How many decks would you run?
General forum
Posted on July 28, 2015, 7:44 p.m. by Chandrian
Hi there,
I started MtG nearly a year ago (I bought the Magic 2015 red intro pack). Since then I casually dumped cash into magic, for a card here, a draft there... recently I even did my first event (Origins pre-release).
I really like the deck-construction aspect of Magic... but I find that everytime I want to build a deck around an idea and the cards I have I'll need to invest more money. So now I want to limit myself to a limited amount of casual decks I improve over time and maybe one or two decks that could become a bit more competitive.
This brings me to my question:
What's a good number of decks to focus on money-wise?
(I only play modern and EDH)
VampireArmy says... #3
Currently I'm working on 4 decks.
2 competitive modern decks, one casual commander deck, one competitive commander deck
July 28, 2015 7:58 p.m.
omnipotato says... #4
Concentrate on one deck, especially in Modern. Watch any pros who play with that deck, and find out about all the tricks your deck is capable of, and sideboard strategies for each of the major Modern decks.
July 28, 2015 8:01 p.m.
VampireArmy says... #5
Now honestly this is because i proxy what i don't have and don't attend events a whole lot.
If you need those decks done sooner rather than later do one at a time
July 28, 2015 8:02 p.m.
insert shameful comment below:
i currently have the following sleeved up in paper, and not budget:
4 casual, 2 standard, 2 legacy (no abur lands), 3 modern, 11 EDH...
July 28, 2015 8:03 p.m.
Most of my decks only cost 100 or less when I put them together. Over the years (about 3 of them), I have collected 13 commander decks. The reason is that when I sit down, it all depends: duel french style or multiplayer? how competitive? are there any other reanimator decks? anyone need a loaner deck? The dynamics of what is and is not varies so much for commander that I am most comfortable being able to match my deck to a given playgroup.
Otherwise, I stick to 1 or two per format (one competitiveish one and one casualish one).
Since I am sticking to eternal formats, I feel like I can get about one new (budget) deck a year and still be in the game but not blowing a crazy budget. Doing it this way cost a lot (for me) to start, but is very inexpensive to maintain.
July 28, 2015 8:04 p.m.
i have 6 modern decks that im working on. abzan midrange, twin, affinity, tron, living end, and a tribal rats deck. i also have a no rares U/B control deck that i just kinda slapped together
July 28, 2015 8:11 p.m.
So as far as modern and edh are concerned I definitely play more modern than edh. For edh I used to think I would want multiple casual decks for when I got bored of one or the other. I soon realized that wasnt as fun as making one deck exactly how I want it and foiling it and just appreciating it. So for edh I have one that embodies me as a magic player and that I enjoy playing that is decent not amazingly combo competitive and not super bad. As far as modern I again went with decks I like but I am also building a second one after my original. The reason being that I like to have deck building goals but also I felt that my original one lacked a certain protection or just got destroyed by certain decks. So now I am building a second one that I still enjoy that I can use when I expect a certain type of deck to be played so that my original one doesnt just get destroyed. Just my thought process goodluck!
July 28, 2015 8:15 p.m.
aeonstoremyliver says... #10
Well, I have several decks for all formats except Standard. Many of the cards and decks are interchangeable. To give you an idea:
Modern - RDW/Burn, Abzan Tempo, Zoo, G/W Midrange
Legacy - RDW/Burn, Abzan DeathBlade, Mono Green 12 Post, Zoo
EDH - Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund, Animar, Soul of Elements, Rakdos, Lord of Riots, Zedruu the Greathearted, Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
As you can see, I can play a multitude of formats with generally the same cards. Stick with a motif and idea, then expand your collection around that. I have a friend that plays Affinity in Modern, Legacy, and Sharrum in EDH... The same principle.
July 28, 2015 8:19 p.m.
I only play edh, but currently have all 9 decks on my profile sleeved and ready to play.
I play with 2 play groups. One of which is very laid back and casual, and mainly people on tight budget. The other is more competitive and more of the players have played for years and have the cards to build better decks.
I don't play my prossh, Kaalia, or my Ghave deck with the budget group very often. The only reason I play them there is to disrupt the one player who's main deck is Skittles (infect).
Also, I like to play different decks. Before I had kids, and ended up selling my cards, I had like 12 decks that I played with friends and family.
But as others are saying, if you are looking to play in tournaments, I would say focus on getting one good deck that you like to play in both formats, then when you get extra money to put into it, you can look at getting other decks to play with.
July 28, 2015 8:31 p.m.
filledelanuit says... #12
Currently I have lists for a ton of decks I'm trying to build:
EDH: Sen Triplets
Modern: UR Storm (most of the variations), Stompy, Skred, Mono U Tron
Legacy: TES, ANT, DDFT, Grinding Station, PSI, SI
Being fair to myself the most of the legacy decks are no more than 10 cards different. TES is only about $50 different from ANT and DDFT is about $100. PSI and SI are about $250 from TES or ANT and Grinding Station is about $15 different from ANT. Basically if it storm I'll give it a shot.
