Magic: The Gathering - Any online tools to help make a deck?

[Sectan]

Me and my brother have gotten into the almost addictive money trap that is Magic: The Gathering. I bought a Fat Pack and numerous other booster packs to make some decks, but they aren't as optimized as the could be. As I'm pretty bad with the physical organizing of the cards I've been looking for some online tools to help with the process, but I haven't found anything. So I've decided to jump to the forums to see if anyone has any resources or just tips in general to get the most out of the cards I have. I'm currently just working with what I have with no real strategy besides finding cards that kind of do the same thing. Thanks!

[sub][sub][sub][sub][sub][sub]Captcha: Leave Britney alone. >_>[/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[MysticSlayer]

I haven't read the whole article, but this [http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/academy/3] seems like it might help. In general, Wizards of the Coast puts out a lot of deck building guides, as well as guides to just being a better player. You can look up decks on different sites, such as Tapped Out [http://tappedout.net/], but it can be rather dejecting to see what others have built and know you can't even touch it with a limited card pool.

I only play the game casually. My brother is the really serious one. Still, a few tips that I use are:

1. Avoid mono-colored decks at the start unless you have some really good cards for one (I will say that, as someone who has a boatload of black and red cards, I still cannot make a decent deck of one color). Go for two-colored, and also don't be afraid of three-colored decks, though, you sort of need special lands in order to make a three colored deck really good.

2. Locate a few cards in your deck that are just awesome. See what color they are, and start looking some other good cards of that color. In particular, look for cards that will really help complement your power cards well, and also look for ways to get your power cards easier. While it might seem disadvantageous to keep drawing cards, there are times when you want to draw a card.

3. Try to establish a theme. What is the purpose of the deck. For instance, I have a black/white deck designed around using the Extort ability to dwindle my opponent's life and keep myself alive. I use a lot of tokens to protect myself. Ideally, I want to get one of my Planeswalkers or Teysa out. If that happens, my chances of winning skyrocket. That's just one example of a deck with a definite mission (and a back-up plan).

4. Keep experimenting and be honest with yourself. Could you have done better with other cards you have? Is your strategy just flawed? It takes a while to perfect the deck.

5. Know what your mana curve is as well as your Land-to-Spell ratio. However, don't get too upset when you get mana screwed or mana flooded. It happens to all of us. As a general rule of thumb, 24 Lands is standard in a 60 card deck, but this will change depending on your style of play. My brother runs one deck with only 20 Land cards, and I've successfully played decks that go up to 28.

6. Try to go for a 60 card deck, but don't feel too pressured to stick to the 60 card deck build. The effects of adding 1-3 extra cards is rather negligible if you only plan on playing casually or semi-competitively. If you do plan on really going at this more competitively, then learn to limit yourself to 60 cards.

7. Just because you don't have the cards you want/need to do better, don't keep wasting money. Look for deals on single cards that you want rather than constantly buying booster packs. Also realize that the way they make money is making you feel like your deck is inadequate, and they aren't just going to hand you all the cards you want as that would be counterproductive to their business strategy. Be content, have fun, and don't overdo it.

Edit: Fixed Point 6 to clear up some issues people had. I admit it wasn't well presented originally.

 

[Elfgore]

7. Just because you don't have the cards you want/need to do better, don't keep wasting money. Look for deals on single cards that you want rather than constantly buying booster packs. Also realize that the way they make money is making you feel like your deck is inadequate, and they aren't just going to hand you all the cards you want as that would be counterproductive to their business strategy.

This is something that needs to be drilled into any ones head once they hit 300 cards. Only buy boosters to have fun or experiment not as a main source of cards. Find a local card shop or if all else fails buy online.

Some tips I picked up:

1. The three easiest colors for starters is white, red, and green. White and Green are creature heavy and are usually very simple tactics. My first deck I ever did anything good with was a white/green aggro deck. That translates to "getting big ass creatures out by turn three." Red is simple with it's burn spells and easy creature usage. I would save black and blue until you improve deck building and in-game strategy skills as both colors are a little more challenging.

2. Pick a theme. What do you want your deck to do? Some easy ones I found to make are exalted decks, Sliver decks, mil decks, and healing decks.

3. Learn from friends or the Magic Video Game before going to Friday Night Magic, if you plan to attend that is. Some places are very friendly and are glad to help new players learn, others will kick your ass out if you make any mistake at all.

