Topic: Common Known Deck Types - What are they and their weaknesses?

So I finally played my 1st ever game of magic with my own cards against my nephew who is very experienced. Yes, got my a$$ kicked.

So he had decks he referred to as: izzet, combo elves, dredge, mono red....

These I guess are known deck types. Are there any web sites that list these specific deck types, how to build them, and what their weaknesses are so if I knew his meta game I could stand a chance?

The combo elves got to a point of basically infinite mana, infinite attack powe due to the literal text of some cards which are likely banned in any tournament.

Another deck also had some cards like "blood chief ascension / mindcrash or mindcramp or something" which go into an endless loop when used together because of the literal text , thus resulting in the entire table dying lol.

Where are decks like these described? Are there weaknesses described? I have a lot of work to do.

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Re: Common Known Deck Types - What are they and their weaknesses?

Congratulations, you've just learned about the most frustrating thing in Magic. We suck at naming new deck ideas. We tend to find a good name and stick with it no matter how much the deck changes. For example, Izzet takes it's name from one of Ravnica's guilds, as long as it is a Red/Blue deck it can be called an Izzet deck. Ravnica's guilds and Alara's shards are the basis of most the color combinations (2 color and 3 color respectively) that you'll encounter.

If there are specific combos we could help you build around those, but as someone who doesn't play much in the standard metagame i'm not really the best person to explain those. However if you want to know how a deck works thaere are plenty of resources online. Daily MTG has several columns about deck building. Top 8 and Reconstructed being 2 columns i would suggest starting with. Top 8 discusses what is popular at tournaments right now and how it works. Reconstructed takes user submitted decks and tunes them. The second doesn't sound as helpful i know but it'll help you understand why certain combos work as it discusses how to make the decks better.

Also, check out this for a basic run down of deck archetypes. Not the resource you're looking for on how to beat them, but an idea of what the archetype looks like.