You never know when somebody might be up for learning how to play Magic. With that in mind, I built 5 monocolor decks for beginners. The decks aren’t meant to be powerful, they’re meant to be fun & easy for beginners to play with as well as balanced with each other for good gameplay. Also, whenever possible (and appropriate) I tried to choose cards that had reminder text. The first deck I built was monowhite. Here are the rules I used to build that deck:
Each card will be common and have a modern card frame.
Each deck has 20 creatures, 18 spells, & 22 lands.
Each deck has an average cmc (not counting lands) of 2.5.
Each deck has 2 artifacts.
Each deck has flying except for Green which has reach.
Each deck has creature removal.
Each deck has 4 cycling lands and other card draw.
Each deck should reflect what the color represents.
Although these decks are meant for beginners, they’re also great for using with people who know how to play but rarely get to play. For example, my youngest sibling loves to play but (with four children under the age of 7) just doesn’t have the time. However, when we get together we’re usually able to find a little time and these decks, given the card choices and straightforward strategies of each deck, allow us to maximize the number of quality games we get.
CREATURES (20)
Elusive Spellfist (4)
Jeskai Sage (4)
Umara Entangler (4)
War-Wing Siren (4)
Prescient Chimera (4)
SPELLS (18)
Downsize (1)
Unsummon (1)
Courier’s Capsule (2)
Fate Foretold (2)
Ghostform (2)
Nullify (3)
Singing Bell Strike (3)
Divination (3)
Scatter Arc (1)
LANDS (22)
Island (18)
Lonely Sandbar (4)
This deck has four themes: noncreature spell synergy, control, removal, & card draw.
Noncreature Spell Synergy: With Prowess having recently been introduced and promoted to evergreen, this seemed like a straightforward flavorful approach to take with blue’s creatures. Jeskai Sage & Umara Entangler have Prowess. Elusive Spellfist has two abilities that trigger whenever a noncreature spell is cast. War-Wing Siren has Heroic and Prescient Chimera lets you Scry 1 whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell. To specifically help War-Wing Siren I threw in four targeting spells: Fate Foretold (2 copies) & Ghostform (2 copies). Fate Foretold also helps with card draw as does Jeskai Sage. Also note that War-Wing Siren & Prescient Siren provide blue with eight fliers.
Control: Blue is known for control and I would be remiss if I didn’t include any. This deck has four counter spells (3 copies of Nullify & 1 copy of Scatter Arc). In addition it also has Downsize to to diminish an opponent’s attack.
Removal: Technically removal is a subset of control but I’m keeping it separate because it’s a theme for every deck. This deck has four removal spells: Unsummon (1 copy) and Singing Bell Strike (3 copies).
Card Draw: Blue is the king of card draw and for good reason. Blue tends to have weak creatures and doesn’t have many cards that do direct damage. Card draw allows blue to keep up with the other, more aggressive, colors. This deck has 16 cards that provide card draw: Jeskai Sage (4 copies), Courier’s Capsule (2 copies), Fate Foretold (2 copies), Divination (3 copies), Scatter Arc (1 copy), & Lonely Sandbar (4 copies). In addition, Prescient Chimera provides Scry which isn’t card draw but sure does help.
The success of this deck depends on card draw. When this deck is able to draw a bunch of extra cards, it can be successful. If it can’t, it’s toast as it’s creatures just aren’t powerful enough to hold off most decks.
As always, I welcome any constructive comments you may have.
You never know when somebody might be up for learning how to play Magic. With that in mind, I built 5 monocolor decks for beginners. The decks aren’t meant to be powerful, they’re meant to be fun & easy for beginners to play with as well as balanced with each other for good gameplay. Also, whenever possible (and appropriate) I tried to choose cards that had reminder text. Here are the rules I used to build the decks:
Each card will be common and have a modern card frame.
Each deck has 20 creatures, 18 spells, & 22 lands.
Each deck has an average cmc (not counting lands) of 2.5.
Each deck has 2 artifacts.
Each deck has flying except for Green which has reach.
Each deck has creature removal.
Each deck has 4 cycling lands and other card draw.
Each deck should reflect what the color represents.
Most of these rules came from the first of these decks that I built: monowhite.
CREATURES (20)
Akroan Skyguard (4)
Veteran Armorsmith (4)
Court Street Denizen (4)
Veteran Swordsmith (4)
Abzan Skycaptain (4)
SPELLS (18)
Mortal’s Ardor (2)
Chosen by Heliod (4)
Pacifism (2)
Puncturing Light (2)
Raise the Alarm (2)
Revoke Existence (1)
Kill Shot (2)
Marble Chalice (2)
Solemn Offering (1)
LANDS (22)
Plains (18)
Secluded Steppe (4)
This deck has four themes: soldier tribal, life gain, removal, & card draw.
Soldier Tribal: I picked tribal because that’s an easy theme for beginners to identify and pick up on. So each creature is a soldier, there are two copies of Raise the Alarm, and consequently there’s a fair amount of synergy just between the creatures. White is primary in flying so I put in 8 fliers (Akroan Skyguard & Abzan Skycaptain).
Life Gain: Beginners like life gain and White is the champion of life gain so this seemed like an obvious pairing. There are 5 cards that provide life gain in this deck: Mortal’s Ardor (2 copies), Marble Chalice (2 copies), & Solemn Offering (1 copy). Mortal’s Ardor also serves as a way to trigger Akroan Skyguard’s Heroic ability. Solemn Offering also fits in with the theme of removal and Marble Chalice fulfills the artifact requirement.
Removal: Removal is, of course, an important part of any deck and beginners need to learn how and when to use it. This deck has 8 cards that focus on removal; 6 provide creature removal (Pacifism, Puncturing Light, & Kill Shot) & 2 provide artifact/enchantment removal (Revoke Existence & Solemn Offering). As I’ve already noted, Solemn Offering also fits in with the life gain theme. In addition, Court Street Denizen has an ability which can at times be effectively the same as creature removal.
Card Draw: As per my rules, this deck has 4 copies of Secluded Steppe (a cycling land). In addition it also has Chosen by Heliod which also serves as a way to trigger Akroan Skyguard’s Heroic Ability.
Again, this deck is not meant to be powerful. Several of the cards are, to put it politely, weak. However, they are straightforward to use and that is the point. As always, I welcome any constructive comments you may have.
