Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Sounds like it could be a fun feature, but probably not necessarily accurate. Anyway, here are things that all good decks have...basically everything, but yeah.

Speed. Cards that can get cards. Things like Search and Draw.

Heroes. You can't win games without them. The best decks have about 10+

Battle winning enhancements. Bonus if they CBN or Interrupt in them.

Interrupts or Negates. If you can't get initiative, you better have a way to stop them.

Protection. Primarily from Capture (Unholy Writ/Charms) and Discard (Christian Martyr). Banding also works well in this category, since as long as you can overwhelm them you're good.

Options. Being too concentrated is dangerous. If you're playing with all converts, what happens when demons show up? Discard and remove from the game don't really belong in this category though, there isn't too much around them.

Concentration. Being too diverse is dangerous. If you have multiple cards of 6 good brigades, you're doing something wrong. Two brigades is optimal, one and three good, and four is iffy. Anything more and you're likely to be in trouble. Really it just depends on how much speed you have.

Blocks. The best decks have a good amount of blocks, preferably reusable (like Gomer/KoT). The simpler the better.

Low amount of cards. The quicker you can get to your cards, the better.

Also, you can't possibly build a deck with ALL that in it, so are some more important than others? What would be an optimal balance?

The best decks will have all of the above in them.

Quote from: LordZardeck on January 09, 2012, 03:07:11 PM

Also, you can't possibly build a deck with ALL that in it, so are some more important than others? What would be an optimal balance?

My current deck has 7 Draw cards, 1 Search cards, 2 Exchange cards, 12 Heroes, 4 Brigades, 7 interrupts, 1 FBTN hero, 1 recursion, 7 discards, (AoTL and Ehud's Dagger included...), 2 CTB, 9 CBN (not including dominants and set asides), 1 CBI, 1 CBP, 4 banding heroes, 2 cards protecting capture, 2 protecting discard, 1 protecting lost souls, and 2 helpful cards (look at a hand, heal a hero...I'm not sure how you'd include them...)

And that's just my offense...

Which reminds me, I forgot about lost soul generation. That's important to (creating more lost souls to rescue, cards like Harvest Time, Revealer Lost Soul, Ammy Slave...etc.)

How many cards in your deck?

What about Character:Enhancement ratio? What would be the recommended range?

wow. Am i the only one using a 8:15 ratio? lol. How on earth do you guys ever have then enhancements you need?

Quote from: LordZardeck on January 09, 2012, 06:53:48 PM

wow. Am i the only one using a 8:15 ratio? lol. How on earth do you guys ever have then enhancements you need?

Speed.

What happens when speed vs. turtle?

That's probably the most based on interpretation and deck style. A speed deck should have more heroes than enhancements, and that's true of most decks, but I wouldn't say all. Some of my decks will have something like 13 heroes to 7 good enhancements, while others will be about 11 to 10. So that just depends on the deck style.

If we're ranking decks, speed will be at the top.

What happens when speed vs. turtle?

Heavy defenses eat speed for breakfast.

Quote from: LordZardeck on January 09, 2012, 06:59:24 PM

What happens when speed vs. turtle?

Heavy defenses eat speed for breakfast.

False. They eat speed for lunch. Heavy defenses risk running late for breakfast.

Quote from: lightningninja on January 09, 2012, 06:26:53 PM

That's probably the most based on interpretation and deck style. A speed deck should have more heroes than enhancements, and that's true of most decks, but I wouldn't say all. Some of my decks will have something like 13 heroes to 7 good enhancements, while others will be about 11 to 10. So that just depends on the deck style.

If we're ranking decks, speed will be at the top.

Tier list, anybody? Both S and A Tier were composed of speed decks.

It's never been my experience that defense heavy decks beat speed. If that was true, more people would use defense heavy. The only exceptions are in heroless decks, and even then, mostly in very large ones (i.e. 100 or 154). I mean, if a speed deck gets a bad draw, it's going to be hard to recover, but if a speed deck gets a bad draw, it's probably finished regardless.

In the past, I would say that Turtle would beat Speed a majority of games, but that they would all take longer than the standard time limit.

This year, I'm not sure that even a well built Turtle is capable of completely shutting down the variety of super-powered offenses that people are running.  The meta seems much more diverse than usual this year, and that makes a LOT of different things to try to block.

Defensive heavy beats speed more often than not (or at least, last year). Unfortunately, it does time out against good players, regardless of how fast you play, since they know they can take all the time in the world. Additionally, it's going to get draw screwed at some point, and it's really, really hard to play. I made two mistakes which potentially would have changed nationals this year.

This year has so much more (and it's all CBN now), so turtle doesn't have any viability at all.

People are too focused on the battle. The key to a turtle deck is extending the battle. At best, a speed deck has 6 battle winners, and that's being pretty generous. Using Unknown Nation, Magic Charms, Unholy Writ, Christian Martyr, Gates of Hell, etc. can completely nullify all of those. Also, banding (with back up enhancements, none of this Gomer/KoT stuff) can nullify things like Samuel's Edict. In addition, sneaky tactics are required. You can't expect to get initiative to play something, and you better not be relying on them to not have an interrupt. You have to focus on picking off certain heroes. Are they playing two brigades? Kill the one they've used the least, they'll run out of options. It becomes less of a battle by battle game, and more of a chess match. Lose this battle, but destroy your opponent's territory with Great Image...it'll probably pay off in the long run.

I look forward to refining my turtle and playing it in Ironman. I definitely think it's still viable.

I think the reason defense-heavy can no longer reliably stop speed is speed is no longer a one-off mashup. It used to be if you could weather AoCP, Zeal, AotL, Provisions, and Holy Unto the Lord (or something like that), Speed decks would run out of steam. Now, Genesis can recur its whole offense easily, not to mention having 5 CBN battle-winning plays without Asher. Samuel decks have so many win conditions it's literally impossible to plug all the holes without a massive defense (which loses without a huge luck imbalance). Isaiah decks don't even rely on battle-winners. Disciples not only don't rely on battle-winners, but often don't need them at all. Defenses are no longer able to stop speed by surviving for 5 or so turns.

So speed has essentially become an offensive turtle?

You can only control how you build your deck and how you play. So the goal in deck building is to build a deck that you feel confident can win no matter what deck it goes up against or what style of play your opponent uses.

Aka Type 2 combo decks. I have yet to see type 1 decks be able to terrorize opponents like a good Type 2 combo deck.

Kirk

Ok, i was wondering. If having a more enhancements is such a bad idea, why do the starter decks do it?

The starter decks are not built to be good. They are built as a "sample" of the game.

In addition to what's already been said, starter decks are a teaching tool for new players to learn the game. A common "mistake" I see new players make is to "waste" enhancements. They sometimes use them in a battle when they won't help the Hero stay alive or win a Lost Soul. In Redemption, like in real life, good wins in the end. One reason the starters are enhancement heavy is to ensure players have enough enhancements to win 5 Lost Souls, even they are not all played optimally.

Another way to build a good deck is to have a strong offense with plenty of options, and your defense should only stall your opponent with cards that end the battle and protect lost souls-huzzah,gibeonite trickery and all other cards like these. Also, don't waste yourself defense and offense on cards that don't negate, end the battle(defense), or kill your opponent