Noob needs help building deck

[Histaxin]

Hey!

My friends always played magic and i've been playing some mini-master with them for fun every now and then.
This time we choose to pre-build some decks before we meet up. Last time out I won the minimaster with a mill combo and I wanted to build with mill since it was really much fun!
But, since I never built a real deck before i need some help.

So, my thoughts:
I want to build a aggro harassment deck where I mainly delay and mill the opponent, removing/delaying/depleting library (and mana) and constantly get some damage through with smaller creatures (that also help gain early board control) and end with a 7 dmg spell combo. It's something like an aggro/control deck or something:)

So i built a deck, but my problem is that it as of now consist of 44 cards and 16 mana. I atleast want to be at 22 mana for the deck.
What should I leave out? Does the deck look useful at all? Basically i mostly want to have fun with it.
Also worth saying is that i don't have that many cards, so I can't change to much:)

Cheers!

Here is the deck (also attatched as .dec)
Main
2 Bloodhaze Wolverine
2 Blow Your House Down
1 Bonecrusher Giant // Stomp
1 Chilling Trap
3 Cleric of Chill Depths
1 Deliberate
3 Field Research
3 Glacial Grasp
1 Inscription of Insight
2 Into the Roil
1 Irencrag Feat
2 Mad Ratter
1 Maddening Cacophony
2 Merfolk Windrobber
1 Pyroclastic Hellion
1 Ruin Crab
2 Scorching Dragonfire
4 Seven Dwarves
1 Skyclave Plunder
1 Slaying Fire
1 Sundering Stroke
1 Syr Carah, the Bold
2 Tazeem Roilmage
2 Weaselback Redcap
3 Zulaport Duelist

Sideboard
SB: 2 Barge In
SB: 1 Bloodhaze Wolverine
SB: 1 Chilling Trap
SB: 1 Deliberate
SB: 2 Fling
SB: 1 Into the Roil
SB: 1 Loch Dragon
SB: 1 Negate
SB: 1 Scorching Dragonfire
SB: 1 Silundi Vision // Silundi Isle
SB: 1 Syr Carah, the Bold
SB: 1 Windrider Wizard

[CleanBelwas]

Hey,

This deck looks fun. I'm a big advocate of playing what you love, so I like what you're doing here.

If we're looking at making a deck that's primarily fun, a good place to start would be deciding what cards have to stay.

Which of these are most fun to you? Which ones are you most excited to play and want to be the main focus of the deck?

Once we know that, it should make it easier to decide what can be cut.

Also, I know you said your collection isn't huge at this point, but is this deck something you'd want to pick up extra cards for if they suit the plan or are you mostly looking to stick to what you already own? And if you are happy to pick up a few singles for it, what kind of budget are you working with?

Obviously it's cool either way, but knowing these points will help us make recommendations that are suitable for you.

Good luck with the deck dude. I hope we can get it to a point your happy with and have a lot of fun playing.

[Histaxin]

Thanks for your reply Clean!

I really want to try to combine some sort of aggro/mill combo. I put in a lot of card draw to make sure I get  Maddening Cacophony and Tazeem Roilmage to get it back up on hand.

Anyhow. We usually buy around 40 booster packs and then go minimaster. So i actually share the cards. We all choose two colours from our last 2 mini-master tournaments and I went blue and red. So its also a rule not to buy more cards for this time out

But, to answer your questions:

"Which of these are most fun to you? Which ones are you most excited to play and want to be the main focus of the deck?"
Definetly the milling cards

"Also, I know you said your collection isn't huge at this point, but is this deck something you'd want to pick up extra cards for if they suit the plan or are you mostly looking to stick to what you already own? And if you are happy to pick up a few singles for it, what kind of budget are you working with?"
Zero budget for the next for fun tournament. For the future If i can keep the cards I guess i could spend 50-100 dollars or so:)

[PickleLover]

you may want to think of removing some less fun/useful cards that you only have 1 copy of

there seems to be many one-copies in the deck

typically people have at least 2 copies, it helps add consistency

[Potato Chop]

Some ideas on cards to remove:

• Blow your House Down - Kinda useless if you're not devoted to an aggro theme, and I don't know about you, but I can't imagine getting the benefit of being able to target a wall. Also, it will not help you at all if you don't have any creatures on the battlefield and/or do not want to attack while it's in your hand.
• Chilling Trap - You already have enough tapping-down and return-to-hand effects. Damage reduction isn't going to do much for you, and you only have 2 wizards in the deck anyway.
• Seven Dwarves - Since you only have four of them in there, they aren't very useful. They don't contribute at all to the theme of trying to find your combos. They have no card draw, harassment, or scry effect, no upside trigger from you drawing cards, and they are an absolute dud draw late-game. All said, they should probably go.
• Pyroclastic Hellion - I can see why you have it in there. It's important (especially in casual or draft games) to have at least one semi-large, semi-expensive creature that can help you keep up with everyone else at the table. It's good to have, but again, it doesn't really fit in with everything else in the deck.

