"Quirks That Define Your EDH Style"

[TheAmericanSpirit]

There is a foreword to this topic. You may skip it if you like.

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So I got stoned after work and started trawling the nexus forums as usual, but I found myself struck by a rare bout of nostalgia for all the good times back over on Sally. Don't mistake this for buyer's remorse; I firmly believe MTGSalvation had its golden age long before Curse and that was then and this is now. But man, did I read some sick burns over on that site, all of which are still conveniently available for my viewing because %$#%$#% the internet is cool. Thus, I spent an hour hunting down the greatest hits using Sally's miserable search engine and giggling inexorably. But there was one I just couldn't find, the holy grail of stupid quips in my mind for whatever reason. The following is just a recreation, so bear with me if details/context are lost or exaggerated or despoiled by memory. I thus paraphrase heavily:

(A Scene: The thread: "Who has been the greatest influence on your deckbuilding, etc". Most people are singing the praises of ISBpathfinder and other forum giants, TheAmericanSpirit sits alone in a corner quietly yielding devotions to the old gods, Phil and MagnusMagicus. In barges in the bold and brash 3drinks, in vintage Mardu form and an elder forum denizen in his own right.

3drinks: Not to toot my own horn, but I've been the quintessential resource for my wedge since the time before god [Editor's note: To be fair, he has] and if you're getting your WRB info from anywhere else, you may as well be a dirty Simic heathen or something like that!

DirkGently (I think??):

3drinks: Not to toot my own horn, [toots own horn]

This %$#% tickled me inexplicably pink when I saw it. But I can't find it. But when I was looking, I saw this other thread "Quirks That Define Your EDH Style" and that got me thinking about the wonderful ambiguity of the word "style" and what that means to all sorts of different people. So I stole the topic and brought it home with me. Can we keep it?
Liability Statement
[The characters depicted in this spoiler scene are fictitious. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is strictly coincidental. We advise you not to read any evidence to contrary, as that too is fictitious. No tangible offense was intended by these remarks anyway and I already said I was stoned. To any kids reading, don't do drugs. I can tell you firsthand they diminish your literary capabilities.]

Title is self explanatory and yet beautifully amorphous. What quirks define your personal "EDH Style" as the ancient OP once so wisely phrased? For me, my personal EDH Style is my tendency toward playing linear and extremely proactive decks. I like the feel of building up to thermonuclear critical mass and shifting the onus to the other players to stop my march towards the doomsday scenario or race me there. So thorough is my enjoyment of that particular feel that nearly all my decks are removal light, ramp-heavy, Plan A-Executing machines, and they stop Plan A, luckily we still have Plan A.

In faster metas, this has meant playing glass cannon combo decks like Selvala HotW and Jhoira WC (RIP Paradox Engine), while in slower metas, it has manifested in ramp-heavy strategies like Maelstrom Wanderer, Nissa, and Korvold. There are weaknesses to my style, of course: Most people learn quickly that I don't bluff and I'm pretty opportunistic as a threat, so I'm always a pretty predictable rolling boulder to dodge or judo-chop if possible. Furthermore, I'm not a particularly resourceful player when Plan A gets permanently derailed somehow, so I will occasionally overlook windows to win games simply because they weren't the means with which I expected to achieve victory.

But enough about me, let's talk about you fine folks! What are your "quirks"? Don't let my interpretation limit your scope, what the hell does EDH Style mean to you?

Edit: grammar/redundancy

[pokken]

I play a lot of lands. Most of my decks have 2 or 3 more mana sources than they should and I've had probably 10 different decks with major land themes. Landfall, coffers, sanctum, cradle, gimme that real estate.

If there's a card that defines me it's, I dunno, maybe life from the loam or courser of kruphix. My literal favorite thing to do is play lands off the top of my deck after putting them all there, with my second favorite being playing them from my graveyard (one way or another)

Probably the favorite landy thing I've done in recent memory that seriously defines my style of play is casting loam for 3 fetchlands, playing a roil elemental, then playing all 3 fetchlands to steal 6 creatures with an azusa, lost but seeking.

Before I even start building a deck I build the extended manabase and if I don't like it I don't build the deck -- if a deck doesn't accelerate in a consistent and fun way I can't really play it.

