About all the different deck types!
General forum
Posted on July 6, 2014, 10:06 a.m. by genuine139
So I tried to google these, but to no avail. I want to know about the different types of decks there are. They have names I dont understand and google hasnt helped. Sorry if this seems silly...
12-post,
8-rack,
Battle cruiser,
Birthing pod,
Caw blade,
Force feed,
Gifts ungiven,
Group hug,
Group slug
,Hatebears,
Highlander,
Hive mind,
Landstill,
Living end,
Netdeck,
Pillow fort,
Pox,
Rock,
Scapeshift,
Show and tell,
Solar flare
,Stax
,Stoneblade,
Storm,
Suicide black,
Superfriends,
Tron,
Turbofrog,
Voltron,
And Zoo
I know this screams NOOOB and for that I am sorry, as it ia true. Please, I just want to KNOW lol thanks (:
Wait, are you joking? This is like the longest list ever! When you google magic try googling what you want and then add 'mtg' after it. Also try using magic the gathering salvation - it's a website and forum like this one but it has deck primers which describe different archetypes.
Anyway I'll try and explain a few archetypes.
8-rack - uses The Rack with discard like Thoughtseize and Wrench Mind to deal damage.
birthing pod or 'pod' - uses the card Birthing Pod to search the library for creatures that get bigger and bigger and bigger. Comes in a combo form with the keyword persist coupled with Melira, Sylvok Outcast (so the sacrificed creature doesn't die) or just a general build.
caw blade - uses Squadron Hawk and the swords such as Sword of War and Peace . Also uses Jace, the Mind Sculptor (or it did) and Stoneforge Mystic .
Forcefeed - killing the opponent by forcing them to draw cards. Like Nekusar, the Mindrazer
Grouphug - a deck type, commonly seen in multiplayer formats, that aims to help everyone, instead of actually 'winning'.
Hatebears - a strategy that aims to use creatures that disrupt the opponent. Leonin Arbiter , Thalia, Guardian of Thraben , Aven Mindcensor are examples.
Highlander - a format where you're not allowed more than one copy of each card (except basic land), came from the movie called highlander which had the phrase 'there can be only one'.
Living end - throws its own stuff into the graveyard then plays the card Living End to win.
Netdeck - any deck copied off the internet. Most commonly used to refer to decks that copy successful decks professionals have used. In some abstract sense every deck is a netdeck because every idea we have someone else has had before us (that's just statistically likely). It's often used by people to complain about others who they feel have just coped ideas. Contentious issue in magic - lots of arguments - best to avoid discussing.
Pillowfort - A deck that aims to sit and do nothing but punish opponents for attacking it. Cards like No Mercy and Ghostly Prison are common here.
Pox - A deck that uses the card Pox or Smallpox . Often mono-black. Often uses lots of discard (like 8-rack in some ways).
Rock - A G/B deck that aims to win slowly over a long time. Uses superior card draw with Dark Confidant , good killspells (Abrupt Decay ) and massive creatures (Tarmogoyf ).
Scapeshift - uses the card Scapeshift along with Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle . Get 7 or 8 lands (I forget now), play Scapeshift , search for Valakut and lots of mountains - instant win.
Stax - punishses the opponent and makes unable to do anything. Uses Winter Orb , Smokestack , Braids, Cabal Minion etc etc.
Stoneblade - like CawBlade
Storm - uses the storm mechanic to inflict massive damage in one turn. Uses the card Gut Shot .
Suicide black - a highly aggressive black strategy that pays a lot of life for advantages.
Superfriends - a deck with mainly planeswalkers.
Tron - a ramp strategy using the Mishra lands like Mishra's Factory etc. Hopes to get out a large creature like Wurmcoil Engine out early and win.
Turbofog - a deck that uses the card Fog to stop the opponent from hurting you whilst you put together some other game winning combo like Door to Nothingness or Maze's End .
Voltron - a deck that aims to put loads of enchantments on one creature to make it basically unkillable and then swing in for the win. Commonly seen with Zur the Enchanter in games of commander.
Zoo - a deck that uses cards like Wild Nacatl in a red, green, white shell in order to pay for cheap creatures that end up massive due to the lands you use.
July 6, 2014 10:32 a.m.
Sorry I made mistakes
For storm I said Gut Shot where I meant Grapeshot
For tron I said Mishra lands where I meant Urza lands like Urza's Power Plant , Urza's Tower , Urza's Mine
July 6, 2014 10:36 a.m.
Myogenesis - please take some care when explaining things to make sure that they are correct. I know that none of use are perfect and that I made some mistakes too (probably others I have missed) but your examples for hatebears, rock, and tron are somewhat wrong.
