Magic has a ton of great cards—a lot more than people realize. Shoot, most of the cards in Magic are strong. Don’t believe me? I’ll prove it! Today, I will build five sixty-card decks around random Magic cards, as selected by the random-card function over at Gatherer.

This is exciting for three reasons! First of all, this should be a fun project. Second, it will help to demonstrate that there are no bad cards. Third, I have no idea what these five decks will be! Tempo? Control? Aggro? Tribal? Combo? I don’t know; let’s find out!

Random Card 1 — Krark-Clan Stoker

This 3-mana 2/2 in red has a very simple ability: Tap to sacrifice an artifact for a pair of red mana. Not only is that a bit of a throwback, it also slides in alongside a recently released card from Magic Origins. Take a gander!

Stoke the Fires! ? Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (18)
• 3 Krark-Clan Stoker
• 1 Burnished Hart
• 4 Myr Moonvessel
• 4 Myr Servitor
• 4 Myr Sire
• 2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Daretti, Scrap Savant

• Spells (16)
• 2 Kaervek's Torch
• 2 Furnace Celebration
• 2 Krark-Clan Ironworks
• 2 Mycosynth Wellspring
• 2 Staff of Domination
• 2 Trading Post
• 4 Ichor Wellspring

• Lands (24)
• 16 Mountain
• 4 Darksteel Citadel
• 4 Great Furnace

Buy This Deck

Take a look at Myr Moonvessel. It’s a perfectly adequate 1-drop, and when it dies, it makes a mana for you. Toss it into the fires for 3 mana. You can chump-block and then sacrifice before it would die and get a useful trigger.

And it’s not the only Myr friend we’re rocking. Myr Sire is a solid body to toss in the fire, and after death, it makes a Myr token, so you have two creatures to sacrifice for each Sire you have—that’s 4 mana in an Ironworks or multiple damage triggers from Mommy and Daddy Nalaar (Pia and Kiran Nalaar). (And if you have the cash to splash, you could grab Hangarback Walker instead).

Myr Servitor is great because you can bring it back post-sacrifice for another run. It’s been a best friend of Mishra, Artificer Prodigy ever since Time Spiral hit the shelves. The more you have, the merrier!

I added a few additional win cons to the deck, such as Furnace Celebration, in case the main route of K. Torch isn’t working. You can also sacrifice stuff to the Nalaars to damage and slay a foe as well. Both work. Enjoy!

Random Card 2 — Miscalculation

Hmmm . . . This is just your typical counter. There’s nothing really to do with it but go obvious.

Draw, Go, Tokens ? Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (2)
• 2 Talrand, Sky Summoner

• Planeswalkers (2)
• 2 Jace, Memory Adept

• Spells (32)
• 2 Spelljack
• 4 Counterspell
• 4 Dismiss
• 4 Dissipate
• 4 Forbid
• 4 Miscalculation
• 2 Recurring Insight
• 2 Tidings
• 2 Cyclonic Rift
• 2 Jace's Sanctum
• 2 Skywise Teachings

• Lands (24)
• 24 Island

Buy This Deck

Twenty-two counterspells of various sorts are included above. Then, I also round things out with four draw spells and a pair of Cyclonic Rifts for bouncing anything that gets out of hand. That’s twenty-eight spells. I then toss in two Jace, Memory Adept to draw some cards and keep some control. There’s not a whole lot of space left.

So I toss in Talrand, Sky Summoner, Skywise Teachings, and the Jace's Sanctum to toss me a few triggers as we run through all of the spell-heavy cards. The goal is to make some flying Drake or Djinn in order to bring the beats and then win with that hoard. Again, it’s a very obvious direction to go with Miscalculation. So what’s next?

Random Card 3 — Force of Nature

Well, that’s a classic! Hmmm . . . How do we build around Force of Nature? I could do a green ramp deck with Force as a card we build up to quickly, but it feels that this is a problem because an 8/8 for 6 mana in green really doesn’t feel that powerful anymore. It’s like a really bad Terra Stomper or even Hydra Omnivore.

So how do we use it differently? Let’s really go old-school.

Pro-Green Forces ? Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (18)
• 2 Acidic Slime
• 2 Fierce Empath
• 2 Mirran Crusader
• 4 Force of Nature
• 4 Pristine Angel
• 4 Sylvan Caryatid

• Spells (20)
• 2 Heroes' Reunion
• 2 Seed Spark
• 2 Swords to Plowshares
• 2 Borrowing the East Wind
• 4 Hurricane
• 2 Rune of Protection Green
• 4 Circle of Protection Green
• 2 Sword of Feast and Famine

• Lands (24)
• 4 Plains
• 8 Forest
• 4 Graypelt Refuge
• 4 Selesnya Sanctuary
• 4 Stirring Wildwood

Buy This Deck

We have here a version of that deck. Force of Nature will deal 8 damage to you if you don’t pay that upkeep, so just pay 1 mana to prevent it to Circle (or your Rune of Protection: Green). That’s fun!

