Whacking My Way through the Cheap Sealed Deck Events
By Pete Jahn
As part of the Seventh Anniversary celebration, Wizards has reintroduced NIX TIX sealed events with Tournament packs. This week we have Lorwyn / Morningtide events. Next Wednesday will bring Mirage block sealed, then Shadowmoor / Eventide and finally Tempest events. All of these are 8 man, three round Swiss events, and all qualify the winners for a free sealed event at a later date.
These events are discounted, because the store is having a last chance blowout sale on tournament packs, They are now $9.99.
That seems like something from a late-night TV ad.
Get your tournament packs now!
Just $9.99!
Limited Time Offer!
Seriously, though, it is a reasonable deal. A tournament pack is basically three boosters, but with one extra uncommon in place of one common, plus 30 land. These sealed events cost one tournament pack, two comparable boosters and ZERO TIX. (Comparable boosters mean the rest of the block format. For Lorwyn, that means two Morningtide boosters. For Mirage, it is one Visions and one Weatherlight booster.) The payout is pretty decent: two boosters per match win, or twice what a 321Swiss draft pays out. If you go 2-1, and open anything useful, you break even. If you go 3-0, you get a qualifier point, 6 packs and free entry into a sealed event where you can win even more.
Even if you don’t win a single match, the return on investment is pretty decent. If you were to draft Lorwyn / Morningtide, the draft would cost you $14 (3 packs plus 2 TIX), and the cards you would get would be worth, on average, about $5.50, for a net cost of $8.70. For the sealed, the cost is $18, and the cards are worth about $8.30. The net cost is a buck more than a Swiss draft, but you get double the prize payout.
It is even better if you still have some old tournament packs laying around, or know someone who does. These tournaments represent the last time we can use them in sanctioned events, so it is now or never. You can often get a deal on the tourney packs – in my case, my friend was willing to give me the tourney packs, in return for anything I opened that she didn’t have a set of and/or a split of my prize packs.
This week the tournaments are Lorwyn. Lorwyn is rotating later this fall, but it still has a bunch of stuff that is playable until then, as well as a number of cards that are playable in Extended and Classic. If you rip a Bitterblossom or Mutavault, for example, you paid for most of your tournament. For that matter, Wizards has confirmed that the Planeswalkers will be back in M10, so they will be Standard legal for another year, at least.
Okay, enough about the value of the set – let’s talk about how to play it. First of all, Lorwyn is not a multicolored set. Color fixing is limited, so playing a five color deck just does not work. This is not Shards block.
Second, creature type matters. Various cards trigger off playing or revealing a creature of a certain tribe. The Changelings – creatures which are all creature types – trigger all of these, so they are very valuable.
Third, Morningtide has the Reinforce mechanic. This is a combat trick that puts +1/+1 counters on creatures. The Reinforce cards are almost always good.
It had been a while since I had played Lorwyn sealed, so I knew I was rusty. That said, all of the standard rules of sealed apply: don’t muck up your mana base, keep to a mana curve, removal and evasion are golden and anything costing too much costs too much.
Let’s look at the pool. Now what I always do first is sort by rarity, and see if I busted anything cool/expensive/anything I need for limited. In this case, I got six rares – the five I expected and a bonus Foil rare. Yay!
Ajani Goldmane
Ashling’s Prerogative
Earwig Squad
Epic Proportions
Nettlevine Blight (Foil)
Shared Animosity
Ajani is a bomb. Earwig Squad is nice, if I can get it off. Epic Proportions is just too large – it is great combat trick, but it often feels too expensive to cast. We will see – I just not had good experiences with it, but that might just be me. Shared Animosity is fine if I have a lot of playable red creatures with the same creature type. Taking a quick look at the pool, I don’t see that many.
