I wish you had talked more about card advantage in each of these archetypes. Because similar to any strategy-game, ressources (~cards) are key! Aggro decks try winning the game before the opponent can cast all their spells, basically getting a temporary card advantage in the early game because they can play all their cheap spells while the opponent has to wait. Control decks gain card-advantage over the long game via expensive cards that are "worth more" than because they either have 2 effects or draw additional cards. Once they 1-for-1 everything the opponent did, they're winning. Combo decks try to cheat the system by having a combo that either instantly wins the game or is worth more cards when they come together than any "fair" deck could muster. Midrange is basically a control deck with a creature focus instead of an instant-sorcery-planeswalker-focus. They have a very similar playstyle to control decks in that they're favored in the long run once they can cast all their spells. That said, many decks are mixes: The classic Legacy delver deck is a mix between aggro and control, phoenix decks are a mix between combo and midrange (in fact many midrange decks have smaller combos in them). The most important thing when deckbuilding is synergy: Ideally, you want all your cards to have a similar goal AND go well with each other! That's really the secret of a good deck, even if it's just for fun!
Can you explain the diffrence between a aggro+control deck and a midrange deck? From the video's explanation it sounds that midrange is the in-between of aggro and control.
@@HiddenDragon555 It's all a bit of a gradient, but here's the short version: Aggro: It gets the threats in before they can get their answers. Aggro wants to hit them, hit them hard, and hopes to end the game before it runs out of steam. Aggro-Control, or Tempo: First, it gets in a threat. Then, it keeps the enemy off-balance long enough to win. Its cards usually don't have a lot of value to them, but help control the board and keep their relatively few threats alive. However, they generally fall completely flat once the opponent does manage to gain control of the game. It is an archetype completely focused on getting ahead early and keeping that advantage for as long as possible. Midrange: All about the value and flexibility. Early on, it plays defensive creatures and spells against more aggressive decks, or plays valuable creatures against its slower enemies. Then, as the game goes on, it hopes to outvalue the enemy with efficient answers, and powerful threats. However, it can't be as fast as aggro, nor does it have the inevitability of a control deck. A jack of all trades, but a master of none. Control: The deck that wins the long game. Early on, it just needs to survive, and it has more answers than the other decks have threats. Once it gains control (hence the name), control plays an expensive threat that is valuable and hard to remove. Then, slowly but surely, it wins the game and stops any attempts to swing back the pendulum. However, it needs to get to that point in the first place. Deny the control deck the removal it desperately needs, or just run under it, and it can do little but despair. In addition, control decks usually rely on relatively few high-powered threats, and all the answers in the world mean nothing if you can't win the game off of them.
@@OneOfTheStorms If I understand the concept of value, it means cards that are economically efficient? And mid range decks try to squeeze the greatest amount of value out of every turn with their cards? Tempo decks focus more on pushing the offensive but not as short term as aggro does? On a more silly note is control the archetype of "all according to keikaku" or is that more fitting when using a combo deck?
Aggro doesn't care if it loses on the board, because it has other ways of killing you (such as direct damage spells, life drain, life loss, creatures that deal damage without going into combat, or unblockable creatures). Basically, aggro goes hard early and aims for a win-win strategy: either it gets ahead and snowballs into a win, or it loses the board and then finds a way to finish you off from the hand. Aggro-Control actually very, very much cares about the board. It starts off like aggro, going hard early, but then it uses cards to make sure it doesn't lose the board. If the Aggro-Control player loses the board, it's usually game over for them. Which is why they have the Control tools keep their early lead. Counterspells to keep their creatures alive and creature removal spells to clear the way, or just a ton of card draw to refill the board after every clear. In this way, the Aggro half establishes an early pressure and the Control half secures it. Midrange cares the most about value. Like the Aggro-Control player, they tend to care a lot about the board, which means they tend to get on the board somewhat early (though usually not as early as Aggro or Aggro-Control) and then they have Control-like tools to try and maintain their board presence. The key difference is that Midrange tends to prioritise having efficient cards that are useful at any stage of the game. They have efficient early game creatures that may not be as aggressive as the ones that Aggro and Aggro-Control use, but they tend to last longer, or have useful effects. They then have more expensive creatures that offer a strong threat, as well as tools to protect them and eliminate enemy threats. Midrange is, above all, about trying to always have options and tools no matter the stage of the game, and to slowly build up value and threat to overwhelm the opponent. Midrange tries to follow the old saying "slow and steady wins the race".
@@timlamiam In Unstable draft of course. I was wrecking havoc with trusted Earl of Squirrel and a couple of Squirrel Dealers. :3 You also can try to pull it off in commander, though you will probably want your play group approval to use couple of silver-boarded cards.
Untap, Upkeep, Draw, Main Phase 1, Combat, Main Phase 2, End step. One of the most important things to remember about magic is that every rule stands... unless otherwise stated. This sounds awkward but it makes sense when you start seeing how many rules are just exceptions to the norm, like Haste. Untap: just untap everything you control (turn it rightside up) so you can use it all again *this* turn Upkeep: Often nothing happens here, but its the place where *once per turn* type effects usually go (sometimes they happen at the end too). Pay whatever taxes/upkeep costs your cards say to and move on. Draw: Grab yourself a shiny new card off the top of the library Main Phases: The only times you can cast spells/work at sorcery speed (instant speed spells/effects can happen *almost* any time). Build your army, setup defenses, bolster the crew, screw with your opponents, etc. There are primarily 2 phases so that you can do ~combat tricks~ or at least psych out your opponents with the aforementioned instants. Sorceries are typically used in main phase 1 for the large effects they bring in before combat (instants are usually weaker for having the flexibility of timing). Main phase 2 is usually used for building after combat with whatever resources you don't use in combat. Combat: comes in a few phases of it's own Combat -- the beginning of combat. Shenanigans can get thrown around in between steps Declare attackers -- the attacking player says which creatures are attacking which players/planeswalkers Declare blockers -- the defending player decides how to defend themselves by assigning blockers however they want Damage -- creatures duke it out with whatever they're assigned to. A lot happens here between damage assignments, creatures dying, and triggers for effects. End step: Until end of turn effects wear off, creatures heal up, and you pass the turn over The rules are... considerable, once you get into the nitty gritty details. But that's the general shape of the game. It sounds like next week will be covering player personality types Timmy/tammy, Jenny/Johnny, and Spike. Maybe the Vorthos/melvin spectrum. After that they might talk about playing mind games e.g. leaving mana open during combat even when you have no plans on using (since you can use it in Main phase 2) to psych out your opponents and muddle decision making. On a personal note, if counterspells are a staple to you, you're scum.
@@alfredgomez3128 *vanilla* creatures are definitely best for sorting out the basics. All the keywords and rules interactions can get pretty overbearing for newbies
the most important piece of early deck building advice that was given to me, and that I have passed on to others, is make sure your deck is trying to "do something." It doesn't have to be super tuned or linear but when someone asks "what does your deck do?" or "what is your deck about" you should have an answer. It could be anything from a very specific combo or a detailed strategy to "I want to play a bunch of Angels" or "this is my favorite character and I want to build a deck full of spells related to them." The point is when you add a card to your deck think about if it helps your decks idea or hurts it. Also, to start off I would suggest try to build mostly two color decks (although mono color is okay). It gives you flexibility without as much risk that you can't cast all of your cards.
