For the last few years, Tapatim's Deck Clinic has been helping people tune up their decks for the standard meta. This week, we're going to be fulfilling that same function, but with another twist added in.
One philosophy of helping others, the kind TDC and other clinics across the net have been fulfilling, is to "give a man a fish", so he can eat for a day. This thread has been designed with the idea of teaching that man how to fish, so he can feed himself for the rest of his life.
1. So here's the idea. In my next post, I'm going to post some of the general principles of deck-building that I've picked up along the way. A few sections of it might deal with concepts that are familiar to some of you, but a number of the other ideas should be more ground-breaking. Although there have been plenty of articles dealing with individual elements of Magic fundamentals like card advantage and tempo in the past, what I'm going to be attempting to teach here is how to think and build the way that your top 5-10% of players think, and build.
Basically, I'm going try to share the same set of skills I use every day in critiquing and building decklists, and try to help people see the same things that pop out at me, whenever I analyze a decklist.
2. Once the article's out of the way, I'll begin posting deck-lists for players to critique, and submit revised lists for consideration. Some of the lists might be prototypes I've experimented with in the past, others might be taken from Tapatim's pages. When I pop back in, I'll select some of the revised builds that you've come up with, offer my opinion on the revisions that were made, and possibly try to relate those to some of the principles I discussed in the article. We may start taking open submissions at some point, as well.
3. At the end of Uncon, I'll select three posters who were among the most involved, and recommend that WizO Crosis hook them up with custom avatars and custom titles.
4. Anyone who enjoys the process of critiquing and rebuilding is more than welcome to join the staff of TDC. Feel free to think of this thread as a boot-camp for deck doctors.
Alright, here we go.
Senior Deck Doctor at Tapatim's Deck Clinic: the oldest, most respected deck clinic on the boards. (est. Dec 2003)
Simply post your deck list in the thread above, and we'll help you troubleshoot it, tech it, and help analyze problem matchups. Rogues, archetypes, and random piles of cards are all welcome.
Current Deck Doctors: Wx
Backup/Retired Docs- John Mathias, Ner'Zuhl Lord of Darkness/Illidan Stormage, Tapatim, Weapon X, Xukko the Unholy, Broken Wings, Universal Snip, WrathofChris, Volrath Outside the Door, Capashen Dawn, Crimson Lancer, Nolaw, Pandman64, Vodka7up, Antilles, MagicMaster, Krowzy, Clam I Am, Jenius, Oracle VIII, Green Mycon, Doodlebird, Kavu Lancer, and many others who volunteered over the years.
0. Magic, Chess, and Prophecy Everyone knows that Magic is a game of strategy, and cunning. To be successful, you have to outthink your opponent.
However, outthinking your opponent is a great deal more complicated than knowing which cards are good, putting them together in a list that’s synergistic, and including a few hosers against the known decks.
To illustrate: I said a moment ago that Magic is a game of strategy. A different way to describe it, that strikes closer to the heart of what all strategy games really are, is that it is a game of prophecy.
In Chess, your ability to win is entirely dependent on your ability to think ahead, to predict the moves of your opponent, and compensate for them. The player who can think the farthest ahead, who can accurately predict the best moves and counter-moves that they and their opponent will make, and compensate for them, will gain the advantage. Every form of warfare, combat, or strategic exercise works on that same principle.
And Magic is an extremely intricate game of simulated warfare, of information, of predicting the future. If you can account for what your opponents are going to do, in terms of building their decks, and create a strategy which either they cannot react to, or that reacts to their strategies perfectly, then you will win the game. (This is why play-testing for hours upon hours is so critical, at the professional level: the best way to predict the future, is to simulate it.)
So, know that we know our basic goal, to create a strategy that cannot be countered, or to create a deck that can react perfectly to any challenge, how do we go about doing that?
1. Producing an unanswerable threat
Threats can become unanswerable for several reasons. Your opponent may have plenty of cards, but not enough mana to answer your threats, your opponent may not have the correct cards to answer your threats, or your opponent might not have enough cards to answer your threats.
The various basic archetypes, aggro, control, aggro-control, and combo, each utilize one or more of these ways of producing an unanswerable threat.
