Magic: The Gathering Deck Types: Metalcraft

Magic: The Gathering, more commonly known as simply Magic, is the first collectible trading card game.  It was released by Wizards of the Coast in 1993.  A player can create his own deck using cards he obtains through booster packs, etc.  He is then able to play against other players, who will have a deck of their own.  This is what makes a trading card game so interesting.  It allows for each player to customize their own deck to suit their play style or utilize the cards they have in the best possible way.

In a game, each player has a deck of at least 60 cards.  There can be more than 60 in a deck but 60 is recommended as it helps you to draw your best cards.  One cool thing about Magic cards is that they are made to work together, unlike Yu-gi-oh, which focuses on the power of individual cards.  Each cards requires mana to cast, which is obtained mainly from land cards.  Each land card has a specific color, which can only be used to summon certain cards.  This means that you will need to fill your deck with cards that can use that color.  This is a direct cause of themed decks, which are much more interesting than packing a deck with as much power as you can manage.

One type of deck (and my personal favorite) is the metalcraft deck.  These decks rely heavily on artifacts.  By playing 3 artifacts (including artifact creatures) cards have the metalcraft ability on them activated, which increases their strength.  The metalcraft deck is an advanced one, almost always relying on three colors (blue, black, and white) rather than the usual one or two.  This makes drawing the right land more difficult.  However, many cards used in metalcraft decks are colorless, not requiring a specific color to be played.

The main point of the metalcraft deck is to get a lot of artifacts on the field.  To create a strong metalcraft deck, you’re going to need to use the best artifact cards you have.  Some of the most useful artifacts are equipment cards.  These cards can make your creatures much more powerful, and they are difficult to destroy.  For example, Strandwalker costs 5 to play and 4 to equip.  When it enters the battlefield it counts as a creature and it gives the creature it’s equipped to +2/+4 and reach.  This can make even a wimpy 2/2 creature a 4/6 creature that can block flying creatures.

Using equipment cards lends itself well to having a lot of weak artifact creatures that can be strengthened.  This strategy works with Pennon blade, which gives +1/+1 for every creature under your control.  With these creatures out to provide a sturdy wall, or even offense, the metalcraft deck can reveal incredibly powerful creatures, helped along by cards such as Palladium Myr, who can provide an extra two mana to use every turn.  One is the Inkwell Leviathan, costing 7 and 2 islands, which is a 7/11 creature with trample, islandwalk, and shroud.  Another is the Sphinx of the Steel Wind,costing 5, a plain, an island, and a swamp.  It is a 6/6 creature with flying, first strike, vigilance, lifelink, and protection from red and green.  The metalcraft deck, if it isn’t brought down early, is able to field creatures with very high toughness values, allowing metalcraft to even be used as a stall deck if so desired.  The elixir of immortality can help with this, shuffling the owner’s graveyard and the elixir into his deck.

Because it utilizes the three colors, white, black, and blue, metalcraft decks can also function well with some of the most powerful cards of these colors.  Powerful blue instant spells such as cancel and stoic rebuttal, or blue auras like Mind Control.  Also available are white auras such as arrest, pacifism, mammoth umbra, and other auras like divine favor.  Coming from black are spells that discard enemy cards, auras that grant regeneration to creatures, and creature destroying cards like doom blade.

With the different colors and creatures that will work with any of them, the metalcraft deck is one of the most flexible and interesting decks in the game of magic.  Anything from a fast beatdown deck to a land grabbing massive creature deck, metalcraft can fit into anything.  The problem is trying to do too much.  You need to come up with an idea of how you want the deck to work.  A single deck can’t run the enemy out of cards, have massive creatures, a ton of little creatures, lots of equipment, canceling spells, a bunch of auras, and creature killing spells.  You have to pick and choose what you want from the deck carefully in order to craft a deck that stays close to 60 cards and can be effective.

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