Knowledge Pool Which Deck Type is For You? WRITTEN BY James Rosenblum

Hello, Pucatraders! This article is a primer on the four main types of decks: aggro, combo, midrange, and control. But it's also about what kind of people like to play each of these archetypes. This article is meant for all players, not just beginners. I hope that even pretty advanced players may be able to learn something from this article. I know that I learned something by writing it.

Each kind of deck has a different plan of attack, and different strengths and proclivities of the player will translate into success. I take the view that every deck has some aspects of play that can be "hard." Some decks are harder than others to pilot, but let’s not dismiss any deck as being purely easy.

Let’s look at different deck types:

Aggro

There are many flavors of aggressive decks, from suicide or sligh aggro decks to white weenie, to green stompy. Aggro decks favor a certain type of play: sharp play.

Aggro decks try to end the game quickly. Thus, each play of the game, from which land to play first, to which creature to play first, to how far to extend your board, is incredibly important. That is not a bad thing. Certain types of people like to play sharply and aggressively. Bobby Fischer, the great American chess champion of the 20th century, preferred the sharp, precise, and aggressive king’s pawn opening for white. Each move counts.

Pace of play is an advantage for aggro decks. You can afford to take longer on each decision during the game, because you won’t run the risk of going to time as often as will a control deck. You can also force the issue and play at a rapid pace, putting more pressure on your opponent and giving him or her less time to think. It is important not to rush too much and make the wrong play, though. But when you know what your play is, go ahead and play it with authority.

Pilots of aggro decks should be aware of what the opponent could be holding. It would be great if Wizards printed a two-drop "hatebear" that came with Telepathy attached, so we could see the opponent’s answers. Does the opponent have Supreme Verdict? Then you might not want to overextend your board. Do they not have it? Go ahead and play out your creatures! Unfortunately, such a hatebear has not yet been printed (if it is, let’s nickname it after me), so we will have to imagine ourselves what our opponent could have and make the best play based on the possible information.

Too much to ask for?

Aggressive decks usually have a low curve and few mana sources in the deck. In addition, early pressure is usually really important. This makes mulligan decisions hard on occasion. Do you really need to rip a land off the top of your deck? Do you have enough early pressure to apply? These are considerations for a mulligan. In a non-synergy based aggressive deck (more on this topic to follow), mulliganing to pressure is usually okay. A five-card hand with a plains and Soldier of the Pantheon followed by a two-drop will usually be okay, and better than a poor seven card hand. Likewise, a four-card hand of Mountain, Mountain, Goblin Guide, Goblin Guide will stand a strong chance against slower decks (although revealing lands for the opponent will be a risk you’ll have to take).

A good four-card aggro hand

Some aggro decks are synergy-based. Affinity in Modern or Legacy is one example. You need a critical mass of artifacts in that deck to make your Ornithopters into threats. In that deck, there are certain cards that are more important than others, such as Cranial Plating, but to a large extent, because it is a synergy-based deck, you just need to have a lot of artifacts. Synergy-based decks thus tend to mulligan very poorly. It is a large disadvantage to start with five cards rather than seven, because you run out of gas. Cards like Thoughtcast, although not my favorite for other reasons, do improve mulliganing and attrition matchups for these kinds of decks.

In terms of matchups, Aggro can beat any kind of deck, but sometimes the format is right for it and sometimes it is not. Take a Standard environment: Wizards tries to make sure that some kind of aggressive deck is always viable. Hence, you will see mono-red; mono-green aggro; mono-black aggro; mono-white aggro; and sometimes even mono-blue aggro as viable choices. But compare that to Vintage. Until recently, aggro was not really a viable choice in that format, as a turn 1 or turn 2 kill was too much for aggro to race. With the printing of disruptive creatures like Judge's Familiar, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Scavenging Ooze, and card advantage creatures like Dark Confidant, aggro now has more tools to take on fast combo decks in Vintage, and control decks as well. The printing of Cavern of Souls helped as well.

Summary: If you like quick matches, and precise play, you might like aggro decks.