I once made a multi color "Thanos Deck", with my win condition being "Fraying Omnipotence" (Basically just kill half of everything on the board). Using all of the Infinity Stones to slow down my opponent until I drew The Snap. It played like crap, but it was an absolute riot with my friends.
Nah, combo decks are more like Admiral Yi--do ONE thing, but do it REALLY well. So well, you don't need anything else. And pray you don't get demoted again.
that would be your Library expressing you as a copycat who really wants to win but isn't sure how to build an op deck and thats perfectly fine. deck building is an art and all art begins with studying the masters.
Sad but true in competitive formats. That's why I'm exclusively a 'kitchen table' player. Lay down some ground rules about turn 0 wins and not being a prick then, aside from that, just go nuts and have fun with whatever in multiplayer where politics can rub out most deck disparity.
I just watch them to get an idea what card exist. Because holy hell. Try to sort throught all goblins and important red cards to build a commander deck and not forget a bolt. Or while looking for mana ramp for green elfs that you should add sylvan library to ensure you do get the mana ramp you build in. You would be suprised what cards you can find, that you never had in mind, because your search was too narrow. Especially as a new player it is very hard to get an idea what I can even build.
One of my favorite decks I built was a Red Spellcaster which was based around exiling the top cards of my library and playing them for free and then bringing spells back from my graveyard and back into my hand. Used at most 6 mana per turn for an average of 4-10 creatures or Instants/Sorceries.
"how'd you get the forest" Splashed green. Duh. Only question: does Zoey play with an unaltered version of the cat commander deck released a few years ago, or did they add some cards to it?
Deck building is honestly something I enjoy just as much as playing the game itself, it's awesome when you experiment with some cards and end up making a deck that work really well.
As someone building their first completely-self-designed deck, it's nice to step back and look at the basics. I've been so caught up in the specifics of each card that I've forgotten the goal!
Started playing Magic on Arena a couple weeks ago after watching the first few videos in this series. Loving it so far! Just got to Platinum ranked last night ^_^ I have the pleasure of having come up with a popular (apparently) deck type before I knew it was popular :P (That is: Red/Blue/Green Elemental creatures with Risen Reef to raise all the lands from my library, frequently with ma boi *Omnath* to combo up with)
I made a Chronozoa/Chryoplasm deck once centered around the idea of creating 3/3 flyers that multiply each turn and have the ability to shift into any other card at the start of my upkeep. It was a bit slow to get going but so much fun to pull off.
One time my son used cards to keep sending the same Midnight Guard back to my hand. "Ok, I attack with my Midnight Guard!" (Whelming wave) MG: (Gets played and attacks again) (Aetherize) MG: "Why do I even bother..."
My favorite deck style is aristocrats. It's kinda midrange but has a ton of cheap creatures and I love that recently there's been a ton of Black/White support for it. In short, its playstyle is that I win by killing *my own* creatures. Sacrificial life drain. I also dropped about $30-ish on the beautiful new mono-white angel tribal stuff, relatively cheap if you don't get a ton of Resplendent Angels or Lyra Dawnbringers. All I need is a Serra, The Benevolent now
@@monicaholmer4353 Same. I played a little Magic when i was a kid, then as a teen I hade a few friends that were REALLY into it, but i myself never got back to it again (except for a little draft tournament made by those friends i took part in) but after seeing this videos i download Arena and I'm having tons of fun. I'm just scared of the micro-transaction aspect of it, as I have always been with magic...
@@monicaholmer4353 Thank you! I have made a Mono white, and a mono red that have done great against bots. But scared to get my butt kicked by a human person.
I played back in innistrad. My deck was an aggro/combo human artifact deck. There were two ultimate goals 1: Myrran Crusader with a bunch of artifacts, namely butchet's cleaver and mask of avycyn, for lifelink and hexproof, plus some buff cards, and back him up with some soldiers. (Nothing in the deck was more than 6 mama and most of it was 3 or less) 2: 3 Fiend Hunters (3 mana) and Champion of the Parish (1 mana) whenever a human enters the battlefield, CotP gains +1/+1, whenever Fiendhunter enters the battlefield, you may exile target creature until Fiendhunter leaves the battlefield, at which point the exiled card returns to the battlefield. Use 3 fiendhunters to exile themselves infinitely. For best results, add butcher's cleaver and mask of avycyn for lifelink and hexproof. Even better with sharpened pitchfork for firststrike. You basically have this super buff paladin dualwielding a pitchfork and a cleaver, wearing a masquerade mask, coming to kill you. Either you eat the damage and die, or block and oh hey, lifelink doesn't care about toughness. I now have a million life.
My brother and I like to play EDH format against each other ( 1 commander, 100 cards per deck, no multiples of any card except for lands) and it can get more than a little absurd. Every time we start up with frequent games and deck-building it turns into a straight up arms race to see who can beat the other in the most brutal manner possible. What I've learned mostly is that my brother is a pro-trickster. I've been playing him for years, and even with a deck he's used against me before, I never know what the hell he's gonna do to beat me. Personally, I run my decks with as few outright tricks and gimmicks as possible. All in all I'd say we're evenly matched in any given encounter. What EC's videos on MTG have really done for me is make me re-familiarize myself with the fundamentals of the game, it's been super useful.
So another thing that I think you should've mentioned, although I guess you alluded to it, is the value of consistency. Not only is it good to stay at the minimum of 60 cards, but any cards that you really need for the deck you should run 4 copies, the most you can have of any non-land card. As you said, you're not gonna use most of the cards in your deck in most games. But we can get more specific than that. If you consider that you start by drawing 7 cards, and then lets say a typical casual magic game goes on for about 7-8 turns. That means that without any other means of drawing cards to dig deeper into your deck, you're only seeing about 15 cards, or a quarter of your deck, across the whole game. And coincidentally, by having 4 copies of a card, then on average you should see at least one copy of that card per game. Obviously this isn't a guarantee, but generally speaking it helps illustrate why having 4 copies of your key cards is really important. On top of that, if you think about it, you only actually need 9 unique cards to make an entire deck. After all if you have 60 cards total, and 24 are lands, that leaves 36. And if you can have 4 of any other card, then dividing 36 by 4 leaves you with a minimum of 9 unique cards. The other big aspect of deckbuilding is that I usually start by picking my win condition. The strategies you bring up (Aggro, Control, etc) are often a part of the win condition, but I usually refer to specific cards. So like for example maybe Feather the Redeemed is my win condition, so I start out by putting 4 copies of her in my deck, and then I focus on putting in other cards to support myself getting to Feather. And of course you don't need only one Win Condition, in fact it's often best to have at least 2 or 3 strategies of how you're going to get your opponent's life to 0. So maybe I also throw in some Dreadhorde Arcanists into my deck for good measure before I start finding my other support cards. So if you really wanna simplify deckbuilding for new players: I would say that what you should do is start by setting out 9 slots for unique cards, and then fill one or two of those slots by picking out whatever cool fun and powerful card you wanna play with that you think can win you the game. Then simply fill in the remaining slots with cards to support those powerful cards, be they creatures to play in the early game, spells to buff or defend things, or other kinds of interaction to mess with your opponent, and put in 4 copies of each card, and go to town!
Make sure you at least splash Green and Blue so you can have 4 Hydroid Krasis in your deck, since it's the best creature in Standard. Hope you have $84 to spare for that particular playset. You'll of course need 4 Breeding Pools then as well, but no worries, they'll only run you $66. Also play at least a couple of little Teferi and a couple of big Teferi...$90 should cover 2 of each. Now you're 1/5 of the way to building a viable Standard deck!
