How to build a Magic deck in 5 easy steps...
(for beginners)
Step one: Choose a consept.
The most common approach to building a deck
is to first choose a
consept or theme to build your deck around.
You may want to play
red's direct damage
or blue's countering, or even go as far to decide
on a Creature Bond/Wrath og God deck.
Whatever concept you finally
choose, it'll determine several of the key
cards to build around, and,
even more importantly, the colors you'll be
using in your deck.
- Step two: Colors and cards.
By this point, you should know which colors you're playing. A good advice for beginners: Never play with more than two colors.
You'll almost never gonna draw the lands you need for the proper
spells.
- Step three: Back to basics.
Okay, so you've chosen a theme, colors and key cards. Now it's time to fill out the deck. A deck should be around 60 cards. It's all right if you go two or three cards higher from time to time, but never any further or you risk diluting the deck. I'll play a Buried Alive almost every game; in a 200-card version, I'm lucky if I pull a Swamp when I need it, let alone a creature. Always map out one, if not several, sure-fire ways of killing your opponent. It might be death by direct-damage, running the guy out of cards or straight-forward creature-assault. Since attacking with creatures is the easiest, and usually most dependable way of killing your opponent, you may want to include a creature over a spell if at all possible. You'll also want to include cards from the following categories. If not, you may come into some serious problems.
Land.You want approximately 40 percent of tour deck to be land cards. You can't cast anything without mana(except those 0-cost spells, of course). The best way to figure out how many land you need in the correct proportions is: 1) Divide your cards by color. 2) Count how many cards in that color you have. 3) Cut that number in half. 4) Take that number and add that many approximately colored lands to your deck. 5) Throw in one or two additional lands of the same type. For example, in a red and blue deck, I have 24 blue cards, so I include 13 Islands.
Creatures.A good number for a deck is about 20 creatures. You may want to scout out creatures that have large power/toughness values for their casting cost or really cool and cheap special abilities. You also want to keep in mind your theme. If you are playing weenies, you shouldn't be using creatures with casting cost of four or more. Similarly, if your theme is flyers, you wouldn't be playing green as it hosts the weakest wingflappers. Finally, you can never have enough versatility. Unless you're playing a pure theme(like weenies), you probably want to include a solid mix of
low-, mid-, and high-range power/toughness creatures and a nice array of neat special abilities, like the Suq'Ata Lancer's immunity to summoning sickness or the River Boa's islandwalk and regeneration.
Spells.Almost exclusively, the biggest thing you have to think about putting in is creature and permanent destruction cards. It's nice with lots of mana and a Nightmare on the table, but if your opponent has a Karma, it really isn't that fun anymore.
Artifacts.The only advice here is: You may don't to put too many in, or you'll lose the original focus on the deck.
- Step four: Trim the fat.
You'll probably be overwhelmed with all the possibilities you can put in your deck. You're gonna have to make a lot of tough decisions, but ultimately you have to take a hard look at which cards do the most for you- something that might only become appearent after hours and hours of playtesting. Many times you'll fall in love with a whole bunch of cards and design a giant deck the first time around. That's okay, so long as you realize that you need to keep a sharp eye out to cut out the cards that don't pull their own weight or ends up as dead weight.
- Step five: Playtest and practice.
Play the deck over and over until you've had a chance to see all the cards in action and watched them interact. As a final tip: Practice your deck until you react instinctively. The best tournament-level decks work like fine-tuned machines, but you have to be the one to turn the crank. Every mistake you make, you should learn from and correct in future matches. Know which creature to play first, when to unleash your direct damage and when to go for the killing stroke.
GOOD LUCK!!!
Questions? Mail me.