Culdcept BEGINS deck building starts with the shape: a Book is 40 cards, and roughly 25 of them should be Creatures, 6 to 10 Items and 4 to 8 Spells. Every card needs a job before it earns one of those slots.
Culdcept BEGINS Deck Building: The Shape of a 40-Card Book
| Card type | How many in 40 | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Creatures | about 25 | Claim land, hold land and take land back |
| Items | 6 to 10 | Bolster the Creatures doing those jobs |
| Spells | 4 to 8 | Movement, territory control, and defence of your chain |
Every slot has to earn its place. Creatures are the part of the Book that actually generates income, and everything else is support for the creatures doing those jobs.
Give Every Creature a Job
Before a Creature takes a slot, decide which of these four jobs it does:
| Job | What it has to do | Cards that fit the job |
|---|---|---|
| Cheap grabber | Sit on terrain and earn from it | Goblin, Wolf, Statue — all cheap enough to be played immediately |
| Wall | Hold a chain with HP and defensive abilities | Old Willow, Kelpie, Wonder Wall |
| Raider | Be strong enough to steal enemy territory | Bandit, Executor, Valkyrie |
| Utility body | Smooth over rough draws and scale with the board | T'ao T'ieh, Pale Globster, Garuda |
A Book full of cards that all try to do the same job is a Book that stalls the moment one of them is answered.
Keep the Opening Book Playable
Several strong Creatures carry deployment restrictions — an element-specific territory such as "Fire Territory Required", a card that must be discarded, or a Deployment Limit. Those cards are dead weight until you own the right land, so keep cheap, immediately playable Creatures in the opening Book.
Cut the Cards That Never Do Anything
- Cut any card that never does anything in your plan.
- Keep the Spells that answer the problems you actually hit: movement, territory control, and defence of your chain.
- Check that a Creature can actually equip the Item you plan to use, because some Creatures carry an Item Limit.
- Judge each card against the board rather than in isolation: ask which territory the Creature should occupy, or which specific turn the Spell should improve.
Two Cards That Change How the Book Works
- Manna pays (laps completed + 1) ×100 magic and is one of the strongest economy cards in the set, which is why it appears in most competitive lists.
- Reincarnation discards your whole hand and draws the same number of cards plus one, which is how you dig for a combo piece when the draw is bad.
Start From a Proven List Instead of a Blank Book
You start the game with a choice of two Books, and the deck editor can load a Book from a code. If you would rather not build 40 slots from scratch, best decks and deck codes lists complete Books you can paste in and then adjust.
Decide the Elements Before You Pick the Cards
Element choice decides how the whole Book works, because it decides which Creatures get the land effect and which chains you can build. Best element combinations explains why density beats mixing and which pairing to start from.