Objective

This is intended as a summary guide laying out fundamental principles of good deck building. This is
not intended to be comprehensive nor is it intended to introduce cutting edge concepts, just
summarize established wisdom. A player reading this ought to be able to learn the established best
practices of deck building.

Who is this for?

This is for players with some magic experience who are looking to take their deck building skills to a
higher level.

This will probably be a good read for true novices also but there is an assumption of familiarity with
core game concepts (like Tempo and Card Advantage and Mana Curve) that a true beginner might
not have. This might be a good read for experienced players also, but it will not teach you anything
you don't already know. You may enjoy reading it anyway because sometimes seeing something
written in somebody else's words makes it easier to think about.

The real target audience for this guide are players who are familiar with the the game but have not
mastered deck building. My assumption is that a player who wants to build a better deck wants to
build a deck that wins more and is more competitively viable. If that is not your goal then this guide is
not for you.

Who am I?
I'm Metamorph. No I will not tell you my real name or DCI number. Thats for my real life friends only.
I'm an experienced magic player with almost 17 years under my belt. When I started playing the core
set was Revised Edition and the two expansions you could buy in stores were The Dark and Fallen
Empires. The first box of cards I ever bought was Ice Age, and I bought it because I coveted the
awesome new artwork on Icy Manipulator in that set.

I first started playing competitively when Mirage/Tempest was the Standard environment and I've
played competitively off and on ever since. I've had some mixed success but I'm certainly not a pro.
I've Top 8e'd PTQS twice, a $5K open event once, and back when I was a kid the Junior Super
Series multiple times. I've top 16ed more than 20 PTQ/$5K level events though so I'm quite familiar
with what competitive play is like and how to produce a winning record, though I'm not quite good
enough to play at the highest level.

I play lots of different types of Magic and I play on a budget most of the time so I absolutely do
understand casual play and budget issues. But I won't be talking about that here. Or anywhere
really. I stick to pure strategy. Thats what this guide is.

A Note on Format
This is intended for Standard Constructed Magic. Format provides context and context is the
framework of meaning. Most of what I will say here is not at all true of formats besides Standard. If
you are interested in learning how to build decks for Legacy, Vintage, Commander or any other
format then this post will be of only minimal usefulness. Finally, the orientation of this post is for
Standard in its modern form (meaning effectively Standard since about Invasion block onwards).
Standard from the bad old days was very different and should not be used as a context for this
discussion.

Summary
1. Good Decks Play With Good Cards
2. Good Decks Have Good Plans
3. Good Decks Have Good Mana Bases
4. Good Decks Respect Their Opponents
5. Good Decks Have 75 Cards
6. Sometimes Even Good Decks Are Bad Choices
7. Sometimes Your 'Good Deck' Isn't

Good Decks Play With Good Cards

The concept is simple but the idea itself has many wrinkles to it. The power level of a deck is directly
related to the power level of the individual cards that the deck is composed of. Synergy enhances
this further, but at the most fundamental level the standalone power of each card in the deck is
extremely important. While it is possible to build decks where the Synergy of card interactions allows
for otherwise weak cards to become powerful this is an exceptional case and must be justified
independently. The most common case is that independently powerful cards are the best choice for
building a deck.

This raises the crucial question: how can I tell when a card is independently powerful?

Thats a deep question in its own right and there is no easy answer when it comes to card evaluation.
However, there are some very useful and well established guideline principles we can use to get it
right most of the time. Not always though. Sometimes things aren't as they seem for one reason or
another, but if we make our usual assumptions and consider the card in a typical Standard
environment.

Efficiency
Efficiency is a rough measure of how much bang you get for your buck. How much effect does a
card provide given the resources you spend on it. Every card requires resource expenditure, there
are no exceptions. Even if a card costs zero mana and zero alternative costs it still costs the card
itself. This is something that is frequently overlooked by inexperienced deck builders. Always
remember that at minimum a card costs the card itself and there are many cards whose effects
simply don't justify that cost.

How do we measure efficiency? There's not standard method. Its very contextual. A card is efficient
if it produces more then other similar cards in the metagame. Sometimes we get "strictly better"
scenarios where it is obvious that Runeclaw Bear has a better body for its mana cost then Goblin
Piker. But how do we know that neither one of them is efficient enough for constructed? No easy
answer. Generally its because the 2/2 body itself is not particularly worth spending a whole card on.
This is a very good example of why considering the card cost is so crucial. We are readily willing to
play other 2/2 for 2 mana cards if they provide an additional effect. Grand Abolisher or Leonin Arbiter
or Kalastria Highborn or Goblin Wardriver are all readily playable for the same converted mana cost.
The additional effect on these creatures is arguably the more valuable part. Would you play that
effect if it was just on an enchantment with no body? Probably not. So really its the value we're
looking at. We want to have it all. We want the additional effect AND the body.

