Spoiling for a Fight: In Defense of Legacy's Most Maligned Tutor

One-mana tutors, such as Demonic Consultation and Mystical Tutor, have a history of getting banned in Legacy. Even in Vintage, cards like this get restricted. The ones that remain legal tend to find a narrow subset of cards and put them on the top of your deck. But what if we told you that there was a Legacy-legal, one-mana tutor effect that can put any card right into your hand? And it's even an instant! You already know, baby! It's Spoils of the Vault! How can this card possibly still be legal?

Assuming you made it this far into the article and are comprehending the meaning of the funny symbols on your computer screen, then you can read. And if you can read, it's pretty easy to figure out the downside of Spoils of the Vault. It kills you. Sometimes. But not even most of the time. But sometimes. Predictably, most people don't want to play a card that occasionally leads to instant uncontrollable death, with a side effect of revealing a big chunk of your decklist at the same time. But despite all this, we have a bold claim to make:

Spoils of the Vault is the most under-utilized tutor effect currently in Legacy, and easily among the most powerful.

To back up this claim, we'll discuss the use of Spoils as a simple tutor, the mathematics and probabilities surrounding its use, and the types of decks that can best make use of its power. And since this is the Doomsday Wiki, we'll also talk about its applicability to Legacy Doomsday decks, where it has utility beyond being a simple tutor. Let's get to it!

Spoils as a Tutor

Part 1: Some Maths

It's impossible to discuss using Spoils of the Vault as a tutor without disussing the risk of death, so let's get that out of the way first. How likely are you to die when you cast Spoils? You can play with the widget below to test some scenarios. It simulates casting Spoils 10000 times with the parameters you define, and computes average life loss as well as death probability figures.

In the base case, if you have 20 life, 53 cards left in your library, and you name a 4-of, you have about 14% chance to lose the game, and you'll lose on average around 10 life. If you name a 3-of, you have roughly a 24% chance to die and will lose around 13 life. If you plan to play with Spoils of the vault, it's useful to be able to approximmate these values on the fly, so here are a couple heuristics for that purpose:

To approximate average life loss, divide your deck size by 1 plus the number of remaining copies of the named card.

To approximate percentage to die, multiply 40 by the ratio of average life loss to your life total.

The first is much simpler, and if you think about it you can probably intuit why its true. The second heuristic relies on the first, is not as easy to mentally math, and only accurate to within 5-10%, but it's the best I've come up with.

Now with that behind us, we can discuss What kinds of decks might want Spoils and how to construct a deck to maximally leverage it. Clearly we want to build a deck with as many 4-ofs of important cards as possible. This isn't much of a deviation from normal Legacy deckbuilding where we generally want as many copies as possible of our best cards. However it is unlike many tutor-centric decks like Green Sun's Zenith piles that are built like a toolbox with lots of singletons. In a Spoils deck, if you plan to name a card there should be at least 3 copies of it, and you need a very compelling reason not to include the fourth.

Additionally, the deck should be built to limit the amount of damage that gets done to its pilot. Fetchlands, Thoughtseize, or other cards that use life as a resource should be carefully considered as inclusions because the damage adds up and reduces the number of cards you can see with Spoils. But most importantly the deck should be fast so you don't need to worry about your opponent taking chunks out of your life total.

These contraints mean that we'll mostly be thinking about combo decks, particularly ones that are looking to assemble a two-card combo. Spoils can function as additional copies of any combo piece, or any supporting card like mana acceleration.

Part 2: A Bit of History

Spoils of the Vault was printed 20 years ago this month, so surely others have noticed its power? Let's take a look back into the annals of history.

The Source, an MTG forum and once the greatest font of Legacy knowledge available, has a thread that was started in 2005 for a deck dubbed Nausea. It was a Storm combo deck, and used the typical rituals and mana rocks, as well as cards like Chromatic Sphere and Darkwater Egg to draw cards while generating Storm.

This card is Legacy's Vampiric Tutor, a very weak one mind you. Seriously though this card is the best Black tutor effect in the format. At least I can't think of a better one.

