Gabbek Helps: Deckbuilding Tips & Tricks!

Hello everyone, I've promised this long time ago and unfortunately I'm really late to the party since I haven't got much time lately to write a proper post... so after a long time - here it is!

First of all I will cover basics:

You have 36 cards (and a basic movement card based on your race) to your disposal on each character. Traits effectively count as deck size reducing 'tool' - the more traits you've got, the higher chance you've got to draw your desired cards. Traits on the other hand have negative and positive effects - or sometimes they can screw you over, since you have to keep in mind 3 attachment cards limit onto character - this is very important! Here's a small thing to help you out:



Single Player & Adventures!

Cards and their value:

You have to ask yourself a few questions when you are making a deck (this is especially true later into the game as at the start you pretty much go with what you have got) - do you want a deck which is reliable in most situations or a specific deck against a certain occasions. If you're progressing through the game and playing adventures and not a specific challenge then most likely you would want to have your party decks as balanced as possible - so you can come out with a smile on your face from any nightmarish situation - in most cases it's possible altough on certain adventures you will have to change some items. To ensure a balanced deck you have to maintain a good and healthy balance between good and bad cards - the greatest cards come at a price - sometimes it's too high risk to pay that price.

Imagine a situation where you have 18 good cards & 18 useless cards - with Card Hunter rules, drawing 2 cards each round that would be a rather unsuccessful deck

Warrior & Deck:

Warrior is a frontline tank, most durable class which is the one taking most damage and dealing most of the damage, he offers close to none utility but what he lacks in that slot he makes up in others.

Warrior's Deck:

[Default Move] (1 card)
Weapon (6 cards)
Weapon (6 cards)
Weapon (6 cards)
Shield (3 cards)
Helmet (3 cards)
Heavy Armor (3 cards)
Boots (3 cards)
Martial Skill (3 cards)
[Racial Skill] (3 cards)

18* attack cards, 4-9 armor cards, 3-19** Block cards, 1-6 movement/utility cards, 3 [Racial Skill]

* - 18 as in default, in reality in may vary from 9 to 27
** - as high number possible only with weapons with a lot of blocks

This set of items means that warrior is the most reliable class when it comes to drawing attack cards. High chance to draw armor and block*** cards helps his survival. Lack of utility and total dependance on close range (range 1-2) shows his true weakness: reaching the target. This issue is not a big concern in PvE.

*** - only high if you happen to go for blocking martial skill / have some blocks in weapons


Wizard & Deck:

Wizard is a utility class which offers a lot of different options - based on your items pick. The most reliable class when it comes to dealing with armor cards, moving enemies, messing with terrain and causing chaos on the map!

Wizard's Deck:

[Default Move] (1 card)
Staff (6 cards)
Staff (6 cards)
Arcane Item (3 cards)
Arcane Item (3 cards)
Arcane Item (3 cards)
Arcane Item (3 cards)
Robe (3 cards)
Boots (3 cards)
Arcane Skill (3 cards)
[Racial Skill] (3 cards)


6-12* attack cards, 0-5 armor cards, 12** utility cards, 2-3 boosting cards (arcane skill), 1-3 movement/utility cards, 3 [Racial Skill]

* - counting staves cards only
** - counting arcane items cards only

This set of items makes wizard an offensive, supportive class which sacrifices its defensive capabilities for additional utility. Based on your choice its role can be really different. You have at least 33% chance to draw arcane items card and another 33% chance to draw staves card.

Priest & Deck:

Priest is a utility class which offers mainly support to other party members. The only class able to heal. Based on your items the role can be: healing, buffing mainly melee damage, removing nasty terrain attachments, offering invulnerability and most importantly - additional card draws!

Priest's Deck:

[Default Move] (1 card)
Divine Weapon (6 cards)
Divine Weapon (6 cards)
Divine Item (3 cards)
Divine Item (3 cards)
Divine Item (3 cards)
Shield (3 cards)
Divine Armor (3 cards)
Boots (3 cards)
Divine Skill (3 cards)
[Racial Skill] (3 cards)

6-8* attack cards, 4-6** utility cards, next 9-11 utility cards, 2-3 boosting cards (divine skill) 1-5 armor cards, 3 block cards, 1-3 movement/utility cards, 3 [Racial Skill]

* - counting only divine weapons slots
** - counting only divine weapons slots

This set of items makes priest the most reliable defensive supporting class. With as many as 13-17 utility cards you've got at least a chance between 36-47% chance to draw utility card. Its defensive capabilities are quite decent. Priest sacrifices the amount of attacks he has at his disposal for additional utility cards slots.


Believe in %!

Having one or two very good cards in your deck should make those cards very meaningful and sometimes game-changing. As good it is to draw those x2 17 damage green attack cards - it comes with a lot of weak cards which deal 5-8 damage, without penetrating property. You should always think of an item as a whole - check every single card of the item and make sure that you're satisfied with any of those cards being drawn. More often than not it's much better to have as high number of reliable cards than try min/maxing with the best cards which come at a great price - with a lot of useless cards which will not suit your entire deck. Choose wisely!

