Since we have been working on designing new decks for our next deck box release, I thought it might be interesting to give you a peek behind the veil. I’ll give you a run-through of how we design a deck on a macro level and a card on a micro level. To help you guide you through our process we will use the up-and-coming Hades as an example. Keep in mind that nothing you see here is final or play-tested yet, merely concepts we developed for cards.
The Big Cards
I typically start with the easy stuff, which cards should absolutely be included in the deck. The reason I start with these is that they are the most exciting to work on and get the creative juices flowing. For Hades, Cerberus was the first card I wanted to make. From the start, I knew I wanted Cerberus to have the Guard trait since he guards the gates of the underworld. Since he is considered a fearsome creature in the myths, I wanted that to be reflected in-game with a strong power level. Eventually, I settled on 5 power, since it put him on the same level as Hercules (before he buffs himself up of course). Lastly, I wanted to give him some sort of innate feat that would cement his mythic status. Again, I leaned into the ‘guardian of the gates’ theme and gave him the innate feat, “Whenever an enemy god searches their discard or summons a card from discard, deal 3 damage to that god”. Now all I needed to do was give him a summon cost, which at the moment is 5.
This process was then repeated for cards like Persephone, Thanatos, Tartarus, and The River Stix.
Theming
Now that you’ve got some of the major cards done, I typically move on to create the theming for the deck. This typically pulls from how the god is perceived in mythology or what abilities they have. I then try to translate this into mechanics. For Hades, one of the themes that jumped out to me immediately was the lengths he would go to punish anyone who tried to cheat death (the story of Sisyphus comes to mind). From here I wanted to create a few mechanics that messed with feats that would help gods or minions “cheat death”. One of these cards is aptly named, No One Cheats Death and it has the following innate feat; “Damage cannot be reduced or ignored”.
This innate feat prevents damage-reducing feats like those found on Hlidskjalf or Pouch Sand! More punishingly, it nullifies damage-ignoring feats like those found on Khepri, Baldur, or Artemis. Keep in mind this affects damage reducing or ignoring feats that you have as well. Remember no one cheats death. Other cards follow this theme, and there are other themes in the Hades deck but we will save those for another time (possibly a God Strategies post?).
Filling the Deck out
At this point, you should have most of your deck completed but there are still probably a few gaps that need to be filled. Here is where you make sure the deck has all the cards it needs. For example, each deck needs the following:
- A way to remove minions
- A way to remove relics
- A way to remove rituals
- Cards that can help you gain devotion
- Enough protection cards, either guards or damage reduction
During this time you can also add any cards that don’t necessarily fit one of your themes but you think it would be a fun inclusion anyway. For Hades, that card was Binding Deal which has the following feat, “Choose an opponent, they search their discard for a minion card and summon it to the field without paying its cost. You gain devotion equal to the returned minion’s cost plus 2 devotion”. Hades was known for cutting deals in Myth, so he will cut a deal with you but he’s going to make sure he will benefit from it handsomely as well
God Feats
The last part of the deck that I will tackle is the God Feats. I do this because I don’t quite know what the deck will look like at the start and I don’t want to lock a feat into a god feat if it would be better served as a card. God feats typically add some form of consistency to a deck or provide a needed lynch pin to help perform a combo (looking at you Zeus players). For Hades, I wanted to make sure he had a way to get the goodest boy back on the field consistently. So, on his Heroic Side his secondary god feat is the following; “Search your deck or discard for Cerberus and put it into your hand. Shuffle your deck”.
With this, you can make sure you have your loyal doggo on the field whenever you need him. It comes at a steep cost of 8 devotion total to use the feat and summon, but it’s always an option if you need it.
At this point, you’ve got a completed deck and if you did it right it should be horrendously overpowered. That is why we have a team meeting to go over the entire deck to make any revisions. We check for abusable combos, feats that are too powerful, or cards that might be over or under cost. From here we start testing amongst ourselves and then eventually with you all. After rigorous testing, we will have ironed out any major imbalances and the deck should be ready to go.
I hope you all found this insight into our process interesting. We are excited to share more news about our next set as we get closer to completing it.
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