What is your deck size? In my games, a 50 card deck has to allow one zone of the capital undefended....the quest zone. The reason for this that you can quickly deck yourself without any help from your opp if you place too many units there. My opp always notices the lack of units there and steamrolls the area. This problem I believe can be solved by having a larger deck. I can adjust my defensives a lil better.

I think the idea is for games to not last long enough for this to be an issue. Granted . . . . a bigger deck size could allow you to put more in your quest area, but if you have the smaller deck size you can get to key cards quicker and hopefully finish off your opponent faster.

your point holds truth in most ccgs, but the fact that you can control how many cards you draw in this game and no hand limit...makes for a muted point. For example, would I'd rather draw only two cards in a 50 card deck or draw 4 cards in 100 card deck. Answer...I don't know. Maybe you should run the probalities to see the sweet spot for numbers of cards in deck and number of cards drawn.

I'm running 60 per deck at the moment.

I've never been a big believer in minimum deck sizes. Invasion seems to not be so heavily combo-based as most others, so it's even less of an issue. There are certainly some powerful combos, but there don't seem to be many "If I draw X and Y I win, otherwise I'm in trouble" setups.

It seems to me that it's a far better approach to set up a general approach and theme for the deck, and be able to play what comes.

So for the moment I'm running 60. Above that doesn't seem to be productive with the current card pool, because themes seem to fragment and the deck gets disjointed.

Another point to consider, although I haven't actually played enough to verify it, is that card draw will be critical with attrition. The combination of choosing where to apply damage to your opponent and persistent damage means that units are going to be dying A LOT. Maintaining quest and kingdom is going to be critical to being able to keep new units coming into the fight. That's also why I think support cards like the Contested*, Armoury, and Forgotten Cemetary are important. Unit power can be removed relatively easily, but the options for hitting those are more limited.

i run a 60-65ish deck. I also build in cards that i don't mind seeing but have no problem dropping as a development.

on a side note if your going to leave a zone undefended you should think about warpstone evacuations and put them in that zone. they either give you more draw/resources or developments.

I've been seeing and hearing rumbling about people (bizarrely) leaving an entire Zone open to attack and I'm just not seeing the strategic value in doing so. With the goal of the game being to Burn two Zones, letting an opponent wipe one out straight away seems dangerous from my perspective. Now you have one realm to defend before you sink to defeat - that's just way too risky, especially since there are a decent number of ways (even now with only a Core Set worth of cards available) to wipe out Units quickly.

It's one of those ideas that on the surface sounds clever our seems sound but in practicality falls short.

That's not to say that someone can't find a way to survive doing this but I'd be curious to see how successful this kind of idea would be in the long-run.

To answer the OP's question, I'm between 60-70 cards and it's worked fairly well so far. I'm sure that with such a small, focused selection of initial cards for us to work with, that the actual deck size factor won't have quite the impact it will down the road.

For two player duels the smaller fast decks are were it's at. Even with the dwarves who often can out last their opponents there are quests that can bring cards back from the discard pile to help them carry the day.

If you want to run a larger deck then you are looking at a multiplayer free for all type of game. It's more of a political game with players constantly jockeying to stay a head of the arms race while holding a few aces in their hands.

But with team games and two player duels 50-60 cards should be your goal. Do the math and go over your combo(s) and needs.

You'll want the majority of your deck to be units because well they supply power for doing damage, drawing cards, drawing resources, and are your best line of defense. You'll also want a power base to fuel the deck's resource needs so that you never find yourself short on resources to play your cards. Lastly you'll want whatever combo(s) you like to run.

If you have a game winning combo you like then pull the cards for that combo and make sure you include enough of those cards to reasonably draw them during the course of the game. Combos should be things that require 3 cards at the most to get off. Anything more than that and it becomes more of a multiplayer political strategy rather than a lightning quick duel strategy. I recommend thinking a head and making sure you can get a combo off by turn 4 if not sooner. By then attacks/defense from opponents are set in and their power base for drawing resources and managing card draws is set in. You'll want t throw a monkey wrench into their plans at that point and lay on the damage to their capital or deck quickly. With that in mind count those cards and see how much room you have left for say a 50 card deck. I'd say at least 25 cards should be units that can be used for attack or defense. Everything else inbetween should be your power base and possible second combo.

It could be just me but if you keep the deck small and make sure you have enough cards to rinse and repeat powerfull attacks you will win more often, have more fun. suffer less disappointing card draws, and inspire better deck building skills amongst your opponents.

I've not seen that, at all, in our games. I suspect part of that is because of the limited number of cards - enforcing themes that really don't exist in a variety of cards yet is not something anyone should have to worry about it. Yet.

