Deck Construction Tutorial

This is a basic tutorial on how to build a deck that is able of defeating other decks. Feel free to provide any other information/correction by e-mailing me at jadlon83@netzero.com.

Step 1: Determine the Key Cards of your deck.

You want to ask yourself, what sort of deck do you want to make? A way to decide would be, "I want to center this deck around this particular race" or "I want to make a deck that will maximize the utilization of this particular card" or "I want to make a deck centered around this new combo I thought up," etc.

Step 2: Add the required cards for your deck.

From the Key Cards you are going to use, decide what Type of Deck are you going to use, and add cards that is going to utilize your Key Cards as much as possible. Also, for every single deck, add the Big-5.

Step 3: Adjust your deck according to 4 main elements

In step 1 and step two, after adding cards, refer to the table below for the 4 main elements:

Main Attacking Force: Monsters, defense and offense. Look for cards with 4 stars, 1700/1800 attack, or 1900 if more cards are released in the future. Examples: La Jinn, Battle Ox, for higher stars - Summoned Skull, BEWD, etc.

Monster Removal: Man-eater bug, Raigeki, Dark Hole By removing pesky monsters, you can then attack the opponent, dealing as much damage, and the opponent must focus their attention on defending themselves.

Magic, Trap Removal: Trap Master, D-Spell, etc. By removing traps and magic, you have also left your opponent open for damaging.

Card Drawing: Pot of Greed, Card Destruction Based on the principle of "the more cards you draw, the better", or also known as card advantage, you want to add many card drawing mechanisms. Especially Pot of Greed. By drawing cards you have more chance of drawing your Key Cards, or decreasing the size of deck and have more chance of drawing it.

You must have balance of the 4 elements above, how they are distributed, do they help your Key Card.

Step 4: Make a deck list! It is important to write down the cards in your deck, it's actually quite fun keeping track of the cards you are using. Or even, saving it on your computer or word processor is recommended. If you have a list, it is must more comfortable and easier to make large changes to your deck. By writing down your deck, you are making record of your experience.

Step 5: Play-test with a range of people DECK FINISHED! Not quite, you still want to play test it to see if the cards in it are working fine. After duel, you want to think about what are the weak points of your deck, you also want to ask yourself the following questions: "Is the key card easily used?" "What type of deck is this deck weak against?" "Are the 4 elements of DM balanced?"

Step 6: Using your play-test as reference, make constant adjustments to your deck. Add/remove cards to it with the help of your deck list. You might want to add a side deck according to the deck type you are weak at. Return to step 4.

General Tips:

1) First of all, before you go off to get the cards, you should always have a central theme for your deck. What type is your deck? What monsters are the deck centered around? How is your deck going to defeat your opponent? A deck without a central theme, even if it has all the strongest cards, it is good as junk, since the different cards aren't supporting each other.

2) Secondly consider the deck size. Even though decks can be as big as possible. Any deck bigger than 50 cards is too big. Try to keep your deck between 40 to 45. For decks 45 to 50 consider more drawing mechanisms, such as Pot of Greed, or Card Destruction.

3) Thirdly, include deck staples, many of which are restricted, or pre-restricted cards.

The following cards are must add for any decks:
Pot of Greed
Change of Heart
Monster Reborn
Raigeki
Dark Hole
Mirror Force

4) Make sure that your cards support your center theme. e.g. If your deck is a One Hit Kill BEWD deck, it is relatively stupid to have, for example, Dark Magician in your deck, because that wouldn't work out. You'd rather have other dragons and cards that would support the BEWD.

5) Use the most effective card for your purpose. In some cases, Dark Hole won't be very good because there might be cards on your field that you don't want to destroy, so you might want to use Raigeki instead, which let's you clear only your opponents monsters and and still able to retain all of yours.

Think there should be corrections? Got any advice? More deck building advice? E-mail them to me and I'll add them in.