I also am really prone to creating board stalls. Not sure what it is about my deckbuilding style-- a bit of pillow fort, a lot of sweepers, some hate creatures, etc. Most of my decks kind of thrive on that where no one wants to attack because I've got a bunch of tokens and a dictate of erebos or something. My games almost always go fairly long, sometimes winning through people giving up.

Most of my decks tend toward the very efficient side of the spectrum, such that my most hated card is timesifter because it almost always guarantees I will get 1 turn for every 2 other people get due to my CMCs being low.

I almost never play linear decks. My decks always have tons of pieces of interaction, even my dumbest most linear decks (maybe golos mono white right now) are loaded for bear. I tend to have an answer to almost everything in every deck. My maelstrom wanderer deck is actually my dumbest one in retrospect, and it has still quite a number of ways to interact...it was a bit of an experiment to get outside of my wheelhouse.

[ilovesaprolings]

I play a lot of lands. Most of my decks have 2 or 3 more mana sources than they should and I've had probably 10 different decks with major land themes.

Funny, i always play exactly 36 lands in every deck and refuse to play with more or less, no matter the type of deck.

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By the way i remember the tooting horn thing. I laughed a lot.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

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By the way i remember the tooting horn thing. I laughed a lot.

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Thank you for proving to me that it was hilarity made real, not just hilarity imagined. I was concerned when I couldn't find it.

[plushpenguin]

I play a lot of draw effects because I hate being stranded in a game without options and out of gas. This makes almost everything I play very capable of pulling off very grindy games.

However, at the same time, I'm also known for playing very aggressive decks. However, this doesn't mean that I'm super low on interaction. Sometimes, I even like my permission builds to throw pressure at my opponents.

I heavily dislike durdling in games and will put players to account with their life total or otherwise if I suspect them to be taking a little too long setting up whatever shenanigans they have in mind.

[darrenhabib]

I build a lot of decks that don't have many win conditions. The reason is that I put most of the power around the other elements of draw, mana, control, recursion. When you have these, you'll only need the one.

People will say, but you need contingencies against Sadistic Sacrament. I say I haven't had one of those played against me in years, and even if they did, their decks are going to lose more times than not playing an often do-nothing card. So the jokes on them.

[Mookie]

Deckwise, I'd say that I tend to both build my decks and play somewhat conservatively - I like having answers and contingency plans in my decks for every anticipated problem. Not that I necessarily want to use all of those answers though - I'm very content to sit back and let my opponents deal with each others' threats while I build up in the background. I certainly enjoy durdling, but it's usually with a purpose - a lot of my decks have a similar play pattern of 'spend several turns setting up until I can have a single large explosive turn'. I used to play combo almost exclusively, but I've pulled back a bit in an effort to diversify my repertoire. Still not a particularly big fan of the combat step though.

Most notable quirk is that I try to fit a two or three niche cards in all of my decks - I have an official policy of 'if a card makes sense in a deck that makes no sense in any of my other decks, I should play the card'. Hence why I'm running Psychic Surgery in Thada Adel, Acquisitor, Possibility Storm in Animar, Soul of Elements, and Artificer's Intuition in Sharuum the Hegemon. It's fun to play cards that no one else is familiar with.

People will say, but you need contingencies against Sadistic Sacrament. I say I haven't had one of those played against me in years, and even if they did, their decks are going to lose more times than not playing an often do-nothing card. So the jokes on them.

As a person that plays Sadistic Sacrament, I'll confirm this - it definitely loses more games than it wins. On the other hand, I'm not playing it my deck because I want to win. As I mentioned in the other thread, I build decks to fill holes that my other decks aren't filling, and my Kess deck was built because I wanted to act like a mustache-twirling supervillain. :D Why kill your opponents when you can put them in an elaborate but only probably fatal deathtrap instead?

[Dragonlover]

As a rule, my decks need to get into the red zone to win. It might only be one big swing, but there's no combo kills coming from my decks.

I tend to eschew the easy route e.g Molimo doesn't run Craterhoof and Avenger of Zendikar.

My decks will usually have, as I think [mention]Rumpy5897[/mention] put it once 'wonky self imposed restrictions' since I'm doing the 32 deck challenge and just doing the normal thing for each colour combo would get boring pretty fast not to mention expensive.

Dragonlover

[MeowZeDung]

I found my style in the Jeskai wedge and haven't looked back. Green and black are great, just not my favorite. I do run a casual rishkar deck and sultai sidisi deck, but only for variety once in a great while.

