Hello and welcome back to Illumination, the Disney Lorcan podcast.
My name is Max.
And I'm Sam.
And we are here to talk about building, deck building, building a deck in Lorcan.
Sam, let me ask you, what do you think the most important thing for deck building is
when you're going to start?
Like you want to build a deck, I'm ready to build a deck.
What is the number one mission statement?
To put together 60 cards.
That's a good place to start.
That is, that would make it a legal constructed deck in Disney's Lorcan.
Why do you build a deck?
To win games.
Is that your sole purpose behind building a deck?
To win games, to like your deck, something that you're comfortable with.
So I'd say it's fair to boil it down to one major question or one major purpose.
And that is finding out or fulfilling a goal.
Yes.
Whatever it may be.
I like the way you phrased it because there are kind of two different major goals.
One is to build a deck that performs well on the competitive scene, a good deck that
would find its way into the meta game.
And we've talked about meta games before.
If you want to give a listen to that episode, we'd appreciate the support.
If you already have, thank you.
Also the other goal would then be to play a more casual deck or a deck to have fun with.
This might be a multiplayer deck.
This might be just a cool kitchen table deck is what we used to call them back in the day
with Magic.
99 puppies.
101 card deck, 99 puppies, a pongo and a perdita.
Sure.
Like that is absolutely a fun, cool, interesting idea.
Like I want to run so many of each art.
I just want to run one art, whatever makes you happy.
The goal is playing the game to be happy.
And that is a totally valid goal to have.
So what the goal of the deck is, is super duper important.
It's not always just to win the game, even though that seems to be Sam's major angle.
It is.
So I want to talk about the competitive part of it first.
And we've kind of talked about this a lot.
And there is again, a whole meta episode.
So I don't want to be a dead horse or be too redundant.
And then we'll jump into brewing a deck kind of from scratch and get into that.
So obviously when it comes to a meta deck, a deck that Sam wants to play, a deck that
is trying to win, one of the best ways to figure out what to play or to build a deck
is to look at what is winning.
Look at tournament results, hop on PixelBorn, look at PixelBorn results.
That can really help you.
Paper tournaments really help as well.
Figure out what is performing well.
Talk to people.
What are you playing right now?
What are you liking?
What's doing well?
Then what you want to do is you want to take that particular core concept, that deck list,
that idea, and you want to look at as many different lists as you can.
What are people doing with this deck?
I think a good example of that right now is in the Amber Steel Song decks.
There's a lot of flexibility.
There are some people playing Pride Land, some people playing Flutes, some people are
playing Lantern, some people playing None of the Above.
They're just playing songs and characters to sing them, all of which are valid.
So you're looking at different lists all in that same theme and trying to figure out what
version of that suits you the best.
So you want to try to look for what I consider to be the deck core or the framework that
keeps the deck together.
When you look at these lists, let's pretend it's four different versions like I just described
for Amber Steel Song.
What are the cards that are always in that deck, especially the cards that are always
four of in that deck?
Most likely you are not going to be able to move those cards out or if you do, you're
likely going to be making a sub par choice.
A lot of the purple decks, they all have the bounce package.
They pretty much all play the bounce package, right?
You're talking Madam Mim Snake, Madam Mim Fox, Merlin Goat, Merlin Rabbit, Merlin Crab.
This is a pretty standard stock set of cards, a great core.
And those cards aren't going to really change.
Likely if they do, you're probably playing something that's not quite as strong.
And the reason I say that is because remember, when you're looking at results like this and
you're looking at decks and you're looking at concepts of a deck, these are things that
have been tested by hundreds of people and have logged thousands of hours of playtime.
The idea that you're going to be able to go, okay, you know what?
I'm going to dedicate three or four hours for the next few nights into doing this and
come up with results that are as data driven and as proven as what these hundreds of people
logging all this time have done.
That's a bit preposterous.
You may come up with something that works really well within the context of an existing
deck, but just to throw a deck together with no outside context from a competitive perspective
isn't going to happen too well.
