Melissa DeTora
8/3/2012 11:09:00 AM
Grand Prix Boston/Worcester is quickly approaching and I'm excited to be playing M13 Sealed. It's a local GP for me (only a 40 minute drive), so I really want to do well. I've been playing Core Set Limited since 7^th Edition, and while there have been some pretty bad Core Sets for limited (8^th Edition comes to mind), I've always enjoyed playing with the Core Sets.

When it comes to practicing Core Set for a GP, most players choose to ignore Sealed and focus only on Draft, which I think is a mistake. You need to do well in the Sealed portion of the GP in order to draft the next day, so it should be the first thing to focus on.

Players usually feel that Sealed Deck is more luck-based than anything. While I think that if you open a great Sealed Pool, you will have a better win percentage than someone who opens a bad one, I do think that you do need some skill when it comes to Sealed, especially when deckbuilding. A lot of players will open a pool, see a bomb rare, and play it no matter what else they get. Bombs are good, yes, but without a solid deck to back it up, they won't win you many games on their own, which is why knowing how to build a Sealed Deck is just as important as knowing how to draft. I plan on playing in lots of Release Queues on MTGO in order to practice for the GP, but since those aren't happening until later this week, I'll have to settle for playing paper magic for now.

I attended a Grand Prix Trial last weekend, and received a very interesting pool. Usually, when I receive a Sealed Deck, I can take a quick look at it and have a pretty good idea of what colors I'm going to be playing. The pool I got last week however, had good cards in every color. I literally spent the entire time I was given trying to build my deck and handed in the list at the last possible moment.

Here's the pool:

White:
1 Guardians of Akrasa
1 Crusader of Odric
1 War Falcon
2 Ajani's Sunstriker
1 Aven Squire
1 Divine Verdict
1 Pacifism
1 Safe Passage
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Battleflight Eagle
1 Serra Avenger
2 Pillarfield Ox
1 Rain of Blades
1 Glorious Charge
1 Angel's Mercy

Blue:
1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
1 Faerie Invaders
2 Watercourser
1 Welkin Tern
1 Encrust
1 Talrand's Invocation
1 Unsummon
1 Negate
3 Tricks of the Trade
1 Courtly Provocateur
1 Downpour

Black:
2 Mind Rot
2 Duress
2 Vile Rebirth
1 Crippling Blight
1 Walking Corpse
1 Liliana's Shade
2 Murder
1 Servant of Nefarox
1 Disciple of Bolas
1 Essence Drain
1 Sign in Blood

Red:
1 Chandra's Fury
1 Volcanic Geyser
1 Turn to Slag
1 Fire Elemental
1 Bladetusk Boar
1 Furnace Whelp
2 Krenko's Command
1 Goblin Arsonist
1 Mark of Mutiny
1 Trumpet Blast
2 Goblin Battle Jester
1 Kindled Fury

Green:
1 Yeva's Forcemage
1 Spiked Baloth
2 Vastwood Gorger
2 Centaur Courser
1 Predatory Rampage
1 Plummet
1 Naturalize
1 Farseek
1 Mwonvuli Beast Tracker
1 Garruk's Packleader
1 Acidic Slime
1 Duskdale Wurm
1 Bountiful Harvest

Artifacts/Lands:
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Clock of Omens
1 Jayemdae Tome
1 Ring of Kalonia
1 Ring of Thune
1 Ring of Xathrid
1 Hellion Crucible
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Forest (Foil)

The first color that I was drawn to was Blue. There was a Talrand, Sky Summoner, and a lot of instants and sorceries to work with it. There was also a Talrand's Invocation, my vote for best uncommon in the set. Usually, we play 2/2 flyers for three mana in limited, but Talrand's Invocation gives us TWO 2/2 flyers for only one extra mana, all for only one card. The rest of the blue looked incredibly solid, so I wanted to play blue if possible.

The white looked very strong as well. I had the two best white removal spells, Oblivion Ring and Pacifism, solid creatures including a Serra Avenger, and good support spells.

The black gave me two of the set's best removal spell, Murder. The creatures are decent, but not too exciting. Disciple of Bolas is very good. Usually it can get you three cards and three life, and with black's Exalted theme, the little guys can attack, get bigger, then get sacrificed to Disciple of Bolas for value!

Vile Rebirth is a great combat trick. It is by no means a one mana 2/2, but it can do some great things. It can make a surprise blocker, and even a surprise attacker in your opponent's end step. There's been plenty of times where my opponent left back just enough blockers to live, and I cast Vile Rebirth and suddenly had enough damage on my turn for the win. For only one black mana, this card is excellent.

High Mid Low

Talrand, Sky Summoner

$5.14

$1.44

$0.99

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Next up was green, which of course, had excellent creatures. Centaur Courser is one of green's best commons. A three mana 3/3 is an amazing power and toughness for that cost, especially in Core Set. Vastwood Gorger, although it doesn't look exciting, is actually very good. Six toughness is a lot, and therefore is hard to block and is able to dodge most of the direct damage spells in the format. Core Set Sealed games tend to go long, so getting to six mana shouldn't be an issue.

Predatory Rampage, while certainly not Overrun, is a card that made me want to play green. It won't win you as many games as Overrun will, but at worst, it can Wrath away your opponent's board. I'm glad this card is rare and not uncommon like Overrun was. There were too many games in M12 that were decided by an Overrun, and uncommons shouldn't be able win games on their own.