Combo

Combo decks. I love them too. My first forays into older formats were usually combo decks, because they are, believe it or not, usually cheaper entry points. There may be one or more expensive cards to acquire, like Lion's Eye Diamond for Ad Nauseam Tendrils in Legacy, but it will not compare in cost to acquiring five to seven dual lands, a set of Force of Wills, and Stifles or what have you. If you acquire the pieces early enough for a combo deck, you can find some great deals. The entire deck of Izzet Storm in Modern was worth probably less than fifty dollars at some point, because Past in Flames and Pyromancer Ascension were incredibly cheap and the rest of the cards were common or uncommon.

Combo decks demand a similar type of sharp play, but often are more taxing on the mind over a long tournament. Typically, combo decks will have a good deal of search in the decks to find the key pieces. Much of the game will be spent for you casting cards like Ponder, Preordain, Serum Visions, Brainstorm, Peer Through Depths, Ancient Stirrings, Chromatic Star, or Expedition Map. If you like playing spells like these, then combo decks are definitely for you. I tend not to like those spells so much as I do casting the combos. That’s why combo will always remain below the top of the list for me as far as kinds of decks that I like. That’s not to say that certain combo decks have no appeal.

Playing combo, you'd better get familiar with these cards.

A combo deck typically will have two or three important pieces in the deck. Each card will have a maximum of four copies, unless there is a redundant effect printed. Take, for example, Eggs, or Second Sunrise, as piloted by Stanislav Cifka, to a Pro Tour Win a couple of years ago. Wizards printed both Second Sunrise and Faith's Reward as cards that could return cards from the graveyard that had been put there this turn. It turned out that the redundant combo pieces were too much for the format to handle, and Second Sunrise got banned in Modern. Similarly, in the first major Modern tournament ever, Splinter Twin combo won. With redundant combo pieces on the blue side (Deceiver Exarch and Pestermite) and on the red side (Splinter Twin and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker), the deck was too powerful (as well as way too boring to pilot). Soon afterwards, Ponder and Preordain were banned in Modern, bringing the deck down in power level a bit.

I find that I get bored after a while with most combo decks, because they have a predictable finish. The end for pure Splinter Twin combo is simply to make a million Pestermites and attack the opponent.[i] Nowadays, Splinter Twin combo is more interesting to play because most builds have alternative strategies and can simply attack the opponent for 20. Similarly, Melira Pod and Kiki-Pod in Modern also have multiple lines of attack. They are still "combo" decks, but add midrange components.

[[i] Interestingly, I find that an interesting skill in the combo matchup is conveying the combo to your opponent in a way that will get the opponent to concede, rather than having to play out the full combo.]

Combo decks tend to do well against pure aggro decks because of the lack of disruption, by which I mean cards like Counterspell, Force of Will, Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm, Thoughtseize, Duress, Inquisition of Kozilek, and sometimes even graveyard hate like Deathrite Shaman, Jund Charm, Tormod's Crypt, Grafdigger's Cage, Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void, and Ravenous Trap. Taxing effects like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Thorn of Amethyst or Trinisphere are also usually highly annoying for combo decks. Hatebears like Ethersworn Canonist, Gaddock Teeg, Meddling Mage can be annoying too. All of those cards are your worst enemies as a combo player. The only ones that you can play with to protect your combo are probably Force of Will, Thoughtseize, Duress, Spell Pierce, and Flusterstorm. All the rest you will hate and will have to defeat. Much of being a successful combo player is designing your deck to have answers or outs to those annoying cards. Thus, if you love deck design (which I do), you will like playing and designing combo decks. If you like sideboarding (which I do NOT), then you will find an additional reason to like combo decks. Very often, a successful plan post-sideboard is what separates good combo players from bad combo players. I would just like to crush whatever the opponent is doing and not have to worry about sideboard hate. Like when I was young, I never played with a sideboard, and if I wanted to beat a well-rounded field, I would simply make my deck well-rounded. Nowadays, I can have a narrow deck and put my well-roundedness in the sideboard.

Combo enemies. Why do haters have to hate?

Summary: These are the aspects of combo, and the more of them you like, the more likely you are to like combo:

1) playing the combo itself – usually powerful spells (I think most people like this part).