4. The biggest rule of all, have fun. It's a game, which some people tend to forget.

 

[Sectan]

1.I would save black and blue until you improve deck building and in-game strategy skills as both colors are a little more challenging.

But my favorite deck is black and blue Q_Q.

I'll have to go and redo most of my decks then. To be honest they were mostly scraped together from the boosters I've gotten and there wasn't a lot of room to build card synergy. I'm just playing against my brother atm so experimentation with a black and blue deck seems to be the way to go for me since I like how it plays. Any good black/blue deck styles you would be able to suggest? Right now the black half of my deck is mostly leaning on Quag Sicknesses and other -X/-X cards, while the blue is leaning on Closterphobia cards and flying...

 

[Elfgore]

1.I would save black and blue until you improve deck building and in-game strategy skills as both colors are a little more challenging.

But my favorite deck is black and blue Q_Q.

I'll have to go and redo most of my decks then. To be honest they were mostly scraped together from the boosters I've gotten and there wasn't a lot of room to build card synergy. I'm just playing against my brother atm so experimentation with a black and blue deck seems to be the way to go for me since I like how it plays. Any good black/blue deck styles you would be able to suggest? Right now the black half of my deck is mostly leaning on Quag Sicknesses and other -X/-X cards, while the blue is leaning on Closterphobia cards and flying...

The best I can think of is a wall/mil/counter/stall/destroy deck. So this deck will have like ten or so creatures. Let me give you a list of what this deck should have.

Doorkeeper X4
Murder X4
Mind Sculpt X4
Hover Barrier X4
Any defender card X4
Jace's Phantasm X4
The rest should be unsummons, counters, and any more mil cards you can have.

The goal of this deck would be to hold the enemy back as long as possible until you get enough of your defenders or Jace's Phantasm to upgrade. Doorkeeper's ability is really OP if you have a large amount of defenders out. You will win either by attacking with Jace's Phantasm, milling them out, or them surrendering because this is the most annoying deck in existence.

That's all I have for ideas, I usually stick to green, white, and red since I love me creatures.

 

[Kyr Knightbane]

1.I would save black and blue until you improve deck building and in-game strategy skills as both colors are a little more challenging.

But my favorite deck is black and blue Q_Q.

I'll have to go and redo most of my decks then. To be honest they were mostly scraped together from the boosters I've gotten and there wasn't a lot of room to build card synergy. I'm just playing against my brother atm so experimentation with a black and blue deck seems to be the way to go for me since I like how it plays. Any good black/blue deck styles you would be able to suggest? Right now the black half of my deck is mostly leaning on Quag Sicknesses and other -X/-X cards, while the blue is leaning on Closterphobia cards and flying...

The best I can think of is a wall/mil/counter/stall/destroy deck. So this deck will have like ten or so creatures. Let me give you a list of what this deck should have.

Doorkeeper X4
Murder X4
Mind Sculpt X4
Hover Barrier X4
Any defender card X4
Jace's Phantasm X4
The rest should be unsummons, counters, and any more mil cards you can have.

The goal of this deck would be to hold the enemy back as long as possible until you get enough of your defenders or Jace's Phantasm to upgrade. Doorkeeper's ability is really OP if you have a large amount of defenders out. You will win either by attacking with Jace's Phantasm, milling them out, or them surrendering because this is the most annoying deck in existence.

That's all I have for ideas, I usually stick to green, white, and red since I love me creatures.

Try milling an Eldrazzi deck and see how far that gets you.
I was playing my Dimir deck against and Eldrazzi deck, and it didn't go very well

 

[ForumSafari]

I'm happy to provide tips on deck construction if you want them, it can get quite long winded though. I actually teach people to play magic fairly regularly.

Any good black/blue deck styles you would be able to suggest?

The current best way to play in these colours is probably to include White as well and go full control, Esper Control sees play in practically every format because there's nearly always the cards you want for it handy.

I'd suggest a heavy control deck to lock down the opponent's board and use mill only as a secondary win condition, I have a few mill decks because I'm determined to get them working but that's not a good way to win a game. Basically look at cards like

Blind Obedience
Dissolve
Annul

to prevent them landing creatures and to mean that their creatures come in tapped. Then look at

Oblivion Ring
One Thousand Lashes

to lock down the creatures that do land and

Doom Blade
Supreme Verdict

to kill off problem creatures and wipe the board.

