What makes a “good” deck?

To make a great deck, you need to make a good one first. You may have seen players try to build a competitive deck with cards that are good individually but ultimately do not work together.

The Number One Rule for building a good deck is there needs to be at least one main and proactive plan. As long as every card in your deck advances your strategy and pushes you towards your end goal, your base strategy is sound. It does not matter whether the goal is to get the opponent’s life to zero, to infect them, or to mill them out.

For example: Every card in a Zoo deck is a threat. Even the few cards which are not creatures can “attack” the opponent. The opponent is in trouble if they do not have an answer for each card played. Another example would be in a typical Blue-White “Control” deck where the plan is to actively trade resources until late game, when creature lands and unremovable threats can then take over the board.

It isn’t always easy to see why a card does not fit your deck. When creatures in a burn deck gets outclassed, a removal spell could help push through some more damage. Why is Flame Slash not a good option even though it’s stronger than Lightning Bolt and has the same cost? Flame Slash may be a sorcery spell, but then so is Lava Spike. Flame Slash may help if it lets your creatures get in, but the card may also have no effect on the game whatsoever. To simplify, the card just does not fit the goal of Burn. You do not want to trade resources with resources. You want to trade resources with life.

There are of course other important things like maintaining a Good Mana Base and Keeping Your Deck Consistent, but those are already fairly well known.

The other Number One Rule of making a good deck is to make sure there isn’t already a superior version of it (The Prime Directive). In a competitive environment, an Illusion deck based on Lord of the Unreal is outclassed by Merfolk. Illusions and hexproof may be appealing, but there are simply not enough lords or reasons to play the deck. You cannot have the most competitive deck if there is something better.  

Now we will delve into what many players overlook. The main archetypes are as they always were but the specifics muddled over time. They best way to clear things up is to go back to the beginning, where the Names Had a Purpose.

Aggro - Threats. An aggressive plan which presents as many threats as possible; each threat can win the game on its own if left unanswered.

Midrange - Card Advantage. Typical Midrange cards include large creatures like Tarmogoyf that can present a clock while simultaneously invalidating multiple threats from the opponent. Midrange also includes the Wrath of God effects where the use of one card removes many threats at once and potentially resets the board.

Combo - Gamechangers. The point of a combo is to use multiple cards that may or may not do much on their own to create a game changing effect. Game changing effects can be massive mana ramping for “bombs” (e.g. Karn Liberated), or even eliminating an opponent immediately.

Control – The original clock lumps all forms of control together as one large entity. There are two main types of control:

Control – Reactive: One-for-Ones. These are the Counterspells -- trading resources with your opponent as they play them. This area also includes targeted removal spells.

Disruption – Proactive: One-for-Ones (usually). These are the Thoughtseize effects. You trade your resources with your opponent before they play them. You can proactively strip away problem cards at the expense of using more mana than the opponent and not being as capable of containing top decks. This area also includes lockout cards (e.g. Blood Moon and Chalice of the Void).

Tempo (Aggro-Control) - Staying Ahead. Present efficient threats and temporarily prevent the opponent from meaningfully interacting.

The archetypes were originally defined in a way where you could extract meaning from them. While the original definitions all meant something important, the clock wasn’t expanded on too deeply, and some of the archetype names can be confusing, namely Control and Aggro-Control. Many people understand what control is – Counterspell, Thoughtseize and everything in between. This explains why Control originally had the largest share of the clock. To solve this issue, I’ve simply split the main types of effects as Control and Disruption.

Aggro-Control is renamed Tempo here to avoid confusion. (Aggro, Control and Aggro-Control, are all different).

Adding these changes produces this new clock:

The clock is fairly straight forward in this respect. Archetypes will generally be highly favorable and effective over the one just counter-clockwise to it and vice versa.

