ive been collecting magic cards since september and im wondering if im doin anything wrong since I want to build a deck but I dont know if im wrong because i have cards ive bought like
Sheoldred Whispering One and Emrakul The Promised End that i want to use in decks but have no other cards from those decks and i also dont know if im allowed to play those cards anymore, i have a few fatpacks and have picked up multiple packs. The fatpacks are ixalan, hour of devastation, battle for zendikar, amonkhet, and i have a booster box of return to ravnica and 2 deck builder toolkits, Shadows over innistrad and Ixalan. I also have a bunch of other cards that ive read upon and know are good on the web like Necropotence. Please someone help me because i really want to build a deck and i have so many cards. Ive already tried building a deck but it just seemed wrong. thanks for reading
One of the beautiful things about this game is, that all cards from all of the game's history can be played with one another. There are formats, which limit, what cards can be used in deckbuilding, but those are mostly only relevant for tournaments. In Casual games you can use any and all of your cards. Some playgroups also keep to formats and/or ban lists, or ban some cards or combos from their games. When people talk about cards not being legal anymore, they usually refer to the Standard format, which is the only remaining official rotating format, where cards leave the card pool frequently and regularly. Or they mean a new ban in some other format like Modern.
Your collection is both quite limited and diverse due to what you've bought. You likely don't have many cards available as a playset (4 copies of the same card), and many are Limited fillers. (The Limited formats are Draft and Sealed, where players have to build a deck on the spot from the contents of just a few booster packs plus basic lands. Filler cards serve to flesh out those decks, but are usually not good enough to be played in a Constructed deck, because other, better, cards are available.) However, this only means, that your deckbuilding is hampered in terms of power, and cannot really focus on combos, but the general deck archetypes are all possible.
There are four basic deck archetypes, none of which are tied to any color or color combination, though all colors lend themselves to certain strategies more than others. When building a deck, you have to decide, what kind of strategy you want to pursue, how you are going to win the game.
Aggro tries to win fast, usually by flooding the battlefield with many cheap and relatively strong creatures (in regards to their costs) and killing any potential blockers, maybe some burn spells to hit the player directly. White, green, and red are the usual suspects for Aggro, but successful blue and black aggro decks aren't unheard of.
Control plays the long game, it tries to survive the early game and just defends against the opponent's strategy, while building up its resources (most importantly cards in hand) and depleting theirs. It tries to have answers to every possible threat, and when the opponent runs dry of those, it takes the initiative, usually by playing a single threat (like a large, hard to kill creature, or a game winning combo) and protecting it until victory is achieved.
Combo relies on assembling a combination of cards that, if left unanswered, will either win the game outright, or put the player in a vastly superior position, so that victory is (almost) certain.
Midrange, or Aggro-Control, is a combination of the first two. It packs enough early threats to put the opponent under pressure from the very beginning, but also has cards for the later game and can answer a lot of threats. It doesn't put all its eggs into one basket, unlike Aggro which is mostly win-early-or-lose, yet it doesn't have the staying power to last through a long game like control.
There are also several ways to win the game. Usually, you try to reduce your opponent's life total to 0 or less. But you can also try to win via milling (eliminating the opponent's library and then have him try to draw a card from it), or poison (a player with 10 or more posion counters loses the game), or by employing some of the many cards with "I win" or "you lose" effects, like Mortal Combat or Phage the Untouchable.
So decide on your type of deck and your win condition, then choose cards accordingly. Envision, how a typical game should play out, especialy, what the deck should be doing in the first 4-5 turns. Pack enough cards that allow you to be active during the early game. You don't have to play anything during those turns, but you have to be able to. Because a sitting duck is usually dead in 4-5 turns, or at least cannot avoid death anymore. It's also important to have a clear game plan. Chaos can be fun, but the one-trick pony wins this race more often than not. Pursue one way to victory, don't mix them. Leave other strategies for other decks.
You also need a good mana base, enough to support all your cards, but just enough, since every land beyond the ones you need are essentially dead cards. Most 60-card decks function best with about 24 lands, Aggro can get away with fewer while Control may need even more. As a beginning deckbuilder you should keep to only two colors or just one, because designing a working land base for a 3+ colored deck is quite difficult, and most things you want to achieve are either possible in your two colors, or are not really nessessary anyway. And keep to 60 cards, or at least close to it, because the smaller your deck is, the more likely it is for you to draw the cards you need.
Furthermore, play some cards, that allow you to interfere with your opponent (killing his creatures and other permanents, letting him discard cards, etc.). You are not playing Solitaire, and your opponent is trying to win, too. Just winning faster can work out, that's what Aggro is about after all, but sometimes you simply have to throw a wrench into the other guy's plans.
