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Hi all,

So, I'm pretty new to this whole Magic thing, and (I'm sure like many of you) I'm as drawn to the deck building side of things as I am to the actual games. For this reason, I don't just want to rely on pre-set deck combinations, but I do want to get better at building my own decks. And who better to ask than the experts?

This is probably the most successful deck I've built so far, the others have relied too much on expensive cards without a way to negate early threats, so with this one I've gone the opposite. It's meant to be a quick strike deck with a back-up plan or two in event of a cold war. It seems to go pretty good against the pre-set decks accessible in Magic.exe.

30 x Mountain

2 x Raging Goblin
4 x Goblin Guide (my current favourite one-drop)
4 x Goblin Chieftain
2 x Goblin Warchief
2 x Fire Elemental
2 x Volcanic Dragon
4 x Dragonmaster Outcast
2 x Empty the Warrens
2 x Dragon Fodder

1 x Hell's Thunder
1 x Elemental Appeal

4 x Gamble

4 x Goblin Grenade
4 x Fists of the Anvil

4 x Fireball
1 x Flame Rift
1 x Lava Axe
2 x Incinerate
4 x Shock
1 x Flame Javelin

1 x Demolish

1 x Mox Ruby
1 x Black Lotus
4 x Coat of Arms (my current favourite card from my limited experience)

One glaring thing I notice about it compared to the other decks I've read about is mine contains a lot more cards - all the others I've bothered to count contain exactly 60 cards. Is sticking to the minimum a hard-and-fast rule for deck building?

What are your thoughts? What would you add/subtract? Thanks in advance for any pointers.

It depend on what kind of deck you are facing in what playmode, because with a 88 deck I suppose it's a degenerate one and from my not-so-skilled pov it doesn't fare much either against fast specced AI deck (any 0- type deck or even basic 60 ones) or with the AI handling it itself (lot of non played cards because it probably much choose between creature and nuke style).

So far as I played against it, it lost against 0-kithkin ww, big stax, akroma rebirth, vampire, cheap and easy merfolk...maybe try to reduce the number of cards to essentials one first

My suggestion would be to bring it down to 60 cards. Try to cut cards that have a low cost-power ratio, like Fire Elemental. There are cards that are a lot more powerful at 5 mana (Siege-Gang Commander, for example).
Also, if you like big creature with haste, cut the Volcanic Dragons. They're too expensive to be a 4/4 with no other abilities. replace them with more Elemental Appeal, Ball Lightning or Hell's Thunder. Remember, your deck is about dealing as much damage to the opponent as quickly as possible so the fact that these guys die at the end of your turn is justified by the sheer amount of damage they provide.
Cut the Raging Goblin s, Goblin Guide is strictly better and therefore makes the little goblins obsolete.
As for the burn, use cards that cost less but deal more damage: Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning deal 3 damage for 1 mana. Fireball doesn't fit the scheme of your deck because you want games to be over fast, so your goal is to eliminate your opponent before he has time to set up his game. You're not gonna wait to have 10 mana to shoot a giant ball at your opponent's head, you want it to be over with 4 lands.
This also leads me to recommend cutting lands: you want your deck to have as many lands as it needs, considering the cost of your spells. Since your deck is one color and the spells are fairly cheap, running 18-20 lands will be more than enough, especially if you have alternative mana-producing artifacts like Black Lotus and Mox Ruby.

I'll upload one of my decks that fits the type you're trying to build so you can see what I mean. It doesn't have Mox Ruby or Black Lotus because it was built for a specific format, but you can add them to it if you like.
My deck has 6 lands we call "fetchlands" in order to thin out the deck. By sacrificing them, we pull out Mountains from the library, reducing the amount of lands left in there and thus upping your chances of drawing spells rather than land. Try it out and feel free to post your questions here. I'm sure there's others who have good ideas to help you out.

randomguy wrote:
One glaring thing I notice about it compared to the other decks I've read about is mine contains a lot more cards - all the others I've bothered to count contain exactly 60 cards. Is sticking to the minimum a hard-and-fast rule for deck building?