— Evil Roopey

A tutor for one black mana was exactly what the deck was looking for. However this deck didn't last, because Infernal Tutor was printed barely a year later, and steered the fate of Storm combo in an entirely new direction.

In the years between then and now, we can see a handful of results crop up with Spoils of the Vault. A Dark Depths/Reanimator hybrid list that played it managed to reach 5th out of 166 in an SCG Open in 2013. There are also some results from similar lists in MTGO events from that time. Not so long ago in 2019, there are a handful of MTGO league 5-0s from a couple different people with a Mono-Black Painter/Helm of Obedience deck like this one that plays Spoils as well. These are the types of decks that Spoils is well suited to. Fast two-card combo decks, looking to go fast so life totals don't matter. There may be multiple combo plans in one deck, but they rely on the same enablers like fast mana, and so Spoils of the Vault acts as a sort of glue to enable both plans concurrently and hold the deck together.

More recently, Strixhaven was released and with it came Witherbloom Apprentice, which together with Chain of Smog formed a tight, mana efficient two-card combo. Many people spent time developing lists around the combo, and noted combo afficionado Jax put a lot of effort into it. At this point I had been playing Spoils of the Vault myself in Doomsday Storm lists, and was impressed by it, so I suggested the card to Jax as a tutor option for the Witherbloom combo list. Sometime thereafter Jax posted this in a conversation in the Doomsday discord:

Jax: Spoils is the best tutor for Witherbloom combo

Perhaps it was the aforementioned beer talking but clearly the card made an impression. I don't know if Jax ever achieved any results with a list like this, but kl0gW got a 5-0 some time later. This deck overall didn't seem to catch on however, and today it is a fringe combo option, with or (more frequently) without Spoils.

So we can see that Spoils of the Vault probably has the raw power to compete in Legacy, if only in a certain subset of viable decks. All the decks mentioned are essentially 2-card combos. Even Nausea is sort of a 2-card combo, because you need mana and business, and Spoils can become whichever you don't have. There are plenty of 2-card combo decks in Legacy right now, and even if they don't play black normally, splashing colors is easy. So then why does it not show up more often? Well, it's not really a tough question, is it? The card is easily among the highest risk cards in the format, and Magic, as a game with inherent variance, is often viewed through the lens of minimizing risk. As such, most people don't want to take on the risk involved with a card like Spoils of the Vault. However, there's a case to be made that the card is not as risky as it appears, and that the reward for casting it is sufficiently high so as to make it worthwhile in any case. And specifically in the case of Doomsday, Spoils of the Vault plays a role unlike any other card, serving to further incentivize its inclusion.

Part 3: The Philosophy of Spoils, or How Not to Be a Coward

Bird knows the deep magics

The catastrophic way in which Spoils of the Vault sometimes ends games obscures its power level. The human mind is much better at remembering negative events, and so it can be difficult to get past a bad loss, much less a string of losses.

Emidln has given up on Spoils

It's important to recognize that the power level and flexibility provided by a 1-mana, instant-speed tutor will, over a sufficiently large sample size, increases your winrate by more than the Sudden Instant Death by Spoils will decrease it.

Wonderpreaux, regarding Spoils of the Vault

Perhaps these testimonials are giving you the wrong idea. I like to think of it this way: as a fast combo deck, if you need a particular card to win the game, and that card is more than 20 cards deep into your deck, you weren't going to win anyway. So if you die to Spoils from a high life total, you have simply shortcut to the inevitable outcome of the game. You and your opponent will appreciate the bathroom break. Realistically, in many games where you DON'T die to Spoils, it will actually have let you dig deeper than you otherwise would be able to, because Legacy games can easily end before you can dig even 10 cards deep.

There are situations where this fundamental principle won't exactly be true, for example when 2 different cards could achieve the same result. Assuming probabilities are the same for each card, you simply have to choose one by whatever means you like, and accept that sometimes you will lose the game because you chose the wrong one.

Before we dive into the applications of Spoils in Doomsday specifically, lets look at some maths one more time, to hopefully drive home the point that this card is powerful and worth the risk. Imagine a hypothetical 2-card combo deck, and of course you want to have a copy of each combo piece in your hand so you can win. For now we'll ignore how we'd pay for those cards or what turn they might get cast on.

