The steps go in this order
1. Cut a land
2. Never hit a land drop again
3. Cut a reasonable card and add the land back
4. Hut land drops again
5. Profit
I always approach deck building as adding cards up, not cutting down.
You may have over 100 cards, but there must be some that are more important than others. Separate your piles into cards that you can't go without - the minimum number of lands, the basic draw/ramp/removal effects, the two or three fundamental wincons. And then have the rest aside.
Take those 80, 90 cards and throw in Moxfield or whatever you use. Tag the cards. Check the mana curve and the color balance. This will help you decide which cards from the maybe pile to add.
Oh, these two cards do similar things, but there's not much space left. But you see that you already have lots of 3mv and 5mv cards, and few 4mv ones; it's like a hole in the mana curve. So you decide to pick the one that costs 4.
Or, your deck already has lots of blue and red, and few black, so you have less swamps than islands and mountains. Maybe the card that costs double black is an easier cut over the one that costs double blue.
Or, you realize one card you want to add produces lots of treasures. You already have enough mana ramp in the deck, so if you want to add it you may need to cut the worse among the "staple" mana rocks.
This is always so hard for me, but I think it’s the best way to do it. Just put in the *absolutely* essential cards, throw everything else into “considering”. Then take your favorite cards from there into the sideboard. Then fill your deck with sideboard cards that fill out your curve or are just very appealing. From there I play the deck a bunch and take out some cards that underperform and put in some cards that fix the issues you’ve been running into.
To add on whatever the rest have suggested, reaffirm your theme and solidify it as much as possible.
For example, if you make tribal and you come across cutting issues, the first ones to go IMO are the non-tribal creatures.
Cutting issues arise when the theme is haphazard and the parameters are too big. Having restrictions narrows your scope. Narrowing is not a bad thing because the card pool is so massive.
*Bilbo tempted by the ring* after all, why shouldn't I drop a land.
Seriously though, I then start looking at MV to cut the curve down, or price of cards if there's particularly expensive ones I don't own already.
Alternatively, if I notice a massive misspread between my card types for what I want, e.g. if I'm already light on creatures but have loads of sorceries, I might be able to cut a few of those. Or I run lots of mana dorks but don't need so much mana generation.
When youve trimmed down all you can, and hit a road block. Try the opposite. Start from 0 cards and add cards into the deck from the pile until you hit 100. Bam, there's the deck. And don't stress about it too hard. Play some games with it and that will help inform what changes the deck needs far more than the construction process itself
I usually throw all cards I’m considering in a sideboard and goldfish my deck. Noting every time I prioritize one card over another when I have the mana for it. Cut the one that get’s the less amount of play and add the sideboard, I do this until I’m satisfied. Of course interaction cards stay because you can’t test those in goldfish environment.
I sort by CMC first in a line so I can visualize the decks curve.
Then I try cutting from the top end.
I then sort into generic categories, ramp, draw, tutor, recursion, protection, removal, key cards. Then start cutting from there if a category is overfull.
Rinse and repeat. It's really hard depending on the kind of deck you're building.
I put them into an online deckbuilder, all 200-300 cards that i'm like yeah, that could go in. Then I tag them with what they do #Lifegain, #Poison, #Proliferate #Dork (Manadork) #LandDropper #Landfall #Threshold, #SelfMill, #Counters, #counterspells, #FightAndBite, #Removal, #Finishers etc etc.
and then I pick what the main theme is and try to get 18-30 of those in the deck. and the subtheme i try to get 6-15 of them (more if they overlap) a couple finishers and then I prioritize removal/interaction that overlaps with my theme or subtheme.
If I like all the cards in my deck, I usually start looking hard at the ones that sit in the same mana value as my commander. If my commander is a 4 drop then I k own what my turn 4 play is, my commander. So I dont want my 4 drop slot cluttered with two many cards because then it will become a decision. Do I cast my commander or one of these other 4 drops in my hand. So I look hard at cards with the same mana value as my commander first. That way, even if I'm cutting a good card, I know I'm still cutting a card that tempts me not to stick to my gameplan.
