Deck Analysis and Strategy: Mental Breakdown

My deck was doing pretty well, both vs. Dave, as well as at last week's tournaments. However, I still lost 1 game to Dave last week costing me the 1st place victory on that Saturday. As a result, I felt it important to analyze my deck and figure out what I can do to make it even better, faster, stronger, etc etc.

Upon writing out everything in my deck, I discovered a baffling discovery. All of this time I have only been playing with 39 cards in my deck! Where did the last card go? Did I ever have 40 cards or lose one? I have no idea. As it turned out, I was only using about 22 ninja cards when I could have been using 25. In addition, I only had 5 (I think?) 0 drops.

All in all, in addition to adding a 40th card (another Baki :-p) I also made a few other substitutions like switching out cards for ebisu and misame to boost my mental advantage while giving me decent support / attack when I needed it. Since Disguise Jutsu and Wind Scythe saved my butt more than a few times, I made sure to have 3 of each. Having so many counter-jutsu cards allowed me to 1) have cards in my hand to use with Shikamaru: Smarty Pants, and 2) have cards in my hand to use for missions, charge for chakra, but most importantly pay the hand cost of Baki.

After analyzing my deck and playstyle further, I realized that I often used a mental defense to protect myself until I could get Baki out to gain ninja advantage and eventually the win. Before when I only had one Baki in my deck, this took sometimes an hour and a half or more just for me to get Baki out wear my opponent down enough to win. It didn't take that long because I was using a lot of time - it happened because of my cards. My mental defense kept anything from attacking me. This aggravated my opponents and caused them to sit there for minutes trying to think how to get past me before finally passing and lett me go. Now that I have two Baki, my games usually last 30 min or less. It's amazing how much difference a single card can make.