The chance of drawing 1 of each in a 7 card hand is 14.5%, computed via a multivariate hypergeometric distribution. If you mulligan as low as 4, your chance of having 1 of each becomes about 47%. With 4 copies of Spoils of the Vault in your deck, your chance of having 1 of each combo piece, or one of either combo piece plus a copy of Spoils, rises to 34%, and if you mulligan as low as 4 your chance of finding what you need increases to nearly 82%! Even factoring in that you will only survive Spoils around 85% of the time, you still end up with a nice 69% probability of surviving with those 2 combo pieces in hand, over 20% higher than Spoils.

Spoils of the Vault in Doomsday

Finally, we have reached the Doomsday portion of the article where we discuss Doomsday-specific uses for Spoils of the Vault. The card has enough utility that we believe it should be a much more commonly played tool in the deck. It has been proven useful in Mindkiller Doomsday, and while this style of list also makes use of it as a simple tutor, it has all the same applications in Doomsday piles as it would in the more typical Turbo Doomsday lists. It should be noted however that using Spoils as a tutor in Turbo Doomsday carries extra risk, in that if you happen to exile all your copies of Thassa's Oracle, you cannot win. Mindkiller has non-Doomsday paths to victory so this risk is much less present, but outside of the exceedingly uncommon Street Wraith beats, Turbo Doomsday will need Thassa's Oracle. For this reason if you intend to play Spoils you should probably play two copies of Thassa's Oracle (which is more or less stock at the time of writing anyway).

In Turbo Doomsday, Spoils of the Vault particularly shines as a pile card. After resolving Doomsday, you know the exact construction and order of your library, meaning that (barring shuffle effects in response like a Surgical Extraction), Spoils will find you the card you name for a small, known cost of life. Let's take a look at some of the possibilities regarding Doomsday piles.

Spoils Is a Cantrip for B

Many Turbo Doomsday lists are running basic Swamp, or Cabal Ritual for additional -producing effects. Being able to spend this excess black mana to draw into piles is highly useful. There are, of course, other playable cards that can do this like Night's Whisper, but as we'll see none of the same broad utility as Spoils of the Vault. And Night's Whisper always costs you two life, while Spoils can cost as little as 0.

Furthermore, Spoils can plow through your entire deck for just and some life. There is no other single card that can get you all the way to the Oracle at the bottom of your pile for as little mana or life.

Spoils Can Clear Brainstorms

Brainstorm can be one of the most powerful enablers for Doomsday piles since it allows you to put up to three fresh cards in your hand, if you have useless cards you can afford to get rid of. The problem is that after doing this it's often difficult to create a perfect pile, since the cards you put back on top of your library likely do not draw into other cards. Spoils can cleanly resolve this issue. For example with Brainstorm and two useless cards in hand, available, and at least 4 life you might pile:

Drawing Spoils of the Vault, Lotus Petal and Lotus Petal with Brainstorm, putting back the useless cards you had in hand, you can then cast Spoils naming Thassa's Oracle and clear the entire pile! Even outside of Doomsday piles, you can Brainstorm and then name the second card down with Spoils to clear a potential Brainstorm lock.

Spoils Adds Flexibility to your Piles

Spoils allows for highly flexible piles, particularly pass-the-turn piles, that can adjust to how your opponent plays their turn. Since you know the exact construction of your library, if you have open on your opponents turn Spoils can in theory be used to grab any card remaining in your deck except the bottom one (remember you still have to draw for turn, so don't name what's on the bottom!). For example, imagine you Resolve Doomsday and would like to win on the next turn, but are worried your opponent has a card in hand that you cannot win through under any circumstances. If you have Spoils and a spare blue card in hand you could pile:

If your opponent does not play the problem card on their turn you can cast Spoils for Cavern of Souls on their end step and draw Thassa's Oracle on your turn for the win. If they did turn out to have the problem card you simply spoils for Force of Will in response and counter it, passing one extra time to draw both Cavern and Oracle. Piles like this can get highly complex, with the two miscellaneous cards on top potentially representing additional backup plans.

