Beyond the First Five: Deck Construction part II
On some subconscious level my deck building has been guided by an invisible principle. An ideology that a perfect Ashes deck exists. Not a stack of 30 cards that is unbeatable. But a masterfully crafted deck in complete harmony with the spellboard, deck, and dice.
This essay is a guide to being able to play each card you draw every round by correctly building your ten die resource pool. Playing more cards gives you more options. The more options you have more avenues to attack your opponent. And the player with the most avenues usually ends up taking them to win town.
Calculating Open Dice
The concept of open dice is introduced in part I and it is integral for understanding part II. The assumption is you want to use your spell books and phoenixborn ability every turn. So, those dice aren’t available to you.
Take ten minus the total class cost of repeatable effects (slotted spellbooks and phoenixborn ability). Do not subtract base dice usage. That is the amount of open dice available every round to spend on other cards. What is left is completely up to you how to build your deck.
Example: FF Aradel, False Demon, Butterfly Monk, Gilder, Frostback Bear, and Fate Reflection. 10 – 5 = 5 Open Dice. 1 for Aradel Ability, 1 for False Demon, 1 for Butterfly Monk, 1 for Gilder, and 1 for Bear. Even though you have five open dice, eight of your ten dice are already set in stone. 1 Charm (Gilder), 5 Nature (Aradel, Monk, Gilder, Bear x2), 2 Illusion (Demon, Fate Reflection). That leaves two dice free to be any magic type that you want them to be.
The Magic Cost Equation
Here it is. The only thing you need to know from this essay is this:
1 die = 3.5* magic costs on cards
*Check the math at the end of the essay and decide for yourself what percentages make you comfortable.
Each class cost is one class or power die representation on a card. For each open die you can run four class costs. Reverse engineering can be used as well. When building a deck if you do not know your dice yet. Count up your non-first five class costs and divide by four. This can help guide what cards to add to your deck. Below are some examples:
- Enchanted Violinist equals one charm cost.
- Three Enchanted Violinists equals three charm costs.
- Beast Tamer equals two charm costs.
- Two Enchanted Violinists and one Beast Tamer equals four charm costs.
- Hammer Knight equals one nature and one ceremony cost. The basic cost is completely ignored for this equation.
Split Cards and Running x2 or x3 Books
Some cards have split costs that can be paid with either/or a magic type. When building a deck you will want to assign them just one of the class types. But, they can be shuttled between the two if you are running both in your deck.
Sometimes you want to run x3 of a book like Time Hopper or Small Sacrifice. I count them as normal one cost effects because there is no guarantee you will draw them. However, if you are running tutor or draw effects lower your open dice count by one to represent getting at least the second book in round two.
In the case of spell books you want to draw into like Keepsake. Just count the single use ability as one class cost.
Remember: do not count any costs that go into the first five. They are already accounted for by your starting dice. Now that we have the magical number we can start constructing decks in a way that does not strand dice or leave too many cards unplayed in a round.
Using the Equation
After you have put together a deck, check your work with the Magic Type Equation. You want to be as close to 1 to 3.5 with your open dice as possible while still playing the deck that you want. If you overload a magic type you will end up with dead cards in your hand. The best way to show this is by example.
Open Dice = 7; 3 Illusion, 2 Nature, 2 Sympathy
Costs available = 10.5 Illusion, 7 Nature, 7 Time
Needs 4 (3.71) Illusion Dice
- Illusion Costs = 13 (2 Hidden Power, 2 Mist Typhoon, 2 Out of the Mist, 1 Spectral Assassin, 3 Figures in the Fog, 3 Particle Shield)
Needs 2 Nature Dice
- Nature Costs = 7 (2 Mist Typhoon, 2 Out of the Mist) Nat/Symp (3 Raptor Herders)
Needs 2 Sympathy Dice
- Sympathy Costs = 6 (3 Beast Warrior) Ill/Symp (3 Hollow)
Total Dice Needs = 8
Cost Analysis Example
The Illusion dice are doing the bulk of the work in the deck and are overwhelmed! There is a strong argument to be made to add another Illusion and drop a sympathy die. I also have too many class costs in the deck. To reduce strain I might drop the Hollows completely and add in some basic cost cards like Anchornaut to bring down my total open dice needed. Notice how the cross-cost effects work together to keep any one magic die from becoming overclocked. Vengeance, since it uses base die, is not counted anywhere.
