Magic: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015
Deck Building Guide
Version 1.00
By: megamaster125

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Table of Contents
=======================================
1. Introduction
2. Magic Terminology [#MT]
3. Deck Styles [#DS]
4. The Deck Building Process - Aggro  [#DBPA]
  a. Getting Started
  b. Identifying Core Cards
  c. Filling Out the Deck
  d. Final Inspection and Lands
  e. Finalizing the Deck
5. Common Deck Building Pitfalls  [#CDBP]
  a. More Than 60 Cards
  b. Bad Mana Curve
  c. Overfocused Theme
  d. Underfocused Theme
  e. Nonbos
  f. Not Preparing for Popular Cards
6. Building a Manabase  [#BMB]
  a. Mono-color Decks
  b. Dual-color Decks
  c. Tri-color Decks
  d. A Final Note
7. Legal Info
8. Contact Info
9. Credits


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Version History
=======================================

Version 1.00 - First full version. Added Magic Terminology, Deck Styles, Deck
Building Process - Aggro, Common Deck Building Pitfalls, and Building a
Manabase sections.


=======================================
1. Introduction
=======================================

For the first time in the Duels of the Planeswalkers series, we're allowed
to build our own decks with the entire card pool. And since Duels 2015 is
targeted towards newer players, a deck building guide seems like a natural
fit. This guide assumes you have already completed the tutorial and the first
plane in the campaign (Innistrad), are somewhat familiar with the card pool,
and have played enough games to know the basics.

You can use CTRL+F and the tags in the table of contents to jump to the section
you're looking for.


=======================================
2. Magic Terminology   [#MT]
=======================================

This section will be like a glossary of some common terms Magic players use,
which don't really appear on the cards. This list is not meant to be an 
all-inclusive list, nor will it cover basic game terms such as "flying," 
"exile," "library," or "trample." It will however, define some common terms
that players often use in deck building or discussion Magic decks.

Removal - This is a card that can destroy, exile, or otherwise get rid of your
opponent's creature. Removal can also refer to cards that can destroy artifacts
and enchantments, but people usually add a qualifier to indicate that, such as
"Artifact Removal."

Mass Removal - Cards that remove multiple creatures at once, and often affect 
your own creatures. This can include cards that say "deal 3 damage to all
creatures" or "destroy all creatures."

Vanilla - A creature with no special abilities. Generally, vanilla creatures
are not considered good unless that have a high power/toughness for the mana
you spend to cast them.

Card Advantage - Generally speaking, this means having more cards available
for to use than your opponent does. This can be attained through a variety of
methods, including cards that cause you to draw more or make your opponent
discard. You can also gain card advantage through the use of removal spells.
For example, say your oppoent is about to cast Armored Ascension on their 
Elite Vanguard, and you respond by playing Shock before the Ascension
resolves. Since the Ascension no longer has a legal target, it has no effect
and goes to the graveyard. Your opponent lost their creature and their aura
while you only lost shock. This situation is also referred to as a "2-for-1."

Synergy - This is used to describe 2 or more cards that work really well
together and have effects that compliment each other.

Nonbo - Kinda the opposite of a combo, this describes cards that don't work
well together, and in fact, often cause conflicts when played together.

The Clock - How fast you will win or lose the game if nothing changes. This
can be illustrated with an example. Say I have a Baneslayer Angel on the
field and my opponent has nothing and is at 20 life. We would say that I have
a "4 turn clock," meaning it would take Baneslayer Angel 4 turns of attacking
to win the game, provided neither my opponent or myself does anything that
would affect the clock. Playing or destroying creatures. Following this 
example, attacking with the Angel (opponent at 15 life) and playing Kozilek,
Butcher of Truth now puts my opponent on a 1 turn clock, because next turn I
can attack for 15 damage, and if my opponent doesn't have an answer for that,
I will win the game.

Mana Curve - The number of nonland cards you have at every given mana cost.
The mana curve of your deck can be found in the game's deck editor, and is a
useful tool in deck building.

Splash - Adding another color to your deck, but only to add a few cards. For
instance if I added blue to a black deck to play 4 Think Twice and 3 
Inspiration, I would say it's a black deck that splashes blue.

