Help with Magic The Gathering Card Decks?

There really isn't a best color in the game of magic. Every color has unique strengths and weaknesses, as well as a certain philosophy of play.

In competition, every year new cards are added to the legal choices for play with the release of new sets, and old cards move out and into more casual or inclusive formats of play. This means that the landscape is ever changing in most competitive formats, and is part of what makes magic fun and exciting to play year after year. It also helps to keep all the colors balanced, and ensures that no color reigns for too long as undisputed champ.

For more information about the magic colors there is a section on the wizards of the coast web site called the magic color wheel. It puts the colors in a circular star shaped pattern that shows which ones share certain traits, and which colors have opposing philosphies. However, all colors will have compatible traits with other colors. So while mixing allies may maximize a certain style of play, mixing an opposing color can often bolster your weaknesses and can be equally effective.

Most players tend to gravitate towards a specific style of play, and thus they find the best success using the color(s) that promotes that style. For example, both red and green tend to be more aggresive in nature, using large creatures known as "fatties" or direct damage spells like fireball and lightning bolt, to deal with opponents. White and blue on the other hand tend to take a different approch by using smaller specialized creatures and and lots of cards that disrupt and alter the opponents tactics. Black magic tends to be all inclusive with the ability to do almsot everything in the game, but often at a greater cost than the other colors, sometimes incuring a willng loss of hit points. This, emphasises its self destructive power hungery style. It also holds the most power over death, allowing the greatest use of cards that have been used or lost in your graveyard.

Once you decide on the color that's right for you, try buying a theme deck that uses it. Most are now about 40 cards and come with a 15 card booster pack. The 40 card deck is preconstructed with a specific style of play in mind. You may want to add or remove cards as you modify it and create your own personal style. A typical deck is ususally about 60 cards with close to 20 lands, 20 creatures, and 20 other spells, though these numbers can be quite fluid depending on your style of play and color choice. Most boosters come with about 3 cards of each color in them including 1 rare card. Some may fit right into your deck, others may slowly build new decks of different colors, and some could be used to trade for specofic things you really want to add. As your collection grows so will your options.

Finally if you want to learn more about what makes a competitive magic deck, Wikipedia has a great link about the 3 major styles of play in that most competitive decks model themselves after. Oddly enough, every color combonation has the potential to follow any of them. Some players even find success mixing two styles or playing a hodgepogde deck that uses all three. Finding what works best for you is all part of the challenge and the fun.

Hope that helps,

Greg

Alex explained it pretty well.. each color has their own strengths and weaknesses. You can combine colors to minimize or maximize those same strengths and weaknesses.. With that being said, it's usually a personal preference on what color(s) to play with.. Unless you're planning on playing in Tournaments, then your choices usually become more about WHAT cards you play with and the metagame your local shop has. What i recommend, is building a deck that contains the most of the best cards you have. If the best cards you own are green, run green and trade off your other cards to make that green deck the best it can be. This, of course, can be bypassed by spending money on the cards you want... but, i'm sure you're just like the rest of us was when we started out and bought booster packs. They are a great way to build your collection starting out. Booster packs contain 15 cards total.. 1 rare, 3 uncommons(?), the rest are common.. and you get an extra card, be it a token, land, or foil. Obviously, the rare cards are typically essentially better cards.. but not always. And lots of times, uncommons and commons can be just as powerful. It just takes time and experience to make these determinations. Just have fun with the game and you'll pick these things up.

