M10 Sealed Deck Tournament Report (Magic League Trial)
August 3, 2009
Last Saturday, I played in a M10 Sealed Deck Trial on Magic-League.com. A trial is a single elimination tournament with the top two players getting byes to the Master Tournament, which is a big swiss tournament (think PTQ). First place for the trial gets two byes while the runner-up gets one bye.
I opened six packs of Magic 2010 and this is what I saw.
| M10 Sealed Card Pool | |||||||||||
Green (14)
White (14) | Blue (15)
Black (13)
Red (20)
Artifacts (7) Lands (1) |
| |||||||||
How would you have built my deck?
Deck Building Analysis
I had four great equipment cards, so I knew I wanted to play a good number of creatures. I didn’t want to go below 13 creatures.
Blue was a quick cut since it did not have many strong cards.
Black was the next cut. It had okay cards but it was low in creatures and the creatures were not very good. Creatures are the most important part of sealed deck. I needed good creatures from two colors since none of my colors, by itself, had enough good creatures.
Don’t be fooled by Rise from the Grave. It’s overrated. It’s slow and sometimes you have to play it on a subpar creature just to stay alive. Five mana for something like a Centaur Courser is not something to get excited about.
Rise from the Grave is much better in a deck with a lot of “destruction” removal (like Doom Blade but not like Pacifism or Blinding Mage). My pool did not have much of that type of removal.
Also, in their M10 draft pick orders, top Magic pros LSV and Conley Woods both have Rise from the Grave in 15th place for their black commons and uncommons. Yes, I understand that draft is a faster format than sealed, but 15th place is very low.
Moving on.
White, green, and red were definitely my strongest colors, but I had to figure out which two were my main colors.
After some thought, I realized that red was definitely my best color. It was deep with a good number of strong creatures and a respectable amount of removal. Also, it had two of the best cards in my pool: Siege-Gang Commander and Fireball.
Picking my second color was a harder process. White had more playables. White had better removal since Blinding Mage, Pacifism, and Divine Verdict are better than Entangling Vines and Deadly Recluse.
The creatures from white and red were both strong but in different ways. Green had big ground guys including a regenerator. On the other hand white had evasion and cheap aggressive soldiers with a lot of synergy. Plus, Honor of the Pure increased white’s synergy even more.
With all this in mind, white seemed like the clear cut choice but the mana fixing of green made me reconsider. With green’s Rampant Growth and Borderland Ranger and the land Terramorphic Expanse, I could easily splash two cards of the same color as long as those cards only had one mana symbol the casting cost.
I looked for cards to splash. I thought Doom Blade and Rise from the Grave or Pacifism and Blinding Mage might work.
However, in the end, I played white/red since it is a much more aggressive deck than red/green splashing black or white. White’s cheaper creatures and its synergy with three Veteran Swordsmith, Honor of the Pure, and Rhox Pikemaster allow for some very explosive starts. For example, take this start:
Turn 2: Honor of the Pure
Turn 3: Veteran Swordsmith
Turn 4: Rhox Pikemaster
By turn 4, I have a two first strikers, one is a 4/3 and the other is a 5/4.
If you can go aggro in the M10 sealed format, you have a great advantage. Too many players are splashing when they don’t have to. They run unstable mana bases to play their best cards. An aggro deck punishes these types of decks by killing them quickly while they stumble on their mana. However, a slower, more controlling deck gives them time to set up their mana base.
Also, there are many bombs running around so you want to kill your opponent quickly before he draws his bombs or before he’s able to play them effectively (for example, Overrun and Fireball are much better later in the game).
So, here’s what I played.
| RW Aggro | |||||||||||
Creatures (14) | Spells (9)
Lands (17) |
| |||||||||
Rounds 1 and 2
Both of my opponents didn’t show up. Mise with the free rating points 
Rating change: +19 to 1720 (limited rating)
Round 3
My opponent had a 1581 limited rating.
Game 1
I had a fast start but I got stuck on three lands, all Plains too. Meanwhile, he played more than enough land with ten lands on his board. He played Siege-Gang Commander and Goblin Artillery to kill my board. Then, he summoned Liliana Vess. After a couple +1 activations with the planeswalker, I saw the end was near since Liliana’s ultimate ability would’ve been devastating. I scooped rather than keep showing him my deck through the discards.