July 6, 2014 10:38 a.m.
MTGprojectzer0 says... #6
I did a Blog post on the type of decks seen for Modern. I've also linked them to the current active primers for each deck so as to let people see what are the discussions are currently ongoing.
July 6, 2014 11:02 a.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #7
Here goes:
12-post - This is a deck that uses Vesuva , Glimmerpost and Cloudpost to generate tons of mana and cast things like Eldrazi. Cloudpost is banned in Modern, so this is mainly a Legacy big ramp deck with Primeval Titan and such.
8-Rack - Tons of discard spells, allowing you to win the game with Shrieking Affliction and The Rack , hence the name.
Battle Cruiser - Generally a draft nomer, meaning that you pile all your resources into one big creature or into one very high CMC creature, like piling all your enchantments on one guy or casting Emrakul.
Birthing Pod - An archetype built around this card, using a toolbox of value creatures to win the game or assemble a combination of creatures to win the game.
Caw-Blade - An old Standard archetype that was so dominant that Stoneforge Mystic and Jace, the Mind Sculptor were banned in Standard. It's essentially a UW Control deck that plays 4 Squadron Hawk to stall the opponent in the early game.
Force Feed - Forces a player to draw so many cards that they mill themselves out and lose the game.
Gifts Ungiven - A toolbox deck that uses the namesake card usually to search for cards that are optimal in a situation or to combo with Unburial Rites and a big fatty.
Group Hug - An EDH deck that tries to benefit every player at the table to have a good time.
Group Slug - The opposite of Group Hug, trying to hurt every player equally by reducing resources with cards like Balance , etc.
Hatebears - A generally white or GW based deck that uses annoying small creatures like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben , Leonin Arbiter and Voice of Resurgence to screw over the overarching paradigms of the format it's played in, such as the use of fetchlands or lots of instants and sorceries.
Highlander - This generally refers to the Elder Dragon Highlander format, also known as EDH or Commander. You can learn about this more via Google.
Hive Mind - This deck looks to accelerate into Hive Mind , then cast Pact spells, forcing your opponent to cast them as well and then die on their upkeep by not being able to pay for the Pacts.
Landstill - As far as I know, it is a Legacy UW control deck utilizing Standstill for draw power and lots of wrath effects.
Living End - A combo deck that cycles creatures like Monstrous Carabid and Street Wraith until it can use Violent Outburst or Demonic Dread to cascade into Living End to bring all those creatures back into play to win the game.
Netdeck - Copying a deck from somewhere online.
Pillow Fort - Using enchantments like Ghostly Prison and Norn's Annex to stop the opponent from attacking.
Pox - Uses the namesake card to destroy the opponent's resources while creating your own source of card advantage to get ahead.
Rock - Generally B/G midrange, utilizing discard spells and resilient threats alongside card advantage engines like Dark Confidant .
Scapeshift - A control/combo deck that wins by casting Scapeshift with 7-8 lands in play to search for Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and many Mountains to deal the opponent 18+ damage. Usually RUG colored.
Show and Tell - Part of a deck alongside Sneak Attack called Sneak and Show in Legacy, trying to put into play a large creature like Griselbrand for small amounts of mana to win the game.
Solar Flare - An old Standard Esper control deck that won the game with Unburial Rites on a large creature while countering spells and killing creatures along the way.
Stax - Using cards like Thorn of Amethyst , Trinisphere and Lodestone Golem to prevent the opponent from casting spells, while beating down with big artifact creatures. This is mainly a Vintage deck with Mishra's Workshop , but is somewhat Legacy playable as well.
Stoneblade - A U/W or Esper deck that uses Stoneforge Mystic alongside an equipment package including Batterskull and Umezawa's Jitte to create an unbeatable board state, usually alongside counterspells and other card advantage.
Storm - An archetype that looks to cast a critical amount of spells in a single turn, using ritual effects like Pyretic Ritual or Dark Ritual alongside dig spells to build up enough Storm to cast a lethal Tendrils of Agony in Legacy or Grapeshot in Modern.
Suicide Black - A super-aggressive mono-black aggro deck of old that was willing to hurt itself with cards like Necropotence and Phyrexian Negator to win the game as quickly as possible.
Superfriends - A midrange-control deck that uses lots of planeswalkers, can be in any format.
Tron - A deck that assembles Urza's Tower , Urza's Mine and Urza's Power Plant to cast really large spells like Karn Liberated and Wurmcoil Engine very quickly.
