What is too many cards in a deck?

[Sonic Boomer]

Question is in the title. What do you guys think is too many cards in a deck? I'm starting to feel that over 22-23 cards, I'm not getting the ones I really want often enough. What's the opinion of the more experienced players?

[Daemon]

I would say it really depends on the deck your trying to make and what kind of cards are in the deck. I've had decks with 30-40 cards in them win just as easily as a thin deck. Also cards that exhaust after they play and powers can make your deck look bigger than it is. I had a Ironclad run that was around 25 cards but once I played all my exhaust cards and powers it was a 15 card deck. Overall I would say with picking cards ask yourself what the card adds to your deck and how well it supports your game plan.

[Sonic Boomer]

Originally posted by Daemon:

I would say it really depends on the deck your trying to make and what kind of cards are in the deck. I've had decks with 30-40 cards in them win just as easily as a thin deck. Also cards that exhaust after they play and powers can make your deck look bigger than it is. I had a Ironclad run that was around 25 cards but once I played all my exhaust cards and powers it was a 15 card deck. Overall I would say with picking cards ask yourself what the card adds to your deck and how well it supports your game plan.

thx for the input. I'm often afraid to pick cards when I'm at around 25. I haven't had the sick synergy yet, but I hope I'll find one soon!

Recently, the game seems to be trolling me by drawing defend cards when no enemies attack and only attack cards when the enemies attack.....

[gachi is manly]

Really depends on the deck. I just ended a Silent run where I had 33 cards in my deck, which I would consider to be too much in most circumstances. Most of those cards ,however, were energy gen, discard, and draw cards so I could still manage to cycle the entire deck and more in a single turn.

Even running into the only last boss that could give this deck trouble (the Time guy) it still breezed through pretty easy.

[ravengage]

I start to feel uneasy after I reach 20 cards. I'll still add more if they're really good until I hit 25 or so. Occasionally I might even reach 30 but that is rare.

[OpenSheep]

I generally stick around twenty cards.

[Eric]

it depends, you have to look at the deck and ask yourself that during every turn in combat, can i utilize my energy effectively with any combination of the cards in my deck? If the answer is yes, then you have the right amount of cards, if the answer is no, then you have too many cards.

I have had runs where I have 35+ cards in my final deck, and it ran fine because it has a lot of powers to help me gain incremental advantage through the game, and it has enough immediate effective cards to help me survive while I get the powers.

[Dabiz]

I'm really suprised to see how you guys manage to keep such slim decks. I usually have around 38 (+/- 5) cards in my deck after stabbing the hart. Without many exceptions in about 100 runs. And I do beat the game about 90% of the time.

After seeing im on the + side on avarage, I think I'm going to try to slim it down a bit. See if it works for me too.

Interesting topic.

[Rack]

I don't think the game intrinsically encourages deck thinness particularly strongly so if a card will increase my average card quality while complementing the strategy I am working on I always add it unless there's a compelling reason not to.

[GooDGoDBaDDog]

I played about 25 hours ending games with 40+ cards each time.
But I had really many defense\cycle\zero cost cards and some Power cards ofc

[aclockworkgreg]

Most decks I build are around 20-25 cards. I'll go up to 30 if I have enough cards that exhaust themselves, anything past that is the result of me just messing around with the game.

[Sonic Boomer]

Originally posted by OwL:

I played about 25 hours ending games with 40+ cards each time.
But I had really many defense\cycle\zero cost cards and some Power cards ofc

exactly. Anger/Clash builds really like thin decks. That way, the damage ramps up fast

[lowkey]

I try to stay around 30 cards.

[moleo]

Certainly depends on the cards.

While it would be bad vs some enemies/debuffs, most of the time I'll take another Adrenalines or Flash of Steel etc since that wouldn't actually make the deck any fatter because you can (almost) always play it and it (almost) always breaks even at least.

E.g. a deck with 5 Strikes, 5 Defends, and 20 Adrenalines (not realistic but demonstrates the point) is effectively thinner than a deck with 6 Strikes and 6 Defends and 1 Adrenaline.

Similar arguments apply to the first 1 or 2 copies of cards like Well Laid Plans or Tools of the Trade, which are effectively card draw/card cycle for little to no tempo cost.

Still, for most cards I try to think carefully and critically if the card will actually help.

Sure I make some mistakes, but I think that more often than not I manage to work out if one of the cards I'm being offered will actually make the deck "better" or "worse" (taking into account that I often do still pick up one or two 'bad' cards to hedge, like getting 1 copy of Noxious Fumes even in a non-poison deck, just in case I meet a high-armour enemy).

[SakuraKoi]

considering that I rather adjust to the flow than hope for whatever relic or event, I can not feel comfortable with a slim deck below 30 cards when so many cards one begins witth are weak strikes/defends. Prepared may very well be my best friend as the Silent, simple cycle and maybe... well, whether I have Wrath or some discard relic or whatever, I feel never harm in adding it, especially if I am already afraid of the attack/defend balance of my deck...

especially if I got too many attacks. I'd argue that one can not have too many blocks indeed but ofc, some enemies still accelerate and one better keeps up or kills them before they spiral out of control. Luckily (or sadly?) those are primarily elites (due to their high HP pool) so they can be avoided.

[Sealer]

The more card draw you have in your deck, the bigger decks you can have. 0 cost card draw is essentially free cards. Exhaust and powers remove themselves after use so they slim down the deck even further, allowing for bigger consistent decks - although the first rotation of cards can be rough.