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By Orbin (James Monsebroten)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#582649
Hello all!

For this week's First Edition Friday Question I'm curious to know a bit about how the community builds decks and prepares for tournaments.

When building a deck how much to you prepare for differing strategies? Do you prefer to focus on things that make your deck go fast, ignoring the opponent, or do you stock various counters to different strategies?

For myself, it varies. I don't usually prepare for a lot of different strategies, if I feel that something has been popular in my meta I might prepare a counter or two for that strategy. More often than not, I build my decks with the capability to battle against speed solvers, though battle isn't a primary focus of the deck.

-James M
 
By Worf Son of Mogh (Kenneth Tufts)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
The Traveler
1E North American Continental Runner-Up 2023
2E North American Continental Runner-Up 2023
1E Canadian National Runner-Up 2023
2E Canadian National Runner-Up 2023
#583258
For me it really depends on the level of the event, for random local events, your day to day tournaments o focus nearly 100% on just making my deck work the best it can at what ever it’s doing, I might be doing battle and that could be considered countering opponents but really I’m focused on my plan to win what ever path that takes.

Now for higher level events then I start to focus more on what might I have to counter or defend against and balance that with my own game plan.

Now this doesn’t me my average deck doesn’t have any counter tech in it but it’s not my focus when designing. I mean I’ll almost always have a TWM seeded because it’s both a tool for my deck or a valuable counter and it’s a great play skill card knowing during the game weather to use it or save it as defence in love tools like that in every deck.

Hope that’s useful to you. I know it’s not clear really but it’s how I generally look at it.
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By Smiley (Cristoffer Wiker)
 - Gamma Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#583275
Back in the day, when I played in more tournaments and had a more engaged and competitive play environment, I used to build decks that could take on most of the regular threats and dilemmas. Now, this has become harder and harder as the number of threats has only risen, and the number of dilemmas that you need to be able to counter/pass is just rising.

Today I'm just glad I have the energy to finish a new deck. It just takes too much time to build one that I mostly resort to rebuilding something old or just netdeck for something to play.
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#583287
I don't usually do too much to think about specific decks I may be going up against. Mostly, I build what I want to play, and then, when it is too late to really do anything about it, I ask myself, okay, how does this play against a speed solver? How does this play against battle? How does this play against a mid-range deck? How does this play against Borg?

So I tend to think about deck archetypes, rather than about specific decks. If I think I'm going to do well against two of them, that's generally good enough. There are too many decks in the game for anyone to build a deck that is immune to every other deck, at least not without new tech and the element of surprise. I routinely go to events knowing that there are several deck types that I will automatically lose to, and then I just hope not to face them and usually don't!
#583803
In decades i always had a Kevin uxbridge in the q´s tent and other counter-cards and often a quarks isolinear rods to get access to it or alternativly get a computer skill x2 if i don´t need it (no hidden agends, therefore no computer crash, mostly).

Also I make sure i have a save spot (headquarters) or an outpost in the nebula where only one ship can attack and/or landalbe ships to be able to withstand battle decks. also landable ships are important regarding Transport Inhibitor.

If i have a treaty, i have a way to bring it back at least once (if there is a devil in the tent). a way to bring it back twice, if a federation treaty (because of admiral carthight + devil in the tent).

That prepares for most issues.

Sometimes some other preperations depending on the current meta.

I sometimes i have ways to interact with the opponent, in case he thinks not preparing at all comes without a cost. e.g. Tantalus field, ship battle, a devil in the tent, using Transport Inhibitor myselve are example.

All that applied mainly to trekcc Official Tournament Format thought.

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