Hello again, everyone! For the uninitiated, this blog is a follow-up to Monday’s article, Sealed in Shadow, in which I recounted my prerelease experience and gave everyone some handy tips to perform well in Shadowmoor Sealed. At the end of the article, I included a controversial list of the top 25 (can't fit the rest) commons and uncommons for Sealed. After some healthy feedback from all of you in the forums, here is my updated list:
Best Sealed Uncommons 1. Incremental Blight
2. Thoughtweft Gambit
3. Prison Term
4. Flame Javelin
5. Tower Above
6. Torrent of Souls
7. Biting Tether
8. Kulrath Knight
9. Firespout
10. Leech Bonder
11. Boggart Ram-Gang
12. Ashenmoor Gouger
13. Trip Noose
14. Kitchen Finks
15. Murderous Redcap
16. Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers
17. Lurebound Scarecrow
18. Drove of Elves
19. Seedcradle Witch/Inkfathom Witch/Mistmeadow Witch
20. Wasp Lancer
21. Illuminated Folio
22. Tattermunge Witch
23. Mercy Killing
24. Glamer Spinners
25. Flourishing Defenses
Best Sealed Commons 1. AEthertow
2. Silkbind Faerie
3. Burn Trail
4. Scuttlemutt
5. Gloomlance
6. Consign to Dream
7. Morselhoarder
8. Ballynock Cohort
9. Shield of the Oversoul
10. Cultbrand Cinder
11. Power of Fire
12. Hungry Spriggan
13. Rune-Cervin Rider
14. Faerie Macabre
15. Puncture Bolt
16. Scar
17. Cinderbones
18. Barkshell Blessing
19. Presence of Gond
20. Curse of Chains
21. Turn to Mist
22. Pili-Pala
23. Scarscale Ritual
24. Runes of the Deus
25. Steel of the Godhead
In addition, all of the Wisps, and all of the “can’t be blocked by color creatures” four-casting cost creatures are solid.
In addition to the list, I also posted my second Sealed pool of the prerelease before I signed off. So far, in the response thread, no one took a stab at the pool. Despite some of my failures building the first pool, I have a feeling this pool is much deeper. The possibilities are absolutely endless here, and I look forward to your own creative feedback.
Sealed Pool #2: Double the Pleasure, Double the Mana Issues White Niveous Wisps Resplendent Mentor
2x Apothecary Initiate
Kithkin Shielddare
WU Hybrid Silkbind Faerie Thistledown Duo
AEthertow
Curse of Chains
Thoughtweft Gambit
Enchanted Evening (foil)
Steel of the Godhead
2x Zealous Guardian
Blue Leech Bonder Consign to Dream
Flow of Ideas
Merrow Wavebreakers
Deepchannel Mentor
Put Away
Moonring Island (Island)
UB Hybrid 2x Fate Transfer
Inkfathom Infiltrator
Gravelgill Axeshark
Helm of the Ghastlord
Black Incremental Blight Ashenmoor Cohort
Disturbing Plot
Cinderbones
Gloomlance
Faerie Macabre
Blowfly Infestation
Aphotic Wisps
2x Rite of Consumption
BR Hybrid Soulstoke Kindler Kulrath Knight
2x Spiteflame Witch
Cultbrand Cinder
Scar
Poison the Well
Red I
ntimidator Initiate Power of Fire
Furystoke Giant
Crimson Wisps
Mudbrawler Cohort
2x Bloodshed Fever
Blistering Dieflyn
RG Hybrid Mudbrawler Raiders Morselhoarder
2x Loamdragger Giant
Green Drove of Elves Juvenile Gloomwidow
Nurturer Initiate
Howl of the Night Pack
Gleeful Sabotage
GW Hybrid Safehold Elite Raven’s Run Dragoon
Shield of the Oversoul
Rhys the Redeemed
Barkshell Blessing
Oracle of Nectars
Dawnglow Infusion
Artifacts Illuminated Folio Elsewhere Flask
Chainbreaker
Wingrattle Scarecrow
Cauldron of Souls
Pili-Pala
Painter’s Servant
Pool Breakdown Using the method I wrote about in my article, here’s how I would break down the pool, given the time and hindsight of my own deck creations.
Step 1: Eliminate the chaff
Bye-bye to Kithkin Shielddare, Apothecary Initiate, Resplendent Mentor, Enchanted Evening, Moonring Island, 2x Rite of Consumption, 2x Bloodshed Fever, and Blistering Dieflyn.
Step 2: Sort by color in a nice geometric shape. Check!
Step 3: Locate Bombs!
