5 Deckbuilder Mistakes Every Beginner Makes (And How to Avoid Them)

Starting your deckbuilding journey can feel overwhelming. Complex mechanics, strategic depth, and the sting of repeated failures often discourage newcomers from mastering this rewarding genre. However, most beginner struggles stem from five common mistakes that are easily corrected with awareness and practice. This guide identifies these pitfalls and provides actionable solutions to accelerate your improvement.

Mistake #1: Taking Every "Good" Card

The Problem

New players often grab every card that seems powerful, regardless of synergy or deck focus. This leads to bloated, unfocused decks that perform poorly despite containing individually strong cards.

Why It Happens

Beginners evaluate cards in isolation rather than as part of a cohesive strategy. The fear of missing out on powerful effects overrides consideration of deck coherence and draw consistency.

The Solution

Before taking any card, ask: "How does this advance my current strategy?" Every addition should either directly support your win condition or solve a specific problem your deck faces. Sometimes skipping rewards maintains deck focus better than adding marginal improvements.

Pro Tip

Establish your deck's identity by the third or fourth card selection. Once you've committed to a strategy (aggressive damage, defensive scaling, etc.), evaluate all future cards through that lens.

Mistake #2: Ignoring Deck Size Management

The Problem

Beginners often end runs with enormous decks filled with mediocre cards, making it impossible to draw key cards consistently. They prioritize adding cards over removing weak ones.

Why It Happens

Card removal costs feel like wasted resources, and beginners don't understand how deck size affects draw probability. The immediate cost seems more significant than the long-term benefit.

The Solution

Prioritize card removal, especially early in runs. Removing starter cards and weak early picks dramatically improves your deck's power level. Think of removal costs as investments in consistency rather than expenses.

The Math

In a 20-card deck, you see each card every 4 draws on average. In a 30-card deck, it becomes every 6 draws. This difference determines whether you can execute your strategy reliably.

Mistake #3: Poor Energy/Resource Management

The Problem

New players frequently waste energy by ending turns with unspent resources or playing inefficient combinations. They focus on individual card effects rather than optimal energy utilization.

Why It Happens

Energy optimization requires planning ahead and understanding opportunity costs—skills that develop through experience. Beginners think reactively rather than strategically.

The Solution

Plan your entire turn before playing any cards. Calculate different combinations and their energy costs to find the most efficient sequence. Include cheap cards in your deck to utilize leftover energy productively.

Energy Efficiency Framework

Evaluate cards by their impact per energy spent. A 2-energy card dealing 10 damage (5 damage per energy) may be more efficient than a 1-energy card dealing 4 damage, even though both seem reasonable in isolation.

Mistake #4: Neglecting Defensive Considerations

The Problem

Beginners often build purely offensive decks that deal impressive damage but crumble under enemy pressure. They underestimate the importance of survivability in roguelike deckbuilders.

Why It Happens

Defensive effects feel less exciting than damage spells, and new players don't appreciate how quickly enemy scaling can overwhelm inadequate defenses. The immediate gratification of big damage numbers overshadows defensive planning.

The Solution

Include defensive options proportional to the threats you'll face. This might mean block cards, healing effects, enemy control, or damage reduction. Calculate whether your deck can survive long enough for its strategy to work.

The Survivability Test

Ask yourself: "Can I survive three turns against the strongest enemy I'll face?" If the answer is no, prioritize defensive improvements over offensive optimization.

Mistake #5: Fighting RNG Instead of Adapting

The Problem

Beginners often blame bad luck for failures rather than recognizing adaptation opportunities. They force predetermined strategies regardless of available cards or encountered challenges.

Why It Happens

Adaptation requires game knowledge and strategic flexibility that beginners haven't developed yet. It's easier to blame randomness than acknowledge suboptimal decision-making.

The Solution

Embrace flexibility as a core skill. Learn to recognize when your initial strategy isn't working and be willing to pivot based on available options. The best players work with what the game offers rather than forcing specific builds.

Adaptation Mindset

View each run as a puzzle to solve with the tools provided, not an execution of a predetermined plan. This mindset shift dramatically improves win rates and makes failures feel like learning opportunities.

Building Good Habits From the Start

Start Small and Focus

Choose one aspect to improve per run rather than trying to fix everything simultaneously. Maybe focus entirely on energy efficiency for several runs before moving to deck size management.

Learn from Every Death

When runs end, analyze what went wrong. Was it poor card selection, bad energy management, or insufficient defense? Identifying specific causes enables targeted improvement.

Watch Experienced Players

Streams and videos show expert decision-making in action. Focus on understanding why players make specific choices rather than just copying their strategies.

Practice Exercises for Improvement

The "No Card" Challenge

Deliberately skip several card rewards early in a run to practice deck focus and demonstrate how smaller, coherent decks outperform larger, scattered ones.

Energy Efficiency Runs

Focus entirely on maximizing energy usage each turn. This builds optimization habits and reveals opportunities you might normally miss.

Defensive-First Builds

Try runs where you prioritize survival over damage to understand how defensive effects enable offensive strategies to function.

Conclusion: From Beginner to Strategic Thinker

These five mistakes represent the most common barriers between beginner and intermediate play. Correcting them requires conscious effort and practice, but the improvement is dramatic and rapid once you develop awareness.

Remember that mastery takes time. Even experienced players continue learning and refining their approaches. Focus on steady improvement rather than perfect play, and celebrate small victories along the journey.

The deckbuilding genre rewards strategic thinking, adaptation, and careful planning. By avoiding these common pitfalls, you'll develop the foundational skills needed to tackle any deckbuilder successfully.

Ready to put these lessons into practice? Gunslinger's Revenge provides an ideal learning environment with clear feedback and forgiving mechanics that help you develop these crucial skills. Join our newsletter for more beginner-friendly guides and tips for mastering Wild West deckbuilding!