then whatever else is good in blue and black. there's a lot of good cards in there. I'm particularly happy to be getting Dread Slaver, Gryff Vanguard, and Spirited Away as those all work well as loners. I would also be splashing Divine Deflection, because that card seems like the nuts.
edit: That said, I don't really want this pool at the prerelease. I'd rather get some value. Let me open this at the release
I like the idea of going all out on the UB i control 1 creature idea. You get value from the taskmaster and Fettergeist being your only creatures on the field and then value out of the "come into play" and "when this creature dies" abilities. Seems really fun and even if its not consistant, its fun and I would enjoy playing that deck a lot
I wouldn't go black here.
All those "if you only control one creature" cards suck. how often does that actually happen? and when you have only one creature, wouldn't you prefer to play another creature?
I like how Black/Green shapes up in this sealed, I would probably splash blue though as from the looks of it you'll be a few playable creatures shy of a full deck in BG and blue has Fettergeist, Gryff Vanguard, Scrapskin Drake, Peel From Reality, and Vanishment for good splash cards.
It wouldn't be an easy list to play either, very skill intensive and requires tight play.
Playing the singular creature strategy in Black is too weak, UW Fliers will usually end up being the most popular and both colors have multiple tools to deal with it.
U/B loners looks really strong here. It's missing a good sac outlet to make it really stupid and it's a bit low on removal, but it's still pretty solid.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
In response to me defeating the town in a Perfect Scum Victory in Avatar Mafia:
got the nuts UB loner deck, and there are easily 23 playables here, so go for it.
most likely splash 2 plains for devine deflection, that card is nuts as well.
Not the strongest pool, but it could work. This deck is going for a ground stall game with a flying attack to finish it up. Divine Deflection and Spirit Away are your gamebreakers if the game goes long.
I don't think U/B loners is necessarily that great of an idea for Limited (especially not sealed), but the cards are certainly there in this pool to at least give it a try. Something like this would probably be the 23 you could play:
Black
1 Crypt Creeper
1 Demonic Rising
1 Demonic Taskmaster
1 Dread Slaver
1 Driver of the Dead
1 Grave Exchange
1 Homicidal Seclusion
1 Human Frailty
1 Necrobite
1 Polluted Dead
1 Predator’s Gambit
1 Renegade Demon
1 Soulcage Fiend
1 Undead Executioner
Lots of problems here unfortunately. The deck is quite slow and lacks a lot of cheap removal so you're going to get rolled pretty badly if someone has a nut aggro deck. You're also forced to run a lot of marginal cards like Polluted Dead, Crypt Creeper, Necrobite, Predator's Gambit, etc. Driver of the Dead is also pretty terrible here with (I believe) only Crypt Creeper to return but you just don't have enough playables and kind of need the body. I'd probably go a different direction if I just wanted to win the sealed.
As for other possible builds, U/W has some good cards but is short on playables and I don't see a ton of splashable options in the pool. B/G seems like it could be good and lets you play all of your black bombs in addition to the Tracker. B/W doesn't have a lot of synergy but it's likely got the best removal of all the color combinations in this pool and a lot of reasonable creatures.
I'd go blue/green (seems like blue/green is very strong in AVR... mostly because good removal is hard to find and blue got the tricks & flyers and green has the beef).
Maybe a splash for combat tricks. Could be white (Divine Reflection and Cloudshift), black (Necrobite) or Red (ping)... that's a tough one. I'd say they are all fine.
Still, even though B/R has all them cool creatures, Lightning Prowess, and what not. You guys still went with blue?
I mean, it has like 3 cool fliers and Peel from Reality, but why is that better than Red here?
Because it is obviously the most powerful color in the pool. Red has very little in the way of removal, and the creatures other than Lightning Mauler are pretty bad. Lightning Prowess is repeatable removal, which is good, but it's also a 3cmc aura, which is very bad. If I'm desperate for playables I might splash for them, but I doubt it
Blue has 4 very good creatures, the best removal package in the pool (not saying much), and Spirit Away which is a great bomb against everything except Sigarda. Only having 8-9 playables in Blue is definitely an issue, but the average power level of the cards that are playable is so much higher than it is in the other colors in the pool that it seems silly not to run it
Red seems extremely underwhelming to me in this pool other than Lightning Mauler which is really good, but not good enough to force me into Red
Number of cards by color:
W: 16
U: 13
B: 17
R: 17
G: 17
Gold: 0
Artifact: 4
Land: 0
1 Angel’s Mercy
1 Angelic Wall
1 Archangel
2 Builder’s Blessing
1 Call to Serve
1 Cathedral Sanctifier
1 Cloudshift
2 Defang
1 Divine Deflection
1 Farbog Explorer
1 Midvast Protector
1 Moorland Inquisitor
1 Nearheath Pilgrim
1 Seraph of Dawn
Blue
1 Crippling Chill
1 Dreadwaters
1 Fettergeist
1 Galvanic Alchemist
1 Ghostly Touch
1 Gryff Vanguard
1 Mist Raven
1 Outwit
1 Peel from Reality
1 Rotcrown Ghoul
1 Scrapskin Drake
1 Spirit Away
1 Vanishment
1 Crypt Creeper
1 Demonic Rising
1 Demonic Taskmaster
1 Dread Slaver
1 Driver of the Dead
2 Essence Harvest
1 Grave Exchange
2 Homicidal Seclusion
1 Human Frailty
1 Necrobite
1 Polluted Dead
1 Predator’s Gambit
1 Renegade Demon
1 Soulcage Fiend
1 Undead Executioner
Red
1 Burn at the Stake
2 Dangerous Wager
1 Guise of Fire
1 Hanweir Lancer
1 Havengul Vampire
1 Heirs of Stromkirk
1 Kruin Striker
1 Lightning Mauler
2 Lightning Prowess
1 Mad Prophet
1 Raging Poltergeist
2 Scalding Devil
1 Thatcher Revolt
1 Uncanny Speed
1 Borderland Ranger
1 Bower Passage
1 Flowering Lumberknot
1 Geist Trappers
1 Gloomwidow
1 Grounded
1 Howlgeist
1 Joint Assault
1 Lair Delve
1 Natural End
1 Pathbreaker Wurm
1 Sheltering Word
1 Snare the Skies
1 Terrifying Presence
1 Timberland Guide
1 Ulvenwald Tracker
1 Wandering Wolf
Artifact
1 Angel’s Tomb
1 Scroll of Avacyn
1 Scroll of Griselbrand
1 Vanguard’s Shield
Practice for Khans of Tarkir Limited:
Draft: (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5)
1x Demonic Taskmaster
1x Fettergeist
2x Homocidal Seclusion
1x Demonic Rising
1x Predator's Gambit (perhaps)
maybe even 2x Essence Harvest for the lulz
then whatever else is good in blue and black. there's a lot of good cards in there. I'm particularly happy to be getting Dread Slaver, Gryff Vanguard, and Spirited Away as those all work well as loners. I would also be splashing Divine Deflection, because that card seems like the nuts.
