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I have in a previous post covered how the mulligan, initial card selection, works in Gods Unchained. And what sets it apart from other card games. I think I might have stumbled on a new way, a hybrid way if you will.
How to craft more decks
Just a quick recap. In the mulligan face when you swap a card, neither that card nor any copies of it will show up as new cards in the mulligan phase. This means that if you are looking for a specific card, and have two of every card in your deck, your chances of finding that specific card are double, compared to a deck with 30 unique cards in it.
That means that you want to craft decks that have as many doubles as possible. As this would increase your chance of getting a good starting hand in the game.
Herein lies the twist. And I am most likely not the first person to notice this. But perhaps I am the first person to bring it to your attention. That is that while the above statement is true there is a variation of it that is equally true. And this variation allows you to utilize single cards to a much greater extent than the "all double" deck approach. Let me explain.
How the new approach works
The idea is based on what a good starting hand is for your deck. If you know this then you are golden. But let me use a general deck as an example. In a general deck, one would consider cards with either 1, 2, or 3 mana in cost would be good cards to have in an opening hand. This is because these cards you will be able to play if not immediately at least on turn two.
But this holds true even if you consider 1-4 mana cards good for your starting hand. You just know what type of cards you are looking for in your starting hand.
This means that cards in this mana span are all good for your opening hand. And because of that fact, it does not matter if you have 1 copy of them or not. It is the total number of valid cards that matter. Let me show you what I mean. If you have a deck with every card being a bubble except the cards you want to get as an opening hand. This means that when you swap a card with a high mana cost, that is a bubble, you will get the benefit of not finding that or the bubble. While if you find a low mana cost card, that is a win, no matter which one of them it is. So you will not swap these, meaning there is no need for them to be doubled, because if you're not swapping them you won't take advantage of the bubble feature.
Sure you might still want to use double of an opening card. But you should not feel that you must. You can use singles or legendaries among the opening cards. The only caveat is that you want to use as many doubles among the expensive cards as possible, to take full effect of the swapping during the mulligan phase.
Hopefully, you will be able to use this when you're crafting your deck as one more tool in your toolbox. And IT is not something that will be useful for all decks, but having seen it and maybe used it in a deck or two might lead you to find that new deck, or version of a deck, that will take your game to the next level. It is definitely something I am going to experiment with while making my own decks.
Was this already something you had thought of or was this a novel way and approach? If you have used this way in your decks, what were the results? Please share with me and the rest of us in the comment section down below. If you would like to support me and the content I make, please consider following me, reading my other posts, or why not do both instead.
See you on the interwebs!
Picture provided by: Gods Unchained Media
