General Deck Help: How to choose?
Deck Help forum
Posted on Jan. 15, 2013, 1:43 p.m. by aMNKYonSTEROIDS
So Deck building is probably one of my all time favorite things about Magic. But I just couldn't help but think, how do you decide what cards go in and what cards go out? How do you choose? I personally find it very difficult, probably due to the fact that I'm still fairly new (I came in a week after Dark Ascension).
Just as an example I have this deck --> Dark Entries 2.0 that I'm working on and I'm torn between a few cards such as Rewind and Dissipate or Dispel or even Mind Sculpt and Increasing Confusion . Essentially, how do you decide what to do with your deck while you're building it?
Then you have to think about more advanced strategies and interactions between your cards. If you're playing mill and control that means you want to mill in your turn and control in their turn. Therefore, as most control spells cost around 3 mana, you're going to want 3 mana open during their turn. Given that, it is going to severely limit how much you can get out of X cost spells during your own turn and therefore your mill options need to be super cheap and extra effective. In light of this Mind Sculpt is a more favourable card than Increasing Confusion because it makes it more likely you will have mana open to play Dissipate on their turn.
January 15, 2013 1:58 p.m.
aMNKYonSTEROIDS says... #4
See that's what I was thinking, which sort of pushed me towards Rewind . The other thing that pushed me more towards Rewind is because of what I want my deck to do. Dissipate is nice because I can get rid of pesky Flashback cards, which actually makes me consider putting it in the sideboard. But the fact that it exiles the card makes it unfavorable for me because, with my deck, I don't really want to exile monsters. I want them all in the grave, ripe for the picking.
As for the whole, using it to be rid of pesky flashback, Syncopate does the same thing, and for potentially cheaper (but that's only if they're tapped out). The fact that Syncopate costs X sort of makes it hard to decide between that and Dissipate .
I understand it being about what you want your deck to do, but sometimes cards do the exact same thing. And that's where I get caught; Cards that do the basic same thing, but debating on which special effect has more value.
January 15, 2013 2:03 p.m.
aMNKYonSTEROIDS says... #5
See that's what I was thinking, which sort of pushed me towards Rewind . The other thing that pushed me more towards Rewind is because of what I want my deck to do. Dissipate is nice because I can get rid of pesky Flashback cards, which actually makes me consider putting it in the sideboard. But the fact that it exiles the card makes it unfavorable for me because, with my deck, I don't really want to exile monsters. I want them all in the grave, ripe for the picking.
As for the whole, using it to be rid of pesky flashback, Syncopate does the same thing, and for potentially cheaper (but that's only if they're tapped out). The fact that Syncopate costs X sort of makes it hard to decide between that and Dissipate .
I understand it being about what you want your deck to do, but sometimes cards do the exact same thing. And that's where I get caught; Cards that do the basic same thing, but debating on which special effect has more value.
ChiefBell says... #2
One of the easiest ways is to decide on what you want your deck to do or what you want a card to do and then find the cheapest mana cost available for that effect, then take into account extra effects.
So for example comparing Dissipate to Rewind you could argue that Dissipate is the better card. This would be true maybe 90% of the time, however, as it says on Rewind if you play the spell then you get to untap your land afterwards. This means if you have multiple instants in your hand you can play Rewind as a counter and then follow it up with another instant very easily because Rewind was, effectively, free. Then you have to weigh up those pros and cons.
January 15, 2013 1:53 p.m.