“Deckbuilding” is a very misleading term for what actually happens before a constructed game of Magic. It is natural to think of the choice of sixty cards to play with become a creative act that allows the player to express some inner part of himself, which is what the name “deckbuilding” implies. When you remove the context of Magic being a battle between powerful wizards aligned with various colors of magic or whatever, “deckbuilding” is nothing more than making sixty choices. If a player wants to give himself the best chance of winning the game, he must make those choices as well as possible, and deckbuilding should cease to be an ego-driven activity.
One of the early selling points of Magic for many people is that they get to express creativity while deckbuilding. Mark Rosewater’s “Johnny” psychographic thrives on this- those players get to show off their creativity by building neat decks and impressing their friends when something cool happens. Part of this is effect is that early in people’s Magical development, they have limited card access, so many more ideas are fresh and new to them than are fresh and new to a seasoned player who might know what 80% of printed cards do by name. Given that, it’s understandable that you might think of a deck as being “My friend Rob’s elf deck.”
Competitive players should move past that. Decks are just collections of cards; no one owns them. I don’t even think of a deck as a pile of sixty physical cards; I see it as one member of a set of possible choices that you make when you begin a game of Magic. Your deck isn’t an expression of you; it’s just another choice you are making as part of the game. Looking at it this way, I think that the word “build” that we use for the act of making a deck choice is misleading. You didn’t “build” your deck any more than you “made” the steak that your waitress at Outback brings you. You simply made a choice. Wizards makes all the cards you get to work with; you and everyone else in the tournament just decided which 60 of them to play.
Because of this, I think of decks as being “found,” not “built.” If you always play good decks in constructed, it’s not becuase you are good at “making” decks- it’s because you are good at knowing where to look to find the best strategy in a format. Deckbuilding isn’t about making cards do things, it’s about finding the best thing that all the available cards can do. Gabriel Nassif and Zvi Moshowitz have always had a kind of detached attitude about their decks; they don’t try to show off with what their deck does, but they do wonder why you didn’t find something better to do when you made yours. Then they will beat you, because they found the best thing that can be done with all the available cards. Zvi in particular displayed an almost childlike sense of exploration in his constructed articles. He never tried to sell himself as a virtuoso, but he was always exploring and could always defend the choices he made with explanations that had to do with the merits of the cards, not what he wanted to accomplish with them.
I’m going to go even further and say that thinking of decks as being “built” or “created” is actively bad. If you aren’t the one who made the deck in question, you might start to think about decks as being immutable objects that should never change. I can think of many times I’ve given someone a list, and then a week later my deck will be five cards different and that person will be in shock that I changed cards. When the deck was handed down to them by a higher power, the idea of changing cards in said deck became blasphemous. I’m also guilty of this myself, but no matter who does it, it’s stupid and dangerous. You’ll get stuck with a suboptimal deck because you don’t bother to think about changing card choices for yourself.
If you make decks, investing your own identity in cards and decks you make will distort your thinking about them. If you get personally invested in a deck that you “built”, you won’t want to let go of it if it turns out to be bad. Bad players often have pet decks because of what they think is fun. Good players tend to have pet decks because they built them, feel clever about having built them, and don’t want to let go. “Building” an “innovative new deck” that turns out to be horrible and trying to defend it becuase it is yours puts you on exactly the same level as the guy at the comic shop who plays the same elf deck for years in multiplayer games becuase he “likes elves”. This kind of thinking is a very good example of playing Magic for a bad reason- you’re putting the rush you get from feeling clever above winning. Would you rather feel clever than win?
The past two paragraphs are why I become unhappy when Mike Flores exercises his odd habit of acting as if individual people own cards and ideas in constructed. For example, in a recent article about extended he was discussing a dredge deck when he mentioned that you could play “Pat Chapin’s Tireless Tribes” in one version of the deck. This is a strange statement to me for a few reasons. First, before Chapin wrote anything about a dredge deck that contained Tireless Tribes, dredge decks containing Tireless Tribes were infesting Magic Online events. This was not a Chapin original idea. Furthermore, it’s completely obvious that Tireless Tribe belongs in a straight dredge deck. You want to dredge as soon as possible, and Careful Study, Putrid Imp, and Tireless Tribe are the best ways to get dredge cards into your graveyard for turn two. You would be foolish to not play all twelve of them. Tireless Tribe isn’t good because Pat Chapin endorses it, it’s just obviously correct and it shouldn’t take Pat Chapin to convince you of that. Why would we bring Pat Chapin into this?
