The first thing I do when I crack a sealed pool is take a gander at the rares. Not that having a bomb in one color is going to mean I always go in that direction, but I like to peruse the rares and uncommons before getting down to the meat of the situation. Weirdly, I have three black and four artifact rares (foil mystic Ring of Three Wishes!) None are unstoppable bombs so I move on to my next step, which is separating the wheat from the chaff.
I move all the cards I would want to play from each color down. This is a fast and loose judgment, but it gives me a pretty quick idea of what the pool looks like. Take a second to check our what I've got.
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| Click to enlarge. |
Next, I remove the red, because it is just not going to make the cut. Now, I try different combinations with the black, sorted by mana cost to see what the curve looks like. These are rough sketches of a deck, with 23-30 cards included and not all the final decisions made. I could go black-blue, black-green, or black-white very easily.
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| Blue has the best two-drop slot, but they are defensive. |
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| Green has the least depth, but the addition of three combat tricks is nice. |
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| White has the best removal, plus another bonkers 5-drop flier and a good four-drop flier. |
- Dark Prophecy is interesting but probably unnecessary.
- Mind Rot is nice card advantage in a slow core set, especially if you can get their last two cards.
- Blightcaster is a remote possibility, with 4 enchantments.
- Dawnstrike Paladin is fine, but I already have three fives and two sixes that I like better.
- Same for the Stonehorn Chanter (terrible name)
- Capashen Knight is not good (too much of a mana hog to do anything useful), but I may bring him in just to add a second two-drop. He is also good with Mark of the Vampire.
- Fortify is a great versatile trick, but I'm not the white weenie deck that really needs it.
- Trading post is very versatile, but no one thing it does is amazing.
- Door of Destinies never gets any real consideration. Maybe in a sliver deck.
- Ring of Three wishes is 10 mana to tutor one card, 15 for two, and 20 for three. go ahead and count how much total mana you have at your disposal in any given game that lasts x turns and you make all your land drops.
| turns | total mana |
| 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 3 |
| 3 | 6 |
| 4 | 10 |
| 5 | 15 |
| 6 | 21 |
| 7 | 28 |
| 8 | 36 |
| 9 | 45 |
Lessons: mana is precious, wishes are always a trap.
The deck I submitted is below:
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| I cut Dark Prophecy and then Blightcaster in favor of Capashen Knight. |
Match reports will be next.
Awesome deck and great process. How long do you have to deckbuild online?
ReplyDeleteI definitely would have rocked white/black. The Blightcaster wrecked me in my last game, but you might not quite enough enchantments (or auramancers) to get the full lols.
The Tim and Trading post both surprise me a little. It looks like your game plan is to hold the line with removal and defense until your bonkers fliers hit the field. I probably would have chickened out and added an Angelic Wall and reached a little for the Shrivel.
Shrivel never was even considered. It's a sorcery and hits all creatures, which makes it near worthless on defense. I might think about boarding it in against a deck that showed me many one-toughness creatures, but otherwise it is too tough to make it work.
DeleteAngelic Wall might be a good call. It doesn't stand up to the power level of the other cards, so I dismissed it summarily, but it may have been what I needed instead.
I like the repeatable pinging of Rod of Ruin in a core set like this, but only in sealed and I do understand that it costs a LOT of mana, but the threat of it keeps some cards off the board, which means I never have to use it.
Trading Post was the loosest choice, but it always does something, whether turning lands into life or creating extra chumpers or eventually cycling. Its ceiling is low but the floor is pretty high.
20 minutes, which is barely enough in a regular 5-color world. not nearly enough time in ravnica.
Deletethe only upshot is the sorting mechanism, which you have to do manually IRL.
Shrivel got some points in my book when it caught me off guard. He attacked into some of my power creatures. I blocked and ate them. Then in second main he shriveled and wiped out a 2/3 and a 3/3. Given how his deck won on keeping the board clear and I won by keeping my creatures alive, it was a net win for him even if it cost him extra cards.
DeleteThat said, definitely situational at best. It was just way better than I expected because I was definitely not expecting THAT.
i agree with going white. serra angle, pacifism, banisher priest are super hot.
ReplyDeletei hear what you say about the mana being tough but I think for M14 it is no problem.
i also agree on the breakdown in the 5/6 slot. recently i have been reevaluating how many 5+ to include and the role that they play in my deck (mostly due to listening to limited resources).
i also love the analysis on the ring of 3 wishes. there was a deck in Team Sealed at the world cup that played the ring but i still feel it is not worth your time.