Japanese decks

[Ben-Ra]

I just spent the last 7 hours or so translating the contents of Japanese decks into English, and I must say it was interesting. I may post some later in the post or whenever, but I wanted to share some general things I noticed. They have a MUCH different ratio of card types than US players seem to. Common wisdom for us seems to be 60% creature, 20% item, and 20% spell, give or take, excepting nonstandard decks like symbol decks or support decks. That's roughly 30/10/10 in cards for the extremely mathematically challenged.

Of the 20 decks I translated, 5 had exactly 20 creatures, 2 of them had 23 creatures, and the rest had less than 20! The average was 18.4. I was very surprised. The average number of items was 8.25. The average number of spells was 23.3!!

The decks tended to be single color, although many had a bit of neutral and a couple had some secondary color cards.

There were 5 red decks, and not an Old Willow in sight. 6 blue decks, and no Kelpie. Very little direct damage, maybe 3 decks had one or two Magic Bolt, none had Evil Blast. One deck had 2 tempests, but other than that, no mass damage (maybe a color-killer I'm not remembering). Land Protect (generally 2 or 3) was pretty common.

Holy Word X was very common, with 11 decks having it, 8 of those having 4! Haste and Fly also showed up a lot, as did Mistletoe, which shocked me. Another card which I wasn't expecting at all, much less with frequency, was Mesmerize. But I guess since everybody had so many spells it was more useful. Not very many status effect spells, positive or negative.

Most of the decks looked pretty straightforward. Move a lot, change land colors (Sink or whatever, Influence less common), draw cards (Reincarnation and Revival were common).

Items tended to be Counter Amulet, Gremlin Amulet, (color) amulet, and some with Holy Grail. Several had one Hell Blaze or one Nuclear Fusion (I'm assuming it was Nuclear Fusion, it actually just said 'fusion').

I'll probably experiment with some decks similar to these just to see how it plays out. Here's the first couple I did.

----------------------
1)
Decoy x3
Ares x2
Will O' the Wisp x2
Executor x2
Golem x2
Conjurer x2
Pyro Drake x2
Valkyria x2
Larvae x2
Dragon Helm x1
Fire Shield x3
Nuclear Fusion x3
Acid Rain x2
Upheaval x3
Soltis x1
Holy Word X x4
Polymorph x1
Mountain Leap x3
Mistletoe x3
Mesmerize x4
Land Protect x3

-----------------------
2)
Gas Cloud x3
Conjurer x2
Sulfurous Balloon x3
Pyro Drake x2
Flame Lord x2
Larvae x3
Death x2
Vorpal Sword x2
Holy Grail x3
Masamune x1
Upheaval x3
Exorcism x3
Spirit Walk x2
Drain Magic x2
Hope x4
Mistletoe x3
Mutation x2
Mesmerize x3
Meteor x3
Revival x2

[Captain Garak]

That's some extremely nice work, Ben-Ra! I'm looking forward to hearing more of your results. Thanks for posting this!

[Lord Penquin]

And I thought that I was obsessed with the game. Wow! Good work. Keep us informed.

[TheTampaCepter]

With the holy word cards you can control a match, so im not surpised that they use these. I am surprised that they dont use willow.

[OWell]

TheTampaCepter said:

With the holy word cards you can control a match, so im not surpised that they use these. I am surprised that they dont use willow.

In 4 players much-up, Old Willow is eliminated first of all. That is only it is offensive to the eye for other players.

[OWell]

OWell said:

In 4 players much-up, Old Willow is eliminated first of all. That is only it is offensive to the eye for other players.

However, it may be good to outsmart and use it. At this time, a lot of items are put in and the measure against spelling is required.

Please, it was careful of "Senility".
This curse kills the defense side after a battle.

[Ben-Ra]

I have to add that the decks were for use on Dunnan (I'm 90% sure). I thought that might explain why there were so few creatures, but I checked out some decks for use on the Altar (final story stage), and they had roughly the same amount of creatures. Anyway, here's a few more decks.

