Infinity Wars - Animated Trading Card Game

Infinity Wars - Animated Trading Card Game

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Deck Building Guide
By Hitori
Hitori's Guide For The New Deck-Builder!
   
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Guide
Introduction

This guide was made for the benefit of new players, though my hope is that even veterans may find it somewhat useful for reference, if nothing else. Although I'm not an Infinity Wars top-notch player, I believe myself capable of shedding some light for those wandering in the dark land of deck-building.

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Limitations:

Deck Size - A deck has to contain at least 40 cards, but no more than 100 cards, excluding the 3 commanders.

Duplicate Cards - A deck can contain up to 3 of the same card, excluding commanders. 'Unlimited' type cards are an exception to this rule. Including commanders, a deck can contain 3 Ability cards, 4 Unique Character cards (1 in command) & 6 non-Unique Character cards (3 in command). This rule can be ignored by certain cards, such as using 'Varyus, Master of Choice' as a commander.

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Purity:

Purity is determined by your 3 commanders. Each commander contributes 1 purity, for a total of 3.

You may have a tri-faction deck containing 3 different factions at 1 purity, a duo-faction deck using 2 purity of one faction and 1 of another, or a triple-purity deck containing a single faction.

Factionless commanders do not count towards ANY purity, thus limiting your total purity if you pick them for command. This rule may possibly be excluded by specific cards in the future.

All non-Factionless cards require a specific purity (command-setup) combination. This can be viewed at the top-left corner on each card. Factionless cards have no purity requirement and can be played in any deck.


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Choices:

Purity -
Purity is Infinity Wars' unique way of creating interesting choices when approaching deck-building. A tri-faction deck can give you tons of useful cards that will lend themselves to more choices and flexibility. At the same time, a single-faction deck allows you to focus on a core mechanic and synergy of a faction (which tends to lead to less flexibility but more consistency from a conservative point of view). It is important to know what your aim is when you build a deck, what is your win condition is a key question and you need to know it before you build a successful deck ('fun' decks do not require this though!).

Deck Size -
Deck Size is thing to consider when looking at flexibility and consistency. Picking the minimum deck size leads to a more consistent gameplay (in terms of cards you draw). Going for more cards reduces your chances of seeing each specific card, but can grant access to more choices overall. Another way to approach this is picking up many different cards with a similar role, thus allowing consistency by increasing the overall deck size (for example: taking 2 Assassinates & 2 Called Shots instead of only 3 Assassinates).

Duplicate Cards -
Same as deck size, duplicate cards allow for more consistency but less flexibility. You can take 40 different cards in your 40 cards deck and have 40 different options (thus being very flexible). At the same time a deck consisting of 60 cards with 3 copies of each card will yield more consistency theoretically (20 options overall).

Most common decks are built using 40 cards only, to increase consistency. They contain 3 copies of important cards that are desirable during the early to mid-game, 2 copies of cards that are desired at the late game or simply optional responses (Vandalize is a good example of that) and sometimes 1 copy of a card that is only rarely required but can be 'filtered through' using the trading post.

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Deck Building:

A deck usually is built around a core concept.
It can be a general idea - 'this deck is aggressive'.
It can be a specific card(s) - 'this deck is built around Dragon Project'.
It can be a combination of both 'this deck is an aggressive deck built around Aleta, Immortal Tinkerer & Kinetically Overloaded Drone'.
It can be a counter-deck 'this deck is built to counter Verore by using Untouchable Characters'.

When building a new deck, first pick the cards that really define your core concept. If it's an aggressive deck, look at the aggressive card options (usually Flame Dawn) and start with that. Expand upon your core concept with cards that increase its strengths OR cards that balance out its weaknesses, a Flame Dawn aggressive deck could be strengthened by adding mid-late game control cards (Verore) or mid-game support cards to buff them (Descendants of Dragons) - this include solutions to problems you might face using your core concept.

A deck must have at LEAST one win condition, most will have more. Identifying your win conditions and making sure you can use them is extremely important. If your flying units are your win condition, do not let them die before you can make sure you win. Make sure to keep a win-option safe for as long as possible, but seize the victory when it is available. Making sure to not play your win-conditions before they can be realized is important, but using them on time is just as important.

After you picked your concept, win condition, and supporting cards, it's time to trim the deck down. There are 2 methods I recommend:
1. Trim by usefulness - remove anything that is visibly not as useful as other cards, or any excess cards that tend to sit dead in your hand for long periods of time. This include cards that don't really support your deck's core concept(s).
2. Trim by curve - remove anything that 'spikes up' your resource-cost curve. Having a balanced curve is important in Infinity Wars, curves can vary based on the deck's core concept, but a curve very much determines a deck's 'feel' and, of course, tempo. It is important to note that not ALL cards' cost are as they appear, for example - you don't usually play a 'Demon of Fear' on turn 5, but on your statistics curve it will fill up the 5 resource bar.

The 2 methods above are usually combined with play-testing the deck and realizing which cards are dead draws and how well your curve works. Just as important to note while play-testing is that you can add cards that solve situations/problems you did not foresee when first building the deck. Lacking removal cards is such a case, or protection from flying units.

It's also important to consider the 'meta-game' (or popular decks) when designing your deck. Even if your concept is new, you can always test it up against the popular decks to make sure it can work. If you're not sure what the 'meta-game' is, all you need to do is queue up for some games and see which type of decks you tend to face the most.


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Hope this proves helpful to some.
36 Comments
piemad014 [SUSPENDED] 23 Sep, 2019 @ 4:10am 
this really helped me out
hibbidy_jibbidy 11 Jun, 2016 @ 9:02am 
great guide, wonder if explaining the diffrence betweer multi and dual faction for commander? might be pretty useful for the new people
Shteamicorn 9 Nov, 2015 @ 9:06am 
Quite usefull . Just starting to play the game and was confused by some of the terms . This cleared it all up , thanks :steamhappy:
Take'n'Time2M'Self 16 Jun, 2015 @ 3:53pm 
Nysa guidea friend!
[dgR]Sera_Meynn 26 Mar, 2015 @ 12:44pm 
Great guide, many thanks! Now I know how I have to build my next decks ^^
engineer gaming 9 Mar, 2015 @ 1:53am 
Firstly, Demon of Fear costs 6 now.

Secondly, I suggest including a catagory on 'essential cards' which one should consider when deckbuilding. There are 5, if I didn't miss anything:

Cheap, low damage cards like Firebolt for exploiting weaknesses of low Health characters like Vah'nash and Wealthy Noble.

Killing abilities, or simply abilities which greatly weaken, should always be used to counter enemies not easily removed by combat. Always maindeck these.

Grave removal for countering decks which utilise it. Quite dependent on meta.

Mass–damage abilities like Winds of War for an effective counter against decks utilising numerous weak characters.

Location/Artifact removal. Usually sideboarded.
Gustav Radagast 6 Mar, 2015 @ 6:13am 
Great thank you for help.
Stako 5 Mar, 2015 @ 12:54am 
Good guide well worth reading,thanks.
BioSmacker 18 Feb, 2015 @ 7:31pm 
Sjptabor, 25 out of how many cards? I think a percentile is in order!
Pvt Parts 22 Dec, 2014 @ 8:58pm 
A good guide, thanks.