The reason you keep a deck to it's minimum is to maximize your chances of drawing out your best cards.

Check out the articles here: wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/academy/home

There are some good ones for beginners.

A few things:
-As others said, 60 cards is normally best for a competitive deck. Yours has 90. Also, at 32/90 land (counting mox/lotus as land) it is a bit light on land. Normally I use 23/60 land in a deck, and I'll tweak that by 1 or 2 if the cards have unusually high or low mana costs.
-To get down to 60 cards, I would remove the following:
2x Fire Elemental (there are better cards at 5 mana, such as Demigod of Revenge)
2x Volcanic Dragon (there are better cards at 6 mana, such as Rorix, Bladewing)
4x Gamble (This is a good card in some decks, but I don't think this is one of them. Because you discard a card, this card produces card disadvantage, and in this style of deck particularly, that is a bad thing)
1x Flame Rift (this just sucks)
1x Lava Axe (this sucks too)
9x Mountain (gets you down to 21 mountain + mox/lotus for 23 total)
1x Demolish (Pillage is cheaper)
2x Empty the Warrens (in this deck, it's unlikely you will ever get more than 2 or 4 goblins at a cast with this, so Dragon Fodder is usually better as it's cheaper)
1x Hell's Thunder (a good card, but doesn't really fit the theme of this deck)
1x Elemental Appeal (also good but doesn't fit the theme)
4x Dragonmaster Outcast (this is a good card but in 90%+ of the games you play with this style of deck, the game will be over before you see 6 lands)
2x Coat of Arms (This is a useful card, but it costs a lot of mana, and if you have one in play it's probably enough. Keeping two means you'll still have one fairly often by the time you can cast it)

Okay, that cuts 30 cards if I've counted right, and gets you down to 60. Then I have a few more suggestions:

-4x Lightning Bolt should replace 4x Shock (no discussion required I hope!)
-4x Goblin Piledriver should replace something, probably some of the Goblin Grenade or Fist of the Anvil, or Raging Goblin. The piledriver is really overpowered, and is just plain awesome, and should be 4 of in every goblin deck
-1x Wheel of Fortune is one of the best red cards in existence, particularly in this style of deck. It should probably replace something similar to what the piledrivers replaced.

Other cards to consider, that will depend more on personal style:
-Goblin Lackey (pretty darned sweet turn 1 drop, particularly with the following two cards)
-Goblin Ringleader (goblin card advantage, which is hard to come by. Costing 4 mana may be a problem, but it is still very playable here, since there won't be much else that costs that much)
-Siege-Gang Commander (A very nice card, particularly when played by Goblin Lackey, but the 5 mana cost is sometimes a problem. Probably a good card to include but maybe not the full 4 copies)
-Pillage (if you still want a Demolish effect, but cheaper)
-Strip Mine (personally, I play this card in 99.99% of my decks, swap for a mountain)

If you want to include some bigger nongoblin creatures, Demigod of Revenge, Rorix, Bladewing, or Platinum Angel would be good choices, but other than the Demigod, I would not include a full 4 of.

Thanks all, some good tips there. Some of it is conflicting, but I guess that's part of what makes Magic so compelling - there's no one clear best strategy even when making a certain type of deck.

I've taken the scissors to my deck, cut it down to 60 cards. I've also incorporated many of your suggestions. Here's the deck as it currently stands:

14 x Mountain
4 x Bloodstained Mire
1 x Strip Mine

2 x Goblin Chieftain
4 x Goblin Guide
4 x Goblin Piledriver
4 x Dragon Fodder

2 x Hell's Thunder
2 x Ball Lightning
1 x Elemental Appeal

4 x Chain Lightning
4 x Lightning Bolt
4 x Goblin Grenade

4 x Fists of the Anvil
1 x Pillage
1 x Wheel of Fortune

2 x Coat of Arms
1 x Black Lotus
1 x Mox Ruby

First thoughts from initial plays are:
*This deck does indeed bring the pain much faster
*In spite of how it looks it may have too much land (games could have been anomalies)
*Without Gamble (or some way of drawing specific cards), Pillage, Wheel of Fortune and even the two Coat of Arms become less useful

Any thoughts?

