This is a collaborative article we had an idea for months ago, but due to various unpleasantries and hold-ups, we are just now getting it posted. Sorry for the delay! Basically, this is a collaborative article written by myself, Reggie Allison, with fellow Game Journal Editor Brandon Galm, and one of our semi-recurring guest writers, Rich Wood. Together, we talk about our various strategies when it comes to building Magic: The Gathering decks, what we consider, any strategies we employ, and generally a few tips from us to you, especially if you’re just starting out playing and don’t know where to start. Read on and enjoy! And if anyone is interested, we’re always looking for new opponents!

-Reggie Allison, GJ Editor

BRANDON GALM:

Deck creation for me is probably the most amateurish, compared to my fellow journalers.  Take my most recent deck (in progress still).  I hadn’t bought a booster pack in close to a year, so I missed at least two (possibly three) releases that I know of, but I knew I would be visiting a friend and would be playing magic at some point.  Upon opening my booster packs, I came across several “Giant” cards—cards with giants as the creature type. So I thought to myself: ok, I’ll make a deck of “Giants.”  I tend to lean towards creature decks—decks built around one or more creature types.  I currently have a Spirit deck (which is one of my favorite to play, and probably my most effectively put together) and a general Green/White Beast deck.  Other decks involve a lot more planning and thought than I have time for.

Now that I’ve chosen my theme, it then becomes a matter of finding cards that complement giant cards, or more giant cards so I’ll check the nearest card/comic shop for what they have.  Then I’ll usually go through my older cards adding artifacts and booster cards to the deck.  Once that is done, I’ll go through things again.  If there’s a card I feel really impacts the deck I will try to find one or two more to increase the likelihood it is drawn during play.  I typically have between 18 and 24 lands depending on total deck size.  When all is said and done I usually try to play through it at least twice, maybe three times, without changing a thing.  Then I’ll add a couple cards or remove a couple cards—really start tweaking it, but typically I don’t change too much.  Only once a deck gets too out of hand with the number of cards will I start to weed through things.  Typically as many cards as I take out, I usually end up adding something else in to take its place though.

Not too much thought goes into my decks (which is perhaps why they take a lot of playing before they start to show their worth).  As I only have a passing knowledge of what’s out there, I am not able to link together the great “chaining” cards that others are able to find.  To sum things up: my initial deck ideas are inspired by fate; my deck building is inspired by luck; my deck success is inspired by statistics.

RICH WOOD:

Greetings everyone! To me, deckbuilding is a wonderful process. With all of the thousands of cards to choose from, there are infinite combinations of cards. So what makes the right choice? I’d like to walk you through my process in creating a gaming masterpiece.
Typically, I think about Magic and deck ideas about 1-2 hours a day. This keeps my creative juices flowing and it also inspires me to also keep my current decks fresh, so much sometimes that I have even created 2 decks from one. For instance, I once had a 5 color Dragon deck that housed the Invasion dragon legends, that was split into a red Dragon and a 5 color Domain deck because several of the cards forced my hand into splitting the deck. Sometimes, building a deck is as simple as throwing some cards together in 10 minutes and pillaging your opponents.

However, when I set out to build a deck with a specific idea in mind, these are the questions I ask myself before I begin:

-What is the deck’s purpose?

-What color(s) do I want the deck to be?

-Do I have the right cards to build the deck that I want?

After much consideration, I move into the building process. I know that, in comparison to most of my friends, I have a more extensive card pool to work with, so I try to inspire others to use cards that may be common or uncommon in rarity that can work just as well as the rares in the world. I know this process works because all of my decks are successful to some degree, and I have encouraged, inspired, and taught multiple people how to play Magic over the years.

It’s easy to talk about the process, so I thought I’d walk you through the actual process in building one of my more recent creations. It’s built around the card “Maralen of the Mornsong.”

As you can see, the first line on her card is pretty daunting. How are you supposed to play anything when you can’t even draw cards? My only thought was to work around the disadvantage and turn it into an advantage for myself. I immediately thought of being able to return Maralen to my hand so that I could draw cards. A card I have used before, Umbilicus, became my second card for the deck. Maralen’s second ability allows me to search out Umbilicus to start my “engine,” a term used to signify a combination of cards that interact with each other every turn. My other thought was how to punish my opponent by gaining card advantage through Maralen. The pieces started falling into place by using low casting cost creatures and spells that would be able to hold off opponents until I could set up my Maralen/Umbilicus combo. Without boring you with too many specifics about the cards just yet, here is the decklist I created.

Creatures:
1 Maralen of the Mornsong, 1 Sapling of Colfenor, 4 Wasp Lancer, 4 Rathi Trapper ,
4 Ogre Marauder, 4 Gnat Miser, 4 Ornithopter, 3 Shriekmaw

Spells:
4 Unmake, 4 Dash Hopes, 4 Howling Mine, 3 Bone Saw, 2 Umbilicus, 2 Diabolic Intent, 1 Beseech the Queen

Lands:
20 Swamps

The creatures selected serve 2 functions (as mentioned before): to slow your opponent down and to also be used in case you haven’t gotten Maralen into play with Umbilicus and need to return a permanent.

