Who is good at sealed?

[Gary Lynch]

Opened this in an M11 Daily event. Not really good at this format but was bored. Pool seems unexciting and lacking any obvious direction.

How would you build this and why?

WHITE
1 Ajani's Mantra
1 Roc Egg
1 Siege Mastodon
1 Assault Griffin
1 Cloud Crusader
1 Squadron Hawk
1 Mighty Leap
1 Elite Vanguard
1 Infantry Veteran
1 Pacifism
1 Silence
1 Blinding Mage
1 Stormfront Pegasus

GREEN

1 Wall of Vines
1 Autumn's Veil
1 Runeclaw Bear
1 Acidic Slime
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Leyline of Vitality
1 Garruk's Companion
1 Fog
1 Greater Basilisk
1 Yavimaya Wurm
1 Dryad's Favor
3 Cultivate

RED

1 Goblin Tunneler
1 Incite
1 Thunder Strike
1 Canyon Minotaur
2 Vulshok Berserker
1 Fireball
1 Lava Axe
1 Demolish
2 Combust
1 Fling
2 Goblin Piker
1 Volcanic Strength
2 Act of Treason
1 Fiery Hellhound
1 Chandra's Outrage
1 Fire Servant

BLUE

1 Conundrum Sphinx
1 Mana Leak
1 Alluring Siren
1 Æther Adept
1 Cancel
2 Negate
1 Cloud Elemental
1 Diminish
2 Phantom Beast
1 Call to Mind
1 Jace's Ingenuity
1 Foresee
1 Scroll Thief
1 Air Servant
1 Merfolk Spy

BLACK

1 Assassinate
1 Relentless Rats
1 Nantuko Shade
1 Deathmark
1 Duress
2 Gravedigger
1 Leyline of the Void
1 Viscera Seer
1 Nightwing Shade
1 Barony Vampire
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Liliana's Specter
1 Sign in Blood
2 Doom Blade

ARTIFACT

1 Brittle Effigy
1 Juggernaut
1 Wurm's Tooth
1 Elixir of Immortality

[Thomas David Baker]

Well, I'm probably crap at Sealed but I'm going to take a crack at this anyway.

I've been reading lately how aggro decks don't work in Sealed because everyone plays bombs, removal and mid-range creatures and your little guys get outclassed. So you don't try and build the closest thing to a draft deck that you can.

But I've also been reading if you don't have bombs that can win the game on their own (this pool doesn't) then you probably have to build an aggro deck so that you punish decks messing about with mana and missing land drops and don't lose to bombs + removal in the long game.

Anyway, enough theory, what are the best cards in this pool? Removal + bombs + good card advantage:

W
1 Pacifism
1 Blinding Mage

U
1 Foresee
1 Jace's Ingenuity
1 Air Servant

B
1 Assassinate
1 Nantuko Shade
2 Gravedigger
1 Sign in Blood
2 Doom Blade

R
1 Fireball
1 Chandra's Outrage

Colorless
1 Brittle Effigy

Acidic Slime is your best green card so fuck that noise.

A bit further down the scale:


1 Assault Griffin
1 Cloud Crusader
1 Mighty Leap
1 Elite Vanguard
1 Infantry Veteran
1 Stormfront Pegasus

1 Acidic Slime
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Garruk's Companion
1 Yavimaya Wurm
3 Cultivate

1 Thunder Strike
1 Fling
2 Act of Treason
1 Fiery Hellhound
1 Fire Servant

1 Conundrum Sphinx
1 Mana Leak
1 Æther Adept
1 Cloud Elemental
1 Scroll Thief

1 Deathmark
1 Viscera Seer
1 Nightwing Shade
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Liliana's Specter

1 Juggernaut

You obviously play Brittle Effigy regardless of colors. And probably Juggernaut too.

You are almost certainly playing B as it has 4 removal spells (including Diabolic Tutor), 2 Gravediggers, a Sign in Blood and two Shades (one of which is undercosted and one of which is evasive and both of which don't die to doom blade). That means Liliana's Specter and Barony Vampire are in. Deathmark is potentially maindeckable. Viscera Seer goes in if you play those 2 Act of Treason, otherwise no. B gives you 6 creatures, 4 removal spells, 1 card draw and possibly DM/VS.

With the colorless that's 13-15 cards of which 7 are creatures. Now you need another 8 cards from your other colors. If you keep it to just one other color then you can play 9 or 10 swamps which makes Nantuko Shade better (and he can be game winning on t2 with all swamps). However, there are no other reasons to go heavy B so you may want to splash a third color.

Adding W gives you:

(as 2nd color):

1 Pacifism
1 Blinding Mage
1 Assault Griffin
1 Cloud Crusader
1 Mighty Leap
1 Elite Vanguard
1 Infantry Veteran
1 Stormfront Pegasus

(as 3rd color):

1 Pacifism
1 Blinding Mage (???)

Adding U gives you:

(as 2nd color):

1 Conundrum Sphinx
1 Mana Leak
1 Æther Adept
1 Cloud Elemental
1 Scroll Thief
1 Foresee
1 Jace's Ingenuity
1 Air Servant

(as 3rd color):

1 Foresee
1 Air Servant (???)

Adding R gives you:

(as 2nd color):

1 Viscera Seer
1 Fireball
1 Chandra's Outrage
1 Thunder Strike
1 Fling
2 Act of Treason
1 Fiery Hellhound
1 Fire Servant

(as 3rd color):

1 Fireball

The W seems not quite good enough. 3 fliers does not make up for having to run Mighty Leap, Elite Vanguard, Infantry Veteran? I don't think you can or want to make the superfast 2 color aggro deck with Gravediggers and Doom Blades.

