The EDH Deck Building Process #5 - Cutting Cards

TappedOut Commander Series

Suns_Champion

25 April 2020

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The EDH Deck Building Process #5 - Cutting Cards

“Who disturbs my Slumber?”

“It.. it is I, Suns_Champion!”

Welcome back to my ongoing series, The EDH Deck Building Process! So far we’ve covered deckbulding philosophy, inspiration, getting started and organization, gathering cards, my undying allegiance to the Boros Legion, and much more!

In my last article, we discussed strategies and tips for gathering cards, and I sent you off on your adventure of gathering cards for your deck. By now, here’s what you should have:

• A deckpage on a deckbuilding site with our original custom categories (idea/strategy, lands, draw, ramp, removal).
• 100-150ish total cards you want for the deck (but don’t worry if you have more).
• A more refined and complete vision of what the deck wants to do.
• A general idea of new custom categories based on the cards you found.
• A general idea of how the deck is going to win based on the cards you found.
• Your Boros Recruit Level 1 Training Certificate.

With all that, we can continue building the deck! At the moment you might be sitting with 175+ cards, worried about how to get back down to the necessary 100. Fear not, for this is the article for you!

Before we get to cutting cards though, we need to get organized! Similar to right before we started searching for cards, before we can start cutting cards, we have to get organized again! You might be itching to get to removing cards, but trust me, this will help.

Custom Categories Part II: Adding More Categories, Category Overlap

Hopefully, while you’ve been searching, you’ve been discovering new magic cards and new things you can do with the deck. This is good! Just remember that a single deck can’t do everything. In looking at cards and maybe other decks or primers, you might have come across some of the more generic categories outside of our initial five (strategy, lands, ramp, draw, removal), categories like:

• “Removal” split into “Boardwipes” and “Targeted-Removal”
• “Recursion”
• “Graveyard Hate”
• “Pet-Cards”
• “Protection”
• “Value”
• “Utility”
• “Win-Conditions”

Plus you might have seen some of the hundreds of more specific categories, or even adopted some into your deck.

While searching for your cards, you may have come across a number of new categories crucial to the success of your deck. The first is Win-Condition cards, or win-cons. These are usually very powerful cards that swing the game in your favor, win the game outright with the right set up, or are combo-pieces. Types of win-cons include: Single instances of a high-costed and powerful spell, a critical mass of aggro creatures, an infinite combo, or a way to lock down the board state with some advantage, among many other win-cons. “Win-Con” will usually be an important custom category.

For my deck, after searching for ways to fill my graveyard, recursion spells, and good creatures to cast/cheat out from my yard, I came across a lot of high value FLAMPLE DEMONS, that is, big Demon creatures with flying and trample. Since I’m Boros to the core and can’t win any other way, aggro Demons has become my win-con of choice. Creatures like Razaketh, the Foulblooded, Demon of Death's Gate, Vilis, Broker of Blood (no trample but he’s still good), Doom Whisperer, Grave Titan, K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth, and Wonder will be my key to victory. Maybe not the best, but it’s what I want to do, and that’s what EDH is all about! So what I can do now is create a new custom category, called “Wincon” or something similar, and file those creatures under it.

Another aspect of your cards you might be noticing is the fact that they go in multiple different categories. We saw this last time when I talked about Taigam, Sidisi's Hand. Notice again how he is card draw, but also fills my graveyard, and can act as removal? That is great! He does three things the deck wants, all on one card! This is called Category Overlap, and it is VERY important for organization and cuts, as we will see later. What I can do with him is file him under multiple custom categories, to show how useful he is. Hopefully, you can sort cards into multiple categories on your prefered site. Some deckbuilder sites cannot do this, which is unfortunate because I think it’s very useful. If you’re using Tapped/Out like me, it will look like this:

1x Taigam, Sidisi's Hand #Draw #Self-Mill #Removal

Think about all the cards you have. Look at all of them. If they go in multiple categories and do each job well, start adding them to those categories. For example, I’m looking at Razaketh, the Foulblooded and figuring he can go in “Win-Con” and “Tutor.” Vilis, Broker of Blood looks like he can go in “Win-Con,” “Draw,” and “Removal.” And so on. A lot of great Magic cards are good at multiple things. Start evaluating your cards, and adding them into your newly chosen categories.

