It’s no secret I have been a fan of Hold for several years, and while it’s not the playstyle I utilize every time, I often find myself trending in that direction when possible. I took Velmorn/Fortress in first edition to a Grand Clash back in 2023 and more recently Starblood Stalkers ES/CC to Worlds in 2025. Regardless of whether you like to play it or not, it occupies an important position in the ‘triangle’ or archetypes in the game, and it’s pretty clear that it’s poorly supported thus far in second edition and we are lacking in valid options to play a more traditional defensive/passive hold game right now.

Part of this was the desire to remove the situation we often saw in first edition where a player would Longboard, sit in the back, and hold a few treasures while not interacting with their opponent. Obviously this was something the designers wanted to avoid, and so when designing decks and warbands for second edition along with the single board setup they made a deliberate effort to force more engagement and combat in the game. That’s all well and good, but let’s take a brief look at ‘the meta’ since then:

Strike wins all the time now. BA/RF Elites have been terrorizing the competitive scene since launch and show little signs of slowing down. There was a time when CC/PP ‘flex/delving’ hordes had some strong showings, but that not only was quite different from traditional hold, it also has flamed out of relevance with heavy restrictions to pillage (which were appropriate). Looking at our warbands in rotation, many of them have the ‘Take and Hold’ designation, and yet very, very few of them do well with/are taken to tournaments with Take and Hold decks. The ones that do tend not to win.

A big part of why has to do with the Hold warbands not really being ‘hold’ in their warscrolls, with perhaps the only exceptions being Starblood Stalkers and Khagra’s Ravagers. Other warbands who are labeled as Hold really go much better as swarming aggro or delving teams and can’t reliably do both the taking and the holding part of a proper Take and Hold. You could consider holding with Thundrik’s Profiteers, and I’ve had surprising success with the updated Thricefold Discord (both of whom are actually designated Mastery). Despite being a Strike warband, Jaws of Itzl actually have good play into Hold strategies. Outside of that, we come up pretty dang empty. Unfortunately, not only do we lack warband tools to effectively Hold, but we also face a huge hurdle in the current “Take and Hold” decks’ limitations.

The Card Pool as it Stands

Our core box Take and Hold deck is Emberstone Sentinels. Currently ES actively encourages you to spread out into multiple territories, invade enemy territory, it weirdly wants you charging but also moving, staggering yourself, etc. To score out an ES rivals situation you effectively need to be charging into enemy territory while also making move actions in enemy territory while also holding in neutral and enemy territory – this is a valid playstyle but is absolutely not the defensive hold we once had.

Finally, a second Hold Deck was released more than a year after the game’s refresh into Embergard with Nexus of Power. NP is almost an anti-hold deck in all honesty and may be better branded as a Flex deck. It does have a few Take and Hold style cards and some staples, though with a significant and unfortunate overlap with ES cards so it’s a little harder to ‘double up’ there. Again, it has significant invade and/or neutral territory focus, and with your opponent being able to flip two treasures to start the game (and can delve tokens to turn off a huge amount of the deck’s potency) your output is very limited. Additionally, the deck really, really cares about you fighting while Covetous, rather than just holding. Some people have been able to make ES/NP work, but it’s an uphill battle that still makes passive/defensive hold a big ask.

Flex has a few options to sprinkle in; Pillage and Plunder is not really hold even though token-based. A fair number of people have done all right with ES/PP in something that approximates a true Hold approach, but you’re still playing delve whack-a-mole. Edge of the Knife has some few hold-adjacent options but requiring tempered fighters; and again those same cards are largely invade-focused, and minimal in count.

Strike as an archetype even has Sally Forth, but I wouldn’t generally consider Reckless Fury a hold deck (a few Morgok’s Krushas and Jaws of Itzl players may disagree).

Some Mastery decks have hold-like elements: Realmstone Raiders says hold a token number equal to the bounty of the holding fighter, Deadly Synergy says hold one they held earlier – though I would class both of these decks as Strike decks and are not really conducive to traditional hold strategies. Countdown to Cataclysm is the only one that can realistically be played as a hold accompaniment with Set Explosives and Shocking Assault, which is why we have seen so much ES/CC though the early stages of the edition.

The Pipe Dream

What if we could get a Take and Hold deck that allowed use to play the game like we used to be able to do? While I wouldn’t necessarily suggest longboard Cyreni/Offset Thorns where the opponent simply can’t engage with you, the boards as they currently stand and the potency of blitz strike right now make that a moot point. Hold needs something to help it out competitively. The simplest answer would be to do away with the well-intentioned but ultimately flawed requirement that all Rivals decks have the same maximum glory. Hold by necessity will lose the glory fight in bounty collection, and so must be able to offset it in the objective scoring. Give us more 2-3 glory hold cards! Maybe even make a 4+ glory option! You could also introduce variable/range scoring cards where you can score more glory for holding more – we already have something like it in Spread Havoc from CtC.

