Shadespire: it’s in the cards

With the imminent release of Shadespire, Warhammer-Community has been ramping up its coverage of the game. One article looks at the deckbuilding aspect of the game.

I have to admit that as a Magic: the Gathering player this part of the game attracts me as a sub-game in its own right – not the actual use of the cards in game so much as the decisions about which cards to include in the first place.

Firstly, there are two different decks to build – the Objective deck, which must be exactly 12 cards, and the Power deck, which has to be a minimum of 20 but has no ceiling. In each deck you may only include one of any given card.

Having perused the article, I have a few observations:

• cycling! In Magic, being able to discard a card to draw a card is (rightly) considered powerful. When you get the opportunity to do this in Shadespire it’s a good idea. Think of it as removing a card you can’t use to draw a card you can. In Shadespire they call this combing rather than cycling.
• minimums matter: If the minimum deck size is 20, then 20 should be the size of your deck. This makes it more likely that you will draw your crucial cards when you need them, and also forces you to focus your deck and not add cards because “that looks interesting.” Every card needs to earn its place in your deck.
• maximum Ploys: The Power deck has two card types; Ploys and Upgrades. Ploys are limited to 10, while Upgrades are unlimited. This tells me the correct number for each card type is 10. If they felt the need to limit Ploys, then I want to play as many as I can.

I haven’t had the chance to look through the cards in detail, but should there be multiple cards with different names that do the same thing, and you want to do that thing, take all of the cards.

Shadespire is looking more interesting by the day!