Basic Instructions for starting a deck:

Step 1) Establish a theme for your deck. This can be decided either by what color you want your deck to be, or by a specific card you want the deck to be based on.
Step 2) Make sure to plan your mana curve when choosing cards. Think through how a game will play when considering cards, you do not want too many high cost cards clumping up in your start hand. An average casting cost you want to aim for with a deck, including lands, is 2.667.
Step 3)Start off by picking out your turn one and two drops. These cards usually consist of either an early aggressor for aggro, a ramp spell for midrange, or a form of removal or control spell. If you plan to have high cost cards, you need to find a way to either stall out until you can cast them, or ways to mana ramp up to them.
Step 4) Now decide what your mid game will be, your turn three and four drops. An important thing to keep in mind is to synergize these cards with what would have been cast before them, and what will be cast afterwards. Either these should be hard hitting aggro creatures, utility creatures or efficient creatures for midrange, or more removal, control, or board wipes for control decks.
Step 5) Your end game comes next, you need a card that will heavily sway the game in your favor, and preferably give you the win. Aggro decks rely on large creatures with haste or some other ability that will heavily affect combat. Non-aggro decks tend to use either a large creature, planeswalker, or combo to end the game.
Step 6) The amount of lands a deck needs varies based upon the type of deck you’re running and the average casting cost. Most agro decks can run between 18-21 lands, dependent upon whether the deck is all low cost creatures or if it has a few expensive cards. Midrange needs 22-24 to make sure its start hand always has a few land in it. Control decks run 24 or more, dependent upon what it uses as a win condition. Missing a land drop can be incredibly detrimental to a control deck.
Step 7) As tempting as it is run a large deck, you need to cut a deck down to sixty cards for a more consistent game. Cutting lands is a mistake many players make, do not sacrifice consistency for those few extra cards.

Play and make changes as necessary. You will only know if a deck works by practicing with the deck as often as you can.


Dillon Baca
mtgcompetitivemeta@gmail.com
Richardson, TX 75007.