For those folks who home brew decks, how do you go about starting? I struggle at times with what the most important aspect of a deck will be. I feel that some amount of hand disruption is key, but decks without Inquisition of Kozilek or Thoughtseize still do well. These, to me, always seem to be more aggro focussed though which from my understanding usually beats control. So when trying to not net deck, what does one look for in cards and synergies? Obviously, a deck needs a win con, and it needs some amount of resiliency so it doesn't scoop to a single answer from the opponent. What's the best way to weigh the pros and cons of playing with certain synergies and leaving others out? Is it entirely a meta call, or can certain decks just simply handle a wide array of situations because of their base?
Pick an advantage, a reason for building your deck. Often this is hard as many advantages has been desided already.
Now do some playtesting. Is there any deck in modern that is doing what you are doing, just better? If yes, back to the drawing board. If no, but you are stil not winning it is time to initerate, making changes, again and again and again. After about 100 games you will start to notice what the deck needs to be good. Perhaps that something is not in the modern cardpool. Write down your notes, and start with a new idea.
As a rule of thumb your deck should either be winning fast, either with agro or a combo, be having a combo, or be running either counterspells and discard spells. Excepetions excist like ponza. For the reckord I am counting 3 tron lands and Karn as a combo.
OP sounds like you want to build a playable deck of your own, but don't really have an idea how decks (and, by extension, deckbuilding) work.
In broad strokes, the more proactive your deck is, the less you want to play interaction. If you have a fast and robust combination or aggro plan, running a lot of interaction is going to slow you down, make your deck less efficient and give up wins. The bigger and slower your deck is, the more you'll need to stop other, proactive decks from doing their thing first, and consequently, you'll need a lot more discard, counters or removal.
I wouldn't get too wrapped up in the irrational pride of "not netdecking" until you experiment with decks that do work and feel comfortable understanding how and why.
First you pick somewhere along the deck spectrum. It essentially goes burn/fast aggro/sligh/tempo/midrange/control/stax. Traditonal deck advice makes rhat a triangle with combo, but I believe experience has shown that combo is just a binary attachment to existing archetypes. Aggro-combo, burn-combo, control-combo, stax-combo, etc.
Then look at what decks in that archetype typically look like, and what goals you have that they do not fill. Like how some people chose UR delver over UR twin back in the day, despite being a worse version of the same archetype.
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Pauper: UB Wight Phantasm RB Burn UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
First, I want to point out the irony of coming online to ask how to avoid getting a deck from online.
Now that that's out of the way you just need to ask yourself what do you want to play. You're in a magic forum, so surely you're already playing the game and know what you like and dislike. Build accordingly. This forum has a subforum for new and developing decks where you can then take your prototype to and get feedback for. Who knows, maybe someone will know a card you don't or someone has already tried a version of your deck and can give you some pointers.
As for hand disruption, you need to ask yourself "am I better off playing something in my early turns or disrupting their hand?" you've correctly identified that aggro decks don't care too much about disruption: the opponent is dead before it matters that you took away a card. A mid range deck though knows that using early plays to protect later plays will help win the game.
Find a fun mechanic a build around it. What was once old can be new again. Take a look at Vehicles, and the Untap Mechanic. For example Order of Whiteclay and Smuggler's Copter can allow for some funny recursion shenanigans. Throw it in with Patrol Signaler for some extra crew as well as everyone's favorite captain thraben investigator and you have something here. If you want a second color, I suggest Blue to allow for Snapcaster mages, Opt, Serum Visions and general artifact control stuff. Since your goal is now to untap things you can probably use some of the bigger crew vehicles such as Peacewalker Colossus. A fun little interaction is Untethered Express and Gilder Bairn to just make a 6/6 then 8/8 then 10/10 PAIN TRAIN
THe point is that you should look at mechanics and individual cards and see what good they can do. Often times, cards are amazing but do not have a shell or support to let it break through. An example is Shadow of the Grave. The card is waiting to be busted by something.
