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By: hipuncle, Matthew Pearce
Feb 24 2008 1:27pm
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Welcome back. Other than wondering how Claytor is handling his newly frozen debris, I’ve spent a lot of time playing in more PEs, all the while fishing the final version of this deck. It is fun deck to fish. I have also discovered the power of Paint in absence of the ability to use MTGO screen shots. Tada….
 
 
 
  
This is the Blue frame that I left you with. Now, right below this paragraph I will copy the card pool that we are using in this example. However, if you want to find out more about how I reached this blue frame, or how to start building a Sealed Pool, please refer back to the first part of the article “Sealed Deckbuilding – Part 1”.
 

White

1 Shields of Velis Vel
1 Coordinated Barrage
2 Forfend
1 Goldmeadow Stalwart
1 Wispmare
1 Kinsbaile Skirmisher
1 Plover Knights
1 Hillcomber Giant
1 Wellgabber Apothecary
1 Avian Changeling
1 Kinsbaile Borderguard
1 Meadowboon
1 Stonybrook Schoolmaster
1 Burrenton Bombardier
1 Shinewend
1 Changeling Sentinel

Blue

1 Distant Melody
1 Familiar's Ruse
1 Whirlpool Whelm
1 Disperse
1 Silvergill Adept
1 Pestermite
1 Aethersnipe
2 Tideshaper Mystic
1 Amoeboid Changeling
1 Silvergill Douser
1 Waterspout Weavers
1 Inspired Sprite
2 Mothdust Changeling
1 Fencer Clique
1 Floodchaser

Black

1 Morsel Theft
1 Ghostly Changeling
1 Warren Pilferers
1 Black Poplar Shaman
1 Dreamspoiler Witches
1 Nightshade Stinger
1 Facevaulter
1 Weirding Shaman
1 Frogtosser Banneret
1 Final-Sting Faerie

Red

1 Giant's Ire
1 Roar of the Crowd
1 Thundercloud Shaman
1 Changeling Berserker
1 Flamekin Brawler
1 Mudbutton Torchrunner
1 Axegrinder Giant
1 Adder-Staff Boggart
1 Spitebellows
2 Fire Juggler
1 Lunk Errant

Green

1 Incremental Growth
1 Woodland Guidance
1 Recross the Paths
1 Hunt Down
1 Heal the Scars
1 Imperious Perfect
1 Oakgnarl Warrior
1 Elvish Branchbender
1 Lys Alana Huntmaster
1 Leaf Gilder
1 Elvish Eulogist
1 Warren Scourge Elf
1 Bramblewood Paragon
1 Winnower Patrol

Multicolored and Lands

1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Auntie's Hovel
1 Howltooth Hollow
1 Vivid Marsh

 
 
 

Step 3 - The Service – Part 2

 

Above is the mistake deck, that would be made by some people addressing this card pool. While it has its merits, namely the insane mana curve, it failed in this Idea of “The Service”. The green does very little to support our blue. In fact the only cross color interaction is with the three blue changeling creatures. This is likely to turn your Huntmaster into a hill giant, your Paragon into a grizzly bear, and make your Silvergill Adept a five mana creature. Likewise your Bounce will be one-sided as it will only want to target your opponent’s creatures. Ok so enough of why green is not our best option. Let’s take a look at our three remaining colors:

(Editor's Note:  I know for one that my deck would have looked very close to the mistake build.)
 
White:
Power Cards: Avian Changeling, Burrenton Bombardier
Playable Cards : Coordinated Barrage, Goldmeadow Stalwart, Kinsbaile Skirmisher, Plover Knights, Hillcomber Giant, Kinsbaile Bordergaurd, Meadowboon, Stonybrook Schoolmaster, Changeling Sentinel
How does it interact with Blue? – More changeling creatures to help promote the 4 blue enablers. One very good alternate bounce target in Meadowboon. You have 2 Moondust changelings to tap the Schoolmaster. Both Creature matter cards prefer cheaper creatures.
Why would you not play this color? – Lacks the bomb or brute strength
 
Red:
Power Cards : Thundercloud Shaman, Changeling Berserker, and Spitebellow.
Playable Cards : Roar of the Crowd, Axegrinder Giant, Mudbutton Torchrunner.
How does it interact with blue? – Great bounce targets in Thundercloud Shaman and Spite Bellows. Both Roar of the Crowd and Thundercloud Shaman, prefers it cheaper creature types.
Why would you not play this color? – Once again it lacks depth. Thundercloud shaman takes out most of your team by itself. Raises the mana curve considerably.
 