Here’s the pool.
| 1 Ajani Goldmane
1 Avian Changeling 1 Changeling Hero 1 Dawnfluke 1 Forfend 1 Goldmeadow Dodger 1 Goldmeadow Stalwart 1 Kinsbaile Skirmisher 1 Kithkin Harbinger 1 Kithkin Zephyrnaut 1 Mosquito Guard 1 Order of the Golden Cricket 1 Shields of Velis Vel 1 Wandering Graybeard 1 Wispmare |
1 ÃEthersnipe
1 Amoeboid Changeling 1 Broken Ambitions 1 Deeptread Merrow 1 Disperse 1 Familiar’s Ruse 1 Ink Dissolver 1 Latchkey Faerie 1 Mothdust Changeling 1 Nevermaker 1 Streambed Aquitects 1 Thieves’ Fortune 1 Whirlpool Whelm 1 Wings of Velis Vel |
1 Boggart Loggers
1 Earwig Squad 1 Final-Sting Faerie 1 Frogtosser Banneret 1 Marsh Flitter 1 Moonglove Changeling 1 Nath’s Buffoon 1 Nettlevine Blight 1 Oona’s Blackguard 1 Shriekmaw 1 Skeletal Changeling 1 Warren Pilferers |
| 1 Ashling’s Prerogative
1 Consuming Bonfire 1 Faultgrinder 1 Fire-Belly Changeling 1 Flamekin Harbinger 1 Flamekin Spitfire 1 Lash Out 1 Lowland Oaf 1 Lunk Errant 1 Mudbutton Clanger 1 Release the Ants 1 Roar of the Crowd 1 Seething Pathblazer 1 Shard Volley 1 Shared Animosity 1 War-Spike Changeling |
1 Ambassador Oak
1 Deglamer 1 Earthbrawn 1 Elvish Branchbender 1 Epic Proportions 1 Fistful of Force 1 Heal the Scars 1 Incremental Growth 1 Kithkin Daggerdare 1 Leaf Gilder 1 Luminescent Rain 1 Lys Alana Huntmaster 1 Rootgrapple 1 Sylvan Echoes 1 Wolf-Skull Shaman
|
1 Herbal Poultice
1 Runed Stalactite 1 Thornbite Staff |
My first action was to blank all the junk – the stuff I really had no interest in playing. I then dragged the removal spells to the bottom of each stack, so I could see them easily. Here’s roughly what I got.
| 1 Ajani Goldmane1 Avian Changeling
1 Changeling Hero 1 Goldmeadow Stalwart 1 Kinsbaile Skirmisher 1 Kithkin Harbinger 1 Kithkin Zephyrnaut 1 Mosquito Guard 1 Order of the Golden Cricket 1 Wispmare |
1 ÃEthersnipe1 Amoeboid Changeling
1 Broken Ambitions 1 Ink Dissolver 1 Latchkey Faerie 1 Mothdust Changeling 1 Nevermaker 1 Whirlpool Whelm 1 Wings of Velis Vel |
1 Boggart Loggers1 Earwig Squad
1 Final-Sting Faerie 1 Frogtosser Banneret 1 Marsh Flitter 1 Moonglove Changeling 1 Nettlevine Blight 1 Oona’s Blackguard 1 Skeletal Changeling 1 Warren Pilferers 1 Shriekmaw |
| 1 Fire-Belly Changeling1 Lowland Oaf
1 War-Spike Changeling 1 Consuming Bonfire 1 Release the Ants 1 Roar of the Crowd 1 Shard Volley 1 Lash Out |
1 Ambassador Oak1 Earthbrawn
1 Epic Proportions 1 Fistful of Force 1 Incremental Growth 1 Kithkin Daggerdare 1 Leaf Gilder 1 Lys Alana Huntmaster 1 Rootgrapple 1 Wolf-Skull Shaman |
1 Runed Stalactite |
The first step was to eliminate colors I was not going to play. I knew I wanted to be two colors, if possible. If not, I wanted to be two colors, plus a small splash.
Green was the first color to go. Green, as a color, has almost no evasive and almost no removal, so unless I open great green I’m unexcited by it. This pool looked like a bunch of Hill Giants and Grey Ogres, plus a few Giant Growths. I decided to cut it, unless everything else was trash.
