Looking through the rulebook for the CoC LCG, I looked for the deck-building rules. 2 paragraphs, basically saying: at least 50 characters, no more than 3 of a character. What? Huh? Is that it? Am I missing something fairly large here? And if I'm not, how could that work and be balanced?

Thanks for any help.

TheShadow said:

I think you mean 50 cards minimum, 50 characters is a bit much . And no, not missing anything, those are the only two rules there are, anything else is up to you.

Yes, I meant cards....I'm not very bright. Does this imbalance the game in any way? You could, in theory, have hundreds and hundreds of cards. Is there something in the game that keeps it balanced? Do you not want a great amount of cards? If you can lose by running out of cards...what's the point of that rule, if you can have a very large number of cards?

Well, generally you want the least amount of cards possible, otherwise you would have a clunky inconsistent deck. Sometimes a certain combo will require you to have alot but that's one in a million. So yeah you generally want to keep to the minimum so you can have a greater chance of pulling cards when you need them.

I believe it's no more than 3 of a card . Or else I've been playing it wrong. 15x Shocking Transformation really ought to do it.

+1 to Martha and Dave.

3 of any particular CARD, not just character. And note it goes by name. So for example you could only have 3 total "Julia Brown" even if some were Oddly Amphibious and some were Insomniacs

As for number of cards, well you put cards you want to play in your deck. If there are hundreds of cards in your deck then you will have a very small chance of getting the card you wanted. A well designed deck intends to see certain cards in certain sequences to win effectively, so you want to increase teh chances of getting the cards you want.

I would be surprised if any of the "competitive" decks have more than 50 cards (well maybe 51 in a special case) - it would reduce the likelihood of the deck working.

Well, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.

So there's no mechanic against lot's of cards, but it's better to have less. I think I get it now.

*Takes a bow* Why thank you Professor, I do what I can. LOL

isnt there the rule that you mus be able to shuffle your deck manually? that wouldnt be possible with hundreds of cards in the eck, except you found a way to grow some tentacles ...

I don't recall ever seeing anything about "manual" shuffling. Some of the more competitive, tournament games (Magic,Vs. etc.) perhaps?

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make a deck strong enough to not have to worry about running out of cards before you have crushed your opponent. This is easier when you pick some cards which work well together and are able to get them within not too many draws. This again happens more often with a smaller deck than a large one. I rarely see the game end because of a deck running out, though. It's only actually happened before I had a decent amount of asylum packs.

evilidler said:

At the tournament in Liege last year the winning deck was a depletion deck!

+1 to Jhaelen's comment.

In fact, my most consistent deck is my discard deck.

jhaelen said:

I only play with friends

(Well, at least they are for now. I have used discard-heavy tactics, but it always ended some other way so far!)

I think there's a line in the official tournament rules about having to be able to shuffle your deck "unaided," or somesuch. So, yeah, manually.

Also, most card games that allow you to customize your deck from a personal pool of cards (used to be called TCGs or CCGs, but... those monikers are a bit limited now) don't have a maximum deck size. As others have said in this thread, you generally want to have as few cards in your deck as possible in order to maximize on synergy and minimize on random chance.

The idea of "manual shuffling" comes from Magic, I think. All we have for Call of Cthulhu in the tournament rules is:

Decks must be randomized by some form of shuffling prior to the start of every game and whenever instruction requires it. Once a deck is randomized, the opponent must be given an opportunity to shuffle and/or cut the cards as well.

Huh, could've sworn I saw a line in their about manual shuffling. Maybe it was for Game of Thrones...

Woot! Break out the automatic card shuffler and get me a boot for my deck!

I'm trying to get new players into the game and giving them some easy to follow formulas about how many characters, supports, and events they should include in their deck is something they keep asking for. Since I generally build large decks and whittle them down until they are doing what I want them to do, my quantities are frequently pretty different depending on what I want the deck to do.

Do any of you have a general rule of thumb they you start with or could recommend for them?

Golly - it all depends on the goals of the deck. I have a deck that is 50 characters, no support, no events. But without characters it is hard to win, so I would be surprised to see a deck that is 0 characters (although i could imagine eventually we could see a discard deck that might function without characters).

That said, I'd be surprised if a deck would work well with less than 20 characters.

Always try to aim for 50 cards. Try to include all the cards that make your strategy work. Cut back on the cards that are good but dont fit your strategy. The chance that you draw those important cards is bigger then when using a deck with i.e. 65 cards.

I say about 30-40 characters, rest event or support. Depends on your deck, weenie means more characters, Control decks or mass wound decks mean more support and event.

When building mill decks I should try to use as few characters as possible and try to create a lock down (vicotria's loft or conspiracy theorist). This way your opponents removal, control or wound cards are almost useless.

I usually aim for:

24-30 characters

up to 6-12 support cards

10 to 14 event cards

But it depends on the faction and the targeted gameplay.

TheProfessor said:

I remember in my magic years getting DQs for playing a 400 card Battle of Wits deck that won 90 percent of the time because the deck "took too long to shuffle". Pshaw...400 card CoC deck...HERE i COME!

Fotonurth said:

I think there is a parsing problem in your reading of the sentence (or else you were being humorous and I missed it!).

He was disqualified for having a deck that took to long to shuffle. That deck won 90% of the time.