First. Some of you may have read my posts about Hermione not being that good. I would like to retract them and call myself and idiot. Hermione is amazingly powerful. They way the game mechanic works being able to draw up to three cards a round makes her a threat all game. But to make it even more mean think about this for a second. My new deck idea will be called 'Hermione, Potions a plenty.' Basically this deck will have 3 Apparates, 3 Rememballs and the rest will be potion based damage spells. Using Hermione put out lessons early and then cast powerful potion spells and discard lessons as needed. Get a rememball out and start recovering the lessons as needs. Reduce/reuse/recycle.

Second. Discard cards are not nearly as powerful as they are in other CCG's. The fact that most characters can net 3 cards a turn diminishes the power of the weak discard that exists in the game. If you plan on making a discard deck I would recommend the following. Use potions and critters, along with Draco. Use Owls and Unicorns to get more cards and actions every turn. Mix the rest of the deck with offensive and healing spells. Toss offensive spells and lessons early to deny you opponent lessons and any threat cards. (Adventures and Big Critters) Later use healing cards to mix lessons and damaging spells back into the deck.

Third. Critter decks. I honestly cant see critter decks being that viable. But I was wrong about Hermione so who knows. If I were to build a critter deck I would go 70/30 critter/trans. Use a variety of critters for the most part. Dont forget to use a couple of cages, both for your critters and your opponents. Use Trans cards to deny your opponent resources that would help them get rid of your critters.