Must have cards?

[OptimusDeutz]

Greetings,

       After a frustrating performance at a Type 1 tournament earlier this year I decided to work to build my Type 1 card pool as opposed to just building "The Deck." I've been reading this site for well over a year now and thought I might ask for some advice from all of you.

     I've spent a LOT of time looking through Ebay, Articles on SCG, the forums here, etc and I have seen some cards that are obvious choices: Force of Will, Fetch Lands etc. I also have a copy of the restricted list that I am slowly filling out (going on the assumption that if it's restricted it has to be at least OK to have.) I dont quite have the funds to purchase Power 9 cards, but I can certainly afford to buy cards around or below the cost level of FoW.

      My question that I ask to all of you is: What cards should I push to acquire that will be quality cards and be versatile enough that I can use them in a number of decks?

      Thank you for your time.

Respectfully,
Stephen

[Lunk]

-Dual lands, especially of the blue variety.  You may never need a Plateau, but a set of Volcanic Islands is handy to have on hand.
-Fetchlands, it may be that just one play set is enough.
-Restricted goodness.  Don't worry about getting 1 of every restricted card.  Odds are, you'll never need a Mind Over Matter or Dream Halls, but some cards, such as Demonic Tutor, Balance, Yawgmoth's Will, Tinker, and so on will fit into almost any deck of the appropriate color that you build.
-Artifact acceleration.  Even if you can't afford Moxen, cards like Sol Ring, Mana Crypt (if it's in your price range), etc are very useful to have on hand.
-Common/uncommon staples.  Shouldn't be too hard to get, but stuff like Brainstorm, Dark Ritual, Duress, etc as well as sideboard staples like Tormod's Crypt, Red/Blue Elemental Blasts, Naturalize/Disenchant and so forth are great to have.
-4 Force of Will, and to a lesser extent a few Misdirections.
-4 Wastelands, 1 Strip Mine
-Null Rods, although following some of the members forum discussions, these may become less necessary.
-Goblin Welders if you have any intention of playing Workshop-style decks

I'm sure I've left off a ton of stuff, but I thought I'd at least get started

[pox_reborn]

Sometimes it depends on the type of decks you would tend to play.

A control player would find that he would frequently need:mana drain,Force of will, brainstorm/fetchies, cunning wish, ect.

A combo player would need: Fast mana accelerants(Ranging from moxes to the cheap restricted list stuff all the way down to ESG), Draw 7's, ect.

An aggroish person would find the following useful: Null rod, Wasteland, (Root maze and damping matrix also but more relavent when Oshowa stompy was popular)

Just typed this up really quick but each archetype tends to have staples that lend themselves useful to a different number of decks.

[OptimusDeutz]

Sometimes it depends on the type of decks you would tend to play.

That's a very good point. I honestly don't know what style of deck I would end up playing. I typically ENJOY playing combo and control. I suppose I should start there.

[Jujuboy]

If you enjoy combo I'd recommend looking up a budget belcher list to start, it's already a decent deck and if null rod does start to see less play so much the better. I can't think of any other combo deck that can work it's mojo without power, unless you consider something like Food Chain Gobos.

If you're just getting started there's a lot to be said for going the Wooded Foothills, Taiga route over the blue fetch, Volcanic Island/Underground Sea route. It opens up Belcher, Foodchain and R/G Beatz which IMO are all great starter decks. Eventually you will end up playing blue, it's just a matter of how long you wanna mess around with other decks before you goto the dark side.

[Marton]

while not directly answering your question, I have built up a while ago a list of all 'playable' cards in type 1. Cards are sorted by color/theme and 'power level' within each of those sections. If you check the upper 'power level' cards alone, that should give you quite a good idea of everything that's good. I will make a small mention that my list was posted shortly after 5th dawn, and as such, needs minor tweaking. This of course means that COK is still not listed, as it would be too early for anything beyond the obvious very few cards playable in this set. Here is the link: http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18568&highlight= .