July 28, 2015 8:34 p.m.
Well. It depends on what your budget is for each deck -- If you have $300 to pump into any given deck, then for the sake of not being completely broke, maybe, maybe... 3? If your budget is $200, more like 4 decks -- EDH is usually more expensive if you're going multicolored.
July 28, 2015 8:41 p.m.
SimicPower says... #14
As a fellow only Modern/EDH player, I have the following decks:
Competitive Modern
Competitive EDH
Casual EDH
Gimmick EDH
Super-casual EDH (I have spent $0 on this deck)
July 28, 2015 8:43 p.m.
Four months ago, I was seriously just like you :) you don't need a lot of money, as people say here, to play a competitive deck. Yeah, it really does help, but you can build some really, really good budget ones.
I started out confused at what to focus on because I wanted to play every deck, but never make it better. I learned that's not the way to do it. Don't waste your money on a "card here and a card there." Save up, build your own list of a deck you would like, and make it. Whether it be over time, or whether it be, you make it, test it, like it, and buy it when you can in full. I spend two to three months making my elf deck, and it was 100% worth it, because now it's a fully competitive deck. And I love it. It's my baby.
Focus on one deck, check out a few ideas on the website. :) If you're looking to delve in some modern budget decks, but decks that could be competitive with some work, or you're just looking for a deck that's fun to play and is competitive, let me help you! I love modern, know a lot about it because it's the only format I play, and I would really be glad to help! Let me know!
As well, if you want, take a look at a few of my decks on my profile page. I've got Goblin tribal, Elf tribal, and a budget affinity deck. Definitely something to check out if you want some stuff that I brewed that's good and something that was really worked hard on.
July 28, 2015 8:47 p.m.
gnarlicide says... #16
I generally 5 decks around.
1 Standard, 2 Modern, 1 Legacy (no expense spared), and 1 competitive EDH.
The only deck that gets "rotated" is obviously the standard one. But I try to build a deck and keep it for at least 6 months.
July 28, 2015 9:46 p.m.
Unless you're looking to spend next to nothing on decks, I would recommend against having too many decks. But it also depends on your current card collection as well.
If you have all of 500 cards because you bought a fat pack, a few boosters and a command precon, I would say you should look at having 1 deck for commander and 1 deck for modern. Otherwise you'll end up splitting your resources too thin.
But on the flipside, if you've been collection for years and you're sitting on 10s of thousands of cards, you can justify having more. That being said, you still run into a tuning issue.
Too many decks means you don't get to play all of them enough, meaning you have less information when it comes to picking cards for them. If you're looking for super casual play, then that is less of an issue of course.
As for me, I run the following:
Commander - Damia, Sage of Stone (competitive), Saffi Eriksdotter (competitive), Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief (Casual) and Melek, Izzet Paragon (Casual)
For commander, unless you're specifically trying to build on a budget, I think keeping the price of the deck down for no reason is a stupid concept (I'm not saying go out and break the bank or anything), so my cheapest commander deck is ~$200.
I also run a Pauper Commadner deck, Paragon of the Amesha, however this one basically sits around doing nothing for the most part.
Modern - Jeskai Control, Affinity, Mardu token rush and Blue Black Rogues.
I have had the rogue deck for a long time (4+ years now) so I haven't really thrown a lot of money at it recently. I also pulled apart an old school mirrodin artifact deck to build the affinity one and have spend not a lot of money on it. For my two more competitive decks, Jeskai and Mardu, even though they are more aggressive I only play them in a super casual setting and so parts ofthe deck have been proxied as I am finishing buying all of the pieces (since most of my magic card money goes into commander).
I have considered on multiple occasions retiring a few of the decks (both commander and modern), so I can devote more time to tweaking the decks I have, however this is only really an issue for modern.
July 28, 2015 11:43 p.m.
I personally build decks as they come. I have 3 EDH, ~2 modern, 1 Legacy, 1 pauper. The Legacy deck is still in progress, but only in terms of me needing ABUR blue lands.
I keep myself to a general step-by-step list of what I build next, picking up parts of each when I can or on the cheap. My current list of magic acquirement is:
Get the ~6 cards I need to finish my legacy Miracles list (number doesn't include ABUR lands)
Acquire packs for my play group chaos draft.
Create a decklist and then acquire said cards for a Maelstrom Wanderer EDH deck.
Build Assault loam in Modern.
July 29, 2015 12:04 a.m.
I have one modern deck, and three standard decks. EDH never appealed and I haven't played magic long enough to appreciate or have fun in legacy.
