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By: Godot, Ryan Spain
Aug 05 2009 12:55pm
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WaitingForGodotSmallest With replays down for another week due to…typo (*facepalm*)…I have to put off the conclusion of last week’s ACR draft. Highly annoying, since finishing up the ACR draft this week would have set me up nicely to dive into some M10 drafting next week. Instead, with my second audible in as many weeks, M10 moves up in the queue courtesy of the prerelease, which I will use to demonstrate some technical tricks for building a sealed deck on Magic Online.

Sealed has a reputation for being more luck-intensive than draft. There is some truth to that, particularly in core-set sealed, which has traditionally been a bomb-driven format. If you open, play with, and resolve better bombs than your opponent, you are generally going to win more often. Draft certainly has a similar element of luck, though. It doesn't take a world-class player, after all, to first-pick Elspeth, Knight-Errant, follow her trail for the rest of the draft, and then win all of the games where she resolves any more than it does to open her in a sealed pool and do the same.

I don’t think sealed is as much “luckier” than draft as it is a test of different skills. Drafting asks you to read signals and make some tough picks, but the resulting deck mostly builds itself. If you’re lucky, you have 23-27 playables, 20 are no-brainer inclusions, and you just have to pick your final few main-deck cards from the leftovers and set your mana base.

Sealed challenges you to come up with an optimal build for a sprawling card pool with strengths spread out over all colors. This is an under-appreciated limited skill, particularly by those who spend most of their limited Magic time in the draft queues. I've actually spent most of my time on Magic Online over the years in leagues, so I have spent a great deal of time honing that skill (which could be part of the reason I see it as under-appreciated).

Unfortunately, that skill has atrophied significantly since the launch of 3.0 and the demise of leagues. I only play sealed for prereleases now, and not only am I a bit rusty at building the perfect sealed deck, there is a major difference between making a sealed deck for a league and making a sealed deck for a prerelease: the clock.

With leagues, you had the luxury of functionally limitless time. You could ponder your pool for a while, throw together a few different builds, test-draw them and test-play them repeatedly before finally deciding which version to take into battle, with your alternate builds a quick sideboard load away. You could even wait a week to play if you felt—as I often did—that your initial pool was one decent booster pack away from being great, and that it was better to wait.

Not so with the sealed events currently available on Magic Online. Until the return of leagues, if you are playing online sealed, you have twenty minutes to come up with your build. Particularly when faced with a new set, those can be twenty harrowing minutes that fly by all too fast. Here are the steps I use when building an online sealed deck to make the most of my ticking clock.

Step One: The Rare Check

The first thing I do with any sealed pool is the rarity sort (right-clicking in the editor field presents you with various sorting options). Not only is it like opening a birthday present to check your rares, it’s also good to start by looking for any rare bombs that might influence your upcoming color decisions. Since most people check their rares instinctively anyway this is no hidden gem of sealed-deck wisdom, but it’s good to reinforce that the move is correct from a deck-building standpoint and not just a present-opening standpoint.

I’m not going to break down the full building process for all three of my prerelease decks, but I’ll show all the rare checks, because who doesn’t like opening birthday presents?

image

M10 Prerelease #1 Rares

Nice! The biggest money rare this side of Baneslayer Angel in the Great Sable Stag, and two legitimate green bombs in Master of the Wild Hunt and Ant Queen. Before even looking at my commons or uncommons, it is almost a certainty that this pool will be base green based on those rares alone. Print runs will ensure that I get some kind of green support for those bombs. The Rootbound Crag makes me hope red is a good splash or secondary color. Next!

image M10 Prerelease #2 Rares

Rare check #2 reveals a couple of good black cards in Vampire Nocturnus and Cemetery Reaper, but Vampire Nocturnus in particular is very black, requiring a heavy commitment to swamps and black cards in the deck to be good, and a vampire supporting cast to be great. The reaper is not so particular—he’ll happily buff any zombies I happen to have, but he’ll make his own if I'm fresh out. If the removal and depth is there to support black, great, but these rares do not force black in quite the same way the rares from #1 force green.

