger hex, move a feature token into a new hex) – This is another difficult category to rank because it is so matchup dependent. Some of your opponents simply don’t care about Feature Tokens, so whatever you do to them needs to be for your own benefit. In some circumstances, you can absolutely ruin a Hold Objective players’ day, but that playstyle is a little less popular these days. Additionally, in the Upgrade category, you often need to take an action (which might even require a dice roll and therefore could fail), which reduces your action economy. Was moving that feature token or placing a cover hex worth one of your 12 moves all game? Was it worth spending a glory? I feel like often the answer is no.
• Spells of many varieties – Spells come in effectively every flavor of the above cards, but spell Upgrades are not my favorite choice. You spend a glory to give a fighter a spell action, then you have to take the action, roll spell dice, and could fail. Maybe there is utility if they’re reaction spells rather than actions, and maybe your warband cares a lot about casting spells for inspiration of Objective card scoring. I personally try very hard to avoid these unless it’s a great attack action or something.

Review your Upgrade Choices

Run back through your selections after you’ve finished and make sure that your Upgrades agree with the Objective cards you’re taking. A very common beginner mistake is to take exciting or powerful Upgrades, especially if you’ve been told that a certain card is ‘the best’ or ‘auto-include’. The way you win the game is by scoring more glory, not Voltron-ing a fighter with the best Upgrade combo. An unkillable fighter doing 5 damage can be game winning, sure, but you have to have all those cards on the fighter at once, and if your Objective deck says “Hold three objectives” you’re going to find yourself trying to play two different games at once.

Wrap

So you’ve picked your 10 Upgrades, limiting the amount of gambling and variability while cutting down on actions. You’ve made sure to take ones that fit with your Objective deck, including specific keywords where needed and playing to your Plot card if that’s part of your gameplan. You’ve kept an eye on fighter-restricted cards, and pseudo-restricted cards. You’ve been mindful of Illusions if it matters for your deck. Now you can move on to setting up the boards for your game! Tune in next time for a review of board choice and placement, where we will get to set the stage for your tournament winning deck to shine.