So what you'll do is take that framework and go, okay, I have these, let's pretend out
of a 60 card deck, there are 40 cards that are pretty much spoken for.
They're the same in every list.
Maybe it's 50 cards that are the same in every list.
A lot of the Steel Song decks get as close as like 54 cards that are the same a lot of
the time.
So you figured out what that is.
Now what you're going to do is take those flex slots and you're going to change those
particular cards around to try to shore up a match that you feel like the deck struggles
against or to suit the style of play that you prefer.
Do you like your Mr. Smeez?
Cause the synergy with Rapunzel gifted with healing is really strong or would you prefer
playing something a little bit more low to the ground?
Like I want to play the one drop Simba because he's a king and he can go into the pride lands
and he can immediately give me the benefit of being at the pride lands.
There's a lot of questions you can ask and a lot of work you can do even though it seems
like it's ridiculous.
Like you're only, well, it's the same 50 cards, but it's really on a lot of cases, the last
10 cards, the last five cards being different, that was a hallmark.
If you listen to a lot of interviews with people who win tournaments, they go, yeah,
me deciding to play this really was the game changer.
Like no one saw this coming or this match that's normally unfavorable.
This really gave me an edge and made it a much closer matchup.
So I got to eke out more wins than I normally would because I made these choices.
So that's really what you're looking at when you're talking about a meta deck evaluation
is taking the core and then shaving out what can be moved around and molding the last few
slots, those flex slots to what you prefer, what your preference really is.
Sam you've been doing that with red purple coming into set championships.
What were the changes that you walked yourself through?
What made you go in the direction you went?
I think just by playing over and over and over again, I knew for example, Minnie Mouse
Surfer, she came out for a while.
She went back in, I think making the adjustments based on how many I think I need, like how
important was she in this matchup or that matchup was really important.
Another one that I believe the list I mirrored my deck off of only played one Pinocchio and
I was like, that is nonsense.
Pinocchio is way too strong.
So I ended up on two Pinocchio.
Just playing with your deck, seeing what's comfortable, making a mental note about what
did I need at that moment and what could have helped, I think definitely made a difference.
You even went as far as to make one of the more hot takes at that time with the red purple
decks and you decided to shave a be prepared.
Yes, I did.
I only went in with three.
I tried putting in a scar.
I didn't think that worked very well for me.
So it ended up coming out in favor of, I believe another Maleficent three drop who she's lowered
in some of the lists that I was looking at.
She draws you a card.
She sings friends on the other side.
She's just really important.
She's good against the aggro decks because you can get rid of most of their merfolks
or Flynn rioters with her if needed.
So I felt she was very strong.
And when we went into set championships, there was a lot of green steel discard decks that
I think she definitely helped me with.
Yeah.
Maleficent is really good at coming down, adding a card to your hand and then giving you more
options when it comes to the times you have to discard.
We're just being another card in general tends to be very good against the discard decks.
It can't be taken by two drop Ursula and that lowering of the deck, right?
We're cutting down on six drops, cutting down on seven drops, completely cutting Maleficent
dragon in order to interact with the early game was a concession.
And I think in two parts, one to the Emerald steel discard decks and the other is to getting
underneath of the popsicle decks and being able to be a little bit faster and have characters
on board and go, okay, I have a Queens castle, do something about all of this.
And I think that it gave you more ins into the decks that were popular in the metagame
at the time.
So that's the process that Sam walked through when it came to tweaking an already very established
archetype.
And I mean, this is cutting cards like be prepared as no joke, cutting down on your
Medusa's in your Tremains is a hard choice to make cutting out Maleficent dragon, which
if you go back to the beginning of the Inklans meta, people were jamming for of them going,
this is better than it's ever been.
And now that changed.
And I think the Tremain Medusa deciding how many, what your split is, that was a really
difficult decision as well.
And everybody kind of was different.
I decided for a two, two split.
Some people had three of one, two of the other, some had one of one of them and none of the
other.
So that's definitely one of those flex spots that can vary from deck to deck.
Absolutely.
If you want to be successful, I'm not saying it's the only approach.
