Do you like swarms of small creatures, giant monsters, or spells? Building your first-ever Magic: The gathering card deck is like putting together a team of heroes. Each colour leans toward a different style and strategy. Pick the kind of fun and game you want, and then picking a colour (or two) becomes easier. 

If you are new to Magic: The gathering, this guide will walk you through a basic step-by step to build your deck. From the basic vocabulary of the Magic universe to choosing the colour or colours for your deck.

Understanding the Basics of Magic

Created in 1993, Magic: The Gathering is a collectible strategy card game where two or more players use decks of spells, creatures, and magical abilities to battle each other. The aim of the game is to reduce the opponent’s life total (live points) to zero.

Magic: The Gathering, basic Vocabulary

One of the first things you’ll need to learn and get used to is the game’s unique vocabulary. Magic: The gathering has a rich set of terms and phrases, and learning them will make your journey a whole lot easier.

Here is a brief introduction to some of the terms:

Game zones

• Library: The player’s deck of cards, face down.
• Hand: Cards the player currently holds.
• Battlefield: Where permanents 一 creatures, artifacts, lands 一 are placed.
• Graveyard: Discard card pile. Where cards go when used or destroyed.
• Exile: A zone for cards removed from the game.

Gameplay

• Life Total: Life points. Each player starts at 20 points, 40 in Commander. In Gamers.Online we’ve crafted a revolutionary tool designed to elevate the gamer’s experience, the Magic Live Counter Tool. Available in the Gamers.Online app.
• Mana:  Magical energy used to cast spells; produced by Lands or abilities and any supplemental ways, such as Elvish Mystic.
• Tap: Is usually represented by the symbol   or a T on the card. The action of turning a card sideways to use its ability, declaring a creature as an attacker, regenerating a creature or to pay a cost of a spell or ability. 
• Cost:  A payment made for spells, abilities, or as part or consequence of an effect. 
• Stack: A limbo where spells and abilities go to, between being activated, or cast and happening.
• Removal: A spell or ability used to remove permanents (cards or tokens on the battlefield) from the game permanently, either by putting them on the graveyard or by exiling it. 
• Synergy: Based in the overall network of a card interaction within all parts of the deck. 

Turn Structure

• Beginning phase: consists of three steps.
  • Untap Step: The players are able to untap the tapped permanents. Players are not allowed  to do anything else during this step.
  • Upkeep Step: After the untap stage and is the first time players may take action during a turn.
  • Draw Step: Players draw a card, then players may play spells and abilities.
• First Main Phase

This is a flexible part of the turn where players can play spell, ability and land cards. As a recommendation, it is best to play lands during the first main phase to maximize available mana.

• Combat Phase

This phase is divided into five steps:

• Beginning of Combat: during which the players  get a chance to play instants and abilities, before attacking or defending.
• Declare Attackers: the active player chooses which creatures will attack. After the attackers have been declared, both players have the opportunity to cast instants or active abilities. 
• Declare Blockers: the player getting attacked decides which creatures of his own will be declared as blockers. 
• Combat Damage: when creatures deal damage in combat.
• End of Combat: players can play spells or abilities during this phase. 

• Second Main Phase

Just like the first main phase, players can play the same type of cards, including a land. However it is recommended to cast most of the creatures, sorceries, and enchantments.

• End Phase

During the end of turn, players can play instants and abilities, but the end-of-turn effects trigger at the beginning of the end-of-turn step.

Lastly, the clean-up step happens when a player has more than seven cards in their hand and it is their turn. This player will have to discard cards until they have only seven.

Building you Magic: The Gathering Card Deck

Building your first Magic deck of cards can be overwhelming, but it is 一without a doubt 一 one of the most exciting parts of the game. The key to a strong deck is balance and synergy, the right mix of lands for mana, creatures to attack or defend, and spells to give you flexibility.

In case you are building a Limited deck, you’ll need at least 40 cards, for the Constructed format, you’ll need at least 60 cards and if you want a sideboard you’ll need 15 cards more. Finally, for Commander, you’ll need one commander card and 99 cards for Commander and 59 for Brawl.

Here’s everything you need to know to build your deck — explained step by step in a simple, easy-to-follow way.

Magic Archetypes: Types of decks

An archetype is a recurrent strategy, a style that defines how they play and win. Understanding these will help you to choose a strategy and pick the cards that work well together.

There are three main archetypes:

Aggro

A straightforward and aggressive way to win Magic, playing creatures and attacking with them. Its biggest advantage over other archetypes is consistency. This type of deck has much more redundancy, often running on many creatures and fewer lands, maximising early plays with minimal card advantage. 

These decks aim to finish the game in under six turns. Different card colours can affect aggro decks. For example: white cards favour strong one- and two- drops; green emphasises  mid-size creatures, and red adds burn spells. 

• Sligh: A deck of rather “cheap” creatures and burn spells. The aim is to win by beatdown at an unbearable pace.
• Red-Deck Wins: Based on burn by keeping threats on the board and backing them up with direct damage.

Combo

Combo is an archetype that wins by playing a lot of spells to increase storm count and finish with a powerful storm effect. These decks can contain Infinite Combos, but generally aim to reach a goal where the spell will be lethal. 

• Infinite Combo: these decks are often made of a few combo pieces that will guarantee either a win or the time to do so. 

Control

A control archetype deck aims to control the opponent’s cards and progression with the end result. These decks intend to trade resources until the opponent falls behind on card quality. Control decks are, unlike other archetypes, defensive and reactive in nature. 

What Each Colour Deck Represents

Black⚫

Black cards seek power at any cost. These decks use actions such as discard, removal, and graveyard recursion to gain advantages. Its philosophy centers on personal power and ambition, unrestricted by morality.

Unlike other colour decks, black does not try to improve or reshape the world.

Some of the top cards are:

• Grasp of Darkness
• Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
• Liliana, The Last Hope
• Scrapheap Scrounger

Red🔴

Red deck embodies competition. It is the colour of passion and emotion, dealing with issues immediately. Spells that deal damage directly to creatures, quick attacks, and destruction of artifacts. Uses burn spells to handle many of the most common threats while giving the player ways to finish off opponents with damage that even big creatures can’t block. Red uses fast creatures that can slip past defenses of other decks. 

Some of the top cards are:

• Harnessed Lightning
• Galvanic Bombardment
• Chandra, Torch of Defiance
• Fiery Temper

Green🟢

Green decks focus on ground resources, especially mana and energy, and turning them into powerful creatures or swarms of smaller ones. It embodies gentleness toward nature and the ferocity to defend it. Excels at dealing with enchantments and artifacts but struggles to remove enemy creatures. Green is strong at generating energy, fixing mana, and efficient creatures.

Some of the top cards are:

• Ishkanah, Grafwidow
• Traverse the Ulvenwald
• Attune with Aether
• Serbat of the Conduit

Blue🔵

Blue deck embodies intellect and precision. In Standard, blue contributes to top-tier decks through three major strengths. The countermagic provides versatile answers to spells before they resolve, though it struggles once threats are on the battlefield. They excel at tempo, using bounce effects and multi-effect creatures to slow opponents and gain advantages over time. In terms of energy generation, blue decks offer strong, powerful payoffs.

Some of the top cards are:

• Torrential Gearhulk
• Glimmer of Genius
• Void Shatter

White⚪

White decks represent harmony, order, and structure. These cards offer strong control tools using effects that detain or neutralise opposing threats to keep the battlefield locked down.  White decks can also be highly aggressive with classic “white weenie” strategies built around cheap, efficient creatures and artifact support. These cards also excel at creating multiple creatures, particularly through the fabricate mechanic, allowing the player to build wide, synergistic boards that can overwhelm opponents.

Some of the top cards are:

• Archangel Avacyn
• Avacyn, the Purifier
• Thraben Inspector
• Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

Monocolour vs. Multicolour Decks

When building a Magic: the Gathering card deck. One of the first decisions you need to take is whether you want to play a monocolour deck or a combination of colours. Both strategies have advantages, and the right choice depends on your approach to the game, card pool, and comfort level.

