Lelouch32
11-08-2010, 03:37 PM
Deck Building 101
By: Corlando
Hello and welcome to another edition of Cards n’Flux where we look at cards, techniques, and the general flavor of everyone’s favorite game, Magic the Gathering. My name is Corlando and I’m here to be your guide, teacher, and goofy sidekick as we discuss the intricacies and awesomeness of the multiverse. I write this week’s article with a mission in mind, to teach. Over the past few weeks, I’ve talked to several people who have difficulty building decks. They do not know what it is, but either their combos are not working, they draw either nothing but lands or no lands, or are just having a hard time streamlining the whole process. That’s why I’m here. Professor Corlando is in the house and its time to school all of you in a little deck building technique. Adrian, put that spitball down or I’l- … see me after class Adrian.
Before we begin this dissertation on techniques for deck building, a constantly changing and opinionate subject, I just want to put a little disclaimer out there. This is the process I go through to make a deck. This is the process of a guy who has played Magic for all of one year, has only been to Friday Night Magic and small tournaments, and honestly does not have that good of a win ration. The process I discuss may help you; it might not. These ideas may seem weird and unusual, they probably are. However, this is just one way of looking at the process of deck building. Hopefully you will be able to glean (now that’s a good scrabble word) something from this article and hopefully improve your own method for building a deck.
Alright, so without further adieu, let’s get underway. The first thing that is required to start building a deck is to get an idea, a focus. For what purpose are you going to build this deck? This focal point might revolve around a single card, like say Venser, the Sojourner; a combo, like using Fatesticher and Puppet Conjurer, or a concept such as a deck centered around lifegain. Now this seems pretty obvious first step, but you would not believe how hard it is for some people to get this straight. For example, there was this friend of mine from my hometown who just got into Magic and he was so looking forward to using Metalcraft. However, the deck he submitted to me for advice contained all of 11 metalcraft related cards and was dangerously unbalanced in the artifact to other ratio. Good news is that he eventually figured out a few things and I’m sure he’s having a ball with his new deck.
The next thing that I do, after choosing the focal point of the deck, is to figure out how do I want to meet the goal of the focal point. How are you going to power the deck and accomplish its goal? This is where we figure out what cards we will put in the deck. The key here is to be open, but too not get overwhelmed. This is why I build mostly standard related decks because this helps to keep the cards I can use limited, but also gives me plenty to work with, that and the fact I don’t know many cards from older sets. :P Anyway, lets look at an example. How about Venser? Looking at Venser, the Sojourner we have a +2 ability that essentially blinks something till the next endstep, a -1 ability that makes all your creatures unblockable, and a final ability that makes every spell you play essentially an Oblivion Ring. These are all fun abilities and it would be great to be able to put them to good use. First, the first ability is a blink ability meaning that a creature leaves play only to reenter a little later. How do we use that? Well, like cooking, simplicity is always best. The easiest way would be to have just plenty of cards that have come into play abilities. This means cards like Wall of Omens, Aether Adept, and Glimmerpost Stag. Each of these cards is fun to play once, but now they can be played multiple times. The second ability is essentially mass evasion for your army, which is good if you have big creatures and you do not want your opponent to be annoying and try to block. This ability can be used with smaller creatures like the 2/2 Aether Adept and 3/3 Glimmerpost Stag, but what about a 6/6 Frost Titan or 4/5 Sunblast Angel or maybe the infamous Stormtide Leviathan. Venser’s final is definitely for all cards and we’ve already put in a number of cheap cards so if we end up with plenty of mana, we can just Oblivion Ring all your opponent’s stuff away.
