| Index | Artists | Blogs | Card Lists | Clan Pages | Decks | Sales |
| Discussion | Fan Cards | FAQs | Geography | Hall of Fame | IRC | What's New |
| Newsletters | Releases | Rules | Search | Strategy | Tournaments | |
| TWDA | Utilities | Variants | Who's Who | My Other Sites | NAC 2009 |
Head First Design Patterns(the book)I was asked for deck design help specific to new players. The following are the guidelines that I use, in general, to build my decks. This was originally posted to the newsgroup as First Principles of Deck Building.
Deck concept to deck buildin steps I would take (though not necessarily in this order):1) Decide high level concept. (i.e. bleed, vote, attrition, etc.) 2) Find minions with the correct discipline combinations/titles/abilities to pursue the concept. (Use the online and/or downloadable tools to ensure best match)3) Examine the resulting minions for capacity, and determine how much pool regain is required. Flesh out master card selection to ~15 after accounting for pool regain. 4) After examining the capacity of the minions, determine the best actions for these minions to take. Determine how much will be acquiring permanent resources vs. card flow based actions. 5) After examining the likely number of actions per turn, determine the amount of stealth to add, or even if stealth is necessary for the "success" of the actions. 6) After examining the likelihood of needing to tap out every turn to put any real pressure on your prey, determine the number of untap cards you need to defend yourself against your local players. Add defensive untap to match the need estimated. 7) Determine your combat strategy. Add cards to support that strategy in the quantities appropriate for the amount of interaction the rest of the deck expects. 8) Round out the deck with other cards that help your goal/concept. Ruben Feldman offered the following additions: 9) Look for similar decks and see if there are cards they use that might fit in mine. 10) Estimate what my deck does better/worse than similar decks and make sure to emphasize my deck's strength when I build it. 11) Understand what decks could be a problem for me and look for solutions that will not completely change my deck. Things to keep in mind while building the deck:1) How many of my minions can play this card at the level I prefer?2) How am I going to oust my prey? 3) How am I going to keep from being ousted? 4) How many minions do I expect to have in play, and how much pool will I have left when they are ready? 5) What should my turn look like? What actions will I prefer to take? 6) What should my prey's turn look like for me? Will I interact with him directly? 7) What should my predator's turn look like for me? How will I be defending my pool? 8) What are my opponents likely to play? Are they likely to have significantly more minions than I will? About the same number of minions? Fewer minions? |