[Fedoras of Salvation] - White Knights ITT

[Helios]

Z: As long as I continue to be lucky with sealed, that's fine by me.

[zemanjaski]

Just do what I do.
- find threads related to any red variant or strategy
- demolish all the posters current assertions and belittle them utterly
- ???
- recruit 2-4 new site members a day

[zemanjaski]

Better lucky than good i say.

[Kazekirimaru]

Watching the likes of you and Lauphiette verbally flay lesser mages is why I joined FoS to begin with.

[DarthStabber]

I joined for the red magery, I stayed for the dick jokes.

[Lightning_Dolt]

I joined for the red magery, I stayed for the dick jokes.

Amen.

[LP, of the Fires]

SUCH GOOD TIMES KAZE.

I'm also firmly in the camp of sealed is an awesome format.

I view sealed the same way I view manascrew/flood. It teaches good players how to be better by fighting your way through bad situations(bad sealed pool as example).

Remember, you can't win every game of magic or every tournament, but you can maximize your chance to win the greatest amount of games possible.

Sealed is all about that because you have a lot of choices to make when building your deck.

[zemanjaski]

Deleted because Brad Nelson means we can't have nice things.

[zemanjaski]

But I'm not so feel free to ignore.

[LP, of the Fires]

I was close.

I was thinking to myself while going to draft tonight about pyro blue(izzet charm seems sweet) and pyro black(doom blade/dreadbore).

Then I realized boros cause Z.

I also wouldn't have been surprised to see 4 peak eruptions in someone's sideboard since loldega, but then I realized that since it's a pro tour, your going to be facing a field with much more diverse/creative minds and it's reasonably likely that you don't want 4 cards that are dead vs. a LOT of matchups for a 10 round standard event.

[LP, of the Fires]

BTW Z, to avoid the prying eyes of the brad nelsons of the world, that should probably be moved to one of the private forums.

[DarthStabber]

SUCH GOOD TIMES KAZE.

I'm also firmly in the camp of sealed is an awesome format.

I view sealed the same way I view manascrew/flood. It teaches good players how to be better by fighting your way through bad situations(bad sealed pool as example).

Remember, you can't win every game of magic or every tournament, but you can maximize your chance to win the greatest amount of games possible.

Sealed is all about that because you have a lot of choices to make when building your deck.

Draft has more choices. You have 42 (15 cards per pack -1 per pack for the passout, 39 really because of the land) before you even start putting your deck together. Adding extra random to a prerelease or release fine, even fnm fine, but we are
talking about PTQs and a ticket to Valencia. This should be a test of skill, not a game of roulette.

[LP, of the Fires]

#1: Logistics. Drafting for 3 rounds and then top 8 is unfeasible at least currently do to the time it would take and would also drive up the cost of limited PTQs slightly(though this wouldn't really be an issue since you're getting your monies worth).

#2: Sealed is more random compared to draft, but the difference on a scale from 1 to 10 is more like a 5 and an 7 compared to a 3 and 9 like most people think.

In my experience, most people just like making excuses for why they don't do well because it's easier then analyzing flaws in themselves and this is applicable outside of magic, but has a higher level of visibility in the game. Everything from complaining about your opponent lucksacking a bonfire to "I lost to manascrew". A much larger % of the time then most people realize, you have more control over how the game plays out then you let on.

And all of this applies to sealed. I've seen exactly one
awful sealed pool, and that was the one I opened at GP Vegas and yet I know I could have done a lot better if I had just built the pool right as opposed to playing the fair saproling deck. You can complains about PTQs being sealed, but so are day 1 of GPs and yet Ben Stark still top 32's everything. Yes, he's an amazing drafter, but that doesn't magically make every sealed pool he opens the nuts.

tl;dr, if you think it's roulette, quite playing or get better.

[Yarpus]

I fucking hate limited because I suck at it, and I've never drafted anything decent except of single Liliana of the Veil.
But what Liliana of the Veil does if she's one of the two cards you have managed to draft in black while the other is 3-mana discard and second is 4-mana 2/2?
Just fuck my life.
Before the draft part, I was actually 2nd during the 1st day of polish championships.
Limited is the faggot who fucks his mother. It's weird like that.

[LP, of the Fires]

Yarpus: Still my favorite poster.

[Christen]

tl;dr, if you think it's roulette, quite playing or get better.

