Deck building in Magic is very important. In this series, we are going to learn about the different types of decks that players use.
Aggro Decks: The best defense is a good offense.
What is Tempo and why is it important in Aggro decks?
Tempo, in the most basic form, is board presence. It’s derived from how your creatures, lands, Planeswalkers, artifacts, and enchantments match up against those of your opponent, and the consequences that follow from it. We call it “tempo” because of the way the two players jockeying for the resource dictates the pace of the game.
As a resource, tempo is very closely related to mana. It’s often (but not always) related to life total as well. When it comes to card advantage, you’ll sometimes have to choose between gaining tempo at the expense of card advantage, or vice versa.
By building a fast deck geared toward playing and attacking with creatures quickly, you can put your opponents on the back foot right away and win lots of games with minimal resistance. We call these aggro (short for aggressive) decks.
With an aggro deck, your goal is to get ahead early and stay ahead until you either win the game or create an advantage large enough to leverage into a win. Tempo is your most important resource and ought to overshadow other concerns.
You want to be able to decide the game with your opening seven cards plus your first small handful of draw steps when using aggro decks. You wouldn’t turn down drawing extra cards if you could do so for free, but you cannot afford to sacrifice tempo in order to do it.
Mana Efficiency
Your mana curve should be carefully built and as low to the ground as possible. If you cannot begin putting creatures into play in the first couple turns of the game, you risk losing the window where you could have developed your biggest advantage.
Focus on mana efficiency. For every job that needs to be done, choose the cheapest (in terms of mana) option available to you. Ideally, you should spend less mana to deploy threats than your opponent spends to answer them. You should spend less mana answering threats than your opponent spends to deploy them.
Focus most on your own threats instead of seeking to answer whatever your opponent might be doing. The small number of answer cards that you can play should be geared to counter the cards that might shut down your own game plan (like blocking creatures).
Be concerned with attacking your opponent’s life total, not with protecting your own. In short, you should thrive in the early turns instead of planning for a long game.
Deploying your threats as quickly as possible is an important aspect of a tempo-based strategy.
The beauty of an aggro deck is that every card contributes to attacking your opponent’s life total.
Aggressively attacking your opponent’s life total can limit your opponent’s options. Just as you might utilize some cards that cause you to lose life; your opponents will naturally want to do the same thing. However, when facing down a horde of cheap creatures, your opponent is going to be filled with regret every time he or she casts a spell that costs a lot of mana.
However, when you play an aggro deck you should be happy to make sacrifices in terms of life total in order to preserve tempo. Lands that enter the battlefield tapped slow you down and throw off your mana curve. That can be very costly for an aggro strategy.
Reach
There’s a saying in Magic that no point of damage matters except for the last point of damage. When players say this, they mean that there’s no difference between winning the game at 20 life and winning the game at 1 life.
There’s some wisdom behind this saying. However, the fact is that it can sometimes be quite valuable to get your opponent low on life, even if you don’t finish him or her off right away. Decimating an opponent’s life total can also limit the opponent’s in-game options. Also, when players get low on life, panic inevitably creeps into their gameplay. The lower their life totals get, the more likely they’ll be to make unfavorable blocks and the less likely they’ll be to make bold, risky plays. This is because of reach.
Aggro decks are based primarily on tempo. They get ahead early, stay ahead as long as possible, and try to leverage their tempo advantage into a win or an advantage of another form. Often, they will leverage their tempo advantage into a life-total advantage. Reach refers to the ability to finish off a wounded opponent, even once you’ve lost your initial tempo advantage.
Traditionally, red is the color that lends itself best to building aggro decks. In addition to having lots of cheap, aggressively-slanted creatures, red’s removal spells come in the form of burn.
Burn, also known as direct damage, in addition to being able to kill a creature (like a blocker), can deal damage straight to the opponent. Burn is one of the simplest and most effective forms of reach. Red aggressive decks are best equipped to pressure their opponent’s life total. Their reach in the form of burn makes them deadly indeed.
Being Proactive
In a tournament, the slower your deck, the more risks you open yourself up to. When your games are going long, your opponents can surprise you with any combinations of cards that one could imagine. You’ll need an answer—or at least a game plan—for beating them all.
Being proactive means having a strategy that’s fast, aggressive, powerful, or all of the above. It can make you focus on executing your own game plan rather than trying to counteract your opponents’. You’re likely to be an expert at executing your own game plan, but it’s much more difficult to prepare for every possible eventuality of a drawn-out game.
It’s simple: win every game by turn five and you won’t have to worry about any card that costs more than five mana! Burn your opponents to death and you won’t have to worry about any card that doesn’t gain them life! Be aggressive, and make your opponents defend themselves against you! That is, if they can…