Help my Kid be competitive at FNM?
Deck Help forum
Posted on July 29, 2013, 8:27 p.m. by deanster
Hi all - my son is 11, and is working on deck-building.
He's been playing the Rakdos and Boros event decks, with a few upgrades of R/MR cards from booster boxes.
However, he's not really expert enough yet to build competitive decks, and the pre-constructed decks are just good enough to avoid being blown-out at FNM - nowhere near being really competitive. I've looked here and elsewhere, but get a bit overwhelmed with all the options, and trying to figure out what we have vs. what's needed to make a competitive deck.
Can you offer some pointers towards FNM-competitive decks that are either build-outs based on the Rakdos/Boros event decks, or perhaps a Red/Blue deck centered around Ral Zarek/Niv Mizzet?
We have the contents of Return to Ravnica, Gatecrash, and 2014 core set Booster Boxes, and about $200 in Card Kingdom store credit to work with. 8)
(I'm also happy to hear about anything else you'd recommend, if something pops into your head when you read the above.)
Many thanks to you all - I'm new to this forum, but I'm always amazed how helpful these internet communities can be. Please let me know if I'd be better off posting my question elsewhere.
Since my son is the MTG player, it'd also be very much appreciated if you could use short words, simple explanations and/or links to referenced material, since I very often feel like a particularly confused Labrador Retriever when the MTG-lingo gets more than knee-deep.
Thanks in advance!
Aggressive decks are usually best for players starting out: decks that play creatures, attack, and aim to kill the opponent in just a few turns. There's a lot of aggro decks in Standard right now, and Boros and Rakdos and Gruul all have great aggressive options. Maybe let him have a crack at building his own deck based off of what you have; I'm sure he'll know that some creatures will be worth including and some won't. Let him choose a guild or color combination, separate all the cards of those colors, and let him try. That'll be the best way for him to start learning the ropes of deckbuilding.
July 29, 2013 8:49 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #4
Building a deck is a tough thing to begin to do if you are looking for a very competitive deck. Most of the times, a non-netdecked deck won't be uber competitive. I would suggest taking a look at this website for some good netdecks over a large span of formats and playstyles.
Best of luck to you and your son!
July 29, 2013 8:49 p.m.
PasorofMuppets says... #5
R/g aggro would be a relatively cheap and competitive option, I'm sure you can find many lists on the site linked to by mstancea.
July 29, 2013 8:53 p.m.
Looking at the contents of the two decks, it looks like your son could build a fairly competitive mono-red deck. The event decks contain copies of Firefist Striker , Lightning Mauler , Stromkirk Noble , Rakdos Cackler , Ash Zealot , Stonewright , Pillar of Flame , Searing Spear , Brimstone Volley , and Mizzium Mortars . Obviously, one-ofs and two-ofs of these cards isn't going to cut it, so I would recommend completing the playset of most of these (with the exception of the removal spells). If your son would like to splash another color, the white from the Boros deck is a lot stronger than the black from the Rakdos decks. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben , Champion of the Parish , Spark Trooper , Boros Elite , Boros Charm , and Silverblade Paladin are all great cards.
July 29, 2013 8:53 p.m.
NobodyPicksBulbasaur says... #7
The first step building a deck is to define exactly what you want that deck to do. Do you want to play the fastest cards you can and win on turn 4? Do you want to blow up everything your opponent has and win because they run out of cards? Figuring out what you wan your deck to do is the most important step in deckbuilding. There are thousands of cards in MtG, and it's impossible to filter through them if you don't have a clear goal.
Once you know what you're trying to accomplish, it's time to find the best cards to accomplish that job. Knowing which cards are available to you makes this step a lot easier. To filter through possible cards when I'm making my decks, I go to
http://magiccards.info/search.html
because it makes searching through cards a breeze. You can use this site to search for exactly which cards you want. If you want to run a Red, White, and Black aggressive deck, for example, you could search for all cards in Standard that are Red, White, or Black, and cost less than 3 to play.
July 29, 2013 8:54 p.m.
I'd recommend trying to build a basic RDW (red deck wins) build, as they are fairly cheap and easy to play while still being very competitive.
Here is a fairly basic one I found: http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=5334&d=230758
For some reason this one is rather poorly constructed, but you get the idea. This deck with a few changes (-3 Ash Zealot , -4 Krenko's Command , -1 Pillar of Flame , +4 Mogg Flunkies , +4 Brimstone Volley ) could do very well at an FNM. Hope this helps.
July 29, 2013 8:55 p.m.
Thanks, I'll check it out.
I should have mentioned that his usual FNM is mostly kids from 10-15, with a few older high-school/college age guys, rather than the cut-throat adult FNM across town at Card Kingdom.
Similarly, by 'competitive', I'm really thinking 'above .500 win/loss against other kids', rather than 'ready to slay the MTG mages in tournaments', if that helps any.
Sounds like some low-budget net-decking may be the way to go, at least to start, and move towards building his own as he gains experience.