You can then use a few creatures like

Aetherling
Obzedat

to mop up the opponent once they lose momentum and use draw spells to replenish your hand regularlys o that you always have answers. If you're feeling cheeky and have the cards I'd look at including a repeatable mill (maybe Ashiok) to give you another way to win in case they match you for the long run. Win by massive damage from a creature or by incremental life loss, alternate win is stalling another control deck out and milling them.

I was playing my Dimir deck against and Eldrazzi deck, and it didn't go very well

A Dimir deck shouldn't look to win by mill so much as use early mill to power up its' creatures but most decks that run mill also need something like Tormod's Crypt to tap at instant speed and exile their graveyard.

 

[Kyr Knightbane]

I'm happy to provide tips on deck construction if you want them, it can get quite long winded though. I actually teach people to play magic fairly regularly.

I was playing my Dimir deck against and Eldrazzi deck, and it didn't go very well

A Dimir deck shouldn't look to win by mill so much as use early mill to power up its' creatures but most decks that run mill also need something like Tormod's Crypt to tap at instant speed and exile their graveyard.

Well my Dimir Deck doesn't win by milling per se. It's really about dumping cards into your graveyard at the start for my Consuming Abberations and my Mirko Vosk and Lazav to have fun with. I also like to pick your hand apart with Duress. Its mainly just a fun deck to play with

 

[ForumSafari]

Well my Dimir Deck doesn't win by milling per se. It's really about dumping cards into your graveyard at the start for my Consuming Abberations and my Mirko Vosk and Lazav to have fun with. I also like to pick your hand apart with Duress. Its mainly just a fun deck to play with

Yeah that's how I normally run Dimir too, it's far more plausible in Standard than straight mill, especially with Wight of Precinct Six as well.

EDIT: Also I totally forgot Thoughtseize is back in standard! Stunningly good card for any deck looking to stall the early turns.

 

[drthmik]

6. Try to aim for 60 cards, but if you expect the game to go on a long time, you can increase that number. Generally, though, I never go beyond 70 cards.

This is bad advice
don't listen to it
60 cards is the hard limit for all formats that call for a 60 card limit and it contradicts some of the very good advice in the other numbers like 2, 3, 4, & 5

 

[MysticSlayer]

6. Try to aim for 60 cards, but if you expect the game to go on a long time, you can increase that number. Generally, though, I never go beyond 70 cards.

This is bad advice
don't listen to it
60 cards is the hard limit for all formats that call for a 60 card limit and it contradicts some of the very good advice in the other numbers like 2, 3, 4, & 5

I probably didn't express myself as well as I could have.

60 cards is definitely the best deck size. However, there are occasions where a deck pretty much leads to a 61 or 62 card deck. In this case, the percentage difference of drawing your ideal cards is decreased by, at most, 0.1%, which is pretty much negligible most of the time, even more if that card plays an excellent role in the strategy. 70 was a little high, though, I will admit that.

While I would advise a 60 card deck, I did want to emphasize that there are times when there might be 1-2 extra cards that seem very good given the overall strategy of the deck. Now, there is always an element of limiting yourself, and going overboard by throwing every good card into the deck will ultimately hurt you, but I also think treating 60 as the hard limit could potentially close you off to some great possibilities. I've used some really good 61-63 card decks, and I've found my success with those decks, provided the extra 1-3 cards are thoughtfully chosen, to be no different than using 60 card decks. Maybe a serious player, if they were to statistically track themselves, would be able to pull out enough of a loss in win percentage to justify the hard limit, but unless you're planning on going pro in this game, it's not worth getting too worked up about it.

 

[thejackyl]

I have 2 decks I've been playing successfully.

A red spell deck, focusing on Pyromancer's Ascension (Cast a spell that's you have already cast, gain a counter, at 2 counters you get a free replicate on every spell you cast). It only has 3 creatures, all walls. Though in the few games I've played I've never needed them, because I can do up to 15 damage a turn if I get the right spells.

