Hi, all; over the next few weeks, I'm going to try something new. While most writers are going to be looking ahead (read: making stuff up out of their corn-hole) to Plain Shift, then creating those god-awful set lists with endless analyses about how they rate the different power levels of the set, in Limited, then Constructed, and then in IBC, and then its Type I influence, and so on, I'm going to avoid that whole thing like the plague. (Thank you - The Ferrett) It's not that those articles are unnecessary or irrelevant, but I would simply be another voice, breaking wind across the plains. I have a bad enough case of verbal diarrhea as it is, and let's just say I'm going to shift away from set breakdowns and look towards giving you some classic concepts that may well help in building modern decks.

In the very early days of Magic, the 'net did not have big sites filled with featured writers, raging debates about the role of women in Magic, or ID's or homophobia, or really bad tournament reports featuring multiple uses of the word mise, or even decklists. What the very earliest sites focused on was the underlying strategies and theories of Magic. The Dojo was more of a giant mailing list than an online magazine, and banner ads were non-existent. (Am I the only person that gets incredibly frustrated when I have to wait for a page to load simply because of the ad?) This was a different time for Magic: Writers were involved in online debates about the underlying theories of Magic the GAME, rather than overly banal tiffs involving Magic, the Social Contract. This style of writing, however, has largely fallen out of use, and though some people do cover the theories and hidden agendas of Limited construction, very few look at the game as a whole. In this first article in the series, I would like to recap what has come before, and over the next few weeks I'll look at how to apply those theories to the modern tourney scene - I might even have a new concept or two of my own.

What are the major concepts in building on Magic? The most popular concept currently, is on the use of Card Advantage. Brian Weissman's "The Deck" was among the first recognized decks organized almost exclusively with this principal in mind. Other popular deckbuilding concepts are the Mana Curve, thought up by Jay Schneider and Paul Sligh - this also reinforced the idea of mana consistency; Momentum Theory or Tempo Control, initially brought to light by Eric Taylor and Mike Flores; Rock/Paper/Scissors - Hand Grenade, the manifesto of rogue deckbuilding, which, of course, is the creation of Adrian Sullivan; and the Fundamental Turn Rule for evaluating decks within a given format, which really placed Zvi Mowshowitz on the map of great strategy writers.

All of these are fine concepts, and ones that should be used to evaluate or design your deck around. Mind you, though, some decks win while ignoring one or more of these concepts, or may have been built without any foreknowledge of them. Let me give you a quick idea of what each concept entails.

• Card Advantage - is the concept of getting more for your mana. Cards that replace themselves, cards that allow you to draw multiple cards, cards that net multiple effects, cards that create "virtual" card advantage (such as Stasis, which would keep an opponent's resources locked up, invalidating most of their cards) and cards which can offer multiple effects (such as Wax/Wane) can all emphasize Card Advantage.
• Mana Curve - this was one of the most exciting concepts created in the early days of Ice Age. The principal of a curve is to design your deck to play out spells that maximize your mana each and every turn (sixteen one casting-cost spells, ten two, eight Three, four Four, two Fives). In the original Sligh deck, it attempted to achieve board dominance by laying out creatures each turn, and then having them create "Card Advantage" through the use of reusable effects such as the Orcish Librarians or Artillery. It had to sacrifice quite a bit in the early days to make the deck mono-colored, but the idea seemed solid enough that Wizards eventually gave it the official nod, creating ultra-efficient one casting-cost drops for Red in Tempest. (Jackal Pup, Mogg Fanatic, and Cursed Scroll)
• Mana Consistency - While this wasn't exactly an unknown concept at the time extent, the effectiveness of early Sligh, using junk like Orcish Artillery, proved its value in the long run. Monocolored decks could do the same thing every game with a higher degree of consistency than multi-colored decks. Wasteland was another gem from Tempest that really showed how strongly Wizards had come to favor this strategy. Mana Consistency is often times the deciding difference in building within a Limited format - for example in MBC most two-color decks ran a minimum of twenty-five lands (even the beatdown decks), simply because there were no mana-fixers for the block.
• Momentum Theory (or Tempo Control, or Time Advantage) is a much trickier concept and sees more applications in Limited than in Constructed formats. Your basic goal is to put an opponent on the defensive, forcing them to dance to your tune. In Standard currently, cards such as Wash Out, Parallax Wave and Fires of Yavimaya are all great examples of how to shift the Momentum in your favor. We'll explore this in more detail below.
• The Rock (Beatdown)/Paper (Combo)/Scissors (Control) analogy has been around forever, but Adrian Sullivan produced a kicker to it - the idea of a Hand Grenade (the Rogue deck). In this case, we are not simply referring to a casual deck, but to a strategy specifically designed and play tested as a foil to the top decks in the format. I consider this to be a newer concept, since it was nearly impossible to do before articles about the metagame and the best decks became common knowledge to the general, magic playing populace. While rogue deck design is not necessarily a theory in the same category as Card Advantage, the idea of creating a deck specifically to spike the metagame is a unique one.
  
