Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Hello all,

I am looking for some T1 advice for my playgroup. I thought that this would be a good question to post.

When I have players starting out, one of the trends I see that happen is they will show up with huge decks. 80 -100 cards. After a while they start learning and the decks get smaller.

The big jump is when they can get 50-56 cards. Alot of my players have difficultly in making that jump.

Do have any suggestions or advice in cutting down a deck from 63 or 70 cards to 50?

My playgroup thanks you.

Do have any suggestions or advice in cutting down a deck from 63 or 70 cards to 50?

What I do when I'm trying to cut down a deck is first take out any card that is really just fluff and not needed. Then I take what's left and ask myself the question which cards fit with what I'm trying to accomplish, which of these cards are the most efficient? I also make it a point to play with a 50 card deck, that way I know pretty much every game I'm going to use most of the cards I want/need to play.

There's a nice article about the rule of 7's on the Holder's Heroes website.  I don't really agree with that type of deck building because I feel that more characters and enhancements are necessary.  I'd rather use a standard deck layout like this for new players:

3 good Dominants (the first card any new player should get is NJ)
2 Evil Dominants
7 Lost Souls
8 Heroes
8 Good Enhancements
8 Evil Characters
8 Evil Enhancements
2 Site Access cards
4-6 Artifact/Cov/Curse (one usually being Chariot of Fire)
4-6 Single color sites and Fortresses

That will keep the deck at 56 cards.  The person will just have to narrow down their deck to get within the limits and that's one of the hardest things to learn.  You can add more Characters and use less single color Sites and Fortresses.  It's rarely a good idea to use more enhancements that you have characters.

One thing my friend is doing with a lot of success is giving all of the kids different colors (or themes) for their decks. This works really well now but probably didn't in the past. For example, one kid could have Genesis/Romans, another Prophets/Egyptians, another Judges/Babylonians, etc. That way they can be competitive but don't have to play with similar cards.

That is a good point on ROA and FooF cards. The real good news is that my playgroup is involved with a newer game store in Merrill.

The owner hasn't been able to get Redemption cards, but should be getting some in with the new year.

Thanks for the advice, if you have any more keep it coming.