Lastly is the red. There were some great removal spells in red, such as Turn to Slag and Volcanic Geyser. This set has a decent number of 1/1's, so Chandra's Fury is a great removal spell as well. Red also gave us some solid creatures, but overall I feel that red is the weakest color in the pool. While it's still fine, it just didn't compare to the other colors, so it's the first color I eliminated.

I really wanted to play the blue, so I started by working with that. At first, I built a blue/black deck because black had the best removal in the pool, however I quickly dismissed it because it only had eighteen playables and eight creatures. Next, I built a blue/white deck. Here's what it looked like:

1 War Falcon
1 Aven Squire
2 Ajani's Sunstriker
1 Welkin Tern
1 Crusader of Odric
1 Guardians of Akrasa
2 Watercourser
1 Serra Avenger
1 Pillarfield Ox
1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
1 Battleflight Eagle
1 Faerie Invaders

1 Unsummon
1 Downpour
1 Negate
1 Pacifism
1 Safe Passage
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Encrust
1 Divine Verdict
1 Talrand's Invocation

9 Plains
8 Island

Overall, this deck looked very solid. It had some nice removal, but the creatures were pretty small. This deck had a few ways to deal with big creatures, but overall it was going to have a hard time dealing with bombs or even with big green guys.

I'm not the biggest fan of Downpour. In a very fast deck, it can be a good tempo swing, and it also works well with cards like Archaeomancer, but I only considered it because it could make a 2/2 with Talrand, and that isn't a good enough reason to play it.

The black in this pool was very good, so it wouldn't be fair not to build a deck with it. Black and white had the best removal, so I tried to build that deck next. Here it is:

1 War Falcon
1 Aven Squire
2 Ajani's Sunstriker
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Guardians of Akrasa
1 Crusader of Odric
1 Pacifism
1 Serra Avenger
1 Divine Verdict
1 Battleflight Eagle
1 Pillarfield Ox

1 Liliana's Shade
1 Disciple of Bolas
1 Servant of Nefarox
1 Crippling Blight
1 Vile Rebirth
1 Walking Corpse
1 Sign in Blood
2 Murder
1 Essence Drain

9 Plains
8 Swamp

This deck looked amazing. Seven removal spells is well above average in Sealed. However, this deck, like most black/white limited decks, suffered from one huge problem. The mana base was awful. This deck required double white and double black early, and that was just asking for me to get mana screwed. It's pretty embarrassing to cast Sign in Blood on turn two and then not be able to cast your Ajani's Sunstrikers until turn four at the earliest.

The creatures were all very small, just like in the blue/white deck I build earlier, but that shouldn't have been as much of a problem with the amount of removal spells in the deck.

Lastly, I tried out the green. Green white was very clunky with lots of creatures and not many ways to interact with your opponent, so I dismissed it and built green black. Here's what it looked like:

1 Walking Corpse
1 Servant of Nefarox
1 Liliana's Shade
1 Disciple of Bolas
2 Murder
1 Mind Rot
1 Essence Drain
1 Crippling Blight
1 Vile Rebirth
1 Sign in Blood

2 Centaur Courser
1 Yeva's Forcemage
1 Mwonvuli Beast Tracker
1 Spiked Baloth
1 Garruk's Packleader
1 Acidic Slime
2 Vastwood Gorger
1 Farseek
1 Predatory Rampage

1 Ring of Kalonia

9 Swamp
8 Forest

I liked this deck a lot as well. It had lots of removal and solid creatures. Acidic Slime is great in this format because there are lots of artifacts and enchantments in Core Set Limited. Oblivion Ring, Encrust, and even Mark of the Vampire are being heavily played, and artifacts such as the Rings, Staff of Nin, and Primal Clay are heavily played as well.

Ring of Kalonia was the card that made me want to play green. I call this card “Mini-Rancor” because it can give trample to your big guys, and they grow every turn. Turn two Deadly Recluse followed by turn three Ring equip is one of the strongest plays you can make if you're in green.

Green also gave me some good sideboard options. Both Plummet and Naturalize are great cards but not necessarily good in the main deck. Playing green gave me added flexibility if I ran into a deck with a bunch of flyers, artifacts or enchantments.

I agonized between playing the white/black and the green/black decks, but I finally decided to go with the green/black. While I think the white/black deck is slightly better, I was less likely to be mana screwed if I was playing green.

The deck I played performed incredibly well. I always had enough removal to deal with anything thrown my way, and my creatures were good enough to put enough pressure on my opponent. One card that underperformed for me in the tournament was Predatory Rampage. It never actually won me games the way Overrun did in M12. There were times when I cast it, and it killed one or two of my opponent's creatures because they were forced to block with them, but most of the time I had a bunch of Vastwood Gorgers in play, and they were going to block anyway. If the card gave Trample in addition to +3/+3, it would obviously be way better, but for a card that is supposed to replace Overrun, I wasn't impressed.

I also felt like my deck was a bit slow. I actually lost a match to a super fast deck with lots of two and three drops and removal. The one game I was able to stabilize at three life, my opponent dropped a Staff of Nin, so I only had three turns to find an answer, which sadly didn't happen.

I ended up coming in Top 8 in the Grand Prix Trial, and since prizes were awarded based on Swiss Standings and I already had three byes, I dropped to give someone else a chance to fight it out for the byes. The store owner even gave me three extra packs for dropping, because I was missing out on the Top 8 draft.

I still feel like the white/black deck was the better deck, but I'll never know now that the tournament is over. Feel free to discuss how you would build this pool in the forums. Thanks for reading!

Melissa DeTora
@AllWeDoIsWinMTG on Twitter