Topic: Need first deck for FNM

Greetings Deckbox Community:

I started collecting Magic cards late last year because my students were talking about it at school, and now I am officially hooked. If you check out my inventory, you will see how swept up I have become.

We cannot play at school, and I have had very little experience "playing" the game. I did play in the Fate Reforged pre-release, and I think I am ready to brave Friday Night Magic tomorrow night.

The problem is that I have not created any decks. Eventually, I think I will run Red-Black-White, but I think it might be easier for me to start with two colors (Red-Black), and I think I want to call my deck Flames and Fiends.

One problem I have is that I have been approaching cards as a collector, so I don't have too many multiples of higher end cards. I did go and pick up an additional Thoughtseize and Bloodstained Mire tonight.

I was hoping some people can give me some pointers for starting to build my deck. Everytime I start to try, I get overwhelmed with how many cards are available. I know the basics (mana base, 60 cards, no more than 4, etc.).

Any help and advice my newfound Deckbox community might be able to provide (so I don't embarrass myself too much tomorrow night) would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Shawn I

Re: Need first deck for FNM

First off, good luck at your first FNM.  The best thing to keep in mind is that you're there to have fun.  Being your first time it is quite likely that you will lose, a lot, and badly.  But each game is a learning experience.  Talk to your opponents, ask them about play mistakes you made (and you will make some, it's no big deal), have them look at your deck, you can even trade if you get a chance.

So to the basics of deckbuilding.  I'll bullet point the key concepts to make it easier to follow:

- Before you even begin, it's a good idea to identify what strategy you're most comfortable playing

- The three main strategies are aggro, mid-range, and control.  Aggro decks are, as their name suggests, aggressive.  They tend to have very low mana curves, play lots of cheap threats, and try to kill the opponent as quickly as possible (hopefully before they get a chance to stabilize the board).  Mid-range decks try to be more versatile, mixing removal with larger threats that the opponent will likely struggle to stop.  Control decks are the slowest of the bunch.  They attempt to control the game through mass removal, counter magic, pointed removal, and card draw.  They only really try to win after they've asserted control over the game and will do so only with 1-2 resilient threats.  The key is to identify which strategy you want to run with and then stick to that plan.  A TON of newer deckbuilders will build sub-optimal decks trying to straddle the line between two of these strategies.

- Once you've identified which strategy you're most comfortable playing (or that you think you'd like to play), I would suggest looking around online for builds that feature some of the cards that you really would like to build around.  Net-decking, for better or for worse, is a part of the game.  Not at least drawing on the online community for some ideas is just being inefficient.

- After you have a strategy and a decklist as a starting point, begin to make changes that fit your budget/inventory.  The ideal is, as you said, to run multiples of most cards, but this is most true of the cards that are critical to your strategy.  For instance, if you're running a Mardu Mid-range built around Butcher of the Horde and having tokens to sac to him, you'll likely want to run 3-4x of both Butcher and Hordeling Outburst.  Again, it will depend on what your ideal strategy is and what you're wanting to do.

Now I've tossed a bunch at you and I haven't really looked at your inventory, but here's a link to a B/R aggro build that did quite well and has been getting some play online.  You can see one version of the list at the bottom of the page here (http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=12370) and Frank Lepore has some videos playtesting the deck on MODO here (http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=12372).  I would say this is an ideal starting point for you as the deck isn't horrendously expensive, it's in the colors you identified as wanting to play, and aggressive decks are typically the most direct strategy (not always the easiest one, but with the most linear lines of play).

Again, do what you can and go have fun.  There's plenty for you to learn and in my experience the overwhelming majority of players will do whatever they can to help you along the way.  If you have any questions about what I've said, let me know and I'll be happy to offer any other insights I can.

Good luck and have fun!

Re: Need first deck for FNM

I appreciate the input. I am going to work on construction this afternoon. I will let you know how it goes.