So, I play this game from time to time, and for the life of me, I can't seem to get the hang of making a deck. I've read a lot of guides about it and understand what they are saying a lot, but have difficulty applying it. For instance, one of the advices frequently given is to "make a win condition and make your deck around it" but when I attempt to make one and get it looked at, one of the biggest things people have to say about it is I have no win condition at all, which confuses me. and that's when I manage to make a deck that I think has a win condition, usually I have a hard time putting in the first few cards because I tend to be overwhelmed by the mass amount of cards I have to choose from, even with a very limited collection. I basically have to figure out which ones work well with other cards, which cards have good value on their own, which cards work well with the deck I want to play, which ones work well at all, all while trying to keep a reasonable curve. So, frequently, I have no idea where to even begin.
I've also heard a lot to watch other streamers and see their decks both in lists and in action, but honestly even then I have trouble seeing what makes the decks so good in particular (I still have no clue why people are so angry over Patches. He never seems to do much when I see him.) Like, I have no idea what Renolock is supposed to do other than play Reno when things get hairy, like what their plan is when they're actually winning the board and the like. I don't know if he alone is supposed to win the game, or what i supposed to if not.
Even if I have a deck built, I have no idea how to adjust it if some cards aren't working, or even if cards aren't working out at all. Largely because I have no idea if the cards just never got a chance to shine, if I just played them wrong or at the wrong time, or if they're truly unfit for the deck.
So, is there any advice you can give me that could possibly help me with any of this? I don't want to do nothing but netdeck all the time, especially because a lot of people consider making a deck to be a fun part of the process.
Netdeck and then change a few cards. Then analyze your wins and ratios. Have someone watch you play and tell you how you did. Learn which decks you lose to and adjust accordingly.
Watch steeamers play. Some of them do a great job explaining why they do, what they do, when they do. Go to YouTube and watch kolento, thijs, reynad, strifeco, etc.
I'm not a master deckbuilder, but when making a deck I like to take inspiration from other decks people have made. Take control shaman for instance: there are plenty out there that are based on N'Zoth or Malygos, but I wanted to make one with a Leeroy combo, so I took the cards that those decks all had (board clears, card draw, and a little healing) and put in the cards I thought would work too. Now I'm finding that the deck has weaknesses and could perform better. As far as idebtifying deck weaknesses is concerned, I'm not really sure how to approach that, maybe have someone else look at the deck like you were doing?
You brought up one deck which I think will serve as a fine example of deckbuilding done right: Renolock. How does this deck win? Is Reno itself just supposed to just carry you to victory? Not quite. Here's why Renolock is such a powerful deck:
When you're playing against an opponent on ladder, there are generally two types of strategies that they will use against you. They will either try to kill you with lots of small minions before you have a chance to react, or they will try to grind you out by getting 2-for-1's and ending the game with more cards left over on their side than on yours. What makes Renolock so strong is its ability to defend against both of these strategies in the following ways:
A. Reno Jackson - If you manage to play this card against an opponent who's trying to kill you as quickly as possible, you will almost certainly win the game. It single-handedly undoes all the damage they managed to do early on, leaving the opponent with nothing but a few weak cards to fight with.
B. Leeroy Jenkins + Power Overwhelming + Faceless Manipulator - This three card combo allows you to deliver a whopping 20 damage in one turn. If your opponent goes for the slow, grind strategy, you can punish them by assembling the combo and killing them in one shot.
C. Lord Jaraxxus - Sometimes the combo doesn't work because you fail to reduce your opponent to below 20 life. In that case, Jaraxxus is your back-up plan. By merely including this one card in your deck, it becomes virtually impossible for the opponent to defeat you in the super late game, since Jaraxxus's hero power gives you access to unlimited 6/6 demons. There is no way to outvalue this.
There are other cards in the deck of course, but these are the main win conditions of Renolock. Every other card in the deck exists to support these win conditions. Removal, board clears, and healing are all crucial, since they allow you to safely get into a place where you can take advantage of Renolock's nearly unstoppable late game power. After that, it's smooth sailing. The strength of this deck is that it accounts for all the strategies your opponent might use to win and defends against them very well. If you want to make a good deck, it has to do the same.