Fireball is probably too good to leave out so if R is not your second color you are probably running 2 Mountains and Fireball.

If you are running R as the second color it is pretty tempting to splash Pacifism and maybe Blinding Mage off 2-3 Plains. But that's less definite than running Fireball.

So for me the possible Game One builds are:

BR with the Act of Treason plan. Really good removal. Possibly but probably not splash W.

BUr with Foresee and Jace's Ingenuity to dig to your removal and Fireball as the only splash. Scroll Thief gets in on an empty board to take advantage of your removal. Big fliers win or die and then come back and then win.

Both decks have good removal, t2 Nantuko Shade blowout and the possibility of infinite Gravediggers.

BR is only 9 creatures. BU is 11 creatures including 2 4-power fliers. So despite the nearly-great Act of Treason plan I think we go BUr?

So I sort of like this build:

1 Nantuko Shade

1 Æther Adept
1 Cloud Elemental
1 Scroll Thief
1 Liliana's Specter
1 Barony Vampire

2 Gravedigger
1 Conundrum Sphinx
1 Juggernaut

1 Air Servant
1 Nightwing Shade

1 Brittle Effigy

1 Sign in Blood
2 Doom Blade

1 Assassinate

1 Foresee
1 Diabolic Tutor

1 Jace's Ingenuity

1 Fireball

8 Swamp
8 Island
2 Mountain

And one of: Diminish, Duress, Deathmark, Elixir of Immortality. Probably Duress???

You'd love a Child of Night or some early action. I can see you having to do nothing until turn 3 when you play a rather sad Cloud Elemental who cannot block their 3 guys and you lose. But all those removal spells should help you get your big fliers online before you die. And in the long game you may not have bombs but you do have card advantage through Adept, Scroll Thief, Foresee, Ingenuity, Fireball, Gravediggers.

Did I do it wrong?

[Thomas David Baker]

This is hard to do without the cards in front of you!

I forgot about the following mediocre R and U cards:

1 Canyon Minotaur
2 Vulshok Berserker
1 Lava Axe
2 Goblin Piker

1 Alluring Siren
1 Cancel
2 Negate
1 Diminish
1 Call to Mind

Call to Mind is actually fairly playable in the UBr version (5 removal spells and 3 card drawers as targets) if pretty slow. And Cancel is great against opposing bombs in a long game (which we are expecting). So either of those goes in ahead of Duress/Dimish/Elixir.

The R cards are mostly OK creatures so that would remove my main objection to playing the BR version of only having 9 creatures. So maybe that version is better after all? I find it hard to evaluate the exact power of Seer + Fling + 2 x Act of Treason. Is it enough over 40 cards to consider a "plan"? Probably not quite.

[Gary Lynch]

I tried a few builds and most seemed not to have enough creatures or be too top heavy.

In the end I played U/W/B, with just the 2 Doom Blades and 2 Gravediggers as the black cards. I felt this gave me some early game and guys with evasion, card draw and the Gravediggers to bring back whatever was most useful (usually Condrum Sphinx).

The deck played out fairly well. Won round 1 and 2 even though the guy in round 2 had some good bombs. Lost round 3 1-2 as in game 3 I made a stupid keep of 6 land Forsee. Thought I could draw out of it but he had a fast start (he didnt game 1 and 2) and I just drew lands. Lost round 4 1-2 as well as I mulled to 5 on the play game 3 and just came out too slow.

Never really had any coloured mana problems though.

Perhaps you B/U deck would have been better although I really like Roc Egg as it does stop people from attacking for quite a while and Blinding Mage constanly taps down a creature.

[Gary Lynch]

Did look at the Seer/Fling and 2 Act of Treason, but diddnt think it would come up often enough.

[Jason Savage]

A quick answer from me!
I would have gone for the Black/ Blue build splahing the fireball.

[Charlie Grover]

UB splash fireball not close

[Dan Barrett]

Charlie is the best at sealed.


Don't ever listen to me.

That Ginger One said:

UB splash fireball not close

[Jason Savage]

That Ginger One said:

UB splash fireball not close

Charlie's answer was quicker than mine!!!!

[Amar Dattani]

Personally I would NEVER, EVER play fireball in sealed again ;)
saying that it does seem that ub is quite good - and diabolic tutor is actually good in sealed - shame you have no mind control otherwise the deck would be insane!

[Jason Savage]

Amar Dattani said:

Personally I would NEVER, EVER play fireball in sealed again ;)
saying that it does seem that ub is quite good - and diabolic tutor is actually good in sealed - shame you have no mind control otherwise the deck would be insane!

Bad player blames his tools!!!!

[Amar Dattani]

Lol - so true!

Jason Savage said:

Amar Dattani said:

Personally I would NEVER, EVER play fireball in sealed again ;)
saying that it does seem that ub is quite good - and diabolic tutor is actually good in sealed - shame you have no mind control otherwise the deck would be insane!

Bad player blames his tools!!!!

[Max Botten]

No contest really, nothing else is close to deep enough



That Ginger One said:

UB splash fireball not close