The next thing that this deck needs is what I like to call an answer package, essentially what are you going to do to keep your opponent weak, stop your opponent’s damage, and dealing with troublesome issues. This is essentially where your Journey to Nowhere, Lightning Bolt, Doom Blade, Mana Leak, and Naturalize all come into play. Essentially what these cards amount to are seat belts and air bags. Warning car analogy incoming. A deck can be likened to car in many ways. First you have your focal point, taking form as the shell of the car, holding all the parts and goal inside. Next you have the fuel, or land cards, which is important to note because you don’t want to put forests in a red deck. Third is the engine, what is going to power your car and get it to move. This takes several forms and depends on the overall purpose of the deck. The answer package is put in place to help keep you, the planeswalker/driver, safe and on track with your plan. Without these seatbelts and airbags in place, you run the risk of being knocked off the road and becoming nothing more than a smear on the road. For the deck we’re building I think playsets of Mana Leak and Journey to Nowhere should give us just enough to stay on the road.
Now, everything we have talked about is all well and good, but the one thing all decks need is a way to win. This is essentially the front bumper of your deck car and depending on the deck you have very different bumpers. Red decks probably have something a kin to a pitchfork sticking out the front. Black has a sort of rusting bumper that might not kill you right away, but will most likely cause you to contract some sort of infection that kills you slowly. Green is a steamroller, no subtle way around that. It all depends on what your original focus was and how well the focal point and the victory plan meld together. A perfect example of this is the deck that I’m currently running. It’s a white token deck based around Conqueror’s Pledge and Honor of the Pure. Essentially I create a huge army of 2/2s or 3/3s, sometimes as high as 5/5s, and then just smash with power. However, the original centric idea for the deck was to use Conqueror’s Pledge in conjunction with Nomads’ Assembly so that my already impressive army would grow to unprecedented size and power. However, in playtesting I noticed that since Nomads’ Assembly and Conqueror’s Pledge were both rather late game cards. I knew that from the start but I thought that the deck could handle it. However, as I played, it became more and more clear that though Nommads’ Assembly was impressive, but it still left a lot to be desired. Coming in at turn 6, not bad. Rebounding on turn 7 to get me an army, Awesome. Not always drawing it, bad. Having it sit in my hand as I waited for a Conqueror’s Pledge to make it useful, very bad. The original deck idea was a flop, but that’s okay. Through playtesting I was able to really see how the deck worked, and how well the cards interacted. That is the ultimate technique of deck building, playtesting. Run your deck through the ringer, battle hard opponents, and notate what happens during the matches. That is the real key to figuring out how well your deck is going to work. Never be afraid to change a few things up, you never know what you will think of next.
As for the deck we were building throughout the article, here it is in its first draft form. This deck is definitely fun to look at and the theme of Venser can be felt throughout, but it has a long way to go before it can be really effective. The addition of Everflowing Chalice, Chimeric Mass, and Contagion Clasp essentially serve to pimp out the deck. Hey if you’re gonna build a nice car, at least make it look nice, right? Plus the addition of Chimeric Mass gives another sort of win condition and another big creature. This should be a lot of fun once it gets cleaned up and tweaked. If anyone decides to build a deck like this, please contact me and tell me how it worked out. Anyway here’s the deck:
Venser Deck:
Leader:
3x Venser, the Sojourner
Creatures:
2x Frost Titan
4x AEther Adept
4x Augury Owl
2x Sunblast Angel
4x Wall of Omens
3x Glimmerpoint Stag
Artifacts:
4x Chimeric Mass
3x Contagion Clasp
2x Everflowing Chalice
Land:
4x Glacial Fortress
8x Island
2x Celestial Colonnade
7x Plains
Spells:
4x Journey to Nowhere
4x Mana Leak
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/venser-deck/
And with that we have everyone’s favorite section, the Closing Questions section:
1. What is your way of building a deck? What is your overall process of doing things?
2. What are some problems you are having with your current deck or decks?
3. What did you think of the car analogy, good, bad, or stupid?
Well, well, there goes another bit of time you’ve used reading the thoughts of an old man and his beard. Hope you had fun reading and feel free to leave comments or ideas about what you’d like to have me write about. I have plenty of ideas, mind you, it’s just… jus…j-anyway. And as always, remember, “Etherium is limited. Innovation is not.” This is Corlando signing out.
