Hello! Welcome to the 2nd run of Sealed Strategy, just like last week, I’m going to give out a M11 Sealed pool with the purpose of gathering analysis and feedback from our readers. The best ones will be featured in a spotlight article the following week along with my own thoughts (and hopefully some other writers soon!). All e-mail responses are to be directed at [email protected] and just like last week, while you can leave thoughts in the comments section I won’t be looking at them all that closely compared to e-mails. In addition, the person with the best submission will receive a Gideon Jura. Note that other than pointing out why you think your build is good, it’s important to explain why it’s better than other options available!
Enough with the formalities though, here’s the Sealed pool:
Red (14)
White (17)
Black (15)
Blue (20)
Green (16)
Artifacts (2)
I’m looking forward to going through your replies; do note that the final submission deadline is Monday night. Also there may be a delay in any response from me if you’ve asked for individual feedback on your submission due to the number of e-mails I receive, so please bear with me. Good luck building!
Josh Silvestri
This is one of the best pools I have ever seen. There’s a bunch of removal, mostly red, and a bunch of bombs like Garruk, Triskellion, and Slime. I don’t even know where to start with this.
Comment by Isei — August 14, 2010 @ 12:20 am |Edit This
I find good pools encourage deeper analysis and weighing power vs. consistency moreso than ‘oh obv bad sealed pool, auto-toss 3 colors, play the remaining playables’. Some of my recent MODO Sealed pools have made me want to vomit.
Comment by Josh S. — August 14, 2010 @ 12:29 am |Edit This
RG splash Doom Blade seems pretty easy. 2 Bolts, Fireball, Outrage, Force, Doom Blade, Triskelion, Ember Hauler, Pyromancer, Plummet is crazy removal, plus Cultivate and Ranger to help the splash. Plus a ton of just awesome cards in Garruk, Slime, Packleader, Wurm, Embrace. If I didn’t with the tournament I opened this pool in, I would be PISSED
Comment by Jotram — August 14, 2010 @ 12:33 am |Edit This
(Without going into any detail) I think I’d go for a Gwr build.
Comment by Derek — August 14, 2010 @ 12:36 am |Edit This
Wow, this pool is almost as good as the Sun Titan + Grave Titan + Obstinate Baloth pool I opened up at my Nats grinder. Red is obviously going to be played, either as a main or a splash colour. Past that, green has some decent cards, with two strong rares. Two Water Servants and two Adepts is pretty nice, but probably a bit colour intensive.
I think either RGb, or GWr are definitely the best options to go with here. RGb would be an aggressive build splashing for the Doom Blade, plenty of aggressive removal and strong creatures would make it a pretty powerful deck. Going GWr gives you a slower, but more consistent deck, with enough fixing to make the R splash much easier, while giving yourself some strong evasion cards in Serra Angel and Assault Griffin.
Wish I could open a pool like this..
Comment by Moruk — August 14, 2010 @ 12:50 am |Edit This
I’ld go with RG-Trisk, but white and blue both offer some great cards as well on the evasive plan.
So many good cards!
Comment by Daiches — August 14, 2010 @ 12:54 am |Edit This
The attractiveness of the bombs in green is outweighed by the power and consistency of the U/R control deck. The insane amount of removal in red is just too good to pass up, and even while red struggles for support cards this pool has all the best ones. The blue in the deck keeps the board under control and provides win conditions, using destructive force and harbor serpents as monster win conditions.
tl;dr: Blue/red
Comment by Pesz — August 14, 2010 @ 1:00 am |Edit This
Wow, amazing pool. Every color would be a fine inclusion to the deck in any other pool, but here they are all fighting for a spot.
Except Red, because Red is definitely in.
Comment by Zage — August 14, 2010 @ 1:22 am |Edit This
GWR
Comment by yisheng — August 14, 2010 @ 1:33 am |Edit This
RU !!
Comment by djeeze — August 14, 2010 @ 1:50 am |Edit This
I’d definitely want to be playing those counters and Foresee, and I’d definitely be playing those Bolts and Fireball. I might be running Green because it lets me smooth my mana and run the Slime which is pretty good. Slime + Destructive Force is sweet, as is Garruk post-Force. Obviously you’re running Triskelion. I think Black is better on the splash than blue here (Access to Doom Blade and Assassinate vs. needing the double blue for Cancel, also more removal sets up your ultimate gameplan of blowing up the world).
I’d be GR/b as my game 1 deck.
My sidedeck becomes heavy Blue with the red removal package, which I bring in against the bomb heavy decks that I want to handle with countermagic, tempo, and control.
Although I might want to start with the blue deck. Depending on the size of the tournament, you can have a very large advantage game 2 with your agressive RG deck if your opponent is doing things like playing around Mana Leak and siding in Combust and Plummet. I’ve “sided out” 25 to 40 cards [keep an entire second mana base on hand] before in several sealed events, usually prereleases, and the effect is astounding as long as people don’t really understand what you’re doing.
Comment by Jay — August 14, 2010 @ 1:52 am |Edit This
Great Article! Love the reader interaction, and I hope you found my e-mail to your liking, great job!
Comment by Gerardo — August 14, 2010 @ 2:19 am |Edit This
Meh see I think green is deceptive when pared with red as the packleader loses relevance, it’s filler seems dissapointing too, as I am constantly underwhelmed with greens initial bombness only to blown out but little critters.
I’ve taught myself to be wary of green even with great cards like garruk and slime, even though I do like those cards…
Meh I’m gonna stick to my guns UWr splashing for the bolts, fireball and mancer. With adepts and back up to offence or defence with the servant Plus a few more fliers and counter backup I feel it’s a strong choice with a more manageable curve. I think my colour pairing actually beats the green variant in gameplay. And Ive never been dissapointed with blue. It’s at least plroblematic for opponants if not a blowout.
Comment by Nathan — August 14, 2010 @ 2:40 am |Edit This
Maximum Greedyness:
GUr + Doom blade
Comment by Kevin Grove — August 14, 2010 @ 3:13 am |Edit This
Wow, I have no idea how to build this, every color and combination seems like it would do pretty decent. Red is the obvious standout with tons of removal and decent guys, and green has some nice bombs too, but is a bit lacking in creatures. White has some good flyers and some removal plus some mastodons to hold the ground. I think if you want to take full advantage of the pool you have to play green for the fixing.
Personally I’d probably go U/R and side into G/R/b or U/W depending on what I was facing.
Comment by Denog — August 14, 2010 @ 3:46 am |Edit This
This pool is tough. Red has some great splashable cards, but is solid enough to make me wonder why I’m stopping at a splash. Green has great fixing and a bomb, but is missing a lot of meat. White’s best cards aren’t splashable and it’s not quite that deep either.