Aggro > Tempo > Disruption > Control > Combo > Midrange > Aggro

Aggro threats (e.g. Goblin Guide, Monastery Swiftspear) come into play earlier and deal more damage. Low mana cost cards like Goblin Guide and Monastery Swiftspear can be played quickly and before the opponent can play counter magic. Tempo decks have trouble keeping up, especially when the aggro player has already emptied his or her hand. Disruptive strategies (e.g. discard card effects) do not work when there are no cards left to be played.

Midrange > Aggro

Midrange creatures are bigger, mana efficient, and invalidate aggro in combat. Midrange decks can gain incremental advantage over the Tempo deck if it is not disruptive enough. Card such as Anger of the Gods punish aggro effects for going wide in an attempt to overwhelm the board.

Midrange cards are often expensive and have trouble interacting with the stack.

Combo > Midrange

Combo decks aim to carry out their combo with little risk of failure while ignoring the board control Midrange decks have. Most midrange strategies affect the board or are board-based (e.g. large but slow creatures, board wipes).

Cards used in combos usually do little on their own but work together to acquire the resources necessary to kill the opponent or to change the state of the game (e.g. Channel + Fireball or assembling the Urza's Power Plant, Urza's Mine and Urza's Tower). Combo decks, typically faster than Aggro decks, worry less about life total so long as their combo is successful.

Control > Combo

Control uses versatile one for one spells to trade resources until it can play a late game finisher. Control can answer combos with counters to remove important pieces of the combo to gain “virtual” card advantage. Each Control spell has uses on its own while each Combo card does little to nothing on its own. As Midrange has many board control cards, Control gains some virtual card advantage while retaining the ability to counter expensive Midrange threats. Permission spells won’t stop anything that has already happened.

Disruption typically uses discard effects to acquire information on the opponent’s strategy and/or stripping away important cards in hand. Disruption also proactively invalidates cards with effects like Chalice of the Void or Blood Moon. Note that proactively attacking Combos is effective for stopping them early game by removing the few win conditions, but there is always the small chance that the combo player may top deck the necessary part of the combo.

Disruption is less effective late game when the opponent has few cards in hand and provides a mana disadvantage early on.

Tempo > Control

Tempo is able to use mana efficient spells to gain advantage over mana inefficient disruption spells. Tempo decks also play evasive threat such as Delver of Secrets  ^Flip, kept alive by counter magic. Many tempo cards are good at going under counter magic, and cards like Remand help maintain the current, winning, board state. Tempo cards are weaker than alternatives, which leaves little capability of stopping a faster threat.

Modern decks will successfully incorporate opposing archetypes on the clock in one deck. Creating a deck with multiple focuses allows the player to cover their weaknesses. An Aggro/Combo deck that might otherwise be stopped by Midrange can combo them out. A control deck that has let a few threats slip through its counter magic can Supreme Verdict to clear the board. An aggro deck facing Tarmogoyfcan opt to Lightning Bolt the opponent multiple times for the win.

Strong decks that are able to utilize one strategy very well do emerge occasionally. Dredge plays as a very effective Aggro deck. The deck uses its graveyard instead of mana to produce threats at an alarming rate.

To gain the upper hand, it is important to know both which archetypes on the clock you can play and which ones the opponent can play.

Combo and tempo can be played simultaneously in infect decks. Use pump spells to “combo” kill the opponent that plays slower creatures or gains card advantage. Pump spells can alternatively defend your creatures and/or prevent the opponent from interacting with them.

There is a dilemma of knowing when not to incorporate opposing strategies. For example, a Goblins deck should not be splashing for cards like Deprive and Logic Knot as there is little synergy. Goblins typically want to present aggressive threats to kill the opponent quickly while Depriveor Logic Knot are slow and stall until late game. Pay attention to which cards work together effectively in a deck.

ARCHETYPE BLEEDING

Adding versatile or powerful cards is one method of attaining a well-rounded deck. Versatile cards include the various charms and commands as well as the well-established Lightning Bolt. It can play Aggro or Control by removing threats or serving as one itself. Many Lightning Bolts can also have the game changing effect of debilitating an opponent without any interaction on the board.

