By James Przytulski
Maximizing Card Synergy in Deck Design
When I build decks I attempt to fit the cards together in such a way
that I get maximum use out of every single card. This is not just pinpointed
for specific opponents in a metagame, but it is how synergistically the
cards fit together themselves.
For example, in the Colonel Wilhelm Reigner deck, I play battlegrounds
to pump soldiers. Battlegrounds make extremely long rows of Sites which
are difficult to defend. However, a couple soldier foundations can pop out
to defend during attacks. Assault Squad soldiers even pop into play for
free, provided the requirements are right. Those requirements, your opponent
attacks with more than one character, are easy to meet, especially for
the Architects, who can foil lone character attacks with ease.
Another example of synergy in deck design is a Wu Bin of Turtle Island
deck. Wu Bin is good at searching for events. Fighting Spirit is strong at
returning events provided they have different names. Put two and two
together and you have a nice recurring event tutor mechanism. Why not
stop with just Wu Bin searching for events? Why not put the magic Wu Bin
provides to good use to play Scroll of Incantation?
Cenotaph is a very interesting in terms of synergistic deck design. He
is very weak early in the game, but extremely powerful late game, assuming
you have a bunch of characters in your smoked pile. To maximize his
fighting, you want to play a lot of weenies early and get them into your smoked
pile. This is a situation that maximizes the effect of Shrieking Witch Heads
as well, so it is an obvious synergistic fit. You might even try the Feng
Shui Site, Ancestral Tomb, which gets a body boost for each character in
your smoked pile. But be careful because while damaged it doesn't count
towards victory.
The challenge of running synergistic decks is that it can take some
time to set up your engine. Wu Bin of Turtle Island is not cheap event or power
wise. Cenotaph is weak as a hitter early game. There are exceptions to
this though. My soldier deck rarely loses a duel even when it relies on
synergy. This is due to the fact that the engine is very cheap due to Killing
Grounds and Assault Squads.
Here is a small list of cards that can be built around as the core of
specific deck synergy.
Bronze Sentinel (Characters)
Cenotaph (Small Characters)
Red Bat (Events)
Fighting Spirit (Events)
Colonel Wilhelm Reigner (Battleground Sites)
Uprising (Rebels)
Phlogiston Mine (Site Healing)
Dark Traveler (self-smoking Feng Shui and related effects)
Battle-Matic (States)
Now what article would be complete without a deck listing and
explanation?
Wrath of the Siteless
5x Dark Traveler
5x Fire Acolytes
5x Darkness Priestess
5x Kunlun Clan Assault
5x Occult Kung Fu
5x Amulet of the Turtle
5x Killing Rain
4x Pocket Demon
2x Spirit Pole
5x Market Square
2x Fox Pass
2x City Square
2x Kinoshita House
This deck is entirely built towards putting it's own Feng Shui Sites in
the smoked pile, then playing giant, near invincible Dark Travelers with
powerful states. You need at least one Dark Traveler in your smoked
pile for an Occult Kung Fu target. This is a fun deck, and I do not
normally play it for tournaments. It takes a while to set up, and when it does
it has no Feng Shui Sites on the board. This would have trouble in a
tournament game with a time limit. It can be extremely potent. I've had Dark
Travelers with multiple Occult Kung Fus doing over 50 fighting worth of damage
wearing Amulets of the Turtle. I can't remember what the cap is for counters on
the Gatling Engine, but this is the only deck where I have surpassed it.
How does one go about searching for these deck construction synergies?
I use databases that allow keyword searching, such as "Event" "Character"
"State" etc. For example, in building a deck around Cenotaph, you can
search http://www.chimpshack.org/db/ for "characters in smoked pile",
or for an Uprising deck you could search for cards with the Designator
"Rebel", or for other cards with "Rebel" in their text.