thin decks? how do they work?

[van the man]

I just beat ascension 14, congrats me

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1343757050

The relic/card pull was a bit of a dream synergy, but anyway as far the topic: My smallest winning deck to date was like 27 cards, and it was back on ascension 3 or something

I generally don't go past 35, but most of them are 35. Several that are 30 tho too.

I don't get how you stay alive while shaping a thinner deck, or even how you achieve enough clearing of the strikes and defends. Maybe if I got some dream card / relic pulls during act 1 and really felt like I didn't need anything but those cards for act 2. I usually take any card offered if it'll be better in more than 50% of draws (I estimate this), just because almost every card is better than strike or defend, and taking more cards dilutes the strikes and defends with better cards; i.e. raises the power of the deck.

The only way I ever fully clear the junk is with pandora, but that doesn't do anything to make the deck smaller. Early pipe maybe but I usually need campsites to rest or upgrade something important.

Are thinner decks only a thing of lower ascensions? I haven't played anything but the highest available to me / dailies for more than a hundred hours of playtime, so I imagine I'd be able to do a lot of things differently on ascension 0, where Laguvalin doesn't kill you MOST of the time, and act 1 slime boss doesn't require a somewhat specific build to beat. I've kind of come to see the higher ascensions as the "real game" since many of the enemy counterplay mechanics actually start to matter on them.

[Sinsling]

I'm still climbing but the only successful spam deck I've had since normal was a silent shiv deck that picked up dead branch. When dead branch was offered I thought "okay, do I take this and just run with it or skip and try for this shiv deck that isn't coming along very well?". Turned out taking dead branch and spamming cards was the way to go there.

My play set will probably change as I get higher, but so far I've cleared 6 of the last 9 ascension clears I have with 15 or lower decks.

You can find most of those sitting in the "am I doing it right" thread.

[lordofdekingz]

My ascension 1-15 wins on both characters never exceeded 25 cards with the ironclad and 30 cards with the silent. mostly i used 20-cardish-decks. thin decks are easier to control imo. just had a 11 card deck that always had an infinite turn 1, was really nice.

[bc]

I do believe that most of the "thin guys" either doing normal mode / low asc, or the just have fairly poor wr on asc 15. Thick is better for me.

[Shovel Priest]

The theory behind a thin deck is that you're able to upgrade a larger percentage of your cards (Apotheosis is a relatively manageable way to work around that for thicker decks, of course), you cycle through your entire deck in fewer turns, thus getting to play your more powerful cards more often.

It also reduces the chance that you'll draw a full hand of just attacks or just blocks, meaning each hand you draw is more likely to be flexible to respond to enemies.

It also increases the chance that you can set up an infinite combo. More consistent hands means it's less likely you'll draw a starting hand with no card-draw cards, and you're more likely to get your energy-generating cards as you draw.

I was on board with the theory until I played several of the "Start with 50 random cards" daily climbs. Those runs are always easy wins and I still don't know how that works. So now I don't know what to think. All I can say is that 50 cards of value chokes out the detrimental status cards and curses, but I can't imagine that's the full story...

[Arti_Sel]

Originally posted by Shovel Priest:

The theory behind a thin deck is that you're able to upgrade a larger percentage of your cards (Apotheosis is a relatively manageable way to work around that for thicker decks, of course), you cycle through your entire deck in fewer turns, thus getting to play your more powerful cards more often.

It also reduces the chance that you'll draw a full hand of just attacks or just blocks, meaning each hand you draw is more likely to be flexible to respond to enemies.

It also increases the chance that you can set up an infinite combo. More consistent hands means it's less likely you'll draw a starting hand with no card-draw cards, and you're more likely to get your energy-generating cards as you draw.

I was on board with the theory until I played several of the "Start with 50 random cards" daily climbs. Those runs are always easy wins and I still don't know how that works. So now I don't know what to think. All I can say is that 50 cards of value chokes out the detrimental status cards and curses, but I can't imagine that's the full story...

As op said main advantage of thin decks is to not draw subpar cards like strike/def. 50 card decks generally don't care about that so you are free to elite hunt from the start.

[Sentient_Toaster]

Originally posted by Shovel Priest:

I was on board with the theory until I played several of the "Start with 50 random cards" daily climbs. Those runs are always easy wins and I still don't know how that works. So now I don't know what to think. All I can say is that 50 cards of value chokes out the detrimental status cards and curses, but I can't imagine that's the full story...

They also tend to have some not-terrible cards in them, are pretty safe to use with Corruption (much less risk of running out of defense when you have 50 cards), and make Mind Blast amazing, especially when upgraded.

[Shovel Priest]

Yeah, but if you remove your Strikes and Defends, that's not really an issue. I might not get rid of all of them by the end of a run, I almost never have any Strikes left, and I'm usually down to a couple Defends that I still kinda need to keep my Block up.