I'm overly fond of card selection, sometimes recklessly prioritizing it over raw card advantage. Faithless Looting, Frantic Search, Opt, Ponder, Brainstorm, Dig Through Time, etc. scratch an itch for me.

I prefer non-creature spells, and my favorite creature types when I do play them are tokens and token creators/enablers. Exceptions to this very general rule for me are creatures that do something quirky or interesting, like Zada, Hedron Grinder... ok, I like pingers a la Guttersnipe, Electrostatic Field, and Thermo-Alchemist too... and prowess critters... The point is I tend to keep creature counts on the low end in my decks.

"Whenever you cast a non-creature spell..." might be the most beautiful line of text on a magic card to me, and "Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery..." is right there with it.

If a deck can find an excuse to run Mindmoil, I'll likely include it.

Copying stuff is fun and leads to hilarious games. Bonus Round, Reverberate, Increasing Vengeance, Twincast, Doublecast, Narset's Reversal, Howl of the Horde, Phyrexian Metamorph, Clones, etc. almost always make for a fun and memorable play.

I enjoy trying to make jank work. I've won with Seven Dwarves before, and it feels good.

[3drinks]

I try to justify ruination and blood moon in every deck I can and will actively cut nonbasics from decks that many people "swear by". Just recently I cut Nykthos from mono-R for Cavern of Souls, and otherwise the only colourless lands are tower of the magistrate, scav grounds, and ancient tomb (strip & waste taking spell slots).

I play the five fetchlands in mono, 8 in 2c, and 10 in 3c.

I refuse to play Mox Diamond with under 36 lands.

[Rumpy5897]

Nice to see the recent influx threads discussing various higher-level concepts.

A unifying theme of all my decks is a high degree of commander reliance. I'm a fan of offbeat legends doing unusual stuff, preferably in an unfitting colour combination, which incentivises me to explore various synergistic jank that comes online because of the commander. This comes with the risk of getting shut down when people figure this out and just gun for the commander over and over again, but there are some manoeuvres that can be applied to circumvent this. Running copious interaction, with the main aim of protecting the game plan. Deploying strong high-end haymakers that offer to win the game if left unchecked, making for tempting removal targets. Doing a thing the thread mentions already and going turbo ham in a single turn, leaving a narrow window to get tripped up. I live in a mid-power group with modest removal use, more likely to pinpoint key pieces to slow someone down than engage the table in a perpetual wrath crawl, so that tends to suffice.

The commander choice also doubles as self-policing on power. I try to come up with the best version of each deck I have, while still having it explicitly feel like a deck for the corresponding legend. However, the gloves can come off when I'm fielding prime junk like Ice Cream Monk, rather than something with actual potential. This allows me to fit snugly within the aforementioned group, with people fielding stronger commanders that are built less tightly.

When looking at the actual deck innards, there are a few common themes that show up:

• Big mana. The exact specifics vary between lists, but most of my roster tends to want a constantly growing mana pool. It can get there via unreasonable rock totals, high-yield lands or spending most of its first five turns barfing ramp and doublers out, but the end goal is conceptually similar. This can then be sank into whatever engine the particular deck is built around. The outlier here is Ghired, who wants to get to ~8 mana quickly but doesn't care all that much what happens past that.
• Decent helping of card draw. It actually took me a few years, but eventually I learned that drawing for drawing's sake can actually be useful when trying to set up commander-centric engines and doubles as resilience. My least draw-happy deck is Daxos, as it's simply more efficient to slow the game down with a Rule of Law than it is to go for draw outside the very crème de la crème of available options.
• Either copious combo or no combo at all. I tend to avoid pulling punches when piloting, so having a single combo line tended to lead to a positive reinforcement loop that would make the deck get it online more reliably. This in turn would make the deck feel very samey once I got over the novelty of said combo (plus the group wouldn't like those either). But when I'd take it out, I'd be disappointed with heading towards a less focused build of the commander. A few decks died this way. My combo haven is my Patron of the Orochi, which features copious infinite mana setups. The redundancy makes it somehow feel fresher, plus I don't play it a lot as it's a bit mismatched power wise with the rest of the group.