A Black/Green deck which is by far my favorite, because it's not just one gimmick like my Red deck. I have Megrim (If your opponent discards a card they take 2 damage) x4, I have another card that limits their hand size to 4 instead of 7. I also have death touch creatures, in that gains +1/+1 for every creature that dies, and one that gains +1/+1 every time it attacks. As well as enchants that grant regenerate and trample. It's rather delicious. I've only lost with this when I got mana starved or flooded. Oh and I have a 4/4 creature that gains +1/+1 for every swamp I own.

Red deck is 75 cards, Black/Green deck is 70 cards.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

The tips so far are great.

I'll provide a few of my own:

1) Buy singles. I know it has been said, but I can't stress this enough. Boosters are overly expensive. They're fun, but places like CardKingdom and MTGFanatic are the way to go.

2) Play your deck. Play the shit out of your deck. That's really by far the best way to tweak a deck and see if it's good. If you have to, play by yourself. Just pretend there's another person with another deck. This can do wonders for your creature count and mana ramping. If you play 10 games with yourself and every time you can't play anything until the 3rd or 4th turn, you probably have too many high mana cost cards.

3) The best way to start a deck is with a card you absolutely love. So pull your favorite couple of rares out of the cards you currently have and build a 2 color deck. As another person said, mono-color is hard to pull off unless you have a very tight strategy. 3-color can be fun, but it's easy to get bogged down in selection and other nonsense.
There's really no rule that says you have to play a certain color just because you're a beginner. Every color has some basic stuff that can work for anyone.

3.5) The other best way to start a deck is draft tournaments. If you don't know what it is.... Look it up, because it's sort of hard to explain. The point is, you usually pay about 10 bucks and you get pretty much whichever card you pick from every booster in a fat pack. Playing the tournament is fun too, but the value of just getting involved cannot be overstated.

4) In terms of organization, I like to lay my cards out by type and then within that, by mana cost. It helps me see when I have absurd amounts of high cost cards.

5) Follow the advise about deck size. It may be tempting to go bonkers with the size, but you NEED to keep it to 60 - 63 unless you're playing some other game mode.

6) Speaking of game modes, by far the best advise I can give is this: Find a group that doesn't care about formats. Seriously. Standard and Extended are creations of the devil made to hurt puppies and steal money from disabled children and housewives. Magic is FAR more fun when you have a group of people that don't force you to go out and completely rebuild everything you worked on every time a new set comes out.

I hope some of that helped and I hope I didn't say anything too retarded.

 

[TheKangaroos]

6. Try to aim for 60 cards, but if you expect the game to go on a long time, you can increase that number. Generally, though, I never go beyond 70 cards.

This is bad advice
don't listen to it
60 cards is the hard limit for all formats that call for a 60 card limit and it contradicts some of the very good advice in the other numbers like 2, 3, 4, & 5

I probably didn't express myself as well as I could have.

60 cards is definitely the best deck size. However, there are occasions where a deck pretty much leads to a 61 or 62 card deck. In this case, the percentage difference of drawing your ideal cards is decreased by, at most, 0.1%, which is pretty much negligible most of the time, even more if that card plays an excellent role in the strategy. 70 was a little high, though, I will admit that.

While I would advise a 60 card deck, I did want to emphasize that there are times when there might be 1-2 extra cards that seem very good given the overall strategy of the deck. Now, there is always an element of limiting yourself, and going overboard by throwing every good card into the deck will ultimately hurt you, but I also think treating 60 as the hard limit could potentially close you off to some great possibilities. I've used some really good 61-63 card decks, and I've found my success with those decks, provided the extra 1-3 cards are thoughtfully chosen, to be no different than using 60 card decks. Maybe a serious player, if they were to statistically track themselves, would be able to pull out enough of a loss in win percentage to justify the hard limit, but unless you're planning on going pro in this game, it's not worth getting too worked up about it.

Although it is true that adding one to three extra cards would change your draw almost imperceptibly, it does not change the fact that it does have a negative effect on your draw. If you have a 63 card deck, you would improve it 100% of the time by taking out the three worst cards for that deck build. I cannot think of an example of a deck that would be improved by the addition of a 61st card. Pro or not, 60 cards really is the only deck size.

 

[Slycne]

Speaking of game modes, by far the best advise I can give is this: Find a group that doesn't care about formats. Seriously. Standard and Extended are creations of the devil made to hurt puppies and steal money from disabled children and housewives. Magic is FAR more fun when you have a group of people that don't force you to go out and completely rebuild everything you worked on every time a new set comes out.