Read everything Patrick Chapin has wrote about Deckbuilding. It's not the answer you are probably looking for, but it's better than any forum post you will receive.
Honestly, I'd try to forget the label "netdecking" because it's not helpful. You seem to have got wrapped up in this idea without understanding it too well.
Simple advice: play existing decks. Find and research decklists. You won't ever be able to build a good deck until you've played with one and can see the nuances of why certain cards have been chosen over another and what makes it "good".
Finding and using pre-existing decks is the brewer's best friend. It helps you understand why certain decks are top-tier and some aren't, and the kind of structure and balance within a deck that allows it to function.
Anyone can brew a jank-pile, but I'm assuming you want to develop and tweak a deck that has a decent chance in the modern format, maybe for FNM or something. Start by researching the different decks in modern and seeing what makes them tick. Watch videos of those decks being played, find deck-techs where the players explain the card choices and try playing with the decks yourself (with proxies if necessary).
Until you develop that wider understanding of "what makes a deck good in modern" you won't be able to design a decent or competitive deck of your own. It's all part of the bigger picture, there's no advantage or point in shunning "netdecking" like it's a dirty word, you really need to have all your options open and use the tools available to you.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
For those folks who home brew decks, how do you go about starting? I struggle at times with what the most important aspect of a deck will be. I feel that some amount of hand disruption is key, but decks without Inquisition of Kozilek or Thoughtseize still do well. These, to me, always seem to be more aggro focussed though which from my understanding usually beats control. So when trying to not net deck, what does one look for in cards and synergies? Obviously, a deck needs a win con, and it needs some amount of resiliency so it doesn't scoop to a single answer from the opponent. What's the best way to weigh the pros and cons of playing with certain synergies and leaving others out? Is it entirely a meta call, or can certain decks just simply handle a wide array of situations because of their base?
I'm a pretty good deck builder, less good of a player. When I brew, I mainly just look at cards I want to play and form a skeleton from that.
There's four big mistakes that I think people fall into when deck building:
1. Becoming overly reliant on a single gimmick. All too often people see a cool card and what to build with it, but when they build they just add more of that cards ability, tribe, etc... this is an easy, but very bad way to build decks.
2. Running a poor mana supply/mana curve. This one is harder to fix, I have my theories on it, which is generally that the person running the most mana just wants to cast their spells more than the other person does. Needless to say, I think just about everyone shorts themselves here... and I have a lot of data to back up my thoughts on this. I'll just sum it up though and say that until you know better... run 25 mana sources (combination of ramp/mana dorks), and that's probably a passable rule of thumb. If it's a ramp deck, run more.
3. Adding colors unnecessarily. I think the mark of a good deck builder isn't the ability to add a color to gain additional functionality. It's the ability to remove a color and retain that. I think this rule goes double in Modern right now, because if you study the decks that are doing well... with the exception of Death's Shadow, all of the top decks have a relatively pain free manabase. To put numbers to this from the MTGS tier data T1 has an average pain index of 9.86 points of damage per deck (that's including Death's Shadow that makes up over half the pain index on it's own). T2 has 12 points of damage per deck. T3 has just under 14 points of damage per deck. It's almost entirely to adding colors too, T3 has many, many 4 color decks while most of T1 is 1-2 colors.
4. The wrong threats get mixed together. There's two types of creatures in Magic, there's creatures that generate value when cast/etb and there's creatures that generate value from staying on the board. Every creature (or more broadly, threat) is one of these two types and in some cases both. However, they don't both interact equally with your opponents removal. Cards which generate value by being on the board, are more susceptible to removal, because the removal has a bigger impact in eliminating that body. Therefore, each one of these creatures that you add to your deck is worth more than the previous creature, as your opponent will have more must kill threats to deal with. ETB creatures are relatively immune to removal, you don't really care if these die. So you can put any number of ETB creatures in a deck (like Snapcaster Mage and Eternal Witness) and they'll always be good. However, if you only put 1 Tarmogoyf in your deck, it will generally die and be bad. If you put a bunch of Tarmogoyfs together though, they get much better because each subsequent draw is harder to deal with.
