Great Magic The Gathering deck building is achieved by following this list which will have you put together an assortment of cards, match them to a theme you chose above, and construct your deck! Remember, there are a very wide range of cards to choose from. The first thing to consider is what kind of game you are going to be playing your deck in. For instance, if this is going to be a deck used for tournament play, you will only be allowed to choose cards from the most recent playsets, commonly known as Type 2, which is a limit imposed due to tournament rules.

PLAY TYPES -

Tournament Play - To make your deck for tournament play, you must have a deck of no less than 60 cards that is comprised of cards roughly from the last 4 released sets. For official rules concerning which playsets are currently considered for tournament play, usually known as Type 2, either visit your locally sanctioned gaming center or consult the official Wizards Website

Extended Play - The extended play rules roughly cover any and all cards which have not been banned or outlawed from play. These cards are very select due to their nature of either being "Broken" (meaning they cause the game to be no contest or otherwise prevent the game from being played and won) or illegal for most any play. You can find out what cards are currently within the extended category by visiting your locally sanctioned gaming center or the official Wizards Website

Free Play - In free play mode, used for any game with your friends, you can pretty much pick any cards in existence that aren't illegal. Illegal cards are those which either violate gambling laws or are stolen or otherwise violate the intellectual property rights of Wizards (see Disclaimer below).

Remember that a deck assembled for tournament play can also be used for any other play type and those constructed for extended play can also be used in free play mode. Consider that the limited play types may leave you at a disadvantage while playing a more extended play style - they may also grant you an immediate advantage if your deck is comprised of cards which have new abilities that have no weaknesses from previous sets.

The best option here is to go with either Type 2 or Extended - Type 2 being the play style appreciated in most scenarios, while Extended being best in a more open game.

On to the assembling of your cards!

CREATURES -

Depending on your theme, you will want creatures which add to your playability and not derive from it. For instance, if you have a deck comprised mostly of Elves, you don't want a Treefolk that has an ability that only works with other Treefolk because it won't be helpful with Elves. If your deck has both Treefolk and Elves, the mentioned card might actually be useful then. Just tossing in random cards is not a good idea with Magic The Gathering because this is a game that values strategy in order to really be fun.

- Mana costs of Creatures - The cheaper the mana cost of a creature, the sooner it can come into play. These cheaper costing creatures are usually rather weak in comparison to their more expensive brethren but there are quite a few that have a really nice bonus. Here are some things to consider:

Creatures with no abilities are good if they match the creature types in your deck when your deck consists of cards that grant strengths and abilities to those creature types. This is known mostly as the Tribal effect. For example, a 1 mana cost 1/1 soldier creature with no abilities doesn't sound to useful, but when you bring in a creature or spell that gives all of the soldier creatures you control +1/+1 and First Strike, that soldier is now capable of killing any 2 toughness creatures that it hits because it will hit first! He is also good because, due to his 1 mana cost, you could probably play him on your first turn, which could give you a free strike on your second turn if your opponent has no creatures out yet.

Some cheaper creatures might have a good ability that allows them to either grow bigger or be dangerous to touch by your opponents creatures, or even by your opponent. For example, a 1/1 lizard with the Deathtouch ability is almost guaranteed to either get a hit in (because your opponent may not want to sacrifice his good creature to block it because the Deathtouch would kill it) or even prevent your opponent from attacking (if you block an attacking creature with your lizard, it could kill it no matter what size it is). Abilities like this can make the cheaper, weaker creatures very deadly and powerful!

There are other creatures that are both cheap and weak that have abilities that you can use repetitively for a nice bonus! For instance, a 1 mana cost 1/1 monk might have an ability that, when you tap it, prevents the next 1 damage to you or your creatures. This means, if he was to block another 1/1 that your opponent attacked with, he could block it, killing it when damage is finally dealt, then, before the damage is dealt to him, be tapped to prevent the 1 damage he would have otherwise received. Granted, he would have to wait till after your next turns untap step before this ability could be used, but then you wouldn't have to worry about any other 1/1 attackers. Another example of a good, cheap creature ability is what is known as Firebreathing, which can allow you to pump mana into it at any time to raise it by +1/+0, making it hit harder! It will probably still die, but say it was blocking a 4/3 creature, you could pump 2 mana into it before the damage was dealt and it would take the opposing creature out with it.

