HELP! n00b deck builder - Where to start?

Standard Deck Help forum

Posted on Sept. 2, 2017, 1:05 a.m. by oldmanm0nk3y

Ok. I have been "playing" since Origins. I don't have much mat time at all. So i know that i need to improve on this alone. But apart from that. i have no idea what cards appeal to me (colour) what clan etc. WTF do i do. How do i know whats good or my play style, how do i know if i even have one? Is there a way to learn? I mean, I'm not a good deck builder so how can i determine what I'm good at etc?

Any pointers would be appreciated.

PickleNutz says... #2

Im not a huge standard fan, but Red and Golgari have been very popular. I would start there.

September 2, 2017 1:27 a.m.

Mycosynthlithium says... #3

The easiest thing to do is just come up with various ideas build them test them using the playtest function here against other decks of your own, or even other people's decks.

You will learn a tremendous amount just by doing that alone.

But first thing is first. You have to just go build some stuff. Most decks for me usually start as around a single core mechanic or combo. I use that as a starting point and then start throwing things at it that work well around the starting point and that's basically how it goes.

I used to be just like you (not even a meme) and I basically got into it by building crazy amounts of stuff virtually here and on another site. Virtual deck builder sites are awesome, takes alot of guess work out and makes it fun. Best part: I don't have to spend money buying packs or cards and then randomly trying to cobble things together after the fact. I can test until I am satisfied first and then only buy what I need for what I want.

Just start building some stuff man it gets easier after the first few decks.

September 2, 2017 1:31 a.m.

darkmatter32x says... #4

I started playing during Urza block. A few tribal cards pops up here and there. I started with with mono black skeleton deck. From there I would slap in some cards that I think would work. Play it a few round see if it works, switch around some cards and see how it interacts. Experimenting on card interactions will make you a better deck builder.

On average, start off with 40% Land 30% creature and 30% Support spell.

September 2, 2017 3:21 a.m.

jetsfanforever14 says... #5

Idk if you watch the pro tour or any of the grand prix, but I know for me personally it helped me cuz I watched what they played, how they played, and if its something that I would play.. Plus I enjoy it. And theres usually a good variety of decks so you will be able to learn alot! Hope that helps!

September 2, 2017 6:02 a.m.

multimedia says... #6

Deck building is a process. Learning from the beginning that it's a process and not just jamming a bunch of cards and calling it a deck is a good lesson to start with. The more understanding you get about this game in the beginning will help you much more later on.

Here's a straight forward in simple terms look at the steps of the deck building process:

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1. Choose an archetype
2. Choose a theme
3. Choose color or colors
4. Choose creatures
5. Choose removal spells
6. Choose draw spells
7. Choose a win condition
8. Using these cards make a mana curve
9. Make a manabase of lands using the mana curve as reference

I'm not going to go indept with each of these steps, but I will expand on the first step "Choose an archetype". If you're interested in learning more about the other steps I can expand on them later on.

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I'm going to ask you a series of questions. The purpose of these questions are to hopefully help you into a right direction and to get some ideas flowing.

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1. What is your favorite color to play in Magic? You say that you don't know, but you have to have some idea of the five colors and which one you like the most. Out of the decks you've played or seen what color peaked your interest and what colors didn't?


2. What is your favorite card currently in Standard? This may be a hard question, but the answer alone could help a lot in what direction to go.


3. What kind of Magic gameplay are you interested in?
   • Do you like to continuously attack your opponent with little creatures, win the game fast with least interaction with opponent?
   
   
   • React to what your opponent is doing with spells, play small and big creatures and have average time to long games?
   
   
   • Control your opponent, the game from the start, lots of interaction with spells, a long game and win the game with a single finisher?
   
   
   • Use a combination of cards to create a game winning combo, games can be fast or long?

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These questions will help to determine what type of archetype you prefer to play. It will also determine what colors are best for you because certain colors fit with certain archetypes. Picking an archetype is an important start to building a deck because it gives you an idea of how the deck is supposed to play out. The four main archetypes in Magic are Aggro, Midrange, Control and Combo. Of course there's more than four total archetypes and all these archetypes can be expanded upon or mixed together, but in the simplest terms these are the four to start with.

