For those of you new to MtG, thanks for stopping buy my article! This article is meant to build on Felipe's article "Learn a bit about MtG" which can be found
here.In this article, we learned about several different strategies, Aggro, Combo and Control. These decks all strive to accomplish various things.
Aggro decks have one goal in common. Smash and bash your way through to devastate your opponent as quickly as possible.
Dedicated Combo decks attempt to get several cards to work together to form an auto-kill. However, not all combos are dedicated combo decks. Some combos are simply cards working together to enhance a certain strategy, for example,
Edge of the Divinity and
Nip Gwyllion.
Control decks attempt to control the pace of the match and focus on making sure your opponent can't get cards in play, or that those cards get removed as fast as possible. Typically, control decks will have a big "finisher" that will hit play and quickly and easily obliterate the opponent.
Now, almost all decks have elements of each decktype that work together. For example, an aggro deck will have control elements working in it to remove creatures that stay in the way. Control decks will usually pack some way to finally bash the opponent to pieces. Almost all decks have certain cards that work together in a certain way that enhances the deck with combos. Some decks can even be called hybrids, decks that rely on fusion of out of control smashing as well as removal and denial in order to run crazy over the opponent.
Before we pick apart the basic strategies, let's take a look at some basic concerns that all decks have.
Mana:
Mana is the critical part to making cards hit play. You want to be able to maximize your mana output without impeding your ability to put the cards you need on the table. This means that the land count for various decks will be different. An aggressive deck, for example, may run a fewer number of lands than a control deck, because aggressive decks need to be able to draw into the cards they need faster, and tend to win faster than control decks, and thus only need to hit land drops for the first few turns. Control decks, on the other hand, need to make sure they're able to play lands for a considerably longer period of time, and consequently run a higher number of lands. Combo decks will have lands based on the combo, for example, there's a combo deck that runs 2 lands, while other combo decks can run up to 40 or more lands.
Also worth noting, and will be expanded on in a later article, is that some decks use mana acceleration to build up mana faster, or employ multiple colors of mana. Mana acceleration is particularly useful in combo decks. For the purpose of this article, all decks will be mono decks, meaning they will only require one color of mana.
Removal:
Obviously, the decks you play need to be able to survive or overcome obstacles. Control decks have this element built into them already, control decks need to be able to survive and usually pack counterspells and creature killing spells. In addition, control decks frequently pack cards called "boardsweepers" that are capable of "sweeping the board" clean, such as
Wrath of God or
Jokulhaups. Aggro decks, on the other hand, pack what is referred to as "spot-removal," or cards that kill one creature at a time, such as
Unmake or
Incinerate.
So, let's get started at picking apart these various strategies.
Aggro.Aggro is perhaps the simplest deck to learn how to play with. The strategy is simple, you're dedicated to accomplishing one objective, hack and slash your opponent's life total down to 20 as fast as possible. Aggro decks typically pack about 22 lands, meaning that on average, you'll be able to hit the first few land drops pretty consistently, after which you'll be drawing into smashers. For a dedicated aggro deck, we'll look at what's perhaps my pet deck, the BW Smash.
BW Smash.
This deck focuses on cards that have a hybrid mana symbol that looks like this (
). This symbol means that the mana can be paid with either white or black mana, but also means that the creature with the symbol is both white and black simultaneously. This works really well with our main smasher, the Nightsky Mimic.
Lands:
24 Plains
Creatures:
4 Divinity of Pride
4 Voracious Hatchling
4 Nip Gwyllion
4 Nightsky Mimic
4 Stillmoon Cavalier
4 Deathbringer Liege
Removal:
4 Unmake
2 Oblivion Rings
Other:
4 Edge of the Divinity
2 Beckon Apparition
The goal of the deck is to drop down these aggressive creatures and use Deathbringer Liege and Edge of the Divinity to make them huge. At this point they can all attack like crazy and smash your opponent to pieces. This deck optimally plays something like this.
Turn 1: Nip Gwyllion.
Turn 2: Nightsky Mimic. Swing with Gwyllion for 1.
Turn 3: Edge of Divinity enchanting Nightsky Mimic. Swing for 8 with Mimic and Gwyllion.
Turn 4: Unmake a creature if necessary, then Edge of the Divinity to swing for 11. Game over.
Of course, this is optimal, but winning by turn 4 or 5 isn't difficult. And don't think you don't have the longer matches beat, your Deathbringer Liege and Divinity of Pride can both hit play at 5, allowing you to swing very hard late in the game.
