The Dark is the fastest of the decks. It has no breakout shot numbers, instead relying on relatively even numbers in most zones. Its Fast Breaks and Kick Outs, which allow you to change the zones of plays, make it so you don't have to be that concerned with where you play your cards. So as long as you focus on just making complete plays, the zone changers will give you two options of which numbers to use. If you follow this strategy, you'll have completed a bunch more plays than your opponent has when you decide to burn your cards.

Similarly, The Dark's block numbers are stronger and more evenly spread than some other decks. This means that The Dark is faster on defense too, because once you decide a Player will block, you don't have to think much about whether he'll be good in a particular spot. Plus, those zone changers work great on defense. When the opposing center uses a Red Ball and a Dunk Shot in the comfy Red zone, use Kick Out to make it a Green zone play. The same trick works with Fast Break on a guard in the Green zone.

The Fast Break/Double Shot combo is a high-scoring but tough trick to master. Double Shot doubles your points on a play, but makes it -3 to succeed. Echo is your best outside Shooter with a shot value of 7, so either a Long Shot (6) or a Green Ball and Jump Shot (2+4) will get you the requisite shot value of 13 to get your 6 points. If your opponent knows your deck, though, Echo's gonna have Blockers all over her in the Green zone. That's where Fast Break comes in. If Echo's hanging out in the Blue or Red zone, she's less likely to be targeted for blocking - until you play Fast Break and make it a 6-point bomb. You've got two of each of these Special Effects, so with luck, you can pull this off at least once a quarter.

So what do you do with Steal? Replacing a card with one from your opponent's discard pile is a hard thing to get your brain around. Playing it on one of your plays means you can use your opponent's discarded Ball to replace the one you've played (but not as your only Ball in the play, for without a Ball, the Special Effect doesn't happen). If you just miss hitting the basket, you might use Steal as an early Shot to put it over the top - you'll take a foul point, but you might just make the play. In your opponent's play, a great use for Steal is to create a foul by sticking in an errant Shot. You can also restart a play with a new Shooter, who might also cause a foul if there's no Ball above the new Shooter in the stack. Watch stealing your opponent's Special Effects, though. You don't get to control the Special Effect, so it's probably going to help your opponent, not hurt her.

View the Dark's Deck List.