I mentioned a while back that one of Leah's goals over her Christmas break was to learn to play Magic: the Gathering more expertly. We took care of that with some one-on-one lessons, and some games. She also wanted to bring a deck of her own back to New York so she would have something of her own she could play with friends. As a father and a lover of deck design, this was an exciting request -- and challenge -- for me.
If Leah's only going to have one deck, what sort of deck should she have?
If the deck is too weak, she won't want to play it more than a couple of times. If it's too strong, her friends won't want to play with her more than a couple of times. But a deck's "strength" is really a relative statement -- relative to the kinds of decks it will play against.
She and I know very little about the mix of cards from which her friends will build their decks. What do we know? The people she'll be playing with have some cards, but not many (certainly not when compared to the number I have.) And we know the cards are from "older" sets. So, if she has too many new cards, with too many unfamiliar abilities, her friends might get frustrated. And if she has too many rare and powerful cards, she might face the same thing. So I decided I had to limit the rares to just a few. And it seemed reasonable that the entire mix of cards in her deck stay away from tricky abilities (mechanics) which would lead to rule questions or arguments.
Also, I had taught her about the general "flavor" of each of the five colors in Magic, and I wanted her deck to reflect the "typical" attributes of whatever colors she was playing.
This raises the big question of "color." If you only have one deck, and you're a relative novice, what color or colors should your deck be?
I decided that, to help ensure she could have a more varied experience, and because I don't want to have to narrow down my options, I would build two decks. And each of those decks would be a two-color deck.
Deck 1: Red/Green. From Red it needed to have direct damage, some firebreathing and a couple of sneaky tricks. From Green it needed to have efficient creatures, land selection/acceleration, creature growth and protection from fliers. Red/Green is probably my favorite two-color design choice, so it was very easy to select possible cards for the deck. It was very difficult to narrow down the options. But I think we ended up with a fun deck. And, yes, it has the dragon and spider pictured above.
Deck 2: White/Blue. From White it needed cool creatures with simple combat abilities and ways to negate the best cards the opponent has. From Blue it needed ways to counter an opponent's strategy and methods to get more cards. And from both, it needed to fly. Naturally, having been around the game for many years, Leah had one request for a specific creature: Serra Angel.
Before she leaves, we will pit these decks against one another a couple of times to see if either of them needs some alterations. The White/Blue deck might have a bit too much land. The Red/Green deck might not have enough "finishing" cards. On the whole, though, I had a great time thinking about what to build for her enjoyment, and it was really nice to put the decks together with her participating the whole time.
Watch out New York: here comes a Magic-playing actress!
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