deck help...please?

[pryingtuna85649]

So I've read everyone's advice on deck building and I've read the advice in other posts regarding deck building. I've been trying to build some form of a halfway decent deck, but I'm still not getting anywhere. It's getting a tiny bit better, but I mean TINY. Nothing like these "winning 10 out 12 matches" decks...more like I've gone from winning 2 out of 10 matches to winning 3-4 out of 10 matches. If that, even.

Anyway, my point is I'm sorry to post up my deck, but I need a more detailed critique of what's wrong (hopefully someone has the time?). I've made a poor attempt at a faith/crime control deck...this is the one that has taken me from 2 wins to 3-4 wins out of 10 (I'm talking about MP, by the way). Here's what I have in it:

Gold:
Plentiful Crop (1)
Merchant Ship (2)
Sudden Exhaustion (2)
Mob Justice (5)
Ercole Massimo (2)
Merchant's Guild (1)
The Spaniard (1)

Crime:
Paola (1)
Cento Occhi Footpad (1)
Lanz (3)
Villa Auditore (1)
Change of Plans (1)
Lia de Russo (2)
Avaricious Banker (2)

Faith:
Basilica di San Pietro (3)
Papal Bull (2)
Brother Ristoro (2)
Seeking Sanctuary (3)
Bitter Repentance (5)
Frari (2)
Basilica di San Marco (1)
Basilica di Santa Maria Novella (2)
Papal Influence (2)
Capella Sistina (1)
Pompous Preacher (2)

I have a lot of different attempts at a control deck using the different factions...but this is the only one I'm posting for now just to give you all an idea. Hopefully someone can see my line of thinking with this deck and tell me where I'm going wrong. Because I still think I'm pretty confused on what works and how the pieces fit together. My brain certainly has hit a brick wall in terms of improvement. Maybe overwhelmed is the best way to describe it.

[thest4lker]

I have some thoughts, but I'll try play this deck a little later and then comment, it always helps to get a feel for how it flows.

[Diomedia]

Hi, I'm just going to take it on face value and say what I see at first sight. I'm no deck building expert so if I give bad advice please forgive me. Also I don't use the terminology much.

When I look at it , I don't really see a clear ways to win, I see cards to deal with the opponents cards yet nothing really that let's you go for the kill as it were.

I think that maybe you want to use your faith sites as your win? If this is the case then I think scholar would be a better pairing rather than crime. It seems like Lanz and faith site is a pairing with not much synergy.

You have 3 copies of Lanz in there but only A few other thieves so his ability is not being used to its full potential. I mean you have 3 copies of him , why not build a deck that focus on him a bit more if possible?

I hope this helps

[jefmajor]

Too many 1 counts. Take out all the cards that you only have one of. If you have more of them and don't want to lose that one card, put more in, but if you only have one of them, take them out.

Seriously. It seems really general, but, here is the best rule: Simple.

The more solo cards you have the more impossible it is to find out if your deck has any chance of being a winning deck. If you play 5 games and never see one of your cards, well, how can you know if it would have helped you or not? You can't. Boil it and boil it and boil it and keep boiling it down until all you have left are the bare minimum.

Here is a great way to look at it. Find a way that you could win in 2 turns with 5 cards without any other cards drawn or stolen or recovered. I'll give you an example:

Lair of Romulus x2, Papal Influence x2, Clothes Make The Man X1. That would do it and leave wiggle room if something is countered. Don't worry about the cost. This is a theoretical exercise and doesn't need to happen exactly like this in play.

The reason you want to do that exercise is to come up with a "core threat". Once you've done that, put AS MANY of those cards in your deck as possible, preferably 5. I know you are new to the game so I don't mean to patronize you by throwing out 5, but, I just mean in general, as many as you can.

Then for the rest put in boosters, control, etc.

For boosters try and think of cards that have synergy to create threat. I see you have a couple Brother Ristoro. If you play a Ristoro (2+1 1/3 agent) and then use Tactical Upheaval on him (2+1 Flip Target Agents Power/Health, Draw A Card) you get a combo of a 3/1 agent (decent threat for cost), +2 income, and a new card.

Those are great ways to boost income while adding card advantage to your deck.

I have a rule for my own practices and others will probably disagree with it, but, it goes like this; I will put sites in my agent decks, and, I will put agents in my site decks. I will not, however, put site boosters (Seeking Sanctuary) in my agent decks, the same way I will not put agent boosters (Magnetic Personality) in my site decks.