Obviously innovation comes at various times.
The green steel deck came at the end of the metagame.
Somebody creates the decks.
That's right.
Somebody breaks through with ideas and concepts and a lot of people try and don't.
And I'm not trying to dissuade anyone from trying, but just know that when you are testing
this way, it's going to result in a lot of losses.
I'll get more into that as we get through the next section, which is brewing a deck
just in general.
And we talked about the core concept or the goal of the deck.
And that kind of comes in two modes, the casual deck versus the competitive deck.
Which modality do you want the deck to exist in?
Am I here to have fun and just like do cool stuff?
And I think this deck is just so cool because I'm so excited about a particular card or
a particular cluster of cards and I really want the deck's concept to just be it is this,
right?
We see this a lot with tribal decks is what we refer to them in magic.
Tribe being the type of card they are.
And we do see this transfer to Lor'Khan'a quite a bit.
Brooms, princesses.
Heroes.
Heroes now becoming an archetype.
One I'm very excited for and I tried early on is Musketeers.
Villains is what I believe.
Villains.
Yeah, absolutely.
And the ladies is waiting in the shadows to actually be a real, at least a playable card.
And even as far as I think now that more sets are coming out, people are going to want to
do certain movies like me with my Lion King.
Like maybe I want to make a Lion King deck.
Absolutely.
And a lot of people have tried to propose the format of no color restriction, but only
cards that are related to that film, which is a cool concept.
There's a lot of neat ways.
What's the goal?
Maybe it's you and seven other friends get together every week in Jamlor Khan and you
go, you know what?
We're making our own format.
And your goal then becomes to make a deck that is either winning or fun to play within
that new format.
That's your goal.
That's step one.
What is your goal?
That is kind of one A that has to almost transcend the what is the deck?
This is for fun and I'm okay with losses because I just want to have a good time at the table.
Or is this competitive and its goal is winning and I don't care what movies, what archetypes,
I want the best cards in this to accomplish this very competitive and goal that will result
in wins.
Then either one of those totally valid ways to walk this game.
Then after that, you need to test it.
Okay, I'm building my musketeers deck.
I tried it before.
There was not enough musketeer support.
However, in Ursula's return, we're going to see a bunch more musketeers and I'm really
excited to go, okay, that's the concept.
I'm jamming all the musketeers into a deck and then from there I need to test it and
go, okay, this musketeer stinks or this musketeer is less good.
I need to just cut down to like two copies of that one or this is the best musketeer
in the deck.
I need four of these.
I really need this card to function and it's maybe it's an item and I need a way to find
an item now.
How do I get an item in here?
How do I get it back when it's banished because it's super important.
I need that tab or I lose.
Those are things that I will start to test and I will begin to make notes.
I'm going to find cards that help me, bodyguards to go with my tabernacle that aren't necessarily
musketeers would help me.
I need those cards and I need to test them and go, okay, well, I need some of these and
I need some of these and you have to keep refining and testing.
You have to test in labs on Pixelborn.
If you're going to go out and you're going to get the cards, maybe it's easier to start
in Pixelborn for free when you have access to all the cards and go, well, let me come
up with the list and then decide to get the cards instead of getting every musketeer and
then going, oh, well, I only need like 50% of these.
Unless your goal is also maybe like collecting alongside of that, whatever kind of answers
and meets the goal and then you can try again.
Once you get it kind of at that level of like, all right, this is a functional 60 cards.
I'm going to take it to my locals, but hopefully a more casual local to test it out first and
then from there you're going to continue to refine and make changes until you're happy
with the 60 and it'll always change, especially if we're talking about more competitive decks
because the meta will change frequently.
And new cards will come out frequently.
New cards will come out frequently.
I think that that kind of leads us into some things to keep in mind as you're going through
either of these processes is no, the results are largely going to be else.
You're not going to get a ton of W's out of the gate.
The key is taking those defeats and figuring out why they happened.
What was the pivotal moment of the game?
What inflection points caused you to make decisions or what inflection points occurred
and you were unable to make a decision that was correct.
