Post by Tuism on Jan 24, 2012 8:08:11 GMT -5
Half of deck building is in knowing what to look out for while you play, so that you can tweak your deck.
After I play a couple games with a deck I generally have a good feeling for its strength/weakness, and that's where the single player thing is good - you can test against a variety of decks QUICKLY without having to handle the piss stress of battling ACE decks and DOUBIOUS connection issues.
While I'm playing, I keep things in mind, like:
1) Am I getting too many/too little gold?
Am I not able to launch half the memories in my hand before the game ends? Am I regularly running out of memories and then just waiting for my next card? This has to do with your income/cost ratio.
If you run out of cards regularly your deck could do with less resource boosters (cards which serve NO purpose other than to give income like Inheritance/Crops/Knowledge has a Price [crap card]).
If you can't play half your cards regularly then you need to adjust your costs down or play more boosters. Bronto has an excellent article on resource boosters here: acreedrecollection.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=cardid&action=display&thread=166&page=1
2) Am I able to overload on threats to win?
A deck must know how to win. Most decks are strong against one type of threat but strong against another. If a deck has a lot of anti-agent then their site destruction will be weak. Vice versa. Same with counters, discards, rush, control, etc. They all balance against something. If your deck tries too hard to do a lot of things then it'll be not very good at all things instead of being very good at one thing.
Your first goal is to OVERLOAD one channel of threat. So FOCUS your deck.
E.g. If you want to win with agents, then cards like Pontifical Highmass won't help. But that's an amazing card for decks that win by site influence.
3) Am I drawing the cards I need rather than the ones I don't?
5 of everything crucial is important. Failing that, at least keep your deck down to 50 cards. Or thin out your deck with tutors or self-replacing cards like Tactical Upheaval, King's Order, Discreet Calling, Knowledge is Power, Family Heirloom, etc. The more chance you have to get to your key cards, the better.
Am I drawing too much of things I don't need?
Sometimes you can sit with 3 RIs and know that your opponent is countering. You wish you had your Cesare. So you should have played less of RIs and more of Cesares (or King's Orders). You CAN have too much of a good thing.
4) Am I constantly failing to the same things?
Addressing your deck's weakness could also work in your favour. If you lose a lot to sites (even 2 influence little damn sites), then maybe you should pack some anti-site. (Role Reversal, Mob Justice, Venezia San Polo, etc) If you lose to counters, then you need more surprises or more threats to overload counters, etc.
One way of overcoming those weaknesses is also to focus so much in your main threat channel that your weakness doesn't matter - you outpace your weakness.
5) Am I playing cards that my opponent need to deal with?
A good measure is to play against a counter-heavy deck and see if you can out-threat your opponent. Every single card you play should have him want to counter it. Or at least as many as possible. This is where too many resource boosters doesn't help your deck unless you're going for a win before you run out of cards.
6) Is there synergy? Synergy is having cards being more useful than their lonesome when paired with something else. For example, Art gallery + Dama Rossa. Dama Rossa is useless by herself beyond being a resource boost. But give her art gallery and all of a sudden she's worth 2 influence. Or Sudden Exhaustion + Tactical Upheaval - Either of those don't provide a permanent solution to agents, but together you can kill any agent with 6 gold and one card at surprise speed.[/Size]
These are just some of the points to consider. Feel free to add your comments
After I play a couple games with a deck I generally have a good feeling for its strength/weakness, and that's where the single player thing is good - you can test against a variety of decks QUICKLY without having to handle the piss stress of battling ACE decks and DOUBIOUS connection issues.
While I'm playing, I keep things in mind, like:
1) Am I getting too many/too little gold?
Am I not able to launch half the memories in my hand before the game ends? Am I regularly running out of memories and then just waiting for my next card? This has to do with your income/cost ratio.
If you run out of cards regularly your deck could do with less resource boosters (cards which serve NO purpose other than to give income like Inheritance/Crops/Knowledge has a Price [crap card]).
If you can't play half your cards regularly then you need to adjust your costs down or play more boosters. Bronto has an excellent article on resource boosters here: acreedrecollection.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=cardid&action=display&thread=166&page=1
2) Am I able to overload on threats to win?
A deck must know how to win. Most decks are strong against one type of threat but strong against another. If a deck has a lot of anti-agent then their site destruction will be weak. Vice versa. Same with counters, discards, rush, control, etc. They all balance against something. If your deck tries too hard to do a lot of things then it'll be not very good at all things instead of being very good at one thing.
Your first goal is to OVERLOAD one channel of threat. So FOCUS your deck.
E.g. If you want to win with agents, then cards like Pontifical Highmass won't help. But that's an amazing card for decks that win by site influence.
3) Am I drawing the cards I need rather than the ones I don't?
5 of everything crucial is important. Failing that, at least keep your deck down to 50 cards. Or thin out your deck with tutors or self-replacing cards like Tactical Upheaval, King's Order, Discreet Calling, Knowledge is Power, Family Heirloom, etc. The more chance you have to get to your key cards, the better.
Am I drawing too much of things I don't need?
Sometimes you can sit with 3 RIs and know that your opponent is countering. You wish you had your Cesare. So you should have played less of RIs and more of Cesares (or King's Orders). You CAN have too much of a good thing.
4) Am I constantly failing to the same things?
Addressing your deck's weakness could also work in your favour. If you lose a lot to sites (even 2 influence little damn sites), then maybe you should pack some anti-site. (Role Reversal, Mob Justice, Venezia San Polo, etc) If you lose to counters, then you need more surprises or more threats to overload counters, etc.
One way of overcoming those weaknesses is also to focus so much in your main threat channel that your weakness doesn't matter - you outpace your weakness.
5) Am I playing cards that my opponent need to deal with?
A good measure is to play against a counter-heavy deck and see if you can out-threat your opponent. Every single card you play should have him want to counter it. Or at least as many as possible. This is where too many resource boosters doesn't help your deck unless you're going for a win before you run out of cards.
6) Is there synergy? Synergy is having cards being more useful than their lonesome when paired with something else. For example, Art gallery + Dama Rossa. Dama Rossa is useless by herself beyond being a resource boost. But give her art gallery and all of a sudden she's worth 2 influence. Or Sudden Exhaustion + Tactical Upheaval - Either of those don't provide a permanent solution to agents, but together you can kill any agent with 6 gold and one card at surprise speed.[/Size]
These are just some of the points to consider. Feel free to add your comments
