4 replies to this topic

[Nightfist]

So, what are your rules of thumb when deck building?

 

Here's some of mine when building decks for games with two investigators:

 

* I aim for around 10 skill cards. If I have doubles of cards I will only play one of, e.g. Leo De Luca, I may count one of those into the skill card total.

* I try to have a good spread of cards for the various asset slots, so that I can almost always play all cards that I draw. Optimal is one card per slot.

* I include only one of each unique card or assets that don't spend resources (like ammo), unless I feel it is vital for that investigator, in which case I will include both.

* If an investigator has a skill value of 5, I don't include an asset booster for that skill (e.g. no Holy Rosary for Agnes) because I feel it is not worth the resource investment.

* Auto includes for all current investigators: Emergency Cache, Unexpected Courage

* If my investigator has health or sanity equal to or below six, I will add Bulletproof Vest or Elder Sign as soon as possible.

 

That's off the top of my head, so it's probably far from exhaustive...

[phillosmaster]

I don't see any reason not to include 2x unexpected courage in every deck if you can.  Emergency cache depending on the deck sometimes sits in my hand.  that all depends on how many assets and events you need to play. 

 

I aim for 6-8 skill cards.  I skew toward the higher end if it is a higher player count game and toward the lower end if it's a solo or two investigator game.  Skill cards are powerful, but situational.  For example if I have Guts in my hand and a Willpower check doesn't come up for several rounds it's sort of a dead card.  In a 4 player game the chance of one of the investigators initiating a willpower check in a round or two is very high.

 

I pretty much include 2x of everything to up consistency.  Even unique stuff because I want to see those cards usually as soon as possible.  I could always just chuck that extra unique to a skill check or play it when I assign enough damage to kill the first unique.  In this game I'd prefer to get my key pieces out while also drawing the fewest cards possible to avoid weaknesses.

 

In solo I will try and balance an investigator's stat weaknesses by skewing my icon distribution toward those weaknesses. 

 

From there I find it's investigator specific. What ever the investigator is primarily good at try and up the percentage of them drawing the card they need to capitalize on that strength.  For example for Roland I include 4 weapons plus his signature gun.  With the way Mulligans work in this game that gives me a very high percentage of getting a weapon in my opening hand and therefore allows me to kill monsters right out the gate thus taking advantage of Roland's card ability.  For Daisy I include as many Tomes as I currently can based on my experience level so at first level that 4x Tome cards and 2x Research Librarians to tutor Tomes.  For Agnes I desperately want to have Shrivelling in my opening hand but it's the only offensive spell, which sucks.  This is the reason she is inconsistent in my opinion.  One more offensive spell and I think she'd be solid.  That said I always put 2x Shrivelling and 2x Arcane Initiate in her deck to up the chance of seeing an offensive spell as soon as possible, and then 2x Scrying to control the encounter deck until I can deal with enemies.

[dboeren]

If I put a card in I likely want 2x of it unless it's really just a backup to another card I wish I could have 3x of.  Playing solo I always want Unexpected Courage because I have to be able to cover everything with just one investigator.  I haven't found Emergency Cache to be that important compared to resource cards in most games.  Playing cards costs actions, so running "lean and mean" definitely seems to be an option - saving actions and cash and card space in favor of getting an earlier jump on the scenario.  Granted, you still need to not die but you don't need to gear up like Rambo either.

[Nightfist]

Yea, I always try to keep a low cost curve as well. Even taking Emergency Cache into account, on average you will spend no more than 2 resources per round over the whole game. Unless you're Skids of course...

[FractalMind]

I haven't played many games mind you, but I think including 2 copies of Overpower for non-guardian investigators is a solid choice. Especially when playing solo.