Pro Deck Question
Deck Help forum
Posted on March 27, 2012, 11:25 a.m. by cryptichorror
I've noticed that a lot of pro decks tend to have a lot of 1 of or 2 of cards. This confuses me, because I've always been taught that you should have playsets of everything (except for special situation, such as cards you can fetch). Having less than 4x of a card decreases your consistency. If you don't need it enough to have 4x, then it must not be good enough for your deck. At least, that's what I've always been taught.
So, my question is, what is the rhyme and reason to this. Is there a good deck building guide out there in the interwebs? Now that I think about it, I did a lot of reading when I first learned how to play the game to learn the rules and such, but my deck building has always been the "try it, playtest it, tweak it" method. I'm guessing I'm missing something important, and would like to find some good articles on the subject. Any help?
DarasuumKote28 says... #3
Generally, pro decks have been rigorously playtested to fit the exact meta. This is why net-decking can be a bad idea; the pro meta is usually not your own! The pros will build an outline, probably with 4 of's and such, then play it hundreds of times against other decks expected to be present, while slightly varying what the deck consists of. Take out a Thrun, the Last Troll , add a Sword of Feast and Famine. One less Dungeon Geists, another (or just add one at all) Divine Offering. That way they have possible responses to a ton of things, and can consider hundreds of scenarios where that one card wouldn't be needed, but it's there to pull a win out of the hat just in case. You'll notice that their sideboards usually have straight up repeat cards, enough to get 4 of, instead of completely new situational cards. That's because half their sideboard is basically already in the mainboard, just in case there's a situation game one in which a typically sideboard card is needed.
Interestingly, this is why rogue decks can sometimes completely destroy pro tournaments, like the Tempered Steel surprise a while back. It was unexpected, and pro decks simply weren't built accounting for it yet.
Indeed, the pros use your "try it, playtest it, tweak it" method. Now, take what you do, consider EXACTLY what you'll be playing against for 48 hours, and playtest nonstop for a week. That's the idea.
March 27, 2012 11:54 a.m.
Arachnarchist says... #4
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/rc/188This article explains the reasons you want to have a certain number of a particular card. Generally, you only want a 4-of if you want to see that card a lot. And one-ofs are usually things you dig or tutor for. 3-ofs and 2-ofs are cards you don't want to have multiples of at the same time.
March 27, 2012 12:31 p.m.
So much to explain....maybe I will just write an article on it.
March 27, 2012 2:41 p.m.
Wizard of the Damned says... #6
I think an article would be best to explain.. Cableguy and the other article writers do a great job explaining a lot. I've learned a good bit from them
March 27, 2012 2:46 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #7
Many of the decks full of 1-ofs are built that way because they're control decks that are also full of good card draw and card selection effects. For a deck that can let the player look at a ton of extra cards during the course of the game, a 1-of can show up as often as a 2-of or 3-of if the player wants it to. This is the major reason why the combination of Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Squadron Hawk, Stoneforge Mystic, and Fetch Lands in previous years made it possible to build a crushingly powerful deck that just looked like big pile of random whatevers.
March 27, 2012 4:20 p.m.
Minousmancer says... #8
Yeah, I've always been of the mindset as you cryptichorror, so seeing how people/the game, has changed is a new learning curve for me as well, these explanations seem so simple and how I first looked at design when I first started playing the game until it was beat into me both verbally and by loss after loss that 4 offs and not 1 or 2 of's was essential to proper strategy, with the exception being the occasional Artifact or two...
March 27, 2012 5:40 p.m.
Minousmancer says... #9
Cableguy PLEASE, please, please, I think my deck building skills compare with Top-Decks, most of the time, but I've only just returned to the game this past fall and am relearning from the ground up.
March 27, 2012 5:47 p.m.
Generally speaking, 3,4 of's are better, But EDH, Legacy, Modern, extended Formats, have shown that can use a mix of 1,2,3,4 of's, effectively in a deck.
This is because of a concept, called card, concept, function, task, theme,etc, categories. What that is, is defining what a deck needs, and then choosing 1,2,3 of each of 5 to 15 cards, in each needed card categories, that have almost exact same function, mechanics, and casting cost, but different names.
An example of this, would be if I had 1 or 2 of Doomblade, Go For the throat, Dismember, tragic slip,etc. This is only doable in decks, colors, formats, themes, concepts, etc, that have enough cards, of a function, mechanic, to pull it off.
Also as has been said, the other reason to have 1,2 of's, is if running card draw, search, tutors, and to limit higher cmc cards, from flooding opening hands.
An example of what everybody is talking about, is my RG land destruction deck which has a LOT of 1 of's, 2 of's, mixed in with some 3 of's, and 1,2 4 of's. The absolutely critical 2,3,4 cmc cards in the deck run 3,4 of's, and the the high cmc cards, run 2 of's.
And the deck also uses a little tiny bit of the EDH, commander format, deck building techs I explained, and the deck has card draw, and search, tutor cards. And the deck is a Control Deck.
