Cactus Game Design Message Boards

The best players are the best deck builders, IMO. The best deck builders don't care about bad draws because they attempt to eliminate every possible excuse. On top of that, many are great players and don't make costly mistakes in game. This is primarily done by cutting the size of the deck, using lots of characters (primarily heroes), and using draw cards. It's why speed decks win so often. There is something to be said about bad draws though. It's most common in mirror games, when both are playing speed decks. Whoever draws best will probably win.

I never get high enough in the standings to play a top player, so I have no idea what they are playing or what the principles of good deck design at the top echelon are.

Sounds like you need to sign up for ROOT which will be starting soon.  That will give you a chance to play some top players, and often they'll take time after a game to give some strategy/deck tips   If you want to sign up, simply go here.

Luck plays a much larger part in the game then most would like to admit. This is not only getting a bad draw, but what your deck actually contains. If by chance your opponent's deck is even just a soft counter to yours, you're playing from behind for the entire game. A great example of this would be playing against a red deck and using philistines. It's just by luck my opponent is playing that. If I know it's popular I'll probably put something in my own deck in order to help me against red, but then if I don't end up playing against a red deck I'll still be playing from behind.

Now, I've never won a regionals beings I'm terrible at this game and got wrecked by John Earley, whom I still hold a grudge over beings he set aside half my defense and Son of God THE FIRST TURN IN THE GAME, but the most common school of thought on how to rectify this is to try and reduce luck as much as possible. To do this you need to do one of three things: go heavy on the defense, heavy on the offense, or heavy on the drawing. Defense heavy times out in tournaments, so I'll disregard that. You're now left with an either offense heavy deck or a draw-heavy deck (often they're combined to an extent). With an offense heavy deck, the idea is to overcommit to heroes to reduce your chances of being unable to make a rescue, and to win before your lack of defense can hurt you. With a draw heavy deck, the idea is to overcommit to drawing in order to reduce your chances of a bad draw.

On the aforementioned idea of countering-by-luck, this is avoided by adding counters to counters. If someone is playing phillies, most people add something to their deck that is good against red.

However, I'm not a fan of that second method of deck building. The thing that I've been a fan of, and that everyone else that I've talked to seems to hate, is actually relying on luck to win (but playing the odds sounds less nooby). I'm willing to just hope I don't play against a certain type of (unpopular) deck instead of teching against it, beings teching against it will put me at a disadvantage against decks that don't counter me. For example, at 2009 Regionals I checked in two decks, both were very similar: Garden Tomb offense with a Philistine-standalone defense. However, one of them had site access and the other didn't. I'm trying not to be showy, but that's going to fail in this example..... I consider myself a good player. I'm confident in both my deck building skills and my actually playing ability to the point where I feel that I can compete with the top players; essentially I feel that I'm better then most players. With that in mind, I recognize that when I'm playing someone I think I'm better then, I can put useless cards in my deck and still win. This is why I loaded up on site access in the first half of the tournament, I figured that I may need it in a small number of my games, but in the games where I don't, I still win despite those cards being useless. But once I started playing the top players (John Earley >:c), I switch my decks. I recognize these top players design the best deck they can in addition to their strong play. Sites (in 2009 at least, I always run site access now) were fairly weak, so anyone that was able to get to the top table is almost certainly not playing sites. Therefore, by removing the site access from my deck and adding different cards that will actually help me, I put myself in a more advantageous position.

This is relying on luck because if I do actually face a site deck in the top table, by total chance, I'm going to lose 99% of the time. The idea behind this, however, is that I'm willing to take a 2% chance at losing (facing a site deck), if it gives me a 55% chance of beating the top player I'm against, beings he has useless site access and I don't. If I happen to get paired against a top player in the early rounds by chance, I'm still in okay position. I'll have site access in my deck which takes up space, but so will he (so 50%). (This did actually happen at 2009 Regionals. Tim Maly third round. Yikes. But I won, so it's all good )

I must say, I am certainly a fan of the 75/25 (or greater) type deck.  Going 50/50 will, more often than not, doom you to "bad draws."  ...and its really just based on statistics.

The other thing to think about is enhancements.  I am also a strong believer in the fact that enhancements are close to useless.  The reasoning behind this is because of all the conditions for playing an enhancement (brigade match, battle, initiative... ect.).  So I think the best decks are those that are able to minimize enhancement usage. (TGT, Thad decks, FBNB, Watchful Servant/Zeb)  (and then defense... Phillies, Demons, Pharisees (minimal enhancements), autoblockers, ect).  Do you notice a trend?  When I went to regionals two weeks ago, I noticed 1 deck in probably the top 10 finishers that did not play one of these offenses or defenses, and that was someone playing a Thad deck with a Herod's defense (which, I must say worked quite well).  Just something to think about...

..and your ability to crush Rochestarian's hopes and dreams.

I agree with Cuz.  I didn't know that his was the only Herods defense.  Powerful characters > Powerful enhancements.

Just make sure you remember that RDT is coming from a pure speed (or extremely offense heavy) point of view.  Though his points are absolutely correct, you throw a lot of them out the window if your teching with anything over, say, a 8-10? card defense (which can absolutely still work).

The fact is that offensive heavy is the deck type that has been met with the most amount of success. They are the majority of the top decks.