In this series of articles, we are going to examine deckbuilding in Mythgard. It is hard. But it is also fun, rewarding, and open to endless possibilities. If you have played other CCGs, some of your knowledge is transferable, in other cases, you’ll just have to forget what you know.
For those of you new to CCGs, or deckbuilding, don’t worry, we’re going to start with the basics. In subsequent articles we will examine what some of the common archetypes look like in Mythgard, followed by some advanced deckbuilding, before we examine each of the Paths in detail.
First off, so that we are all speaking the same language, a few common terms I’ll be using a lot going forward:
On the play – First Player (they play first)
On the draw – Second Player (they draw a card to start their turn)
1-drop, 2-drop, x-drop - a card you can play on the 1st, 2nd, xth turn, assuming available resources
On-curve – playing an x-drop turn x
Mana Curve, or curve – The distribution curve of the mana costs of the cards in a deck. The curve of a deck can vary greatly based on archetype. Aggro decks tend to stop hard at 4 or 5, while control decks often taper off at 7 or 8. Overall, curves in Mythgard are flatter due to the burn mechanic.
What does a Mythgard deck look like?
No more than 4 of the same common, 3 of the same uncommon, 2 of the same rare, 1 of the same mythic
40-200 cards
1 Path & 1 Power
Usually 1-3 colours, but up to 6
What does this mean for deckbuilding?
There are a staggering 1890 different deck combinations (path/power/colour(s)). This means you can build almost any kind of deck in any colour. As such, we are going to spend more time discussing how to build a deck, than what specific cards will go in it.
The deck size and rarity restrictions have some influence on how we go about deckbuilding. Our decks should always be 40 cards. There is currently nothing in the game that gives a benefit for having a large deck, so we want to play the minimum for maximum consistency.
While Mythics are cool and flashy and often have powerful effects, we are limited to one copy of a particular mythic. This means it is very difficult to reliably build a deck around them. However, they should definitely be used when they support your strategy.
Conversely, commons are 4/40, so if you play 4 of a common, over half your games it will have a copy in your opening hand!
Therefore commons and uncommons are the building blocks of the deck.
Rares, at two per deck, will be drawn frequently enough that you can expect to see a copy over the course of a game. This makes them potential build around cards for slower strategies.
We can play all the colours! But we probably don’t want to. Single colour decks are the easiest to build, as you never have to worry about having the correct gems. Dual coloured decks, assuming a reasonably balanced colour split, also don’t require a detailed examination of gem costs. This makes one and two colour decks the ideal starting point when wetting your feet with deckbuilding.
Three colour decks are significantly tougher to construct, and require some deeper analysis, but open up a ton of options. Playing four colours is workable in some very specific scenarios, but beyond that lies madness.
Can we build a deck yet?
We could just start adding cards from our collection until we reach 40 cards, add a Path and Power, select our favourite art, backing, and trim and start a Brawl to pick on some bots. But chances are, if you’re reading this article, you want to know how to build good decks.
Good decks aren’t just a collection of good cards (though some do look like that), they are a selection of cards put together to form something better than the sum of their parts. This leads to a few important points:
Every card should have a reason for being in a deck
A “bad” card can be good in the right deck
A “good” card can be bad in the wrong deck
Sometimes you have to substitute or improvise
What to play?
So, how do we decide what cards should go in our deck? First, we must decide what we want the theme, or identity, of our deck to be. Before we even add our first card we have to ask ourselves two questions:
What does our deck do?
How does our deck win?
The answers to these questions could be almost identical, or wildly different, but the important thing is we keep them in mind when we are building our deck.
In Mythgard, a lot of what a deck does is directly related to the Path and Power you choose. For newer players it may be helpful to choose these first to help focus yourself, while more experienced players may find it to be ingrained in the deck’s identity.
Now that we are ready to start adding cards to our deck, its time for two more questions:
What do our first three-four turns look like?
What’s next? How do we get from there to our winning state?
Use these questions to guide your specific card choices. It’s often at this point I tweak or re-envision the theme of my deck. That is just part of the process. And it is iterative. Sometimes our visions don’t meet reality. Sometimes you must play several games with a rough draft to determine what your deck really needs.
In the next article we'll take a look at the Aggro archetype and examine what it looks like in Mythgard. I'll also share my first decklist, which carried me to Mythril in the Alpha season.