What’s in your deck? (get ready to read!)
Type of Cards:
Kill: These types of cards do damage, make your opponent lose cards off their library, gives them poison counter, or make them draw more cards than they can actually draw.
Aggressive: These types of cards are cards that destroy permanents in play, cause a player to discard cards, or prevent a spell from being cast.
Interactive: These types of cards have an affect on game mechanics and/or play. A good example of this is, cards that allow the player to bend the rules, i.e. draw more cards, interact with the library or grave, or more or less affect how the game is played.
Type of Decks:
Beginner: These are poorly constructed decks, usually made by beginners, and lack consistency.
Uncommon: These types of decks are decent to good decks, but lack what it takes to be competitive or beat net decks. (These decks are often called rogue decks.)
Degenerate: These types of decks are insanely power, usually winning on turn 1 to 3 consistently, and generally cards in the deck become banned or restricted rather quickly to prevent this from happening.
Dynamic: These decks are very consistent, are an all around well-built deck, have been play tested, and are generally very competitive, but often aren’t popular because they haven’t been published or aren’t popular like most of the net decks.
E-Decks: Typically called Net-Decks, professionals, or very good deck builders construct these decks; they have gained popularity, and are proven as some of the best decks of the format.
The last type of deck, the breakout deck, is a deck typically which has never seen play in a sanctioned tournament. Sometimes, they are reconstruction of older decks with newer philosophies or cards, or are a totally new archetype. The reason I didn’t list it as one of the 5 various deck type is because it can be fit into any one of the categories of deck types, and also because I have attributed this column to Kai Budde, one of MTG’s best players ever.
Archetypes:
These are decks that are measured by their style of play and/or how they achieve victory. They are also considered the 5 basic decks, unlike the very first article written about magic basics; the five basic decks included Beat down (weenies or fatties), Burn, Disruption (hand or land), combo, or Control. Obviously the game of magic has evolved into a more complex game.
Aggro: This deck typically attempts to beat the player down with creatures or kill them with direct damage or make them lose life.
Control: This of deck prevents the player from casting spells, by either making them discard cards, countering the spell as they are cast, or controlling the permanents on the board with mass removal spells.
Combo: This type of deck seeks to win, no matter what you deck is doing, by quickly winning, typically by turn 1-3, or they generally aren’t good enough to be competitive. These decks have many interactive cards. Sometimes combo decks aren’t all combo, but some deck contain combos within the deck, which generally result in some degenerate affect that is typically devastating or turns the game greatly in the users favor. These types of decks aren’t pure combo, but have a serious combo element in them to be considered combo.
Lock/Prison: These types of decks prevent the player from actually casting spells, controlling the way they cast spells, or prevent them from using permanents, or actually drawing cards or drawing the cards they want.
Aggro Control: This type of deck contains control elements and aggressive elements. Generally speaking, they must have enough kill cards in the deck to be considered aggro; otherwise it still might be considered a control deck, which typically uses 3-6 kill cards.
These 5 basics Archetypes are the foundation for all other decks; some decks may contain elements from 2 or more archetypes, but most decks still fall into one of the major archetypes.
An example of this is a combo/control deck, or an aggro/control/lock deck. Aggro control made the cut as a major archetype because it has redefined the game, and has proven itself as a very effective archetype. Aggro control is one of the best types of decks in any format to date.
You need to understand which archetypes typically have a greater advantage over others, and which deck typically wins or loses more versus certain match-ups. Generally speaking…
Aggro beats aggro control.
Aggro control beats control.
Combo beats aggro.
Lock/Prison beats Combo.
Control beats Lock/Prison.
Deck Construction Rules: (The Basics)
#1) First and of uttermost importance, use only 60 cards, at the maximum, in building a constructed deck, unless your deck absolutely must have more cards in the deck as a win condition.
#2) Almost all deck you make must have some form of creature control, unless it wins faster than turn 5, or is a pure combo deck. Creatures sometimes can disrupt your game, or are serious threat if you cannot deal with them. Creatures in your deck typically don’t count as creature control, unless your whole deck consists of creatures.
