I like the concept of playing sealed, and enjoy everything about it. But to this point I have played in 3 sealed events and haven't won a single game. I am still fairly new to MTG in general (my first event ever was the Amonkhet pre-release), so I know there is going to be a learning curve. With all this said I am either extremely unlucky with pulling good cards or I am just putting together terrible decks (the more likely scenario). So here is a list of cards I pulled during my last sealed event (MTGO).
1 Irrigated Farmland
2 Evolving Wilds
1 Canyon Slough
1 Honed Khopesh
1 Oashra Cultivator
1 Hapatra's Mark
1 Soul-Scar Mage
1 Magma Spray
1 Flameblade Adept
1 Cartouche of Zeal
1 Supernatural Stamina
1 Scarab Feast
2 Festering Mummy
2 Sacred Cat
1 Fan Bearer
1 Watchers of the Dead
1 Shadowstorm Vizier
1 Haze of Pollen
1 Exemplar of Strength
1 Bitterblade Warrior
1 Nef-Crop Entangler
1 Brute Strength
2 Trespasser's Curse
1 Tah-Crop Skirmisher
1 Seeker of Insight
1 Cartouche of Knowledge
1 Mighty Leap
1 Gust Walker
1 Glory-Bound Initiate
1 Binding Mummy
1 Anointer Priest
2 Thresher Lizard
2 Minotaur Sureshot
2 Unburden
1 Wasteland Scorpion
2 Wander in Death
1 Painful Lesson
1 Nest of Scarabs
1 Baleful Ammit
1 Cancel
1 Ancient Crab
1 Vizier of Tumbling Sands
2 Unwavering Initiate
1 Trial of Solidarity
1 Those Who Serve
1 Renewed Faith
1 Quarry Hauler
1 Violent Impact
1 Limits of Solidarity
1 Emberhorn Minotaur
1 Electrify
1 Soulstinger
1 Pitiless Vizier
1 Trial of Knowledge
1 Decision Paralysis
2 Aven Initiate
1 Cast Out
1 Liliana's Mastery
2 Oketra's Attendant
1 Scaled Behemoth
1 Desert Cerodon
1 Floodwaters
1 River Serpent
1 New Perspectives
1 Winged Shepherd
1 By Force
1 Spidery Grasp
1 Pouncing Cheetah
1 Ornery Kudu
1 Gift of Paradise
2 Benefaction of Rhonas
1 Trial of Zeal
Here is the last deck I played..
Cartouche of Knowledge
Seeker of Insight
Ancient Crab
Cancel
Aven Initiate x2
Decision Paralysis
Trial of Knowledge
New Perspectives
River Serpent
Floodwaters
Cartouche of Zeal
Flameblade Adept
Magma Spray
Soul-Scar mage
Minotaur Sureshot x2
Thresher Lizard x2
Trial of Zeal
Electrify
Emberhorn Minotaur
Limits of Solidarity
Desert Cerodon
Island x8
Mountain x8
I also tried to do a white/black zombieish deck using nest of scarabs with -1/-1 counters but also got stomped. From my point of view most people I play have decks with really good synergy. What am I doing wrong?
3 events is still very early. MTG has a learning curve. Don't get too frustrated yet. In MTG, like any strategy game, a new player playing against experienced players isn't going to win much at first. Just try to learn from each loss and see what is working well in other people's decks. You'll get better the more you play. As long as you're having fun with the game in general, that's what counts.
In future please use deck tags if you want to get feedback.
This mana curve looks awful and is probably why you're getting stomped. You have a lot of action at 4 and 6 mana, and almost nothing at 2 mana. It will take a while to play out all your cards. Even though most of your expensive cards have cycling, the deck will still be slow and mana hungry. You're going to have mana troubles on only 16 lands, and you'll probably never be able to afford to hold mana open for Cancel because you'll need to keep tapping out to cast things. In general, you should aim for 17 lands and a lower mana curve. See other people's winning decks for examples.
Also, you're running a lot of sub-par cards that don't fit well together. Other people are playing cards that work well together and that's why they have synergy.
New Perspectives is bad. Don't be fooled by the Rare symbol. Not all rares are good in Sealed. The "pay 0" ability is almost never relevant because most decks should not have 7 cards in hand by the time you have 6 lands. That block of text is for Constructed, not Limited. Just ignore it. So you're paying 6 mana to draw 3 cards when Trial of Knowledge draws you that many for 4 mana and can be reused.
Flameblade Adept is not good, except maybe in the most aggressive RB cycling aggro decks. 1/2 is too small to be a threat. Soul-Scar Mage has a similar problem, though at least it has Prowess, so it can be good in a deck with a lot of spells (particularly a lot of burn). You never want both together. Add to that Seeker of Insight and Ancient Crab and you've got a whopping 4 creatures with only 1 power. 1/x creatures are not a real threat to opponent's life total, so you're playing a deck with fewer threats than the opponent. And only 1 of them is a good blocker (the 1/5). That means you'll have fewer dangerous attackers than the opponent, and 2-3 of them aren't really helping you block either. Cards like this just fill up space.
