The Return of Some Old Favorites!

The Lab is open for business again!

You can still attack, but you're going to pay.

To treat myself this Christmas, I decided to re-acquire two amazing chase cards that I'd traded away over the years. There was a bit of sticker shock involved when I checked the prices of these babies on eBay, but I thought "What the hell" and went ahead and grabbed them up. My Gib deck and my Kings & Thieves deck were the beneficiaries, as these two cards instantly made them much better. Let's take a look at both.

Mad Scientist's Laboratory (Night Stalkers chase, 25/25) allows you to haul champions and allies out of any discard pile and use them as +1 undead allies during combat. While this might win you a level-up war once in a blue moon, the real value in this card happens after combat, when all the reanimated champs and allies go straight to the Abyss. Your opponents lose the services of their Korgunard, their Goldmoon, or their Bigby...permanently. For its ability to cripple any deck that depends on bringing champions (or allies) back from the discard pile, Mad Scientist's Laboratory is a supremely primo realm.

Den Of Thieves (Night Stalkers chase, 24/25) might be even better than Mad Scientists Laboratory. It causes your opponents no end of pain, as they have to discard a card from their hand or pool for each champion or ally they want to use. Now in TAV there's usually only one attack per turn, so the Den isn't as powerful as it is in standard Spellfire. However, if the opponent has a deck that uses a lot of allies, they are still going to feel the burn of this card. Also, in a 4 or 5 player game, each opponent will have to carefully weigh the cost of attacking you while you sit back and watch them discard valuable cards. I feel great having Den of Thieves back in my Kings & Thieves deck!

Next time: The 15 best TAV magic items.