- Useful Creature Abilities - There are tons of different abilities that make a creature tougher than usual and it's best to exploit these strengths to defeat your opposition! Here are just a few examples:

Flying Creatures (usually White or Blue) can give you the swift advantage of being able to fly over the opposing forces and deliver blows to your enemies without worrying about being blocked, considering your opponents have no flying creatures in play of their own or creatures with the Reach ability, which would allow that creature to block flying creatures as though it had flying.

The Trample Ability is a common ability for bigger creatures (usually Green) that allows them to trample right through your enemy's blockers and still deliver damage to him or her! When a creature with trample attacks, if the creatures assigned to block it have a combined toughness rating lower than the power rating of the attacker, the difference in damage is done to the defending player. For example, Say you attacked with your 8/5 Beast Creature with Trample, and your opponent blocked it with both of their 3/1 creatures. The combined power rating of the 2 blockers (3+3=6) would kill your 8/5, but the lack of defense provided by those blockers (1+1=2) would allow your 8/5 with Trample to kill both of it's blockers and also deal 6 damage (8-2=6) to your opponent!

Some creatures have special Landwalk Abilities. This can be - plainswalk, islandwalk, swampwalk, mountainwalk, and/or forrestwalk. What this means is, if you attack using a creature with landwalk abilities, and the defending player controls the specified land type, then the attacker is unblockable and the attack cannot be blocked at all! For instance, attacking a player who's using Black in their deck with your 2/2 Knight with Swampwalk, as long as they control a Swamp, they can't block the attack from hitting them. There are creatures from all 5 of the colors that may have this ability.

The last 2 abilities I'm going to mention are also quite common and very devastating! I've already mentioned above the First Strike ability. What this means is, whether a creature with first strike is attacking or defending, when it hits, it hits before other creatures without first strike. For example, say your opponent attacks with his 3/2 Merfolk. If you chose to defend this attacker using your 2/2 creature with First Strike, your first strike creature would hit and kill his creature before it even had a chance to damage yours, leaving your creature unharmed! Another ability called Double Strike allows the creature with this ability to not only hit before other creatures without first strike, but also hit yet a second time when all normal creatures hit. For instance, say you were being attacked by the same 3/2 Merfolk mentioned above, but this time you instead blocked it with your 1/4 Goblin with Double Strike. Your Goblin would first hit the Merfolk with 1 first strike damage, then, as the Merfolk hit with it's 3 damage, your Goblin would hit again for another 1 damage, killing it (1+1=2) while surviving the attack (4-3=1)!

I hope the tips above have helped you to decide what creatures you want to use, but creatures aren't the only cards you will want in your deck. Next I will help you choose some support from Instants and Sorceries!

INSTANTS -

Instants are Magic's way of just saying no! These are some descriptions of the many counters and calamities that may cause your competition major complications!

The Counter Spell is the most common form of instants (favored by Blue). Just when your opponent thinks they've got the drop on you, taps a bunch of mana, and slaps down their most feared creature, you tap in a few mana of your own and say No! s you plop down a simple Counter Creature spell and watch as the look on your opponent's face turns from gleeful victory to instant aggravation as they are forced to toss their best card straight into their graveyard. There are all sorts of counter spells, some are specific to card types but they all have the same effect - play it in response to a spell being played and that spell is canceled before it even goes off. One special note - if a player has an ability in play on the battlefield that states something "happens whenever" a certain spell is played, and that type of situation is "happening" when a counter goes off, the spell has technically still been played, it just never went off, so the "something happening" effect still counts!

Another brutal Instant is the Burn Spell. Burn spells are instant damage spells that allow you to choose a creature and/or player (known as targeting) that is instantly dealt damage. These are common in Red decks for "burning" away your rivals life and creatures throughout the game, but they do have some great uses - one, during an attack or while you're defending, say one of your creatures fought an opponent's creature and didn't quite do enough damage to kill it. Now, you play an instant burn spell and finish it off! What if you just nailed your opponent with every creature you had on the board, but it left them with 1 or 2 life left, just coming up short? You could even currently have the same amount of life left yourself and had just left yourself wide open for your rival's next turn. Well, if you have an instant burn spell handy, you can finish them off right then and there and beat them before they even have a chance to retaliate!

Another great Instant is the Destroy Spell! These spells can, again, be specific to what card types they effect, but when used they instantly destroy whatever you target with them. Sometimes even preventing the target from regenerating!