Blue is quite deep. Blue with Green and a splash for Red’s removal seems pretty potent. It could also be a black splash for Gravedigger and Doom Blade. But I’d rather have 4 cards from red. So UGr says it to me.
Comment by Amarsir — August 14, 2010 @ 4:03 am |Edit This
U/R, G/R/b, G/W/r, and G/U/r all make for very strong decks. I can’t justify a double splash with only 2 fixers. My pick for game 1 is G/R/b with a whopping 11 removal spells and the sweet Garruk + Destructive Force combo, though I think G/U/r is just about as good too. I could see siding into U/R against aggressive decks with bombs, or into G/W/r against U/W fliers.
Comment by Khymera — August 14, 2010 @ 4:34 am |Edit This
I haven’t tried to make the deck so I’m not really sure, but it’d be either GUr or RU
Comment by derf — August 14, 2010 @ 5:40 am |Edit This
How do we send in our versions of the built sealed pool? what is your email adress?
Comment by vimes — August 14, 2010 @ 6:03 am |Edit This
This sealed looks pretty amazing to me, i think the stongest case can be made to be playing a BGW/r combo, i know that playing 3 colors and splashing can lead to some mana problems but the cultivate/foresee/sylvan ranger/preordain. all seem like they would be able to help you get your mana a little more smoothly. some of blues playable creatures like water servant and Aether adempt could cause a few problems with the double island cost but are good enough to justify dipping in blue for them,scry, and counters.
The white allows you to get into some pretty decent evasion creatures, expecially the Serra angel while also providing a decent removal in pacifism. and an amazing side board card in Celestial purge.
Green needs to be played with this because of the mana fixture it provides and also its some good creatures and a Garruk/ awakener druid combo seems like it could get fun a 4/5 land/creature with vigilance (from Garruk) seems pretty nasty. Garruks pack leader can also provide a good card advantage if its not taken care of quickly.
And then the splashing red seems like a must with the double lightning bolts and fireball. i regret not being able to play a chandra’s blaze or with shivs embrace but that would just be getting too greedy and could cause too many mana problems seeing as all that is likely gonna be played with this set up is 1 mountain.
All together this set up provides a very good amount of removal and answers for pretty much anything that can be played with the pacifism/Aether adepts x2/ fireball/celestial purge/plummet/Triskelion or just game finishers. it could be a little slower at the start but with M11 thats not going to be a big deal.
Comment by Jeremy Jensen — August 14, 2010 @ 7:02 am |Edit This
Since sealed is usually slower than draft, I think its kinda ok to play 3 colors, especially if one of those is green with mana fixers. Green is a solid color in this pool, with good creatures, bombs and the fixers. Playing 3 colors also allows you to avoid the fillers, so no Boars / Bears will enter our deck. Red is probably the best color, with a lot of burn and some decent creatures. I would splash Black for more removal and the Gravedigger, because my deck lacks creatures and recurring a Mitotic Slime or a Triskelion is very powerful.
Albeit foresee is a great card and blue has a lot of good playables, I rather not splash it, mainly beacuse most of its cards costs XUU, thus making these spells hard to cast. In order to play blue, make it one of the main colors.
The pool is so good that RUb / GUr / GUb decks all seems viable, but probably not as good as the GRb in my opinion. White is also a good color here, with Serra Angel, Pacifism, Angelic Arbiter, etc… but since the other colors are so strong, I think playing it would be a mistake.
I built the following deck (GRb):
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Cultivate
1 Sylvan Ranger
1 Awakener Druid
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Garruk Packleader
1 Mitotic Slime
1 Yavimaya Wurm
1 Giant Growth
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Fireball
1 Chandra’s Outrage
1 Destructive Force
1 Shiv’s Embrace
1 Ember Hauler
1 Prodigal Piromancer
1 Vulshock Berseker
1 Doom Blade
1 Assassinate
1 Gravedigger
1 Triskelion
2 Swamp
8 Forest
8 Mountain
Comment by Lizard King — August 14, 2010 @ 7:02 am |Edit This
this is the most broken pool I’ve ever seen. I’ve been playing magic since Ice age.
I think it’s pretty clear that White, Red, and Green have the highest power levels here. All of those colors have a bomb rare and removal (if you want to count hornet sting) and they all have synergy to the goal of Destructive Force. Angelic Arbiter is one of the best bombs in draft, because it completely locks your opponent out of the game without even turning sideways.
I’d play these three colors, using early removal aggressively to allow me to hit my bombs late game and take over.
Comment by Mark Kelso — August 14, 2010 @ 7:04 am |Edit This
sick pool.
RW is obv choice!
d
Comment by Galovic — August 14, 2010 @ 7:30 am |Edit This
An amazing pool. It pains me to cut two Aether Adepts, but blue doesn’t have the same quality of playable’s as the other obvious colours. There are some great bombs in here such as Garruk, Angelic Arbiter, Serra Angel and Mitotic Slime.
On top of that you have some great control cards and some great stalling cards.
Black is clearly unplayable over other colours with only the doom blade, corrupt and gravedigger to recommend it.
My personal strategy for this pool is stalling and controlling until the bombs can come into play.
As such, green is played in order to gain access to its super cards as well as the couple of green mana fixing cards and the combo card of packleader.
White is played because of the good flying cards to control against the ubiquitous UW flyers deck. It also has some great removal cards (in which category I include mighty leap and safe passage due to there ability to shift entire fights from one player to another) which help to control the board whilst you build up a mana base or wait for the topdeck you need.
Red is played because anyone who passes up the chance to splash 2 lightning bolts and a fireball is insane, particularly if they have green mana fixing available without disadvantage.
Triskelion is, of course, played because it’s an artifact and can kill three annoying 1/1s, is very resistant to removal and can also be used to take out very strong creatures by giving a 3 damage advantage.
Angelic Arbiter
Serra Angel
White Knight
Wild Griffin
Assault Griffin
Stormfront Pegasus
Pacifism
Safe Passage
Might Leap x 2
Excommunicate
Garruk Wildspeaker
Mitotic Slime
Cultivate
Sylvan Ranger
Awakener Druid
Garruk’s Packleader
Lightning Bolt x 2
Fireball
Prodigal Pyromancer
Triskelion
3 Mountain
9 Plains
6 Forest
On the whole, I feel this deck will do well without even playing the bombs. Great control and some cheap evasion creatures can do a lot of damage quite quickly if your opponent has little control. If they have lots of control, then Garruk and Mitotic are the cards you want to draw into as they are resistant to removal and an unimpeded Garruk will easily win you the game.