While I fully support that this statement is true for some and everyone is equally correct for enjoying what they will, I would be wary about making a blanket statement for everyone. One of the best aspects of the game is that it can mean so many different things for different folks. From pro-tour tuned decks to casual kitchen table EDH. The game is better overall because it doesn't need to be pigeon-holed into one way to play being "best".

I, for one, enjoy the competitive and rotating nature of the Standard format. The overarching meta of knowing decks and tuning decks to be competitive with each other all while rogue strategies sit in the wings is more interesting to me than playing more casual magic. And then the whole thing gets turned on end when rotation happens, and we all scramble to see what sticks around and what new we need to contend with.

Are rotating formats ultimately a tool to ensure WOTC a steady revenue stream, absolutely, but that revenue stream supports things like promos, pre-releases, etc. And at the end of the day, I accept that Magic is my hobby. Wasting money for enjoyment is the whole point of it.

 

[The Funslinger]

1.I would save black and blue until you improve deck building and in-game strategy skills as both colors are a little more challenging.

But my favorite deck is black and blue Q_Q.

I'll have to go and redo most of my decks then. To be honest they were mostly scraped together from the boosters I've gotten and there wasn't a lot of room to build card synergy. I'm just playing against my brother atm so experimentation with a black and blue deck seems to be the way to go for me since I like how it plays. Any good black/blue deck styles you would be able to suggest? Right now the black half of my deck is mostly leaning on Quag Sicknesses and other -X/-X cards, while the blue is leaning on Closterphobia cards and flying...

The best I can think of is a wall/mil/counter/stall/destroy deck. So this deck will have like ten or so creatures. Let me give you a list of what this deck should have.

Doorkeeper X4
Murder X4
Mind Sculpt X4
Hover Barrier X4
Any defender card X4
Jace's Phantasm X4
The rest should be unsummons, counters, and any more mil cards you can have.

The goal of this deck would be to hold the enemy back as long as possible until you get enough of your defenders or Jace's Phantasm to upgrade. Doorkeeper's ability is really OP if you have a large amount of defenders out. You will win either by attacking with Jace's Phantasm, milling them out, or them surrendering because this is the most annoying deck in existence.

That's all I have for ideas, I usually stick to green, white, and red since I love me creatures.

Try milling an Eldrazzi deck and see how far that gets you.
I was playing my Dimir deck against and Eldrazzi deck, and it didn't go very well

A friend of mine has an Eldrazi deck, and we'll be dueling each other at some point when his college course settles down.

I plan to go in swinging with my red/black deck and finish him quickly. If I can bring out Master of Cruelties fast enough, he's dead in the water.

 

[Kyr Knightbane]

1.I would save black and blue until you improve deck building and in-game strategy skills as both colors are a little more challenging.

But my favorite deck is black and blue Q_Q.

I'll have to go and redo most of my decks then. To be honest they were mostly scraped together from the boosters I've gotten and there wasn't a lot of room to build card synergy. I'm just playing against my brother atm so experimentation with a black and blue deck seems to be the way to go for me since I like how it plays. Any good black/blue deck styles you would be able to suggest? Right now the black half of my deck is mostly leaning on Quag Sicknesses and other -X/-X cards, while the blue is leaning on Closterphobia cards and flying...

The best I can think of is a wall/mil/counter/stall/destroy deck. So this deck will have like ten or so creatures. Let me give you a list of what this deck should have.

Doorkeeper X4
Murder X4
Mind Sculpt X4
Hover Barrier X4
Any defender card X4
Jace's Phantasm X4
The rest should be unsummons, counters, and any more mil cards you can have.

The goal of this deck would be to hold the enemy back as long as possible until you get enough of your defenders or Jace's Phantasm to upgrade. Doorkeeper's ability is really OP if you have a large amount of defenders out. You will win either by attacking with Jace's Phantasm, milling them out, or them surrendering because this is the most annoying deck in existence.

That's all I have for ideas, I usually stick to green, white, and red since I love me creatures.

Try milling an Eldrazzi deck and see how far that gets you.
I was playing my Dimir deck against and Eldrazzi deck, and it didn't go very well

A friend of mine has an Eldrazi deck, and we'll be dueling each other at some point when his college course settles down.

