by Marek Laskowski
I was asked to write a short article about the dueling deck I fielded in the online Proving Ground league “Who's the Big Man Now!?” tournament that won undefeated. I feel I should outline the, uh, philosophy that went into designing it first. If you are reading this looking for tips like "make sure to discard!" you're looking in the wrong place. There have been many articles better written than this one, discussing the basics quite well. I don't have any hard and fast rules for you either, only observations and opinions gained through experience. The first seven sections of this article are general observations and next week, I'll apply these observations to two sample decks.
1. Meta game considerations (or lack thereof)
When constructing a deck it should be second nature to expect common cards or effect categories. An example of the former would be Shadowy Mentor and events that remove characters from play is an example of the latter. Ideally, your deck should be naturally strong against most of these categories, else it is fundamentally flawed. What I mean by “naturally” is that there should be few, if any, cards that are so narrow in scope that they only handle a very specific type of effect or even a single card in the deck. For example, Void is a very cost-effective and solid card that is naturally resistant to being taken control of because he can sacrifice himself. He's also strong against Final Brawl and weenies (small cheap characters) due to his toughness.
Some other duelers have made remarks like "Your deck is has a counter strategy to everything. It's unbeatable." While I will be the first to point out that in a game with such a huge number of possibilities as Shadowfist I doubt very much that there isn't a deck that could beat one of mine on average, that remark hammers home my exact point. Your ultimate goal as a dueler, how you win games, is by not falling prey to, and thereby not losing to, the strategies of others. Similarly, you should make an effort not to be exploitable yourself. That is, when you build a deck, you should keep in mind the cards and strategies your opponents will use against you. For example, if I'm using Proving Ground I will always pack a counter for Whirlpool of Blood, even though it's not common in my metagame. That way, if there is a slight shift in the cards appearing in your metagame, no changes to your deck are required, since you're already prepared for them. I'm not going to list common things to look out for here, as other articles have already done so to death. Ultimately, a better way of figuring out what to look for is through experience, which brings me to my next point:
2. Try to enjoy dueling
Why? Mainly because then you'll duel more and become more familiar with your deck and with the prevailing strategies discussed above.
Rather than memorizing a list of do's and don'ts, you should make it second nature not to fall for tricks like Bite of the Jellyfish and those “Bring out a big guy free when attacked” decks that inexplicably still come into fashion occasionally by playing more. Frankly, falling for that sort of thing shows inexperience. Also, if you've seen enough decks, you can get a “read” on what your opponent is planning, based not only on what they've played but on what they've discarded as well. Nothing will strike fear into an opponent more than if you are able to call what their back-row site is before they reveal it.
As an aside, you should avoid constructing decks that require your opponent to take a certain action in order to pull off whatever your deck is meant to do. You'll end up with a trick deck that will probably only work once against an opponent that is paying attention. An extreme case of this would be a Thunder King / Loyalty Officer / Bull Market deck.
Finally, and most importantly, by playing your deck you will learn what works and what doesn't work in it and you can make improvements based on experience.
Most of the time, people find Shadowfist dueling unsatisfying for one of the following reasons that lead to boring or one-sided games:
• When one player brings a deck that is unsuited for duels, the game is boring for the winning player since there's no challenge, and it's boring for the loser since they're not doing much at all. I also find that when both people are using casual, fun decks, this also results in long, drawn out, and uneventful games.
• There's no dishonor in conceding when you have no chance. I've been known to concede on turn two sometimes. For example, if you've discarded your whole hand the first 2 turns in a 35 card deck, what's left? Slim chances of winning. You may as well concede. What's sporting about a boring one sided game? For the winning player it's like hunting a crippled fox or something. Basically, what I'm saying is a timely concession will save both players from a boring unsatisfying endgame.
• When playing somebody for the first time (especially online) you should probably find out if they're going to bring a competitive or friendly deck. For the reasons explained above, I'm annoyed when people reply “whatever”.
If you follow these suggestions hopefully you'll get in more games because they'll take less time, and those games will be more action packed and interesting.
3. It's okay to be an asshole
Friendly decks just take longer for a one sided crushing defeat to emerge - competitive decks are equally or more likely to have exciting down-to-the-wire finishes.
