Dies to Removal

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

Haha, I saw this so much in Ravnica that it didn't shock me the second time around in Return. People did it in Alara too.

I ended up playing RBU at my RTR pre-re. I chose Rakdos as my guild. Pulled 2 Hypersonic Dragons, couple Cacklers, a few Auger Spree, Frostburn Weird, couple Chainwalkers, Hellhole Flailer, couple Inspiration, playset of Launch Party, several shred freaks, Rix Maadi Guildmage, Shrieking Affliction, the list goes on...

Long story short, I end up going 3-1. Lost my first match because it was the first tournament I had played in a long time, and several mistakes were made. After that, I tightened up and plowed through the rest of the field. I think I ended up getting 8 packs. Fun stuff.

Split top 2 at Avacyn (30ish people), Mono Izzet for split 3/4th at RtR (50 people), Orzhov for 4-0 in a win-a-pack, then 5-0 swiss, split top (60 people). 4-0 Dragon's maze with Bant win-a-pack, couldn't stay for the swiss. 2nd in 2HG swiss (26 teams) for Theros, we played a B/G goodstuff deck and a r/w heroic weenie deck.

I like sealed.

You have a low chance of getting a genuinely bad pool. The only real excuse is your opponents having better pools.

A public service announcement from your friendly neighborhood pharmacist:

Don't EVER take Nyquil if you wake up half way through the night with sinus symptoms. I'm a firm believer in the power of said elixir when taken at bedtime, but I took some around 3AM and have3 been fighting to keep my head attached and off my desk all day! Just call me Loopy Lopez for the day...

But on the sunny side of the day, this is happening:



I'm actually doing a bit of scientific investigation myself here. The independent variable is injection of one of the pork shoulders with an apple cider/rub mixture.

Any clan brethren who happen to be around Tulsa this Saturday are welcome to come by and sample the results...

Looks DELICIOUS photo.

Looks DELICIOUS photo.

Indeed, indeed.

When and where in Tulsa? I have Saturday with just me and the munchkin.

When and where in Tulsa? I have Saturday with just me and the munchkin.

Dan, you're the exception here, brother...you can get yours here local!

The butts came 2 in a cryo pack, and rather than going to all the hassle of freezing one to use later, I decided I'd just cook both and take one down to Tulsa for the Renegade Review Marching Festival. We (field crew) will be setting up the band perimeter at Union while the kids are off at the mall eating lunch, so I thought food might be in order as we might not get lunch otherwise.

Om nom nom

that looks so good. Officially jealous.

Know what Tulsa is backwards?
A slut.

http://imgur.com/gallery/SwvZ3

http://300Sandwiches.com

You're welcome

"big as fuck kit kat"

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.

I'll bite because prereleases are a good chance to win packs around here. I've been to 3 so far and went, 1-3 for Dragon's Maze, 2nd place for M14 (6-2), and 1st for Theros (7-1). This is what I've done, probably could do better though.

Usually I separate everything into 6 piles, WUBRG + Artifacts. I then pick the 2 best colors and maybe an artifact or two if it's relevant (I used [card]Traveler's Amulet[/card] last prerelease). When I look at colors the first two things I look for are the bomb cards and the removal. I'm not talking about a rare for a bomb, it could be something as simple as a 6/6
trample for 6 common green card. During M14 my bombs were Howl of the Night Pack, Woodborn Behemoth, and Sporemound, during Theros it was [card]Elspeth, Sun's Champion[/card] and Ember Swallower.

After that, I look for removal. I only drew a single Doombladeduring M14 and I think 1 Corruptand 1 Liturgy of Blood. It wasn't the best. During Theros I pulled 3 Divine Verdicts and 2 Lightning Strikes, so I was able to take out other people's monsters easily. If I could blast down their monstrous guy that was usually enough of a gain to win the game.

I try to find any synergies in a color. I'm not talking about an elaborate combo. Stuff more like... Howl of the Night Pack or [
card]Sporemound[/card]+ Blood Bairn or Dragon Mantle + Two-Headed Cerberus. During Theros I had the Dragon Mantle + Two-Headed Cerberus combo win me more games than anything else (I pulled 2 of each).

Last, I seem to do better when I put mana fixing into my deck. During M14 I ran 3 Lay of the Lands and during Theros I ran [card]Traveler's Amulet[/card]. More ways to get that second color or 2nd source of a color seems to be useful. Oh yeah, land wise, I always run 17.

The other thing I learned during my Dragon's Maze prerelease is to not force colors or a color combination. I signed up for Boros got an Izzet pack, but pulled better Rakdos and Gruul cards. I should have played Jund, but I forced American which was really a crappy Izzet deck. I did terrible. Sealed seems to be a
format where you try to make the best of what you're given.

