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cecillbill's C-Notes Sealed Deck Excercise11.30.04 Sealed Deck Exercise On November 13th I placed 2nd at my local Shadowclash Release Party Tournament and won some promos and packs. I’d write a lengthy tournament report, but the event had low turnout and byes every round. Reporting about it would amount to one unexciting paragraph. Instead this article covers the way I approached Sealed deck construction in the Shadowclash Release event. At the end of the article I present you with a Sealed deck exercise to complete and email back to me. So, yeah, check that part out if you're looking for something constructive to do with your free time besides reading my crazy mess of thoughts. ; ) At the release event we made sealed decks from 3 Shadowclash, 1 Rampage and 1 Base Set packs. Before constructing my deck, I set out some deck-building goals for myself. The goals were a subconscious thing, so I didn’t bring this list with me the event. This is only my way of doing things, and sometimes 'my way' is a bit 'backwards.' Some points may run counter to how you play, so stick with what works for you. Here were my goals: My Sealed Deck Building Goals 1. Consider most every blocker playable. Put them in the playable pile first, because defense is golden in Limited. Not all blocker creatures will end up in the final deck, by virtue of wanting the majority of my creatures to be aggressive, but put them in that pile the first time around the card pool. With shield trigger creatures popping up unexpectedly, a cheap blocker would be good to have at my disposal. 2. Round up quick hitters. Coming out of the gate fast is good since blockers are far and few between. But, don’t pile up on the junk. In Limited the duel is much more a "race for the finish line" than it is in Contructed because I can't design my deck optimally to "carry me" to the late game where I can drop bombs. 3. Ignore the spells first time around the card pool. Spells are my last consideration. Any spells chucked in the deck should give me field or hand advantage. But do remember to come back to the spell lot for kill. In other words, if I pull a Death Smoke, plan to nab it. 4. Pack some fat. If the packs gave me a double breaker, then roll with the hitter if it didn’t have a ridiculous cost or some ill side effect. Double Breaker ability is great in limited because removal and blockers aren't prevelant. Creatures like Zagaan are great finishers here. 5. Stay away from the anti-cards. There’s a lot of hate in Shadowclash. What are my chances of packing the very civilizations that have the most hate directed toward them? Judging from the common and uncommon card pool, that answer is “high.” Why pay more to cast my own cards? Unless the hate effect would have minimal impact on my deck’s synergy, skip it. 6. Slap in kill. If I landed some choice kill, like ones without drawbacks, then deck them if the mana is no issue. For other kill like Arrows, depends on what type of offense and defense I can mount with my cards. These are the spells I come back for after I've 'ignored' spells the first time around my card pool. 7. Pack as many Shield Trigger creatures/spells as reasonably possible. No, I won’t get 4 Terror Pit and 4 Holy Awe in this format. What I could get are some nasty creature surprises for my opponent and a way to increase my field advantage for free. Maybe a good kill or defensive shield trigger will pop up too. 8. Keep the deck as close to 30 cards as possible. My constructed decks tend to go over the 40-card minimum. My Sealed decks tend to go over the 30-card minimum, as you will see, but here it’s a worse proposition to pack too much over 30. I'm already working with a non-ideal card pool. Don’t make things too hard. 9. Avoid evolution creatures. I'll never get the good ratios popping. I’ve seen evolutions surface on the field in Sealed, I’m just not taking the chance unless there’s search in the deck, draw or multiple copies of the necessary creatures. Usually the first cards to hit the unplayable pile besides the puzzle pieces. ; ) 10. Aim to have something to play at every mana drop from turns 1-5. It’s not always going to be possible, but the early game is very important. I don’t want to go too many turns before I have something to play, whether it’s a blocker, a hitter, or removal. Make sure I have something to do each turn where possible. Before going over my card pool and the choices I made I’d like to take a moment to discuss a few of the cards that I wanted to pull. Cards I Wanted To See I thought we’d only have Shadowclash cards to work with so these are the ones I really wanted to pull: Full Defensor--this could be a clutch card that buys me that needed turn, very annoying because the blocker hate is MIA in Shadowclash Magmarex--there will be weenie hitters and this guy can nail every 1000 guy, just so long as he doesn’t hit me too hard he might be useful Mega Detonator--to push the win Whisking Whirlwind--awesome effect Chains of Sacrifice--just because it was the only kill going for