Thanks too for the link to the tutorials, I've added them to my reading list.

First thoughts from initial plays are:
*This deck does indeed bring the pain much faster

It definitely should With 60 cards instead of 90, you are more likely to draw your best ones, since in essence you cut your 30 worst cards.

*In spite of how it looks it may have too much land (games could have been anomalies)

Definitely anomalies. You probably should have another land or two in there.

*Without Gamble (or some way of drawing specific cards), Pillage, Wheel of Fortune and even the two Coat of Arms become less useful

Welcome to red :p There isn't much for tutors in red, (the worst colour for tutoring, in fact) which is part of that colour's theme. Gamble is your best option unless you add another colour. I don't think you can really afford to use Gamble here, because it costs you two cards to tutor for something with it. (the gamble plus whatever you discard) You'll need every card you can get to deal damage to the opponent in this style of deck.

In regard to the Fireball, I totally agree with what thedrigo said; I didn't even notice they were in the deck when I looked at it :p

Tattermunge Maniac could be a good card here, too. It's quick, cheap, and it's a goblin. It does have the drawback of being forced to attack, but most of the time that's exactly what you want to do with it anyway

Ashenmoor Gouger is another cheap creature to consider. It can't block, but most of the time he will be attacking anyway His creature types are also good with Coat of Arms, as your Goblin Piledriver is also a Warrior, and you have several Elementals as well.

Figure of Destiny is a good one mana creature, too; because he can get bigger, he's still useful even if you get him later in the game. He doesn't have any useful creature types for this deck, though. (I don't think that the part where as a 4/4 he is a warrior is coded)

Murderous Redcap might be useful, too. He is a bit pricy at 4 mana, though, but he is a goblin, and deals some damage when you cast him as well. He also makes a good sacrifice to Goblin Grenade :p If you use him, I'd probably recommend less than 4 copies because of his casting cost.

Price of Progress can be extremely deadly, and is worth considering, but it depends on what kinds of decks are in your playlist. If your decks have a lot of nonbasic lands, put a couple in.

Umezawa's Jitte is an amazing card, though it might not look it at first glance. Its versatility is why it's so good, plus because it is an artifact, you can use it in any colour creature deck.

Hammerheim isn't a great card, but it's better than a Mountain :p I usually put one of those in my monored decks, unless there's a good reason not to, such as Price of Progress.

If you need suggestions for cards to take out, Fists of the Anvil is probably your weakest card here.

OK, for now at least I have added two of Hammerheim and replaced my Fists of the Anvil with two of Ashenmoor Gouger and two of Umezawa's Jitte (62 cards right now, that's probably OK, right?)

Edit: Damn, Umezawa's Jitte is locked, and I doubt I'm good enough to unlock it. Replaced it with two Figure of Destiny s.

Since you have Bloodstained Mire I would put in 4 Badlands instead 4 Mountain so you could add Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, etc. If you add Dragonskull Summit you can even add cards that have BB in there casting cost like Patriarch's Bidding. I'd cut Elemental Appeal since you'll never be able to kick it so I would go with another Ball Lightning insted. Since you only have 10 goblins plus 4 Dragon Fodder I'd cut Goblin Grenade and Coat of Arms since you don't have enough goblins to sacrifice and actually benefit from the Coat of Arms. You'll doing what we all did when we started, you want to fit all the cards and strategies you like into one deck but you can't. The simpler your deck is the better it will work. So you should choose if you want a goblin deck, a BR goblin deck or maybe a burn deck. I'll upload some decks so you can see what I'm talking about.

This is my goblin bidding deck which is pretty simple. If you can overrun your opponent and if you can't, sacrifice all your goblins, play bidding, return them and watch them go.

