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How To: Make a Magic the Gathering Deck!
In this episode, the host guides listeners through the process of building a Magic: The Gathering deck, focusing on card sorting and strategic selection. With practical tips and personal insights, thi...
How To: Make a Magic the Gathering Deck!
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Interactive Transcript
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Hello, this is your host and today we are going to learn how to build a magic the gathering
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deck.
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Now, this episode assumes that you already have two, three, four, seven, ten deck's worth
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of cards in combinations that can be put together to make a deck.
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If that makes any sense, you should already have some cards.
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And you should already know how to play magic the gathering.
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This episode is just teaching how to make a deck not play the game.
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So first step you need to do is if you haven't already, you probably have, but you need
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to sort your cards.
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I've already done that, but yeah, I sort them by what they do because when building decks
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cards, it's a lot more useful to sort cards by what they do than by anything else.
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It just makes more sense to sort them by what they do.
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Now, the cards I'm using are mostly from, they are mostly from what's it called?
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What's it called?
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Raffnico, word of the spark, Ixelon, rivals of Ixelon, stuff like that with some others,
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of course.
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I have a lot of cards, quite a few.
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But yeah, so you should sort your cards by what they do.
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So I've sort of mind by cards without abilities, cards with simple key word abilities.
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So that's things like just cards that have vigilance or haste or reach or death touch.
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Yeah, cards that buff themselves, so like an example, whenever Tilo, Nally's, Knight attacks,
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if you control a dinosaur, it gets plus one plus one until end of turn, or you can pay
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so it buffs itself, just stuff like that.
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Somehow it buffs itself.
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That's the definition of that.
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Cards that buff others, so that is enchantment auras, enchantments, artifact equipment, sorceries,
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stuff like that, and also some cards that buff other creatures, or likewise, I guess.
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Then I have a section for cards that make you draw in discard cards.
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A section for token creation.
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A section that puts counters on themselves, so like you can pay to put a one-one counter
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on one, for example, or if you attack with the creature this turn, it adds a one-one counter
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to itself.
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Some add counters to others, so that also includes artifacts and sorceries and stuff that add
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counters to cards.
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A section of cards that destroys exciles, sacrifices, etc.
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That's just what the card does.
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As you can see, I'm not sorting by card type, I'm sorting by what they do.
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You won't see it sorted by instance and sorceries and enchantments, so probably shouldn't
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do that.
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But I don't have a section to return from graveyard, to gain or lose life, and to damage
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target, since those are often intermingled, I just made that one section.
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Cards that deal with treasure and cards that benefit from artifacts, like ones that get
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plus one plus one for every artifact you control.
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That's a good one, that I plunderers.
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By treasure, I mean the treasure tokens that can be created by pirates that have tap to
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sacrifice this artifact at one man of any color, dear manapool.
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I have a section of cards that explore, a section of cards that tap and untap other cards.
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A section that has a attack and block mechanics, like can't be blocked, can't be blocked
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by dinosaurs, creatures with defender, can't block, can't be blocked alone, stuff like
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that.
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A section for second draw or second spell creatures.
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So basically cards that benefit from your second draw or second spell on a given turn.
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A section for things that ascend, so get cities blessing.
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Section for counters, like counter cards, that counter other cards.
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A section that's just sort of, and etc.
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A section, I guess.
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A section for proliferate.
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A section for uncategorized.
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A section for falls into multiple categories.
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Then of course I have planes, walkers and tokens, like token creatures in the back.
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So yeah, that's just how it's sorted.
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Once your cards are sorted, that might take a little while.
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You might want to rewind that right down everything I just said, so that you can then sort
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it.
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But yeah, once you've sorted your cards, you need to look through and find cards that are
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good.
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As a rule of thumb, a card should either be have, like for card cost two, it should be
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at least a two two.
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That's just sort of a rule of thumb, or it should do something good.
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To make up for the fact that it's not two two.
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Like I have this one card that's totally not worth it.
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That costs four and it's a three three.
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It's the gilded centimle.
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Yeah.
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So, gotta look through and just find cards that are good.
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So I think I'm going to make a...
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What should I make my deck?
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I already have quite a few decks made, so my binder is not as full, so I might want it
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to be.
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So I'm just looking through, looking for good cards.
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Maybe I could do a...
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Let's see.
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A black green deck.
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Because I have this black green card that I like, that sort of follows the black green.
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I don't know, narrative almost.
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It costs three.
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It's a three three and four five.
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You can return it from your graveyard to your hand.
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So that's going to be the basis for my deck.
