Marching thus at night, a battalion is doubly impressive. The silent monster is full of restrained power; resolute in its onward sweep, impervious to danger, it looks a menacing engine of destruction, steady to its goal, and certain of its mission.
-- Patrick MacGill
Deck Design and the Engine that Could
Hello all, for this blog I decided to do something different. Over the last year (ever since the last NAC 2012) or so I have had many discussions with various excellent players about deck design. I have gone over many people decks and discussed their thought processes about their ideas.
I was holding off on writing this particular blog because I wanted to really solidify my thoughts on it. It wasn't until a recent conversation and how the core of a deck is really an "engine" (will get more into that below) that a lot of thoughts snapped into place and I wanted to share it with the rest of you.
We have to start off with a couple of premises and key terms in order for you to relate to my analogies.
- Your Deck (Library/Crypt) is your "Machine". It is the tool in which you play the game To Win.
- In order to win, you have to remove Pool from the table. After much discussion, the two main ways to do that is Bleed and Vote. So these are the Two types of Machines. Bleed Machine and Vote Machine. [As stated in previous blog, other methods of Pool loss (example: Fame) is a "Backup Machine"]
- In order for your machine to run, you need an Engine. The 3 classic Engines are Stealth, Intercept, and Combat Engine. Variations can usually fit under one of those categories (example: Tap and Bleed).
So to be put simply, the better your Engine, the better your Machine will run.
Examples:
Consider some of the decks that are popular but just struggle to work.
Stealthy decks - don't ever want to get caught. A common problem is that there is TOO much stealth and one cannot draw the cards needs to actually win.
Intercept Wall - Block it all! But games can go to time.
Rush Combat decks - your torpor your targets, but after a couple of rescues, you can run out of juice.
So what happens here? Here the designer focused so much on the Engine, that he didn't focus on the Machine idea that the deck was supposed to do, i.e. remove pool.
How can this help you?
There are many guidelines in order to have a good deck design. This is just another methodology that I think can aid some of you.
When making your deck, consider the following:
[After deciding "theme" (key vamp, clan, card, etc) of course]
1) Is my Machine* a Bleed or Vote machine?
2) What is my Engine to make my machine work?
3a) What cards/decks, cause my Machine to fail?
3b) Does my Engine have an answer for it?
3c) Are those cards/decks likely to be seen?
* Now, some of you are already asking, "but there are other ways to remove pool" This is true! Fame, Enticement, Anarch Revolt are just some examples. But I stand pretty strongly that these alternate methods are Supplements to the two main Machines. I call them a "Backup Machine" and they do have their place. For the price of a few card slots, one not has a smaller additional way to remove pool, in case there is a kink in the main machine. But a common problem for deck design is when someone tries to make the Backup Machine the main machine. The simple example is the rush combat decks with Fame and Tension in the Ranks. Those two cards might be enough to get a VP but no so well in getting a Game Win.
Conclusion:
So these are just my musings on how I'm going to treat deck design from now on. I already see flaws in some of my decks and I play to adjust them accordingly. Hopefully people reading this blog entry will take the same considerations into their decks. If anyone wishes to comment and discuss I would be happy to do so.
Adam Hulse
Everyone starts with 30 pool. To get a GW, how much pool damage do you need to do? If you have a very efficient machine (Dem stealth bleed), you need to do a lot. If you have a machine that takes longer to get started, it's likely that you need to do much less total pool damage, because your prey will spend his/her own pool. And will use that investment to do more pool damage to your grand prey. So I'm not convinced that more efficient engine is the goal, since this is a multiplayer game, and efficient engines
ReplyDelete... Quick to start engines must do more pool damage than slower ones. Also, since we play for fun and we must carefully protect and nurture our community, playing decks that cause other people to have less fun is bad. That's very hard to quantify, but I think trying to answer the following question is important: how much fun will other people have while playing against this deck?
ReplyDeleteThose are good points. However, I don't think that "efficient" always means "faster" or "deadly".
ReplyDeleteCase in point a bruise bleed deck. If you bleed (now that we discuss that you need bleed) and/or bruise early on. Then your prey walls up and you have to use more resources before you get him and move onto your next prey. More efficient in this case is to have actions to build up, slow down your predator, and then move forward.
I guess the point I was trying to make is that many people make decks that is all "engine" (stealth, intercept, combat), and not enough "Machine" (Bleed, Vote). Which is a flaw in their deck design. Using that mind set, it gives us the opportunity to re-look at decks (or when creating new ones and more easily find flaws or strengths in them.
As for the "fun" factor that the second post refers to. NAC Champion M. Morgan once said (massively paraphrased) "I always let my prey play his game. and "have fun." Then they don't feel as bad when I prevent them from winning and oust them. They are like "oh darn, I almost got 'em." Or even let them get their first prey (because its someone I don't want to deal with). And they don't feel as bad when I oust and get game win."