Deck Building Advice

By Dain Ironfoot, in 4. AGoT Deck Construction

Posted at

So, I'm just now wading into the art of deck for AGoT and am finding it much different than other card games I've played (M:tG, ST:CCG, SW:CCG, LOTR:LCG).

For example, in Magic, there is a "rule of thumb" that your decks should be "9x4" (meaning, you are allowed a max of 4 per card, and you should have 9 "four-of" sets, plus the remaining cards being your mana base). This creates consistency and you are "always" drawing what you want to draw. (Of course, this is a rule of thumb and isn't followed by every deck).

So, I am sort of operating under that mind-frame. However, while looking at the deck lists that come with some of the AGoT Deluxe Expansions and others online, many, many, many decks have a ton of "one-of" cards. This seems odd to me, as the chance of drawing that card is slim to none and there aren't that many deck milling abilities (from what I can tell).

Anyone have any basic decking building advice? Are there any deck building articles anywhere?

Thanks!

Posted at

Welcome!
There are some very useful deckbuilding articles at cardgamedb.com and useful advice scattered all over the forums here if you have the time to look through it. Heres an older discussion that may still be useful.

Dain Ironfoot said:

...looking at the deck lists that come with some of the AGoT Deluxe Expansions and others online, many, many, many decks have a ton of "one-of" cards. This seems odd to me, as the chance of drawing that card is slim to none

Deck consistency is still very important, it just works a bit differently. The House expansions suggest decklists based on owning the box and 1x core set only; since almost everything in the core is only 1x, those decklists use a lot of 1x ideas. Most competitive decks run 3x of just a few Events and Attachments and 3x discount locations for consistency and predictability. Having unique characters changes things a bit too; decks will only run 3x of a unique character if it is really important in the deck. Unimportant but useful uniques will be run 1x so that dupes aren't useless cards once the character has died; 3x of a weenie is pretty common for consistency, but most weenies are considered throwaways so a healthy mix of ~20 guys at 1x each would work just as well.
As with any deckbuilding game, look for the strengths of your preferred House and build into those.

Dain Ironfoot said:

...there aren't that many deck milling abilities (from what I can tell).

and we're all very happy about that.