For me a beautiful deck is a deck that interacts with others, protects itself as it needs to, has the offense that it needs to, etc. all in perfect balance and harmony. Thus a deck that has great offense, but is fragile isn't my ideal; a deck that is solid, but can't do anything isn't my ideal; a deck that does one thing and then uses some completely different method to be good at something else is disharmonious and isn't my ideal.
But it's never the deck itself that is beautiful. It's the play of the deck. I measure and value decks in terms of what they will do, and the art is in the doing. The most beautiful game for me is one where both decks are preforming plays and counterplays, each one just barely having the answer to the problems posed by the other until someone slips. But I strive for what happens in the mean time.
I play a red deck against a big, nice midrange deck. I attack with my creatures, and they encounter spot removal, a counter to my creatures that keeps them weaker while the opponent builds up his mana. That, and my decks responses to sacrifice creatures to deny him lifegain or burn him one little bit more (all the mini-plays) are beautiful to me. My deck says, "look what I can do! I'm getting killed, but still getting stuff through!" and his deck is saying "Look what I can do, I'm lessening his creatures so I can buy time, just what my master needs!" ... and later there is another play between the decks - the midrange deck drops its fat, and my creatures stare down a 4/4. Strategy on the players' parts is employed - for me, should I attack into it so some guys get by for damage, or should I wait until I find some removal, and combine the two.... But on the deck end of things, they get to show off their stuff. I fight through for a little more damage while my creatures die against that 4/4, it is my plan. He beats with the 4/4 as soon as he can, trying to take me out before I draw enough burn to finish him - the final act is in motion. Will my deck show off it's goodness and provide me with the burn I need to win before the five hits take me to 0? Will his deck counter with some life-gain kill-spell aimed at one of my creatures, now that I don't have a mechanism to sacrifice them? The optimal would be for me to draw enough burn, but for him to counter with, say, Faith's Fetters to buy him just enough time to win. Because then both decks would have shown off their stuff.
But all decks do things, right? They all make their plays. But for me, if one deck does something that the other deck has no counter to--and that's defined vaguely--then that's not a beautiful game. Because all the playskill in the world won't help you if your deck doesn't have the right cards, and the deck will be sad, not having any way to provide me with the tools I need to use to fight. And the other deck is sad, because it can't really show off it's stuff, winning in the face of adversity, it's just follows it's rote form and wins.
I guess that's the main thing, perhaps - adapting to win in the face of adversity. My blue-white Mastermind deck can't do it's game plan against your land destruction, and so it turns to using the masterminds to protect lands and keep people busy while little guys run across and win. That adaptation is my joy as a player, and my pride in my decks come from their ability to provide me with the tools I need to adapt when the deck loses the plot. Which is to say that I am a bit funny as a johnny player - I want my plans to be ruined, and my fall-back plans (and ideally new ones I came up with on the spot) to be the ones that get to show their quality.
Any deck can build a plan, and execute a plan... in a vacuum. Even WLGYLSTYESFD could do its thing, given the chance. But the ability to execute a plan through adversity, or to be able to deal with adversity, that's excellence in a deck. And I don't mean adversity as in the challenges the deck was built to resist - I mean ones different or much stronger than expected. A deck fails when it can't adapt, and that makes me sad, and a deck doesn't succeed if it just does what it's supposed to do - that's just meeting expectations.
So play a game with me, and kill my key creatures, destroy the enchantment the deck revolves around. Your deck has the answers, doesn't it? Well, so does mine - watch as my deck brings back the piece from the graveyard, or converts itself into a beating machine during the lull as you found your removal, and tries to capitalize on the position it already got. Or watch it pull together a much weaker synergy, and try to win with that. Your deck answered my threat, but can it beat down to finish me off faster than I can finish you off? What do you do if I play the key piece again? Watch my deck as it tries to stall you before you beat me down - it's a race of sorts, and maybe I'll lose. Or maybe not.
Don't let me win against you by pulling off my plan. That's just boring. Don't beat me by doing something to which I cannot respond. That's just sad. But if you struggle to do something, and I struggle to resist, then each deck gets to show off all the things it was made to do, and maybe a little more.
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