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By: MarcosPMA, nn
Sep 11 2013 8:27am
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I had planned to do a Magic Online PTQ since the format was M14 Sealed, but the PTQ season for M14 is over, so it's pretty much a dead format in terms of tournament preparation other than the season 9 MOCS Finals.  Regardless, I do enjoy the format quite a bit, more so than M14 Draft (mostly because I try and force blue too much and it fails).  The problem could be that since a lot of blue commons are good, you can see them 4th or 5th in a decent pack and think the color is open when it's more that the color is deep and you haven't been cut off yet.  It's better in Sealed because you play blue if you have good blue cards, otherwise you play your deeper colors and are fine with it.  Until Theros comes out, I think I'll be sticking to just jamming M14 Sealed since I haven't had a fond time with RTR Block and don't want to vomit tickets just doing those.  With all that said, let's get on with the games!

Deckbuilding

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Conclusion

Wasn't happy to go 2-2, but it does mean that I haven't had a losing record in M14 Sealed DEs so far, so that's something.  I think we had a decent U/G deck, but it was missing a finisher or two or possibly some more beaters.  One major flaw was the lack of card advantage we had.  In this format, the games are gonna grind to a halt eventually, so we need to be able to get to a card that will break the stall faster than our opponent is able to.  The complete lack of Divination and/or Opportunity meant that we had to rely on just getting luckier than our opponent to win, which isn't a good plan to have at all.  I was happy with 3(!) Nephalia Seakite, since it's a card that a lot of people still don't play around, which in turn make your Cancels and Essence Scatters a lot better since you can possibly bluff 3 or more cards with 4+ open mana at any point of the game.  Generally, I would probably have played the R/G deck since those are the 2 colors I'm most comfortable playing in any format, but it wasn't going to win me a majority of games. The lack of removal really turned me off, and Goblin Diplomats was not enough of a push to go into R/G.  I think the R/W deck I built, similar to the R/W deck I faced in the final round, would've been the deck to side into during the 1st match had I saved it on Magic Online.  It was fairly more aggressive and Master of Diversion makes it hard for your opponent to block when you attack.  However, since it's not a color combination I've ever used in M14 and given the general dislike for white in general, I did not consider it and it might have cost me the match.  I still believe that the U/G deck could've won that match had time not been an issue, but that's my fault and there's not much I could do about it.  I do believe next week I'll be back with another Sealed and hopefully I'll have a 4-0 pool to show you.  Until then, if you have any comments, questions, or concerns, please feel free to leave them in the comments section below. 

Thanks for reading!