It's time to get down and dirty, roll up our sleeves, and design some decks!

In my last strategy article, I mentioned my desire to build a deck with Wash Out and discard creatures. So let's start with four Wash Out and four Abyssal Specters.

Not only can this idea be done with just black and blue, but I usually try to build a deck with as few colors as possible unless I'm playing base green. Dark Rituals can get out a fast Specter and speed up the deck in general. Chilling Apparitions are great with Ritual and give the deck some redundancy. Since we are focusing on bounce and discard, Recoil seems like a natural fit, and it deals with land and artifacts that Wash Out can't. Chimeric Idols belong in almost any deck without counterspells. They give this deck some punch, they're great with Ritual, and they help against other Chimeric Idols. Ravenous Rats fit the theme and give the deck a much-needed two-drop.

The way the deck is shaping up, it will be hard to get enough mana early and not have too much late. Probe seems like a good answer to that problem and it also helps keep your opponents hand size at zero. For the last slot I wanted another two casting cost card. I considered Accumulated Knowledge, Waterfront Bouncer, Memory Lapse, Vodalian Zombie, Spiketail Hatchling, and Hoodwink. I decided on Vodalian Zombie because I felt the deck needed more pressure (Wash Out is much weaker without threats in play) and more help against cards like Blastoderm. The deck looked like this:

4x Wash Out
4x Probe
4x Recoil
4x Vodalian Zombie
4x Abyssal Specter
4x Ravenous Rats
4x Chilling Apparition
4x Chimeric Idol
4x Dark Ritual
4x Underground River
9x Islands
11x Swamps

I have a confession to make: When I design decks, I don't specifically check them against my list of deckbuilding principles. Things like speed, synergy, power, redundancy, and the metagame do all have a place in my head during the design process, however. I try to pay especially close attention to the mana curve and having enough paths to victory.

It might help you to actually go over each principle when designing a deck. Look at the decklist above and ask yourself some questions: Is it fast? Is it powerful? Will it be consistent? Does it have good synergy? Does it gain card advantage? And maybe most important of all... How does it match up in the current metagame? I think that this deck gets a tentative "yes" in most or all of these categories... But several of these qualities are only really relevant in relative terms. (Say THAT ten times fast!)

Maybe the most important aspect of deck design, and an often undervalued one, is playtesting, followed by deck tweaking and/or overhauling. I tested a deck like this extensively before Chicago, and it seemed to have several limitations. Decks with Birds and Elves were faster. Decks with Rishadan Ports could sometimes deny me an entire color. Earthquakes and Urza's Rage could eliminate all my threats. Fact or Fiction could keep an opponent with multiple cards in hand. And Wrath of God was a big problem, while Rebels could beat me if they drew Parallax Wave.

Sigh....

Time to move on, right? Sometimes, a good deck designer needs to know when to move on to an entirely new idea. Case in point: Me, with this deck. I played a U/B deck that, while very different, evolved from this one in the Pro Tour. I struggled and might have done better if I had played something more conventional, like the Fires deck I helped my teammate Rob Dougherty with.

However, sometimes it's a mistake to give up too soon. I gave up on Fires before States and in hindsight I just needed to keep tweaking. Well, I want to try this deck again.

Let's add Blazing Specter! I found the best card in the old version to be Abyssal Specter, and I like Blazing Specter even better. Probe seemed good in concept... But I never wanted to spend five mana on something that didn't affect the board. Let's try Ghitu Fire for something that will make use of all those late-game lands and Rituals. Now we will be even more vulnerable to Port and Dust Bowl, so let's add one of my favorite two drops: Tsabo's Web. Web will help the deck run more smoothly. Blazing Specter will join Abyssal Specter, flying over blockers and Earthquakes and wrecking the opponent's hand and life total. Ghitu Fire can add much-needed creature control, as well as giving us the option to finish off a deck that has gotten your creatures under control. This brings us here:

4x Wash Out
4x Recoil
4x Ravenous Rats
4x Abyssal Specter
4x Blazing Specter
4x Ghitu Fire
4x Chimeric Idol
4x Tsabo's Web
4x Dark Ritual
4x Underground River
4x Sulphurous Springs
3x Salt Marsh
3x Urborg Volcano
3x Island
3x Mountain
4x Swamp

I haven't tested this version, but feel free to try it yourself. While there isn't a weekly Extended tournament at Your Move Games currently (there is a weekly Standard event), I still design Extended decks once in a while. Here is one of my current favorites:

4x Necropotence
4x Seismic Assault
4x Demonic Consultation
4x Duress
4x Pyroblast
4x Firestorm
4x Bottle Gnomes
1x Corpse Dance
4x Mox Diamond
4x Badlands
4x Reflecting Pool
4x Undiscovered Paradise
4x Gemstone Mine
4x Peat Bog
3x Urborg Volcano
4x Swamp

This deck is well prepared for Trix, Replenish, and Tradewind/Survival... But I'm having a hell of a time trying to beat Sligh. Any ideas? I was inspired to make this deck by a Rath Cycle deck called "TechTonic," designed by Dave Humpherys, using Seismic Assault and Necrologia. I'm constantly checking out other people's decks for an idea or a type of idea that I can use when designing my own decks.

In my last piece I mentioned I would be responding to two readers for each of my articles. I want to thank all of the people who sent me responses - and special thanks to go John Carter and Lee Curtis, the two people I have sent responses to. I look forward to hearing from anyone and everyone.

With Planeshift looming on the horizon, I will probably only be doing one more article on deck design before I start talking about Sealed deck for a while. Until then, keep testing and tweaking!