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The Sublime Art of Assembling a Pile of Expensive Cardstock and Cheap Plastic With Which to Annihilate Others
The Sublime Art of Assembling a Pile of Expensive Cardstock and Cheap Plastic With Which to Annihilate Others
I like to think I'm a decent deckbuilder. I've spent an uncomfortably long time playing Magic, I'm contemplative, and I can almost do basic math. There is at least one relationship I've had that was ruined by The Gathering; such is my dedication. Over the years I have honed the craft of constructing decks of mass destruction into a delicate combination of art and science, mind and body, mundane and divine. Today, I deign to share my hard-earned wisdom with you.
Still reading this pretentious drivel? My bad. Let's get started.
What Makes a Deck "Good," Anyway?
Before we get in too deep, I'd like to discuss the aims of this post. It's aimed at newer and intermediate deckbuilders who may find themselves struggling to build decks that perform to their liking. This guide is intended to help those deckbuilders understand deckbuilding fundamentals that will inform their selection process and give them a better understanding of the nuts and bolts of deck construction. It's most certainly not about building the best possible deck for competitive EDH without budget restrictions. Indeed, if you're not playing cEDH, there will always be some sort of confine you set for the deck you're building, be it budgetary, power level, or conceptual element, and it's important to keep that in mind.
As for what makes a deck "good," well, I prefer the term "refined." A refined deck will have a cohesive game plan starting with your opening hand through the late game. It will be somewhat consistent, fairly resilient, and have multiple options with which to win and deal with problems that prevent you from winning. Fundamentally, a refined deck will be able to execute its designer's vision, be it a blue-based control deck, Orzhov life drain, or a Gruul stompy deck. Notably, this is limited to mechanical interactions and can't account for flavor decks like Chair Tribal, where all the cards in the deck must have a chair in the artwork, but like cEDH I think that's a self-selective group.
It's also worth noting that refined decks can exist at any tier of play, though due to a strong emphasis on fundamentals they tend towards the competitive spectrum of any tier. All cEDH decks are refined, for example, while significantly fewer flavor-only decks are. I tend to play at the focused/optimized/75%/6-8 tier of play and it's my goal to make each and every deck I create to be refined.
Typically, a deck doesn't begin as refined but becomes so over time, after hours of testing what does or doesn't work. I will be using two different decks as examples for this thread: Nethroi, Apex of Death Aristocrats and a budget Dralnu, Lich Lord control deck.
Beware the Whispers
Approximate Total Cost:
Son of a Lich
Approximate Total Cost:
I've played both of these decks a considerable amount and both are fairly tuned. I chose these two examples for a number of reasons. First, one has mana dorks, and the other has mana rocks. This is a huge distinction that will become apparent later. Secondly, they're vastly different archetypes. While I call Nethroi "Aristocrats" that's sort of misleading. as it's more of a combo deck that uses Zulaport Cutthroat and friends as win conditions. Dralnu on the other hand is pure control. Finally, the budgetary differences in the two are staggering. Dralnu can be had for around $150 USD, while Nethroi will set you back damn near $800. As a result, Nethroi is propped up by powerful cards and interactions that you just can't get on a budget, but due to limitations Dralnu has to really focus on fundamentals. The contrast between the two decks serves to illustrate many lessons to learn.
I'll break down their functions below.
On the Origin of Decks
For me, there's no set spark that ignites the idea of a deck. Sometimes, it comes from a desire to execute a concept, like mono-black control, sometimes it's because I happen to love a specific card and want to build around it, like Seasons Past, while other times it's directly inspired by a particular commander, in the case of Nicol Bolas, the Ravager. Regardless of where it comes from, once I suss out exactly what I'm trying to do, I always start with the manabase. Sort of.
All Your Manabase Are Belong to Us
Crafting a manabase can be very intimidating if you haven't really done it before. It's easy to do with a huge budget where you can afford all the fetches you can run and the best fetchable duals, but for those without deep collections or pockets, we have to make do. I'll do my best to demystify the process with a little bit of theory, math, and a practical example.
It should go without saying that the two primary goals of a manabase are to a) consistently hit land drops until the mid or late game, whenever they become less relevant for whatever kind of deck you're running and b) consistently be able to cast all of your spells regardless of color on curve if necessary. The exact total number of lands you should run and the density of each color your lands should produce vary wildly depending on exactly what you're trying to do, but generally speaking, I run between 33% to 42% of lands depending on my curve and how long I want to be able to consistently make land drops with about half or more of those dedicated solely to fixing my colors. As a rule of thumb, start with 37 lands if you're running a significant portion of ramp or 40 if not. The rest of my lands are some combination of utility lands, such as Blast Zone and basics to round out my colored mana production to avoid getting blown out by Back to Basics. That's never happened to me in EDH, but you never know. Much like touching a hot frying pan, you only need to experience it once to learn that lesson.