The Sphinx Ambassador is also a compass card that could point me in the blue direction, but the Goblin Chieftain needs a significant playable goblin count before it could be construed as a bomb. Next!

image M10 Prerelease #3 Rares

Shivan Dragon is a strong red indicator, and double Djinn of Wishes almost immediately puts me into blue. Maybe I can flip djinn #2 off of djinn #1 and pull off the classic genie-in-the-lamp exploit: wish for more wishes! Ball Lightning is a nice pull for secondary-market value, but it’s not great pull for the sealed deck. In constructed, four Ball Lightnings are in mono red decks built around smacking the opponent silly with hyper-efficient mana-to-damage ratios before they can mount a defense. In limited—sealed especially—you won’t have mono red, and you won’t have that kind of overall efficiency in your spells. The great ball of fire is playable, but it will operate like a blockable Lava Axe in a two-color limited deck.

I’m three for three on Sanguine Bond, which would need more life gain than most sealed decks will ever have to offer to become playable. Hopefully the equally-unplayable Darksteel Colossus will fetch a few tickets in the trade room. Elvish Archdruid should fetch more than a few, but, like Goblin Chieftain, his playability will depend entirely upon the creature count in the tribe he supports.

Step Two: Weed Your Colors

Now it’s time to put the card pool into the view I generally use for the rest of deckbuilding: sort by converted mana cost. At first, this view produces an overwhelming jumble of cards, so quickly narrow down the view by right-clicking a filter to show only cards of that type. I always start with “colorless” so I can see what relevant fixing or “any deck” cards I might have, which in this case is a Terramorphic Expanse and a Rod of Ruin. The rod is nothing great (seven mana spent before you’ve done one point of damage?), but it’s good to know I have an expanse in the pool as I head into the color weed.

If my rares have a strong lean towards a color, I’ll usually check that color for support next. In the case of my first pool, green has bomb rares I definitely want to play, so I start there:

imageNow that I've sorted by mana cost and filtered by color, my method becomes a little counterintuitive: I put all of the unplayables and cards that I would only play with the right circumstances into the main deck. This is because the filters only affect sideboard cards, and I want to filter the pool of cards I might actually play.

In this case, I banish Fog, Regenerate, the two Oakenforms, the Bountiful Harvest, and the Enormous Baloth to the main deck. Windstorm should arguably be in that category, but there are definitely some fuzzy lines in this process. The important thing is to move the cards you would never play under any circumstance into the main deck and out of sight. What standards you apply to your weeding beyond that depend on what density of quality you want to be browsing when you are done.

Some would happily keep the Oakenforms with the playables, for example. Unanswered, an Oakenformed creature is a beast. Answered, though, and it’s a two-for-one. I like to bring in Oakenform-type enchantments when my opponent has shown a lack of the removal that would punish me for running them, but I like to start them in the board if I can.

Sadly, I don’t have the density of solid green commons and uncommons I would like to see to support my bombs, but that’s the way it goes. Green is still a front runner despite this because of the bomb-driven-format factor, and that may inform my decisions about which cards to discard into the main deck for the other colors. Next up is white:

imageSerra Angel leaps out right away, as do Pacifism, Harm’s Way, and Armored Ascension. I move Solemn Offering, Angel’s Mercy, Mesa Enchantress, and the two Siege Mastodons into the main deck. In retrospect, the mastodons are serviceable enough to have kept in the sideboard with the other playables.

Erroneously thinking they were essentially re-flavored Spirit Links, I left the Lifelinks in with the playables. Spirit Link was playable in limited decks that inevitably won through the air. In such decks, Spirit Link functioned as a quasi-Pacifism on opposing ground creatures, because the "you" referenced by Spirit Link was still its caster, even when cast on an opponent's creature. Every non-lethal attack by the Spirit Linked creature was nullified by the resulting life gain.

Lifelink, however, actually gives the enchanted creature lifelink, stripping the card of the tricky uses its predecessor Spirit Link enjoyed. It's an example of the subtle changes R&D has made to M10’s nigh-functional reprints to strip them of unintuitive abilities and enhance flavor. Lifelink is really what they meant by Spirit Link all along, and I'm fine with the correction—unfortunately, it renders Lifelink entirely unplayable in limited.

