I've got it into my head somehow that a deck can be 60 cards but looking at it again the rules do state 50 cards for tournament. Have i picked 60 cards out of the ether or am I genuinely remembering something?

50 cards minimum -- 60 card decks are okay as well.

spirit said:

IIRC Magic: the Gathering uses 60 card decks as its standard, maybe you're remembering that, or some other game?

A Game of Thrones (and CoC, I think) require 60 card decks as well.

Yeah GoT is 60. Did they up CoC to 60? Use to be 50 before the LCG days.

I think I prefer 60. Cause I'm a lazy deck builder and I like the idea of just picking 20 cards I like and grabbing 3 copies of each and heading out the door. Guess it doesn't matter since I don't have 3 copies of everything.

Marlow said:

It may be that I've got crossed over with the Decipher game as I've played that a few times recently Good to know that 60 cards should still be legal though. Cheers folks.

Marlow said:

I consider it rather smart than lazy. Safe you can grab 17 instead. 8)

jhaelen said:

I try to keep it tight but I would have much less of a headache if it were 60 in fact.

If anyone remembers the Star Trek: The Next Generation Collectable Card Game, there was a maximum deck size of 60 cards. At least until the Borg showed up.

Remember though every card past the 50 mark weakens your deck. The 50 card minimium limitation is build around the 3 copies per card limitation and the fact that we dont have to deal with lands. It doenst matter too much for casual play though, its perfectly fine to pile up your suiting cards and have them in a deck. When you do that however I suggest thinking of a card in your deck you REALLY want in your starting hand, like Steward of Gondor or Unexpected Courage. Now every card above 50 decksize really impairs the probabilty that you a) get it on your starting hand and / or b) get it at all. Just keep that in mind while building decks

UnthoughtKnown said:

I know this is it. And same goes for having less than three copies of a card in a deck, it just makes things random and you might as well not have the card in a deck at all, unless you produce some crazy drawing, you're not going to get through more than one third of your deck. At least that is my experience.

Thanks for sending me bak to the rules to check. I had thought it was a 50 card limitation, not minimum. That changes things, but at the same time as noted, reduces your odds of drawing the cards you really want the more you go over 50.

lleimmoen said:

I wouldn't say that having less than three copies of a card in your deck is a bad thing. For example a card like Beorn that costs 6 resources may be better as a two of because he's so expensive. Unless you are running some form of resource generation he can be difficult to get out, therefore you wouldn't want to bank on being able to draw and play him every game. However if you only had one or two copies, he can come out every now and then as an added bonus.

silverhand77 said:

Don't forget the uniqueness issue either. As much as I love Faramir I only run two rather than three because I want to be able to play allies as often as I can and I don't want to be left with extra unplayable copies of unique ones in my hand.

- Duplicate copies can be mitigated if you are running discard effects (looking at you Eowyn) but I'd rather have the flexibility of playing the card if I want/need to...

Bungo_Underhill said:

I Agree. Sometimes it can be a fine line between having enough copies of a card in your deck so that you see it and have the opportunity to play it and whether or not you will actually get to play it often enough to make it a viable part of the deck, especially when there are other cheaper and easier to play cards that you might include instead.