Figure out what kind of deck you want. In fact ... don't worry about it. Duplicate your deck and boil one down to be a site deck and one down to be an agent deck. Every step you make in either direction will make it stronger and will increase the odds of getting a victory.

Also, if you lose to a discard lock or a Counter/Draw deck, don't count that, there is nothing wrong with your deck, those two are just nearly indefensible at the moment unless you are playing your own Counter/Draw deck.

Chin up! People to beat! Get at 'em!

[gamemaestro]

Jef has some really good advice in his post. It looks like you've taken the advice of buying mainly Templar packs up front and you should continue down that path for a bit. It's hard to build a deck that utilizes Lanz without lots of crime assassin cards. I'd skip him for now.

Don't compare yourself to the people on this forum who talk about winning 8 out of 10 or whatever. Most of the prolific posters on this forum have been playing since this game launched and have invested considerable money. They're many of the top players in the game. Put simply, I don't think I've lost many games over the last few hundred I played that weren't to one of those posters. Having the cards to build a better deck really does make a difference. It's why so many people are playing the Borgia tower order rush atm.

The key thing Jef said was to figure out your win condition and build around that. As you add more cards to that core make sure that they have some synergy. Make sure you maintain a good balance of tempo and card advantage. It's hard when you have fewer cards, but he's right that you'll want to try to put 5 of each core card (those that define your strategy). Good luck.

[Rob (Roebidoebi)]

I fully agree with the previous posters. You need more focus.

Since Lanz has been nerfed he really needs some kind of support to make him really effective. So you must make sure you are in a position to score with Lanz by doing one or more of the following:
- Get him on the table fast (with PP or other income boosters), so your opponent can't counter him
- Get more than one copy out (with discreet calling)
- Counter anything that would keep him from scoring (using blue counters)
- Make sure your opponent has no cards/income to counter Lanz (discard or income depreciation)
- Make sure he scores using Magnetic personality

You have none of the above in your deck and also very little thieves. It's the Threat ability that make thieves/Lanz decks competitive.

Finally, Papal Bull is severely bugged (doesn't work half of the time). I would not include it.

Looking at the cards above I would change the deck towards blue and red, where you counter any agent that enters the table (or play Bitter Repentance) and focus on winning using sites or red and green where you use green to draw more cards and score using sites as well. You simply do not have enough crime cards in this deck to make an impact.

Good luck Charly!

[madstryfe]

Great great great advice on this thread. I'm still learning about things to do and not to do so like they said tuna, don't get discouraged. Remember to have some fun, this is most of our recreation outside life, so don't get terribly serious.

The Rule of 5s is a great way to start out if you can. I started that way and as time has gone by, I've had the opportunity to add and remove cards from my sequences and even try for some combos etc. Just remember to have some fun and keep doing what you're doing. Ask questions all you want.

[thest4lker]

Ok, I’ve played a few games with this deck, and have some feedback. First I will give a quick play by play of the games, then my thoughts on the deck.

Game one, built up to five influence on one site, using a low cost site. Opponent countered lanz, another low cost agent, and avaricious banker, before I managed to get the Spaniard on the table. I dropped the Spaniard in a new region, and a papal influence in each region I was scoring in (opponent down to one card, so hopefully it’s not a counter), got the win.

Game two: Gamemaestro’s discard/counter deck. Write that one off.

Game 3: I have 2x Basilica di santé maria, two bitter repentance a papal bull, no decent income boost cards, and a Pompous preacher. He is playing an order fast control (not quite pure rush, but fast), I get brutalized.

Game 4: Managed to change of plans his grimaldi, and papal bull another. But he killed my gimaldi, and pumped out agents, while all I drew was basilica di santa maria, mob justice and another papal bull (all of which helped nothing). Lost.

Game 5:
Paulo, di san pietro for some income. Sudden exhaustion his arquebusier after he pumps it with militia training (see common mistakes thread). He plays let he who is without sin, I lose avaricious banker and pompous preacher (this deck is going to get especially brutalized by discard, cause of low income generation/high cost card combo). I got out brother ristoro and 2 assassin guerriero, but then had to sit and watch as he got more and more cards with his draw power while I was sitting with no cards in my hand. Then he played just cause with a full deck of agents, and under arrest on one of my assassins, and he used papal influence. I stalled and blocked for as long as I could (managed to change of plan his Spaniard), but he was always winning with more agents /draw power than me, and his second papal influence sealed it for him.