Comment by Ian — August 14, 2010 @ 7:34 am |Edit This
1 Serra Angel
1 Angelic Arbiter
1 Assault Griffin
1 Wild Griffin
1 Palace Guard
1 Stormfront Pegasus
1 Mighty Leap
1 Pacifism
1 Excommunicate
2 Water Servant
2 Aether Adept
1 Cloud Elemental
1 Phantom Beast
1 Azure Drake
1 Foresee
1 Mana Leak
1 Cancel
1 Triskelion
1 Fireball
10 Island
8 Plains
1 Mountain
U and W had the most dense number of playables, and fireball is a card that you must splash for
Comment by Conner Hursh — August 14, 2010 @ 8:27 am |Edit This
the definite pick here is blue red, although it is not obvious…it gives you access to the most solid curve with lots of tempo and removal. the green and white bombs are a trap as they wont end games by themselves, and the rest of their cards arent as strong as the blue red combination here
Comment by Steve — August 14, 2010 @ 8:28 am |Edit This
It’s not as good as my sealed pool, but it seems as though everyone is underrating white in your pool.
First of all, you have serra angel, bomb. Stormfront pegasus, assault griffin, and wild griffin. And a time walk in excommunicate. I would gladly play that sealed. You have removal in pacifism, and you have two fogs: safe passage and palace guard.
Blue is amazing, by the way. Two aether adepts; why would you not play those? Unsummon, wall of frost stops every deck except uw skies cold. Too bad no ice cage, but a pair of mini morphlings is great. And phantom beast is way better than anyone gives it credit. Aside from mass polymorph and tome scour the worst blue card is ophidian, and only because it needs to be blocked by an X/2. Harbor serpent is very good. Don’t listen to people tell you otherwise. If you have it, and they’re playing blue and don’t, if you lose the match you’re doing something wrong.
And green isn’t that deep compared to blue. Nearly every blue card is easily playable. If green had more meat it would be good, but I would not play sting nor grizzly bears seeing what other colours offer.
Black is pretty bad, granted there is doom blade, lilianna’s spectre, tutor, mind rot, digger, and assassinate. But that’s not nearly good for anything but a splash for doom blade and perhaps digger.
Red is decent. You’ve got a pair of bolts, fireball, chandras outrage, lava axe, pyromancer is good early game or if they’re low enough, but if they’ve been able to stop damage and out tempo you with blue, it’s just not that great. Incite is a joke without it being a cantrip. I like shivs embrace and ember hauler as long as your opponent doesn’t have removal for your creature or just bigger creatures for hauler, granted it does mess up combat math.
Trisk is obviously good, play it in the deck. But judging by this sealed pool, I would do what I did at the prerelease and play uw. Too bad not 3 mana leaks like I was lucky to open along side sun titan, platinum angel, and stormtide leviathan with two harbour serpents.
This is what I would play:
1 serra angel
1 stormfront pegasus
1 assault griffin
1 wild griffin
1 pacifism
1 palace guard
1 excommunicate
1 angelic arbiter
2 aether adept
1 wall of frost
2 water servant
1 azure drake
1 phantom beast
1 harbor serpent
1 mana leak
1 cancel
1 cloud elemental
2 preordain
1 foresee
1 triskellion
10 island
7 plains
Comment by David Roop — August 14, 2010 @ 9:30 am |Edit This
Silvestri Says – M11 Sealed Pool #2…
Your story has been summoned to the battlefield – Trackback from MTGBattlefield…
Trackback by MTGBattlefield — August 14, 2010 @ 9:34 am |Edit This
I would play a R/W Aggro. Red has enough removal to get your fliers through.
List:
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Vulshock Berserker
1 Fireball
1 Prodigal Pyromancer
1 Ember Hauler
1 Canyon Minotaur
1 Lava Axe
1 Chandra’s Outrage
1 Serra Angel
1 Angelic Arbiter
2 Siege Mastodon
1 Assault Griffin
1 White Knight
1 Wild Griffin
1 Palace Guard
1 Stormfront Pegasus
1 Pacifism
2 Mighty Leap
1 Excommunicate
1 Triskelion
8 Mountain
9 Plains
Comment by Peter — August 14, 2010 @ 10:05 am |Edit This
Fireball
Unsummon
Stormfront Pegasus
Mana Leak
Pacifism
Mighty Leap x2
Wild Griffin
Aether Adept x2
Cancel
Cloud Elemental
Excommunicate
Safe Passage
Water Servant x2
Assault Griffin
Azure Drake
Foresee
Serra Angel
Triskelion
Angelic Arbiter
10 Island
7 Plains
1 Mountain
Creatures – 12
Spells – 10
Lands – 18
Set out in mana cost to show curve. After consideration, I cut the bolts and mancer for leaps and excommunicate due to tempo. The faster, the better in this format methinks. Plus looking at the number of UU costs i felt that the splash had to be kept down to the neccesities and as much as it hurt to let the bolts go (3-mana slot chock full anyways so mancer was easier) it had to be done.
Last pick was a hard one however as wall of frost was another UU cost and took away from the aggressive nature of the deck yet provided ground support. In the end i felt that safe passage allows for more options in combat and gives you a free alpha in the air late game without fear of a return alpha finishing you off, obviuosly playing around counters if against blue. The leaps push damage through at the end and help against mirror UW skies matchups.
I still think green’s filler is too weak around the bombs and though i think the GRb is strong, I believe the depth of this deck is better, though you can construct both this way too to have options but i prefer not to look at it like that. I plan on winning with this deck
Comment by Nathan — August 14, 2010 @ 10:10 am |Edit This
I have a hard time getting particularly excited about Destructive Force. Yes, of course it’s a powerful effect, but I fail to see how I am supposed to break the symmetry consistently.
Garruk on turn 4 followed by D-Force on turn 5 is a nice two card combo, but its not going to happen every game. I only see three creatures in our pool surviving it, one of them being the Wall of Frost (the others being Mitotic Slime and Angelic Arbiter).
To me it just looks like an overcosted Wrath of God that isnt even guaranteed to kill everything. Against a green or white mage with a trick up her sleeve, it can be downright scary to cast. (”Did I just Plague Wind myself?”)
I hope someone can enlighten me.
Comment by splixxer — August 14, 2010 @ 10:14 am |Edit This
I’ve been burned by green way too many times in this format to touch green. With Fireball, and double Lightning Bolt, red seems like an amazing splash color. W/U seems so powerful it’s ridiculous, and enough to probably justify not splashing, but I’m too greedy:
1 x Stormfont Pegasus
1 x White Knight
1 x Wild Griffin
1 x Scroll Thief
2 x Aether Adept
1 x Cloud Elemental
1 x Azure Drake
2 x Water Servant
1 x Assault Griffin
1 x Serra Angel
1 x Seige Mastodon
1 x Triskelion
1 x Angelic Arbiter
2 x Preordain
2 x Lightning Bolt
1 x Mana Leak
1 x Pacifism
1 x Foresee
1 x Fireball
8 x Island
7 x Plains
2 x Mountain
I’d need to shuffle up with this to get the land balance right, since I’m not sure how good Foresee and double Preordain is going to be as mana fixing. Since I feel like I’m going to be tapping out most turns I was a little hesitant to run Mana Leak, as opposed to something like Unsummon, but my 2 drops are real light, so Mana Leak it is.
