Hey there! I’m new to paper MTG and play Commander with my playgroup. We’ve been having a debate about whether the total value of a deck really indicates how strong it is. One of my friends argues that value doesn’t equal strength, but I can’t help but wonder when I keep losing to a deck with a higher price tag than mine.

I’ve been playing 1v1 games with my friend for a few months now, so I know their deck almost as well as mine. It can be frustrating when I can predict their moves but still can’t win with my basic deck. I understand the point that a couple of expensive cards in a deck won’t guarantee a win, but when a deck is upgraded with so many pricey cards, it feels like a whole different ball game.

For reference, we both started with precons, and both upgraded. I spent $20, they spent $120+. Inputing my deck list in a deck value calculator returns $103, which is lower than their upgrade alone lol

I don’t mind losing when the match is good. I hate losing when I’m always on the backfoot and can’t do much besides hoping to survive another turn

What are your thoughts on this? I’d love to hear different perspectives on the relationship between deck value and strength in the game.

edit: I received more responses than I expected, so I’ll need some time to go through them all and respond. Thank you in advance!

  • @[email protected]
    7•8 months ago

    You can absolutely build an insanely pricey deck that sucks.

    If you want to beat an expensive deck with a cheap deck, you won’t do it by netdecking. Competitive players know which cards are essential in netdecks. “Oh, they’re on esper control, but they don’t have x and y cards? Good, this will be easy.”

    My solution to this is to play a deck that no one is expecting. Surprise them. Make them think you’re playing a certain deck for the first 2 turns, then throw out something they’re not expecting.

    Now, you can make a crappy deck this way, if you aren’t careful. So playtest and drop the things that don’t work.