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Introduction
It is interesting that very few people bother talking about how to build a deck from the ground up. There is a subconscious process that goes on during deck building that I feel frequently gets ignored. Most people acquire deck building skills through experience; it is not a taught skill. This fact is particularly curious in light of the fact that we have so much literature surrounding how to become a better player, much of which will accelerate a new player’s learning. Why does this literature not exist for deck design? This article, and the few before it, are an attempt to begin to change that.
Deck design is, by and large, a holistic process. It is impossible to tell someone exactly how to go about building a deck, just like it is impossible to tell someone exactly how to play a deck. However, I believe that there are approaches and principles that are useful to deck building, just like there are approaches and principles that are useful to game play.
Identifying your goal
This is the single most important step in building your deck. It is something that it is intuitive for most people, but I have observed that a lot of frustration comes from not keeping the end goal of your deck in mind. You must always keep your eyes on the prize.
There are two goals that a deck can be designed to achieve:
- Do something cool/execute a combo
- Win a game of Magic.
Sometimes these goals coincide (combo decks), but usually they do not. It sounds basic, but if you are doing #1, your goal isn’t to win the game, but to do something cool, and probably funny. Your choices need to reflect that.
For the rest of the article, I am going to assume that your goal is #2, since the vast majority of decks are designed to do that. While it seems obvious, you need to remember that your goal is to win a game of Magic, and as far as that is concerned, the ends justify the means. As far as decks are concerned, it doesn’t matter HOW you win, only that you DO.
There are effectively two ways of building a deck:
- Building from the mana up.
- Building from the cards down.
I will not discuss approach number 1 for two reasons. Firstly, there has really only ever been one deck builder to use that approach successfully – Zvi Mowshowitz. I believe I understand the basic principles of the approach, but I am not that great at it because it’s not the way I naturally think. Plus, Zvi is still active in Magic, and would probably do a much better job explaining his approach than I would. It’s an article I would definitely read if he decided to write it.
I believe the second approach is how most people build decks, so it is the one I will discuss. Most people spy a card or combination of cards that seems interesting to them. Then they build a deck that tries to exploit those cards.
Card Selection Part 1: Building a Framework
The most critical part of this step is to identify your deck’s primary game plan. This should be a concise statement that describes your deck’s fundamental strategy, in other words, how it plans to win the game. Some examples follow:
E.g. 1: Bury the opponent under an avalanche of card advantage.
E.g. 2: Use a combination of small, efficient creatures alongside burn spells to deal 20 damage as fast as possible.
E.g. 3: Play Card A, followed by Card B, which will win me the game.
E.g. 4: Disrupt my opponent’s ability to cast spells, eventually making them unable to cast spells at all, or, failing that, make them infrequent enough that it doesn’t matter what they are able to cast.
E.g. 5: Maximize the usefulness/impact of
These are just some examples of various game plans that you can have. It is critical to identify your deck’s strategy and to keep that in mind as well as you move through deck building.
Once you have identified your deck’s strategy, you construct the framework of your deck by selecting cards for it. If your strategy revolves around specific cards then those cards will be part of your framework. If it is a generic strategy, then your framework will begin with the card or cards that best accomplish that strategy. For example, if your deck’s strategy is e.g. 1, your framework will include the best card advantage card in the format, whether it is a spell or a permanent (in T2 this is Jace, the Mind Sculptor). The criterion that you should use is the efficiency of the card. After identifying those cards, your framework is complete.
Card Selection Part 2: Selecting Role-players
The next step is to identify crucial roles that your deck needs. This is where you put cards like Mana Leak, Condemn, Lightning Bolt, Kor Skyfisher, and Sea Gate Oracle in your deck. In this step I would just put the rest of the cards in the deck I am 100% sure will make the cut, critical role-players that not only fulfill a critical function in the deck that are simply the best in the format. Mostly these will be removal, counterspells, and threats. It is distinctly possible your deck will be full after this step.
