Staff Article: Deck Garage #1 - Welcome to Deck Building 101!
By ZeeroYui - January 30, 2009
Greetings and salutations to one and all! I am very excited to begin writing articles here at BleachGaming! I deeply hope you will enjoy them and even learn a thing or two along the ride!
Every week, I will be writing articles on strategies pertaining to deck building, and certain decks of the game. For our first article, I think it would be best to sorta outline the more basic strategies when it comes to constructing a deck. These techniques will be a common theme from article to article, as they really do represent what goes into the process of building and refining a deck.
As we go through this tutorial of the process, I've decided we will tackle a deck I've played since the start of the game and have very long been fond of. Today's Deck Garage focus will be the Student Burn deck! Besides, I love the irony of teaching the ways of deck building with a Student deck.
The Plan
Anytime you start to build a deck from scratch, you must have a clear plan in mind. Of all the things that may change throughout the course of constructing your deck, this is the one that should change the least. Your plan for your deck can be quite nearly anything, as vague as "Build a Squad 4 Deck" or as specific as "Assemble x, y, and z cards together to make winning combo happen." Though keep in mind, the more specific your plan, the more of your deck you will already have fleshed out.
At this stage you will often want to figure out exactly who your Guardian is going to be throughout the course of the game. It will usually help out for the rest of the deck-building process to know what kind of energy curve you can run on, what cards might play better on one particular guardian than another (or even be made specifically for a certain guardian).
For this deck, we will be choosing the Orihime Inoue guardian for her straightforward approach to the burn archetype. She's a classic choice, and one that has proved her worth for many sets now. To elaborate further on our plan, we are going to dive a little deeper than the shallow depths of our plan, 'burn opponent to death,' and set out a little something like this:
"Swarm and bounce as many different, cheap Students as possible to best utilize Kanisawa - Assistant Trainer, Karakura High School Roof, and Dragged to Safety."
The Cards
Now that you've gotten your plan fleshed out, you will want to go through your collection of cards to see just what will help you achieve your plan. Consider cards of all three types: Aggressive, Supportive, and Defensive. It often takes a good balance of all three of these to make a deck work best.
<> Aggressive cards are cards that directly push you toward your goal: Damage dealers in truly Aggressive decks; Soul gathering engines in Bounts Forever decks; You get the picture.
<> Supportive cards are cards that will help you find the cards you need, or help you keep the cards you need: There are many well-known options here, such as The Mr. Kan'onji Challenge and Thumbs Up, but also consider cards like Enter the Hero for Mommy decks or Costume Change for Five decks.
<> Defensive cards are cards that will keep you around to meet your goal. These come in many varieties: Control cards keep a leash on the opponent's field, often by keeping their characters off of it; Other more outright defensive cards may reduce the damage you will take or restrict how the opponent can attack.
You can never list too many cards at this point of the process, as the longer your list gets, the wider your options become. And fortunately for us, the Student deck has quite a vast list of options at it's disposal! For today's article, I will only be listing some of the better options for meeting our plan.
Chad - Cutting Edge Fashion (Premiere U92) - Cheap cost with great stats
Chizuru - Enamored Classmate (Premiere C23) - The cheapest it can get
Ichigo - Annoyed (Bounts C8) - Great effect for leaving play
Izuru - Confident Student (Bankai C16) - Also a pretty good effect
Kaname - Young Student (Bankai C20) - Same effect as above
Kanisawa - Assistant Trainer (Bankai R173) - A centerpiece of the deck!
Keigo - Taken Aback (Premiere C31) - Also the cheapest
Mahana - Inquisitive Schoolgirl (Premiere U106) - Cheap and effective
Michiru - Sewing Request (Premiere R184) - Cheap.. but so-so effect
Mizuiro - Lunch Partner (Premiere C37) - Same as above
Momo - In Training (Seireitei C17) - Also a centerpiece! Amazing effect!
Orihime - Confused Friend (Premiere R189) - Though not the cheapest, it's effect makes up for it tenfold!
Renji - Sparring (Seireitei C20) - Cheap and a great effect!
Rukia - Serious (Portal U78) - Cheap and her effect fits the deck!
Ryo - Bookworm (Premiere C45) - Cheap with a surprisingly good effect
Shuhei - Team Leader (Bankai R187) - Also a great effect! A little expensive though
Tatsuki - Eager to Spar (Premiere C48) - Cheap with good stats
Thug(s) (Seireitei) - Though they are a good, cheap swarm, they don't benefit much from entering and leaving play..
Uryu - Home Handicrafts Club Member (Premiere R199) - Very cheap with excellent stats
Karakura High School Roof (Portal U95) - Great effect for our plan
Dragged to Safety (Portal R154) - Also a central point to the deck
Narrow Escape (Premiere U152) -
The Perfect Plan (Premiere U156) - A great defensive card for Students since set 1!