I really like my black and red vampire deck. It's got a decent amount of aggro and midrange qualities with a killer combo. It's got red destruction based magics and vampires that have death touch and life link. The main piece of the deck is my Olivia Valdaren and it constantly gains more power for every creature I can convert to a vampire. It is admittedly a bit slow but it can wreck some combo decks that rely on a lot of small creatures.
You mentioned that sometimes you should edit an existing deck, this is actually how i got my most powerful deck and i wanted to share it. I purchased a red/green spider deck a while back that hinges on a 5/7 spider with the effect: ‘tap an untapped spider, search your library and graveyard for Arachnid web, put it into play.’ Sounds great, but the red spells made up half the deck, were really expensive, and forced me to choose between them, or my spiders. Solution? I gutted all the red from the deck, packed in more spiders, got two Garuuk Relentless, and some 1-2 mana draw cards, and created a terrifying deck i call Arachnophobia. i’ve held back decks with three 100/100 white elementals before. So it is always a good idea to look into existing decks, and find what synergies with you c: Or cobble together an 80 card red deck centered on blowing everything up until you get Koth the Hammer out and beat your opponent to death with your mountains. Either or.
I've had a similar deal learning to play Slivers. Started out with only a few and learned there were more. So when I got my hands on more I began to slowly rebuild my deck until the point it is now. My friends have learned that if I'm left alone for too long and get the Slivers I need, I'll win. So they either use fast aggro decks or, if we're playing 4 v 4, they ask just try to knock me out first.
I have a deck idea I've been kicking around for a while, but just haven't had the time to bring it to the table yet. It should generally play as a pretty normal midrange R/W equipment deck, but it ALSO harnesses the power of Mycosynth Lattice (Everything is an artifact) with Bludgeon Brawl to ensure EVERYTHING is a weapon. Once that's in place, Golem-Skin Gauntlets (+1/+0 for each equipped card) makes Vulshok Battlemaster (Haste, equips all equipment when it enters) the kind of almighty being that literally throws the EVERYTHING at your opponent. It's very slow and very disruptable, and several of the cards do nothing on their own, but dammit, that's what Magic is all about. That and Lantern Control.
I remember I was learning Magic for the first time a week ago and we were playing a 6 player FFA (I was given a Morph deck) and my first lesson was “Gang up on the Infect Deck”
For new player, please note that Arena has less that 5% of all cards in magic. MTG has been going since 1993. If you want more fun options try paper magic. I personally recommend mill, draw-go and prison decks. You know, the fun ones!
A sorcerer ain't so bad. Artificers however are the evil overlords of the game, assembling game breaking combos before you could even hope to retaliate.
@2:24 - "Now, just how many low cost spells depends a lot uon the deck type you are playing" Well said! For example, if you want to win, you will have a lot. if you want to lose and complain, you will only have a few. You see, even when the game reaches later turns, instead of casting one big spell, it is often better to cast multiple cheap spells, as the individual impact of those small spell is greater than the individual impact of an expensive spell. Essentially, you want the mana cost of your cards to look more like a CURVE rather than a slope.
In middle school the draw for me was just being able to play and have fun. I wasn’t really that good and I never tried to hard.(I used a pre built Flying/Burn Deck with a few modification) Simply playing to have fun with others was great.
I try to use all the colors cause I love combing things but I am most definitely at heart a red mage who loves agro but I have made decks in all colors I often use white and green to make up for the weakness of red or use blue with red to have both offense and defense in a deck or if I want to kill anything and everything combining red and black is quite dastardly either way like you guys said making decks and trying them out is just as fun as playing
The first deck I made on my own was a myr deck because I thought they looked cute. And I would quietly play in my corner, being ignored by everyone until....INFINITE ARMY OF UNTARGETABLE MYRS!!1! There’s a myr combo that generates unlimited mana. With a myr propagator, you make infinite myr copies. Then add in an angel that gives untargetable to all artifacts (myrs are artifact creatures) when you have metal craft, equip it with a whispersilk cloak so it can’t be targeted and have fun.😁
Mill as in turbofog is a control deck. Mill as in painted stone is a combo deck. There are a lot of win conditions like poison, milling, self-milling, etc. that just slot into the four main archetypes they presented.
First of all, I love your cat. Secondly, I started playing Commander with a Kynaois and Tiro of Meletis deck because I'm the kind of player who likes helping others out, but as the game goes on, and I get my resources together.... I get more and more excited and can then turn on everyone and rule all. Also, I'm hella gay and I love them and their giant statues.
I only really did this once, I suppose you could call it aggro/combo thingy in Ursa's saga era. Full of low-cost creatures most of whom had the ability of either first strike, grant first strike, or grant protection from chosen color. A few were flying or could block as through they had flying. Cheap spells of protection from chosen color, Worship and Paraiah, plus the Serra avatar, Disenchantment, Swords to plowshares and the like. I tried running it against a few tournament winning decks you can buy (with altered back sides so they're worthless for trade). I basically couldn't win with the tournament deck. My little thingy won every time, I rarely needed the avatar. I'm guessing the main qualities within could well be timeless. My advice would be to just keep things simple. I was also helped by a quote: In ancient times, great warriors made themselves invincible and then watched for the openings in their opponents. That's what I went for.
My Personal favorite deck is my EDH Yarok the desecrated land deck. Its main goal is to get a ton of lands and mana available to play creature cards with interesting etbs. my favorite combo lets me have infinite mana on my turn which i use to play Agent of treachery infinite time by bouncing it with a shrieking drake. I steal every card on the field then concede watching my opponents scramble to figure out what to do with a completely empty board while i sit and laugh :>
Best deck you ever played or build ? Perso, it was on Theros and it was the Mono Blue...expensive in gods, but oh god it was satisfaying ! How about you guys ?
I would recommend going to your local magic the gather store and saying you are a new player and you would like a deck. They typically have two colors and follow the rules video. That’s how I got mine
once, about three yeara ago, while sorting my cards I noticed a lot of black cards that involve sacrificing a creature as part of a cost, and I thought it would be funny to make a modern deck centered around sacrificing creatures (both mine and my opponents). It was just for fun, I didnt think it would be that good. It became the strongest deck I had ever built, so much so that my brother had to make a new deck SPECIFICIALLY for beating it. Sometimes even a deck that sounds like a joke when said out loud can be powerful when put into practice.
better way to reword the "usually only play the minimum 60 cards" (at least better imo). if you play 61 cards, you have one 'worst card'. and that card gets in the way of you drawing all the other cards in your deck that are better. so even though its hard, try to keep it at 60 cards. sometimes, what i've done is purposely make the deck 5-10 cards over 60, play test it a little, and then work on shaving off those extra cards. finding those few 'worst cards' when you've played a few games with the deck. also, if you play paper, dont just look up the "best decks" and go buy them, not unless you're going to a big tournament like a grand prix. making your own deck is not only a lot funner, but also a lot cheaper. plus, beating a 150$ deck using your deck thats like 20$ is very satisfying.
No mention of the Rule of Nine? The simplest way to make a new deck fast (and leave improving it for later) is to pick just 9 spells with a good curve and creature/noncreature ratio, take 4 copies of each (the max), and add 24 lands for a 60 card deck. If the result has holes either in play or in your collection, just swap out copies of those nine spells for other ones that do similar things.
