Written by Andrew Roth

You don't need Ring of Morrigan to contest the Realm.

Many of us have felt it. You discover a new trading card game (TCG), buy a precon or booster box, and put together a basic deck for fun. You discover online that every deck requires buying $300 worth of rare cards or, arguably worse, opening a really cool rare card in a pack and then groaning about needing three more copies before using it in a deck.

Fortunately, Erik's Curiosa seemed aware of these common "feel bad" moments and designed Sorcery: Contested Realm (SCR) to help avoid them. SCR's rarity system makes inexpensive decks more competitively viable.

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The Math of Sorcery's Rarity System

For the uninitiated, a SCR deck may have up to:

Four copies of any Ordinary card
Three copies of any Exceptional card
Two copies of any Elite card
One copy of any Unique card

Typically, Unique cards are more powerful than Elites, which are more powerful than Exceptionals, which are more powerful than Ordinaries. For example, Ordinary Brown Bears are weaker than the Unique Apostles of Thamariel. Though both cost 4, Brown Bears is a 4-power vanilla minion (i.e., it doesn't have abilities); Apostles of Thamariel trade one power to summon an angel from your Spellbook's top seven cards. Most of SCR's angels are extremely powerful. In this example, the difference between an Ordinary and an Unique is one 4-power creature versus at least two 3-power creatures plus the angel's additional ability.

This increase in power, however, is balanced via deckbuilding restrictions. A player is four times more likely to draw a Brown Bears than an Apostles of Thamariel. Most of the best angels are Unique or Elite rarity, so they, too, are less likely to appear in the top seven spells.

Ring of Morrigan is broadly accepted as the best card in the game, due to its low cost (), utility for removing minions, ability to heal, and closing opponents at Death's Door. Let's assume the position that, to maximize Ring of Morrigan, it needs to be drawn within the first five turns.

If mulliganing the maximum number of cards and drawing one spell each turn, by turn five, 10 to 11 spells will have been seen, depending on play versus draw. Ring of Morrigan will be among those cards approximately 16% of the time. Without additional variables (e.g., card draw, Highland Princess, etc.), in most games, Ring of Morrigan won't appear.

Building Budget Decks

In other TCGs without SCR's rarity restrictions, players have adopted special formats that prevent expensive, higher-power cards from dominating. For example, Magic: The Gathering (MTG) has the popular Pauper format, which only allows players to build decks with Common cards (MTG's equivalent of Ordinary).

Some in the SCR community have created an equivalent to Pauper known as Peasant (sometimes irreverently called Poorcery). The Peasant format only allows Ordinary and Exceptional cards. Unlike other games, powerful cards in SCR are already limited by their rarity. As a result, Peasant decks still have a chance against more powerful decks, at least at the casual or local level.

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The value difference between rarities is quality versus quantity. "Card quality" is the power of any given card in your deck. "Card quantity" is the number of cards that serve a function.

For example, a strong deck is likely to include Atlantean Fate, a Unique removal spell that can mass submerge creatures and artifacts at the affected sites. It has high card quality, but is Unique. A budget deck will likely skip the singleton Atlantean Fate but could include up to four copies of Drown, an Ordinary card that functions as removal. Though the card quality is lower, you're more likely to draw Drown in any given game.

Typically, Unique cards are more powerful than their lower-rarity counterparts due to:

Having more power for the same cost
- Yog-Sothoth versus Ten-tonne Slug
Affecting more of the Realm for the same cost
- Call of the Sea versus The Flood
Having more utility
- Maiden, Mother, Crone, versus Apprentice Wizard

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Let's look at how we might "downgrade" powerful tournament decks into more affordable budget alternatives. Analyzing the Necromonsters deck that recently won SCG Atlanta, the Unique and Elite cards performed the following functions:

15 are removal
Nine provide tempo advantage
Nine are powerful minions
Nine provide various other utilities*
Six draw cards

*Many are Elite and Unique sites.

Most of the Unique and Elite spells provide repeatable card draw, which is nearly non-existent at lower rarities, removal, or powerful minions, many of which emphasize mobility. Staying on theme, we can replace these cards with lower-rarity versions that perform similar functions. Check out this variation:

Peasant Necromancer

Aura (3)

3 Mariners Curse

Artifact (3)

3 Toolbox

Minion (32)

2 Winter Nymph
3 Accursed Albatross
2 Coy Nixie
2 Estranged Loner
3 Lugbog Cat
3 Order of the Sacred Oak
3 Sea Raider
3 Failed Mutation
1 Mimic
3 Tringh Constrictor
3 Daperyll Vampire
3 Gnarled Wendigo
1 Hearkening Kraken

Magic (22)

4 Blink
2 Riptide
3 Drown
3 Flanking Maneuver
4 Overflow
3 Swap
3 Stormy Seas

Replacing Unique draw spells with cantrips focused on movement:

Blink
Riptide
Flanking Maneuver

Adding lower-rarity removal spells:

Mariners Curse
Accursed Albatross
Tringh Constrictor
Drown
Stormy Seas

Adding lower-rarity tempo and value cards:

Estranged Loner
Sea Raider
Hearkening Kraken

The rest of the deck comprises strong Ordinary or Exceptional minions. The sites lean more into to adjust for threshold. Tempo and card draw are the focus (or scrying, in the case of rivers).

The result is maintaining the spirit of Necromonsters at a fraction of the cost. A new player could reasonably build this by opening packs, and they would remain relatively competitive. My hope is that SCR feels more approachable than browsing decks on Curiosa.io might initially imply.

We love to see how far competitive strategies can go, but kitchen tables and local weeklies are where games breathe. Creating a smoother on-ramp for new players is essential. I'll continue writing this as a series for beginner deckbuilding and examples of Peasant decks for different Avatars. Stay tuned!