Outer Regions: Insmother Metropolis Society of Conscious Thought
Cards (69): Echoes of Gloom Bay x4 Interstellar Trade Post x4 Omber x4 Sansha's Scout Outpost x4 Furnace Mill x3 House of Animosity x3 House of Ill Repute x2 Incubation Dome x3 Xeno Research Center x4 Blackbird x4 Condor x4 Cormorant x4 Griffin x4 Kestrel x4 Merlin x4 Moa x2 Exposed Plans x4 Faulty Implant Manufacturer x4 Feed On The Weak x4
First off, yes, I know it's big. There's a reason for it
The basic idea is effective hand control, with bonus profitability coming from Feed On The Weak. Several of the forced discard options (House of Animosity, House of Ill Repute) require discarding to work. If you're going to run your opponent out of cards, you have to last longer than they do. I've tried to keep the card balance effective - statistically, so long as the ratio is the same, bigger shouldn't matter.
Furnace Mill requires control of outer regions, so several pieces of the deck work towards/leverage that. Insmother is the obvious easy control region, and Metropolis allows defense to move there rather than the home base. Since I have to control outer regions, Interstellar Trade Post and Xeno Research Center give notable benefits for doing so. Between the Xeno, Society of Conscious Thought, and Venal Tower, we should have plenty of cards coming in to support the mandatory discards - something the opponent hopefully can't match.
Structures are where the discard is really at - Furnace Mill and both Houses. What's in there is what I own, so the Incubation Domes are there to compensate for the short, and give me a flexible draw when I need it.
Condors, Kestrels, Griffins, and Merlins take care of the early frigate needs, with Kestrels being especially effective at holding outer regions. The Cormorants and Blackbirds are good mid-cost ships for combat, while the Moa should combine with the extra card draws to make a near-invincible Ambush 5 monstrosity.
Victory is flexible - if you gain the advantage, smash them. If not, turtle up behind high ambush values and outer region control, especialy Metropolis, and watch their deck run down to nothing.
Comments appreciated.
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statistically, so long as the ratio is the same, bigger shouldn't matter.
Bigger *does* matter, because as you increase your sample size, you increase your acceptable statistical variance. What that means to you the player is, the larger your deck (even with the same ratios) the longer you might statistically go on average between start-of-game and drawing the card you need. 2 lost turns can kill in Eve, and 4 turns kills with far more certainty.-Ryuteki, Owner of the Rules! We're playing Monday evenings in IL, see www.games-plus.com for the address or email me at ryuteki AT gmail DOT com.
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Buhallin
User Battlecruiser
Posts: 514
Re:Discarding for Fun and Profit - 2007/03/15 21:08Ryuteki wrote: Bigger *does* matter, because as you increase your sample size, you increase your acceptable statistical variance. What that means to you the player is, the larger your deck (even with the same ratios) the longer you might statistically go on average between start-of-game and drawing the card you need. 2 lost turns can kill in Eve, and 4 turns kills with far more certainty. I bolded the critical part here.
Most arguments for minimal decks make this critical assumption - THE CARD YOU NEED. I don't NEED any given card. I need TYPES of cards. Either House, Faulty Implant, and Exposed Plans all provide effective discard. The ship classes are broken down above. Any of the locations provide early income. About the only single-service card in the game is Feed On The Weak, and while it can provide some insane income, it's not necessary for the deck to function.
The one thing that does change no matter what is how bad bad can get. With more cards, a bad dry run can be VERY bad. But honestly, EVE's speed almost solves that for me. A bad run is going to be bad whether it's two cards or four. More importantly, the deck minimizes that by having an insane number of possible draws - 3 cards a turn + income is very, very possible, and a quick Venal upgrade guarantees a minimum of two even in the worst situations.
I think I'm going to crosspost this over into General, because it's an interesting topic which is likely to get buried down here in the deck forum.
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