First Tilt - Deckbuilding Concepts

Welcome back loyal readers! This week we're going to cover some basic deckbuilding concepts for new players. What do you need to consider when building a deck? What are the right ratios for cards? How do you decide on a deck strategy?

Building a deck is part art and part science. The science portion has to do with probability and card type. The art is knowing which cards to put in there and the synergies needed to pull off certain effects. We're going to cover a little bit of both in today's column.

Why 60 Cards?

The most common question I'm asked from new players is why do we try so hard to build a deck that has exactly 60 cards in it? Why not 62 or 65? Can those few extra cards really hurt you that badly? I mean the formulas (which are beyond me) that I have been shown don't show a major variation with regards to your odds of drawing certain cards when your deck is over 60 - the variations are actually pretty slight. So, what gives?

One of the things that the "likelihood of draw" statistic doesn't always account for is the draw itself and the length of a game. Both of these things are variables that are harder to predict, but they have bearing on the decision to build with more or fewer cards. How so?

In my experience, the typical game will usually go no more than 5 plots. This means that you have a finite number of cards that you're going to be able to draw in any given game, which in turn means there are a finite number of cards that you're actually going to see in any given game. Let's work this out using a simple illustration of the best case scenario:

• Setup: You miraculously drop all seven cards for your setup hand and then draw back up seven. You've now seen 14 cards. In this miracle setup, you've dropped enough draw engine cards to guarantee you hit draw cap every turn.
• Turn 1: You draw 5, so you've now seen 19 cards
• Turn 2: You draw 5, you've seen 24
• Turn 3: You draw 5 - 29
• Turn 4: You draw 5 - 34
• Turn 5: You draw 5 - 39

So, in the absolute best case scenario, using standard draw mechanics, you will see no more than 39 out of your 60 cards in a 5 turn game. Now, how often do you think you will drop a 7-card flop and hit draw cap every turn thereafter? Not very likely and, if you do, you've probably got an awful deck filled with nothing but chuds and draw cards.

If we lower that back down to something more reasonable, you can expect to see eleven cards at setup (4-flop + 7-draw), two cards on Turn 1, possibly three or four on Turns 2 and 3, and another three or four on Turns 4 and 5. So, in your average game, you're probably seeing 19-23 cards from your deck over the course of 5 turns with a moderate draw engine and around 30 cards with a decent draw.

What does this mean? About half of your deck will never be seen in an average game. Every single card you add to your deck over 60 is one more card you will not see that game. While the odds of you drawing a particular card aren't affected by a large percentage by adding cards, you are absolutely guaranteeing that there are more cards you will never see in that game for every card you include over 60.

Card Ratios

The next question I tend to get asked is, "How many of each card should I put in my deck?" The default ratio that most people give is 30 characters, 15 locations, and 15 events/attachments. While this is a good rule of thumb to start with, I no longer give that advice. Unless you're using Knights of the Hollow Hill (MotM) as your agenda, you must consider Setup. For the reasons mentioned in the previous section, the better your setup, the better your overall draw.

Because of this, I recommend you stay as close to 10 events or non-setup attachments as you can to begin with. While it's tempting to include more, it will choke your setup and you will find it frustrating most of the time. Now, I know, some deck types are built from an event-heavy perspective, but it takes a solid player to know how to balance that deck with the right amount of draw and search capability to overcome the poor setup they are probably giving themselves.

Next, focus on characters. Your deck should start with 30 characters and go up from there. Less than 30 and you will have difficulty fielding characters and winning challenges. Yes, some decks can play character light and still win, but as a newer player, I highly recommend you put MORE characters, not less (paying attention to overall gold curve - read Clu's column on cost curve and mulligans here).

This leaves us with locations. This can be a bit tricky because your deck's overall strategy will determine which locations are an absolute must include. That said, you must always include some type of resource locations to drive your character engine. Whether that be gold (most common) or influence (mainly Targ and Martell) or cost reducers (everybody), you need to look at your overall costs and ensure you can afford to play your characters.

Let me pause here and talk about the Limited keyword. Do not put any more than 5 Limited cards in your deck if you can help it (and you can). Some people will tell you to go ahead and go with 6 of them. I disagree. I think 5 is the max you should use (unless you have some trick to bypass that play restriction... like with Dragon Egg (AHM)).

Honestly, a decent start is the following slate:

• 3X in-house Sea or Fiefdom (remember that the in-house Fiefdoms are all Limited)
• 2X in-house Gold (also limited, so only go 3X if you aren't using the in-house Fiefdom at 3X)
• 1X in-house Chambers/Tent
• 2X Streets (Street of Sisters, Street of Steel, Shadowblack Lane) - if you have a good icon spread, use all three

This should give you a solid resource base to build on and allow you to focus on your deck's other needs. Whether you choose to run the Seas or the Fiefdoms will depend upon the number of Limited cards you plan to run and whether or not you need repeatable reduction or one-shot reduction. Seas are discarded, limited to only reducing characters, but they offer a -2 reduction. Fiefdoms only have to kneel, can reduce any in-house card with a gold cost (not just characters), but they have the Limited keyword and only offer a -1 reduction. One other thing of note, both the Seas and the Fiefdoms offer Influence if you need it. Seas can do double duty in an Influence deck... kneel for the Influence and still get discarded for the reduction. With the Fiefdoms, you have to choose whether you want to kneel them for their reduction or their Influence.

