Asian Pichu
Tester
Posts : 15
Join date : 2013-06-25
Location : United States
 | | Subject: How to build a deck by Asian Pichu Sat Jun 29, 2013 1:47 am | |
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Hello everyone, welcome to the class on deck building. If you have any questions, private message me on Dueling Network. (Screen-name Asian Pichu).
So, in building a deck, there are three things to look at. These three things will apply to EVERY deck and ANY deck. (Unless you don't care for winning or losing. Then you should just stop wasting your time and reading in general.) Also, this guide contains a bit of obvious but oftenly missed information. This information not commonly thought of by new players and/or players not experienced with strategy games. This information is very obvious to the ones who are very experienced in strategy games.
These three things are:
1) What is the deck's win condition?
2) How can the deck achieve its win condition?
3) What counters the deck and the deck's win condition?
The first thing to look at is, "What is the deck's win condition?"
Some people may not understand the question, so I am going to explain it. The win condition is pretty much how is the deck going to win against other decks and other players. This is not easy by any means. The deck builder must have a clear vision on how (s)he is going to win against the opponent. In this sense, the deck builder should be asking himself, "How am I going to drop my opponent's life points to zero?" "Am I planning to deck out my opponent?" "Am I planning to draw Exodia?"... Anything to make a win. Overall, when deck building, the first thing to have is a win condition, or multiple win conditions.
The second thing that is to be looked at is, "How can a deck achieve its win condition?"
This is rather difficult. What cards can allow a deck builder set up the planned win condition for his/her deck? This requires planning as well. The reason why this is difficult is because while doing this, the player has to maintain a hand or a field. If the player loses hand and/or field, the player generally is at a disadvantage. The more cards a player has, the more likely he has his win condition ready. So the goal is to set up the win condition without losing card advantage. Card advantage means how many cards a player has in his field and hand compared to his opponent's field and hand.
The final, and by far, the most difficult thing to look at is, "What counters the deck and the deck's win condition?"
This is mostly difficult because in order to do this, the deck builder has to know a majority of the cards in the game. A player must know what counters his win condition, or he will be beaten by his counter every time. An example is a Synchro deck vs an Evilswarm deck. Synchro decks need to Synchro into high leveled monsters to win the game in general. Evilswarm decks say, "No monsters level 5 or higher are allowed to be special summoned." In this match up, the Synchro player is generally screwed. However, in games 2 and 3, if the Synchro player is good, he can still win. How? He knows his counter is Evilswarms, and he can prepare for it. There is a card called Tsukuyomi that sets a monster on the field face-down. If The Synchro player summons Tsukuyomi to set Evilswarm Ophion, the Synchro player still has a chance of winning since he can now achieve his win condition. Of course, not everyone plays Evilswarms. So is it appropriate to put every card in a deck to counter the deck's counter? No. It slows down the win condition in general.
So how do we do this? Luckily for everyone, there is a "Side Deck." A Side Deck can consist of up to 15 cards. These 15 cards should be ways to counter the deck's counter. It will slow down the win condition, but at least the match doesn't become hopeless. In general, most people prefer to have a fighting chance rather than giving up a match. The way a Side Deck works is that in between Duels, assuming there is a Match (best 2/3), you are allowed to take up to 15 cards to switch with cards in your main deck. This way, a player has a chance to counter his counter.
Overall, remember, there are three things to look at when deck building. They are: "What is the deck's win condition?" "How can the deck achieve its win condition?" "What counters the deck and the deck's win condition?"
I hope this guide helps everyone build better decks. Good luck to everyone. Thanks for spending your time to read it. Please leave comments to help me improve this guide, or leave comments telling me how much this guide has helped or hurt you. Constructive criticism much appreciated. 
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