Component Design

This section contains articles and pages about the theory and practice of deck, map, and figure design, as well as any other imaginable aspects of Epic Duels add-on materials. If you are looking for different ways to play, consider the House Rules section.

The resources below are broken into the following categories: Deck Design, which deals primiarly with tools and strategies for coming up with the cards themselves; Card Design, which deals with actually constructing the card images and turning them into physical cards; VASSAL Specific, which details resources exclusive to VASSAL extension development; and Other/Reference, which contains things like listings of Hasbro decks, analysis of terminolgy, and Sultan of Dorkistan's excellent Design This! series.  If you'd like to make some contributions to the wiki, please read this first.

DECK DESIGNER SOFTWARE

• Deck Designer by Corey Andalora

DECK DESIGN .PSD FILES 

• Special Card
• Basic Combat Card
• Power Combat Attack Card
• Power Combat Defense Card
• Power Combat Attack and Defense Card
• Card Back 

     Editing 

     --> Requires Photoshop to open**. All text is editable and no special fonts are needed.

     --> With a simple color change using something basic like the Hue/Saturation and character's name and image change, new character cards can be easily generated.

     Printing

     --> There is a 0.125inch bleed all around to account for any printing alignment issues and cutting.

     --> The resolution is 300 ppi so the print quality should come out decent and a corner rounder tool can be used to make the cards look as close to the original game cards as possible.

• Damage Marker Type 1
• Damage Marker Type 2 - 5x4(HP Grid)
• Damage Marker Type 2 - 6x4(HP Grid)
• Damage Marker Type 3
• Damage Marker Type 4

     Editing

     --> Requires Photoshop to open**. Coolvetica font is required...it's available for free on dafont. Download and install it before opening this .psd file.

     --> Changing the character's name and image and the color(using something like Hue/Saturation) is easy.

     --> The HP is not part of the static image and is fully customizable. It can be toggled on and off

BEGINNER DECK DESIGN ARTICLES

• Deck Design Blueprint by Roman.  Follow this blueprint for your first deck, and you'll have something that works.
• An Introduction to Deck Design by Blaze
• Precepts of Special Cards by Rich Pizor 

IN-DEPTH DECK DESIGN ARTICLES

• The Asterisk Anomoly by Sultan of Dorkistan and Darth Trumpetus
• Basic Deck Design by OWJ: The ABCDs of decks.  New and old theories on the Basic decks and when to use them.
• Basic Deck Design (Updated) by CRFR787:  An updated look at OWJ's Basic Deck Design for the melee decks.
• Basic Deck Design: Ranged Decks by CRFR787: An updated look at OWJ's Basic Deck Design for ranged decks. 
• Card Playability vs Intent by Darth Trumpetus
• Character Trait Trends by Darth Trumpetus
• Design This! by Sultan of Dorkistan. An ongoing blog about all things Epic.
• Direct Damage and Its Discontents by CRFR787:  A discussion about direct damage effects and how to use them. 
• Fully Operational: Scene, Theme, and Character Decks by Mike Maloney
• Fully Operational: Collectible Card Game Design in Epic Duels Design by Mike Maloney
• Fully Operational: Aggressive vs. Conservative by Mike Maloney
• Hasbro Deck Ideas and Signature Cards by Darth Trumpetus
• Making Epic Decks (offsite link) by Roman
• Resource Management in ED Deck Design by Rich Pizor
• Single Character Decks: Observations, Problems, and Solutions for a deck without minors by Darth Trumpetus

CARD IMAGE DESIGN

• Deck Building Dos and Don'ts by Rich Pizor.
• Design This! by Sultan of Dorkistan. A sporadic blog about Epic Duels design.
• Dorkistan Deck Design Templates

VASSAL SPECIFIC

• Extensions Registry - list of what VASSAL expansion slots are taken up by what decks.

STATISTICS/DECK ANALYSIS 

• Deck Strength Analysis Tool by Roman
• Predict the Strength of Your Deck Mathematically Before Playing It - Epic Duels Analytics by Ken Kutcel

OTHER/REFERENCE

• note: also see the Reference section of this wiki for more.
• Card Wordings Text conventions in Hasbro cards and editing mistakes
• Card Text Word for word transcription of the text on all cards in all decks
• Combinatorics in Epic Duels by volleyballgy
• ED Deck Analysis by Moonsylver. The original definitive work, this document doesn't so much advise on how to design decks as break down and analyze the Hasbro dozen. In the Files area of the main Epic Duels Yahoo group.
• ED Specials Breakdown is a spreadsheet that allows you to quickly sort the Hasbro talent cards by a variety of criteria. In the Files area of the main Epic Duels Yahoo group.
• File Hosts for storing files so you can link them to the Wiki.