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I now know what my deck is going to do.
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So, now you need to pick basically strategy for your deck to use.
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So mine is going to gain cards back from the graveyard and also...
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Let's see.
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And also gain life.
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That's what my deck is going to do.
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So I just take out and look at all of the cards that are black or green that return cards
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from the graveyard, because that's what I want my deck to do.
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Just take them out and set them in the pile.
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And then I take out all of the black and green cards that help me gain life.
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Black green is a really weird combination for a deck, by the way.
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Like this one's a good one.
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Ravenous dagger tooth.
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It costs three.
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It's a three two and whenever it's dealt damage, I gain two life.
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That's a good one to put in here.
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So just picked out the Soul TIE Flair.
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Whenever a creature I control with toughness, four or greater dies, I gain four life.
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Which is also a pretty good one.
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Dark nourishment.
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It costs five.
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Dails three damage to target creature or player and I gain three life.
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It's a decent one.
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Bishop of the Bloodstained.
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See this would be a good one, but it's not.
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It costs five.
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It's only three three.
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And when enters the battlefield, target opponent loses one life for each vampire you control.
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That would be a good one if I was making a deck mainly based around vampires, but I'm not.
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So that's not a good card to include.
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It's not much else in here.
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So now I have a small stack of cards that help me gain life and deal damage to the other
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player as well as return things from the graveyard.
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Now I'm going to go into my section of cards that are multiple categories and see if there's
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anything good in there.
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One of the cards I already have is Centaur, Neutr.
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It costs four.
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It's a two four and when enters the battlefield, I gain three life and I can tap it to add one
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mana of any color.
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So that makes me want to also put Arborial Grazer in because when Arborial Grazer enters
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the battlefield, I can put a land card from my hand onto the battlefield tapped.
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So I can just sort of go along with that trend almost of land, collecting land.
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Let's see what else is in here that I might want.
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Since I'll be gaining so much life, oh but that's a bad deal.
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See Dusk Legion's zealot is I think a fairly bad card because it costs two.
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It's only a one one and when enters the battlefield, I draw card but I also lose life and I don't
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think losing a life is worth just drawing a card that came out wrong.
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Like, if it were two two that cost two that also did that, that will be worth it to me but
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it's not.
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So it's not.
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This is a good one.
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Centaur told him it costs one and it's an artifact.
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When enters the battlefield, I can tap it to exile it and exile all cards from all
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graveyards.
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But I probably don't want to put that in this deck since this deck has cards that take
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cards out of my graveyard.
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Like that basically bring cards back to life.
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So, I don't think it would be a good idea to put that in there because it could hurt
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me too.
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DaVriel's Shadowfuge.
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Target player discards two cards and loses two life.
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It's a surf story.
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That seems like a good one.
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It costs four but that's fine.
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Um, prophetic prism since I'm doing a two color deck I might want to put this in here.
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Uh, because it costs two it's an artifact and when it enters the battlefield I draw
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card and for one mana and to tap it I can add one mana if any color to my mana pool.
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So like if I have two black mana out but I really need a green one I can tap one of them,
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tap prophetic prism and get a green mana.
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But I don't think that will go well with his deck.
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Oh, here's a very good one that I want to put in.
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It's um, recover.
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So I return target creature from my graveyard to my hand and then draw a card.
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Maybe in the stack I'll make the opponent discard cards.
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Because a lot of these cards make the opponent discard cards.
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So I could go with that.
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The sorcery heartless pillage.
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Hmm, see I wouldn't want to put that in because that wouldn't introduce treasure tokens
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and if I'm not going full on with them I don't want to put them in.
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I like having decks that are very focused to a specific tactic.
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Oh, this is revelation will be a very good card but it's also very expensive.
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So I don't think I want to put that in.
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Grapple with a past.
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It costs two.
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It's an instant.
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For the top three cards of your library into your graveyard then you may return a creature
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or land from your graveyard to your hand.
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That seems like a very good card to put in the stack.
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Um, oops.
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Binder almost fell off the table.
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Ooh, death sprout.
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Cost four.
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Destroy target creatures.
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Search your library for a basic land card.
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Put it onto the battlefield tapped and shuffle your library.
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This card's amazing.
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I really like that card.
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Let's see.
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What else can I put in here?
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Hmm?
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Okay.
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Hey.
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So now that, um, if you recall, just then we were looking through the multiple category
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section and we found some good cards that make the opponent discard cards.
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So now I'm going to go to the section that's actually dedicated to drawing and discarding cards
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here.
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So I'll pull a couple of these out.