For instance, aggro decks win by deploying effective threats so rapidly that your opponent does not have the time or mana to answer them.
Control decks win by stalling the game long enough that its more powerful cards, or higher quantity of cards, enables it to win a war of attrition.
Typical aggro-control decks win by protecting their threats with some form of disruption versus control, and by having superior removal or creature size in relation to aggro decks.
Combo decks should seek to use synergy between a small number of cards to achieve a single overwhelming, unanswerable threat in the quickest amount of time possible.
If your deck has not been designed to concentrate on one of these specific goals, or a combination of them, then you have fallen victim to deck-building error #1.
Deck-building Error #1 is the failure to give your deck a single cohesive strategy. Every card in your deck should be designed to contribute to the goal of either winning via card advantage, or by outracing your opponent. If you fail to pick a single one of these strategies to implement, your deck will lack focus.
Examples of archetypes that exhibit this kind of error would be a slow aggro deck, which wins by ramping up and playing Craw Wurms, a white weenie that plays Wrath of God, or a control deck which runs no mass removal, only spot removal, and little or no card draw.
2. Reacting to threats and possible answers
The most common deck-building fallacy of all, among beginning and intermediate players, is the failure to correctly analyze the playability of cards. Typically, they’ll fall into a pattern of playing cards which are popularly believed to be “good”, without taking environmental factors into consideration.
For instance, when Hypnotic Specter first arrived in 9th edition, there was a huge rush on the part of B/G/W control decks to include him. The idea was to run first turn birds, and second turn Specter, theoretically giving you a wonderful chance to destroy your opponents’ hand.
What most deckbuilders failed to realize at the time was that the format had come a long way since the days of dark ritual and first turn Specters. By turn three, the earliest that modern-day Specters could begin to swing, your opponent could have any number of removal options or playable fliers available to stop it, and Specter would typically bite the dust, or strip dead cards from an answerless hand. The problem with this is not that a one for one trade is a terrible thing. Paying three mana to force your opponent to Putrefy certainly isn’t game-losing play. The problem with this is that the only situation in which Hypnotic Specter would hit is if your opponent already didn’t have any answers in hand, rendering its ability fairly useless. He wound up being only marginally more useful than a 2/2 flying flagbearer.
He still could have been randomly playable in that deck (and can be playable in other decks) despite this, and he certainly was not a completely wasted slot. But what the deck truly wanted to do was play more men that could actually perform as threats, rather than swing a couple of times before chumping an enemy Kokusho.
To illustrate a positive example of this kind of thinking in action, some of the techier B/G/W control decks from the same environment serve wonderfully. At the time, four-toughness finishers like Loxodon Hierarch and Kodama of the North Tree were extremely popular in B/G/W. To adapt to those conditions, some builders opted to include Graveshell Scarab and Arashi among their primary finishers, and to run more Cranial Extractions and Kokushos than their opponents, in order to out-muscle their opponents’ finishers in the mirror. These builds managed to edge out their opponents wonderfully, and out-performed the other B/G/Ws in the metagame.
To apply the same sort of thinking to an aggro approach, let’s take a look at modern zoo decks (r/g/w aggro). At the moment, the format is (or was) filled with significant amounts of red/blue control, which gives many of these players access to Pyroclasm and Electrolyze. Also, three toughness dorks like Call of the Herd and Ohran Viper are seeing a great deal of use. Given that, the most successful lists will be those that run creatures that can evade the creatures and the burn, such as Soltari Priest, and also opt for 3/3 creatures like Watchwolf and Scab-Clan Mauler over Dryad Sophisticate.
So for the purposes of the error list, decks which fail to take into account the way in which a metagame influences which individual cards are superior to others, fall victim to deck-building error #2.
3. Building a deck to succeed in your metagame
The same type of card recognition skills that allow you to identify cards which are good in any given format are the same skills you need to identify and mold together viable decks. You’re simply working on a larger scale. Instead of looking at the individual effects of cards in deciding which one makes the cut for a certain slot, at this level we’re looking at what kind of slots we want to put into the deck to begin with.