Some of your spells are card disadvantage: Decision Paralysis, Cartouche of Zeal, and Limits of Solidarity gain you tempo in this turn's combat but set you behind a card overall, because you are spending a card without getting another creature or removing one of opponent's creatures for good. Sometimes aggro can afford to run many tricks like that. But if a slower deck like yours has too many of these, again, you'll end up having fewer threats on the board than the opponent.
You're also running control-friendly slow card draw to fill your hand (Trial of Knowledge + Cartouches, New Perspectives). Card draw like Trial is good. But then you have 2 Thresher Lizard, which is much better in decks that want to empty their hand quickly, i.e. fast aggro.
But you can't be aggro because you have don't have many 2-cost creatures (the backbone of aggro). Seeker of Insight, Soul-Scar Mage and Flameblade Adept are your only creatures costing less than 3 mana (and all 1/2 or 1/3). So you won't be able to play out your creatures early to play an aggressive game.
Hopefully you can see how these cards fit in different strategies and don't work together well. You want to try to play cards that fit together for the same game plan. That's how your opponents are getting synergy.
Good luck in your future Sealed events. Hopefully it gets easier. Ask friends for advice on deckbuilds and check out online resources (ChannelFireball, Limited Resources, etc.) on how to build Sealed decks.
I think WR is pretty good, but I'm used to draft. This deck has a nice, aggressive curve, a good suite of removal and some flyers to finish things off if needed.
"But then you have 2 Thresher Lizard, which is much better in decks that want to empty their hand quickly, i.e. fast aggro. "
IMHO these are still fine as vanilla 3/2s.
Depends on the deck. I find my slow durdly blue decks would rather have 2/3s and 2/4s than 3/2s. On defense a 3/2 risks trading down and is less useful for double blocking (low toughness = easier to get 2-for-1d by a combat trick). In most other decks it's fine as a vanilla 3/2.
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1 Irrigated Farmland
2 Evolving Wilds
1 Canyon Slough
1 Honed Khopesh
1 Oashra Cultivator
1 Hapatra's Mark
1 Soul-Scar Mage
1 Magma Spray
1 Flameblade Adept
1 Cartouche of Zeal
1 Supernatural Stamina
1 Scarab Feast
2 Festering Mummy
2 Sacred Cat
1 Fan Bearer
1 Watchers of the Dead
1 Shadowstorm Vizier
1 Haze of Pollen
1 Exemplar of Strength
1 Bitterblade Warrior
1 Nef-Crop Entangler
1 Brute Strength
2 Trespasser's Curse
1 Tah-Crop Skirmisher
1 Seeker of Insight
1 Cartouche of Knowledge
1 Mighty Leap
1 Gust Walker
1 Glory-Bound Initiate
1 Binding Mummy
1 Anointer Priest
2 Thresher Lizard
2 Minotaur Sureshot
2 Unburden
1 Wasteland Scorpion
2 Wander in Death
1 Painful Lesson
1 Nest of Scarabs
1 Baleful Ammit
1 Cancel
1 Ancient Crab
1 Vizier of Tumbling Sands
2 Unwavering Initiate
1 Trial of Solidarity
1 Those Who Serve
1 Renewed Faith
1 Quarry Hauler
1 Violent Impact
1 Limits of Solidarity
1 Emberhorn Minotaur
1 Electrify
1 Soulstinger
1 Pitiless Vizier
1 Trial of Knowledge
1 Decision Paralysis
2 Aven Initiate
1 Cast Out
1 Liliana's Mastery
2 Oketra's Attendant
1 Scaled Behemoth
1 Desert Cerodon
1 Floodwaters
1 River Serpent
1 New Perspectives
1 Winged Shepherd
1 By Force
1 Spidery Grasp
1 Pouncing Cheetah
1 Ornery Kudu
1 Gift of Paradise
2 Benefaction of Rhonas
1 Trial of Zeal
Here is the last deck I played..
Cartouche of Knowledge
Seeker of Insight
Ancient Crab
Cancel
Aven Initiate x2
Decision Paralysis
Trial of Knowledge
New Perspectives
River Serpent
Floodwaters
Cartouche of Zeal
Flameblade Adept
Magma Spray
Soul-Scar mage
Minotaur Sureshot x2
Thresher Lizard x2
Trial of Zeal
Electrify
Emberhorn Minotaur
Limits of Solidarity
Desert Cerodon
Island x8
Mountain x8
I also tried to do a white/black zombieish deck using nest of scarabs with -1/-1 counters but also got stomped. From my point of view most people I play have decks with really good synergy. What am I doing wrong?
