I know in CCGs you generally want to have the minimum number of cards in your deck. Does the same hold true for a game like this? Thanks for any advice you can provide!

Yep, same thing here. You generally want to always have 50 cards. The 51st card is theoretically worse than the other 50 cards, so you're just diluting your deck. There have been a couple times that I've gone over 50, and that is generally only for decks that have a lot of card draw.

That is what I figured, but I just wanted to check. Thanks.

Regarding the "tournament deck" of 50; the heroes do not count toward the 50, do they?

Correct. Heroes don't count.

I'm no mathmatician, but I'm intrigued by how the 51st card supposedly is worse. I've tried to keep my deck to 50 cards exactly for a very long time, but lately I've settled for 51 because it's hard to take some cards out and there have been 51 sleeves in the packs I've bought.

When I build a deck I'll pull out usually 60-80 cards that I think might work in the deck. Usually 30-40 of them are "core" cards that are the best and are essential to the deck idea. Then what theoretically happens is I rank the remaining cards from best to worst and keep only the best cards until my deck is down to 50. It's this last step that means every card from 51 and above is worse than every card in the first 50. Likewise, every card from 61 and above is worse than every card in the first 60, but 50 is the arbitrary cutoff point we have to use.

The problem with the theory sometimes is when it's hard to rank the cards and I end up including a few extras because I just can't bring myself to cut them out. I know that my deck isn't as strong because I left in more than 50 cards, but I often like to include a few 1-of situational cards for that one epic moment that it works.

Right, now I see what you mean. I often find it difficult to rank cards when they do different things. I also have a few "standard" cards in every sphere that are pretty much auto-include in most decks, but I'm trying to be wary of that mindset. I've been chasing a One deck to rule them all - I'm not a fan of tailoring decks to scenarios. From HoN onwards, that's pretty much what we've had to do, though.

The idea is that by adding more than the minimum number of cards(50 in this case) you dilute your drawing pool making it more difficult to draw your best cards.

I have experience with several other competitive CCGs, so I am aware of this principle. I just was not sure that since this game is cooperative if there might be some other strategy to the deck building process.

Mathematically, of course it is best to minimize the number of cards in your deck. But I have had cases where I had a huge amount of card draw in the deck, so I had over 60 cards and would still draw a very good majority of my deck by the end of the game. If those decks had only been 50 cards, I'd have to either cut some of the card draw, which would mean I'd be getting through to my other cards less efficiently, or end up drawing my entire deck before I finished the game, so having more cards is a good choice there.

Also, if you do the math, having a few more cards (like 53 or 54), especially in a game that allows you to have up to 3 copies of each card (instead of only 1 or 2 copies) doesn't make a substantial impact. If I have "mediocre" card draw in the deck, I try to limit my decks to 53. If I have "good" card draw, I'll go up to 56. If I have "awesome" card draw, then I set the cap around 60.

So, strictly speaking: limit yourself to 50. If you hate those strict limits (like me), then the numbers I mentioned should work pretty well.

It actually depends upon want deck I'm using. I like to use 60 with my dwarf deck sorely because between ori and Gleowine, (+plus other random cards) I get through 50 cards pretty quickly. but thats just for dwarves because of my amazing card draw.

to 'reduce' deck size, you can always add cantrip-cards (no cost, draw at least one card), like we are not idle, daeron's runes and even dwarven tomb, in a way.

You should always try to have as few cards as possible in any card game (the one exception being when playing the Corporation in Netrunner, where you go slightly-above-minimum).

However, you can structure your deck such that it is not as necessary.My deck is heavy on cards (60+) but I use Gandalf as a hero and rely on heavy amounts of digging through my deck, drawing extra cards, discarding, etc. So, even with my 60+, I'll often chew up half or more of my deck in a game.

So , when you're using heroes and abilities that are directly meant to cycle your deck it changes the dynamics of deck construction, but even then, you need to be trim. If your deck ever hits 70+ cards, you've gone too far. Time to scale back.

Overall, though, a good rule of thumb is to always stay as small as the rules allow.

I usually build my decks for 55 cards. The math works out where you have a better chance of drawing a card when you have 3 of them in a 55 card deck than if you had 2 of them in a 50 card deck. I think Tales from the Cards had a good post about the probability of drawing a particular card depending on deck size and such.

I usually build my decks for 55 cards. The math works out where you have a better chance of drawing a card when you have 3 of them in a 55 card deck than if you had 2 of them in a 50 card deck. I think Tales from the Cards had a good post about the probability of drawing a particular card depending on deck size and such.

Thanks - went and read the article ( https://talesfromthecards.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/a-note-on-probability/ ) ... that is really interesting... if I were to have 18 different cards that I wanted to put in a deck, then having three of each in a deck of 54 works better than chopping some down to 1 or 2 copies. Not that it's likely I'll ever want all the cards in my deck equally... still, this is likely to increase, slightly, the number of cards I include in my decks (up to 53-54) to accommodate more sets of 3.

I was pretty intrigued by that article, and have been trying it out lately in games, not just this one. I've found it to be an improvement. Obviously that is the most anecdotal of evidence, but the math is already there in the article.