# of Weapons in a Combat Deck

[Jobu 720]

So whats everyone's take on how many weapons you need to include in a deck based on combat?  Does it vary based on the # of players?

My current take is that a deck that needs to always have a weapon out needs 5-6 weapons.  7-8 seems like overkill for me, especially since weapons have pretty bad skill icons.  I don't factor in ammo that much as my main focus is ensuring that I have a weapon in my opening hand but I would also be interested in hearing on other peoples take on that.

[Soakman 987]

I feel similarly, but I tend not to play straight guardian or monster bashing roles, so i don't have a lot of experience with it. In my mystic decks, I lean pretty heavily on the damage spells (storm of spirits, shriveling, song of the dead) because I feel like you cripple the entire team  if you leave a monster on the board that could have been taken out and is going to impede progress. Unless my mystic is meant to be primary clue gatherer and has decent evade actions, I usually try to have at least 5-6 'damage' spells in the deck perhaps even more because a few are one-shot events. Arcane initiate can help with this though.

 

If you're running guardian it also probably depends if you have or are running any prepared for the worsts.

To me, extra ammo seems silly if you're going to be keeping machetes and fire axes around. But maybe I'm doing it wrong. I also play on standard.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Soakman

[Wyndam 9]

With my Guardians:

2x Machete
2x .45s (or .32s if playing with Mark)
1x Prepared for the Worse

Upgrade into:
1x Stick to the Plan

It would be pretty impossible to not start with a weapon with this setup. As the deck is upgraded into Lightning Gun and Extra Ammos, I would begin replacing the .45s or .32s.

[C2K 246]

2 hours ago, Wyndam said:

With my Guardians:

2x Machete
2x .45s (or .32s if playing with Mark)
1x Prepared for the Worse

Upgrade into:
1x Stick to the Plan

It would be pretty impossible to not start with a weapon with this setup. As the deck is upgraded into Lightning Gun and Extra Ammos, I would begin replacing the .45s or .32s.

Pretty much this, though I would start with +1 Prepared for the worst and -1 Machete. 

[Assussanni 528]

2 hours ago, Wyndam said:

With my Guardians:

2x Machete
2x .45s (or .32s if playing with Mark)
1x Prepared for the Worse

Upgrade into:
1x Stick to the Plan

It would be pretty impossible to not start with a weapon with this setup. As the deck is upgraded into Lightning Gun and Extra Ammos, I would begin replacing the .45s or .32s.

For the starting deck of 4x weapons and 1x Prepared for the Worst, and assuming that you keep Prepared for the Worst and mulligan everything else if you don't have a weapon, I think it works out as:

• 80% chance of starting with at least one weapon in your opening hand.
• 6.5% chance of having no weapons but Prepared for the Worst in your opening hand, and it finding a weapon if it is played on the first turn.
• 1.5% chance of having no weapons but Prepared for the Worst in your opening hand, but it not finding a weapon if it is played on the first turn.
• 12% chance of having neither a weapon nor Prepared for the Worst in your opening hand.

Stick to the Plan guarantees that you see Prepared for the Worst, which increases your odds of both drawing a weapon in your opening hand and/or finding one (Stick to the Plan makes your deck 3 cards thinner). Again, assuming that you mulligan your entire hand if it contains no weapons:

• 85% chance of starting with at least one weapon in your opening hand.
• 12% chance of having no weapons but Prepared for the Worst finding one if it is played on the first turn.
• 3% chance of having no weapons and Prepared for the Worst not finding one if it is played on the first turn.

To put it another way, if you were to play this Stick to the Plan deck through five campaigns of eight scenarios, you would expect that in four of the campaigns you would have a weapon in your hand during the first turn of every single scenario.

Calculations done in Excel, hopefully correctly, using HYPGEOM.DIST and BINOM.DIST with reference to http://www.kibble.net/magic/magic10.php.

[Assussanni 528]

4 hours ago, Jobu said:

So whats everyone's take on how many weapons you need to include in a deck based on combat?  Does it vary based on the # of players?

My current take is that a deck that needs to always have a weapon out needs 5-6 weapons.  7-8 seems like overkill for me, especially since weapons have pretty bad skill icons.  I don't factor in ammo that much as my main focus is ensuring that I have a weapon in my opening hand but I would also be interested in hearing on other peoples take on that.

In case it helps, this is the probability based on the number of weapons you have in your deck, assuming no other effects and that you mulligan everything to try and get a weapon:

Basically, I think your instincts are correct. If you are the only/main monster killer in your group, and weapons are your only real way of doing decent damage, then between 5 and 7 weapons looks sensible. With 6 weapons in your deck you have a greater than 50% chance of having a weapon in your opening hand for every scenario in an eight scenario campaign, so I'd say this is probably the sweet spot.

If you have two investigators who are geared up to fight monsters, then you could cut back quite significantly. You'd only need 4 weapons each in your decks to get a chance that neither investigator has a weapon in their opening hand better than 1 in 25, with a roughly two-thirds chance that both have weapons.

[Radix2309 355]

At least 4, ideally 6.

With my Mark I run .45, .32, And Machete, all 2x.

[Jobu 720]

3 hours ago, Assussanni said:

In case it helps, this is the probability based on the number of weapons you have in your deck, assuming no other effects and that you mulligan everything to try and get a weapon:

Basically, I think your instincts are correct. If you are the only/main monster killer in your group, and weapons are your only real way of doing decent damage, then between 5 and 7 weapons looks sensible. With 6 weapons in your deck you have a greater than 50% chance of having a weapon in your opening hand for every scenario in an eight scenario campaign, so I'd say this is probably the sweet spot.

If you have two investigators who are geared up to fight monsters, then you could cut back quite significantly. You'd only need 4 weapons each in your decks to get a chance that neither investigator has a weapon in their opening hand better than 1 in 25, with a roughly two-thirds chance that both have weapons. 

Thanks for the chart that really helps.

Thanks to everyone else as well.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Jobu

[Khudzlin 734]

14 hours ago, Radix2309 said:

At least 4, ideally 6.

With my Mark I run .45, .32, And Machete, all 2x.

Don't forget that Mark draws like crazy.

[Radix2309 355]

Yeah, but I want weapons out on my first turn. It really saves you time and effort that could be spent more productively.

[Raahk 184]

I usually go for 4 weapons plus 2 prepared for the worst. When i have spare xp and i can afford stick to the plan i only need one prepare for tue worst since the Second One is almost always useless

[Aaron Foss 500]

Personally, I tend to have 4 weapons, plus 1 Prepared for the Worst tucked under Stick to the Plan as the baseline for a weapon-based fighter.