Anyways, if you're not a good deck builder, go read Chapins book Next Level Deckbuilding, he'll give you a bunch of tips. Most notable in my opinion is that he devotes something like 2 full chapters to what I just explained in point #4.
Can you clarify point #3 for me? Specifically this "pain index".
Colors aren't free. The traditional wisdom is that 3 colors is the right number in Modern because fetch/shock manabases (or any dual heavy manabase) easily converges on 3 color decks. However, the more colors you add, the more your deck will trip over itself, and in Modern especially, the more life you'll pay to make your mana work. It's a big price to pay. If you don't have a really good payoff for paying a bunch of life each game (like Death's Shadow) I would instead argue that you're better off not adding colors just for the sake of playing 1-2 cards and instead try to not branch out. My personal opinion is that 2 colors is best in the format right now, but there's arguments for any number of colors if you're playing the right cards... I think a lot of people build bad decks and unnecessarily include additional colors though.
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Now do some playtesting. Is there any deck in modern that is doing what you are doing, just better? If yes, back to the drawing board. If no, but you are stil not winning it is time to initerate, making changes, again and again and again. After about 100 games you will start to notice what the deck needs to be good. Perhaps that something is not in the modern cardpool. Write down your notes, and start with a new idea.
As a rule of thumb your deck should either be winning fast, either with agro or a combo, be having a combo, or be running either counterspells and discard spells. Excepetions excist like ponza. For the reckord I am counting 3 tron lands and Karn as a combo.
What I do not understand though is why you are not netdecking. I will let my friend Saffron Olive break down the link between brewing and nettdecking: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/brewer-s-minute-why-brewers-should-net-deck
In broad strokes, the more proactive your deck is, the less you want to play interaction. If you have a fast and robust combination or aggro plan, running a lot of interaction is going to slow you down, make your deck less efficient and give up wins. The bigger and slower your deck is, the more you'll need to stop other, proactive decks from doing their thing first, and consequently, you'll need a lot more discard, counters or removal.
I wouldn't get too wrapped up in the irrational pride of "not netdecking" until you experiment with decks that do work and feel comfortable understanding how and why.
Then look at what decks in that archetype typically look like, and what goals you have that they do not fill. Like how some people chose UR delver over UR twin back in the day, despite being a worse version of the same archetype.
UB Wight Phantasm
RB Burn
UR Faerie Rites of Initiation
Legacy:
R Burn
CG-Post
Now that that's out of the way you just need to ask yourself what do you want to play. You're in a magic forum, so surely you're already playing the game and know what you like and dislike. Build accordingly. This forum has a subforum for new and developing decks where you can then take your prototype to and get feedback for. Who knows, maybe someone will know a card you don't or someone has already tried a version of your deck and can give you some pointers.
As for hand disruption, you need to ask yourself "am I better off playing something in my early turns or disrupting their hand?" you've correctly identified that aggro decks don't care too much about disruption: the opponent is dead before it matters that you took away a card. A mid range deck though knows that using early plays to protect later plays will help win the game.
THe point is that you should look at mechanics and individual cards and see what good they can do. Often times, cards are amazing but do not have a shell or support to let it break through. An example is Shadow of the Grave. The card is waiting to be busted by something.
Modern Tallowisp Spirits - A Modern Tallowisp Deck UW
Eldrazi Ninjas - Summoning Octopus Jutsu YYYYAAAHHHH!
STANDARD
Naban Wizards
Simple advice: play existing decks. Find and research decklists. You won't ever be able to build a good deck until you've played with one and can see the nuances of why certain cards have been chosen over another and what makes it "good".
