Step 1: Determine the Key Cards of your deck. You want to ask yourself, what sort of deck do you want to make? A way to decide would be, "I want to center this deck around this particular race" or "I want to make a deck that will maximize the utilization of this particular card" or "I want to make a deck centered around this new combo I thought up," etc.
Step 2: Add the required cards for your deck. From the Key Cards you are going to use, decide what Type of Deck are you going to use, and add cards that is going to utilize your Key Cards as much as possible. Also, for every single deck, add the Big-5.
Step 3: Adjust your deck according to 4 main elements In step 1 and step two, after adding cards, refer to the table below for the 4 main elements: Main Attacking Force: Monsters, defense and offense. Look for cards with 4 stars, 1700/1800 attack, or 1900 if more cards are released in the future. Examples: La Jinn, Battle Ox, for higher stars - Summoned Skull, Bewd, etc.
Monster Removal: Man-eating bug, Raigeki, Dark Hole
By removing pesky monsters, you can then attack the opponent, dealing as much damage, and the opponent must focus their attention on defending themselvves.
Magic, Trap Removal: Trap Master, Magic Removal, etc.
By removing traps and magic, you have also left your opponent open for damaging.
Card Drawing: Pot of Greed, Card Destruction
Based on the principle of "the more cards you draw, the better", or also known as card advantage, you want to add many card drawing mechanisms. Especially Pot of Greed. By drawing cards you have more chance of drawing your Key Cards, or decreasing the size of deck and have more chance of drawing it.
You must have balance of the 4 elements above, how they are distributed, do they help your Key Card.
Step 4: Make a deck list!
It is important to write down the cards in your deck, it's actually quite fun keeping track of the cards you are using. Or even, saving it on your computer or word processor is recommended. If you have a list, it is must more comfortable and easier to make large changes to your deck. By writing down your deck, you are making record of your experience.
Step 5: Play-test with a range of people DECK FINISHED! Not quite, you still want to play test it to see if the cards in it are working fine. After duel, you want to think about what are the weak points of your deck, you also want to ask yourself the following questions: "Is the key card easily used?" "What type of deck is this deck weak against?" "Are the 4 elements of DM balanced?"
Step 6: Using your play-test as reference, make constant adjustments to your deck. Add/remove cards to it with the help of your deck list. You might want to add a side deck according to the deck type you are weak at. Return to step 4.
General Tips:
1) First of all, before you go off to get the cards, you should always have a central theme for your deck. What type is your deck? What monster/s is the deck centered around? How is your deck going to defeat your opponent? A deck without a central theme, even if it has all the strongest cards, it is good as junk, since the different cards aren't supporting each other.
2) Secondly consider the deck size. Even though decks can be as big as possible. Any deck bigger than 50 cards is too big. Try to keep your deck between 40 to 45. For decks 45 to 50 consider more drawing mechanisms, such as Angelic Donation, or Card Destruction.
3) Thirdly, include deck staples, many of which are restricted, or pre-restricted cards.
The following cards are must add for any decks:
Imperial Pardon
Robbery
Pot of Greed
Change of Heart
Monster Reborn (a.k.a. Revive Dead)
Raigeki (a.k.a. Thunder Bolt)
Dark Hole (a.k.a. Black Hole)
Android Psycho Shocker
Holy Barrier - Mirror Force
Destruction Ring
Harpy's Feather Sweep
vMagic Cylinder Bold indicates cards currently available in English
4) Make sure that your cards support your center theme. e.g. If your deck is a One Hit Kill BEWD deck, it is relatively stupid to have, for example, Black Magician in your deck, because that wouldn't work out. You'd rather have cards like, Devil Franken.
5) Use the most effective card for your purpose. In some cases, Big Storm won't be very good because there might be cards on your field that you don't want to destroy, so you might want to use Hurricane instead, which let's you clear the field and still able to retain those magic/traps. e.g. When you have Hasty Burial, you don't want to use Big Storm.
Many people believe possessing many high level monsters in a deck leads to victory, but instead "slows" down their deck. Speed is, in my opinion, the greatest and most important factor in Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters. This means being able to either draw, summon, or use a certain card before you opponent can counter it. .Below, depending on your dueling style, are the "staple" monster cards.
1) In order to have a successful deck you need to utilize the strongest monsters for each tribute group.
(NOTE: Not all of the monsters for their group aren't shown and effect monsters are NOT uncluded.)
Level 4 and Lower:
7 Colored Fish (1800 ATK / 800 DEF)
Giant Soldier of Stone (1300 ATK / 2000 DEF)
Aqua Madoor (1200 ATK / 2000 DEF)
Battle Ox (1700 ATK / 1000 DEF)
Prevent Rat ( 500 ATK / 2000 DEF)
Neo the Magic Swordsman (1700 ATK / 1000 DEF)
Mystical Elf (800 ATK / 2000 DEF)
La Jinn the Mystical Genie of the Lamp (1800 ATK / 1000 DEF)
Level 5/6:
Summoned Skull (2500 ATK / 1200 DEF)
Beast of Talwar (2400 ATK / 2150 DEF)
Labyrinth Wall (0 ATK / 3000 DEF)
Level 7+:
Blue Eyes White Dragon (3000 ATK / 2500 DEF)
Tri-Horned Dragon (2850 ATK / 2350 DEF)
Wingweaver (2750 ATK / 2400 DEF)
2) Try to keep a similar theme to your deck in order to utilize field magic bonuses, same equip cards, etc.
Example #1: If you were to construct a Fiend / Spellcaster deck you would want to include Yami, Sword of Dark Destruction, etc. as equip cards.
Example #2: You should put a La Jinn the Mystical Genie of the Lamp in your deck, instead of a Battle Ox. Although they have the same ATK and DEF attributes, La Jinn is a fiend therefore would abtain the field ATk bonus of 200 bringing La Jinn to 2000 ATK, while Battle Ox stays at 1800 ATK.
3) Keep your monster's levels at a reasonable ratio.
Level 4 and Lower: 60-70%
Level 5/6: 25-30%
Level 7+: 5-10%
Personally my deck has no monsters with a level of 7 or higher because through testing I found my deck to be more efficient like that. This may work for you or it may not.
4) Include monsters with useful effects. (don't overdue this one)
Staple Effect Monsters:
Man-Eater Bug
Hane-Hane
Mysterious Puppeteer
Kuriboh
Witch of the Black Forest
Mask of Darkness
Magician of Faith
Trap Master
Hopefully this little advice will help you out and make sure to check out the other advice sections as well.
