GURC
InterVarsity
In addition to using cards that will establish a win condition, you may also want to include some cards to counter things are popular in the gaming environment. You may even choose to design your deck around a particular win condition in order to counter a popular deck. Countering has its uses, but remember that it has its limits.
No deck can counter every possibility in a reliable way. If you try to include a counter for everything, your deck will become so inconsistent that countering any one thing will become luck-of-the-draw. Instead, you should concentrate on just countering a few, if any, of the popular decks in the metagame. You won't be able to counter 100% of the decks that are out there. But then, no deck can. You should instead aim to counter 75% to 90% of the decks that you will face, since the dominant decks tend to be quite popular. The following are some examples:
- If Arell HQ based decks are popular, try making decks that
have a good chance of drawing sabotage assets quickly. The
Nonames domain has a hard time stopping Sabotage, having to
rely on Mother Earth Protestors and hoping that an
intervention triggers Ashraf Mobolade to give them a Taikun
Security Officer.
- You can also try to metagame against both Arell decks and
heavy sabotage Arell counter decks by using a lot of AT
assets. Some Arell deck will make use of the Nonames
domain's strength in the area of sabotage, so you may be
able to counter a deck type and it's nemesis at the same
time. Napalm is a good counter to sabotage assets and the
Nonames domain in general. Most sabotage assets will die to
just one Napalm, and the Nonames only decks will not have
THEL to protect their assets from your Napalms.
- Trib decks have been popular from time to time. You may be
tempted to load 4 Diplomatic Compromises into a deck and
conclude that you are well protected from UN War Crimes
Tribunal. The Diplomatic Compromises will be useful against
other decks too (particularly ones that rely on Contracts to
give them the mass amount of resources they need), but you
want some additional "punch" to counter Trib decks.
Consider utilizing some 2-4-1 assets. This way, it will
UN War Crimes Tribunal two turns to eliminate one of your
asset card slots. Add EMP strike, and your hoard of 2-4-1
assets will be able to waltz past their tapped mechs.
- Seeing a lot of tap combos? Or decks that rely on heavily enhanced assets for one turn kills? Simply putting in a Distributed HQ is a sound way of countering those deck in the metagame. Having to repeat a combo at every HQ will be time consuming and potentially leave parts of the combo vulnerable, not to mention that some decks may not even consider having to attack multiple HQs with their win combo. Something as simple as the choice of your HQ can be the metagame adjustment a deck needs to go from good to better.
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