First and foremost, this deck's power lies in its anti-early game. It contains a total of 6 board clears for dealing with early minions, 5 taunts to block incoming minion\weapon damage, and 5 heal effects to climb out of range of direct damage spells like Lava Burst. These cards enable it to shut down the kill-em-quick strategy, and for the late game, there is an absolutely disgusting number of huge threats, between the Flamewreathed Facelesses, the Earth Elementals, the flashy legendaries, and the inevitable N'Zoth, the Corruptor closer. With the exception of Lord Jaraxxus and Jade Idol, there are not very many ways to outvalue this deck. It simply contains more threats than a typical control deck is prepared to deal with. The deck is well-insured against both the fast and slow strategies, and thus, it tends to succeed. Hopefully this gives you an idea of what to do with your own deckbuilding.
Netdeck and then change a few cards. Then analyze your wins and ratios. Have someone watch you play and tell you how you did. Learn which decks you lose to and adjust accordingly.
Watch steeamers play. Some of them do a great job explaining why they do, what they do, when they do. Go to YouTube and watch kolento, thijs, reynad, strifeco, etc.
Okay, first off, what cards would I even change from a netdeck? I though the point of netdecks is that they're the best option, and wouldn't need changing to work at all. Second off, how do I know what's a bad matchup and what's just pilot error? If I do somehow figure what's jst the deck I lose to, how and what do I adjust? and how do I get someone to watch my matches? that sounds dreadfully boring, and I don't really know anyone I can just ask.
I think that your real problem isn't about building a deck, but about understanding a deck, or being able to play existing deck right.
As toymachine said, the probability that you will invent brand new deck that will work is very low. Do it for fun if you want, but if you want to win - use meta decks.
At the start - I don't recommend you to change any card of the deck you choose. Since you don't understand how the deck works, you will probably just make it worse (probably, a lot worse).
How to learn your deck?
1. You should understand what your deck do. The term win condition might be missguiding. For example - aggro decks win by killing the opponent before he can stabilize, but there is no "win condition" cards in them. Just effective cards that making you able to efficiently kill your opponent fast.
2. You should understand the concepts of tempo and value: tempo means you are leading the game on board, while value means that you have enough cards value (in the hand and the board), to keep playing later on. In general, when your deck is less aggresive you should focus on tempo (since your deck gives you enough value), and when your deck is more aggressive you should either kill your opponent fast or making sure you won't run out of options too early.
3. You should know the meta in order to understand what is the match-up you are facing.
Some recommendations:
1. Start with easy and cheap deck (I suggest mid-shaman, either jade or not).
2. I learned the basic concepts of the game by playing arena and watching arena streamers (shadybunny is my favorite). In the arena the gameplay is relatively simpler, since most of the times you don't face strong combos, so the concepts of tempo / value is clearer there (tempo in arena is essentially power on board, while value are the sum of cards in hand and on board).
3. Ask someone to spectate you and give you comments.
Generally, the win condition is not always the same (obviously). Aggro decks win condition is to rush the opponent down (which is done by generating an overwheliming tempo Advantage in the early game), midrange's ein condition is the same, but in the midgame which generally needs a different Approach (more value minions in midgame and only a few high end minions) and control tries to win by value. Then there are Combo decks, which have a win condition by combinig different cards. E.g. Malygos+burn spells, Leeroy Jenkins +buffs, Grim Patron + single damage AoE or, which has not been mentioned above, Brann Bronzebeard + Kazakus (+ Manic Soulcaster for even more value and fatigue protection)... And also single cards can serve as a win condition. N'Zoth, the Corruptor (in wild he is a great Card due to the high value deathrattles), Elise Starseeker or also Ysera can be such a card.
In my opinion, the easiest decks to build are midrange decks. You usually try to have some AoE, some single target removal and in particular a strong curve topped off by 3-6 higher Drops (like 6-10 mana). Then you try to Play your minions on curve overwhelm your opponent. These decks are the most straightforward builds. Wild Midrange HUnter is a priome exampler of an aggressive Midrange build (with Piloted Shredder and Savannah Highmane ), while Dragon Priest is more value based (although they can Play for tempo as well). Midrange Shaman is also easier to build due to the high value early game Shaman has presently and can be built aggressively or more control style. So that's where I would start with deckbuilding.
