I've got too many cards in my MTG deck. Which cards should I remove and how can I make a better deck? [closed]

Question

Here's a picture of all of the cards in my deck (Azorius): https://i.imgur.com/MAFLXC5.jpg

In my experience, all of my cards play really well so I don't know what to do.

If I'm asking this question in the wrong place or anything, I apologize.

Answer 1

As Aulis in the comments says, you have way too many things going on this deck. With a quick once-over, I see:

• Walls
• Unblockable package
• Flyer package (cheap, small flyers with anthem and Lords)
• Angel package (big honkin' expensive flyers with cool effects)
• Tap-down package
• A small life-gain package
• A small token package
• A small Clone suite
• Combat trick suite
• Massive Counterspell suite (it's hard to read but it looks like 18x Cancel-like spells)
• Massive amount of Oblivion Ring effects (4x O-Rings, 3x Fiend Hunter, 3x Banishing Lights, 1x Stasis Snare, 3x Temporal Isolation which is approximately the same thing)

For terminology's sake, by package, I mean a cluster of cards to enable a particular strategy. These are all fine strategies but having all of them together muddies everything up.

For example, Unblockable and Favorable Winds type decks are usually all about aggro and tempo. Slowing down to drop a Wall of Denial, while good at keeping you alive, sets your clock back when you could be playing more dudes or holding up a cancel.

For advice on cuts, prune stuff that doesn't match the strategy you want to play. If you want to do flyer beat-down, you don't really need unblockable stuff like Artful Dodge. Once you do this, you'll see you need way less redundant card effects because the deck is smaller, letting you trim some of those cards as well.

In general, here is one of the simplest ways to make a 60 card deck:

1. Find a combo/several cards you really like (e.g. if you're building a burn deck so Lightning Bolt, Rift Bolt, Lava Spike)
2. Find enough cards that support your chosen combo so that you have a total of nine unique cards
3. Put a play-set of each of the chosen cards in the deck. You should have 36 cards at this step
4. Add 24 lands. You should now have 60 cards. (A good mana base is vital to a great deck)
5. Playtest, playtest, playtest. Then playtest one more time. Based on how the deck preforms, you can trim cards to add additional, situational cards. Maybe you can get away with less lands, maybe you need don't need as many sweepers or want a bit more card draw, etc.
6. Sleeve up and go dunk some people at FNM.

Answer 2

I don't think trying to remove cards is the best approach here. 200 cards deck is usually a (literally) big mistake :).

Using good cards isn't enough. You have to focus on something, and create synergies to make it work in the most efficient way.

Blue doesn't inspire me much here, but for example, if you go for a green "mana & big creatures" deck, playing wonderful cards like "elvish archers" might be completely off topic. It doesn't give mana early, and will look ridiculously weak compared to the 6/6 or 8/8 trample beasts you're gonna summon once you're up and rolling.

I want to suggest playing "Slay the spire".
A wonderful dynamic deck-building game, which, I think, helps a lot realizing what makes a deck good or bad. Personally, I played hundreds of games, and yet, still regularly felt into the trap of adding "great" cards in my deck... which crippled its efficiency.

Its all about focusing on whats important. Not trying to stockpile everything.

It also made me realize how priceless REMOVING cards could be. Sure, you start with rubbish crap, but I also did remove rare cards I picked myself instead, more than I would have expected.

But really, 200 cards deck ? Its a NO, NO for me.
Focus on something (say, killing with unblockable creatures... thats just a random example), and do your best to reach your goal.
Maybe you'll need to protect your unblockable with counterspells, find walls to counter big wurms, or add flying protection... I dunno.

The 2nd important part, then, is to determine what works and what doesn't.
If you always get your hand filled, consider using cheaper cards.
If you realize your phantom warriors never do more than a dozen damages, but your "defensive" djinn ends-up killing your opponent in 70% of your games, you might as well switch from unblockables to flyers.
And so on.

Just play your way. If you're not in competition, winning isn't as important as trying (and failing).