==================================================
3. Deck Styles         [#DS]
==================================================

These are the categories that decks fall under. Most decks will align with one
of these categories, and the occassional deck can blur the lines between 2 or
more categories.

Aggro - Short for aggressive, aggro decks tend to play small, fast creatures,
attacking early and often to win the game quickly and consistently. Aggro
decks can include a few removal spells to get an opposing blocker out of
your way so your creatures can keep attacking.

Control - Control decks like to play a slow and steady game, winning in the
long-run by gaining card advantage, and using big creatures that have
powerful effects, refered to as finishers. Control decks contain most or all
of the following elements: Card draw, removal, mass removal, finishers, ways
to generate card advantage. Basically, you disrupt your opponent's game plan,
and inevitably win yourself.

Combo - Decks that use a combination of cards to win the game or set up a
situation to win. A combo deck goes beyond just mearly having cards with
synergy, but the whole focus of the deck is to pull off your specific combo.
For example, Sanguine Bond and Blood Tribute puts your opponent at 0 life, or
Time Warp, Archaeomancer, and Species Gorger gives you infinite turns with
9 mana.

Aggro-control - Also called tempo decks, these decks often feature a mixture
of small to midrange creatures with control elements to gain card advantage.
The creatures and spells will often have effects which allow the aggro-control
deck to adapt to the style of deck your opponent is playing. For instance, if
your opponent is playing a slow control deck, you have creatures that can put
pressure on them early. If your opponent is playing an aggro deck, your
creatures and spells can work together to slow down your opponent, gain card
advantage, and win with a few beefier midrange creatures.


==================================================
4. The Deck Building Process - Aggro  [#DBPA]
==================================================

a. Getting Started

One of the first things we have to figure out is what style of deck we want
to build, and what color or colors to use. You can also start by picking a
few prominent creatures, synergies, or a combo, and that will often give you
the colors and style of deck you're building. Most colors or color
combinations can be built to be aggro decks or control decks, but there are
exceptions (mono-green control isn't really a thing in this game).

For this exercise, I'll say I want to build a white aggro deck with a focus
on boosting my creatures.


b. Identify Core Cards

First we'll want to identify the more prominent cards of the deck. For this
deck, we'll be looking for low costed creatures, cards that make more
creatures, and cards that boost our whole army. Here are the cards that
first stand out:

Elite Vanguard
Raise the Alarm
Squadron Hawk
Attended Knight
Paragon of New Dawns
Phantom General
Brimaz, King of Oreskos
Hall of Triumph

Now that we've identified those, let's add them to the deck. Most of the
time you'll want to run the maximum number of copies you're allowed to use
for your core cards. This is especially true for aggro decks as having
multiple copies of cards improves the consistency of your deck.

----------------------------------
Creatures - 18
3 Elite Vanguard
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Attended Knight
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
3 Paragon of New Dawns
3 Phantom General

Other Spells - 6
4 Raise the Alarm
2 Hall of Triumph

Total so far - 24

----------------------------------


c. Filling Out the Deck

We don't have enough nonland cards to finish building the deck, so now we
need to go back into the card pool and find some other cards to add to the
deck. These can include cards that fit our core theme of making an army of
small creatures and boosting them, or it can include other utility cards that
help us draw cards or remove problematic creatures. The cards here are not 
as prominent in the deck as the ones above, and we may or may not run the
maximum number of copies of the cards in the deck. In some cases we may not
run the card at all.

Loyal Pegasus
Righteous Blow
Selfless Cathar
Divine Verdict
Inspired Charge
Reprisal
Arrest
Banisher Priest
Mausoleum Guard
Triplicate Spirits
Mentor of the Meek
Baneslayer Angel

These cards also require us to take a closer look at them, since we don't
have room for them all. It may be easier to break these into groups based on
their mana cost and/or function in the deck.

Loyal Pegasus
Selfless Cathar

The Pegasus has a minor drawback of not being able to attack or block alone,
but with all the creatures we'll be making in this deck, that shouldn't be
too much of a problem. The Cathar is a 1/1 creature, which isn't too
impressive, but for 2 mana he can provide a one-shot boost to the rest of
the army, and for that, I'd value him higher than the Pegasus.