Shadowclash Soul Gulp--players will be running Light, they will lose cards (incidentally this spell murder my hand in the match up versus the winner) Torcon/Kamikaze, Chainsaw Warrior--cheap no matter how they come Sarius, Vizier of Suppression /Aqua Guard--cheap & early blockers Gulan Rias, Speed Guardian/Purple Piercer--evasion effects Aeris, Flight Elemental/ Photocide, Lord of Wastes--hate that doesn’t affect you Kolon, the Oracle--nice tappage Mist Rias, Sonic Guardian/Mongrel Man--draw power Three-Eyed Dragonfly--early double breaker, although I’d really only use this guy once as a finisher because of his creature sac effect Well, that’s enough of living on Fantasy Island; here are the cards that Lady Luck dealt me: The Actual Card Pool So, with my goals in mind I cruised over my card pool, which consisted of the following cards: Light-15 cards Gulan
Rias, Speed Guardian Darkness-12 cards Volcano
Smog, Deceptive Shade Nature-9 cards
Dimension Gate Water-7 cards Stinger
Ball Fire-7 cards Deadly
Fighter Braid Claw Card Pool Evaluation The card pool leans toward a 4-color deck when you shave off the bunk cards of each civilization. I used all 5 civilizations in the deck, splashing Fire. I included Fire cards because the civilization offered a 1-drop hitter, an early double breaker, and some pump hitters. Urcan is junk in my opinion because of how I like to play, but the bulk of my deck hovered at around 4 mana. I didn’t expect many opportunities to build much mana past 7. In a format that is scarce on removal, I’d gladly trade 2 mana to get a 5 spot double breaker with 9000 power. Sniper Striker Bullraizer, Armored Warrior Quelos, and Missile Boy struck me as the bunk Fire cards. Missile would tax the bulk of my deck, Sniper would lay dormant most of the time, and Quelos would toast needed mana. No thanks to all. Next up I noted that I had absolutely no kill (bummer), but I did have some blockers. Water’s blockers practically committed me to playing that civilization. All of the blockers in the card pool were under 4 mana, and two were 1 drops. I didn’t have to run blockers, but I felt it was necessary seeing as how most of my hitters’ cost 3 or above mana. The only Water card that wasn’t playable was Astral Warper. With only a Stinger Ball to aid his arrival, it was best to skip him. Speaking of skipping evolutions, out of the deck went Gigamantis too. I didn’t bother with Sniper Mosquito because it wasn’t something I could see myself swinging with a lot, although late game it wouldn’t have been a bad drop. Dew Mushroom fell under that unnecessary hate category. Ditto for Volcano Smog, Deceptive Shade because Light is the backbone of my card pool. Let my opponent worry about making both our cards cost more. Shadow Moon, Cursed Shade got the boot because I didn’t want run the risk of aiding my opponent without being able to control the situation, like run removal. Darkpact didn’t interest me. Skeleton Thief, the Revealer paled in comparison to most of the other 4 drops, simply because some could come for free and Thief’s effect means nothing in terms of my card pool. Dark Raven, Shadow of Grief isn’t my idea of a good creature, but I like him in this format. A not-too-expensive blocker that can sub as a hitter when able isn’t too shabby. In terms of spells, the best and most useful options were Snake Attack and Whisking Whirlwind. In a format were blockers aren’t in high number, Snake Attack can be a sweet shot at slamming every shield with a ripe field. Whisking Whirlwind makes it harder for my opponent to decrease my field. In this format, attacking your opponent’s creatures is the most readily available option for removal going. Whisking would make that option out of reach for a turn. Playing Whisking was one of my favorite moves in the tourney. I knocked off all an opponent’s shields and several of his tapped hitters, then just untapped my field. Nice. I added Dimension Gate to whisk a blocker out of the deck when needed or to correct mana troubles by fishing out a card of the missing civilization. I skipped Sword of Benevolent Life, though it could aid with overrunning tapped creatures. Pump spells aren’t bad choices in Limited, I just don’t like the ones dependent on field or mana zone civilization counts. Boomerang Comet is junk for the deck I constructed, there’s no way I’d want to spend my 6th turn trading cards with my mana zone. Screaming Sunburst…well it’s worst for the deck than Boomerang Comet. Let’s see, tap the majority of my hitters? No thanks. The only Light hitter that didn’t make the cut was Aless, the Oracle, although I did see a purpose for him with all the weenies that could be running around. Sac him to a tapped weenie, remove & lose a creature and gain a shield. The Deck After making the cuts, the deck was finalized into this build: 1x Gulan Rias, Speed Guardian--it can’t be attacked by Darkness creatures, didn’t expect to see many Darkness blockers 1x Aeris, Flight Elemental--total ownage against Darkness hitters 1x Re Bil, Seeker of the Sunlight--with scarce removal in the