Author

Timdood3 · « **on:** February 28, 2016, 08:01:43 am »

To start, let's take a look at a couple of the current starter decks and identify basic problems.

Spoiler for Earth:

Spoiler for Life:

Spoiler for Fire:

First of all: The other cards, Quantum Pillar and Dagger. Why? For no reason.
-Solution: We straight cut them.

Moving on: Let's have a look at the secondary elements. As you can see, pillars make up half of the already small number of cards in the support elements.
-Solution: Pendulums. When these decks were built, pendulums didn't exist, so players were forced to have only pillars. That's not the case any more, why restrict the starter decks? It also gives new players an opportunity right off the bat to see pendulums and how they work.

More, so many more problems: The number of off-element cards. On average, four of them per deck. In a forty card deck. On top of that, the cards don't even help that much in most cases.
The reason for that is that the off-elements are chosen for equal representation of elements; each element is used as a secondary exactly once. To make it even worse the support element that is used is just the one that's next on the list, with no thought given to synergy.
-Solution: As above, pendulums will allow space for more (and more helpful) off-element cards, and the off-elements will be chosen with synergy in mind, instead of just mashing together two elements that don't belong together.

One more problem: The deck size itself. There's nothing wrong with thicker decks...As long as the deck has a purpose in mind. The current starter decks are too all over the place, with only one-of's and two-of's abound.
Solution: Cutting the other cards helps a bit, so let's just take it down to a round 35. Ideally most decks want to be as close to 30 cards as possible (as we know), but it's a starter deck, so we have to allow some wiggle room. Especially with the quest to remove and sell cards coming before the quest to buy a card.

So now we've outlined problems and solutions. What now?
Well, when I said "One more problem," I didn't mean there's nothing else to be improved upon. The starter decks don't really teach new players much about the game. More focused decks will help, but what if we could go a step further? We give players a choice not only of element, but of deck type. Two broad categories: Rush and Control. As the names would imply, a rush deck centers on killing your opponent as quickly as possible, and a control deck involves denying your opponents the creatures and/or permanents they need to fight back, all the while beating them down slowly but surely.

As a note here because I can't find anywhere else to put it: Almost all starter decks will remain duos. We all know why duos are good: They are simple and consistent. A few of the decks will be monos (The

rush and the

decks).

I've built 8 of the 24 decks for demonstrative purposes.

Spoiler for Air Decks:

Spoiler for Life Decks:

Spoiler for Water Decks:

Spoiler for Darkness Decks:

So those are the decks. As you can see, they all have room for improvement, but that's what makes them starter decks. If a player can't identify and rectify problems present in their current deck, how are they going to grow?

And here is the complete list of what each of the 24 decks would be, sorted by quartets:

Spoiler for List of all deck concepts:

Author

Timdood3

[Round 1] Deckbuilder + Forum Expert https://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php?topic=61320.msg1225530#msg1225530