In these beleaguered time, where no starter decks are available for purchase anywhere, demo decks are a crucial way to get new people to play our beloved game. If you have always wanted to contribute to the recruiting effort from your collection while cleaning out your closet at the same time, here are a few guidelines for building a decent demo deck.
The Purpose of the Deck
… is obviously to introduce new players to the game. Ideally, the decks should be fun and easy to play, and showcase some of the strengths of Shadowfist. You want lots of characters, and lots of free stuff, so that the new player feels like he can influence the game at all times. You don’t want tricky decks. You don’t want decks that are poorly resourced. And you absolutely don’t want any cards that are hard to understand, or that (even worse) have been errated and don’t do what they claim they do.
At the same time, since a demo deck is the only way for a new player to get a whole host of cards that are necessary to build a good deck, you want to include the faction staples if possible: Imprison for Architects, Op Killdeer for Ascended, Brawl for the Dragons, etc.
Sometimes, the two goals above cannot be reconciled. A good, fun, fast-playing deck that shows off all the
Shadowfist cool stuff will likely contain cards that you don’t really want to give away, and a deck that contains all the bare essentials to play a faction may not work well unless the new player buys a handful of boosters. That’s alright. You can teach with one set of decks, and give out a different set if the potential recruits are interested. To me, it is more important that the initiate gets an impression of Shadowfist at its best rather than being taught on a mediocre deck that may be little fun to play but that he can keep afterwards. When teaching the game like that, I often use 10KB pre-constructed decks to teach, and then I give out decks that were built as described below.
Deck Composition
Since you are making decks to give away, you most likely will restrict yourself to cards that you own many more of than you need. Inevitably, these cards will be Limited or Standard, since those were the sets you could buy cheaply by the case. However, if you feel like you have too much of more recent sets, I’m sure the newbie will appreciate what you give him, since the newer cards usually are a bit better.
When building the deck, you don’t have to load it up with killer cards, but don’t put in any coasters, either. Most foundations are not coasters when put into demo decks (with the possible exception of Thorns of the Lotus…). Likewise, any card with a fighting of 5 or better has to be really bad to be too bad for a demo deck. But don’t let me catch you putting Spheres of Defilement and the like into the deck. If you really need to get rid of those kind of cards, there’s always the trash can.
On to deck building. We will aim for 50 cards, divvied up as follows:
- 10-11 foundations
- 10 characters /hitters
- 10-11 Feng Shui sites
- 10 free cards (if possible)
- 10 other cards
The foundation cards should consist of one foundation site, 1-2 characters that cost 3+ power, 3-4 characters that cost 2 power, and the rest should be 1-cost. If the faction usually has access to talents, include characters that provide them. Some foundation cards can double as hitters (Might of the Elephant), so you might want to put in more of those.
The characters should include some utility characters, eg. Military Commandant, Swiss Banker or Chinese Doctor. There should be some 3-for-4’s, and try to put in some bigger characters with 6+ fighting. Fist of the Bear, 100 Names, Shaolin Master all work well here. Stay away from all the over-costed Assassinate, Stealth and Ambush cards that Standard has. Not even a newbie will want to play with those. But if you have extras of any of the vanilla hitters, chuck 1-2 of those into each deck. Trust me, no one wants to trade for Oscar Balbuena, or the old Wong Fei Hong, or even Draco. But they’ll make nice solid game-winners in a demo deck.
Feng Shui sites should include at least one really big site, like Inner Sanctum, and several sites that generate power outside of the establishing shot. Blessed Orchard, Family Home, Grove of Willows and Cave Network are all good sites for a demo deck.
The leftover cards can be pretty much distributed as you like. Go for as much free stuff as possible, because those are cards that can be played even when your board position sucks. Every faction has at least on common playable free card that should be in the deck: Expendable Unit, Operation Killdeer, Final Brawl, Iron & Silk and … uuuhhh… well, maybe not every faction. But if you have too much Throne War, too, then you can add Die!!! and Flying Sleeves. Be sure to toss in faction-defining cards: Nerve Gas, Shadowy Mentor, Golden Comeback, Tortured Memories. Put in multiples of the cheap or free cards, and maybe try for a bit of variety if possible. Finally, include a few useful states. Really Big Guns or Explosives will go nicely into the Ascended deck (you put in Gruff Lieutenant, right?), but can find a place in any deck, really.
The exact composition of your demo deck really mostly depends on what you have in abundance.
Have fun building demo decks, and be sure to send all of your extra decks to Allen Hege!