Comment by Terry — August 14, 2010 @ 11:00 am |Edit This
The list I would go with
3 mountains
8 forests
7 plains
Lightning bolt x2
Fireball
Garruk Wildspeaker
Garruk’s packleader
Lanowar elves
Awakener druid
Mitotic slime
Sylvan ranger
Yavimaya wurm
Cultivate
Serra angel
Angelic Arbiter
Siege mastodon X2
Assault griffin
White knight
Wild griffin
Stormfront Pegasus
Pacifism
Mighty leap
Triskelion
This pool has too strong of heavy fliers in white to not play them. Reds removal is mostly splashable so the fact that it only has three creatures that can attack is irrelevant. Greens rares are best of the pools with the slime that won’t go away and Garruk, and with the color fixing in cultivate and the ranger makes the three color route very accessible.
over all you get a deck that can kill you with fliers and some beaters from green with a splash or red to give you the edge or those last points of damage you need.
Comment by Kaelis — August 14, 2010 @ 11:09 am |Edit This
First of all sorry for my poor english.
When I look at this pool first thing I see is that a really good agro deck(UW) is viable, second thing I notice is that is not necessary and clearly not the way to go because I´m going to play green wich has a really high power level and two fixers that lead me to white, black or red removal even if im not playing any of those colors as main. I better end up with a solid slower deck that will be very customizable for 2nd and 3rd games thanks to the amount of good cards the pool provides.
Now I’m also sure that I’m playing fireball and that I’m splashing just 1 color, also black doesnt have the powerlevel to be a main color, this leads me to 2 viable options:
-GWr
-GRb
I think the GRb is a better choice , while the creatures are worse than in white specially missing the two big flyers , red offers more removal (because im not splashing ember hauler and chandra’s outrage if white is main) and the creatures are good enough to make this worth it.
I will be playing 18 lands on this deck. I have llanowar elves, cultivate and sylvan ranger; garruk also helps to ramp, but on the other hand I will be playing Destructive force, fireball and 3 colors.
I begin to build and I get stuck with the following 21 card list:
Llanowar elves
Sylvan Ranger
Awakener druid
Cultivate
Garruk wildspeaker
Garruk’s packdealer
Mitotic slime
Yavimaya wurm
Lightning bolt x 2
Ember hauler
Prodigal pyromancer
Vulshok berserker
Canyon minotaur
Chandra’s outrage
Destructive force
Fireball
Doom blade
Assasinate
Gravedigger
Triskelion
Ok , now the problem is I find Shiv’s embrace the best card on my colors but I do not have enough creatures on cc1 to 3 to make it profitable, it’s not that I have a bad curve on those costs (wich Isnt very important in sealed anyway) but casting shiv’s embrace on pyromancer or ember hauler doesn’t sound very good. So options to me are a bear, base pummel or giant growth. I like pummel maindeck in m11 sealed but with the ammount of removal already have id prefer not to have a dead card in certain games and between the bear and the giant growth i pick the bear because my creature- trick ratio is short on creatures.
Lands would be 8 forest, 8 mountain and 2 swamps.
Sideboard options with this pool are infinite and a book could be written about them.
Comment by G.Llamas — August 14, 2010 @ 11:33 am |Edit This
I’m curious, is this a pool you actually opened or one that you created for the purposes of the exercise?
Comment by Pincus — August 14, 2010 @ 12:49 pm |Edit This
GWr
Creatures (16):
1 X Lanowar Elves
1 X Sylvan Ranger
1 X Brindle Boar
1 X Garruk’s Packleader
1 X Mitotic Slime
1 X Yavimaya Wurm
1 X Triskelion
1 X Stromfront Pegasus
1 X White Knight
1 X Wild Griffin
1 X Assault Griffin
1 X Serra Angel
1 X Angelic Arbiter
2 X Siege Mastodon
1 X Prodigal Pyromancer
Other Spells (6):
2 X Lightning Bolt
1 X Fireball
1 X Garruk Wildspeaker
1 X Cultivate
1 X Pacifism
2 X Mountain
9 X Forest
7 X Plains
I think that GW gives a great sideboard as well with Celestral Purge, Plummet, 2 X Hornet Sting.
Comment by BVeg — August 14, 2010 @ 1:49 pm |Edit This
U/W w/ R
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Fireball
1 Prodigal Pyromancer
1 Wall of Frost
1 Foresee
2 Preordain
1 Mana Leak
1 Scroll Thief
1 Unsummon
1 Azure Drake
1 Cancel
1 Cloud Elemental
1 Serra Angel
1 Assault Griffin
1 Wild Griffin
1 Safe Passage
1 Pacifism
2 Mighty Leap
1 Excommunicate
7 Plains
8 Island
3 Mountain
Comment by Josh M. — August 14, 2010 @ 2:33 pm |Edit This
UGr + Doom Blade wins all day long.
Comment by Thayer — August 14, 2010 @ 4:17 pm |Edit This
After thinking it over the past day I really think that that U/r/w is the way to go. The heavy blue base will allow you to to play both Water Servants, both Adepts, Cancel, Wall of Frost, and Harbor Serpent to great effect. You also get Pacifism, Angelic Arbiter, Serra Angel, both Bolts, and Fireball. I would go with 10 Islands, 3 Mountains, and 4 Plains. 2x Preordain, Forsee, and Scroll Thief (with all the bounce and removal to get it through) will make being manascrwed a minor issue. Mass Polymorph will be awesome too as even when you are just trading in Scroll Thief, Wall of Frost, or Adept in the late game it will be an awesome trade up. 2 or more creatures on board and it is absolutely game ending.
Comment by BarnacleMcScrub — August 14, 2010 @ 4:45 pm |Edit This
For reference, my list is:
2 Water Servant
1 Mass Polymorph
1 Cloud Elemental
1 Unsummon
1 Harbor Serpent
1 Phantom Beast
1 Cancel
1 Scroll Thief
1 Wall of Frost
1 Foresee
2 Æther Adept
1 Mana Leak
1 Serra Angel
1 Azure Drake
1 Angelic Arbiter
1 Pacifism
2 Preordain
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Fireball
10 Island
5 Plains
3 Mountain
Comment by BarnacleMcScrub — August 14, 2010 @ 5:37 pm |Edit This
I accidentally posted the list with Phantom Beast instead of Triskelion.
