Buffy Deckbuilding 101: The Resource Deck

Buffy Deckbuilding 101: The Resource Deck by Reason

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer Collectible Card Game, your Resource Deck holds all your Characters, Actions, Items, and Skills. This is the deck you draw from to make up your hand.

For BtVS CCG, there are a few rules that must be followed when constructing your Resource Deck.

Your Resource Deck must contain at least 40 cards, including the level 1 Character card for your Main Character (the one whose Essence card you are using). There is currently no maximum to the number of cards that may be in your Resource Deck.

NOTE: As of Feb. 1, 2002, the minimum Resource Deck size for official tournaments sanctioned by Score is 60 cards, not 40. Please make the necessary adjustments before attending tournaments in your area.

Your Main Character's Essence card, your Location cards (if any), and your Challenges are not considered a part of your Resource Deck and do not count towards the 40 (or 60) card minimum.

Your Resource Deck may contain up to three (3) copies of any card.

An Evil deck (one that uses Spike, Drusilla, The Master, or Collin as the Main Character) may only contain Villian and Minion (red bordered) Character cards in the Resource Deck.

A Good deck (one that uses Buffy, Angel, Giles, or Willow as the Main Character) may only contain Hero and Companion (blue bordered) Character cards in the Resource Deck.

Your Resource Deck may not be more than 50% Character cards.

Your Resource Deck may not be more than 50% Action cards.

Almost all Resource Decks will be constructed with one goal in mind: to win the game. You win the game either by either controlling (being the only player with Character cards at) Sunnydale Park for six consecutive turns, or by being the first player to accumulate a total of 10 Destiny Points by winning Fights or completing Challenges. How your deck accomplishes this goal is referred to as your deck's strategy. Each and every card in your deck should be a part of your deck's strategy.

The Strategy you choose will determine how you build your Resource Deck.

Say your strategy is to control Sunnydale Park. To do this, your deck will have to contain cards that accomplish that strategy. You will probably get into a lot of Fights to keep your opponent's characters out of the Park, so you will need Characters, Items, Skills, and Actions that will help you win Fights. You will also need to include cards that will help make sure the game lasts at least 6 turns - the minimum necessary to gain a Control Victory. If your opponent wins with 10 Destiny Points on the 5th turn, you won't have a chance to control Sunnydale Park, so you may need to disrupt your opponent's strategy long enough to establish your control over Sunnydale.

A more advanced strategy might be to defeat the evil Challenge The Master Returns in an attempt to gain all 10 Destiny in one turn. To do this would be difficult, but possible: The Master Returns awards 6 Destiny when it is defeated. The Location card Pool of Blood (where the Challenge must be played) awards you an extra Destiny Point if one of your characters defeating the has the Demonology Trait. And finally, the card Offer of Ugly Death awards you an extra Destiny Point for defeating a Challenge. Since your deck may contain up to 3 copies of Offer of Ugly Death , you may play three of them during the Challenge/Resolve phase to add 3 Destiny to the Challenge.

6 Destiny (the Challenge) + 1 Destiny (Pool of Blood's text) + 3 Destiny (three Offer of Ugly Deaths ) = 10 Destiny, all in one turn!

So, to use this strategy, you would need Characters, Items, Skills, and Actions in your Resource Deck to provide the Smarts, Weirdness, Charm, and the Spellcraft Trait needed to defeat the Challenge. You would also need a way to get the Demonology Trait (either by playing a Character with Demonology, or a card like the Skill Demonology 101 that gives you the Trait) , as well as three copies of Offer of Ugly Death.

Your Resource Deck, during the game, will be shuffled, placed face down (with the card backs showing), and drawn from randomly. This means you will rarely know what cards you are going to draw next, and will not usually be able to draw a specific card. Therefore, the goal when building a Resource Deck is to maintain a balanced deck full of cards that will (hopefully) be useful to you at any point in the game. It's not usually a good idea to focus your entire strategy around one card; even in a 40 card deck (the minimum) your chances of drawing that one card exactly when you need it are slim.

There is no set rule about how many of each card to include (i.e. 12 Characters, 4 Items, 4 Skills, and 20 Actions in a 40 card deck). Each deck will be different from your last. You should be prepared to tune your deck through playing, i.e. refine and rebuild the deck as you play. Even the best players rarely get their decks exactly how they want them the first time.

For example, let's say after you build a deck you find you are not drawing enough Characters when you need them (usually early in the game). You end up waiting several turns before you feel you have enough characters on the table to attempt Challenges or to get into Fights. Though perhaps you felt like you had the right card mix when you put the deck together, actually playing the deck has proven that this has been a problem for you. So, you need to tune your deck in an attempt to increase the number of characters you draw early in the game.

There are several ways to do this. The most obvious, of course, is to simply add more Characters to your deck. If you did this, you would then have to decide whether to just leave your deck as is, and play with a larger Resource Deck, or to take a few non Character cards out of your deck to make room for new Characters without increasing the size of your deck. I'll talk a little more about deck size in a later Deckbuilding 101, but for now, either option is acceptible.