Obviously, if you're in mono-color, you don't need to fix your colors, so you're free to run significantly more utility lands and can replace the rest with basics.
So, how do you know which proportions of mana fixing lands and basics to run? This is difficult to answer and ultimately requires lots of playtesting and a little bit of math, but we have to start somewhere. I only start with my non-basic color fixing lands and utility lands, since I fill in my basics based on my color requirements, which we'll get to later at the end of the article. Let's look at our example decks.
Here's what the manabase currently looks like for Nethroi:
Beware the Whispers
Fixers: 23
Utility: 6
Approximate Total Cost:
36 is in the middle of the number of mana producing lands I run in most of my decks. In this particular deck I run that many because our commander effectively costs seven mana, so it's very important to be able to hit as many land drops as possible until fairly late in the game. Due to the large amount of card draw and ramp I run I didn't think going to 37-38 would be required, however. As Nethroi is significantly more expensive and also three colors, there's significantly fewer slots dedicated to basics and utility lands, as it's more important to be able to cast your spells when you need them rather than the value of a utility land. It's often said that utility lands have a low opportunity cost, but I tend to disagree; not being able to cast a vital spell because your colorless land doesn't tap for whatever color you need is a serious problem.
Let's look at Dralnu:
Son of a Lich
Fixers: 10
Approximate Total Cost:
You can really see the budget constraints here. The duals are similar, but worse on average, and I'm running significantly more basics (over three times as many!). However, given that Dralnu is only two colors, this isn't as bad as you might think it is.
The duals and other mana fixers I run are generally just the best I can afford. As a rule of thumb, if they don't come in untapped and don't otherwise have any significant drawbacks, they're fine. For aesthetic reasons I usually only run complete cycles (such as pain lands or bond lands, but you don't have to be as stupid as I am. The more money you spend, the better your manabase will be, obviously, but you don't have to have fetches and OG duals to have an effective base.
How do you know how many basics to run? We'll get back to that.
Run More Mana Rocks
I mean, you should be.
Look, no one actually likes ramp. It's the vegetable of deck construction. Not tasty, but it enables you to do what you want; in the veggie's case, not die of heart disease, and in ramp's case, putting you ahead of the curve so that you can play your business spells faster. Rocks also often mana fix as well, which can be a boon to those with slightly weaker manabases due to budget concerns. Also, for the purposes of this article, I consider a "ramp" spell to be 0-2 mana value and produce mana somewhat permanently. Anything more expensive than that that generates mana performs a different, more specialized role that doesn't really help you in the early game when you want to be deploying your ramp spells. Obviously, you want to run the cheapest mana value ramp spells you can afford, but I ain't shelling out for a suite of Crypts and Moxen, so I don't blame you if you stick to the basics.
So, how many rocks, dorks, and ramp spells should you run? The answer is twofold: a) more and b) it depends.
Mathematically speaking, most players, even seasoned ones, don't run enough ramp. They'll sprinkle in 4-5 rocks and call it a day when 4-5% of your deck is statistically low enough to the point that you might as well not even run ramp. You're not likely to get them early when they're actually relevant, and thus are more likely to draw them later on as your deck gets thinner and they represent a growing percentage of it. Either commit to running more than 10 pieces of ramp or ignore it completely (except for Sol Ring, of course). For the sake of this article, we'll assume you actually want to ramp, though there are perfectly valid reasons to not do so.
Something to note about ramp is that you should generally have a plan to ramp into something, be it a commander with a mana value of four or having a mana sink in the command zone. It's all well and good to ramp, but if you never used that extra mana for anything significant it was a waste of resources and deck space.
The exact percentage varies depending on your goals, but as a rule of thumb, 11-14 ramp spells is where you want to be. 12 gives you a 70% chance to see a ramp spell on or before turn 3. Put another way, this means that in roughly 3 out of every 4 games, you'll be able to ramp things up; much more than that and you enter into diminishing returns, and much lower than that you run the risk of inconsistency. To be clear: I don't run this many in every deck, but I'm perpetually iterating on my decks (more on this later). Let's take a peek at Nethroi, Apex of Death again as an example:
Beware the Whispers
Approximate Total Cost:
15 seems like a lot, but as I noted, ramp above 2mv tends to be very specialized. Here, the three mana ramp creatures are still normal ramp due to the speed of the deck, but that they also leave behind tiny bodies for clamping and also recur well with our commander makes them valuable inclusions. Pitiless Plunderer and Pawn of Ulamog are obscene ramp value engines that fuel spectacular late game plays, so they're in despite not traditionally ramping me into anything early on. Solemn is a sad value inclusion, I admit, but he's much better here than in other decks since I can recur him 2-3 times per game. If we account for those, our cheap ramp count is actually low at 9. However, this is more than adequate given the shape of the rest of the deck.