*Proof of Concept
I decided the most important question we are asking is how many cards we can put into a deck without drawing multiples of the same magic types. The easiest way to envision this is asking how many cards can a single die support? The first five has to be completely ignore since you can set that up independently. That means the first place we need to run numbers is ideally drawing cards at the top of round two from a deck of 25 cards.
I am also assuming the worst-case scenario. Card number 25 has the designated magic type we are testing. meaning the next four draws are in danger of being useless. Drawing the second magic type percentage is greatest on the fifth card drawn, or, the 21st card. That is the only percentage we care about because if that one is within our acceptable range than all the card draws for the round are acceptable.
x/21 = percentage of drawing second magic type
x = number of cards left in the deck with matching magic type
x+1 = total number of cards in deck with the magic type
Here are the results:
Result with 5 class cost per 1 die. If x = 4 then 4/21 = 19.05%
Result with 4 class cost per 1 die. If x = 3 then 3/21 = 14.29%
Result with 3 class cost per 1 die. If x = 2 then 2/21 = 9.52%
Conversely, there is no reason we can not choose the percentage we want to find out a more exact class cost per die result.
If 20% x 21 = 4.2 Result with 5.2 class cost per 1 die
If 15% x 21 = 3.15 Result with 4.15 class cost per 1 die
If 10% x 21 = 2.1 Result with 3.1 class cost per 1 die
What is an Acceptable Percentage?
That is completely up to the player! While 10% feels incredibly safe I also find it to be a little too constricting. 15% should let you operate through your first two rounds with few dead draws. After round three the numbers start to get a little more dreadful.
In the event (14.28% with 3 cards and 19.05% with 4 cards) you do not draw the single magic class cards at all in round two, round three starts to look grim for the 4 class cost per 1 die. While the 3 to 1 ratio still looks safe from drawing a second class cost card at 12.5%.
If x = 3 then 3/16 = 18.75% Result with 4 class cost per 1 die
If x = 2 then 2/16 = 12.5% Result with 3 class cost per 1 die
So, what about something in between?
If x = 2.5 then 2.5/16 = 15.63 Result with 3.5 class cost per 1 die
Building Within Code and What It Means
It all depends on what kind of deck you are building. The 3.5 to 1 is the goldilocks of ratio. It is built for the midrange swing decks with five to six open dice. Great for beginners and your typical built from scratch decks.
The 3 to 1 ratio is best for control decks that want to go past round two. The lower ratio will leave most decks unable to field enough open dice to pay for the 25 cards. If you only have 4 open dice and try to use the 3 to 1 ratio you can only account for 12 class costs total out of 25 cards. Interestingly enough Dimona is able to use low class counts due to her basic knights and ability.
The 4 to 1 ratio is great for decks that are pushing to win by top of round three. Even 5 to 1 might be ok. Who cares if you have a couple dead cards when you are on the brink of winning! However, if the game goes deep in round three you probably have to meditate some cards from hand because you can’t use them. Those loss of tempo hits will probably cost you the game.
Final Word
When I began this experiment I suspected the true answer was somewhere in the middle. Hopefully this essay will provide you with some guidelines for future deck building! And like all good rules, it is meant to be broken. Just using the strategies from part I and II has helped me understand Ashes on a deeper level and led me to this. Maybe you can see this in action one day. Heyo and gl!
Want to see what a perfectly balanced deck using part I and part II?