Many people use the Internet as their resource for finding decks to play. A deck that wins a PTQ for someone else could be just the ticket to victory for you in your local PTQ. While there is no shame in doing this, there is another approach: You can create your own tournament-winning deck.

I am not above playing proven archetypes (I played Replenish in Brussels and Academy in Rome, for example), but there are advantages to "going rogue." A rogue deck can catch people unprepared, and they'll be unable to figure out a valid counterstrategy as you are playing. My favorite type of rogue deck is the metagame deck, specifically built to defeat the known power archetypes.

The reason many people never try to design their own decks for a tournament is the fear of failure and being ridiculed FOR that failure. Some of the most original decks come from nonpros who don't spend as much time worrying about their image. No one blinks when you are playing what is accepted as the "best" deck, but if you play something original and you don't make top eight... well, you risk taunting and ribbing. My suggestion is to stay focused on your goal.

If you are serious about being or becoming a pro, then your goal is victory, not avoiding jeers. If you decide that your best chance of winning a Sealed deck event is by maindecking your three Turf Wounds, then do it. Most of the time the winner has the last laugh.

Many people have either forgotten how to design a good deck or never had to learn. Those people are in luck; I'm going to try to teach you. There are six main factors to consider when building any deck: They are raw power, card advantage, synergy, speed, consistency, and the metagame. If you do a good enough job addressing all six of these, your deck should be a winner.

Raw power may be the most important factor in deck construction. Are you playing with a card that does twenty damage when you cast it in the right situation? Are you playing with cards that destroy multiple threats? Does one card in your deck cancel out twelve in a typical deck? Are you playing with cards that are powerful in the early AND the late game? One of the ways I usually judge this is by counting the number of "must counter" or "must destroy" cards I'm playing with.

Card advantage is closely related to raw power. Some of the most powerful cards are the ones that gain you card advantage; one of the differences is that sometimes a card has such raw power that it makes up for an inherent card disadvantage, like Vampiric Tutor or Ball Lightning. However, the best decks are almost universally steeped in card advantage. There is more than one type of card advantage: One type is a card that helps you draw multiple cards, like Inspiration or Dismantling Blow. Another type is a card that can be reused, like Hammer of Bogardan or Cursed Scroll. The other type is the kind that affects multiple cards, like Wrath of God or Story Circle.

Synergy helps you take advantage of the power of your deck and will even increase the power of your deck. Illusions of Grandeur has a lot more raw power when combined with Donate. Firestorm likes cards like Necropotence and Land Tax. Blastoderm and Saproling Burst are even more powerful when used with Fires of Yavimaya. You have to decide exactly what combination of cards works best in your deck. Does Vine Trellis fit better in your deck, or does Llanowar Elf? The great decks have components that become more powerful as part of a whole.

Speed kills. The power, synergy, and card advantage of your deck are meaningless if you're dead. Not only do you want your deck to be as fast as the "fast" decks, you want your deck to BE one of the fast decks. Speed is good defense and good offense. If your deck develops quickly, you can defend yourself well against other fast decks. You can also put slower decks permanently on defense. The main three ways to create a fast deck are with fast mana, a low curve, and early stall cards. Mana creatures like Birds of Paradise, mana artifacts like Mox Diamond, and cards like Dark Ritual help get your high-casting cost spells involved early. Decks with almost no high casting cost cards like Sligh and Stompy have a great early game. Cards like Propaganda, Orim's Prayer, and walls can help stall until the late game.

The importance of consistency is often overlooked. The great decks seem to get a good draw every game. Three of the main ways to ensure this are to make sure you have your mana right, to include lots of redundancy in your deck, and to play with ways to search for the cards you want when you want them. This is why many of the most successful decks are either fast mono-color decks or use lots of search and card drawing effects. The beauty of having a deck filled with redundancy is that every draw seems the same, so if your deck is good, every draw will be good.

Good metagaming is often what gives birth to a good original deck. Sometimes a format becomes stagnant, and the decks being played become predictable. This is when your knowledge of the metagame can give birth to a deck that beats the two or three decks being played, and then who cares that some of the decks that have faded out of the environment would have beaten you? If you are really lucky, you can predict the metagame in a format that is new and reap a great advantage. At PT: Paris I played a R/U deck with many weaknesses, but I sailed into the top eight by beating the Bloom decks and the mono-Red or mono-Black beatdown decks that I was prepared for. This strategy can sometimes fail, of course. At the most recent PT: Chicago I tried to play a deck aimed specifically at Rebels, Fires, and U/W Control. While I was 5-0-1 against Rebels, I spent most of the rest of my time losing to other rogue decks, like the ones played by Brian Kibler and Gary Krakower. Good new decks aren't always made just to beat a couple of decks, but they should at least take the metagame into account.

Deck design is not rocket science. Being a good deck designer does not involve being born with a special mutant gene. Where do you think the decks you've been getting off the net come from? I want you to start by using the principles I've suggested to try and make a good deck. You can even apply all of them when putting together your next Sealed deck; in my next article, I will walk you through the birth of a new deck of mine. I will even include some (gasp!) lists for cool new decks. Until then, be creative and have fun with Magic.

- Darwin Kastle