format chances are he’s hitting if he gets out, his pump effect for both players didn’t bother me because I’d play him when advantage was in my corner 1x Kolon, the Oracle--one of the best cards in the deck. Allowed for some removal and great off the trigger. Kolon is the reason I lost to the winner. He tapped my blocker with it. 1x Mist Rias, Sonic Guardian--draw power 1x Emerald Grass--early & cheap defense 2x Amber Grass--shield trigger creature with solid power for the money 1x Whisking Whirlwind--makes it harder to lose my guys to direct attacks 1x Sarius, Vizier of Suppression--cheap & early blocker 1x Lok, Vizier of Hunting--solid hitter here 1x Dimension Gate--to fish out a blocker or mana for a specific civilization 3x Cannon Shell--shield trigger creature, although it’s power can leave a lot to be desired if summoned after having low to no shields 1x Exploding Cactus--good chance of being 4000 power when it hits, which it was every time I played it 1x Locomotiver--shield trigger with discard, very handy 1x Purple Piercer--it can’t be attacked or blocked by Light creatures, expected to see lots of Light creatures, blocker or otherwise 1x Dark Raven, Shadow of Grief--blocker and a hitter 1x Gamil, Knight of Hatred--an okay sized body, its effect not a real bonus here, although if it manages to be of use that’s a good thing 1x Bloody Squito--cheap & early defense 1x Photocide, Lord of Waste-s-total ownage against Light creatures 1x Gigablover--its effect didn’t hurt the deck (but could) and it has okay power, could have been Skeleton Thief 1x Snake Attack--a chance for a quick win due to low blocker count 1x Stinger Ball--chance to avoid hitting ST creature until it didn’t matter 1x Candy Drop--evasion in case faced some tough walls 1x Angler Cluster--early & cheap defense 2x Aqua Guard--early & cheap defense 1x Aqua Jolter--shield trigger creature 1x Deadly Fighter Braid Claw--early & cheap beats 1x Stonesaur--pumped hitter, good for killing other hitters 1x Fire Sweeper Burning Hellion--pumped hitter, good for killing other hitters 1x Explosive Fighter Urcan--chance for speeding up the win, early fattie 4 Fire 34 cards Final Thoughts I have this habit of going over deck minimums by 4 cards in Constructed and sometimes in Limited. It’s weird, that’s just me but I seldom do worse than 3rd place with such decks. I certainly could have left out Fire and kept the deck at 30 to call it a day. I didn’t have mana trouble with the deck and sat on few cards that I couldn’t cast. In hindsight, the changes I would make to this deck would be shaving it down to 30 cards. The defining aspect of this release event was the early game. Several decks couldn’t get popping reasonably until the 3rd or 4th turn. Decks that had solid early presence faired better. Shield Trigger Creatures were bombs at this event. Hitting a shield trigger creature almost always turned the tide of the game. Every player was keen on packing as many of these hitters as possible in their decks. Most blockers played at the event were Water blockers, thus nullifying some of the effectiveness of the light/darkness evasion creatures even though they didn’t have to worry about being attacked by these blockers (I don’t recall seeing a King Coral type). Players also packed most of the kill spells they pulled. One player pulled Volcanic Arrows, Death Smoke, and Chains of Sacrifice and decked them all. Nearly every player skipped packing most of the “hate” cards, and of those cards Gigablover was the only one I recall people playing. The field had mostly 3-4 civilization decks, and everyone stayed under 35 cards. I probably had the biggest deck there. Sealed deck is a very fun format. On the fly deck building from a limited card pool forces you to place value on cards that you’d normally wouldn’t run in Constructed. That alone is reason enough to play in this format. Here a freshly pulled Deathliger, Lion of Chaos has renewed life. So whenever you can, play some Sealed events. What Would You Deck? Okay, so here’s the “exercise” part to the article, a little task for you to perform. I’m interested in how everyone would build a deck from the card pool below. Anyway, it's helpful and fun to practice Sealed and Draft deck building, even if you don't actually get to run the deck in a tourney. I purchased a box each of every English Duel Masters set and randomly pulled some boosters for this exercise to mirror the deck building at my local event: 1 Base Set, 1 Rampage, and 3 Shadowclash boosters. If you’re up to the challenge, please send me an email with the cards you’d deck and a brief explanation of your card choices. I’ll pick 1 submission and highlight it in C-Notes depending on whether or not I receive any feedback for this exercise. Please email your Sealed deck choices to kaiserpso@hotmail.com with "Sealed Deck" as the subject line by December 15, 2004. Here's the card pool: (Pojo Note: If cecillbill picks your deck to review, I'll send you a rare Promo card for your efforts). ;-) Base
Set Pack
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