Everyone likes to win. Victory is sweet, and there’s nothing like the satisfaction of crushing your opponents. But Magic is about much more than just winning. It’s not just a means to an end; it’s an experience. The two hours of slinging spells with friends should be the fun part, not the five minutes of basking in glory afterward. Let’s face it: You’re not going to win every game. In fact, when playing multiplayer, you probably won’t even win most of the time. So why not make losing as fun as possible? We’ve all had those games where every player is constantly fighting for dominance, trying to hold that tiny lead for as long as possible—those games that eventually grind down to a carefully-thought-out series of plays or an epic top-deck, and the eventual winner is heartily congratulated before everyone shuffles up for another. We’ve also had those games where one player fires off an unstoppable series of plays in the first few turns, and everyone else is left wondering if it was even a game at all. Maybe that player was you. Many players build decks with only one thing in mind: winning. Some feel that they need to do this to have a chance against their opponents. Others think that anything less would just be limiting themselves unfairly, taking the fun out of the game. I’m here to tell you that there’s a better way.

Ask yourself this question: Why do you choose to spend a portion of your valuable time playing Magic? There may be more than one reason, but usually the biggest one is, “Because it’s fun.” If that’s the case, then shouldn’t your decks be built to maximize the amount of fun you have playing the game? There are a lot of easy things you can do to make your decks more fun to play, and more fun to play against. Remember, it’s not just your fun at stake here. At first, it may feel like you’re just making bad decks. Relax. This is a good thing. In the end, your decks should still be able to win a fair amount of games, and a little power is a small price to pay for a lot of extra fun.

The best games are often the ones with the most interaction. When building a deck, make sure you have some way to interact with your opponents, and more important, make sure they have some way to interact with you. This generally means avoiding spell-based combos that win the game outright, as well as things that make you or your permanents untouchable, like having multiple copies of Privileged Position. Making it hard to stop you is fine. Making it nearly impossible to stop you takes a lot of the fun out of the game.

Playing powerful spells and creatures is fine, but consider trying other win conditions that you may not have used before. Try building a deck that copies creatures already on the field, or steals them from graveyards. Maybe build one with a lot of tokens, equipment, or auras. Tribal decks can often be fun and powerful as well. You could even do something more unusual, like a deck that wins by proliferating planeswalkers. Decks like these change the way other players have to respond to you, and add a fun twist in the strategy of the game.

The best part about playing Magic, is, well, playing Magic. Decks that combo off and kill everyone in the early turns of the game rob the other players of the opportunity to play. Even worse are decks that lock one or more players out of the game, forcing them to sit there and do nothing while the game goes on around them, hoping that eventually someone will find a way to break the lock. It’s okay to be aggressive and try to kill the other players relatively quickly, or to be defensive and try to prevent other players from harming you. Just make sure it doesn’t come at the expense of everyone else’s fun.

If you want to take things even further, you can build a deck specifically designed to maximize everyone’s fun. Add cards that draw everyone cards, like Howling Mine, and cards that increase everyone’s mana, like Heartbeat of Spring. There are even cards like Rites of Flourishing that do both. You can also include counterspells, Wrath effects, and cards that destroy permanents to prevent one player from getting out of hand. Of course, you also want to have a chance at winning, so include some win conditions that work well with the other cards, like Avenger of Zendikar, Psychosis Crawler, and Gelatinous Genesis.

In the end, how much fun you can have playing Magic is determined by you and those you play with. Everyone’s idea of fun is different, but I hope these ideas will help you add some spice to your game, and help create decks that are designed to do much more than just win. After all, it’s not the destination that matters, it’s the journey.