I want to talk about 60 card brewing, casual deckbuilding, and budget standard.
I’ve recently had several conversations with people contemplating getting into Standard again, especially with MtG Arena on the horizon. With Arena’s current design, it’s unlikely the average player will be able to play top-tier known Standard decks at launch – old-school budget brewing techniques may come in handy as players build their collections.
My advice here isn’t designed for someone who has never built any kind of deck before. This is the advice I’d give to friends and students who started out in Commander and Sealed who wanted to move into Standard or Block constructed. Building a rogue constructed deck is kind of like building a sealed pool and kind of like building a commander deck. If you’ve done either, you have transferrable skills.
First, gather up all the legal cards you own that fit the colors you want to build. It’s better to have more cards at this stage than fewer: there may be an unimpressive-looking card that fills a hole in your deck. When you’re done with your “first draft” build, put your spare cards aside but keep them handy. The first time you play the deck, make a note if there were specific cards or strategies that gave you trouble, and look for solutions in your collection when you’re done. My brother is an expert rogue deckbuilder and he makes heavy use of overlooked cards like Aether Meltdown and Doomfall to solve specific problems.
Sort your cards by casting cost, then lay out the foundation of a curve.
4-8 One CMC cards
8 Two CMC cards
8 Three CMC cards
4 Four CMC Cards
So now you have between 24 and 28 cards with CMC under 5, and you want to keep that part of your mana curve really robust. Many standard decks top out at 5 CMC. The exception is ramp decks that consistently get big cards out early and hard control decks focused on getting to specific bombs like Approach of the Second Sun or Bolas. It’s extremely rare for even a ramp deck to play an eight-drop or above. Lots of memorable superstar bombs are in that sweet four CMC zone: Siege Rhino, Hazoret, Restoration Angel. etc. Outside of ramp and control it’s rare to play more than two copies of a card with CMC higher than four unless it’s truly exceptional – Titan or Gearhulk quality.
Bearing that in mind, add cards to your deck until you get to 34-38 nonland cards. Most recent sets are pretty creature-focused, so unless you have a specific plan otherwise make about two thirds of your cards creatures. Make sure you have some interaction, whether it’s in the form of counterspells, removal, or multi-purpose tricks like Blossoming Defense. Beyond that, add anything you like: bomb rares you’re excited to play, higher cost cards if you’re ramp or midrange, more low CMC cards if you’re aggro, removal, ramp, fixing, card draw, or whatever you want. You’re writing a first draft, it’s OK if it sucks, and the foundation you’ve built will help keep the deck playable. That said, when in doubt add cards at four CMC and below.
Look at what you’ve got: are you aggro, midrange, or ramp? What are your deck’s value and synergistic cards? While maintaining your foundational curve, take out anything that doesn’t match your deck’s pace and any cards that aren’t either synergistic or incredibly powerful on their own (Glorybringer wasn’t synergistic with an energy strategy but it’s a great card so it didn’t matter. TirelessTracker was less synergistic than Rogue Refiner so it wasn’t in the ideal mainboard, but it was a functional replacement when needed.)
The standard is 35-38 spells and 22-25 land. You have a lot of options for multi-colored land, and you’re going to want to leverage them pretty heavily, especially if your deck is three colors. Prioritize multi lands that come into play untapped and ones that synergize with your deck. If you’re playing more colors you usually want a higher land count, unless you have access to effects that let you search up land or otherwise fix your mana. Two color aggro decks with lower curves want fewer lands.
There is some nuance here as well. One-drops are much more important in 60 card constructed than any other format – cards like Thraben Inspector that are merely decent in limited form the backbone of standard. On the other hand, control decks often have weird curves, running a bunch of 3-5 cmc board wipes and then a cluster of cards in the 4-5 mana range to deploy after said board wipe.
If you happen to be aware of some of the bombs or dominant strategies in the format you’re playing, see if you have access to anything that counters them directly and put it in either your maindeck or your sideboard. In current standard, exile effects are valuable because they can get rid of Scarab God and other recursive threats. In go-wide formats, board-sweepers are good.
The temptation to include a lot of one-of cards to give yourself options is strong, but often incorrect. Look at all the cards you don’t currently run four of that share a CMC and ask yourself “How often would I rather have card A in hand than card B?” Make serious decisions based on that hypothetical, erring on the side of more copies of the same card.
If you can’t decide what cards are better or you just want to try out a wide variety of cards that’s fine. Just pay attention to that CMC comparison when you play. Whenever you have a one-of in your hand, ask yourself “would I rather have a different card with a similar or lower CMC that isn’t currently a four-of?” Take notes on how often you’d prefer each card. Don’t make rash decisions based on single games, but pay attention to patterns.
Once you’ve got your 60 card deck, shuffle it up, draw a few sample hands and play out your first four turns. Does it feel like you’re hitting your lands in the right colors? If you’re not a control deck, are you advancing the board at a comfortable pace? If things don’t feel good after a dozen or so sample starts, edit a bit.
If you have someone to practice with casually, bring along all the cards you assembled but didn’t use. As you play, try changing your deck composition in response to different problems you’re encountering. Be careful not to over-correct, but if you’re consistently having similar issues, make tweaks.
There’s more advanced advice for specific templates out there that are pretty easy to find, but this is a summary of the general advice I give to players of non-60-card formats who want to try Standard or Block.