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I'm in the wrong section.
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Oops.
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That's mildly irritating.
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They're all either red or blue.
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Other than, um, oh, I have a few black ones.
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Let's see what they do.
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The black ones I have are dead eye tormentor.
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When it enters a battlefield, if you attack with a creature this turn, target opponent discard cards
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a card.
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So that seems like a good one.
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It costs three.
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Um, and it's a two-two.
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So I'm, I'll pull some of those out.
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And then mind raker.
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And I'll draw the processor.
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Um, when it enters a battlefield, I can put a card and opponent owns from exile into
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that player's graveyard and if I do each opponent discard cards a card.
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Now, since this deck doesn't actually exile cards, I'm not going to want to put that one
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in there.
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Even though it doesn't all draw Z and I kinda like all draws Z.
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But it costs four to three three and doesn't do much to make up for it.
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I don't think.
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Target opponent reveals his or her hand.
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You choose a non-land card from it.
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That player discards that card.
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Um, that's dark inquiry.
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It's a sorcery that costs three.
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Dark inquiry is a good one.
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And then there's also duress that only costs one.
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That does the same thing except it's a non-creature non-land card that you choose.
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So that's also a good one.
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Now, I'm going to have to go into one of my other decks to take out a card since I think
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it would go really well in this deck with the direction we're taking this deck.
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Um, where is it?
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It's Obnixelus the Heat Twisted.
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It's Plainswalker.
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Whenever an opponent draws a card, Obnixelus the Heat Twisted deals one damage to that player.
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I didn't realize it was Draws a Card.
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I thought it was whenever an opponent discards a card.
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So that's not as useful as I thought it was, but that's okay.
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Okay.
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So now I've got to go through see how many cards I have for this deck so far.
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One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
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The way I count cards is I put them in piles of ten so I never lose my spot.
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One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
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One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
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One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
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I only have 37 cards so far.
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Let's see if there's anything better.
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Like anything else we can use.
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So now I'm just going to go through basically all of my cards, section by section.
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What else can I make this do?
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I am not quite sure.
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I don't want to make it something like a counter deck or anything, because that's not what I
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think it is.
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Let's look through the destroy section.
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Destroy target non-merafook creature.
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It only costs two.
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That seems like a good card to put in.
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I now have 39, which is a decent place to be.
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Now to determine how much land I need to put in, I need to set out my mana curve.
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So the way I'm going to do that is I'm going to make piles of all of the all of the cards that I have that cost different amounts.
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So I'm going to organize it like a bar graph with the card slightly overlapping.
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So each card makes the bars slightly longer.
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Just top to bottom.
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So yeah, I'm going to just overlap the cards quite a bit, starting at the top and working my way down with cards at cost.
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One on the left then followed by cards that cost two, cards that cost three, etc.
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Just so I can see what my mana curve is.
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And once I can see that, I should be able to tell how many land I need in here.
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From the looks of it quite a bit, because we have a ton of cards that cost three.
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And we also have quite a few that cost one.
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You don't have very many that cost two, which is irritating, because usually the cards that cost two are good cards that definitely need to be used.
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Let's see.
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And also by doing them slightly overlapped, I can see the color of each card, meaning that I know how much of what type of mana to put in here.
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So I have two, four, six, seven cards that cost one, four cards that cost two.
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Oh, that's a lot.
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Five, six, eight, nine, two, one, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen cards that cost three.
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Seven cards that cost four, three cards that cost five, and a card that cost six.
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So this is kind of an unhealthy mana curve, but it should work since I have enough ones and cards that are ones and stuff that it should be able to work out.
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Hope.
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Now I sort my land by artist, so I'm going to go through and pick an artist that has a good basically look to put into the stack.
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Let's do Titus Lunter creates really cool land.
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So we need 21 land and since I have mostly black cards and most of my cards that cost more than one of the same color of mana cost to black.
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So I'm going to put in probably 15 black, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, black.
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And then let's see how many green that be.
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One, two, three, four, five, six, green.
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Of course, now I also have to go and check my colored and colorless mana section to see if I have any multi-colored or colorless that would go well with this deck.
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Now that's a shame.
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So I'll just have to use basic lands.
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Yeah, so now I have 21 basic land and all the rest of my cards.
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And they're all going to go together to make a magic, the gathering deck.
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Yeah.
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So, yeah.
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Now we have a black green deck that's poorly organized and probably won't perform very well, but we put a ton of effort into it.
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So it should do decently at least, I hope.
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So yeah, there you have it.
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So yeah.