I am not a spectacular deck-builder. When I come up with interesting deck interactions or produce a well-tuned decklist, it is mostly due to dumb luck. I’ve been playing Magic for more than fifteen years, so every once in a while, I remember some old card with a weird interaction that may work well with something that is relatively new.

Over several years of Magic, I have tried and failed with so many decks it would probably shock anyone who doesn’t play Magic that I continue to build decks. Those of us who play understand that only a select few decks actually end up working out, so we keep trying.

What I have done over time to reduce the number of failures is come up with a list of questions I ask myself once I have my first draft of a deck ready. I have saved myself an endless number of wrecked games with obviously flawed decks simply by playing twenty questions with my deck. I tend to work my way through each question, stopping when my deck fails. I make the needed fix, and then continue on through the questions. I know this isn’t the way twenty questions is supposed to be played, but you can play the game your way, and I’ll play it mine.

1. Can the deck kill a creature with something other than attacking creatures?

Recommendations: There are far too many options to choose from. Choose something that works with your deck’s overall plan. Go for the Throat is fine, but your deck may be better suited for Draining Whelk or Pestilence.

Before moving on, I want to briefly mention counterspells. Obviously, they can help with most permanents in addition to the annoying sorceries and instants you’ll have to deal with. I bring it up now just to remind you that this is an option and to warn that you do not want to be completely reliant on counterspells. Slice in Twain works from the moment Birthing Pod hits the battlefield until any time you choose to deal with it. Your window to counter the Pod is much smaller. Take care.

2. Can the deck deal with troublesome enchantments?

Newer players invariably build their decks around creatures. Even many older players build their decks around creatures. The difficulty with creatures is that they are the easiest type of permanent to remove. At some point, some people become tired of playing their favorite creature and watching it die again and again. Those industrious souls look at the battlefield and try to determine what they can play that won’t be so easily destroyed. Enchantments are often the answer.

I’m not recommending an all-enchantment deck. I’m simply saying that most metagames have nowhere near enough ways to deal with enchantments. My current metagame is probably the worst. Most of us have at least one deck that is primarily reliant on at least one enchantment to stay in play for the deck to work. You would think we are crazy to balance a deck around a card that can be easily removed, but so far, only two of us appear to be playing with more than four enchantment-removal cards in any of our Commander or sixty-card decks. If you are the only one in a four-player game who can take out an enchantment, the stress on your enchantment removal is generally too much—particularly when everybody has something that needs to be gone.

Recommendations: Tranquil Grove, Allay, and Fracturing Gust are all solid. My own Top 10 enchantment removal article offers up plenty of other ideas.

3. Can the deck handle artifacts?

After having two full sets based in Mirrodin, you know your group will be loaded with artifacts. Most casual groups have players who love artifacts or at least love Equipment. While being able to kill a creature can generally make you capable of dealing with Auras (I said “generally”—I know there are all sorts of exceptions), killing a creature does little to stop your opponent from equipping the next guy and doing the same thing again.

Recommendations: Aura Shards, Krosan Grip, and Qasali Pridemage all have advantages, and all of them handle artifacts and enchantments. Aura Shards in the right deck guarantees no one else plays an artifact or enchantment. Krosan Grip allows you to take out Nevinyrral's Disk without hearing that annoying “in response” crap. Qasali Pridemage (and other creatures with a similar ability) let you tell everyone you can take out their artifacts at your leisure while beating them over the head with a 2/2 with exalted.

4. Can the deck deal with nonbasic lands?

For a long time in my playgroup, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth was the nonbasic you had to deal with. The card seems harmless by itself, but it spawned ugliness that was difficult to deal with.

Dealing with troublesome lands usually involves some level of land destruction. On a grand scale, this is a hated plan. Mass land destruction—or even just the destruction of several lands—is a plan for victory that is despised by most multiplayer groups. Whether you choose to go that route is up to you.

What I’m concentrating on with this question is the deck’s ability to take out a key land here and there. The list of lands that can sit there and annoy the hell out of you is growing rapidly. There are so many of these lands that Wizards of the Coast is giving them their own From the Vault set! Whether you are looking to remove someone’s only source of red mana, need to deal with Dark Depths before things go horribly wrong, or just know the ugly combos that will come from your friend’s deck if Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth stays on the board for long, some amount of land destruction is a good thing.

