Luck and M11 Four Pack Sealed

I've done 18 M11 four pack sealed pools so far.  I have some familiarity with the format now.  I want to look my experiences with M11 in a couple different ways.  First off, I want to look at the cards you want to open in your pool.  Next, I'll look at a sealed pool I had particular difficulty in building.  I'd like to get advice on how others would have built that pool.  After that, I want to look at 18 events worth of cards, with an eye towards what I opened, how I have been doing, and whether the investment has been worthwhile.  Let's get started.

The Ten Cards I Most Want to Open

I was going to try to cover a list of all the good cards in M11, together with what is playable, what is splashable, etc. - but I don't really want gto write 10,000 words on the subject.  Instead, I want to try the ten best list approach.  I'm making the assumption, for these cards, that the rest of your pool can support the cards on the list. In other words, that your blue is deep enough that you can play Mind Control when you open it.  I am also modifying the list a bit to let me talk about archetypes and effect.  The list is not just the ten individual cards I want to open - for example, the card I really want to open is Primeval Titan, because I need to complete my playset - but the cards I want to open to win the event.  I'm also consolidating a bit; I'm just listing Titans once instead of five times.

Whatever - here we go.

#10		Pegasus is here not because of the card itself, but because of the archetype.  If you can open a couple Pegasi, plus the supporting cards to create a fast fliers deck, you have a very strong deck.  I am always happy when my deck has a half dozen or more cheap fliers, some removal, a couple tricks and so forth.  Having a finisher is great, but you can easily get there with tempo and evasion.  This format can be very tempo-based, and there are few cards I would rather play on turn two than Stormfront Pegasus.
#9		Thirty card decks are small, and getting the mana base to work can be tricky.  Cultivate helps a lot - and having two Cultivates is wonderful.  Cultivate both fixes and accelerates your mana.  Since a lot of what powers green is large creatures, Cultivate gets those creatures into play faster.  Sylvan Ranger is similar, but not as good, of a color fixer.  It does fetch splash lands, but does not put them into play.
#8		Green has a number of very offensive four and five drops.  Acidic Slime - a 2/2 - is not one of them.  However, the reason I love Acidic Slime is that it comes into play and kills a lot of important things.  Some of them are on this list.   M11 has a number of very good artifacts, including several artifact creatures, some great equipment and Crystal Ball.  It also has several notable auras, including Pacifism. Acidic Slime also kills creatures when it blocks (and damages) them.  Any of them, including Titans.  Finally, in 30 card decks, splash colors generally run off a single copy of the splash land, plus some fetchers like Cultivate.  Acidic Sliming that solitary land can often leave the opponent unable to cast their splashes.
#7		Whispersilk Cloak  does a great job of breaking through stalls.  It lets your fatties smash home for the win.  Few plays are quite as demoralizing as having an opponent play a turn four Juggernaut, turn five play Whispersilk Cloak and equip.  That's game in four hits, unless you can kill the Cloak.   Whispersilk Cloak also fits quite well on Scroll Thief and Child of Night, not to mention pump creatures and so forth.   The other major benefit of the Cloak - and one that is often overlooked - is that it gives the creature Shroud.  One match, my opponent wrecked me with Royal Assassin game one.  I sided in lots of pinpoint removal, like Stabbing Pain and even Hornet Sting, but he equipped the Assassin with a Cloak and I could do nothing.  Cloak is also quite good on cards like Prodigal Pyromancer and Blinding Mage.
#6		Air Servant is an amazing flier.  It not only beats for a lot, it can also tap an unlimited number of opposing fliers, at any time, provided only that you have the mana.  This can make blocking it nearly impossible:  the only potential blocker Air Servant cannot block is Giant Spider, and Air Servant kills Giant Spider in a fair fight. Last night, I faced an opponent with Baneslayer Angel.  Air Servant meant that Baneslayer never attacked or blocked.  I simply tapped it before combat every turn, while I killed him with fliers.
#5		OTOH, Baneslayer is Baneslayer.  Many decks just fold if she hits the table.  Sure, you can kill her, but she does not give you a lot of time to find something to get rid of her with. Serra Angel is a really, really good card in this format, but Baneslayer is just better, and for the same cost.
#4		Any of the Titans are hard to kill, but Grave Titan may be the best for limited play.  Grave Titan is black, which makes it immune to Doom Blade.  The 2/2s it spawns are also pretty darn good. I have beaten a Grave Titan, but only because when played it,  I was able to untap with mana for Chandra's Outrage, then Pyroclasm,  to kill it and the 2/2 spawn tokens as well.   I knew he had it, and I was waiting for it, but having both cards was necessary.  All the titans are really, really good in limited.  Grave Titan is the best.
#3		Fireball wins games.  Sometimes it does that by dealing the final seven or eight damage.  Sometimes it does that by killing a couple annoying weenies.  Sometimes it offs a Baneslayer.  Fireball is flexible, spreadable damage.  It is also highly splashable.  What more could you want?
#2		Mind Control.  For five mana, their best creature becomes my best creature.  It's better than a removal spell.  If you have ever lost to this card, you understand.
#1		I'm putting Crystal Ball at number one.  It's arguable, of course.  However, while something like Mind Control or Fireball is a really good card, Crystal Ball makes sure everything you draw is - while maybe not a Fireball - still a good card.   Crystal Ball finds you what you need.  In a thirty card deck, Crystal Ball and your draw can filter through your entire deck in seven or eight turns.  That's huge.

