The Economics of deck building

When you sit down to build a deck, what do you think about? Do you think about that cool combo you just found out about? Or that power banding chain that beats blockers into submission? Or maybe you think about how to use that lesser used card to its maximum potential? All of these thoughts are valid deck building options! That's the great thing about deck building - there's no "right" way to do it! (But there are "better" ways)

Today, I'm going to explore something that is not always explicitly though of when building a deck, but is often considered: the economics of deck building. To explain what I mean, I will first note where the name I chose for this concept came from.

Economics is the study of human behavior in the marketplace. It has two central assumptions that power its analysis; the idea that humans are rational and self-interested (which means they don't hurt themselves intentionally, and they tend to be most kind to those nearest to them). Moving from this baseline, Economists basically study the system of costs and benefits that people choose. Every choice you make has a cost (sometimes the "cost" is actually positive!) and a benefit (which is usually why you chose to do the action). Deck building is no different - there's lots of choice to make, and they all have costs and benefits. Here's some examples:

Covenant of Death can negate opponent's heroes at the cost of negating yours.
Iron Pan can do all kinds of stuff, but it forces you to use one (or more) Babylonian character.
The Garden Tomb can ignore many things, but only six characters can use it, so you have to use them (like I said, sometimes the "cost" is a benefit in some ways!).

Whenever you are building your deck, these sorts of cost-benefit relationships are things you should consider. They can form the basis for many different symbiotic relationships between your cards that will help enhance your deck. Using one of my examples above, when you put Covenant of Death into your deck, rather than simply paying the cost of negating your hero abilities most of the time when you activate it, what if you stuffed your deck full of heroes that can not be negated or don't have an ability at all? Suddenly only your opponent is paying the cost of Covenant of Death, making it work twice as well for you! This sort of relationship within a deck is commonly exploited and termed "synergy". For example, in general, its thought that a Judges offense has a lot of synergy with Covenant of Death because of its use of heroes like The Angel  under the Oak, Angel with a Secret Name, and Gideon. There's tons of different synergistic combinations out there when you look hard enough. Often times, synergy can help to pull average themes (like Assyrians) into competitive relevance (in Isaiah-Assyrians).

An even more basic cost (albeit a more abstract cost) of each card in your deck is the next best card you could have put in your deck. In Economics, this concept is known as opportunity cost - the idea that for each choice you make, you give up the next best option. In deck building terms, maybe that Covenant with Death cost you playing Darius' Decree. This more abstract costing builds the basis for why some cards and themes are simply unplayable in "competitive decks". There's many cards that, in a vacuum, have a really good ability. For example, Assyrian Siege Army has a great ability if you can activate it a lot - but to activate it a lot, you have to play Assyrians. When you play Assyrians, you give up the ability to play your next best option (perhaps its Canaanites). This might not sound too bad, but not all themes and cards are created equally, and some card and themes are simply better than other cards and themes. By choosing to use Assyrian Siege Army, you've made your deck inefficient because instead of Canaanites, the best option, you have to play Assyrians. Gross!

I hope this has got you thinking about what you give up to play the cards you play in your deck. I realize that you might not agree with some my thoughts about certain cards (like Assyrians), but the concepts remain. Choosing to play one theme or card costs you the ability to play other themes and cards - the question you must answer if the trade off you made is worth it!

-Alex