Another example of Flores’ intimations at idea ownership is when he gives pet names to decks, like calling a green-white beast deck in extended “Haterator” and referring to it as that ever since then even when the name never caught on. What happens if we change one of the cards in the deck to make the deck better? Is it still “Haterator”? Is it still Mike Flores’ deck, or is it now your deck? Is any of this even important at all? The fact that you think of the deck as a Mike Flores creation could make you less likely to change cards if something is wrong. I actually don’t trust Flores decks to be very good, because it’s obvious that he loves every deck he builds, and that can make someone unlikely to change suboptimal cards aggressively enough or abandon ship entirely if there is no hope. This is exactly the opposite of the way I want the person who builds my deck to think, and thinking this way will block you from improving your constructed deck choosing.
Detaching yourself and your ego from your “deckbuilding” will increase your ability to see clearly the merits and flaws of the decks that you work on, because having to change or abandon a deck will no longer be a personal failure. Just keep trying to make the best sixty first decisions of the game that you possibly can, and things will work out best for you in the long run.
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Why Do You Play Magic?
Lately, the cube has been getting tons of exposure in the overall Magic community. Evan Erwin did a Magic Show about it, Evan Dean wrote an article for Star City Games, and it’s even a format at the invitational. This is really exciting for me; I love the cube, I think it’s the best Magic format not close, and the fact that I have had something to do with its spread makes me feel like I’ve done something good for the world. If you haven’t cubed before, go make a cube or make someone else do it, then force your friends to cube with you. It will make you a happier person.
The reason I like cube is that it brings together a ton of powerful and interesting cards that would never have otherwise interacted. This tends to lead to interesting games that are tricky and full of interaction. I hope you would agree that those are the best kinds of games of Magic that you can have. As the owner of a cube, it’s your job to bring together cards that make for good games. I work hard to put cards in my cube that are both fun and fair, becuase if people aren’t having good games, they won’t have as much fun and will be less inclined to cube with me later. This is not very different from being Wizards- if you can’t make a good game for your players, they won’t buy it. The better the game is, the more they will buy.
Given this, I find it utterly incomprehensible and strange that people put a ton of power cards in their cube. In Evan Dean’s cube article, he wrote this about a game he played against Rich Hoean:
Game 2
Black Lotus is soooooo good! Turn 1 elf, Turn 2 Shivan Wurm, the Crabby Commando conceded a turn later.
Yeah. Great. I bet you and Rich had a great time. Does that kind of game do it for you? Really? That was fun for you?
As the owner of your cube, you can prevent these kinds of games from happening. Really dumb and undercosted cards are simply not fun for anyone. Wizards doesn’t print cards like that anymore because of that very reason. There are a whole lot of cards like that that so many people put in their cubes because it’s supposed to be “all the best cards ever!” or something. That may be true, but do you actually enjoy playing against a Library of Alexandria that you have no hope of stopping? Perhaps getting your Blastoderm Mana Drained and then having someone poop out a Sundering Titan on you? Do you enjoy when your red opponent casts Wheel of Fortune or Timetwister after burning you down to 5?
This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t include powerful cards in your cube. However, I do think that including cards that are powerful and not interesting is a huge mistake. I have Tinker and Balance in my cube, and I am very happy with those cards. Tinker takes some setup during the draft to unleash its full power, and Balance is an extremely skill-rewarding card in actual play. I’m also completely thrilled with cards like Masticore, Meloku, Future Sight, and Umezawa’s Jitte- these cards are all incredibly powerful, but they don’t singlehandedly end games before anyone gets to play magic. Sure, that Jitte is gonna make combat suck for you, but it’s going to do that over a number of turns that give you time to do something about it.
However, there are plenty of really powerful cards that I think are not okay. These fall into two categories. The first is fast mana, including cards like Black Lotus, Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, and Mana Drain. These cards give people way too much mana way too quickly. With cards like this running around, there’s very little reason to play fair, so you get a kind of distorted vintage-like draft format that focuses on going broken as quickly as possible. The second category of unfun cards is things that are just wildly undercosted. This includes Time Walk, Library of Alexandria, Ancestral Recall, Wheel of Fortune, and Timetwister. These cards just do way too much for the mana they cost. They will lead to stupid blowout games that are barely worth playing.
I’m on the fence right now about if the original Moxes are too good for cube. Clearly they are awesome, but only giving you one mana that may or may not be of the right color for you is probably within reason. I’d be willing to try them and see how they felt. However, it wouldn’t take much for me to cut them again. They scare me. I don’t want to be responsible for bad games of Magic that are played in my cube.
When you don’t include cards that are both overly powerful and uninteresting in your cube, you and your players will have more fun. You would be an irresponsible cube owner to allow unfun games to happen, so cut them. If anyone yells at you for breaking theme or something, tell them that it was for their own good. Eventually they’ll come around when they realize that they don’t have to worry anymore about a Shivan Wurm on the other side of the table before they’ve played their second land.