Whatcha got, blue?

image Blue is not particularly deep, but it has some very tempting cards. First off, I exile the Tome Scour, Telepathy, and, in a close call, Zephyr Sprite, but everything else stays. Paired with green beef and wolf and ant tokens, Sleep can frequently end games with the effectiveness of Overrun by setting up two unopposed swings. Merfolk Looter is extremely powerful in a format where you win by finding your bombs first, and where there’s generally a huge power gap between your quality cards and your filler.

The blue has some quality, but it is shallow enough that it will only be playable with green if I splash a third color, which fortunately this pool is capable of doing. What about black?

image I dump the Acolyte of Xathrid, the Megrim, the Soul Bleed, the Sanguine Bond, and, questionably, the Zombie Goliath. His stats seemed so weak in the context of a base-green deck that I benched him, but, like the Siege Mastodon, he is playable, if boring and overcosted. Deathmark and Duress are both gray-area cards. I’d prefer to start both on the bench, but both could make the cut in a pinch, too. I moved Duress to the main deck and kept Deathmark with the playables, but I’d reverse that with a do-over.

The black is solid and has a low curve, but it’s noticeably missing the all-important Doom Blade. A single Tendrils of Corruption, a single Assassinate, and a Deathmark are not exactly the removal suite you hope to see from your black after cracking six packs, but the low curve is appealing. On to red…

imageWith double Lightning Bolt, Pyroclasm, and Rootbound Crag, at least splashing red is a certainty. I ship the non-bolt one drops, the Shatter, and the Panic Attacks to the main deck. With only the Seismic Strike and the Dragon Whelp pushing hard for more Mountains, my feeling is that red won’t be more than a splash, but now that I’ve trimmed the fat from all five colors, I can really take a look.

Step Three: Use Your Filters

With the unplayables out of the sideboard and the cards sorted by cost, I can toggle the filters to explore what different combinations of colors would look like as a deck core. Since I know I want to build around my green bombs, this amounts to taking a look at green in combination with the other four colors:

image

Pretend those Lifelinks aren’t there and the two Siege Mastodons are, mmmmkay? Serra Angel, Pacifism, Harm’s Way, and Armored Ascension continue to impress, but the rest of the white is all very shallow and meh. “Meh” is acceptable if the cream is exceptional, though, and there’s no question the top four white cards are excellent, subtly providing as much main-deck removal as black would.

image

looks shallow but promising. I haven’t played a single spell from M10 yet, but all my instincts and experience tell me that Sleep will end games, and in particular stalled-out games, which core sets are known for. The falter option is one of the things that makes Naya Charm and Cryptic Command tournament-worthy, and Sleep does that twice! On offense, at any rate. If forced to play it defensively, Sleep is only keeping The Man down for one attack. With red providing some removal, I like the potential, here.image Black provides the best curve enhancement of the bunch. Vampire Aristocrat has great synergy with my token-making bombs, and it adds some removal to the mix, even if it’s not black’s finest. What is does not do is help me end games like Serra Angel, Armored Ascension, and double Sleep do. If that’s the job description of Master of the Wild Hunt and Ant Queen, though, this is not a major knock against black. A major contender for second chair.image

There are only 18 cards here, and none of the other colors splash as well as red does. At this point, I send all the color-intensive red to the main deck so I can leave red on to be viewed as a splash color. This narrows down the options to GUr, GBr, and GWr, and I could make a case for running each of them. This is why sealed deck is so tough! Deckbuilding is never this hard in a draft.

In the end, I was seduced by the door-slamming power of Sleep and the virtual card advantage of Merfolk Looter, and I ran green-blue splash red, for this list:

image To get your chaff out of the main deck using this system, just right-click and “select all” in the main deck area. Drag off to the far right of the sideboard, and all the chaff cards will stack in a single pile. Then click and drag to highlight the chosen main-deck combination and drag them into the main deck. Tweak from there and add your mana base.

