Getting Ready for Sealed PTQs With Darksteel

by Jeff Zandi

 

The pro tour qualifier season for San Diego is suddenly upon us, featuring sealed deck competition with both Mirrodin and brand-new Darksteel. With the Darksteel pre-releases only a few weeks in the rear view window, it seems incredible that the new cards are already in play. In preparation for this Saturday’s local PTQ in Dallas, opened a Mirrodin starter and two Darksteel boosters and placed these materials in front of Jonathan Pechon, Brent Kaskel and several other teammates to see what they would build. Each player built his deck alone, and there was no discussion between players about the cards until everyone finished building. Here is what happened.

 

Here are the cards, separated by color.

 

MIRRODIN

 

Cloudpost

Tree of Tales

Vault of Whispers

Aether Spellbomb

Alpha Myr

Dross Scorpion

Galvanic Key

Loxodon Warhammer

Malachite Golem

Mind’s Eye

Nim Replica

Pyrite Spellbomb

Silver Myr

Skeleton Shard

Tooth of Chiss-Goria

Vorrac Battlehorns

Vulshok Gauntlets

Wizard Replica

 

Arrest

Awe Strike

Taj-Nar Swordsmith

Tempest of Light

Sphere of Purity

Soul Nova

 

Annul

Neurok Familiar

Neurok Spy

Regress

 

Electrostatic Bolt

Krark-Clan Shaman

Shrapnel Blast

Vulshok Berserker

 

Dross Harvester

Dross Prowler

Nim Shrieker

Slith Bloodletter

Woebearer

Wrench Mind

 

Brown Ouphe

Groffskithur

Predator’s Strike

Tel-Jilad Exile

Tooth and Nail

Viridian Shaman

Wurmskin Forger

 

DARKSTEEL

 

These cards are still so new that I wanted to mention something about each of them.

 

Arcane Spellglass - good enough for sealed, but not good with expensive cards

Arcbound Hybrid – I like his hastiness    

Darksteel Ingot – play this if you don’t have enough Myr or Talisman

Drill-Skimmer – not valuable enough most of the time

Leonin Bola – close enough to Icy Manipulator, worth the hassle

Razor Golem – very powerful in white decks

Specter’s Shroud x2 – powerful discard effect if you get it up soon enough

Spire Golem – fat flyer ALMOST good enough without Islands

Sword of Fire and Ice – good in any deck

Tangle Golem – playable with Forests

Thunderstaff x2 – does double duty, offense or defense

 

Echoing Calm – sideboard ONLY

Loxodon Mystic – solid but not splashable

Metal Fatigue – don’t play this card

Ritual of Restoration – slightly playable Raise Dead effect

 

Neurok Transmuter – a Bear that could counter a Shatter or Deconstruct

Quicksilver Behemoth x2 – a great monster if you have strong artifact affinity

Vedalken Engineer – tapping for TWO mana of ANY color is VERY good

 

Drooling Ogre – looks good, but strictly unplayable, too risky

 

Chittering Rats – black time walk that gets better with bounce

Essence Drain – solid Drain Life effect

Greater Harvester – big creature that just isn’t worth the trouble

Hunger of the Nim – not playable

Scavenging Scarab – solid giant

 

Karstoderm – can’t count on this guy

Nourish – life gain just doesn’t make the cut

Tel-Jilad Wolf – always good enough

 

BUILDING THE DECK

 

It’s unfortunate, for experimentation purposes, that the two Darksteel packs I opened contained duplicates of three different cards, but I decided not to replace them with other cards, and duplication of commons in the Darksteel boosters is certainly something you can look forward to in this sealed deck season.

 

In all, six different people built a deck out the cards listed above. In all, four builds included white, four builds included blue and three builds included black. Only two deck ended up including red (both times as a splash) and only Mr. Pechon included green. We’ll talk about his decision to go green a little later.

 

The color breakdown for the six builds: Two blue/white, one blue/black, one blue/white/black, one white/black and one white/green. Clearly, white was the most popular color, followed closely by blue.

 

There are few surprises looking at the cards that all six builders used: Loxodon Warhammer, Mind’s Eye, Silver Myr and Wizard Replica. Sword of Fire and Ice, Spire Golem, Razor Golem, Arrest and the sometimes-good-sometimes-bad Taj-Nar Swordsmith made the cut in all but one deck.

 

Four decks included Thunderstaff, and in three of those, both copies were included. Other cards included in four of the builds were Neurok Spy and Vedalken Engineer (in all four of the blue decks), Soul Nova (Pechon left it out of his white/green deck, a very late cut in favor of a more offensive weapon). 

 

Some cards got no love from this test group. No takers for Dross Scorpion, Galvanic Key, Tooth of Chiss-Goria (even though Amsterdam proved it could be powerful in draft), Vorrac Battlehorns, Vulshok Gauntlets (too many other equipment options), Echoing Calm, Metal Fatigue, Ritual of Restoration, Tempest of Light, Sphere of Purity, Drooling Ogre, Krark-Clan Shaman, Vulshok Berserker (just not enough red cards to make it a main color in any deck), Dross Harvester, Dross Prowler, Hunger of the Nim, Wrench Mind, Brown Ouphe, Groffskithur, Karstoderm, Nourish or Tooth and Nail (this one probably should be in any deck playing a lot of green).

 

A look at three very different decks in detail.

