Deck Building Strategies for Standard, Modern, and Legacy

Magic the Gathering is a complex and ever-evolving trading card game that has captivated players for decades. One of the most exciting aspects of the game is the ability to build your own deck, tailored to your playstyle and the format you're competing in. In this blog post, we'll explore deck building strategies and tips for three of Magic's most established constructed formats: Standard, Modern, and Legacy. (If you're mainly a Commander player, most of this still applies, but the deck sizes and card pool are different. We'll cover Commander in a separate post.)

All three are one-on-one formats with a 60-card minimum main deck and a sideboard of up to 15 cards. In each of them, your deck and sideboard combined can't hold more than four copies of any individual card, basic lands excepted.

Standard

When building a deck for Standard, it's essential to stay up-to-date on the latest sets and meta trends. Standard runs on a three-year schedule: new sets are added as they release, and once per year, after the first premier set Prerelease of the year, the six oldest sets rotate out. Foundations is the exception, since Wizards has said it stays legal until at least 2029.

Two lists are worth checking before you build. The official Standard page carries the current legal sets, and the banned and restricted list carries the bans, which do happen between rotations. Wizards announces changes on a published schedule and explains its reasoning each time.

One strategy for Standard is to focus on a specific archetype, such as Aggro, Control, Midrange, or Combo. This will allow you to tailor your deck to your playstyle and the current meta. Your sideboard is what lets you adapt to different matchups, so build it against the decks you actually expect to face, not against every possibility.

In our experience behind the counter, the most common mistake in a first Standard deck is too few lands and too many expensive cards. Count how many cards in your list cost four or more mana, then ask yourself how you plan to reach that mana on time.

Modern

Modern is non-rotating and lets you play cards from Eighth Edition to today, minus the cards on the Modern banned list. It also includes the Modern Horizons sets, which are printed directly into the format and were never Standard-legal. Those sets are where a lot of the format's staples come from.

With that much card pool, the challenge in Modern isn't finding options, it's committing to one. Pick a game plan and build every slot around it. A linear deck that does its thing on turn three consistently will beat a pile of individually strong cards that never line up.

Legacy

Legacy uses every set ever printed, minus its banned list. That list is where the surprises are. The Power Nine is banned in Legacy: Black Lotus, all five Moxen, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, and Timetwister. Those cards are legal only in Vintage, and only as single copies, since Vintage is the one format that uses a restricted list. The Legacy list also removes whole categories, including Conspiracy cards, cards that reference playing for ante, and cards that bring stickers or Attractions into the game.

What defines Legacy is free or near-free interaction. Force of Will, Brainstorm, Daze and the original dual lands are all legal, so games are decided fast and knowing what your opponent can hold up matters as much as your own plan.

Be aware of the cost before you commit. Many older Legacy staples fall under Wizards' reprint policy and won't be reprinted, which is why a lot of players build on Magic Online instead of paper. Pioneer is worth a look if that's a barrier: it's also non-rotating, its pool starts at Return to Ravnica, and Wizards describes it as more powerful than Standard but less powerful than Modern or Legacy.

Before you play

Building a successful deck requires knowledge of the format, an understanding of the meta, and a clear game plan. Before any tournament, check two things: the legal set list for your format and the current banned and restricted list. Both change, and a single illegal card means an illegal deck.

Happy deck building!