Card cutting strategy
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on May 16, 2019, 5:32 p.m. by MizzMizz
The excitement of building a new deck is one of the most enjoyable feelings for me. I find that the part that I am overwhelmed with the most, as someone who's relatively new to building their own decks, is cutting cards.
After I order a new pile of around 130 cards to build with, i never know what to cut. I know that playtesting is a big part of beginning the cutting process, but I'm curious about what strategies that deck building veterans use.
List your process and thought strategies for card cutting here :)
Thank you!
bushido_man96 says... #3
That's a pretty good list, cdkime (I chuckled aloud at your comment about your cat).
Something I would add to, and that cdkime touched on, is to not get too cute with card interactions. Think about what your Commander does, and the cards you use to build around it, to do what you want. Then, try to avoid getting too far off the beaten path. Its easy to get a handful of cards together that do something cool together, but you have to look back to see if that interaction is going to A: be part of what your deck actually wants to do (especially if its built heavily around the Commander), and B: how likely and consistently you'll pull it off, and if its worth it. It gets easy to fall down a rabbit hole of cards that work with each other, but you have to keep a focus on what the deck does, how it wins, etc, and make sure you don't veer too far from that goal.
May 16, 2019 7:15 p.m.
cdkime I like your strategy, I'll give those steps a try tonight. Since I dont have a cat, I'll just knock the cards off the table myself.
I'm building a zombie tribal Varina, Lich Queen deck that makes a ton of evasive tokens using some of the new cards from war of the spark, and that has a pretty reliable aristocrats theme.
Currently, I'm having trouble deciding on weather I should make a more controlling build or more of a removal based build in terms of answers. I cant decide if I want it to be more reactive with counters or proactive with spot/mass removal.
Im planning on throwing a list on tapped out tonight of the deck with all the cards in it to get opinions on what to cut. I'll tag you in it to get your opinions if that's alright :)
May 16, 2019 7:17 p.m.
bushido_man96 I usually try to build my decks so they will function with or without the commander.
I'm not exactly trying to make Varina, Lich Queen competitive as I dont think it would stand up to actual CEDH decks, but I want it to be explosive and hard to deal with. I want to make her the strongest that she can be while also keeping the zombie tribal theme going, as that's what I enjoy most about magic.
I have only a handful of cards that combo off together. I'll make a list tonight of all the cards I have and I'll tag you as well to get your opinions if that's ok with you?
May 16, 2019 7:24 p.m.
Hey guys!! I just put the list up. Let me know what I should consider removing and let me know about cards I might want to add!!
Caerwyn says... #2
I generally follow this plan:
Sort my deck into four piles - Lands; Instants and Sorceries; Creatures; non-creature permanents.
Organize within those piles based on the criteria the deck needs. So, for Instants and Sorceries, I'll divide in to categories such as removal, draw, combo, etc.
I then sort the cards by converted mana cost so I have a general feel for how the deck's curve looks.
I perform steps 1-3 again, as one of my cats has inevitably knocked my pile of cards on the floor for some perceived slight.
I try to look at what cards do similar things, and make a determination of the redundancy adds to the deck. If it does not, I cut the worse card.
I look at the top of my curve and see if any of those cards will have too few synergies or too little utility to be worth running, and cut those cards.
I then get to the hard part, hacking away at great cards, performing cost-benefit analysis of each with an eye toward the greater synergies and plan of the deck. It is important at this stage to understand that you'll have to let some really good cards go.
TappedOut has pretty nifty built-in sorting options and you can organize by custom categories as well. There's a drop-down menu so you can quickly alternate between sorting options, allowing you to perform most of this work digitally.
May 16, 2019 5:53 p.m.