MTG Deckbuilding Help/Advice

So I've been trying to create my first deck, to no avail. I ask you of Veeky Forums to help me build it. If anyone's interested in this, you can post your deck ideas or give helpful advice for those of us who are just beginning.

how new are you to the game?
what cards do you have to work with?
do you want to build something just for fun with friends, or tourney/FNM play?
Are you willing to spend money?
What colours do you wish to play?

Very new
Mainly a booster box of Hour of Devastation and a blue/black deck from drafts

Just for now something good

I am willing to spend money.

Probably blue/black

Not terribly new
I have a shit ton of Hour and Amonkhet cards, trying to make a deck based around the new Bolas planeswalker card i managed to pull two of. Most definitely willing to spend money.
I am torn between building an EDH deck or a Standard one

pick a theme and stick with it. Don't worry about formats just yet - that can come later.

Go for 60 cards, with about a third (usually slightly more, 22-24ish) Lands. Stick to 1-2 colours to start off with.

Is there any way to know whats good, or is it just worth testing it with pals? I beat my friend a ton with my draft deck, so I just started expanding it

If you don't mind your cards losing most of their value I believe there is a deck utilizing the new Nicol Bolas in standard right now, you could look up a list/look up some gameplay videos and go from there.

test, test and more test.

understanding good shit comes with experience.

Thats good advice my man

also, if it's just you + your mates to begin with, you want to keep the power levels roughly even, lest it becomes an arms race and nobody has fun.

Any ideas with these? I also have two copies of the weird art shatterstorm

Shitting fuck sorry about the sideways pic

Just got a cheap booster box of Eldritch moon to draft with a couple first timers. I played some magic a few years ago when return to ravnica came out.
So what's the best way to draft with 4-6 people? I like constructed but I wouldn't mind to do the traditional way where you pass cards around the table but I'm not sure how many packs per person we should use. Any suggestions?

When drafting, it's always 3 packs per person. I like to share a box between three other friends, so we do three drafts total, but it's always 3 packs per person per draft.

It seems like that would be too few cards pooled for only 4-5 people. Do you construct 40 card decks? Is my math terribly wrong?

Uh, yes, you construct 40 card decks in limited formats like Draft.

Okay maybe I'm retarded here but it seems like it might be tough to build a 40 deck (minus lands) and not have other players draft the same colors. What happens if like 2 or 3 of you go for the same color? How do you make a deck work? Sorry for asking so many questions

>What happens if like 2 or 3 of you go for the same color?

...you both end up playing the same colour(s)?

it's really pretty common. I ran an Amonkhet draft a few weeks ago, and there was at least 5 of us who drafted Black.

It's fine. I like helping newish players, so it's not a problem.
>What happens if like 2 or 3 of you go for the same color?
Well, you've got some options when that happens. Try to force your colors and hope you get better stuff than the others (this one isn't great unless you get insane luck because you're passing the better stuff in different colors). Or you can switch colors; you can generally learn what colors other people are picking in pack 2 and change your decisions accordingly. If two other players are picking Blue, and keep passing you all the Red cards, then switch it up to Red. For example: I did an M15 draft where I snagged a Rabblemaster in pack 1, but kept getting all the good Green/Black elves passed to me. It was beneficial to me to draft BG instead of force R.

>How do you make a deck work?
As best you can. You'll end up with a pool of 45 cards, which, if you didn't make a long series of bad decisions, can build a decent deck. Even the best drafters end up with a deck that, on the surface, looks terrible if you're used to constructed formats. You have to work with what you pull: it's the nature of Draft.

Okay thanks guys. I'll just use 3 packs per person and we can go from there. im interested to see what the mana curve looks like. I imagine it's kinda hard to play like a 6 drop creature in limited

limited can be a bit slower. notice how my curve is pretty bad here having stuff that dig lands out of the deck, or just make more mana, can be really good in limited.

6 drop spells aren't that bad, as limited formats are much slower than Standard, for example, and getting to 6-7 mana isn't that much of an issue. At the same time, you don't want to be running multiple 8+ CMC spells without the support for it. Having the average CMC be around 3-4 and having 6 or 7 be the top end is pretty good.

>double Bolas
>Invocation Shitterstorm
sell that shit and get $50 worth of singles

>drafted Hour/Amonkhet/Hour last week
>first pull was Wildfire Eternal, immediately start pushing UR spells
>finish out, wonder why not a ton of UR bombs made it my way
>guy at the draft who knows I have a huge boner for red anyway
>tells me he picked the good red/blue stuff I got before him just to try and fuck me over
I still whupped his ass but that just felt like a super-shitty way to try and win. Not even win, just make someone else lose