• Fundamental Turn - The idea here is to see which turn (on average) your combo deck "goes off" or when a beatdown deck deals twenty points of damage, or when a control deck can fire off a massive board-sweeping spell and achieve dominance. This works as an effective measuring stick to see if your original creation was fast enough to compete within your chosen field. Extended, for example, has an FT of turn 4, which is when Trix will drop Illusions, Sligh will burn you out, or Tradewind Riders will become active, etc. Standard is currently more of a turn 5, as Fires can kill pretty consistently by then, Rebels will have an active Lin Sivvi, and control decks can either Wrath, Rout, or drop Blinding Angel. This is a neat concept, and one I have often found very useful when creating my own decks.
  
• Synergy - Another mostly undefined concept and one that can tie in closely with Mana Consistency, this predominantly looks at the overall flow of the deck, seeing which cards work best towards accelerating the strategy throughout the deck. A good example of this is comparing Trix to Necro-pebbles. Both decks are combos designed around the premise of abusing Necropotence to force through the combo engine. Trix eventually supplanted Pebbles, as Illusions of Grandeur has better synergy with Necropotence than Enduring Renewal. Additionally, the colored mana requirements were easier to maintain in Trix.
  

While many of these concepts are useful, they are not all encompassing. These theorems are a good basis for trying to explain an overall larger premise - which is building a better deck. Many times we will come across certain card interactions that we really like. They feel right in our hands, and we are sure that a deck can be built out of it. Every week I get submissions from deckbuilders all over the world who have discovered the interaction of various cards and are looking for help, turning it from a premise to a solid deck. The above principles, plus a few more I will mention in the coming weeks, can be used as the basis for creating an all-around solid deck.

Additionally, some decks have been built using one or more of these theorems as the base. Weissman's "The Deck" was oriented entirely around the principal of card advantage. Instead of having a single massive card drawing engine, each and every card in the deck generate card advantage or virtual card advantage. For those of you who have not seen this deck, it was a type 1 monstrosity that basically used every restricted card in the format, plus signature cards such as Moat, Disrupting Scepter, Jaymadae Tome, and Mana Drain to create a control deck that could weather the early beatdown pressure and eventually wear down an opponent. It was largely considered to be the first deck of its kind, and modern-day versions of the deck - such as the Franchise - have modified it slightly to encompass all of the new cards available, but the premise is still the same. The idea of a Tempo Control deck began with Forgotten-Orb, a deck that was predominantly blue and used spells such as Memory Lapse, Winter Orb, and Man-o-War to constantly force an opponent to keep recasting spells while costing them draw phases. Focusing a deck around one or more of these principles can cost you on occasion. "The Deck" used so many colors that it lost mana consistency, and Mono-Red decks running cards like Gorilla Shaman and Blood Moon, were able to foil it. Rogue decks can work incredibly well when faced with the decks they were created to face, but may fall apart to a little kid with a 300-card deck running four Feldon's Canes.

So, by now you're probably asking yourself: Why am I coming back to this now? These issues have been covered in the past and terms such as Card Advantage and Momentum are part of the 'net players' popular vernacular. That is mostly my point though. We, as players and readers, can easily start to forget these concepts, merely taking established decks, and working on them relative to our local metagame. Blue/White control, Nether-Go, and even Machine Head are all variants on the principle of Card Advantage. David Price recently wrote an article for the Sideboard where he compared modern White/Blue control to the old "Deck." Using Fact or Fiction and Accumulated Knowledge, these decks can win out in the long game, and using mass removal effects like Wrath of God, Wash Out or Massacre, which can allow them to generate massive Card Advantage and board control. Also similar to Weissman, the kill cards in the deck (Blinding Angel or Nether Spirit vs. the old Serra Angel) function both offensively and as a primary defensive measure. Machine Head functions in the opposite manner, taking away cards from an opponent with Addle or Stupor and with Blazing Specter providing a similar effect to the Disrupting Scepter. Void is a terrific mass removal spell, and Urza's Rage can provide both short-term solutions to creatures and a long-term kill mechanism. Blue Skies with the Ankh-Tide combo are terrific tempo control decks, using Wash Out, Ankh of Mishra, Parallax Wave, and Withdraw to provide temporal advantage, while forcing an opponent to scramble to their tune.

