It seems the forums have been rolling along nicely of late (and over at BGG as well thanks to dboeren's excellent series of articles). To keep things going, here are a few random questions about your CoC deck habits:

1) How many ready-to-play decks do you maintain at any given time?

2) Do you take your decks apart to assemble other decks, or do you keep them around once you've built them?

3) Are you constantly tweaking your decks with new cards, or do you leave them alone?

4) Do you record your deck lists (on a spreadsheet or online) so you can recreate them later?

5) Do you avoid using the same cards in different decks, or do you have favorites that you like to use all the time?

6) Do you sleeve your cards? If so, do you match the sleeve color to the deck's predominate faction, or do you use FFG's Cthulhu art sleeves?

If you have other "deck habit" questions you'd like to ask, feel free to add to this list.

Thanks for answering!

1) How many ready-to-play decks do you maintain at any given time?

Four. It used to be four competitive dual-faction decks, but I recently changed it into four highlander dual-faction decks for beginners.

2) Do you take your decks apart to assemble other decks, or do you keep them around once you've built them?

I keep them around and only take them apart when I rebuild all my decks.

3) Are you constantly tweaking your decks with new cards, or do you leave them alone?

I usually tweak after every new AP, but now that I have a cube with 500 cards to update as well I will only be doing after a complete cycle is done.

4) Do you record your deck lists (on a spreadsheet or online) so you can recreate them later?

I used to record them in a book, but with changing them after every AP it got a bit too much.

5) Do you avoid using the same cards in different decks, or do you have favorites that you like to use all the time?

I play a lot of highlander to avoid the problem of only seeing a few really good cards. Still I have favorites that see a lot of use.

6) Do you sleeve your cards? If so, do you match the sleeve color to the deck's predominate faction, or do you use FFG's Cthulhu art sleeves?

My preconstructed decks all have FFGs cthulhu art-sleeves, one art for mythos decks and one art for investigator decks. My cube have green high quality sleeves (the colour of cthulhu himself), while my story cards and domain cards have the same art as the mythos decks.

I do have a question 7) When you mix up you regular games with something extra spicy, what do you play? Highlander, four-faction or just multiplayer with regular decks?

Yipe said:

1) 1-5

2) Always changing so disassembly is neccessary.

3) See #2

4) I write them down before hand when I get a good idea for a deck and I'm not near my cards, but I don't keep a running record or rebuild old decks. I may revisit old strategies from time to time (especially as we get closer to august).

5) I do now, but quite often I end up using proxies. I do seem to have some favorites. Certain cards are just good in a bunch of different decks.

6) I sleeve. Lately I've been trying to match a faction simply because I'm lending my decks out and I need them to be easily identitable.

7) Don't have to many opportunities, but lately its been multiplayer. However, if enough people are interested and there tomorrow I might pitch a new "format" at them and see how well it works.

My added quesiton:

8) Do you have a card that seems to be making its way into almost, if not, all decks you make that wasn't nearly as present as it was last year (or at all if its a new one?

8) For me its Arkham Asylum. Sure it had its uses here and there, but now I find myself putting it into at least half the decks I've been making recently.

The following is based on a card pool that has 6 of each card (a collection made for 2 players consisting of 1 full playset of each card for each player):

1) How many ready-to-play decks do you maintain at any given time?

Usually between 8-12 depending on what decks are being taken apart and what is being built, but at least 8. Usually 3-4 Highlander format decks, 3-4 metgaming decks, 3-4 decks for theme or just to toy around with specific mechanics to see if they can be tweaked to greater strength and move up to meta status.

2) Do you take your decks apart to assemble other decks, or do you keep them around once you've built them?

Kind of depends. With 6 of each card available, I usually do not have to take apart decks to unlock certain cards from it, but there have been times where I wish I had 12 copies of certain cards. In general though, no, they are not taken apart to assemble other decks.

3) Are you constantly tweaking your decks with new cards, or do you leave them alone?

Constantly tweaking and fiddling around, like a tinker gnome beating on a Kicksey-Winsey. The evolution of my decks would make Darwin blush at their rapid changes. But when I find a deck type that works, It generally stays the same with only minor tweaks occurring a couple times a year depending on what cards get released.

4) Do you record your deck lists (on a spreadsheet or online) so you can recreate them later?

Yes. This is mandatory and I find the tools that CardGameDB provides is essential for this task. Their deckbuilding software is great and makes it easy to share decklists with others. I record them if for no other reason than to see how a deck evolves over the course of the game's LCG history as new cards become available.

5) Do you avoid using the same cards in different decks, or do you have favorites that you like to use all the time?

I try not to duplicate so as to maintain some unique properties, but some cards are just too good for a deck subtype to avoid. i.e. If you are using an investigator subtype heavy deck, it is rather difficult to not include anthropology advisors in each one.