Netdeck and then change a few cards. Then analyze your wins and ratios. Have someone watch you play and tell you how you did. Learn which decks you lose to and adjust accordingly.
Watch steeamers play. Some of them do a great job explaining why they do, what they do, when they do. Go to YouTube and watch kolento, thijs, reynad, strifeco, etc.
Okay, first off, what cards would I even change from a netdeck? I though the point of netdecks is that they're the best option, and wouldn't need changing to work at all. Second off, how do I know what's a bad matchup and what's just pilot error? If I do somehow figure what's jst the deck I lose to, how and what do I adjust? and how do I get someone to watch my matches? that sounds dreadfully boring, and I don't really know anyone I can just ask.
You replace cards to experiment with other cards and to see whether the replaced cards are crucial to the decks success or not so important. Even refinded lists are not working equally good in different metas. So while Dragon Priests presently do not run any big Dragons like Ysera or Deathwing , it might be better to put them back in the deck when value is important in more matchups then early game consistency.
I personally have some cards I really like. For exampler kabal shadow priest. Thus, I try to make at least one space for this Card in my Dragon Priests. And then during my climb I see how often it is useful and how often I cannot use its value to determine whether to keep it in the deck or to kick it out.
I think it's more important to understand the concepts of tempo and card advantage than it is to have a 'win condition'.
When it comes to deck building the only thing you really need is experience, and there are no short cuts in getting there. Even when you think you are a good deck builder, building a deck from scratch and refining it takes weeks or even months.
Let's look at an example. While theoretically it you could make a otk priest deck around velen/maly stuff. You need a way to eventually get there, unless you aim to play your win condition at turn 20+. Looking at the priest draw possibilities, this is obviously not feasible. This is what is meant by building your deck around the win condition.
The reason reno is so good in warlock is because you can draw into that one big swing turn sooner and more often and most importantly warlock has an abundance of board clears so they can afford to give up board control to gain it back later. Mage doesn't quite have the aoe of warlock but they make up for it with target removal instead.
This one card allows you to build your deck much less anti aggro heavy. You can see this by comparing control warrior to reno decks.
Netdeck and then change a few cards. Then analyze your wins and ratios. Have someone watch you play and tell you how you did. Learn which decks you lose to and adjust accordingly.
Watch steeamers play. Some of them do a great job explaining why they do, what they do, when they do. Go to YouTube and watch kolento, thijs, reynad, strifeco, etc.
Okay, first off, what cards would I even change from a netdeck? I though the point of netdecks is that they're the best option, and wouldn't need changing to work at all. Second off, how do I know what's a bad matchup and what's just pilot error? If I do somehow figure what's jst the deck I lose to, how and what do I adjust? and how do I get someone to watch my matches? that sounds dreadfully boring, and I don't really know anyone I can just ask.
You replace cards to experiment with other cards and to see whether the replaced cards are crucial to the decks success or not so important. Even refinded lists are not working equally good in different metas. So while Dragon Priests presently do not run any big Dragons like Ysera or Deathwing , it might be better to put them back in the deck when value is important in more matchups then early game consistency.
I personally have some cards I really like. For exampler kabal shadow priest. Thus, I try to make at least one space for this Card in my Dragon Priests. And then during my climb I see how often it is useful and how often I cannot use its value to determine whether to keep it in the deck or to kick it out.
okay, how do I know if a card replacement is bad? How do I know if it just never got a chance to shine, or if I'm just playing it shittily or if it was a bad matchup, etc. there's so much that happens that I have little idea as to why I lost.
Netdeck and then change a few cards. Then analyze your wins and ratios. Have someone watch you play and tell you how you did. Learn which decks you lose to and adjust accordingly.
Watch steeamers play. Some of them do a great job explaining why they do, what they do, when they do. Go to YouTube and watch kolento, thijs, reynad, strifeco, etc.
Okay, first off, what cards would I even change from a netdeck? I though the point of netdecks is that they're the best option, and wouldn't need changing to work at all. Second off, how do I know what's a bad matchup and what's just pilot error? If I do somehow figure what's jst the deck I lose to, how and what do I adjust? and how do I get someone to watch my matches? that sounds dreadfully boring, and I don't really know anyone I can just ask.
