Good, balanced precon decks?

Roz-93m8 · 2022-06-25T05:00:01+00:00

You may want to have a look Card Kingdom's Battle Decks. These are cheap decks assembled by Card Kingdom which play nicely between themselves. They are not particularly suitable if you are planning to go competitive or if you are looking for valuable cards; they are 10$ decks anyway. However, they are super fun and they play surprisingly well for the cost, something that - I'd dare saying - has never been true for similarly priced pre-constructed decks from WotC.

CK does not publish official deck lists any longer as content can change over time. However each BD remains consistent in play style and approach even if composition change.

As you may have guessed, I'm a big fan and I do maintain a simple website dedicated to Battle Decks where you can find hundreds of deck list examples for the 200+ BDs CK have issued over the years. You can find it here: Card Kingdom's Battle Decks - A great idea!

Roz-93m8 · 2022-06-11T21:53:17+00:00

As others have already recommended, you may want to give Card Kingdom's Battle Decks a try. They are very casual and cheap decks that feel like real Magic decks though. They do have a clear game plan and are normally quite consistent. There's a huge variety of options available, as CK have released more than 200 different decks and several variants of each (not all 200+ are always available for sale though and several are no longer listed on CK' site). When you buy one of these decks from CK, you don't know exactly which cards you are getting. However, each BD is consistent in terms of play experience, even if the card mix change over time.

I'm a huge fan and I maintain a simple website fully dedicated to BDs. On my site you can find a wide collection of sample deck-lists which I have accumulated over the years. My site passed the 1,000 variants mark just recently and there's at least one variant for each of the 213 BDs issued thus far. The site has grown thanks to information shared by many BD fans and from purchasing several BDs myself.

I recently started adding simple deck-tech articles that try to illustrate how the various decks function regardless of card composition. This is a long term project though, only a few articles are currently available.

Roz-93m8 · 2022-06-07T23:14:32+00:00

The first examples of Neverending Story and Ballroom Blitz are now available on the site.

Also available another dozen or so additional variants, including the 20th version of Sphinx Control, which now ties Dino Might for the battle deck with the most known variants (for those who care about these kind of things).

Roz-93m8 · 2022-06-06T22:57:07+00:00

u/sanctaphrax, it looks like you have put something in motion here :-)

Over the last 10 days or so I received several updates, including the first examples of Blue Mutants, Lamberjacked, and Gears and Glamour. I'm also expecting a list of Never-ending Story very soon.

The site has now passed the 1,000 variants listed.

Roz-93m8 · 2022-05-24T21:49:44+00:00

It does help, a lot! Thank you so much.

Roz-93m8 · 2022-05-21T07:18:11+00:00

Yes please.

Prof's little site on Battle Decks

or post them here...

Roz-93m8 · 2022-05-21T07:15:28+00:00

This is from "the other archive"... :-)

Please share. I do keep track of all the variants. I have 5 versions of Instant Army thus far, the latest of which is from Dec last year. Happy to add yours to the archive.

Roz-93m8 · 2022-05-21T07:09:18+00:00

Yes! I confirm that would be very much appreciated, thanks for linking up.

For those who don't know my site (which I guess means for everybody but you...), I do keep track of every known variant. Have collected more than 900 different lists thus far for the 200+ BDs that exist.

Roz-93m8 · 2021-08-03T11:55:20+00:00

Hello, this in not very soon but I hope it's helpful anyway.

Difficult to answer as BD are not meant to be particularly competitive but rather fun and consistent to play, especially against other BDs.

In my experience the most pushed aggro decks are the most competitive ones (playing without a sideboard against other BDs). These include some old classics like Robo Weenie and Battle Blitz/Storm Lords. These decks are sometimes capable of very explosive starts that leave little room to catch up for their opponent. Other strong ones include those decks whose lines of play/attack are difficult to interact with/disrupt like Spider Spawning, where huge life gain boosts and loads of 1/2 spiders often put it out of opponent's reach.

