Well, I guess it's more of a size discussion.

I'm starting a new thread as I don't want really discuss cards in particular (though this discussion will certainly be less relevent if you don't include Envoy of the Queen in your deck).

SOOO, the question is, how many cards is good for an Astrid deck? While normally I tend to favor a 59 card deck, I can't help to make Astrid bigger. For starters, if I haven't killed by the time I cycle, then my powerlevel suddenly drops dramaticely. Of course the ideal situation is to "Check your Kill" with the second to last card in your discard (assuming no action/checking is going on during the attack) so you have the maximum number of weapons in your discard. Orchastrating that is not exactly reliable so you want a bit of extra as well, but as little as possible.

I ran a 89 card deck and felt it was too random. I've since whittled it brutally down to 70. I've still got an 8 card side board, and another 8 maybe sideboard, but haven't really had a chance to test it. My goldfishing seems to suggest I might be riding it a little tight, and 74 cards would be better, but I'd love to hear other folks thoughts on the subject.

And feel free to tangent into size discussion for other decks as well... I'd especially like to see how your average deck size relates to your opinions on that of Astrid, or a Mill deck for example.

69-78 cards,

Do include 4 'relentless', 4 'financial distress', and 4 'cursed blood', do mulligan if you don't get one. With a large deck you need build speed and draw.

Do run 4 pommel smash.

Don't include many assets - unless you also have the stackable promo. If you must run many assets, be sure to run both for the money and the other check bumping card from Zei Mei, and consider first right followed by cleave or hammer upper. Reason being you want as many foundations as possible to use the Astrid enhance on every weapon attack your throw.

Do run 15-20 attacks or 20-25% of your deck attacks. Reason being a) you need weapons, but b) you need enough foundations to 1) pass checks on multiple weapon attacks, 2) enhance with Astrid.

Do run weapon recursion, resourceful for sure, but also consider weapon with the combo keyword plus temujin's stuff and/or temujin's recur same keyword foundation, both of these will help you string attacks.

Finally, do consider adding a card to protect your staging area... Astrid's weakness is not being able to reversal or attack multiple times. i.e. a single attack is not much damage because one attack will be blocked less the staging area for speed or the staging area for a follow up attack.

One of Astrid's bigger weakness is getting her stuff destroyed, lowering the number of attacks she can throw + her enhance. There is at least a few cards that come to mind that help you retain your staging area, and definately one all card that you can possibly splash that will help a lot.

Finally, from the Hawk Alertness is often overlooked spam but I find it useful in many decks, especially those that now use Financial Distress. Namely, you can look at the 1-2 cards the opponent keeps in hand, and then decide if it is worth you forcing your opponent to discard it and/or mount an attack.

- dut

I've never wanted to build Astrid with more than 64 cards.. Much rather go with 60 tbh.. makes the whole thing work smoother and her damage is still crazy..

My Astrid runs 60 with character.

46 weapons + 1 character = 13 non-weapons

The assets are good, run Raven's Claw.

Mulciber113 said:

Realized the kill potential of that attack a few weeks ago, so **** good attack