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by Gandalf
Deck Genesis: Gandalf's Strategy from 0 to 60 This month I have decided to take a departure from my normal style of stepping through the construction of a single Type II deck, as I have gotten several requests in the last few months for a different style of deck, from the new Extended format to a limited format of Type II. The real secrets to deckbuilding are not something anyone can really pin their finger on, a single concept that is guaranteed to spawn a successful deck type. I've learned quite a bit about the style of deckbuilding in the last few weeks, as I have joined the NYU Proving Grounds tournament group, dedicated to a semester-long string of tournaments in the game Shadowfist. Now, I have no cards in the game and I had no understanding of the rules or mechanics before joining, but once the rules were explained for me I was able to put it all in terms I knew already... I translated the rules and mechanics to M:tG so I could begin playing. In the last week, I have taken interest in building my own 'Fist deck to play with, rather than borrowing the deck of an experienced player, so I can try my hand at deckbuilding and see if I can practice what I preach. Another player in the tournament group is comparable to the ever-present M:tG newbie, with a deck easily exceeding 200 cards... in a format where there is not even a minimum deck size! I took his deck and cut the chaff off, whittling it down to a fairly well-balanced 66-card deck. Observing that he never got the resources he needed to get into the tournament game, I altered the proportions of resource cards and the 'casting-costs' of the character cards to a semblance of the Sligh curve. Needless to say (in my infinite arrogance), I came in second out of 6 players in the tournament, winning the first game outright thanks to my incredibly Sligh-like deck speed and well-picked disruptive tactics. The second and final game (we were playing a multiplayer format for the interests of time), I finished in second place, with the #1-ranked player of Shadowfist (the reigning World Champion) in the #1 spot. The ease with which I was able to shift my deckbuilding skills tells me that there is at least something universal that I can explain as an example of good deckbuilding strategy. The first and most important part to deckbuilding is to decide how you want to win the game. In M:tG you have three choices, with some branches to each choice. You can win by damage (I'll touch heavily on this later), by Poison Counters, or by 'decking' your opponent, the Millstone effect. Only two of these effects have spawned sucessful deck types, because as a general rule poison decks are too complicated to run effectively, and the poison creatures too expensive for reasonable use. This disparity in goals, to win by decking or by damage, has caused three deck archetypes to arise, the Active (aggressive) deck, the Reactive (control) deck, and the Lock deck (usually also a control deck or with heavy control elements). Active decks use efficiency and (recently) even mathematical concepts such as probability theory (leading to the formation of the mana curve), usually with a disruptive element to the deck as well... such as Hymns and Icequakes/Strip Mines in the Necrodeck, Winter Orbs in the Senor Stompy deck, Armageddon in the White Weenie or G/W critter deck. Reactive decks almost always use Blue as the main (or one of the main) deck colors, thanks to the availability of Countermagic. Popular side-choices are Black for discard effects, White for versatility in permanent destruction ("White can do anything"), or Red for efficient creature destruction and direct damage. Lock decks take some aspect of the game or the rules and use it against you, or certain combinations of cards that work well together to generate a situation in which only one player (the lock player) can run their deck strategy. Even these deck types don't neccesarily have only one of the strategies towards winning games running behind it sucessfully. I have seen and built aggressive Millstone decks, and the Counter-Burn control deck won by direct damage and hard-to-kill creatures like Frenetic and Rainbow Efreets. So, you really have two hard choices when you sit down and make a deck. Do you want to win by damage, or by the Millstone effect? Do you want to have an active, reactive, or Lock deck to achieve your victory conditions? My advice here is to take a good, hard look at yourself. A "Good Player" knows to play decks that fit their playing style, or is attuned to the way that they think. On the professional level, a "Good Player" is a player who is able to adapt their playing style to the situation at hand, because there are often times when you will have to switch your playing style and even how you look at a problem in the middle of a match. I read examples of this endlessly in tourney reports on the Magic Dojo , where someone will say, "Oh, I knew how to beat such-and-such a deck; it's all in the such-and-such card". MaroGeddon Vs. MaroGeddon can be decided usually by the Millstone effect, by the interactions of Armageddon and Thawing Glaciers, and the ability of both decks to hose the opponents' main strategy. Necropotence Vs. Stasis is usually decided by the ability to lock down a Necropotence and DO NOTHING for the rest of the game. To understand which sort of deck suits you best, certain personal traits can usually lead you in one direction or another. People who are impatient should almost certainly play an aggressive deck rather than a control or lock deck; sadists should play Turbo-Stasis or The Prison style decks; etc. etc. ad nausiem. Generalities, unfortunately, are just that: general. If, by examining your personality, you try the play style and feel that it suits you, then that is probably the style of deck you should play... or at least start out playing. I will use myself as an example. As a player, I prefer faster decks, where the essential shape of the game will be delineated in the first few formative turns. This lends me to play aggressive decks or Lock decks, and I only rarely try my hand in control decks. I am in general a manipulative guy, which makes it hard to sustain personal relations =), but is just right for lock decks and a certain style of aggressive decks. Now, I have a choice to make: do I want to play a lock deck, or do I want to play an aggressive deck? In tournaments I will stick with whichever has the higher win ratio or the best chances against the current tournament field, but I tend towards lock decks as a bad habit of being a slightly... sadistic... kind of guy. Hence my creations for this article, the Sandsipoise deck, Angband, and even a Black Weenie deck that, after sideboarding, could function as a Desolation/Pox land-lock deck. I try to make these decks as aggressive as possible, so that I don't have to worry about getting called for time at tournaments. It also prevents my opponent from knowing the entire contents of my deck after the