Khans of Tarkir Sealed PTQ Report: Midwest Edition

As mentioned in an earlier post, earlier this week I made my way to the only PTQ within hundreds of miles of my new home.

Actual PTQ map. These are not the small states.

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It did not go well. But now that we have that out of the way, I want to dig deeper into my pool and deck construction, see what I could have done better in hindsight, and share with the class some of my lessons learned.

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Going into the day, I wanted great mana, tricky instants, and evasive threats. In my experience at these kind of events, you don't want to lose to your own manabase, you want to give yourself the chance to outplay your opponent, and you want to have ways to push through damage. Let's get to the pool and see what Lady Luck has in store for us.

Upon first glance, nothing in the pool stands too obviously. It seems like this is going to be one of those challenging builds. There is a real shortage of mana-fixing, a handful of strong Jeskai and Abzan gold cards, and a decent black removal suite.

The pool's rares:

I got an extra foil rare, but I still think this is below-average group as far as raw power.

Mantis Rider is decent, efficient flier and two podcast favorites make an appearance, but there are no stone cold As here. (Sorry, Jed)

I'll break down the pool by color in the usual fashion with three columns: cards I really want to play, decent cards, and cards I would rather not play unless they bring synergy to the party.

The manafixing was quite sparse. There were only 4 duals and one tri-land, not even a single banner for emergency backup fixing. This very unusually scant. For instance, in the past three sealed events I've done online, I found 8, 9, and 10 fixing lands, plus a few banners in each. 

By clan, that is two fixers if I go Sultai, Abzan, Mardu, or Temur, and just a single one for a Jeskai deck. Five-color is right out (although I think that should probably be a last resort even with plenty of fixers) and no matter what, the mana for a three-color wedge will not be great. At this point, I would much rather be two-color with a small splash than be full three-color.

The white looks like a support color, with a decent +1/+1 counter theme and some good token generation but no Rush of Battle. Only one and a half pieces of removal (the Ramparts are kind of removal) and only one big, clunky evasive threat.

Blue is really underwhelming, with three situational counterspells, the bad card-draw common, and a full zero evasive threats. Out the window goes my whole plan of evasion and tricks. I don't even think this blue qualifies as a support color. 

With black, we finally get to some cards I'm happy with. All in all it is a little on the slow side, but I think it is decisively better than the white and blue piles. Black is short on threats, but provides one good flying 3/3 and a cheap 4/5 ground basher. The Rites probably belong in the second stack (decent) rather than the first (good), but in a long sealed event like this, I like their first line of text. "Destroy target creature." As the day wears on, most of the players at the top tables will have good decks and bomby bombs and that newfangled "situational removal" isn't going to cut the mustard. (Now get off my lawn, you whippersnappers!)

While not what I would consider traditionally powerful, red provides direction toward aggression. With some early beaters, two Threaten effects, two cheaper morphs that hit hard, plus one big burn spell that can hit the face, red is an alternative to the long-game plan in the black section. I would have preferred some more removal to go with these fragile guys.

Despite the presence of four Archers, this green is not great. There are a lot of efficient small and medium-sized guys, but no beefy beef to punch through in the late game. I would swap one or two of those Grizzly Bears for 6/7 morphs any day. The one thing this group does have going for it is plenty of early ground defense. Two Parapets and three "bears" mean that if I play green, the Mardu Horde and morphs should stay off my back, which is an important consideration. Meanwhile the morph Archers and bear punch should help with any flying menace.

The Temur cards are both support cards. If I have a bunch of big beef, then the Ascendancy could be considered and if I think I will get an early tempo advantage, Trap Essence can seal a game shut. But if the deck doesn't come together around these two, then they aren't worth much.

The two morphs can go a long way to stabilizing a long game for an Abzan deck and the B+ Fortress is a real house, especially if it is supporting a cast of growing outlast guys. 

Mantis Rider provides a (very) efficient flier, but I don't think it is nearly as strong in sealed as it is in standard. It won't be pulling double duty for too long, because a 3/3 is not much of a blocker and the haste knocks one turn off your clock, which is nice but not back-breaking. Plus, the mana cost is exacting, so while dropping and attacking on turn three  sounds great in theory, it is a little harder to pull off in practice. I actually don't rate it much higher than Sultai Scavenger, which might not be a very popular opinion. The charm is a charm, so it is great, although it is not hard removal. It will do much better in a tempo deck (like the Jeskai, perhaps?) than in a straightforward dudes and removal deck. The Charm and the Weaponsmith are actually the trickiest things this pool has, which pushes me in this direction.

There were exactly zero Sultai or Mardu two- or three-color cards in my pool. 

In the colorless pile, there are no maindeck players, although a couple sideboard options. Briber's Purse can actually do some work if the Villain has one big threat or one big blocker. It hits especially hard if you can sandbag it as a surprise on the turn you are going to kill them or if you can back it up with other removal. The Bow can be useful against decks with fliers or utility creatures that only have one toughness like the 1/1 deathtouch squad (Mardu Hateblade and Ruthless Ripper).

After all this, two decks pop out to me. Due to our lack of fixing, each is heavy two-colors splashing a third for more powerful clan cards. I don't think there are any other viable options in the pool, but I have been surprised before.