Ok, now in the next part I’m going to get a bit critical (in the sense of constructive criticism, not personal criticism). Please don’t take it the wrong way and get offended, it’s the only way I know to comment on improving your deck (the positive ideas have already been covered by Jeff).There are a couple of issues you need to address, some of them have been mentioned already. Note, quite a few of those ideas are in the intermediate/advanced thread, so don’t feel bad, it took me a while to get to grips with them to.

Firstly, it might help to change the way you list (and assess your deck). You’ve broken your deck down by colour, which is helpful to figure out what cards you are listing, but not that helpful in figuring out the flow/strength/synergy of your deck. Look at how the others list their decks, I know just thinking in these terms immediately improved my deck build (there is often overlap, as for e.g. a lot of draw cards also give income).

Income
Plentiful Crop (1)
Merchant Ship (2)
Footpad (1)
Basilica Di San Pietro (3)

Draw
Nothing!!! Big issue!!!

Control
Sudden Exhaustion (2)
Mob justice (5)
Paula (1)
Villa Auditore (1)
Change of plans (1)
Papal Bull (2)
Bitter repentance (5)
Frari (2)
Capella Sistina (1)

Finisher
Lanz (3)
Ercole Massimo (2)
Merchants Guild (1)
The Spaniard (1)
Lia De Russo
Avaricious Banker
Brother Ristoro (2)
Seeking Sanctuary (3)
Basilica di San Marco (1)
Basilica di Santa Maria Novella (2)
Papal Influence (2)
Pompous Preacher (2)


Ok, specific issues:
Income curve: You don’t have a lot of income generation, but you have expensive agents. That’s always going to cause problems. You either need to get some cheaper hitters, or push up your income curve. I was sitting far too often waiting for money to push out a 7-10 cost agent, and when I do get it out, waiting for income to play the next card I draw. Be careful though not to take this advice and just drop a load of cards that do nothing but boost income, because then you will be sitting with even less action/agent/site cards. You have to consider this issue along with:

Draw power: With this deck you are more often than not going to end up with one or no cards, sitting watching your opponent. The reason this is related to income is because you can solve both with low cost draw cards like By order of the King, or discreet calling, which cost one, give one income, and let you draw the specific agent you want. Another really good card is forced charity, costs 2, +2 income, draw a card. If you don’t have enough of those cards, consider switching one of your colours to green, and putting in knowledge is power and in-depth analysis.

Specialised cards: You have a LOT of specialised cards in your hand. A LOT! These cards are great against very specific decks, but 80-90% of the time, when I see them coming into my hand, I’m going “Oh cr*p”.
I’ll list the cards I have in mind:
Villa Auditore: Order agents cannot campaign in this region, 3 cost, 1 influence. For 3 cost I want at least 2 influence, or 1 influence plus 1 gold. It’s expensive and situational specific. Having said that, one is not the end of the world in certain decks, because the Meta includes so much order.
Frari (2) : All media agents have -2, -0. Costs 3, only one influence, situation specific.
Capella Sistina (1): If you control opponent cannot score. Not a terrible card in certain decks, but a specialized card that needs specific strategies to make the most of its high cost.
Basilica di San Marco (1) & Basilica di Santa Maria Novella (2) – I’ll discuss these under synergy, but again, very specialised cards that need specific strategy/synergy to make the most of their cost.

So over 10% of your deck is specialized cards that need specific synergy/strategy, and that don’t complement each other. These cards all have their place in specific decks (e.g. you have a deck you like, but it keeps losing to media rush, put one or two frari in). But not all in the same deck.

Synergy (In my mind your biggest issue): Tuism has some good posts on synergy, so check those out. Basically, you want the cards in your deck to complement each other. Easiest example is probably Lanz and other thieves. When Lanz scores, he and all other thieves get +1/+1. That’s synergy.