So you’re playing extended, legacy, or vintage. We all know those formats are broken and silly, but you figured out exactly how to attack the specific way that the format is broken. You have the perfect mix of disruptive cards and little obnoxious creatures, and you’re going to use it to beat all the broken decks on your way to glory and prizes.
I understand what you’re thinking. You’re not the first one. Let me show you a few people who have done this before:
Nicolas Labarre- Fish
Pro Tour Rome 1998, 2nd place
Extended
4 Manta Riders
4 Merfolk Trader
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Man’o'war
4 Suq’Ata Firewalker
3 Waterspout Djinn
4 Force of Will
2 Force Spike
4 Counterspell
2 Curiosity
3 Nevinyrral’s Disk
4 Wasteland
18 Island
Sideboard
2 Phyrexian Furnace
2 Bottle Gnomes
2 Force Spike
2 Disrupt
4 Hydroblast
2 Serrated Arrows
1 Nevinyrral’s Disk
Nicolas Lebarre played this deck in a field of High Tide, Academy, and Recurring Nightmare/Great Whale combo decks, among others. While everyone else was trying to win on turn three or four with degenerate combo decks, Nicolas’s turn four might bring a Waterspout Djinn. Decks like this gave “fish” decks their original name, since they contained actual merfolk. Between Wasteland and counterspells, though, this deck could give Academy decks fits. Speaking of Academy decks, let’s look at what won that tournament:
Tommi Hovi- Academy
Pro Tour Rome 1998 Champion
Extended
4 Volcanic Island
4 Tundra
4 Tolarian Academy
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Brass
4 Mana Vault
4 Mox Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
3 Voltaic Key
2 Scroll Rack
4 Stroke of Genius
4 Time Spiral
4 Windfall
3 Mind over Matter
3 Intuition
3 Abeyance
3 Power Sink
Sideboard
4 Wasteland
4 Chill
4 Gorilla Shaman
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Arcane Denial
This is an Academy deck. It uses mana-producing artifacts with Tolarian Academy to produce a ton of mana, and then do silly things. Time Spiral, Windfall, and Stroke of Genius show you more cards, with Time Spiral giving you more mana as well by untapping Academy. The deck ends the game by getting out a Mind over Matter and using it to untap Academy repeatedly, generating a ton of mana, and then casting Stroke of Genius to deck the opponent. This version of the deck consistently won on turn three if it was not disrupted.
After nine years of evolution, modern fish decks look more like this:
Max Tietze- Fish
Grand Prix Columbus 2007, 4th place
Legacy
4 Meddling Mage
4 Dark Confidant
3 Jotun Grunt
3 Mother of Runes
2 Serra Avenger
4 Serum Visions
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Duress
2 Umezawa’s Jitte
3 Stifle
3 Daze
4 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Island
1 Plains
Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Engineered Plague
3 Vindicate
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Duress
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
The merfolk are gone, and in their place we have actually efficient small creatures., but the disruption-based small creature attack is intact.
Public enemy number one at that tournament was Hulk Flash:
Steve Sadin
Grand Prix Columbus 2007 Champion
Legacy
4 Dark Confidant
4 Protean Hulk
1 Carrion Feeder
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Body Snatcher
1 Karmic Guide
4 Brainstorm
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Flash
1 Massacre
1 Echoing Truth
4 Chrome Mox
3 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Island
1 Swamp
1 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Quirion Dryad
3 Massacre
1 Reverent Silence
3 Swords to Plowshares
This is the Flash deck. To win, cast Flash. As part of its resolution, put Protean Hulk into play and then into the graveyard. Search through your deck for Karmic Guide and Carrion Feeder, and return Hulk to play with Karmic Guide’s ability. Sacrifice Hulk to Carrion Feeder, and search out the Kiki-Jiki. Activate Kiki-Jiki targeting Karmic Guide, then sacrifice Kiki-Jiki to the feeder. When the copy of Karmic Guide comes into play, return Kiki to play. You just gained a 2/2 hasty token. Repeat until you have infinite tokens, then attack. We can do all of this unopposed becuase we have Dazes and Force of Wills. Most lists played Duress as well, but I picked the tournament-winning list because, well, it won.
What do the two fish decks decks have in common? They’re aimed squarely at the obvious most powerful strategies in their respective tournaments. Nicolas’s counters and Wastelands are a strong plan against Academy, and look at the hate Max has for Flash- Leyline of the Void means that Protean Hulk won’t trigger during Flash, and he has Meddling Mage, Duress, Daze, and Force of Will. A well-timed Swords to Plowshares might even stop a Flash deck that didn’t have a Benevolent Bodyguard to search up to protect Karmic Guide with. Mother of Runes could stop a Flash deck’s one bounce spell from getting rid of a Meddling Mage. This is all nice. You’re going to feel smart when you get that Academy player with the Curiosity, Wasteland, Force of Will draw, or you beat the Flash opponent with your early Duress and Daze-backed Meddling Mage.