Here’s what my deck looks like now, you’ll see my custom categories of “gameplan,” “tutors,” “recursion,” “self-mill,” and “protection,” joining our original categories we made in article 3. On most deckbuilding sites, you can sort your deck by the custom categories you’ve been making. It might look something like this:

No Zombie Tribal v2

This is my deck, sorted by custom categories, with each card in as many categories as it can go in. See how Taigam and Vilis are showing up in 3 different categories? That’s what we want. It now looks like we have way more cards than we actually do, but having cards in multiple custom categories does not increase the amount of cards in the deck. The deckpage and mainboard page in the editor will tell you how many you have, and you can always sort by type or however you like to get back to the real number. But there’s a problem. That real number is well over 100 at the moment, and we need that to change.

Cutting Cards

And now, we finally get to it, the #1-Ranked “Most Difficult” part of deckbuilding: Cutting Cards!

Dun Dun DUUUUUUNN

lighting and thunder

screams from the crowd

Okay okay! Calm down! We can get through this together!

Is cutting cards really that bad? Well, I made two polls on an EDH facebook group to find out. In the first poll, I (accidentally) allowed multiple responses, and out of 238+ responses, over 66% of them said that cutting cards was the most difficult part of deckbuilding. In my second poll some time later, I allowed only one response, and out of 210+ responses, over 70% of them said that cutting cards was the most difficult part of deckbuilding. Now, I am not a scientist and this data is not conclusive or truly representative, so take it with a big ol’ grain of salt. The big picture is, most people think cutting cards is the hardest part about deckbuilding. Well, I’m here to help that!

If you're like me, you have acquired too many cards for your EDH deck in your search. I tried to prevent this earlier by setting aside slots for lands and needed categories, and keeping our eyes on the end goal of 100 cards. But there are a lot of cards in Magic, and a lot of good options for your EDH deck, so it’s perfectly natural to go over the 100 card limit and have to make cuts. We’ve all been there. My personal record is 350 non-land cards that I considered for my Firesong and Sunspeaker deck. That’s almost 300 cuts I had to make.

What’s our mentality going into cutting cards? Well, it might sound disappointing, but we’re just going to have to do it. I can help, but I can’t make it easy. We can’t get too attached to the cards we’ve picked out, or we’ll never finish the deck. As the late Grand Master Yoda, talking normally for some reason, once said, “train yourself to let go of everything you fear to use.”

Let’s start with what NOT to cut:

• Card draw: we want to keep this above 10 at all costs. If it’s at 15, keep it there, if it’s at 20, we’ll consider cutting some. But for now, DO NOT CUT CARD DRAW CARDS.
• Lands: Another dangerous pitfall. Your deck needs land. If you have an average EDH deck with an average curve, you’ll need 36 lands, give or take. Remember that’s a guideline, not an exact science. For now, Don’t go too far below 36.
• Ramp: Keep this at 8-10. Just like lands, you need ramp spells to keep up or get ahead in an average EDH game.
• Removal: You will die to your opponent's stuff if you don’t run removal. Cutting removal is assuming you will always be the threat in every game. You will not most of the time. Don’t go below 5, try to keep it around 8-10.
• Cards in Multiple Categories: Cards like my Taigam and Vilis fill multiple roles, and as long as they do each role well, they should stay. This is why I started this article with that discussion on organization. Knowing what NOT to cut shows what you HAVE to cut.
• The Original Deck Idea: You will have to cut cards in your theme and strategy, but keeping those original idea cards, like my Ashes of the Fallen, is important I think. Unless of course you’re changing the whole deck, which can happen.

Now that we know what NOT to cut, even though we may cut a few from these categories here and there, we can set those cards aside and look at the new pool of cards we HAVE to cut from. This will be a large pool of cards that fill in your new custom categories or don’t have a category yet. Take a look at your list of cuttable cards, release any emotional attachment you have for them, and start removing them with any or all of the following strategies.

There are many different strategies for cutting cards, and many different reasons to cut a particular card. Here is my system. I advise that you go in this order, because some build off each other and I think it is fastest, but it’s not necessary. Behold at last: Suns_Champion’s strategies for cutting cards!

Cut cards by their Converted Mana Cost (CMC). Sort your deck by Converted Cost. CMC refers to the total Mana cost of a spell, colorless and colored mana combined. For example, the CMC of Gisa and Geralf is 4, and the CMC of Vilis, Broker of Blood is 8. Regardless of where you are in your EDH deckbuilding and playing life, it’s time to learn a hard truth: It’s really difficult sometimes to cast big spells. And if you are in a game and have big spells in your hand that you can’t cast, you are at a disadvantage. That is why I suggest looking at every card you have that is 6 CMC or more and consider cutting it. All those big Demons I talked about? I might have to cut them. The 7 and 8 CMC dragons you might have? Think about them. Keep big cards if they draw cards, you know you can ramp into them or cheat them out, or they can pretty much win you the game if you can get them out. For me, that makes Vilis and Razaketh safe, but Demon of Death's Gate might be a good cut. Cut all the big spells, then pay attention to the 4-5 CMC spells too. My philosophy is anything 6 CMC and higher better have a good reason to be here, or better threaten a win, other people say the same thing about 4 CMC cards and higher. It comes down to the difference in philosophy and speed of the playgroup.

