New player needs help

[humbolt62116]

I am not new to playing magic, but i only recently started to build decks. I think my wither deck is slightly too big and needs a couple cards cut from it. Any suggestions would help a lot.

http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=29865

My girlfriend has also created a deck and any suggestions for that would be welcome as well.

http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=29866

[Nirosen]

To the BF, You shouldnt just cut down a few cards but you need to. Mathematically running a 60 card deck gives you the best chance to get any spell at any given time. I've talked about in a few other post but i'll say it again here. There is a basic rule when u start deck building.

It's Called the
Rule of Nine

This rule helps the deck have a focused direction and higher consistency and makes it easier to change as you play and test it.

First you pick the nine cards that will make up the core of your deck. Only 9. Once you have picked these nine you will have 4 copies of each. this will give you 36 cards with 24 slots left open for lands. After doing this you will have a "First Draft" version of your deck. Play with it, Play against your friends and at this point you may notice that the strategy isn't working or you missing a crucial card. This is the point where you may want to take 1 or 2 cards down to 3 copies to make room for 2 copies of another card etc.

Ps. If your going to play extended or legacy mana ramping is important the best things to do is look at tournament lvl version of the deck you are trying to build and try to understand why each card has its place there.

Now for the best Gf in the world that was actually talked into playing magic, god bless your soul.

A very easy way to figure out mana is to count all the mana symbols in your deck exclude the colorless ones. Once you do that you make a ratio and that gives you your split. for example:

Your Deck has 4 cards...
1uu - card 1
uu - card 2
bbb - card 3
b - card 4

So you have 4 blue(u) mana symbols
And 4 Black(b) mana symbols
This gives you a 50:50 split

so if you have another deck that has 9u:3b you have a 3:1 ratio so for every 3 blue mana you will want to have 1 black mana.

It may seem a little confusing at first but once you get the hang of it you will always have reliable mana : )

Have fun playing and I hope i was able to help.
If you get a chance check out and comment on my latest Deck
Type II - Sanguine Throne (http://forums.mtgvault.com/showthread.php?t=495)

[humbolt62116]

Wow, thanks! You did a good job explaining it actually, i understood it completely.