I experienced M14 sealed with literally no good rares but still went 5-2 (GPT). Inevitably, I lost to the better pools. Luck is still a big factor, but I won't deny that you need plenty of deck construction and card analysis skills to make the best out of your deck. There are just times you get the lower end cards and it matters if you face someone of equal or higher playing skills and they have the better cards.

[zemanjaski]

There is absolutely HEAPS of skill in sealed. But I would contend that is the LEAST skill rewarding format.

[Yarpus]

I love it when sealed/draft are skill intensive. But sometimes Wizards do print cards that jut say "Skill? No."
Hey, I've played against Batterskull during New Phyrexia's prerelease. How skilled you need to be to handle that piece of shit?
And hey, during 3 M13 drafts I played, I ALWAYS opened Wit's End. Okay, I know, shit happens. But during one of those drafts I opened TWO Wit's Ends. Then I was like "no Wizards, fuck you".
I hate the fact that despite of player's skill there's always this ceiling of what you are going to draft. That's probably because I'm bad player as overall, but fsck it.

[Yarpus]

Just do what I do.
- find threads related to any red variant or strategy
- demolish all the posters current assertions and belittle them utterly
- ???
- recruit 2-4 new site members a day

You know, I was actually doing step 1 and step 2 and didn't achieved the step 4. I guess the difference is step 3.
Your ??? (dropping dem sweet knowledge bombs) is much better than mine (tell them they are dumb cunts).

[Christen]

> get dropped with Primeval Bounty all 3 games in a match in turn 6 or 5
> win game 1, board in enchantment destruction
> never draw it in game 2 and 3

No luck for me for that game, and it was to determine who gets a spot in top 8 too =/

[zemanjaski]

Just do what I do.
- find threads related to any red variant or strategy
- demolish all the posters current assertions and belittle them utterly
- ???
- recruit 2-4 new site members a day

You know, I was actually doing step 1 and step 2 and didn't achieved the step 4. I guess the difference is step 3.
Your ??? (dropping dem sweet knowledge bombs) is much better than mine (tell them they are dumb cunts).

You are hilarious. Don't ever change.

[Yarpus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc0-wSQd-LQ

[RedNihilist]

> get dropped with Primeval Bounty all 3 games in a match in turn 6 or 5
> win game 1, board in enchantment destruction
> never draw it in game 2 and 3

No luck for me for that game, and it was to determine who gets a spot in top 8 too =/

Well, on sunday I drafted GB and won every single match except one where my opponent managed to land Thassa on the third turn every.fucking. time.

After the first game I boarded in 2x Fade into Antiquity.
Never seen 'em.

You know, when you play cards, randomness is a factor.

[Yarpus]

Boros Weenie has the potential to be Tier 1 deck. Yes, I mean White Aggro with Red splash.
It has:
- very strong creature package (2-power 1-drops with upsides, can't block fuck you Sovereign, journey to the nowhere on stick and Boros Reckoner)
- reach: you can still play Lightning Strike and Magma Jet there (which do double-duty as removal). Add up Boros Charm for some oomph!
- mana sinks: mostly, Heliod and his Spear.
- tools to beat control decks: Boros Charm either negates their wraths or just goes for the dome.

White Planeswalkers imo suck as they don't do their job. In Aggro deck, Planeswalker's job is being either a non-creature threat or being utility/CA Engine. Ajani is all about making your creatures better and he's worthless when alone on the board. Gideon is all about being useless piece of shit. Elspeth costs 6 mana.
I need to test Giddy for that. But I believe he's still the most retarded thing
since Chandra, Ablaze. But he could be like a winner of paraolympics. "You are the best amongst the retards, Gideon" "Ugh, ye-yes mmmister".

Still, I expect great things from Wr Deck actually. It has all the good stuff from Red (Reckoner, Burn) and has much better creature suite. If you'd ask me - it's the closest you can get to the powerlevel of Zendikar Vampires.

Before you will tell me I'm crazy.

[deck]Creatures:
4 Dryad Militiant
4 Soldier of the Pantheon
4 Precinct Captain
2 Daring Skyjeck
2 Imposing Sovereign
4 Banisher Priest
4 Boros Reckoner
2 Heliod, God of the Sun

Other Spells:
4 Lightning Strike
4 Magma Jet
2 Boros Charm
2 Spear of Heliod

Lands:
4 Sacred Foundry
4 Temple of Triumph
14 Plains[/deck]

No SB yet, but cards I'd consider:
1. Wear // Tear
2. Traitorous Instincts
3. Renounce the Guilds
4. Fiendslayer Paladin
5. Glare of Heresy
6. Ajani/Giddy
7. Burning Earth/Peak Eruption

Also, possible changes:
+ Using eiither RW drop (
Akroan Hoplite, Truefire Paladin, Wojek's Halberier) or more Imposing Sovereigns instead of Daring Skyjeck
+ Using some amount of maindeck Frontline Medics as Reckoner/Medic combo gives you some outs against both UW Control and RDW.
+ Adding more 1-drops (Boros Elite)

[Lightning_Dolt]

You probably want 4x Imposing Sovereign.

