In this article I'm going to talk about coming up with a deck idea. For beginning players, this can be one of the most daunting tasks regardless of whether you've decided to play Casual or Competitive or what format you've chosen. There are many ways to go about building a deck. I'm going to cover a few of the more common ones here.
By Color - A lot of players decide to build a deck based on their favorite color. My favorite color was always blue so of course the first deck I ever put together was a blue deck, which just happened to be a control deck and turned me into a control player for life. I do play other archetypes, but control is still my favorite.
In choosing a color, it's a pretty good idea to first get a basic idea of the characteristics of that color. You might find that certain characteristics don't appeal to your personality and thus, your enjoyment of that color becomes limited. In my book, The Mtg Beginner's Guide To Great Magic, I go over all the colors and their characteristics. By knowing them, you'll make a more informed decision on how to go about choosing a color.
By Archetype - Another way to build a deck is by archetype. This refers to the manner in which the deck goes about winning. For example, my "blue" deck was a control deck and won by countering my opponents spells until I could play my big creature and win with it. That's one archetype.
Other archetypes:
Aggro - Playing lots of creatures to overrun your opponent.
Combo - Playing a combination of cards (usually 2 or 3) that results in an immediate win.
Ramp - Playing spells that give you extra mana early game so that you can play a big creature sooner than your opponent.
Tempo - Putting out an early beater and then disrupting your opponents game with counters and bounce spells while your early beater does all or most of the damage.
Burn - A deck that wins by casting direct damage spells right at the opponent.
And there are others, but this should give you a general idea of what we mean when we talk about building a deck around a certain archetype.
By Tribe - This refers to a particular type of aggro deck where you build it all around one specific creature type. Some of the most common creatures in Magic are goblins, elves, vampires, merfolk and humans.
A player will decide to build his deck around one of these tribes, usually incorporating cards that gives these tribes bonuses of some kind. For example, Lord of Atlantis gives all merfolk +1/+1 and Islandwalk.
These are just some of the basic ways to build a deck. One isn't necessarily better than another. They're just different. What you ideally want to do is look at each method and see which one appeals most to you. Believe it or not, you can put together a winning deck using any ONE of the methods listed above.
To YOUR Magic the Gathering Success,
Steven "Land Boy" Wagenheim
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