However, since we are talking about Type 2, what does Fires offer? It does not follow a mana curve overly closely. It's two colors, so mana consistency is thrown out the window. It does not really generate card advantage (barring Saproling Burst, which can generate three creatures for the cost of a single spell - but then again, they can all be taken out with a single spell too) and I'd be hesitant to call it a tempo deck, because with the exception of Fires of Yavimaya, it does nothing to help itself or (more importantly) screw up an opponent's tempo. Also it's certainly not rogue.

So why does it do so well in the current standard? Well two points: First, it has terrific synergy. Saproling Burst and Blastoderm become insanely powerful with Fires on the table. The cards also work well to foil most opposing strategies, as Blastoderm cannot be handled by spot removal and the only effective way to handle the Burst is with enchantment removal. Additionally, because of Fires, Wrath of God becomes a less-than-stellar answer to the Bursts and Derms. Second, it has a lower Fundamental Turn. Though most decks have an FT of 5 or 6 in standard, the Fires deck can often time produce a turn 4 kill. Not consistently enough to give it an FT of 4, but often enough to just steal games from the competition.

Let's take the two most basic concepts and look at them in greater detail:

Card Advantage is an old axiom; in essence, it's the idea of getting more bang for the buck. Dropping a single Necropotence can allow you to draw ten, fifteen, even twenty cards, all with no additional mana costs. Ancestral Recall nets three for one; Fact or Fiction can often times do the same or better. But there is another way of looking at Card Advantage. Wrath of God can neutralize four or five targets for a single spell; Armageddon can often nail even more than that, Replenish can bring several enchantments back into play simultaneously, and a card like Duress can actually generate Card Advantage if it nails Necropotence or a similar card drawing engine. In multiplayer, card advantage of this second sort is far more valuable than that first. Drawing three for one is pretty much irrelevant when your opponents are drawing five or six cards combined per turn. However, nailing twenty-five creatures with a Wrath - now that's Card Advantage! In duels, the balance tends to be more even. Sometimes outdrawing an opponent it a huge advantage, but then again, not always.

Virtual Card Advantage is another way to look at a card. Moat, for example, does nothing on its own. It kills no creatures and draws no cards. However, in some cases it can lock an opponent completely out of the game. It buys you massive "virtual" card advantage - turns where you did not take damage, but should have. Blinding Angel, of course, serves the same role, plus it doubles as a kill mechanism, thus making her one of the most effective "virtual" engines in the game currently.

So here's a question. Why isn't Blue-White control the "best deck" currently? It has access to all of the various principles of cards advantage. (Real card drawing-Fact or Fiction, Brainstorm, Accumulated Knowledge, and Dismantling Blow; Massive sweeping effects like Wrath of God, and Rout; and terrific "virtual" advantage engines like Mageta the Lion or Blinding Angel. Additionally, they have good things to draw into, such as Absorb and Counterspell) The format seems slow enough to give it the nod, (usually U/W gains initial board control on turn 4 with a Wrath, followed up by a Turn 5 Angel) it can even control the tempo of the game with spells like Absorb, or even Wash Out if it wanted it. It is among the top 3 decks - but to call it the best would be pushing it. I guess the main reason is that there is a gap between theory and reality. Sometimes that Wrath is just not going to show up fast enough, or when you really need that counterspell to stop the fifteen-point Ghitu Fire coming at your head your Fact or Fiction will flop five lands. The main issue is that while U/W is effective, it's also very expensive. You'll have a hard time countering under pressure. (Tapping out to drop the Angel and having your opponent cast Saporling Burst can suck oodles.) Your "answer" may be the wrong one. That's not to say that this deck is bad - it's not at all - but it ignores the mana-curve concept and that can occasionally burn them, as the deck tends have a top-heavy mana count. Absorb is a terrific counterspell, but it's no Force of Will. While this deck can abuse the Card Advantage concepts, it has a bad Mana Curve, with multiple double-color casting costs in both colors, and it lacks synergy. While it can draw, many, many cards, it will rarely be able to cast multiple spells per turn to abuse it. A pretty solid deck - but not "broken."