All in all, it's not a bad deck, especially considering your limited card options. One thing that I did notice, however, is that in the sideboard there are additional copies of cards that you only have one of in your main deck. Take Deliberate, for example. It's a great card because it lets you scry 2 to sift through your deck a little, and then it lets you draw a card. It's good early game, and it's good late game. These are the kinds of cards that are great in casual playgroups and draft events.

My final point that is worth considering when trying to thin out a deck is that if it's not worth having 2 copies of, it's not worth having at all. For example, if you're not willing to use a second slot for a second copy of Syr Carah, the Bold, why is it in there in the first place? The best decks are concise and to-the-point, so... think about it.

Anyway, nice deck. Good luck with it and most of all, have fun out there.

[WWolfe]

Here's a link to the deck itself for people to be able to see it easier.

https://deckstats.net/decks/165299/1801410-control-aggro

The first thing I would say is 16 lands isn't enough for a 60 card deck.  About 38% of your deck should be lands.

Also, Irencrag Feat doesn't seem worth it in this deck. It would be hard to cast with triple red in the cost and you only have 4 spells (all of which are single copies) that I saw that cost more than it does to cast, so you really don't have much of a way to abuse it.

[Histaxin]

Hey! Thanks for all responses! On thursday it's time so I will keep at it with the deck until then:)

@potatochop: Thank a lot for your insights. My target here is to aggro a lot and get early board control. Midgame (where I want to be able to finish i think blow your house down really can help me out. But maybe not If I cant draw good enough for some reason or the game goes mid-end I want to be able to harass/mill opponent to death, so thats the strategy:) Maybe its totally off but Im really new at building any deck. Better to go for aggro or mill alone?
I will think about it and ofc post what deck I went with:)

@WWolfe: Totally agree with only 16 mana, I want at least 22 mana to go with, but could not decide what to leave out. Thats why im writing here:)

Dont know what you guys think but Im looking to have an option for board clear with Irencrag feat and sundering stroke combo. Maybe it's unprobable to pull this off tho?

[Histaxin]

And ofc also @Pickle, thanks for the response, ill try keep atleast 2 of every card if possible:)

[WWolfe]

Dont know what you guys think but Im looking to have an option for board clear with Irencrag feat and sundering stroke combo. Maybe it's unprobable to pull this off tho?

With only one of each, the odds of it aren't very good.

[WizardSpartan]

Dont know what you guys think but Im looking to have an option for board clear with Irencrag feat and sundering stroke combo. Maybe it's unprobable to pull this off tho?

With only one of each, the odds of it aren't very good.

*Rings the stat bell*

*In a sing-song voice*: Morganatorrr

[Histaxin]

Here is what im going with. Maybe it will fail totally, maybe It will fly. Will have fun for sure tho.
Thanks everyone!

Deck: Control aggro

//Main
2 Bloodhaze Wolverine
2 Blow Your House Down
1 Bonecrusher Giant // Stomp //
3 Cleric of Chill Depths
2 Deliberate
3 Field Research
3 Glacial Grasp
1 Inscription of Insight
2 Into the Roil
1 Irencrag Feat
10 Island
1 Maddening Cacophony
2 Merfolk Windrobber
11 Mountain
1 Ruin Crab
2 Scorching Dragonfire
4 Seven Dwarves
1 Skyclave Plunder
1 Sundering Stroke
2 Tazeem Roilmage
2 Weaselback Redcap
3 Zulaport Duelist

//Sideboard
2 Barge In
1 Bloodhaze Wolverine
2 Chilling Trap
1 Deliberate
2 Fling
1 Into the Roil
1 Loch Dragon
2 Mad Ratter
1 Negate
1 Pyroclastic Hellion
1 Scorching Dragonfire
1 Silundi Vision // Silundi Isle
1 Slaying Fire
2 Syr Carah, the Bold
1 Windrider Wizard

Display deck statistics

[Histaxin]

So, in the end it did not end well for this deck, although I made one great victory when I drew well, but it was to dependent on drawing in a right sequence.
I will save it tho and keep exploring how it can be better. But the main wisdom here is that it tried to do to much.

Anyhow, thanks everybody. I already feel a bit wiser thanks to your help.

First ever deck built, now straight on to build a new one!