1:07 and then there's the end game deck where you pull a spell that basically allows you to summon creatures without playing mana until you find another spell card so you make it your only spell card.
I recently played a blue green fog mill deck against a 250 card blue black attrition deck, It was epic. I was within one card draw of removing the last two cards from their library and I had run out of fog. I had four cards left in my library and I knew I had two card draws and a fog left. I drew an island.
Yoooooo..... I'm new to the channel but yall should totally do episodes on cammander Decks Also, extra history should do episodes on charlemagne and his knights
Years back, I was playing FNM at the mall, and there was a guy there who was really really good at it. I think he was on the spectrum, because he was like... ridiculously good at Magic, but was a bit difficult to get along with. Anyway, he had a few decks he liked using, but his favorite seemed to be an obnoxious mill deck he had fine-tuned to basically destroy anyone in like 6-10 turns. It sucked to play against. Well one day, he was matched against this guy who had an oversized deck of over 200 cards (and yes it was part of his deck strategy, I think he had some cards that were affected by the size of the deck, all his cards revolved around walls and searching that mountain for his combo cards), and naturally he beat the mill deck. This made the Mill deck guy freak out and basically throw a tantrum about how it was completely unfair that his unbeatable deck had lost against a ridiculous 200-card deck and blah blah blah. The event runner tried to explain that every deck has SOME weakness and a mill deck is basically useless against an oversized deck, it was just a bad luck match-up etc but he wouldn't listen. To him, the guy had "cheated" with his perfectly legitimate strategy. He was kicked out of the store for it (or was so upset he left mid-match I forget) and I never saw him again. I mean I lost literally every match I ever played at FNM (because I really suck at it) but I never threw a fit over it. Once I learned what the oversized deck strategy was I thought it was brilliant.
So everyone is sitting here talking about what Extra credits should've covered but I'm here like, "What's a squirrel deck?" So I casually search it up and see the many types of squirrel deck combos. I've been missing out.
Ah, the joy of playing a black and white life-drain deck. Seeing the enemy constantly loosing life while you regenerate the damage that comes through just does it for me...
Wanting to do well in Standard at your next FNM? No problem! Just make sure you at least splash Green and Blue so you can have 4 Hydroid Krasis in your deck, since it's the best creature in Standard. Hope you have $84 to spare for that particular playset. You'll of course need 4 Breeding Pools then as well, but no worries, they'll only run you $66. Also play at least a couple of little Teferi and a couple of big Teferi...$90 should cover 2 of each. Now you're 1/5 of the way to building a viable Standard deck! Enjoy it for a whole year until rotation, at which point you just need to spend another ~ $400 dollars for your next deck that will hopefully remain viable.
Me in Magic Duels: hello new friend, let's have a fun game all right? I've been working on a new playstyle and I'm excited to try it ou- Opponent: *Sphinx's Tutelage prefab deck* Me: oh okay i see how it is
Basically my issue with tweaking decks is that If I swap out a lot of cards I feel like I might be better off scrapping it and building a new one and if I'm only tweaking a few cards I feel like I'm not making enough of an impact to be worth it. After all I'm probably not going to be drawing those two extra lands or that shiny mythic rare, so what's the point? If the deck isnt holding on it's own without those cards that one or three extra isnt going to make a significant difference. At least that's the way it feels.
Why does swapping out a lot of cards feel like scrapping the whole deck? If that's what it takes to make the deck better, then that's what you do. It all depends on what you want the deck to do.
What about Formats? What about Mana curves? What about the ratio of spells to creatures in the different archetypes? What about Ramp and when it is important? What about mana fixing and playing decks with multiple colors?... I was really looking forward to this series to tell people who want to learn the basics, to whatch it... But I must say that it is really lackluster for teaching new players how to play. With mistakes and missed opportunities.
What's in YOUR deck?
Blue-Eyes Ojama Turbo
Was red green
Blue black millout
Risen reef
5 Serra Angels and 20 Islands and a few Restless Rat
So Joan of Arc was an aggro player?
Get em.
@@TheDSasterX No no no no no. That's not how it went my friend. It's more like this: G E T ' E M!!!!!!!!!!!!
now i wnat a white john of arc aggro deck
Most likely a white one with an anthem effect.
@@TheDSasterX I understood that reference.
I wish you had talked more about card advantage in each of these archetypes. Because similar to any strategy-game, ressources (~cards) are key!
Aggro decks try winning the game before the opponent can cast all their spells, basically getting a temporary card advantage in the early game because they can play all their cheap spells while the opponent has to wait.
Control decks gain card-advantage over the long game via expensive cards that are "worth more" than because they either have 2 effects or draw additional cards. Once they 1-for-1 everything the opponent did, they're winning.
Combo decks try to cheat the system by having a combo that either instantly wins the game or is worth more cards when they come together than any "fair" deck could muster.
Midrange is basically a control deck with a creature focus instead of an instant-sorcery-planeswalker-focus. They have a very similar playstyle to control decks in that they're favored in the long run once they can cast all their spells.
That said, many decks are mixes: The classic Legacy delver deck is a mix between aggro and control, phoenix decks are a mix between combo and midrange (in fact many midrange decks have smaller combos in them).
The most important thing when deckbuilding is synergy: Ideally, you want all your cards to have a similar goal AND go well with each other! That's really the secret of a good deck, even if it's just for fun!
Can you explain the diffrence between a aggro+control deck and a midrange deck? From the video's explanation it sounds that midrange is the in-between of aggro and control.
@@HiddenDragon555 It's all a bit of a gradient, but here's the short version:
Aggro: It gets the threats in before they can get their answers. Aggro wants to hit them, hit them hard, and hopes to end the game before it runs out of steam.
Aggro-Control, or Tempo: First, it gets in a threat. Then, it keeps the enemy off-balance long enough to win. Its cards usually don't have a lot of value to them, but help control the board and keep their relatively few threats alive. However, they generally fall completely flat once the opponent does manage to gain control of the game. It is an archetype completely focused on getting ahead early and keeping that advantage for as long as possible.
Midrange: All about the value and flexibility. Early on, it plays defensive creatures and spells against more aggressive decks, or plays valuable creatures against its slower enemies. Then, as the game goes on, it hopes to outvalue the enemy with efficient answers, and powerful threats. However, it can't be as fast as aggro, nor does it have the inevitability of a control deck. A jack of all trades, but a master of none.
Control: The deck that wins the long game. Early on, it just needs to survive, and it has more answers than the other decks have threats. Once it gains control (hence the name), control plays an expensive threat that is valuable and hard to remove. Then, slowly but surely, it wins the game and stops any attempts to swing back the pendulum. However, it needs to get to that point in the first place. Deny the control deck the removal it desperately needs, or just run under it, and it can do little but despair. In addition, control decks usually rely on relatively few high-powered threats, and all the answers in the world mean nothing if you can't win the game off of them.
@@OneOfTheStorms If I understand the concept of value, it means cards that are economically efficient? And mid range decks try to squeeze the greatest amount of value out of every turn with their cards? Tempo decks focus more on pushing the offensive but not as short term as aggro does?
On a more silly note is control the archetype of "all according to keikaku" or is that more fitting when using a combo deck?
Aggro doesn't care if it loses on the board, because it has other ways of killing you (such as direct damage spells, life drain, life loss, creatures that deal damage without going into combat, or unblockable creatures). Basically, aggro goes hard early and aims for a win-win strategy: either it gets ahead and snowballs into a win, or it loses the board and then finds a way to finish you off from the hand.
