Building your deck can take many forms. From purchasing pre-built Structure or Starter decks, trading with local players or trading online with booster packs available individually for sale – there are various approaches you can take.
The key is creating a deck with a strategic game plan and the capability of executing it successfully. This means establishing a win condition, accessing cards consistently that enable it, and having enough answers available to deal with different opponents.
Brainstorming
When creating a deck, it is vitally important to have some sort of game plan in place. Even something as straightforward as “This deck wants to attack and win quickly” can help guide decisions as it provides something tangible to latch onto and focus your decisions around.
One effective strategy for developing a game plan is using brainstorming. Start by leaving two participants in a room together, and ask them to contribute ideas and suggestions that the group can read and respond to later on. This allows everyone to actively contribute without feeling pressured to come up with immediate solutions.
Once your game plan is in place, it’s time to design the core cards of your deck. Your ideal core should feature cards that work together effectively while offering a clear path toward your endgame. Incorporating some “toolbox” cards that can help combat specific matchups is another effective way of increasing consistency within your deck.
Game Plan
As you begin building your deck, it can be tempting to fill it with cards that are great individually but don’t play well together. Newcomers to card gaming often fall victim to this trap: for example, creature heavy decks could contain three cheap Pokemon and four extra card draws without proper planning in mind.
Setting out with a clear strategy on how your deck will win is integral when building a competitive deck. In order to do this effectively, it’s essential to consider several factors, including mana cost distribution of cards. When playing an aggressive deck for instance, for instance, prioritising Creatures with low mana costs while making sure there are enough higher cost creatures that deal damage and provide card advantage (known as managing your mana curve). You should also keep Trainer cards in mind as part of this planning process.
Card Selection
Once you know which deck and game plan are important to you, card selection becomes key. This process will influence many aspects of your deck including which colors it features, the number of lands it contains and its overall power level.
Your deck is going to need copies of every card in it; when building a combo deck, look for cards that work well together; for instance, Naru Meha, Master Wizard, Ghitu Journeymage and Illusionist’s Stratagem are great cards that work together well.
An important consideration in building any deck is the mana curve. Depending on your deck type, it’s crucial that you strike an effective balance between playing cheap creatures and removal spells with expensive land bases; aggressive decks often need many low-cost creatures for aggressive strategies while control ones often incorporate more powerful creatures or planeswalkers; therefore 22-24 lands should typically make up your base deck depending on which strategy you employ.
Card Quantities
A successful deck must strike a delicate balance: If you prefer playing control strategies, removal and dispel will help stop opponents from winning while aggro decks require creatures with high life totals and cards that enable effective trades to maximize win rates.
Your card quantities must also be well balanced. Although beginners may be tempted to stick with one colour for all of their cards, doing so may limit playstyle and lower chances of casting spells on turn.
One way to balance these factors is by creating synergies in your deck. Doing so creates a unifying theme, keeps you on target when building, and ensures you don’t lose sight of your end goal: carrying out your win condition. For instance, an Aggro Warlock deck built around tribe can use cards like Power Overwhelming and Abusive Sergeant that help facilitate trades and facilitate win conditions.