You replace cards to experiment with other cards and to see whether the replaced cards are crucial to the decks success or not so important. Even refinded lists are not working equally good in different metas. So while Dragon Priests presently do not run any big Dragons like Ysera or Deathwing , it might be better to put them back in the deck when value is important in more matchups then early game consistency.
I personally have some cards I really like. For exampler kabal shadow priest. Thus, I try to make at least one space for this Card in my Dragon Priests. And then during my climb I see how often it is useful and how often I cannot use its value to determine whether to keep it in the deck or to kick it out.
okay, how do I know if a card replacement is bad? How do I know if it just never got a chance to shine, or if I'm just playing it shittily or if it was a bad matchup, etc. there's so much that happens that I have little idea as to why I lost.
Experience.
You can use a deck tracker to compare your winrates before and after changes.
And then you use your intuition. Remember how you felt as control warrior when facing a Savannah Highmane, compare it to when you were playing rogue. Now obviously you aren't playing hunter but use this train of thought for card picks.
Then use logic. Is it worth to include a card like Beneath the Grounds for the only purpose of making a single matchup in reno mage possibly better, at the cost of tanking your winrate against aggro. Obviously not.
This probably will sound very vague and not helpful at all but when I'm building a deck I look for a card that looks like it will do something cool. I'll add that in then try and find cards that will compliment that in situations. For example Northshire cleric draws a card when a minion is healed - so what if you had a "do 1 damage to all minions" then a "heal all minions" combo? That's one card for every minion healed!
Its an obvious example with obvious synergy but that's what this game is built on, experiment, have fun, and look for cards that work together, you'll get there just keep going!
I know from my experience the best way of learning really was just to pilot a Pro's list and get really good with it (well, at least reasonably good); I'd then move on to a different list that had some alterations, and then kind of rinse and repeat until I had seen some different variations and how they played out with something like Oil Rogue. In that situation you get a chance to analyze what parts of the deck you really like, and what ones you really don't feel were very good; you know the deck is already proven successful, but this is where you start seeing pieces you might want to swap for something else.
The other way to learn deckbuilding really is to find a good source that explains why cards are in their list; Kibler and Strifecro are extremely prolific deck builders and generally always have a good explanation for why they went with the cards in their list. It's relatively unimportant as to what the list is, what really helps is just getting a solid understanding of the mechanics for a deck and what makes it work so well.
The other other way (a friend of mine did this to some success, and I've had okay luck with a few brews) is really just to build what you think is cool and test/refine/test on ladder. In this case you really have to ignore your winrate, because it's probably going to just be demoralizing; you really just need to look at each game and ask yourself, what parts of the deck were working really well? What parts weren't? It's going to be grueling, you're going to get pooped on by people running refined lists, but you're really learning in the most raw way possible.
And finally, you don't really need to worry about adding a "win condition" necessarily (at least in my experience). Like you should definitely think about what your deck wants to be doing; are you playing an aggressive game and aiming to end it quickly, or are you going for a long game? Do you want to abuse synergistic cards like Murlocs/Mechs/Pirates/etc. or do you want to try out some kind of crazy combo? Overall you might end up with a pile of cards, but after a few games you should be able to start iterating on the list.
Honestly if you need a launching point, I'd pick a Tribal (literally any Tribal). It gives you something to build around, and you can start identifying which cards aren't doing much for you and which cards are doing things you really like. I did that with Pirates back in LOE I believe, I literally typed in "Pirates" and added them to a Rogue deck until I had everything; then I added some "good stuff" like Backstab, then I piloted the list. It was god awful, but then I cut all of the Tribal cards that seemed to be hard to trigger or generally just useless and replaced them with stuff like SI:7, and it did a little better. I found that I'd run out of steam, so I added some card draw in Sprint to see if I could use that to refill, and it seemed to work out a little better still. I mean it was nowhere close to completely refined, and I think I capped out at Rank 8 with it... but it was a good experience.
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Articles I suggest every player reads to improve at the game;
Netdeck and then change a few cards. Then analyze your wins and ratios. Have someone watch you play and tell you how you did. Learn which decks you lose to and adjust accordingly.