first game. For tactical reasons, I stick with my choice. Once you know what to play, you have to get an idea of what cards would fit your deck strategy, and from that you can choose which color or colors will be the main framework of your deck. Then, you have to be certain that your deck is using only maximally efficient spells, creatures, etc., because any inefficiency will decrease your chances of victory. For lock decks, you have to work out the basic framework of your lock and add in cards that compliment that lock, hose your opponents' strategy, or protect the lock. Squandered-Stasis, my current Type I deck, basically ignores the opponent's deck strategy and tries to get the lock going as fast as possible. Once my position is secure, I will fetch the Black Vice and Copy Artifacts that I need to attain victory conditions. Control decks should work off the concept of maximum utility and card advantage, usually with protective spells such as countermagic to avoid premature death or destruction. And aggressive decks should work off the theory of maximum/minimum: maximum effect with minimum waste. Creatures should be chosen to hose opponents' strategies (such as Whirling Dervish, that gigantic pain in the ass) and to be permanent; as creatures are the most efficient source of damage per mana, you want to be sure that yours live to hit as long as possible. This causes the long and exhausting process of deck tuning, once you have chosen the base that you are using for your chosen deck. Manipulating the quantities of cards, substituting one card for a similar card with different effects, and occasionally a complete color-change can be made during the period of playtesting and deck tuning, to give your deck the maximum winning potential against the field AND versatility so that unknown decks don't make your deck just shrivel up and die. This is the hardest part of deck genesis, the part that in the past had been left solely to me in this article. The difficulty of this process, overall, is probably the single largest contributor to the fact that h Internet has such a widespread impact on the M:tG tournament scene. In this process, it is probably best to play against each popular deck in the tournament scene and note which cards were the most useful, which cards could have prevented a loss, and which cards you drew you wised were ANYthing else. =) By doing this, you can decide which cards can be reduced in quantity, which cards you want more of, and which cards you want your sideboard to compose of.
Now, I will create a hypothetical situation for deckbuilding. Say, for example, that I want to build an aggressive creature deck that has disruption techniques to hinder my opponents' play strategies. The first thing I should choose is what disruptive techniques I should include, such as Discard, Winter Orb, Armageddon, Wrath of God, Theft, Nevinyrral's Disk, Jokulhaups, etc. IMHO, the best choices for this deck style would be to play a White or Black Weenie deck... as Black can use Disks, Orbs, Discard, and other limited disruptive effects such as Pox (a favorite of mine for quite a while), Land Destruction, and quality SB cards like Gloom, Dystopia, Anhk of Mishra etc. White has massive board control abilities, with point-source creature/artifact/enchantment removal and mass-disruption spells like Armageddon and Wrath, while also being able to support the Disk and Orb. Both have good inexpensive creatures, although White is lacking in good high-power creatures, which Black can find in relative abundance. Now we have a decision: Deck speed, or deck versatility? Black is faster thanks to Dark Rituals and inexpensive creatures, while White has the ability to nullify almost anything, not to mention the "new Time Walk", Abeyance. For both, you can fit in the basic skeleton of the creature base: 18-20 creatures, with a high number of low-cost creatures. Both can use 8 Knights (normal and Pumpable), Black has Fallen Askari while White has Longbow Archer... similarities exist between the two to such an extent that the only hard decision in building a 'standard' style deck needs only to ask the first question that differentiates the two. Unfortunately, the White Weenie deck has a tendency to win this argument, as it fares much better against control-style decks while still working against decks similar to itself. I prefer Black Weenie, unorthodox style... but that may change soon if I am forced to play without Dystopia in the SB and Contagions in the main deck. I like it, but I am still going to play what wins me games =). Individuality can express itself here. Perhaps you would play White Weenie, using Winter Orbs rather than Armageddon. Perhaps you would play Black Weenie using mostly Creatures and carrying 4 Necrotogs standard... the basis for one of the foundation MiViLite decks uses that concept to powerful effect. There really is an uncountable variety of what decks you can produce with the cards available in the tournament pool. While the fantasy-realm of Dominaria is supposed to contain infinite planes, the game based around it really can be played with infinite variations. Now, I will let you in on a little secret I discovered: the key to playing Sealed Deck lies along similar lines. I am pretty good at Sealed Deck when I don't get a totally junky set of cards (happens frequently though...), because I am already used to playing with a manipulative and calculating mind. Sealed Deck, the inexorable creature brawl, is all about sneaking points of damage while avoiding taking damage yourself. The best way to do this is to do the process I just outlined for Constructed Deck in reverse; to discover what kind of a deck you can build for yourself from the card pool at hand. Sure, the essence of the environment allows decks with solid removal spells to do well for themselves, but is that really any different from the Constructed environment? I don't think so... you want to be able to kill creatures there too. Maximum efficiency is key, but what is efficient is totally different: rather than just look at creature casting cost in relation to power and toughness, but creature special abilities like flying, landwalking, protection, regeneration, combat alterers, etc. Individual playing skill is enormous in Sealed Deck. Most people think it is the luck of the draw, getting a God Pack with Red burn spells and fatty creatures with good abilities. If you'll notice, at sealed-deck tournaments, you'll usually see many of the same faces in the Top 8... they understand the environment and play accordingly. Well, good luck all... I hope that I have been able to enlighten you in the method of creating a sucessful deck for our favorite obsession. I believe that this will be the last edition of Deck Genesis. Next month, expect an analysis of the Tempest expansion, with constructed-deck tips, sealed-deck tips, and advice on the upcoming Arena season... I've heard its format will be Tempest pre-constructed deck.
Sean McKeown
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