First up, apologies for the clickbait title. If you came here looking for decklists, I’m afraid I don’t have any for you. However, what I do have are a few thoughts on deck selection and understanding your own preferences that I hope you’ll find useful—or at the very least, interesting.

What is “the right deck”?

As Magic players, we’re constantly choosing between decks. Every tournament we prepare ourselves for, regardless of the format, the first question we ask is “what is the correct deck for this event?” Our choices are based on a huge variety of information—from metagame statistics, knowledge of local competitors and tournament coverage, to playstyle preferences and articles by professional players.

Indeed, the deluge of data available to us today has made this question harder to answer than ever before, and forced us to ask it far more often. Today, we live in the “always on” era of Magic. Each and every day I can access new aggregated tournament data, new online discussions, new articles, and whole range of other content that makes me question how correct my deck choice really is.

This readily available data and content is great, and players 15 years ago probably would have killed for access to such rich and plentiful information. But, I worry that in many ways it may be spoiling us, and causing us to behave in ways that don’t actually help us grow as players.

In many cases, we’ve lost sight of one of the fundamental parts of enjoying Magic, the bond between a player and their deck. It has become so easy to access perfect information on card selection that much of the thinking has been removed from deck creation, and constant shifts in what is “the best deck” are causing players to abandon decks and pick up new ones every week.

Don’t get me wrong, I think 95% of the time netdecking is the correct thing for players to do, but I also feel that continuous access to professional opinions that we perceive as superior to our own is fuelling a culture where players are decreasingly comfortable making their own card choices or innovating on their own.

Chances are, those professional opinions WILL be superior to those of the average FNM player, but thinking deeply about each and every card in our deck ourselves is a critical part of our development as players. Even though we may make incorrect card choices when we brew or attempt to innovate, recognising why those choices were bad and making corrections is one of the most valuable ways to become a better deckbuilder—and by extension, a better player.

That, paired with the shorter relationships we tend to have with our decks these days, is leading to more shallow learning experiences for the average Magic player. Which brings me nicely around to the core point I wanted to make in this blog; in almost all cases, the best deck for any tournament is the one you know the best.

Reviving old wisdom

It’s an accepted nugget of Magic wisdom, but in recent years it has sunk into a sea of content and data that has undermined it in the minds of new players and those looking to improve at the game. Just because every major standard tournament is won by a different deck, it doesn’t mean it’s time to jump ship and build something new. Your time will generally be better spent thinking critically about how you could adapt your deck to any metagame shifts, and practising with your existing deck to improve with it.

Adapting a deck yourself, learning it inside out, and seeing your own innovations succeed and push your archetype forwards is one of the most rewarding feelings in Magic. It gives players amazing confidence before each game, meaning that whatever deck your opponent presents, you at least go into the game comfortable with exactly how your own deck can take the win. It’s what makes legacy and vintage such appealing formats. The metagame shifts gradually, but players tend to stick to their chosen decklists for months or years at a time, learning it inside out and becoming true masters of their archetype. They experience the format from the perspective of their deck, and it grants them intimate knowledge of interactions, matchups, and lines of play that are invisible to the uninitiated.

Clearly, when you’re dealing with a fast-moving format like Standard, you just don’t have the time to gain that level of experience with a given deck—or do you? I would argue that you do, and that you should. Many decks are capable of surviving a single rotation if adapted correctly, giving you months and months of experience with a single deck—and because it’s standard, you can get a huge amount of games in every week.

Brewing is great fun, and picking up new decks is always extremely exciting, but if you want to win, the best deck is almost always the one you know the best. Find an archetype you like, latch onto it, and instead of leaving it behind for something else in a few weeks’ time, invest the effort into adapting it yourself and grow alongside it—I think you’ll like the results. If constant deck and metagame shifts have left you feeling like a “jack of all trades” picking a deck and sticking with it is your key to becoming a master of one.