Best recent example of synergy I have seen is Mana’s strange feeling deck. It works like this: Everyone knows cheap (or zero cost) agents work great with Borgia tower, cause Borgia tower boosts them. Heathen followers are a 1 cost, 0/1, +1 gold agent. But they have the ability (for zero cost), to pull more heathen followers into your hand. So mana can get as many heathen followers into his hand as he wants, at no cost to get them there (obviously he still has to spend one gold to get them into play), and drop them in his borgia towers. In the meantime he can use his 5 order of the king to get his Carlo grimaldi into play. And grimaldi and Borgia tower have great synergy. Voila, the beginning of a great deck (obviously that’s not all that makes it great. I tried to copy it and my version failed because I was missing too many other key cards

Ok, let’s look at your synergy:
• Few income boosts and high cost agents, not working
• There is some synergy between merchant ship (not my favourite card) and seeking sanctuary for a site deck, but the rest of the deck is not really complimenting it.
• Lanz is there, but you don’t have other cheap agents for him to boost, so he loses his potential synergy.
• Merchant’s guild can very quickly win you a region, but you need income boosters to play after it is on the table like political patronage or forced inheritance, and this deck doesn’t have any. Also if you want to use that as your strategy, you will need more merchant’s guilds.
• Basilica di San Marco: This site has synergy with rush decks/low cost agent decks, where you are going to be pumping out a lot of agents the opponent could potentially neutralize. Not really this deck.
• Basilica di Santa Maria Novella: This site works in conjunction with a lot of other churches. You have a few others, but not enough for a consistent strategy. I know you have basilica di san pietro, but if you want to run those as income boost/ di santa maria novella pumpers (a legitimate strategy), you need more low cost sites to cycle them, and at least one or two more santa maria novella for when they get countered.

So what you really need to do is follow Jeff’s advice, pick a strategy, and run with it. Another thing that helped me was to go look at some good decks in the deck discussion thread, and make a cheap version based on similar affect cards you own e.g. swopping in a court order for a pre-emptive strike, or a lower income boost for a stronger one. The key is to keep the overall ratio of kinds of cards with similar affects the same, to see how they work. Your decks won’t be as strong as the original, but it will help you understand deck building better. Maybe try a Borgia tower / art gallery combo, an officials deck, something like that.

Hope these thoughts help

[The Rancord]

Now my Inputs:

To OP:
Its hard to really a deck, that is clearly limited by the cardpool. Do you want a Faith/Crime Deck, wich uses Sites to win, and uses the Strong Cards Crime has available as anwers? Shall we help u create best possible deck for this, even if you dont own the cards?

To Jefmajor: Discard Lock (there is no Lock, since you have to invest a card to keep his topdeck down anyway) and Green/Blue have serious flaws. If you think those are the 2 strongest decks, play with Blue/Purple Surpise Card deck (Add San Gminano, cause they have no answer to that except counter anyway normally), and also Vatticano District / Monteriggino is a pain for them, as well as any agent on the field with recover and of course, the best card against those 2: 4 times Scientific Espionage). You should have played against Blue/Green before the nerfs


to roebidoebi:
Dont forget Magnetic Personality gives Lanz Revover, wich resets him to 1/1. If you dont play other thieves, Carlo Grimaldi might be the better choice.

[thest4lker]

@therancord: Does the same magnetic personality affect apply to Grimaldi? i.e. if you use magnetic personality on him he goes back to 1/3?

[The Rancord]

Hm, well recover says, that he regains Lost Power and Health. To be honest, I probably wrote to fast here. I need to test it first I just remembered that it allways resetet to base stats. But im not 100% sure now that you ask, about if you have more attack/hp.

But Carlo is still better if you dont play any other thieves, since tactless cannot kill him, official has a greater chane to score, and he gains alot more damage.

[Tuism]

Just tested it, when magnetic wears off Grimaldi went back to 3/5 not 1/3, just like I remembered it did. So Lanz is the same thing - it will recover with the added +1/+1.

[thest4lker]

Yeh, I was just wondering in general about carlo

[The Rancord]

Mar 30, 2012 7:26:32 GMT -5 Tuism said:

Just tested it, when magnetic wears off Grimaldi went back to 3/5 not 1/3, just like I remembered it did. So Lanz is the same thing - it will recover with the added +1/+1.

Thanks Tuism. I should have tested before writing

[Tuism]

Although this is contrary to what recover's explanation does say - it really should recover to whatever the agent's p/h was when the magnetic resolved, since a sudden exhausted agent will stay at 0/3 even after recovery.

I guess the best way to explain this is that there is a +2/+2 counter on it or something, which remains after a recover.

I think this whole recover and power/health thing needs to be explained better, it's one thing to know how it works but it doesn't quite make logical sense and causes conflicts in special circumstances.