So, you are eager to build your own deck, right? You want to construct it from scratch, lovingly nurture it into an efficient killing machine, and then go undefeated in a PTQ? You want to earn the respect from your peers, perhaps even show “those netdeckers” how Magic should be played? You want to be like Rizzo, like Ben Goodman, like Chris Pikula? Well, listen up then, for here's my advice:

Don't build your own decks.

Just copy it from the Internet, perhaps tweak a few cards and learn how to play it inside out. Building a rogue deck for a Pro Tour Qualifier is ugly work. It's time consuming, most often unrewarding, and it will only earn you the mockery (or even pity) of other players – even if you beat them. Do yourself a favor and hit that “back” button now.

Still here? Alright, don't say I didn't warn you.

Choose a format. Then construct a gauntlet – say, build the decks from the latest Top 8. (If you know what your local metagame looks like, then feel free to change your gauntlet based on that.) It's often a good idea to play these decks against each other, to get a feel for the format. Make sure that you keep them updated, but don't add techy cards to your gauntlet decks that are unlikely to show up at a tournament.

Read as much as you can online. Yes, actually playing Magic will improve your skills faster, but you still need to keep up with the metagame and with the latest tech. Articles and event coverage are great, but don't neglect the Ask the Judge features – you have to know the rules before you can bend them to your advantage. If you already know which kind of deck you want to build, check the forums on several Magic sites.

Perhaps the best tool available to a rogue deckbuilder is Gatherer. Not only can you look up the exact wording of cards, it also allows you to scan the cardpool quickly. I sometimes even let Gatherer display all the cards from one color and then read them one by one.

It's nearly impossible to build a good deck completely by yourself. You will almost certainly need others to help with playtesting, to provide new ideas and to keep track of the metagame.

If possible, find a group of players in your area that is dedicated to your format and start (or join) a team with them. If you're not sure whether such a team exists, ask around at your local game store.

If that's not possible, then you have several other options. The best is probably to join an online team. This is either a clan on Magic Online, or a team that works with a secret forum. The advantages of joining a Magic Online clan are that you can pool your cards and that testing together becomes very easy. Then again, the secret forum team has the advantage that all your ideas are neatly written down somewhere.

Finally, you can start or join a thread dedicated to the deck you want to build (if you don't yet know which deck you want to build, see step 3). Note that regularly posting on a thread can be combined with being a member of a Magic team, but you will need to be careful not to post your team's tech on a public forum. Similarly, don't spend all your time on your thread and neglect to help your team-mates. Still, it's certainly possible.

By now you should be familiar with the card pool and the environment, and you should either have joined a team or chosen a public forum which you can join as soon as you know what deck you want to build.

You can skip this step if someone else has posted a rogue, interesting, strong-looking deck already. If you need to start from scratch though, the process of brainstorming will give you a solid starting point. Some people are most productive when brainstorming alone, and some people prefer to brainstorm with others.

One approach is to exploits weaknesses in the decks that you're expecting to face. You can also merge two decks together (for instance, you could try to fit Counterbalance and Sensei's Divining Top into Ninja Erayo – check this if you don't know what Ninja Erayo is), port something from another format, or you can build around a specific card.

Let me give an example of the last method. During my Gatherer search, I stumbled upon Cover of Winter. Nobody plays the card, but the effect is potentially very powerful. Let's take a look.

Cover of Winter is an Enchantment, so it plays well with Verduran Enchantress. It's also snow, so you could build a deck around Verduran Enchantress, Scrying Sheets, Cover of Winter and, say, Gelid Shackles.

Another way to abuse enchantments is Copy Enchantment, which either duplicates Gelid Shackles or gives you a fresh Cover of Winter. You can also reset it with Repeal, by the way. Add Sensei's Divining Top, Counterbalance and the aforementioned Scrying Sheets and you have the outline of a W/U control deck – stall with Cover of Winter, lock up the game with Counterbalance, then cast Wrath of God and drop a fatty.

Finally, you can build a W/U skies-style deck. Against control, use counters to stall long enough for your beaters to win. If you're facing aggro, race them in the air and ignore the damage from their counterattacks thanks to Cover of Winter. (Note that Cover of Winter prevents combat damage to your creatures as well.)

Don't write off any ideas yet during your brainstorming. Be open to new, janky ideas and see where your thoughts lead you. Sure, the W/G Snow Enchantress deck is most likely not Tier 1, but you can still use the idea as a stepping-stone. It's far more productive to say, “hey, Enchantress makes me think of Copy Enchantment – wow, I can build a W/U control deck!” than to say, “Enchantress sucks, Cover of Winter sucks. Next card!”

