Facebook Warstorm Guide to Creating a Competitive Deck

Guide to Creating a Competitive Deck by Sarkh

these are just my ways to construct a competitive deck. if you have anything interesting to add/argue/etc feel free. (this isn’t for a “generic lets throw all the high tier festers/dragons/etc that i have into a deck” style deck)

Step one: determine how your deck will win. Will it be through card advantage? delaying the opponent? flying over their dudes? Whatever it is concentrate on that at first.

Step two: find the best possible unit for your goal. (such as estian saboteur for delaying them.) Now pretend Every nonhero card slot was that unit.

Step three: Find any cards that synergize with the unit well enough that you would like drawing one as much or more than your “best possible unit” on the majority of turns.
decide on a ratio of the synergy cards to your “best possible unit” and change the decklist accordingly.

Step four: For the most part stay away from spells and artifacts unless you have a very good reason to run many of them. A few sigil of azubas or cask or necromancys are great in moderation, but if your deck is nearer to 2 artifacts/spells per squad you may run into problems. As you think about which spells and artifacts you are going to add consider the creatures you could instead be running in that card slot. As an example, if you wanted to add Silvintri Longbow to your deck, you should first compare it to creatures such as Giant Spider (which in many cases will be more beneficial)

Step five: Now that you have decided on artifacts and spells you can determine how many spell slots and artifact slots you need. Pick the best group of heroes you can think of that match the numbers you need.

Step six: Now add in other creatures that you believe will help your deck win in unfavorable matchups. these cards should be able to still create a 1 for 1 card advantage at least evevn if they are not protecting you from an unfavorable matchup. (A white dragon to fly over powerful groundbased decks, or a giant spider for the opposite as examples.) Determine a ratio based on the Meta.

Step seven: add in cards that don’t fit any of these criteria. for EACH card carefully consider whether you would prefer it occupying a creature slot, or if your “best possible creature” would better occupy that card slot. (examples: cave troll, venomous hydra, chg, shield rider)

A good thing to do is make a low tier version of that to test if it is expensive. Should it work well fOr a LOW TIER DECK then attempt to get the cards you need to build it.

Some cards may fit multiple steps (cataclysm synergizes with animated creatures, is a spell, AND helps against unfavorable matchups.), and there are always exceptions (example: some spells cause enough card advantage to be considered at nearer 2 per squad.)

If your entire deck seems to be failing maybe the “way to win” or “best possible creature for it” aren’t competitive. (some strategies get higher ratings than others (example: poison decks usually ends up low rated))

Thanks Sarkh, those sound like solid ideas! Allow me to add one of my own.

When you’re choosing cards in steps 3-5, I think it’s important to have decided how many squads will this one be working with. If it’s a solo squad you will have to make very different choices than if it’s apart of a 6s.

The aspect that will be affected most is the concept we ol’ M:tG players used to call: manacurve. I suppose here there’s an accepted name for it but I’ll call it “readiness.” How soon can you squad get into play? You should have a squad readiness that matches the way you wish to win and how many squads it’ll be working with. If you want to win by speed (re: spam) in the solo or 2s categories, then your squad should have a very high readiness (be ready as quickly as possible). Or if you’re playing 6s you may want to focus on a higher overall readiness because you’ll likely have more time to get them all out before you’re in a dire situation with your morale, and you’ll need powerful cards (which often have a higher ready value) to deal with your opposition’s powerful cards.

But usually your squad will benefit from having a range of readiness (some units that are ready early, some middle and one or two late). Or if you have a generally late squad – you’ll want some cards that rush to make up for it.

For example, I saw a guy on FB hit me with a 2s of almost all CHGs – well my 2s didn’t have a high readiness, but I was still able to win before he got more than one of those CHGs out – some high readiness 2s would have had him dead even before one CHG hit the table.

Whereas some are ready too fast with too low attack, which can mean that they don’t have enough “meat” in the squads and lose as soon as a few of their opponent’s units hit the table.

So generally readiness balance is good – just keep an eye on it. Are you dead before you get all your awesome cards out? You might need to raise your readiness. Or, if your low attack units get overwhelmed too quickly too often? You might need to lower your readiness and get some real butt-kickers in your squad.

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