Your first deck?
General forum
Posted on June 20, 2013, 11:11 p.m. by Dalektable
When you built your first deck, how was it? Did you build a functional deck or one completely awful? Here i posted my first deck i ever made along with a comedic story of how it came about Demons, vampires and zombies oh my!. So tell me, how was your experience with getting into magic and building your first deck?
My dad gave me his old cards that he would play with. His deck was a green, maybe green blue morph beasts deck with Titanic Bulvox , Fierce Empath , Ancient Ooze , etc. He would say how he got bored of MTG once he started beating everyone lol
June 20, 2013 11:21 p.m.
KnightsBattlecry001 says... #4
My first deck was the premade mono white samurai deck from Kamigawa. I loved using it and it's what got me to fall in love with aggro. The first deck I actually built from scratch was a g/r mana ramp fatty deck. Wasn't the fastest in the world and I lost plenty of times, but I had fun with it.
June 20, 2013 11:39 p.m.
PasorofMuppets says... #5
My first deck overall was a casual mono-black control/disruption deck that I built from cards my friends had. My first competitive deck followed shortly after and that was Haunted Humans (UW weenies + swords and Angelic Destiny, essentially).
June 20, 2013 11:43 p.m.
miracleHat says... #6
my first deck was the dragons version of the Knights Vs. Dragons. my brother got it when i was 11. i choose it because dragons are awesome. i nearly never won, my brother is too good, even with my decks now, i don't win. i still had a lot of fun.
June 20, 2013 11:43 p.m.
Hmm, I'll have to find it, but my very first deck was a blue flying deck precon full of drakes from days of yonder, with my second one being a white deck with Angels of Mercy, when she was actually badass.
Life Boost and Sky Slam respectively now that I look it up. Won a reasonable amount somehow in hindsight.
June 20, 2013 11:51 p.m.
pumpkinsword says... #8
Kiln Fiend + Fling . I still love Mutagenic Growth .
June 20, 2013 11:56 p.m.
ducttapedeckbox says... #9
My first deck that I purchased (and ever played) was the Rakdos pre-con deck from the original Ravnica. It never ever won, but it was still fun to play.
After I went on a hiatus for a couple years, I came back as Shards of Alara came out and built my own Naya beast deck and a Grixis whatever-was-big-and-UBR deck. Again, both weren't very good since they were too slow. Still a ton of fun to play, and the kid's face when I hard cast Prince of Thralls on like turn-10 at FNM was priceless.
The first deck I built from scratch that also won was a mono-black Vampire deck in the Zendikar set. I went on yet another hiatus before Worldwake so the deck stopped. It's still one of my favorite decks to play, and won me a couple FNM's.
June 21, 2013 12:04 a.m.
KrazyCaley says... #10
My first deck was mono-green (I know, right?). The only cards that I remember were in there for sure were Naturalize
, Scryb Sprites
, a singleton copy of Tranquility
(apparently I was really afraid of enchantments) and, most importantly, Craw Wurm
. Craw Wurm was such a horrifying beast in those days, and I was like "well I just need more of THOSE guys." It had no ramp and ran like 20 lands.
Later I made this deck as a tribute to that first, unknown Craw Wurm deck:
Revenge of the Wurm
June 21, 2013 12:19 a.m.
Dalektable says... #11
KrazyCaley i actually have already looked at that deck of yours and the story behind it, i just love that you kept the Craw Wurm in it haha
June 21, 2013 12:26 a.m.
Wait I forgot to talk about the deck I made out of my dad's cards lol
It was at first UG with a focus on high cmcs. Rush of Knowledge , Scornful Egotist , Root Elemental , Titanic Bulvox , Ancient Ooze , Parallel Thoughts , Fierce Empath , Spitting Gourna , Venomspout Brackus , Krosan Groundshaker , Enormous Baloth , Dragon Fangs , Dragon Wings , Accelerated Mutation , Sprouting Vines , Explosive Vegetation , pretty sure Llanowar Elves was in there, and that's about all I can remember. Good times. It later evolved a lot of different ways and eventually led to the sort of beast tribal that is now Phil's Beasts.
