Keyser wrote:
-- Do you stick with 40 card deck builds? Or go a bit higher?
Stick with 40. Almost every deck has some cards you love to have in your opening hand, often related to your initial expansion plans. For example, for MF, a Galom's Prospectors is often an ideal turn 1 play. The smaller the deck, the more likely you are to have these cards in your starting hand. The same idea holds for the various power cards you want to play in every game.
Keyser wrote:
-- How many buildings? creatures? spells? enchantments?
For a standard deck with a balanced mix of creatures and buildings I aim for 10-15 buildings, 15-20 creatures, and the rest spells and enchants. Some strategies, for example a building focus, require a different mix.
Keyser wrote:
-- How many domain sources?
At least 5. Probably 6 if you have 2 domains. I generally figure that my opponent might take out 2 domain sources over the course of the game. You don't want this to prevent you from playing cards.
Keyser wrote:
-- How many cards that cost X? XX? XXX?
This is the most sensitive to deck strategy, and one I don't fully have a handle on yet.
Unless you plan to immediately build a second domain building, you probably want to have a creature you can play turn 1. If you have 10 1 domain creatures you have about a 75% chance of having one in your opening hand, so that seems like a good starting point. If you are happy to play an early game like Vapor Mahal / Hadrack's Fort like MF/Ele decks are, you can cut this down a little. I probably wouldn't have more than 5-6 XXX cards without a very specific plan; otherwise you run the risk of drawing too many early and having them sit uselessly in your hand until it is too late.
Keyser wrote:
-- How many cards that require 1 flux? 2 flux? 3 flux? 5 flux?
Depends on how many flux sources you think you will control. I generally aim to have the average cost of my early game cards at 3 flux, so I can keep up the rate of playing 1 card a turn. For later game cards, I am for an average cost of 4 flux since I plan on having gotten a second flux well. If you play cards like ord stone, you might be able to up this a little. Cards that cost 5+ flux had better be awesome considering the sacrifices that have to be made to play them.
Keyser wrote:
-- How do you manage the combination of the above info? i.e. X2, XX2, XX2, X2, XX3, XXX3, etc...
I typically evaluate the domain requirements and the flux cost separately