Hello and welcome to my first contribution for MTGOacademy,
in this article we will explore some strategies for sealed events. With Magic2010 around the corner we are using the opportunity to have a look at Alara limited before everyone’s attention drifts away. While there are no Alara GP’s or Block tournaments anymore the principals I explain here can be transposed into all other formats.
We will most likely start exploring M10 in my next article. This will include some card evaluation changes due to the new set of rules. There will be less changes than most people believe – but that one next time.
So let’s have a look at the card pool I opened for the event
| Creatures
1 Zombie Outlander Other Spells 1 Elder Mastery |
Lands
1 Rupture Spire |
The first thing you should do when examining the sealed pool is having a look at the rares. This pool included: 1 Battlegrace Angel, 1 Broodmate Dragon, 1 Mycoid Sepherd, 1 Thraximundar, 1 Sigil of the Empty Throne, 1 Mark of Asylum
In the next step I sorted all cards by color and pulled down all the playables into the deck construction area. I always do it this way both in Magic Online and paper events.
If you want to get maximum benefit out of this article I recommend you load the pool into your deck editor and try to build a deck by yourself BEFORE you continue to read. This will give you the possibility to compare your build with mine.
After examining the different colors I came up with the following deck:
1 Valley Rannet
1 Broodmate Dragon
1 Colossal Might
1 Messenger Falcons
1 Drumhunter
1 Sigil Blessing
1 Bull Cerodon
1 Naya Sojourners
1 Battlegrace Angel
1 Igneous Pouncer
1 Knight of the Skyward Eye
2 Sacellum Archers
1 Mycoid Shepherd
1 Path to Exile
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Vagrant Plowbeasts
1 Bloodpyre Elemental
1 Thraximundar
1 Vengeful Rebirth
2 Rhox Meditant
1 Firewild Borderpost
2 Mountain
1 Swamp
5 Plains
5 Forest
1 Seaside Citadel
1 Rupture Spire
1 Esper Panorama
This was the final build. One point I would like to stress here is the mana base. Initially I wasn’t going to play Thraximundar, but then I decided to take out Court Archers and play a card that would have a enormous impact in the mid-and late game. Splashing it wouldn’t be a problem with 1 Seaside Citadel and 1 Rupture Spire, but it’s not worth playing an Island just because of 1 Esper Panorama.
Let’s have a look at the cards I left in the sideboard that I considered playing but that didn’t make the cut.
Group 1:
1 Sighted-Caste Sorcerer
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Court Archers
1 Jund Hackblade
It is worth noting that Sealed decks are generally slower then draft decks, particularly in Alara limited. What that means is that you can afford to neglect the very early drops in favor of cards that will have a higher impact in the mid-game. While trying to exploit this fact and building a hyper agressive deck can pay of sometimes it usually leads to mid-games where you are in top-decking mode. Often you just don’t want to draw a Jund Hackblade or a Sighted-Castle Sorcerer late in the game. Elvish Visionary is an ok card due to the card draw but I felt that I rather play something that has a board impact.
Group 2:
1 Beacon Behemoth
1 Ember Weaver
1 Reborn Hope
1 Kranioceros
All the cards in the second group are playable; however playing them would slow down the deck considerable and are just ok cards. Usually I would want to play the Ember Weaver in all my decks but there aren’t enough red permanents for it to make it a really strong creature. The Reborn Hope could be considered for this build – so if you like it and feel you like the possibility to replay your your Broodmate or Thraximunder it would be ok to do so here. I think the deck was good enough to leave it aside.
Group 3:
1 Putrid Leech
1 Shard Convergence
1 Volcanic Fallout
1 Jund Sojourners
All cards in the third group where omitted for one reason – mana considerations. Either the deckbuild cannot support those cards or the card provides mana but is not good enough to take a slot away.
However, sometimes you have to sideboard a card despite not having a good manabase for it. The Volcanic Fallout for example will sometimes be useful against decks with a lot of token generators or bombs like Martial Coup.
This deck went 5-1 in the daily event. The round I lost was against a deck with a Martial Coup. Unfortunately I didn’t know he was playing Martial Coup until game 3, so I didn’t sideboard Volcanic Fallout and couldn’t defend against the tokens.
Fazit:
When you are playing sealed events try to put heavy emphasis on your mana base and versatility of your cards. Try to put more emphasis on the middle game and don’t play cards that are useless later in the game.
In part 2 I am going to explore the top 8 draft and share my insights with you. If you feel you would have done something different feel free to start a topic in the forum about it and maybe we can have some discussions!
Until then,
Paulo Carvalho