Sealed is fun, sealed is hard
"Hey, what's up?"
"Not much, I'm at the study hall..."
"Okay...are you hungry?"
And so my friend, previous PT participant (at Queen Mary) Kjartan, called me and asked if we should do something. See a movie, play a game of sorts, eat or whatever. He ate, I had just eaten, and we decided to play sealed deck. The actual plan was to play two-headed giant sealed, but our select choices for fourth guy (my roommate Åsmund was the third) weren't available so we decided to just play sealed, the three of us.
My sealed deck was a combination of fun, awesomely cool, medium powered, scarsely littered with bombs and freakin' hard to compile into The One and Only Correct Deck.
So what was my pool?
Gold
Radha, Heir to Keld
Artifacts
Chromatic Star
Jhoira's Timebug
Phyrexian Totem
The Rack
Black
Cradle to Grave
Dash Hopes
Spitting Sliver
Trespasser il-Vec
Pit Keeper
Dunerider Outlaw
Dread Return
Dark Withering
Sudden Death
Avatar of Woe
Viscid Lemures
Treacherous Urge
Cyclopean Giant
Mirri the Cursed
Green
Reflex Sliver
Aspect of Mongoose
Molder
Chameleon Blur
Utopia Vow
Vitaspore Thallid
Greenseeker
Spinneret Sliver
Search for Tomorrow
Strength in Numbers
Fa'adiyah Seer
Red
Goblin Skycutter
Ironclaw Buzzardiers
Flowstone Channeler
Prodigal Pyromancer
Viashino Bladescout
Conflagrate
Subterranean Shambler
Stingscourger
Ground Rift
Reiterate
Timecrafting
Keldon Marauders
Æther Membrane
Blue
Aquamorph Entity
Vesuvan Shapeshifter
Mistform Ultimus
Voidmage Husher
Truth or Tale
Spiketail Drakeling
Crookclaw Transmuter
Shaper Parasite
Tolarian Sentinel
Sprite Noble
Ophidian Eye
Wistful Thinking
Merfolk Thaumaturgist
Viscerid Deepwalker
Auramancer's Guise
Erratic Mutation
Telekinetic Sliver
White
Aven Riftwatcher
Sunlance
Icatian Crier
Celestial Crusader
Ghost Tactician
Spirit Loop
Children of Korlis
Divine Congregation
Mycologist
Rebuff the Wicked
Fortify
Shade Trokair
Knight of the Holy Nimbus
Mana Tithe
Revered Dead
Initial thoughts
Like so many others I start my sealed decks by sorting the colours, then sorting each colour into tier 1 cards, tier 2 and tier 3, or crap, as most call them. Tier 1 is simply cards you'll play if you play that colour. Efficient creatures, cheap card drawing, bombs, solid removal, strong board control or tempo cards. Tier 2 are cards that come into your deck most of the time, and also cards that are good in some decks, but not in others. Like Mana Tithe that can be strong in an aggressive deck, but rather uninteresting in slower decks.
Tier 1 lack:
Dark Withering and Sudden Death are both strong creature removals with Sudden Death being the best if madness is not a factor. Which it might be.
Avatar of Woe is simply a bomb. If she hits the table she'll most likely dominate the game. Mirri the Cursed may not be a bomb, but she's efficiently costed and has haste and flying. Both of which are strong abilities in this rather fast format. She can swing the tempo in your advantage. He other two abilities makes blocking rather unwanted. Even blocking with a dragon would be risky as there are way too many tricks (Sudden Death being one) that would kill the blocker and make Mirri larger. Oh, and I have a cat named Mirri (named so eight years ago), which makes her even cooler. The last tier 1 creature for me is Pit Keeper. Early he's a two-drop, which is important, and late he can bring back dead heroes. Card advantage is always nice. It basically means he'll be equally useful in turn 2 as in turn 10 despite being a measly 2/1.
Tier 1 ble
The strongest creatures in blue were Spiketail Drakeling, Crookclaw Transmuter, Shaper Parasite and Vesuvan Shapeshifter. The shapeshifter is a bomb. He can copy anything, and he can change to whatever else might show up, oh, and that means he can kill those pesky legend dragons. Rather useful. The drakeling is simply an efficient flier that allows you to counter your opponents next 1-3 cards. If it's not dangerous in light of your hand you let it through and hit your opponent, if it's dangerous you counter it. It's your choice, which is why it's good and cards like Dash Hopes are utter crap. Crookclaw Transmuter is mr. Tricks. He kills Skulking Knight (which is rather strong) and most walls, he can become a 1/3 and block the many 2/1s out there without dying, and he can be a pumper during your attack (that 2/5 is now a 5/2), oh, and the awesome and underdrafted (online) Herd Gnarr loves him. He's versatile and he's often the nail in the tempo covered coffin of your opponent. Thank you Wizards. The Shaper Parasite is just silly, though. Simply the best blue common (for limited) in Planar Chaos. Why did they make him 2/3? Just so he could morph-kill that 2/2 flanker and block that other morph, kill him and still survive? Oh, why am I complaining? I love the guy. Awesome dude.