Recommendations: Strip Mine limits your mana growth and works only once, but it fits in any colored deck and is very cheap in comparison to Wasteland due to being banned in Legacy. Flowstone Flood is only good in red, but the ability to use it repeatedly is a nice thing. Acidic Slime is one of the most commonly used land destruction going since he can do that or deal with the annoying artifact or enchantment. Tsabo's Web only deals with a subset of the troublesome lands, but it is cheap and self-replacing. And I have a foil copy.

Just a note on Acidic Slime: Take care relying on this Swiss Army Knife for all your problems. While I’m all for versatile cards, demanding fewer cards to handle more problems can quickly reach a tipping point at which there is just too much for that poor Acidic Slime to do. If your metagame demands you’ll need this for an enchantment every time, don’t rely on it to stop artifacts as well or you’ll be wishing you had more answers.

5. Does the deck have enough land?

This is probably the most common mistake for any deck builder, and a proper answer is far beyond the scope of this article. I read a couple of articles a very long time ago that made a lot of sense to me as far as proper land amounts, so I continue to hold to them. The basic idea is to ask yourself what your most expensive key card is. As an example, let’s say that Thrun is the key card in your deck. Thrun costs 4 mana, and you want to reliably cast him on turn four. Since you will see eleven cards by turn four (your opening seven cards and four more from draw steps), you need four out of eleven cards in your deck to be lands. Your Commander deck would need 36.4 mana sources.

If you are adding mana rocks and creatures that tap for mana, I reduce my land count by .5 for each one.

6. Does the deck have the correct ratios of one color to the other?

This may sound like the question we just asked, but it’s different. Using Thrun again as an example, if Thrun is your most heavy-color-costed spell (), you’ll want to see two green mana in the first eleven cards. That means two out of eleven cards need to produce green mana. Your Commander deck would need 18.2 green mana sources to reliably find the green mana you need on turn four.

The fun comes when you are running a three-colored deck with Thrun, Mirran Crusader, and Phyrexian Crusader. When you work out the math, you will see the value of dual lands!

7. Does the deck have a way to kill a planeswalker?

We have reached the point in Magic history where most metagames have plenty of planeswalkers, and you need to be ready for them. Generally, a concerted effort from a group of opponents can break down defenses and kill off a planeswalker, but often, your opponents won’t see any danger in letting a planeswalker live. You would think people would know better by now!

Recommendations: There is no dedicated “destroy target planeswalker” card yet, so “destroy target permanent” is your next-best bet. Beast Within is my current favorite. Creatures are generally the way to be rid of a planeswalker, and evasive and hasty creatures have extra value because they get around the defense or else surprise the opposing mage with their presence.

8. Does the deck have mass removal?

While not every deck needs it and not every metagame demands it, your deck and metagame probably do. Creatures dominate almost all multiplayer games. There are times when targeted removal just isn’t going to get it done against a battlefield that has gone berserk while you’ve been drawing land, land, land, land, land.

Recommendations: Rout and any other instant-speed removal. Sitting there vulnerable with sorcery-speed removal means that you take all the hits until your next turn. Rout says, “Not today!” to whomever decides to see what all that mana and no defenders is about.

9. Can the deck stop flyers?

I know this is obvious. And I know we covered this above. The reason I mention it again is that it is just so easy to forget it. Get some creatures with reach, something that flies, or a way to Jump your creatures in the air. You don’t want to waste your targeted removal spells or mass removal just because someone has a couple of flyers and your deck has no other way to stop them. Flying creatures will happen.

While we are at it, think about shadow creatures, tramplers, and other types of evasion. If they are popular in your group right now, you’ll want to be able to deal with them. And yes, I have been playing for so long that I remember a time when the inability to stop shadow creatures would probably cost you the game.

Recommendations: Really? Recommendations for creatures that can stop flyers? I’m willing to help you out, but you need to strap on your big-kid boots here. I’m sure you can think of ways to stop flyers. Hurricane is some serious old school and generally gets laughed at in my group, but it continues to shut down the skies and win games. If you young’uns need something a little more newfangled, Squall Line is better, but pricier.

We’ll stop things here, mostly because when you are doing a two-part article involving twenty questions, it makes perfect sense to stop at the halfway point. Perhaps I’ll find my sense next week when we pick things up at Question 10!

Bruce Richard