Now to most here, at first glance the deck seems to break every deck building rule, and is very unorthodox, untraditional, unconventional etc. The deck has 2 colors, and has 65 cards, 23 lands.
But despite all that the deck is 1 of the, if not the most highly ranked, best land destruction decks, on this and other sites. It has 150 comments, 3000 views, and 19 +1's.
that just shows that standard way of deck building, isn't always the best. But the standard way of deck building is usually better most of the time. But the how you build a deck, isn't as important as the WHY you build the deck, using the deck building tech you use.
That's because if you just build a deck using the standard way, or another way, just because, instead of that way being the best, most effective way to build that particular deck, then your deck will probably not be as good as it could be.
whats really funny, is that I get a lot of new school train of thought followers, that say must have 60 cards, 4 of each cards, no less, no more, no matter what, tell me that that my decks suck, because I Don't build decks right, like they do.lol.
March 28, 2012 7:36 a.m.
MasterFlinter says... #11
Keep in mind if you are looking at Legacy and Vintage decks there are many cards on the restricted list that can only be used as a 1-of and there are many tutors available to players in formats wth larger card pools meaning they can consistently find those 1-ofs, which is something that is not the case in standard.
March 28, 2012 10:29 a.m.
Minousmancer says... #12
MasterFlinter I'm pretty sure cryptichorror is talking about Standard and/or Modern, I know I was, just look at Solar-Flare(heres one deck:snapdresser-magesft) as an example.
March 28, 2012 10:49 a.m.
Masterflinter, in general you are both partially right, and wrong.. Yes other formats have larger card pools, and better cards, in GENERAL.
BUT you are overlooking todays standard. Todays standard, is arguably debatably the strongest its been in a long while. the Zendikar standard block, and this standard block, have made LOTS of almost broken cards, and answers to them. MANY, LOTS of these LOTS of almost broken cards, are already RESTRICTED, BANNED, in other formats, even though, they have not cycled out of standard yet.
Right now there is LOTS of removal cards, pump cards. And your wrong about there not being card draw, search, tutor cards. Almost every color, has 2 to 4 card draw cards, and blue has a ton of them.
As far as search, tutor, recursion cards, there is: , Green Sun's Zenith , Brutalizer Exarch. Also there are LOTS of cards that say look,search thru the top X cards in library, or cards like Shape Anew. There is also Snapcaster, Charmbreaker Devils, and there are plenty of flashback cards, like devils plays.
Because of all that, if I made a Black, White, Green, standard deck with 60 cards, and nothing but 1 of's, while it would not be the best deck, it would be good enough to be competitive, and win at least semi consistently and win about 49% of games at FNM's. That would be because of all the card draw cards, tutors, removal, pump cards,etc in that color combo, in STANDARD.
Also Minous is right, we were all talking about standard, including myself. My RG land destruction deck is a STANDARD FORMAT deck. Only reason why some of us mentioned other formats, was to illustrate that 1 can use deck build techniques, from previous formats, to build decks in standard that have a mix of 1,2,3,4 card, for the reasons I just explained to you.
March 28, 2012 5:56 p.m.
Minousmancer says... #14
March 28, 2012 6:39 p.m.
Minousmancer says... #15
Oh, god, the Land destruction in standard is so easy right now this should be broken/banned but it's not deck:mercury-in-retrograde
March 28, 2012 6:46 p.m.
Here is my top rated standard format land destruction deck, as reference for my 2 comments above.
LDragon Chan Garuk Karn Brutal Acid Vat Charmbreak.
Right now the deck has 150 comments, 3000 views, 19 +1's, 65 cards, 23 lands. The deck has 21 land destruction cards, that destroy lands.
As soon as the deck hits 20 +1's, I am going to do a article on standard, and modern formats land destruction decks, a complete comparative breakdown of the top, best land destruction decks, including mine, and a complete, comparative breakdown of top, best cards, in land destruction decks.
Back before DA, and beforee innistrad had been out for a long time, land destruction was as good as you say Minous. But right now in the super fast aggro meta, standard is in, land destruction isn't as good, and there are more answers for land destruction then before.
Land destruction can still be competitive, if its built almostperfectly right, with the right sideboard,etc. But most land destruction decks, that are not built almost perfectly, that did ok before, are not going to do well now.
On the positive side, land destruction doesn't have to worry about as many counterspells, in this meta, as it did before.
EleshBlade says... #2
It's sort of hard to explain, but when you have a deck its not always correct to play every card you play as a 4of. For example in Standard, the control decks are usually running like 1 Titan/Consecrated Sphinx
. These cards are very good, but if control were to run for example a 4of Consecrated Sphinx
, you would draw it more often but you would have a 6 drop stranded in your hand, for the whole. With a 1 of you can control the board, and while doing that dig for your 6 drop with cards like Think Twice
and Forbidden Alchemy
. For Aggro decks sometimes it's not correct to have 4of cards all the time. For example in R/G Aggro they usually don't to run to many high end cards, because if they do they'll make there deck slower and that is not what they want to do. So these decks usually run only 2 Hellrider
s. Hope this helps.
March 27, 2012 11:44 a.m.