Another great choice, and hear me out, is to REMOVE Supremacy from the restricted list. Just a thought, GW. I’ll give you that one for free.

Knowing that a Hold deck with more than 16 glory in the objective cards is unlikely to happen, I’ve instead turned to looking back through history to find a few examples of what I think were reasonable choices that would fit into today’s game.

Potential First Edition Cards for a Proper Second Edition Hold Deck

I’m going to be a little scattershot here and simply propose old cool cards I’d like to see make a comeback in some form or another. I’ll try to go in roughly reverse chronological order, but today I’m roleplaying a dreamer and not a detail man (and to be fair I flamed out of a lab research career pretty hard a decade ago).

Rimelocked Relics may have been too flexy as a deck overall to fit the theme here, but there are a few cards worth looking at. Cold Front says you hold more than your opponent, and also have more wounded enemies than wounded friendlies for 2 glory – horde hold would like this a fair bit. Frostibtten Strike is a kill surge, but you just have to be holding 1 anywhere so it’s reasonable. Icebound Defenders says hold 2+ and all in any territory (including neutral!) you may recognize this as quite similar to Set Explosives, which everybody loves. Shattered Defenses was surge for a successful attack while holding treasure in neutral or enemy – this may be too aggressive for what I’m attempting to build here. Wintry Contest was cool but requires keyworded upgrades for a plot and not where I want to go with this either.

Malevolent Masks had some hold surges (Audacious Aspect and Vision of Success) for a fighter wearing a mask upgrade holding either an odd or even, but they also had secondary conditions for hold 2 or hold 3 with one not in your territory. While I don’t necessarily want to gate things behind keyworded upgrades like masks (though I loved that deck so much), we could try to make use of the secondary condition. As people delve it might get easier to hold all odd or all even and you could surge for that for sure. We would need to be careful of creating too much pillage synergy because I’m biased against that deck. Potentially the deck could have a plot card that was similar to the mask situation to provide for the primary condition as well. It could open up parallels to Stoic Appearance (hold a treasure while wearing a mask for 1 in the end phase). The deck also has the flexy but fun Totally Overpowered which gave 2 glory for you holding 2 and more than half the enemy being dead or damaged – a solid round 2-3 card.

Sepulchral Guard’s Starter Box revamp had a card named Land of the Dead, which asked you to hold and gave you good surge glory if the total value of held tokens was 6+. Since we can’t probably do 2+ glory surges, we can potentially lower the required number/value as a surge for 1, or make it into an end phase for 2. Another card, Retake What Is Ours rewarded you 3 glory for holding 3, with at least one not in friendly territory. While it forces some engagement in the midboard, that’s something the designers seem to want and this way we both get something we’re hoping for.

Paths of Prophecy had a few nice cards, but played the numbers game far too much to be competitively viable. We probably need to skip the number stuff for the most part, or reward far more glory for the effort/provide better number manipulation and windows for the same. Complete Harmony was a card asking you to hold all treasures for 5 glory. This is maybe too much now considering how prominent delving is, but this card does have play (for maybe 3-4 glory) and would be a good anti-pillage option. I’m worried though that it could also synergize with pillage and also would go with NP potentially as a counter-counter). Another marvelous card titled Held in a Bloody Fist was a surge after the opponent’s activation if you hold 1 token with damaged fighter. I love the design space, and it overlaps with Skin of their Teeth from Nexus. Prevention Over Cure was another good surge if more enemies were slain than there were tokens held by enemy fighters. Again, it leans flexy, but could be worth including.

Seismic Shock was a wild deck that had some crazy wizard stuff but also had some remarkably interesting abilities to move the positions of feature tokens. Wouldn’t that make for an interesting game nowadays! I do worry it would be too strong of an anti-hold effect though, which is the opposite of what I want to do here. Outside of that, it came with the original version of Claim the Prize that rewarded 3 glory if you hold all in a territory so long as you also held 2 or more treasures in that territory. It’s much like Iron Grasp which is a great card, but harder/more rewarding with less pillage overlap. Many reasons to love it here. Shape the Realm was a 3 glory end phase that asked you to hold 3 and one of those fighters is a wizard, maybe we could make it say leader instead. Sorcerous Treasure-Hunter says wizard holds a treasure in an end phase while equipped with 3+ upgrades, maybe make it any fighter for 2 glory? Places of Power might be too strong for elites but it gives 2 glory for every friendly fighter holding and you hold 2+ tokens.

Fearsome Fortress is a deck near and dear to my heart. While it focused a little more mid-board and a little more flexy, it could easily work with the second edition design philosophy. Some good cards are Bold Sortie, a surge if you charged off of a feature – though we might want to specify it being a treasure to prevent it from working with pillage too well. Conquered Domain was an awesome card with a variable score you get one glory for each fighter on a feature within 1 of neutral territory – though the plot card let you place extra tokens. Maybe this would incentivize midboard Aqua Ghyranis placement which could be spicy, or maybe we have the card allow for a maximum of 2 glory. Earthworks was 1 glory surge if you got a guard token on feature token within 1 of neutral territory, which could absolutely work for this edition and would play nicely with a few warscrolls. Impregnable Defenses could be 1 glory surge for a failed attack against a fighter holding a treasure near neutral, which would be like Unassailable but different/better. A wonderful card called Stockpile had you hold in an end phase tokens that summed to a total value of 6+ for 2 glory, and finally To the Walls was a 1 glory surge if you hold all in fortress territory and hold more than enemy – another nice anti-pillage surge here.

