Disneyland, Lego Land, Sea World... These major tourist attractions have more on common than just all being located in California.

They all have a theme.

Chances are that they would not be as fun (and therefore, not nearly as profitable) if they did not. Would you want to go to Randomly Assorted Metal Pieces Put Together In A Haphazard Way With Ghosts And Rubber Bands And A Really, Really Big Green Chair Land? Probably not.

If a theme can make an amusement park more fun and exciting, then the same should be true with decks. Even if you don't win the game, a theme deck will make the game much more enjoyable than if you were playing something else.

Variety is the Spice of Life (Second to Garlic)
When most people think of theme decks in Magic, the first thing they think of are creature type themes. From the wildly popular Slivers, Elves, and Goblins all the way down to Rats, Thallids, and Cats, the new tribal mechanic of Onslaught is only going to strengthen these mindsets. While there is nothing wrong with creature-themed decks, not enough people even know that you can build a theme deck without regard to the creature type of the cards you use.

So if you are not using creatures as the theme of your deck, what would you use? I'm glad you asked. Let's go over just some examples of decks you can use. (Note that basic lands are never considered in the theme.)

Alphabet Soup - There are a couple of variations to this. You can go the easy route and build a deck using the rules that are suggested for this year's Auction of the People and only use cards that have a word starting with the letter of your choice; if you want to be a little more restrictive, you can allow only cards starting with the chosen letter.

Even more restrictive (which tends to lead to more creativity in decks) is playing a deck that has to have at least one card starting with each letter of the alphabet. This can lead to some interesting card choices when it gets to the letters with fewer cards in them. Also, assuming a sixty-card deck, you are only left with ten or fifteen"free" spots to put in whatever you want, leading to some inconsistency fun.

Location Magic - Choose a location; any location. It could be a river, a library, a cemetery, or anything else you can think of. All cards in the deck would have to fit into the theme in some way. For example, a simple cemetery deck might look something like the following.

Cemetery Deck
4 Grave Pact
4 Cemetery Gate
4 Gravedigger
4 Gravebane Zombie
4 Shallow Grave
4 Gravegouger
4 Wall of Tombstones
4 Crypt Angel
4 Crypt Creeper
4 Ancient Tomb
20 Swamp

I wouldn't advise actually playing this deck; it was randomly thrown together, has little synergy, and many old cards that you probably don't have.

You also will have to decide yourself what you consider in theme. If you were building a library deck, Library of Leng, Library of Alexandria, and Sylvan Library are obviously in theme; cards like Spellbook, Jayemdae Tome, and Thran Tome are also a pretty good bet.

The question comes when you want to play Hapless Researcher; the card text has absolutely nothing to do with libraries, but the art does. Others, like Archivist are also questionable. Because there is no way to cover every case that comes up, you will have to decide for yourself where the line is.

Movies - This type of theme deck can be the hardest to build. You will often find yourself stretching how a card fit in a deck. Here is an example, complete with the rationalizations.

Star Wars
4 Force Spike (The Force is what the Jedi use)
4 Force of Will (Again that whole Force thing)
4 Phantom Centaur (Episode 1: The Phantom Menace)
4 Phantom Warrior (Episode 1: The Phantom Menace)
4 Clone (Episode II: Attack of the Clones)
4 Avoid Fate (If you have seen these movies and cannot think of one instance that someone tried to avoid their fate, you need to be smacked - or at least forced to watch the movies again)
4 Gaea's Skyfolk (They have legs and are in the air. In a way, you could say they are Skywalkers)
4 Fact or Fiction (Obi Won knew the presence of the Force was a fact. Han Solo thought it was fiction)
2 Cold Storage (Han Solo was frozen in Carbonite)
2 Star Compass (How else would the Death Star navigate space?)
4 Desert (Tattooine is a desert)
4 Treetop Village (Where the Ewoks live)
6 Forest (Bonus Points if you use Invasion Forest number 350; it has been nicknamed the Ewok Village Forest for a reason.)
10 Island

The Star Compasses are less for helping the deck and more for having fun explaining them when people ask how they fit the theme. They are easily replaceable with basic lands. Unlike my random cemetery deck above, this deck is actually playable. And lets not forget the fun to be had when you swing with your Clone, announcing,"It's the Attack Of The Clones!!!"

One final note on this deck. If you are using a sideboard, or know what to expect: Wallop has some nice artwork of the Millennium Falcon on it.

Movies II - Like most movies, this theme idea has a sequel. Simply only play with cards whose name is also a movie. A complete list of cards as movies can be found here at http://www.flaminio.com/magic/movies.html.

There's not much more to say; just make sure you announce the theme of this before you play so no one misses it. It might also be a good idea to memorize the plots of all the movies you are using so you can astound and annoy your friends.

Storyline Decks - The basic idea here is to make decks based on the storyline. An example would be a deck with the crew of the Weatherlight. Even if you don't win, you could just have the goal of getting Gerrard, Sisay, Orim, Ertai (Adept, not Corrupted), Squee, Tahngarth, Mirri, Crovax, Karn, and the Weatherlight itself into play at one time. Or you could play the dark side with Volrath, Ascendant Evincar, Ertai the Corrupted, Greven Ill-Vec, and the Predator Flagship. And don't forget Volrath's Stronghold with your land. You could even make a Legacy deck with all the pieces of the Legacy in it. If you don't like the Weatherlight storyline*, you could go with a Pit Fighter deck, a Brother's War themed deck, or anything else you can think of. You could even work with some friends to make multiple decks and play out the storyline. The Odyssey story is perfect for this, allowing all sorts of decks to play.

Two Heads are Better Than One, but Still Worse Than Three
The ideas listed above are just a small sampling of the different themes you can play. You can play with cards by the same artist, same set, or even by how much errata the card has been given if you want. There is no end to the number of ideas you can come up with. Just remember to think out of the box.

While it is great fun to play a theme deck, it is even more fun to pit theme deck against theme deck. Organize a night with a few of your friends. Pick one of the above themes (or one of your own) and have everyone build. The next time you get together, play the decks against each other in a couple of large Melee games. It's almost guaranteed to work if you find the playing with and against the same decks every week is starting to get dull.

Until next time,
Tom Fenwick
ender@mtglair.com
BlackLotusODeath on AOL Instant Messenger

* - I, for one, loved the storyline and was sad to see it end. I cannot see why people would hate it as much as they do. If you disliked it, I am open for intelligent debate. Now that I have that aside out of the way, go read the rest of the article.