Harry Potter CCG
A Keen Sense of the Obvious

Common Knowledge

I’m a big fan of trying to make fun/decent decks from common/uncommon cards.  Why?!  Because many people don’t have the money to get 4 of every card.  Especially rares!  Delivery Owl, Mrs. Norris, Malevolent Mixture, Unicorn & Norbert are all great cards, but they are all rares too.   Killer Decks with those cards will be popping up all over the place with those cards in them.

But a challenge lies in trying to make a playable deck without those cards.  So, I decided to make a deck with all Common Cards.  These are all cards that can be had for a song.  Well, except for one.

I have one rare card in my deck – my starting character, who is none other than Professor Flitwick.  Click here as to why I like the "Wickman"! 

The 60 cards in my deck though are all commons:

Creatures (20):

2 Giant Tarantula
4 Pet Rat
4 Curious Raven
4 Forest Troll
2 Surly Hound
2 Boa Constrictor
2 Scottish Stag

Spells (21):

4 Wizard Crackers
4 Magical Mishap
4 Toe Biter
1 Bauillious
4 Steelclaw
4 Cauldron to Sieve 

Lessons (19):

5 Transfiguration
14 Care of Magical Creatures (CMC)

Note to those not familiar with the “Wickman”, I have 12 charm spells but no Charm Lessons.  You don’t need them when you are playing with the “Wicker”!

Every deck needs focus.  Mine was based on three things!

1. 4 Privet Drive just wrecks spell heavy decks.  Expect your opponent to have them.  We have 20 creatures to help us stay in the game.
2. Opponent's love Potion Spells.  We have 4 Cauldron’s to slow them down a bit.
3. Low cost spells can work!

We are going to try smack our opponent around early and see if we can hold on and win the game.  We are going to throw weenie’s (small creatures) at them from turn 1 if we can!  We do not have even 1 spell or creature that costs 5 or more lessons to play.

Thanks to Flitwick we can cast 26 of our creature or spells on turn One!.  The rest can see action later in the game.  Try to cast as many creatures as you can.  Many force you to discard a CMC lesson.  So what!  Everything is low cost, we can part with lessons at the blink of an eye.  Just, always play the creatures that don’t force a discard first if you can.

I know there are only 19 lessons in this deck.  But we don’t need that many to run this deck, and Wizard Crackers helps get them into play as well.

Any time you have the lessons to play Steelclaw, and you have two or more creatures in play, slap it down.  Always expect your opponent to be playing 4 Privet Drive, and holding spells are like holding turds once 4 Privet Drive hits the table.

This deck holds its own against the good decks out there surprising well.  But the good players are smart enough to have Snape and Healing cards in their decks to get back into the game.  You’ll see yourself ahead early, and if they find Snape or healing spells, you’ll have a very tough time winning the game. 

You can make this deck better with some rare & uncommon cards as you get them.  But until you amass a plethora of Harry Potter cards, this deck will at least surprise your opponent.

It’s fun to say .. hey … “I beat you with an all commons deck!”  And if you lose, you still have.  “Not bad for an all commons deck, eh?”  ;-)

If you want to create your own common deck, or even a Peasant Potter Deck (55 commons, 5 uncommons, 1 rare starter), Please do!  And send them to hpccg@pojo.com .  I guarantee you'll have fun trying to make one that works.

- Pojo