When looking at cards trying to decide what to put in your deck, it’s easy to be blown away by high cost cards. The problem is that without the right number of cheap cards, the big dogs will never see play.

You need a reasonable number of cards that cost 3 or fewer resources with only one loyalty symbol on the board. Our gaming group has dubbed these First Turn Cards (FTC)*.

To create a balanced deck, you need to have a large, low-cost card base that allows you to start earning cards and resources early. This is why cards like Warpstone Excavation (a zero-cost neutral support card that provides 1 hammer) are on the shortlist.

Warpstone Excavation is a free hammer that when played early can give you 5-7 resources or cards within a game’s range. Low cost cards are great for helping you develop a board presence before your opponent does. Below is my Dark Elf/Undead deck that I plan to bring to Gen Con for the tournament. This deck works by sacrificing your own units for effects, so it’s a bit lower cost than most, but it still serves as a good example.

units(number x cost + loyalty, bold indicates FTC)

3x 0____ veteran mercenaries

3x 0 + 1L walking sacrifice

3x 1 + 1L dark initiate

3x 2____ Crypt Ghouls

3x 2 + 1L dwarf slavs

3x 2 + 2L essence thief

3x 2 + 2L Fel Sorceress

3x5____ Lord of the Spectres

3 x 6 + 3L Monster of the Deep

21 FTC Units

Support

3x 0____ Warpstone Excavation

3x 1____ disputed town

3x 2 + 2L slave pen

12FTC Support

Tactic

3×0+3L Whip the prisoner!

3 x 1 + 2L Dark Visions

3 x 1____ warpstone experiments

2x2____ Burn it

3 x 2 + 2L Sacrifice to Khaine

As you can see, out of a 50 card deck, 33 of the cards can be played on turn 1 to gain resources and cards for future rounds. That’s 66%, which means that 4-5 cards in my starting hand are likely to be playable not counting the mulligan. The Dark Elves are an extreme example, as I said before, as many of these units are sacrificial meat. As a generic wait rule, I would use the following numbers as a starting point:

26 units —13 FTC

12 Support -9FTC

This gives you 22 FTC which comprise 44% of your deck. On your first draw, 3 of your 7 cards should be playable not counting your mulligan.

When you start to think about the odds of drawing the cards you need, the importance of a 50 card deck becomes even more important. Always keep this in mind when building your decks and be selective when choosing your cards. You can always pull it out and try something else, but throwing a bunch of cards together doesn’t give any of them a chance.

APPENDIX

• first turn cards