By: Corlando
Hello and welcome to another edition of Cards n’Flux where we look at cards, techniques, and the general flavor of everyone’s favorite game, Magic the Gathering. My name is Corlando and I’m here to be your guide, teacher, and goofy sidekick as we discuss the intricacies and awesomeness of the multiverse. I write this week’s article with a mission in mind, to teach. Over the past few weeks, I’ve talked to several people who have difficulty building decks. They do not know what it is, but either their combos are not working, they draw either nothing but lands or no lands, or are just having a hard time streamlining the whole process. That’s why I’m here. Professor Corlando is in the house and its time to school all of you in a little deck building technique. Adrian, put that spitball down or I’l- … see me after class Adrian.
Before we begin this dissertation on techniques for deck building, a constantly changing and opinionate subject, I just want to put a little disclaimer out there. This is the process I go through to make a deck. This is the process of a guy who has played Magic for all of one year, has only been to Friday Night Magic and small tournaments, and honestly does not have that good of a win ration. The process I discuss may help you; it might not. These ideas may seem weird and unusual, they probably are. However, this is just one way of looking at the process of deck building. Hopefully you will be able to glean (now that’s a good scrabble word) something from this article and hopefully improve your own method for building a deck.
Alright, so without further adieu, let’s get underway. The first thing that is required to start building a deck is to get an idea, a focus. For what purpose are you going to build this deck? This focal point might revolve around a single card, like say Venser, the Sojourner; a combo, like using Fatesticher and Puppet Conjurer, or a concept such as a deck centered around lifegain. Now this seems pretty obvious first step, but you would not believe how hard it is for some people to get this straight. For example, there was this friend of mine from my hometown who just got into Magic and he was so looking forward to using Metalcraft. However, the deck he submitted to me for advice contained all of 11 metalcraft related cards and was dangerously unbalanced in the artifact to other ratio. Good news is that he eventually figured out a few things and I’m sure he’s having a ball with his new deck.
The next thing that I do, after choosing the focal point of the deck, is to figure out how do I want to meet the goal of the focal point. How are you going to power the deck and accomplish its goal? This is where we figure out what cards we will put in the deck. The key here is to be open, but too not get overwhelmed. This is why I build mostly standard related decks because this helps to keep the cards I can use limited, but also gives me plenty to work with, that and the fact I don’t know many cards from older sets. :P Anyway, lets look at an example. How about Venser? Looking at Venser, the Sojourner we have a +2 ability that essentially blinks something till the next endstep, a -1 ability that makes all your creatures unblockable, and a final ability that makes every spell you play essentially an Oblivion Ring. These are all fun abilities and it would be great to be able to put them to good use. First, the first ability is a blink ability meaning that a creature leaves play only to reenter a little later. How do we use that? Well, like cooking, simplicity is always best. The easiest way would be to have just plenty of cards that have come into play abilities. This means cards like Wall of Omens, Aether Adept, and Glimmerpost Stag. Each of these cards is fun to play once, but now they can be played multiple times. The second ability is essentially mass evasion for your army, which is good if you have big creatures and you do not want your opponent to be annoying and try to block. This ability can be used with smaller creatures like the 2/2 Aether Adept and 3/3 Glimmerpost Stag, but what about a 6/6 Frost Titan or 4/5 Sunblast Angel or maybe the infamous Stormtide Leviathan. Venser’s final is definitely for all cards and we’ve already put in a number of cheap cards so if we end up with plenty of mana, we can just Oblivion Ring all your opponent’s stuff away.
