How do you get a small deck size?

[Jakkson K]

I feel like one of the consistent causes of death for me is a bloated deck, I keep one removing cards whenever I can if I can't do anything better. Just as a reference point, I have never managed to win the game with a deck smaller than 21 cards and if I enter act 3 with 25 more or cards (looking at previous runs) I die before the boss.

When I see people talking about their 15 card deck my immediate thought is "How the ♥♥♥♥?" I get the whole don't take cards if you don't need them, but it isn't that simple, you need to take some cards because your beginning ones need to be deleted and replaced or if you are lucky worked with into a weird synergy. On a normal run I can get rid of maybe 4 cards, so with a starting deck size of 12, to get a deck that low I could only pick 7 cards to add into my deck.... Every synergy I have worked into a winning deck used more than 7 cards to really shine.

What is the secret here to removing more cards than I have ever seen possible?

I have beaten A1 on every character except Watcher and I have done A2 on Silent and my win/loss rate is improving from about 1/20+ to around 1 in 5 runs won, depending on the character,

[Songbird]

Small decks are a beginner thing or for achievements. Generally you're right, the winning play is to take a few attacks early even if they're be lackluster later and then round out your deck with defense and scaling, and you'll often have 20-30 cards at the end because of this even if you remove 4 cards at stores and 1-2 more from events.

[Zu]

Originally posted by Jakkson K:

if I enter act 3 with 25 more or cards (looking at previous runs) I die before the boss.

If I may make an educated guess, it's because the run wasn't going well overall, so you felt like you needed to get stronger by picking more cards to compensate for a lack of good relics or strike removals, but that turned out to be counterproductive because the cards were either unupgraded or only marginally better than what you had.
Like, perhaps you picked that preupgraded dagger spray for reptomancer, but the unassuming poison potion you didn't buy effectively dealt 40 damage to you in the giant head fight.

Something like that anyway. Deck size generally matters less than resource quality.

[robofish126]

How to keep your deck thin:

1: Hit up as many Merchants as possible, though make sure you time it so that you'll have adequate gold to use their removal service.

2: Hit up as many ? as possible. There are a large number of events which can remove cards, it'll also keep your temptation to add cards down.

3: Be extremely spartan in pickups. Just because it is a good card in a vacuum or is already upgraded doesn't mean you should take it.

It sounds to me like your problem is the ? events. While they don't always have remove a card events, they're a lot more common than Merchants.

[† ßâd•£üç]< Îñç™]

Originally posted by robofish126:

How to keep your deck thin:

1: Hit up as many Merchants as possible, though make sure you time it so that you'll have adequate gold to use their removal service.

2: Hit up as many ? as possible. There are a large number of events which can remove cards, it'll also keep your temptation to add cards down.

3: Be extremely spartan in pickups. Just because it is a good card in a vacuum or is already upgraded doesn't mean you should take it.

It sounds to me like your problem is the ? events. While they don't always have remove a card events, they're a lot more common than Merchants.

Since my temptation for relics is weak, curse cards undoubtedly adds to my bloat.

[Gamerzilla]

Yep, merchant is my first priority in all runs, because default block and strike cards SUCK if you dont get a certain rare ? event. I also try very hard not to pick up new cards if I am close to or over 15 cards. Its hard to get the draws you NEED when bloat makes you draw junk. Also, cards that do something AND draw cards are your best friend. Next best friend are zero cost cards.

[K E N N I]

This is not a typical card game and a small deck is not the cure for your problems. Without Smiling Mask, card removal is expensive compared to other items in the shop and should be used sparingly, especially in act 1. It's better to buy a card or two that will let you take on elites than to remove a Strike. Buying relics is always worth considering and potions can be useful too. Also keep in mind that later you might acquire a curse which needs to be removed immediately, like Pain.

You shouldn't be afraid to add cards to your deck. With a larger deck you will draw your terrible starter cards, curses and statuses less often. This becomes important on higher Ascension - the best players, who beat the Heart on A20, often end up with about 40 card decks.

[LHGreen]

Yeah, from what I've seen, if you can't keep it slim and concise, you want your pack to be pretty large. Real big or real small, try to avoid in between. Plus, if you have a deck of 50 or more cards, you get an extra 50 points. I gave up trying to have a thin and tiny deck pretty quickly, and usually try to get a fat and thick deck whenever can.

I have a kid-in-a-candy-store approach when it comes to collecting cards and relics, and very rarely ever pass them up, so I decided to just accept it and account for it. I try to hit up the max number of elites, then shops, then ? rooms, and then rest areas. Fighting fewer regular enemies ensures that I have fewer cards to bloat my deck with, and also less gold to blow on cards at the merchant. I prioritize relics when buying things or mapping out my route, because they have a (usually, but not always, permanent) passive effect that doesn't rely on drawing them. I also prioritize power cards (especially ones that can be made Innate), since they stay applied after their first use and don't get placed back into the deck, which then reduces the deck size mid-battle. That's turned out to be a crucial tactic. And I try to favor cards that cost 0 or can be made to have a lower cost, and have several exhaustible cards so that I can do some more mid-battle bloat-reducing. Aside from that, just favoring cards that draw and discard. It's a very cobbled-together, improvisational balancing act, but it's effective if you stay mindful.

[Speed-Dial]

There is an exploit with the Pandora's Box relic that can thin your deck out immensely.

By picking the Pandora's Box relic and having your strikes and defends removed, and then clicking on the abandon run option, followed by hitting the ESC key twice, you will find the cards intended to replace the strikes and defences are not part of your deck.

This can cut out up to 9 cards of your deck if you haven't already started removing the strikes and defences, so if you ever see the Pandora's Box relic, try this exploit out. Worked for me as early as today~

[VoidHeart]

Thin deck is good but not extremely necessary, as long as you can cycle through your deck and find the combo pieces in time, you will be fine, this can be done through having a small deck, or have enough card draw, or have enough duplicates of a card

For Iron Clad, there is Pommel Strike, Burning Pact, Battle Trance, Dark Embrace, Offering, etc, also exhausting cards is practically deck thinning.

For Silent, there is a lot, the most common being Back Flip, Acrobatics

For Defect, there is Heat Sinks, Skim, Scrape, Cool Headed, etc.

For Watcher, there are cards with scry, cards that shuffle a "draw two cards" into your deck, a power that draws you 2 cards when you enter wrath, attacks that draw card, etc.

[Roodog1]

Thin decks are also a lot more difficult to play against the heart, especially during turn 2-3. The heart adds 5 statuses to your draw pile at the end of turn one, and if your deck is 15 cards, then 1/4 of your deck is useless garbage on top of the fact that you are frail and vulnerable.

[Blood Flowers]

Originally posted by Jakkson K:

What is the secret here to removing more cards than I have ever seen possible?

It depends on your goal. If you're going for a specific achievement or self-motivated challenge, small deck sizes tend to depend primarily on luck (events that remove your starting cards + good RNG on card draws to get the cards you need quickly while skipping most).

If you're trying to win more, then specifically aiming for a small deck will probably negatively impact your win rate rather than improve it. There are many reasons for this, but here are some reasons why I personally consider large (>30) deck sizes to be better:

• In the early game, you often need to take cards that do not scale well in order to beat the Act 1 elites.
  
• Small deck sizes suffer significantly against curses/status cards.
  
• Small decks tend to be strong in specific aspect but weak in other aspects. This often means that if you get unlucky and are tested in an aspect that the small deck is not prepared for, you will lose that run.

If you're just trying to improve your win rate, I recommend you focus on improving how you think about building a deck rather than things like size or themes.