HELP: How do you build a deck?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Nov. 15, 2017, 4:35 p.m. by oliveoilonyaasscureshemorrhoid
Whether you're a new player or experienced player, how do you build your deck? All suggestions are welcome.
What are the first steps? What sites do you use? What resources do you use besides websites? What's your thoughts processes throughout building a deck? Are there stages, or initial/ middle/ final/ polish or clean up phases? How do you determine whether to add a card or cut a card, and is it usually after it's all done and polished or after a couple tests? Do you believe a deck is only as strong as it's weakest card, or are there truly broken cards? Who helps you with building a deck; i.e. a sibling, the local store, youtube channels, etc. Is it more important to build the deck fast and immediately grind it in testing, or take a long time and have the testing be supporting?
There's no wrong answers. Thanks in advance for taking the time to answer
landofMordor says... #3
Hm...in terms of EDH, generally I'll begin by choosing a commander that provides a new/exciting playstyle in a new color combo for me. In the case of Blood-Braided Beatdown (Primer), I noticed that Kresh the Bloodbraided had some serious combo potential that wasn't typical "swing in with tokens or win by Voltron", and then I started tracking cards that would mesh well with his abilities -- things with high P/T, +1/+1 counter synergy, morbid/death triggers, etc. Then I throw all of that together with the minimal number of staples and trim from there.
November 15, 2017 5:10 p.m.
A couple quick thoughts:
I always start with the Commander, and try to build the deck he or she would like. I also use that for card choices ... I often imagine asking the Commander for their opinion, and they almost always have a good answer :-)
I also pay special attention to Lands, because there are SO many great Utility Lands out there. I usually test with Wastes in place of the Utilities until I can get the manabase right, and then I'll head to manabasecrafter and go berserk.
November 15, 2017 5:17 p.m. Edited.
rshistorysmuf says... #5
Themes:
Grind deck, mono artifact, silly creature names (under construction) and gunslinger (under construction)
November 15, 2017 8:51 p.m.
SteelSentry says... #6
I don't have any RL people that can help me brew, but EDHREC is really helpful, I watch YouTube channels that post EDH gameplay and listen to a couple EDH podcasts, and a lot of the time I just do random searches on card search engines (Gatherer,Scryfall,etc.)
The journey usually starts on EDHREC, and take every relevant card from the color pair and the chosen general, and then add in all my favorite relevant cards (or any pet cards) in the colors. After that, I use a search engine to look up relevant keywords or text (Morbid in a sacrifice deck, Flash in an Ephara, God of the Polis deck, "When you cast a Spirit or Arcane spell" in a spirits deck, etc.). At this point I usually have a list of about 150-200 cards. Unfortunately, I don't have much of a budget, so I will usually cut any card over like $3 in case I decide to build the deck in paper.
From there, I take into account what I actually want to do with this deck, and pick a commander if I haven't already (Calling from Eternity, my spirits deck, didn't have a commander until almost the end of the brew). I continue trimming cards that either don't do enough, or any curve considerations (if I have 17 9-drops that's usually where I start cutting).
At the end of the brew (once I have it down to about 20 cards left to cut), I throw all the cards in an Excel spreadsheet and sort it into categories I can work with. For example, in Mobile Suit Jund-am, my Jund tokens deck I just finished, the categories were things like Token Generation, Sac Outlets, Death Payoffs, and Recursive Creatures. The spirits deck I linked above had Spirits Matter and Arcane Matters as the two big categories, and then a Rashmi Synergy/goodstuff spirits category. At this point, I make sure I have a good amount of ramp, card draw, and answers, and see how much of those have synergy with my game plan. I also do like to consider my curve since there are some Spikes in my meta, and add in relevant low drops if my curve starts at 4.
November 15, 2017 9:36 p.m.
Choose a commander. Add 38 land in the colours. Then start to google around. See what helps it.
November 16, 2017 4:18 a.m.
