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CCG 101: Deck Building Basics

by - 11 years ago

Now that we have gone over what exactly a Collectible Card Game is, it is time to build your deck! The goal of this article will be to help new players avoid a couple of the most common mistakes that most of us have been guilty of at one time or another with some learning faster than others. The first CCG that I personally played in any competitive way was the Pokemon game back when it was a brand new concept with a paltry 150 monsters. My first opponent, another kid around my age or possibly younger asked me what kind of deck I had to which I proudly stated that I used all of the elements based around the strongest cards I had found within my boosters. His reply was to say, “Oh cool,” and then proceeded to quickly crush my deck in a torrent of fire and psychic attacks. Of course it wasn’t my fault, it was just dumb luck that kept me from drawing the cards I needed and thus I never changed my deck. I also never won because I had yet to learn the following lessons.

When building your deck, you first need to decide what kind of role you want to specialize in and build around that idea. Do you want a burn deck that will destroy your enemies in record times, or do you want a turtle deck that keeps you alive as long as possible while whittling your opponent’s health away? Do you want to focus on getting as many creature cards on the field as is possible, or do you want to be a support player who only participates in team games and buffing your allies? Whichever play style strikes your fancy, you need to focus on that so that you can ensure that your cards complement one another as well as having the resources needed to use them.

The other most common mistake that new players make is choosing cards solely on their potential destructive power. Sometimes you will open a few boosters and find a couple of terrifying cards, like a spell card that deals a ton of damage in one quick burst. Realizing that all you would need is maybe 3-4 of those cards to kill your opponent, you pick up a few of those and fill the rest of your deck with the resources needed to cast it, thus ensuring a quick victory!

This scenario has the same issues as the previous piece of advice in that it requires an unusually high level of luck. While yes, if you draw the right cards you are guaranteed to win, you have no way of ensuring you will actually get the cards you need. Even if you still want to specialize in a late-game deck, you need to ensure you live that long to see those cards get any use. A bunch of fodder units that cost a small amount of resources can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Build your deck so that you will have at least some presence in the early, mid, and late games no matter what kind of deck you want to focus on.

With these two common errors out of the way, we will start going over more in-depth deck building advice next week.


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JR Cook

JR has been writing for fan sites since 2000 and has been involved with Blizzard Exclusive fansites since 2003. JR was also a co-host for 6 years on the Hearthstone podcast Well Met! He helped co-found BlizzPro in 2013.


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