[folding_music]

- strictly two-colour, trying not to include off-brand colour or land words (eg. not playing Naya Panorama in a W/G deck)
- stuffing every deck full of activated abilities (I'm a Masticore, Thrashing Wumpus, and Mindless Automaton fiend, not to mention the world's biggest fan of Bag of Holding and Null Brooch...)
- refusing to buy sane pricy cards like fetches and tutors, somehow justifying the purchase of dumb pricy cards like Phyrexian Dreadnought
- building the deck initially to perfectly gravitate around its commander but then kicking out the cards I perceive to be linear and replacing them with ones I like in a vacuum until I just give up and replace the commander!
- keeping it low-powered in general. the only Mox I trust is Tantalite
- every deck has a secret victory condition ie. getting all the original Legends kobolds into play, putting a hundred +1/+1 counters on Gideon etc

[ISBPathfinder]

Some quirks that define my own deckbuilding / playstyle:

• Mono Color - I like a lot of mono color. The landbase costs less and I often tend to play commanders who seem a bit more niche.
• Draw Go - its my favorite way to play. Its not that I need to counterpsell everything but I like having reactions and I like not dying to haymaker crap.
• Top Down Design - I tend to start with a commander and build from there rather than go for a concept or theme and pick a commander.
• Tuner - I like to constantly look at my list and ask what hasn't been performing or where I need to be going with my lists.

[Guardman]

My biggest thing is Chaos. My Etali, Primal Storm EDH deck is my favorite and most played because I love the feeling of rolling the dice and finding out what I am going to get, whether it is from Etali herself, Orcish Librarian, Chaos Wand, Burning Inquiry, or any of the other cards with random/semi-random/opponent choice effects I've put into the deck. Plus it makes for some of the best stories and most satisfying wins. You haven't lived until you've won with an opponent's Laboratory Maniac and Demonic Consultation.

My second is token generation. Love having a battlefield so full of tokens that I can't fit anymore cards on my playmat. Especially since I like to make my own custom tokens.

Third is sacrificing things for value. It is so satisfying to turn all of your little tokens with the art you spent hours on making and printing into food for the great cursed king, Korvold. BWAHAHAHA!!!

Forth I enjoy being able to regrow cards, be it spells or creatures. Hence why my Kykar, Wind's Fury deck is really all about finding Feather, the Redeemed.

Then I have a few more general rules I consider for every deck I build:

• Doesn't have to be competitive, but must be able to win against other decks.
• No Group Hug
• Must create fun gameplay (i.e. there is a reason I don't jam Scrambleverse into my Etali deck)
• Limit instant win combos.
• Should have the potential to create good to great stories
• No Group Hug
• It should be fun and have a theme, not just goodstuff.dec
• It should be interactive/allow for interaction
• No Group Hug
• Time is precious. The deck shouldn't win by durdling or by a combo that takes forever (and doesn't instant win). And it shouldn't rely on overly long turns.
• No Group Hug
• No Group Hug
• Seriously No Group Hug Decks!!!

[tstorm823]

Well, it's much easier to define my EDH style with a particular deck rather than try and describe it in words, but if I had to use a word, I'd go with unfocused. Not that I'm unfocused as a player, but my decks themselves lack a specific focus. I prefer to take a vague concept of the deck and cram it full of moving parts and different win conditions rather than pick a specific play pattern and aim for it as frequently as possible. A bit opposite of [mention]TheAmericanSpirit[/mention]'s self-description in the OP, I would put plans A-Q into a deck if I could fit that many strategies. My deckbuilding method at this point is like a slightly more complicated version of when a new player takes what they like best out of the few cards they own and shoves them in a pile. I:

1) Pick a style or general I'd like to play with.
2) Figure out which of my favorite cards (a long list) could potentially suit such a deck.
3) Estimate the bare minimum support it would take make each of those cards viable, which may be a lot since I'm naturally drawn to nonsense like Knowledge Pool that need a lot of support to accomplish anything worth including it.
4) Figure out the maximum number of those packages I can shove into 99 cards.
5) Spend days or weeks talking myself into cuts because I know I didn't include enough lands.

[MeowZeDung]

5) Spend days or weeks talking myself into cuts because I know I didn't include enough lands.

Quoted for truth.

[Zealcat]

I'm a tempo/control player at heart so while I have a variety of deck styles, they all tend to be heavy on interaction or hate pieces. Knocking out the combo player or the one guy playing above the pod's power level feels more like winning to me than an actual win. I love assessing threats and I'm good at politics. I'm rarely the obvious threat (unless I'm on Prossh), flying under the radar is right where I like to be, until it's too late to do anything about it.