2 Patriarch's Bidding
4 Goblin Chieftain
4 Goblin Lackey
2 Goblin Matron
2 Goblin King
4 Goblin Piledriver
2 Goblin Ringleader
3 Goblin Sharpshooter
4 Goblin Warchief
4 Mogg Fanatic
3 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Skirk Prospector
4 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Gempalm Incinerator
1 Dragonskull Summit
4 Mountain
4 Swamp
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus

This is a deck I thoroughly enjoyed, it's Shantak's Tramp deck from the may tournament. The point is to get Oath of Druids to put creatures into play on your side, you can also use Forbidden Orchard for that. It's simple but really direct "bring the pain" style.

4 Ball Lightning
4 Groundbreaker
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Primal Forcemage
4 Spark Elemental
4 Berserk
4 Blood Lust
4 Giant Growth
4 Oath of Druids
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
2 Forbidden Orchard
4 Stomping Ground
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Forest
2 Mountain
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Living Wish
1 Burning Wish

I think Brandon already gave you a burn deck so I'll post this month's tournament deck I have. It's simple and stupid, just bring out as many creatures as you can and attack. Unlike the goblins it has no hidden tricks up it's sleeves, it's what's known as aggro deck.

4 Wilt-Leaf Liege
4 Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers
4 Watchwolf
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Kitchen Finks
2 Gaddock Teeg
4 Savannah
4 Windswept Heath
7 Forest
6 Plains
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Baneslayer Angel
4 Path to Exile
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Mox Diamond

In the end, the best way to learn deck building is to apply for the next months tournament. You can get all decks that participated on the forum and get some ideas. It took me two tournaments being completely decimated to learn something, than I combined an idea that I get from Disco's zoo deck with Imperial Recruiter and Kor Skyfisher with my idea for a deck with Dragonmaster Outcast and the like and I went to the final. It takes a little knowledge and a lot of experimenting to get a deck right, but the best advice I can give to you is to keep it simple. Decide what kind of a deck you want (combo, aggro, control), what's the win condition you have (creatures, spells, milling, etc.), see what other players did with the cards you want to use and then add your touch to it and very soon you'll have a deck that you can submit to compete in the tournament.

randomguy wrote:OK, for now at least I have added two of Hammerheim and replaced my Fists of the Anvil with two of Ashenmoor Gouger and two of Umezawa's Jitte (62 cards right now, that's probably OK, right?)

Edit: Damn, Umezawa's Jitte is locked, and I doubt I'm good enough to unlock it. Replaced it with two Figure of Destiny s.

I'd only ever use one Hammerheim, since it's legendary, and it's not that great, anyway.

Sorry, I forgot the Jitte was locked Cards like Sword of Fire and Ice or Loxodon Warhammer are pretty good, too, plus they aren't legendary.

*ninja hint* the last tournament update provided by jatill unlock all the challenge card, though next update they will be back to locked.

Great, thanks for those decks. I've added those and downloaded several hundred more (the largest few of the compilations in 'Share your Decks...'). Hopefully they'll give me some ideas, even with the AI playing them. The Oath of Druids deck is particularly thought-provoking to play. I like the idea of signing up for a tournament, but I'm worried I'm not good enough yet.

(BTW, I cut the 4x Goblin Grenade, the 2x Coat of Arms and the 1x Elemental Appeal, and added 1 more Ball Lightning, 2 more Figure of Destiny and 4x Hellspark Elemental. It may not be the most powerful deck in the world, but it sure is fun to play.)

I'd probably cut the 4x Fists of the Anvil and Pillage and add maybe 2x Volcanic Fallout for swarm control and 3x Fireblast as finishers.

Volcanic Fallout won't hurt you as much as it will cripple opponents with large amounts of small creature because most of your creatures will die at the end of the turn anyway. Also, saccing 2 mountains to kill an opponent at the end of the game to avoid giving him an extra turn totally warrant the inclusion of Fireblast; my opinion, at least.

Fireblast is definitely a good one; it's an old favourite. I'm not so sure Volcanic Fallout fits in this deck, just because it will usually kill your goblins. If you had fewer creatures, or bigger ones, it would work better.

Maybe Chain Reaction could work since Pyroclasm would kill goblins, so Chain Reaction kills all the other creatures as well.