Party & Deck:

Now that we're finally back to party you have to answer yourself few questions - what works the best for you. Regardless of the setup (class selection) you will want your characters to synergize with each to some extent. If you're playing with an defensive 'default' party (warrior, wizard, priest) then your warrior will not need as many step-attack cards as he otherwise would enjoy. Most likely your wizard will be able to deal with enemies armor so you can get some more higher-damage attacks on your warrior instead of penetrating attacks. Priest can boost damage of your melee characters and give additional card draws to most important character based on the situation.


Priest and card draws:

Thanks to Priest class you are able to draw additional cards in your round - thanks to that we have a lot of small things which can help and increase your odds of success! Based on everything I have covered earlier due to the fact that traits effectively decrease your deck size and we know a basic percentage of drawing a certain category card - you should be able to use card draw cards in its most efficient way.

When using card drawing on another character you should keep in mind few things:

• What are the odds of drawing the cards I want?
• Consider its already discarded cards - if we happened to have 18 attack cards and they all are gone while we still have 10 cards in the deck - you will not draw any attack card for sure!
• Compare the chance of both characters getting what you want from them.

Final words

I wish I could cover more useful things but I have realized that it's much easier said than done - unfortunately I do not have any additional ideas, thoughts. Thanks for reading and hopefully it will help you at least a bit! See you in game

 

Will do! Thanks!

 

Warriors have 9 - 27 attacks 29 if you consider red cards that don't do damage attacks.
2 - 19 blocks.
2 - 11 armor.

For pvp the massive difference in defensive and offensive cards makes warriors hard and important to judge as you consider engaging them. For example there is little reason to pelt a warrior running tons of heavy armor with anything but the heaviest attacks unless they are penetrating. But if they instead run a ton of blocks pelting them with small attacks is fine to clear the blocks so you can hit them with the big attacks after they run out. If they are intensely aggressive you want your own tanky guy/girl to be between you and them blocking, parrying and ruining their attempts at killing your team. Remember one thing a tanky warrior is useless if people can get around it since he will just sit there with his armor taking massive penetrating hits or with his blocks being stabbed repeatedly in the back.

And i disagree that the most important thing about a priest is card draw i think its their ability to adapt and work with almost any team but that's a minor thing really.

 

*Gives a standing ovation to Gabbek

I was going to implement pvp build guides into the wiki (with draw %s much like mtg) tagged to actual cards. Haven't actually figured how to make it work via templates yet since we just got some semantics in. But this is great stuff and good work!

If time permits, can you edit your OP to extend to 2 card combos draw %s ? I'm interested to know and verify the maths for combos. Perhaps, take the existing starter packs as a testbed ? I'm sure hardcore pvpers/devs would be very interested.

ps: Not a frequent visitor outside of Bugs forum between rl/wiki/testing, but always on the lookout for great informative guides for portovers. pls do drop me a PM when yer done. Thanks !

 

I'm curious how attachment cards work. These are card that you keep in your hand? What happens if you have 3 attachment cards and you draw more? Do you pick which one sticks or does it push off the oldest card? I'm a bit confused on 3 attachment cards, in most of the videos I've watched when both players pass, they appear to discard down to two cards.

 

Ka-PWING! It's not about your hand, but really about getting "attached" to your model. And new attachments beyond the 3-attachment limit bump off the oldest ones first.

 

Thanks for the link. I still have questions though. I've seen some cards listed as keep (or something along those lines, they stay in your hand), how do these differ from attachments? Are traits keep cards and/or attachment cards? Is there a difference between keep and attachment?

This helps answer some of my question: Traits

 

Copying text from the game, "Trait" means "You must play this card before playing any non Trait card." Notice how this says nothing about being attached: Traits may attach (like Combustible) or not (like Fumble).

"Keep" means "Return this card to hand or re-attach after it triggers." Notice how Keep is its own keyword that can apply in various circumstances, regardless of whether something is a Trait.

 

That all makes sense. The line below was confusing me, as I took it to mean that all traits are attachments.

Let me see if I get this yet. This card for example: Dimensional_Traveller.

It sounds like Attachment is another pool (not your hand) where up to 3 cards can exist. Keep returns the card to your hand after playing it.

Dimensional Traveler is a trait card? Which means you have to play it. It is then attached to the "attachment pool" of your character for a duration of 3. And the Dimensional Traveler card stays in your hand because it is a keep card?

Is there a post or description showing the difference between keep and attachment?
Definitions: Keep, Trait, Attach

 

I will clarify it in an hour thanks for the heads up!

 

Reshuffle pretty much never happens, only in insanely rare cases

 

Think about 6 rounds was the longest fight ever

 

Haters gona hate representing da brotherhood mountain side is da best!

 

I'm curious about how the draw for movement cards work. I know you are guaranteed a move card a turn, but I see the move cards from my items very rarely it seems.
you guys figured that one out yet?

 

You draw a racial move from a different deck

 

. . . And aside from what Wozarg said, the rest of your deck is drawn at random. If you feel that you are getting some cards "too often" or "too rarely," the only thing to do is go into the deckbuilder and swap things around.

Sometimes, when I go "argh, why aren't I drawing the X cards!" I realize the problem is I had none in my deck . . .

 

Nah it was mainly what Wozarg said. I was just trying to figure out why the guaranteed move card every turn didn't seem to be one from main deck. Didn't realise you drew a copy of the racial movement card every turn from outside of your equipment pool (all dwarf party because I'm awesome)