Red decks are associated with fire, and direct damage to your opponent.
Magic the Gathering is the most popular collectible card game on the market. It has been imitated by many other products, but its longevity attests to its popularity. One of the reasons for its ongoing success is the combination of simplicity and complexity the game offers. Like chess, the game takes very little time to learn, but a lifetime to master. Much of the mastery of Magic though, comes from building a strong deck. An extremely talented deck builder will often defeat a superior player, simply because their deck sets them up for victory.
Instructions
1. Choose a theme for your deck. There are many different concepts that you can base a deck around, but you have to choose one in order to have a starting point. This is especially useful for inexperienced deck builders. There are a number of different themes that are good starting points, such as a small creature deck, direct damage, protection, or a permission deck. Small creature decks would be based around low-mana cost creatures that you can get out fast and early. Direct damage utilizes spells that directly hurt the opponent. Protection decks use as many methods as possible to prevent your opponent from damaging you (with a few big creatures to unleash on them to cause damage). Permission decks are designed to counter your opponent's play. There are more, and more complicated ways to approach deck building, but any of these would be a good choice for a beginner.
2. Choose a color or colors to base your deck around. Most people now play one or two color decks. A one color deck gives you the advantage of always drawing the right type of mana. Choose a deck color that is suitable for the theme of your deck. This might also be influenced by your collection of cards and what you have available. Blue is usually a strong color for a permission deck and red is good for direct damage. Most colors are good if you want to make a deck full of quick-to-deploy small creatures. Color choice is part personal preference, part card availability and part thematic suitability.
3. Decide what your land-to-card ratio should be. A standard Magic deck is comprised of about 60 cards. You can have more, but not less, and 60 is a good size for a first deck. A minimum of one third of your deck should be comprised of land. However, if you are going to choose a lot of high mana spells, add more land. Also, if your deck is multi-colored instead of only one color, you need to play with more land in order to make sure you have access to the different kinds of mana you need early in the game. In cases where you need more land, you might go as high as 26 or 27 land cards in a deck.
4. Choose the rest of the cards that are going to make up your deck. Now that you have the theme and color narrowed down, you should have a much easier time selecting cards that are going to fit in your deck. Remember that you can only have four of any given card in a deck. If you feel that a card is particularly strong, you want to be sure to have it four times in your deck, as that increases your odds of drawing it.
5. Test your deck. This is the key to truly developing a great Magic deck. Take it out and play a few games with it. If you're winning, that's great. But if you're losing, or just barely eking out wins, it is time to look at where the deck is weak. If you're getting pummeled with creatures, you might need a few cards that can stop your opponent from playing them, or a few big blockers of your own. You might not be doing damage quick enough and need to shore up that aspect of your deck. Once you adjust the deck, retest it until you feel like you've struck a balance and can be competitive against a wide range of deck types.
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