The next color cut was blue. I looked at blue first, because it can be amazing. However, this pool has a couple blue fliers (a 3/1 and 2/3), a couple bounce spells and a good trick in the Wings of Velis Vels, but that was about it. That’s awfully shallow.
Red is at once exciting and disappointing. It has three good removal spells, and two mediocre ones. However, it has only three good creatures, and the best of those are basically Hill Giants. Worse yet, the best removal spells (Consuming Bonfire and Shard Volley) don’t splash too well. Bonfire is double red, and Volley costs you a land, which can hurt.
Let’s move on to white – which I really wanted to play. It had Ajani! Ajani is just nuts. White had little in the way of removal – no Neck Snap, for example – but it had some nice dudes. It had evasion: Aven Changeling is a serious evasive beater. Kithkin Zephyrnaut is even better – if you can keep revealing Kithkin, he becomes a 4/4 vigilant flier that is very hard to deal with. Changeling Hero is nuts – big, lifelinked and he’ s a changeling so he triggers the Zephyrnaut.
I have a bunch of Kithkin, and even one with Reinforce.
So, time to move on to black. I have Oona’s Prowler and a bunch of Rogues. That’s a nice combination – since all the rogues get +1/+1 counters, and can often cause discard. I had Shriekmaw, which was about the only removal I had in black, but a very good removal spell. Well, I also had Nettlevine Blight, and I played it, but I probably should not have. It was far too slow to matter. I also had a couple fliers and speed. It looked like about as good as I could get.
I decided to go straight black / white, no splash. I wanted to never have dead cards in my hand.
My Deck
1 Goldmane
1 Nettlevine Blight
1 Avian Changeling
1 Changeling Hero
1 Goldmeadow Dodger
1 Goldmeadow Stalwart
1 Kinsbaile Skirmisher
1 Kithkin Harbinger
1 Kithkin Zephyrnaut
1 Mosquito Guard
1 Order of the Golden Cricket
1 Shriekmaw
1 Wandering Graybeard
1 Wispmare
1 Boggart Loggers
1 Earwig Squad
1 Final-Sting Faerie
1 Frogtosser Banneret
1 Marsh Flitter
1 Moonglove Changeling
1 Oona’s Blackguard
1 Skeletal Changeling
1 Warren Pilferers
9 Plains
8 Swamp
With hindsight, I think I should have gotten rid of the Wandering Graybeard and the Nettlevine Blight – both were big, slow and did pretty much nothing when drawn. In their place, I should have played Lash Out (Removal!) and War-Spike Changeling (the changeling triggers the Kithkin and Rogue cards. ) And 3 Mountains for one Swamp and two Plains.
Round One:
I lost the die roll and my opponent elected to play first. Even so, I was first on the board with a Kithkin Stalwart, revealing a Moonglove Changeling. (I revealed that instead of the Aven Changeling – I decided I would rather he knew I was also black instead of showing him the flier.) It apparently worked, because when I attacked next round, he wasted a Nameless Inversion on the Stalwart – something he probably would not have done had he known I had a flier coming on turn three. I actually dropped the Moonglove Changeling first, and dared him to block. He declined (since I could give the Moonglove Deathtouch, after all), so I played my Earwig Squad via Prowl – which is the only way that could have happened since I was stalled on three lands.
The Earwig Squad, played via Prowl, lets me look through his deck. He had Austere Command, Crib Swap, Violet Pall and some good creatures. I stripped out the removal. Next turn, he untappped and Neck Snapped my Squad when it tried to block a fear dude. That ment he had one Wrath of God and five good removal spells – six, I discovered when he plays a Moonglove Extract a couple turns later. I gradually built land, then I ripped the Kithkin Harbringer, which got me the Zephyrnaut. That, plus the Aven Changeling, eventually got there, with a little help from Warren Pilferers – which got hasty when it brought back a my dead Aven Changeling. Creature type matches due to changelings were huge this game.
