MTGX Season 1

The basics

The first thing to do before begging is to crack (open) your packs!

A sealed deck is composed of a minimum of 40 cards (try to aim for that number). Generally speaking, your deck should have:

• 17-18 Lands
• 12-18 Creatures
• 6-10 Non-Creatures Spells (Sorcery, Instant, Artifact, Enchantment, etc...)

This is only a guideline and depending on your strategy, it can vary.

In the 6 packs from which you'll be building your deck, you certainly won't have enough Lands to meet the 17-18 Lands suggestion. This is absolutely normal!

At the office, we have what's called a Land Station, which is simply a box full of basic Land cards of all types. You can pick any number of cards from it to add to your deck. Please remember to put them back in the Land Station once you're done using them. Just ask in the MTGX conversation where the Land Station is if you don't find it.

Also, keep in mind those basic Lands are the only cards that are allowed to be added to your deck from outside your inital 90 cards.

How to choose the color(s) you'll play

Start by splitting your cards by their color cost (top right corner of the card). You can then choose any color or combination of colors to play, but it's good to base your decision on the following criteria:

• A color that has some powerful cards that you think could help you win the game
• A color that has enough "removal" cards that will help you control or destroy your opponent's creature
• A color with a good creatures "mana-curve", meaning that your creatures costs will vary from cheap to more expensive (more on that bellow)

Once you're done evaluation your cards, it's time to pick the cards you'll include in your deck! Remember that you can have a deck composed of a single color, or a combinaison of 2 or more, but it might be pretty hard to build a good deck with more than 2 colors.

Mana Curve

In Magic the Gathering, it's generally a good idea to be able to play a creature every single turn. This is why it's good to have a good distribution in your creatures' costs to avoid being stuck with only expensive ones.

You can take some inspiration of the following distribution:

Off you go!

Now that you've chosen your cards, all that's remaining to do is to pick up your lands and test your deck against other players!

Remember that you can update your deck by replacing cards at anytime in between games.

Tips and Tricks

• Your deck can be composed of more than 40 cards, but you should try to aim for that number. Every additional card above the minimum 40 cards limit reduces the chance you'll pick your strongest ones!
• It's important to have a good mix of cheap and expensive cards, which will allow you to be more flexible. If you only have cheap and weaker cards, then it only takes your opponent one strong creature to prevent you from doing anything useful with them. On the other hand, if you only have expensive creatures, then your opponent might be able to play a lot creatures and spells before you could even put one creature on the field.
• If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask the other players for their opinion!