The spells chosen are primarily for creature removal, to return to your hand via Umbilicus and to allow you to draw more cards after returning Maralen to your hand. I also have 3 ‘tutoring’ effects in the deck to allow me to search for my combo pieces if necessary.

After building it and testing it a bit by myself, this deck seems to work pretty well. As for playing against other decks, I honestly don’t know. It hasn’t been tested yet in an actual game. I’d like to get a chance to test it out and see just how it does against some better decks. However, I’m not 100% attached to the deck, so if I don’t like it or how it plays, I won’t feel bad ripping it apart and rebuilding if necessary.

REGGIE ALLISON:

When it comes to deckbuilding for Magic: The Gathering I usually stick with a simple themed approach. That’s not to say, however, that just because my decks are themed they are simple in any way! Typically my deck theme centers around a creature type, but I throw in lots of little nasty tricks along with the creatures, just to have alternate strategies to keep myself entertained and my opponents on their toes. Some of my decks are fairly straightforward in their creature type as well as their alternate strategy. For instance, take my Green Elf deck and/or my Green/White/Red Centaur Deck: both of these decks focus on sheer numbers; in the case of the Elf deck, my basic strategy employs an overwhelming number of elves combined with spells that help me based on how many elves are in play. Conversely, with the Centaur deck, instead of sheer number of creatures, I go for a more heavy-damage approach, beefing up my already decent-sized centaurs with creature enchantments, artifact equipment, and the occasional instant or sorcery.

Of course, not all of my decks use such a basic approach and strategy in their construction. Take my Red Goblin deck: a moderate-to-seasoned MTG veteran would expect me to use an overwhelming number of creatures approach like I do with my Elf deck. This of course is an option with my Goblin deck, because the little bastards are small, numerous, and relatively easy to get out into play. However, I enjoy a more direct damage approach, using my goblins as cannon fodder. My reasoning is why throw all of your goblins at an opponent, have them be blocked and many/most of them wiped out in the attempt, and maybe do a few points of damage when instead you can sacrifice a single goblin and, using a “Goblin Grenade,” deal out five damage to an opponent? Better yet, say you have multiple “Goblin Grenades” in your hand, and you lose two or three goblins for the price of ten or fifteen damage in one turn! Combine this strategy with a “Goblin Bomb” and “Krark’s Thumb” engine, and you’ve got yourself a pretty decent chance of beating the tar out of your opponents without losing many HP yourself.

Yes, I know this article isn’t meant to focus on pre-existing decks, but rather one which deals with building decks. So, to sum up my first couple paragraphs, I guess I would say to start with some kind of theme in mind and build in a few different strategies around it. Because of my desire to keep myself interested and entertained in my decks, and thus because of my multiple strategies per deck, a common complaint of my friends and regular opponents is that my decks are too big. Well, you know what? Tough shit. I don’t play in tournaments, so my decks don’t have to be regulation size. We do generally follow the “no more than four copies of one card per deck” rule, but otherwise nothing says our decks have to cap out at 60 cards. When I put the time and effort into building a deck, I want to be able to play and enjoy it for awhile, not get bored with it after a few games. My best advice to anyone building a deck is to keep it interesting and fun.

I usually avoid putting cards that do me damage in my decks. I know that for some people, the potential gains outweigh the negative side of such cards, but unless I am making a strategy based around a specific card like that, I don’t want to diminish myself or my defenses any more than I have to. Cards that screw over my opponents, on the other hand, are fair game! I love those types of cards that I refer to as “vampiric.” This doesn’t necessarily mean that they are vampire creature types, but rather they are those cards which take away something from your opponents and either give it to you, or allow you to gain something. A perfect example of this is, of course, the ever-popular “Syphon Soul,” which takes away two HP from each of your opponents and gives you all the HP taken this way. That means that if you’re playing five other people, the card takes two HP from each of them and gives you ten. Not too bad a deal if you ask me!

I suppose you could say that my deckbuilding interests and talents lay somewhere between Brandon’s and Rich’s. Brandon is a more casual player, Rich is a more hardcore player with lots of cards to choose from at his disposal. I’m sort of a casual but very intense player. Like Rich, I have a lot of cards to draw from (though not nearly as many as him…good lord!), and I occasionally think to myself “hey, this might be a cool deck idea,” but otherwise I usually just make two or three decks at a time on rare occasions and otherwise stick to the decks I have. So, yeah. My deckbuilding philosophy in a nutshell: base your deck on a theme, have two or three different strategies available to yourself per deck, keep yourself interested and your opponents’ guards up, and stay away from cards that hurt yourself. This philosophy has worked for me over the years, and unless I’m playing Rich or another one or two of my friends who are at about the same playing level as myself, I usually win seven or eight times out of ten. No worries, though; I never expect to win going into a game. Anything can happen, which is what makes the game so much fun to play!