The Sons of Velmorn were a flex hold warband that had multiple cards that could port well into second edition: Hereditary Claims asked you to hold 2, one of which is not in your territory as a 2 glory end phase. This occupies a similar space to Slow Advance, but would actually be played and actually be scored in this edition (Slow Advance is effectively a dead card in the current meta), and could be played more defensively. Protected Inheritance was another solid flex/ defensive hold card, asking you to hold one in your territory and 2+ enemies out of action for 2 glory. Seeing as lethality is lower this edition, we may want to either have it reward more glory (as it will be quite difficult to score against elites), or perhaps ask for 2+ bounty out of action rather than number of fighters.

Direchasm had Treasure Hunter which was 3 glory for hold 2 in enemy, though this would mirror the invade problem Emberstone Sentinels gives us. Kainan’s Universals set had a card named Scant Resources that gave you 2 glory if all were held or neither player had unspent glory. I can see a world where we toss the secondary condition (RIP Spent Glory) and make it 2-3 glory for all treasures held (by anybody/both teams combined). This potentially punishes delvers who over-flip, and gives you a little bit of an out if your opponent blocks you from holding treasure by holding it themselves. Maybe all treasures are held, 1 glory if it’s only 1, 2 glory if 2-3 on the board, and 3 glory is 4-5 treasures on the board. Wouldn’t that be dandy.

From the meme at the top, Direchasm also gave us an old favorite of Dominant Position. This downright gorgeous card granted 2 glory in an end phase if you held more than your opponent. Kind of the definition of Pure Hold and a great way to push back against the overwhelming success of aggro and/or delving approaches right now. If we only get one old card back in our next iteration of hold, this is a top contender for the best choice.

First Edition’s Essentials Pack had several good cards worth bringing forward. I mean, just think about it. They were essential!

Similar to Treasure Hunter was Making a Statement, which rewarded you 3 glory for holding all in enemy territory. While a much harder ask than the 2 glory for Iron Grasp, if GW is intent on making us march over the line we could at least get an extra glory for it. Additionally it works to scare Pillage/delving teams since you might be able to hold 1 and get 3 dollars for it. Path to Victory was flexy but kill 1 and hold 2 for 2 glory which is reasonable for this era of the game.

Tactical Supremacy X-Y gave 2 glory for hold 1-2 or hold 3-4 (or hold 1&4 or 2&3) which is a reasonable take for this era as well. You got 2 glory for holding both of whatever numbers were in the title. While the numbers game is a little silly, it could stack with and be a higher reward version of Hold Treasure 1 or 2 that we already see in ES. I would also be interested to see a version that said “score 2 glory if you hold every treasure numbered 3 or 4 on the board” – so if you hold #3 and the #4 token is flipped, then you’re good to go. Make Pillager Players Scared (for once)!

Beastgrave had a beautiful card named Uncontested – if you hold 2 or more and your opponent holds none, you score 3 glory. It’s not easy since your opponent may just make sure to always hold one, but we have Strip the Realm which while easier to secure does get scored frequently enough. Maybe this card should be worth 4? Maybe Strip the Realm should be Restricted or even Forsaken.

Beastgrave also saw Temporary Victory, which was a 2-glory surge for holding 3 at once. This was wild at the time and quite strong, but we can temper it a bit. First off, all surges in second edition are worth 1 glory, which already tones this down a good bit. If we felt the need, you could even make it score after an opponent’s action step or a power step to give it more counterplay (though in this case I’d say it should be reduced to 2 treasures).

Finally, perhaps my favorite Beastgrave card in the whole season (or even in the game, ever?!?); Dug In. This card was worth a monstrous 4 glory, but required you to hold 3 or more in an end phase AND have held 3 or more at the start of the round. Un-scorable in round 1, but reasonable in round 2 if you’re committed to the hold lifestyle and also possible in round 3 with good luck or skill. They didn’t need to be the same 3 tokens either, which was nice. I adored this card, and would love to adore it again in second edition as a rockin’ Pure Hold “goal card”. Stick that with Supremacy and Iron Grasp and baby you’ve got a Stew Goin’.

Wrap

All right, I’ll cut the rant off here. Which of these cards would you like to see come back, and why are they worth bringing back in Second Edition? What stories do you have about old school hold? What other cards can you think of that would be fun to bring back? Let me know in the comments or at SpentGlory@gmail.com and until next time, I hope you enjoy spending all the glory you got in a massive end phase from holding all those tasty treasure tokens.