---------------------
3)
Icewall x1
Shell Creeper x1
Drool x3
Hyde x1
Bunyip x2
Vodyanoi x1
Lizardman x3
Leviathan x2
Remora x1
Spitting Cobra x1
Water Amulet x4
Petrify Stone x3
Holy Grail x1
Shatter x2
Sink x3
Chariot x1
Telekinesis x1
Punisher x3
Peace x2
Holy Word X x4
Mine x3
Mistletoe x3
Land Transfer x1
Reincarnation x3

-------------------------
4)
Ice Wall x2
Grendel x2
Shell Creeper x2
Bunyip x2
Hydra x1
Vodyanoi x2
Lizardman x2
Water Amulet x3
Water Shield x4
Hell Blaze x2
Anti-Magic x3
Influence x2
Sink x2
Teleport x2
Drain Magic x3
Find x1
Fly x4
Holy Word 1 x2
Manna x2
Mesmerize x2
Reincarnation x3
Lake Leap x2

----------------------------
5)
Steam Gear x4
Ice Wall x2
Anubias x1
Undine x2
King Tortoise x2
Dagon x1
Drool x2
Bloody Pudding x2
Vodyanoi x1
Lizardman x3
Water Amulet x2
Counter Amulet x2
Gremlin Amulet x2
Sink x2
Tempest x2
Drain Magic x3
Holy Word X x4
Mistletoe x3
Mesmerize x3
Land Protect x2
Revival x1
Reincarnation x4

---------------------------------
6)
Ice Wall x1
Undine x3
Dagon x1
Drool x2
Pirate x1
Bunyip x2
Bloody Pudding x1
Behemoth x2
Vodyanoi x2
Marfolk x3
Lizardman x2
Water Amulet x2
Gremlin Amulet x3
Influence x2
Shatter x2
Sink x3
Turn to the Wall x2
Desert Storm x1
Vitality x1
Hope x2
Holy Word X x3
Mistletoe x3
Mutation x2
Mesmerize x2
Lake Leap x2

[armadi1234]

For me, the real shocker is Mistletoe. Is there something about the card that I'm missing? I wonder if they use it just as a way to overide bad status effects on themselves and good status effects on others. The effect appears too weak for the card to be used for it (if the player wants a status effect that makes G, fairy light would probably be better).

Creature count seems low, but the more I've played Culdcept, the fewer creatures I've played (I currently use 24).

[OWell]

In a 4 players game, "Mistletoe" is good. It guarantees about 200G profit between two rounds.

[OWell]

Ben-Ra said:

I have to add that the decks were for use on Dunnan (I'm 90% sure). I thought that might explain why there were so few creatures, but I checked out some decks for use on the Altar (final story stage), and they had roughly the same amount of creatures. Anyway, here's a few more decks.

I may be able to explain their thinking a little.
First, a fundamentally important thing is how to be able to use spell each time.

Unlike a creature, Spell can carry out direct participation at Magic Power. That is, it is used in order to perform the increase in Magic Power in addition.

Although You All may be surprised, they are seldom thinking obtaining a toll as important.@rather, accumulating goal to Magic Power by oneself and that the color of land carries out a chain more.

"Holy Word X" is well used in order to avoid paying a toll.
Moreover, the bonus when carrying out a map 1 round also becomes is also easy to be obtained.

Culd-RoN(Theory of Culdcept) www2.starcat.ne.jp/~alfsan/culd/sep.shtml
This page which three Japanese champions are writing

CULTCEPT(notice;@dc Version) www22.cds.ne.jp/~adliner/culdcept/top.htm
The page written about the capital increase in Culdcept

[Moptop]

Hmm. I think I need to start putting more focus on spells, I suppose. I just use the basic stuff like the direct damage spells and movement spells, with the occasional Land Protect, etc. I would have never considered adding Mistletoe, that's for sure.

Should one design decks, perhaps, to use in exclusively in one on one matches, and ones to use in matches with more players?

[Ben-Ra]

I definitely think that the number of players has a great impact on how effective a deck is. Some cards/decks are obviously better when there are more or less players, and that can often be the difference between winning and losing.

Also, what map the battle will be on is another big factor. If you know exactly what map you'll be playing on, you can tailor your deck specifically to it. It's also possible to adjust a deck so it is more efficient in general on bigger maps, smaller maps, or maps with intersections (which you can use to avoid going to the castle, for example).

It's clear that the decks I translated were designed with the particular map (Dunnan) and number of players (4) in mind. That's why so many of them had Mistletoe, for example.

I'm very interested in OWell's statement/theory that Japanese players don't seek to win by collecting tolls.

