Ponderings on Magic: the Gathering deck construction
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Well, I felt that if I was going to be a researcher I should really contribute something. So I'll talk about something I claim to know about: Magic: the Gathering. I've been playing for about a year now, mostly Park College in Eastbourne.
Consider the broad overview of what you want your deck to do. Do you want large creatures? Bounce spells with smaller creatures? Death spells? You win if X happens spells? This will affect the colours chosen and the spells taken.
Perhaps most importantly, what cards do you have? There is little point planning a Warped Devotion/Megrim deck if you have neither card. Do you, realistically, think that you can make your idea work?
In for example, a Fires deck, you would have Green mana generating creatures combined with large Green and Red creatures, with a few Red burn spells and Green pump spells. Within those limits you can vary the deck, but vary too much (say, by having Red land destruction) you will only weaken the over all affect.
Do you have a particular combination you want to include? In my case, once I saw what happened when Flametounge Kavu gets together with Coastal Drake, it was just a case of finding 52 other cards to go with them.
I'd already used to 'bounce the Flametongue' idea in a Red/Green deck. In Red/Green I used the cheep Horned Kavu to bounce it back to my hand. Had it come up, I suppose the deck could have been called 'Smoke', a Fires deck without Fires of Yavimaya, but with Chaos. Big creatures that can't be blocked. Tehe. Because I would only attack once I got Chaos, it was more defensive than a normal Fires. I learned to love Voracious Cobra and Hunting Kavu.
The Blue/Red deck also contained other fun cards of the Red/Blue combination, such as Jilt (how many Blue damage spells can you think of) and Razorfin Hunter (for killing Elves). I later added a Kavu Monarch (more than one would have been good, but I don't have more than one).
So now I think: what am I having difficulty with? The Kavu have difficulty attacking regenerating or big creatures. I 'solved' this problem by adding Wash Out and Sway of Illusion to remove obstacles. This was later replaced by Abshoran (how lucky am I?!?) and Levitation, so his ability wouldn't affect my creatures. Of course, having all of your creatures gain flying is no bad thing anyway.
How many cards should decks include? My first deck was Dismissal, from Invasion. It gradually grew in size as more and more cards were added. Red creatures and spells were added to the mix. At 120 cards I realised I had gone too far. I seldom got the cards I needed, shuffling was difficult and the deck had no focus even when I did get thing into play. So, as is my tendency, I went too far the other way. I played with a 40-card deck. It worked, sort of, until it came up against players who could take the assault short term and then wait until I ran out of cards. Now I use 60 card decks. Don't try to include something to work against everything: that way lays madness. Have your idea, have a few countermeasures (Counterspell is a good choice as you can almost always find a use for it -except against all Land decks- -and yes, they are possible-) and change it based on experience if it doesn't work.
Take from this what you can. If it helps you, or interests you, say so. I might write something else. If not... well, s*d you then.
Consider the broad overview of what you want your deck to do. Do you want large creatures? Bounce spells with smaller creatures? Death spells? You win if X happens spells? This will affect the colours chosen and the spells taken.
Perhaps most importantly, what cards do you have? There is little point planning a Warped Devotion/Megrim deck if you have neither card. Do you, realistically, think that you can make your idea work?
In for example, a Fires deck, you would have Green mana generating creatures combined with large Green and Red creatures, with a few Red burn spells and Green pump spells. Within those limits you can vary the deck, but vary too much (say, by having Red land destruction) you will only weaken the over all affect.
Do you have a particular combination you want to include? In my case, once I saw what happened when Flametounge Kavu gets together with Coastal Drake, it was just a case of finding 52 other cards to go with them.
I'd already used to 'bounce the Flametongue' idea in a Red/Green deck. In Red/Green I used the cheep Horned Kavu to bounce it back to my hand. Had it come up, I suppose the deck could have been called 'Smoke', a Fires deck without Fires of Yavimaya, but with Chaos. Big creatures that can't be blocked. Tehe. Because I would only attack once I got Chaos, it was more defensive than a normal Fires. I learned to love Voracious Cobra and Hunting Kavu.
The Blue/Red deck also contained other fun cards of the Red/Blue combination, such as Jilt (how many Blue damage spells can you think of) and Razorfin Hunter (for killing Elves). I later added a Kavu Monarch (more than one would have been good, but I don't have more than one).
So now I think: what am I having difficulty with? The Kavu have difficulty attacking regenerating or big creatures. I 'solved' this problem by adding Wash Out and Sway of Illusion to remove obstacles. This was later replaced by Abshoran (how lucky am I?!?) and Levitation, so his ability wouldn't affect my creatures. Of course, having all of your creatures gain flying is no bad thing anyway.
How many cards should decks include? My first deck was Dismissal, from Invasion. It gradually grew in size as more and more cards were added. Red creatures and spells were added to the mix. At 120 cards I realised I had gone too far. I seldom got the cards I needed, shuffling was difficult and the deck had no focus even when I did get thing into play. So, as is my tendency, I went too far the other way. I played with a 40-card deck. It worked, sort of, until it came up against players who could take the assault short term and then wait until I ran out of cards. Now I use 60 card decks. Don't try to include something to work against everything: that way lays madness. Have your idea, have a few countermeasures (Counterspell is a good choice as you can almost always find a use for it -except against all Land decks- -and yes, they are possible-) and change it based on experience if it doesn't work.
Take from this what you can. If it helps you, or interests you, say so. I might write something else. If not... well, s*d you then.
