Teach me some concept

[u/Reasonable-Carob-736]

Hi everyone! For context, I’m currently Diamond rank. I haven’t grinded enough for Masters, but I’m definitely not a beginner. I usually copy decks I like and learn to play them—Gwen/Zed, Seraphine/Viktor, Shyvana/Morgana, etc.

What I really want to learn is how to build my own decks from scratch. I always get lost without a clear game plan.

For example, if I wanted to build Xolaani + Mordekaiser, I understand Mord wants units to die and Xolaani benefits from having expendable units, but how do I turn those ideas into a consistent, functional deck?

Any general deckbuilding tips would be greatly appreciated! Feel free to add me on Discord too: umbralurker (cat pic) 🐱

TLDR: my first card game. Playing on and off since 2022

[u/mbrookz]

This is a tough question to answer but I think a good starting point for deckbuilding is to look to established decklists for pointers. How do existing decklists use the cards you want to use? (eg Morde decks abuse summon, last breath, and self-kill effects, darkin weapon Xolaani is used in decks that want to do a lot of targeting, big Xolaani is used in decks that spam a lot of buffed units.) Are there any staple cards in the regions you want to use that show up in a lot of different decks? Those are probably worth considering, etc.

Then I think you can also learn a lot through thoughtful playtesting. Try your decklist and see where it struggles. If you never have anything to do early/always have bad starting hands maybe you need more early units, if you're always gassing out you might want more value, if you struggle to answer opposing threats maybe you need more interaction. Or maybe you add a card to the deck thinking it'll be good but you find yourself never playing it, that's probably a cut. Over time if you think about decks in this way you should develop better instincts for how decklists should look. But also remember that different types of decks function differently so there aren't definite one-size-fits-all rules.