I realize its not exactly useful to tell people they shouldn't play Runeclaw Bears. Lets extrapolate
from the example and try to form a general principle: when evaluating a card for efficiency consider
how much value the card provides. If a card provides just a body, could you instead play something
with an effect AND a body? If a card provides just an effect, could you instead play something with
an effect AND a body? This value maximizing notion of efficiency is a good guideline. We prefer to
play with cards that are almost like built in 2-for-1s. If you can get a body and an effect at the same
time the card is almost doing as much work as 2 cards.

The other notion of efficiency thats important to consider is raw mana efficiency. This is not a hard
concept to measure. Lightning Bolt is the king of mana efficiency for burn spells. Nothing is better.
Creatures like Leatherback Baloth are the kings of mana efficiency for creature body size. Mana
efficiency comparisons are straightforward. Just look at the numbers. There's not much more to say
except to emphasize that often it is incorrect to favor mana efficiency over card efficiency. In
standard it is frequently the case that card efficiency is the more useful measure. Simple Example:
Squadron Hawks is a 2 mana 1/1 (very mana inefficient) but is a 4 for 1 in terms of cards. Its one of
the best creatures in the format.

Consistency
The other measure of card power that is useful to consider is consistency. Consistency refers to how
likely a card is to be able to perform as desired under normal play circumstances. A card like
Phyrexian Obliterator has very high mana efficiency but its restrictive mana cost makes it extremely
inconsistently castable except in almost mono-black decks. Mana consistency is always related to
what your mana base is capable of, so keep this in mind when including cards. You must be able to
cast them consistently or they will be useless.

Mana cost consistency is not the only form. Some cards have functional dependencies that raise
consistency issues. Any aura or equipment or creature enhancing effect (like Honor of the Pure) is
functionally dependent on there being one or more creatures in play on your side of the table. This is
a pretty soft consistency requirement (you usually do have creatures) but it still must be considered.
A common mistake is to underestimate even soft requirements. If you are playing an equipment,
could you have played another creature instead? That would add more power to the board without
being functionally dependent on another creature. Does the equipment provide a powerful enough
effect to justify using it instead of another creature? It probably has to be about as powerful as a
Sword of Feast and Famine to be worth it. Thats a high bar to clear. Most creature enhancing effects
are not worth it for this reason. I don't want to get caught up on this one example. There are many
strategies that utilize synergy to make creature enhancement truly worth it (Tempered Steel decks,
for example) but you should be aware that these synergy based strategies suffer from consistency
issues because of the nature of the strategy. Its sometimes worth it anyway though.

There are other forms of functional dependency too. Any card that relies on you having draw another
card first has a functional dependency. Be very wary when playing cards like this. Only the softest
functional dependencies are consistent enough to be worthwhile. Very hard dependencies require
ENORMOUS support to achieve consistency. If you're going to be running a hard dependency be
prepared to build a dedicated combo deck, otherwise its probably not worth it.

To clarify the terminology: a soft dependency would be between categories. Equipment + Creature,
Ramp Cards + Bombs, etc. A hard dependency would be between specific cards such as Joraga
Treespeaker + Myr Superion.

Niche Cases and Role Players

There are times when it is not possible to only use the most efficient and consistent cards in the
format. Maybe your colors simply can't do something efficiently. Maybe the format card pool simply
doesn't have any consistent options. There are too many exceptions to list so my purpose with this
brief section is just to make it clear that there are good exceptions to the general guidelines.
Sometimes you just need a certain job done and have to work with the tools you have, even though
by historical standards they are inefficient or inconsistent. We do what we must. However, if you find
that your deck is including a large number of inefficient or inconsistent role players (cards that serve
a highly specific purpose) then you might want to seriously question whether or not its worth it. If
your strategy requires too many inefficient/inconsistent cards its probably not good enough. It might
have worked in past environments but is not well supported in the current card pool. It might just not
be a good idea, period.