Take your time and write down every idea that you get. It's often hard to continue your brainstorming after you've been interrupted, so make sure there are no distractions. After you're satisfied, look over your list and pick the idea that appeals most to you. Make sure that you do save and share the others though.

Now the real work begins.

Write down an initial decklist, proxy it up and run it through the gauntlet (test it against the decks you're expecting to face). Test matchups even if they theoretically should be auto-wins or auto-losses. You don't care about percentages yet – so allow takebacks – but you should have an idea how good the common matchups are. The results likely won't be pretty, but they will be very educational.

After your poor deck has been destroyed often enough, try to figure out (preferably with your testing partner) what your deck's weaknesses are. Which cards were weren't working, and which ones were great? Change some cards in the deck and run it through the gauntlet again. Then change some more cards and test it again. Re-test cards that you took out a few versions ago. Begin playing games post-sideboarded.

Personally, I like to include one or two singletons in the decks I build, even when I'm not running tutors. If you wreck an opponent with a one-of, he will often assume that you're running more than one copy and will play around that spell for the rest of the match, giving you a huge advantage – especially if you sideboard out the card. That being said, make sure that your singletons are powerful and not too narrow (unless you're running it in the sideboard).

Make sure that you don't get discouraged by the (almost inevitably) bad results – if you do, read this (yes, Rizzo went 3-4 in a tournament with the deck that would go on to dominate Extended). Most good decks are made by months upon months of testing rather than a single stroke of genius. As Edison said, “deckbuilding is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration”.

(Note that Edison is frequently misquoted as saying “genius” instead of “deckbuilding”. Few people know that his greatest achievement was actually inventing Keeper about a hundred years before the first Magic card was printed. The guy certainly liked to sling some spells after a hard day's work in the lab.)

When your deck is either reasonably well-tweaked or performing reasonably well, post it on the forum and/or submit it to the team. Listen and test their suggestions, no matter how silly they may seem. If they tell you to cut that one card that you really like, then try to be as objective as possible about it – it might be an ineffective pet card, or it might be a card that looks janky but is actually great.

Let me repeat that – do not be afraid to try janky cards. If everyone says that a certain card or deck is just unplayable, then they're often right… but not always. If you and the rest of the Magic players disagree on something, then keep testing it until you're sure whether you're right or wrong. The premium article Information Cascades in Magic (by Patrick Chapin) deals with this and with going rogue in general.

It's also important to be humble. Think of your team-mates' suggestions as valuable contributions rather than attacks against your deck (or even worse, against you as a person). You will have to be able to admit that someone else is right and that you were wrong. If you use a public forum, don't ignore someone just because he's new to the thread. In fact, he will have a different perspective than you do, which can make his comments very valuable.

If you get stuck, take an empty sheet of paper, write down the “core” and try to think of different ways in which to flesh it out. Sometimes you have to start over if you want to move forward. Be sure to take a break every now and then: work on another idea, or even better, play another format for a while. Still, despite the breaks, make sure that you consistently keep improving your deck.

If your test partners are sick of playing against your deck, then begin testing online (using either Magic Online, Magic Workstation or Apprentice – the last two are free, but Magic Online is better) or simply play both your deck and the gauntlet deck simultaneously. You will obviously need to have the discipline not to abuse the information from knowing both player's hands, but playing both sides at once can be very enlightening.

When you feel that you've tried everything and that there's not a single card that you want to change, then you can move on to the last step. In my experience though, the tweaking step will last far longer than the average Magic player thinks.

Make sure that your gauntlet decks and your opponent's playskill are similar to those in the tournament you're preparing for. Then run the deck through the gauntlet one last time, without takebacks. Play about ten matches (not games… matches) against the decks you're expecting to face. Put your feelings for your deck aside – you're only interested in the results from now on.

If the results are good, take it to a small (mock) tournament or sign up for a Premier Event on Magic Online. If your creation survives this last test, then congratulations – you've successfully built a Tier 1 deck. As a reward for your hard labor, you'll have an edge over your opponent thanks to the rogue factor and you'll get a large amount of satisfaction out of creating a competitive homebrew.

Otherwise, set the deck aside until you get an idea how you could improve it, until the metagame changes drastically or until a new set comes out. Of course, this result isn't what you were looking for, but you'll still have gained a lot of experience with the environment. You may also have stumbled upon a few cards that are great in other decks.

If you have the time, go back to step 3. Otherwise… join the ranks of the netdeckers.

Adriaan Schipper
Team Fatal Evolution
adriaan_schipper at hotmail dot com