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Aggro:

1. A current Standard example of Aggro is Ramunap Red. It uses little creatures to attack your opponent in the early game and finish the game with burn spells. There's very little interaction with the opponent other than reducing their life with burn and making creatures unblockable. The advantages of Aggro are win the game fast with the least interaction with the opponent as possible. The colors red and white are most associated with Aggro.

Midrange:

2. A current example of Midrange is Temur (Green, Red and Blue) Energy. It uses a combination of small creatures, big creatures and spells, more interaction with your opponent. These decks are built around a theme of energy. The advantages of Midrange are you can go big and small with creatures, there's some interaction with the opponent and you win with big creatures. The colors green and black are most associated with Midrange.

Control:

3. A current example of Control is Izzet (Blue and Red) Control. It's purpose is to control the game from the start with spells: removal, counterspells and draw spells. The advantages of Control is complete interaction with opponent. Playing spells not creatures, countering and/or removing what your opponent plays, drawing cards and winning with a single finisher. The color blue is most associated with Control.

Combo:

4. A current example of Combo is Azorius (White and Blue) Gift. These decks are built around a theme of reanimation. Using a combination of cards the strategy is to get God-Pharaoh's Gift and other creatures into the graveyard and then reanimate Gift: bring it back into play for a cheaper mana cost than it's starting mana cost of seven mana. Once it's in play you can start bringing back creatures from the graveyard and attacking with them. The colors blue and black are also associated with Combo.

These four examples of archetypes are a small window into current Standard, but hopefully they give you some understanding of what I mean by archetype.

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Normally beginners start out with Aggro because this is most straight forward way to learn, easiest for someone new to the game to understand. Play creatures and attack your opponent, easy right, but I'm against this. I advocate Midrange as the archetype to start out with it.

My advice to you is to build a two color Midrange deck. This advice could of course change if you answer some of my above questions to get a better idea that's good for you.

I suggest this because this archetype gives you a little bit of everything and it's the most customizable later on when you get more grasp of the game. Starting out building a deck and playing it with a little bit of everything is in my opinion important because Magic is not just about creatures and attacking. It's a huge part of the game, but there's much more. Midrange lets you play a combination of small creatures and big creatures usually with a theme, some spells with opponent interaction and typically you win the game with big creatures.

Midrange gives color freedom which is also important when beginning. You can play any combination of colors with this archetype.

Good luck and if you have any questions shoot them to my user page, multimedia.

September 2, 2017 8:43 a.m.

Argy says... #7

For the EASIEST way into Standard and deck building buy a Planeswalker Deck.

Choose ANY Planeswalker deck. Do it randomly by throwing a dice, if you can't decide which one you want.

Search online for suggestions how to tweak it to make it stronger, OR playtest against other decks on this site and tweak it yourself.

You can also ask for help and we will suggest ways you can tweak it.

Play it at FNM then you will get some ideas how to tweak it some more.

September 3, 2017 12:16 a.m.

goblinguiderevealpls says... #8

If you dont have any time, i wouldn't recommend standard at all

By the time you build and acquire a standard deck and if you arent used to years of deckbuilding, tje deck will rotate out and you wont be able to play it anymore for the most part. Standard is the most expensive and fastest changing format.

Also, do not buy and attempt to play reconstructed decks unless everyone else has precons, as you are wasting a ton of money on limited and mediocre at best decks that are usually cheaper to buy the cards individually, almost no precon in existence can compete with any self-constructed or meta decks, even the modern event deck isnt worth the money

You're best off playing casual pauper, legacy or edh with friends as they have the largest card pool and dont have rotations, so you have access to nearly every card which makes building decks easier

Standard is actually more expensive than modern right now and its a huge waste of time and money if you aren't new, it is designed as a format for new players because its cards are the most recently available but has kind of turned into another competitive format for veteran wealthy players to try new meta once a year when its DCI sanctioned

But as far as building a deck, you want synergy, cards that work well or combine together to achieve a common goal, for instance running creature aggro where 15/60 cards are removal spells is neither synergy nor shares the same goal, but a deck with 60 aggro/control central cards, 40+ control cards and 20- card combos to finish control games are examples of decks with good synergy

Theres 3 types of decks in magic, control, combo and aggro

Essentially you want to set a goal for a deck and focus specifically on thar goal, some examples are tribal, where you focus on spells that support a particular creature subtype and focus on combat damage and creature support (aggro), or control/combo where you play control to buy time before winning with a game-ending card interaction (combo) or render your opponent defenseless while halting their offense until you can freely and safely win the game (control)

Tribal is the easiest of these to build, learn and play since it just requires a load of creatures of the same type and spells that buff or protect them, and it onlt requires combat damage instead of a calculated control game or highly skilled combos that are hard to play correctly

Aggro is usually the best archetype for beginners, pick your favorite creature type and start building around it!

