Deck Philosophies

[Knight-Who-Says-Nee]

What are some of your general deck building rules of thumb or philosophies?

Three of mine are…

1 - Keeping the deck size between 33/33 to 35/35 splits.

2 - Make sure each side cycles very well.  Usually most of my cards are easy to play cards that don't take a lot of setting up.

3 - I like to have a very singular focus on one strategy for each side.  For example, if the deck is a wounding deck almost all the cards will contribute to that one focus.

[Doom]

RE: Rule 3, I generally follow it but there are a couple decks that have anti-wounding, anti-corruption, and anti-archery.

[azogsbane]

I definitely agree with your philosophy #2, but because my decks do cycle so fast, I don't always adhere to your #1. I have a very good deck that has about 45/45. This is made possible/necessary by cards like They Are Coming, Loyalty Unshaken, and Delving.

[macheteman]

guys guys guys... everyone knows, rule #1: Cardio.

in all seriousness though, i think your philosophy #1 varies case by case. dwarven/goblin can easy have 45 cards per side. while other decks struggle with more than 30. personally i like to stay between 30 and 34 with my sweet spot being 32. but it really depends on the deck. if i'm running 3 sites a turn i can only do 30 because i won't be drawing much. if i'm shadow killing and i need a bunch of cards, run dwarves and cycle through that junk. it really just depends on the way each particular deck plays. dunland is another great example of a deck that can survive with tons of cards.

philosophy #2 i agree. and if i have a paculiar deck that takes a lot of setting up for a particular reason, i usually hone it down so that the complex combos can get in play as soon as possible.

philosophy #3: this is the best rule of thumb. sometimes rules were meant to be broken, but yes, 99% of the time, stick to your focus.

and rule #32: enjoy the little things.

[mille1212]

There's nothing little about 32 rules on deck philosophy.   

guys guys guys... everyone knows, rule #1: Cardio.

in all seriousness though, i think your philosophy #1 varies case by case. dwarven/goblin can easy have 45 cards per side. while other decks struggle with more than 30. personally i like to stay between 30 and 34 with my sweet spot being 32. but it really depends on the deck. if i'm running 3 sites a turn i can only do 30 because i won't be drawing much. if i'm shadow killing and i need a bunch of cards, run dwarves and cycle through that junk. it really just depends on the way each particular deck plays. dunland is another great example of a deck that can survive with tons of cards.

philosophy #2 i agree. and if i have a paculiar deck that takes a lot of setting up for a particular reason, i usually hone it down so that the complex combos can get in play as soon as possible.

philosophy #3: this is the best rule of thumb. sometimes rules were meant to be broken, but yes, 99% of the time, stick to your focus.

and rule #32: enjoy the little things.

[legolas3333]

I usually have one focus in a deck, but usually like to have a plan B. For instance, War and Valor/Boromir, My Brother in a RB Ranger deck, what if they play Line Of Defense or other anti-wound cards?

[SomeRandomDude]

One of my biggest pet peeves is synergy- the shadow and freeps need to complement each other. For example, don't run Moria Swarm with Elvents, if your shadow needs forests and your freeps packs 4 Coifs...etc. Stuff like that. One side should always cycle fairly well. If both cycle well, then you can start pushing the 35/35 cap. On combo decks, always keep them 30/30 and get one side of your deck that cycles like mad.

[FM]

