8 - Deckbuilding

Building your own strategy is a central point of Voidream. Building a Voidream deck consists of these steps:

  • Choose a main faction, and optionally a guest faction.
  • Choose a bastion belonging to your main faction.
  • Choose a mind card that belongs to your main or guest factions, or one that is neutral.
  • Read the back of your chosen bastion for deckbuilding instructions:
    • The first line reads Dream: X(Y), where X is the total number of Dream cards (including the bastion itself) your deck must include, and Y is the number of those cards that may belong to the guest faction. For example, a bastion that reads Dream: 40(8) requires a deck of 1 bastion and 39 dream cards, 31 of which must be neutral or belong to the main faction, and 8 of which may also belong to the guest faction.
    • The second line reads Arcana: <major arcanum> + X(Y), where <major arcanum> is a special arcanum associated to that specific bastion, X is the number of additional arcana you must include, of which Y may belong to the guest faction. For example, a bastion with Arcana: The Dreamliner + 7(2) requires a hand of 8 arcana, including The Dreamliner as a major arcanum, 5 arcana which must be neutral or belong to the main faction, and 2 arcana that may also belong to the guest faction.
    • In some cases, there may be additional lines that detail special deckbuilding conditions, or actions that must be taken at the start of the game.

In addition to the rules above, you must respect the copy limits:

  • Each arcanum must be different (by title.)
  • You may include a maximum of 3 copies of each Dream card (differentiated by title.)

Those are all the hard rules around deckbuilding. Spread the wings of your imagination and experiment!

Strategy: Here are some things to think about when building your deck:

  • There's no restriction on the values that your Dream deck or hand of arcana must include. Experiment with decks with only high values, only low values, or something in between. You may find they have very distinct strengths and weaknesses.
  • In doubt, and especially at the beginning, make sure to have a healthy amount of high value arcana so you don't get stuck without playable cards.
  • If a particular value is underrepresented in your deck, that makes it easier to guess what a face down card of that value may be. Other deckbuilding tricks like ensuring that all cards of a certain value are of a certain type are very useful.
  • While faction specific mind cards tend to be complex high-risk, high-reward tools, neutral mind cards like Innocence and Patience offer a simple, smooth alternative. There's no shame in taking it easy on the mind card, especially early on in your Voidream journey.