Deck Building in Dueling

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Deck Building, along with Luck and Psychology, makes up the trio of what makes a good duelist.

Deck Building is, in Duel Monsters, the only thing you really 'NEED' to play. You could easily slap together your favourite cards, and have a bunch of fun with people over the internet.

Many duelists neglect their actual deck building, and focus more on the bridge then the minefield before it. Deck building, is, in my opinion, the most important aspect of what makes a duelist win. Knowing what cards work and which don't can really give you the edge.

There's a few stages to building a successful deck, from scratch. The first is deciding upon your deck theme. Scroll through the card lists and see if there's any cards you'd like to build a deck around. There are various types of deck, ranging from attirbute/type decks (Such as earth, dragon or water decks), to card-specific decks (Like exodia or destiny board), even to combo decks (One-Turn-Kills, DNA manipulation, etc). Once you have decided on your deck theme, proc eed to the next step.

Now, identify the cards that'll make up the basis of the deck. If it's an attribute deck, look for the most useful cards of that attribute. If you're building a deck around a combo or card, look for weaknesses in your deck and find cards to fix them (I.E. if Spells could destroy your deck, look for spell-negation)

Next, you need to build the basis of your deck. First, look for those 4 stars offensive/defensive monsters that can achieve high stats. Make sure you have a base of atleast 10 of these. After this, you need to look for those weaker effect monsters that will back up your base monsters. M/T revival monsters (Magician of Faith or Mask of Darkness), searcher monsters (Sangan of Witch ofthe Black Forest, Giant Rat, etc), or powerup monsters (Bladefly, Witch's Apprentice, etc). Add 5-8 of these. Make sure you also include any monsters that are fundimental to your theme.

Finally, you need to add your tribute monsters. Generally, 2-4 5/6 star monsters will do, and no more than 1 7/8 star monster should be added. The more tribute monsters you have, the more likely you'll draw one as a bad topdeck if you need some defence.

Next, decide on the spells that will beinfet your deck. Every deck should include the 5 most powerful spells: raigeki, harpie's feather duster, pot of greed, graceful charity and monster reborn. You should also add a few other staples like mystical space typhoon, nobleman of crossout and the likes. Be sure to add the cards that powerup your particular theme or help get that combo in your hand.
And finally, the traps. Almost every deck should include the power 4 traps: Mirror Force, Magic Cylinder, Imperial Order and Call of the Haunted. You should add 2-6 other traps that backup your theme or are just generally useful, like ceasfire.

So that's the outline of a basic deck. Not all decks will follow this format, of course, but you could make a very successful deck by doing so.

Hope this has been good reading ~ Xdaamno