Good Decks Have Good Plans

Magic is a strategy game. Strategy is about planning as well as about execution. If your plan is bad
then you are at a huge disadvantage. Make sure you have a good plan before you show up to the
fight. The classic way of defining your plan is by strategic archetype. Most players have heard of
these before, we throw the terms around all the time without having a clear idea about what they
really mean and the permutations of them are: Aggro, Control, Combo.

Mission Statement
A Mission statement is one or two sentences that describe in the most concise terms how your deck
plans to win a game of magic. Every deck should have its own mission statement that is based on its
archetype. Here are the general purpose archetypal mission statements, and a few examples of
deck specific versions of them.

General Aggro Archetype: "play too many threats too quickly for my opponent to deal with them all
before his life total has been reduced to zero."

specific example: "Deal as much damage as possible with my 1 and 2 mana red creatures. Finish
the game with a second wave of red creatures or direct damage spells."

General Control Archetype: "prevent my opponent from executing his game plan. Then, when my
opponent cannot defeat me anymore play a threat that my opponent cannot answer and win with it."
specific example: "utilize countermagic and creature removal to deal with early game threats. use
card drawing spells to make sure I have more answers than my opponent has threats. then, when
my opponent is exhausted play a Grave Titan and kill him with it in 2 turns."

General Combo Archetype: "assemble a combination of two specific cards as quickly as possible.
the two cards, in combination, will produce an effect so overwhelmingly powerful that my opponent
will lose to it."

specific example: "utilize cheap blue cantrips and card drawing effects to get Deceiver Exarch and
Splinter Twin into my hand. Then, cast these two spells in combination to produce infinite Exarch
tokens with haste and attack for the win."

Mission statements are very important. If you cannot produce a succinct mission statement for your
deck then you probably don't have a good enough plan. How can you expect to win a game of Magic
if you don't even know how you're going to win it?

There's more to archetypes and strategic plans then just what I've covered here. It could be a whole
article series discussing the various hybrid archetypes (aggro-control, mid-range, ramp,
aggro-combo, combo-control, multi-combo, etc.) but for the sake of preventing this already sprawling
article from getting out of control i'll leave that discussion for another day.

Have a Plan B
No plan survives first contact with the enemy fully intact. Sometimes things just don't work out
according to plan. Maybe your opponent had all the right answers for your attackers. Maybe your
deck's own internal consistency issues screwed you and you just didn't draw what you needed in
time. A good deck should be able to win even when things go a little wrong. If things go alot wrong
even the best deck will probably lose, but having a fallback plan to cover some hiccups in your main
plan is a very good idea.

What constitutes a good Plan B? Totally specific to each deck. No general way to characterize this.
What makes a good plan B? Its not vulnerable to the same things Plan A is. If your Plan A is to
attack with creatures then your Plan B should not also be vulnerable to creature removal. If your
Plan A is to assemble a combo then your Plan B should not be vulnerable to the same things that
disrupt your Plan A combo. Plan B doesn't need to be complicated or independently viable. Simple
things will suffice. Maybe you'll just use Burn spells to finish the job. Totally valid plan B. Maybe you'll
just get 20 points in with Manlands. totally valid plan B. maybe you've got a second, weaker combo
in your deck to supplement the first. Totally valid plan B. Doesn't really matter what it is or even that
its particularly good. What does matter is that you have a backup plan that still works even when
your primary plan has failed.

Good Decks Have Good Mana Bases

This section can be short and sweet. The topic itself is deep and interesting but fortunately can be
summarized in a few simple words.

On Mana Curve and Land Count

Mana screw will kill you every time. So will color screw. You can't play spells that your mana base
cannot support. The single most common error I see from any deckbuilder is playing insufficient
land. It is absolutely imperative that you play enough land for your deck, based on what the deck's
mana curve is.

In general we can think of there being three typical mana curves: low, medium, and high. In practice
there's a huge amount of variation but at minimum we can categorize any mana curve into these
ranges.

