So I know that out there some where there have to be some basic rules or perhaps some guidelines or formulas that people have in general to construct good and/or tournament worthy decks. I'd like so collect some of those basic guidelines here.

Objective

My objective here is to outline some of these guidelines, pointers and formulas for newer players or players who want to improve their deck building criteria and perhaps participate a little bit more "professionally". I'm not trying to tell you this is how to make your deck "better", GoT is very much a casual game and will have casual decks and casual styles. If you're happy with your deck - don't listen to me. If your deck is fun to play, that's awesome.

A Note on Format

Sometimes there's an enormous difference on what's good between Melee and Joust. With Melee there's a lot of flexibility with cards that are good and cards that can are playable. Melee is a little bit stricter on what cards are playable. Keep in mind, though, that while Joust is much more limited in card pool, this makes building a good Melee deck much more difficult (you have to practice discipline in which of the much larger pool you think you'll need) - and while Joust is much stricter that makes it much more difficult to learn the precise timing in game .

Efficiency

Good cards are all over the place. There are plenty of good cards from all over the place. But that doesn't necessarily make it playable. Take Balerion the Black for example. Balerion is good . But unless you're building around him, he's not playable. He's good. Why? He's 10 Strength right off the bat, which is remarkable without any help or boosts. He's Deadly. Also very awesome, especially since he covers Military. He covers Power as well - which is 2/3 which is pretty good. Now we come to No attachments. I'll be honest, this is both a blessing and a curse. I've never seen No attachments as a positive thing. It's something I can build around, yes, but if Balerion has No Attachments then I always feel obligated to cut Attachments that I otherwise would want to include. Now the best part of this card; "Response: After you play Balerion the Black from your hand kneel all non-Dragon characters and locations." Jeez. This seems really, really good.

Now, all of this might be testament against what I've said. But there's a part of this card that we haven't gotten to yet. Don't get me wrong, Balerion is really, really good. But that doesn't make it playable. Balerion costs 10 gold. I've seen him used in a lot of decks - and like I said earlier you can build around Balerion and perhaps make him become playable - but the thing is you're wasting valuable card slots doing so. One of the most fun things I've seen with him is to play Planning Ahead the turn before to save up all your gold. That's pretty neat - but you're wasting a Plot Card and a whole turn saving up. This strategy is fragile - any number of things could "tax" you, or cause you to lose gold.

The other side to efficiency are Characters that don't do anything. Take Advisor to the Crown for example. He's 3 gold and 3 strength. This goes back to my former example of Balerion. He's 1g = 1 strength. This is a pretty balanced ratio. But unless Balerion, he only covers 1/3 in combat. All ready, this makes him significantly worse. His one redeeming quality, however, is his Influence. Having 2 Influence is a pretty big deal, and it makes him good. Does it make him playable? That depends on how Influence heavy your deck is. Most of the time, I tell people to try and cover your Influence base with Locations - but it's true that there are some decks that need more depending on your strategy.

So the question that you need to ask yourself is this; "Does Advisor to the Crown do anything?" The short answer is no. But the long answer, seen above, is just another question; "Does your deck need more Influence than what you're providing with Locations?" The flip side to this, however, is Brown Ben Plumm. He has 2 strength, and covers only Military. But he costs 0g. That's pretty incredible. But he falls in to the same category Advisor to the Crown does. Do you need more Military coverage? Assuming you're in Targaryen, if my answer was no (for whatever reason) - he'd be my go to cover up.

Theory

In theory, your deck should have an end game. Most decks I've seen have a similar strategy; get as many guys on board as possible. This is often called a "Swarm" strategy and is very strong in this game. This section covers what your deck wants to do . Many of the Maester builds want quick, cheap Characters to get the Chains out. With Maester builds it's nice if your characters do stuff, but it's unnecessary because the Chains make them do stuff. The deck I'll use as an example is the deck that took 3rd place in Joust this year at Gen Con. javascript:void(0);/*1317492413144*/ This deck is the Targaryen Maester's Path deck. At first glance, the deck is very straightforward (get out dudes, put on Chains, beat face) - but the deck is very well crafted. The first thing we're going to look at is his "curve". This is the amount of income/gold based thing compared to the amount of gold his Characters, Locations and Attachments cost.

For Characters (which is the most important) his curve looks like this;

0g: 5

1g: 6

2g: 10

3g: 6

4g: 1

This is an incredibly efficient curve. The higher your curve, the less likely you'll be to play more things. The more things you play the better. However, you also need a diverse curve so that you don't waste any gold. Having a combination of lower costing things means you'll be able to adjust what you play so that you can have the most optimal play each turn. Overall, however, his curve looks like this (not including the Chains);

0g: 9

1g: 15

2g: 15

3g: 9

4g: 2

This is a fantastic curve. At 15/15 with 1g and 2g this means that optimally he will be able to play the most things on any given turn. Knowing that we're trying to play as many cards as possible on a turn, one of the things we're going to run in to is a dead hand mid-turn. Not being able to take full advantage of each piece of gold means that you're not taking full advantage of your turn.

This brings us to Card Advantage. Card Advantage is all about having access to all the cards in your deck. The more cards you have access to within your deck better advantage you'll have over your opponents. This means that cards that replace themselves such as Jhogo or Informed Acolyte are very valuable. Card Advantage helps you get to what you need to do faster and more efficiently. Even if your strategy is based around one Character (like Balerion from earlier) Card Advantage helps you get to that Character and all the things necessary to protect it.