September 15, 2017 5:14 p.m.

oldmanm0nk3y says... #9

Thanks goblinguiderevealpls so basically, new people shouldn't be apart of standard is what you are saying?

September 16, 2017 12:51 a.m.

Argy says... #10

Standard has actually dropped a lot in price over the past year.

There are some very viable decks to play at the moment that aren't super expensive to build eg. Cats

September 16, 2017 12:59 a.m.

goblinguiderevealpls says... #11

If you are doing tournaments yea, tournamemt play is rough on new players because a lot of people run flavor of the month powerful decks and in standard its limited card pool makes it harder to compete with the best cards/decks in rhe set with the less overpowered ones, i'd start casually with friends in legacy and play whatever cards you want to learn how to deckbuild, standard is all meta sheep now sadly, unless you have a casual friwnds group

But multiplayer commander and 1v1 legacy have the largest card pools outside power 9 and so you can run a bunch of 50 cent crazy cards from 20 ywars ago instead of mediocre new ones that drop in price if they dont see play outside of standard

Its the only format you lose money by not playing, which is rough if you're on a time constraint

To start, once youve picked an archetype and some cards to form the shell of your deck, in 60 card you want 18-24 lands roughly and in 100 card 27-40, aggro runs less lands and low cost spells where combo and control run more lands and a mix of low cost control and high cost wincons, in contrast

Id recommend even proxying your first deck? Makes an easy playthrough, to make a playtest proxy is easy as pie just print it to the size of a magic card and sleeve/glue it over a basic land for stability, or you could just write on a basic land with pen

Its always fun to play Black Lotus for 5 cents of ink xp

Or tappedout is of course another resource to playtest it and compile the list

But whether you go standard or other formats, if you go to gatherer and search by format you can see all of thr cards in that format, in some cases its a loooot of cards so you might want to try refining your search a bit, bur essentially scroll through gatherer of the desired format until you find cards you might enjoy, and then start deciding which color(s) and theme/archetype to run based off of cards that you see

You can also go to mtggoldfish.com to see what the current meta of each format consists of

September 16, 2017 1:10 a.m. Edited.

goblinguiderevealpls says... #12

And it dropping in price doesmt change the fact that in other formats decks stay legal unless banned, standard decks become illegal in 12 months, which makes it the most expensive format over time

Just trying to be informative of the price notion, nothing more!

His origins deck isnt legal anymore.. :(

For example, i spent 3000$ish on modern affinity 5 years ago and the cards have remained same price and legality, and same with my burn deck that only cost like 700$ And multiple hundred dollar commander decks, so between 1p decms thats roughly 5000$ Im deck value that has not dropped in price

Ive built around 15 100-500$ standard decks in the same 5 years, so 1500-7500 somewhere between there, and almost all of the cards i spent the money on are worthless now

Long story short if you're on a tight budget, standard is the most expensive of all formats because its the only ome where you actually lose money on rotation, and to some people its a price to pay for a shifting meta but its not a very good investment long term, i wont sway you from playing it as its a fun format im just saying it isnt cheap, if that matters to you :)

Its good for new players to get a starter deck of their liking amd tinker with it, just dont expect your first few decks to be godly, deckbuilding takes a lot of experience , calculating amd research to master,

But the absolute best thing you can do is 1. Look at your formats card pool options for deck ideas and potential threats, and 2. Plan your deck based on your findings/archetype

You do have to run the questions mentioned above to help decide on a deck, there is a lot of options in standard, just search by standard format on gatherer and go to town!

September 16, 2017 1:28 a.m. Edited.

goblinguiderevealpls says... #13

Anyways if you have any further questions just enable messages, this forums publicity may present an obstacle to my advice I cant avoid, of which i cant disclose

September 16, 2017 1:36 a.m. Edited.