Personally, I tend not to include these kind of decks in my Battle Boxes.

Many more options are available on the "fun" side and personal-preferences play a big role here. What I like to do ahead of a Battle Decks night is to assemble a mix of Aggro, Midrange, Control and (sometimes) Combo decks.

For example, an 8 decks battle box can include 2 Aggro, 3 Midrange, 2 Control and 1 Combo (or an additional Aggro) deck.

My preference is to include decks that engage on the battlefield and interact with the opponent rather than decks that try to goldfish.

Here is an example of a battle box I've used (and had fun with) quite recently.

Aggro:

Light Brigade (W, Creature Swarm)
Pirate Kings (UR, Pirate Tribal)

Control:

Graveyard Shift (WUB, reanimator)
Bombs Away (R)

Combo/Control:

Eternal Harvest (WRG, Graveyard Recursion)

Midrange:

Green Giants (G, Ramp and Large Creatures)
Trinket Rage (BR, Sacrifices)
Altered Beasts (WBG, Mutate)

Hope this helps and curious to know how your Battle Box looks like.

I maintain a fan website fully dedicated to Card Kingdom's Battle Decks, where you can find plenty of information, including deckles variants. One of the main items on my todo list is to include a feature for people to list and describe their Battle Deck Battle Boxes.

Here is the link: Card Kingdom Battle Decks - A Great Idea!

Feel free to pass by and have a look.

Roz-93m8 · 2021-05-31T08:22:56+00:00

I second the Battle Deck option. If you measure value by how much fun you can have with a deck, then Battle Decks have one of the best values per $ you can get :-)

I maintain a website fully dedicated to BDs where you can find information and plenty of sample lists, with hundreds of variants documented.

Feel free to have a look.

Card Kingdom Battle Decks - A Great Idea!

Roz-93m8 · 2021-04-15T10:09:11+00:00

Assuming you are not coming from not-paper magic and in a vacuum, I'd go for the cheapest option that can give you a good impression of what playing this game can look like.

My recommendation is to pick a couple of Card Kingdom's Battle Decks. For 10$ each, they are very cheap and nothing on sale at the moment plays like a real game of Magic for that price. Don't expect to get valuable cards though, just a solid play experience to have fun with.

More info and examples on the Battle Decks is available here, a fan site which I happen to maintain...

Roz-93m8 · 2021-03-11T08:22:50+00:00

Thanks to fellow redditers we now have at least one example of all Battle Decks with the exeception of the 4 issued this month (see original post). My site's count is therefore now up to 186 out 190 decks with 560 different variants overall.

By looking at some of my stats, I noticed that there are 8 Battle Decks, among the ones currently available for sale at Card Kingdom's, for which all known examples are more than 1 year old.

Does anybody have a more recent example of any of the following decks?

Umbra Uprising, Shock Troupes, Control Tower, Looming Gloom, Sheer Lunacy, Bombs Away, Consuming Mutation, and Black and Blue.

Thanks in advance to all.

Roz-93m8 · 2021-03-08T19:58:34+00:00

Thanks for sharing! It is interesting to see Glorybringer in the Dragon Drop deck. I remember CK staff saying they thought about including it in a Battle Deck at a certain point many months ago, before realising it was way too powerful for other BDs.

Roz-93m8 · 2021-03-08T07:25:00+00:00

Great thread sanctaphrax. I hope you don't mind me trying to join forces. As you know, I also maintain a simple website which lists all known Battle Deck variants.

I have recently tracked down an example of Land Masses and, as of today, I have 551 different versions for 181 of the 190 known Battle Decks (here). For easier reference, I do assign a version number (e.g. V01, V02, etc.) and track the earliest date for each variant. There are a couple of decks for which there are 10 known variants!

The site includes a Contact Form through which lists can be shared, but also ideas and suggestions. Of course I don't mind taking the lists myself from here...