If it’s not, you move on to utility cards. These are cards that are useful to have, but are never necessary. Silver bullets generally fall into this category, but can also be crucial role players.
The biggest thing to remember about the cards that you select here is the fact that they are, in fact, role-players. They are definitively expendable, and should always be treated as such. Just because Mana Leak is really good at its job doesn’t mean it should make the cut 100% of the time. This is most evident in sideboarding, but is important to keep in mind.
Viewing the deck as a whole – making tweaks and modifications
Here is where I use something like a rubric to evaluate the pile of cards I have just turned into a deck. This is great for making tweaks (along with cuts and additions) once I have a pile of cards that is reasonably close to a deck in size. I believe decks are constructed largely with four attributes:
Power – self explanatory, card power and synergies.
Consistency – the ability to execute a similar sequence of plays on a regular basis.
Explosiveness – the ability of a deck to generate velocity.
Reliability – the ability of a deck to resist disruption and present the pilot with a set of relevant options in most situations.
In general Power and Consistency are opposites, as are Explosiveness and Reliability. The two most frequent pairings are Power + Reliability and Explosiveness + Consistency, although the other options exist as well.
I view these two pairs of attributes like two axes on a graph, and try to determine where my deck is positioned, and as such, gain some extra insight on what it is trying to do. You can do this early in the deck construction process as well, to better give you an idea of what kind of role-players you want in the deck.
Here are some examples of how I look at deck positioning on the grid:
Power – most control decks, e.g. UW and Cruel Control
Reliability – most “Rock” decks, e.g. Jund
Explosiveness – many combo decks, e.g. Belcher, also mana ramp decks
Consistency – Almost all aggro decks, e.g. Zoo.
Essentially, I believe it is the most profitable to occupy one extreme as well as possible. Thus, if you are designing for power, you should make your card selections with that in mind and thus when presented with two options of relatively equal efficacy for the slot, you should select the more powerful one. I believe doing this maximizes a deck’s performance.
An example of this principle in action is modern UW control. I believe Sun Titan and Baneslayer Angel are of roughly equal efficacy as finishers. Both creatures play defense and offense at the same time. Baneslayer Angel is a better blocker, has evasion, and is easier to cast. However, Sun Titan has a bigger body and generates card advantage, and thus has better synergy with the deck.
I feel this last point is exactly what puts Sun Titan over. UW is a deck designed for power, and Sun Titan is the more powerful option. Thus, I think Sun Titan is a superior “big creature” for UW decks. That’s not to say Baneslayer doesn’t have its uses (it is really good against Vengevine and red decks, far superior to Sun Titan in those cases), but Sun Titan fits better in UW decks, largely because it is the more powerful option.
Another good example of this principle is Kiln Fiend in mono red. Kiln Fiend is a card that makes for very explosive draws in mono-red, and I think it is underplayed. It is not right for every build of the deck, but I do feel it deserves to be considered more often. Goblin Guide, the staple 1-drop, is so scary BECAUSE it is so explosive. Kiln Fiend only serves to further this aspect of the deck, which, I feel, makes it scarier, but also better.
Conclusion
This is, in general, the generalized approach that I use for deck building. Building decks is not about throwing a bunch of cards together and calling them a deck. Every action you take, whether it be adding a card or subtracting one, has a purpose, an end goal. It is important to realize this.
Too often have I heard “because I like this card” or something similar as a justification for why a card is in a deck. No more of that if you are really serious about being a deck builder. I have made this point before and will make it again.
Every card in your deck must justify the slot it occupies on a strategic or tactical level.
This generalized approach avoids some of the most common pitfalls of deck building and can be used in a reverse manner to deconstruct a deck list you see online, making you better able to make changes to suit your play style. I hope this is useful to you.
Chingsung Chang
Conelead most everywhere and on MTGO
Next week – the obligatory Scars of Mirrodin article, featuring a full analysis of the set for Standard play, with impressions on Limited and Extended.