2 Water Servant
1 Mass Polymorph
1 Cloud Elemental
1 Unsummon
1 Harbor Serpent
1 Triskelion
1 Cancel
1 Scroll Thief
1 Wall of Frost
1 Foresee
2 Æther Adept
1 Mana Leak
1 Serra Angel
1 Azure Drake
1 Angelic Arbiter
1 Pacifism
2 Preordain
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Fireball
10 Island
5 Plains
3 Mountain
Comment by BarnacleMcScrub — August 14, 2010 @ 5:43 pm |Edit This
there is absolutely no reason to play blue with all its mediocre cards instead of maximizing the raw power of the deck.
You basically have to go GW and splash whatever you feel like you want. Definitely both bolts and the fireball. Don’t know about the RR cards.
Comment by randomnub — August 14, 2010 @ 6:18 pm |Edit This
nobody else is seeing that Mighty Leap on a Water Servant is good for an 8 point kick to the crotch? I get that the Red cards are really strong here, but I have alot of trouble passing on that kind of “win target game” sort of offensive combo that you get out of UW in this pool.
Comment by dbg — August 14, 2010 @ 6:36 pm |Edit This
I feel that Blue is really strong in its own unique way. It may have removal like that of a lighting bolt or a doom blade but it does have solid control and the ability to scry for a mana fix.
Sure its creatures are nothing over the top but their fliers and the Water Servants are great creatures in terms of beating down your opponent slowly but consistently.
These two elements together, control and steady damage, make a great combo in that your opponents game is slowed down while the scry helps speed yours up.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Comment by Hotpanda — August 14, 2010 @ 7:03 pm |Edit This
2x lightning bolt
1x fireball
2x preordain
2x water servant
2x aether adept
1x azure drake
1x forsee
1x unsummon
1x triskellion
1x sleep
1x scroll thief
1x serra angel
1x angelic arbiter
1x assault griffin
1x stormfront pegasus
1x pacifism
1x excommunicate
1x cloud elemental
1x wild griffin
lands
9x island
7x plains
1x mountain
Comment by vimes — August 14, 2010 @ 7:44 pm |Edit This
That’s a crazy pool. It’s really hard to decide which colors to take but black is the weakest and red looks like just a splash. I say UGr. Blue has such good control and some good creatures, green helps with fixing and has two bombs and splash red for bolts and fireball. White is so good to but you have to play it with either green and blue and those colors just work better together with this pool. It can still take on UW skies, has removal, a lot of sideboard options and has some big guys. But man its hard not to take serra, the 5/6 and a pacifism. It would be nice to splash a little white too but so many blue cards cost two UU.
Comment by steve — August 14, 2010 @ 8:13 pm |Edit This
What does MODO means?
Comment by Nek — August 14, 2010 @ 8:27 pm |Edit This
GUr jumps out at me. Here’s the list I’d go with:
(15 Creatures)
sylvan ranger
yavimaya wurm
llanowar elves
garruks packleader
mitotic slime
2 water servant
2 aether adept
cloud elemental
azure drake
awakener druid
triskelavus
prodigal pyromancer
scroll thief
(8 Spells)
cultivate
garruk wildspeaker
foresee
sleep
mana leak
2 lightning bolt
fireball
8 islands
7 forest
2 mountain
I think this list is good. The fixing is there with ranger and cultivate and draw spells like foresee. Plus there are loads of beaters and finishers. After that thre are still a number of removal spells. I could run this deck and win against anybody. Man was this pool good… Maybe two decks?
Comment by Tonyadpx — August 14, 2010 @ 8:40 pm |Edit This
To me, it seems either GWr, or UW (most likely splashing R too).
I’d likely go GWr, as both main colours contain very solid cards and this makes the most of the pool’s bombs. Here’s what I’d probably run:
Llanowar Elves
Stormfront Pegasus
Sylvan Ranger
White Knight
Awakener Druid
Palace Guard
Wild Griffin
Assault Griffin
Garruk’s Packleader
Mitotic Slime
Serra Angel
Siege Mastodon
Triskelion
Yavimaya Wurm
Angelic Arbiter
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt
Pacifism
Cultivate
Safe Passage
Garruk Wildspeaker
Fireball
8 Forest
8 Plains
2 Mountain
Comment by Adam — August 14, 2010 @ 8:48 pm |Edit This
i think gu splash red is probobly the best to build this considering the bombs in green and fatties with the tempo and power ur blue has splashing bolts and fireball
Comment by ed — August 14, 2010 @ 9:20 pm |Edit This
blue green splash red for 2 bolt fireball
Comment by NIKE305 AKA BROKEAMERICAN305 — August 14, 2010 @ 9:39 pm |Edit This
Man….a Terramorphic Expanse would really make this into the nuts.
Comment by Zach — August 14, 2010 @ 10:01 pm |Edit This
I look at this card pool…. first instinctively going with GW/r because of the bombs…Though the more I look at it…I saw the consistency that blue provides….I think to my opinion that the best build is UW/r because of the consistency it provides…Also the curve is more solid.
Here is the deck…from the pool
1 Prodigal Sorceror
1 Stormfront Pegasus
1 Wild Griffin
1 Assault Griffin
1 Serra Angel
2 Siege Mastodon
2 Aether Adept
1 Cloud Elemental
2 Water Servant
1 Azure Drake
1 Triskelion
1 Fireball
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Excommunicate
1 Pacifism
1 Sleep
1 Foresee
1 Negate
1 Mana Leak
8 Island
6 Plains
3 Mountain
Why this build is better….
for starters… everybody can determine that red is easily a splash color… With the four cards selected, are easily castable with just one mountain..
Black really has nothing but a Doom Blade. I think splashing a color for one card… First it must be splashable, second it should be a bomb. For example, from this seal there is fireball which is better than most rares in the format.
Green looks promising, but the lack of creatures, and the quirky curve scare me from utilizing the forests…. The bomb are nice. Though I want consistency in this format.
White/Blue…A classic archetype, you have flyers, and you have tempo. The red helps with Tempo and a sweeper/finisher in Fireball. This should be the best in my understanding.
Overall, a nice curve, consistent mana, tempo, and a late game reach.
Comment by David. P — August 14, 2010 @ 10:46 pm |Edit This
Can’t think of anything much better than a turn 3 Garruk followed by a turn 4 Destructive force all made possible by a turn 1 Llanowar. This is, of course, the most optimal line of play, but still. RGw all the way.
Comment by Lenney — August 14, 2010 @ 11:37 pm |Edit This
i would go with the GUr deck. Garruk is insane in limited and rest of green is pretty good(though just a little bit to shallow as a main colour) so i would look for another colour to pair it with(as red is an obvious splash).