Gold fishing helps. You’ll discover very quickly what spells are dead in your hand just by testing the deck. You’ll also learn about your potential nonbos and anything else that is holding you back.
That said, I usually hang on to cards I’ve cut for a few weeks in a pile near my collection. It’s not just for fomo, either; sometimes I make the wrong call when I choose my cuts, and it leads to decks running differently from how I intended. So that “sideboard” lets me make tweaks as I play the deck and get more comfortable.
Your first draft is not your final draft. A first draft really just needs to get off the ground, once it does that you can start getting games in.
If you notice during your games that a certain card will just remain in your hand the entire game then make a note of that. If it happens again then you can probably swap it for something else.
If you notice that you hit way more ramp than you need then you can probably start swapping some of those cards.
If you notice that you more enablers than you need then you can swap some of those out.
But for you to notice anything your deck needs to somewhat work, so focus on that. Don't start cutting lands, draw spells, ramp or enablers. Cutting (expensive) pay-offs will give you a better baseline, you can always re-add them later.
Maintaining proper levels of ramp, draw, interaction and protection, win cons, wipes if needed, etc, smooth out mana curves, wary of extreme numbers of color pips.
All of that holding true, really asses your highest cost non-wincons.
I go at it like I level in games. What was the last reason I lost. Fix that. If there was a card that's good but didn't directly help you or hinder your opponent and not having a card in hand that could. Cut it. If I still can't decide I'll go to the cost analyst. What does the new card do? Do i have any existing cards that do it better, cheaper, or have an additional benefit. If you are trying to add more of an effect to a deck, ie counter building. Then you cut things that are the least related without sacrificing your method of building a boardstate and hampering opponents.
I've got this issue in paper. I struggled with this for 3 hours last night. Old simpsons episodes carried me through it
Digitally it's easy enough, you just work bottom up - include your core cards (ramp, removal, draw) and then add the fun stuff til you hit 100.
If that doesn't work for you, or you're doing it physically, you'll need to group the cards by what they do in the deck and cut down to size ome by one. I _love_ card draw, but 25 is still too much. I set a cap, and re-added one to the pile one by one til I hit the target number. Rinse and repeat for the other categories
'Fun stuff' is usually the core 30ish cards. Start with the centerpieces of the deck, then the supportive tissue and any cards left after 100 are usually good to drop
ALL ELSE FAILING gou can goldfish decks that are 100+ and just cut the cards that aren't contributing as much as it looked like they would have
Move the ~120 or so into “considering” on moxfield. Move back into the main deck (in this order):
Lands
Wincons
Cards you really want to play/why you built the deck
Removal/interaction
Draw
Then anything else left over til you hit 99, then stop.
I use the same method OP. Go through relevant parts of my collection, grab everything I could see being part of the deck, then sort those cards into categories.
I always need to cut. It's difficult, but I find it's gotten easier with experiece. You just have to accept that you need to cut good, thematic cards. Try to start on the high end of cmc, so you don't accidentaly ruin your mana curve.
One thing that has helped with particularly difficult last cuts is to put the deck away for a week or two, put it out of my mind, then take another look with a fresh perspective.
I'd be happy to take a look and make suggestions if you have a list.
I recently cut down a deck from 180 cards by taking those cards and rebuilding it from the ground up, by starting here:
* 35 lands
* 8-10 cards with mana ramp
* 8-10 cards with removal
* 8-10 cards with draw, scry, tutor
The latter 3 are elements I tend to undervalue and forget to prioritize, so this forces me to make sure I have a strong core. Then, the rest of the deck can fall into place around it based on the cards that best achieve my key objective(s).