June 21, 2013 12:41 a.m.
Ooh and Krosan Drover s, they were a big part of the deck. Maybe Wirewood Savage s were also
June 21, 2013 12:43 a.m.
my first deck was a scars of mirrodin intro pack (myr of mirrodin) but i quickly changed it with better cards (because i was getting destroyed by my friend who played for 8years or more)
June 21, 2013 1:04 a.m.
doinitwrong says... #15
I made my first deck on the 1997 MtG computer game with the help of my older brother. This is it recreated to the best of my memory: Blockade Runner.
June 21, 2013 1:35 a.m.
my very first deck... ok umm let's see what i remember lool. so i remember i loved my deck and that it actually won quite a bit, but i never went to FNM with it for some reason, i went to FNM with my deck that always lost lol.
it had Roil Elemental plus Living Tsunami plus Khalni Garden combo. it had lots of counter spells and flying creatures like a foil Sphinx of Jwar Isle . i loved that deck.
June 21, 2013 2:38 a.m.
oh yeah and my brother who is crazy good at magic and better than me was using an eldrazi deck against it and i won lol. cause i stole annihilator 3 creatures :D
June 21, 2013 2:40 a.m.
Unforgivn_II says... #18
Jeez, my first was so long ago. We're talking maybe 4 months. It was the Izzet precon for RtR and it SUCKED ASS. My friends told me it was kind of a weird color combo, but I saw the Hypersonic Dragon and thought "well, I don't know what they're talking about at all. I'll buy the dragon one the figure it out later." Burn is fun and all, but I never used it on the player, since the creatures seemed like more of a threat. Plus blue is rarely a color that new players can use to its fullest extent.
So I ditched that ASAP and made a deck using Borborygmos Enraged and Primordial Hydra s (Stomping makes more sense when you don't even know what "priority" is). That one wasn't too great, but I was able to beat friends with it sometimes, as well as beat one of the best players at my LGS. It turns out Hydras are fairly difficult to do wrong, so those just ran over him.
June 21, 2013 3:47 a.m.
I still have my very first deck. It's assembled and it will lose to a deck running just 60 x Swamp (sometimes).
It is a WB Cleric deck, and it basically never does anything but prevent damage. I had none of the cards that make clerics aggressive (save a playset of Serra Angel ).
I like to take it out from time to time, and play against my friends with it. I once won over a totally horrible Samurai deck, though it was a close run.
My first real deck (one that actually had a plan) was a Spirit/Arcane deck running playsets of things as Thief of Hope , Kodama's Might , Kami of the Waning Moon , Budoka Pupil and Hana Kami . The most impressive thing was my singleton of Choice of Damnations that was always hilarious to resolve.
June 21, 2013 4:32 a.m.
All I can say is Goldenglow Moth . It chump blocks anything and I gain life, I can even save it with Brave the Elements !
Yeah while it wasn't actually my very first deck, but upon returning to magic like a lot of new players I gravitated to the safely blanket that is life gain, so it's the one I reflect on most often. Looking back on how bad some of my decks used to be is actually one of the highlights of how I feel I've advanced at this game. My younger self would never have recogized say why Mulldrifter is a better card than Goldenglow Moth .
June 21, 2013 7:37 a.m.
gnarlicide says... #21
My first real deck that I made was a red blue land destruction deck during tempest. It was a casual deck, so it had Icy Manipulator , Psychic Venom , Strip Mine and stone rain. It was the tits.
June 21, 2013 7:42 a.m.
My first deck was fun but not a consistent winner - strictly casual. I don't remember the exact cards, but it was definitely a mono-red burn deck from a million years ago using Lightning Bolt , Incinerate , Ball Lightning , and Fireball . My friend ran a prosperous bloom deck, and I HATED him for it.