I chose blue because sleep is an insane bomb coupled with green.
also the scrying get more value then normally with bombs like garruk and triskelion and fireball and helping your mana out for playing 3 colours
2 lightning bolt
1 fireball
1 prodical pyromancer
1 cultivate
1 garruk
1 sylvan ranger
1 accidic slime
1 yavamiya wurm
1 garruk packleader
1 awakener druid
1 lanowar elf
1 azure drake
1 mana leak
2 aether adept
2 preordain
2 water servant
1 sleep
1 cancel
1 triskelion
island – 8
forest – 7
mountain – 2
Comment by anne — August 15, 2010 @ 12:34 am |Edit This
this would be the list i’d play:
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Cultivate
1 Sylvan Ranger
1 Awakener Druid
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Garruk Packleader
1 Mitotic Slime
1 Yavimaya Wurm
1 Giant Growth
2 runeclaw bear
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Fireball
1 Triskelion
2 Aether Adept
1 Cloud Elemental
1 Azure Drake
1 Foresee
1 Mana Leak
1 Unsummon
1 Sleep
strong green creatures, good blue flying.
blue tempo cards like the bouncecreatures and spells
carddrawing due to foresee and packleader.
removal or direct damage gives extra punch ( bolts and fireball)
sleep is A BIG SPELL!!
bears for curving out the deck.
grtz
Comment by jelle — August 15, 2010 @ 2:03 am |Edit This
this would be the list i’d play:
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Cultivate
1 Sylvan Ranger
1 Awakener Druid
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Garruk Packleader
1 Mitotic Slime
1 Yavimaya Wurm
1 Giant Growth
2 runeclaw bear
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Fireball
1 Triskelion
2 Aether Adept
1 Cloud Elemental
1 Azure Drake
1 Foresee
1 Mana Leak
1 Unsummon
1 Sleep
2 mountain
7 island
8 forest
strong green creatures, good blue flying.
blue tempo cards like the bouncecreatures and spells
carddrawing due to foresee and packleader.
removal or direct damage gives extra punch ( bolts and fireball)
sleep is A BIG SPELL!!
bears for curving out the deck.
grtz
Comment by jelle — August 15, 2010 @ 2:05 am |Edit This
I agree with many posters about UWr being the best combination. What I do NOT agree with, is the blatant addition of Lightning Bolt when it’s not necessary. All it’s doing is giving you spot removal for small creatures or burn to the face in a deck that controls the board quite well without them, and has it’s mana base messed up by the sheer greediness of these deck constructors. You still have the option to add Lightning Bolt in post sideboard if you’re up against a deck with multiple Blinding Mages or a few Prodigal Pyromancers or something similar, but otherwise, LBolt is a weak draw for this style of deck generally, as it easily handles x/3’s as is.
Comment by MWilson — August 15, 2010 @ 2:45 am |Edit This
@Nek:
MODO = Magic Online with Digital Objects
It’s the oldschool name for Magic Online.
Comment by Amarsir — August 15, 2010 @ 7:29 am |Edit This
At first glance, all 5 colors are very tempting as there are many good cards scattered here and there but depth is also very important in a core set format.
Green looked alluring at first with garruk, packleader and slime together with mana fixing but it doesn’t have much out of that and you would want to be more green heavy for the fixing to start working. As much as I like 5 mana splashable 4/4s, it doesn’t really have enough quality+quantity and would need a good draw to work optimally.
Black is a little shallow as well since the cards you want out of it are doom blade and gravedigger, plus assasinate. The high volume of x/2s will not serve you well since you can’t profitably block anything or attack into anything.
In this pool, blue is the deepest and most profitable with commitment with a good variety of cards to sb in and out of depending on your opponent’s deck. 2x adept and 2x water elementals are worth the commitment.
White is nice with the bomby serra angel and arbiter to top up the full suite of fliers.
I would splash red for double lightning bolts and fireball with 2 mountains. Outrage and prodigal are good but they need a little more commitment to function fully. Bolts and fireball can work late and you hardly use them early so these 5 cards are ok.
From there, it is probably important to have both preordains in to stabilize the draw as the deck optimally wants UWUWR in this particular order.
Since none of the fliers are bad, all of them go in.
The deck would need a blocker and this would be between wall of frost, scroll thief and the white 1/4. Under the consideration that I want to commit to blue but be able to consistently play my blocker at the right time, scroll thief is chosen over the other 2 that are superior in that function since it would be better to be able to cast my fliers and the blocker at the pace that is required. Post board, against green or relatively fatter creatures, frost can take over but generically, consistency should be prioritized.
Triskelion is good as a 6 mana 4/4 and to shoot down pesky creatures and deal the damage the fliers can’t and the red burn help in this area too, to provide the extra reach to supplement the main strategy.
One mana leak and one cancel (less priority) go in mainly to disrupt the flow of the game. As much as unsummon is good with both, the deck doesn’t really need an unsummon yet so this should be left in the sb.
Finally, one slot goes to a trick card and it is mainly between sleep and safe passage. It is not easy for the deck to hold up 3 mana for safe passage and sleep’s effect overlaps with safe passage to some extent. Having counters mitigate some spells that safe passage mitigates so it is less important here. Between the two, I would choose sleep since it can buy you the extra time needed to end the game.
This is the deck I would use:
2 preordain
1 mana leak
2 aether adept
1 scroll thief
1 cloud elemental
1 cancel
1 azure drake
2 water elemental
1 sleep
1 foresee
1 stormfront pegasus
1 pacifism
1 wild griffin
1 assault griffin
1 serra angel
1 angelic arbiter
1 triskelion
2 lightning bolt
1 fireball
2 mountain
9 island
6 plains
Comment by tog — August 15, 2010 @ 9:59 am |Edit This
Here’s what I came up with…Though I think a few other posters have said similar (I made the list prior to reading through the posts)
RED
Lightning Bolt x2
Fireball x1
Prodigal Pyromancer x1
WHITE
Serra Angel x1
Assault Griffin x1
Pacifism x1
Stormfront Pegasus x1
Wild Griffin x1
BLUE
Negate x1
Wall of Frost x1
Water Servant x2
Aether Adept x2
Cloud Elemental x1
Azure Drake x1
Foresee x1
Preordane x2
Mana Leak x1
Cancel x1
ARTIFACTS
Triskelion x1
LAND
Islands x10
Plains x5
Mountains x2
I kept all of the color requirements easy and the curve is quite low. Using the Blue as your search/filter. I would try to control the ground with Aether Adepts + Water Servants + Wall of Frost…At the same time using your superior flyers to beat down with occasional burn to remove problem citters or go to the dome late game. Maxed out the counters also to help vs opp bombs/combat tricks/removal.