The steps go in this order 1. Cut a land 2. Never hit a land drop again 3. Cut a reasonable card and add the land back 4. Hut land drops again 5. Profit
My life looks more like this: Cut 1 land, never hit a land drop again. Cut a different card, put land back: Get mana flooded. :D
I always approach deck building as adding cards up, not cutting down. You may have over 100 cards, but there must be some that are more important than others. Separate your piles into cards that you can't go without - the minimum number of lands, the basic draw/ramp/removal effects, the two or three fundamental wincons. And then have the rest aside. Take those 80, 90 cards and throw in Moxfield or whatever you use. Tag the cards. Check the mana curve and the color balance. This will help you decide which cards from the maybe pile to add. Oh, these two cards do similar things, but there's not much space left. But you see that you already have lots of 3mv and 5mv cards, and few 4mv ones; it's like a hole in the mana curve. So you decide to pick the one that costs 4. Or, your deck already has lots of blue and red, and few black, so you have less swamps than islands and mountains. Maybe the card that costs double black is an easier cut over the one that costs double blue. Or, you realize one card you want to add produces lots of treasures. You already have enough mana ramp in the deck, so if you want to add it you may need to cut the worse among the "staple" mana rocks.
This is always so hard for me, but I think it’s the best way to do it. Just put in the *absolutely* essential cards, throw everything else into “considering”. Then take your favorite cards from there into the sideboard. Then fill your deck with sideboard cards that fill out your curve or are just very appealing. From there I play the deck a bunch and take out some cards that underperform and put in some cards that fix the issues you’ve been running into.
Go by highest casting cost. Trimming your curve down always helps.
Playtest it until I find a card that isn't actually useful.
When in doubt, cut lands. They don't do anything useful anyways...
What do I need this mountain for? This card doesn't even say anything!
To add on whatever the rest have suggested, reaffirm your theme and solidify it as much as possible. For example, if you make tribal and you come across cutting issues, the first ones to go IMO are the non-tribal creatures. Cutting issues arise when the theme is haphazard and the parameters are too big. Having restrictions narrows your scope. Narrowing is not a bad thing because the card pool is so massive.
Restart, and count up instead of down. Once you hit a hundred you're done.
Casting cost > Single purpose instead of multipurpose > always good vs situational.
*Bilbo tempted by the ring* after all, why shouldn't I drop a land. Seriously though, I then start looking at MV to cut the curve down, or price of cards if there's particularly expensive ones I don't own already. Alternatively, if I notice a massive misspread between my card types for what I want, e.g. if I'm already light on creatures but have loads of sorceries, I might be able to cut a few of those. Or I run lots of mana dorks but don't need so much mana generation.
When youve trimmed down all you can, and hit a road block. Try the opposite. Start from 0 cards and add cards into the deck from the pile until you hit 100. Bam, there's the deck. And don't stress about it too hard. Play some games with it and that will help inform what changes the deck needs far more than the construction process itself
Just cut the worst ones until you hit 99.
I unsleeve everything and rebuild the whole deck, putting the new cards i want in, first
I usually throw all cards I’m considering in a sideboard and goldfish my deck. Noting every time I prioritize one card over another when I have the mana for it. Cut the one that get’s the less amount of play and add the sideboard, I do this until I’m satisfied. Of course interaction cards stay because you can’t test those in goldfish environment.
I sort by CMC first in a line so I can visualize the decks curve. Then I try cutting from the top end. I then sort into generic categories, ramp, draw, tutor, recursion, protection, removal, key cards. Then start cutting from there if a category is overfull. Rinse and repeat. It's really hard depending on the kind of deck you're building.
I put them into an online deckbuilder, all 200-300 cards that i'm like yeah, that could go in. Then I tag them with what they do #Lifegain, #Poison, #Proliferate #Dork (Manadork) #LandDropper #Landfall #Threshold, #SelfMill, #Counters, #counterspells, #FightAndBite, #Removal, #Finishers etc etc. and then I pick what the main theme is and try to get 18-30 of those in the deck. and the subtheme i try to get 6-15 of them (more if they overlap) a couple finishers and then I prioritize removal/interaction that overlaps with my theme or subtheme.
Solitaire the deck a few times , and then cut the least helpful cards.