Hurricane sweeps the sky, keeping unsightly flyers from really blasting you. So why not run Pristine Angel? You can Hurricane while it’s untapped and it survives, and then tap and swing and hit someone for some damage after he or she has been denuded of any aerial defenses. It works.

From there, it’s a simple thing to flesh out the deck and call it a project.

Random Card 4 — Trip Noose

That’s not exactly an obvious card to build around, right? Not so fast, El Reader!

Trippin? for your Love ? Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (17)
• 2 Frost Titan
• 2 Puppeteer
• 2 Scalpelexis
• 4 Whirler Rogue
• 3 Sharding Sphinx
• 4 Silver Myr

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

• Spells (16)
• 2 Thopter Spy Network
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Worn Powerstone
• 2 Barl's Cage
• 2 Cranial Plating
• 2 Everflowing Chalice
• 2 Icy Manipulator
• 2 Puppet Strings
• 2 Trip Noose

• Lands (26)
• 16 Island
• 2 Buried Ruin
• 2 Rogue's Passage
• 2 Temple of the False God
• 4 Darksteel Citadel

Buy This Deck

The goal of this deck is to tap down opposing creatures and then swing over with fun cards that can win the game.

Look at Barl's Cage, originally printed in The Dark. For each 3 mana you churn into the Cage, you can keep a tapped creature locked down for another turn. In a deck like this, being able to tap down some creatures and keep others from untapping is very useful. You could add in cards like Sand Squid to the deck as well.

Now that we can tap stuff down, what sort of cards work? Scalpelexis is a great way to mill someone since it exiles the cards from an opponent’s deck instead of just putting them into a graveyard. In today’s Magic metagame, milling themes can often bite you because you mill creatures for opponents to reanimate, spells with flashback, and more. But Scalpelexis doesn’t walk you into those issues—the cards go away for reals.

Frost Titan is a great beater since it plays into the tapping-stuff theme. You could add in Torrent Elemental if you enjoy this vector and want to continue.

After I tossed in mana artifacts and Silver Myr, I realized that we had a bunch of artifacts in the deck almost accidentally. That seems like as good a place as any to drop a few artifact-friendly cards. How about Sharding Sphinx? You can ensure that it hits, and when it does, it makes increasingly more and more Thopters, and it plays well with the Myr. I like the Thopter idea, so Whirler Rogue suggests itself—you make some Thopters for beating, and you can tap artifacts to make a vital creature unblockable in case your first way of attacking is stymied. (Or if you have to use them defensively, you can tap down a creature with Trip Noose and friends just before they would have attacked you!) Since this is a grindy deck with Thopters, doesn’t Thopter Spy Network seem to have earned a place?

I toss in a few key supplements, such as Cranial Plating and Darksteel Citadel, and that’s a deck, folks!

Let’s do one more for the folks in the back.

Random Card 5 — Coercion

Hmmm . . . 

From Mind to Grave ? Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (6)
• 2 Ravenous Rats
• 4 Liliana's Specter

• Spells (30)
• 2 Despise
• 2 Nightsnare
• 2 Unnerve
• 4 Beacon of Unrest
• 4 Bitter Revelation
• 4 Coercion
• 4 Necromantic Summons
• 2 Liliana's Caress
• 2 Megrim
• 2 Waste Not
• 2 Geth's Grimoire

• Lands (24)
• 24 Swamp

Buy This Deck

I didn’t want to just build a stereotypical discard deck, especially since I had already built a by-the-numbers control deck above. What does Coercion give us that we can build around? Well, I can choose what goes to the graveyard. So what if I then used that card? That was my aha! moment.

I began to add in targeted discard, like Despise and Nightsnare, that’ll seize some fun creatures and toss them into the bin for your future use. I also tossed in adjuncts like Ravenous Rats, Liliana's Specter, and Unnerve. Then, I just had to toss in an eight-set of black reanimation spells that will grab things from an opposing graveyard—Beacon of Unrest and Necromantic Summons are both perfectly solid choices for this role. I finished with a handful of discard adjuncts (Waste Not, Geth's Grimoire, etc.) and then Bitter Revelation for a smattering of card-draw. That is a fun spin on your usual discard deck, all inspired by the funky stylings of Coercion.

See? I just flipped over Coercion, Miscalculation, Force of Nature, Krark-Clan Stoker, and Trip Noose. Many of those cards would not qualify as high-caliber on a lot of radars. But you know what? The cards work! They are perfectly fine and dandy, just like candy. And candy is so tasty after all, right? Right!

So grab some cards that you have lying around, and use them as inspiration to make really interesting decks. From your bulk-rare box to your stack of leftover Draft cards from Friday Night Magic, you have the workings of a deck all ready to go. Get your deck on!