Another aspect of CMC is considering when you’ll be casting your commander. If you have a commander that’s 4 CMC, and you want to cast them on turn 4 or as soon as you have 4 mana every game, you might consider cutting more 4 CMC cards. That way you’ll have more 1-3 CMC cards you can cast before your commander, and more 5+ CMC cards you can cast after. This means you’ll be getting the most out of your spells and mana, and have fewer awkward plays or tough decisions to make while playing.

Once you’ve cut cards with the highest CMC, you’ve successfully lowered your curve. If your curve is low enough, you can also consider taking out a few lands and ramp spells, because the won’t be as nessisarry if all of your stuff is cheap to cast. There’s no exact science or number for this, but it’s something to be aware of when testing.

Cut Cards by their price. Sort your deck by price. I haven’t talked too much about budgeting in this series, except where it impacts one’s philosophy. But budget can be a crucial factor in what cards stay and what cards go. The issue in talking about it, of course, is that everyone’s budget is different and everyone has a different definition of “expensive” and “inexpensive.” But figure out what your definitions are, figure out how much you’re willing to spend on a single card and a whole deck, and go from there. For me, anything over $20 better have a good reason to be here, otherwise it’s out. The cards that stay are cards like Enlightened Tutor or Phyrexian Altar. Anything over $30 is probably just an immediate cut for me. In fact, during the searching process, I probably won’t even add those to the deck. $10-$20 cards are considered multiple times, and they have to sound great every time. Is K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth really worth it? Or Conspiracy? Could Watery Grave, Strip Mine, and Morphic Pool just be basic lands?

Consider, when cutting cards by their price, that there’s a budget replacement for most any card in Magic. They might not be as efficient, or they might not do the exact same thing, or they might be on a different card type you don’t want, or you might need two cards for the same effect, but the cards are out there. You just have to go back to the search bars of your prefered sites and keep digging. Some sites can sort by price. There are podcasts devoted to budget builds and many builders who have found budget alternatives. The resources and help are out there, you just might have to look a little harder.

Cut cards by their usefulness and relevance to your strategy. Sort your deck by Custom Categories again. Think again about your deck. What is the goal, what is the theme, what is the “mission statement” for the deck? Create a Mission statement for the deck made up of 1-2 sentences. For my deck, it will be “Use Ashes of the Fallen and Gisa and Geralf to cast non-zombie creatures from my graveyard. Win with Flample Demons.” (Notice how I had the first part of the mission statement at the beginning of the process, and the second part came after searching for cards and deciding on a win-con). Write out your own mission statement. Look at your deck. What cards are furthering your mission statement? Those can stay. Everything else in the deck that is not aiding the main goal is subject to being cut.

For each card in your deck, ask: “Does it serve the purpose of the deck?” If it does, put it into a new pile. If it doesn’t you might want to cut that. Take your new pile of cards that all serve the deck purpose. For each card, ask: “How WELL does it serve the purpose?” Evaluate the efficiency of your strategy cards. Is the effect powerful enough? Is the cost fair? If not, you might cut those and keep the cheaper, more powerful versions. Redundancy is good, but only to a point. For me, I might cut Conspiracy, because it’s not efficient compared to Ashes of the Fallen and Arcane Adaptation, it’s CMC is getting up there, and it’s around $10. While the efficiency might be the main reason, we can see the other reasons adding on to make it a solid cut. Try to do that with your cards.

Let’s talk about divergent strategies. It might not be a single card that isn’t exactly forwarding your deck goal. It might be a whole sub-strategy. This happens naturally when searching for new cards and discovering new strategies. This is the layering pitfall I talked about last time. We’ve gotten too far away from the main goal. Let’s say I liked Grave Titan, and have a bunch of other cards that make 2/2 zombies (that aren’t zombies themselves) making a small subtheme. This deck isn’t really a token deck, so I can start cutting all of those. My Reanimation subtheme is a good back-up and supplement to my main strategy. My self-mill subtheme gets creatures into my graveyard so that I can cast/reanimate them. So both of those can stay, but again I have to cut based on efficiency, CMC, and price.