Consistency

No matter what your strategy, you need to make sure that strategy is solid. For example, if your strategy is built around an Attachment that's very powerful you need a couple of things; you need Characters to put that Attachment on, you need ways to find that Attachment, and you need ways to bring that Attachment back. Putting other strategies in your deck is distracting. You need to focus - if this is the way you're going to win then this is the way you're going to win.

I'm not saying "Don't have a backup plan." But if your primary plan and your secondary plan clash, you're going to be constantly fighting with yourself which one you need to use. So if your primary plan is surrounded by a single, powerful Attachment - why not have a secondary plan in the form of another Attachment? Or just use a basic Swarm strategy. Both of these things work - but having a primary plan based on a single, powerful Attachment and your secondary plan based around a "Summer" or "Chain" strategy doesn't work well with one another.

Consistency is also a matter of numbers. Knowing how much Income you'll need, Influence, and Characters is a great thing to keep in mind. Here's something to keep in mind. For each instance a card in your deck says you need Influence, you need two cards that provides Influence. For example, in the deck above for each The Hachlings' Feast, he has two cards that provides Influence. This is a great match up. He runs 12 cards that provide Influence and 6 cards that require Influence. Did he need Advisor of the Crown? Certainly.

Then think about your core group of cards. The cards that make up your prime strategy. Do you have coverage in all three forms of combat? If you're low on one - find some cards to add. Make those cards efficient if they don't directly effect your strategy.

Remember, these are just guidelines. What are your guys' thoughts? Do you have any additions or anything you'd like to comment on?

As a new player who is making the move from fixed to constructed decks the article is extremly helpful. As I read it I began to see through my preconseptions about how I want the deck I am building to look like and look more into the raw mechanics of playability. As an experienced card flipper in other games I know there are complex relationships between card abilities that fall outside of a cost to play analysis. However, to paraphrase one of your points, if you can't play it efficiently it does not matter how good the card or combo is.

I typed up a cost matrix and completed a deck tweak and it now it runs much smoother due to better cost curve. The changes forced me to modify out a secondary theme and only keep those cards that support the primary focus of the deck. What this means is that in the best case scenario the secondary cards help to press the advantage while still providing some options not in the primary theme. I know it still is not perfect but I am looking forward to playing it and continuing its evolution with improved efficiency.

Thanks!

Tokhuah said:

Yea, I have to agree here... Balerion is not a good card unless the whole deck is built around him, Dragon Lore, etc. Sure his effect is jaw-dropping when it works, but you'll regret the resources spent on him if you don't win the game during that Round.

I think your title should be called "How-To Aggro Deck Construction". Aggro is a strategy of getting a bunch of cheap characters out and swarming the board so that a control deck cannot control every threat. Putting a few beefy characters out (like Balerion) does you no good if they stay knelt the entire time.

Still, very good write-up, and very useful for players working on a deck. It's too bad there's no stickies on this board.

perpetual noob said:

Really appreciate the feedback guys. I tried to make it as generic as possible, as far as strategies go. But Aggro seems like the go-to archetype in this game and it's really the easiest one to give examples about. I tried to make points that would fit in to any strategy (control, combo, etc.) - curve and efficiency are still really, really important, but - again - it's the easiest to talk about Aggro.

For those unfamiliar with the terms; Aggro is talking about one of two major ploys. The first, and generally the most acceptable, is to play as many efficient creatures as you can. Their abilities typically co-inside with one another and work well together. The idea here is simply to over power your opponent. The general strategy is that if you have more dudes than your opponent then you'll be better off. The second is that you strategize your deck around a single (or maybe two) Characters that have epic abilities that, once landed properly, will turn the tide of the game. Think Balerion. Now, you still have to have more Characters - simply to feed the pig. If you only have Balerion out and you lose a Military challenge you're screwed for, pretty much, the rest of the game. But you strategy focuses on Balerion.

The second archetype is control. This is playing primarily Events and Attachments that will remove your opponent's Characters, get you more Card Advantage and prevent your opponent from gaining any more Card Advantage. You need to fill this deck with Characters as well, but you should be running a smaller curve, and therefore (typically) smaller Characters. This strategy wins by depleting your opponent's resources, rather than racing them for a resource advantage.

The third archetype is combo, and it plays a lot like control - except for it wants to win by putting together certain pieces. One thing to note is how closely related control and combo typically are. The thing is, with combo you'll win with specific cards - where as with control you'll win over time, with anything you can. To put this in perspective the old Maester's Path deck was more of a combo deck. You had very specific pieces that you had to get out to make your Characters Maester's, then put the Chain on them for the advantages. But with the errata, it now plays more like a control deck.

How would running KoHH shift resource allocation curve ?

You lose setup but you gain 2 influence location and 2 more gold.

Would you then shift towards more expensive characters ? To make up for those 3-5 cards you didn't play in setup ?

Essentially, KotHH can drive you to play more expensive characters. The reason for this isn't really the gold difference, but rather the fact that a low-cost or cost 0 card is not a chance at a 1-card advantage early in the game. Seeing as that's actually an important part of the appeal of very low cost characters (that you may, essentially, get them for "free" both gold and card wise), the benefit from them is somewhat diminished by running KotHH.

The gold-cost arguments, though, are still just as strong; you don't want to wind up consistently wasting gold with nothing but even-costed characters and odd-income plots, for instance.

There is another factor to consider; the space freed up in your deck by the income providers you aren't running due to KotHH, which tend to be more expensive than the cost 0-1 gold-providers you would otherwise have used.