In dragon's maze prerelease sealed, me and my friends all came to the conclusion of playing all the gates and all the best cards. Realistically there'd be 1 maybe 2 players who opened up a good aggressive card and versus everyone else they would have a standard sealed pool doing standard sealed things and you'd be able to play all of your multicolored bombs along with just solid creatures like the 4/6 for 5 selesnya guy and you could get value from all your gatekeepers.

We all went X-0 going into the last round in 3 separate prereleases minus me in my last one where I was mildly burned out, tilted, and misplayed myself into defeat. It didn't help that my Teysa got killed on site every game

In Thero's I played a boros heroic deck to a mediocre finish(pilot error) to the midnight prerelease. Being drunk at 230 in the morning
while trying to play magic is not a recipe for success.

At the sunday release though, I played a very good R/B midrange deck with 3 lightning strikes along with other solid removal, a good curve, and 2 bombs(the ember swallower and hammer). I went 4-0-1 with an unintentional draw and finished 2nd due to being paired down in my last match.

M14, I finished 3rd with a solid UG deck with jace, good green creatures and terrible mana(everything was double costed). I only lost to flood against a guy who played thune against me twice(answered it both games).

At avacyn restored pre-release, I got second with a very bad UW deck mostly from playing my ass off and drawing ludvicks test subject a lot.

Recently I scrubbed out of an m14 sealed ptq do to misbuilding my pool(splashed goblin diplomats instead of doom blade. Wasn't actually relevant), and I may have misplayed in round 2. I had a solid deck though and with better play and draws think I could have been in contention for top 8. My last match in
particular, I think I played to cautiously, though I still was 1 turn away from winning an incredible game where I was able to battle back from a very sad boardstate and nearly took it with a fireshrieked nephalia seakite. He alpha'd taking me to dead next turn then topdecked one of his 4ish outs in a deadly recluse. I was drawing to 1 claustrophobia and whiffed. It was the next card in my deck

Overall, I love sealed.

Apparently, I'm qualified for a sally cockatrice tourney. Winner gets 30 store credit to SCG or CFB. Value.

Is there any way how White Weenie can respond to Chandra's Phoenix except of Last Breath (which is not too good in Aggro mirror after all)? Deck at the moment plays 11 red sources and 7 of those sources are Mountains so I'd rather not count on either Annihilating Fire.

Apparently, I'm qualified for a sally cockatrice tourney. Winner gets 30 store credit to SCG or CFB. Value.

Easy pickings?

Pacifism

Thank you Ham, it's the exact card I was looking for. TY <3
Also, should Weenie Aggro just look for all of the possible responses to card it's opponent can play? I was always correct with the SB full of reactive cards, but not sure if Weenie Deck should play like that.

From Poland, With Love

I split my sealed pools into 4 piles: Bombs, removal, dudes, tricks, and complete turds then I split those piles by color. Then I determine based on this grid where the strength is. It usually works out that I run whichever color has the best removal + whatever color has the best dues, ties are broken by where bombs are. Then add tricks and shuffle. If nothing speaks to me I just jam the red and green together and roll with it, I pick those two colors because they tend to be the most straight forward, and with a mediocre pool it's better to just force my game down their throats than try to be tricky.

I sort by color, noting which colors are deep and cutting the two weakest colors noting what bombs I'm cutting while keeping an eye out for manafixing.

Then I make combinations of the three colors trying to see which deck has the best combination of bombs, removal, card advantage/cards that are good early and late(tha's not quite CA but it certainly emphasizes card quality), and curve, with curve being the least important consideration.

After that, I look at my manafixing if any and see if I can add a solid removal spell/bomb to my deck off of my fixing.

An example would be if I'm G/R monsters in thero's sealed and I have a voyaging satyr, travelrs amulet, and unkown shores in my pool. Oh hey there sea god's revenge, looks like your getting jammed into my deck since you just win the game.

I started to love this White Weenie with Red splash. And damn, I'm even willing to sell my Chandras just to get it running on Modo. Call me a heretic, but it still taps some mountains and deals direct damage. I love it when my gameplan looks like:
- put an early pressure
- make single alpha swing turning single Precinct Captain and his tokens into a serious thing. they drop mass removal.
- put Heliod and start pumping out all the tokens. 3/2 Vigiliance Tokens.
That really hurts.

Zem, you should try it. I know it's White - but really, it works just like RDW.

My best sealed performances come from picking dudes and keeping up pressure. My best showing was 7-0 at GTC prerelease when I went Boros and won on the back of a bunch of Warmind Infantry, random bears and a Blind Obedience. It was remarkably trick-free, just relentless pressure and the poor man's mana sink, Razortip Whip. No bombs at all, just dudes saying "answer me, brah"

My worst sealed events happen when I try to build half of a real constructed deck, like my AVR prerelease when I pulled a Tamiyo and tried to go the tempo route with no real game plan other than hope my opponent is asleep.