Watch steeamers play. Some of them do a great job explaining why they do, what they do, when they do. Go to YouTube and watch kolento, thijs, reynad, strifeco, etc.
Okay, first off, what cards would I even change from a netdeck? I though the point of netdecks is that they're the best option, and wouldn't need changing to work at all. Second off, how do I know what's a bad matchup and what's just pilot error? If I do somehow figure what's jst the deck I lose to, how and what do I adjust? and how do I get someone to watch my matches? that sounds dreadfully boring, and I don't really know anyone I can just ask.
You replace cards to experiment with other cards and to see whether the replaced cards are crucial to the decks success or not so important. Even refinded lists are not working equally good in different metas. So while Dragon Priests presently do not run any big Dragons like Ysera or Deathwing , it might be better to put them back in the deck when value is important in more matchups then early game consistency.
I personally have some cards I really like. For exampler kabal shadow priest. Thus, I try to make at least one space for this Card in my Dragon Priests. And then during my climb I see how often it is useful and how often I cannot use its value to determine whether to keep it in the deck or to kick it out.
okay, how do I know if a card replacement is bad? How do I know if it just never got a chance to shine, or if I'm just playing it shittily or if it was a bad matchup, etc. there's so much that happens that I have little idea as to why I lost.
Experience.
You can use a deck tracker to compare your winrates before and after changes.
And then you use your intuition. Remember how you felt as control warrior when facing a Savannah Highmane, compare it to when you were playing rogue. Now obviously you aren't playing hunter but use this train of thought for card picks.
Then use logic. Is it worth to include a card like Beneath the Grounds for the only purpose of making a single matchup in reno mage possibly better, at the cost of tanking your winrate against aggro. Obviously not.
I have used a deck tracker, and It doesn't really help me all that much, largely because my intuition is either nonexistant or so terrible that it might as well be nonexistant. That, and I have no idea about any matchups or how to build against any of them so in your example I have no idea how that would help or hurt if it was put in. Like, I don't even know how to make a deck synergize well or include cards on a good curve or anything, there's no way I'd be able to tech against a matchup or even know what a good/bad matchup is. What I think is a bad matchup could be a free for me matchup that I botch becasue of severe pilot error.
Honestly if you need a launching point, I'd pick a Tribal (literally any Tribal).
I have no idea what a tribal is, and unless it's basic I probably don't have it since my collection is extremely limited.
Oh no worries! Tribal really just means stuff like Murlocs or Pirates, but if you're working with a basic collection then you might not have enough to go with that plan. Hunter has some Beast synergy to work with, so that might be a start?
It's pretty hard to make suggestions without seeing your collection, but I know in the past one of the decks I helped a friend build that actually did really well was a Paladin deck that tried to play a lot of minions and pump up a Frostwolf Warlord. It wasn't great, but it wasn't too bad either.
If you're working with extremely limited options you could also always look at what kind of lists people made for budget decks; being able to take one of those and see how they're built might give you an idea of some solid deck building ideas.
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Even if I have a deck built, I have no idea how to adjust it if some cards aren't working, or even if cards aren't working out at all. Largely because I have no idea if the cards just never got a chance to shine, if I just played them wrong or at the wrong time, or if they're truly unfit for the deck.
This isn't always the case but in my experience it's most likely that the card is not working in the deck.
There are some cards that only exist for specific situations in a deck. For example in Reno Mage, Brann is only used in Brann + Kazakus + Soulcaster combo. Thus, it's important to know why cards are in a deck, and if they are for a specific situation, don't use them outside those situations. If you build your own deck, you probably recognize these cards if there are any. Other than that, misplays rarely explain a specific card not working.
What to use instead is a harder question. Sometimes you need a card that does the same thing but better (for example Holy Nova could suit some deck better than Excavated Evil). Sometimes you need a whole different card, for example if you have too many expensive minions you might need something cheaper. Just trying different cards, and repeating if they don't work either, is often the best way to find out.
Tons of good advice here. Something that really helped me was getting good at arena, which sounds kind of funny, but the soul of becoming good at arena is being able to build a good deck, not only that, but you have the tool Heartharena, which was key to me understanding on a meta level how my deck construction effected my win rate. Heartharena has all sorts of stats, like reach, ping, taunts, heal, curve, big drops, synergies (and how much synergy you really need to make a difference in your win rate (usually more than Heartharena seems to claim) etc. if you look at the stats while you're making decks, see how the deck operates etc, it can really get your brain to start thinking in a different way that is conducive to good deck creation.
