How to Build a Deck for the Harry Potter Trading Card Game
By Steve Warner

If you've played a few matches of the Harry Potter TCG using the beginning rules on the playmat, you may now be wondering how you can take your game to the next level. Well, why don't you design your own customized deck and show people just how good you really are at the game?

The first thing you want to do when building a deck is to decide what classes you want to specialize in -- or, in "real world" language, what type of cards you want to use in your deck. Do you want to teach your opponent about Creatures? Maybe you want to practice some Potions or Charms on your opponent. Or, perhaps you are really good at Transfiguration and want to show off your skills. Since you can't be sure what cards your opponent has in his or her deck until the game starts, it's a good idea to include 2 different Lesson types in your deck. This will give you more flexibility in dealing with whatever Lessons your opponent plays.

Next, choose 1 starting Character to play. This step is extremely important. Each Character has a different ability, and these abilities can be vital to your deck.

If you plan on running some Adventures -- which add a lot of fun to the game -- decide which Adventure cards you want to include in your deck. (Adventure cards are cards you can play to give your opponent a challenge to overcome.) When choosing which Adventures you want to use, try to think about what will work well for your deck. And remember, each player can have only 1 Adventure card in play at a time.

You also want to look at the available Spell cards and Creature cards, and think about what you want to do, and how you want to win. Perhaps you want to play Spells and Items to make your opponent discard the cards in his or her hand. This can be a good strategy to use because without any cards in your opponent's hand, he or she can't play any cards that will hurt you! Or maybe you want to use Potion cards to damage your opponent directly. It's all up to you. Remember though, you can't have more then 4 copies of any card in your deck -- except for Lesson cards, of course!

If you put a lot of high cost Spells and Creatures in your deck, you might want to consider adding some Wands or Cauldrons to your deck as well. These could be crucial to allowing you to get out the Lessons you need quickly enough to play your high cost cards.

Finally, you need to decide how many Lesson cards to include in your deck. Usually you will want about 25 out of the 60 cards in your deck to be Lessons. If you have lots of high cost cards, you may want to include as many as 30. If you have less than 25-30 Lessons, you could lose due to a lack of studying!

After you've figured out all of these things and built your deck, you just need to find someone to play against and show them how well you have learned your lessons!

Be sure to read "Playing the Harry Potter Trading Card Game: FAQs" and get answers to some of the most common questions about playing the game. You can also learn more strategy by reading "Strategy: Lesson Cards" by Steve Warner.