To figure that out, it’s important to know how some of the most common strategies and tactics in magic interact with one another. You have to be able to realize that blue’s counterspells are an excellent choice in a control-heavy metagame, that white is your best shot at wiping out large numbers of men, that red is excellent at finishing off an opponent’s last 10 or so life points with burn and picking off small men, that large quantities of cheap ground men backed by burn tends to beat evasion-based aggro, that cheap evasion tends to beat fat-mid-range ground men or control decks that chump, that discard beats control decks without enough disruption or counterspells, and so on.
Once you analyze the metagame, figure out which forces are at work, and analyze which strategies are viable and effective, you can set to work designing a deck with a strategy that can succeed against the majority of decks you will encounter.
For example, take a look at the U/G Critical Mass decks that popped up at Champs when Ravnica first came out. They fell back on counterspells, Arashi for mass removal, little green men, and Meloku to carry the day. It was a decent enough deck, as far as it went, but it had a number of conceptual flaws that it had to struggle with.
For one, the format’s premier aggro deck was red/white aggro, a burn-intensive deck with a healthy mix of flyers and efficient ground-pounders. Arashi, and an occasional Jitte, was far too little removal to take on these aggro decks consistently.
Secondly, the deck needed ramping spells to play its larger threats in a timely manner, but every time the deck would cast a ramping spell in the early game, it would be forced to drop its counter-shield.
Thirdly, the deck’s creatures were all slightly smaller than the rest of the format’s control finishers.
Finally, the deck was rather spare on card draw, so it was unlikely to win a war of attrition.
In a different format, the deck might have prospered despite these flaws, but because of these limitations it was never able to attain a truly dominant position in the standard metagame. Decks like these fall under deck-building error #3, conceptual error.
4. Interactivity, and managing pace
So far we’ve covered giving your deck focus, single card selection, and deck selection. The next and final major deck-building concept I’ll be covering is managing the proportion of slots you dedicate to advancing your own strategy, and to countering what your opponent is up to.
Typically, aggro decks don’t have to dedicate too many slots to answering their opponents’ strategies, beyond possibly tossing in some nice cheap countermagic, some burn to clear the way and finish off their opponent, discard to strip their hand, and methods of getting around hosers like CoP: Red.
But for control decks, and aggro-control decks, or anything else that kills at a lower speed than whatever the format’s premier aggro decks typically kill at, finding an effective way to react to your opponents’ strategies, while maintaining a viable number of win conditions, is absolutely essential.
And the key word in that last paragraph is “effective”. Relying primarily on two or three mana counterspells and Pyroclasm, for instance, against a deck with bunches of Kird Apes, Watchwolfs, and Giant Growth is not going to be a truly effective strategy. In the imagination of the deck-builder, it could be, but in practice you’re going to hard-pressed to counter multiple good one-drops and burn away three-toughness men with two-point burn.
The only way to truly learn what is or is not an effective strategy, from deck to deck, is to learn from experience. Either you’ve been around the block long enough to know that certain strategies are going to take more work for your deck to counter than others (Mono-white control will typically need a lot of SB help to take on Mono-black control), or you can compile honest, accurate playtesting results to measure how well your deck really is doing, and whether you need to add more answer cards that actually work into your deck (the usual problem with beginning players’ decks), or more finishing power.
The amount of slots you’ll need to dedicate to spot removal, or counterspells, or hand disruption, or any other of these types of non-creature spells is going to vary from deck to deck, and from matchup to matchup. You’ll simply have to put in the work to identify which is which, and not become so caught up in producing your own threats that you fail to realize that your opponent’s strategy will either disable your threats before they can work, or kill you before you can accomplish it.
Decks that forget that they’re actually playing a living, breathing opponent that they’ll need to either interact with or outrace can be said to fall under deck-building error #4.
5. Conclusion
Certainly there are various other types of errors that players make, such as discounting the importance of a good SB and a good SB plan, not paying enough attention to their manabases, and so on. But those are errors of effort, more than strategy.