I'd cheerfully put up both of my larger-sized decks (Orcs & Dwarf/Empire Hybrid) against anyone's smaller deck. It's important not to bring preconceived ideas from other CCGs or LCGs to this game as it's very different. Since you can use bad "draws" as developments, this game has effectively negated the crappy draw syndrome. The only real issue is your management of the two resource zones from what I've seen so far. If you're handling that pretty well, you'll have a fighting chance with both larger decks and smaller decks from what I've seen so far (anecdotal but I've had the game since GenCon and have played it a freakin' butt-load with experienced CCG and LCG players, so I feel comfortable supporting this point).

As a sidenote, (and this isn't a bash directed at Harliquine by any means, he wrote a good guide toward CCG deck-design in general, even if it's not entirely applicable to Warhammer:Invasion), take strategy advice about deck-building at the moment with a grain of salt from any of us. This is such a new game and has such a limited base of cards to work with at the moment that anyone claiming to have expert advice really can't support that conclusion. Yeah, at the moment there ARE (admittedly) some rough concepts that Warhammer:Invasion fans should keep in mind but that's all they are. It's unlikely that anyone will have the key to building a secret uber-powerful winning deck - partially due to the luck factor of any game and partially due to the lack of a larger card-base at the moment.

apkenned said:

What is the mathmatical sweet spot with number of cards drawn and number of cards in a deck? How would one calculate that?

The answer to your question is 42.

You'll need to calculate the ratio on your own. There is no hard and fast rule to it that works for every player. Each game and each player due to the randomness of the draw you will have a different game. So Whitefang might have great draws for getting the cards he needs with a larger deck. I on the other hand find it sometimes difficult especially with just the one core set at the moment (my LGS is sold out ). Both of us will play a deck many times and during those times we will add or subtract cards trying to find a way to make the deck both play fast but also be well rounded enough to play versus difficult strategies that the focus of our decks does not deal with well.

So should you find yourself not getting to the cards you need quickly enough then cut cards from the deck. Should you find yourself drawing through deck too quickly despite your card draw management or if you find that the deck needs something else to deal with an unforseen strategy then add cards but do so with a purpose.

To help us help you as it seems you have something in mind what are you playing with and what seems to be or not to be working for you against what opponents?

My first attempt at a deck is running at 70 cards, remains to be seen how well it will work though.

Harliquine said:

Thanks for the insight. I guess what I'm asking is that If I need 2 cards in my hand to get a combo off and I have 3 of each in my deck, what is the optimal number of card draws (which in many other ccgs is one) to deck size. I know what the number is at the extreme...for a 50 card deck or even a 100 card deck...the optimal draw to see those cards is the entire deck ( 50 or 100 cards). I guess I'm looking for a statiscal break down of card drawn vs deck size for a 2 card combo.

In short, your play style, deck build, and faction will have a lot to do with what you find your optimal number is. I'd recommend not putting more than 60 cards in a deck to start with. Then play a handful of games and take a look at the games you won versus those you lost. How much power did you end up putting in your QZ over the length of the games. How many resources were needed to be able to play out the cards you drew?

You'll discover against certain races and certain builds you will need more or less cards placed in one zone or another. You need to make sure that your deck size will allow for you to put more cards in play as necessary without decking yourself... but you do want to generally have 10-15 cards left in your deck at the end of a game. That is a comfortable cushion. If you end up with 5 or 6 that is cutting it way too close, IMO. If you end up with 20-30 cards in your deck, you either have an excellent combo your opponent can't answer for, or your deck is just much larger than you need.

I'll say this again to make sure the OP doesn't miss it - there's really no hard, fast rule on how many cards to put in a deck. I've been winning very consistently with deck sizes anywhere between 60-78 cards. If there becomes a perfect deck size, that's the day I'll probably this game - I hate formulaic experiences.

What he said.

Wytefang said:

Wytefang said:

Alright....I found the answer in an old stat book. I will not graph all the data for Fang...just look up Hypergeometric distributions

Anyways.... for 50 card deck drawing 1 card a turn- 32% chance of seeing it in your opening hand ( I would do it as you draw during the turns...but it gets more complex than I would like...I think)

for 75 card deck drawing 1 card a turn- 22% chance of seeing it

for 100 card deck drawing 1 card a turn- 19% chance of seeing it

Makes sense right...more cards less chance to draw them. The probality trend will continue if we increase the number of cards draw, just that the smaller decks will deck themselves but see the cards they want even faster. Agreed?

Now lets say You don't want to deck yourself so lets vary the number of cards draw for these decks

for 50 card deck drawing 3 card a turn- 40% chance of seeing it

for 75 card deck drawing 5 card a turn- 35% chance of seeing it

for 100 card deck drawing 7 card a turn- 32% chance of seeing it

So for 100 card deck to equal the same probaility of a 50 card deck that was drawing only 1 card a turn....it have to draw 7 cards a turn! Smaller decks it is! 65 card deck ..with 4 cards drawn per turn....Would be 36%

The deck size has more influence in one turn card draws

For 50 card deck drawing 5 card a turn for 3 turns - 17% chance of NOT seeing it

for 75 card deck drawing 5 card for 3 turns- 35 % chance of NOT seeing it

for 100 card deck drawing 5 card for 3 turns- 47% chance of NOT seeing it

Same result!

