[Order] Newbie Noble Templar Deck

[cunningjames]

Hello. I’ve been playing this game for a bit, although I’m still kind of iffy about deck-building strategies. This is what I’ve been using and it does okay over multiplayer, maybe about ~75% wins so far, but I get trounced in the challenges (after the completion of the story mode).

It’s sort of a rush-and-boost, I guess:

Agents:

4 Egidio Troche
4 Teodor Viscardi
4 Dante Moro
4 Beautiful Heiress
4 Vieri de Pazzi
4 Donato Mancini
4 Militia Templar
1 Cesare Borgia


Actions:

4 Forced Inheritance
3 Untimely end
5 Court Order
4 Just Cause


Sites:
5 Borgia Tower


I’m not sure it’s focused enough; but when I cut out some of the chaff I seem to end up getting multiples of e.g. Teodor Viscardi and Dante Moro, which are nearly useless on their own (but good when I have a couple Borgia Towers and Beautiful Heiresses in play). Or else hands full of cards that are too expensive to play immediately.

Any suggestions are appreciated! I’m not averse to mixing in another color — I’ve got a pretty good selection of Templar cards, including multiple copies of a number of rares.

[Tuism]

Well your deck looks pretty well balanced. The only thing I would say is to bump things to 5 if you can if you want focus. The thing with decks like this (rush) is that you have only the option of winning early, so you want to be able to play as much as you can. Indeed half the deck is reliant on beautiful heiresses and Borgia towers, but with those the deck is exponentially better. Don't think about teddy and Dante as being useless, they're great card advantage in the longer term as Dante can mean killing 2 of your opponents agents if they block it or if you block theirs.

That said, I think you dont need for example mr +1/+1 citizen, as he is a longer game booster that ties up resources. Get as many cesares into this deck as you can as he is the metagame-defining uncounterable major headache.

You can consider by order of the king to bring out cesares if you don't have many of him.

Splashing another colour in ACR is perfectly simple, and awesome if it helps the deck diversify. Magnetic personality from purple is a good addition here, as punch, finisher, saver and blocking killer.

[cunningjames]

Feb 13, 2012 17:14:26 GMT -5 Tuism said:

Well your deck looks pretty well balanced. The only thing I would say is to bump things to 5 if you can if you want focus.

[…]

That said, I think you dont need for example mr +1/+1 citizen, as he is a longer game booster that ties up resources. Get as many cesares into this deck as you can as he is the metagame-defining uncounterable major headache.

You can consider by order of the king to bring out cesares if you don't have many of him.

Splashing another colour in ACR is perfectly simple, and awesome if it helps the deck diversify. Magnetic personality from purple is a good addition here, as punch, finisher, saver and blocking killer.

Replaced Egidio with By Order of the King to bring Cesare out quickly, which turned out to be a good idea, thank you. Unfortunately I have only one Cesare thus far — it’d be nice to be able to bring out a couple of them early for obvious reasons.

Now that I have a better handle on just what "Safe" means, I can see the value of Dante Moro. Further taking your suggestions and bumping many of the cards up to five, I now have:

Agents:

5 Teodor Viscardi
5 Dante Moro
5 Veri de Pazzi
5 Beautiful Heiress
4 Donato Mancini
1 Cesare Borgia


Actions:

4 By Order of the King (to bring out Cesare, although I wish it were a bit less disruptive to use)
4 Forced Inheritance
5 Court Order (I’d put ten of these in here if I could)
3 Untimely End (because I can’t put ten Court Orders)
4 Just Cause


Sites:

5 Borgia Tower


I wonder if it’d be better to replace some of the unblockable nobles with cheaper soldiers, but then I’d lose the Beautiful Heiress bonus. I’m also considering cutting out untimely end … not sure for what. I really do wish I had more general purpose counters — I could add Radical Demotion — but that feels so situational.

Only one Magnetic Personality, unfortunately … and I see surprisingly few good, powerful boosts available. Could mix the Magnetic Personality with Man of the People (I have 2) and some Motivational Speeches. I could also go another way and throw in a few Lucrezia Borgias (3) or Rodrigo Borgias (5).

(Apropos of nothing: I am completely ignorant of the Assassin’s Creed universe. I’m nevertheless oddly tickled by the fact I can play a Magic-like card game with Alexander VI, undeniably history’s most corrupt pope, and a few of his illegitimate children.)

I’ll have to experiment! If I keep playing at some point I’ll have to start grabbing a few more assassin boosters here and there, I suppose. Thanks for your comments, and of course any more thoughts are appreciated.

[Ringel]

You can replace the Veri with Arquebusier (an "official" 2/1 noble that costs 1 less). You might give it a try and see. Unblockable can be nice in a match with blue, but usually Official suffices and the cheaper cost can be worth it.

Also there is Octavian who can swing a game pretty fast if need be.

[madstryfe]

This is a great thread! I just started playing last week and find myself in an abudance of Templar cards. I've never been much of a card game guy but the Assassin's Creed aspect had me hooked.

Thanks for putting something up to help us new guys. I'm overwhelmed by the amount of strategy involved here. All this talk about resource boosting, rushing and everything else is just crazy. I know it's only going to get worse when the revelations packs are released.

[thedude808]

Feb 28, 2012 13:51:29 GMT -5 madstryfe said:

I know it's only going to get more awesome when the revelations packs are released.

There. I fixed that for you. You sound stoked about the game. Keep at it, and you'll get the hang of all the different mechanics and strategy elements. If you get stuck or have a question about something, just come here and ask or look around to see if others are already discussing the same thing. Stay excited. This game is awesome.

[jefmajor]

This is the deck I see most frequently, occasionally coupled with Art Gallery and Dama's or cheap militants. Extremely effective and lots of wiggle room.

[madstryfe]

I stand corrected, more awesome it is!