The Planeswalker’s Apprentice – Deck Types

In frustration after his defeat, the Apprentice retreated back to the workshop and haphazardly scattered the contents of his satchel out on the long oak table. Across the surface of the hardwood tumbled sixty orbs, glowing at various brightness and strength. Frustrated, he tossed two of them, a green and blue mana orb to the side and tapped his chin, deep in thought.

“What shall I replace these with?”

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Welcome back to The Planeswalker’s Apprentice, a weekly blog focused on giving newer players the ammo they need to learn the game of Magic: the Gathering. This week’s installment will focus on initial deck creation.

Hopefully by now, you have played a few hands of Magic and have seen how simple card interactions work. What you may not fully understand is how these cards work together like a well oiled machine to achieve the decks goal. To begin, we must first learn about the five major deck types for beginners.

Before any of you say, “Hey! Hold up! Don’t players need to know what each color’s strength and weakness are first?” I agree that color identity is important but choosing what play style and deck type are more important in my opinion. The colors of your deck will fall into place once you realize how you want to win and play. Let’s take a look…

Aggro

Aggro is a term used for decks that focus on only one thing, attack. The goal of this deck is to get a horde of small creatures and overwhelm your opponent with too many creatures to block. Aggro decks rarely block or defend themselves and attempt to win as fast as possible. The longer the game, the more likely they are to lose.

Tempo

Tempo decks are like Aggro decks but with one difference. Instead of playing a slew of small and fast creatures they play additional mana sources and playing larger creatures faster then your opponent and beat them down. These decks also have creatures that get larger when certain conditions are met or over time.

Control

Control decks win by controlling the battlefield with creature destruction spells, counterspells or other forms of lockdown. To win with this deck, card advantage must be gained over the opponent through the entire match. The deck grinds the opponent into a standstill only to play an unanswerable threat. Winning the war of attrition is key with this deck type.

Midrange

Midrange decks are versatile Swiss Army Knives of the game of Magic. They have answers to most deck types and can overcome and adapt to most opponents. This deck type will often sit back early, assess the opponent’s deck, respond to threats and force a counterattack. They often play direct damage, counterspells or creature removal to gain the advantage.

Combo

Combo decks are just that, a combination of cards that cause some sort of win condition, whether it be infinite amounts of damage or a winning board state. Many Combo decks sit back and then unsuspectingly pounce, playing the cards they need to instantly win.

Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each deck type will not only help you understand how your deck plays, it also helps you understand your opponent’s goals. For instance, knowing you are against a Combo deck will help your Control deck to hold onto counterspells or creature kill to make sure that their combo never goes off. A Midrange deck will block early against a Aggro deck, then eventually survive the initial onslaught with well timed removal or key blocks.

Let’s take a look at our Apprentice’s Deck found here. http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/the-planeswalkers-apprentice-week-one/ Look at all the spells and creatures. Do you notice any deck type this deck would fall into? With the higher casting cost of the creatures and the abundance of spells this is definitely not an Aggro deck. There is also no game winning combo prevalent. With cards like Frost Lynx and Cancel this deck could initially be considered Control or even a Midrange deck with the larger creatures being present. It also has some framework for a Tempo deck.

Take a look at your current deck or current card collection. Out of the four common deck types, how would you feel that you would enjoy playing most? What cards are in your deck that achieves your deck type’s goals? What cards in your current deck do not help to achieve your goals? With these answers in mind it becomes more clear what spells you will need duplicates of and which spells need to be eliminated.

Let’s look back to the Apprentice’s deck. With it in mind that he will not be playing Aggro or Combo, let’s begin removing cards that will not help him. I think it would be great to add more counterspells to the deck, allowing for a touch more control. Removing a Forest and an Island to replace then with a Negate and a Cancel is a good start in the right direction.

In the original deck there is two artifacts, Staff of the Mind Magus and Staff of the Wild Magus. One misconception of early players is that gaining life is good. Repeat after me: It is easier, more efficient and more productive to deal 20 damage to an opponent than get to 40 life. There are advanced decks out there that gain huge amounts of life and are successful but those decks are very focused in what they do and your deck is not one of them. Keeping these two Staffs would not help me control my opponent’s play, eliminate threats or increase my own so they must go. With the deck’s larger casting cost creatures, I like the idea of additional mana sources and replaced the Staffs with two Elvish Mystics.

I always recommend that after changing four cards in a deck, players should playtest and get a feel for the changes they made. Every card you change alters the flow and feel of a deck.  Beginners should make changes to their decks in increments instead of all in one large change. Large changes will create chaos in what you are trying to achieve as a beginner. Make a minor change, play ten games, assess, make more minor changes and repeat. Our Apprentice’s new decklist can be found here http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/the-planeswalkers-apprentice-week-two/

I have a special treat for all of you Christmas Day. For those of you who may get a fresh new 2015 Deckbuilder’s Toolkit for the holidays, don’t rip into it just yet. I’ll be opening one up and building a deck or two from it and we will learn more about what you can find inside to work with to create some fun decks. Stop in tomorrow for that.

Thanks for all the great feedback and comments about this blog. Keep it coming! Tweet me https://twitter.com/TheAiokii or follow conversation about budget Magic on Reddit at http://www.reddit.com/r/budgetdecks/

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The Apprentice sat transfixed on his fresh, open journal, his hands clenched on it’s cover. His eyes darted across the exposed pages, his mouth muttering an incantation. Without warning, green wisps appeared from all corners of the room and slowly meandered towards the table closest to him. They were dim at first but began to glow with intensity as they neared each other at the table’s surface. They quickly began to wrap around themselves and centrifuged into a glowing green orb that throbbed with intensity as if it enclosed the heartbeat of nature itself. The Apprentice smiled.

“This Mystic will serve me well.” the Apprentice spoke as he picked up the orb, looked at it and then placed it carefully into his satchel.