Example of a low mana curve:

CMC 1: 8-12
CMC 2: 8-12
CMC 3: 4-6
CMC 4: 2-4
CMC 5+: probably none, maybe 1-3

Example of a medium mana curve:

CMC 1: 0-4
CMC 2: 8-12
CMC 3: 6-8
CMC 4: 4-6
CMC 5 or 6: 4-6
CMC 7+: probably none, maybe 1 or 2

Example of a high mana curve:

CMC 1: 0-4
CMC 2: 6-10
CMC 3: 4-6
CMC 4: 4-6
CMC 5: 3-5
CMC 6 or 7: 3-5
CMC 8+: probably none

most aggro decks have low mana curves, most control decks have high mana curves, most ramp
decks have high mana curves. alot of decks end up with medium mana curves just because its fairly
consistent. some decks are called midrange for no reason other then they have a medium mana
curve.

here's a very basic rule of thumb for assigning land count to your deck. 24 lands is the default
number for medium mana curve decks. if your deck has a low mana curve you can justify playing
fewer then 24 lands. 22 works for most aggro decks. a very slim one (with lots of 1 drops) can get
away with 20 or 21. if your deck plays fewer then 20 lands it has to have a curve that is lower than
low. lots of free spells, maybe a mana cheating mechanic. if your deck has a high mana curve you
definitely need more then 24 lands. 26 is the most typical number for control decks. ramp decks
often play as many as 27.
On Colored Mana Balance
additionally we must ensure that colored mana costs are covered. it is usually correct to play as
many quality dual lands as exist in the format that can fit into your mana base. some of the best
decks of all time were good in no small part due to their mana base being composed almost entirely
of dual lands. UB Faeries (a previous standard boogeyman, one of the best standard decks of all
time) played 16-20 dual lands in its mana base. the advantages of this are profound. many have
tried to come up with a mathematical formula for computing color ratio but there's usually some flaw
with whatever formula you might come up with. here's a potentially useful, though flawed formula
that you can use if you take care to make manual adjustments afterwards.

For each color in your deck count up every colored mana symbol in a spell's mana cost. Take the
total number and divide by 2, round up. That is the minimum number of lands capable of producing
that color of mana that your deck will require to cast its colored spells consistently.

What's wrong with this formula? It doesn't take into account turn priority. Maybe you have only a few
green mana spells in your deck but they are very time sensitive and must be cast on turn 1 or 2 to be
maximally useful (Birds of Paradise, for example). In order to account for this you must increase your
green mana producers above and beyond what is strictly needed based on color symbol count.
What else is wrong with this formula? it doesn't make any statements about lands that enter the
battlefield tapped. some decks can support many EtB tapped lands and can play many more
non-basic lands than usual because of it. control decks often have this advantage. Some decks have
a much greater need to play their cards on the curve (meaning a 2 drop on turn 2, a 3 drop on turn 3,
etc.) and cannot support many EtB tapped lands and must use basic lands instead or limit
themselves to duallands that have a mechanism of entering play untapped. The above formula can
be used to get a good baseline but it must be adjusted manually to account for the effects
mentioned.

Other Concerns
Many decks include non-land mana sources, cantrips, card drawing spells, or other effects that
assist with mana development in one way or another. This topic can get very complicated and
sophisticated and further discussion is beyond the scope of this article. Just be aware that the rabbit
hole is deep on this one and there are many exceptions to the rules of thumb given above. Each
exception can be justified with good reasons though. If you don't have a good reason, you shouldn't
break the rule of thumb.

If you're ever in doubt and feeling tempted to cut a land, don't do it. If anything you should add one
more land then you think you need. You always lose when you get mana screwed but sometimes
you win anyway if you get mana flooded. More is better. Don't shave lands just to fit extra cool spells
in. You'll regret it.

Good decks respect their opponents

Magic is a 2 player game. Your opponent is not a goldfish. A common mistake is to assume that your
opponent is less capable than he really is. This is inviting disaster. It is better to assume your
opponent is MORE capable than he really is and to build for the most hostile environment you can
think of. If your deck remains functional even in the face of considerable hostility then it is probably a
good deck. If your deck crumples to enemy resistance then it probably wasn't good to begin with.

There are two main principles we can use to think about how a deck fairs against its opponent:
Interactivity and Resilience.

Interactivity
Interactivity is a measure of a deck's defensive strength. When we "interact" with our opponent, what
we mean really is that we're trying to screw up his plans by countering his spells, discarding his
hand, killing his creatures, and otherwise just being a pain in his butt.

Why should you interact with your opponent? Isn't it better to just focus on the kill? Sometimes it is.
There are some aggro decks and some combo decks that are at their best when they try to just kill
as fast as possible and let the opponent do whatever they want. How often is that the best plan?
Rarely. Sometimes even just a small amount of interactivity is enough to secure a win. A single
crucial removal spell or counterspell is the difference between winning and losing a huge amount of
the time. Interactivity is so important that its possible to base an entire archetype (control) around it.