Finding and using pre-existing decks is the brewer's best friend. It helps you understand why certain decks are top-tier and some aren't, and the kind of structure and balance within a deck that allows it to function.
Anyone can brew a jank-pile, but I'm assuming you want to develop and tweak a deck that has a decent chance in the modern format, maybe for FNM or something. Start by researching the different decks in modern and seeing what makes them tick. Watch videos of those decks being played, find deck-techs where the players explain the card choices and try playing with the decks yourself (with proxies if necessary).
Until you develop that wider understanding of "what makes a deck good in modern" you won't be able to design a decent or competitive deck of your own. It's all part of the bigger picture, there's no advantage or point in shunning "netdecking" like it's a dirty word, you really need to have all your options open and use the tools available to you.
I'm a pretty good deck builder, less good of a player. When I brew, I mainly just look at cards I want to play and form a skeleton from that.
There's four big mistakes that I think people fall into when deck building:
1. Becoming overly reliant on a single gimmick. All too often people see a cool card and what to build with it, but when they build they just add more of that cards ability, tribe, etc... this is an easy, but very bad way to build decks.
2. Running a poor mana supply/mana curve. This one is harder to fix, I have my theories on it, which is generally that the person running the most mana just wants to cast their spells more than the other person does. Needless to say, I think just about everyone shorts themselves here... and I have a lot of data to back up my thoughts on this. I'll just sum it up though and say that until you know better... run 25 mana sources (combination of ramp/mana dorks), and that's probably a passable rule of thumb. If it's a ramp deck, run more.
3. Adding colors unnecessarily. I think the mark of a good deck builder isn't the ability to add a color to gain additional functionality. It's the ability to remove a color and retain that. I think this rule goes double in Modern right now, because if you study the decks that are doing well... with the exception of Death's Shadow, all of the top decks have a relatively pain free manabase. To put numbers to this from the MTGS tier data T1 has an average pain index of 9.86 points of damage per deck (that's including Death's Shadow that makes up over half the pain index on it's own). T2 has 12 points of damage per deck. T3 has just under 14 points of damage per deck. It's almost entirely to adding colors too, T3 has many, many 4 color decks while most of T1 is 1-2 colors.
4. The wrong threats get mixed together. There's two types of creatures in Magic, there's creatures that generate value when cast/etb and there's creatures that generate value from staying on the board. Every creature (or more broadly, threat) is one of these two types and in some cases both. However, they don't both interact equally with your opponents removal. Cards which generate value by being on the board, are more susceptible to removal, because the removal has a bigger impact in eliminating that body. Therefore, each one of these creatures that you add to your deck is worth more than the previous creature, as your opponent will have more must kill threats to deal with. ETB creatures are relatively immune to removal, you don't really care if these die. So you can put any number of ETB creatures in a deck (like Snapcaster Mage and Eternal Witness) and they'll always be good. However, if you only put 1 Tarmogoyf in your deck, it will generally die and be bad. If you put a bunch of Tarmogoyfs together though, they get much better because each subsequent draw is harder to deal with.
Anyways, if you're not a good deck builder, go read Chapins book Next Level Deckbuilding, he'll give you a bunch of tips. Most notable in my opinion is that he devotes something like 2 full chapters to what I just explained in point #4.
Can you clarify point #3 for me? Specifically this "pain index".
Colors aren't free. The traditional wisdom is that 3 colors is the right number in Modern because fetch/shock manabases (or any dual heavy manabase) easily converges on 3 color decks. However, the more colors you add, the more your deck will trip over itself, and in Modern especially, the more life you'll pay to make your mana work. It's a big price to pay. If you don't have a really good payoff for paying a bunch of life each game (like Death's Shadow) I would instead argue that you're better off not adding colors just for the sake of playing 1-2 cards and instead try to not branch out. My personal opinion is that 2 colors is best in the format right now, but there's arguments for any number of colors if you're playing the right cards... I think a lot of people build bad decks and unnecessarily include additional colors though.