So normally, in a curve deck that has 4x of a search card, such as Fantastic four, the curve would be along the lines of 4-6-6-5-4-3-2. Now alot of decks have the ability to use 8 search cards, either mobilize or EoME in special cases, along with their own. FF, for example, can use 4 Signal flare and 4 mobilize. So what do you think the optimal number of searches would be, and what would the curve be for that number of searches. For example i tried playing 4 bat signal and 4 mobilize in a GK deck, and found a bunch of dead search cards in my hand. I can see this work in a toolbox deck, where you can get any character you want any time, but otherwise it feels like a waste

Dependsonthedeck.Seeifitsacombodeckthenyouneedalotofsearch. However, if it's a curve, four is fine. See the difference? The first sentence is similar to a deck with too much search.

I dont think 8 I would spend 8 slots in my deck on seach cards...seems a little overkill to me...6 at the most if mono team. maybe 8+ if I have a lot of teams...but thats just pushing my style of play.

It really varies depending on the deck. I usually run around 6 and it works out well.

Anyone saying you "don't need eight tutors in a curve deck" doesn't know what they're talking about. Running eight tutors and four 4-drops is essentially like running twelve 4-drops. The guarantee that you will hit that 4-drop roughly 95% of the time means that in ten rounds of play you will see a 4-drop every single game on turn 4. People constantly blame losses on missed drops, so why would you *not* want to run as many tutors as you can realistically fit into your deck? Would you rather have too many search cards, or have too few and miss your curve often? The reason many fantastic ideas and teams have been killed in testing is because they weren't consistent enough because they lacked tutors. Now that every new team is being given a tutor, everyone can run 4x Mobilize and 4x of their own search card meaning that good ideas will no longer be hindered by inconsistency.

The reason you may find yourself holding too many search cards is because you can't apply the traditional curve formula to decks that play Mobilize. Assuming you're running a completely mono-team deck, this is the curve I'd use:

8 2-drops
8 3-drops
4 4-drops
2-3 5-drops (depending on what's available to the team)
2-3 6-drops (same as above)
1 7-drop
1 8-drop

Also take into consideration that the decks running Frankie, Ivy, Deadshot, Light, etc etc were running anywhere from 10-12 tutors. 4x Eome, 4x Sttg, 2-4x Ring

Now this is a bit different than running 10-12 tutors in a curve deck simply because Ring was used to get only little guys for Light. Plus, we're talking about a deck that had 700 teams in it.

In a mono curve deck I would run 8 tutors all day and all night.

At a certain point the tutors end up as dead cards if you are hitting your drops, and that combat pump you needed to draw is just another search card...and what if your opponent has your pts or locations on restriction. lets say you are playing around 20-22 characters because you have 8-10 tutors. turn 4 comes around and you need to hit your drop. What if your opponent has out Black Cat, Sage, Dr. Doom, or anything that restricts your pts in any sort of way? seems like a game lost to me.

Edit- Might make me look like a hypocrite, but the only deck ive run 8 tutors in was my mono Heralds deck. Creation and Kindred, but i think that is unique in that Kindred Spirits costs 0, thus is too good not to played and gets 2 characters(controls mulligan and Black Cat and Sage will have little effect on my playing it), and Creation of a HErald more times than not was getting me the random tech cards I had in my deck.

True, but the same can be said about your own example; combat pumps. If you're playing against an off-curve deck that can just reinforce to stop damage or a stall deck that doesn't let you get off attacks anyways, then your combat pumps are also dead. I'd say in general you need search cards more than you need combat pumps, because missing your curve will lose you more games than not having enough ATK to stun other characters.

Against Dr. Doom, you just chain to him coming in because you already have 3 resources in play to play Mobilize and most other team-specific tutors. I doubt Black Cat will see as much play once Dr. Light is officially banned, so she becomes a non-issue. I'll agree that Sage obviously affects your ability to tutor, but if your opponent is willing to play a 3-drop against a standard curve deck with average stats that does nothing but slow you down then you should be fine.

Something else to consider when using non-Enemy search cards is that you can sometimes convert them into admittedly expensive power-up enablers. It's saved me more than once. Plus, having had the experience of trying to optimize several combat-oriented decks back before search was basically a presumed requirement for teams, for the number of times you'll have a truly dead search card, I can assure you there's at least twice as many times where the character cards one would run instead would be dead. There are some teams and cards which can convert excess character cards, regardless of name, into something beneficial, but this is an exception, and would be taken into account when building a curve.

