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Brainstorming a Decklist


How do I Just Think of Ideas?

Decks can be created from seeing a specific card and deciding to build around it, wanting to make a wacky combo work, or just creating the best deck you can with the available cards. There are many other reasons to design a certain deck but all require some kind of purpose to do. Even if the purpose is to throw random cards together for a deck.

What Should I Keep In Mind?

Purpose
Deciding what you want your deck to do is the most important part of creating a successful deck. Making a deck that has 45 ways to win but each way works only 1% of the time is far worse than a focused deck that works 97% of the time.

Budget
Everyone has a specific amount of money at their disposal. Some decks cost more than others and you want to keep in mind what you can afford and how much you want to spend


Who am I Playing Against?

There are different 'powerlevels' or tiers of magic decks. Some are meant to just to have elaborate effects, but not incredibly dedicated to destroying the opponent. On the other extreme, some decks can win on turn 1. Depending on your playgroup, a certain level of deck may be appropriate. In a truly casual setting, you don't want to blow your opponents out of the water every game. That will lead to frustration and you not having anyone to play. Conversely, you don't want to be blown out every game. It (usually) isn't very fun to have no chance to do anything.

While you want to stay in a reasonably close zone to other players, you always don't want to sacrifice your deck for it. It is sometimes frustrating to have to handicap yourself because other players can't afford, or don't want to create a 'stronger' deck. Think of this as a way to stretch your creative muscles and truly test your abilities. Create a deck that uses only commons, or one that uses a fun combo. Don't take it as an insult or complaint, but a way to challenge yourself.

Tweaking and Tuning your Deck


Goldfishing or Solitaire

When players refer to goldfishing or solitaire they mean playing the deck alone against no opposition. This doesn't let you see how it plays in a real game situation, but it allows you to see what kind of draws or consistency you have within the deck. It is a way to do preliminary tests without any help and see the basics of how it is working.

Statistics

It is impossible to know exactly how a deck will play without actually playing it. This does not mean you can't have a pretty good estimation, though. By looking at a deck's curve, mana requirements, manabase, win condition, and other variables, you can have a fairly good idea of how it'll play. Going through endless stats and compiling them for yourself is rarely fun and is often extremely tedious. Luckily there are programs that help with some of the important statistics.

Magic Workstation is one such program that is used to build decks from any combination of cards in Magic. Another is a deckprogram under Magic Deck Statistics at MTG-Forum.de Both have the ability to check many useful stats such as manacurve, color ratios, spell ratios, probability of drawing, hand samplerhas a built in deck analysis that tells you the curve, mana requirements, and other such information.

• Magic Workstation
  http://magicworkstation.com
  
  
• Magic-Forum.De
  http://magic-decks.de/magic-deck-statistik.php?lng=en
  
  
  

Playtesting

Playtesting is a key part of perfecting a deck. No matter what you see on paper, you can never be absolutely certain how it'll do in actuality. Playtesting is exactly what it sounds like: testing the deck by playing it. If you have a known meta, or know what types of decks you are going to be playing the most, you can playtest against those decks. This will allow you to refine your deck and see what works best in certain situations.

Didn't want to post anything till it was confirmed that you were done updating. The entirety of the Casual Play forum owes you a huge thanks for this monstrous guide.

In a word:

Props