Comment by Oz — August 15, 2010 @ 11:55 am |Edit This
blue green red
Comment by allan oca — August 15, 2010 @ 12:26 pm |Edit This
While white does have evasion out the whoo-hoo, this is sealed where everyone splashes all the removal in their pool; if they have spiders or flyers themselves you have to win with another color. White does have an option for 3 removal spells post-board, but by far the most interesting thing is the 2(!) Mighty Leaps, very good in a format where you can steal games with quick bouts of damage. Blue has some of the best creatures, and Foresee, the only card drawing besides Garruk’s Pridemage. Unsummon and Aether Adept can bounce defenders, which is pseudo-removal with Cancel and Mana Leak. Sleep is an aggro card in disguise. Green has mana-fixing but is otherwise very weak. Garruk’s good, but color-intensive. Trisk getrs played, it’s just that good. Black’s a tough call. Eveyone drools over Doom Blade in sealed, but this sealed is so good we might not need it. Other than that its creatures are just a little lackluster. It’s important to note the Nightwing Shades get much worse in multiples. White’s so strong. Shiv’s Embrace is nothing short of a bomb. In removal, you’ve got Lightening Bolt, Fireball, and Chandra’s Outrage, and you have Lava Axe and Ember Hauler to do the last points to the face. Incite is under-rated when you have good creatures, because it forces bad attacks. A bad attack = removal.
So, the list:
2 Lightning Bolt
Volshock Berserker
Fireball
Ember Hauler
Canion Minotaur
Shiv’s Embrace
Incite
Lava Axe
Chandra’s Outrage
Sleep
Wall of Frost
2 Water Servant
2 Aether Adept
Cloud Elemental
Azure Drake
Foresee
Mana Leak
Cancel
Unsummon
Triskelion
9 Island
8 Mountain
This deck is fast without giving up the opportunity to outplay your opponent. The singleton Incite is golden, and really sets you up when the turn gets passed back to you. The Preordains seem good, but you already have such a high density of quality spells that you’re looking to have the spare mana and the next spell. Also multiples with counterspells are not good in the early turns where this deck looks to win. And to whoever says they “smooth out draw”, you mean to say they make bad draws okay. Learn to mulligan. Also, anyone looking to splash using 2 lands with no way to tutor them is going to increase their chance of having cards in hand they can’t cast.
Comment by Robert Bell — August 15, 2010 @ 12:30 pm |Edit This
your blue is insane and very hard to ignore. two servants, two adepts, foresee, leak, sleep, azure drake….
red isn’t deep, but it’ll be perfectly splashed in there, 2 bolts and a fireball is the dream splash in m11.
your green is bomb-a-licious.
your white is about 10-12 playables in there. that’s pretty solid, but dork strategies usually work best when you have a bunch of flyers in other colors too. i think white gets the axe. you’ve got two bombs and two tricks, but the other colors are just deeper and will make for more consistency.
your black has a good start with 2 removal pieces, a good flyer, grave digger….the trips shade and corrupt would be good if black had more support. a splash at best.
i think i’d go with UGr.
1 cultivate
1 llanowar elves
1 garruk
1 garruk’s packleader
1 mito slime
1 sylvan ranger
2 water servant
2 aether adept
1 sleep
1 wall of frost
1 foresee
1 mana leak
1 azure drake
2 lightning bolt
1 fireball
1 triskelion
that’s a solid core of 19. you can fill out the other three spots with cloud elemental, plummet, cancel, preordain, unsummon, giant growth, brindle boar, and/or negate.
you could put unsummon, giant growth, and cloud elemental for an aggresive style. for consistency’s sake, we could easily throw the two preordains in and get the draws we want more often. cancel and negate together with leak makes for some good mainboard countermagic, though the cancel could be tough on color.
with UG/r, you have the most deckbuilding options IMO. the hardest part for me was deciding whether white was worth it, seeing all those flyers + mighty leaps could get anyone hard. but the ground bombs in green sold me too hard. the garruk is much more powerful than the arbiter, and the slime is better than serra. and seeing as we can’t cut blue…well white’s just the odd man out for me.
Comment by jeeves — August 15, 2010 @ 12:32 pm |Edit This
I am not as sold on this being the “best sealed pool ever.” I do think it’s great to be removal heavy in most cases but sadly, as good as bolt and pyromancer are, there are a lot of high toughness creatures in M11 and I think seeing some of those on the other side of the board will make for some sad pandas if you went all in on the red removal package. White has a decent curve for it’s agressive flyers and I think is easily the best ‘creature package’ of all the colors. Black is decent for number and consistancy with the triple shades but they are high up on the curve and to protect them I would want to be able to pump as soon as I play one moving them even higher up the curve. Doomblade is awesome so I might look for a way to splash for it. Blue has good stuff in preordain and foresee and a little counter magic can be nice but overall it’s lack of depth in evasion critters leaves me thinking I won’t be building with blue. Water servant is good for holding the ground for the aerial forces to do their thing but there aren’t enough flyers in blue to run it alone and the color intensity of the blue pool to get good effect is like black… Too high to justify. Finally looking at green I see two great creatures in Mitotic slime and Garruk. I put Garruk with the creature since he functions like one for deckbuilding purposes. The mana fixing is nice, but the rest of the creature pool looks pretty average to subpar. With a distinct lack of really agressive creatures low on the curve and no really tough fatties in green this pool has to rely on it’s mid game evasion and early control. We can’t play straight beatdown and we don’t have enough permission or mass removal to play true control. So here’s what I would build.
Creatures
White
Stormfront Pegasus 1W
Palace Guards 2W
Wild Griffin 2W
Assault Griffin 3W
Seige Mastadon X2 4W
Serra angel 3WW
Angelic Arbiter 5WW
Green
Sylvan Ranger 1G
Brindle Boar 2G
Garruk’s Packleader 4G
Mitotic Slime 4G
Red
Prodigal Pyromancer 2R
Artifact
Triskelion 6
Total creatures 13 (feels a bit light to me)
Removal
White
Pacifism 1W
Excommunicate 2W
Green
Hornet Sting G
Plummet 1G
Red
Lightning Bolt X2 R
Fireball XR
Prodigal Pyromancer* 2R
Artifact
Triskelion* 6
Total Removal 7
Other spells
White
Mighty Leap X2 1W
Green
Cultivate 2G
Garruk Wildspeaker 2GG
Red
Destructive Force 5RR
* these are both creatures and removal.
That’s a total of 24 spells. I want to hit early Green and White with Red coming later. And with nearly equal curves and color requirements for green and white I went
Plains X7
Forest X7
Mountain X3
Total lands 17
That’s a total of 41 Cards. I know most people would try and cut something but knowing we plan to Destructive Force and basically reset the board makes me feel 1 extra card in the deck won’t hurt our draws enough to worry about. If we absolutely had to pull something I would take out the hornets sting, but I like it because with a trskelion and/or a Prodigal Pyromancer it’s at least a shock and at best lightning bolt and it kills opposing stormfront Pegasus and helps trade with the 3 and 4 toughness blue flyers if we have to.