Righteous Blow
Divine Verdict
Reprisal
Arrest
Banisher Priest

All of these cards serve as creature removal. Banisher Priest stands out by
being a creature on this list, which means the Priest will fit right in with
the cards that boost creatures. Righteous Blow is the cheapest card on the
list, but only hits attacking or blocking creatures and only does 2 damage to
them. I would prefer to remove creatures before they get to block mine, so
Righteous Blow is a no go. For the same reason, we can cut Divine Verdict
from the list. That leaves us with Reprisal and Arrest. Reprisal is an instant
and costs less, however it can only hit creatures with 4 or more power, which
can become restrictive. Arrest doesn't take the creature off the field, which
can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the creature in question, but
it can stop more creatures from blocking us than Reprisal can, and that's the
main thing we're looking for right now.

Mausoleum Guard
Inspired Charge

Inspired Charge can act as another finisher, giving our whole army a 1-shot
boost, and can surprise your opponent in combat when they block. Mausoleum
Guard costs a lot for a 2/2 creature, but does give us a couple 1/1 spirits
with flying when it dies. However, both of these cards suffer from costing
4 mana in a deck that already has Paragon and Phantom General at the 4 mana
spot.

Mentor of the Meek
Baneslayer Angel
Triplicate Spirits

All 3 of these cards serve to give us a couple big cards to play, or in the
Mentor's case, give us more fuel(cards) to keep the pressure on our opponent
as the game progresses. Baneslayer has always been a great 5 mana bomb for
any white deck, and can be a nice way to close out a game towards the top of
our mana curve. Triplicate Spirits gives us 3 creatures for 1 card, and with
a Paragon, Hall, or Phantom General in play, that's 6 points of power with
flying for 1 card. The convoke makes it easier to cast as well, but 4 is
probably too many copies.

Now that we've taken a closer look at these cards, let's add some of them
to the deck.

----------------------------------
Creatures - 27
3 Elite Vanguard
3 Selfless Cathar
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Attended Knight
3 Banisher Priest
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2 Mentor of the Meek
3 Paragon of New Dawns
3 Phantom General
1 Baneslayer Angel

Other Spells - 10
4 Raise the Alarm
2 Arrest
2 Hall of Triumph
2 Triplicate Spirits

Total so far - 37

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d. Final Inspection and Lands

Finally, we have to add lands for the deck. For a mono-colored deck,
that's pretty easy to do. This is also a good time to inspect the mana curve.

1cc - 6 cards
2cc - 8 cards
3cc - 14 cards
4cc - 6 cards
5cc - 1 card
6cc - 2 cards

"1cc" means "1 casting cost," or cards that cost 1 mana to play. For an aggro
deck, we have a pretty decent curve. A majority of our cards cost 3 or
less mana, and we have a few 4-6 mana cards that help us close out a game.

Now to add lands. The only thing to really consider here is if we want to
play any Radiant Fountains. In theory, it shouldn't hurt our ability to play
our cards too much, but gaining life in an aggressive deck isn't really a
priority for an aggro deck, so we'll leave them out.

We have room for 23 land in the deck, which is a fairly good amount for an
aggro deck with the mana curve we have. Generally, aggro decks will want
22-24 land depending on their mana curve (some can get away with 20-21 land).
Control decks will want 24-26 land to ensure they'll making a land drop every
turn for at least the first 5-6 turns. Numbers can vary a bit, but use what
feels comfortable to you. Here's the decklist.

----------------------------------
Creatures - 27
3 Elite Vanguard
3 Selfless Cathar
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Attended Knight
3 Banisher Priest
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2 Mentor of the Meek
3 Paragon of New Dawns
3 Phantom General
1 Baneslayer Angel

Other Spells - 10
4 Raise the Alarm
2 Arrest
2 Hall of Triumph
2 Triplicate Spirits

Land - 23
23 Plains

Total - 60

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e. Finalizing the Deck

Ok, we have our deck, so we're done, right? No. Deck building is an ongoing
process. The next step from here is to test the deck by playing a handful of
games. Set up some questions that you'll be searching for answers about while
playing the deck. Questions about land amounts, the mana curve, cards not
used, and number of copies for cards in the deck are all good starting
places. Using the deck we just made, I would ask the following questions,
play the deck for a while, and come back to answer those questions based on
playtesting. From there, you can make changes to the deck until you feel
you're not going to change it anymore.