[Alex]

A lot of hate for sealed here. I can't say I find that particularly shocking in any regard, because you guys are mostly constructed players.

I, however, LOVE playing sealed. Playing on a blatantly lower power level evens the playing field drastically. Only bad players will cry about the "quality of their pool" most of the time, because bombs in sealed can be so vast and varied, and most of them are usually common/uncommon. Rares are very seldom backbreaking depending on the format. (And in some sealed environments, for instance Rise of the Eldrazi, they were actually unplayable. You couldn't cast most of the rare/mythic eldrazi, but you could cast the common ones happily.) I won M14 prerelease with only one rare in my deck, and it wasn't a good one (Trading Post) and the rest of my deck was just built well. I didn't have the best removal in the world, but I had creatures that traded up and a fair few ways
to draw cards.

I think the biggest mistake I see people make when building sealed decks is thinking that constructed playable cards are actually good in the format. Sometimes they are, but more often than not they're situational at best. A good example of this was playing New Phyrexia sealed, a friend of mine tried to sell to me that Vapor Snag was 100% mandatory and should be played in every deck. He played UG and lost horribly because while he was Vapor Snagging things, people were playing actual removal spells. Same goes for things like Planeswalkers. If your pool doesn't support them, chances are you shouldn't be playing them. You can't force Ajani Goldmane if your white is not good.





tl;dr: I love sealed. If anyone is interested in it, I am a wealth of knowledge on the subject. Don't be scurr'd to ask.

[warwizard87]

alex, I can say this I was at a GP in Columbus years ago, back when darksteel was the new set, im old. my best card was warhammer. but after that my card quality dropped horridly lol

[Alex]

alex, I can say this I was at a GP in Columbus years ago, back when darksteel was the new set, im old. my best card was warhammer. but after that my card quality dropped horridly lol

Loxodon Warhammer is an insane sealed bomb, though. Those are my favorite kind of bombs (colorless artifacts that interact favorably in combat) because they will always get played in your pool no matter what. Especially in a format like Darksteel where Lifelink was really really really good.

[Valdarith]

Re: booster prices on MODO, I sell to Booster_Bot. I had THS boosters to sell that I won from 2-mans.

[zemanjaski]

[deck]
23 Swamp
4 Encroaching Wastes

4 Corrupt
2 Devour Flesh
4 Diabolic Tutor
4 Doom Blade
4 Hero's Downfall
4 Thoughtseize
4 Underworld Connections

1 Liliana of the Dark Realms

1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Haunted Platemail
1 Pithing Needle
3 Trading Post

Sideboard
2 Devour Flesh
4 Duress
1 Hythonia the Cruel
4 Pharika's Cure
4 Lifebane Zombie
2 Ratchet Bomb
[/deck]

Funnily enough, without Elixir of Immortality, this isn't a deck.

[zemanjaski]

There is a Boros deck in the private forums I'd like you all to take a look at >:)

[DarthStabber]

Booster draft has all the good things people say about sealed, only it's actually true, and a good player can hedge his odds even without bombs. No bombs in sealed, goodluck, you might be able to get there, but you're probably going to get humped. I say this as a limited player, I go most seasons without playing any sanctioned constructed (except during COK, RAV, and TSP blocks when I played tons of standard, extended, and legacy). After years of watching drafts and sealed events I can tell I have neen sealed events mised by mediocre players far more often than drafts. The rares you pull are far more important in sealed, where as I have won several drafts passing every rare, just focusing on removal and cheap dudes (that being said I didn't just pass them for the sake of passing them, they were just shitty).

[warwizard87]

alex, I can say this I was at a GP in Columbus years ago, back when darksteel was the new set, im old. my best card was warhammer. but after that my card quality dropped horridly lol

Loxodon Warhammer is an insane sealed bomb, though. Those are my favorite kind of bombs (colorless artifacts that interact favorably in combat) because they will always get played in your pool no matter what. Especially in a format like Darksteel where Lifelink was really really really good.

