Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Hey Friends!

I've been trying to come up with a way to let new players build their own decks from scratch, while still having some common sense advice to fall back on. I've given spoken advice for years, but I started thinking about something that could be handed out. My Plan: Supply a list of questions that get them thinking about their decks.

I would LOVE your input on what some of these questions would be.
I'll add your advice to these lists and add your name to the end to give credit where it's due 

Deck Building Questions:
Do you have a way to deal with opponents' artifacts?
Is Site Access going to be an issue?
Can your deck make your opponent draw souls?
Do you have a way around evil immunity?
Why is your deck 89 cards? Would 50 be better? 
Do you have banding capabilities? (The Guardian)
How many of your cards serve more than one purpose? (The Guardian)
Can you negate your opponent's evil characters? Heroes?
Do any of your cards "clash"? (Does your hero discard your giant? does your artifact stop your banding?)
Do you have any characters small enough to get initiative? (Jbeers)
Do you have any characters large enough to fight a "negate special abilities" character (Jbeers)
If you use a "negate special abilities" character, do you have enhancements with numbers?

I'll also accept general "new player" deck advice to post below.

Deck Building Advice:
Keep your offense to 2-3 brigades (Preferably 2)
Keep your defense at 1-2 brigades (Preferable 1)
Avoid cards with overly specific targets (discard a red hero, ignore great image)
Keep your character-to-enhancement ratio at about 1:1, if not slightly more characters. - (Red Wing)
Including several cards that allow you to draw or to search your deck (Westy)

This Category Inspired by Red (a little deeper than my new players, but it's good for them to know and work toward)

"Tournament Level Advice"
Your deck will need to be able to generate lost souls to rescue on offense and/or defense
Your deck should draw well enough to get to Son of God and New Jerusalem in 3-6 turns
Your deck will need to deal with chump blockers like Uzzah (Red Wing)
If your deck is slower at drawing, you should consider anti-meta / disruptive cards (Ex. Covenant with Death, Rain Becomes Dust, Nazerth.)
Your deck should be 50-56 cards (52 is popular number as well)
Your deck should have considerably more offense than defense (~2/1 ratio*)

*True of current tournament meta (Feb 2013), not necessarily always best.

Questions are directed toward making new players SIGNIFCANTLY better.

1, Can your deck generate lost souls to rescue on offense and/or defense?

2, Does your deck draw well enough to get to Son of God and New Jereusalem in 3-6 turns? If not what disruptive cards are you playing?(Ex. Covenant with Death, Rain Becomes Dust, Nazerth.)

3, Why is your deck above 52 cards?

4, Why are you playing more defense than offense?

I'd probably put something in there about either the "Rule of 7's, 8's, or 9's".  These are good basic frameworks for beginning players to use to build balanced decks.  Generally they should start with the 9's and work their way down to 7's as they get better cards and actually have enough dominants to fill that slot.

Rule of 9's 9 Heroes 9 GEs 9 Evil Characters 9 EEs 7 LSs 7 Dominants/Artifacts/Sites/Fortresses

Rule of 8's 8 Heroes 8 GEs 8 Evil Characters 8 EEs 8 LSs 8 Dominants 8 Artifacts/Sites/Fortresses 1 Flex card

Rule of 7's 7 Heroes 7 GEs 7 Evil Characters 7 EEs 7 LSs 7 Dominants 7 Artifacts 7 Sites/Fortresses 1 Flex card

CJSports,
I TOTALLY agree. I have 10x more experience teaching new players than building "pro" decks, and I can say with confidence that early in the game there is nothing wrong with enjoying a deck full of characters and enhancements. When everyone plays with roughly equal good/evil ratio the overall game is a lot of fun too. That's why I pushed the "pro" comments in another heading. Great advice that they will probably need to consider at some point, maybe just not quite yet 

Mark,
Great chart sir! That is a wonderful resource I have a similar approach I use called "core" decks. The name comes from the idea of inserting an "Angel" core or an "Assyrian" core, etc. I have lists of these cores that they can either buy or make from their own cards.  Core 1 decks are 20 GC/GE, 20 EC/EE, 7 Souls, 9 other cards. Core 2 decks are 18 GC/GE, 18 EC/EE, 7 souls, 13 other cards.

