Deck building mechanics
Deck Help forum
Posted on March 8, 2014, 1:21 p.m. by MadScientist
I am sure that everyone has their own process when building their decks.
Thought I would share the process I follow for virtually every deck that I build.
This process in general keeps the budget down as you are essentially building a Pauper deck around your theme and then subbing in rares that enhance the performance where needed.
Step 1: Choose your theme/colors
Step 2: Select a main win condition. AGGRO, Big Bombs, Mill, Direct Damage etc.
Step 3: Research cards and combos that fit your theme. Try to stick to common/uncommon cards here for budget purposes.
Step 4: Put together a pauper style deck with common/uncommon cards using cards that fit your theme.
Step 5: Test out the pauper card deck with basic lands and/or guildgates.
Step 6: Plan out an alternate win condition and select the rest of the cards to support the alt win con.
Step 7: Now that the deck plays well as a pauper you can start replacing some of the cards with your rares that enhance the decks performance.
Step 8: *Remove and replace basic/guildgate lands with other dual lands to stabilize the mana base. *
This is the process I follow, it may not be best for everyone but it works for me when designing my home brew decks on a budget.
How to decide what lands/mana you need?
Count up the total devotion (number of occurrences of each mana colour in casting costs).
Get your average CMC by adding up the total CMC of all spells in your deck and divide by the total number of spells.
Base land count should be approx. 33% so for a 60 card deck your base starting point is 20 Lands + the average CMC of your deck.
As a general rule I tend to round DOWN if I have ramp, UP if I don't.
The Math behind the mana
Deck Stats:
Average CMC = 3.12
3 colour deck
60 cards
23 lands
Count up the mana symbols in all of the cards in the deck:
18 white symbols
16 blue symbols
12 green
Total; 60 symbols
Get the percentages of each using (Symbol Color Count / Total Symbols) * 100
40% white
35% Blue
25% Green
10 Plains
8 Island
5 Forest
Replace lands with dual lands as you see fit based on the needs of the deck.
Here is an example of a pauaper deck that almost stands alone as competitive but with some card swapping for rares could become an FNM contender
Zero to 60 in 5 turns (Pauper) Playtest
Standard
SCORE: 32 | 31 COMMENTS | 2018 VIEWSHere is an example of a starting build and what the end result could end up as:
Standard Sliver (Pauper) Playtest
Standard*
SCORE: 0 | 0 COMMENTS | 14 VIEWSThe end result of this pauper deck resembles:
Sliver here Sliver there ... Slivers Everywhere Playtest
Standard
SCORE: 2 | 24 COMMENTS | 956 VIEWSmowservision says... #3
Reading that, I realize this looks very confusing. I will answer any questions about my janky process.
March 8, 2014 1:52 p.m.
MadScientist says... #4
supercaptainpow I read the whole thing lol. To be totally honest your method is usually how I end up building decks at the end of the day.
I try to stick to my method but by the time the Paper deck is done I find it so much fun to play that I don't want to adjust it.
My Zero to 60 in 5 turns (Pauper) started out as a plan for an R/W standard deck and ended up just staying as a pauper deck and I have since given up on the idea of building R/W for a while.
My sliver deck was one that my method worked well on I actually started with all common and uncommons R/G/W then went up to 5 color added in some rares. Then dropped Black and went 4 color and ended up settling on G/W for the final revision. Building the pauper in that case was really helpful.
The other full home brew I built using my method above was Ping till you drop... I started that out with all common/uncommon cards and then swapped in better cards as I played it out. It worked really well. There are other decks of course that I have used this system on too.
Basically there is no hard fast rules on deck building. The main reason for posting this method was to try and help the newbies coming in that see the 200+ decks and don't know where to start. I figured letting them know that you can build a pretty fun deck for $10 using this method and then just sub in the more expensive cards as you get them would make entering MTG a little less scary.
P.S. I totally use your method too. Especially when I just want to get something done quick. Pop open the rare binder and grab what you want then build around that.
mowservision says... #2
I do the same thing, except backwards. I throw together a bunch of cards I think will work and then figure out what I need/don't need. The reason I like doing it that way is because I can test certain cards for myself and discover new ways of doing things. I am constantly swapping/exchanging cards for others to see what I can do with a deck, reworking the manabase as I go.
I use roughly the same way of land calculations. Single color mana symbols/total mana symbols = single color lands/total lands. And then I subtract to add in non-basics. I do factor in cards with 1 mana symbol of a color vs. 2 or 3, to help balance color ratios.
It's hard for me to make a deck unless I already have it built. I find it easier for me to build, and then modify accordingly. When start making the deck, I lay out cards I want to try in rows of colors, and in columns of mana cost, so I can examine the ratio of colors and the mana curve.
When everything is set up, I start to eliminate until I reach the desired number of cards (approximately 36 or 63). I then figure out what to do with the land, sleeve it all up, and wait for an opportunity to play it with friends. It's fascinating to see how other people build decks.
If you read this whole thing, I applaud you! Thanks.
March 8, 2014 1:50 p.m.