You knew what to do, but the deck wasn't capable of providing you with that option.
There are a lot of things that you're going to need to do.
Take notes, take a lot of notes.
What's beating you?
Is it one ink identity?
Is it just, oh, these steel decks just wreck me because they just keep wiping my board.
You got to figure out how to not have your board wiped.
Your deck can be beating yourself.
Too many uninkable.
Right.
Exactly.
Functionality out of the gate is a huge thing and what we call gold fishing in magic, which
is where you play with no opponent.
You just are essentially putting down cards to see if it functions as a cohesive deck
is a little bit trickier in Lurkana because this is such a heavily interactive game.
You can't just assume that no one's going to challenge your questor.
So all you need to do is like Sam said, you can draw test hands to make sure how often
make a little tally mark.
How often when I draw, how many uninkables?
Three, four, one, one, zero, five, seven.
Those are important notes to make.
How many times are you ending up with too many uninkables?
How often are you losing to a specific deck and you go, okay, I need to be able to beat
this because I know if I take it to my locals, somebody's going to be playing it because
it's just a good deck to be playing right now.
So I need to be able to answer it.
What can you answer it just simply in the way you're playing the deck or do you need
to make changes within the deck?
Those are all really important things to make note of.
Like, okay, listen, I can't run this card into this card into this card because it sets
me up too badly for a grab your sword.
So I need to play this.
Then I need to play this different card now and then I can follow up because then grab
your sword does not impact me nearly as much as it did.
Or you may go, no, no, no, I'm just stone cold to this card.
So I need to figure out how to answer that immediately.
We saw that again with pride lance being an answer to grab your swords by giving everything
an increase in their willpower.
So there are definitely things you can do.
It's a weird goal because it's kind of a goal you never accomplish.
You always can make a deck better.
That's kind of the joy of having a pet deck.
Like if your goal is just to have a fun deck and we're seeing a lot of love for the brooms
now, so we're going to see a lot more broom decks, especially at your more casual local
events.
You're going to see a lot of people who are just like, I just think this is so neat that
this is a deck and I'm just jamming brooms and having a blast.
That's okay.
And they're always going to be getting new brooms.
Sam's always going to be getting more Lion King cards.
There's a pirate deck.
We forgot about that one, which was actually kind of popular at the beginning of into the
Inclands.
Absolutely was the red steel pirate deck.
And it's getting a little bit of love here towards the end of the format as well as we
transition over and are getting more pirates.
There's always going to be another pirate card to test.
So it's cool to have these pet decks that let you just monkey around and make little
changes and then goodness, like there might be a time where it's like, uh, this is actually
like quite a good deck right now.
Maybe it's hits into the potential to go, I'm going to take this, I'm going to turn
it into a competitive deck from my casual build by changing 12 cards.
Now all of a sudden is competitive version of my Lion King matters deck.
So it's a ton of fun.
I guess my big goal out of this is the same thing.
We've been made our kind of unofficial mission statement of try everything and don't be deterred
by the negative results.
Remember your goal.
My goal is just to have fun and I'm obviously you're going to have more fun if you win some
game.
So you'll keep making changes and tweaks.
It's the project never ends.
It's always ongoing.
You could always make it a little better.
You could always make it a little bit different.
It's the same reason people have a classic car and they constantly tweak it and change
it and fiddle with things and upgrade pieces and parts and they try to find the vintage
version of something.
It's fun.
That's part of the fun is I want to test cards or tonight I made like four changes to my
deck.
I can't wait to test them tonight when I go play.
Those are the fun parts of it.
So don't lose sight of that.
If it's meta testing, obviously the fun is in the exploration of what the meta is right
now and how good certain decks are.
Maybe the deck you were testing for the meta is not the result, but you find out how good
another deck is because of the solid results it keeps putting up.
So just I would say don't be deterred.
It's always testing.
It should always yield some kind of positive result in one way or another.
If it's not fun, it's not worth doing.
So it needs to be fun and informative.
It needs you know, you're going to have a lot of wrong ideas.
It's not going to stop you from keep questioning.