Don't worry, if you cannot create a good deck right away, few people can. And no one can design a great deck from scratch. Just throw together a pile of cards and then go from there. Simply starting to tweak a terrible deck by changing cards is often much easier than creating a better starting point. And you have to actually play a deck, see how it performs in actual games, to really know its strengths and weaknesses, to get a notion for how to make it better. You will lose with your new creation, a lot, just accept it and take notes (mental or otherwise) on what worked and what was lacking. Ask other people for advice, and really think about the changes they propose, even if they seemingly go against your goals with the deck. Making a deck better takes time and effort, and is a lot of try-and-error.
Sheoldred Whispering One and Emrakul The Promised End that i want to use in decks but have no other cards from those decks and i also dont know if im allowed to play those cards anymore, i have a few fatpacks and have picked up multiple packs. The fatpacks are ixalan, hour of devastation, battle for zendikar, amonkhet, and i have a booster box of return to ravnica and 2 deck builder toolkits, Shadows over innistrad and Ixalan. I also have a bunch of other cards that ive read upon and know are good on the web like Necropotence. Please someone help me because i really want to build a deck and i have so many cards. Ive already tried building a deck but it just seemed wrong. thanks for reading
Your collection is both quite limited and diverse due to what you've bought. You likely don't have many cards available as a playset (4 copies of the same card), and many are Limited fillers. (The Limited formats are Draft and Sealed, where players have to build a deck on the spot from the contents of just a few booster packs plus basic lands. Filler cards serve to flesh out those decks, but are usually not good enough to be played in a Constructed deck, because other, better, cards are available.) However, this only means, that your deckbuilding is hampered in terms of power, and cannot really focus on combos, but the general deck archetypes are all possible.
There are four basic deck archetypes, none of which are tied to any color or color combination, though all colors lend themselves to certain strategies more than others. When building a deck, you have to decide, what kind of strategy you want to pursue, how you are going to win the game.
Aggro tries to win fast, usually by flooding the battlefield with many cheap and relatively strong creatures (in regards to their costs) and killing any potential blockers, maybe some burn spells to hit the player directly. White, green, and red are the usual suspects for Aggro, but successful blue and black aggro decks aren't unheard of.
Control plays the long game, it tries to survive the early game and just defends against the opponent's strategy, while building up its resources (most importantly cards in hand) and depleting theirs. It tries to have answers to every possible threat, and when the opponent runs dry of those, it takes the initiative, usually by playing a single threat (like a large, hard to kill creature, or a game winning combo) and protecting it until victory is achieved.
Combo relies on assembling a combination of cards that, if left unanswered, will either win the game outright, or put the player in a vastly superior position, so that victory is (almost) certain.
Midrange, or Aggro-Control, is a combination of the first two. It packs enough early threats to put the opponent under pressure from the very beginning, but also has cards for the later game and can answer a lot of threats. It doesn't put all its eggs into one basket, unlike Aggro which is mostly win-early-or-lose, yet it doesn't have the staying power to last through a long game like control.
There are also several ways to win the game. Usually, you try to reduce your opponent's life total to 0 or less. But you can also try to win via milling (eliminating the opponent's library and then have him try to draw a card from it), or poison (a player with 10 or more posion counters loses the game), or by employing some of the many cards with "I win" or "you lose" effects, like Mortal Combat or Phage the Untouchable.
So decide on your type of deck and your win condition, then choose cards accordingly. Envision, how a typical game should play out, especialy, what the deck should be doing in the first 4-5 turns. Pack enough cards that allow you to be active during the early game. You don't have to play anything during those turns, but you have to be able to. Because a sitting duck is usually dead in 4-5 turns, or at least cannot avoid death anymore. It's also important to have a clear game plan. Chaos can be fun, but the one-trick pony wins this race more often than not. Pursue one way to victory, don't mix them. Leave other strategies for other decks.
You also need a good mana base, enough to support all your cards, but just enough, since every land beyond the ones you need are essentially dead cards. Most 60-card decks function best with about 24 lands, Aggro can get away with fewer while Control may need even more. As a beginning deckbuilder you should keep to only two colors or just one, because designing a working land base for a 3+ colored deck is quite difficult, and most things you want to achieve are either possible in your two colors, or are not really nessessary anyway. And keep to 60 cards, or at least close to it, because the smaller your deck is, the more likely it is for you to draw the cards you need.
Furthermore, play some cards, that allow you to interfere with your opponent (killing his creatures and other permanents, letting him discard cards, etc.). You are not playing Solitaire, and your opponent is trying to win, too. Just winning faster can work out, that's what Aggro is about after all, but sometimes you simply have to throw a wrench into the other guy's plans.
Don't worry, if you cannot create a good deck right away, few people can. And no one can design a great deck from scratch. Just throw together a pile of cards and then go from there. Simply starting to tweak a terrible deck by changing cards is often much easier than creating a better starting point. And you have to actually play a deck, see how it performs in actual games, to really know its strengths and weaknesses, to get a notion for how to make it better. You will lose with your new creation, a lot, just accept it and take notes (mental or otherwise) on what worked and what was lacking. Ask other people for advice, and really think about the changes they propose, even if they seemingly go against your goals with the deck. Making a deck better takes time and effort, and is a lot of try-and-error.
Former Rules Advisor
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