The reason we should almost always attempt to interact with our opponent is because of variance.
We cannot guarantee that we always get our best draws that will definitely win faster than our
opponent. Interacting with the opponent smooths out this variance. If we can't win as soon as
possible we must instead make sure our opponent does not win first. All we have to do is win before
he does, not win before some arbitrary turn has elapsed in game.

There's a pitfall here though. Some players get into the habit of playing "answers for answers". they
see that their opponent has some card that is particularly effective against their deck (a hoser
basically) and think they can overcome it by playing a spell that defeats the hoser. Example:
Dismember as answer to Kor Firewalker. This is not optimal strategy. An answer for an answer only
works if you're holding it first. Its very time sensitive. If you draw your answer for answer too late it
was ineffective and the damage was already done. Further, there's the risk of it being redundant. If
you draw your answer for answer but your opponent does not draw his hoser then your draw was
dead. A better strategy is to reinforce your game plan with resilience.

Resilience
Resilience is the compliment of interactivity. It is a measure of how difficult your deck is to effectively
interact with. An effective interaction is one where the answer was efficient (in terms of mana AND
cards spent) and timely (played in a relevant time frame). Resilient threats are hard to effectively
interact with. Your opponent's ability to answer them is limited.

A good case study in Resilience is the issue of creatures vs. removal spells. This is a very common
theme on the forums here and many players make the mistake of playing creatures that have no
resilience against the most effective forms of removal. The fact is that most removal costs little mana
(just 1 or 2) or if it costs more mana it is very card efficient (a sweeper, for example). For a creature
to be resilient against this effective removal one or more of the following must be true
1) the creature must be cheap and individually unimportant. it is just one threat among many and
there is another one right behind it.

OR

2) the creature must provide value regardless of whether or not it is immediately removed.

OR

3) the creature must itself be unusually difficult to remove. the most common effective removal spells
must be of limited (or nil) effectiveness against it.

if a creature fails to meet at least one of those conditions it is not resilient against removal and is
probably not a good choice, since most standard formats are filled with effective removal spells.
These resilience concerns are the reason why Titans outrank just about any other large creature you
might play in Standard. they are also the reason why aggro decks based on lots of small creatures
are far more effective then aggro decks based on a smaller number of large creatures. there are
always exceptions of course, but in general thats what we observe.

This is just one case study, the case of creatures vs. removal. similar analysis could be done for any
complimentary pair of threat + answer. the best threats are usually the most resilient ones. it is often
more important to be resilient then it is to be efficient. as mentioned previously, you only have to win
before your opponent does, not before some arbitrary turn has passed.

Good Decks Have 75 Cards

For competitive play, one cannot ignore the sideboard. The sideboard is relevant in more games
than not, at minimum half all tournament games include sideboarding, and realistically its closer to
60% (since more matches are 3 games than 2). The maindeck has to be good but if your sideboard
isn't good then you're not really ready for competitive match play.

Specific sideboard analysis is the most valuable kind and it requires specific decklists and
metagames to do, which is beyond the scope of this article. I'm going to focus on general principles
and pitfall avoidance in this section so you can get the right idea and go from there.

Here's the basic, fundamental idea of correct sideboard building: you cannot board a card IN without
also boarding a card OUT, so you must build your sideboard with this in mind. Often it is more
important what you board out than what you board in. You might not have a dedicated hoser for a
matchup but you're incredibly likely to have at least a couple of maindeck cards that are subpar in
the matchup. If the only thing you use your sideboard for is replacing subpar cards with something
with better performance then you're using your sideboard effectively.

Pitfall #1 - using too many hosers

A common pitfall is to jam your sideboard full of hosers against what you think the best decks are but
you don't really have a plan for how to use them. Hosers are just hate cards and sometimes they
work, but often they aren't even good enough because they don't mesh with your plan. If you took
out cards that were useful and synergistic with your strategy and replaced them with cards that do
nothing in particular for you other then make your opponent's life miserable, then you are not
optimally using your sideboard. The goal is to win the game, not to grief your opponent. When
choosing cards for your sideboard keep in mind that its more important that the card makes sense
with your strategy than it is that the card is harmful to a specific opponent. You can't guarantee what
opponent you'll face, but if you have cards that are good in your deck in general you can always use
your sideboard to tune up the deck between games and make it slightly better than it was game 1,
based on what your opponent is playing.