Alternatively, you could play with cards that will help give you access to the characters you already have. A Friend in Need is a good example of this, it lets you search your deck for a Companion or Minion and put it into play. You could also use cards that let you draw more cards, like Empty Puppet Case, Gone Binary , and Dig Up the Corpses , to increase the number of chances you have to draw the Characters you need.

Your Resource Deck will be constantly evolving, changing perhaps daily as you refine it, introduce new strategies, and purchase more cards to play with.

Ok, let's take a look at what makes up a Resource Deck - the cards! With the Pergamum Prophecy, these cards will fall into one of four categories: Characters, Items, Skills, and Actions.

Characters

Your Resource Deck will always contain the Level 1 Personality card of your Main Character, even if you choose not to put any other characters in your deck. Though this card will start the game in play, and not in your deck, it is still considered a part of your Resource Deck. You may put up to three copies of the level 1 Personality card in your deck, but only one will start the game in play.

When you choose your Characters for your deck, there are several things to take into consideration. First, how will those Characters use your deck's strategy to help you win? If your deck's strategy is to defeat Challenges for 10 Destiny, do your characters have all the Talents and Traits necessary to defeat your Challenges? If not, you will need to include other cards in your deck to provide those Talents or Traits so you can meet your Challenge's requirements (i.e. the skill Power of the Black Mass to get the Spellcraft Trait, or the item Tome of Moloch to get some extra Smarts).

If your deck's strategy focuses around any characters that are not your Main Character, you will want to consider putting two or even three copies of that Character's card in your deck, so that you increase your chances of drawing that character and getting them into play.

However, keep in mind that Characters, like Locations, have certain Uniqueness rules. Once a player has a Villain or Hero in play, other players may not play a copy of that Villain or Hero (the only exception is if you and your opponent are using the same Main Character). This means that if your Main Character is Willow, but you deck relies a great deal on having Buffy in play to win, you will be in trouble if you're opponent's Main Character turns out to be Buffy, or if your opponent gets their Buffy into to play first. As long as your opponent has Buffy or her Essence on the table, you may not play yours.

In this case, it might be a good idea to change your Main Character so that you can be certain to get them into play, or to change your strategy so that you can use other Characters in your deck if you cannot play a particular Hero or Villain because of the Uniqueness rule.

Remember, Companions and Minions are not Unique in the same way Villains or Heros are. You and your opponent may both have Chris Epps in play, for example.

How many Character cards you put in your Resource Deck is up to you, as long as your deck is not more than 50% Characters. While it's true that putting more characters in your deck will mean that you get more Characters into play sooner, there is such a thing as too many Characters. Character cards cannot be played into Talent Stacks when battling in a Fight or Challenge, so you may find that too many Characters in your Resource Deck tends to "clog up your hand" during battles. Also, if you're planning on ascending your characters during the game, remember that you cannot play higher level Character cards until you meet the Destiny requirement on those cards, so a hand full of Level 2 and Level 3 Characters will usually be pretty useless on the first turn. By playing your deck and tuning it, you will eventually find the number of Characters that works best for you.

When choosing Characters for your Resource Deck, you should look at the Character's Game Text as well as the Talents and Traits those Characters provide. Game Text can often be used to help accomplish your strategy. If you're playing with Xander or Harmony, for example, playing with Cordelia can make them more powerful, since their Game Text gives them bonuses if Cordelia is in play.

Say you were making a good old fashioned Butt-Kicking deck. Joyce Summers may not give you any extra Butt-Kicking, but her Game Text gives you more cards and more options, a useful advantage even in a deck based around Butt-Kicking. This can also be combined with her 1 Smarts to play Empty Puppet Case to draw even more cards (Empty Puppet Case requires 1 Smarts to be played). In this example, Joyce Summers would be included in your deck to help you draw more cards, and therefore help you win the game, even if your overall strategy revolves around Butt-Kicking and Joyce's Butt-Kicking is zero.

Items, Skills, and Actions

Items, Skills, and Actions are usually the cards that focus your deck and give it its purpose. They are usually the cards that determine what your deck "does". While Characters are basically constant to any deck, these cards will determine what those Characters do and how you win the game.

Since every game will involve building Talent Stacks at some point during Fights or Challenges, it's important to consider how your Items, Skills, and Actions will work in your Talent Stacks. Items and Skills are the most versatile, as they can be used in a Talent Stack to increase any Talent by one point. Actions, however, are more important, because even though they are are more limited on the number of Talents they can boost (most will boost either of two Talents, some only one Talent, and some, like Sunset , none at all), they often boost a Talent by more than one point, and, unlike Items and Skills, will eventually return to your Resource Deck after they are played. Once an Item or Skill has been put into play on the table, its value in a Talent Stack is negated.

Items

The advantages that Items offer are: