Gamertell

In the past I’ve been asked how to create good Magic team decks. While I am not an authority, I have been a competitive player for two years and competed in multiple 2HG (Two-Headed Giant) tournaments including Pro-Tour Qualifiers. I’ve noticed some things that work really well so here are some tips that can work wonders on the table.

Read Your Cards

Since 2HG is usually a sealed deck, the first thing that you need to pay attention to is what you actually get to build a deck with on the spot. If you don’t read the cards before you start building, that will lead you down a road to disaster. So if you don’t pay attention, you most likely will lose. That’s just common sense though.

Understand the 40-Card Deck

With common sense out of the way, it’s time to build the deck. In terms of deck size, most competitive players play 40-card decks. The reasoning is essentially cutting out the fat. Doing this will get you to the necessary cards that might make or break a game quicker. The drawback is that, with only 40 cards, control spells will most likely put necessary things like land or tide-turning spells straight into your graveyard. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword if you don’t get cards in the pack that defend against this possibility.

Pick a Color

Before building the 40-card deck you have to decide who will play what color(s) in their decks. Some people play two- or three-color decks and one color might be best split between the two party members depending on the style of play that you’re going for in each deck. One thing that works for my team is to make two specialized decks. One deck will be heavy on offense (mixtures of green, black, red and occasionally white). The other would be geared more towards defense and controlling the assets of opponents (white, black, blue and, in cases of removal/destruction spells, occasionally red). Each deck will also have to compensate for the other deck’s weakness.

Still, the basic idea of what you want is in the decks are: Creatures (flying, trampling, lifelink, wither, reach, deathtouch and flanking are different abilities you want to look for), creature generation, removal (“destroy…“, “remove from game” or “put -/- tokens on target creature), life gain (anything that says you gain an amount of life), improvement (gives abilities or bonuses) and control (taps land and creatures, bounces land, creatures or enchantments back to the hand of their control, etc.). You will also need enough land to support these spells.

Pay Attention

Now, once you finally get your decks together to work with, you both need pay attention to your cards. Some have ongoing effects. Others are only for the turn that they are being used in. If you don’t pay attention, you might lose out on a lot of opportunities.

There are more intricacies of deck building but these are just some tips for on-the-spot deck building tips that seem to work.

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