Yeah but I got literally zero removal spells. And only mediocre dudes, I had a
lot of people tell me it really was the worst pool they ever seen. I still look back at that and frown who gets the worst sealed deck in history at a gp LOL

[Valdarith]

Zem, I just took a look at the Weapons of Choice thread and noticed you're playing ANT in Legacy.

I knew I liked you.

[Alex]

alex, I can say this I was at a GP in Columbus years ago, back when darksteel was the new set, im old. my best card was warhammer. but after that my card quality dropped horridly lol

Loxodon Warhammer is an insane sealed bomb, though. Those are my favorite kind of bombs (colorless artifacts that interact favorably in combat) because they will always get played in your pool no matter what. Especially in a format like Darksteel where
Lifelink was really really really good.

Yeah but I got literally zero removal spells. And only mediocre dudes, I had a lot of people tell me it really was the worst pool they ever seen. I still look back at that and frown who gets the worst sealed deck in history at a gp LOL

I once had a pool in (funny enough) Scars of Mirrodin where my only playable bomb was Myr Propagator. The deck around it was literally just "random spells that block things until Propagator takes over the game. I don't know if you've ever played with Pack Rats, but Propagator is very much akin to that, only WAY slower and significantly worse because it doesn't get bigger the more times you copy it.

It was an awful deck. I was at a sealed GPT when I played this deck. I still (barely) managed to top8 with it because apparently playing a lot of Wall of Tanglecord lets you stall long enough to do really stupid things, but there was still no way I was going to win
playing that pile. Thankfully we all split and gave the invite to a friend of ours, because having to play that deck through the top8 would have been boring and painful.

I've almost never seen unplayable sealed pools. I'm sure it happens, but it's way, WAY rarer than people will allude you to believing. I just find that "my pool was bad" is synonymous with "I am not very good at building with a sealed pool" a vast majority of the time.

[lorddax]

Thursday - Weekly Standard Tourney
Friday - FNM
Saturday - TCGPlayer MaxPoint State Champs

Planning on see how much our PyroRed can take down

[Helios]

Right there with you, dax. Keep us updated!

[warwizard87]

alex, I can say this I was at a GP in Columbus years ago, back when darksteel was the new set, im old. my best card was warhammer. but after that my card quality dropped horridly lol

Loxodon Warhammer is an insane sealed bomb, though. Those are my favorite kind of bombs (
colorless artifacts that interact favorably in combat) because they will always get played in your pool no matter what. Especially in a format like Darksteel where Lifelink was really really really good.

Yeah but I got literally zero removal spells. And only mediocre dudes, I had a lot of people tell me it really was the worst pool they ever seen. I still look back at that and frown who gets the worst sealed deck in history at a gp LOL

I once had a pool in (funny enough) Scars of Mirrodin where my only playable bomb was Myr Propagator. The deck around it was literally just "random spells that block things until Propagator takes over the game. I don't know if you've ever played with Pack Rats, but Propagator is very much akin to that, only WAY slower and significantly worse because it doesn't get bigger the more times you copy it.

It was an awful deck. I was at a sealed GPT when I played this deck. I still (barely) managed to top8
with it because apparently playing a lot of Wall of Tanglecord lets you stall long enough to do really stupid things, but there was still no way I was going to win playing that pile. Thankfully we all split and gave the invite to a friend of ours, because having to play that deck through the top8 would have been boring and painful.

I've almost never seen unplayable sealed pools. I'm sure it happens, but it's way, WAY rarer than people will allude you to believing. I just find that "my pool was bad" is synonymous with "I am not very good at building with a sealed pool" a vast majority of the time.

Not gonna lie I have had plenty of pools I thought sucked untill after the event where I went back over it and was like duh I should of built it this way. But that one I still would go back to a year latter and shudder. Wish I still had the pool somewhere, only match I won was were game one I blew him out with I think it was tangle spider like a six or seven mana with
reach and flash big spider. I bluffed it the entirety of game two and he was terrified to attack shill I sat there lands in hand and seven untapped mana untill I actually did draw em.

[Valdarith]

I'm going to have to get some Sealed practice in on MODO in anticipation of the PTQ next month.

[TubeHunter]

I've had a few pool in which i failed to build it correctly. My biggest mistake was playing Dega in dragons maze pre-re and be too blinded by my guild packs to see that esper was the better choice. I still top 4'd cause my pool was nuts, but i hate realizing after the fact that i didn't build the correct pool