by JR Cook - 11 years ago     show comments

We’re back with part two of our coverage of the basic types of deck builds for beginning players. Last time we discussed the Burn deck for quicker, damage-based builds and Turtle decks for players who prefer planning for the long-term and outlasting their opponent. Today the decks we’ll go over are a bit more complicated but still nothing outside of the abilities of a well-informed newb.

The Swarm Deck

He doesn’t mean much alone, but with 3-4 other Beasts this guy can turn a game around!

The Swarm Deck is also known as the creature or minion deck. While all decks employ minions to some extent, this deck is built solely around getting out tons of creatures out as quickly as possible and buffing them to some ridiculous damage. Just about any minion can find a home in a Swarm Deck, but there are a few that are practically designed for such a build. Some creatures in CCGs will offer benefits to creatures of the same types, so when you start to see, say, a murloc creature in Hearthstone that adds one damage and one health to all other murlocs, you can expect to see a lot more murlocs before the game is through.

Swarm decks are generally comprised of many smaller creatures as opposed to a few large ones. This is because swarm decks need to overwhelm their opponent early on, at least until they can get a big creature out or buff up their weaker minions until they become unstoppable. With that said, a creature deck can be easily thrown into disarray by a Burn deck that specializes in Area of Effect abilities. Little hurts more than seeing your army of 2 health minions wiped out instantly by some stupid mage. They are a nightmare, however, for Turtle decks as the opponent simply won’t be able to withstand the constant punishment for long. They can also be a hassle for unlucky Control decks that lack the cards to keep the creatures from getting buffed.

The Control Deck

That’s a nice 9/9 creature you have there…

The Control Deck can also be referred to as the Troll Deck, with either great affection or pure hatred. This deck type is all about controlling the board by completely messing with your opponent. They just played a spell that deals a ton of damage? Counter that with an ability that completely blocks it, or better yet, redirect the damage back at them! A big creature with an insane amount of damage and health just showed up? Nerf it down to a 1/1, or mind control it and make it yours! The Control Deck ensures that you have the freedom to to whatever you want on the board while infuriating your opponent to the point that they start to make stupid mistakes.

The cards that go into a Control deck are fairly self-explanatory; anything that confers an ability that alters the behavior of another ability or creature works in a Control Deck. Thankfully, most CCGs have an abundance of creatures that mess with players as soon as they are dropped. The control deck is not invincible though. As stated above, a creature deck can quickly overwhelm a control deck if the player is unable to block the tide of minions early on. A turtle deck can also spell trouble if the control player doesn’t employ enough direct damage in their deck. The burn deck is the control players opponent of choice, because those nasty spells won’t mean anything if they are constantly being thrown back in the aggressors face.

The selection of deck types does not end with just these four; one of the best things about a Collectible Card Game is that you can literally build whatever kind of strategy you want. These are just the most common types that you will see as well as being the simplest to plan for and against. Once you have crafted a few of these decks and get used to the mechanics of whatever game you are playing, you will soon begin to formulate your own ideas and decks. Discovering if they work through trial and error is half the fun of the genre!