If I've already got a commander I start by figuring out how I win/what my game plan is. After that I rough out a mana base to be tuned later. Next I put what ever my wincon is into the list and choose my backup plan. Then I start adding the cards that facilitate my game plan, at this point if I don't know what does that I'll use gatherer and search some keywords and see first if anything fits and second if it is good for the deck. At this point I should have the deck roughed out enough I can take a look at the manabase and tune it if I need to. The most recent example I have of this process is my Rock and Roll Pod deck. I'm currently working on a Thrasios/Tymna list that I know I want to be grindy control so I know I'll be running some stax/hatebear pieces.
November 16, 2017 1:23 p.m.
Rabid_Wombat says... #9
What other peeps are playing is my motivation for deck building. For example - If a graveyard recursion deck is dominating the LGS I'll put together a deck specifically designed to destroy it.
Then I'm hailed as a local hero (at least for that day)....and the other guy/girl has to pull out another edh deck ;)
My other main motivator is to suprise peeps by making decks that suck actually win games. Arcades Sabboth Wall Tribal and Cycling Zur are my two latest projects.
And it's fun when someone needs a deck and I throw them over the Wall deck saying :"Here's a Tribal deck!"....then they see the Commander, skim through the deck and say: "Dude, wtf?" :D
November 16, 2017 6:48 p.m.
I usually have serious budget constraints so for me the first step is accumulating all my cards with a cohesive theme or strategy within a box. Like graveyard shenanigans or zombies or spellsliger, etc.., and just putting everything in my collection that might be useful together in one place. There could be 200 cards at this stage, without lands or a color identity yet. Choosing a commander is also very important and can be done first instead, but the deck theme can be more important depending on your intentions. Next I think it's crucial to just thin down the ideas into an actual 100 card deck even if its rough and "missing cards" you want to acquire. Actual testing vs real opponents is the only way to really figure out a deck. No matter how much you like a decklist and work on it in theory, until you shuffle it up and try it a bunch of times, its just untested ideas. I've been a deck builder for over 20 years and it's always a trial and error process to refine a deck. EDHREC.com is a great resource but its not really the ultimate answer for building a good edh deck. It's more like an easy way to be reminded of which edh staples to use in a deck than anything else. For most commanders the "top cards" for it are so generic its basically useless information. You can discover some great combo/synergy cards this way but mostly just the obvious ones. I think the most intersting card ideas for decks usually come after testing it a bit, then personally doing research with a card search engine like Gatherer and from looking at dozens of similar decks, usually on this site.
November 23, 2017 6:27 p.m.
hookedonkronix says... #11
I start a build by picking a color or combination of colors that interest me. I search through the available commanders in those colors looking for abilities that would create opportunity for interesting synergy and combos. Before the days of EDHREC, I used to spend hours and hours trolling through tappedouts card search looking for solid interactions. Now I start at EDHREC, selecting anything that grabs my eye and throw it in the deck. This gives me a base that I can start with. Depending on the commander, EDHREC is either an awesome list of suggestions or its simply not. Ill either pull in a huge list of 40-60 spells or as few as 20. From there, Ill decide if the direction Im heading in is on track or not. Ill make cuts if needed and then dive back into trolling through card searches looking for cards that wouldnt have turned up on EDHREC. If Ive got a long list of cards forming Ill usually create a second deck, name it v2 and begin forming a more finalized list of cards that make the cut.
griffstick says... #2
Well every deck I build starts with an idea about what I want the deck to be doing. So for instance this deck the idea was to have a bunch of dumb creatures that cost less then it's power and toughness, lots of card draw the way green does it, and beat face. So once I had an idea I needed a commander that does the same or enables my idea. Then the building process begins. I start with the creatures I want and the the rest like ramp card draw removal ext ext ext then lands. All the fine tuning comes after testing. If I really like the deck I will fine tune it for a year til I'm only changing 1 or 2 things a yr in the deck.
November 15, 2017 4:54 p.m.