The other major principle in deck building is Tempo Control. The best deck in the format from that standpoint is another blue build, Ankh Tide. While not quite as focused as the Forgotten-Orb (from Visions Era), it's very strong. Lets use Bob Maher's deck from Pro Tour: Chicago:

15x Island
4x Svyelunite Temple
4x Rishadan Port
1x Rath's Edge
4x Spiketail Hatchling
4x Rishadan Airship
4x Chimeric Idol
4x Troublesome Spirit
4x Withdraw
4x Ankh of Mishra
4x Tangle Wire
4x Wash Out
4x Parallax Tide
Sideboard
4x Rootwater Thief
4x Overburden
3x Mana Short
2x Daze
2x Boomerang

The goal with this deck is to play out a few early threats (Spirit, Airship, Idol, etc.) and then constantly force an opponent to keep casting spells or delaying their spell casting. Withdraw, Washout, and Tangle Wire all mess with an opponent's offense, while the Ankhs and Tides can really delay a control deck's mana production. Throw in the delaying tactics of Rishadan Port and Hatchlings, and you've got over half the deck just oriented around screwing up an opponent's tempo.

Duing MBC, Waters was another deck that used tempo effectively. It had access to Daze, which I consider to be one of the most effective tempo cards available in Standard. The benefit is that it forces an opponent to play around it the whole game, generating tempo advantage. Daze has bad synergy with the Ankhs, so I can see why Maher choose to play them in the sideboard. While Ankh-Tide has a good mana cure, solid mana consistency, and terrific "virtual" card advantage, it does not have the type of synergy that Waters had (Such as Thwart/Daze/Gush with Waters and Foil). The meta-game is very hostile to enchantments currently, which is why Waters has been replaced with A-T. The only enchantment in the deck is Parallax Tide, which you almost always want your opponents to Disenchant.

I'd been tinkering with a modern version of Forgotten-Orb, since most of the key cards are legal for Standard, and Rising Waters can provide a Winter Orb effect. However, the sheer volume of hate directed at enchantments scared me away from it. I've shelved it for the time being, but if black or red start becoming larger players than they are currently, it may be a good time to pull it out. The format is just slow enough to allow a tempo-based deck to really start cooking. I'm also expecting big things from Bob's deck archetype over the next few months.

The deck I have left off all of my examinations so far is Rebels, and there is a reason for that. Rebels does not do any "one" thing well - it does everything well. Rebel decks have an excellent mana curve (or chain), massive real card advantage can be generated through the searchers, plus virtual advantage as they make counterspells much less effective. They have strong mana consistency - so strong, in fact, that they tend to splash off colors with Adarkar Wastes, Brushlands, or Ruins of Trokar, simply to avoid being overly devastated by Flash Fires. Of course the watchword of Rebels is board control, as Lin Sivvi can search up any needed creature and recycle the dead ones; Disenchants and Parallax Waves all contribute to give Rebels board dominance. Parallax Wave, Tangle Wire, and Armageddon can all provide some tempo control. Lastly, due to the search chain, Rebels can often times hold a fistfull of cards in hand, allowing for quick recovery from a Wrath of God or Armageddon.

The really disgusting thing about Rebels is that it only truly fears two cards: Tsabo's Decree and Flash Fires. Other than those, nothing is really overly detrimental to them. The format is not fast enough (as it was with Urza's Block in the mix) to threaten the Rebel engine. While Fires has terrific synergy, and U/W control packs raw power, Rebels offers incredible flexibility, reusability, and utility. If anything, the problem with Rebels is that it cannot mount an overly quick offense. Although Jhovall Queen and Ramosian Sky Marshall can layeth the smack-down pretty quickly, they cost five or six mana to get into play. However, with Lin Sivvi and the long chain of Rebels, this deck plays more like Survival-Recur in Extended, than any more traditional White Weenie deck. If it can blunt the early offense of Fires, it will usually win that matchup, and U/W will simply come down to how many Wraths they draw. While on paper Rebels actually seem weaker than most of the other decks, in reality, the deck is so amazingly consistent that it simply abuses any deck which gets a bad draw.

Next week we'll take a look at some new concepts; Flexibility and Reusability. While the seven concepts I list above are solid foundations for looking at decks, they do not cover everything. Sometimes decks are willing to give up mana consistency, or tempo control or even card advantage, in order to gain Flexibility. While other decks really look to get the most bang for their buck. In this case, it's the reusability of cards that becomes valuable, and this a fundamental concept for building in a wide range of formats. I'll go into more about these ideas, and I will look at applying all of them to a variety of formats. So check back with me next week, as I'll be looking at how Extended, Multiplayer, Type 1 and even 5-Color decks utilize these concepts to create a killer deck.

Until next time, take care and keep on building,
Jon Chabot