Click to Embiggen

Green-black Abzan - This deck is set up with possibly too much early ground defense, some good-sized ground attackers, late-game removal, and two pinging walls for inevitability. There are two pretty big fliers for punch, plus double lifelinking morphs. 

The last cuts here were Unyielding Krumar, because the white was minimized, Mardu Skull hunter, because there were already five other early defensive drops, and the second Sagu Archer, because a 2/5 is not what I want to unmorph. If there are too many fliers, then he can come in off the bench. The mana for this deck was 8-8-4 on 18 lands.

Click to Embiggen

Red-white Jeskai - This deck has a few more tricks, but a lot less late-game action. Our plan here relies on creating a team of little guys, rushing the Villain down below 10, then hitting them with an Act of Treason or Jeering Instigator and finishing the job with Jeskai Charm or Arrow Storm. If we get ahead on the board, then the counterspells become quite devastating, but in a morph format they are worse than they would be otherwise, since expensive bomb morphs can slip in under the counter screen. 

There were not many cuts to make here once I minimized the blue. The last cards out were Weave Fate, Whirlwind Adept, and Venerable Lammasu. The last card in was the one-mana Swiftspear, which is a stretch, but it contributes to our plan. It could easily be another land. The mana is rougher here, at 8-7-3 on 17 lands with only one dual. I liked fewer lands because our curve stops at 5 and we are looking to be aggressive.

I'd like to hear what my readers think in the comments and which build you like better. (Or if there is some off the wall build you'd rather see, let me know that, too.)

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I ended up going with the Abzan deck, thinking the mana was better (with only three actual white spells, plus two white morphs). I didn't want to lose to my own mana and I figured the late-game removal would be necessary if I got to the top tables. However, the deck just didn't do enough in the first two rounds and I went home early. 

In retrospect, the Jeskai build could not have performed any worse and it might have been higher variance, which is what I needed when the quality of the pool wasn't up to par.

In round one, I lost in three games to essentially a mirror match. I was playing one of the handful of people I have ever played against previously in Saint Louis, a guy from my LGS who goes to Friday drafts. He's essentially playing the same deck I am. 

In game one, I lose despite him making a huge mistake with Abzan Charm that resulted in 2 +1/+1 counters on my Disowned Ancestor instead of it being exiled. (He pointed the Abzan Charm at my guy (who was a 2/6 at the time) and the only mode that works there was the add counters mode. Even with that error, he ended up with a team of five-power, higher-toughness big guys matched up against my team of five-toughness and lower-power dudes. We both play Parapet, Dead Drop, Smite the Monstrous, and Debilitating Injury over the course of this match.

Game two, I side out some of my early drops that won't make it past his defenses for double raise dead and Briber's Purse. The Purse did good work and got me there with my big flier through a Dead Drop.

In the decider, I keep a 6-card hand that is land heavy with my Saddlebrute. After a few turns of the Villain lamenting his own keep and not doing anything, I drop the 4/5 and start beating down. At one point, I have 2x Rite and Purse in hand. Villain plays a blocker, I remove it with spot removal and attack again. Repeat the next turn and I feel very good with lots of mana and the Purse still to come. But my plan is doomed because he was waiting, trying to build his board before using his removal, whereas I thought he might be in a bind. So I kept pressing the attack, but then my guy died and I didn't have another threat and I'd used all my removal on less-worthy targets.

Moving to round two, I was smashed by a Jeskai deck that looked to have an even three-color split. This guy had all the evasion and tricks that I wanted and he knew how to use them. So unlucky to get matched up in the loser's bracket against an actual player.

My team of ground defense and medium dudes was no match for Jeskai Windscout, Alabaster Kirin, Feat of Resistance and Crippling Chill. I was just messing around with an 0/4, then make it a 1/5, then play a morph, while this Villain was playing fliers and cycling Defiant Strike to great effect.

So what lessons can we take away from my waste of a Saturday morning? 

1) I think my initial thoughts regarding tricks and evasion were bang-on. If that isn't possible, then make a plan and execute it. this deck was too "green", in that it's plan revolved around making guys and attacking with them and hoping that was good enough. It usually isn't. If the evasive plan isn't there, then the tokens and finisher plan is another of my preferred routes to take. However, I didn't have any Trumpets Blast or Rushes of Battle, leaving the only mass pump effect as the third mode on Jeskai Charm. 

2) On this day, I didn't have plan A or plan B going, so then I think the correct move should have been to shift toward higher variance. I didn't want to lose to my mana, but if I'm going to lose to the low power level of my own deck, then going down the riskier path and hoping the mana works out is probably the best option. If I had it all to do again, I'd submit the Jeskai deck.

3) Look at that Abzan deck again. Results-oriented thinking may be causing me to be too harsh on myself. "0-2, drop" certainly doesn't feel good, but from a weak pool, it isn't a terrible build and perhaps I just had some rotten luck with the opponents, the matchups and the draws. After all, Magic is a game of very small sample sizes. Not being too hard on ourselves, especially when we don't deserve it, is a worthwhile skill to have.