June 21, 2013 8:08 a.m.
pookypuppy6 says... #23
I started with the Rise of the Eldrazi deck Invading Spawn, and got tons of help for it which ended up turning it into a short-range aggro/burn deck.
But with a Deckbuilder's Toolkit (the first one of it's line) I ended up building a typical Green Stompy deck (think Timbermaw Larva and Pelakka Wurm ) and typical White Weenie.
The first deck I ever built from scratch from the ground up without using precons though was probably a Spider tribal deck. Barely won any games but oh lord was it cool.
June 21, 2013 8:45 a.m.
My first deck was too long ago to remember...I just know it was mono-blue and had four Clone s in it. (This was when Revised/The Dark were current.) It made top 8 in an LGS tournament that night, though I have no idea how.
My first winning deck (again, at an LGS tourney) was a white weenie deck that was pretty typical at the time: 4 Crusade , 4 Disenchant , 4 Swords to Plowshares , 24 little white creatures. My big "innovation" was playing 4 Serra Angel s because it would be good against the other white weenie decks. Again, I don't remember much, short of disenchant wars over Crusade and Infinite Hourglass in a mirror match, and using Fellwar Stone to power my Conversion against a red/black deck that used Winter Orb .
My first real deck (played in a tournament where the first price was a $75 beta Black Lotus !) was a Chains of Mephistopheles / discard deck. The idea was to lay down The Rack and/or Storm World , kill both player's hands with Winds of Change with Chains out, and keep the board clear of everything with The Abyss and the four copies of Balance (that's how long ago it was). I think I even had Disrupting Scepter in it. It was probably really bad, but that's the way most decks were then.
Ah, those were the days.
June 21, 2013 8:52 a.m.
My first deck was around Urza's Legacy. It was mono-green and I distinctly remember it had Deranged Hermit , Rancor , Might of Oaks (the one with the squirrel art!), and as a finisher, the fearsome Yavimaya Wurm .
Some time later I stopped playing until, well, a few months after Gatecrash. My first deck coming back, you ask? Why, it was mono-green and had a curve that may or may not have ended with a wurm...
June 21, 2013 8:54 a.m.
chichirobov2 says... #26
My very first deck was M13 W/U tokens with Odric, Master Tactician . Tried to turn it into mono-white tokens. Then i just scraped the deck when i lost everygame to my friend a Rakdos creator. So this eventually lead me to Boros when gatecrash got released
June 21, 2013 9 a.m.
harrydemon117 says... #27
My first casual deck was a Black deck using Kjeldoran Dead and Drudge Skeletons that basically sat around playing defense until I was able to Drain Life them.
My first competitive standard build I created was an Esper Reanimator using Merfolk Looter and Forbidden Alchemy as the draw/dump to graveyard engines and reanimated things like Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur , Grave Titan , Sun Titan , and Sheoldred, Whispering One along with Massacre Wurm .
Ah the days of a turn four Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur are missed sorely
June 21, 2013 9:27 a.m.
fluffybunnypants says... #28
I ran an all green Force of Nature , Rabid Wombat , Verduran Enchantress deck that actually worked pretty well.
I tried dabbling in a goblin grenade deck too, that was less successful.
June 21, 2013 10:29 a.m.
That is awesome. I just played last weekend against a friend who had a deck like that...it had been so long since I'd been attacked by a Rabid Wombat with a Lure on it. Felt like coming home.
June 21, 2013 11:44 a.m.
What I remember from long ago when I first started playing was decks based on:
Kismet
, Stasis
, Serra Angel
, Icy Manipulator
Channel
, Lightning Bolt
, Fireball
, Tinder Wall
Coming back, I remember clearly that my first EDH deck used Mikaeus, the Lunarch and it is still one of my favorites: Mother of All - although I wouldn't say it is the most competitive. It is very weak to boardwipes - especially Ratchet Bomb .
June 22, 2013 9:27 a.m.
My first deck was the B/R vampire precon from Zendikar block. It was good and I changed it to mono black and added one of each: Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet , Anowon, the Ruin Sage , Butcher of Malakir , and Nirkana Revenant . Best thing I ever did though was add a playset of Vampire Lacerator .