Game two I mulliganed, but again got some fast beats in – and got the Earwig Squad prowled out on turn four. I was ready to strip the removal out of his deck, but found only Crib Swap and Violet Pall in his library. That meant his hand had to be Wrath and four removal spells. Gah. I remained stuck on three lands forever, while he remained stuck on five. I got beats through and had him down to 4 life – but he was one land away from Austere Command to clear my board. I played a bunch of tricks, and did some fancy stuff with Reinforce, but I could not put it away. Finally, I ripped the fourth land, and cast the Ajani I had been holding forever. I pumped all my dudes, swung, and forced him to blow the Command on his turn. The next turn I started playing out all the creatures I had been holding, and I pulled it out.
Round Two:
He started off with a turn one fear guy, turn two Oona’s Prowler, turn three Frogtosser Banneret which has haste, a +1/+1 counter and the ability to make me discard a card, all courtesy of the Prowler. I had to pitch a couple cards, but eventually I got my own Prowler into play – then dropped a Marsh Flitter. The Flitter, and both Goblins, got +1/+1 counters. I then proceeded to make a real bonehead play. He swung with the Banneret, and I chumped with a Goblin token. After stacking damage, I sacrificed it to the Marsh Flitter, to make the Flitter a 4/4. In his second main phase, he hit the Flitter with Consuming Bonfire. I sacrifice the second goblin token to pump the Flitter out of danger – but Marsh Flitter does not actually pump. Instead, it ate the second Goblin and stayed a 4/4 – then died.
He did manage to get back the Banneret and whack me again, but it was not enough. Eventually I drew Warren Pilferers and fetched the Aven Changeling – again – and flew over for the win.
I sideboarded into the Lash Out / Changeling / 3 Mountains plan.
Game two we did it all again. Once again, he had the turn two Prowler, turn three Banneret, and I discarded, but I managed to stabilize and forced damage through wherever possible. I had a little bit of trouble for a while, because he had Thorntooth Witch, but not enough treefolk to wreck me before I could force a trade to kill it. (It blocked a 2/2, and I killed it with Final-Sting Faerie.) I eventually drew into gas and evasion, and he did not.
Round Three:
Once again, I got off to a reasonably fast start and beat my opponent down. He did manage to stabilize, but this game down to me drawing creatures and he drawing lands. It was a long, tight game, but eventually Ajani came to play on my side, and he couldn’t handle two planeswalkers against one.
Once again, I sideboarded in the Lash Out / Changeling and took out the Nettlevine Blight and the useless Giant.
In one of these two games, I made another complete idiot play. I cast Changeling Hero, and I had Warren Pilferers and Kithkin Harbringer in play. I Championed the Harbinger, knowing that if he killed the Hero, I could at least go get another Kithkin. Well, right – but the wrong play. The right play is to Champion the Warren Pilferers. Then if the Hero dies, the Pilferers come back into play. Since the Pilferers can fetch a creature back from the graveyard, they can put the Hero back into my hand, and I can do it again the next turn.
That was the right play. I didn’t see it.
Game two my early speed knocked a big chunk out of his life total, but eventually he was able to kill off all my fliers. I kept attacking, and got a few lucky trades, but he eventually dropped Axehewer Giant – the red-painted Craw Wurm. I could do little but stare at it for several turns, but I slowly built up my forces. He added a 3/3. Finally, I ripped Lash Out, and targeted his 3/3. At that point, he was at 5 life. I had five creatures – a pair of 2/2s and three 1/1s – and he had a 2/1 and a 6/4, plus the dying 3/3. If I won the Clash on Lash Out, I killed him. If not, I could still swing to put him at 2 and have three creatures left on the board. He would have the Wurm. We clashed – and I revealed my 2/2, while he revealed Chandra. A great card, but not at that point. He conceded.
I’m not sure that was the right play – he could have dropped Chandra and flamed my guys, one at a time. I think I could have put him at one – but would have had to rip some gas to actually finish him before Chandra ate my team. On the other hand, he was pretty short on clock, so he probably could not have won that game and a game three without timing out.
Either way, I was pretty happy going 3-0, and 6-0 in games.
The Lorwyn sealed queues are up until the next downtime. Give them a shot – and maybe I’ll see you in the free Lorwyn Sealed Championship on July 4th.
