Palle's beginners guide to "Deck Construction for ABC Common" inspired
me to share also my point of  view on how to assemble a good deck with
you. First  of all, my general  approach towards a new  deck is rather
similar  to  the  one  described  by Palle,  maybe  with  some  little
differences here and there.

The tool:
---------
One of  the most important points  is probably the absence  of pen and
paper  and the use  of a  dedicated and  free available  software tool
called  magic   workstation  (http://www.magicworkstation.com).   This
database program allows to do all sorts of useful things, like sorting
cards for  a number of  parameters, maintaining a deck-  and sideboard
list,  calculating all number  of statistics  (mana base,  mana curve,
etc) and even  allows to test the deck in the  virtual world.  (but of
course, you can also do all this with pen and paper.)

How to start:
-------------
Everything starts  with a  theme (e.g.  the  Bogert black/white)  or a
certain combination of cards  (e.g.  Pestilence + Circle of Protection
Black). Something  more easy for the  beginning could also  be a tribe
deck.   (e.g.,  elves,  zombies,  clerics, soldiers,  birds,  wizards,
spirits).

After having defined  the general theme (and probably  colours) of the
deck, it will be time to look  at the mana base. With mana base I mean
here the number  of lands and mana-producing non-land  cards which you
can possibly  include. According to our  rules each deck  must have 14
basic  lands (swamp, island,  plains, mountains,  forest).  Up  to two
additional  basic lands  can be  included  if one  renounces to  cards
starting with either 'X' or 'Q'. In most cases (except green) you will
normally end  up playing without  'X' or 'Q'  and with a 16  land mana
base. This is  still short by (at least) one  mana producing card (for
most decks).   Thus, it is  now time to  search for all  possible mana
producers  in the colours  of interest  and to  include them  (for the
moment) in  your virtual  deck list. Don't  worry, we can  remove them
later or shift  them in the side  board, but for now this  will give a
nice overview of the available mana producers.

The 'other' 21 or so cards:
---------------------------

Let's continue  with the idea of a  tribal deck and try  our best with
zombies.   As  you can  imagine  this will  push  us  heavily (if  not
entirely) into the colour black.   Now we select all zombies using the
database of magic workstation and  included them for the moment in our
decklist.  This  will certainly  give us much  more cards then  we are
allowed to play  and leave some letters free  ('J' for instance).  But
let's not  worry about that right now.   The next step can  be to pass
through  the selected  cards  and eliminate  the  useless zombies  and
select  the best  suitable ones  whenever a  letter appears  more than
once.

Now it's  time for the  support spells (e.g.   removals, enchantments,
maybe  artifacts).   Select all  black  non-creature  spells and  pass
through them one  by one. Push all interesting  ones into your virtual
decklist.   Do the same  with artifacts  and a  cards from  a possible
support colour. You will end up  with a decklist of maybe 50 cards and
the next  step is  to pass through  all of  them letter by  letter and
select the right number  of removals, creatures etc. Magic Workstation
is helpful as it counts  lands, creatures and non-creatures spells for
you. If  everything works fine,  you should end  up with your  40 card
deck now, ready to test against other decks.


Additional Tips and Tricks:
---------------------------
Although it is always difficult  to rank a certain card before another
one, there are some guidelines which are helpful:

i) cards  with two or more  effects are usually very  good. Let's take
e.g. the black-green Instant 'Consume Strenght'. This spells gives one
target +2/+2  (very often  one of your  creatures) and  another target
creature -2/-2  (probably on  of your opponents).  In most  cases this
will give you a so-called  2-for-1 situation, where you can handle two
creatures of your opponent with one spell.

ii) be prepared for your opponents deck. In our ABC Common environment
each player is  allowed to have a 15 card  sideboard.  After the first
game cards can  be swapped between the main deck  and the sideboard on
letter-by-letter  basis.  If  you  play black  removal  spells,  which
typically write "Destroy target non-black creature...", it will always
good to have some exchange cards  in your sideboard (in case that your
oppoenent play heavily black as well).