Aggro-Control actually very, very much cares about the board. It starts off like aggro, going hard early, but then it uses cards to make sure it doesn't lose the board. If the Aggro-Control player loses the board, it's usually game over for them. Which is why they have the Control tools keep their early lead. Counterspells to keep their creatures alive and creature removal spells to clear the way, or just a ton of card draw to refill the board after every clear. In this way, the Aggro half establishes an early pressure and the Control half secures it.
Midrange cares the most about value. Like the Aggro-Control player, they tend to care a lot about the board, which means they tend to get on the board somewhat early (though usually not as early as Aggro or Aggro-Control) and then they have Control-like tools to try and maintain their board presence. The key difference is that Midrange tends to prioritise having efficient cards that are useful at any stage of the game. They have efficient early game creatures that may not be as aggressive as the ones that Aggro and Aggro-Control use, but they tend to last longer, or have useful effects. They then have more expensive creatures that offer a strong threat, as well as tools to protect them and eliminate enemy threats. Midrange is, above all, about trying to always have options and tools no matter the stage of the game, and to slowly build up value and threat to overwhelm the opponent. Midrange tries to follow the old saying "slow and steady wins the race".
As someone playing a squirrel deck I approve of this video.
User picture confirms.
Used to have one, ah the days.
In what format lol
@@timlamiam In Unstable draft of course. I was wrecking havoc with trusted Earl of Squirrel and a couple of Squirrel Dealers. :3 You also can try to pull it off in commander, though you will probably want your play group approval to use couple of silver-boarded cards.
I would love to, too, but I'm only playing arena :(
Aggro decks only have one plan: "GEEEET 'EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEM"
Control decks: wait, hold oooonnnnn... and... ded.
LEEEEROOYYYYYY, JENKINNNSSSS
Is it a Monoblack Magic reference ?
Aggro deck: DOGPILE
Jeanne would absolutely play read white
I hope you will cover a full game (from the very beginning), and explain how and why things work.
Untap, Upkeep, Draw, Main Phase 1, Combat, Main Phase 2, End step.
One of the most important things to remember about magic is that every rule stands... unless otherwise stated. This sounds awkward but it makes sense when you start seeing how many rules are just exceptions to the norm, like Haste.
Untap: just untap everything you control (turn it rightside up) so you can use it all again *this* turn
Upkeep: Often nothing happens here, but its the place where *once per turn* type effects usually go (sometimes they happen at the end too). Pay whatever taxes/upkeep costs your cards say to and move on.
Draw: Grab yourself a shiny new card off the top of the library
Main Phases: The only times you can cast spells/work at sorcery speed (instant speed spells/effects can happen *almost* any time). Build your army, setup defenses, bolster the crew, screw with your opponents, etc. There are primarily 2 phases so that you can do ~combat tricks~ or at least psych out your opponents with the aforementioned instants. Sorceries are typically used in main phase 1 for the large effects they bring in before combat (instants are usually weaker for having the flexibility of timing). Main phase 2 is usually used for building after combat with whatever resources you don't use in combat.
Combat: comes in a few phases of it's own
Combat -- the beginning of combat. Shenanigans can get thrown around in between steps
Declare attackers -- the attacking player says which creatures are attacking which players/planeswalkers
Declare blockers -- the defending player decides how to defend themselves by assigning blockers however they want
Damage -- creatures duke it out with whatever they're assigned to. A lot happens here between damage assignments, creatures dying, and triggers for effects.
End step: Until end of turn effects wear off, creatures heal up, and you pass the turn over
The rules are... considerable, once you get into the nitty gritty details. But that's the general shape of the game. It sounds like next week will be covering player personality types Timmy/tammy, Jenny/Johnny, and Spike. Maybe the Vorthos/melvin spectrum. After that they might talk about playing mind games e.g. leaving mana open during combat even when you have no plans on using (since you can use it in Main phase 2) to psych out your opponents and muddle decision making.
On a personal note, if counterspells are a staple to you, you're scum.
Use the most Basic cards for this. The last video threw me off with the multiple effects taking place at once.
@@alfredgomez3128 *vanilla* creatures are definitely best for sorting out the basics. All the keywords and rules interactions can get pretty overbearing for newbies
the most important piece of early deck building advice that was given to me, and that I have passed on to others, is make sure your deck is trying to "do something." It doesn't have to be super tuned or linear but when someone asks "what does your deck do?" or "what is your deck about" you should have an answer. It could be anything from a very specific combo or a detailed strategy to "I want to play a bunch of Angels" or "this is my favorite character and I want to build a deck full of spells related to them." The point is when you add a card to your deck think about if it helps your decks idea or hurts it.
Also, to start off I would suggest try to build mostly two color decks (although mono color is okay). It gives you flexibility without as much risk that you can't cast all of your cards.
I once made a multi color "Thanos Deck", with my win condition being "Fraying Omnipotence" (Basically just kill half of everything on the board). Using all of the Infinity Stones to slow down my opponent until I drew The Snap. It played like crap, but it was an absolute riot with my friends.
Cast it off of [[fist of the suns]] for extra style points.
Got it, agro decks are Joan of Arc (get 'em!) and control and combo decks are Otto Von Bismarck (always have a plan.)
Nah, combo decks are more like Admiral Yi--do ONE thing, but do it REALLY well. So well, you don't need anything else.
And pray you don't get demoted again.
What about Robert Walpole? =3
"Your Library is an expression of you."
The heaps of Arena decklist videos I've watched and imitated would beg to differ.
that would be your Library expressing you as a copycat who really wants to win but isn't sure how to build an op deck and thats perfectly fine. deck building is an art and all art begins with studying the masters.
Sad but true in competitive formats. That's why I'm exclusively a 'kitchen table' player. Lay down some ground rules about turn 0 wins and not being a prick then, aside from that, just go nuts and have fun with whatever in multiplayer where politics can rub out most deck disparity.
I mean, at least we choose what decks to copy, for example, some netdeckers prefer control decks, while other (like myself) prefer aggro decks
If a deck doesn't have any Vorthos in it, it is as dead inside as it's player.
I just watch them to get an idea what card exist. Because holy hell. Try to sort throught all goblins and important red cards to build a commander deck and not forget a bolt. Or while looking for mana ramp for green elfs that you should add sylvan library to ensure you do get the mana ramp you build in. You would be suprised what cards you can find, that you never had in mind, because your search was too narrow.
Especially as a new player it is very hard to get an idea what I can even build.
3:30
Welcome, to Jurassic the Gathering!
This has nothing on some things Yugioh does... it’s a little spooky
One of my favorite decks I built was a Red Spellcaster which was based around exiling the top cards of my library and playing them for free and then bringing spells back from my graveyard and back into my hand. Used at most 6 mana per turn for an average of 4-10 creatures or Instants/Sorceries.
Will: Yah it's rewind time
EC: Yah it's deckbuilding time
Teferi: Yah it's rewind time
"how'd you get the forest"
Splashed green. Duh.
Only question: does Zoey play with an unaltered version of the cat commander deck released a few years ago, or did they add some cards to it?
Deck building is honestly something I enjoy just as much as playing the game itself,
it's awesome when you experiment with some cards and end up making a deck that work really well.
I am surprised he avoided mentioning “mana curve” when discussing about early turn plays and aggro vs other deck types.