Plots

Ah, the plot deck. This can make or break your deck. Keep in mind, if you have horrible cards, it doesn't matter how good your plot deck is, you're still going to lose. But, if you have a draw deck with amazing balance and structure, but you choose your plots without considering the metagame, nobody will see the grandeur of your uber-deck because it will fall on its face.

In a previous set of First Tilt articles, we cover plots pretty well, so if you have specific questions about building a plot deck, I'd recommend you go back and read these articles:

• Plot Strategies
• Building Your House Plot Deck
• Resets
• Opening Plots and Plot Combos

Draw

You'll hear a lot of people say, "Draw wins games!" Essentially, this is an accurate maxim with the following caveats:

• Too many cards focused on draw actually dilutes your draw (you end up drawing cards that are only designed to help you draw more cards) - this is usually only a Lannister problem as the rest of the Houses can struggle with draw.
• An unbalanced deck will cause you to draw cards you don't need or can't play and will mess with your tempo (goes back to the "more draw" isn't always the answer if you aren't seeing the cards you need)

Draw is almost always a good thing. Being able to dig further into your deck for your money cards or your combos will never be bad. So, you need to include a draw or search mechanic in your deck to maximize your possibilities. If you aren't playing House Lannister, this can be tricky. But, every House has either options to allow you to draw more cards or have the effect of choking your opponents draw. Going over specific draw cards in this article will go too far, we'll likely cover House specific draw in a future column. Just make sure you're thinking about draw as you build your deck.

Defensive Cards

Defensive cards are a tough nut to crack. Most new players tend to build what I would call a "reactionary" deck. They play a game or two, get hit by some things and then start thinking defensively and before you know it, you've overloaded your deck with so much defense that you can't muster a fighting force that will get you to the win condition. In this game, like sportsball, the best defense is a good offense. A well-crafted deck with the right draw should run over an opponent and make defense almost unnecessary. But, notice I said "almost."

There are some cards in the game that will completely ruin your day, no matter how finely crafted your deck is. You have to be able to contend with these cards, because they're popular. Some examples:

• Meera Reed (TftH) (probably the strongest single card in the game right now)
• A variety of attachments (Milk of the Poppy (Core), Frozen Solid (LoW), Bastard (LotR) to name a few)
• Crazy-good locations (Bear Island (AE), Frozen Outpost (LoW), Scouting Vessel (KotS), Ghaston Grey (FtC), The Iron Throne (LotR))

Meera Reed deserves her own paragraph. She can completely devastate your entire plan with a single blanking effect. I started running Nightmares (LoW) on a regular basis just because of this single card. I use it to blank her after she's blanked my cards so that she can't go back into shadows. If I can get her stuck on the board during the plot phase, I seriously consider flipping Valar Morghulis to get rid of her. She's that good. Scary good.

Attachment hate and location hate are also two things to consider when building your deck. In order to know what to toss in, you have to consider the metagame. The first thing you do is to consider your own playgroup. Are there attachments that completely upset your tempo? Include a little attachment control in your deck. What about locations? Does your Stark player play Bear Island and it utterly devastates you every game? Include some location control or a few more attachments so you can put those on key characters.

What about cancels? If you can, it's never bad to include a little bit of cancel in your deck; however, it isn't required. Having some cancel in your deck is good. Cancel that does double-duty as a character is better. Repeatable cancel is priceless. If nothing else, it's never bad to have a couple of Paper Shield (QoD)'s in your deck for just the right moment to upset your opponent's well-crafted plan (like playing Nightmares on your Meera Reed - you see, there's a counter for everything).

The bottom line is - it's not bad to think defensively, but you should be doing that after you've crafted the theme and focus of your deck. Once you know what you want your deck to do, then you start to think about the popular cards that can devastate your plan, then you tech against those cards (and only those cards).

Conclusions

Overall, building a deck takes practice and playtesting. There is no perfect deck in this game. There is no one deck to rule them all. Your goal is to build a deck that can perform its objective with answers to the more popular things that can upset your tempo or flow. In summary, my advice is the following:

• Stick to 60 cards
• No more than 10 events or non-setup attachments
• Have at least 30 characters
• Load up on resources to ensure you can get as many characters into play as you can
• Pay attention to the metagame and put only as much defense or cancel in your deck as needed
• Make sure you have a draw mechanic!

Disagree? Did I miss something? Sound off in the comments and let me know!