Cut Utility, Goodstuff, Win-More, and Pet Cards. While making your custom categories, you might have collected a bunch of good cards that do good things that you can’t really place in your categories. Those types of cards are just generally applicable to most games and generally good. Usually these are categorized as “value “utility,” or “goodstuff.” My number one card that I always add to decks that goes into these categories is Mirage Mirror. It does a whole bunch of wacky stuff and is generally very good even without forwarding my strategy. Usually I end up cutting this card though, because it’s a distraction. Another great example is Vedalken Orrery. It allows me to cast spells on other people’s turns, and in a lot of decks, it’s just a really good card. But it’s not exactly furthering my strategy. Plus it’s pricey, so maybe we want to cut that.

A Win-More card is a card that isn’t support for your strategy, instead it makes it go into overdrive. Generally they’re only really good when you’re winning, thus the name Win-More card. Good examples of Win-More cards are anything that doubles the effect you want, or something that’s only good when you’re winning. A Win-More card in my list is Rooftop Storm. Yeah, it’s only good when my commander is out, and Ashes of the Fallen, and there’s creatures in my yard, and it’s way better with a flash enabler. It’s probably worth cutting. Look through your deck for cards that are only good when you’re winning, and start cutting those.

Let’s talk about pet cards. Pet cards are cards that you run in every deck you can, regardless if they’re good or not. You just love the card. My pet card in Elspeth, Sun's Champion (gasp) and I will run it in my white decks, I don’t care if it’s slowly being outclassed and becoming overcosted! Now, I’d never honestly suggest that you should cut a pet card, but sometimes you’re 1 cut away from 100 cards, and if you have the self-control, you can cut a pet card. I tend to find myself doing that, Mirage Mirror is another sorta pet-card that I end up cutting a lot. Just something to think about.

Cut cards that do nothing the turn you cast them. Let’s talk about “do-nothing” cards. A do-nothing card is a card that does nothing on the turn it’s cast. A great example is Assemble the Legion. Awesome card once it gets going, but doesn’t affect the board until your next turn. Compare it to Elspeth, Sun's Champion, who costs one mana more but can affect the board in multiple ways the turn you play her. Start looking through your deck for do-nothing cards and decide whether their effect is worth waiting a whole turn cycle for. If it isn’t, cut them.

Cut cards using Custom Categories. Sort your deck by categories again. Now you will witness a synthesis of many of my previously discussed ideas. Look at your custom categories, the ones that aren’t diverging from your main strategy, the ones you want to keep. You will probably have some categories that are bigger than others. What we want to do is balance them out, while also cutting the total number of cards. Remember back to our discussion on deckbuilding templates? I mentioned the 8x8 theory, which is 8 categories of 8 cards, plus your commander and 35 lands. While I’d stick with 10 draw and 10 ramp, and you might have more or fewer than 8 categories, you can get an idea of how to balance your categories. Start cutting cards in your biggest categories until they all have around 7-10 cards. Again, cut by CMC, price, efficiency, and purpose within those categories. Try to keep cards in multiple categories. Again, redundancy is good, but you can’t have them all.

This is where you can start to cut draw, ramp, removal and lands. Beware of going too low. Stay around the recommended numbers.

Look at us! We just combined deckbuilding templates, custom categories, and our new knowledge of cutting cards to get those final cuts! Great job! What’s that? You still have too many cards? Well that’s okay, I still have more ways to cut cards!

Cut Cards that won’t be good in your Meta. Let’s take a step back and evaluate our cards from a different angle. If you know what your usual meta is like, whether it’s an LGS or a playgroup of friends, you can take out cards that won’t do well in that meta. What is your meta like? What cards won’t work well in your meta? If none of your friends really play blue, that Red Elemental Blast might be a good cut. If your friends run a lot of hexproof spells and creatures, maybe cut those targeted removal spells in favor of boardwipes. If you’re not sure about your meta, or it’s constantly changing, cut super specific cards and keep the generically good ones (aka staple cards).

Cut redundant cards. Let’s suppose you’re building a token deck. You have 15 cards that produce tokens, that’s a good number, and in this case redundancy is good because having more tokens is better than having fewer. Let’s suppose though, that you also have 6 haste enablers like Fervor and Concordant Crossroads in the deck. Haste is really good with tokens, but the problem is, haste enablers are not good with each other, as their effects don’t “stack” in the same way a couple Glorious Anthems or more tokens would. Consider taking out cards that don’t add anything if another effect just like them is already on the battlefield.

