MTG Deckbuilders

Deckbuilding 101

Welcome to Deckbuilding 101. In this article, I am going to help out newer players by showing them how I make a deck. Now, there's no right or wrong way to make a deck, but this is what's always worked for me.

First of all, the basic rule of deckbuilding...Consistency. For a deck to work the way that you want it to, you must have consistency. One way to help stay consistent is to keep the deck at a 60 card maximum (with the exception of a Battle of Wits deck, obviously). I do tis because the smaller the deck, the more that I can control what the deck will do, and therefore how consistent it is.

Now that you know the basic rule of deckbuilding, now what? You need an idea. Whether that idea is a theme (EX: White Weenie, Green Stompy, etc.), a specific card that the deck can revolve around (EX: Epicenter. Making a deck that revolves around using and abusing epicenter.), or a combo with 2 or more cards (EX: Nefarious Lich + Confessor + Zombie Infestation + 2 Legacy Weapons = infinite zombie tokens). For now, just pick your idea and start thinking about it.

OK, you have your idea, but where do you go from here? This is where I make a list of every card that would work well with the idea. Don't worry about putting too many down or putting cards of a different color down. With all of the possible cards in front of you, you might even realize a different way to make the deck.

You have your list, now comes the hard part. Taking things off that list. don't worry about numbers right now. The first thing you need to do is recognize the key cards in your deck. These are the cards that make up your combo or idea of the deck. Put a mark by these cards, as these will be cards you obviously won't be eliminating.

Now look at the rest of the cards on the list that don't seem like they fit. There's no right or wrong way to do this, but I will give you a couple of suggestions.

Try to keep a good mana curve. If you notice that you have a lot of cards over 4 mana, then you should probably cut some of them. You should try to keep (and this is only a broad generalization, each deck works differently) around 4-8 one-mana casting cost spells, 8-12 two-mana casting cost spells, 4-12 three-mana casting cost spells, 4-8 four-mana casting cost spells, and 1-6 five-or-more-mana casting cost spells. There are a lot of exceptions to this, for instance, if you are playing with a lot of mana accelleration, you can probably afford more expensive spells than normal. Hopefully though this can give you some pointers.

Another suggestion for the process of elimination, is to compare the cards. Take cards that are similar in function and compare the positives and negatives of how it will perform with your idea. For example, let's say you have Llanowar Elves and Werebears on your list. You then look at your list and notice that you have a lot of three-mana spells. Llanowar Elves would let you easily cast one of these spells on the second turn, whereas the werebear wouldn't speed up these spells at all. So eliminate the werebears from the list. If you use this train of thought throughout the list, it should be a lot shorter and ready to add some numbers to it.

When figuring out the number of each card to add to your deck, you need to go back to the basic rule of deckbuilding...consistency. What I mean by this, is that the more copies of a specific card you have in your deck, the better your chances are to draw it. So try to imagine what a perfect opening hand would be for your deck. For example, if you think a first turn Llanowar Elves, followed by a second turn Call of the Herd. You would then want 4 copies of each card in your deck as this would help you draw this more consistently. Do this for all your cards that you want consistently, whether they are key cards for your idea or just cards you want to draw on a regular basis.

Now figure out the cards that you only want occasionally. Basically, look at your list and decide which ones you wouldn't want multiple cpies of in your opening hand. A lot of times (but not always) these are cards like Disenchant, Void, Might of Oaks, etc.. Only put in 1-3 of these types of cards depending on your own preference. Keep adding or subtracting cards from your list until you reach 36-38 cards depending on your land count, which we'll get to next.

Now for lands. One of the most common mistakes that I see newer people make (including myself a while back) is to not put in enough land. Don't be afraid to add more land than you normally would. You can always take some out later after playtesting. With a mono-colore deck, I would suggest going with around 22 lands. You can put in more if you wish, but I wouldn't suggest putting in any less. For a two or more color deck I would suggest at least 24 lands. Any less than this, and your deck will probably not perform very consistently. Also if you are going with 3 colors, do not be afraid to use non-basic land. Whether it's painlands, lairs, or Cities of Brass, they will go a long way towards smoothing out your mana ratio.

Well, I hope that I helped you out at least a little bit. One last thing that you can't forget. Every good deck deserves a name. So build a deck, name it, and send it in to MTG Deckbuilders. Happy Deckbuilding!

Written by Caine Fate on 12/03/01.