Ok, I haven't posted much on the SE forums because I have been posting most of my thoughts on my guild boards, but now that I have tested this concept and theory I thought it would be appropriate to lay out at least the underlying ideas for the general SE public.
For those who don't know, I have been intrigued with large deck design for some time. For those who have read my earlier large deck construction ideas, don't fear - I will soon get back to that research. I felt it was necessary though, to get a better feel for what makes a deck win before doing so. I experimented with a ratio based formula (7-2-1 system) that was effective with 180 cards on the low to mid levels (topping out at about 240 rating or so), then a smaller version of a similar ratio based formula that got up to 270 or so using 64 cards. But when all was said and done, to approach the 300 rating barrier, the powers that be insisted that 40 cards was the only way to go.
The problem I had with a 40 card deck is that it has holes by its very nature. No matter how good the deck is, you are at the mercy of the match-maker. For instance, I had the pleasure of watching two of A1's deck masters go after each other in the first round of a popup I hosted along with Zefina recently. Both of these players were excellent tournament vets and the games lasted for some time. When all was said and done in that round, we had a winner and a loser in the matchup - and it could have gone either way. I was certain that the winner, who was playing a dominant tournament quality Zhanna deck would mow down the rest of the competition in the popup, but when he arrived at the finals, he was matched up with a Vic deck that posed a serious problem for him based solely on the hero matchup. The Vic deck won, and the tournament was decided essentially by the luck of the matchmaker. Don't get me wrong, the Vic player was an excellent player and on a totally neutral playing field he may have won anyway, but the match was essentially decided before the first card was played.
Likewise, the best Moonstalker deck can be rendered powerless by a really good burn deck - particularly one featuring Majiya. She is just a bad matchup for the sneaky wolf. Dominant Elementalis decks run screaming when they see Vic, Majiya has real problems with weapon heroes in general, etc.
So - limiting the number of cards to 40, and selecting a good mix cannot actually accomplish the purpose of removing most of the luck from the game. Instead, it simply moves the luck element from the card shuffle to the matchmaking lottery. Either way, the luck element reigns supreme. In an effort to find another way (perhaps in the end a better way), I started with an existing dominant Majiya deck that was excellent against many match-ups. This was a deck built and tested by one of A1's best competition players. He told me going in that it would have 2 holes. First, weapon heroes would almost always beat it (for the sake of discussion lets say 80% of the time). Secondly, to a lesser degree it was vulnerable to "fatty" decks. Elementalis, Tala, Twilight / Last Harvest, etc.
After about 3 weeks of tinkering I got it where I wanted it. Adding cards to it to fill the holes. The theory was that instead of beating Moonstalker 26-0 on a regular basis, its focus would be diluted to some degree by the extra cards and would beat Moonstalker 15-0 or 18-0 in stead, while giving me a fighting chance against weapon heroes like Amber, Truesight, Vic, Serena, and the dreaded Banebow - reducing the disadvantage in these cases from 20-80 to something like 50-50 for most, and around 40-60 for Banebow. Likewise these additional cards would take a lesser weakness (fatty decks) that originally won around 60-70% of the time and turn them into 60-40 strong suits in my favor.
While the numbers were rough guestimates, but the idea was simple. Win your strong suits at least 65% of the time, and win your weak matchups at least 50% of the time. After knocking out some bad habits this experiment has born fruit. I have passed the 300 barrier with this deck design, containing some 52 cards. This particular deck I call "Majiya All Purpose Rev 2" or, MAP2. I considered posting the deck list, but have decided that for now, I will leave that in the A1 forums only, because it is not this specific deck that has mass application, but rather the deck concept. And here it is:
Find a 40 card tournament quality deck and examine its weak points. Add cards to adjust for those weak points. The exact number of cards added should depend on the number of weak spots that exist for the deck. If done properly, you should end up with a deck that still beats its good matchups nearly every time, but also has a fighting chance against its bad matchups. This should be doable for nearly every competition grade viable deck.
To help me test this theory, if you wish, you may post a good tournament deck on this thread (perhaps one that is already well known), along with its good matchups and bad matchups, and together lets endeavor to find the add ons that will fill those holes without compromising the integrity of the deck. I believe that while I personally like Majiya a lot, she is not unique - in the application of this theory. Any viable competition deck can be turned into an all purpose deck with a little work.
Then of course, there is the question - why bother? You can easily achieve a 300 rating with the tournament quality 40 card deck as it is. You just lose when you have bad matchups, and win when you don't, right? Well, I personally hate to go into a match knowing that I have little or no shot. Using this technique, you should be able to eliminate the "no win" situations that all 40 card decks force us into based simply on the luck of the match-maker.
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