Turbofog - This deck utilizes all sorts of Fog -like effects to stall the opponent out, and finds a way to reuse and reshuffle them to eventually win the game by milling the opponent out or some other win condition.
Voltron - Usually a Commander strategy, trying to suit up your Commander with enchantments or equipments to kill players with 21 points of Commander damage as quickly as possible instead of the normally needed 40 damage.
Zoo - A (usually) Naya-colored aggro deck, so named because Kird Ape and Wild Nacatl are the kinds of creatures you might find in a Zoo. The deck also uses burn spells and other removal to clear the way to win the game quickly.
Dear God that was tiring. I hope this helped.
July 6, 2014 11:18 a.m.
genuine139 says... #8
I am so utterly full of gratitude. THANK YOU for taking more than a moment and likely suffering some sore fingers to help me. Seriously thank you.
July 6, 2014 1 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #9
While most of the explanations given here are pretty correct, of the things I am familiar with at least one of the 3 explanations has glaring inaccuracies. The best thing to do is as people have said put "MTG" after your search criteria in Google. Another good place to look is going to be on MTG salvation wiki.
If it turns out that what you are searching is a particular card you can search for decks containing it on MTGTop8 and see what the decks are that run that card. From there you can try to figure out how it works or come here with a specific deck name and ask how that particular one works so that you can get a more in depth explanation of it.
July 6, 2014 3:22 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #12
Highlander is a 100 card singleton format. It is entirely separate from EDH.
One of the descriptions of Birthing Pod mentions Melira Pod and then says that the combo is Pod-Melira-Persist Creature. Birthing Pod
requires a tap and as such the combo uses a different sac outlet, Pod is just a ridiculously good tutor.
One of the descriptions of Tron doesn't even Mention the Urza lands and another says it is the Mishra lands. This was corrected later but it is still an inaccuracy that people need to beware of while reading through the explanations.
Turbofrog is an old standard Turbofog deck that used Haze Frog
as one of the fogs. Only one of the people picked up that he asked about Turbofrog, not Turbofog and that person didn't know what it was.
One of the Living End
explinations says that you get your cards into the graveyard and then play Living End
when the idea is to cascade into it. I know you still cast the card you cascade into and thus you do technically "play" it but if you do anything except cascade into it "Yer doin' it wrong"
Only one of the explanations of Stax even mentioned Smokestack
and not mentioning the namesake card I feel is a huge oversight.
July 6, 2014 4:12 p.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #13
@Gidgetimer My apologies. One's brain starts to fry when one has been typing for a long time. :)
I assumed that Highlander automatically meant EDH. However, that format sounds wonky. Who the heck plays that?
It should also be noted that another common version of Birthing Pod utilizes Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker alongside Deceiver Exarch , Restoration Angel or Zealous Conscripts to win the game. Melira Pod is somewhat more played, but Kiki-Pod is also quite powerful.
I wasn't aware that Haze Frog was ever playable. :) I assumed the original post was just a misspelling of TurboFog.
Experienced Living End players are very willing to simply suspend the card, so you are a little incorrect there. It is rarely suspended, but it can be done against the most grindy matchups like Jund.
From looking at some recent Vintage decklists, many MUD players have cut Smokestack from their decklists, and just play the standard stuff like Chalice of the Void , Thorn of Amethyst , etc. I may be wrong, however, but Smokestack is where the name comes from.
July 6, 2014 4:24 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #15
I am just getting into living end so while i was aware that Living End
was sometimes suspended I assumed that was just when you have had all of the cascade casts Remand
ed or you were otherwise out of ways to do it any other way and "doing it wrong" was better than not doing it at all.
Most of the vintage deck lists i found on MTGTop8 still run Smokestack
(I checked before posting to make sure) It is a bit hard to explain exactly how Stax works in a synopsis of the deck anyway which is why I suggested that specific posts be asked about any decks they don't understand.
As for who plays Highlander, apparently it is huge in Germany and Canada. Here is a link to the official Canadian rules. Apparently I was wrong about it being 100 exact deck size but as with any format minimum deck size is best deck size.
I wasn't trying to come across as knowing more or anything and I was being totally sincere with the "most of the explanations are great" it's just that as you said, when there is a huge list you are trying to power through mistakes get made.
July 6, 2014 4:45 p.m.
No you're quite right. Especially when teaching newer players. We must be thorough, excellent, and most importantly - correct.
July 6, 2014 4:51 p.m.
Highlander goes back to the early days of Legacy when it was still a new format and got its own banned list separate from the Vintage restricted list. The goal was to have the feeling of restricted cards like Vintage has, but with a Legacy price range. The format expanded to include Extended and Standard Highlander.
