Full Foil Packs/Deck Amount questions

By eric.sita, in UFS General Discussion

I got a pack a week or so back that had nothing but foils...is this normal?

I notice a lot of people play odd deck amount sizes in this game, more then any game I have seen. I am used to other games where you wanna run it at EXACTLY minimum to maintain a proper balance to drawing the cards you want. I know with this game you draw thru your deck much quicker so it refreshes fast which can be double edged meaning it should be easy to draw into your stuff, but bad because you can cycle fast....why is there such a wide disparity interms of total numbers in a deck. I cant bring myself to mathmatically gimp myself so can someone provide some good ideas to change my look on it.

All foiled packs are "God Packs", they're a rare occurance in a pack that are pretty nice to get.

People run various amounts in there deck for a few different reasons. Many people swear by running 60 cards, particularly as a 6 handsize character, but others run a few more to get in more anti-meta cards in--to cover their bases. Astrid will often times run around 70, because she mills herself, many 7 hand sizers will run as high as 66 (but many seem to try to do a max of around 64-65), and that sort.

Good questions,

God pack answered.

When I first started playing I went with 69 card 7 hs characters, 64 6hs characters, and 60 5 hs-ers. Now, there is no fast and hard rule. In fact my recent Alex decks are right around the 80 card mark (there is a lot of draw) and it is really consistent and often is able to 'go off' or kill on turn 3-4, as early as 2 but not consistently.

It's not so much the overall size of your deck that matters, it is it's ability to get the cards it needs when it needs them (and yeah, I know these are related, but there are many factors that go into the later).

Let's take a favorite character of mine that I like to build on occassion as an example. Leona (8hs block 3).

Well, with an 8 hs it might be natural to build a bigger deck becuase she 'should' get through it faster than most. But the other thing you need to look at is deck style. Leona is an agressive deck style, in that her abilities and her vitality total (14) say - kill soon or be killed. Agressive decks tend to play with fewer sizes becuase they want to draw into the kill condition soon before their opponent has a chance to set up answers. In most of my Leona builds we are looking at 60 - 63 card decks.

Let's take a look at another favorite character - Blanka (7hs promo block 3).

His ability involves taking the top 3 cards of his deck and adding them to his momentum. This necessarily means that there needs to be a big deck for him - that is, most decks that ammass momentum a) need slightly larger decks (becuase they almost always want to run 3 or 4 ofs cards they absolutely need to draw, heaven forbid the 1 copy of a needed card gets stuck in momentum) and b) need ways to draw cards from the momentum which require more cards in the deck (i.e. more resources to get to what is needed sooner).

I guess what I am saying is the decksize is not nearly as clearcut in UFS as it is in other CCGs, it all depends on the decks playstyle and statistics. At the end of the day, my advice is always PLAYTEST PLAYTEST PLAYTEST, you will find out sooner rather than later if your deck is too big or too small.

- dut

To this day I have not ever found the need to go over 60 cards. while you can safley go over 60 and maintain your control ratio and your % to roll any given number, you cannot go over and maintain your odds to draw any one specific card. I feel that this rule should apply to any deck in the combo or control realm.

That being said I do think there are potential combo / mill builds that merit going over 60 as it stands to be thier win condition. But thoes builds are typically specific and rare, such as Goo's Talbain mill deck or the old Hugo Tutor deck that could safley pull any 3 cards from itself every turn of the game. If you are a begining player my recomendation to you is start with 60 and try to build a cohesive strategy. Once you have landed there and played a few games you can judge for yourself if you need more cards.

If your character is Astrid, or you know your deck draws a LOT, then you might wanna consider heading up towards the 70s

I try to stick to 59 + 1 decks (aka 59 cards and 60 with your character card) hand size doesnt matter to me as I always want to be able to see as many cards as possible as soon as possible to be fast and consistent. Sometimes though you want too much and 61-62 card decks happen and those are usually fine too. I don't ever really see a reason to run more then that in a deck outside of decks that burn through cards fast like promo alex.

It entirely depends on what I'm doing as far as a deck is concerned.

I tend to stick to 59+1, cutting certain amounts of cards from it (I very rarely play full playsets) in order to pack more tech or more head exploding. If needed, I'll go higher, but I'll try to have a draw tech in there.

I tend to build decks right at 64-65 myself. I find it really hard to cut stuff xD

But more is a good idea when you have a big handsize or lots of draw power. My Donovan deck was 67 cards, for example, whereas my Tira is 65 (64 once the game starts).

ive been up to 100 cards before with sucess and last weekend ran 74 in akuma so he worked fine (the player however didn't gui%C3%B1o.gif )

For aggro decks, I generally run 59 card decks. For control i'll go to 68 as my magic number, I don't know why but if I go over 68 my numbers tend to get too weird. I also tend to run 1-2 copies of my bullets to mess around with people.

64 cards + 1 character. 64 is a superperfect number and the lowest positive power of 2 that isn't next to a prime number. It's also the lowest number of cards that a deck can be and still be a perfect square.

maths are fun?

quarzark said:

maths are fun?

Yes. Maths are fun. (:

quarzark said:

64 cards + 1 character. 64 is a superperfect number and the lowest positive power of 2 that isn't next to a prime number. It's also the lowest number of cards that a deck can be and still be a perfect square.

maths are fun?

Solve our financial crisis.

Now.

MarcoPulleaux said:

quarzark said:

64 cards + 1 character. 64 is a superperfect number and the lowest positive power of 2 that isn't next to a prime number. It's also the lowest number of cards that a deck can be and still be a perfect square.

maths are fun?

Solve our financial crisis.

Now.

I think if the financial crisis could have been solved by good maths, it probably would have been avoided in the first place.

actually, I think the best thing about CCGs, especially ones like this is with a little playtesting and maths, after you draw your opening hand you can predict your checks, your board position, and damage output turn by turn. If you can guess your karma for the probablity factor (IE: if you put 2s in your deck, do you always check them? does someone in your playgroup ALWAYS check 6s when they need them?) you can easily figure out how games are going to go after turn 1.

or maybe I'm talking out my butt, but it works for me happy.gif

i like this game better because you can run seventy or 80 cards and still win. I remember from my yugioh days that when someone won a regional with a 42 card deck everyone acted like the messiah had finally come.

trane said:

i like this game better because you can run seventy or 80 cards and still win. I remember from my yugioh days that when someone won a regional with a 42 card deck everyone acted like the messiah had finally come.

Yep, this is the game mechanic that sets UFS apart. The 'draw up to your handsize' business that helps the pace of the game and further adds to risk-reward (i.e. play lots of cards, hold fewer blocks, to be agressive and draw more next turn).

Honestly, I've played some magic lately and Yugioh and the 'draw 1 card' is so painful after playing the refreshing mechanics of UFS. I mean, you literally have turns where your 1 card you drew can't even be played and you sit there drawing 1 card back and forth with your opponent...

uggh, sorry, I just had to comment on one of the main reasons I like UFS.

- dut