I submitted my deck still uncertain as to whether or not I had the correct build. Had this been a league, I would have dwelled on the different build options for quite a while before settling, and even then I’d have all three options ready. Walking myself through my own process now, I’m leaning back towards the black option. It gives me the tools to make it to my game-winners even if it doesn’t add any, and if my opponent’s removal is black and/or red, I can bring in an Oakenform or two for a potentially fearsome Child of Night. That build would have looked something like this:

imageThe Matches

Whether or not it was the optimal build, the GUr build had some excellent things going for it, and was certainly capable of a 3-1 run. After winning round one handily in two quick games and feeling confident, I finished a shameful 0-3 from there, although to be fair, in my three losses I was simply out-bombed.

image image image

In round two, Siege-Gang Commander combined with the way-better-than-I-thought Capricious Efreet to utterly crush me. Besides having the odds 2-1 in your favor for a positive outcome with the efreet in play, the major factor that pushes him into bomb territory is that you pick all of the targets. That means there is a 66% chance your opponent will lose one of their best two non-land permanents, and a 33% chance that you will lose your worst. Those are game-winning odds, especially when you have cards like Siege-Gang Commander and Elvish Visionary generating fodder like my opponent did.

In round three, black removal cut down my bombs, and Villain cast Xathrid Demon in all three games. I won the one where I had Cancel waiting. Do you know what happens when Lord of the Pit’s little brother shows up across the table for a mana cheaper, and he flings creatures at your face instead of simply eating them, right before swinging at you for 7 points of flying trample damage? You lose. Quickly.

I figured I would take round four handily and get my pack. I mean some other 1-2 player couldn’t possibly be a match for me and my green bombs, right? Here are a few of the cards he ran out there:

image image image

I mulled to five in game one, and even my turn-three Great Sable Stag wasn’t enough to race his turn-three Illusionary Servant and turn-four Hypnotic Specter. My Master of the Wild Hunt took over and won game two, but Jace returned the favor in game three. Jace gave me cards but Villain removal and defenders, and suddenly I was firing Lightning Bolts at Jace just to prevent his ultimate from decking me. I finally ran out of ways to contain the planeswalker and lost the match without a library.

It didn’t get much better for me in the next two flights. I ran a black-blue deck the second pool and a took it to a 2-2 record, but slipped back to 1-3 during a mulligan-plagued run in the third flight, in which I mixed it up between a blue-red build and a green-blue build splashing red for a Fireball, which I never drew in four matches. Not the prerelease of my dreams, but the chase rares I pulled helped take the sting out of my lousy record, and I had fun diving headfirst into the new set.

Whether I submitted the right deck and had some bad luck, or I submitted the wrong deck and compounded it with bad luck, one thing is for certain: it is difficult to find the optimal build for a sealed deck in twenty minutes allotted. You might not find “optimal” every time, but I find the search is made much easier by applying the filtering technique I demonstrated today. Give it a try the next time you are searching for clarity in a sealed pool with the clock ticking down.

15 Comments

Hey Godot, sorry about the by Zwick (not verified) at Wed, 08/05/2009 - 14:34
Zwick's picture

Hey Godot, sorry about the bad beats in round 4 :P My bad luck in that flight was probably almost as bad as yours was... I got fed a mono black pool, for the most part. Sleep, Jace, Hypnotic Specter, Royal Assassin, 2x Doomblade, 2x Deathmark, 2x Consume, 2x Duress. I was sure I submitted the right deck, but I lost round 2 to overrun + lava axe, and round 3 to a great sable stag on turn 2 both games.

Heh, you beat me fair and by Godot at Wed, 08/05/2009 - 15:05
Godot's picture

Heh, you beat me fair and square (ggs!), but let's just say we probably had the two best 1-2 decks in the event.

I was particularly bummed to lose to a black/blue deck after making a turn-three Great Sable Stag! I'm pretty sure that's illegal, isn't it? You were just supposed to concede on the spot.

When a very strong player, by Metalman (not verified) at Wed, 08/05/2009 - 14:50
Metalman's picture

When a very strong player, from what Ive seen from his replays, cant muster a winning record in 3 events then methinks some random factors plays a huge roll in M10 sealed. Welcome back mana issues...I had missed you during ALA drafts...

-M

Mana issues that can crop up by Godot at Wed, 08/05/2009 - 15:17
Godot's picture

Mana issues that can crop up in any format were definitely a part of it, but it frequently came down to the "better bomb" factor, which has *long* been the gripe good players have had about core-set limited. You can only outplay someone so much in a set with very vanilla cards sprinkled with neutron bombs.