Here's some more decks from the same group:

-------------------------
7)
Armadillo x3
Sage x3
Dragon Zombie x3
Dwarf x2
Basilisk x2
Mudman x3
Mummy x2
Aura Blade x2
Gremlin Amulet x2
Golden Goose x4
Boomerang x1
Acid Rain x1
Supression x3
Sonic Wave x3
Find x1
Fly x3
Haste x4
Manna x3
Land Protect x2
Wild Growth x3

---------------------
8)
Archer x3
Cornfolk x3
Trample Weed x2
Night Fiend x1
Nightmare x2
Hurricane x2
Beelzebub x1
Hornet x2
Leveler x2
Nuclear Fusion x3
Vorpal Sword x3
Holy Grail x3
Earth Shaker x2
Escape x1
Soul Hunt x2
Drain Magic x2
Fly x3
Plain Leap x3
Haste x3
Land Protect x3
Relief x1
Reincarnation x3

-----------------------
9)
Decoy x3
Brass Idol x3
Storm Giant x1
Ice Wall x2
Undine x2
Dagon x1
Drool x3
Vodyanoi x1
Lizardman x2
Water Amulet x3
Counter Amulet x4
Chaos Panic x1
Quicksand x1
Sink x3
Soltis x1
Haste x3
Holy Word X x4
Manna x3
Mistletoe x3
Mesmerize x3
Reinforce x3

---------------------
10)
Sanctum Guard x1
Steam Gear x2
Leoknight x1
Gouda x1
Griffon x1
Gremlin x1
Cornfolk x3
Spectre x2
Soul Collector x1
Nike x1
Knight x1
Hurricane x2
Leveler x1
Wind Amulet x2
Counter Amulet x2
Gremlin Amulet x1
Terrair x1
Dagger of Mite x1
Influence x1
Weathering x2
Escape x2
Shatter x2
Drain Magic x2
Fly x2
Holy Word X x4
Magic Bolt x2
Manna x4
Land Protect x2
Reincarnation x2

[Captain Garak]

Ben-Ra said:

I'm very interested in OWell's statement/theory that Japanese players don't seek to win by collecting tolls.

Just in playing the game, it seems to me as though the computer AI is pretty focused on making laps as quickly as possible. When I first started out, I had problems when I really concentrated mainly on improving Territories. Once I observed what I thought to be the lap-obsessive behavior of the AI, I then started trying to balance between improvements and lapping.

[BlueTorch]

Ben-Ra said:

I just spent the last 7 hours or so translating the contents of Japanese decks into English, and I must say it was interesting. I may post some later in the post or whenever, but I wanted to share some general things I noticed. They have a MUCH different ratio of card types than US players seem to. Common wisdom for us seems to be 60% creature, 20% item, and 20% spell, give or take, excepting nonstandard decks like symbol decks or support decks. That's roughly 30/10/10 in cards for the extremely mathematically challenged.

Of the 20 decks I translated, 5 had exactly 20 creatures, 2 of them had 23 creatures, and the rest had less than 20! The average was 18.4. I was very surprised. The average number of items was 8.25. The average number of spells was 23.3!!

The decks tended to be single color, although many had a bit of neutral and a couple had some secondary color cards.

There were 5 red decks, and not an Old Willow in sight. 6 blue decks, and no Kelpie. Very little direct damage, maybe 3 decks had one or two Magic Bolt, none had Evil Blast. One deck had 2 tempests, but other than that, no mass damage (maybe a color-killer I'm not remembering). Land Protect (generally 2 or 3) was pretty common.

Holy Word X was very common, with 11 decks having it, 8 of those having 4! Haste and Fly also showed up a lot, as did Mistletoe, which shocked me. Another card which I wasn't expecting at all, much less with frequency, was Mesmerize. But I guess since everybody had so many spells it was more useful. Not very many status effect spells, positive or negative.

Most of the decks looked pretty straightforward. Move a lot, change land colors (Sink or whatever, Influence less common), draw cards (Reincarnation and Revival were common).

Items tended to be Counter Amulet, Gremlin Amulet, (color) amulet, and some with Holy Grail. Several had one Hell Blaze or one Nuclear Fusion (I'm assuming it was Nuclear Fusion, it actually just said 'fusion').

Actually, I moved onto this logic of less creatures, more spells fairly quickly into my Culdcept training.

I should note before I go much further that I ~frequently~ play 2 vs 2 teams, so my creature counts will be slightly lower than most, but I believe this still carries over to 4 player games, although to a ~slightly~ lesser extent.

I formerly subscribed to the 60/20/20 theory to makimize early game creatures, and getting a creature in general. Late game, I found that my hand was always being glutted with the d**n things and I'd be pitching cards as I drew them. After a bit of thinking on this, I realized I needed to change my strategy.

If you think about it, discarding a card due to having seven cards is the WORST thing you can do in this game. every turn, the card draw is the only chance you get to increase the power of your hand (aside from cards that do this). Discarding a card is essentially wasting this opportunity every turn; you are ~not~ getting maximum usage out of your deck if you are not using every card in your deck!! If you ditch 10 cards in the course of going through your deck, you are only getting about 80% efficiency out of it. (a little higher, since your card quality is slightly better due to ditching the worst card, but not much higher).