As someone building their first completely-self-designed deck, it's nice to step back and look at the basics. I've been so caught up in the specifics of each card that I've forgotten the goal!
Am I the only one who wants a similar series on d&d
Me too
Started playing Magic on Arena a couple weeks ago after watching the first few videos in this series. Loving it so far! Just got to Platinum ranked last night ^_^ I have the pleasure of having come up with a popular (apparently) deck type before I knew it was popular :P
(That is: Red/Blue/Green Elemental creatures with Risen Reef to raise all the lands from my library, frequently with ma boi *Omnath* to combo up with)
"Your library is an expression of you" - a believer
Meta decks: G E T 'EM!
Spike is a valid person to be. Not anyone I want to be or play with but still
1:33 *laughs in risen reef*
I made a Chronozoa/Chryoplasm deck once centered around the idea of creating 3/3 flyers that multiply each turn and have the ability to shift into any other card at the start of my upkeep. It was a bit slow to get going but so much fun to pull off.
One time my son used cards to keep sending the same Midnight Guard back to my hand.
"Ok, I attack with my Midnight Guard!"
(Whelming wave)
MG: (Gets played and attacks again)
(Aetherize)
MG: "Why do I even bother..."
I love that you mentioned squirrels. My druids use squirrels sometimes.
My favorite deck style is aristocrats. It's kinda midrange but has a ton of cheap creatures and I love that recently there's been a ton of Black/White support for it.
In short, its playstyle is that I win by killing *my own* creatures. Sacrificial life drain.
I also dropped about $30-ish on the beautiful new mono-white angel tribal stuff, relatively cheap if you don't get a ton of Resplendent Angels or Lyra Dawnbringers. All I need is a Serra, The Benevolent now
"low cost spells, like 3 mana"
me, a boros white-red player: "that's almost the top mana cost i can afford in any match"
Nothing is better than Dinner Extra credits 😏
Okay but consider: Breakfast Extra Credits
Watching these videos made me download MTG Arena. I am kicking bot butt(know humans would kick my butt) Going to make my own deck next.
Good luck
@@monicaholmer4353 Same. I played a little Magic when i was a kid, then as a teen I hade a few friends that were REALLY into it, but i myself never got back to it again (except for a little draft tournament made by those friends i took part in) but after seeing this videos i download Arena and I'm having tons of fun.
I'm just scared of the micro-transaction aspect of it, as I have always been with magic...
@@monicaholmer4353 Thank you! I have made a Mono white, and a mono red that have done great against bots. But scared to get my butt kicked by a human person.
Omg that polyraptor combo was beautiful. And it was truly infinite
Yall got me into Magic The Gathering and so far I've been playing it almost non-stop. Thanks :)
Zoey playing a Recorder is the best I've ever seen
Time to build an Izzet burn deck.
Don't forget your Niv!
Turn it into counter burn. Because fun is a zero sum game.
@@TheDSasterX don't need just Phoenix...
@@jackyoh971 I exile your phoenix.
Iz it?
I once got 20 5/5 artifact creachures onto the battlefield with in the same turn.
I played back in innistrad. My deck was an aggro/combo human artifact deck. There were two ultimate goals
1: Myrran Crusader with a bunch of artifacts, namely butchet's cleaver and mask of avycyn, for lifelink and hexproof, plus some buff cards, and back him up with some soldiers. (Nothing in the deck was more than 6 mama and most of it was 3 or less)
2: 3 Fiend Hunters (3 mana) and Champion of the Parish (1 mana) whenever a human enters the battlefield, CotP gains +1/+1, whenever Fiendhunter enters the battlefield, you may exile target creature until Fiendhunter leaves the battlefield, at which point the exiled card returns to the battlefield. Use 3 fiendhunters to exile themselves infinitely. For best results, add butcher's cleaver and mask of avycyn for lifelink and hexproof. Even better with sharpened pitchfork for firststrike. You basically have this super buff paladin dualwielding a pitchfork and a cleaver, wearing a masquerade mask, coming to kill you. Either you eat the damage and die, or block and oh hey, lifelink doesn't care about toughness. I now have a million life.
My brother and I like to play EDH format against each other ( 1 commander, 100 cards per deck, no multiples of any card except for lands) and it can get more than a little absurd. Every time we start up with frequent games and deck-building it turns into a straight up arms race to see who can beat the other in the most brutal manner possible. What I've learned mostly is that my brother is a pro-trickster. I've been playing him for years, and even with a deck he's used against me before, I never know what the hell he's gonna do to beat me.
Personally, I run my decks with as few outright tricks and gimmicks as possible. All in all I'd say we're evenly matched in any given encounter.
What EC's videos on MTG have really done for me is make me re-familiarize myself with the fundamentals of the game, it's been super useful.
Omg 😂 the dinasaur song. I'm dead that was amazing.
This is a great series, and those end bits with Zoe are awesome! She looks just like my own kitty ^_^
Opponent gloats with their infinite raptors. Attacks all in. Gets settled. We like to have fun here.
So another thing that I think you should've mentioned, although I guess you alluded to it, is the value of consistency. Not only is it good to stay at the minimum of 60 cards, but any cards that you really need for the deck you should run 4 copies, the most you can have of any non-land card. As you said, you're not gonna use most of the cards in your deck in most games. But we can get more specific than that. If you consider that you start by drawing 7 cards, and then lets say a typical casual magic game goes on for about 7-8 turns. That means that without any other means of drawing cards to dig deeper into your deck, you're only seeing about 15 cards, or a quarter of your deck, across the whole game. And coincidentally, by having 4 copies of a card, then on average you should see at least one copy of that card per game. Obviously this isn't a guarantee, but generally speaking it helps illustrate why having 4 copies of your key cards is really important.
On top of that, if you think about it, you only actually need 9 unique cards to make an entire deck. After all if you have 60 cards total, and 24 are lands, that leaves 36. And if you can have 4 of any other card, then dividing 36 by 4 leaves you with a minimum of 9 unique cards.
The other big aspect of deckbuilding is that I usually start by picking my win condition. The strategies you bring up (Aggro, Control, etc) are often a part of the win condition, but I usually refer to specific cards. So like for example maybe Feather the Redeemed is my win condition, so I start out by putting 4 copies of her in my deck, and then I focus on putting in other cards to support myself getting to Feather. And of course you don't need only one Win Condition, in fact it's often best to have at least 2 or 3 strategies of how you're going to get your opponent's life to 0. So maybe I also throw in some Dreadhorde Arcanists into my deck for good measure before I start finding my other support cards.
So if you really wanna simplify deckbuilding for new players: I would say that what you should do is start by setting out 9 slots for unique cards, and then fill one or two of those slots by picking out whatever cool fun and powerful card you wanna play with that you think can win you the game. Then simply fill in the remaining slots with cards to support those powerful cards, be they creatures to play in the early game, spells to buff or defend things, or other kinds of interaction to mess with your opponent, and put in 4 copies of each card, and go to town!
Make sure you at least splash Green and Blue so you can have 4 Hydroid Krasis in your deck, since it's the best creature in Standard. Hope you have $84 to spare for that particular playset. You'll of course need 4 Breeding Pools then as well, but no worries, they'll only run you $66. Also play at least a couple of little Teferi and a couple of big Teferi...$90 should cover 2 of each. Now you're 1/5 of the way to building a viable Standard deck!