What about our favorite zombie wizard?
Again, like Nethroi, Dralnu doesn't have anything in particular he wants to ramp into. However, this deck is deceptively mana hungry. Holding up mana for counterspells and card draw or removal is a big ask, and our rocks allow us to get there. So, why 11 rocks? With 11 rocks, we have a roughly 67% chance to see one by turn 2. We can figure this out using a handy dandy hypergeometric calculator.
Deck size is 99 of course, copies ran is 11 since we run 11 ramp spells, cards drawn is 7 + the number of turns you have to deploy the cards which is 2 for us for a total of 9, and odds to have are 1 since we only need one. The results can be a little arcane, but the number to pay attention to is the output for Odds of ≥ 1 since that will tell us the percentage that we see at least one. Here, it's 66.994%, which rounds up to 67% for our purposes. Pretty decent!
In conclusion, All Sol Rings Are Bastards.
Finish Them!
After establishing the fundamentals of the deck, I then jump to the back of the book to spoil the ending for myself so I don't get too invested in a garbage novel. Closing games out is something many EDH players struggle with and I think it's largely because they just assume they'll be able to get there without a clear path. It's outside the scope of this article, but you should always be thinking of a plan to kill everyone you meet. In game, I mean. To that end, it helps to have a predefined set of ways to win a game you establish here in the deckbuilding process. Whether it's combat damage, combo, or if you're a jerk, making people scoop, having that as a conscious end goal will help shape your plays.
How you win games is dependent on several factors, from the level of play your group/FLGS/Discord prefers to your own prejudices. Personally, I find fast, non-interactive combo decks to be a complete snoozefest, so I tend to avoid having "oops, I win" combos in my decks. After all, outside of competitive play, there are considerations beyond simply winning. Regardless of your win condition(s) of choice, build the rest of your deck with the explicit purpose of advancing towards that goal.
How does Nethroi win games?
Beware the Whispers
Snackrifice: 9
Approximate Total Cost:
It's a pseudo-combo deck that relies on assembling a critical mass of creatures and a reasonable sac outlet to drain people out with Zulaport Cutthroat and friends. This is often achieved by looping them in and out of play with Nethroi, Rally the Ancestors, Living Death, or Eerie Ultimatum until everyone is very, very dead. Alternatively, just resolve Tombstone Stairwell and start taking bets if you'll win before your next turn (spoilers: you will). 17 cards devoted to winning seems weird for a pseudo-combo deck, but when the sac outlets themselves play into the overall strategy of the deck, it's not so bad.
And Dralnu?
Son of a Lich
Win Cons: 5
Approximate Total Cost:
Dralnu uses significantly less deck space for its win conditions, which fall into the explosive category in the case of Army of the Damned or the grindy category in the case of Shark Typhoon. As a control deck, you need to run more disruption like removal or counterspells than other decks because you thrive in the late game based on your inevitability. That said, I have a strong preference for compact win conditions, and might be running too few to be able to steal games I might otherwise lose.
The Real Meat and Taters Section
In case you forgot, this post is about how to build an EDH deck. So far, I've talked about a bunch of boring theory and math about fundamentals, but now we're at the good part: what your deck actually does. Now that we've got the start of a solid manabase, a chonk of ramp (or no ramp), and a way to close out games, we can finally begin the process of forming a coherent gameplan. For the purposes of this section, I will talk about two kinds of roles these kinds of cards perform: utility and threats, These aren't rigid distinctions, as there can be overlap, and they're certainly not exhaustive categories, but they might help you think of how you flesh out the rest of your deck.
Utility:
Utility cards are things that indirectly contribute to your gameplan like card draw and tutors, as well as general disruptive categories like counterspells and removal. Mana ramp falls into this category as well, but is obviously a complex enough subject to deserve its own section. You can think of these cards as "support" and "value." They're not necessarily what your deck does, but they help your deck do what it does better and more consistently.
Threats:
Threats are the cards that actually directly contribute to your gameplan. For example, if you're an aggro deck, your creatures are your threats, whereas if you're running combo, it's your individual pieces that when combined actually win (the distinction being that a single combo piece in hand is only a win condition in theory; until you draw the other pieces, it's dead weight). If, for some god forsaken reason, you're playing mill, knock yourself out and run those mill cards.