Vary the cards drawn

For 50 card deck drawing 3 card a turn for 3 turns - 46%c hance of seeing it

for 75 card deck drawing 5 card for 3 turns- 45 % chance of seeing it

for 100 card deck drawing 7 card for 3 turns- 44% chance of seeing it

So for my deck of 65 cards with 4 cards drawn per turn....I would have a 45% chance of seeing it

Wow . . . nice work. Haha.

Stats are great and all (cool site, btw) but the thing is they leave out the dynamic factor. Just because a larger deck-size means 1 particular card may end up in your hand a bit less frequently completely ignores the fact that most decks aren't hinged on any one single card (or even multiple cards) - they're focused on being an entire cohesive whole. At different times, your deck may require a variety of cards and effects to function efficiently - that dynamism is what's overlooked by mathematical statistics. I'm not saying that such an examination couldn't prove useful for specific themes, it can help you to balance out card types and ratios and such but all too often these types of statistical analysis leave out too many dynamic aspects of the game (personalities, game importance, luck factor, etc...).

This is something I've learned from playing Spellfire, which for all its many flaws, had one strange but useful rule that has always stood me well in deck-design mode - you could only have a SINGLE COPY of any card in a deck. While that sounds bizarre to some, it's taught me the value of similarly-powered cards and the usage of similar but different cards much more than I'd have learned while playing CCGs that require multiple copies of the same card to be successful. I've found in playing players of CCGs that require multiple card copies to enforce a theme, that my freedom from the robotic deck-building "rules" or "expectations" has given my decks the edge at times. in other words, being freed from the artificial constraints of deck-sizes, has yielded a whole cool world of deck-design building.

So feel free to live by a hard and fast rule when it comes to deck design and sizes, I'll stick with my open-ended building and be every bit as happy and probably just as successful, too.

Perhaps down the road, as more cards are introduced and gameplay aspects and trends begin to set in, people can point to a specific deck-size as being more functional or more potent but for now, none of us can really know what's best in deck-design.

Yeah of course...math can't solve everything....except ..42. You can do the math for multiple cards showing up. I just did one card because A.) its easier to calculate. B.) suits my needs for deck size versus card draws. C.) Its interesting

Anyways, I think If I have my deck size around 65 and quickly achieve drawing 4 cards a turn. I'll get the cards I want with a high level of probability. Ultimately, thats what I want. The most important piece of data was that for 100 card deck to equal the same probaility of a 50 card deck that was drawing only 1 card a turn....100 card deck will have to draw 7 cards a turn!

AKPenned, I should clarify that I wasn't trying to rip on you (at all) for posting that. It was really cool and insightful (though I've seen that sort of analysis previously). I'm really happy with a deck size between 60-75. I like the extra cards to cover me in case someone attempts a deck-out on me.

Statistics don't lie, but they rarely mean what we think they mean, and never tell the entire story.

What I mean by this, is that knowing the percentages of drawing a single card in a deck of a given size is incredibly useful for figuring out howe many times a card that fits a specific slot should appear in your deck. We have a limit of 3 cards per deck, but if I have 12 cards that all serve the same purpose, that redundancy is going to give me a higher chance of seeing the card effect even in a larger deck than a smaller deck where a specific effect appears on a single card x3.

This also goes along with the idea that if I'm cutting cards or instances of cards to get to 50 I have less versatility and if my deck does not have the solution then how fast I can draw a card is immaterial when compared to my inability to draw the card.

These stats let me see what an ideal draw number is for a deck of a certain size to get the effects I want into my hand, and that info is priceless. Building a deck is all about built in redundancy and synergy. The stats provided are invaluable. Some people will assume that the stats are telling them to play a 50 card deck... to which I have to smile and say, yes, yes they are.

Hehehe. I prefer larger decks but I'll tweak them to ensure their maximum efficacy.

That being said, of course, it also all depends on how you plan to play. If you're playing for fun, you probably won't be worried about having the most brutally efficient, perfectly synergistic decks either!

But for tournaments, learning the stats is incredibly useful, no doubt about it. Kudos again to AKpenned for posting that info.

If I were going to play a straight Orc deck, I'm going to want the fewest cards possible so I can draw into my Waarghs and other monster cards which in the right combination can burn an under-defended zone with one combat phase. Hit fast, hit hard, hit often. With a Dwarf deck I'll probably play a more medium sized deck, heavier on tactics than I might otherwise play, because the supports and units can withstand so much damage, I can outlast a number of my opponents just by playing conservatively and using my tactics to control tempo.

Different deck sizes for different builds, races, and strategies.