This is my deck so far, https://deckbox.org/sets/740109

I want this deck to serve an all around purpose with a focus on stopping the other player's life gain, sustaining your own. and dealing damage, even if its very slow.



I built it so far after playing with a friend of mine who tends to favor life gain with most of his decks, as well as destroy creature cards, hence making my Eberos, God of the Dead, Hexproof. Though my deck works well against him, I'm not sure how it would hold up against others as a general deck, and so...



Any pointers for this new-to-magic player here? :D

IF you want to gain massive amounts of life I recommend the 3 soul sisters. Soul warden, sierra ascendent, souls attendant. Blood baron of vizkopa is also hard for most decks to deal with. These are some cheap easy additions.

joecat wrote:IF you want to gain massive amounts of life I recommend...

I'm not really looking to gain massive amounts of health, but just to keep mine higher than my opponent, or steadily gaining/keeping my life.

You have a lot of good white and black cards in your inventory, both in removal and flying creatures. Many newer players make the mistake of thinking that gaining life is really good. Eventually you will realize that it is bad. You don't win by gaining life. You win by reducing your opponent's life.

I would suggest a plan to destroy every creature that your opponent plays, and then draw some cards and fly over whatever he has left with Serra Angel, Geist of the Moors, etc and draining him with Scholar of Athreos.
You also need more lands. A general rule of thumb is 24 lands for a 60-card deck.

I suggest these changes:

add:
2x Tribute to Hunger
1x Ultimate Price
2x Sign in Blood
1x Underworld Connections
1x Serra Angel
1x Geist of the Moors
1x Scholar of Athreos
1x Caves of Koilos
1x Victim of Night
1x Charging Griffin
2x Carrion Crow
1x Screeching Bat
3x Swamp
2x Plains

remove:
Flesh to dust - too expensive. You have better removal with Ultimate price, Tribute to Hunger and Victim of Night
Colossus - too expensive and uses too much mana to attack
Resolute Archangel - the life gain can be really good, but what if you're at 16 or 17 life? 7 mana is A LOT
Seraph of the Masses - too expensive and you don't have that many creatures
Wall of Limbs - walls are bad, unless they're cheap and draw you cards
2x Stain the mind - this seems really good, but you won't always know what your opponent is playing until game 2. Sideboard.
Codex Shredder - "milling" is bad.
Staff of Death Magus - you have much better stuff to do with your mana. Gaining life isn't helping you win
Staff of Sun Magus - ditto
Eternal thirst - auras are generally bad and this one is not good.
Soul Mender - Gaining life isn't helping you win
Trepanation Blade - the number of times it hits a lot of cards is not worth the amount of mana you need to play & then equip it
2x Ornithopter - while a free blocker feels really good, it's useless if your opponent isn't attacking right away.

I think that black-white is a really strong color combination. I would suggest that you look to trade for some Doom Blades and Lingering Souls. Both are very good cards for any white-black deck you make and are not expensive. Another Serra Angel and Geist of the Moors would be good to replace the Charging Griffin and Razorfoot Griffin.

hi
i just built my own black white deck you welcome to look at it for ideas
https://deckbox.org/sets/735138

Timber wrote:You have a lot of good white and black cards in your inventory, both in removal and flying creatures. Many newer players make the mistake of thinking that gaining life is really good. Eventually you will realize that it is bad....

First, I want to say that I will definitely try our your suggestions, and second, I want to say that I'm surprised you actually took so much time for your reply, I really appreciate it! I'll start going through my cards tomorrow and throwing some stuff in, and taking cards out as well.

Also, My friends keep telling me to keep my deck to a 40 limit? and yet here you say a 60 card deck, I might be a couple cards over 40, but I'm still wondering which is actually better, 40 or 60?

Once again, thanks!

40 cards is for a limited format, such as drafting and sealed formats.

60 cards is the min for a constructed format. Essentially what you are doing.

You're welcome. I think that many in the MTG community are terrible at constructively discussing deck building and card selection, and that new players in particular are left to their own devices. I hope that my suggestions are beneficial.

How did it go?