 | Crash Course in Deck Building by: Justin Vizaro 9/10/2004 11:35:28 AM |
Welcome to deck building 101. One thing I notice as I get older and wiser is that many players can't grasp deck building's general concepts. New players, especially those who are trying to be adventurous and embark on their own magic journey often need a little nudge in the right direction. The following article is a crash course on deck building that every new player should read. Also, this could be beneficial to you if someone has ever told you to "cuad up" or "focus your deck" or even "scrap that pile and start over." I even go into the dreaded mana curve, so if you are weak in that area, I am here to help. In what will equate to nearly 10 minutes of your life, I can provide you with 10 years of experience and knowledge that can have you building and experimenting with decks on your own in no time at all.
Much like everything anyone ever learns, there are basic rules to proper and successful deck building. Most of the time, if your deck follows these rules, it will be successful. Welcome to deck builder's rule #1: Focus your Deck.
Be sure your deck has a clearly defined strategy, but keep it simple. Deck building can be very complex and confusing if you make it complex and confusing. If you try to keep your deck as simple as possible, it makes it much easier on you. So, how do you keep your deck simple? Select a basic strategy to work with for the deck. When examining strategies, you should look to each color and decide which is best suited for the strategy you want. For the most part, each color has a basic theme to what it tries to accomplish. Most decks you see of each color revolve around one of 2 strategies of that color, and of the game as a whole (control or agro). The following chart analyzes each color and its basic functions and strategies.
Step 1: Ask yourself the question "How do I want my deck to win?" and then pick your answer from the chart below.
| Color | Basic Strategy 1 | Basic Strategy 2 | Comments | | White | Life Gain, Mass Removal, Large Creatures Attack for Victory (Angels and such are popular) | "Weenie" Fast cheap beaters with cheap pump cards. | Weenie is probably the easiest beginner strategy. |
| Blue | "Counter" and "Bounce" to control the game. Heavy card drawing. These decks usually make use of secondary win conditions, and often work well with artifacts. | | "Mommy may I" decks are hard to play with at a beginner level. They are probably the most advanced of all magic deck types. | | Black | Discard, graveyard manipulation, and mass removal. Win by smashing your opponent to pieces with powerful and expensive creatures. Cards like Drain life and Consume Spirit are popular in these types of builds. | Suicide agro. Use of cards that hinder you in some way in order to deliver extremely large sums of damage as quickly as possible. suicide decks get their name from the fact that they don't take their own life total into account when playing. | Black decks are probably the closest thing to blue control you can find. I would not recommend starting with black as a beginner, though it is a very powerful color with limitless capabilities once you have a better grasp of the game. | | Red | Land Destruction, Burn and win by one major creature or burn spell such as Arc-Slogger, a dragon or dragons of some kind, or even fireball. | Sligh, normally in the form of a goblin deck, these decks play like a mixture of white weenie and suicide black. Use many small creatures and cheap spells to kill your opponent before he or she can take control of the table. | Red decks are very easy to build and play, especially as a beginner. They are almost always successful because the strategy is so consistent and reliable. Red makes a case for being the strongest of all colors. | | Green | Turbo green Beatdown. This deck plays like white weenie, only with bigger creatures. It utilizes acceleration like no other to pump out the monster beater early in the game. | Green Stompy. Much like white weenie again, only this time with green creatures. Green creatures tend to also have a bit more presence than white creatures do, as with green creatures, everything flows together and helps each other. The pump cards are usually stronger, and elves are commonplace in these types of decks. Get the most for the least amount of mana you can spend. | Green decks are quite easy to build as well. I would recommend beginners starting with some kind of creature based deck, and green is a great example of the ideal beginner color. |
As seen in the chart, for beginners, probably the easiest kind of deck to start with is an agro/weenie deck. Also termed "Timmy" decks, these decks are centered around pounding your opponent with a barrage of creatures and pump cards that seem to see no end. Since creature victory is the easiest, and least confusing to achieve, these types of decks are ideal for the beginning player.
After selecting a strategy, you must choose what format you want to play the deck in. Even if your deck is simply for casual play, it is nice to practice building decks with rule restrictions and limitations to available cards so when you do decide to enter the tournament scene, you'll be ready.