0:16 That's a cursed face
"NOM!" goes the cat. Looks like Zoey won't need to be fed for a bit.
I really like my black and red vampire deck. It's got a decent amount of aggro and midrange qualities with a killer combo. It's got red destruction based magics and vampires that have death touch and life link. The main piece of the deck is my Olivia Valdaren and it constantly gains more power for every creature I can convert to a vampire. It is admittedly a bit slow but it can wreck some combo decks that rely on a lot of small creatures.
You mentioned that sometimes you should edit an existing deck, this is actually how i got my most powerful deck and i wanted to share it.
I purchased a red/green spider deck a while back that hinges on a 5/7 spider with the effect: ‘tap an untapped spider, search your library and graveyard for Arachnid web, put it into play.’
Sounds great, but the red spells made up half the deck, were really expensive, and forced me to choose between them, or my spiders.
Solution? I gutted all the red from the deck, packed in more spiders, got two Garuuk Relentless, and some 1-2 mana draw cards, and created a terrifying deck i call Arachnophobia. i’ve held back decks with three 100/100 white elementals before.
So it is always a good idea to look into existing decks, and find what synergies with you c:
Or cobble together an 80 card red deck centered on blowing everything up until you get Koth the Hammer out and beat your opponent to death with your mountains.
Either or.
I've had a similar deal learning to play Slivers. Started out with only a few and learned there were more. So when I got my hands on more I began to slowly rebuild my deck until the point it is now. My friends have learned that if I'm left alone for too long and get the Slivers I need, I'll win. So they either use fast aggro decks or, if we're playing 4 v 4, they ask just try to knock me out first.
I have a deck idea I've been kicking around for a while, but just haven't had the time to bring it to the table yet. It should generally play as a pretty normal midrange R/W equipment deck, but it ALSO harnesses the power of Mycosynth Lattice (Everything is an artifact) with Bludgeon Brawl to ensure EVERYTHING is a weapon. Once that's in place, Golem-Skin Gauntlets (+1/+0 for each equipped card) makes Vulshok Battlemaster (Haste, equips all equipment when it enters) the kind of almighty being that literally throws the EVERYTHING at your opponent. It's very slow and very disruptable, and several of the cards do nothing on their own, but dammit, that's what Magic is all about. That and Lantern Control.
SQUIRREL EDH DECK! NEXT MEME DECK BUILD!
Ptff earthcraft and squirrels nest is just good
If only Earl of Squirrel was legendary...
"Are you out just to win?" = Spike, "do you want to see if you can pull off cool combos..." = Johnny, "...or get world shaking creatures" = Timmy
I remember I was learning Magic for the first time a week ago and we were playing a 6 player FFA (I was given a Morph deck) and my first lesson was “Gang up on the Infect Deck”
I think Chloe has become the primary reason I watch this channel.
The zoe endcards in this series give me life
For new player, please note that Arena has less that 5% of all cards in magic. MTG has been going since 1993. If you want more fun options try paper magic.
I personally recommend mill, draw-go and prison decks.
You know, the fun ones!
You know, the ones _extremely_ fun to play against.
Stop trolling like that.
Personally I enjoy the non-deterministic combos instead, like Eggs or Four Horsemen :P
The fun ones are useless tribals. OR building your deck arround that one mechanic noone cares about.
Depends. Do you want the current, modern or another Format?
There's also the choice between competitive, semi-competitive, casual and kitchen table.
Magic forces me to play as a sorcerer and I didn't opt in for this.
A sorcerer ain't so bad. Artificers however are the evil overlords of the game, assembling game breaking combos before you could even hope to retaliate.
the intro aged poorly with squirrel being kinda meta right now
@2:24 - "Now, just how many low cost spells depends a lot uon the deck type you are playing"
Well said! For example, if you want to win, you will have a lot. if you want to lose and complain, you will only have a few.
You see, even when the game reaches later turns, instead of casting one big spell, it is often better to cast multiple cheap spells, as the individual impact of those small spell is greater than the individual impact of an expensive spell.
Essentially, you want the mana cost of your cards to look more like a CURVE rather than a slope.
Also you guys are just completely awesome and I really enjoy the content you great folks offer
....peace out for now brotha's
In middle school the draw for me was just being able to play and have fun. I wasn’t really that good and I never tried to hard.(I used a pre built Flying/Burn Deck with a few modification) Simply playing to have fun with others was great.
I personally like to play combo decks. Just so I can say “I love it when a plan comes together!”
I try to use all the colors cause I love combing things but I am most definitely at heart a red mage who loves agro but I have made decks in all colors I often use white and green to make up for the weakness of red or use blue with red to have both offense and defense in a deck or if I want to kill anything and everything combining red and black is quite dastardly either way like you guys said making decks and trying them out is just as fun as playing
The first deck I made on my own was a myr deck because I thought they looked cute. And I would quietly play in my corner, being ignored by everyone until....INFINITE ARMY OF UNTARGETABLE MYRS!!1!
There’s a myr combo that generates unlimited mana. With a myr propagator, you make infinite myr copies. Then add in an angel that gives untargetable to all artifacts (myrs are artifact creatures) when you have metal craft, equip it with a whispersilk cloak so it can’t be targeted and have fun.😁
You forgot Mill, but that's fine. Because the best part of Milling is the moment your opponent realises what's going on.....
Mill as in turbofog is a control deck. Mill as in painted stone is a combo deck. There are a lot of win conditions like poison, milling, self-milling, etc. that just slot into the four main archetypes they presented.
They often fall under combo or control though, but yah you can do allot between all those core ideas.
The second best part of milling is when my opponent sees Gaia's Blessing pop into the graveyard and they don't have graveyard blocking or erasing.
Most of the times i've played... the mill strategy wasn't fast enough for the damage i was putting...it's not effective enough...
@@jean-philippedoyon9904 Oh yeah, for sure. Milling is for Johnny, not for Spike
First of all, I love your cat. Secondly, I started playing Commander with a Kynaois and Tiro of Meletis deck because I'm the kind of player who likes helping others out, but as the game goes on, and I get my resources together.... I get more and more excited and can then turn on everyone and rule all. Also, I'm hella gay and I love them and their giant statues.
Jank, gag, and meme decks are definitely the most fun. Winning in the dumbest ways possible, that's my M.O. :')
I only really did this once, I suppose you could call it aggro/combo thingy in Ursa's saga era. Full of low-cost creatures most of whom had the ability of either first strike, grant first strike, or grant protection from chosen color. A few were flying or could block as through they had flying. Cheap spells of protection from chosen color, Worship and Paraiah, plus the Serra avatar, Disenchantment, Swords to plowshares and the like. I tried running it against a few tournament winning decks you can buy (with altered back sides so they're worthless for trade). I basically couldn't win with the tournament deck. My little thingy won every time, I rarely needed the avatar. I'm guessing the main qualities within could well be timeless.
My advice would be to just keep things simple.
I was also helped by a quote: In ancient times, great warriors made themselves invincible and then watched for the openings in their opponents. That's what I went for.
Love the squirrel nod. I run an infinite squirrel combo deck.
My Personal favorite deck is my EDH Yarok the desecrated land deck. Its main goal is to get a ton of lands and mana available to play creature cards with interesting etbs. my favorite combo lets me have infinite mana on my turn which i use to play Agent of treachery infinite time by bouncing it with a shrieking drake. I steal every card on the field then concede watching my opponents scramble to figure out what to do with a completely empty board while i sit and laugh :>
Zoe is quite the talented kitters
Best deck you ever played or build ? Perso, it was on Theros and it was the Mono Blue...expensive in gods, but oh god it was satisfaying ! How about you guys ?