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So, I play this game from time to time, and for the life of me, I can't seem to get the hang of making a deck. I've read a lot of guides about it and understand what they are saying a lot, but have difficulty applying it. For instance, one of the advices frequently given is to "make a win condition and make your deck around it" but when I attempt to make one and get it looked at, one of the biggest things people have to say about it is I have no win condition at all, which confuses me. and that's when I manage to make a deck that I think has a win condition, usually I have a hard time putting in the first few cards because I tend to be overwhelmed by the mass amount of cards I have to choose from, even with a very limited collection. I basically have to figure out which ones work well with other cards, which cards have good value on their own, which cards work well with the deck I want to play, which ones work well at all, all while trying to keep a reasonable curve. So, frequently, I have no idea where to even begin.
I've also heard a lot to watch other streamers and see their decks both in lists and in action, but honestly even then I have trouble seeing what makes the decks so good in particular (I still have no clue why people are so angry over Patches. He never seems to do much when I see him.) Like, I have no idea what Renolock is supposed to do other than play Reno when things get hairy, like what their plan is when they're actually winning the board and the like. I don't know if he alone is supposed to win the game, or what i supposed to if not.
Even if I have a deck built, I have no idea how to adjust it if some cards aren't working, or even if cards aren't working out at all. Largely because I have no idea if the cards just never got a chance to shine, if I just played them wrong or at the wrong time, or if they're truly unfit for the deck.
So, is there any advice you can give me that could possibly help me with any of this? I don't want to do nothing but netdeck all the time, especially because a lot of people consider making a deck to be a fun part of the process.
(Just leaving a comment here as i would like to improve too)
Netdeck and then change a few cards. Then analyze your wins and ratios. Have someone watch you play and tell you how you did. Learn which decks you lose to and adjust accordingly.
Watch steeamers play. Some of them do a great job explaining why they do, what they do, when they do. Go to YouTube and watch kolento, thijs, reynad, strifeco, etc.
I'm not a master deckbuilder, but when making a deck I like to take inspiration from other decks people have made. Take control shaman for instance: there are plenty out there that are based on N'Zoth or Malygos, but I wanted to make one with a Leeroy combo, so I took the cards that those decks all had (board clears, card draw, and a little healing) and put in the cards I thought would work too. Now I'm finding that the deck has weaknesses and could perform better. As far as idebtifying deck weaknesses is concerned, I'm not really sure how to approach that, maybe have someone else look at the deck like you were doing?
You brought up one deck which I think will serve as a fine example of deckbuilding done right: Renolock. How does this deck win? Is Reno itself just supposed to just carry you to victory? Not quite. Here's why Renolock is such a powerful deck:
When you're playing against an opponent on ladder, there are generally two types of strategies that they will use against you. They will either try to kill you with lots of small minions before you have a chance to react, or they will try to grind you out by getting 2-for-1's and ending the game with more cards left over on their side than on yours. What makes Renolock so strong is its ability to defend against both of these strategies in the following ways:
A. Reno Jackson - If you manage to play this card against an opponent who's trying to kill you as quickly as possible, you will almost certainly win the game. It single-handedly undoes all the damage they managed to do early on, leaving the opponent with nothing but a few weak cards to fight with.
B. Leeroy Jenkins + Power Overwhelming + Faceless Manipulator - This three card combo allows you to deliver a whopping 20 damage in one turn. If your opponent goes for the slow, grind strategy, you can punish them by assembling the combo and killing them in one shot.
C. Lord Jaraxxus - Sometimes the combo doesn't work because you fail to reduce your opponent to below 20 life. In that case, Jaraxxus is your back-up plan. By merely including this one card in your deck, it becomes virtually impossible for the opponent to defeat you in the super late game, since Jaraxxus's hero power gives you access to unlimited 6/6 demons. There is no way to outvalue this.