To close, here are the four principles I discussed above, condensed and summarized:
1. Focusing your deck on a specific strategy. 2. Choosing the right individual cards for the metagame. 3. Choosing the right deck strategy for the metagame. 4. Finding the correct balance between proactivity and interactivity.
If you can master those four concepts of deck-building, then you will be well on the way to becoming a force to be reckoned with inside your state or province, your nation, and maybe even the world.
Senior Deck Doctor at Tapatim's Deck Clinic: the oldest, most respected deck clinic on the boards. (est. Dec 2003)
Simply post your deck list in the thread above, and we'll help you troubleshoot it, tech it, and help analyze problem matchups. Rogues, archetypes, and random piles of cards are all welcome.
Current Deck Doctors: Wx
Backup/Retired Docs- John Mathias, Ner'Zuhl Lord of Darkness/Illidan Stormage, Tapatim, Weapon X, Xukko the Unholy, Broken Wings, Universal Snip, WrathofChris, Volrath Outside the Door, Capashen Dawn, Crimson Lancer, Nolaw, Pandman64, Vodka7up, Antilles, MagicMaster, Krowzy, Clam I Am, Jenius, Oracle VIII, Green Mycon, Doodlebird, Kavu Lancer, and many others who volunteered over the years.
At last! Tapatims comes back... Well I'll be the first customer then had this cool discard deck, then went to a 220 battle of wits deck, now decided on this deck:
Purpose=2 nether traitors (at least 1 in play/in hand or some creature that can be sacced, basal sliver in play, hivestone in play enough mana to play the creature)
sac nether for BB get nether in gy for B sac new for BB get other for B ... inf black mana after which...play consume spirit and... no mana based counters work, remand doesn't work, hard counters don't work if you can transmute for another consume.
Questions: Anything that can deal with multiple tormods (I know shattering spree will work but I'd like it to be on color)? whether they sac or not I don't care, this only has problems when they play it during the combo (and even then it only hits one traitor). Any suggestions? Thoughts? I have heard legends of Tapatims deck clinic... Like ductape and WD40 it is except fused into one... surely it can fix anything... no tempo shall go undeveloped... no deck shall fizzle... that which was not viable becomes viable...
Have at it. And feel free to think outside the box.
EDIT: Also feel free to critique the decklist above this post.
Senior Deck Doctor at Tapatim's Deck Clinic: the oldest, most respected deck clinic on the boards. (est. Dec 2003)
Simply post your deck list in the thread above, and we'll help you troubleshoot it, tech it, and help analyze problem matchups. Rogues, archetypes, and random piles of cards are all welcome.
Current Deck Doctors: Wx
Backup/Retired Docs- John Mathias, Ner'Zuhl Lord of Darkness/Illidan Stormage, Tapatim, Weapon X, Xukko the Unholy, Broken Wings, Universal Snip, WrathofChris, Volrath Outside the Door, Capashen Dawn, Crimson Lancer, Nolaw, Pandman64, Vodka7up, Antilles, MagicMaster, Krowzy, Clam I Am, Jenius, Oracle VIII, Green Mycon, Doodlebird, Kavu Lancer, and many others who volunteered over the years.
Okay, lets give this a shot. Anything that I could do to make this better? Any advice you could give me against insanely annoying decks like Control? Roxodon Hierarchy
Nice thread, and great suggestions on deckbuilding--I'm going to forward this to the newer players here. Haha.
Anyways, I guess I'll try commenting on the above deck as well. (I'm not really a combo player, so I can't help ya Psionx. But just a couple comments; transmute is good but it is a bit slow. I'd replace Shred Memory for some card draw, such as Compulsive Research. One other thing, how does your deck fair in the meanwhile? It does not seem to have answers to any of what your opponent may play, so it might not do as well since it may move slow and transmute will make it take longer. However, this seems fun if it works.)
Onto the other deck.
3 Shadow Guildmage--would up to 4 since it has utility. 4 Magus of the Scroll--good for the late game; would cut to 3. 4 Knight of Stromgald--this isn't legal for type 2-not reprinted. cut for jump knight. 4 Dauthi Slayer--tis fine. 4 Sedge Sliver--kind of pointless since it is the only sliver in the deck. its not bad, i just don't like slivers. 3 Nekrataal--solid creature.