UW Hybrid = Silkbind Faerie, AEthertow, and Thoughtweft Gambit
Black = Incremental Blight, Gloomlance
BR Hybrid = Kulrath Knight
Red = Furystoke Giant, Power of Fire
GW Hybrid = Rhys the Redeemed, Oracle of Nectars, and Dawnglow Infusion
Step 4: Find depth and playability
So far, my depth, and my bombs, tend to coalesce around BR and GwU. White has a lot of playable cards since it contains a really deep GW and UW pool, and the removal in BR is pretty nuts.
Step 5: Eliminate the weak
I really don’t have a weak color, I just have two different decks, and I will probably wind up deciding what deck to play in a given matchup. Do I want token generation, tricks, and life gain with a solid curve (GwU), or do I want removal, solid creatures, and a good curve with a Furystoke Giant to back everything up (BR)?
Step 6: Look for synergy to support the strong
Machine Gun: Looking back over the Sealed pool, I do have the very nice Pili-Pala/Power of Fire machine gun. After negative experiences with Pili-Pala in the first pool, however, I think the machine gun is a little too vulnerable to all of the removal floating around, and I decide not to run Pili-Pala, but just play Power of Fire.
Elsewhere Flask and Howl of the Night Pack = combo. I can make lots of wolves with this, and I can still keep green as a main color. Most of the quality blue cards are UW, not straight blue.
Painter’s Servant and Drove of Elves = one fat creature. I admit, when I looked at the pool, I totally missed this interaction. It would have made my deck much better to include Painter’s Servant, but I decided against it. Huge mistake.
Fate Transfer + Counters: I have several cards that come into play with -1/-1 counters, and I also have 2x Fate Transfer available to make the drawback negligible. Fate Transfer and Leech Bonder, along with my persist creatures, seem like a solid plan.
Step 7: Settle on your two main colors
I decide to build two decks: BR and GWu.
Step 8: Finalize the last few cards
In my GWu deck, I have a serious debate between Morselhoarder and Howl of the Night Pack. Since I am trying to keep my curve low, I decide to cut Morselhoarder for Howl of the Night Pack. In retrospect, I probably should have cut one of my early drops to keep Morselhoarder in the pile, but I just felt like I would rather play multiple creatures, Thoughtweft Gambit, or Howl. I tried to keep my curve low and aggressive, but I should have kept it high and played defense with my tokens, tappers, and card advantage. Morselhoarder is still just a creature, and I dreamed of a Howl of the Night Pack + Rhys the Redeemed/Elsewhere Flask win.
In the BR deck, I think my list built itself, with cuts of early drops like Intimidator Initiate as the last few cards out of the pile.
Step 9: Build your mana base
Although I probably could have used an extra Swamp in the deck at times, I made a nice even split between 9 Swamps and 8 Mountains for the BR deck.
In the GWu build, I played blue more as a splash to access better color-fixing later on, and played more white cards. This meant that some of the last cuts that I made to the deck were Steel of the Godhead. It was a wrench to let the enchantment go, but I worried about 2 for 1’s, and I felt that between Oracle of Nectars and Dawnglow Infusion, I had enough life gain. Final decision: 7 Forests, 6 Plains, and 4 Islands.
Step 10: Deck registration! No need, this is a prerelease!
Deck #1: Red/Black Removal 9x Swamp
8x Mountain
Scar
Aphotic Wisps
Mudbrawler Cohort
Blowfly Infestation
Faerie Macabre
Gloomlance
Cultbrand Cinder
Cinderbones
Disturbing Plot
2x Spiteflame Witch
Crimson Wisps
Gravelgill Axeshark
Ashenmoor Cohort
Wingrattle Scarecrow
Chainbreaker
Morselhoarder
Furystoke Giant
Power of Fire
Inkfathom Infiltrator
Incremental Blight
Kulrath Knight
Mudbrawler Raiders
As I look at the deck now, I am only upset that I did not include Pili-Pala for the machine gun. I just saw too many problems with that card earlier in the day in other players’ decks, so I stayed away from it myself.
I regret that my curve is a little higher than I hoped, and I don’t have a ton of early removal. As long as I can hit mana, I should have enough creatures to survive into the late game. 17 land should be enough, right? Famous last words….
Deck #2: Green/White/blue Token Generator 6x Plains
7x Forest
4x Island
Mudbrawler Raiders
Chainbreaker
Dawnglow Infusion
Howl of the Night Pack
Thoughtweft Gambit
Nurturer Initiate
Curse of Chains
Oracle of Nectars
Barkshell Blessing
AEthertow
Fate Transfer
Juvenile Gloomwidow
Thistledown Duo
Rhys the Redeemed
Shield of the Oversoul
Elsewhere Flask
Raven’s Run Dragoon
Niveous Wisps
Consign to Dream
Illuminated Folio
Drove of Elves
Safehold Elite
Silkbind Faerie
Leech Bonder
As I review the deck now, I think that I should have played Painter’s Servant over Chainbreaker. I just saw too many positive plays with Chainbreaker over the course of the early prerelease, and I think that I overvalued the card. Painter’s Servant makes Drove of Elves huge, and it is a solid early creature in a set with a lot of small dorks.
