Topic: Trying to make 8 balanced M14 standard decks...

I have a group of friends that like to play magic casually.  We might booster draft twice a month or so.  We hang out at my place a good bit, so I thought a good idea if people wanted to play casually was to make 8 decks using a set we were all familiar with (M14).  I created them all with a sideboard as well, but I wanted to try and make them as balanced as possible no matter what archetype it was.

Obviously some of the decks are just going to have a natural advantage over the others simply because one archetype might match up well against another.  But overall, I would love feedback if you could take a look at the decks (or even just a few) and offer your two cents.  I don't expect it to be perfect, but I want them to be reasonable.  I've got a pretty extensive common inventory of commons in M14, and don't mind spending a couple bucks to finish this project, but I don't want to build these into expensive rare machines that are gonna sit in my house generally unused unless I have a get-together.

Thanks in advance!

http://deckbox.org/sets/520872 - Angelic Accord
http://deckbox.org/sets/520867 - Beast
http://deckbox.org/sets/520866 - Dragon
http://deckbox.org/sets/520875 - Mill
http://deckbox.org/sets/520874 - Monoblack
http://deckbox.org/sets/520868 - Monoblue
http://deckbox.org/sets/520871 - Sacrifice
http://deckbox.org/sets/520873 - Sliver

Re: Trying to make 8 balanced M14 standard decks...

I really like this concept. I've also recently started building pauper-esque decks to play casually.

In your lists, I feel that only a couple of changes could happen.

Firstly, I would swap out the black in the angelic accord deck for green. That way, you have access to brindle boar, at least. It will also offer up some diversity, as you have I believe 3 decks with black in them.

If you're going to include Garruk in the beasts deck, i'd suggest putting one of the walkers into every deck to even it out, or take garruk out. I feel that having a $20 PWalker is kind of cheating when the objective is to play casually.

Other than that, I think you did a pretty good job here.

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Re: Trying to make 8 balanced M14 standard decks...

DarrenM wrote:

Firstly, I would swap out the black in the angelic accord deck for green. That way, you have access to brindle boar, at least. It will also offer up some diversity, as you have I believe 3 decks with black in them.

Okay, totally doable.  You like the brindle boar sacking method better than the festering newt/bubbling cauldron/bogbrew witch combo?

darrenM wrote:

If you're going to include Garruk in the beasts deck, i'd suggest putting one of the walkers into every deck to even it out, or take garruk out. I feel that having a $20 PWalker is kind of cheating when the objective is to play casually.

If the end goal is to make the beast deck a balanced opponent of the other 7, would removing the Garruk immediately balance the decks, or make the beast deck too weak?  If too weak, what could I do to beef it up to the others.

Or, is there a way to weaken the beast deck while keeping Garruk in there (taking out the windstorms, plummets, fireshrieker etc.) to better balance the decks? 

darrenM wrote:

Other than that, I think you did a pretty good job here.

Thank you for the kind words, and thank you for your feedback.

Re: Trying to make 8 balanced M14 standard decks...

I think that you can get away with moving the bubbling witch newt combo to the mono black deck, and making the Accord deck about the green. I think that without Immortal Servitude to bring back newts, the brindleboar sac is just as, if not more, effective than the newts because you dont need to search for pieces.

As for the other decks, I haven't play tested them, so I couldn't tell you how balanced they actually are. If you feel that they are balanced, go ahead and keep them. I'm just putting in some thoughts based strictly on observations. They may be totally fine with the walkers in, but i'm saying that at a quick glance they look slightly uneven.

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