I thought this might be a ripe topic for conversation...

There are a lot of cards in the game that let you look at the top few cards in somebody's draw deck and then maybe put one on the bottom of the deck or discard it or something. In other words, filter the upcoming cards in some way.

So the question is, when do you prefer to play these cards on your own draw deck, and when do you prefer to play them on your opponent? Would you rather give yourself (on average) better cards, or would you rather give the other player worse ones?

I'm thinking it's partly going to relate to the current game situation, but I'm sure different people lean one way or the other as their default.

The other night for instance I was playing a dual faction deck and getting a fairly uneven card draw. I had a 2-cost Loyal card in hand and was looking for another Miskatonic resource to be able to play it, so I used Strange Librarian on my own deck a couple of times to find one.

On the other hand, if my opponent had a problem he was struggling with I might play it on him. In this game he was Hastur and one turn he made a huge surge by playing Scotophobia to bypass my characters that had Terror - it drove a couple of my guys insane and helped him a lot. I knew he was likely to have another copy of Scotophobia that he'd draw eventually. So perhaps in that situation I'd be better off playing it on him to filter out that specific card I didn't want him to draw.

So in a sense, I think I may have a tendency to play it for whichever side has a bigger problem. If I'm sitting pretty, I'm OK with maintaining the status-quo and don't care as much about what I draw, but I want to make sure my opponent doesn't get a comeback card. On the other hand, if I'm in trouble I'm mostly interested in digging myself out of it and that's more important than whatever he's doing.

What do you guys think?

Generally, I prefer filtering my own deck. However this is mostly due to my decks tending to include three or more factions. To play such decks effectively and consistently you usually need at least a small amount of filtering.

Filtering an opponent's deck makes sense if you notice it relies on a particular card to work. A good example is a deck built around 'Things in the Ground'. If you can keep your opponent from drawing it at all or at least more than once, chances are, you'll win. So, it's a good strategy against 'one-trick-pony' decks.

I prefer my own decks to be more like a swiss army knife: having a tool for every situation that might come up, so there isn't usually a single card it relies on.

I'm on the other side of the fence from jhaelen.

Unless I'm falling behind and desperate for a win - and then filtering my deck probably won't save me - I always choose to cycle through my opponent's deck and discard anything that might be effective against me. This is probably because I try to make my competitive decks as lean as possible yet still contain at least 2 separate avenues to victory, so I don't feel they rely on any one card to function properly.

If not being able to draw a certain card shuts down my deck's offensive punch, then it means I need to go back and redesign it. This is the main reason I tend to avoid cards that give me extra draws or allow me to arrange X number of cards on the top of my deck. I much prefer to play cards that force my opponent to discard from their hand or deck.

On a related note, I feel interfering with my opponent's strategy by discarding critical cards gives me a psychological edge, even if the tactical advantage is slight. I've also found winning Congress of the Keys around the mid-game point and then activating its effect can be devastating as players might be holding key cards in their hand that they're planning to play (e.g. due to resources, waiting for a second combo card, surprise finish, etc...).

I default to denying my opponent specific cards.