The most common frowned upon game mechanics to employ as deck archetypes are:
• Toasting. Weak against speedy decks, or ones that are light on resource requirements. Often, failing to contain an opponent, particularly if the toasting deck is going second, can result in a loss early on. However, if successful, it will probably keep the opponent from playing anything significant for long enough to cement a victory. For that reason, it is frowned upon, but I don't see how this is much different from playing a speed deck that starts taking an opponent's sites on turn 2, and thus achieves the same effect - a huge advantage early on, preventing the opponent from playing anything significant. I would like to point out that toasting is a legitimate answer to heavy recursion decks that can be just as annoying.
• Discard. Wins by decking the opponent and plays lots of control cards to attempt to stall the game until that point. Like toasting, it usually results in a landslide victory for one player or the other, with the exception that discard decks take much, much longer to win, meaning they're almost always boring to play and to play against. The existence of these, however, discourages equally degenerate 30-card decks. In the end, I think discard decks are fundamentally weak, since you could potentially lose to a new player that is playing with all 300 of their brand new cards.
• Site destruction. Probably will win by decking, much like discard. Because you'll be so heavily invested in smoking sites, it will be easier to smoke your own rather than defend them. Even then, the game will probably wind up in a draw situation where neither player wants to play more cards because the risk of decking will be high. Turtle Island, which sees play in decks that trigger off of seizing sites, will totally hose site destruction with its other ability.
On the other hand, annoyingly strong cards/tactics sprinkled (one or maybe two per deck) into decks force opponent into costly countermeasures (metagame). Kii-yaaah! keeps opponent from getting too far ahead by playing sites. Bite of the Jellyfish prevents fast decks from burning for power early on. Shadowy Mentor works against decks that use recursion with huge characters. Nine Dragon Temple hoses almost all semi-degenerate take-a-site-by-turn-two decks. Inauspicious Reburial and Imprisoned are effective against equally annoying recursion decks. A few discard effects can go a long way to discourage degenerate 25 or 30 card decks that do something ridiculous on turn 2. Conversely, play Dragon Graveyard in your regular decks to discourage discard against you. You'll have room for these if you play more than 30 cards, and they're not bad when in play either. One or two” You Fell Into My Trap” will make opponents think twice about attacking you when you have no characters out. The point is, as long as you do it occasionally, the fear of such tactics is sufficient and often more effective than building decks around these so-called “broken” or “cheesy” mechanics – but you have to be able to back up that threat. Sort of like an equilibrium strategy in the game-theoretic sense. Ideally, you don't want to upset the metagame by going too far with any of these tactics, because there will likely be some kind of backlash. This is in contrast with section 1 where I advised to be aware of and prepared for the above tactics.
4. Feng Shui choices
The Feng Shui sites you end up playing with are far from a cookie-cutter or one-size-fits-all sort of choice. Your choice of Feng Shui is interdependent on two qualities of your deck. If your deck is a Turbo/Speed deck, then the number of sites you'll be playing with will be very small. You'll be aiming at taking a site by turn 2 or 3 at the latest so your deck will have to be very focused and tight. The reason for that is that you will often roll over if you fail to pull off your turn 2 or 3 bid for victory. Your sites will almost all somehow help you get out that hitter or whatever you have planned within those first 3 turns. The most common such site is Proving Ground for decks that try to quickly get out a relatively large or particularly damaging character early on. Eagle Mountain is very popular in “glass cannon” sort of decks where you aim to get out a large number of 1-fighting characters that deal large amounts of damage but are otherwise fragile.
Towards the other end of the spectrum are slower ramping decks where the deck isn't going at full speed until perhaps 5 or more turns. The extreme case are discard decks that never really “go for the win” and only try to outlast the opponent. In these cases, Feng Shui sites and other cards will have to be chosen to keep you in the game and buy you time to execute whatever you've planned for your deck. One way to do this is to use defensive sites such as Turtle Beach, Fox Pass, Kinoshita House and the like. This might also mean putting something with very high body or toughness in the front such as Grizzly Pass or Diamond Beach. In my experience it is necessary to play other defensive cards within your faction in addition to your Feng Shui sites, because they're not enough alone. The other approach, and the one I favor for a slower deck, is to assume it is inevitable that you're going to lose sites, so choose ones that give you a boost when they're taken. The best one of these is Nine Dragon Temple, in my opinion. Often times you'll fare better than your opponent when you lose a site, so these can be quite effective. This approach also has the advantage that you're playing with fewer defensive cards, so there is more space in your deck to fill with useful cards for when you are ready to go on the offensive.