edit: That said, I don't really want this pool at the prerelease. I'd rather get some value. Let me open this at the release
Standard:
GU Prophet
Legacy:
WBU Shared Fate
Trades
If I wanted to loner it up properly, I'd want Alchemist's Apprentice and Butcher Ghoul for the Driver of the Dead combo. This is also missing Barter in Blood or Killing Wave.
Demonic Rising and Homicidal Seclusion are quite good when you get them to work, which isn't hard, particularly when you have Peel from Reality or Demonic Taskmaster. In the 18 I'm running, I'm only using one of the Seclusions and am not running the +2/+1 aura at all.
Older Magic as a Board Game: Panglacial Wurm , Mill
It wouldn't be an easy list to play either, very skill intensive and requires tight play.
Playing the singular creature strategy in Black is too weak, UW Fliers will usually end up being the most popular and both colors have multiple tools to deal with it.
most likely splash 2 plains for devine deflection, that card is nuts as well.
1 Archangel
1 Call to Serve
1 Cathedral Sanctifier
1 Cloudshift
2 Defang
1 Divine Deflection
1 Farbog Explorer
1 Midvast Protector
1 Moorland Inquisitor
1 Nearheath Pilgrim
1 Seraph of Dawn
1 Fettergeist
1 Galvanic Alchemist
1 Gryff Vanguard
1 Mist Raven
1 Peel from Reality
1 Scrapskin Drake
1 Spirit Away
1 Vanishment
17 Land
Not the strongest pool, but it could work. This deck is going for a ground stall game with a flying attack to finish it up. Divine Deflection and Spirit Away are your gamebreakers if the game goes long.
I'd go RBg, because green has good support
Blue
1 Crippling Chill
1 Fettergeist
1 Galvanic Alchemist
1 Ghostly Touch
1 Gryff Vanguard
1 Mist Raven
1 Peel from Reality
1 Scrapskin Drake
1 Spirit Away
1 Vanishment
Black
1 Crypt Creeper
1 Demonic Rising
1 Demonic Taskmaster
1 Dread Slaver
1 Driver of the Dead
1 Grave Exchange
1 Homicidal Seclusion
1 Human Frailty
1 Necrobite
1 Polluted Dead
1 Predator’s Gambit
1 Renegade Demon
1 Soulcage Fiend
1 Undead Executioner
Lots of problems here unfortunately. The deck is quite slow and lacks a lot of cheap removal so you're going to get rolled pretty badly if someone has a nut aggro deck. You're also forced to run a lot of marginal cards like Polluted Dead, Crypt Creeper, Necrobite, Predator's Gambit, etc. Driver of the Dead is also pretty terrible here with (I believe) only Crypt Creeper to return but you just don't have enough playables and kind of need the body. I'd probably go a different direction if I just wanted to win the sealed.
As for other possible builds, U/W has some good cards but is short on playables and I don't see a ton of splashable options in the pool. B/G seems like it could be good and lets you play all of your black bombs in addition to the Tracker. B/W doesn't have a lot of synergy but it's likely got the best removal of all the color combinations in this pool and a lot of reasonable creatures.
I'd probably go B/G to win and U/B for fun.
Standard
W.I.P.
EDH
WNorn Tokens
Maybe a splash for combat tricks. Could be white (Divine Reflection and Cloudshift), black (Necrobite) or Red (ping)... that's a tough one. I'd say they are all fine.
This great banner was made by Topher
Still, even though B/R has all them cool creatures, Lightning Prowess, and what not. You guys still went with blue?
I mean, it has like 3 cool fliers and Peel from Reality, but why is that better than Red here?
Because it is obviously the most powerful color in the pool. Red has very little in the way of removal, and the creatures other than Lightning Mauler are pretty bad. Lightning Prowess is repeatable removal, which is good, but it's also a 3cmc aura, which is very bad. If I'm desperate for playables I might splash for them, but I doubt it
Blue has 4 very good creatures, the best removal package in the pool (not saying much), and Spirit Away which is a great bomb against everything except Sigarda. Only having 8-9 playables in Blue is definitely an issue, but the average power level of the cards that are playable is so much higher than it is in the other colors in the pool that it seems silly not to run it
Red seems extremely underwhelming to me in this pool other than Lightning Mauler which is really good, but not good enough to force me into Red
Standard:
GU Prophet
Legacy:
WBU Shared Fate
Trades