2) Digging for cards; playing cards like Ponder, Preordain, Ancient Stirrings, and Expedition Map.

3) Thinking about complex patterns to win (applies to some combo decks like Ad Nauseam Tendrils, but not to others, like Show and Tell combo, which is simply a two card combo).

4) Doing something consistent or similar every time you win.

5) Deck-construction to maximize both maindeck and sideboard efficacy. To be fair, many combo decks are already constructed, but you will always have to fine-tune the sideboard, so that is still relevant.

6) Dealing with sideboard hate. (I think most people probably dislike this aspect, but it is something to deal with). At least if you are willing to put up with it, you get the other benefits of combo.

Midrange

Midrange decks are somewhere between aggro and control. They can have a quick start, but more likely, they use mana ramp to play slower and more powerful spells typically costing between four and eight mana. Decks that play four-mana or above planeswalkers typically fall into this category, unless those decks are control decks.

The advantage of midrange is that you get to play powerful and sometimes fun spells. It can be fun to cast Stormbreath Dragon, Xenagos, the Reveler, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Thragtusk, Bloodbraid Elf, Huntmaster of the Fells, Clone, Sakashima the Impostor, and other such spells.

Midrange decks are often based around card advantage. Cards like Dark Confidant show up in Modern and Legacy Jund decks because it provides pressure while also providing card advantage, which is rarer in Jund colors than in blue. Midrange decks often squeeze advantage out of every cards, including lands. Manlands like Raging Ravine, Treetop Village, utility lands like Gavony Township, Kessig Wolf Run, and Vault of the Archangel provide extra utility without costing a slot. Creatures like Thragtusk and Bloodbraid Elf provide card advantage when entering the battlefield. A successful midrange deck will simply overwhlem the opponent.

I like overwhelming the opponent, and I really enjoyed playing with Thragtusk when it was legal in Standard. Midrange decks are not always the best choice, but when they are, they can be quite fun.

Mr. and Mrs. Midrange. Bloodbraid Elf looks a little bit like she's from "American Gothic."

Let’s also look at the disadvantages of midrange decks. Often, midrange decks will play mana ramp creatures like Sylvan Caryatid, Elvish Mystic, and Avacyn's Pilgrim. Whether you draw those creatures early in the game and whether they survive, adds some amount of variance to the game. A well timed Pyroclasm or Lightning Bolt from the opponent can leave you with two lands in play and a grip full of four or five drops. Midrange decks also have a good amount of variance in the midrange cards themselves. Whereas Soldier of the Pantheon will not be that much different than Dryad Militant for an aggro deck, Huntmaster of the Fells will be quite different than Chandra, Pyromaster. You can only play four copies of Thragtusk in your deck, and sometimes, nothing else will duplicate the powerful effect that only that card has. However, there is at least some consistency in that all of your cards will be powerful, and most should give some kind of card advantage.

I think is the most difficult thing associated with piloting midrange decks is metagaming. Pilots of all types of decks have to "metagame," by which I mean, predict the likely opponents and put cards in your decks to combat those opponents. But metagaming is most difficult either in midrange or control archetypes. Sometimes, you don’t have to worry; since all of your cards are powerful, it is likely you’ll be able to beat a random deck despite lack of metagaming. However, in environments where midrange is a viable option, a lot of people will opt for midrange, meaning that small changes to your deck to beat "mirror matches," while not losing too many percentage points against other decks, are incredibly important.

