GURC
InterVarsity
One of the most often asked questions by players when they first join the game is, "How do I make a good deck?" This lecture won't cover every detail there is in the process of deck building and deck tweaking, but hopefully it will lay a good foundation for new players to use as they develop their own style and deck building skills.
- How do you plan to win?
This one fundamental question will determine what direction your deck takes. If you can't answer this question, your deck will ultimately suffer an identify crisis. And if you don't have a plan to win, chances are your deck is messing a critical "win condition". And decks that lack a clear win condition are frowned upon in competitive games.
This win condition can be something specific, such as "Attack with a Corporate Enforcer whose Firepower is 25 and whose Stealth is 7." Or, it may be more general, such as "Attack with more assets than my opponent can block."
- How many assets / bases / etc should I use?
There is no hard and fast rule for how much of each to put into your deck, but there is a basic framework that does well in most cases. You should aim to have 50% of your deck be assets, about 30% to 35% be resource cards, and about 15% to 20% be "other" cards. Resource cards include bases and some interventions (like H. Thalmann or Contracts). You can also include certain assets (like Arell Cartel Contact) and programs (Satellite Imagery) which generate resources. "Other" cards is simply that - anything else. So that means miscellaneous enhancements, interventions and programs (and perhaps even some bases like High Flux Nuke!) Don't let the label of "other" fool you. These can be very important cards. They may be the ones that provide your win condition - cards like Scatter Hack or Microwave Rifle.
If you want a lean-and-mean 40 card deck, try 20 assets, 13 resource cards, and 7 "others". 45 cards in a deck isn't a bad balance either (20 assets, 15 resource cards, 10 others). As you find you want to make larger decks, try to stay with those proportions, at least initially. And remember not to count the HQ that you use in that count (if you plan to use one of the alternate Rare HQs).
- Taking your new deck out for a spin:
Before you try playing your new deck against other players in the Core, you may want to have the AI trainer missions test it out. Many players find it hard to arrange for a game at times. Rather than going through that hassle, you can always take advantage of the trainer. The trainer will be helpful to test some details in your deck. Things like, does the win combo actually work? I personally have had many experiences where the trainer helped point out how I had misread a card (like trying to use Autofac to produce infinite Infrared Spotters, which doesn't work since Infrared Spotter is an item, not a gear).
Don't be disappointed though if some decks fail utterly against the trainer. Trying a Sabotage / False Alarm deck won't work against the Ground Zero trainer if you use a programmer with CA less than 8, due to the trainer's use of Biomech Raptor. Chances are, you won't see Biomech Raptor in play very often, so you can ignore this result. But if you happen to get crushed by the trainer missions on a regular basis, it's a good sign that your deck isn't ready for regular play.
- Proper resource management - realizing full potential:
Unused resources are wasted potential. So are unused cards. If you routinely find yourself with a hand full of cards that you can't play because you don't have the resources, that's a bad sign. It's also a bad sign if you routinely find yourself with a lot of resources that you never use. An example would be finding yourself with 10 to 20 military resource points during games, and you have cyber assets in your hand that you can't use because you lack the cyber resource points.
Try to figure out what type of resources you will heavily need, and put more of those types of bases in your deck. Pay extra attention to assets you plan to attack with, or special abilities you plan to use quite often which cost resources. For instance, you may have a deck where half of your assets are military based, and the other half are cyber based. But if your defenders are the cyber assets, and your attackers are the military assets, you will probably need far more military resources than cyber resources.
If you find yourself with too many of one type of resource, try taking out some of your resource cards and replacing them with cards that will make use of those resources. Or you can try replacing some of your cards with more resource-expensive versions (like replacing a Pack Crusher with a Pack Juicer, or replacing Anceph Drones with Anceph Warriors). You can also try making use of cards which will utilize a lot of resources late in the game, like Lancer Rifle which can be equipped for 4 military resource points, and allow you to use 1 military resource point for a 1 FP upgrade. Whatever you do, make sure you have a resource "sink" (some way to eat up those extra resources).
- The golden rule of deck building:
Every card in your deck should help you toward winning.
This is sort of the "If in doubt, refer back to rule number 1" clause. If you're wondering whether a certain card fits in your deck, ask yourself, "Does this card help me, or just slow me down?" You may find yourself removing very good cards simply because they don't fit into your deck. Pillbox is great, but if you plan to use Mobile HQ to move around a lot, an immobile defender isn't the best solution. Don't let "good" cards fatten up your deck to the point where they keep your from drawing the "best" cards in a timely manner.
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