There are other cards in the deck of course, but these are the main win conditions of Renolock. Every other card in the deck exists to support these win conditions. Removal, board clears, and healing are all crucial, since they allow you to safely get into a place where you can take advantage of Renolock's nearly unstoppable late game power. After that, it's smooth sailing. The strength of this deck is that it accounts for all the strategies your opponent might use to win and defends against them very well. If you want to make a good deck, it has to do the same.
Here is a deck I built recently that I've been having a lot of success with:
First and foremost, this deck's power lies in its anti-early game. It contains a total of 6 board clears for dealing with early minions, 5 taunts to block incoming minion\weapon damage, and 5 heal effects to climb out of range of direct damage spells like Lava Burst. These cards enable it to shut down the kill-em-quick strategy, and for the late game, there is an absolutely disgusting number of huge threats, between the Flamewreathed Facelesses, the Earth Elementals, the flashy legendaries, and the inevitable N'Zoth, the Corruptor closer. With the exception of Lord Jaraxxus and Jade Idol, there are not very many ways to outvalue this deck. It simply contains more threats than a typical control deck is prepared to deal with. The deck is well-insured against both the fast and slow strategies, and thus, it tends to succeed. Hopefully this gives you an idea of what to do with your own deckbuilding.
I think that your real problem isn't about building a deck, but about understanding a deck, or being able to play existing deck right.
As toymachine said, the probability that you will invent brand new deck that will work is very low. Do it for fun if you want, but if you want to win - use meta decks.
At the start - I don't recommend you to change any card of the deck you choose. Since you don't understand how the deck works, you will probably just make it worse (probably, a lot worse).
How to learn your deck?
1. You should understand what your deck do. The term win condition might be missguiding. For example - aggro decks win by killing the opponent before he can stabilize, but there is no "win condition" cards in them. Just effective cards that making you able to efficiently kill your opponent fast.
2. You should understand the concepts of tempo and value: tempo means you are leading the game on board, while value means that you have enough cards value (in the hand and the board), to keep playing later on. In general, when your deck is less aggresive you should focus on tempo (since your deck gives you enough value), and when your deck is more aggressive you should either kill your opponent fast or making sure you won't run out of options too early.
3. You should know the meta in order to understand what is the match-up you are facing.
Some recommendations:
1. Start with easy and cheap deck (I suggest mid-shaman, either jade or not).
2. I learned the basic concepts of the game by playing arena and watching arena streamers (shadybunny is my favorite). In the arena the gameplay is relatively simpler, since most of the times you don't face strong combos, so the concepts of tempo / value is clearer there (tempo in arena is essentially power on board, while value are the sum of cards in hand and on board).
3. Ask someone to spectate you and give you comments.
Generally, the win condition is not always the same (obviously). Aggro decks win condition is to rush the opponent down (which is done by generating an overwheliming tempo Advantage in the early game), midrange's ein condition is the same, but in the midgame which generally needs a different Approach (more value minions in midgame and only a few high end minions) and control tries to win by value. Then there are Combo decks, which have a win condition by combinig different cards. E.g. Malygos+burn spells, Leeroy Jenkins +buffs, Grim Patron + single damage AoE or, which has not been mentioned above, Brann Bronzebeard + Kazakus (+ Manic Soulcaster for even more value and fatigue protection)... And also single cards can serve as a win condition. N'Zoth, the Corruptor (in wild he is a great Card due to the high value deathrattles), Elise Starseeker or also Ysera can be such a card.
In my opinion, the easiest decks to build are midrange decks. You usually try to have some AoE, some single target removal and in particular a strong curve topped off by 3-6 higher Drops (like 6-10 mana). Then you try to Play your minions on curve overwhelm your opponent. These decks are the most straightforward builds. Wild Midrange HUnter is a priome exampler of an aggressive Midrange build (with Piloted Shredder and Savannah Highmane ), while Dragon Priest is more value based (although they can Play for tempo as well). Midrange Shaman is also easier to build due to the high value early game Shaman has presently and can be built aggressively or more control style. So that's where I would start with deckbuilding.
I think it's more important to understand the concepts of tempo and card advantage than it is to have a 'win condition'.
When it comes to deck building the only thing you really need is experience, and there are no short cuts in getting there. Even when you think you are a good deck builder, building a deck from scratch and refining it takes weeks or even months.
