• You can choose from 249 different cards when creating a Shards of Alara deck in the "Magic the Gathering" collectible card game. Each card possesses a certain ability that you can use in a duel against your opponent. The key to creating a formidable Shards of Alara deck is knowing how to combine similar cards to increase their strength in battle.
  
  

Esper Deck

• Create an Esper deck to make use of primarily blue spells and creatures with white and black magic supporting it. Start your deck with Arcane Sanctums in place of traditional lands. These special land cards provide your choice of blue, white or black mana. Add Tidehollow Strix to the deck and use the creature's ability to destroy any creature it deals damage to, regardless of the toughness of the defending creature. Use Tidehollow Sculler in the deck to exile any card in your opponent's hand, possibly preventing him from playing his most powerful spells. Insert the flying Sanctum Gargoyle in your deck to soar over ground-based enemies and attack your opponent directly. Use the Esper Charm spell to destroy a card or force your player to discard two cards. Include Socurglass in the deck, which wipes out all nonartifact cards from play. All Esper creatures are artifacts, so they will be safe from the scourge.
  
  

Naya Deck

• The primary focus of a Naya deck is powerful green creatures with red and white support spells. Start your deck with the Obelisk of Naya for red, green or white mana and Naya Panorama for colorless mana. Insert Naya Battlemage in the deck. Use the ability of this 2/2 creature to grant +2/+0 to any creature you control until the end of your turn. Build a large army by summoning Mycoloth into play. The creatures gains +1+1 for every creature you sacrifice and also adds a 1/1 sapling into play each turn. The saplings also get +1/+1 for the previous sacrificed creatures. Use the 5/6 Jungle Weaver to attack your opponent and defend against flying creatures. Add Soul's Might to the deck to increase your creature's power and toughness equal to its starting power rating, meaning a 5/6 creature such as the Jungle Weaver would become a 10/11 creature. The aim with the Naya deck involves summoning your powerful creatures and attacking hard and fast.
  
  

Mixed Deck

• While each card in the Shards of Alara set falls under one of five subsections, or shards, your deck does not need to stick with only one of the subsets. Instead, create a mixed deck that combines two of the shards together. Not all shards combine together to form a powerful deck, though; you'll need to look at the primary and secondary colors of each shard. For example, the Grixis shard focuses primarily on black magic such as Bone Splinters, which destroys a target creature. Jund, on the other hand, focuses on red magic such as Hissing Iguna, which deals one damage to a player if a creature he controls is sent to the graveyard. Grixis' ability to destroy creatures and Jund's ability to deal extra damage directly to a player work well as a mixed deck. Other mixed decks that work well together include a Bant/Esper deck and a Jund/Naya deck.