Is 23 land enough for this deck, or too much?
Are there any cards not in the deck that I'd like to experiment with?
Are there enough token producing cards for the 3 Phantom Generals?
Are there too many cards at the 3 mana spot?
Do I want to see Triplicate Spirits more often?
Are there cards in the deck that aren't working well together?


==========================================
5. Common Deck Building Pitfalls  [#CDBP]
==========================================

Over the years I've noticed patterns from newer players in various card games
making some poor deck building choices, mostly because they're just newer
players and don't have the same knowledge and understanding of the game as a
long-time veteran would, but that's what this section is for. I like to call
these deck building pitfalls, and they're things you'll want to avoid doing.
I'll go over the main point and how to avoid the pitfalls.

a. More Than 60 Cards

From a purely mathematical and statistical standpoint, a 60 card deck will be
able to draw the cards it needs better than a deck with more than 60 cards.
Yeah, maybe adding that 61st card won't change the probabilities of drawing a
particular card too much, but I look at it like this; every card you have
above the 60th card is keeping you from getting to your best 60 cards.
There's also the issue that adding more cards above 60 means you'll have to
start adding more lands to keep the land to nonland ratio in balance, which
only furthers the problem of not getting to your core cards easily enough.

To avoid this problem, just swap cards in and out to test them instead of
going over 60 cards. If you find that you miss the card that you swapped out
for a new card, then perhaps you made a bad swap in your deck.

b. Bad Mana Curve

I'll illustrate this example with a decklist.

----------------------------------
Creatures - 20
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Satyr Hoplite
4 Goblin Arsonist
3 Cunning Sparkmage
2 Wrecking Ogre
2 Charmbreaker Devils
1 Inferno Titan

Other Spells - 18
4 Burning Inquiry
4 Furor of the Bitten
4 Shock
4 Inferno Fist
2 Warstorm Surge

Land - 22
22 Mountain

Total - 60

----------------------------------

Ok, this deck is a bit of an exagerated example. Other issues aside, the
point here is to recognize that you don't want a ton of 1-2 mana cards and a
ton of 5+ mana cards with very little in between. Sometimes the mana curve
can sway more towards one end or the other and be ok, but if you plan
on playing a lot of 5+ mana cards, you'll want a decent amount of 1-3 mana
cards to help you execute that plan.


c. Overfocused Theme

We'll start with another decklist.

----------------------------------
Creatures - 24
3 Elite Vanguard
3 Selfless Cathar
4 Squadron Hawk
4 Attended Knight
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
3 Mausoleum Guard
3 Paragon of New Dawns
3 Phantom General

Other Spells - 10
4 Raise the Alarm
2 Hall of Triumph
3 Inspired Charge
4 Triplicate Spirits

Land - 23
23 Plains

Total - 60

----------------------------------


On the surface, nothing looks inherently wrong with the deck. However, on
closer inspection, you'll notice that utility cards like Banisher Priest
and Mentor of the Meek are absent to include more cards that generate tokens
or pump them. The deck is still capable of working, but it sacrifices utility
cards that provide the deck with some variety in favor of cards that could be
sub-optimal compared to the core cards, or running more copies of cards that
it doesn't need more copies of, just for the sake of following the theme
strictly.


d. Underfocused Theme

I think there's a pattern to how I write about these pitfalls.

----------------------------------
Creatures - 15
4 Goblin Electromancer
4 Kiln Fiend
3 Guttersnipe
2 Chasm Skulker
2 Talrand, Sky Summoner

Other Spells - 21
4 Furor of the Bitten
4 Shock
4 Ior Ruin Expedition
4 Inferno Fist
3 Military Intelligence
2 Burning Anger

Land - 24
12 Mountain
12 Island

Total - 60

----------------------------------


Now on the opposite end of the spectrum we have a deck that isn't focused
enough on what it should be doing. It's not that the cards are nonbos,
because it's not inherently wrong to play any of them together. However, if
you're going to include creatures like Kiln Fiend and Talrand, you'll want
more instants and sorceries to trigger their effects, and minimize the
enchantments that don't.


e. Nonbos

The decks in this section are not meant to be used, if you couldn't tell.