July 29, 2013 8:57 p.m.
eneyman - thanks VERY much for your detailed and thoughtful suggestions - I'll take a look at that, and it looks like completing playsets of those cards would be a very economical way to punch up what we already have in-hand.
Thanks!
July 29, 2013 8:59 p.m.
This is a fairly cheap Red Deck wins that just top-8ed a very competitive SCG Open tournament this past weekend. Tee only expensive card is Mutavault which can easily be replaced by Mountains. http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=57862
July 29, 2013 8:59 p.m.
Landgraf and Blakkhand - thanks much for your suggestions, and I'll go take a look at the resources you linked.
Any thoughts about the Guys, we broke black... deck? We have a fair bit of that list in-hand, though obviously not 22x Shadowborn Apostle just sitting about...
July 29, 2013 9:02 p.m.
@ deanster, I've tested with that deck and it never really does what you want. Just my opinion.
July 29, 2013 9:04 p.m.
ENEyman - that looks like a super-interesting deck, and again, one that we have the core components of. If there's a Mutavault or two in the 2014 Booster Box he's getting for his birthday at the end of the week, we'd be a long way towards having that deck ready to rock.
Thanks one more time for great advice, super-on-target to our situation.
You guys are the best!
July 29, 2013 9:07 p.m.
OK, thanks - all the comments suggest it's great when it works, but painfully inconsistent - except for the comments that suggest they've ironed out the consistency issues. Gotta love it.
July 29, 2013 9:08 p.m.
ZarBluestar says... #16
At my local FNM, it's casual (anything goes), but at most FNM's it's standard. That means you should check to make sure a card is legal. At my FNM, the decks that have ALWAYS won are decks that have most/all cards sharing the same creature type. These past few weeks, we've had the winners be spirits, vampires, goblins, elves, slivers, and most commonly squirrels (that's right, squirrels XP). I notice a trend in how red decks typically are eliminated in the first rount (solely because if the opponent makes it to the late game, red SUCKS in comparison to the other colors). Sure there are some exceptions, but No R/? deck has ever won my FNM. I'm personally a fan of elves and slivers because they are typically cheaper cards that have great synergy. At my first FNM I used a simic evolve deck. I won the first round against a R/W/B twice in a row. The next round I faced a Mono-green undying/aggro deck (i lost 2-1). On the last round, I was creamed by a rakdos burn deck because of mana problems (lost 2-0). The deck that won that week was a Squirrel deck.
If you decide to go the path of elves, feel free to use my Flood of Elves. And if you can afford it, add either Emrakul, the Aeons Torn , or Craterhoof Behemoth X4 (I woud if I had money right now). If you do use the deck, please comment on it saying how well it did and gove it a +1
If your son is experienced enough to use a deck with more than two colors, I'd definitely go with creatures of the subtype "ally" or "sliver"
I honestly like annoying people at FNM (more than winning) with either the wierdest or the most broken cards I can find. The one that always makes my opponents groan is when I play either a mono-green or a U/G infect deck. It's not always the best choice for competitions, but are usually VERY budget, and still do really well (even my friends who used to play in internationals HATE U/G infect decks). Here's a good one that I found when browsing this site: infect
July 29, 2013 10:34 p.m.
Thanks all - He's playing Standard, so a few of the older formats ZarBluestar is suggesting won't fly.
I appreciate your input, and I think we're going to work on ENEyman and Blakkhand's suggestions.
Last item - Ral Zarek/Izzet decks?
August 5, 2013 3:19 p.m.
ShokDragon says... #18
What I'd like to know is the name of the store he goes to FNM at. I'm 13, and have been looking for somewhere like this for a while, as the place I go know is full of pros. As for advice, the main thing is to keep card synergy in mind, with basically means to try and be sure the cards work well together. For example, running Eidolon of the Great Revel in a deck full of cheap spells is NOT good. Other than that, just try to stick to the cards that are good, not the ones that have an okay effect. It seems you're on the right track, though!
August 4, 2014 5:43 p.m.
I have an izzet build on my page if you want to check it out. Its geared more toward burn.
August 4, 2014 7:02 p.m.
lotusofblackness says... #20
Boros Burn or Devotion to Blue are both very good, cheap deck builds. Burn can be made for as low as $150 and Devotion to Blue is usually about $200-$250. You can find all of the best Standard decks in the current metagame on this website right here:
http://mtgtop8.com/format?f=ST
Hope this helped!
NobodyPicksBulbasaur says... #2
The first thing your son needs, before you spend too much on a deck, is a fairly solid understanding of the game. If you don't know the ins and outs of what you can do with the cards in your deck, then it's almost impossible to beat someone who does.
Once you're pretty sure he knows all of the little detail rules that make new players stumble, then it's time to work on a deck.
There are two basic ways to build a deck. The first is to go online and see which decks are winning tournaments and build those. This is generally referred to as net-decking. Net-decking will get you a strong deck every time, but will almost always be made of the most expensive cards currently available. A lot of people net-deck, so the cards in the most popular decks raise in price as they become more popular.
The other way to build a deck is to build something yourself, which is what I would recommend in your situation.
July 29, 2013 8:42 p.m.