I recall a time when I played what was actually a combo deck, but that functioned like a midrange deck, shortly after returning to Magic around 2010. The deck was based on Warp World, and when you had eight mana you would simply cast Warp World and hope to flip over Ob Nixilis, the Fallen and a bunch of lands to kill your opponent on the spot. When I was building the deck, metagaming was incredibly important. Jund was the dominant deck in Standard at the time, and I had to consider that. So I made sure that my deck could compete with Jund by making every card just as card-advantageous as those in Jund. Jund had Broodmate Dragon, so I also had Broodmate Dragon. Jund had Bloodbraid Elf, so I did also. But Warp World cannot play cards like Terminate, Maelstrom Pulse, or Blightning because they are non-permanents. I played cards like Borderland Ranger to combat Blightning by making sure that I could maintain cards in my hand. The deck played with parity until eight mana, at which point Warp World would give me a tremendous advantage because all of the cards I flipped over stayed in play, whereas half of the opponent’s went away; or I just won on the spot with damage. However, the deck was slow because of all the card advantage. Fortunately, that didn’t matter, because aggro decks were not prevalent at the time; Jund and Turbo-Fog were popular. The worst matchup for me was probably the version of Jund that played Putrid Leech, but the versions of Jund had splintered to fight each other and not every version played Putrid Leech. If there had been a lot of aggro in the format, or even a deck with counterspells, then playing a deck based on Warp World would not have been a good choice. As it was, it was a fine choice.

Summary:

If you like doing powerful things but do not like all of the aspects I discussed above regarding combo decks; enjoy metagaming; and are willing to live with some inconsistency with mana ramp, then perhaps midrange is for you.

Control

Thinking about your "outs." Thinking about the future, and what resources you have to deal with certain threats. Playing long, drawn-out games where eventually you will win. These are skills associated with control decks.

I have never done particularly well with control decks, even though I sometimes play them. Part of the reason for me is that they demand concentration over a long period of time. At my last Standard constructed tournament at the local game store, I brought a pretty standard Blue/White Control deck. The first six games I went 5-1. Then next six, I went 1-5. What happened? Not just variance, actually.

Local game stores are often noisy, crowded, cramped places (especially in a city). I cannot deal with those conditions very well, and after a while, I get fatigued in them. Control decks magnify this problem because there are a ton of decision points, and strategic thinking is really important. Similar to combo decks in that regard are control decks, whereas aggro or midrange decks are fine thinking about the present most of the time. With a control deck, you have to consider: do I use my removal now or save it for a bigger creature later? How much life can I afford to lose now? Should I cast Supreme Verdict now or save it for later? What is my game plan for a few turns from now? What are my "outs"?

Games take longer with control decks. You have to manage the clock as well as the strategy. You will have to know when to concede against another deck in order to leave enough time for your strategy to win in the next game.

If you like to feel powerful, feel in control; if you like to control other people and are fanatic about this desire, then a control deck will feel right up your alley. If you find it interesting to have a long, drawn out game, with many decision points, you will like control decks. I like winning quickly rather than going to time every round, so control decks were never my starting point; however, sometimes a control strategy is simply the most powerful strategy, and I’ve tried my best to be well-rounded enough to play control decks competently too.

Control Cards

To summarize:

If you enjoy, or don’t mind, long, drawn-out games; if you enjoy the challenge of trying to contain other strategies and other people, then control decks are for you. You will have to manage the clock, think ahead, and not get easily fatigued.

Conclusion

You may be naturally drawn to one of these four archetypes: aggro, combo, midrange, or control. There is nothing to say that you have to play that kind of deck all the time, though. Keep in mind that in any given metagame, you may have to choose a deck type that is not your first choice in order to succeed. Being versatile enough to play multiple archetypes is a great bonus.

That said, it’s interesting to find out what decks suit you best. For me, aggro and combo are what I tend to build and play most often. I like playing short, sharp games. I like interesting combos and precise deck construction. I like decks that I can goldfish when there I don’t have an opponent. Pro player Stanislav Cifka, who is a grandmaster at chess (and likely therefore much better than me at chess), also tends to prefer these archetyes. It might not be a coincidence that I played chess in high school.

What are your favorite archetypes to play, and why? Thinking about the question will help you out. You’ll know which cards to acquire, you’ll understand your strengths, and you might even get to think about what kind of people your opponents are, based on what decks they like to play.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it. Comments are welcome below!

-James-

James Rosenblum is the editor of the Pucatrade blog. He started playing Magic the Gathering in 1994, around The Dark, and returned to the game after a ten year hiatus around the release of Magic 2010. He is a semi-competitive player who has won tournaments of about 160 people in Standard and Legacy, and top 4ed a Modern PTQ of the same size. He plays Standard, Modern, Legacy, and some Commander. His favorite card is Doomed Traveler.

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