----------------------------------
Creatures - 23
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Goblin Arsonist
4 Kiln Fiend
4 Two-Headed Cerberus
3 Cunning Sparkmage
2 Marauding Maulhorn
2 Wrecking Ogre

Other Spells - 14
4 Krenko's Command
4 Shock
4 Inferno Fist
2 Anger of the Gods

Land - 23
23 Mountain

Total - 60

----------------------------------

When you're playing a creature heavy deck and all of your creatures die to
your own Anger of the Gods, that's not a good thing. Does that mean if you
have Anger of the Gods in your deck you can't have ANY creatures with 3 or
less toughness? No, but you should really limit them. A couple nonbos in a
deck won't hurt you too much as long as you time your cards carefully. Some
nonbos can be played around. Too many nonbos in a deck will never be a good
thing however.


f. Not Preparing for Popular Cards

All these red decks in this section make it look like I have something
against red.

----------------------------------
Creatures - 23
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Satyr Hoplite
4 Goblin Shortcutter
4 Two-Headed Cerberus
4 Regathan Firecat
3 Cunning Sparkmage

Other Spells - 14
4 Fling
4 Inferno Fist
4 Lightning Talons
2 Burning Anger

Land - 23
23 Mountain

Total - 60

----------------------------------

This deck aims to attach aura to their creatures to make super creatures. The
problem here is that every creature in this deck dies to Shock and Ulcerate,
meaning your opponent can gain card advantage on you every time you try to
attach an aura to your creature with a simple 1 mana instant speed removal.
Does this mean you can't play an aura heavy deck? No, and not every deck is
going to play Shock and Ulcerate, but you should be aware of common cards for
any given color, and build your deck with those things in mind. It may seem
like there's a lot of cards to learn about and figure out which ones will be
more popular, but it's really not as much of a chore as it appears to be, and
most of it should come naturally through playing Magic.

P.S. I don't.


=======================================
6. Building a Manabase  [#NMB]
=======================================

This section will discuss ways to determine how many of each type of land to
put in a deck. Taking the time to balance out the lands is something that
newer players tend to overlook, and just throw an even split of lands (or near
even) between the colors of their deck. It's not necessarily wrong to do that,
and some games you may not even notice any mana problems. However, in the
long run, you'll want to tweek your manabase to give you the combination of
lands that consistently gets you the colors you need when you need them. Does
that mean you'll never have mana issues again? No, but statistically speaking,
you should have less mana problems than the alternative.


a. Mono-color Decks

There aren't a lot of descisions to make for mono-color decks at this point.
If you have a black deck, fill it with swamps. However, there is one card
worth mentioning here, and that's Radiant Fountain. Radiant Fountain should
at least be considered for mono-color decks, because it provides a (slight)
advantage. The life gain can offset life lost from your opponent damaging you,
or help you recover life lost from using cards like Ulcerate. And 4 cards
that make colorless mana out of 20-some lands should very rarely put a damper
on a mono-colored deck.



b. Dual-color Decks

Let's use the following as an example for this dual color section.

----------------------------------
Creatures - 14
4 Liliana's Specter
2 Chasm Skulker
2 Talrand, Sky Summoner
2 Indulgent Tormentor
2 Rune-Scarred Demon
2 Dinrova Horror

Other Spells - 22
3 Ulcerate
4 Voyage's End
4 Think Twice
3 Tribute to Hunger
4 Mind Rot
2 Inspiration
2 Flesh to Dust

Land - 24

Total - 60

----------------------------------

Some people might throw 12 Islands and 12 Swamps in there and call it good,
but is there a better method? Yes, and it's not overly complicated. Basically,
we're going to proportion our lands based on the ratio of blue to black cards.
Start by counting each blue card, and each black card (Dinrova Horror counts
for both blue and black). The in-game deck editor already does this counting
for us, and here's the results:

16 blue cards
22 black cards
38 Total

Now, just turn those numbers into percentages by dividing. This will give us
the percentage of lands to use for each color.