Step 2: Once you have selected a color/strategy and format to build in, you should carefully examine all cards of that color and format that would fit in with the central strategy of your deck. Make sure the cards work together with each other. (Just because a card is good, it doesn't necessarily mean it will be good in your deck.) For example, Akroma's Vengeance is a great card. It would not, however, fit well in a white weenie deck because it would juxtapose the other cards. You also have to watch out for cards that have better versions. For example, a card like Raging Goblin is better than Mon's Goblin Raiders because Raging Goblin does more for the same mana cost. Selecting the most optimal cards is the deck builder's rule #2. Never get less that what you could be bargaining for. For beginners, it is hard to know whether you have the best versions of cards because of lack of experience and knowledge of the available cards. That is why we have the internet and online forums. People can get help on selecting the best cards for their decks. Remember that there are always people out there waiting to help you with whatever you need, your job is to find it.
This brings us to the deck builder's rule #3: "Cuad Up" and keep it trim.
Ok, you hear it all the time, but what does it mean? It is likely that someone looked through your deck or deck list and told you that you need to "cuad up." To cuad up means to (Step 3): optimize the consistency of your deck. According to the rules, you may not have more than 4 copies of any card in your deck except basic lands. In order for the deck to perform at its best, you must, with some exceptions I will get into later, have 4 copies of the best cards available for your strategy in your deck. Do not, however, let your deck go over 60 cards (including the lands). It becomes less consistent and less reliable. You have less of a chance of drawing the desired cards as you add more cards to it. It is simple probability, if you only have 12 different cards in your deck, your probability of drawing the one you want are technically 1 in 12 (not considering ratios) if you have 20-30 different cards in your deck, however, the probability of drawing the one you want is drastically lowered.
Now for the hardest part of deck building... this is the part where most people, even those with years of experience, have trouble - the Mana Base and Mana Curve. Deck builder's rule #4: Make sure your Mana Base cooperates with your deck.
Step 4: Optimize your Mana Base. As a general rule, a deck should start out with a mana base that is 1/3 of the deck. (20 cards in a typical 60 card deck) The following chart is the easiest way to figure your mana base for a one-color deck.
| For each card that has a Converted Mana Cost of 6 or more | Add 1 land card to your total count | | If your deck has no cards that cost more than 1 C.M.C. | Remove 2 land cards from your total count | | If your deck has more than 4 cards with C.M.C. of 0 | Remove 1 land card from your total count | | For each group of 4 cards with C.M.C. 2 or less that produces or accelerates mana | Remove 1 land card from your total count | | For each group of 3 cards with C.M.C. 3 | Add 1 land card to your total count | | For each group of 2 cards with C.M.C. 4 or 5 | Add 1 land card to your total count | | For each group of 2 cards with C.M.C. X | Add 1 land card to your total count |
As a rule of thumb, practically deck builder's rule #4b, the mana curve of your deck should be proportionately based on the strategy. When choosing your cards, observe each card's C.M.C., and then evaluate whether the cards work well together with their corresponding strategy C.M.C. charts.
Step 5: Optimize your Mana Curve.
Most weenie decks or agro decks should have a Mana Curve somewhat similar to this one:
| Cards with 0 C.M.C. | 0-3* | | Cards with 1-2 C.M.C. | 15-18 | | Cards with 3 C.M.C. | 12-22 | | Cards with 4-5 C.M.C. | 2-4 | | Cards with 6+ C.M.C. | 1-2 | | Cards with X C.M.C. | 0-3* |
Most control decks should have Mana Curves similar to this one.
| Cards with 0 C.M.C. | 0-3 | | Cards with 1-2 C.M.C. | 4-8 | | Cards with 3 C.M.C. | 15-25 | | Cards with 4-5 C.M.C. | 4-8 | | Cards with 6+ C.M.C. | 4-6 | | Cards with X C.M.C. | 1-2 |
So, by now you should have the basics. You now have 5 simple rules to follow, and also 5 simple steps to building a successful and organized deck. If you follow these rules, you will find yourself becoming more and more successful and experienced in deck building. Keep in mind that this is the beginner crash course on deck building. I'll be getting around to advanced deck building soon enough, In which I will explain how to be a better, more creative builder and how to build specific styles of decks. I can see a series of at least 10 articles to help you become the best deck builder you can be. I wish the best of luck to all of you who have been inspired by this article to put some of the advice into motion. Please stick around for the rest of the articles in this saga.
-Justin Vizaro, The Goblin Champion
As always, thanks to my regular readers and supporters. It means a lot to me to get the feedback that I get, and as you well know, I am completely satisfied if this helps even one person, I know it was worth my time.
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