Different regions have their own rules and several of them expanded the format to be 100 card decks. If Prismatic is EDH's father, Highlander is its mother.
As for Stacks, its original name was "$t4Ks," which is an abbreviation for "the $4,000 Solution (to the Vintage question)." It's one of the decks that established Mishra's Workshop as a format pillar, since the stacks player could have access to lots of fast mana, while playing resource denial with Tangle Wire and Smokestack .
People playing against Stacks quickly find themselves losing a war of attrition as they become strapped for mana or struggle to commit threats to the board. Meanwhile, the Smokestack player sits on powerful mana sources like Mishra's Workshop and Metalworker , while gaining back their resources via Crucible of Worlds and Goblin Welder . Or, they just sit on a Wurmcoil Engine with both players sitting on an empty board.
I'll just add the name "Hatebears" comes from the deck having mostly 2/2s for 2 mana (Gaddock Teeg , Scavenging Ooze , etc.). They're "hate" cards on Grizzly Bears bodies.
"The Rock" was named by its maker, Sol Malka, after former pro-wrestler and actor, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Malka said he thought Phyrexian Plaguelord looked like Johnson. The deck goes back to Tempest/Urza's Saga era Standard. It's a G/B attrition-based midrange deck. The name today more commonly refers to G/B decks that abuse the synergy between Tarmogoyf , Dark Confidant , and Liliana of the Veil .
Myogenesis says... #2
A lot of these are modern/legacy builds that I'm not 100% familiar with, but I'll give it a shot.
12-post - no idea. great start on my part.
8-rack - The Rack /Shrieking Affliction deck - generally mono black, force your opponent to discard a lot and control them with Liliana of the Veil as they slowly die.
Battle cruiser - Seems to be a control deck that turns beat down late game with huge eldrazi, never head of it though.
Birthing pod - Meliria pod generally, uses the card Birthing Pod and Melira, Sylvok Outcast in conjunction with persist creatures like Kitchen Finks to go infinite (the persist creatures come back but dont get the -1/-1 counter, sac them to birthing pod again, comes back, etc.). Also just uses bears like Voice of Resurgence .
Caw blade - This is an older deck that I don't believe really exists, it uses a 2-cost white flyer whose name I can't recall. When you play the bird, you can tutor for the other 3 in your deck. Then you equip them and start pounding face.
Force feed - no idea
Gifts ungiven - Gifts Ungiven , probably some combo.
Group hug - More of an EDH deck, cards that give everyone draw, everyone life gain while you hide behind a pillowfort and are unattackable (Sphere of Safety effects).
Group slug - maybe the opposite of group hug? effects like Dictate of the Twin Gods and such.
Hatebears - uses low cost value creatures. Voice of Resurgence , Scavenging Ooze , that one 2-cost cat that kills artifacts who I can't recall.
Highlander - I've heard of it but don't remember.
Hive mind - Hive Mind , pretty silly deck, uses Pacts (Slaughter Pact , Pact of Negation ) so that your opponent copies them but then can't pay for them next turn through various tricks. quite hilarious.
Landstill - no idea, i assume just land destruction
Living end - Living End
Netdeck - an unoriginal deck you took from online. ie/ building a deck that placed 1st at an event that you saw on MTG top 8 or something.
Pillow fort - hiding behind defensive walls and enchantments such as Sphere of Safety effects.
Pox - Smallpox
Rock - value creatures. like Desecration Demon . a midrange build with a good suite of removal and creatures.
Scapeshift - Scapeshift - don't know more details
Show and tell - Show and Tell - don't know more details, pretty sure it sneaks out game winning creatures.
Solar flare - no idea
Stax - no idea
Stoneblade - no idea
Storm - cards such as Empty the Warrens , spam a bunch of spells like Gitaxian Probe and Manamorphose to draw and get your "storm count" up (how many spells you've cast in the turn) in order to cast one giant storm spell. uses rituals to generate mana like Desperate Ritual .
Suicide black - no idea
Superfriends - basically a deck full of planeswalkers, who are all friends.
Tron - Karn Liberated and artifacts to control and blow up your opponent.
Turbofrog - turbo FROG? no idea. turbo FOG is generally just all Fog effects then uses cards like Maze's End in the background to win, similar to pillowfort
Voltron - stacking one creature to be a beast, comes from an older style deck that I don't know though. basically hexproof + enchantments
And Zoo - aggro deck with cards like the recently unbanned Wild Nacatl . generally naya colours i believe (red green white).
Sorry I only know about half. hope it helps.
July 6, 2014 10:27 a.m.