Most of my match losses were 1-2, too, I was rarely blown out in a match, I just couldn't close the deal in the game threes.

I also just felt I kept getting the worst of the rock/scissors/paper matchup game. For example, in Flight #1 round 4, Zwick destroys me with a turn-three Illusionary Servant I can't target, despite my early Stag. In Flight #2 and #3, I kept facing white decks with multiple Blinding Mages againt *my* Illusionary Servants. I just kept running into rocks with my scissors.

I'll be sure to do an M10 draft coming up to see if I fare any better, but I think I'm done with M10 sealed...

I think I figured out the by hamtastic at Wed, 08/05/2009 - 16:12
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I think I figured out the problem...

"I just kept running into rocks with my scissors."

Always.... No. Never. Run with scissors.

That's all I got.

Rough beats in the event... I guess the silver lining is that due to the lower prize payouts you didn't miss out on much prizes.

Or something.

Do you ever consider by Anonymous (not verified) at Wed, 08/05/2009 - 16:53
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Do you ever consider sideboarding to a color combination that you rejected but would be better against the archetype your facing? Your pools seemed deep enough to go flyers-heavy, for example.

Absolutely. I did this a lot by Godot at Wed, 08/05/2009 - 17:32
Godot's picture

Absolutely. I did this a lot more in the second and third flights, actually. I had a BW build in #2 that wasn't the better build in a vacuum, but was much better against flyers than BU.

One of the things my deckbuilding system does is really put in your face the different options you have. As you filter the different combos, it's good to take note of what each build is strong and weak against. If you don't have time to actually save out different builds during dekbuilding, which is ideal, you should be able to make one of the alternate versions pretty quickly during sideboarding and save it out then.

If it's a PE with lots of rounds, you can take any time you have between rounds one and two to load up your pool and save out your alternate builds for easy loading.

I always make multiple decks by Zwick (not verified) at Wed, 08/05/2009 - 17:25
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I always make multiple decks if the sealed pool allows for it. But if I have enough -raw- power in my maindeck I'll generally stick to that and keep sideboard cards around for options.

["Since most people check by Baneslayer Bagel (not verified) at Wed, 08/05/2009 - 20:21
Baneslayer Bagel's picture

["Since most people check their rares instinctively anyway this is no hidden gem of sealed-deck wisdom, but it’s good to reinforce that the move is correct from a deck-building standpoint and not just a present-opening standpoint."]

Thank you. XD I tell that to myself most of the time.

Everyone seemed to have a better initial M10 sealed than I did. Ajani was the only bomb I got, and 2 Mesa Enchantresses didn't really make my day.

I could only afford a single by paul7926 at Thu, 08/06/2009 - 05:45
paul7926's picture
5

I could only afford a single pre-release pool and I agree that M10 sealed is 'Bomb' dependant. I ended up building UW as I had 2xDjinn of Wishes and 2xSerra Angel. I finished 2-2 after starting 0-1 and giving myself false hope at the 2-1 stage. I mean, the 2xDjinn were nice and all but when your last game pits you against an opponent with a planeswalker and Xathrid Demon in thier deck they don't quite cut it.

Thanks for sharing the interface tips. I go through a similar thought process but I hadn't worked out how to make the interface help me do that like you have.

I think, but am not positive, by Deacon (not verified) at Thu, 08/06/2009 - 09:19
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I think, but am not positive, that with the Efreet, if the player picked one of his own goblin tokens, and two of his opponents permanents, that after he picked he would have a chance to Siege-Gang the token to guarantee one of his opponents two permanents were selected as the goblin token would leave play. At least some coverage of GP Boston leads me to believe that.

In my pre-release pool I ended up 2-2, I went Red-Black due to the removal it offered and okay creatures. I had the Efreet, Bogardan Hellkite, Pyroclasm, and a Nightmare. The Efreet lucked me out a win in a game in which it toasted my opponents Djinn the first chance it could which turned the game around for me. The Hellkite never got played, the only games that went long enough to have 8 lands in play I never drew it.