Cut cards using your deckbuilding philosophy. Think all the way back to your deckbuilding philosophy. There might be something in there that you’re forgetting that you can apply to the cutting process. For me personally, there’s a certain card effect that I don’t like. I don’t like tutors. Tutors are a big part of EDH, but generally speaking I dislike playing them. I don’t like how they slow the game down, but I really don’t like how they make the game repetitive, consistent, and sometimes boring. Imagine playing a Zur the Enchanter deck and fetching the same combo-piece every game. It’d be like watching the same movie over and over. I don’t like that. I like card draw, and building a deck well and seeing what it will give you. I love the randomness and luck but also the deckbuilding skill needed to get good luck. So I might consider, for some decks, cutting all or most of the tutors. For this deck specifically, I need to find Ashes of the Fallen for it to work, so I’ll keep them. But even then I’ll cut Demonic Tutor and keep Shred Memory, to keep myself honest. Maybe I’m just salty there aren't many tutors in Boros colors. Either way, if there’s something in your philosophy that might help you make those last few cuts, let it help you.

Somewhere along the line I added a few Counterspells. I don’t really enjoy playing counterspells, because I don’t really know how to use them properly (Boros problems) and I don’t like the feeling I get playing them, so I’m going to cut them. I just opened up 4 slots.

Cutting cards for arbitrary reasons: Don’t like white bordered cards but the only version of the card is white bordered? Cut it. Don’t like the art of a certain card? Cut it. Want to be more hipster and not use what everyone else is using? Cut those popular cards. Don’t like the color green? Cut all the green cards. However you want to justify cutting cards, it doesn’t really matter. I won’t judge. Just get to 100 cards.

The final cuts: Once you get down to 105 cards or below, you might notice a concerning phenomenon. You’ve cut all the high CMC fluffy cards, all the do-nothing enchantments, all the divergent strategy cards, all the expensive cards, and all the meta picks. Now you’re left with only good cards! Well, unfortunately, you’ll have to cut some of those too. For a deck that can only have 100 cards, you may have to cut cards that meet all the criteria for inclusion. That is okay. Grit your teeth and cut them.

What to do with the cards and ideas you cut?

Those cards can be deleted and forgotten, but I like to save my side ideas, subthems, and divergent strategies for later, in case I can ever make a deck out of them. For example, I liked the Uba Mask idea, and how Taigam, Sidisi's Hand get around the effect of the Mask. Maybe I can build a deck around punishing my opponents with Uba Mask but playing cards that help me get around it. That’s inspiration for a new deck right there.

EDIT: Real talk guys, that sounded like a cool idea for a deck, so I followed my own advice and wrote it down. Might be a new deck soon!

Perhaps I miss the 2/2 zombie token subtheme. Maybe I can make a Varina, Lich Queen or Sidisi, Brood Tyrant deck! You see how inspiration for new decks arises from building other decks? Maybe look at your discarded ideas from your last deck to build your next deck.

Another thing I like to do is keep the 10 or so cards that were the hardest to cut, the really good ones that maybe just weren’t great. Later, after testing, if you find some cards you kept aren't working out, you can add the previously cuts back in!

Whew! The task was long and arduous, but we did it! We finally made it to 100 cards! We hopefully have a well balanced deck that encompases the fun of our origional idea, that is also lean and efficient. A deck with win-cons, suited to our meta, and able to hold its own against 3 other decks at once. Originally I was going to have an “after” version of my deck, but I don’t think it will help as much as you going off and applying these principles to your deck. Good luck!

To recap:

• Adding more categories and overlapping cards in those categories is great for organizing your deck and for cutting cards.
• Cutting cards is the #1 hardest part about deckbuilding for most players. Everyone has to do it. You are not alone!
• At first, try not to cut draw, ramp, removal, lands, cards in multiple categories, or the original deck idea.
• Cut cards by their CMC and their real-life price tag.
• Create a “Mission Statement” for your deck. Cut cards that don’t forward that mission.
• Cut goodstuff, utility, do-nothing, and win-more cards.
• Use custom categories to make cuts, balancing your deck.
• Cut cards that aren’t good in your meta, that don’t jive with your philosophy, or that you don’t like for arbitrary reasons.
• Keep some of the harder-to-cut cards to potentially test out later. Save your cut ideas for potential future decks.

Now, with 100 cards and a somewhat balanced deck, you may start celebrating! We’re done!

Weeeeeeeeeeell

I’d argue other important parts of the process are coming up next: Playtesting and asking for help and advice.

Conveniently, all that will be discussed next time: The EDH Deck Building Process #6: Playtesting and Asking for Help!

Until then, may the Sun always shine in the eyes of your enemies! For the Legion!

Suns_Champion