June 22, 2013 10:24 a.m.
MrBradDanger says... #33
My first deck, as much as I hate to say it, was a "mono black" reanimator getting out It That Betrays turn 1. It was not popular.... lol Recently cannibalized it for other decks
June 27, 2013 2:55 p.m.
hiddengibbons says... #34
I started out with a starter pack of 7th edition that a friend gave me. The deck was garbage, but I was playing casual with a group of friends that also had garbage. If I managed to get my Thorn Elemental , Vizzerdrix , or Trained Orgg out there, watch out. As time went on I gradually added more stuff to it. I did pretty well with Beast of Burden for a few weeks until someone used Phthisis on it.
June 27, 2013 3:22 p.m.
hiddengibbons says... #35
@MrBradDanger: did it go like this? Turn 1: Dark Ritual , Entomb , Animate Dead /Reanimate on It That Betrays .
June 27, 2013 3:29 p.m.
hiddengibbons says... #38
thats a bit more plausible than the mono-red deck I built where you get a bloodthirsted Furyborn Hellkite on turn 2. It went Turn 1: Goblin Arsonist . Turn 2: 2nd land drop then sac arsonist for Infernal Plunge , do the damage to the opponent, tap the other land for the 4th mana, then Geosurge into another Geosurge into bloodthirsted Furyborn Hellkite . It worked 1 time.
June 27, 2013 3:58 p.m.
MrBradDanger says... #39
Epic! Haha! It may have only worked one time but it must have been glorious!
June 27, 2013 4:33 p.m.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but you can't Geosurge into another Geosurge ; but that combo gives you all the mana you need with only one geosurge
June 27, 2013 4:55 p.m.
It's so obvious that everybody here is either really young, or started playing fairly recently.
People who started young -and- a long time ago, their first deck was always "The giant pile of every card I owned" where you had to look up rarity and prices in a magazine that only came out once a month, and assumed that Scaled Wurm had to be a rare, because come on man, 7/6, that's so much better than Craw Wurm
June 27, 2013 4:59 p.m.
The first deck I ever built was out of a Deck Builder's Toolkit. It was every single blue and red card in the toolkit. Then I built another one with every single green and white card in the toolkit. They were both about 120 cards.
P.S. I didn't play competitively at the time.
June 27, 2013 5:02 p.m.
I remember my first deck. It was horrible. It had some Aurochs and Aurochs Herd in it as one win con, some Marsh Viper s and Sabertooth Cobra s as a second win con (this was before scars, haha), and i think i had Oran-Rief Survivalist + some Makindi Shieldmate incase my other two plans didn't work. It ran close to 80 cards, haha.
June 27, 2013 5:10 p.m.
KrazyCaley says... #44
@Devonin - Amen to that. I think I still have one of those rarity charts laying around somewhere; it even had prices on it, as I recall. Everyone wanted to pack LORD OF THE PIT in those days.
June 27, 2013 5:29 p.m.
I remember my brother-in-law was really into magic, he had some awesome tournement decks for the time (Goblin sharpshooter/pile-drivers, tooth&nail, artifact affinity) So we'd play, and the first deck I'd made myself was a mono white samurai deck from kamigawa block. It wasn't bad, not great by any means, but after splashing red, it ran alot better. I actually still have it, and since it's pretty much meat and potatoes, We've let people use it for their first few games of magic to learn. After that I made a ninja deck, that was annoying but not very effective, then I made a cleric deck, that I evolved into the one I've got on my decklist now. Then came my "I'll never lose" zombie deck, that I could always have them low enough to Shepherd of Rot so we both lose at the same time for a draw, which was hilarious.
atreyujames says... #2
when i started all i had was a precon deck from ravnica: city of guilds. it was an okay precon but what i did was mangle it by putting every in colour rare or cool card and artifact in there. sucked monkey balls, but this was only when i was playing my brother, neither of us knew better
June 20, 2013 11:21 p.m.