I think this pool is set up to take control of the air and keep it. The removal is best used to keep the skies clear so chump blocking and trading on the ground is probably the order of the day. Triskelion and Prodigal Pyromancer mean we can get extra mileage out of the grizzlies by trading up with better creature and the Palace Guards will kill and survive most of the early ground pounders with just a little help until we get something beefier. The pair of Mighty Leaps are there to make sure anyone who tries to trade with our Flyers loses. Garruk is going to be a beating after a successful Destructive Force and if we are so lucky as to have the arbiter out before we cast Destructive force even better. I think I would actually set up my board in advance to use against anyone running big fatties. Trading out the green we lose Garruk, Mitotic Slime and Cultivate and without good mana fixing that means no Destructive Force either so we only splash for Fireball, Lava Axe, Prodigal Pyromancer and two Lightning bolts. We Keep all the White except the Seige Mastadons and go to 6 Plains and 8 Islands add Unsummon, Preordain X2, Mana Leak, Wall of Frost, Aether Adept X2, Cloud Elemental, Azure Drake, Water Servant X2, Foresee and Harbor Serpent. The control player in me actually really likes the chances for the UWr version but I think the ‘bombs’ in the GWr make it better overall.
Comment by DominusFaber — August 15, 2010 @ 1:09 pm |Edit This
Def UWr, splashing bolt and fireball. 7 fliers, some disruption, some card draw, some counterspells. should do it. btw, sleep or safe passage? pretty close i would say..
Comment by TTA — August 15, 2010 @ 1:40 pm |Edit This
My list:
2 Water Servant
1 Mass Polymorph
1 Cloud Elemental
1 Unsummon
1 Harbor Serpent
1 Triskelion
1 Cancel
1 Scroll Thief
1 Wall of Frost
1 Foresee
2 Æther Adept
1 Mana Leak
1 Serra Angel
1 Azure Drake
1 Angelic Arbiter
1 Pacifism
2 Preordain
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Fireball
10 Island
5 Plains
3 Mountain
I know this is a little different than anything else in the forums but I really feel like the amount of blue card draw (Preordains, Foresee, and Scroll thief with bounce and removal to help it out) allows the double splash with very minimal risk. From there it became an issue of what do I want from an ideal sealed deck. Card draw to smooth my shaky starts, bounce/removal/countermagic to make sure I control the board, and bombs that can singlehandedly end the game for me (Mass Polymorph, Serra Angel, Angelic Arbiter, Harbor Serpent, and to a lesser degree, Triskelion.) Out of all the sealed matches I’ve played in this format I feel like this would be the deck I would have absolutely no shot against, regardless of my pool/draws.
A few thoughts on a couple of cards.
Destructive Force seems like a trap to me. Casting it seem like it should win you the game, but then you are left with no creatures and 1 land and hoping your opponent does not topdeck better than you (God forbid they have a Giant Growth or Safe Passage when you cast it.)
Mass Polymorph seems like the real deal and the card that people should be focusing on. With as many bomb creatures as this pool has it’s value is absolutely out of the roof. I realize my build has only 12 creatures, 4 of which you would want to polymorph for, but you really only need 1 creature to make it effective as it is essentially copy #2 of all your bombs, and what are you going to do with those Adepts, Scroll Thief, and Wall of Frost in the late game anyways. If you ever manage to cast it searching for 2 creatures the game should be over in short order, and considering the amount of card draw this deck has, it shouldn’t be that rare.
I was going to play U/W/r but I quickly realized that playing blue as anything less than 3/4’s of the deck would minimize it’s power so much that it was effectively not even worth playing. You want to be casting either an Adept, Cancel, or Wall of Frost turn 3 and a Water Servant turn 4 every game and not having UU due to mana constraints would render that strategy almost worthless.
Let me know what you think.
Gabriel
Comment by BarnacleMcScrub — August 15, 2010 @ 1:57 pm |Edit This
Just an FYI, there’s already nearly 200 e-mails sitting in my inbox, not even counting the people who left comments here (goooood luck). If you plan on sending them in, I suggest you do so sooner rather than later before I think about moving away and pretending this never happened.
So much reading…
Comment by Josh S. — August 15, 2010 @ 2:20 pm |Edit This
As a follow-up to that, so far 3 people wrote mini-articles and another actually did an entire spreadsheet breakdown of Sealed decks. I am in awe here.
Comment by Josh S. — August 15, 2010 @ 2:43 pm |Edit This
take 4 baneslayers from your collection, accidentally get them mixed in to your pool and go mono white for the win
Comment by Michael — August 15, 2010 @ 3:12 pm |Edit This
My list:
GRb
Green
Mitotic Slime
Garruk
Llanowar Elves
Sylvan Ranger
Garruk’s Packleader
Cultivate
Yavimaya Wurm
Plummet
Giant Growth
Red
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt
Fireball
Ember Hauler
Chandra’s Outrage
Pyretic Ritual
Lava Axe
Shiv’s Embrace
Black
Doomblade
Deathmark
Assassinate
Gravedigger
Artifacts
Triskelion
Land:
9 Forest
7 Mountain
2 Swamp
Basically, accelerate into anything. Elves, Ranger, Cultivate, Garruk, and even Pyretic Ritual; you will have acceleration. Did they use removal on it? Cool, what do they have left for your bombs?
Slime, Garruk, Triskelion, Wurm or Shiv’s Embrace. They have to answer these cards, but it’s a comedy of errors when they. Pacifism on Slime? Kill your own Slime; Doomblade is basically a double duty Naturalize now. Unsummon on Triskelion? Thanks for the help. Unsummon with a Garruk Packleader on the table? Thanks for the help. They have to have exactly the right removal at exactly the right time or they might actually hurt themselves.
Meanwhile, your Lightning Bolts, Fireball, Doomblade, Assassinate, Plummet, Deathmark and Giant Growth kill all of the best creatures in the pool; usually for 1-2 mana (LOL at Mana Leak!). They also kill any kind of early game beats you encounter, once again, for 1-2 mana.
For card advantage you have Fireball, Triskelion, Gravedigger, Garruk Packleader, Garruk and Mitotic Slime.
Comment by Joe M. — August 15, 2010 @ 5:35 pm |Edit This
Maindeck deathmark ftw?
Comment by Alpha Donkey — August 15, 2010 @ 6:34 pm |Edit This
This has to be one of the harder pools I’ve ever seen to build… So many excellent cards in each color…..
Comment by IAMZERG — August 15, 2010 @ 7:57 pm |Edit This
@ Joe M – So you’re actually saying that the best thing you can do with this card pool is to play 8 total creatures, while speaking of Shiv’s Embrace as being a bomb? lol.
Any word on the contest? Definitely a lot of submissions, but was just wondering. =)