Sealed Deck Practice #3

Beyond Dominia: The Limited Magic Mill: Sealed Deck Practice #3

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By Nevyn, the Village Idiot (Nevyn) on Thursday, January 11, 2001 - 08:09 pm:

Ok, no more Mr. nice guy. Here is a sealed deck pool guaranteed to start a few arguments. Why? You'll see.


LANDS:
Ancient Spring
Archaeological Dig
Geothermal Crevice
Irrigation Ditch
Sulfur Vent

ARTIFACTS:
Bloodstone Cameo
Power Armor
Tek

GOLD:
Frenzied Tilling
Galina's Knight
Voracious Cobra
Wings of Hope
2x Yavimaya Barbarian
Fires of Yavimaya
Llanowar Kinght

BLACK:
Annihilate
2xCursed Flesh
Duskwalker
Exotic Curse
Firescreamer
Urborg Phantom
Urborg Skeleton
Mourning

Blue:
Barrin's Unmaking
Manipulate Fate
Opt
Prohibit
Repulse
Shoreline Raider
Tidal Visionary
2x Tower Drake
Wordly Counsel
Phantasmal Terrain
2x Probe
Traveler's Cloak
Metathran Zombie
Teferi's Response
Vodalian Merchant
Stormscape Apprentice

GREEN:
Bind
Fertile Ground
Llanowar Cavalry
Tranquility
Venduran Emissary
Vigorous Charge
Explosive Growth
Harrow
Quirion Trailblazer
Sulam Djinn
Quirion Elves

RED:
Kavu Runner
Obliterate
Rogue Kavu
Savage Offensive
3x Turf Wound
Kavu Scout
Lightning Dart
Skittish Kavu

WHITE:
Shackles
Liberate
Protective Sphere
Rampant Elephant
Glimmering Angel
Capashen Unicorn
Alabaster Leech
Angel of Mercy
Samite Ministration

This sealed deck depressed me so much I don't even have a limmerick for you today. Here is some space for you to think about dropping and entering a side event (or how to build the deck if you want)


At first glance the deck has several powerful spells and tons of blue, which is a great thing to have tons of. Unfortunately, quite a bit f that blue stinks and still more depends on black to be good. Furthermore, I counted the total number of creatures I would want for a sealed deck in all colours in this card pool and came up with less than 20. There are maybe 22-24 playable ones, and they are scattered throughout the colours.

Looking deeper, black has some good removal, (and some not so good), but it's two best spells are BB and it's pretty shallow. White has only 3-4 spells in total I'd play, but also 2 of the best creatures we have. Green only gives 3 mana helpers and only one fattie. Red gives us 2 creatures and one pseudo-removal. If we don't play both red and green, we lose 3 high-quality creatures and Fires, but these colours together only give us about half a deck. My first instinct therefore was to go R/G for powerful spells and creatures with U to round things out. Guess what? Still not enough creatures! So I splashed White. And when I looked at my final list, I had horrible mana (needed haevy commitment to 3 colours and a splash of a 4th), and my only removal effects were repulse and shackles, and possibly a lighning dart. Also, I was playing 4 colours and still didnt have Tek's potential met ( 2power stinks) I concluded that this was not a deck I wanted to play and went to find something better. I tried building B/U with Green to bridge the mana and fill out the creatures, and I still didn't have enough creatures. In came white again. this time the removal base was a bit better, but the mana was a bit worse. If there is a better build I'm missing, I'd love to hear it, but this one has me stumped. I don't mind being creature light if I have tons of decent removal, or removal light if I have tons of solid creatures backed up by a few tricks, but short on creatures and stretching for removal is no picnic.

I finally settled and went 5 colour with an uneasy mix. But I feel the curve is better for this deck, and it at least uses most of your quality spells.

here it is, criticise away as I'm not very happy with it either:

1cc:
Stormscape Apprentice
Tidal Visionary

2cc:
Quirion Elves
2x Yavimaya Barbarian

3cc:
2x Tower Drake
Shoreline Raider
Probe
Repulse
Fires of Yavimaya
Harrow
Exotic Curse
Shackles

4cc:
Kavu Runner
Glimmering Angel
Quirion Trailblazer
Power Armor

5cc:
Angel of Mercy
Tek
Frenzied Tilling

6cc:
Sulam Djinn

LANDS
6 Forest
5 Island
2 Mountain
2 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Geothermal Crevice
1 Ancient Spring

(Between cards that need basic land types and the CIP tapped, I only dared risk 2 sac-lands)

About this build: It hurts playing black and leaving Annihilate and Duskwalker in the board, but there was no way the mana could support more black. So black is here to give us a removal effect (and mourning or cursed flesh in the board), and to make Tek a good card, and otherwise stay out of the way. Red and Green let us build our creature base, while blue provides the depth to finish the deck (white giving us our evasion base). So we manage to play with 14 strong (except trailblazer) creatures, and 3 maindeck removal effects, along with a cantrip, 4 mana helpers, a search card and some powerful creature enhancers (fires, power armor). We also have 5 evasion creatures. Not bad, but the mana is still awful. Frighteningly enough though, with good draws, you could go a long way with this deck. But if you lose, don't say "I got mana screwed" because that is the natural state of the deck. Oh well, can't win em' all.


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