While Mark's list is easy to remember, I think 7 is a far too high for sites/fortresses, and maybe a bit high for arts. Any 2 given themes will probably use 3 Fortresses/Sites at most (Site Access, Protect Fort, Utility). You can definitely use 7 artifacts, but I'd say try to keep it to 5.

If I were to make a decklist skeleton, I'd probably go with:

Total Cards: 50
Lost Souls: 7
Dominants: 7
Sites/Artifacts/Fortresses: 8
Heroes: 8
Good Enhancements: 7
Evil Characters: 7
Evil Enhancements: 6

And then you can add 6-7 cards depending on the offense/defense you're using, metagame counters, etc., or just keep a smaller, faster, deck, which is perfectly fine for balanced. I do believe offense should always have more room than your defense though (unless it's a turtle, but we're talking about new players). A kid in my former playgroup cut his deck down by four cards one day and was amazed with the results. I couldn't get him to stop talking about how good "speed" was, even though he was playing a Gold offense (before Samuel came out).

Of course, my skeleton is far less easy to remember when you're building a deck, and so Mark's is probably a better rule to go by, I just think it'll be a bit more cluttered.

As for deck building advice, I would recommend fitting in at least a few draw/search cards. Makes your deck function much more efficiently, even without being full blown speed. It's generally best when you use characters (G/H did wonders for this) for drawing.

Westy,
Added your tip under deck building advice. I always encourage new players to include characters that draw (any #) or enhancements that draw (2+ cards). I think I've heard you give the same rant I go off on... draw 1 enhancement = taking that card out of deck.

RTS,
What new player has a hopper, lol. I played for 8 years before I had one. I do agree on your concept though - cards that filter through the deck via search are helpful even to new players, making their D3 each turn more affective.


I would REALLY appreciate more deck building questions, let me set up an illustration of what I'm looking for and why it's important. A new player build a deck with a red offense. He handed it to me and I was very pleased to see he got the idea of what cards were important (d/c, remove, capture, negate, and -in that case- weapons). I scanned it briefly and said "looks great bud". He then ran into a fellow new player who had Red Dragon and Nero (w/HHI). He waited half the game for AotL and lost before ever getting LuG to d/c HHI.

If only I had asked him "do you have a way around immune ECs". See where I'm going? Site Access, Artifacts, etc...

Keep the good advice coming! This will be a great resource! 

Can your deck stop "chump" blocks or auto blockers like Sabbath Breaker, Uzzah, and The Amalakite's Slave?

Can your deck stop "chump" blocks or auto blockers like Sabbath Breaker, Uzzah, and The Amalakite's Slave?

One of the most important questions. If you answered 'yes', you've pretty much got this format figured out.

Change, yes...even if it takes a decade for this game to change...

I don't run site guard because I was told by an elder in an RTS game that if you remove (via SoG or Burial) or negate the Site Guard LS, the EC is "stuck" and can't be added to battle.

That's worth a discussion in the ruling section of the boards because I don't want to de-rail this thread. I'm fairly certain the way you've stated the card interaction here is not accurate.

Do you have hero's/evil characters who are large enough to deal with solo FBTN characters?

Do you have small characters who can get standard initiative?

Quote from: jmhartz on February 15, 2013, 11:48:46 AM

I don't run site guard because I was told by an elder in an RTS game that if you remove (via SoG or Burial) or negate the Site Guard LS, the EC is "stuck" and can't be added to battle.

My guess is that this was simply a misunderstanding.  I'll look forward to Gabe starting this topic in the ruling section.

I don't have any question about it so I won't be starting a topic.