Lesson 7: The Basics of Good Deck Building

This is an article written at Dueling Network by Pox_Equestria. Recently there has been a request for this article and so here is an article on the subject written better than any other deck building advice article I have ever seen. So why reinvent the wheel? Here it is presented and updated to the current banlist for you to enjoy.

Welcome to decks and techs, this is a series I will be doing on building decks, and keeping your deck sharp and tournament ready

Before I focus on the finer points of deck making, we have to do something first-build that deck

I am going to take you through building a deck like the steps of building a car, so work with this analogy here:

You are a race car driver, there are lots of other race car drivers out there, and they all have different race cars, but you want to be the best driver. Now, some will just take the guy who won the Daytona 500 last year and use that car, but not you, your going to build your own car, so lets get to work.

Goal: This is a little outside the race car analogy, but your deck needs to have a goal. Now I am building a spider deck for my deck garage, so we are just going to use that. The way you think of the goal of your deck should be something like "My deck is going to win by______"

For example, "My deck is going to win by controlling the field with spiders, then generating quick advantage when my opponent is out of resources"


Okay that part was easy, now were moving on

Chassis-The chassis(chas-y) of a car is the frame that holds the entire car together. In dueling we call this a skeleton. The skeleton is the MINIMUM cards you need for your goal. For a spider deck, It would look something like this


2 Informer Spider
2 Relinquished Spider
2 Ground Spider
2 Junk Synchron

2 Sutmbling
2 Spider Web
2 Spider's Lair

2 Liar Wire


Engine-The engine of the car is what makes it go. Decks have engines to, a group of cards that allows you to move through your deck quickly. Some players don't put engines in their decks, in our car analogy, that means your pushing your car yourself, and a pushed car does not go that fast.

For this deck, I chose to implement the plant/debris engine engine


2 Informer Spider
2 Relinquished Spider
2 Ground Spider
2 Junk Synchron
1 Debris Dragon
1 Lonefire Blossom
1 Spore
1 Glow-Up Bulb
1 Dandylion

2 Sutmbling
2 Spider Web
2 Spider's Lair

2 Liar Wire

(bold=added cards)


Okay, so our deck/car has its framework done, and it has an engine, so whats next


Aesthetics-This is the best thing I could think of for my analogy. After your car has a frame and an engine, the rest of the car is pretty much however you want it to be. Note that most of these serve to make the car faster or more useful.In yugioh, we call these "techs" or, "staples" and they are cards that make your goal (see above) easier to complete

A Fly on the wall-Spiders (for joshjones)

2 Informer Spider
2 Relinquished Spider
2 Ground Spider
2 Junk Synchron
1 Debris Dragon
1 Lonefire Blossom
2 Dark Bug
1 Spore
1 Glow-Up Bulb
1 Dandylion
1 Doom Dozer
1 Genex Ally Birdman
2 Maxx "C"

2 Stumbling
2 Spider Web
2 Spider's Lair
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Dark Hole
1 Giant Trunade
1 Monster Reborn
1 Foolish Burial
1 Verdant Sanctuary

2 Liar Wire
2 Solemn Warning
2 Spider egg
1 Solemn Judgement
1 Mirror Force

Extra
1 T.G. Hyper Librarian
2 Dark Diviner
1 Formula Synchron
1 Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
2 Scrap Dragon
1 Ally of Justice Decisive Armor
1 Junk Destroyer
1 Junk Gardna
1 Stardust Dragon
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Armory Arm
1 Gaia Knight, the Force of Earth

(bold=new cards)


Now as you can see, deckbuilding can take some time, but it isn't difficult, just remember to work in stages, and follow these steps, and you'll be first in the Daytona 500 in no time.

Moving on, today, I want to talk about a very advanced concept in dueling, mainly because it takes years to do. Building a TRULY great deck. This is taking deck building to a much higher level. Now, I just compared building a deck to a building a car, in the sense that each part of the car represented an integral part of the deck, in that sense, this will be going over such things as the paint color, the rims, and what color of fuzzy dice to put on the rear-veiw mirror.

Now, assuming you have been following my article from the beginning, you have a well built deck you feel comfortable with, and that's great, a lot of people don't make this far. However, if you want to take it to the next level, it is going to take years of hard work with that deck, so lets get started.

Before you start, get a notebook, or some other way to document information. Date each duel you do with your deck (Day, month, AND year) and write what deck your opponent was playing, and have a link to the build you used, write down weather you won or lost and why. If you lost, write how to adjust for it.

Here is an example from my Clown deck, a little after the new banlist and xyzs:


9/2/2011
Opponent's deck: Chaos Agents
Result:Loss
Reason:Deck has no response to leviathan, as well as other xyzs
What to change: Side deck some gravity binds and add more messengers of peace, and perhaps a fossil dyna


Now, the first thing you should do is playtest the deck religiously. Whenever you log onto DN, do at least 3 Matches a day with that deck (try not to duel the same person/same deck multiple times). When you win, note what worked, when you lose, take note of what didn't work, and adjust accordingly, keep doing this until you stop having problems(this should at least take a couple of months)

After making some adjustments, post you deck on SEVERAL forums and get as much feedback as possible. Test out EVERYTHING people recommend (unless it's completely ludicrous) 1 or 2 things are bound to improve your build

After this, buy your deck in real life. Buy everything for the main deck, side deck, extra deck that you need, and also any techs you are considering that haven't made it into the main build yet. If you have tested your deck enough, you should be confident putting down money for it (if you are only dueling on DN that's fine to) if you are using your deck in real life, do all testing with it from here on in, NOT DN

Subsequently do what I call confirming the balance of the deck. Now we all have had problems with the DN shuffler, so I recommend numbering each card in your deck from 1-40 and have a random number generator pick 5 numbers at random to simulate a perfectly random hand (I said this would be time consuming). Make more adjustments based off of your findings and test them (once again making sure not to duel the same person/deck to many times)seeing as not everything is purely random

Bring your deck to its first major test: Locals. If you have succeeded thus far , your deck should make AT LEAST the top 4 of your locals (depending on skill of other players and the size of the tourney.) If you lose, show your deck to your opponent and ask for their opinions, as well as other skilled players at your place of locals.

At this point, you should know your deck as well as you know yourself. You should be able to look at the cards in play/in your hand and determine what the remaining cards are in your deck perfectly. You should continue to play at least 3 matches a day if not more. You should be able to understand and be able to defeat every other deck out their with the tools your deck has. You should be able to do this, because whenever you won, you wrote why you won, and whenever you lost, you wrote why you lost. This should mean you have a log of months of duels with this deck, you should be able to name a played archtype, look in your log, and find every duel you have done against that deck, and how you won/lost to it.

If you made it this far, you might think you have built your deck to the best of its ability, this is where a lot of people mess up. The meta changes in subtle ways every day. The banlist changes every 6 months, Konami releases new mechanincs and changes rulings frequently, stay updated on these, and incorporate them into your deck.

If you continue to adjust your deck, keep a log of your wins/losses, and practice every day, I can guarantee you will have a masterfuly crafted deck