Small Tournament Report Round 1 vs. Dave Tosto with GW I decide to run the Token Generation deck first, since I feel like it is more powerful, and I have a better opportunity to overwhelm my opponent.
Game 1: I opened with 5 lands and 2 cards, which I probably should mulligan, but I decide to keep, since I know that all I will need are a few creatures, and I should be fine. I have a Dawnglow Infusion to keep me in the game until I can pull it out. Unfortunately, Dave is playing an aggressive GW build, and I draw 6 lands in a row. Seriously.
Problem is, I go on tilt, since I know that I have a good pool, and I can’t afford to lose games like that. Second problem, I decide to switch decks, since I know that my heavy removal BR build should perform better against his GW aggressive deck. I probably don’t have the time to waste tapping his creatures and gaining life with my GWu build. I make the switch angrily. Grrr…
Game 2:
I should have lost this game. I mulligan 2x into a 5-card hand with 2 lands, 2 Spiteflame Witches, and little else. I can’t race with the Witches since I am so far behind on card advantage, and I know he has an aggressive deck.
I stall on 2 lands for what is probably 5-6 turns, but fortunately for me, Dave’s deck does not cooperate either, and he drops small beats with which I can make profitable trades. Spiteflame Witch saves me a ton of life as we both stare at each other.
I finally start to draw land, and once I hit the 5 mana mark, Dave is somewhat played out with small beats, but I have Furystoke Giant, Gloomlance, Kulrath Knight…and an empty board. I play out the Kulrath Knight to slow down his small beats even further. Fortunately for me, Dave uses Mercy Killing to off the Knight, and I plop down 3 tokens with Furystoke Giant staring me in the face. Next turn, I untap, play Furystoke Giant, and take down much of his board. Nice card.
I continue to build up a creature and mana advantage, but I am down to about 4-6 life, and I can’t really afford to attack into his ground beats. My Faerie Macabre holds off his Pili-Pala. My Furystoke Giant is waiting for a chance to die again, since I have now committed about 3 other creatures to the board, not to mention my little tokens are still sitting back on defense as well.
Finally, Dave decides to attack with his vigilance and wither Scarecrow, and I throw a couple of creatures, including Furystoke Giant in front of the Scarecrow to kill it. Unfortunately, we both forgot that wither hands out counters to Furystoke, so his persist should be turned off. When I return the Giant (erroneously), I Wrath his board again. Then, swing for the win two turns later.
Game 3: Hello, karma. I draw 2 lands again despite pile-shuffling twice since I had a ton of mana on the board, and can’t pull out of a much better draw by Dave. I’m actually glad that I lost, since I can not continue to make misplays with persist like this, and attempt to call myself a decent Magic player.
Round 2: Jessie Jameson with RW Jessie chose to go with an enemy color pair to gain more power and options, and boy, did it work. I keep working with the BR deck.
Game 1: Unfortunately, my deck does not smile upon me once again, as I believe I draw about 12 land. The game stalls out with clear boards, but he topdecks much better than I do, and I lose the game. I note that he has Mass Calcify and Furystoke Giant with a lot of dorks. Also, Heartmender is a gigantic pain in the ass. Huge. Especially when you can’t draw any removal whatsoever, and your wither creatures look really insignificant.
Game 2: I decide to switch it up, since his deck seems to be a lot better than mine. When you have 3 bomb rares with quality removal and solid creatures, I know that my deck is in trouble. I can only hope to stall him out.
I have a really great opening hand, and he greets my third turn Oracle of Nectars with a “Dude, you are really going to hate me for this” line and an Everlasting Torment. Not only is my life gain turned off, but all damage is dealt as wither, and I just put my damage dealing deck off to the side. *sigh*
I make a great game of it, since he can’t be very aggressive with his superior creatures due to wither. When he kills my Silkbind Faerie, I am pretty sure the game is over, but it keeps going as he waits for better cards in hand.
I built up enough mana to play Elsewhere Flask and Howl of the Night Pack for 7 Wolves. I have the game in hand if I can untap, but he rips the seventh land he needs to Mass Calcify my Wolves. It is over a couple of turns later, as he finally draws into enough creatures to feel comfortable attacking into mine.
Conclusion: 0-2 drop?
Although my pool was a lot better the second time around, I lost to mana screw, mana flood, better cards, and better play by my opponent. Oh, well, better luck next prerelease!
Thanks for reading, and I hope that you will join me in the next couple of weeks as I update Doran Rock for Standard (with Shadowmoor of course),and follow up Riki Hayashi’s article, White, (HUH, YEAH), What is It Good For? Absolutely Nothing! *screams*
Ah, that Jackie Chan is a scamp…
Thomas M. Trovato
Falkor in the Forums