[Cyberium]

I'm a Melvin, I always mix mechanics that work in synergy with one another, the more the merrier.

[DirkGently]

I think a big part of my "style" has been defined by, at some point in the distant past, seeing someone say something like "single-target removal is bad in EDH because you have 3 opponents" and then quietly spending the rest of my life proving them wrong.

The other big thing influencing my "style" is how I handle my collection - namely, I just keep a big singleton collection and build/disassemble as I like. So I like to experiment and try things outside the box (I know a lot of people say this, but those people aren't adding extra rules to how they play the game that require them to play their cards in a certain sequence, or have an additional deck of handwritten cards that determine who they're going to target, etc). Sometimes it's a disaster, sometimes it's fun, and either way it gets disassembled and turned into something new. Which is why I've got so many decks constructed. It's also how I'm able to build them all budget-unlimited, because being restricted by budget really annoys me.

Besides that...I like control, and I like difficult wins. So I don't really do combo. I want to force myself to outmaneuver my opponents all the way to the end.

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That was easy to find, you guys need to sharpen your google skills. Yeah that little flame war got a bit out of hand. I think that was near the peak of my and 3drinks's...rivalry? Disagreement? Anyway, glad someone appreciated my sick burns lol.

https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the ... -commander

EDIT: I think 3drinks must have deleted his post in that thread. So the humor is unfortunately kind of lost. It's possible he realized that naming yourself in a thread titled "deck building geniuses of commander" is a bit gauche. I mean, I'm about as arrogant as anyone here, and even I know that's a faux pas.

[BeneTleilax]

winning lol

[JoeyB11223]

Hmm few things spring to mind...

I'm reasonable casual at heart and like to stick strongly to a theme, tending to build around the commander. This is usually tribal, or for example the theme might be sacrifice, discard, re-animation etc. But I tend to stick so strongly to the theme I'll use what are objectively sub-par cards because they're on theme or have some odd synergy, when really there are much better generic choices.

I also always do 35-36 lands and...tend to have a too high average cmc for the lack of mana rocks etc I use, albeit I am working on that, I just love jamming in fatties, which leads me too...

Combat, I always want to turn stuff sideways, all of my decks ultimately have that as a path to victory. I dislike combo, tutors etc, I like each game to play out as differently as is possible (obviously you have redundancy but I like to see different cards each game, tutoring for a win condition is not my cup of tea).

Finally I love playing old jank (or worse than jank,,), where no-one on the table with a clue what it does, these cards are usually terribly situational and have better "good-stuff" counterparts, but I just love them. For example in my Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive weenie blue aggro which I try to win with hopelessly in 4-5 player pods, an opponent taps out and swings most of his board at people, and faces the only reason the deck has snow-covered lands. Winter's Chill. You did it, you spent all your mana, you attacking with everything you had. What did it cost? Everything...

[MeowZeDung]

The other big thing influencing my "style" is how I handle my collection - namely, I just keep a big singleton collection and build/disassemble as I like. So I like to experiment and try things outside the box . . . it gets disassembled and turned into something new. Which is why I've got so many decks constructed. It's also how I'm able to build them all budget-unlimited, because being restricted by budget really annoys me.

I do something similar, which was a big level up for me. Once upon a time I wanted to build a deck for every mono color, every guild, every wedge, every 4c combo, and 5c, but didn't want to resort to guildgates and refuge lands. Unfortunately, I am not independently wealthy and my dang kids keep eating, so I started with one wedge and slowly worked on acquiring staples. After about a year and 2.5 decks built I was bummed about the slow progress I was making. Budget decks can be sweet and fun, but I wanted to build powerful decks too, so finally I decided to sell out of everything except my favorite wedge and just go ham building as many decks as I wanted and devoting my budget to staples in those colors. The "downside" of this is that the decks aren't all assembled simultaneously, but it's really no big deal. I just run a RNG to determine 1-2 decks I'm going to play for the next week or two or for a specific game night with friends, reference the decklist(s), and put them together. My collection management for 15ish decks is probably less complicated than a lot of peoples with half as many decks.

