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Do you think that it is safe to say that 53-69 card decks are no longer viable deck sizes?

It seems all that works today, is 50-52 card decks and then a 70 card deck because the 50 card decks can't handle them...usually.

I was taking a look through the Regionals/Nationals winning/placing decks, and it just jumped out at me, how most of them were small, very fast decks.

Thoughts?

Yea, I never did too much diving into type 2, mainly cause when i first started playing, I didn't know anyone who played type 2. I played a 56 card defensive heavy deck right before teal came out. I did very well with it back then, it was immunity, giant banding, and zimri abuse with providing angel/torment. Before they had things like 2 bears, striking Herod, and zeal for the Lord, it was great. I used Gabriel Wa to get rid of interrupts or AOC.

Now offenses are very powerful and I agree, it seems that you would have to have a 70 card deck if you want your defense to dominate the vast majority of offenses.

I've always used 56-50 card decks, except I used a 77 card deck when I VERY first started playing because i was young and innocent.

Ever since 05' I've played a 51-52 card deck, unless it was defensive heavy.

If there is one thing I enjoy about the dominant cap it is that there are now 3-4 more cards you can get in a 50-52 card deck. The dom cap, and the extinction of site decks, have allowed for 4-5 more cards in a 50 card deck, effectively allowing the player playing a 51 card deck to be playing a deck as powerful as the "old" 56 card decks. I think the Dom cap, really changed the game.

I agree, deck building is really fun right now, there are so many options! But I am interested in seeing if a 56 card deck can compete with these super fast 50 card decks. It will be interesting, to see the balance of power.

I agree with your analysis, it will be interesting to see if any 57 card decks do well. I mean I am sure they could find success at local/district/states, but what about the grind of a Regionals/Nats.


 I've never even heard of the last one. A 150 card deck using Gates and Samaria sites!? What? Please elaborate if you don't mind!

The biggest draw to balanced decks is the chance to draw souls slower than a 50ish carder and having defense more readily available to defend souls when they do pop up. For this reason, they perform best at 56...an extra soul is certainly not worth the extra dom slot. The best defense has always been to simply not draw souls.

I am sure they could find success at local/district/states, but what about the grind of a Regionals/Nats.

I'm not sure if it was 57 cards, but I think Tim Maly took a balanced deck to the Top Cut this past summer.  And SS already mentioned his success with one.

I've never even heard of the last one. A 150 card deck using Gates OR Samaria sites!? What? Please elaborate if you don't mind!

FTFY.  The idea behind the Gates deck is that once you get out one of your 3 GoH, then you can really stall people pretty easily.  You start by blocking with whatever demon band you think will work best.  Then if they beat that, you just kill the bottom of your deck until you pull out one of the three copies of the 3-liner LS.  If they happen to break through 3 times so that all of those are half-rescued, then you simply shuffle them with SSS, and repeat.  Considering that you can also add more ECs to battle with either Madness active or by discarding an extra copy of GoH (when you've drawn a 2nd one), it can be really hard to break through.

The idea behind a Samaria deck is to simply decrease all your opponents enough that they die.  with that many Samaria sites to draw/pull out, it's not too difficult and you've got the three copies of the 3-liner there too.  To see a good example of this, check out Prof A/MJB's deck from TEAMS at Nats '12.

Mark, why do you need a eighth dom?

I think a balanced deck really needs SoG/NJ/AotL/Grapes/CM/VP/Mayhem and with an 8th dom spot you can either add Burial (especially if you play 2-liner LS) or DoN (especially if your deck is susceptible to arts).  I think either of those are good enough to be worth adding 1 LS to your deck.  And having that extra LS also means that you are more likely to get to choose who goes first in the game.

My preference in type 1 is 70 or 77 or 105 or 112 in type 1, but i'm not the normal player, and i'm definitely not the top player.