Utter Destruction (Soul Society UR110) - With all of the bouncing, there will be a good many ways to obtain the hand resource. Also, the deck has quite a few answers to saving it's field, even from it's own Utter. It works wonders in here!
The Work
This is the stage where most of the hard work happens! And as I don't have any better name for it, that's what it will be called for now!
Now that you have a pretty good idea of what cards you want to play, this is where you go through each one and try to determine how many of each to play! Though it may seem obvious to some, a wise rule of thumb I have often heard is to play four copies of any card you want to get early every game, three copies of cards that you want to at least see every game, and so on from there.
Since with this deck we want to get as many different characters as we can, we'll be playing two copies of quite a lot of them, mostly to try and ensure we don't draw into too many repeat characters as well. Though there will definately be a number of characters to play in fours: Kanisawa and Momo for their damage-dealing abilities, and Renji for his ability to recover lost characters.
The Deck
Finally, after all of your hard work and dedication, you've reached the goal! Or have you?
Guardian: Orihime Inoue (9M 5B 6S 35P)
Side Deck: 17
Dual Energy - Mind and Body x1
Dual Energy - Body and Spirit x1
Dual Energy - Spirit and Mind x1
Mind Energy x7
Body Energy x3
Spirit Energy x4
Characters: 38
Chizuru - Enamored Classmate x2
Keigo - Taken Aback x2
Ryo - Bookworm x2
Uryu - Home Handicrafts Club Member x4
Momo - In Training x4
Renji - Sparring x4
Izuru - New Classmate x2
Kaname - Young Student x2
Tatsuki - Sparring Partner x2
Mahana - Inquisitive Schoolgirl x2
Rukia - Serious x2
Ichigo - Annoyed x2
Kanisawa - Assistant Trainer x4
Shuhei - Team Leader x2
Orihime - Confused Friend x2
Battlegrounds: 4
Karakura High School Roof x4
Events: 18
The Perfect Plan x3
Narrow Escape x3
Utter Destruction x3
Dragged to Safety x3
QQ x2
The Mr. Kan'onji Challenge x2
Thumbs Up x2
Though you now have a deck fleshed out, this is only the first draft. The true path to perfection comes from taking what you have built here and going out and getting some field data out of it. Try it out in as many games as you can! You also have to try it against as many different decks as you can, as some decks naturally have bad match-ups. Once you've at least given the deck a week to try itself out and see what it can do, that's when you should have the best ability to go back through your build and look at each card to determine it's true value toward the deck.
And that's how it's done, with a bonus Student Deck on the side! I hope you all enjoyed it! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them for me right here on Bleach Gaming, or if you prefer you can email me at ZYBleach@yahoo.com! Until next time!
Every week, I will be writing articles on strategies pertaining to deck building, and certain decks of the game. For our first article, I think it would be best to sorta outline the more basic strategies when it comes to constructing a deck. These techniques will be a common theme from article to article, as they really do represent what goes into the process of building and refining a deck.
As we go through this tutorial of the process, I've decided we will tackle a deck I've played since the start of the game and have very long been fond of. Today's Deck Garage focus will be the Student Burn deck! Besides, I love the irony of teaching the ways of deck building with a Student deck.
The Plan
Anytime you start to build a deck from scratch, you must have a clear plan in mind. Of all the things that may change throughout the course of constructing your deck, this is the one that should change the least. Your plan for your deck can be quite nearly anything, as vague as "Build a Squad 4 Deck" or as specific as "Assemble x, y, and z cards together to make winning combo happen." Though keep in mind, the more specific your plan, the more of your deck you will already have fleshed out.
At this stage you will often want to figure out exactly who your Guardian is going to be throughout the course of the game. It will usually help out for the rest of the deck-building process to know what kind of energy curve you can run on, what cards might play better on one particular guardian than another (or even be made specifically for a certain guardian).
For this deck, we will be choosing the Orihime Inoue guardian for her straightforward approach to the burn archetype. She's a classic choice, and one that has proved her worth for many sets now. To elaborate further on our plan, we are going to dive a little deeper than the shallow depths of our plan, 'burn opponent to death,' and set out a little something like this:
"Swarm and bounce as many different, cheap Students as possible to best utilize Kanisawa - Assistant Trainer, Karakura High School Roof, and Dragged to Safety."
The Cards
Now that you've gotten your plan fleshed out, you will want to go through your collection of cards to see just what will help you achieve your plan. Consider cards of all three types: Aggressive, Supportive, and Defensive. It often takes a good balance of all three of these to make a deck work best.
<> Aggressive cards are cards that directly push you toward your goal: Damage dealers in truly Aggressive decks; Soul gathering engines in Bounts Forever decks; You get the picture.
<> Supportive cards are cards that will help you find the cards you need, or help you keep the cards you need: There are many well-known options here, such as The Mr. Kan'onji Challenge and Thumbs Up, but also consider cards like Enter the Hero for Mommy decks or Costume Change for Five decks.