MConstant's picture
5

I haven't done too many sealed tournies on modo, but I have done a few. I really look forward to the day when leagues come back, it is getting pretty shocking how long they have gone without them at this point.

Your technique is really cool for getting snapshots of potential deck builds, I will use that next time I do a sealed. I understood what you said about the skill needed to build a deck and navigate the waters of accessing a large random pool, but I also still feel like there is a bit too much luck in these events.

Good players will show an edge over time just like in all forms of Magic, but if the players are all at about an even skill level, then the one with the best pool/bombs will have a pretty significant edge it seems. In draft this is far less reduced in my experience.

I am really looking forward to seeing your M10 drafts, and doing some myself!

Enormus Baloth by Mark (not verified) at Fri, 08/07/2009 - 16:48
Mark's picture

Super work Ryan! One question from the article. When you sorted Green initially, why did you set aside Enormus Baloth as unplayable? I was a bit surprised.

I know that he is overcosted, vulnrable to a single Doom Blade, and has no activated abilities (a major minus for a seven mana drop for sure). Having said that (and those are a lot of minuses), the thing is a massive beat stick/wall of beef. While you would certainly not be thrilled to have it in an opening hand, it seems like an ok-good late game pull when both players may be top-decking.

So from my naive MTG perspective, I thought it might rate a C- or even C overall in limited. I would intuitively prefer it over Craw Wurm (one extra mana, but one less colored mana and a +1/+3 improvement), which made your cut.

Not at all trying to nit-pick here, but just curious as to your rationale, as I am going to try to give limited a go a bit more seriously.

Cheers,
Mark

Baloth by Godot at Fri, 08/07/2009 - 17:45
Godot's picture

You know, I almost gave that particular decision some "air time" but decided to move on and come back if I had time, which I didn't.

First, not every card I put aside is "unplayable," but every unplayable card should be put aside. Enormous Baloth falls into the category of cards I'd like to avoid playing if I can.

I don't particularly like Craw Wurm either (couldn't he be a 6/5?), but I knew I didn't want to run both Craw Wurm and Enormous Baloth, and I went with the cheaper one. If the Craw Wurm had not been in the pool, I probably would have grdugingly run the 7/7. Expensive creatures are just too easily nullified not only by removal, but by cheaper containment creatures, like small creatures with regenerate or deathtouch, or tappers.

The difference between six and seven mana may not seem like too much, but assuming you are a bit flooded and are hitting every land drop, the Craw Wurm hitting play a turn earlier can be significant.

Then consider the "average" situation where, with 42.5% lands in my deck, I will need to see 16.5 cards (7/.425)in my deck before hitting 7 lands. That means it will be about turn 9-11 on average, depending on play or draw, before I can cast the 7/7. I need to go about 14 cards deep before I will see 6 lands, on average, or 7 or 8 turns. Having a 6/4 2.5 turns earlier than a 7/7 seems better to me.

There are fixer/accelerator factors to consider as well, but in the end, when considering the five-and-up mana cards, you can generally think of one mana up in casting cost as taking 2+ turns longer on average to play. Not to mention the higher chance that you just won't hit seven mana as opposed to the chance you just won't hit six.

Given that, my rule of thumb with seven drops is that I want them to either win or single-handedly take-over games when they resolve. Sphinx Ambassador, for example, qualifies, while a vanilla 7/7 does not. Too chumpable, and usually too late to the party to matter much.

Baloth vs. Craw Wurm by Shaterri at Sat, 08/08/2009 - 21:00
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While neither is especially exciting, I actually like Baloth marginally more than Craw Wurm, esp. in Sealed. You're right to point out the 6v7 issue, but the single vs. double-green, while mostly moot by that point, is still worth calling out -- and the big issue is that 7 toughness is a *lot* more than 4 in this format. Both are negated by various controlly cards, but Craw Wurm also winds up biting it to a lot of random-dork blocks -- Centaur + Elvish Visionary, double-Spider, pumped Fiery Hellhound, that kind of thing -- whereas it takes a lot more to take down the Baloth. I've left him out of plenty of sealed decks, but he's surprisingly annoying to deal with and I've had plenty of games wincing when he's played against me. Just think of him as the Kranioceros of M10.