Magic: The Gathering - Deck Building Strategies and Archetypes

A large portion of any collectible card game (CCG) is building the deck prior to playing, and then adjusting the deck after playtesting it in a few games. A well-selected card set is the first step toward winning a game, but there are many different strategies. The descriptions below are not all-inclusive, but should help new players choose a solid starting point for an effective deck. For a basic introduction to the core concepts of the game, please see my previous post.

Deck tactics

Any deck might include one or more of these strategies.

Evasion - Creature abilities such as flying, landwalk, skulk, or "can't be blocked" that allow creatures to attack with less risk of being blocked.

Hate - A strategy built around lowering the effectiveness of an opponent's deck rather than boosting the effectiveness of one's own. If you play against an opponent who uses powerful cards, you might choose to build a specific counter strategy to prevent those cards from being played. This might manifest as artifact hate when playing cards that destroy artifacts, [color] hate to prevent cards of a specific color from having an effect, or [creature] hate to stop a specific tribal deck or monster.

Ramp - Typically used to describe mana growth by playing creatures and artifacts that tap for mana. Green has a lot of cards that are especially good at this, allowing a green aggro deck to quickly play large creatures to attack for high damage early in the game. This can also boost a control deck by granting more mana for better counterspells, or to pay for a combo deck's components faster.

Synergy - Cards that reinforce one another and allow stronger effects. These can be creatures that boost one another, cards that improve the effectiveness of spells, or create other small combos that aren't on the level of a full Combo Deck™.

Tribe - Creatures that share a creature type. This can refer to creature cards sharing a race, e.g. goblins, elves, humans, or cats; or it can refer to creatures sharing a class, such as warriors, rogues, rebels, and allies. Tribal decks typically rely on synergies inherent in such cards, or bonuses that other cards can confer.

Tutor - Named after cards like Demonic Tutor, this tactic allows a player to search for a specific card. Many cards allow a player to search for lands, creatures, or other cards and then place it on top of the library, in his hand, or even on the battlefield. Useful for aggro decks needing a creature boost, control decks looking for a specific card, or combo decks building their win conditions.

Deck Archetypes

Aggro

An aggro deck is built to hit an opponent hard. Red decks are especially popular for aggro players, using a combination of cheap spells and creatures to deal lots of damage fast. White Weenie is another such deck using cheap white creatures that can fly or otherwise evade defenders. Green decks often focus more in ramping growth toward large creatures.

Some aggro decks needs to win early, and can be vulnerable to control decks that delay them from getting traction at the start of the game. A well-built aggro still usually has the advantage over control, though. Combo decks tend to defeat aggro by dodging direct combat in favor of surprise effects.

Control

There are many kinds of control decks. The classic example is mono-blue control (MUC) using cheap counterspell cards to prevent the opponent from playing what he wants, and then hitting hard with big creatures later in the game. Other types of control deck include land destruction and mana denial strategies to prevent the opponent from being able to pay for his spells. Red, black, green, and white all can serve this purpose. Either the land cards are directly destroyed, added casting costs are imposed, a mana fee is attached to any creature that attacks, or lands are just kept tapped and out of play.

Using discard effects to prevent an opponent from having cards in hand to play is also an extremely effective strategy. Mill effects instead directly place cards from the opponent's draw pile into his graveyard. An opponent loses the game if he cannot draw a card due to an empty library. These decks are typically black, often with blue and/or green cards added to provide some direct damage or defense options. Other ways to slow an opponent include using cards that tax him for everything he does, such as paying life in order to use creatures to attack. Finally, decks can include options to bounce cards (return them to a player's hand) and effectively undo an opponent's turn or prevent his cards from destroying yours.

Control decks are especially effective at preventing a combo deck from achieving its goals, but can be weak to aggro strategies.

Combo

A combo deck relies on a combination of cards and card effects to win the game. Decks are usually designed to create infinite loop, resulting in destruction of all of an opponent's creatures, damaging an opponent until he loses the game, or milling an opponent's library. However, other combo options include exploiting cards that say you win the game if certain conditions are met, and then ensuring that those conditions are met. There are too many cards to list all the popular, much less possible, combos.

Combo decks can often neuter aggro decks, but are vulnerable to control disruption.

Hybrid Strategies

A well-rounded deck can incorporate more than one archetype. If both aggro and control are appealing, the strategies can be effectively combined so low-cost creatures can hit the opponent while mana disruption, counterspell, tax, bounce, or discard strategies hinder him. Similarly, a combo deck strategy can be blended with control to prevent an opponent from disrupting the combo, or with aggro to place the opponent on the defensive while the combo is put in place.

Deck construction

A good starting point for a new player is a preconstructed deck, as sold in many friendly local game shops (often abbreviated FLGS by gamers), department stores, and superstores. These rebuilt decks are not always truly competitive, but they do provide a solid starting point for a deck as you learn to play. Another option is the "Duel Deck" pack containing two decks designed to play against one another. These may not be as effective against other decks, but are an excellent place to start playing the game and learning how it works.

I suggest buying any decks or booster packs from your FLGS, because the store owners will often take the time to discuss the game, and there are often other players there to help you learn. Of course, this can also result in meeting That Guy who has no patience for newcomers, but forewarned is forearmed.

There are also many online card trading sites that can help new players evaluate whether a trade is good or not, and avoid being ripped off by dishonest card traders. I personally trade cards most often on Pucatrade. full disclosure: This is a referral link that will provide me with a small bonus should you use it to sign up. It's a website that allows you to post the cards you have, see who else wants those cards, and list the cards you want. Send cards, get points, and people send cards to you. It's simple and effective in my experience. At time of posting, the site is about to receive a major overhaul, so I will refrain from posting any detailed how-to info.