Game 2
We traded creatures early. I played Siege-Gang Commander. He drew a bunch of cards with two Sign in Blood but he couldn’t find anything to deal with my goblins.
Game 3
All you need to know about this game is this image. You can click it to see a bigger screenshot.
The Fiery Hellhound was equipped with Magebane Armor, Gorgon Flail, and Whispersilk Cloak. It was a 5/7 shroud, unblockable, deathtouch creature that couldn’t be killed by Earthquake. The Siege-Gang Commander was just overkill.
Matches 1-0, Game 2-1
Rating change: +7 to 1727
Round 4
My opponent had a 1652 limited rating.
Game 1
I won pretty easily with Magebane Armor and Gorgon Flail. He didn’t have any artifact removal and even though he had removal, I drew enough creatures to outlast his removal and my two equipment made any creature I drew very good. After he ran out of removal, he had to resort to chump blocking my equipped guys.
Game 2
He had Pacifism for Rhox Pikemaster, Divine Verdict for Viashino Spearhunter, and even Acidic Slime for Magebane Armor. However, my early plays of Blinding Mage and Goblin Artillery kept his board under control. Goblin Artillery killed Deadly Recluse, Acidic Slime, Veteran Swordsmith, and Garruk Wildspeaker while Blinding Mage kept Palace Guard tapped.
Killing Garruk with Goblin Artillery was a risky play. It brought me down to 7 life. I saw a Fireball from him in game one and he had seven lands in play including a Mountain.
Luckily, I was able to kill him with Siege-Gang Commander before he drew another land and Fireball.
Matches 2-0, Game 4-1
Rating change: +9 to 1736
Round 5
My opponent had a 1749 limited rating.
Game 1
He Cloned Illusionary Servant but I had Fireball to destroy both his creatures. I misplayed though by paying four for Fireball instead of two.
I made another bad play which would’ve cost me the game. Fortunately, he forgot to sac his Howling Banshee to Vampire Aristocrat to deal an extra two damage. I had targeted his flyer with Divine Verdict.
That two damage was crucial because I won with two life.
Here is the misplay I made. The board state is shown in the following image. You can click it to see a bigger screenshot.
I passed the turn so I could Divine Verdict his Howling Banshee on his turn, but I should’ve played Berserkers of Blood Ridge instead before passing. Beserkers could’ve blocked his Vampire Aristocrat while giving me a 4/4 body to attack with next turn.
Game 2
I had a fast start while his first play was Bog Wraith. On the play, I went:
Turn 2: Silvercoat Lion
Turn 3: Honor of the Pure, attack him down to 17
Turn 4: Whispersilk Cloak, attack him down to 14
Turn 5: equip Silvercoat Lion, attack him down to 11
Turn 6: Beserkers of Blood Ridge, attack him down to 5 since he played Howling Banshee on turn five
My 3/3 unblockable went all the way even though he had Mind Shatter on turn six to make me discard my hand of Magebane Armor, Fireball, and Pacifism.
He showed me his deck afterwards. I got lucky this match because he never saw Sleep and Mind Control, two cards which would’ve wrecked me.
Matches 3-0, Game 6-1
Rating change: +12 to 1748
Round 6 (Finals)
For the finals match, my opponent had a 1738 limited rating.
Game 1
I made a big misplay because I didn’t realize you could kill Merfolk Looter and Illusionary Servant with Fireball for only three mana. Here’s the ruling.
Luckily, he kept looting into land and my three card combo of Magebane Armor + Gorgon Flail + any creature killed him.
Game 2
This game was epic with both of us playing Siege-Gang Commander and Goblin Artillery. However, my Siege-Gang was better since I had mana to use it right away while he only had two red sources when he played his. Also, I was able to equip my Siege-Gang with Whispersilk Cloak. The equipment proved to be the difference since he actually played his Siege-Gang twice. He saved it the first time with Unsummon. I needed the equipment since he had infinite goblin blockers from playing Siege-Gang twice.
Matches 4-0, Game 8-1
Rating change: +12 to 1760
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