Regenerate is yet another Instant in magic that, when used, puts a regenerate counter (in this case, the counter is a coin or a die that represents an amount, not counter as in a counter spell) on that creature. Regenerate counters are for whenever the next time that creature is destroyed, you can regenerate it (back to full health), tap it, and remove it from combat. It's one way to prevent death or destroy spells from effecting a creature or other permanent you have in play on the battlefield. This is also usually an ability that many creatures have, and it can be used at will (considering you can pay any costs to use it) just like an Instant spell.

The next Instant I'm going to mention here is the Blink Spell. What this spell does is blink a creature out of existence - meaning it is instantly exiled and removed from the game so that whatever was about to happen to it completely fails to happen because the creature is suddenly not there for anything to happen to it. There are different blink effects - some blink a creature out and have it come right back, some are good for blinking out an opponent's creature, exiling it and removing it from the game forever. Others have the creature blink out and return that creature card to your hand to play again later, or even putting it back on top of it's owners library!

The last Instant I'll discuss is the Buff Spell. Buff spells do exactly as they suggest - they buff up (or down) the creature you choose (target) a certain amount of +1/+1 (or -1/-1) rating points, effecting their power/toughness rating. Sometimes, this buff is in the form of permanent +1/+1 (or even -1/-1) counters (in this case, the term counters refers to a coin or a die that represents an amount, not counter as in a counter spell) that stay with the creature for the duration of the creature's existence (unless removed or altered by other spells or abilities) in play on the battlefield. The buff spells that aren't permanent will usually only last until the end of the turn. There are many different buff spells in the game. Some of them will grant a +X/+X to a creature. The writing on the card will tell you how to figure out what number the X's are (usually you will pay a mana cost that has an X in a grey circle as part of the cost, meaning you can pump as much mana of any color into X - other times, X is represented by how many of a certain card or creature type you have).

There are plenty of other Instants in the game. There are some special things you should know about instants. They can be played during any players turn, even during combat, but are best played in response to another spell being played or effect happening. You will notice that many Sorceries have effects you may see on Instant cards - That's because an Instant is pretty much the same thing as a Sorcery, just that you can use it whenever you see fit instead of only during your Main Phase like a sorcery. Another similarity shared between Instants and Sorceries is that they are played, their effects happen, and then they go directly to your graveyard - these two Card Types are the only ones that are never permanents! You will also notice most of these spell effects can also be found as Activated Abilities (see description just below) on Creatures and other permanents, most of which can also be used instantly at any time (sometimes it will say "play this anytime you may play a Sorcery" signaling it can only be used during your Main Phase) considering you can pay the costs required to gain the effect.

Here I want to mention a very special ability called the Activated Ability. Activated Abilities are recognized by their format, which is - COST: effect Notice the (:) colon character. What this means is, if you pay all of the costs on the LEFT of the colon: you get to cause the effects on the right side of the colon! Most lands will have the tap symbol, followed by the (:) colon, followed by "add (specific mana symbol(s)) to your mana pool." This is an example of an activated ability! Unless otherwise stated on the card, activated abilities act just like instants - they can be played at any time!

SORCERIES -

A Sorcery is pretty much the same type of spell as an Instant - you play it, the effects happen, it goes to the graveyard - but you can't play a Sorcery just any time you want to - you can only play a Sorcery during your Main Phases. This is because the effects of Sorceries are usually, a little to a lot, bigger than the effects of an Instant. I will list a couple of these more dramatic spell effects here:

Destroy All Spells are one of the most brutal spells in the game and they may or may not also effect you and/or your creatures/permanents. This does exactly as it says and everything it effects is put into their owners' graveyards (or removed from the game, or reshuffled back into their owners' libraries - whatever the card says). This kind of spell, as you'll notice, doesn't specify a target - it simply "blankets" everything in play that's on the battlefield, that the spell pertains to. This means that certain cards that "can't be targeted by spells or abilities" are still effected! This spell may also state that the effects can't be prevented, countered, or that permanents effected cannot be regenerated.

Card Draw Spells come in many varieties. Some let you (or a chosen (targeted) player) draw either a predetermined amount of cards or X amount of cards (where X is the amount of mana you pump into the spell, or creatures you control - whatever the card says). There are also Discard Spells that work similar.

There are a ton more Sorceries that you will find and they all have a wide range of effects and uses.