To answer the original question, it all depends. The primary determinate of what your deck's curve will look like involves three considerations. They are: the most important characters to hit the field, search options for the deck, and the overall game plan. If you're trying to win fast and have search cards that require smaller characters to use, such as for Mobilize, Titans of Tomorrow, or Bat-Signal, you're going to want to have a heavier low-drop emphasis than for a deck that looks to stall out and has its most important drops in the higher cost range. Experimentation is the best way to come up with one's best idea for an optimal curve, but if you have specific deck concepts in mind, you should feel free to ask here.

Follow along with me for a minute:

6 one drops
6 two drops
6 three drops
6 four drops
4 five drops
4 six drops
3-4 seven drops
0-4 8 drops
0-4 nine drops
0-4 ten drops

I feel you should typically play about 36 characters in a curve deck. You can get down to about 32 characters with 4 search cards, but I wouldn't dream of going below 32 characters or you run that risk of drawing dead far too easily. If you want to play more than 4 search cards, then you'd likely want to go with about 6, and essentially increase your character count up to 38 instead of 36.

With 36 character cards you can almost always hit your drops 1-7 with no search cards. I used this when playing X-men long ago. It still seems to work really good for most decks now adays as well.

i still think ur an a$$hole, lol..but i trully agee wit that

36 characters is too many. It has been for a while. Most competitive decks are over half plot twists/locations/equipment now. Seriously. Just look at them.

The reason is that decks hit their curve more often than not, so to win, you need to hit curve + tricks.

Yes, sometimes you'll miss curve. But hitting curve every game and losing whenever your opponent does so as well is a greater evil.

As for the numbers? It depends on what the non-EoME/Mobilize tutor IS.

Secret Files, for example, demands you run 1 drops. So does Bat Signal, and in Inhumans, one of their tutors IS a 1 drop (same for Sentinels...).

While a tutor that costs 3 requires you play more 2 drops, especially if you're trying to use mobilize.

So a curve like

7
6
6
4
3
2
1
==
29

Might work for GK or IG (although actual games would need to take priority, and you might simply play a bunch of 2 drops instead of 1's), while

0
9
18
4
1
==
32

is working for one of MY decks... (:cool:)

and

0
9
9
6
3
2
==
29

seems about right for DE Mockeries (which is actually character heavy).


Winning builds with 4 tutors were already dropping below 30. 8 tutors requires it.

I found this build pretty stable:
Depending on the deck...
8+ Searchers
1: 4
2: 5 or 6
3: 5 or 6
4: 4 or 5
5: 4
6: 3
7: 2
8: 1
9: 1 (if needed)
Approx: 30 characters

4+ Searchers
1: 4 or 5
2: 6
3: 6
4: 6
5: 4
6: 4
7: 2
8: 1
9: 1 (if needed)
Approx: 33 characters

One important thing to remember. More searchers less atk/def plot twist/locations/equips

I know it's like talking to a wall, but I figure for the benefit of other people viewing this thread rather I'd better respond to this.

First of all, I have a few problems with your curve. No one will ever build a deck that runs more than one or maybe two copies of an 8-drop or higher. Have you ever seen a deck with four 10-drops? Even in non-competitive decks that are terrible you never see this happen. The other major problem I see is with 1-drops. If you want to play a curve deck, unless your 1-drops search for other characters or can be recruited using something other than resource points, you probably shouldn't be playing them. They rarely make a big enough impact on the game to warrant six slots, and even then if you are planning to curve then they won't serve a purpose if you draw them past turn 1 unless they meet the above criteria of being able to come into play for free.

Secondly, the standard character to non-character ratio has been getting smaller with newer sets, and is nowhere near 36:24. Most decks don't even run 30:30 anymore, because search means you don't have to. Sure, you can obviously run extremely high amounts of characters and try hitting drops without using search cards, but why do this when search cards save deck space and are overall more efficient than running excess characters? Let's say you run a curve of 0:8:8:4:2:2:1:1, which totals 26 characteres. By running 8 search cards with that curve (let's assume they both cost 3) you are essentially running a curve that looks like 0:8:16:12:10:10:9:9. If you ran that curve without search cards, it would take 72 slots, which is obviously outrageous. So, although this is a very exaggerated example, running eight search cards will save you 38 spaces (72-(26+8))

Finally, "most decks now adays" don't run 36 characters and would probably be a lot worse if they did.

you were being a tad snobish, but i see your point, but 32-34 is not bad if your deck has alot of character discarding, but for a regular build, i guess i'll agree with you