6) Do you sleeve your cards? If so, do you match the sleeve color to the deck's predominate faction, or do you use FFG's Cthulhu art sleeves?

Yes. As a former long time M:tG player I have found their use to be mandatory, compulsory and ubiquitous. I do not usually match sleeve colors but do on occasion. I have some FFG art sleeves but have found them difficult to slide shuffle. They are unique in that they are cut rather well and do not have a wedge cross section shape that most sleeves do to help make slide shuffling easier. So while they are quite pretty, I own them merely for the oddity and not for their practicality.

The best sleeves on the market are Ultrapro Pro-Matte sleeves. The are the only sleeves I use now. Same price as any other sleeve, but slide nicely and have no glare. Come in 5 different colors too if you like that sort of thing. HIGHLY recommended.

7) When you mix up you regular games with something extra spicy, what do you play? Highlander, four-faction or just multiplayer with regular decks?

I find Highlander format to be truly underrated. Very tense games. I also like to use my custom story deck drafting variant. But I cannot share that anymore since FFG has asked me to take it down.

8) Do you have a card that seems to be making its way into almost, if not, all decks you make that wasn't nearly as present as it was last year (or at all if its a new one?

It is difficult for me to not include Terrors in the Dark in every deck. I glean immense joy in the schadenfreude involved with making an opponent discard a card from his deck every time he plays a card. It is an almost pathological and obsessive need to include that stupid card in each deck. I do not actually include it in each deck (it resides in only one deck), but I would if it wouldn't be so repetitive and predictable of me to do so.
Love. That. Card.

My additional question:
9) How do you prefer to play this game? Do you find more enjoyment from casual thematic decks, or from sleek streamlined decks that function fluidly and quite competitively?

Yipe said:

1) At the moment 6. I have no fixed number of decks that i maintain, but i always try to have each of the factions in a deck somehow.

2) I take decks apart occasionally, or at least some of the weaker ones.

3) I tweak decks when new AP:s arrive, usually immeditiatly if there was some extra nice in the pack.

4) Sometimes.

5) I never use same cards within two decks, as i like to keep all my decks readily playable at all times without having to change cards arouond.

6) Always! At the moment i have only black and white sleeves, black for the more powerful competitive decks and white for less serious decks or the ones that are not yet finished and need testing.

7) (When you mix up you regular games with something extra spicy, what do you play? Highlander, four-faction or just multiplayer with regular decks?)
There's not many people here to play with, so i always end up playing just basic constructed. Would love to try Highlander though.

8) (Do you have a card that seems to be making its way into almost, if not, all decks you make that wasn't nearly as present as it was last year (or at all if its a new one?)
Not really. There are of course the new power cards like Khopesh etc. that see a lot of play when they come out. The only card that i can think off that i have been using a lot more lately is Things In The Ground. When i first got it i wasn't very impressed with it. Later on when i came to these forums i realized it's true potential and lately been trying to build something with it a lot.

1) How many ready-to-play decks do you maintain at any given time?
Usually only a couple. I rely more on being able to assemble them quickly if needed. Also, my storage organization demands that all decks be torn down when adding a new Asylum Pack.

2) Do you take your decks apart to assemble other decks, or do you keep them around once you've built them?
They get taken apart regularly if they're not being worked on.

3) Are you constantly tweaking your decks with new cards, or do you leave them alone?
Most decks live a brief lifetime where I may tinker with them, then get disassembled.

4) Do you record your deck lists (on a spreadsheet or online) so you can recreate them later?
Yes, I keep the deck listings on my iPhone.

5) Do you avoid using the same cards in different decks, or do you have favorites that you like to use all the time?
I can't really use the same card in two decks at the same time, but other than that of course they get reused or you'd quickly run out of any cards to include! No specific favorites, although I definitely like cards that let you play characters at a discount.

6) Do you sleeve your cards? If so, do you match the sleeve color to the deck's predominate faction, or do you use FFG's Cthulhu art sleeves?
Not usually. It makes it take longer to assemble/disassemble decks, it's extra stuff to store, and makes shuffling harder. Overall I'm not fond of sleeves, but I do have some because they required them at the Gencon tournament. The one time I do use them I guess is when mixing white & black bordered cards, but that's less of an issue over time as the LCG card pool grows.

Forgot extra question 9)

9) I usually try to build somewhat powerfull decks, not necessarily tournament quality but still strong. Flavour comes second in importance in decks and i actually have written some sort of background stories for decks . Any sort of tricky and more experimental elements aren't that important to me, but i occasionally build these kind of decks as an exercise.

Oops, I missed the extra questions too

Elochim said:

We pretty much just play normal games. I only get to play maybe every other week as it is, so that's not frequently enough to get bored with it.