Black:
Power Cards: Warren Pilferers, Weirding Shaman, Dreamspoiler Witches
Playable Cards: Frogtosser Banneret, Final-Sting Faerie, Ghostly Changeling, Morsel Theft.
How does it interact with blue? – Very well. Warren Pilferers is one of my favorite bounce targets. You have four instances to go with Dreamspoiler Witches. The cheap changelings work well with Morsel theft and Weirding Shaman. You get another cheap changeling to help all of the above.
Why would you not play this color? – It does not have as much depth as white, or the control that red has.
 
From this you can either go with Black or White as your second color. Both colors have a lot of positive interactions with Blue. Black would be a softer color, meaning it would me less mana intensive. If you were to go white, with our lack of mana fixing any splash would create color screw situations. Blue White alone is lacking in power therefore white does not seem optimal. So let’s combine our black and our blue.
 
 
 
 
  

Step 4 - The Splash

 
Splashing is a lot like sports betting. You handicap the splashed cards first then you compare it to your in color option. Clearly you would pick a splashed Mulldrifter or Shriekmaw over an on color Tideshaper Mystic, or Kinsbaile Skirmisher. On the other hand would you splash a Leaf Gilder over one of those cards? No, even though in draft a Leaf Gilder should go higher then both Kinsbaile Skirmisher and Tideshaper Mystic any day. That is because splashing cards is only a good idea if the cards you are splashing are so much more superior then the in color options.
 
Now in our deck we can either play some low quality on color cards, four additional lands, or splash a third color. Now Burrenton Bombardier, Spitebellows, and Imperious Perfect are all better splashed then any of the other options. As our mana is tight we can only splash one color though. Imperious Perfect and green is easy to cross off because the other quality cards in green require too heavy of a mana commitment. This leaves us with just red or white as options.
 
White gives you two additional changeling, a solid combat trick/creature and a kill spell that targets attacking creatures only. Red gives you two creatures(Spitebellows and Mudbutton Torchrunner) that can act as kill spells, one Changeling Creature, and a pure burn spell. The reason why we had to play white as a splash in the Blue Green version of this pool is because the changelings were needed to make both sides of the deck work together. Here on the other hand the white is not needed to hold the two colors together. In raw power Red is the superior color. Spitebellows might be the top uncommon from Morningtide. The red burn is identical to the white kill except it can also target players and un-attacking creatures. Changeling Berzerker is the best of the three changeling creatures.
 
So here is our final deck:
 

 Finale – Mana

Mana does not get a cool “S” word title. Mana does not even get a new step. That is because the determination of you manabase is not a step, it’s a mindset. Each phase, I have made it clear that mana should go into every decision you make. That is why determining the flexibility of your manabase is the very first step. Take our final deck. I said in step one our mana fixing was at a strict limit. Now we have a deck that has only one card that has more then one mana requirement. From here adding the land should be easy. But let me give you some base rules.

Eighteen Land in this format is virtually taboo. If you have built that mana intensive of a deck or if your curve is that high you did not properly consider your mana base while constructing your deck.

I would sooner play sixteen lands then eighteen lands, but it would require a high level of mana fixing and mana accelerating. As our deck does not have that we will be sticking with seventeen land.

Just because you have more cards of a color does not mean you have to play more land of that color. For example in the Green Blue white deck that we had built you would play just as many Green sources as you would Blue sources even though you play four more blue cards then green.

Finally your mana base should not alter your mana curve. A lot of people prefer their (Knight of the Meadowgrain) on turn two, but if you don’t build your mana right it might be a turn five cards at best.

Take a look at these rules. If you adhere to them only after you’ve built your deck, you are too late. If your deck seems to follow these rules are ours does then now is time to add the land. First count the requirements, the number of mana symbols in of a color in your deck.

 
13 Blue, 7 Black, 4 Red.
 
From there aways add the mana fixing land first. Vivid lands should count as a full point for an off color. So with our Auntie’s Hovel we can account for :
 
1 Blue, 2 Black, and 2 Red.
 
Now I subtract what we have in mana fixing from the color requirements
 
12 Blue, 5 Black, and 2 Red.
 
Since we have 15 available lands left and none of them can tap for more then one type of mana, we will need to short a color. You should never short a splash. So you would play 2 mountains, leaving 13 lands available. Now from here I have two options - Eight islands and Five Swamps or Nine islands and four swamps. Considering how mana intensive the blue is I will go ahead and go the 8/5 route.
 
This gives us the final deck of:
 
Blue

1 Distant Melody
1 Whirlpool Whelm
1 Disperse
1 Silvergill Adept
1 Pestermite 1 Aethersnipe
1 Amoeboid Changeling
1 Silvergill Douser 1 Inspired Sprite
2 Mothdust Changeling
1 Fencer Clique
Black

1 Morsel Theft
1 Ghostly Changeling
1 Warren Pilferers 1 Dreamspoiler Witches 1 Weirding Shaman
1 Frogtosser Banneret
1 Final-Sting Faerie

Red

1 Roar of the Crowd1 Changeling Berserker 1 Mudbutton Torchrunner 1 Spitebellows


1 Auntie's Hovel
1 Vivid Marsh
2 Mountain
5 Swamp
8 Island

Pestermite

 

 Again, I have built this deck and it is a fun deck to fish. This is the best build for this deck. In comparison to the GUw deck, it has an easier mana flow. It can actually kill opposing creatures. Finally it is less likely to generate stall situations.