In most cases, plan on only playing only one column of sites. Exceptions to this might be when you're running many sites that have redirection effects, or perhaps when you’re playing Battleground sites and your Feng Shui sites behind them. Usually, if you're playing that many sites, you're more susceptible to leeching effects. You're also investing several turns worth of power into sites while your opponent could be preparing to put the moves on you. Not to mention the obvious, your sites are harder to defend. When things are going favorably for your opponent, every site you have out can potentially count for their victory. Compare this with having no sites out and them have to draw Feng Shui before they can play them. With many sites out you may not be able to stop your opponent in time even if you're able to generate enough power for a comeback. What I mean to say is: having fewer sites out makes it easier to control the pace at which your opponent can approach victory.
If you do find yourself needing to play 3 or more Feng Shui sites in order to get the power to play your cards, your deck probably is too power hungry, and your cards are too expensive. Also, you probably could benefit from some alternative power generation.
5. Combos vs. Synergy
First let me define what I mean by combo and synergy. A combo is when you take one marginal card that you'd normally not play, often due to a drawback, and use another card with it to make it good. Sometimes brokenly good. Synergy, I would say, is taking two cards that are good independently, but together they're much better than they were alone.
I tend to favor using synergy rather than combos for several reasons. In a combo, when you have one card but not the other, you basically have garbage in your hand. Also, discarding one card out of the combo is a Faustian choice, because for all you know the other card of the combo is the very next card!
Even when you have an awesome effect at the end, if the cards going in are of limited use you might find that when your combo goes off.. it's really not worth it. A friend of mine had a deck where all his characters would toast yours before combat – and the deck still sucked. Therefore, the combo strength should warrant the cards/factions required. Adding cards that require a second faction should not be taken lightly. I believe that adding in a second faction after you have a deck concept usually leads to disaster. This indicates to me that you are adding in the second faction to shore up weaknesses. In my experience, this will make your deck slower and more prone to stalling. Then again, sometimes you'll come across a multi-faction combo that just screams “killer deck”. There have been a handful of decks of that sort that I would call successful.
States can always be considered a combo card, because they always have to be played on some type of card. Thus, State strength should warrant its inclusion. In my experience, very few States make the cut. Some examples of States that are probably good enough to go into a lot of decks are: Spear of Destiny, Fortune of the Turtle, Fire Sled, and Devil's Rope.
Sometimes, your Feng Shui sites will be used as a combo with another card in your deck. Examples of this are many: SAM Simian and Mountain Fortress, Hidden Tomb and Jade Dragon, or Devil's Rope or almost any other State that is played on a site. Feng Shui sites make great elements in combos with other cards, because you need to play with Feng Shui sites anyway, so that frees up room in the rest of your deck for other cards. An example of this kind of thinking is the “Queen's Ball” deck below.
I haven't talked a lot about synergy. There will be some good examples when I discuss my “Rise of the NeoBuro” deck.
6. The Cutting Room Floor
It's all about what you cut. I usually start with 5 of every card I want and work my way down. When choosing candidates to cut think “How does this card help me achieve my plan for this deck (as outlined in the above sections)?” “Does it fit?” “Is there a single card that can achieve the job of two cards?” “Are there any times when I don't want this card in my hand?” Anyway, if you ask me this is the most difficult part. I don't think that's particularly insightful on my part, and I don't really have any good wisdom to offer here. A lot of the time I'll just cut one card over another by gut feeling, or perhaps go over some quick scenarios in my mind.
7. Back to the drawing board
Think about the end result of your deck unfolding during play and how long it takes to get there. Is it worth it? My playgroup and I sometimes come up with deck concepts that look good at first but we find that the end result is often too weak or it takes too much time to get there. Sometimes these issues can be fixed. Sometimes they can’t, and then it's time to scrap that deck and start anew.
To be continued...