Let's look at an example. While theoretically it you could make a otk priest deck around velen/maly stuff. You need a way to eventually get there, unless you aim to play your win condition at turn 20+. Looking at the priest draw possibilities, this is obviously not feasible.
This is what is meant by building your deck around the win condition.
The reason reno is so good in warlock is because you can draw into that one big swing turn sooner and more often and most importantly warlock has an abundance of board clears so they can afford to give up board control to gain it back later.
Mage doesn't quite have the aoe of warlock but they make up for it with target removal instead.
This one card allows you to build your deck much less anti aggro heavy. You can see this by comparing control warrior to reno decks.
This probably will sound very vague and not helpful at all but when I'm building a deck I look for a card that looks like it will do something cool. I'll add that in then try and find cards that will compliment that in situations. For example Northshire cleric draws a card when a minion is healed - so what if you had a "do 1 damage to all minions" then a "heal all minions" combo? That's one card for every minion healed!
Its an obvious example with obvious synergy but that's what this game is built on, experiment, have fun, and look for cards that work together, you'll get there just keep going!
I know from my experience the best way of learning really was just to pilot a Pro's list and get really good with it (well, at least reasonably good); I'd then move on to a different list that had some alterations, and then kind of rinse and repeat until I had seen some different variations and how they played out with something like Oil Rogue. In that situation you get a chance to analyze what parts of the deck you really like, and what ones you really don't feel were very good; you know the deck is already proven successful, but this is where you start seeing pieces you might want to swap for something else.
The other way to learn deckbuilding really is to find a good source that explains why cards are in their list; Kibler and Strifecro are extremely prolific deck builders and generally always have a good explanation for why they went with the cards in their list. It's relatively unimportant as to what the list is, what really helps is just getting a solid understanding of the mechanics for a deck and what makes it work so well.
The other other way (a friend of mine did this to some success, and I've had okay luck with a few brews) is really just to build what you think is cool and test/refine/test on ladder. In this case you really have to ignore your winrate, because it's probably going to just be demoralizing; you really just need to look at each game and ask yourself, what parts of the deck were working really well? What parts weren't? It's going to be grueling, you're going to get pooped on by people running refined lists, but you're really learning in the most raw way possible.
And finally, you don't really need to worry about adding a "win condition" necessarily (at least in my experience). Like you should definitely think about what your deck wants to be doing; are you playing an aggressive game and aiming to end it quickly, or are you going for a long game? Do you want to abuse synergistic cards like Murlocs/Mechs/Pirates/etc. or do you want to try out some kind of crazy combo? Overall you might end up with a pile of cards, but after a few games you should be able to start iterating on the list.
Honestly if you need a launching point, I'd pick a Tribal (literally any Tribal). It gives you something to build around, and you can start identifying which cards aren't doing much for you and which cards are doing things you really like. I did that with Pirates back in LOE I believe, I literally typed in "Pirates" and added them to a Rogue deck until I had everything; then I added some "good stuff" like Backstab, then I piloted the list. It was god awful, but then I cut all of the Tribal cards that seemed to be hard to trigger or generally just useless and replaced them with stuff like SI:7, and it did a little better. I found that I'd run out of steam, so I added some card draw in Sprint to see if I could use that to refill, and it seemed to work out a little better still. I mean it was nowhere close to completely refined, and I think I capped out at Rank 8 with it... but it was a good experience.
Articles I suggest every player reads to improve at the game;
MTG/Hearthstone biases to avoid
Reframing negative Hearthstone experiences to improve at the game
Who's the Beatdown?
Articles I suggest every player reads to improve at the game;
MTG/Hearthstone biases to avoid
Reframing negative Hearthstone experiences to improve at the game
Who's the Beatdown?
Tons of good advice here. Something that really helped me was getting good at arena, which sounds kind of funny, but the soul of becoming good at arena is being able to build a good deck, not only that, but you have the tool Heartharena, which was key to me understanding on a meta level how my deck construction effected my win rate. Heartharena has all sorts of stats, like reach, ping, taunts, heal, curve, big drops, synergies (and how much synergy you really need to make a difference in your win rate (usually more than Heartharena seems to claim) etc. if you look at the stats while you're making decks, see how the deck operates etc, it can really get your brain to start thinking in a different way that is conducive to good deck creation.