I don't actually think about deck size as a rule, more as a necessity.
Basically, I find what I want to build around, be it a strategy or a single card. Then, I check to see what accomplishes what I want to build around. Then, I go over it in thinking still, figuring out if it's good enough to justify playing a deck around that. If it is, I think about what hoses me down, and go look at cards that complement the strategy while helping with hosers. If there are too many hosers, I narrow it down to what is most played, and if there are still too many that I can't tackle from a few single angles, I scratch the idea. Otherwise, I go for it.
Then, I do the same process with the other side of the deck, only slightly different. If I'm building around a card, like in a combo, and that will almost surely win me any game I assemble, I'll sacrifice the other side to accomplish it, thinning down the deck as much as possible on the winning side, until it contains only the most absolutely needed cards, and then build the other side to just burn through my deck as fast as possible (if this happens to be the Free Peoples side, I also take care that it can survive long enough while cycling, considering single-moves only). If it's not a combo deck, I think about what is the biggest hosing strategy to what I built. Then, as most players tend to build decks with the single-minded philsophy of "whatever pairs good with my other side", I try to anticipate the most common build that will pair up with what'll hose me, and simply build my other side to hose that, regardless of wether it works perfectly with my first side or if it's a bit clunky. I don't do it if it's completely counterintuitive, though; I still build the hosing side, but try to adapt it, even if it means losing in power level, because when you build a hosing side, perfect power level is just win-more, and reasonable power level with enough hosing still means you get enough tool to beat them.
After this is done, I skim over the deck to remove the chaff, what's cute, what's win-more, what won't ever come up with a deck that size, etc. This narrows it down to a reasonable size most of the time, and even when it doesn't, I find that the deck still plays well enough, if well built. The rest is changed after playing with the deck a few times, and/or to adapt to metagame calls.

[Ringbearer]

My philosophy is that it should be winning, and it should NOT be NPE discard.

[FM]

And how exactly do you get there?

[Ringbearer]

Well, I play strong strategies, depending on the block. I dont build a deck just for fun, it need to have a decent winning chance. And I simply avoid heavy discard cards.

[FM]

Again, how do you spot strong strategies? This is what the topic is about. Somehow, you have to get there, so, what'd you do? Wait for a netdeck and tweak it? Don't play if a format is new? I believe not, you're regarded as a very good player by the community, so I assume that you have to have a thought process there somewhere, which is what the topic's author is interested in.

[macheteman]

FM, i'm telling you, all the good players follow rule #1: cardio.

[ramolnar]

Though I haven't built in a while, let's see ...
1) Remember that there are two ways to win. LotR differs from most CCGs - Magic, VS, Pokemon, etc. - in this respect. Decks usually have a primary side, FP or Shadow, but the other side needs to be functional. One side of a deck is always beatable. It might take a specially constructed deck to do so, but it can be done. For example, I once built a deck that wouldn't die to Uruk Bomb pre-X list. I had to run a terrible Moria shadow to do so, but it survived. (If I had found Palantir Moria, it would have been crazy good.) The "B plan" in LotR needs to be the other half of the deck.

2) Deal with the key cards of the format. For instance, in Towers Block I would say key cards include Eomer 3rd Marshall, Sam (to stop Easterlings), Hides, Orc Insurgent, and Southron Commander. Unlike games such as Magic (Jace, the Mind Sculptor), LotR has very few cards that automatically make every deck better - Sam, Son of Hamfast might be closest. So there aren't must-plays, but there are cards that must be considered.

3) Do I need consistency or gambling? In a tournament like Territorials, where only the winner gets a real prize, 5-2 (or even 6-1) is just as bad as 2-5. It takes random luck to go 6-0 or 7-0. I'm willing to auto-lose to a minor matchup and hope to avoid it, or play a less consistent deck, to increase my chance of winning every match. On the other hand, in an event where Top 8 or 16 matter, where 6-2 is enough, I want a play a more consistent deck and let my play skills and opponent's mistakes get me there over the day.

4) Know about deck speed, though smaller is usually better. Reconciliation can get rid of about 10 cards a game, and most FP carry 3-5 situational cards, but it shouldn't be much more than that. I want to draw my best cards, ending a site 9 game with just a few cards left over at most. We used to say that a undrawn card on the bottom of your deck may as well be Stone Trolls. It's basically worthless. And if I have to throw a lot of cards away with They are Coming, why are they there in the first place?

[azogsbane]

One deckbuilding philosophy I have is that I try not to use only one of a card (except perhaps if it's unique). I figure if it's not worth having two or more of this card, then it's not worth having one. Or put another way, if you have one copy of card x in your deck and one copy of card y, then figure out which one is really the more important card for your overall strategy and use two copies of that. The same could be said if you have a pair of card x and a pair of card y: why not decided which is better and use four of those?

Their are of course plenty times when it makes sense to you only one or two of a card, but I generally try to avoid it. (Perhaps to the point of being a little OCD about it. I can't stand the asymmetry of having only one copy of a non-unique card).