There are exceptions of course. Sometimes a deck is very dominant in the metagame and the best
bet is to just hose it. This is rare though. It usually requires a kinda degenerate deck with an unusual
strategy, usually combo decks of some kind (graveyard combo decks like Dredge or Reanimator are
notorious).

A pretty good way to build a well integrated sideboard is to sketch out multiple alternative maindeck
configurations that you'd be happy with. Each configuration might differ by 4-6 card choices. Let the
overflow live in the sideboard and swap between configurations between games, based on which
configuration you think will be best. If you build a sideboard like this you'll avoid having narrow cards
that don't mesh well with your deck. Every card in the sideboard will be independently useful so
you'll always be able to board at least a few cards in. This is better expected value then sometimes
boarding in a really nasty hoser, but often just having nothing to board in.

Pitfall #2 - fighting the last war

There's another pitfall thats really important to avoid. Always remember that you are boarding
against your opponent's game 2 deck, not his game 1 deck. You never face his main deck with your
sideboard. you always face his maindeck + sideboard with your maindeck + sideboard. This pitfall is
best illustrated with an example. Here's one I see people make ALOT.

Example: You are playing UW Control vs. opponent playing RDW

In game 1 you managed to stabilize the board around turn 5 by resolving a Day of Judgment to
sweep his creatures. You were at 6 life when this happened. Unsurprisingly your opponent won the
game by burning you out with a Bolt and Incinerate he had been saving in his hand.

Here's the mistake: you're playing Leyline of Sanctity in your sideboard and you want to board it in
for game 2 because you lost to direct damage game 1 and figure you would have won if only your
opponent couldn't have finished you off with burn.

This is a mistake because you're fighting the last war. What did your opponent do with his
sideboard? He boarded out his burn for haste creatures. From his perspective the game looked like
this: I was beating my opponent down something fierce but the DoJ landed just in time. I lucked out
on that one and had the burn, but thats kinda loose. A Hero of Oxid Ridge would have been perfect
though. Incinerate out, Hero in. This is good strategy from the red player.
From his perspective the burn spells are mostly used to remove blockers so his men can connect for
damage. They can also be useful to damage players but a persistent threat like a creature is even
better, its worth more damage for the card and is far preferable against a control player who might
be running countermagic or lifegain which would completely invalidate the burn. Furthermore, the
control player has few blockers anyway so the burn just sits around in his hand. Why did he have 2
burn spells waiting? because there was nothing to use it on before anyway.

Your Leyline whiffs. Your opponent boarded out the thing the Leyline protects from. The Leyline
doesn't do anything to help win the game and produces no value, its just a narrow hoser, and now
you're caught short because your opponent went the other way on you. He boarded out the burn and
brought in haste creatures. You know what you should have boarded in? Creatures that can block.
He boarded out cards that can remove blockers and boarded in more cards that are stopped by
blockers. Furthermore, creatures wouldn't just be narrow hosers, they'd be useful no matter what
your opponent draws. What you should have boarded in was something like Kor Firewalker, or
Timely Reinforcements, or Wall of Omens or Spellskite or whatever.

I hope the example illustrates the point. If you use independently useful cards in your sideboard, and
keep in mind that you are facing your opponents game 2 deck (not his game 1 deck) then you will
have an effective sideboard.

Sometimes Good Decks Are Bad Choices

Its important to recognize that all decks have limitations and no deck can do everything. The best
you can hope for is to have a deck that is powerful and consistent. It can execute a game winning
plan that is difficult for the opponent to disrupt, while interacting enough with the opponent to make
sure your plan wins before your opponent's plan does. Thats all you have to do to win in magic. You
don't have to handle every situation, you just have to execute your plan before your opponent
executes his plan.

What if its still not good enough? What if your plan doesn't win even when you execute it
successfully before your opponent executes his? Yes. this is entirely possible. You can seriously just
get trumped outright by a deck that has a strategy that utterly defeats yours. In well balanced
metagames it doesn't happen very often but there are some classic historical examples. Here's one:

