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If you have a private gaming group and want to get into LCG games. Does every player need to buy a set to build his deck ? Or does the group buy one set and possible expansions and build their decks from cards available ?

Thunderforge
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kenny
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    This question is tagged [warhammer-invasion], but your question sounds like it's about LCGs in general. Could you please clarify what it is you're asking? (FYI, asking about all LCGs is probably too broad, since the answer varies from LCG to LCG). – Thunderforge Oct 29 '16 at 17:27
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    Well yeah I was looking at warhammer invasion in particular , I wanted a global LCG tag but there isn't one, I took the best I could choose.

    I had hoped it would cover all LCG's it's harder if it does not apply to all though :(

     – kenny Oct 29 '16 at 17:40
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    Well, there are plenty of LCGs and it depends on how competitive you want to be. The new Arkham Horror LCG can support two decks in the core set, although those who want to support more players will need another. The Game of Thrones 2e LCG core set has only one copy of each card, so some gamers tell you that a single competitive player needs three sets. Doomtown Reloaded (an ECG, since LCG is copyrighted, but it's the same thing) can build four decks out of the core set, but most competitive gamers have two of their own. As you can see, there isn't a universal LCG answer. – Thunderforge Oct 29 '16 at 18:24
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    I've removed the Warhammer Invasion tag, since there's nothing in the question specific to Warhammer Invasion. Unless you'd like to make this question specific to that game, which is also available. – doppelgreener Oct 30 '16 at 23:10

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Tl;dr: One set probably suffices for Limited play, but you probably need more than one to play Constructed unless you want to limit what people can build.

Most LCGs (and ECGs, which are the same thing), offer two broad categories of play: Constructed and Limited.

In Constructed play, you build decks from the cards available, usually with some restrictions like a maximum number of copies for each card. ECGs I'm familiar with come with at most enough cards for a single player to build an arbitrary Constructed deck (sometimes many fewer, e.g. in Epic Card Game you are allowed up to 3 copies of each card but the set comes with only 1 of each). So to play Constructed, you'll probably need multiple sets, or you'll need to (potentially severely) restrict what each player can build. For example with one copy of Warhammer: Invasion and two players, you could decide that one player will build an Order deck, one will build a Destruction deck, and no one will use more than half the copies of any neutral card; with four players you could just assign each player a race.

In Limited play, you build a deck immediately before playing, often using a random and/or competitive building process. For example, there's often:

  • Sealed - deal each person a random pile from the communal pool, then let them remove cards they don't want until they're down to minimum deck size.
  • Draft - deal each person cards from the communal pool, then each selects a card and passes the rest to another person. Keep selecting and passing until everyone has a deck (or more than a deck, and then cuts some out).

There are many variants of these, and the ECGs I'm familiar with all support some kind of Limited play using only one set. For example, in Epic Card Game you can draft with up to 4 people out of one set.

Benjamin Cosman
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  • Thanks for this explaination. I'll keep this in mind for our gaming group, unfourtunatly our plans to play warhammer invasion went out of the window, you can't find the core set anymore it's out of print and very hard to get your hands on :( – kenny Oct 30 '16 at 19:57
  • It would help to note which ECGs you are familiar with. – Thunderforge Oct 30 '16 at 20:00
  • I'm primarily familiar with the two I mention in the answer (Epic and Invasion); also a bit with Android: Netrunner (which fits the mold if you count a fan-made draft format). So perhaps I'm making broader claims than my little evidence warrants, though the business model does seems quite sensible and common: one set shouldn't be useless, but once you're hooked they love to make you buy multiple for the full experience. – Benjamin Cosman Oct 31 '16 at 04:46
  • I'm a particular fan of sealed play , at least back in my magic days. I wonder if I can create something for warhammer invasion since the rules only seem to support draft (which takes forever). Managed to get all the expantions after all buying from five different stores in three different countries ... – kenny Nov 02 '16 at 10:02