Notice that Oblivion Rings and Unmakes complement the aggressive strategy by removing creatures that could otherwise block your creatures from directly attacking your opponent. A deck without these can be easily held off to a standstill by a card such as
Bitterblossom.
Next, we'll take a look at a control deck and find a few tips on how to play control.
Control.The two main control colors are blue and black. Blue control is the only color with serious ability to counter spells. Black has a host of way to destroy things that do manage to hit play. Most successful control decks are a fusion of the two. However, for the purpose of this deck, we're going to look at a mono-blue control deck.
Control decks need to be able to lockdown the game until you build enough mana to drop a large finisher. Thus, control decks need to maximize card flow and have some way to shut down cards that manage to slip by your counterspells. So, a good control deck should have some way to...
1. Draw cards.
2. Counter spells.
3. Destroy (or render useless) opponent's cards, particularly creatures.
4. Put the nails in the coffin.
So let's take a look at a deck that does this.
Lands
22 Island
4 Faerie Conclave
Counterspells
4 Broken Ambitions
4 Cryptic Command
4 Cancel
2 Counterbore
Dealing With Survivors
4 Curse of Chains
3 Evacuation
Card Drawing
2 Jace Beleren
Finishers
4 Overbeing of Myth
3 Guile
4 Sower of Temptation
Here we learn the principles of card multitasking. You notice that a lot of cards serve dual purpose. For example, Overbeing of Myth can both hit hard and draw cards. Sower of Temptation serves as both creature removal and a finisher. They lose a creature, and you gain a creature to beat with. Cryptic Command can work to help you draw cards if you want. And Faerie Conclaves can be used for both mana and attacking.
Playing control puts you on the defensive. And it also requires some thinking. Is the spell worth countering? If you counter their
Tarfire, maybe you won't have mana left to deal with the
Flame Javelin in their hand. As with all games, practice makes perfect in learning how to play your control deck.
Your primary finishers for this deck are Guile and Overbeing of Myth. Overbeing of Myth can easily be 7/7 or 8/8 in this deck, and Guile's difficulty of being blocked and 6/6 stats make it a good finisher without the insane ability that allows you to play your opponent's countered spells for free.
Finally, we move onto the third type of deck in Magic, the Gathering.
Combo.For this deck, we're going to go a bit old school and pull out a deck that until recently was legal in standard. Alas, with the introduction of Shards of Alara, the deck is now in extended, but is an awesome play and quite fun.
The storm mechanic has long been one of the most powerful mechanics in Magic.
Tendrils of Agony is a popular combo card in legacy and vintage formats. But for this deck, we're going to look at some cards that are in a bit less broken format. A couple of Time Spiral cards.
Grapeshot
Empty the Warrens
So, here's what we're going to do. We're going to build a deck that has the capabilities to storm out a large combo and win with one of these two cards. The Grapeshot combo is accelerated three-fold with the introduction of the card Pyromancer's Swath. Pyromancer's Swath contributes to the storming, so if we can play Swath and 4 other cards before playing Grapeshot, we can deal 18 damage to the opponent. To put that in
perspective, we can then play Tarfire to win.
So, let's look at what we need to do. We need to be able to draw cards, and we need to be able to add mana. So let's get on this.
Lands
14 Mountain
4 Molten Slagheap
4 Fungal Reaches
3 Empty the Warrens
4 Grapeshot
4 Pyromancer's Swath
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Rite of Flame
4 Manamorphose
3 Needle Drop
4 Tarfire
3 Spark Elemental
4 Rift Bolt
Reading the text on suspend leads to an idea. If we suspend cards, we can play them for free on the turn we intend to storm. So, the idea is that we suspend the Lotus Bloom, then when it has one counter, we suspend the Rift Bolt, and after that, we can storm through the deck with Manamorphose and Needle Drop and use the Lotus Bloom and Rite of Flame to make sure we have enough mana to win with Grapeshot and Pyromancer's Swath. Or, we could try to use Empty the Warrens to build a massive army of Goblins and attack with those next turn. Notice that your cards, Rift Bolt, Needle Drop, Tarfire, Spark Elemental, are already dealing a lot of damage to your opponent, meaning the required storm count for Grapeshot or Empty the Warrens is lower. This deck can also run some removal, Tarfires, Grapeshots and Rift Bolts can be just as easily turned against creatures as the opposing player.
Thanks for checking out my article. If this is popular enough, I may write another one with some more advanced deck-building technique.
~NB
Topic: ARTICLE: Deck Building 101: The Basics (Read 8511 times)