Now I will discuss Artifacts and Enchantments. These 2 card types are similar to each other as well - they both cost mana to play, they are both permanents, and they both sit in play on the battlefield. Artifacts and Enchantments, Equipments and Auras, respectively, can also be attached to Creatures. Enchantments (auras), when they come into play and on the battlefield, do so targeting and attaching to a permanent. They go to the graveyard when the permanent they're attached to goes away (though some abilities can prevent this by either bringing the enchantment back to it's owner's hand, or letting the owner reattach it to another target permanent, or whatever else the card says). Artifacts (equipments), come into play unattached to anything and stay in play and on the battlefield if a permanent they're attached to goes away (the creature that "had" it, "drops" it). Also, most Artifacts are colorless.

ARTIFACTS -

The Artifact Card Type is usually used as filler because of it's nature of being colorless, although there are colored artifacts. They all do really different things, most of them are far out of the ordinary and/or grant extraordinary abilities! Special artifacts, called Equipments, can be attached to creatures (and sometimes other permanents) to make them stronger of grant abilities. Again, they stay in play if the creature they are attached to leaves play, and they can be used again and again, even taken from one creature and attached to another. Attaching can only be done any time you could play a Sorcery, unless the card mentions otherwise. Here I will list some common uses Artifacts provide:

Mana Source Artifacts do just as this suggests, they can, either with or without further cost, be tapped for mana as if they were a land. As are most artifacts, they come with the activated ability to do this, sometimes even having more than one activated ability!

Triggered Artifacts have a special ability that automatically kicks off whenever the situation occurs that triggers it (even though most will say that you "may" have the ability happen - meaning you don't have to have it happen if you don't want it to). Good examples of this are the many artifacts that give you life whenever a spell of a specific color is played (even if your opponent played that color spell).

Sacrificial Artifacts are artifacts that usually have one main purpose - they sit there in play on the battlefield until you need their abilities, and when you do, you usually have to tap it, sacrifice it, sending it to the graveyard (there is usually even a mana cost to do this as well) all in order to get the ability stated on the card. This is a nice ability because it sits in plain view of your adversaries, telling them that you can do this any time you deem necessary (it's an activated ability so it works like an instant), making them think twice about what cards they might play or actions they might perform, should you use it against them!

Most Equipment Artifacts are for use on your creatures, and most grant more than one ability to the creature you attach it to. Usually, it grants a buff to their power/toughness rating and a special ability like Deathtouch or Shroud (which means the creature it is attached to can't be targeted by any spells or abilities while it is attached to that creature (your spells or abilities either - though remember that "blanket" effects aren't targeting this creature so they will effect it)), or whatever the card says it grants, some even give activated abilities to the creature!

I hope the above tips have helped you figure out what artifacts you may want to use. Now for some Enchantments:

Blanket Effect Enchantments will cover everything on the battlefield they pertain to (unless a card has protection from that color enchantment). Quite a few will buff all of your creatures (or all of a specific type of creature you control) constantly, or give them all an activated ability constantly, or even make specific spells cheaper than their original mana cost - constantly! Some will even allow or make your lands (or all lands on the battlefield, including yours and your enemies') tap for more mana, sometimes of different colors, or even colors of your choice. They can even have effects that dig very deep into the game, like making all non-land cards the color you choose (meaning, if you choose Red, then even spells that are White are also Red) or a specific card type (like making all your creature cards Enchantments as well as creatures), in addition to whatever color or type they may be! These types of enchantments can be very dramatic, even resetting the game each turn (life counters stay the same but everything else is reshuffled and all players redraw their hands, etc., depending on what the card says)!

Lock Down Auras are good for stunting or even disabling your opponents' creatures! Most, when they are brought in and attached to your opponents' creatures, will say that the enchanted creature is no longer allowed to attack or block! Sometimes, the creature isn't even allowed to use it's activated abilities. Others are used on the creatures that are tapped, making it so the creature can never be untapped!

Protection Auras can protect their wearer from different things depending on what the card says - a color, any enchantments, even from your opponents spells and abilities (almost like Shroud but it doesn't stop you from using your spells and abilities on your protected creature) - what's more is that some of these auras are made to attach to a land, or an artifact - even some attach to you, the player!

I bet you have a bunch of great ideas on what you want to use in your deck now! I hope you've also been looking at your cards' abilities and effects to see how different cards work well to power up others. I suggest you also take into account that things you know that your cards can do are also things you need to watch out for from your opponents! This is where you will want your Instants, Sorceries, and activated abilities to focus on, mostly, so that you can defend yourself as well as attack.

Once you have a great batch of cards that have some good flow with each other and are matched up to as few colors to make them work as possible, it's time to move on to the next section where I will explain how to best sort and set your cards along with how to figure out how many of each color land you'll need. You're almost to the point of having a terrific, powerful deck!