#3) Not having mana to play spells is an auto loss in most cases; therefore, it is important to have the correct type of lands, and enough of them. Typically a deck should have at least 23-25 lands in type 2, 16-23 in Extended, and at leas 12-21 lands in type 1. The reason type 1 defies the numbers so well is artifact mana. Most decks usually utilize at least 30% mana sources.
#4) Before you actually start making the deck the most important thing you must consider is how your deck will win, what is the theme of the deck, and how will the deck function given an idea you seek to incorporate into your deck. You can take an existing deck also, and just add new ideas to it, cut cards to make the deck function differently. Experimenting is important to becoming a good deck builder.
#5) Spells in your deck must be efficient. Meaning, the spells can’t cost too much, or your deck will be slow. You should compare spells, Spells that cost 4 mana or more should typically be very powerful and shouldn’t be in abundance in your deck. Spells that have two color symbols in it’s casting cost should only be of primary color of your deck, and if you play 3-5 color decks, double casting cost spells generally won’t work. Spells that cost 3 or more color symbols should only be played in a mono color deck.
#6) When you put spells in your deck, consider when you want to draw them, if you want to see it in or opening hand or within the first 4 cards drawn put 4 in the deck, mid game 3, late game 1-2. This is generally speaking, if it is a type of spell, like a counter or creature control spell, you may want to play 8-12 copies of them, to make sure you see one on the draw. This is how you will control how your deck functions. How much a spell cost, and when you draw it affects the efficiency and timing of your deck, which is a very important element in your decks performance and chances of winning.
#7) Every deck must have some way to gain an advantage over the opponent, otherwise your opponent will gain an advantage over you. The advantage may come in the form of being able to draw more cards than the opponent (more cards = more answers to problems), being so fast that the opponent cannot keep up, or having multiple “Bombs” (devastating or broken cards) that the opponent must prevent each one or be at a great disadvantage, though there are many different types of advantages. Generally speaking, when someone gains a substantial advantage over the opponent, the game is over already, unless the person at the disadvantage draws the card they need to set things back into balance, or the person who has the advantage isn’t threatening the opponent enough to make the advantage a temporary one.
#8) When using multiple card combinations in decks for a desired affect, these combinations should rarely use more than 2 cards to be implemented. 3-card combos generally are harder to pull of unless it involves creatures, which at that point must be in abundance in your deck. Having multiple copies of this combo card is important, and more importantly the combination should be so devastating that the opponent most likely will not recover, or it should flat out win you the game as soon as it’s successfully implemented.
#9) It is important to analyze and compare spells that are going into your deck, so to be a good deck builder getting to know your cards in the format you are playing is important. Knowing the good spells from the bad ones is a very important element in constructing decks. Each spell must be cost effective, meaning it must have a good effective for what it cost. Ever spell in your deck should be cost effective or the deck will be slow an inefficient. Spells that cost more than spells that cost less, yet they both can produce the same affect, is what separates bad spells from bad ones. Also, spells that cost a lot and don’t do much aren’t good spells either.
#10) Last, but the most critical point in deck construction, is the actual putting the deck together. It is easier if you put all the cards you wish to go into the deck in one pile, or write them all down, decide between which cards that will actually go into the 60 card deck, and then play test the deck. Play testing is vital to a decks construction; you must work and rework a deck until you have decided the deck can become no better. The more often you play with the deck, the better you will become at playing it and learn the decks weaknesses and strength, when you play against different decks.
Though we have a rulebook we can look up online, they don’t go into detail about making a deck. While some players have actually written articles on this subject all ready, I just wanted to simplify it, and make it easy to read, and have placed pieces from other article in here reference. Furthermore, I felt like the articles of the past are a little out dated and needed some revision, henceforth, if you read something that was from another article, don’t feel like I am a cheap writer using others speech to gain a good reputation, because I am not. This article is for the greater good of new Magic The Gathering players as a whole.
Deck construction can be one of the most frustrating or fun processes in the game of magic, but ultimately it brings the most reward. Knowing you made a great deck brings much admiration for yourself and the game of Magic the Gathering.
Good luck with your deck!