I plan to go in swinging with my red/black deck and finish him quickly. If I can bring out Master of Cruelties fast enough, he's dead in the water.

Depends on what the basis is for his Eldrazi deck. If he goes Artifact/colorless based. He might be able to lifegain your early aggro away. My buddy's deck takes about 5 turns to really start churning em out, but he was able to generate about 5 tokens a turn as chump blockers/mana generators

 

[drthmik]

6. Try to aim for 60 cards, but if you expect the game to go on a long time, you can increase that number. Generally, though, I never go beyond 70 cards.

This is bad advice
don't listen to it
60 cards is the hard limit for all formats that call for a 60 card limit and it contradicts some of the very good advice in the other numbers like 2, 3, 4, & 5

I probably didn't express myself as well as I could have.

60 cards is definitely the best deck size. However, there are occasions where a deck pretty much leads to a 61 or 62 card deck. In this case, the percentage difference of drawing your ideal cards is decreased by, at most, 0.1%, which is pretty much negligible most of the time, even more if that card plays an excellent role in the strategy. 70 was a little high, though, I will admit that.

While I would advise a 60 card deck, I did want to emphasize that there are times when there might be 1-2 extra cards that seem very good given the overall strategy of the deck. Now, there is always an element of limiting yourself, and going overboard by throwing every good card into the deck will ultimately hurt you, but I also think treating 60 as the hard limit could potentially close you off to some great possibilities. I've used some really good 61-63 card decks, and I've found my success with those decks, provided the extra 1-3 cards are thoughtfully chosen, to be no different than using 60 card decks. Maybe a serious player, if they were to statistically track themselves, would be able to pull out enough of a loss in win percentage to justify the hard limit, but unless you're planning on going pro in this game, it's not worth getting too worked up about it.

let me be clear as well:

2. Locate a few cards in your deck that are just awesome. See what color they are, and start looking some other good cards of that color. In particular, look for cards that will really help complement your power cards well, and also look for ways to get your power cards easier. While it might seem disadvantageous to keep drawing cards, there are times when you want to draw a card.

If you add a 61st card you dilute the power of your best cards and you have made it harder to get your power card(s) out of your deck

3. Try to establish a theme. What is the purpose of the deck. For instance, I have a black/white deck designed around using the Extort ability to dwindle my opponent's life and keep myself alive. I use a lot of tokens to protect myself. Ideally, I want to get one of my Planeswalkers or Teysa out. If that happens, my chances of winning skyrocket. That's just one example of a deck with a definite mission (and a back-up plan).

by adding a 61st card you weaken your theme and broaden the purpose, remember if your deck tries to be a "Jack of all trades" it will be (as the saying continues) a "Master of none."

4. Keep experimenting and be honest with yourself. Could you have done better with other cards you have? Is your strategy just flawed? It takes a while to perfect the deck.

If you have more than 60 cards in your deck than your strategy is flawed and you can do better with the cards you have.
Please note that a perfect deck is NOT one for which no more cards can be added but rather;

a perfect deck is one in which no more cards can be removed.

5. Know what your mana curve is as well as your Land-to-Spell ratio. However, don't get too upset when you get mana screwed or mana flooded. It happens to all of us. As a general rule of thumb, 24 Lands is standard in a 60 card deck, but this will change depending on your style of play. My brother runs one deck with only 20 Land cards, and I've successfully played decks that go up to 28.

adding even 1 card throws off your mana curve and will increase the chances of being mana screwed/flooded
remember that the amount of lands is dependent on the cost of your Cards as well as when you want to use them as well as what kind of acceleration you have you can get away with less mana if your cards are cheep or you have a lot of acceleration but if your cards are expensive you'll need more mana to use them on time. and really the only way to get this is expirience. Build decks and play with them, a lot then tweek them and again play a lot repeat until it is tuned just right.

Captcha:
Remain calm

 

[The Funslinger]

1.I would save black and blue until you improve deck building and in-game strategy skills as both colors are a little more challenging.

But my favorite deck is black and blue Q_Q.