22 Creatures
4 Hit/Run--random at times. but if timed right, it can be some good. 4 Rise/fall--also random as well. 3 Persecute--more for a control deck. the creatures in the deck scream aggro but so far the non-creatures are not continuous with the deck. 2 Brain Pry--i like the versitility. 1 Undying Rage--i would use these or the arc. maybe both. it is not bad and can help push damage on your shadow creatures.
SB: 3 Undying Rage--would change this around. 2 Cruel Edict--this seems more for control decks...would think about this use more. 3 Deathmark--okay, just depends on the meta. 2 Demonfire--i dont like it in this deck...seems too expensive to run well. 2 Phyrexian Totem--high risk, high rewards. is good against certain decks. 3 Volcanic Hammer--nope.
Well, this deck seems to have an aggro theme with the creatures but a more control feel everywhere else. Reminds me of an older deck that did really well, but I forget the name at the moment. Those are some suggestions, but I'll post a decklist up later when I get the time. Probably tomorrow.
Here's a deck I built based on the cards I pulled from the 2 boxes of TS I bought. Any suggestions for improvement are welcome. However like most I am on a budget so I can't really afford to make any "extraordinary" (ie expensive) changes to the deck. I'll try and post some critiques of the above decks if I see anything that hasn't already been commented on later.
Spells: [24] 4x Wrath of God mass removal 4x Remand counter/draw 3x Cancel hard counter 4x Faith's Fetters removal/life gain 3x Ancestral Vision draw 4x Mana Leak counter 2x Telling Time Draw
Creatures: [12] 4x Court Hussar Card draw/chump 2x Akroma,Angel of Wrath Main beatstick 4x Windreaver Alternate beatstick 2x Teferi,Mage of Zhalfir Problem child
Land: [24] 3x Calciform Pools For casting the beatstick. 1x Flagstones of Trokair LD hate.(only one I have) 4x Boreal Shelf Cheaper than duals. 8x Island 8x Plains
Sideboard: 4x Ivory Mask Nice against shots to the skull. 4x CoP:Red Good for demonfire and dragonstorm. 4x CoP:Black Lots of black floating around. 3x Spell Snare Short circuits a counter war.
Psionx]At last! Tapatims comes back... Well I'll be the first customer then had this cool discard deck, then went to a 220 battle of wits deck, now decided on this deck:
Purpose=2 nether traitors (at least 1 in play/in hand or some creature that can be sacced, basal sliver in play, hivestone in play enough mana to play the creature)
sac nether for BB get nether in gy for B sac new for BB get other for B ... inf black mana after which...play consume spirit and... no mana based counters work, remand doesn't work, hard counters don't work if you can transmute for another consume.
Questions: Anything that can deal with multiple tormods (I know shattering spree will work but I'd like it to be on color)? whether they sac or not I don't care, this only has problems when they play it during the combo (and even then it only hits one traitor). Any suggestions? Thoughts? I have heard legends of Tapatims deck clinic... Like ductape and WD40 it is except fused into one... surely it can fix anything... no tempo shall go undeveloped... no deck shall fizzle... that which was not viable becomes viable...
[c]Demonic Collusi wrote:
At last! Tapatims comes back... Well I'll be the first customer then had this cool discard deck, then went to a 220 battle of wits deck, now decided on this deck:
Purpose=2 nether traitors (at least 1 in play/in hand or some creature that can be sacced, basal sliver in play, hivestone in play enough mana to play the creature)
sac nether for BB get nether in gy for B sac new for BB get other for B ... inf black mana after which...play consume spirit and... no mana based counters work, remand doesn't work, hard counters don't work if you can transmute for another consume.