The last tier 1 was Erratic Mutation. Strong removal. No need for further explanation there.
Tier 1 hite
Sunlance is an extremely efficient removal. Thank you again Wizards. Fortify is close to broken in limited as it has a tendency to win you the games where it's played. Thanks again.
I actually played a draft two days ago where I was W/r and my opponent got off with both barrels blazing. I was getting low on life, but I had an Ivory Giant suspended, a Jedit's Dragoon in play, Crookclaw Transmuter and Fortify in hand along with various other creatures in play. The giant came in and tapped an equal amount of creatures on both sides since I had a few red out. Still, this was key even though I couldn't attack that turn (it wouldn't kill him, being at 20 life, and I would die during his next attack). What happened was that it created a position where it was favorable for him to attack with all even though he'd lose two creatures to my none without killing me. He'd kill me during my next turn. So he attacked with all. I dropped to 3 life and would die to his flashbacked conflagrate during his next turn. He was tapped out as he'd used his mana to cast Cloudchaser Kestrel and activate his Thunder Totem for the attack. The Kestrel was his only blocker during my turn.
I counted my creatures. If I swung with them all I'd do a total of 9 damage if he blocked the Ivory Giant, my largest creature. I untapped and attacked with all. He blocked the Ivory Giant and was ready to drop to 11, but I had my tricks to cast. First I switched the power and toughness of Jedit's Dragoons making it 5/2. Another 3 damage. I had a total of five creatures attacking so I cast fortify for +2/+0 adding another 8 damage (2 from each of the 4 unblocked creatures). He died. Thank you Crookclaw and Fortify, I couldn't have done it without you. It's just very, very satisfying to kill your opponent by robbing him of his 20 life in a single turn.
So, back to the white tier 1s. The best creatures were Aven Riftwatcher, a strong tempo controller, Celestial Crusader, another efficient creature that tends to steal tempo. Then there was the excellent Knight of the Holy Nimbus along with Shade of Trokair. So far I've seen a few people underestimating it, but I can't understand why. It's a turn 1 suspend, and all of those are good, we know that now, but it's better than the rest. It only is suspended for three turns and it's a pumper that comes into play with haste and all your mana untapped! Spank me!
Tier 1 ed
There are three strong creatures here. Prodigal Pyromancer, or Tom, who's just strong. He kills creatures, helps others kill larger creatures and pings your opponent. Tim has always been good in limited and nothing has changed. Then there's Subterranean Shambler. Decent in and of itself, but simply amazing if you can recurse him and best if coupled with Momentary Blink (+6 mana, 1 white and 1 blue among them = 5 damage to all non-fliers = more often than not a Wrath of God that stays in play and may even keep your white and/or blue fliers around). He's tier 1 for his power when coupled with bounce or blink, but he'll always make the deck either way. Oh, and we have Stingscourger. It's a Man-O-War for , but with echo. Cheaply priced tempo advantage without using a card. I like it! The final tier 1 card in red is Conflagrate. An expensive but useful creature removal in itself, but very strong once coupled with it's flashback, and Conflagrate makes love to Fathom Seer all the time.
Tier 1 reen
Search for Tomorrow is mana acceleration and fix. Always simply strong. Strength in Numbers is a Giant Growth that often wins you the game. Last Fa'adiyah Seer is a card drawer that will draw you an extra card about 5% of the time without paying mana for it. Very, very nice. Conflagrate likes her too.
Finally the single gold card is Tier 1. Not as awesome as a dragon, but still quite strong. 2/2 for two that speeds up mana production.
So which colours do you guys think I ended up playing? I'll tell you soon, but for now I'll leave you with a few thoughts that I tend to think when deciding this:
- Which colours has the largest bombs, cards that might win the game on their own.
- Which colours are the deepest tier 1 and tier 2 combined.
- Which cards have synergy with eachother?
- What can I do with my deck? Tempo? Board control? Aggro? Card advantage?
- Where do I have to go to get a curve that will allow me to survive or beat down my opponent depending on the goals of my deck?
So, which colours and cards do you think I ended up with?
I'll say this: I ended up with a cards I in retrospect believe was the wrong choice. It was a Planar Chaos card that didn't do what I needed it to in my deck. If you can guess my colours and that card (one guess only) I'll buy you a 6-month premium member subscription at StartCityGames.com.
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