The second thing that they have in common is that they are wildly underpowered compared to the decks they are aimed at. The same turn that Labarre’s deck is playing a 4/4 for 4 with a drawback, the Academy deck is killing you or already has killed you. The legacy fish deck gets a slightly disruptive grizzly bear for the same amount of mana that it costs the flash deck to win the game. To win a game in these matchups, the fish decks have to do a delicate dance to shut off the combination decks’ ways to win. The combination decks just need the fish deck to misstep once, and that’s the game.
The third thing that fish decks have in common is that they look absolutely abysmal when you take them out of the context of the decks they are aimed at. Let’s take a trip in time back to Pro Tour Rome. Although that tournament had all kinds of brokenness available to it, at least half the field was playing “fair” decks- say, something like this:
Erno Ekebom
Pro Tour Rome 1998, 13th place
Extended
4 Jackal Pup
4 Mogg Fanatic
2 Goblin Patrol
2 Gorilla Shaman
4 Ball Lightning
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Shock
4 Incinerate
4 Fireblast
2 Hammer of Bogardan
4 Cursed Scroll
4 Wasteland
18 Mountain
Sideboard
4 Pyroblast
4 Bottle Gnomes
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Price of Progress
2 Furnace of Rath
This deck is for all intents and purposes “fair.” It’s going to kill you on turn four or five, which is pretty slow for Rome. This deck’s point is obvious- it’s coming at your face with red cards as fast as it can. So what happens when LaBarre and Hovi get paired against this guy? Hovi is going to simply outrace him. Academy was, after all, the best deck. LaBarre, however, is going to get mauled. He has some Suq’Ata Firewalkers, and past that his creatures are all jokes compared to Ekebom’s burn. These two decks actually fought each other in Rome, with a resounding 2-0 victory to the red deck.
Here’s an example of a fair deck from Columbus:
Owen Turtenwald
Grand Prix Columbus 2007, 2nd place
Legacy
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
4 Mountain
3 Taiga
2 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 Goblin Lackey
4 Goblin Piledriver
4 Gempalm Incinerator
4 Goblin Matron
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Goblin Ringleader
2 Tin Street Hooligan
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Aether Vial
Sideboard
4 Pyrokinesis
4 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Krosan Grip
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Goblin King
1 Tranquil Domain
I may be pushing the envelope about what is “fair” here, but this is about as non-distorted as it got in Columbus. If you are playing Flash, you’re pretty much golden. Goblins has a few ways to steal games from you, but in general the Flash deck is way faster than they are and not much can change that. The fish deck, though, is going to have a rough time against goblins. Four Swords to Plowshares and three Jittes with only five creatures bigger than 2/2’s are not going to cut it against a synergistic set of 33 goblins. Mother of Runes is nice, but the Goblin deck has 4 Fanatics and 4 Gempalms to get it with as soon as it taps.
In both cases, the fish deck’s cards are wildly underpowered and stupid looking as soon as you take them up against a deck that isn’t going broken, and most fish decks in history have this problem. LaBarre did well at Rome becuase he played against eleven Time Spiral-based combo decks in the swiss, going 10-0 against them. He was 1-2-1 against other decks. I don’t have a way of knowing Max’s road to the top eight in Columbus, but I have to assume that he played against a lot of Flash.
The reason your fish deck probably sucks is that you probably packed it full of cards that are terrible in a vacuum. You’re going to beat the best decks, but in a wide open environment there are going to be a ton of players who show up with decks that are terrible for one reason or another. They might be pet decks that their players will never let die, they might be distorted due to card access limitations, or your opponent might just be terrible and not know that their deck sucks. If you don’t play a deck that is powerful enough in a vacuum, those guys are going to beat you. When all of your opponent’s cards are indistinct and equally important, Meddling Mage changes from a pinpoint weapon to a Grizzly Bear, and Force of Will changes from a free way to stop their most important card to a self-inflicted Hymn to Taurach. I don’t want to play Grizzly Bear when I could be playing Flash.
I believe that the allure of fish decks for a lot of players is that they see the obvious best strategy, and leap to the conclusion that they should try to beat it. When the “best strategy” offers you consistent turn two and three kills or something similarly ridiculous, that conclusion isn’t a logical leap- it’s more like a leap off of a cliff onto sharp rocks that are being battered by high waves. The logical thing to do is to just play the obvious best strategy that wins on turn two or three.
I’m not above that. Why should you be?