16 / 38 = 42% of our lands should be islands
22 / 38 = 58% of our lands should be swamps

Now, just take each percentage and multiply it by the total number of lands in
the deck. In this case, we're looking to have 24 lands.

24 lands * 42% blue (or 0.42) = 10 Islands
24 lands * 58% black (or 0.58) = 14 Swamps

Note: Rounding to the closest whole number usually makes everything work out.
If not, you should only be off by 1 land, in which case, just add a land for
whatever your most used color is, or deduct one if need be. Now to tie it all
together, here is the final decklist.

----------------------------------
Creatures - 14
4 Liliana's Specter
2 Chasm Skulker
2 Talrand, Sky Summoner
2 Indulgent Tormentor
2 Rune-Scarred Demon
2 Dinrova Horror

Other Spells - 22
3 Ulcerate
4 Voyage's End
4 Think Twice
3 Tribute to Hunger
4 Mind Rot
2 Inspiration
2 Flesh to Dust

Land - 24
10 Island
14 Swamp

Total - 60

----------------------------------

Now, how do we use this method with dual lands? It's actually really easy. In
fact, we'll end up using the same percentages that we used above (42% and
58%). The way you calculate those percentages will not change by adding dual
lands. What will change however is the number of lands we multiply by. We'll
add 4 Dimir Guildgates, which produce both blue and black mana, so essentially
we're going to take them out of the calculation, meaning we only have to fill
20 lands now.

20 * 42% = 8 Islands
20 * 58% = 12 Swamps

We'll skip the rest of the decklist and just focus on the manabase.


----------------------------------
Land - 24
8 Island
12 Swamp
4 Dimir Guildgate
----------------------------------

Let's compare this to the manabase we had before adding the Guildgates.

----------------------------------
Land - 24
10 Island
14 Swamp
----------------------------------

And this illustrates why dual lands are so good. In the manabase with the
Guildgates, you have the same number of total lands, but yet you have more
lands that produce blue mana and more that produce black mana than in the
second manabase.

8 Islands + 4 Dimir Guildgates = 12 lands that make blue mana
12 Swamps + 4 Dimir Guildgates = 16 lands that make black mana

What this means is that dual lands will decrease the chances of you not
having the right color of mana to cast your cards while increasing the
consistency of the deck. The only downside with the dual lands in this game
(the Guildgates) is that they enter the battlefield tapped, so you can't use
them the turn you play them. That fact will become even more important when
designing a manabase for a 3-color deck.


c. Tri-color Decks

Now I'll illustrate how to use this method with a 3-color deck. And to show
that I'm not shunning red, I'll use my White/Black/Red deck as an example.

----------------------------------
Creatures - 15
3 Wall of Omens
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2 Graveborn Muse
3 Ogre Jailbreaker
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Charmbreaker Devils
1 Inferno Titan
2 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Resolute Archangel

Other Spells - 21
3 Ulcerate
4 Shock
1 Suffer the Past
2 Reprisal
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Darksteel Ingot
4 Auger Spree
2 Flesh to Dust
1 Planar Cleansing

Land - 24


Total - 60

----------------------------------

Once again, we'll start by looking at the color distribution.

9 White cards
17 Black cards
12 Red cards
38 Total

And we'll continue using the same method to turn these numbers into
percentages.

9 / 38 = 24% white
17 / 38 = 45% black
12 / 38 = 31% red

The red was rounded down due to decimals, because white and black had a
slightly higher decimal than red (and I'm still secretly trying to give red
the shaft). Just like before, we can take our total lands and multiply them
by the percentages. I'll just list the final manabase at the end.