Sample pool:

[deck]1 Borderland Minotaur
1 Nessian Asp
1 Deathbellow Raider
2 Titan's Strength
2 Voyage's End
2 Crackling Triton
2 Spark Jolt
1 Triton Fortune Hunter
2 Akroan Hoplite
2 Battlewise Hoplite
1 Akroan Horse
1 Dragon Mantle
2 March of the Returned
1 Staunch-Hearted Warrior
1 Bronze Sable
2 Setessan Battle Priest
2 Traveling Philosopher
1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
4 Wingsteed Rider
2 Purphoros's Emissary
1 Master of Waves
1 Baleful Eidolon
2 Silent Artisan
1 Nessian Courser
1 Lost in a Labyrinth
2 Leafcrown Dryad
1 Dark Betrayal
2 Sentry of the Underworld
1 Pharika's Mender
1 Psychic Intrusion
3 Cavalry Pegasus
1 Agent of Horizons
1 Coastline Chimera
2 Chosen by Heliod
1 Sea God's Revenge
1 Ordeal of Nylea
1 Ordeal of Purphoros
1 Artisan of Forms
1 Viper's Kiss
1 Scourgemark
1 Opaline Unicorn
1 Feral Invocation
1 Traveler's Amulet
1 Divine Verdict
1 Satyr Hedonist
n2 Omenspeaker
1 Vanquish the Foul
1 Hammer of Purphoros
1 Rage of Purphoros
1 Battlewise Valor
1 Fleshmad Steed
1 Loathsome Catoblepas
1 Nylea's Disciple
1 Wild Celebrants
1 Karametra's Acolyte
1 Evangel of Heliod
1 Horizon Chimera
1 Reaper of the Wilds
1 Demolish
1 Priest of Iroas
1 Ephara's Warden
3 Yoked Ox[/deck]

A step I neglected was cutting jank.

How would you all build this pool?

And if people want sealed practice, we could probably make a thread in limited where I'll post sealed pools and people can practice building.

I think that'd give very solid UWR.
It has some decent Red and Blue removal - and White gives you some creature fillers. Actually, it's pretty good Sealed pack. I really do like having Emissary of Purphoros in here.

[deck]Creatures
1 Borderland Minotaur
2 Crackling Triton
1 Triton Fortune Hunter
2 Akroan Hoplite
2 Battlewise Hoplite
2 Wingsteed Rider
2 Purphoros Emissary
1 Master of Waves
1 Artisan of Forms
1 Coastline Chimera

Other Spells
2 Voyage's End
2 Titan's Strenght
1 Lost in Labirynth
1 Divine Verdict
1 Rage of Purphoros
1 Ordeal of Purphoros
1 Traveler's Amulet

Lands (16):
Manabase Yo

Sideboard:
15 Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded[/deck]

Not sure if I should swap Wingsteed Rider for something else as 2-coloured mana hurts in 3-color deck.
As overall this deck could be really good.

Without saying what I would build(since this is ideally an exercise for everyone else) white's almost definitely my base with quad windstead rider and red has a bomb(hammer) along with lots of good heroic enablers and solid aggressive creatures while blue has the best heroic creatures and the best tempo spells.

I'm actually going to start a thread for this in the limited section. I didn't realize sealed was a thing anybody but me found interesting.

I remember forcing Mono Red in every AVR draft. Best archetype in the format (you'd never get mono green).

RG in M13 was the nut. Draft ALL the Flunkies!

I am, in fact, the nut.

Yep, they're discussing cutting Firedrinker Satyr on Sally again.

This time I leave them to their own fate.

Sample pool:

--SNIP--

And if people want sealed practice, we could probably make a thread in limited where I'll post sealed pools and people can practice building.

I think this is a fantastic plan. In fact, it could become a serious learning tool (for me anyway...I know others learn differently) if we were to lost pools we've had, let people break it down, then post what we actually built and get commentary. Or even post our build in with spoiler tags and have everyone respond in spoiler tags so that no one is influencing another's build. Hmmm...

Yep, they're discussing cutting Firedrinker Satyr on Sally again.

This time I leave them to their own fate.

Now that I'm unbanned, I just saw that. I'm not sure it's worth the effort anymore.

Yep, they're discussing cutting Firedrinker Satyr on Sally again.

This time I leave them to their own fate.

People get so lopsided in their thinking...they get burned by taking 3 when someone Strikes their Satyr in one game and immediately forget about all the damage they dealt to the other guy with it. I had to talk my son through this when he was running Devotion Red against me (BR). Satyr is a great teaching tool from that perspective regarding mindful sideboarding...

Since today was officially my last day of employment, I won't be attending States this weekend. Money is the issue, but it's not a big deal. Without Chandra and some Muta's, it's probably not worth attending anyways.

To add to my wonderful day, I'm now coming down with something.

I don't understand, we really don't care about our life total, and so many times you can trade up with his fire breathing ability. How are they comparing it to legion loyalist.

Noobs will be noobs.