Learn Guide
Chapter 6

Teching Your Deck

How to choose and include tech cards — when to tech, how many flex slots to allocate, and the traps of over-teching.

Teching Your Deck

Teching is the art of including specific cards that target the decks you expect to face. Good tech choices swing matchups. Bad ones make your deck worse at everything. This chapter teaches you how to tech effectively.

What Teching Means

A tech card is any card included specifically to improve a particular matchup rather than support your core strategy. It's a targeted answer — useful in some games, dead in others.
The tension: every tech card replaces a consistency card. Your deck gets better at one thing and worse at everything else. The question is always whether the gain outweighs the loss.

Identifying Flex Slots

Before you can tech, you need to know which cards in your deck are flexible — replaceable without breaking your core engine.

Core Cards (Never Cut)

  • Your primary attacker line (every copy)
  • Your draw Supporter suite (minimum 8)
  • Your primary search cards (minimum 6)
  • Your energy (at or near minimum count)

Soft Core (Cut With Caution)

  • 3rd or 4th copies of search cards
  • Secondary Supporters
  • Recovery cards beyond the first
  • Extra switching cards

True Flex Slots (Tech Territory)

  • Cards that address specific matchups
  • Extra copies of anything beyond minimum counts
  • Cards you added "just in case"
  • Any card you could imagine cutting in a different meta
Most competitive decks have 3-6 true flex slots. Decks that feel like they have zero flex room are usually wrong — they've locked in cards that are actually meta-dependent choices.

How to Choose Techs

Step 1: Identify Your Problem Matchups

Look at your spread. Which matchups are you losing? Focus on the ones where:
  • The archetype is popular (10%+ of expected field)
  • You lose by a small margin (a single tech could flip the result)
  • The loss comes from a specific card or interaction you could counter
Don't tech against matchups you'll never face or matchups that are completely hopeless.

Step 2: Find Targeted Answers

For each problem matchup, identify cards that address the specific reason you lose:
  • Losing because they set up faster? → Consider disruption that slows them down.
  • Losing because you can't KO their main threat? → Consider a type-advantage tech attacker.
  • Losing because their Ability locks you out? → Consider Ability-countering effects.
  • Losing because they heal out of KO range? → Consider damage-boosting tools or multi-hit effects.

Step 3: Evaluate the Cost

For each potential tech, ask:
  • What do I cut to fit it? (The answer matters — cutting draw is expensive, cutting a 4th copy of something is cheap)
  • How often is it useful? (Only good against 10% of the field? Probably not worth it.)
  • Can I search for it when I need it? (A tech you can't find when it matters is useless)
  • Does it hurt my good matchups? (If including this card makes you lose games you used to win, the net is negative)

Step 4: Test the Change

Never theory-craft your way to a tech inclusion. Always test:
  • Play 10 games with the tech against its target matchup (does it actually help?)
  • Play 10 games with the tech against your best matchup (does it hurt?)
  • Compare to playing with the consistency card you cut

Over-Teching

The most common deckbuilding mistake after "not enough draw" is over-teching. Signs:

Too Many Techs

If you have 6+ cards that are only good in specific matchups, your deck has no identity. You'll draw dead cards every game because your techs are for the wrong matchup that game.

Teching Against Everything

You can't beat everything. Trying to tech for every possible matchup means you've teched for none effectively. Choose your 2-3 most important matchup improvements and commit.

Teching Against Rare Decks

A tech card for a deck that's 5% of the field means it's useful in 1 out of 20 games. It's dead in 19 out of 20. That's almost never worth a slot.

Rule of thumb: If a tech isn't relevant in at least 25% of your games, it's probably not worth the slot.

Tech Timing Through a Format

When to add vs remove techs:

Early Format (Weeks 1-4)

Run fewer techs. The meta isn't settled — you don't know what to target. Maximize consistency instead.

Mid Format (Months 2-3)

Prime teching territory. The meta is known, popular decks are stable, and you can target them precisely.

Late Format

Techs are important but well-known. Your opponents expect the common techs and may have already adjusted. Consider whether the "standard" tech for a matchup is still effective or has been played around.

Examples of Good vs Bad Tech Decisions

Good Tech Decision

"The top deck in the format relies heavily on a specific Ability. I'm including a single Ability-lock card that I can search for with my existing search engine. It swings that matchup from 40% to 60%, and that deck is 25% of the field."
Why it's good: Targets a popular deck, searchable, meaningful swing.

Bad Tech Decision

"I saw a cool card that counters a deck I lost to last week. I'm cutting my 4th draw Supporter to fit it."
Why it's bad: Cutting core consistency for a reactive decision based on one game. The card might not even be searchable.

The Meta-Awareness Loop

Teching isn't a one-time decision. It's continuous:
  1. Assess expected meta
  2. Identify tech targets
  3. Include techs
  4. Test
  5. Attend tournament
  6. Reassess based on what you actually faced
  7. Adjust for next event
Your tech choices should evolve every 1-2 weeks as the meta shifts. Cards that were essential last month might be dead this month.