Versatile cards (e.g. Lightning Bolt and pump spells): Can serve as different points on the clock.

Cards such as Supreme Verdict are powerful enough where only one per game is necessary. Drawing one per game gives Midrange the lead needed to develop a winning amount of card advantage against Aggro decks.

Powerful cards (e.g. Blood Moon, Supreme Verdict): Can provide enough of an archetype for a deck through a minimal amount of cards.

TRANSFORMATIONAL SIDEBOARDS

Another option for a dynamic deck is to use a transformational sideboard. Swapping out a major portion of a deck after sideboarding allows for repositioning on the clock. Be wary as this leaves little room for other helpful cards, and this strategy can backfire if the opponent’s deck can just as fluidly swap archetypes.

When looking at the top Modern decks, they all have a clear focus, are the best at what they do, and cover multiple areas on the metagame clock.

The chart above depicts the tier one modern metagame (January 2017) and their positions on the clock.  

Infect can play tempo through small, evasive creatures backed by counter magic and pump spells, or it can simply combo kill the opponent with two pump spells and one attack phase. If the opponent has removal or counter spells to prevent combos, pump spells can be saved and used for protection as needed. If the opponent is playing a faster deck like Affinity, Infect can immediately end the game with an unblocked attacker and some pump spells.

Jund gains card advantage by outclassing the opponent’s creatures or by removing important cards from the opponents had while outvaluing them with cards like Dark Confidant, Liliana of the Veil, or Tarmogoyf. Discard effects can strip combos, while removal can eliminate problematic threats.  

Burn presents fast and aggressive creatures that will win the game quickly if not contained. Burn threats must be killed or they will kill the opponent. If the deck’s creatures are outclassed or removed, a volley of burn can finish off the opponent despite lack of a board position.

Affinity is primarily an aggressive deck that wins by swarming the opponent with low cost creatures. Almost every card (including land) presents a threat that must be dealt with. To prevent hate cards from gaining advantage, discard and lockdown effects are sided in. Disruptive elements can be included to counteract midrange and control cards sided in against it. The need for synergistic cards limits the deck’s multi-archetype capabilities., but the deck retains a small chance to develop combo-like board states. Creatures with special abilities like Arcbound Ravager or Cranial Plating both give the deck combo elements. Arcbound Ravager can provide Inkmoth Nexus with enough +1 counters for an infect kill.  

Dredge forgoes conventional mana to utilize its graveyard instead to produce threats as fast and efficiently as possible. Due to Dredge’s ability to recur threats and invalidate card advantage, midrange answers that do not exile creatures act merely as tempo plays.

Tron decks utilize mana ramp to cast massive cost threats. Midrange wrath effects (namely Oblivion Stone and sometimes Pyroclasm) can be used to slow down faster decks.

As there are very few ways to destroy lands in Modern, Tron thus does not have the normal weakness to control that other Combo decks have. However, should the lands be rendered useless by cards such as Blood Moon, Tron becomes an ineffective assortment of overpriced Midrange cards.  

Bant Eldrazi attempts to overwhelm the opponent with aggressive midrange creatures. Some acceleration is used to put threats out faster, and most threats have innate disruptive or controlling elements.

Thought-Knot Seer – discard effect

Reality Smasher – protects itself from threats

Eldrazi Displacer – can use it to protect your creatures, to prevent attacking or blocking, reset counters and enchantments

Delver of Secrets  ^Flip decks attempt to deploy an efficient threat while halting troublesome effects and creatures by countering removal. Unlike most Delver decks, Grixis Delver contains Midrange elements to ensure that aggressive strategies can be contained.

The Metagame Clock is an old concept that still applies to the current Modern metagame. Reviewing theories can help players build novel decks and better analyze matchups. The top Modern decks all follow the Clock and Modern can be meta-gamed accordingly.

Who's the Beatdown

What I Know About Magic

Recognizing Puzzles

The Midrange Archetype

Why Midrange is Flawed