Deck Construction Tips

Part of what makes Metal Gear Acid so challenging is the prospect of constructing your own deck - it's relatively easy to throw together a bunch of cool-looking cards, but you're likely to wind up with something that's borderline unplayable. What's equally as bad is the game's automatic deck construction option, which will result in decks that are just pitilessly awful. No, in order to make a decent deck, you're going to need to slog into the deck editing interface and make one yourself. This chapter is intended to get you a start on creating powerful decks, and includes tips ranging the gamut from the overtly general to the frightfully specific.

Stick To 30 Cards

One of the axioms of real trading card games is that, if you want to be competitive, then you should put as few cards in your deck as possible. You're never - ever - going to find someone entering a high-level Magic tournament with a deck that's larger than 60 cards, for instance. The reason for this is that, although the rules allow you put in as many cards as you like, if you stick with the minimum amount necessary, you're much more able to build a powerful deck, due to the fact that you're much more likely to find cards you need when you need them. Since Metal Gear Acid is much more lenient and only forces you to use 30 cards in a deck, that's the most you'll probably ever want to be using, except in special cases.

Let's say that one particular card is vitally important to your deck. Since you can only have four copies of a given card in your deck, you're going to be more likely to draw it into your hand sooner if you have 30 cards in your deck as opposed to 35 or 40 (which the cap is eventually raised to). Not significantly more likely, sure, but even a matter of a few percent can be a big deal, especially in the boss fights.

We're not saying that you're going to cripple yourself if you throw more than 30 cards into your deck, but it's an undisputable fact that cutting out as much excess as possible will leave you with a deck that's going to be more effective in combat. Larger decks are a bit more versatile, as you can include some of the wackier cards that might not make the cut in a 30-card deck, but you may find yourself standing in place and discarding cards over and over again looking for something you need. This will happen with 30-card decks, as well, just not as often.

Card Types and Ratios

In a 30-card deck, you're not going to have a lot of room for extraneous cards - when something pops up, you're going to want it to be immediately useful to you. That is, at least, the theory - since Acid's gameplay is broken up into periods of movement and combat, you're going to find yourself popping up movement cards when you really want a weapon to shoot with, and vice versa. There's not much you can really do about this, but knowing the proper ratio of the various types of cards is going to help get you along the path of getting what you need, when you need it. These are just general outlines, though, so you may want to tweak your own deck ratios to suit your own playing style.

Weapons

Weapons are generally either EQUIP or USE types. Use cards are simple; when they pop up into your hand, you can select them, pick a target, and fire them. Very few guns are of the Use type, save for the FAMAS and SOCOM weapons that you start the game with; Use weapons are generally more along the lines of grenades, mines, and rockets that you use once, then forget them.

Equip weapons, as mentioned in the "Using Equipment" section below, have to be equipped, then loaded with ammo in order to be fired. The main drawback to these is that you can't use them as soon as you draw them into your hand, and dealing with the various types of ammo and interference effects can be confusing at first. The main bonus, however, is that interference, when you do get a handle on it, can result in a huge boost to the power of each of your weapons. Again, see the Using Equipment section below for a better introduction to the concepts of interference and equipping.

Most 30-card decks are going to want around 10-12 weapons in them, if not more, mostly of the Equip variety. You're going to need to ensure that you have enough weapons to both ensure that you can equip them into your weapon slots early on in the round and then fire them. Having around one-third of your deck consist of weapons gives you good odds on getting two weapons in your opening hand, so if you have to equip one and fire immediately, you'll often be able to. Of the Use variety of weapons, we found the most useful to be Nikita or RC Missiles and grenades, but you won't need more than one missile and one grenade in most maps.