Beginner Deck Advice
Modern Deck Help forum
Posted on Nov. 14, 2022, 7:07 a.m. by ThePrussian
I have an old deck and wondered if it would be decent to play with in modern?
I haven't played in years, lol.
Hm, I was going to link the only deck you have listed on your page for you, but it’s entirely blank. You may have to add it again.
November 14, 2022 8:39 a.m.
wallisface says... #6
Without seeing the deck I can only offer my thoughts on common mistakes beginner-brewers make (based on what i keep seeing here on the site).
Of course i’d recommend getting your list up on the site for review, but if it falls into any of these categories, that’s already a good indicator that it needs changing.
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Too few lands. A lot of beginners think they can get away with 20 lands when their deck is often some kind of midrange build.
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Too many 1-ofs/2-ofs. Generally speaking, a deck should mostly be playsets (4-ofs) of cards.
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Too high a mana curve. Beginners often run waaay too much near the top end of the curve. Generally speaking, decks shouldn’t have more than 1 playset costing 4 mana.
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Nothing to do turn 1. Decks need to reliably be able to start their gameplan from the start of the game. Not having a decent number of 1-drops means starting a turn behind your opponent.
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trying to do too many things. Keep the gameplan simple. Understand what archtype your deck falls into (aggro, midrange, control, combo), and play to its strengths.
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running more than 60 cards. Whatever you do, running more than 60 is a concession. Always try cut the deck back to this number.
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not running interaction. Letting your opponent do what they want is never a good idea.
^ there will almost always be noche exceptions to these deckbuilding mistakes, but for a new player/brewer, these are good pitfalls to be aware of. They are also all very commmon mistakes I see newer brewers making.
November 14, 2022 2:04 p.m.
ThePrussian says... #7
Still trying to figure out how to post here, lol.
Here's the deck list, hopefully!
1 Ankle Shanker 1 Arrow Storm 1 Bloodfell Caves 2 Borderland Marauder 1 Bring Low 1 Carrion Crow 1 Crippling Blight 1 Flesh to Dust 2 Goblin Roughrider 1 Heat Ray 1 Hordeling Outburst 1 Kill Shot 1 Lightning Strike 1 Mardu Blazebringer 1 Mardu Charm 2 Mardu Hateblade 1 Mardu Hordechief 1 Mardu Roughrider 2 Mardu Skullhunter 2 Mardu Warshrieker 8 Mountain 2 Nomad Outpost 5 Plains 1 Raise the Alarm 1 Scoured Barrens 2 Smite the Monstrous 7 Swamp 2 Trumpet Blast 1 Unyielding Krumar 1 Venerable Lammasu 1 War Behemoth 2 War-Name Aspirant 1 Wind-Scarred Crag 1 Zurgo Helmsmasher
November 14, 2022 3:11 p.m.
wallisface says... #9
ThePrussian from that list the big isues are all of points 2, 3, 4, and 5 from my list above (potentially also 7 but hard to gauge at this stage).
You need to seriously work towards running mostly playsets of cards, and lowering the curve a TON.
Another big issue I can see you having is that a lot of these cards seem super-weak, so deoending on your budget you’ll need to work towards more viable options. But i think the first thing you should focus on is refining the list to something workable.
A good approach for new players/brewers is to pick 9 cards, and run playsets (4-ofs) of those (making 36 cards) alongside 24 lands (for a 60 card deck). The mana curve of those 9 cards should be something like 1,1,1,2,2,2,3,3,4.
November 14, 2022 4:01 p.m.
ThePrussian says... #10
wallisface Okay. I'll go through my deck and my singles to see what I can put together. My main concern was the deck being weak.
Thanks, again!
November 14, 2022 4:12 p.m.
wallisface says... #11
ThePrussian big factors towards a deck being weak will be it being inconsistent (not enough playsets), and slow (too high a mana curve).
The cards themselves are also a factor towards deck strength, and the ones you have presented here are definitely unideal/weak which will lead to its own set of issues.
If you let me know what you’re wanting the deck to do, what build-around cards you’re trying to make work, and what your budget is, then I can help you brew up something that works.
If you’re intending to just build a deck from cards-you-own, then you might be too restricted to make anything playable
November 14, 2022 4:17 p.m.
ThePrussian To make this into a display-able deck list, go to your Modern Mardu Raiders deck page and select Edit. There should be a space with tabs that say main, side, maybe, and token. Put the list you provided above into the "main" section. Each card + quantity should go on a separate line, so it looks like
1 Ankle Shanker
1 Arrow Storm
1 Bloodfell Caves
etc.
November 14, 2022 6:17 p.m.
ThePrussian says... #14
wallisface That makes sense.
I'm just looking for a deck that I won't get absolutely destroyed on every match during modern mondays!
I'm not looking to spend too much at this point. I know guys who have poured hundreds into a single deck and I'm not at that level.
November 14, 2022 7:42 p.m.
wallisface says... #15
ThePrussian cool cool.
So what is your budget then? $100? $50? And, what kind of deck are you hoping to build?
As a good starting/reference-point, this link here has a bunch of budget-friendly competitive-ish decks all costing around $100. These decks should be able to all perform really well for their relative costs.
If your budget is less than this, then we’ll need to work out something that fits within that restriction - but just be aware that even those $100 decks will struggle against very finely tuned decks - so their performance will depend a lot on how powerful your local meta tends to be
November 14, 2022 8:18 p.m.
ThePrussian says... #16
wallisface That's a cool resource.
Thank you for that!
I'll browse around there to see that I can find that suits me.
Thanks so much for all your time and input!
ThePrussian says... #2
November 14, 2022 7:10 a.m.