by KingOfTheDepths
I'd like to open this blog series with congratulations! The fact that you are opening this article means that you are partaking in one of the most beautiful endeavors known to humankind, the creative process. In our internet-connected world, it is all too easy for Magic players to simply search up the latest tournament-winning decklist, purchase the cards, and bring it to their local game store. There are many famous, great magic players who are known for their playing skill, not their clever deckbuilding.
But not you! To draw a parallel to another creative process, music - if the player is the instrumentalist, the deck builder is the conductor. You are the one who pulls all of the disparate cards together to create a single, cohesive melody; the player, in all their skill, is really just playing to your sheet of music, your vision. You have created something new that did not exist before you. Bravo!
This article is the first in a ~15 article series where I, KingOfTheDepths, will take you through how to brew, build, and fine-tune competitive Magic: The Gathering decks; from stable mana bases, to building functional and competitive curves, to metagaming and sideboarding. The purpose of this series is to teach Magic players a core set of skills to use when deckbuilding. At the end of this series, you should have all the tools you need to brew your very own fun and competitive decks!
The focus will be on 60-card constructed formats with a 4x limit for each card, but many of the lessons will be applicable to any limited or constructed Magic format. The lessons will largely not be applicable outside of the Magic TCG, as the majority of this discussion will revolve around mana - utilizing it effectively, running the correct colors and sources, and finding ways to achieve a competitive edge on that axis.
To frame this discussion, we are going to use a number of example decks from throughout Magic's rich history, from famous deckbuilders and players alike. We will also be building a deck together over the course of the document, which will be introduced in the next article in this series! We will also keep returning to the example of a great deck, that arguably holds the crown for "single best competitive deck of all time": Legacy Ragavan Delver. Ragavan Delver perfectly embodies all of the deckbuilding principles we are about to discuss, put into practice. Let's look at a decklist, from top-tier player Rich Cali:
Perfection! And we will discuss over the next few months why, exactly, this deck rose to be the most powerful and consistent deck that debatably any Magic format has ever seen.
For our deck, I will be building a brand-new deck for Noble; the community format that can be found on the Noble Format Discord . It's all commons and uncommons, follows normal 60-card format rules, and is generally interactive, efficient, and exciting to play. Noble has characteristically difficult mana bases, which will help shape our decisions when selecting cards and making cuts. Format context always matters, and defines what your deck has to be able to do, as well as what you must be able to respond to.
A general disclaimer: This series will be full of my own opinions! I am not the single greatest Magic player of all time; feel free to disagree with these assessments and make your own judgment calls. I do, however, have a great amount of experience building competitive 60-card decks, and I am excited to share that knowledge with you over the course of this series.
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