Monocolour decks
PROS	CONS
– Very reliable mana base. – Faster and smoother development. – Easier deck construction for beginners. -More affordable to build.	– Limited to the strengths and weaknesses of one colour. – Many lack answers to certain threats that other colours handle better.

Multicolour Decks
PROS	CONS
– Wider variety of spells,creatures and playstyles. – Can cover one colour’s weaknesses with another’s strength. – Unlock unique strategies found only in colour combinations.	– Mana can be less consistent.Requires more dual lands or mana fixing. – More complex deck building.

Key card types and how they work

Let’s move on to card types. Magic: The Gathering uses several different card types, each with its own role on the battlefield and during the game. Understanding each type and its uses is essential for building a deck and playing smoothly.

Lands

Lands represent locations under the player’s control. Most of these cards contain mana abilities, needed to use almost all the cards or abilities. Because of this, decks usually include a large number of mana-producing lands.

The players can play one land per turn, only during their own main phase, and only when the stack is empty. Playing a land represents a special action, not a spell, so this action does not use the stack or require priority. In this same way, land mana abilities don’t use the stack either. 

It is also important to know that, although lands create mana of a certain colour, the lands themselves are colourless. 

Creatures

Creatures are a permanent card type. These cards represent warriors, minions, beasts, and monsters. Almost all creatures can attack each turn to reduce an opponent’s life or block attackers. 

These cards are played during the main phase of the turn and when the stack is empty. When they enter the battlefield or change controllers, they have summoning sickness, preventing them from attacking or using abilities with the tap/untap symbol until the next turn.

Each creature has power and toughness, with damage accumulating until the end of turn.

Sorceries

This type of cards is never put onto the battlefield; instead they take effect once their mana cost is paid and the spells resolves, they are immediately put into its owners graveyard, after that. Sorceries share the same timing restrictions as all permanent spell-type cards. That is, only during the player’s main phase and only when nothing else is in the stack.

Instants

Like sorceries, instants represent single-use or short-lived magical effects. These cards do not enter the battlefield; instead, once the player pays their mana cost and the spell resolves, effect happens and the card is placed directly into the player’s graveyard.

Instants have no timing restrictions. The player can cast them any time the player has priority, including during an opponent’s turn.

Artifacts

Artifacts are permanent cards that represent magical items, animated constructs or equipment. They represent physical objects and equipment that can be either natural or man-made. 

Many artifacts are also creatures that can attack and defend like other creatures and are affected by the same actions and cards that affect creatures. Most are colourless, meaning that any deck can use them. These are extremely flexible and can fill many roles in a deck.

Enchantments

Enchantment cards create a lasting magical effect and usually stay on the battlefield indefinitely. Most of these cards provide a continuous or triggered ability, and some others offer activated abilities. These types of cards work similarly to coloured artifacts, but differ mostly on the types of cards that can remove them. Only a few old, experimental cards allow enchantments to tap themselves. 

Planeswalkers

Planeswalkers are among the most powerful beings in the multiverse. They represent the thematic identities of the players, but they are also a card type within the game. 

Planeswalkers, as a card type, have the ability to enter the battlefield with a set number of loyalty counters, printed in the lower right of the card.

A planeswalker can be attacked or damaged by an opponent’s spell or ability. This means that, any damage they receive removes that many loyalty counters, and a planeswalker with no loyalty counters is put into the graveyard.

Ready to build your own Magic:the Gathering Deck? 

Now you’ve learnt the fundamentals to build your own Magic: the Gathering deck of cards. You are ready to start crafting a deck that reflects your playstyle, creativity, and strategy. 

As we previously said in other introductory articles, do not be afraid to make mistakes. 

If you want to play Magic, find other players you can share this interest with. 

Experimenting and trying is the first step. With every game, you’ll discover new synergies and new ideas to refine your game. 

Game on!✨