A Magic: The Gathering player just spent a lot of time making Duel Decks: Starcraft, which consists of 3 ready-to-play 60-card decks, and it’s really good!
Magic Duel Decks: Starcraft is a fan-made set for Magic: The Gathering (MTG). It consists of three ready-to-print and ready-to-play 60-card decks, based on the Starcraft (SC) universe. This set is best experienced using the 1v1 format.
Here’s what you need to do:
- Download the PDF here (Note. The file size is 104.85 MB)
- Print, cut, and sleeve into some random commons that you do not need
- Get a friend, and play!
Set Design Notes From The Creator
- The set has been heavily playtested so that any two different decks are, on average, balanced against each other. We have not tried a 3-player free-for-all game nor a mirror match.
- Decks are two colours for stronger identities and more fluid mana bases. We stick to MTG’s colour pie, except for rare cases where we felt flavour bending was justified (and even then we don’t tweak it much).
- This set was balanced to be print-and-play, not for Cube or draft. Rarities don’t mean anything except to signify card complexity (and sometimes power).
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Duel Decks Starcraft – Zerg: BG Token / Suicide Aggro
For a long time, Zerg had “Morph” as its main keyword for flavor, but playtesting found it too slow. It didn’t represent the rushing or overwhelming “Sauron Zerg” philosophy (you pretty much send Zerg off to die by droves). Several variations of Prowl or Frenzy were tried but what played the best was a Token subtheme.
Zerglings, Locusts, Broodlings were all merged into a generic 1/1 “Zerg” creature, and the rest of the deck was built to take advantage of these.
Major Themes:
- Token generation
- Having more creatures than the enemy
- Creature sacrifice
- Alpha strikes (attacking with everyone)
- Creature pumping
Advantages:
- Low curve, very powerful early drops
- Good “macro” – mana acceleration, and ways to keep drawing gas
Disadvantages:
- Linear strategy, with single angle of attack.
- Creatures individually weak
Duel Decks Starcraft – Terran: RW Midrange Morph
Terran was the hardest to design for. Originally at RW(U), the blue was dropped when simplifying to two colours.
A strong recurring theme is “Transformation” (Siege tanks, Hellions, Vikings, Liberators…) so most cards had the Transform mechanic. Double-faced cards proved really hard to proxy, so it was dropped. In place of that we played around with creative uses of Morph, which also represented everything from Cloaking, to generic infantry, to auto-turrets.
Lastly, RW had difficulty getting card advantage so the Salvage ability was developed. The deck looks like a mishmash but is surprisingly synergistic and fun to play.
Major themes:
- Morph, transformation, flipping up and down
- “3 colourless”
- Having 2/2 nonartifact creatures
- Looting / dumping cards in graveyards
Advantages:
- Most adaptable deck
- Good burn/removal suite
Disadvantages:
- Sometimes slow to set up, depending on draws
- Very “micro” heavy – many choices of activated abilities per turn
Duel Decks Starcraft – Protoss: UB Blink Control
As Protoss has the most expensive creatures in the video game, then they should also have the least number of creatures here. This leads to your traditional WU(B) control deck.
The concept of “void” and “warping in” is very strong in Protoss, so many abilities were tried including Suspend. This proved complex, so it was simplified to bounce/exile shenanigans. One late development was “Psi Counters”, a one-time ability taken from [Icatian Javelineers] which synergizes very well with bouncing / blinking.
Major themes:
- Exile, Blinking
- Bounce
- Self-Bounce: Having a lot of cards in hand, having less creatures than the opponent
- Enters-the-battlefield abilities, including one-time “psi counters”
- Usual control package: Early game defence + large finishers
Advantages:
- Plenty of ways to draw cards
- Creatures are great value, many 2-for-1-ing
- Most powerful high-cmc cards
Disadvantages:
- Weak early game
- Primarily uses soft types of removal (bouncing, tapping)
Magic Duel Decks: Starcraft all 3 Decklists (v3.24)
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Source – imgur