 

 So there it is. The steps I take when building and completing a deck. If you take anything from these articles I hope you remember always to keep your manabase in mind, and that Sealed is a very enjoyable format.

3 Comments

by Anonymous (Unregistered) 210.55.201.197 (not verified) at Tue, 02/26/2008 - 21:22
Anonymous (Unregistered) 210.55.201.197's picture

My initial analysis is that the green is better than the blue, particularly since it has Imperious Perfect, which I think is the best card in the pool, and the only real 'bomb'.  However, green is a little bit thin, which distorts your manabase too much.  

I think that you are not giving Coordinated Barrage enough credit either in yoru white evaluation.  I think that it is a power card as well.

I think that the best build of this cardpool is a UW flyers deck:

1 Shields of Velis Vel
1 Coordinated Barrage
1 Whirlpool Whelm
1 Disperse
1 Distant Melody

1 Mothdust Changeling
1 Goldmeadow Stalwart
1 Silvergill Douser
1 Amoeboid Changeling
1 Kinsbaile Skirmisher
1 Silvergill Adept
1 Pestermite
1 Stonybrook Schoolmaster
1 Burrenton Bombardier
1 Avian Changeling
1 Meadowboon
1 Inspired Sprite
1 Hillcomber Giant
1 Changeling Sentinel
1 Fencer Clique
1 Waterspout Weavers
1 Plover Knights
1 Aethersnipe

9 Island
8 Plains

Differences from your final build:

The obvious one is that I have white and you have black and red.  Let's see if your two colours are powerful enough to justify the destrabilised manabase.

+ Island
+ 8 Plains
- 1 Vivid Marsh
- 1 Auntie's Hovel
- 2 Mountain
- 5 Swamp

+ 1 Waterspout Weavers
- 1 Mothdust Changeling
I think that a 3/3 for 5 is fine, particularly with a random 'Wonder for the win' aspect.

- 1 Morsel Theft
- 1 Spitebellows
- 1 Changeling Berserker
- 1 Roar of the Crowd
+ 1 Shields of Velis Vel
+ 1 Coordinated Barrage
I treat Spitebellows as a spell since that's how I usually casty him.  And Berserker is a bit like an aura.  Nothing much to note here except that the white cards are both one mana instants, and I think that Coordinated Barrage is the most efficient of the lot.  Shields is obviously a little weak (if you really hate it then just run the second Mothdust Changeling over it).  Note that the paucity of spells means that the UW deck is choc-full of creatures that it can efficiently curve out with.

- 1 Final-Sting Faerie
- 1 Dreamspoiler Witches
+ 1 Plover Knights
+ 1 Burrenton Bombardier
+ 1 Avian Changeling
Note that the UW build has more and better evasion (not counting mountainwalking as evasion)

- 1 Weirding Shaman
- 1 Frogtosser Banneret
- 1 Mudbutton Torchrunner
- 1 Ghostly Changeling
- 1 Warren Pilferers
+ 1 Goldmeadow Stalwart
+ 1 Kinsbaile Skirmisher
+ 1 Stonybrook Schoolmaster
+ 1 Meadowboon
+ 1 Hillcomber Giant
+ 1 Changeling Sentinel
Again, more creatures, with a better curve.  Your 3 and 4 drops are the meat of your deck.  I have a couple more of them.

by Anonymous (Unregistered) 130.238.33.153 (not verified) at Mon, 02/25/2008 - 07:06
Anonymous (Unregistered) 130.238.33.153's picture

I'm not sure I agree with taking black instead of white. You said that white lacked bombs, but I cannot find any bombs in black either so that argument kind of went down the drain. I think I would go with white mainly because of the evasion granted through bombardiers, avian and ploverknights. I would still splash for red (the same cards as you chose). I might get a little bit higher manacurve, but the deck would be more powerful mid- to late-game.

by Anonymous (Unregistered) 98.207.74.178 (not verified) at Sun, 02/24/2008 - 22:57
Anonymous (Unregistered) 98.207.74.178's picture

I think you were way too fixated on playing blue and probably couldve made a much stronger deck without it. As it is, the deck has a bunch of weenies with tricks. Some of the cards in the deck have basically no use-silvergill adept, mothdust changelings, morsel theft (which has no business being in a non aggro deck).The red and black cards in the deck are strong but the blue is very weak.