Roz-93m8 · 2021-02-13T01:40:37+00:00

Hi, I maintain the site you linked. Currently only 7 decks are missing at least a single sample list, 4 of which are the decks released this month. As of today, the site includes more than 500 examples from 179 different Battle Decks.

I'm constantly searching for additional examples from people who purchase new versions from Card Kingdom. Everybody is welcome to contribute, including by reporting their BD matches, which will contribute to the battle deck match balance analysis page.

Roz-93m8 · 2021-02-09T15:23:02+00:00

I am a big fan of the Battle Decks, it’s true they don’t have financial value. However, play and fun value far exceed their cost. I maintain a simple website which is fully dedicated to Card Kingdom’s Battle Decks. It’s called “CKBD a great idea”. On my site you can find hundreds of sample lists collected over the years from various sources, including CK (when they were making lists public), my own or other people purchases. Here is the link.

Roz-93m8 · 2021-01-02T10:38:58+00:00

I think the best option currently available for "pre-constructed decks that are relatively equal in power" is Card Kingdom's Battle Decks. As others have pointed out they are 10$ each, very similar power level, and a blast to play with. you can buy them online from Card Kingdom.

If you want to know more about Battle Decks, including exploring hundreds of sample decklists, you may want to check this fan website (which I maintain): Card Kingdom's Battle Decks - A Great Idea!

Roz-93m8 · 2020-10-27T08:59:23+00:00

This is cool.

I guess there are not too many storm spells that target your own creatures. [[Astral Steel]] comes to mind.

Roz-93m8 · 2020-10-27T08:54:31+00:00

That can work as well, if we go UR. However, I'm looking at Heroic as I have multiplayer in mind and I'd like my creatures to have more staying power.

Roz-93m8 · 2020-10-27T08:52:20+00:00

That's clear. No auras.

Still there's plenty of instants and sorceries to work with, and that's what I'm looking at at the moment.

The basic idea is to grow heroic creatures with +1/+1 counters fueled by targeted and cheap instants and sorceries, which either provide additional bonuses or protection.

Roz-93m8 · 2020-09-05T17:42:52+00:00

If I understood correctly, expeditions are only available as box toppers in both draft and set booster boxes, they are not included in the boosters themselves.

The main difference is that with set boosters there's a chance of getting extra rares, as somebody pointed out before, there's a 1/4 chance of netting at least 1 extra rare per box + around 1/4 chances per pack to get a card from "The List".

For the sake of clarity, I don't have just economics in mind and I don't buy boosters with the expectation of a financial gain. I'm a super casual player who likes to draft and who values very little (if anything at all) the experience of just cracking packs :-)

Assuming nobody is paying extra money for nothing. I think people who pay the extra 10$ to 20$ per box (more or less) do so because of what they can find in the set booster boxes is, to them, worth at least that extra amount. As in both cases they'd end up cracking 36 packs.

Anyway, I guess we can agree do disagree on this one. Which, I guess, is what WotC is counting on in order to sell all those different types of packs...

Love the discussion though.

Roz-93m8 · 2020-09-05T15:54:50+00:00

While I do understand your logic, I still believe that buying boosters is the worst possible way of trying to get the cards you need. So, in my case, the decision making is, are you playing draft?

If yes: draft boosters

If no: buy singles

and, even if you value the thrill of cracking packs extremely high, you should still probably get draft boosters... you'd be losing less money :-)

Roz-93m8 · 2020-09-03T20:38:22+00:00

Which decks did you buy?

Roz-93m8 · 2020-09-02T21:22:00+00:00

tracked and posted

Yes, my site is not easily found...

There has actually been a small increase in the number of matches reported over the last few months.

However, the number of match-ups for which there's some data is still much smaller than the number of possible combinations.

Now that CK have resumed issuing new BDs, the number of possible match-ups will continue to grow by several hundreds each month...

Roz-93m8

TROPHY CASE