I had a really fun draft the other day that was unusual. Usually I find the drafting to be the fun part and the deck construction to be straightforward, but this one was reversed. A very straightforward draft into a UG lane led to some Interesting Choices in deck construction. Let’s go through the steps of taking a pile of cards into a deck

Addition by subtraction

Very commonly, people heap all of their cards into a pile, prune the off-color, then start cutting cards to get to the 23/24 playables. I recommend doing the opposite. First, prune your deck to just the cards that are *certain* to make the deck. These are the powerful cards, top commons that fit every archetype, etc. Usually, you’ll end up with somewhere between 15-20 cards that are no-brainers to include.

Now you look at your deck and figure out What Does Your Deck Want to Be? Is it aggressive? Does it have bombs that reward longer games? Any pockets of synergy that could be developed? By answering this question at this stage of deckbuilding, it’ll help inform your final choices and build a coherent deck.

Final step, make the last additions to the deck by testing them against your proto-deck plan. Do you want a mediocre 2-drop or a 5-mana card advantage spell? Obviously an aggro deck plan would value the former, even if the latter card is “better”. Or maybe your control deck is too thin on early defenses and values the 2-drop against the card that’s a great fit.

Example

Here’s my full draft pool:

Here are the “for sure I’m going to play these cards” pool

What does this deck want to do? Holy graveyard synergies batman! I am turbo-milling myself and looking to get value out of the graveyard via Slogurk, the Castaways etc. Also good sources of recurring value from the Contortionist Troupe, plugging mana into the Dawnheart Mentor, and Sludgey the Sludge Monster.

Do I splash?

I was able to get some decent-ish black cards. But I think my deck’s power is solid enough that I don’t need to compromise my mana-base to increase the power ceiling. No splash.

Defensive Speed

As it stands, there are five 2-drops and five 3-drops. That’s a little shallow for a deck that’s is in very real danger of getting run over by an aggressive deck, so we add our best remaining 2-drop and put in the Wolf.

Graveyard

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With so much happening in the graveyard, things that play well there will have added value. Otherworldly Gaze, Turn the Earth, and Tapping at the Window all go in.

Borderline Removal

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Three choices here. Winterthorn Blessing is a phenomenal tempo card that has flashback to be cast from the graveyard. Duel for Dominance is an okay fight spell that gets significantly better with Coven. Locked in the Graveyard is a bad spell. But if I reliably have a stocked yard, it gets significantly better. So much so, that it goes in over Winterthorn Blessing because this deck wants permanent removal over aggressive tempo plays.

23rd Card

A slow, grindy deck that can’t get value out of decaying zombies is not the best home for Flip the Switch. But it’s not the WORST home either, there are decent other plays at instant speed that make holding up counterspell mana tolerable.

final deck