Sealed Pool Week 1: The Builds

 For this first final build article of the series I want to focus more on the builds that could have been made instead of getting in deep on the game play decisions of the tournament I played. I feel like I and hopefully you all can get limited game play from better mediums than a column, but talking through the deck building is something that is lacking in the community. Once I feel like I have the rhythm of writing the deck building portion of this column, I might be able to focus more on figuring out how to write about my actual game play better. My plan is to go through the builds suggested by the readers, using deck lists if suggested, and then go through my process of deck building. I will then finish with my final thoughts. If you see cards in the sideboard you would have put in the builds tell me what they are and why, I’d love to see more sealed discussion either here or on the LR subreddit.

So as a recap this is what our pool looked like:

The suggested builds based of the feedback this week were the following:  Naya Allies, UB, UW, Esper, and BW.

Naya Allies:

The Build:

Personally, I think it was too greedy to go for a second of the green cards, while the green splash here isn’t “free” it is mitigated by the ally encampment that can splash for our only green card and canopy vista. The Warcaller would be good in this deck, but the double green cost seems too greedy for me. The removal suite is stasis snare, reproach, outnumber, touch, stonefury, and scour. The deck has plenty of mana sinks for the later game with 7 cards with 4+ CMC and the lookout to dump mana into.

The Plan:

Chip in with early damage, force through your evasive guys with removal, and if needed stick a bigger threat late to punch through the last bit of damage. The weakness, decks with some “defensive speed”, and I think the UW decks can tempo you right out of the game. The deck doesn’t do anything too powerful unless you live the dream of Zada + focus after going wide. I think this deck might fall into the trap of trying to be a slow aggressive deck in sealed. The deck doesn’t have the beef to be midrange, or the ability to go over the top like the control/slower midrange decks. 

 UB:

The Build:

I was tempted to splash the roil spout, I think it is just great, and I wasn’t sure about playing Part in this deck. I didn’t like the Mind Raker over the other four drops as I would rather have the evasion and tempo the other four drops provide. I did consider it over the grave birthing, and I just went with lowering my curve and making it more likely to turn on my Murk Striders on four.

The Plan:

While some suggested I look to make it more controlling, I agreed with Smolda from the subreddit that tempo looked more right. I did keep the Bane for some top end power, and I also tried to  work the ingest synergy to set up my Murk Striders on 4. While this isn’t “protect the queen” type tempo, it does try and get a lead and slow down the opponent while developing the board. 

Esper:

The Build:

This build was brought to us by LR Subreddit user “AnAlienHeat”. Eweezy suggested an 8 island, 6 Swamp (5 + mortuary mire in Alien’s build), and 4 plains mana base. I don’t think that makes it likely we will be playing our reproach or snare until much later in the game, and may make both of them less likely to make my cut. You also would need half your plains to cast your emeria shephard or snare. I think you may splash white for spout and play the UB deck above with a different mana base.

The Plan:

This deck seems somewhere between tempo and control to me, and I’m not sure I think it is all that more powerful than the UB deck. This deck tries to use the tempo to set up its bigger plays, but I don’t think you are consistent enough to be using the white spells as tempo, or to take over the game with shepherd.

BW:

The Build:

This deck was pretty quick and easy to build. I think there is an argument for going a little more aggressive with the sludge crawlers and the mind raker here and cutting the assassin, and two higher drops. When building this deck I just started thinking maybe I was undervaluing the black white synergy deck, and forced that synergy while building this one. I also have to admit to what my grandfather  affectionately calls a “brain fart”. I thought Kor Castigator was serene steward. I looked at the card, read it multiple times, and still thought it was Serene Steward.

The Plan:

This looks like a bad control/grinding deck. It has some good removal, but it doesn’t really do anything except try and gain some life to pump up a Bloodbond Vampire or get in the air with Nightwatch. The thing is I don’t think this deck has the inevitability you want in a grindy BW deck.

Final thoughts:

The deck I ended up playing was the BW deck. My thought process was most likely flawed. I thought I could play a midrange to late game with the amount of allies I had, and especially since I had Serene Steward to put +1/+1 counters on my creatures. I was so sure I had Serene Steward in my deck that I was confused on two separate occasions when I cast my Kor Castigator and wasn’t able to pay the white mana to pump one of my people. Every match I ended up side boarding out of this deck after game 1 and into the UB deck. I went 0-3 with this combination of decks, and lost every game 1 with the BW deck and none felt close. The UB deck I at least felt like I was in the games and that my decisions mattered to the outcomes.

My second final thought, I think I am playing to many 6+ drops in decks in this format. Each build I have put forth today has played scour and bane. I have waffled on scour, and find I just need the unconditional removal if I don’t have it in my pool, but in the black builds I had Grip and think I could easily cut the scour for something with a lower cost. Bane I think is a worthwhile top end threat if you don’t have one, and maybe even when I’m playing Sheherd it is worth having a second high cost/impact creature to get back, but I think it is worth questioning that idea.

If you have thoughts please post them in the comments section, the LRCast Subreddit, or email me directly. Until next time, may the variance be with you.

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@DJKMTG