July 29, 2015 12:31 a.m.
TotalJank1337 says... #20
I have 1 standard deck and 1 crap-tier modern deck sleeved in paper, though my affinity list for modern is almost done.
July 29, 2015 1 a.m.
Chandrian My advise is to make sure your EDH deck gets some love first, then work on other formats. EDH is one of the best places to learn how to play the game, learn what kind of playstyle best fits you, and staples will definitely hold their value.
July 29, 2015 3:17 a.m.
-Logician: I would actually say it's the other way around. Commander is usually full of much more convoluted strategies and multiplayer politics. In modern you can play very linear strategies like RDW that you wouldn't have a hope of making work in Commander.
July 29, 2015 4:04 a.m.
Thanks a lot for all the input!
I decided I'll look a bit more into the different modern archetypes in order to see which one fits me most and then I'll focus on building that one towards a competitive level.
I'll also keep one casual modern deck and 2 Commander decks that I already have.
Once I know what deck will be my "competitive" modern and which one my "casual" modern I believe it'll be an easier ride financially (especially that any cards that don't fit the decks I'll have will be tradable).
July 29, 2015 6:45 a.m.
I have room for another Tiny Leaders deck. I am tempted my Teysa, Orzhov Scion since I have some useful bits for it and no other super-combo deck. I also look forward to adding another EDH whenever another commander set or a cool new keyword turns up. Otherwise, I see that Brimaz, King of Oreskos is coming back down to earth somewhat in price so it might be time to replace a few proxies. Other than all that, I might just fill out existing decks with a few new cards as new sets come out. I may wait on that one EDH deck slot (based on space in the box of decks I am using) until I see something really cool that I want to make.
July 29, 2015 10:42 a.m.
I have 3 options of decks that I might transform into something more competitive-ish.
A Black/White lifegain deck, that, over time, might become something like a soul sisters deck.
A deck that can be transformed into an affinity deck, but the cost of cards like Mox Opal and the inkmoth/blinkmoth lands make me want to check the other options first. (this one is the clearest on what cards I have to acquire, etc)
I just made an adaption of a gruul deck I have, it still needs a lot of thought and would need to be perfected first on this site before I go all-out to get all the cards (also this is the option I prefer as a deck, but if it can't become a thing then I won't mind switching to something else):
Feel free to comment on it (and be very critical ;) )
July 29, 2015 1:56 p.m.
enpc depends on your playgroup. I'm saying that you learn more about the rules of the game when playing EDH, because weirder things happen. Since the interactions can be so obscure, you run into more situations that require you to look up a ruling, and in doing so, you learn more about how the game works.
July 29, 2015 8:08 p.m.
GeminiSpartanX says... #27
Maybe it's because I started playing MTG during Timespiral block that I have a lot of Modern decks- Burn (all its varieties), Infect, Wilt-Leaf Abzan, Monowhite Prison (enchantments), 8-Rack, UBx Mill, Mono-G Stompy, Abzan CoCo (the Pod leftovers deck), and a few less competitive ones- Aggro Storm, Modern Slivers, Knight tribal. I also have 3 EDH decks- Bruna, Sigarda, Jeleva (I guess I like commanders that end in 'a'). And after all that, this year I built 1 Legacy deck without FOWs or ABURs (Sneak & Show), but now I'm working on a 2nd (Onmitell), and I have 1 standard deck- WU heroic.
Some of those decks used to be casual decks I had when I was learning to play (slivers, knights, Burn), and I still have another 3-4 casual decks sitting around for when I play against a certain group of friends who aren't as competitive. The only way I've been able to get all those decks is by picking one at a time, and trading/buying cards exclusively for that deck. I've been able to keep the decks I've built by trading away cards from my old casual decks that have gone up in price over time for cards I need now. I think the worst thing you can do is trade in all your 'bulk' rares for a few cards that are expensive at the time. Since the advent of EDH, most of what used to be bulk for me turned into valuable-ish cards down the line- Thran Dynamo, Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund, Nemesis of Reason, Cloud Key were all cards I picked up for under $2ea when I was playing casually, and now paid for themselves and more when traded/sold. In legacy, there are budget versions of everything- Misdirection in place of FOWs can work depending on the deck you're running, shocks instead of ABURs.
tl;dr- it takes time to amass a collection in any format. Focus on one deck at a time, then you'll start seeing how staples overlap into different decks and build those ones too. Then one day you'll notice your collection is more impressive than you thought.
ThisIsBullshit says... #2
I think four would be good: one casual deck and one competitive one for each format.
It also depends on how much you're willing to spend. If you're making $10 decks, then you could make 10 easily. If you're making competitive ones, those can cost upwards of $500.
July 28, 2015 7:48 p.m.