I would recommend going to your local magic the gather store and saying you are a new player and you would like a deck. They typically have two colors and follow the rules video. That’s how I got mine
I’m happy to see that I’m not the only person who made a song for my combo
Also, how is the guy at 4:40 holding that card?
How is he holding that card? Magic! =D
I have a black red vamp deck from the OG Innistrad block. I have been updating it and changing it for 7 years.
Suicide Black
My favorite classical design for a Deck.
Right now I'm working on a variant of it for Vilis EDH.
Wouldn't mind seeing you cover some more specific types of builds.
I deeply desire seeing him go over Slivers
once, about three yeara ago, while sorting my cards I noticed a lot of black cards that involve sacrificing a creature as part of a cost, and I thought it would be funny to make a modern deck centered around sacrificing creatures (both mine and my opponents). It was just for fun, I didnt think it would be that good.
It became the strongest deck I had ever built, so much so that my brother had to make a new deck SPECIFICIALLY for beating it. Sometimes even a deck that sounds like a joke when said out loud can be powerful when put into practice.
Deck building time when you're hungry? Go for it, Zoey!
better way to reword the "usually only play the minimum 60 cards" (at least better imo). if you play 61 cards, you have one 'worst card'. and that card gets in the way of you drawing all the other cards in your deck that are better. so even though its hard, try to keep it at 60 cards. sometimes, what i've done is purposely make the deck 5-10 cards over 60, play test it a little, and then work on shaving off those extra cards. finding those few 'worst cards' when you've played a few games with the deck.
also, if you play paper, dont just look up the "best decks" and go buy them, not unless you're going to a big tournament like a grand prix. making your own deck is not only a lot funner, but also a lot cheaper. plus, beating a 150$ deck using your deck thats like 20$ is very satisfying.
No mention of the Rule of Nine?
The simplest way to make a new deck fast (and leave improving it for later) is to pick just 9 spells with a good curve and creature/noncreature ratio, take 4 copies of each (the max), and add 24 lands for a 60 card deck. If the result has holes either in play or in your collection, just swap out copies of those nine spells for other ones that do similar things.
My main tip for deck building is to play the deck constantly. Every time you lose ask yourself why you lost. Then make a swap and try again.
If you play commander I recommend having at least 3 mana rocks or more. Mana rocks are artifacts that make mana.
1:07 and then there's the end game deck where you pull a spell that basically allows you to summon creatures without playing mana until you find another spell card so you make it your only spell card.
Revel in Riches is so good when you also have stronk pirates.
I recently played a blue green fog mill deck against a 250 card blue black attrition deck, It was epic. I was within one card draw of removing the last two cards from their library and I had run out of fog. I had four cards left in my library and I knew I had two card draws and a fog left. I drew an island.
I think you need an extra liturature series
Yoooooo..... I'm new to the channel but yall should totally do episodes on cammander Decks
Also, extra history should do episodes on charlemagne and his knights
I love this! Helped me much!
Years back, I was playing FNM at the mall, and there was a guy there who was really really good at it. I think he was on the spectrum, because he was like... ridiculously good at Magic, but was a bit difficult to get along with. Anyway, he had a few decks he liked using, but his favorite seemed to be an obnoxious mill deck he had fine-tuned to basically destroy anyone in like 6-10 turns. It sucked to play against. Well one day, he was matched against this guy who had an oversized deck of over 200 cards (and yes it was part of his deck strategy, I think he had some cards that were affected by the size of the deck, all his cards revolved around walls and searching that mountain for his combo cards), and naturally he beat the mill deck. This made the Mill deck guy freak out and basically throw a tantrum about how it was completely unfair that his unbeatable deck had lost against a ridiculous 200-card deck and blah blah blah. The event runner tried to explain that every deck has SOME weakness and a mill deck is basically useless against an oversized deck, it was just a bad luck match-up etc but he wouldn't listen. To him, the guy had "cheated" with his perfectly legitimate strategy. He was kicked out of the store for it (or was so upset he left mid-match I forget) and I never saw him again. I mean I lost literally every match I ever played at FNM (because I really suck at it) but I never threw a fit over it. Once I learned what the oversized deck strategy was I thought it was brilliant.
100% sure Zoe mains a blue/black mill deck. Cats are like that
zoe's deck reminds me of kitten from "if the emperor had a text to speech device"'s deck
So everyone is sitting here talking about what Extra credits should've covered but I'm here like, "What's a squirrel deck?" So I casually search it up and see the many types of squirrel deck combos. I've been missing out.
Ah, I love deck building. I'm terrible at it, but I love it. So much so that I love me some deck building games.
Ah, the joy of playing a black and white life-drain deck. Seeing the enemy constantly loosing life while you regenerate the damage that comes through just does it for me...
Wanting to do well in Standard at your next FNM? No problem! Just make sure you at least splash Green and Blue so you can have 4 Hydroid Krasis in your deck, since it's the best creature in Standard. Hope you have $84 to spare for that particular playset. You'll of course need 4 Breeding Pools then as well, but no worries, they'll only run you $66. Also play at least a couple of little Teferi and a couple of big Teferi...$90 should cover 2 of each. Now you're 1/5 of the way to building a viable Standard deck!
Enjoy it for a whole year until rotation, at which point you just need to spend another ~ $400 dollars for your next deck that will hopefully remain viable.
It would be pretty cool if you guys also made an epsiode about competitive magic.
I really liked the explanation of why you should try to have only 60 cards in a deck.
Me in Magic Duels: hello new friend, let's have a fun game all right? I've been working on a new playstyle and I'm excited to try it ou-
Opponent: *Sphinx's Tutelage prefab deck*
Me: oh okay i see how it is
As a veteran M:t:G player I will let you know one of the most important parts of building an effective deck: $$$.
Basically my issue with tweaking decks is that If I swap out a lot of cards I feel like I might be better off scrapping it and building a new one and if I'm only tweaking a few cards I feel like I'm not making enough of an impact to be worth it. After all I'm probably not going to be drawing those two extra lands or that shiny mythic rare, so what's the point? If the deck isnt holding on it's own without those cards that one or three extra isnt going to make a significant difference. At least that's the way it feels.
Why does swapping out a lot of cards feel like scrapping the whole deck? If that's what it takes to make the deck better, then that's what you do. It all depends on what you want the deck to do.
I'm just here trying to build frog tribal. EVERYTHING MUST BE TRBAL!!!
Some codes for arena:
OneBillion
PlayRavnica
PlayAllegiance
GAMEAWARDS
SPARKLEDRUID
SHINYGOBLINPIRATE
FOILFUNGUS
PARALLAXPOTION
PREMIUMSCRY
PlayWarSpark
PLAYM20
LEVELUP
BROUGHTBACK
ZOEY -gives here your power 9 - eat this
I love the cute Zoey clips at the end
What about Formats? What about Mana curves? What about the ratio of spells to creatures in the different archetypes? What about Ramp and when it is important? What about mana fixing and playing decks with multiple colors?...
I was really looking forward to this series to tell people who want to learn the basics, to whatch it... But I must say that it is really lackluster for teaching new players how to play. With mistakes and missed opportunities.
Red aggro deck for a quick farming on MTGA
It fell out of favour.