Questions: Anything that can deal with multiple tormods (I know shattering spree will work but I'd like it to be on color)? whether they sac or not I don't care, this only has problems when they play it during the combo (and even then it only hits one traitor). Any suggestions? Thoughts? I have heard legends of Tapatims deck clinic... Like ductape and WD40 it is except fused into one... surely it can fix anything... no tempo shall go undeveloped... no deck shall fizzle... that which was not viable becomes viable...[/quote] Demonic Collusion ?
hi people i posted this deck on the boards but it would be nice to get some official help. in summary of what i said on the boards, 15 cards needed, budget isnt a problem, but i dont have any ninth (i have complete sets of everything else type two)
wxpqcwn]Alright, first decklist for revision and critique:
3 Shadow Guildmage I would take this out altogether for 4 scorched rusalka 4 Magus of the Scroll 4 Knight of Stromgald This isn't legal in type 2! :P I would replace this with Stromgald Crusader (this may have been what you meant) 4 Dauthi Slayer Seems ok to me. 4 Sedge Sliver This is Sedge Troll that may occasionally pump itself if there are a few in play. 3 Nekrataal This should be ok.
22 Creatures
4 Hit/Run Will be useful, though more so against control. Split cards tend to be slightly weakened because of the choice you have when playing them. Therefore it might not be the best idea to play this. 4 Rise/fallI think this should come out, it isn't terribly reliable, use something else. 3 Persecute See below 2 Brain Pry I would rather run Funeral charm. 1 Undying Rage A bit random. You should try to avoid having one-ofs in your decks. I don't think this is an optimal choice here.
Have at it. And feel free to think outside the box.
EDIT: Also feel free to critique the decklist above this post.
Comments in red.
First of all, you are aggro-control. You're trying for some beats, and hand disruption, with a little burn.
Creatures: I feel like you need some more one-drops wrote:
Alright, first decklist for revision and critique:
3 Shadow Guildmage [color=red]I would take this out altogether for 4 scorched rusalka 4 Magus of the Scroll 4 Knight of Stromgald This isn't legal in type 2! :P I would replace this with Stromgald Crusader (this may have been what you meant) 4 Dauthi Slayer Seems ok to me. 4 Sedge Sliver This is Sedge Troll that may occasionally pump itself if there are a few in play. 3 Nekrataal This should be ok.
22 Creatures
4 Hit/Run Will be useful, though more so against control. Split cards tend to be slightly weakened because of the choice you have when playing them. Therefore it might not be the best idea to play this. 4 Rise/fallI think this should come out, it isn't terribly reliable, use something else. 3 Persecute See below 2 Brain Pry I would rather run Funeral charm. 1 Undying Rage A bit random. You should try to avoid having one-ofs in your decks. I don't think this is an optimal choice here.
Have at it. And feel free to think outside the box.
EDIT: Also feel free to critique the decklist above this post.[/quote] Comments in red.
First of all, you are aggro-control. You're trying for some beats, and hand disruption, with a little burn.
Creatures: I feel like you need some more one-drops; Magus of the Scroll is a bit more for late game. IMO, you should go for a bit more aggro, maybe add Plagued Rusalka which allows for a decent one-drop which can control their early board if killed. Also consider Festering Goblin .
Hand Disruption: Persecute does not really belong here; it's better in straight control decks. Since we're trying to get a bit faster here, try Funeral Charm . This gives you options, can take care of a troublesome creature, or make them discard.
Land: Since we're cutting down on high mana costs, it's safer to run 22 lands, maybe even 21 (bit risky though). Bouncelands aren't good in early aggro either.
SB: Cut Undying Rage in sb, it's not a great SB card since it doesn't actually help you that much against good decks. I'd try upping cruel edict to 4, this can help if they manage to get out a SSS or the like. Deathmark is fine as long as your meta is reflective of this SB choice and you face lots of G and/or W decks. Demonfire'd be ok I guess but it wouldn't get as big, so maybe, maybe not... Totem depends a lot on your meta but if it works then up it to 3. Probably not volcanic hammer, .
SB (15): 4 Cruel Edict 3 Deathmark 4 Shadow of Doubt (Dragonstorm combo will be heavy in the meta for a while, this can help!) 3 Phyrexian Totem 1 Last Gasp
It's a lot of changes from the original but hopefully it shapes up well!! Many of the changes are simply more efficient replacements. For example, if you can afford 4 Blood Crypt, why run volcanic hammer over Char ?
With the Confidant you will take very little damage but gain a huge advantage.