Check out some of these all Extended format decks: Please don't blame me for the lack of order, I just saved them as text files, copied and pasted. 2 Dancing Scimitar 4 Darksteel Ingot 4 Dreamborn Muse 4 Drift of Phantasms 3 Gaea's Blessing 4 Glimpse the Unthinkable 3 Guiltfeeder 11 Island 1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner 4 Mesmeric Orb 4 Scalpelexis 11 Swamp 4 Tainted Isle 1 Frozen AEther -------------------------- 1 Counterspell 4 Ebony Owl Netsuke 1 Evacuation 1 Farsight Mask 3 Howling Mine 11 Island 1 Ivory Crane Netsuke 1 Kami of the Crescent Moon 4 Remand 2 Skullcage 11 Swamp 4 Tainted Isle 2 Teferi's Puzzle Box 3 Underworld Dreams 1 Vex 4 Wheel and Deal 2 Damnation 2 Jace Beleren 2 Vision Skeins -------------------------------- 3 Cabal Coffers 1 Chainer's Edict 1 Choice of Damnations 4 Consume Spirit 4 Cruel Edict 2 Dark Banishing 2 Disembowel 1 Hypnotic Specter 1 Innocent Blood 2 Maga, Traitor to Mortals 2 Royal Assassin 2 Soul Burn 20 Swamp 2 Assassinate 4 Cradle to Grave 1 Curse of the Cabal 3 Magus of the Coffers 1 Pooling Venom 1 Tendrils of Corruption 3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Well burn decks, involving a lot of red player damage spells or target damage spells, are said to the easiest decks to start out with. As far as choosing what colored deck you want, know that colors have their associations to certain traits which are only available in that color.

Red is burn:

it can cause damage to players life through the players, or destroy creatures through noncombat damage (i.e. damage that does not from a creature/s attacking)

Green is power and mana acceleration:

It can beef up your creatures either by increasing it's attack or giving it special abilities like trample (can use left over attack power on remaining defending creatures or defending player if no other creature are left to assign combat damage on). It is also a source of mana acceleration. There is no other color that can increase the amount of mana you have each turn, allowing you to bring out powerful spells quicker.

White is protection:

It has damage prevention spells and creature/artifact/enchantment removal or destroy spells (i.e. remove something without having to assign damage to it but simply declaring it removed from the battlefield). It is also a source of life gain through either lifelink or other means.

Blue is control:

This is the color that allows you to force a player to discard cards from hand or library, draw additional cards, tap opponents creatures/artifact, and even allow you to take another turn (Time Sieve, Time Warp). It is a color for counter spells which destroys spells as the are being cast. In other words if an opponent was to cast an instant/sorcery/enchantment spell that might destroy a potentially valuable permanent in your strategy, you can have that spell destroyed before it is cast on your permanent. You can also do the same on a creature spell but that's only if it does not specifically say "noncreature spell".

And black is damage through alternative means. Basically if you play black you play to win even if you have to stab yourself in the foot in the process of doing so. How ever you can do such demonic things such as sucking a players life as a vampire would suck a humans blood. Also it has to do with bringing creatures back or taking advantage of a players graveyard in someway or another.

Though if you don't know this already, colors are allies with the colors adjacent to them and enemies with opposite colors(check the back of each card for the circle of elements). So they can share certain traits that their allied colors have. Though unfortunately red or white has not had any mana accelerating creatures in their army lol. So sometimes the distinction between the traits of colors can become hazy, for example both blue and white have some counter and control spells like taping an opponents creature.

One more thing, if your looking for a budget deck for standard format sanctioned events, which also happens to be really fun, I have not tried the deck but I have heard blightning beatdown is a very good deck. Also someone said this after I posted this but yes each booster pack has 15 cards with a few uncommons, commons, 1 rare, 1 land, and 1 extra card which can be either a random foil, random token card, or random rule/tip card. So you can start out by buying intro pack or the color/s you want to try out and you can expand it by buying booster packs. What happens next....is up to you :D

A very good mono-coloured deck is an archetype called white weenie. It is basically efficient white creatures with an enchantment like Glorious Anthem to give them a global boost.

Mono-Red Aggro/Burn is also a fairly popular archetype where you basically use burn spells (i.e. lightning bolt) and fast damage dealing creatures (i.e. Hellspark Elemental)

Mono-Blue Control is also a strong archetype where you counter their spells and keep their board clear and then use a creature as a finisher (i.e. Meloku, The Clouded Mirror) or even a card like Fairy Conclave.

I don't recommend Mono-Green or Black as I feel they are not as strong when alone but can be just a good as the others when you combine with other colours (i.e. Green White Aggro).

id go with a white deck its an easy build very popular and successful now and im betting that the new set is going to boost white decks more. also im betting on black getting a boost as far as vampires go.