So, since we want to avoid discarding cards, we need to use the cards in our hand as often as possible. Creatures and items have situational uses; you have to land on a territory unowned by you to get them out of your hand, and even then, there will be times you land on a blank/enemy territory and not want to use it.

Spells, on the other hand, can be used once per turn, regardless of territory placement, and are much more "liquid" in terms of passing through your hand. You can ~always~ use a spell card at the beginning of the turn, thus increasing the efficiency of your deck.

If you believe what I've just said, then you're onboard for more spells/less creatures. Now, if we really want to make our deck liquid, we want spells that we can always (or almost always) use at any occasion.

This is where the Holy Word X, Flys and Hastes of the world come in. Mistletoe, by the way, is quite good in team strategies alongside haste, where you can mistletoe and haste you + your partner. to increase the odds. HWX, Fly, and Haste also add the HUGE benefit of lapping faster. Lapping is probably the most important thing you can do in this game, as it is the one *consistent* way to increase your mana funds.

I find Despair is similarly a good card to use, since it is card denial. I should say, it's good to use ~right now~ among my circle of friends, although if they hopped onboard my strategy it would start becoming less useful, due to status effects overriding each other.

Now, since there are more spells in your deck, that means you have less creatures. If this really such a bad thing, though? you miss out on a few early territories, and on the flipside you lap much faster and get a higher mana base. Which means more territory leveling, which is also more mana and total points for you. if they land on your territory, great, if not, you're still lapping faster and collecting more mana for quicker upgrades. If you happen to land on one of theirs, you either pay the small toll, or (hopefully) send one of your creatures to take them out. With more mana from lapping, you can afford better creatures/items on a usual basis.

If you're really worried, spells like prophecy and foresight can be included to help sift through your deck for a creature/item when you need it. Keep in mind these cards are not quite "liquid" however; they do replace themselves, so make sure you have an ample supply of other spells.

Hopefully this provides insight into at least the way I play, and maybe some of the Japanese ideas that seem to be present in their decks.

[Ben-Ra]

I think your theory has some good and interesting points. There are some counterpoints to consider, though. While lapping is very important in and of itself, remember that your lap bonus is increased by the number of creatures you have out, regardless of land value, and getting more creatures out earlier means more lap bonus throughout the game, not to mention more chances for an opponent to land on your territory and possibly pay toll. Additionally, if you have more creatures played you're more likely to have chains which increase land value/toll dramatically, especially once a land has been leveled up. It's all well and good to have a level 5 land, but without chain you're not actually gaining value from leveling it up (unless someone pays the toll).

As an example, my friend recently played a weenie deck which had all small creatures (I can't remember how many, but it was probably 30% or close). He got to play a creature almost every turn, and while it's true that they were killed easily enough when we landed on his spaces (3-player game), he could just drop another one, and he had some items which allowed him to win fights from time to time. Having so many creatures out meant his lap bonus was always very good, and he won, despite his opponents having more high-level lands. He probably controlled 60% of the board or more at the end. The same guy also has a Support deck with almost no spells (and no items at all) that wins very consistently around here. It wins almost any fight it gets in, and he always has a creature to play, so he dominates the board pretty much from turn one.

Cards such as Prophecy may not be 'liquid' in the sense you describe but they effectively make the deck smaller, creating a smaller pool of 'real' cards (at the cost of some g and your spell use for the turn), which means a deck can be more focused in what it's trying to do; it's a way of circumventing the 50-card minimum, in a sense.

I agree that the number of players and/or alliance has a big effect on how well a deck runs. In a 4-player game, you probably will need less creatures, but you still want to have enough to make sure your opponents don't just take all the land in the first few laps. It can be a tough balance to find, and what map is being used is the other critical factor. Smaller maps need less creatures in general, and movement cards are more efficient because the laps are shorter.

I agree that in general discarding is bad, but I don't think it's the end of the world. There may be times when your hand is pretty much what you want it to be (likely if the deck runs on some kind of combo), and increasing the strength of your hand isn't really possible once you've reached the ideal setup (which you may be waiting to activate for some reason). In those situations I don't really mind discarding because I'm where I want to be.

Your idea definitely has a lot of logic and I think for some, perhaps many decks/situations it's a good idea. But there are definitely exceptions to this. Keep up the discussion! It's always good to know what other players are doing and what's working for them.