In future please use deck tags if you want to get feedback.
1 Cartouche of Knowledge
1 Seeker of Insight
1 Ancient Crab
1 Cancel
2 Aven Initiate
1 Decision Paralysis
1 Trial of Knowledge
1 New Perspectives
1 River Serpent
1 Floodwaters
1 Cartouche of Zeal
1 Flameblade Adept
1 Magma Spray
1 Soul-Scar mage
2 Minotaur Sureshot
2 Thresher Lizard
1 Trial of Zeal
1 Electrify
1 Emberhorn Minotaur
1 Limits of Solidarity
1 Desert Cerodon
8 Island
8 Mountain
Let's look at your mana curve (converted mana cost of each card in your deck).
1 - ccss
2 - cs
3 - cccccss
4 - cccssss
5 -
6 - ccss
This mana curve looks awful and is probably why you're getting stomped. You have a lot of action at 4 and 6 mana, and almost nothing at 2 mana. It will take a while to play out all your cards. Even though most of your expensive cards have cycling, the deck will still be slow and mana hungry. You're going to have mana troubles on only 16 lands, and you'll probably never be able to afford to hold mana open for Cancel because you'll need to keep tapping out to cast things. In general, you should aim for 17 lands and a lower mana curve. See other people's winning decks for examples.
Also, you're running a lot of sub-par cards that don't fit well together. Other people are playing cards that work well together and that's why they have synergy.
New Perspectives is bad. Don't be fooled by the Rare symbol. Not all rares are good in Sealed. The "pay 0" ability is almost never relevant because most decks should not have 7 cards in hand by the time you have 6 lands. That block of text is for Constructed, not Limited. Just ignore it. So you're paying 6 mana to draw 3 cards when Trial of Knowledge draws you that many for 4 mana and can be reused.
Flameblade Adept is not good, except maybe in the most aggressive RB cycling aggro decks. 1/2 is too small to be a threat. Soul-Scar Mage has a similar problem, though at least it has Prowess, so it can be good in a deck with a lot of spells (particularly a lot of burn). You never want both together. Add to that Seeker of Insight and Ancient Crab and you've got a whopping 4 creatures with only 1 power. 1/x creatures are not a real threat to opponent's life total, so you're playing a deck with fewer threats than the opponent. And only 1 of them is a good blocker (the 1/5). That means you'll have fewer dangerous attackers than the opponent, and 2-3 of them aren't really helping you block either. Cards like this just fill up space.
Some of your spells are card disadvantage: Decision Paralysis, Cartouche of Zeal, and Limits of Solidarity gain you tempo in this turn's combat but set you behind a card overall, because you are spending a card without getting another creature or removing one of opponent's creatures for good. Sometimes aggro can afford to run many tricks like that. But if a slower deck like yours has too many of these, again, you'll end up having fewer threats on the board than the opponent.
You're also running control-friendly slow card draw to fill your hand (Trial of Knowledge + Cartouches, New Perspectives). Card draw like Trial is good. But then you have 2 Thresher Lizard, which is much better in decks that want to empty their hand quickly, i.e. fast aggro.
But you can't be aggro because you have don't have many 2-cost creatures (the backbone of aggro). Seeker of Insight, Soul-Scar Mage and Flameblade Adept are your only creatures costing less than 3 mana (and all 1/2 or 1/3). So you won't be able to play out your creatures early to play an aggressive game.
Hopefully you can see how these cards fit in different strategies and don't work together well. You want to try to play cards that fit together for the same game plan. That's how your opponents are getting synergy.
Good luck in your future Sealed events. Hopefully it gets easier. Ask friends for advice on deckbuilds and check out online resources (ChannelFireball, Limited Resources, etc.) on how to build Sealed decks.
1 Fan Bearer
1 Watchers of the Dead
1 Nef-Crop Entangler
1 Gust Walker
1 Glory-Bound Initiate
1 Binding Mummy
2 Thresher Lizard
2 Minotaur Sureshot
2 Unwavering Initiate
1 Emberhorn Minotaur
2 Oketra's Attendant
1 Desert Cerodon
1 Winged Shepherd
1 Magma Spray
1 Cartouche of Zeal
1 Brute Strength
1 Trial of Solidarity
1 Electrify
1 Cast Out
1 Trial of Zeal
2 Evolving Wilds
7 Plains
7 Mountain
Last cut: Honed Khopesh, 1 Mighty Leap
Depends on the deck. I find my slow durdly blue decks would rather have 2/3s and 2/4s than 3/2s. On defense a 3/2 risks trading down and is less useful for double blocking (low toughness = easier to get 2-for-1d by a combat trick). In most other decks it's fine as a vanilla 3/2.