24 lands * 24% white = 6 Plains
24 lands * 45% black = 11 Swamps
24 lands * 31% red = 7 Mountains

----------------------------------
Land - 24
6 Plains
11 Swamp
7 Mountain
----------------------------------


Notice a problem? We have a number of double-red, double-white, and
double-black cards, and a triple-white (Planar Cleansing) card. There's no
way a 3 color deck that wants to cast a bunch of double and triple color
costing cards is going to function with any sort of consistency if it weren't
for dual lands. With 3 colors, we have Rakdos, Boros, and Orzhov Guildgates
that all fit with our colors. So how do we balance this out? Well, one
possibility is to run all 12 guildgates (and then use the same formula above
to get the numbers for the basic lands). This would be the results:


12 lands * 24% white = 3 Plains
12 lands * 45% black = 5 Swamps
12 lands * 31% red = 4 Mountains

----------------------------------
Land - 24
3 Plains
5 Swamp
4 Mountain
4 Rakdos Guildgate
4 Boros Guildgate
4 Orzhov Guildgate
----------------------------------


This combination gives us 11 white sources, 13 black sources, and 12 red
sources (I'm ignoring the Ingots in these calculations). Those are pretty
decent proportions. However, the big concern with this manabase is that half
of the lands come into play tapped. For some decks, especially slower control
style decks like this one, you might be able to get away with running 12
Guildgates and not be hampered by it too much.

What if you didn't want 12 Guildgates, but you didn't want 0 either? Well,
there's a couple ways to go about while still being intentional. We can go
back to the color distribution of the deck (9 white, 17 black, and 12 red),
and we notice that black and red are the most popular. So then, we could
start by maxing out the Rakdos Guildgates, then add 2 of each on the Orzhov
and Boros. Another option would be tweaking the deck and perhaps cutting
some of the double white and triple white costing cards like Brimaz and
Planar Cleansing, and run 4 Rakdos and 3 Orzhov Guildgates. Since we're not
doing that here, I'll go with the former option.

16 lands * 24% white = 4 Plains
16 lands * 45% black = 7 Swamps
16 lands * 31% red = 5 Mountains

----------------------------------
Land - 24
4 Plains
7 Swamp
5 Mountain
4 Rakdos Guildgate
2 Boros Guildgate
2 Orzhov Guildgate
----------------------------------

This manabase could run into troubles casting those Brimaz and Planar
Cleansing. Essentially, we lost 4 white sources (2 Boros and 2 Orzhov
Guildgates) and only added 1 white source (1 Plains) in comparison to the
previous manabase. To compensate for this, we could swap one of the Rakdos
Guildgates for another Boros or Orzhov, or swap 2 Rakdos for one of each, in
which case we only lose 1 black source and 1 red source.


d. A Final Note

The methods above are not perfect, and the formulas don't take into account
factors such as the mana curve, decks running green for cards like Cultivate,
or cards with double colored casting costs. The formula can be adjusted to
account for double colored casting costs by counting the number of colored
mana symbols on all the cards in your deck instead of just going by the
color distribution. This means that a card like Anger of the Gods now counts
as 2 red instead of 1 red like it did in our examples.

A Green and White deck may have 60% of the cards being white and 40% being
green, but you still might want more forests than plains if you're running
cards like Cultivate, or if most of your green cards fall on the lower end
of the mana curve while the white cards gravitate towards the higher costing
end of the mana curve.

So is this whole excercise a waste then? Certainly not. It's meant as a tool,
a tool that's a launching pad for building your manabase. You can always go
back and readjust your manabase after you test your deck. And like any tool,
we have to understand its purpose and limitations in order to use it
effectively. 



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7. Legal Info
=======================================

Copyright 2014 Chris Schalk

This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal,
private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed
publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other
web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a
violation of copyright. For approved sites, this guide must be posted in its
entirety. Currently this guide is approved to appear on the following sites:

gamefaqs.com
http://community.wizards.com/forums/102241
http://megamaster125.angelfire.com/dotp/
nogoblinsallowed.com


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8. Contact Info
=======================================

Email: [email protected]

Please feel free to contact me with questions, comments, or suggestions for
this guide. When sending me an email, make sure the subject line makes a
reference to this guide. Also, please do not email me asking me to build or
fix your deck. This is a guide meant to help you get started and give you a
process for building and testing your own decks.


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9. Credits
=======================================

Wizards of the Coast - For Magic: The Gathering and the Duels of the
Planeswalkers series

You - For taking the time for reading this guide

Jesus Christ - For being my Savior