The game is won in two ways, you either defeat all their characters, or you burn through their cards so at the beginning of the next round if they have no cards in hand and none in their 30 card deck to draw from they lose which is called Milling. This leads to two main archetypes, damage decks and mill decks. Within those they can split into various groupings like melee or ranged damage or it might rely heavily on vehicles for damage. Some decks are built on control where you do more to nullify what your opponent is doing and you whittle them away. If one of these play styles is appealing to you it will help you identify the characters and cards you will want to track down and in my upcoming character overviews you will see how they would work in each system if at all. Outside of Villain or Hero, characters fall under three categories which are Command (Red) which tends to be military focused and tactical, Rogue (Yellow) which tend to have more tricks and resource manipulation, and Force (Blue) which has a variety of force powers both defensive and offensive. Mixing colors can make for exciting pairings as you have two or three times as many cards to pull from, but sometimes running a single color deck means increased synergy and ensured compatibility with your characters. Choose wisely.

Red Heroes Explored

Some general tips for building a deck would be to try to have every card work within your strategy, and go heavy on cards that bring dice because that is how most everything comes together and ideally your characters should start with 3 dice or more (One Elite character and someone else, Two elite characters, or 3 or more single characters). When you are playing casually you can use a regular six sided die to proxy for a second die for a character to test them out while you build your collection, just don't expect that to fly in a competition. Your 30 card deck should have 8-14 cards that bring dice or remain in play as a support or ability with the rest split between mitigating damage or control and building up your scheme. The website SWDestinyDB is a great resource to track your collection, look up cards, and see decks other people have made and play tested, You can also watch tutorials and such on the official site from Fantasy Flight Games.