You are playing a mono-green Elves deck and your opponent is playing RDW. Your elves deck is
pretty good in its own right. Its fast, its consistent, you've steamrolled multiple opponents and tend to
do particularly well against certain types of control decks that can't keep up with your rapid board
development. However, you've got a bad matchup. I mean a truly terrible awful shamefully bad
matchup against Red. You lose this matchup like 80% of the time. The red player burns up our elves
and attacks with his guys. Your early board development is completely thwarted and your normally
awesome Overruns are deadweight in your hand, you don't have enough mana to cast them
(because your mana guys got burnt) and you don't have enough creatures on the board anyway
(again, burnt). You're getting bashed for 4 or 5 points a turn and don't have anything big enough to
block. What do you do?
You might think you should try to address this terrible matchup by changing your deck. The elves are
too puny and too vulnerable to burn so clearly you need to add bigger guys to the deck to fight back
with, right? No. Wrong. Your manabase can't support bigger guys because you've tuned your deck to
run on just 20 lands (and about 12 mana elves). Your deck is designed to swarm with 1 and 2 mana
creatures and then cast Overrun for the win. The whole plan is supposed to execute between turns 1
and 5. What are you gonna do with 4 or 5 mana creatures? Even if you draw enough land to cast
them (you won't, but lets just assume) what are you gonna do with them on turn 5 anyway? Nothing.
Its already over by then. Too little too late. And now that awesome matchup you had against control
sucks too because Control can easily deal with the big mopey 4 mana creature. You managed to
ruin your good matchup without fixing your bad matchup.

There are many similar examples. The moral of the story is that a deck can only do what its strategic
design and mana base allow it to do. You can't do everything and shouldn't try. The most important
thing is to maintain strategic focus and let your deck be good at what it does. You'll be rewarded
when your opponents are not able to deal with your strategy. However, opponents can easily deal
with a weak version of any strategy just by overpowering you with their superior efficiency,
consistency, and strategic focus. Don't sacrifice these fundamentals to cover your weaknesses. Stay
focused and you'll win when you ought to. The point of deck building is to maximize strategic
advantages to produce game wins. Focus. Keep your advantage maximized. Focus.

If the metagame is incredibly hostile to the strategy of an otherwise good deck then the correct
choice is usually to just play a different deck. There's no shame in that. Good decks are still good
even when they aren't the right choice. If you want to win though you need to make the right choice.
Choose the best good deck for the metagame to maximize your wins.

Sometimes Your Good Deck Isn't

This section will act as a kind of punctuation mark on this article. There's one more thing I have to
say about deck building, and I think its the most valuable advice I can give. I hope you take this to
heart: most ideas don't pan out. The failure rate of deck ideas is exceptionally high. I throw away
close to 90% of my skeched out decklists. I throw out most of them before even sleeving them up for
playtesting. Of the decks I do get around to actually playtesting I still throw out most of them. There
are times when I throw out ALL of the deck ideas I have and just play an established deck because
its the right choice.

How do you know a deck idea is a failure? Start with the theoretical analysis.

Go through the deck and ask yourself "are these cards good enough? are there any weak cards in
here that shouldn't be? are too many of the cards weak?" thats a stopping point right there. if the
deck is full of weak cards its probably not gonna work. Remember that efficiency is not the only
measure of power. Consistency is probably an even more important measure. Many decks have
incredibly powerful best case scenarios but are on average extremely weak because they are
inconsistent. Keep consistency at the front of your mind when evaluating how powerful your decklist
looks.
Go through the deck and ask yourself "is it obvious how this deck wins?" If not, scrap it. A random
pile of cards (even good cards) with no plan is not a good deck. Remember that many good plans
are pretty simple. But you have to be realistic. If your plan is unrealistic the deck is probably a failure.

Go through the deck and ask yourself "does the mana work?" If not, you just can't play it. Sorry.
Mana base is the most important constraining factor on deck construction. If you can't cast your
spells, nothing else even matters.

Go through the deck and ask yourself "will this deck be able to actually win 2 out of 3 games in a
match?" Some decks might do very well in game 1 but not actually be viable for competitive play
because they are SUPER vulnerable to commonly played sideboard cards. You get nowhere winning
every game 1 and losing every game 2 and 3. If a deck has a distinctive game 2 vulnerability, is its
game 1 advantage HUGE to make up for it? If its not the deck is probably a failure.

And finally, ask yourself "does this deck work in the expected metagame?" As mentioned in the
previous section, even decks that are good on all the fundamentals are often bad choices because
the metagame is filled with bad matchups for them.

Remember that there's no shame in abandoning an idea. Its a skill in itself to know when something
isn't working out and when your time would be better spent doing something else. Most ideas are
flawed and its important to go and look for the flaws. Don't get caught up in the initial enthusiasm
when you think of something cool. Let it simmer. Sleep on it. Take a look at it again tomorrow with a
more critical eye.