To further illustrate the point, here's another example. Imagine a situation similar to last time with spoils in hand and open for the opponent's turn, but in this case you are worried about your opponent having Dress Down and would like a pile with an extra Thassa's Oracle so you can try again if the worst happens. What's more, you are also worried that your opponent might play a Murktide Regent and hold up a removal spell, punishing you for your imperfect pile on your first attempt and not giving you the time to make a second. In this case you could pile:

If your opponent does not play the Murktide Regent you can cast spoils on their endstep for Cavern of Souls, drawing your Oracle with Two cards left in library and comfortably able to try casting both Oracles if the first gets hit with Dress Down. Alternatively, if they do play the Murktide Regent, you can name Pact of Negation making this into a perfect pile with counterspell backup.

Spoils Is a Powerful Tool for Beating Hate

There are a lot of ways Spoils can be used to largely disregard several kinds of cards that can impact Doomsday piles.

Draw-Limiting Effects

Since it puts a card into your hand rather than drawing it, and exiles everything else along the way, Spoils lets you clear any number of cards in your pile and put one fresh card in your hand through draw limiters such as Narset, Parter of Veils, Hullbreacher, and Spirit of the Labyrinth. This makes it easy to construct basic piles to beat such effects without too much work.

Taxes and Cards That Limit the Number of Spells You Can Cast

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Deafening Silence, and Mindbreak Trap are cards that are often on the combo player's mind. While it should be noted that cyclers can also let you play through these effects, Spoils of the Vault can do it simply by reducing the number of spells you need to cast to get through a pile. Fewer spells cast, less additional cost. You can power through a Deafening Silence or Mindbreak Trap by casting one non-creature spell, Spoils of the Vault, followed by a creature spell, Thassa's Oracle. With this utility available, you could potentially consider playing fewer cyclers, opening a couple slots in the maindeck. You can conceivably even beat Deafening Silence plus Spirit of the Labyrinth, which cyclers are poorly suited for.

Endurance Effects

If you cast Spoils naming Thassa's Oracle when it is on the bottom of your library, and have put nothing else to grave after casting Doomsday other than Spoils, there will only be Doomsday and Spoils in your graveyard when you cast Thassa's Oracle. This means that Spoils piles can play around Endurance, though it's worth mentioning it's difficult to play around much else at the same time. This requires just after Doomsday and so is very reasonable to achieve with 3 lands.

Futhermore, you can use Spoils to clear out cards that are put back into the deck by Endurance, before your Oracle trigger resolves. See the following pile:

Here you would cast IU, draw 3, cycle into the Oracle and cast it. When your opponent responds with Endurance, you can allow the trigger to resolve and then cast Spoils namimg something that is not in your deck to get back to 0 cards in library. When making this kind of play, it's important to name the right card to make sure your opponent knows just how much smarter than them you are. Recent printings have given us excellent choices like You Are Already Dead and The Most Dangerous Gamer.

Mill Effects

Grindstone is the most commonly played such effect, but you may occasionally run into something like Thought Scour. Playing around these effects, while ordinarily not impossible, can be very tricky, since a well-timed mill can make your Brainstorm deck you instead of draw useful cards. However, Spoils lets you build piles that easily beat such effects. Let's contrive a realistic example to demonstrate. Imagine you're playing against Painter, and you can cast Doomsday but will need to pass the turn. Your opponent has an Urza's Saga that is going to pop on their turn, and you wish to avoid losing to the Grindstone you expect them to get. The following pile is immune to Grindstone:

If they activate Grindstone any time before your draw step, you'll mill Spoils and Consider, and be able to simply cycle into Oracle. If they let you draw Spoils for turn, then responding to Spoils by activating Grindstone will simply cause Spoils to cost you less life.

Are You Convinced?

I don't blame you if you arent't. Cast your first Spoils that ends a game you otherwise had wrapped up, and you'll curse this article, its authors and their descendants. Losing games because you made a deckbuilding decision that directly led to the loss hurts, no matter how many more games you win because of that choice. You just need to desensitize yourself to it, which means you need to cast more Spoils.

Soon you'll be ONE OF US.

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