[Power9man]

     My question that I ask to all of you is: What cards should I push to acquire that will be quality cards and be versatile enough that I can use them in a number of decks?

Hy Stephen. Well, the choice is quite simple.

First, i suggest you to acquire the restricted cards for T1. 95% of those cards are used in a lot of T1 decks.

Then, i think that you've to make a choice. If you're Powered, just buy the card for the deck that you want to play.
If you're unpowered, i think that the best choice for the moment for you is to buy cards for decks like MonoRed, MBC, LLL, GayFish or something like those.
Those decks are not expensive and are good for play.

Power9man

[Frappie]

Couple Quick questions.
What area of the world are you playing in? This is important for us to know as if you are a euro player there are almost no proxy tournaments that i have seen. If your a stateside player then 5-10 proxy events are possible and you could even play an unpowered drain-slaver. (proxy 5 moxen lotus and 4 mana drain).

Another important thing for us to know is what kind of decks do you like? Are you an aggro, aggro-control, Control, or combo player? The next thing is to proxy out a couple decks and see what you like to play, i myself proxied out the entire FCG list in a primer and started playing that.

As for basic cards that are used in most to all decks here is my best guess.

4x wasteland
1x stripmine
4x blue fetchlands
4x r/g fetch lands (fcg/aggro decks)
4x force of will
4x of the blue duals (Underground Sea, Tundra, Tropical Island, Volcanic Island)
2x bayou (belcher)
4x Taiga (FCG)
All of the commons mentioned above
2-3x Cruicible of Worlds
2-3x Cunning Wish
1-4x Goblin Welder

As for some really cheap stuff that can be easily obtained, here we go
4x chalice of the void (considered bulk in most T2 formats)
4x Trinisphrere (also considered bulk in most T2 formats)
2x Pentavus, wicked cheap
1x tinker Meh its like $1.00 or less (but an absolute must for everybody to have one)
4x Mishra's Factory (reprinted like crazy)
4x Gempalm Incinerator (the price of FCG is about to tank cuz' Onslaught is rotating and there wont be extended events until after Tempest, Urza's Saga and Mercadian Masques rotates. this means FCG could be the cheapest deck to get in a few months)
4x Lightning bolt
4x Price of progress (not cheap but not expensive)
1x Mana Vault (my god reprinted more then a freaking factory)

A list of some of the $30+ cards that are worth getting.
Mana Vault
Mana Drain (sooo good)
Library of Alexandria
Bazaar of Baghdad
Mishra's workshop
(ok the last three are a tad expensive but this is T1 it costs money to start money to play and you get your moneys worth by having more fun than any other format, Minus set drafting legends)

ALright thats all I got. you can PM me if you have any more questions.

[Mixing Mike]

Go here.  You'll find what you're looking for.  Always try to use the search function.

[OptimusDeutz]

Go here.  You'll find what you're looking for.  Always try to use the search function.

I don't think I can apologize enough. I had tried to use the search function. I guess I just didn't search correctly. Thank you very much to everyone who has tried to help me.

Stephen

[Mixing Mike]

Sure no problem, no need to apologize.

[OptimusDeutz]

I looked over the "Essential list" That Ric_Flair posted.

It looks very comprehensive. I'm definitely taking it to heart. I've bought some things on Ebay already. (My fiance is going to punch me *smile*)

Now, I've been talking to some people I know abut priority in the list.

So far it looks like It should go:

Force Of Will
Yawgmoth's Will
Wastelands
Blue Fetchs
Blue Duals

Through some miracle I already have about half of those cards. I think some of the cards I dont have end up being commons and uncommons that I know I few people might have spares of.

My question ends up being if I should focus on any more cards because they are contained in A LOT of decks.. OR if I should shut up be a man and make a choice.

I recently managed to build an almost functional Belcher deck for a Waterbury tournament earlier this year. I typically enjoy playing combo, control or a combination there-of. What do you folks think?

Thank you very much for your input folks. I'm sure I'll figure it out at some pont.