MTG Salvation

I am curious of how you guys build your decks. I find that I am not a good planner when buying cards/designing my EDH decks. Often, on a whim, if I think the card will be awesome in my deck, I will buy it straight and not sleeping on the decision for a night. Then, as more sets come out, the same thing happens. Do you do the same or do you plan to a meticulous detail (sleep on it etc) so that you have no buying regrets and you save money?

The latter: I design my decks in Excel, sleep on them for a while, and if I still have interest, I'll assemble the deck.

I play immediately, with what I have available, to see if I even enjoy the theory of the deck. It typically crashes and burns epically, but if I still have fun while crashing I'll then start buying up better cards and staples for it.

I buy things that I think will be awesome in some deck, even if I haven't made it yet. Once, I bought a copy of The Abyss, and didn't play with it for 2.5 years (I thought it would be awesome in a future robots (ok, artifact creatures) deck; I always tell people "No souls, no problem!").

I don't really have buyer's remorse for any of it; magic is such a bizarre marketplace that if you're buying anything that's not in standard, it will probably rise in monetary value. I sometimes regret not buying cards before the price spikes.

As someone who is heavily invested in the format I would say that buying now is always better than not. Commander was, and is, my favorite format so I knew that buying and trading for cards was a good investment for me. I felt crazy buying dual lands in 2009-10 but I'm so glad I did these days. It depends on what you want out of your collection. Cool old cards for an extremely popular eternal format are rarely a bad investment in the MTG world.

Quote from Fenrir Rex »

I play immediately, with what I have available, to see if I even enjoy the theory of the deck. It typically crashes and burns epically, but if I still have fun while crashing I'll then start buying up better cards and staples for it.

I do this as well. The specific things tend towards niche because I already have most of the staple stuff, but I'll typically build a deck and play without buying anything new.

I do pick up a fair amount of stuff without an immediate home as well. I usually grab foil copies of anything that looks EDH playable out of new sets a few weeks after their release and I grab EDH/legacy staples if I see good prices on them, even if I have no plans to use them at the time. I can build pretty much anything I want to without needing to buy any new cards as a result.

I tend to build an unrefined deck with what i have available (decent sized collection) and maybe $20 worth of cards to round out the deck. At this point i'll play the decks few times as a proof of concept. If the deck is enjoyable and fits well in the metagame then i'll start putting more investment into it.

Staples (especially reserved list) i'll just pick up even if i am unsure the deck is a keeper. One can never have too many Volrath's Strongholds kicking around. But i am not going to shell out $20 for a Death Baron unless i know the deck he will go in is a long term deck.

I did this recently with my Adriana, Captain of the Guard Deck Link. Basically i put together the best RW creatures i had on hand and built a rough version of the deck. Picked up about $20 worth of key cards for the deck like Waves of Aggression and took it for a spin. Ended up winning the first game but most importantly it was an interesting and interactive deck. So now i'll bolster the mana base and replace some of the junky creatures like Goblin Glory Chaser with real creatures like Serra Ascendant.

I use a website like salvation or tappedout to construct decklists. Being that I work in front of a computer 40 hours a week, I frequently take breaks after compiling a decklist and revisit it some time later to re-tune or reconsider card selection.

Most often a decklist won't pass my expectations from that stage to the point where I actually start to invest in the cards IRL. If a deck seems interesting enough for me to pursue it then I purposefully procrastinate card collecting and give it another revisit or two.

I have a hard time cutting down on cards, with most decklists ending up being 105(ish), so if it ends up being built IRL I tend to pursue all 105 cards, and just physically play out the deck to see what the remaining cuts are. This also tends to help if there is a financial issue, so I can collect enough cards to make it playable, and then test the deck without a few of the more expensive cards with alternative fillers. The trouble with that last little financial trick although is that I do have quite a few "incomplete" decks that are all missing two or three fairly high-value cards. It's my fault really since I tend to set incomplete projects aside once they are functional and pick up a new idea.

I'm a "Play now, pay later" person (mostly because of budget issues) with one exception: the mana base. It's just a personal thing, but I want to know that the deck will or will not be fun, and for me, it's hard to tell if I feel like I don't have a solid mana base. The nice thing is, if that deck doesn't work out, I can almost always use the lands I purchased in another, future deck. I've got a full-foil Rakdos land base that has gone through like three different decks because of this.

I'm actually currently doing this with my Alesha deck. I took it for a spin over the weekend and really enjoyed it, so I will start looking at what can make it even more fun.

Good luck!

Quote from Sinis »

I buy things that I think will be awesome in some deck, even if I haven't made it yet. Once, I bought a copy of The Abyss, and didn't play with it for 2.5 years (I thought it would be awesome in a future robots (ok, artifact creatures) deck; I always tell people "No souls, no problem!").

I don't really have buyer's remorse for any of it; magic is such a bizarre marketplace that if you're buying anything that's not in standard, it will probably rise in monetary value. I sometimes regret not buying cards before the price spikes.

Basically, this. I'll pick up any card that looks remotely interesting, and despite having a really difficult time culling my collection from time to time, I don't regret many purchases. There's far more cards I regret trading or not picking up enough copies of than cards I regret getting. I payed English price for my Italian [c]Chains of Mephistopheles[/] back when the English copy was only $70, regretted it at first, but I don't regret it now.

I regret not picking up more Crucible of Worlds back when it was ~$10. I regret not getting more copies of Gaea's Cradle back when Tolarian Academy was the expensive one. I regret trading off as many Zendikar fetches as I did, should have just kept them all. I regret not being around for Khans block and not being able to pick up a few copies of Ugin.

expensive cards that will likely retain value can be safely bought immediately

I usually build my decks around either a theme or a certain card or mechanic I want to run.

Basically I just dig through all my cards pulling out anything interesting that seems to fit, sort it all out, and slap the deck together. Then I dig through the rare boxes at the LGS pulling out anything that seems better or more interesting than what I have. This costs anywhere from two to fifty dollars per deck usually. Then I tweak it starting with the manabase, sort it by CMC and color requirements, adjust accordingly, and do a little unsleeved playtesting. If something sucks I go back to the stack of cards and swap things and make cuts until it starts winning games and then sleeve it. If the idea turns out to just be garbage I scrap the deck.

Very rarely do I have to spend much money on a new deck. I almost never sell or trade cards away, and I always buy neat singles I come across, especially if they're cheap. That gives me a massive card pool to draw from any time I want to brew.

I find that when I meticulously build a deck and have the full 100 planned and buy it that I get the least value out of it. I get bored of it, and it doesn't evolve or change and I scrap it rather quickly.

I used to do the former, but I realized it was a terrible waste of money and started making actual lists to buy the cards I need.

In college I would sometimes buy over 100 cards for a deck I already had half built. Back then it was considerably cheaper, of course, but it was still a waste.

I tend to plan a deck then make do with what I have towards it before splashing out on it. I like to think that it lets me test the general idea before spending what little cash I have for MTG on something I am unlikely to play more than a couple of times.

Apparently I have a complete disregard about logic when it comes to buying cards for decks. Or cards in general. I make and break decks with what I have and if I like the original idea, I buy cards and if I lose interest halfway I buy other cards for another idea. After much effort I've managed to keep only 4 decks and I can't decide which one to finish,or finish them all at the same time.Oh well