Need help figuring deck building

By aljovin, in Star Wars: The Card Game - Strategy

Yesterday, I went to my first tournement, got wipped completely. I came back frustrated.

I don't mind loosing a few game (even the majority), if I at least can win once in a while.

However, once I got over it, I do realize that I suck at deck building, heck, I don't even like that part of the game, I like to play, not building decks!

So this is why I'm coming here, I need help figuring out HOW to enjoy deck building, or at least understand how to build it.

I've played with the following objectives:

Dark Side : Scums

2x The Tatooine Crash

2x The Bespin Exchange

2x Hive of Scum and Villainy

2x Hunt them Down

2x Trandoshan Terror

I did better on that one, but not enough to get one win

Light Side: Smugglers

2x Questionnable Contacts

1x Asteroid Sancuary

1x Thrust me

1x Across the Anoat Sector

1x The Defense of Cloud City

1x Escape from Ord Mantell

1x To Arms!

1x Wookiee Life Debt

1x Raise the Stakes

For my Light Side deck, I should have concentrated a bit more my objectives, I really didn't review it since I bought my second Edge of Darkness set. This might be a reason why that deck didn't perform well,but again, I know I suck at deck building.

Any advices on building decks?

I'm guessing you have 2x of the Core and Edge of Darkness, as well as 1x of each Force Pack released?

Your LS deck is too unfocused and lacks consistency. Figure out what you want to do with it and increase most objectives to 2x from 1x.

Generally I look at deckbuilding with a specific goal in mind. Realize you won't see the Objectives you like most every single game, so try not to have those become a focus for your deck. Focus more on which cards for your command deck you would like to see in your hand. Do you want lots of low cost Units for a swarm? Maybe a few Unique high cost Heroes/Villains to aid them?

Also play to the strengths of your Affiliation. If playing Sith Control with a couple copies of Vader's Objective Set, maybe you want to include more Sith Event cards to make use of Vader's Reaction. If playing Scum & Villainy, focus on low cost Units with Tactics Icons.

I agree with Toqtamish on this one. Variety can be nice but you want at least some form of consistency and an overall goal with your deck. 2x of your most useful Objective Sets will show you that consistency.

I'm guessing you have 2x of the Core and Edge of Darkness, as well as 1x of each Force Pack released?

Correct (Just got the last force pack yesterday, just before the tournement)

Your LS deck is too unfocused and lacks consistency. Figure out what you want to do with it and increase most objectives to 2x from 1x.

I have figured it out when I wrote the list. I should have gone with one of my other deck. ;)

Generally I look at deckbuilding with a specific goal in mind. Realize you won't see the Objectives you like most every single game, so try not to have those become a focus for your deck. Focus more on which cards for your command deck you would like to see in your hand. Do you want lots of low cost Units for a swarm? Maybe a few Unique high cost Heroes/Villains to aid them?

Also play to the strengths of your Affiliation. If playing Sith Control with a couple copies of Vader's Objective Set, maybe you want to include more Sith Event cards to make use of Vader's Reaction. If playing Scum & Villainy, focus on low cost Units with Tactics Icons.

I agree with Toqtamish on this one. Variety can be nice but you want at least some form of consistency and an overall goal with your deck. 2x of your most useful Objective Sets will show you that consistency.

Both of you have hit the nail; I have a hard time figuring out what should be the core mechanic of a deck. I guess it's the biggest issue I have with deck building, I have no clue what I can do with the ton of cards we already have, even less what are the ones I'd enjoy playing together that have some synergy.

For my DS deck, I wanted to have a capture mechanic in place, when I wrote them down, I realized that I probably need a mechanic to move the captured cards to other objectives/characters. How do you figure you've got enough Edge cards? Fate cards? Or even enough resources?

I dont worry much about fate cards other than trying to have at least 2 twist of fates in every deck I run.

What will be used in the Edge Stacks depends on what I'm playing out that turn and what I want to tty and hold onto.

As far as resources go, it depends on the amount of high cost units you will be playing. That will be something you can determine when playtesting your deck. I recently tried the "Superfriends" deck of 2x Yoda, 2x Luke, 2x Guardians of Peace, 2x Falcon and 2x Han. After played it a few times it seemed to draw too many resource cards and not enough Units. I swapped Yoda out for Obi-Wan and enjoy it more.

You can check out my old deck building article for a description of my general process. It was written when just the core set was available, but the process still applies.

As far as translating into winning games, deck building will take a back seat to the tactics of playing the game. The best way to improve there is to play lots of games, learn from your mistakes, and just talk to people about playing the game. Good luck and welcome to the game!