 

BRENT KASKEL

 

Brent built black/blue wanting to take advantage of the powerful black cards. He included Neurok Familiar in order to take advantage of the Specter’s Shroud to take cards out of his opponents’ hands. He felt more strongly about his deck after construction than the rest of us. He assured us that this collection of cards would take its player to the top eight more times than not. Here is his deck.

Islands x6

Swamps x8

Tree of Tales

Vault of Whispers

Aether Spellbomb

Loxodon Warhammer

Mind’s Eye

Nim Replica

Silver Myr

Specter’s Shroud x2

Sword of Fire and Ice

Thunderstaff x2

Wizard Replica

Neurok Familiar

Neurok Spy

Quicksilver Behemoth x2

Vedalken Engineer

Spire Golem

Chittering Rats

Essence Drain

Greater Harvester

Nim Shrieker

Scavenging Scarab

Slith Bloodletter

Woebearer

 

JONATHAN PECHON

 

A very experienced sealed deck builder, Jonathan’s central preoccupation with this group of cards was, in his opinion, the lack of a good creature base. After first considering blue/white, and after trying to make black work, Jonathan ended up in green in order to satisfy his craving for decent creatures. It’s hard to argue with Viridian Shaman, one of the most effective creatures in Mirrodin. Jonathan then picked white for Arrest, the very good Razor Golem and a few more creatures. Finally, Jonathan splashed red, feeling that this deck would JUST LOSE if it didn’t have enough ways to remove a crucial creature on the opponent’s side of the board.

Plains x7

Forests x6

Mountains x3

Tree of Tales

Arcbound Hybrid

Darksteel Ingot

Loxodon Warhammer

Malachite Golem

Mind’s Eye

Pyrite Spellbomb

Razor Golem

Silver Myr

Spire Golem

Sword of Fire & Ice

Tangle Golem

Thunderstaff x2

Wizard Replica

Arrest

Loxodon Mystic

Taj-Nar Swordsmith

Electrostatic Bolt

Shrapnel Blast

Predator’s Strike

Tel-Jilad Exile

Tel-Jilad Wolf

Viridian Shaman

Wurmskin Forger

 

JEFF ZANDI

I was underwhelmed by this collection of cards, especially the creatures. On the other hand, Loxodon Warhammer can make a bad creature look pretty good in a hurry. White interested me the most. My plan is to win with Razor Golem attacking without tapping wearing a sporty piece of equipment, with the preferred bling-bling being Warhammer, of course. I picked blue primarily for creature reasons. I thought there were enough cheap artifacts to make the Quicksilver Behemoths very good. I have no problem with them returning to my hand after attacking or blocking. If you have enough artifact affinity, this should not be too much of a drawback. Moreover, after you attack, it might be pretty nice to recast this creature and have a blocker available. When you block with the Behemoth, you should generally be removing the attacking creature, since the Behemoth is so large. I played both Thunderstaff’s primarily for their ability to prevent damage to me when they are untapped. I felt this deck would be pretty good but a little slow. I wanted to always be able to play a Thunderstaff on turn three (occasionally on turn two with either Silver Myr or Vedalken Engineer in play). Here’s the deck.

Islands x8

Plains x8

Aether Spellbomb

Arcbound Hybrid

Darksteel Ingot

Leonin Bola

Loxodon Warhammer

Mind’s Eye

Razor Golem

Silver Myr

Spire Golem

Sword of Fire & Ice

Thunderstaff x2

Wizard Replica

Arrest

Loxodon Mystic

Taj-Nar Swordsmith

Soul Nova

Annul

Neurok Familiar

Neurok Spy

Neurok Transmuter

Quicksilver Behemoth x2

Vedalken Engineer

 

TESTING THE DECK

 

We were not able to test all the versions of the decks against “live fire” in the form of other decks. This is, of course, one of the central challenges of limited. At best, you can get some practice matches in against a few other players after you have turned in your decklist. This will often result in learning what changes need to be made to your deck for game two in your future tournament matches.

 

I did, however, test my version of this deck against some Mirrodin/Darksteel booster draft decks that were lying around. Even though the booster draft decks would be better focused and generally faster and stronger than my sealed deck, the practice matches still helped me learn a few things. The Thunderstaff felt slow. In playing about ten games, with Thunderstaff in play at some point in virtually every game, it didn’t seem to help me win (or help me keep from losing) very much. Next time, I might leave the Thunderstaff out. When this deck did well, it was often thanks to the Warhammer, the Razor and Spire Golems, and, less often, because of the Quicksilver Behemoth. Something about the Leonin Bola bothers me. I think I hate the repetition of attaching it and unattaching it. However, it does turn a creature into an Icy Manipulator for a very low cost, so I’d have to say that it is worth the trouble.

 

On Saturday, the playing field will be wide open here in Dallas, with Uber-Limited Players Neil Reeves (winner of the last two pro tour qualifiers in Dallas), Dave Williams and Brent Kaskel in California playing in the Grand Prix. I’ll be playing in Saturday’s pro tour qualifier, having fallen short in Pro Tour Amsterdam. I’m 16-2 in the Swiss rounds of the three Mirrodin sealed deck PTQs that I have attended, so I like my chances.

 

Jeff Zandi

Texas Guildmages

Level II DCI Judge

jeffzandi@thoughtcastle.com 

Zanman on Magic Online