Of course, these ten cards are not even close to all the good cards in M11.  I haven't even talked about removal.  Clearly, Doom Blade, Pacifism, Lightning Bolt, etc., etc. are all great cards, but I had to cut to just ten.  Even so, it's possible I have forgotten something, but for M11 four pack sealed, those are the cards I want, pretty much in the order I want them.  Of course, I would have no problem playing a UWr deck with Stormfront Pegasi, Baneslayer Angel, Fireball, Mind Control and Crystal Ball, but that's a bit greedy, even for me.    

Let's move on to an actual card pool. 

A Sealed Pool - Advice Needed

I opened this last weekend.  It was one of the tougher builds I have had.  How would you approach the build?  I'll break it down by color...

White
3 Assault Griffin
1 Celestial Purge
1 Goldenglow Moth
1 Inspired Charge
1 Mighty Leap

White is pretty straight-forward:  it has three excellent fliers.  Assault Griffin is the white version of Snapping Drake - a 3/2 flier for four mana.  It is really, really good.  Of course, Mighty Leap is fine, too.  I like combat tricks, and Mighty Leap is better than Giant Growth.  The only downside to white is that is does not have much besides the three fliers and Leap.  Splash, maybe?  We will see.  The problem with splashing in four pack sealed is that 30 card decks / 13 or so lands make splashes tricky.  Splashes are easier if you play green, and have Cultivate or Sylvan Ranger in your mana pool.  So, let's look at green.

Green
1 Fog
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Garruk's Companion
2 Giant Growth
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Prized Unicorn
2 Spined Wurm
1 Wall of Vines

One planeswalker in the mix.  Garruk is really, really good in limited.  That's hardly news to anyone that has played with or against him, but still.  Green also has mana acceleration and a pair of 5/4s, and two good combat tricks.  It is a really playable color.  The only downside is that there is no mana fixing.  It is not going to help us splash anything.  However, green can offer 6-8 solid to great cards, so it could combine well with any second color.  Let's look at the contenders.

Blue
1 Air Servant
1 Armored Cancrix
1 Azure Drake
1 Flashfreeze
1 Foresee
1 Ice Cage
1 Mana Leak
2 Negate
1 Phantom Beast
1 Sleep
1 Traumatize
1 Wall of Frost 

Blue has two good fliers, Foresee, Ice Cage for removal, three counters and Sleep.  Sleep is not always great, but when it is, it tends to be in UG decks, where it can clear out blockers for a pair of alpha strikes.  UG looks okay - or possible UGW with the three Assault Griffins, if you are willing to risk color screw issues.  The one Foresee helps a lot there - Foresee is great at digging for what you need, even if all you need is a Plains.  The deck would really love a bit more Scrying - but the card pool does contain a Crystal Ball!  All it needs to be perfect is an Augury Owl or two, for early scrying.  Still, we should at least look at the other colors before deciding between UG and UGw.

Black
1 Assassinate
2 Barony Vampire
1 Black Knight
1 Child of Night
1 Disentomb
2 Doom Blade
1 Howling Banshee
1 Nightwing Shade
2 Viscera Seer

TWO Doom Blades is amazing!  Doom Blade and Assassinate is sweet.  Howling Banshee is a fine card.  The other thing to note about black is the nice low curve.  Barony Vampires and Black Knights are not exceptional cards, but they do fill the mana curve nicely, considering that our other colors were all short of two and three drops.  A GB build has some evasion, plenty of creatures, a very nice curve, removal and combat tricks.  UB is not bad, either.  

Is it just me, or are the choices getting tougher?  Well, let's see if red makes our decisions any easier.

Red
1 Berserkers of Blood Ridge
2 Chandra's Outrage
1 Fireball
1 Lava Axe
1 Leyline of Punishment
2 Manic Vandal
1 Shiv's Embrace
1 Vulshok Berserker 

Ridiculous!  Fireball is amazing.  If I am not playing red as a main color, that's my splash.  Chandra's Outrage is also fine removal, although you cannot splash for 2RR - especially not in thirty card decks.  The mana base cannot support it, even with great fixing - and we do not have great fixing.

Yes, I really opened this pool.  Yes, this is insane. 