I'll have to go and redo most of my decks then. To be honest they were mostly scraped together from the boosters I've gotten and there wasn't a lot of room to build card synergy. I'm just playing against my brother atm so experimentation with a black and blue deck seems to be the way to go for me since I like how it plays. Any good black/blue deck styles you would be able to suggest? Right now the black half of my deck is mostly leaning on Quag Sicknesses and other -X/-X cards, while the blue is leaning on Closterphobia cards and flying...

The best I can think of is a wall/mil/counter/stall/destroy deck. So this deck will have like ten or so creatures. Let me give you a list of what this deck should have.

Doorkeeper X4
Murder X4
Mind Sculpt X4
Hover Barrier X4
Any defender card X4
Jace's Phantasm X4
The rest should be unsummons, counters, and any more mil cards you can have.

The goal of this deck would be to hold the enemy back as long as possible until you get enough of your defenders or Jace's Phantasm to upgrade. Doorkeeper's ability is really OP if you have a large amount of defenders out. You will win either by attacking with Jace's Phantasm, milling them out, or them surrendering because this is the most annoying deck in existence.

That's all I have for ideas, I usually stick to green, white, and red since I love me creatures.

Try milling an Eldrazzi deck and see how far that gets you.
I was playing my Dimir deck against and Eldrazzi deck, and it didn't go very well

A friend of mine has an Eldrazi deck, and we'll be dueling each other at some point when his college course settles down.

I plan to go in swinging with my red/black deck and finish him quickly. If I can bring out Master of Cruelties fast enough, he's dead in the water.

Depends on what the basis is for his Eldrazi deck. If he goes Artifact/colorless based. He might be able to lifegain your early aggro away. My buddy's deck takes about 5 turns to really start churning em out, but he was able to generate about 5 tokens a turn as chump blockers/mana generators

That's why I want to get Master of Cruelties out fast as possible. It's the ultimate card for bringing down lifegain decks.

Spoiler

That combined with a direct damage card could theoretically win me the game in a single turn, no matter how much life he has.

 

[Kyr Knightbane]

1.I would save black and blue until you improve deck building and in-game strategy skills as both colors are a little more challenging.

But my favorite deck is black and blue Q_Q.

I'll have to go and redo most of my decks then. To be honest they were mostly scraped together from the boosters I've gotten and there wasn't a lot of room to build card synergy. I'm just playing against my brother atm so experimentation with a black and blue deck seems to be the way to go for me since I like how it plays. Any good black/blue deck styles you would be able to suggest? Right now the black half of my deck is mostly leaning on Quag Sicknesses and other -X/-X cards, while the blue is leaning on Closterphobia cards and flying...

The best I can think of is a wall/mil/counter/stall/destroy deck. So this deck will have like ten or so creatures. Let me give you a list of what this deck should have.

Doorkeeper X4
Murder X4
Mind Sculpt X4
Hover Barrier X4
Any defender card X4
Jace's Phantasm X4
The rest should be unsummons, counters, and any more mil cards you can have.

The goal of this deck would be to hold the enemy back as long as possible until you get enough of your defenders or Jace's Phantasm to upgrade. Doorkeeper's ability is really OP if you have a large amount of defenders out. You will win either by attacking with Jace's Phantasm, milling them out, or them surrendering because this is the most annoying deck in existence.

That's all I have for ideas, I usually stick to green, white, and red since I love me creatures.

Try milling an Eldrazzi deck and see how far that gets you.
I was playing my Dimir deck against and Eldrazzi deck, and it didn't go very well

A friend of mine has an Eldrazi deck, and we'll be dueling each other at some point when his college course settles down.

I plan to go in swinging with my red/black deck and finish him quickly. If I can bring out Master of Cruelties fast enough, he's dead in the water.

Depends on what the basis is for his Eldrazi deck. If he goes Artifact/colorless based. He might be able to lifegain your early aggro away. My buddy's deck takes about 5 turns to really start churning em out, but he was able to generate about 5 tokens a turn as chump blockers/mana generators

That's why I want to get Master of Cruelties out fast as possible. It's the ultimate card for bringing down lifegain decks.

Spoiler

That combined with a direct damage card could theoretically win me the game in a single turn, no matter how much life he has.

Aye, but only if it's not blocked. Its a decent card, but you wouldn't get through unless you had a board wipe, in which case, you'd probably lose yours as well.

It wouldn't do much good against a deck that has hexproof or indestructible creatures, which his Eldrazi deck has.