Warhammer Invasion the Card Game: Deck Building Strategies
When you’re looking through cards trying to decide what to put in your deck, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the high cost cards. The problem is, without the right amount of cheap cards, the big dogs will never see play.
You need a reasonable amount of cards that cost 3 or less resources with only one loyalty symbol on the board. Our playing group has named these First Turn Cards (FTCs)*.
To build a balanced deck, you need to have a large base of cheap cards so you can start gaining cards and resources early. This is why cards like Warpstone Excavation (a zero-cost neutral support card that provides 1 hammer) are on the restricted list.
Warpstone Excavation is a free hammer that when played early can get you 5 – 7 resources or cards in game range. Low cost cards are huge in helping you develop a board presence before your opponent. Below is my Dark Elf/Undead deck that I plan to take to Gen Con for the tournament. This deck sacrifices its own units for effects, so it has a slightly lower cost than most, but still serves as a good example.
Units(number x price + loyalty, bold means FTC)
3 x 0____ Veteran Sellswords
3 x 0 + 1 l Walking victim
3 x 1 + 1 l Darkly dedicated
3 x 2____ Crypt Ghouls
3 x 2 + 1 l Dwarf slaves
3 x 2 + 2 l The Essence Thief
3 x 2 + 2 l A vile sorceress
3 x 5____ Wight Lord
3 x 6 + 3L Monster of the Deep
21 FTC units
supports
3 x 0____ Warpstone Excavations
3 x 1____ A disputed village
3 x 2 + 2 l Slave pen
12 FTC Support
Tactics
3 x 0 + 3L Knock the prisoner!
3 x 1 + 2L Dark Visions
3 x 1____ Warpstone Experiments
2 x 2____ Burn it
3 x 2 + 2L Sacrifice to Khaine
As you can see, out of a 50 card deck 33 of the cards can be played on turn 1 to earn me resources and cards for future rounds. That’s 66%, which means 4-5 cards from my opening hand are likely to be played, not counting the mulligan. Dark Elves are an extreme example, as I said before, as many of these units are sacrificial fodder. As a general rule of thumb for standby, I would use the following numbers as a starting point:
26 units — 13 FTC
12 Maintenance – 9 FTC
This gives you 22 FTCs, making up 44% of your deck. On your first draw, 3 of your 7 cards should be playable, not counting your mulligan.
When you start thinking about the odds of drawing the cards you need, the importance of a 50 card deck becomes even more important. Always keep this in mind when building your decks and be selective when choosing your cards. You can always take it out and try something else, but throwing a bunch of cards together doesn’t really give any of them a chance.
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