Magnus Arcanis said:

Not really. I guess if I'm reading this right it would almost have to be a Neutral or 0-cost card, right? Otherwise it couldn't get into most of your decks. I usually use very few Neutrals or out-of-faction 0-cost cards and mostly build at least somewhat themed decks.

Hellfury said:

I like some sort of theme, even if it's a light one. I still try to make them work well, but I don't count myself as an expert level player. Why sacrifice enjoyment if the deck probably isn't going to be top level anyway? As long as I can do well in my own meta and other people find interest in what I post I figure my decks and deck building skills are "good enough".

8) (Do you have a card that seems to be making its way into almost, if not, all decks you make that wasn't nearly as present as it was last year (or at all if its a new one?)

No. We play fun games so our group really mixes it up!

9) How do you prefer to play this game? Do you find more enjoyment from casual thematic decks, or from sleek streamlined decks that function fluidly and quite competitively?

Our group tends largely to the casual thematic side of the game. If we have plans to travel for an event we get into the competitive mode about 2-3 months prior.

Shangfu said:

1) I have four black-border intro-decks I keep ready and sleeved at all times. For the LCG I only keep 0-2 decks ready.

2) Apart from the into-decks I usually take them apart.

3) Not really. Typically, I wait until a new cycle has been completed before I create new decks. These new decks are created from scratch.

4) Yep, I use Nyarlazobec's Deck-Builder to organize my collection, make test draws, save promising deck ideas, etc.

5) There are a few cards that have important effects that a hard to duplicate. "Dreamlands Fanatic" is a card, I include in every deck since it was released.

6) I store my card collection in albums. I only sleeve cards when I put together a deck.

7) I enjoy Cenacle's multi-player variant. I also like highlander games because they make it easier for new players to compete. I'd love to do something similar to a draft-cube (but haven't tried it yet)..

8) Apart from the above mentioned "Dreamlands Fanatic", I consider "Snow Graves" a must-include. For competitive decks, there's no way around the Khopesh right now. "Descendant of Eibon" is probably still the most powerful character in a game, so it's my default choice for the restricted card.

9) I vastly prefer playing in a casual environment. Tournaments are fun too, but quite stressful and require a lot of time to properly prepare for (which I usually don't have).

Yipe said:

1. Usually two decks.

2. I take decks apart to build new ones after a while.

3. I tweak them to start with but after a while if the deck remains intact I rarely continue to tweak it.

4. Only if the deck worked really well. Otherwise I don't bother.

5. If I like a card I will keep using it unless something better comes along.

6. I always sleeve my cards. If I can find them I like to match the dominant colour of the deck.

I tend to have multiple decks but they are always changing. I find that if i try and tweak my deck with new cards and dont rework the whole thing it will have flaws. Also im sure im not the only one who does this but i find the best thing to do when organizing and creating a deck is to have a theme in mind. For example my last decks theme was Serpents and Dreamers, so i sorted out all cards that fit into those categories and formed my deck around the abilities and characters in those caragories. as for the pyhicial order of my cards i wrap a karma sutra rubber band around them and cram then in my box lol.

1) How many ready-to-play decks do you maintain at any given time?

At least 1 for each faction, so minimum 8. Currently, I have 11.

2) Do you take your decks apart to assemble other decks, or do you keep them around once you've built them?

Depends. Usually, I don't dissassemble decks to make other decks, unless the deck I'm taking apart is unplayable.

3) Are you constantly tweaking your decks with new cards, or do you leave them alone?

Always tweaking. At least every time a new Asylum Pack is released, if not more often.

4) Do you record your deck lists (on a spreadsheet or online) so you can recreate them later?

I do record them somewhere, though I am not always quick to update the records.

5) Do you avoid using the same cards in different decks, or do you have favorites that you like to use all the time?

Most of my decks are mono-faction, so not a lot of repeat.

6) Do you sleeve your cards? If so, do you match the sleeve color to the deck's predominate faction, or do you use FFG's Cthulhu art sleeves?

Yes. And my sleeves are often color coordinated, though no two decks share a sleeve. I have two Cthulhu decks and thus two different shades of green sleeves.

7) When you mix up you regular games with something extra spicy, what do you play? Highlander, four-faction or just multiplayer with regular decks?

I'm not a fan of Highlander, but will play if asked (and given time to create a deck). I mainly play multiplayer with regular decks.

8) (Do you have a card that seems to be making its way into almost, if not, all decks you make that wasn't nearly as present as it was last year (or at all if its a new one?)

No. Playing this many decks, that would be nearly impossible.

9) How do you prefer to play this game? Do you find more enjoyment from casual thematic decks, or from sleek streamlined decks that function fluidly and quite competitively?

I enjoy both. I have two Shub decks: one focuses on Dark Young, one on Mi-Go. Neither are competitive. I also have a few competitive decks. And I play in a League, which often tries to find a theme and then has you build a competitive deck for it . I enjoy the game in all its playstyles.