Magic the Gathering: For Aspiring Advanced players

First, is the game itself. Magic the Gathering, is a very simple but at the same time complicated card game, developed by Wizards of the Coast. At the beginning stages of the game, it's simple and easy to learn, the basics and rulebook can be about 2 pages. At the utmost absolute high tier levels, the rulebook expands to over 150+ pages, and is constantly updated. Even so, high level players constantly encounter situations where it's middle ground; that's why Wizards of the Coast hires many judges who know the rules back to back and will make decisions.

Why is this happening all the time? Well, in Magic the Gathering, there is one utmost, golden rule: If the text on a card defies one of the rules of the game, the card takes precedence. This basically means, knowing the rules doesn't guarantee anything; the cards themselves can change the rules of the game in the middle of it all. Of course, this sometimes causes problems, in which certain imbalanced cards have been either banned or restricted by Wizards.

The rules of the game are simple. You are a Planeswalker, with multiple spells under your command. You can summon artifacts, deadly creatures, or simply cast devastating spells to hinder your opponent (s). In a regular one on one game, you have 20 life. You lose if your life total reaches 0 or less. There are a few number of other occasions for you to lose the game, but they are very rare and won't be covered. You win if none of your opponents are still alive, if a spell or ability you control says you win the game, or if all your opponents concede.

So. Knowing all of this, how do you improve your game? First of all, we must know what type of game YOU want to play:

1: Some people play this game simply for the aggressiveness and happiness at winning and dealing damage and basically GETTING IN YOUR OPPONENT'S FACE.

2: Some people play this game because they enjoy the amount of mind twisting things they can accomplish in the game, and don't necessarily play to win. These people play to delight themselves in the amount of combinations they can manage and doing things that simply boggle their opponents.

3: Another type of people play this game simply to piss their opponents off (although this can be accomplished as number 2, but may contain qualities of a number 1). They possibly enjoy using spells and creatures that are simply downright nasty and aggravating to deal with, but like number 2, they might not have a winning strategy.

4. Of course, there are people who fit in more than just one of these categories.

So, figured out your type? Then let's decided on colors. In Magic, there are five colors: Green, Red, White, Black, and Blue, denoted as G, R, W, B, and U, respectively. Most of the time, Green is the essence of Life, Vitality, Strength, and Nature. Red, is the essence of Anger, Fury, Chaos, and Fire. White is Judgement, Balance, Order, and Protection. Black is Death, Decay, Power at a Cost, and Undead. Blue is Intelligence, Control, Manipulate, and flowing Water.

People who identify mostly with 1 will find themselves feeling most at ease with Red and Green, and sometimes Black.

2, will be with Black, Blue, and sometimes White.

3, can include all 5 colors.

Colors have natural enemies. Looking on the back of any Magic card, you can see a pentagram of the 5 colors. The two adjacent colors, are natural friends, while the two opposite colors are the natural enemies. Unless absolutely confident, it's easier to make a deck with allying colors, than conflicting colors.

So, now we know most of the basics. (I'm assuming that you as a player know most of the basic rules). First, when making a deck, one decides the colors of the deck. Here's the basic breakdown by amount of colors:

1: Monocolored decks are easiest to be balanced, seeing as no mana problems usually. However, an opposing colored deck may be the worst enemy, or a decks that deal best against decks with no flexibility (seeing as you ARE one color, you're mostly limited to so many different kinds of spells).

2: The most commonly played amount of colors due to its ability to contain flexible spells from both colors to deal with multiple situations, and it is hard to have a mana color problem.

3: Less played than Dual colored decks, but ever since Shards of Alara block came out featuring three colored decks, these have increased in number. However, mana problem can happen.

4: Usually never played, as players simply opt out for a 5 colored deck, but they can happen, but are almost never successful to win, only for type 2 players.

5: Most flexible decks. Also, has the most mana problems, and it's difficult to find a balance between cards that let you deal with your mana problems and still saving enough space for cards that help you win.

0: Decks that don't focus on mana color (usually) are artifact decks (with the exception of the new Esper artifacts and old Sunburst artifacts). Artifacts tend to be colorless; as in any colored mana or uncolored mana can be used to cast them.

Balancing your chosen deck (this is generic; applies to all colors chosen above):

For Creature based decks: The most common way to win a game; by dealing enough damage with creatures that get past your opponent's defenses. Creatures face one of the most difficult problems, however: spells and enchantments. Any blue deck running bouncing cards and returning cards can simply unmake your creature, making it so you must cast it again (and if it doesn't have Haste, deal with summoning sickness, slowing you down more.) Any burn deck and straight up burn you to death before you get out enough creatures, or simply My suggestion is of course, to have things that protect your creatures, or have a way to make it so your opponent can't do things to them. New keyword, Shroud, says that permanent can't be targetted by spells and/or abilities. This can help a lot for creatures. Also, having support spells (spells that augment power and toughness) can improve your game.

Spell based decks: Less common, usually only as burn decks, spell based decks are weak against many things: counter decks, and being unable to play more spells later on in the game. A good strategy would be enchantments with abilities: enchantments are permanent, and you don't have to worry about them being only a one time thing. But ultimately, a good spell based deck should have ways to draw more spells to play, or else hinder its opponent's ability to do so.

Enchantment based decks: biggest problem would be enchantment removal spells, but the easiest enemies to pick on would be black decks.

Artifact based decks: The basis of an artifact deck is almost always, spam as many creatures as possible and do damage. Affinity is an amazing ability that allows you to play big creatures...for less. Artifacts almost always work together, and they have less of a mana problem.

Creature TYPE based decks: there are many of these out there; elf decks, goblin decks, faerie decks, merfolk decks, etc. As well as they can work together, they have a common enemy: spells/enchantments that are mass removal/mass removal of a certain type, or deal with a certain type upon resolving (eg. an enchantment that specifies a creature type, then that creature type all gets -1/-1).

Above listed are the majorly played decks. There are, of course, some other decks out there, but we won't cover them.

Things to worry about in a deck:

1. Consistency. A good deck needs to be consistent. If you have one winning strategy and only one copy of the card that helps you win...you're not consistent. A deck with too much lands, is not consistent unless their strategy revolves around it. A deck with not a lot of lands better have lots of low costing stuff, or stuff that produces mana (eg: elves, like lanowar elves).

2. The draw: drawing can be underrated. Spells that prevent you from drawing, or hinder it, can ultimately destroy you. Being able to draw is in most cases, the most important thing during a turn. After all, if you had a card that can save you from a situation but you can't draw...well, it's over.

3. Milling: It's extremely annoying to be milled. After all, you put a card in a deck for a reason (hopefully, if you know what you're doing). To see your cards go straight from the top of your deck to your graveyard and you can't even touch them...well...that usually hurts. To counter this, there are a few cards that return things from graveyard to hand/deck. Another way is simply to put 4 copies of the more important cards in your deck.

4. Discarding: To discard, hurts. Before you can play them, you can't even use them anymore. Similar to milling, the only common solution is to have 3 or 4 copies of the same card in your deck. And when given choices to discard, it's more of a matter of what you want to keep, what you need, instead of what you don't need.

A deck is complete with a minimum of 60 cards, 15 side board deck, and regularly, 20 lands and 40 creature/spells/etc, or 24 lands and 36 others.

Of course, given the variety of decks out there, those numbers could fluctuate.

For more questions and specific info on how to construct a deck or for me to proofread a deck idea, you may contact me.