<> Defensive cards are cards that will keep you around to meet your goal. These come in many varieties: Control cards keep a leash on the opponent's field, often by keeping their characters off of it; Other more outright defensive cards may reduce the damage you will take or restrict how the opponent can attack.
You can never list too many cards at this point of the process, as the longer your list gets, the wider your options become. And fortunately for us, the Student deck has quite a vast list of options at it's disposal! For today's article, I will only be listing some of the better options for meeting our plan.
Chad - Cutting Edge Fashion (Premiere U92) - Cheap cost with great stats
Chizuru - Enamored Classmate (Premiere C23) - The cheapest it can get
Ichigo - Annoyed (Bounts C8) - Great effect for leaving play
Izuru - Confident Student (Bankai C16) - Also a pretty good effect
Kaname - Young Student (Bankai C20) - Same effect as above
Kanisawa - Assistant Trainer (Bankai R173) - A centerpiece of the deck!
Keigo - Taken Aback (Premiere C31) - Also the cheapest
Mahana - Inquisitive Schoolgirl (Premiere U106) - Cheap and effective
Michiru - Sewing Request (Premiere R184) - Cheap.. but so-so effect
Mizuiro - Lunch Partner (Premiere C37) - Same as above
Momo - In Training (Seireitei C17) - Also a centerpiece! Amazing effect!
Orihime - Confused Friend (Premiere R189) - Though not the cheapest, it's effect makes up for it tenfold!
Renji - Sparring (Seireitei C20) - Cheap and a great effect!
Rukia - Serious (Portal U78) - Cheap and her effect fits the deck!
Ryo - Bookworm (Premiere C45) - Cheap with a surprisingly good effect
Shuhei - Team Leader (Bankai R187) - Also a great effect! A little expensive though
Tatsuki - Eager to Spar (Premiere C48) - Cheap with good stats
Thug(s) (Seireitei) - Though they are a good, cheap swarm, they don't benefit much from entering and leaving play..
Uryu - Home Handicrafts Club Member (Premiere R199) - Very cheap with excellent stats
Karakura High School Roof (Portal U95) - Great effect for our plan
Dragged to Safety (Portal R154) - Also a central point to the deck
Narrow Escape (Premiere U152) -
The Perfect Plan (Premiere U156) - A great defensive card for Students since set 1!
Utter Destruction (Soul Society UR110) - With all of the bouncing, there will be a good many ways to obtain the hand resource. Also, the deck has quite a few answers to saving it's field, even from it's own Utter. It works wonders in here!
The Work
This is the stage where most of the hard work happens! And as I don't have any better name for it, that's what it will be called for now!
Now that you have a pretty good idea of what cards you want to play, this is where you go through each one and try to determine how many of each to play! Though it may seem obvious to some, a wise rule of thumb I have often heard is to play four copies of any card you want to get early every game, three copies of cards that you want to at least see every game, and so on from there.
Since with this deck we want to get as many different characters as we can, we'll be playing two copies of quite a lot of them, mostly to try and ensure we don't draw into too many repeat characters as well. Though there will definately be a number of characters to play in fours: Kanisawa and Momo for their damage-dealing abilities, and Renji for his ability to recover lost characters.
The Deck
Finally, after all of your hard work and dedication, you've reached the goal! Or have you?
Guardian: Orihime Inoue (9M 5B 6S 35P)
Side Deck: 17
Dual Energy - Mind and Body x1
Dual Energy - Body and Spirit x1
Dual Energy - Spirit and Mind x1
Mind Energy x7
Body Energy x3
Spirit Energy x4
Characters: 38
Chizuru - Enamored Classmate x2
Keigo - Taken Aback x2
Ryo - Bookworm x2
Uryu - Home Handicrafts Club Member x4
Momo - In Training x4
Renji - Sparring x4
Izuru - New Classmate x2
Kaname - Young Student x2
Tatsuki - Sparring Partner x2
Mahana - Inquisitive Schoolgirl x2
Rukia - Serious x2
Ichigo - Annoyed x2
Kanisawa - Assistant Trainer x4
Shuhei - Team Leader x2
Orihime - Confused Friend x2
Battlegrounds: 4
Karakura High School Roof x4
Events: 18
The Perfect Plan x3
Narrow Escape x3
Utter Destruction x3
Dragged to Safety x3
QQ x2
The Mr. Kan'onji Challenge x2
Thumbs Up x2
Though you now have a deck fleshed out, this is only the first draft. The true path to perfection comes from taking what you have built here and going out and getting some field data out of it. Try it out in as many games as you can! You also have to try it against as many different decks as you can, as some decks naturally have bad match-ups. Once you've at least given the deck a week to try itself out and see what it can do, that's when you should have the best ability to go back through your build and look at each card to determine it's true value toward the deck.
And that's how it's done, with a bonus Student Deck on the side! I hope you all enjoyed it! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them for me right here on Bleach Gaming, or if you prefer you can email me at ZYBleach@yahoo.com! Until next time!