[Player Won]

So one way to better plan ahead with card analysis on pickup: Don't just take cards for being better than half your deck; pick cards that will be better than half the deck you will have *by the time you reach the final boss*. This usually means something along the lines of: better than 90% of your deck in Act 1, 77% in Act 2, and 65% in Act 3.

[Player Won]

Large decks don't just dilute curses and statuses into obscure, barely-drawbacks. They can afford to run more powers (number, not percent), meaning they can continue to scale up for much longer than small decks (without needing something that auto-scales, like Demon Form or Shuriken).

This is why I feel like small decks are overrated. They can be great with the right setup, but they aren't required for victory, nor even the only valid path.

[burningmime]

Thin decks are important if there's a specific card you need to reach often. For example, let's say you always want Noxious Fumes in your opening hand. The chance of that happening in a 10-card deck is 50%. The chance of that happening in a 30-card deck is slightly over 16%.

It's also very useful for combo decks, so you can get all the pieces of the combo together. Also for decks like Rampage/Searing Blow/Grand Finale that like to recycle one card repeatedly, and, of course, spinning top decks, etc.

But you can definitely win with a much larger deck (as you've seen by making it to asc 14 with 30+ card decks). If you're not building around specific powers, thicker decks are fine (and tend to do better in Act 1-2, which is where a lot of losses occur). Big decks are also more resilient to curses and statuses (these can cripple a little deck).

[bc]

Whats the point of removing basics, when you can just burn all of them with a single Fiend Fire, like a Boss

Originally posted by burningmime:

Thin decks are important if there's a specific card you need to reach often. For example, let's say you always want Noxious Fumes in your opening hand. The chance of that happening in a 10-card deck is 50%. The chance of that happening in a 30-card deck is slightly over 16%.

Then pick fumes x3, or build your deck around several win conditions.

[burningmime]

Originally posted by bc:

Whats the point of removing basics, when you can just burn them with a single Fiend Fire, like a Boss

Originally posted by burningmime:

Thin decks are important if there's a specific card you need to reach often. For example, let's say you always want Noxious Fumes in your opening hand. The chance of that happening in a 10-card deck is 50%. The chance of that happening in a 30-card deck is slightly over 16%.

Then pick fumes x3, or build your deck around several win conditions.

You might not get 3. Fumes might not be the best example. Think Panache; you're only ever going to get 1 unless you're exceedingly lucky. I'm not saying this is the ONLY way to play the game, but it's a good reason for having a small deck.

Originally posted by bc:

I do believe that most of the "thin guys" either doing normal mode / low asc, or the just have fairly poor wr on asc 15. Thick is better for me.

"Everyone who doesn't play like me must be losers"

[bc]

Originally posted by burningmime:

Originally posted by bc:

Whats the point of removing basics, when you can just burn them with a single Fiend Fire, like a Boss

Then pick fumes x3, or build your deck around several win conditions.

You might not get 3. Fumes might not be the best example. Think Panache; you're only ever going to get 1 unless you're exceedingly lucky. I'm not saying this is the ONLY way to play the game, but it's a good reason for having a small deck.

Then just pick both, whats the problem.

Originally posted by burningmime:

"Everyone who doesn't play like me must be losers"

From my side its more like "If you dont getting at least 50% wr on asc 15, you probably doing smth wrong in this game"

[Sinsling]

Originally posted by bc:

Originally posted by burningmime:

You might not get 3. Fumes might not be the best example. Think Panache; you're only ever going to get 1 unless you're exceedingly lucky. I'm not saying this is the ONLY way to play the game, but it's a good reason for having a small deck.

Then just pick both, whats the problem.

Originally posted by burningmime:

"Everyone who doesn't play like me must be losers"

From my side its more like "If you dont getting at least 50% wr on asc 15, you probably doing smth wrong in this game"

I'm not sure you get his point. Take a 29 card deck. Pick that one super cool card that would be awesome to open every match with. Cry when you realise you are going to need a bottle.

A thick deck hopes to outlast.

A thin deck hopes to consistently hit it's win condition.

I have a few different wins that show these concepts in practice.

Neither of these is necessarily better than the other from my view point. It is just a matter of recognizing when your picks need to go one way or the other.

[bc]

Originally posted by Sinsling:

Originally posted by bc:

Then just pick both, whats the problem.


From my side its more like "If you dont getting at least 50% wr on asc 15, you probably doing smth wrong in this game"

I'm not sure you get his point. Take a 29 card deck. Pick that one super cool card that would be awesome to open every match with. Cry when you realise you are going to need a bottle.

A thick deck hopes to outlast.

A thin deck hopes to consistently hit it's win condition.

I have a few different wins that show these concepts in practice.

Neither of these is necessarily better than the other from my view point. It is just a matter of recognizing when your picks need to go one way or the other.

When you reach ascension 15 you will hit the fact that most of your strats, that worked pretty well, are not that good anymore. That happened to everyone, even for a guy who had 50 winstreak in a row on normal mod ;) (thats not me, im not bragging haha)