Cactus Game Design Message Boards

1. Don't go with 4 copies of a unique character in general unless you have ways to flush it, they are meant to be played once and then leave play, or they are SO important to your strategy that you HAVE to have them and you don't have enough cards to pull them out of deck.  Honestly, 3 is too many for most unique characters as well, and you should watch out for trying to include too many copies.

2. What enhancements are the best for you?  Yes, it would seem that you should pick 3-4 and just have 4 copies of each of those, but there are not many decks where you have that many 'must haves' that you can have 4 of.  Canaanites are an example of one that breaks the trend (I run 4 Trickery, 4 Stone, 4 Fortify, and then 3-4 JiP/Hunger), but consider Judges (the offense I run with them): you want 4 Edicts, but do you want 4 Directives and 4 Daggers?  They don't always work, and Edict is better, so I run a couple of those with some Sound Advice, WWW, Gideon's Call, and so on with utility.

3. Sites are great, but they restrict what you build.  If you have 2 of a site, is that worth a good AND evil card for your deck?  Because that is the trade-off.  Consider carefully what you add here, and how many Artifacts you run with them (do you really need 3 Gifts or Golden Cherubim?), because they limit your offensive and defensive capabilities.

4. Souls are important to think about.  For example, 2/3-Liner is great, but in Rescuer's Choice, a lot of its power is gone.  Not that its bad, but you need to carefully consider it, and I only include it in decks with lots of soul cycling.  The protect souls are also nice, but if you are a super-fast deck that will get all of your souls out (without sites to put them in), would it be better to have some souls with better abilities?  I love Shame for instance, because there is usually 'that hero' you will have trouble with, and you'll have more heroes to give up in the trade.

5. Get to 100 with 2 Hoppers.  You will hear arguments on this (from Nats champions, too), so this isn't a hard and fast rule, just what I've learned over the years of playing.  In most decks, those last 5-7 cards to 105 are not needed, and by trimming the fat you will actually get a much more fluid and formidable deck that draws what it needs.  I started playing at 112, got down to 105, and then realized this concept and have played better since.

In case you missed the recurring theme, there are trade-offs for everything, and you have to think about the opportunity cost of every card (just like in T1, but with the rules on card-counts this is even more true in T2).

For deck size, I would say to start with 105. After you've played a few games, try to think if there were any cards you never used at all because A) you always had a better option or B) they would not have helped even as a last resort option. If you identify such cards, take them out. Then consider if there were any cards that you really wished you would have had in multiple different situations and games. If you can identify any, add them in, otherwise keep the deck as trim as possible.

This is much better advice than mine for new players, do that   It's true you will pretty easily find out what you don't use (I used 2 Samson's Sacrifice when I started...NEVER played them, so they came out), but things sometimes look good on paper and it is best to take this route.

So ignore my part that contradicts him while you are learning your decks