The exact numbers here are far too complex and contextual to dive into, but the general idea is to run just enough utility cards to consistently find via direct card draw/tutoring or surviving long enough via disruption your threatss that consistently contribute to you winning the game. Put another way:
Utilize → Threaten → Finish Them!
Proactive decks like aggro or combo will generally lean into running more threats, whereas reactive strategies like control will generally lean into utility, but almost all decks generally want a mix of both. A deck full of threats will eventually peter out and reduced to irrelevancy, whereas a deck full of utility cards will durdle until the entropic heat death of the universe.
What does this look like in Nethroi?
Beware the Whispers
Draw/Recursion: 20
Removal: 7
Approximate Total Cost:
I very intentionally listed my draw and tutor spells first, since those are exclusively utility in virtually any deck. The removal suite is also utility in this case, since it primarily enables you to survive long enough to execute your win conditions. So, what are the threats? Outside of the sac outlets/drains, they come in the form of a mass recursion spell. Resolving even one of Nethroi, Living Death, Eerie Ultimatum, and Rally the Ancestors with a suitable board state and enough creatures in the graveyard is typically game over.
Dralnu is a lot different:
Son of a Lich
Approximate Total Cost:
A surface level reading of the deck would lead you to believe that this is all utility, however, since a control deck's primary goal is to run opponents out of options, the removal and counterspell suite are, in a way, threats themselves. The draw and tutor suite are the utility spells that make this viable, but by and large blowing stuff up or preventing it from happening are what the deck actually does, and so are in a sense threats. Think of it this way: while Nethroi uses its disruption to pave a pathway to victory, Dralnu is trading its disruption for your opponents' threats and attempting to do so in as efficient a method as possible; to this end, Dralnu's ability shines.
It's a blurry line between the two, but I find the mental divide to be a useful method for determining what a deck might need in the development process.
Back to Basics
I told you we'd get back to the basic land count. As a quick refresher:
Beware the Whispers
Fixers: 23
Utility: 6
Approximate Total Cost:
How did I arrive at these numbers? Easy. Most deckbuilding websites have some function to count the number of color symbols in your casting costs (known as "pips") and from that we can determine our basics suite. For Nethroi, this breaks down into the following:
27 green pips
20 white pips
45 black pips
For simplicity's sake, that's 29% green pips, 22% white pips, and 49% black pips. If we tally up the totality of our mana producers, they should fall somewhat into the same proportion.
25 green producers
21 white producers
28 black producers
That's 34% green, 28% white, and 38% black. Why don't these numbers line up? Well, if you examine what cards I actually run, green and white mana are more important in the early game, while black comes into play later. There's more to consider than just raw statistical analysis.
As for Dralnu, being two colors means things are a lot easier.
Son of a Lich
Fixers: 10
Approximate Total Cost:
That breaks down into the following:
51 blue pips, 70%
22 black pips, 30%
35 blue producers, 59%
24 black producers, 41%
Again, the numbers don't line up correctly, but it's more important to have both colors online as soon as possible to be able to begin determining whether to remove something or to counter it. Blue is obviously more important, but don't neglect your black sources, either.
How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?
Playtest, playtest, playtest. The map is not the territory. You can sit and write a treatise on deckbuilding, but without real world practice it's just words on a page. Or screen.
After playing a game, make notes, either mentally or physically. If you won, why? If you lost, what could you have done differently to change the outcome? Over time, these questions will inform your deckbuilding. If you keep losing due to drawing too many or too few lands, maybe it's time to adjust the land count. If a card is consistently dead, it's time for it to go. If you find yourself following a particular line of play to win, maybe retool your deck to focus on those lines. It's important to understand that one or two instances aren't generally enough to form any meaningful conclusions, however. This is a long process. Between actual games, goldfishing, and speculative analysis (the worst kind of analysis), I have probably several hundred hours of investment into my pride and joy, Erebos. That's not even including the woefully out of date primer I wrote for it.
Once you get a sufficient number of reps in, not only will your deck's flaws reveal themselves, but you'll also get a better handle on how to play it. Again, play skill is outside the scope of this post, but it's worth noting that this is a step many players overlook. The process isn't finished when you put the last card in its sleeve. Indeed, to me, the real work has actually just begun.
All's Well That Ends Well
Including mark up, there are 31,691 characters and 5,372 words in this article, which means I have entirely too much free time on my hands now and it's time to wrap this up. I don't think of myself as a master deckbuilder, but these are the considerations I generally take into account when starting with a blank canvas. I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this topic. @lyonhaert started me down this road many, many months ago when asking about iterating on his own Chainer list, and when I found I couldn't give a meaningful answer, I turned inward. Sorry dude! Hope this now helps.
tl;dr - Here is a good summary of this post.