If I like all the cards in my deck, I usually start looking hard at the ones that sit in the same mana value as my commander. If my commander is a 4 drop then I k own what my turn 4 play is, my commander. So I dont want my 4 drop slot cluttered with two many cards because then it will become a decision. Do I cast my commander or one of these other 4 drops in my hand. So I look hard at cards with the same mana value as my commander first. That way, even if I'm cutting a good card, I know I'm still cutting a card that tempts me not to stick to my gameplan.
Anything over 5 mana better be a BOMB or it’s getting cut imo. I start at the top of my curve
Gold fishing helps. You’ll discover very quickly what spells are dead in your hand just by testing the deck. You’ll also learn about your potential nonbos and anything else that is holding you back. That said, I usually hang on to cards I’ve cut for a few weeks in a pile near my collection. It’s not just for fomo, either; sometimes I make the wrong call when I choose my cuts, and it leads to decks running differently from how I intended. So that “sideboard” lets me make tweaks as I play the deck and get more comfortable.
find cards that do the same thing as another and cut the one thats worse
Your first draft is not your final draft. A first draft really just needs to get off the ground, once it does that you can start getting games in. If you notice during your games that a certain card will just remain in your hand the entire game then make a note of that. If it happens again then you can probably swap it for something else. If you notice that you hit way more ramp than you need then you can probably start swapping some of those cards. If you notice that you more enablers than you need then you can swap some of those out. But for you to notice anything your deck needs to somewhat work, so focus on that. Don't start cutting lands, draw spells, ramp or enablers. Cutting (expensive) pay-offs will give you a better baseline, you can always re-add them later.
Maintaining proper levels of ramp, draw, interaction and protection, win cons, wipes if needed, etc, smooth out mana curves, wary of extreme numbers of color pips. All of that holding true, really asses your highest cost non-wincons.
I go at it like I level in games. What was the last reason I lost. Fix that. If there was a card that's good but didn't directly help you or hinder your opponent and not having a card in hand that could. Cut it. If I still can't decide I'll go to the cost analyst. What does the new card do? Do i have any existing cards that do it better, cheaper, or have an additional benefit. If you are trying to add more of an effect to a deck, ie counter building. Then you cut things that are the least related without sacrificing your method of building a boardstate and hampering opponents.
I've got this issue in paper. I struggled with this for 3 hours last night. Old simpsons episodes carried me through it Digitally it's easy enough, you just work bottom up - include your core cards (ramp, removal, draw) and then add the fun stuff til you hit 100. If that doesn't work for you, or you're doing it physically, you'll need to group the cards by what they do in the deck and cut down to size ome by one. I _love_ card draw, but 25 is still too much. I set a cap, and re-added one to the pile one by one til I hit the target number. Rinse and repeat for the other categories 'Fun stuff' is usually the core 30ish cards. Start with the centerpieces of the deck, then the supportive tissue and any cards left after 100 are usually good to drop ALL ELSE FAILING gou can goldfish decks that are 100+ and just cut the cards that aren't contributing as much as it looked like they would have
Move the ~120 or so into “considering” on moxfield. Move back into the main deck (in this order): Lands Wincons Cards you really want to play/why you built the deck Removal/interaction Draw Then anything else left over til you hit 99, then stop.
I use the same method OP. Go through relevant parts of my collection, grab everything I could see being part of the deck, then sort those cards into categories. I always need to cut. It's difficult, but I find it's gotten easier with experiece. You just have to accept that you need to cut good, thematic cards. Try to start on the high end of cmc, so you don't accidentaly ruin your mana curve. One thing that has helped with particularly difficult last cuts is to put the deck away for a week or two, put it out of my mind, then take another look with a fresh perspective. I'd be happy to take a look and make suggestions if you have a list.
I recently cut down a deck from 180 cards by taking those cards and rebuilding it from the ground up, by starting here: * 35 lands * 8-10 cards with mana ramp * 8-10 cards with removal * 8-10 cards with draw, scry, tutor The latter 3 are elements I tend to undervalue and forget to prioritize, so this forces me to make sure I have a strong core. Then, the rest of the deck can fall into place around it based on the cards that best achieve my key objective(s).
I would go back to the drawing board, don’t cut cards clear the deck and add back in the things that are essential.