At Grand Prix Gothenburg last weekend, the coverage team put together a special booster pack, then asked the pros which card they would first pick - showing them the cards one at a time.  The booster had, IIRC:  Llanowar Elves, Mana Leak, Scroll Thief, Doom Blade, Lightning Bolt, Garruk's Companion, Blinding Mage, (two cards I can't remember), Corrupt, Mind Control, Fireball, Day of Judgment and Garruk Wildspeaker as the foil.  I have a lot of these cards in the pool. 

Look at this another way - what cards, in this pool, have I been happy to splash for, in the past?  Here's a short list:

Assault Griffin
Air Servant
Azure Drake
Foresee
Assassinate
Doom Blade
Fireball 

Admittedly, I had a couple Cultivates when I splashed for Azure Drake, but Air Servant is a fine splash.  Every card on the list is a good splash, and they are all in the pool. Take another look.     

So, how would you build this?  I'll give you a start - Crystal Ball.  You play it.  Now just choose the other 29 cards.   

Yes, this was a real pool.  Yes, I won the event.  How could I avoid it?

Super Sealed Pool

30 card M11 limited deck

Creatures 1 Barony Vampire 1 Berserkers of Blood Ridge 1 Black Knight 1 Child of Night 1 Howling Banshee 1 Manic Vandal 1 Nightwing Shade 1 Vulshok Berserker 8 cards Other Spells 1 Assassinate 2 Chandra's Outrage 1 Crystal Ball 2 Doom Blade 1 Fireball 1 Lava Axe 1 Shiv's Embrace 9 cards

Lands 1 Dragonskull Summit 6 Mountain 6 Swamp 13 cards

 

The Value of Four Pack M11 Sealed

Four pack sealed events require just that - four packs of M11.  It does not require additional TIX.  This makes it perfect for me, because I have a ton of M11 packs.  I worked as a judge at GenCon, and managed to collect some of my payment in online packs, instead of paper packs.  I have over 100 packs at the moment.  (Yes, yes lucky SoB - but working as a judge at GenCon is working:  four 14 hour days, on your feet, is not all fun.)

The M11four pack sealed events are eight man Swiss queues.  The payout depends on match wins.   No wins, of course, means no packs.  One win earns one pack.  Two match wins gets you three packs.  Going three and zero gets you five packs.  Over 18 events, to date, I have averaged just a smidgen under three packs won per event.  At this rate, my cost for entering the events is about 1 pack each.  A pack is worth a bit under 4 TIX. I wonder if I have been breaking even.  

Breaking even, monetarily, also requires some luck. 

The value of the cards in an M11 booster varies widely.  The commons and uncommons are generally pretty cheap - pennies each, if you are lucky.   Only a couple uncommons are worth anything.  These are Ajani's Pridemate, Liliana's Caress, Jace's Ingenuity and maybe Ember Hauler.  These are valuable because 1) they are unique to M11 and 2) they are used in decent standard decks (except maybe Caress - the eight Megrims deck seems questionable.)    

Having done 18 four pack sealeds, plus a few drafts and a couple release events, I have about 280 uncommons.  That should, on average, be about 4.7 copies of each card.  Let's look at the spread.  I own 10 copies of Howling Banshee - plus a playset from M10, etc.  At the low end, I now own just one Earth Servant.  Of the money uncommons, I own two Call to Mind (used in Pyromancer's Ascension decks), and three copies of both Ajani Pridemate and Ember Hauler.  On the plus side, I do own nine copies of Jace's Ingenuity - two foil - so I should probably trade those off before the value falls.

With uncommons, my luck is not too bad.

With rares, the value really depends on whether the card is a reprint or not.  Even the "high value" reprints, like the lands and Day of Judgment, are not worth much more than a TIX or so.  The valuable rares are the new-to-M11 rares that are usable in Standard decks - like Fauna Shaman and Serra Ascendant - although even two these are not worth the price of a pack.  I have now opened 74 rares in sealed pools (including a foil Clone and foil Stormtide Leviathan), and have one Shaman and two Serra Ascendants.  Fourty-four of the rares I have opened are duplicates of cards I already own playsets of.  Not bad, but not really lucky.

I did the same analysis of the Mythics I have opened.  I divide the Mythics into those new to the set, and those I already own playsets of - since I drafted enough M10 to redeem two playsets.  In short, I have a playset of Baneslayer Angels, of each of the classic planeswalkers, and of Platinum Angels.  In my 18 sealed pools, I have opened 10 mythics.  Eight were cards I already owned - little Jace, Lililana, Garruk, etc.  I have opened two mythics I did not already own: one Gaea's Revenge and one Primeval Titan.  No Sun Titans, no Grave Titans, no - well, you get the idea.  I can't really complain about the Primeval Titan, but the main reason I am playing in these events is to build up my collection for Standard events.  So far, that is not going well.  I've invested 72 packs into the events so far, and received a small handful of needed cards. 

Not so lucky.       

OTOH, I have won fifty-something packs, and I'm still having fun - especially when I open a pool like the one above.

PRJ

"one million words" in the M11 four pack queues.