[Toshi]

My rules of thumb when it comes to building:

- The Commander is the key part of the deck, not just a face card or color spender.
- Decks start out with 35 mana-producing lands and at least 7 mana accelerants.
- Run as few utility lands as possible but as many as unanimously needed. (On avg 17-30 basics per deck)
- Anything beyond 3 mana has to be spot on or is cut. (Avg CMC 1,74 to 3,63 currently)
- No sorcery speed spot removal, unless it is on a stick.
- Synergy over so-called "Staples" when in question.

My overall approach:

- I want to build decks that stick around:

I love tinkering with decks. The research that goes into card selection, play-testing until you feel you got it right, sifting through spoilers, finding cuts ... all of it!
If i were only to build temporary decks i would've missed out on so many feel good moments. Like the time Fists of Flame was released and ridiculed all other already ridiculous interactions with Zada, Hedron Grinder.
To this day i enjoy games that give me a sense of the difference between a deck draft that might be weeks to months old and one that evolved through countless hours over the years.

- I prefer odd strategies and/or colors over generic ones:

Sure, i could come up with an Elsha of the Infinite or Kykar, Wind's Fury list that's playable and (somewhat) fun. But 3C without major deck building restrictions sounds anything but interesting to me.
Give me something technically unique (like Zada, Hedron Grinder, Lazav, the Multifarious or Grenzo, Dungeon Warden), niche (Archangel Avacyn//Avacyn, the Purifier), akward within its colors (Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle) or something that others would consider outright bad (Traxos, Scourge of Kroog) and you'll get me hooked easily.
These will become the decks i not only have but love.

- I want to play cards you might not see anywhere else:

We all know too well, that there are cards in the format you'd have to actively ignore to not run them - especially when it comes to ramp and interaction.
I don't mind that, but what i do mind is, when the remaining nonland cards are the same ones each and every game. Of course you can plug Unwinding Clock et al into your Traxos, Scourge of Kroog deck, but that's bland and i wouldn't look twice. But the same commander with Kusari-Gama, Triangle of War, Jhoira's Toolbox and Not of This World? Heck, yes!

- I don't want the same games over and over again:

This results in 2 decisions:
1. I won't build any "flavor of the month" commanders. There are plenty examples of commanders that saw too much play when they were released. Atraxa Praetors' Voice, Muldrotha, the Gravetide, Feather, the Redeemed, ... I don't want to face mirror matches regularly and i want to add to the diversity of commanders in my playgroup and LGS.
2. I will only play lean numbers of nonland tutors - if any. We're playing a 100 card Singleton game, so tutoring for the same 2-3 cards each time is propably the least interesting thing to do. I want to see my and others' deck(s) unfold, in a way. The tutors i run are either specifically good in their deck - like Thalia's Lancers in Brago, King Eternal to dig for planeswalkers, Oath of Gideon, Oath of Teferi and Bident of Thassa - or flavorfully fitting like Diabolic Intent and Sidisi, Undead Vizier in Gonti, Lord of Luxury.

- I want reasonably long games:

I get no enjoyment out of 15 minute races to combos, nor do i enjoy several hour long slugfests. Most memorable games i've had must've been between 45 and 2 hours long and with 3 to 4 players at the table. Therefore you will only see me in 5 player pods if we're exactly 5 players and can't split into several pods.
I also build accordingly. E.g. Unless the deck has a definite advantage through them i'll only include about 2 to 3 board wipes. It's simple; if players run too many, chances are your board state will be reset over and over until top deck luck has to kick in to decide the game. I always thought it would be sufficient enough to draw into 1 or 2 board wipes over the course of the game, because if everyone else did, that's plenty to try to stop someone who's racing ahead and just enough to make for a worthy winner if he or she was able to play through that.

Overall this thread has been a good read and gave me a good idead of myself as a deckbuilder and player in comparison.

[ilovesaprolings]

- The Commander is the key part of the deck, not just a face card or color spender.
- Synergy over so-called "Staples" when in question.

Amen bro, amen

[Serpent_Steve]

For me it's gotta be a mixture of a few things:

1. I like HUGE chonks of mana. Preferably with lands rather than artifacts or creatures. As a consequence of this all bar one of my decks contain at least the colour green.
2. I prefer winning by turning sideways rather than any other method.
3. I like every deck I build to be made with a theme in mind as well as a theme that isn't common in my local area (As an example when we all started building tribal decks I went with elementals for my theme because no one else had touched them).