I also play type 2 a lot, and those decks are typically 105 or 112, but my favorite

is building a deck that is legal for type 1 and type 2

I just about have my collection where I want it, Hopefully this weekend I can build 2-5 playtesting decks

Yea, I have a hard time adding that extra soul as well! The 50 card decks draw lost souls so quickly. A 56 card deck draws a soul 1 in every 8 cards. A 57 card deck gives a 7.125 chance of drawing a lost soul. the 57 card deck has a better chance of drawing a lost soul than does the 50 card deck 7.1 is much better than practically 43...no thanks!

In my mind there are only 4 sizes of decks that can win at the top levels:

1 - Offense-heavy decks seem to work best at 50-52 cards.
2 - Balanced decks seem to work best at 57 cards (to get the 8th dom).
3 - Defense-heavy decks seem to work best at 63 cards (enough room for defense, but more consistent draws than a 70-card deck).
4 - Crazy decks (based on triple Gates of Hell or 20 Samaria sites) seem to work best at 154.

Unfortunately I find that time limits ruin the chances of either 3 or 4 ever winning Nats, so if you want to really win at the top you have to go with either 1 or 2.  However if you just want to have fun playing and still do well, then all 4 of the above are viable.

The biggest draw to balanced decks is the chance to draw souls slower than a 50ish carder and having defense more readily available to defend souls when they do pop up. For this reason, they perform best at 56...an extra soul is certainly not worth the extra dom slot. The best defense has always been to simply not draw souls.

I think Underwood pretty much nailed it with his post.

56 card decks are still the industry standard... but most of the top decks are running in the low 50's for better drawing.

Adding one more lost soul, so that you add burial, doesn't really seem to do a whole lot.  A 56 card deck has always been the standard, but it separated the good from the elite. I know I was always comforted to see that my opponent was playing a 56 card deck, (I noticed when he/she shuffled in piles) I felt I had the advantage. I usually played 52 card offense heavy decks, and felt it gave me that much more of a lift. I used 52 cause those last two cards were battle winners. I always wanted to be able to win without playing SOG NJ.

I think the same is still true. A 50 card offensive heavy deck, has the advantage over a 56 card deck, because it just draws smoothly, and unless Son of God and NJ are banned, (or made so it is impossible to keep them in your hand), having them is the most important thing.

I don't disagree with you on that, I listed 70 and a 100 as viable decks, I was just saying that a 50-52 card deck is better than a 53-69 card deck, and proposing that a 50-52 card deck gives the player the best chance at winning the most games. I do think that once you get around 70, it needs to be defensive heavy, or it will lose in tournaments due to a few bad draws.

I agree with you that Burial is often a really good dominant still, but I would be very hesitant to put Falling Away in a balanced deck.  There is just too high a possibility that my opponent's deck will be faster than mine.  And if they get their GoYS or Lampstand out before I draw my FA (which they usually will) then I have wasted my dom-slot.  I'd much rather have Mayhem which works anytime I want it to.

I don't play as much as I used to, but I really never see GoYS or Lampstand anymore.  Maybe it's been too long since I've been in ROOT or playing pickup games.  But I see primarily the list you provided above, which doesn't have GoYS.

Lampstand will assuredly almost always be in any Disciples deck...balanced decks and decks with higher defense ratios are more prone to bad draws than aggro decks it needs to mitigate that possible damage with Falling Away, even if statistically they would draw it after some decks drop a Lampstand.

Here's another way of looking at it.  Falling Away is a responsive card.  It takes away a LS after your opponent has already defeated your defense and rescued one.  So in the end you force your opponent to rescue another LS, but whatever you used to defend is still gone.  And on top of that, it is useless if your opponent has Lampstand up (which you admit isn't too uncommon).

On the other hand, I have often been able to get a block with Mayhem.  I can use it to get rid of my opponent's hand when I know that they have something that will kill my defense that I can't stop otherwise.  I can use it to draw enough defense to be able to make a block that I didn't have before.  In either of those cases my opponent is still forced to take another LS.  But in this case the EC that I used to defend is usually still around, and their hero that they used to attack is usually dead.  So in the end, my overall position in the game is stronger.