The next thing that this deck needs is what I like to call an answer package, essentially what are you going to do to keep your opponent weak, stop your opponent’s damage, and dealing with troublesome issues. This is essentially where your Journey to Nowhere, Lightning Bolt, Doom Blade, Mana Leak, and Naturalize all come into play. Essentially what these cards amount to are seat belts and air bags. Warning car analogy incoming. A deck can be likened to car in many ways. First you have your focal point, taking form as the shell of the car, holding all the parts and goal inside. Next you have the fuel, or land cards, which is important to note because you don’t want to put forests in a red deck. Third is the engine, what is going to power your car and get it to move. This takes several forms and depends on the overall purpose of the deck. The answer package is put in place to help keep you, the planeswalker/driver, safe and on track with your plan. Without these seatbelts and airbags in place, you run the risk of being knocked off the road and becoming nothing more than a smear on the road. For the deck we’re building I think playsets of Mana Leak and Journey to Nowhere should give us just enough to stay on the road.
Now, everything we have talked about is all well and good, but the one thing all decks need is a way to win. This is essentially the front bumper of your deck car and depending on the deck you have very different bumpers. Red decks probably have something a kin to a pitchfork sticking out the front. Black has a sort of rusting bumper that might not kill you right away, but will most likely cause you to contract some sort of infection that kills you slowly. Green is a steamroller, no subtle way around that. It all depends on what your original focus was and how well the focal point and the victory plan meld together. A perfect example of this is the deck that I’m currently running. It’s a white token deck based around Conqueror’s Pledge and Honor of the Pure. Essentially I create a huge army of 2/2s or 3/3s, sometimes as high as 5/5s, and then just smash with power. However, the original centric idea for the deck was to use Conqueror’s Pledge in conjunction with Nomads’ Assembly so that my already impressive army would grow to unprecedented size and power. However, in playtesting I noticed that since Nomads’ Assembly and Conqueror’s Pledge were both rather late game cards. I knew that from the start but I thought that the deck could handle it. However, as I played, it became more and more clear that though Nommads’ Assembly was impressive, but it still left a lot to be desired. Coming in at turn 6, not bad. Rebounding on turn 7 to get me an army, Awesome. Not always drawing it, bad. Having it sit in my hand as I waited for a Conqueror’s Pledge to make it useful, very bad. The original deck idea was a flop, but that’s okay. Through playtesting I was able to really see how the deck worked, and how well the cards interacted. That is the ultimate technique of deck building, playtesting. Run your deck through the ringer, battle hard opponents, and notate what happens during the matches. That is the real key to figuring out how well your deck is going to work. Never be afraid to change a few things up, you never know what you will think of next.
As for the deck we were building throughout the article, here it is in its first draft form. This deck is definitely fun to look at and the theme of Venser can be felt throughout, but it has a long way to go before it can be really effective. The addition of Everflowing Chalice, Chimeric Mass, and Contagion Clasp essentially serve to pimp out the deck. Hey if you’re gonna build a nice car, at least make it look nice, right? Plus the addition of Chimeric Mass gives another sort of win condition and another big creature. This should be a lot of fun once it gets cleaned up and tweaked. If anyone decides to build a deck like this, please contact me and tell me how it worked out. Anyway here’s the deck:
Venser Deck:
Leader:
3x Venser, the Sojourner
Creatures:
2x Frost Titan
4x AEther Adept
4x Augury Owl
2x Sunblast Angel
4x Wall of Omens
3x Glimmerpoint Stag
Artifacts:
4x Chimeric Mass
3x Contagion Clasp
2x Everflowing Chalice
Land:
4x Glacial Fortress
8x Island
2x Celestial Colonnade
7x Plains
Spells:
4x Journey to Nowhere
4x Mana Leak
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/venser-deck/
And with that we have everyone’s favorite section, the Closing Questions section:
1. What is your way of building a deck? What is your overall process of doing things?
2. What are some problems you are having with your current deck or decks?
3. What did you think of the car analogy, good, bad, or stupid?
Well, well, there goes another bit of time you’ve used reading the thoughts of an old man and his beard. Hope you had fun reading and feel free to leave comments or ideas about what you’d like to have me write about. I have plenty of ideas, mind you, it’s just… jus…j-anyway. And as always, remember, “Etherium is limited. Innovation is not.” This is Corlando signing out.