Deck Building

This page gives various deck construction tips.

Deck Building デッキビルディング (Dekki Birudingu)

Deck Building is the concept of creating a deck using the Duel Masters Play's cards that a player owns in their collection.

Details

This can both be used for personally unique ideas or for commonly played decks seen on the Metagame page.

Each individual card used in a deck is individually assessed before its inclusion, as well as the number of cards and any potential combos that may be used.

Various deck construction tips are included on this page are listed as suggestions for building a viable deck.

General Suggestions

Finishers and Concept

A deck should have a clear goal when being constructed. A rush deck (normally featuring low-cost creatures) focused on beating the opponent quickly is best to avoid creatures such as Titan Giant or Ballom, Master of Death that are themed for vastly different decks.

The opposite is also true for slower control and combo-based decks where none (or very little) cards that cost 1 or 2 mana are used.

Understanding the Card Pool

When a deck concept is decided upon, it is best to use several cards that match this. In order to do that, you should look at various websites that post decklists to learn how different deck types are created to form a basis to build from, as well as what card combinations are possible.

Balancing the Civilizations

If multiple civilizations are used, the possibility of a color accident increases. Most faster decks based on attacking should focus on using 1 or 2 civilizations to prevent accidents. Slower control or combo decks may use 3 (or even 4/5) civilizations, but a large amount of these cards must have defensive/removal elements or have the Shield Trigger keyword.

Attention to Mana Curve

If you have too many high-cost finisher creatures, the chance of drawing them too early at the start of the game increases. However, including too many too low-cost cards also decreases the overall card power of the deck, especially in the endgame.

This, of course, varies importance based on the speed of the intended deck.

Use Hand Addition cards

As the means of drawing each turn is limited and you may wish to put a card into your mana zone each turn for the early-to-mid game, you would quickly run out of cards in your hand. As you would quickly lose the advantage of playing cards, various cards that add others to your hand are advised (or cards that Search for combo/control finisher strategies).

This can include card draw such as Energy Stream or other cards such as Roar of the Earth and Dark Reversal.

Evolution Sources

If an Evolution Creature is to be used, an appropriate number of evolution sources for the creature to evolve onto should be used. The general rule is 2-3x for each copy of the evolution creature, i.e.; a deck using 4 copies of Armored Blaster Valdios should have 8 to 12 Human creatures as well.

Shield Triggers are important

Most decks should include a 20% more inclusion rate of cards that have Shield Trigger in their deck. This amounts to at least 8 dedicated card slots.

However, this is often best if they-cards are some form of Removal or Defensive benefits (such as Terror Pit or Holy Awe).

Other

• Touch is a slang term that refers to using a small number of cards of a different civilization than the usual deck colors. Using multiple other civilizations gives different game options, but also increases the chance of mana accidents.
• If you are assembling a deck that isn't a commonly constructed deck, you should find cards that are compatible with the concept card or combo and use several in testing to find the best choice.
• It is also effective to copy a Meta Deck when trying to build a new deck. By knowing the common advantages and disadvantages of a deck and its card choices, you can choose to build from it, adjusting it or fitting in a combo concept.
• As a beginning player may have difficulties in deck building due to lack of knowledge of the card pool, it can be advised to build starting from the Basic Decks.