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On episode 4, the gang argues about raw power versus consistency, then discusses the merits of staying flexible in pack one and how to draft like the pros draft. There is even a little Arabian Nights talk thrown in for the old-timers.

Toodle-oo!

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Our intrepid hosts welcome a special guest to episode 3 of The L is Silent, physicist Dr. Jonathan <REDACTED>.

The boys chat about Heisenberg's morph, value-based drafting, Winchester Winston drafts, play "In or Out" with Khans 23rd cards, and go deep on whether you should Scout the Borders or not.

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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.

<SPOILER ALERT>

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.

</SPOILER ALERT>

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.

Not so Magical Results

Your hero moved to Saint Louis earlier this year, so this marks his first limited PTQ season in a new geo-political region. It turns out that there is one (1) PTQ within a 4-hour drive, so today was my only shot this season.

Khans Sealed Deck #1 - Deck Construction

For the first time in quite a while, I fired up the old MODO machine and hopped into a Khans of Tarkir sealed deck release event. Let's get right to the pool:

Sweet fetch, bro

In this format, the first thing I'm going to look at is the fixing. I included the banners because they are cards if just barely. If we want to go full 5 color, then we have 5 red, 5 green, 3 blue, 3 white, and 2 black, plus 10 basics to split up. That doesn't feel like quite enough for my taste, although if the pool pushes us that way, it might be possible. By clan, there are 4 Temur fixers, 3 Mardu, 2 Sultai, 2 Jeskai, and 2 Abzan. Essentially our fixing is spread out across all colors.

On to the real cards...

Khans of Tarkir Prerelease Report: Midwest Edition

Big Fall Set Time, so Brent went to the local game store to battle some sealed at a Khans of Tarkir prerelease. [Side note: I cannot keep the clan names and abilities straight. Am I getting older or are these less evocative names than Shards or Ravnica?]

Which clan are you?

I picked Temur, because I like beef with a side of trickery. The Ferocious ability does little to tickle me, but I don't intend to build a whole strategy around it. If I see powerful cards with Ferocious, I will treat it strictly as a bonus. Recall that Naya in Shards was about big dudes, not the bonus you get for having big dudes.

In my pool, there is not much too exciting besides a Flooded Strand (what a lucksack) and the new five-mana Wrath. My promo card is the Temur mana-elf-morph, which is fine, but not a bomb.

I also own a whole bunch of the Onslaught fetches, so I have that going for me, which is nice.

Theros Limited: Sealed Deck Decisions

Theros debuted on Magic Online not that long ago and you know I've been playing some limited when I've had the chance. In fact, playing has really eaten into the time I've had to write about my experiences.

I haven't been playing that well, but I feel like my decks have been pretty decent. Today, I'l let you decide. I'l share two sealed pools as well as my first Theros draft.

The first event was a pre-release sealed where I chose black. Yes, I know the online pre-releases are terrible value, but when you get the itch something has to give, you know? Plus, in the first weekend the higher singles values make up for some of the lost value, right?

I chose the black seed pack and paid my $25 entry. Here is the pool:

Cards I want to play are sorted out up top. Yes, I pulled a Thoughtseize and a mythic god.

The way I saw it, there were three viable decks, each two of the three Esper colors:

Azorius felt like the worst of the three 

I was sorely tempted by the two gold cards to try control Orzhov. 

But in the end I went with Dimir fliers and control.

The final decklist looked like this:

Super control with so many fliers

I went 3-1, losing in game three of the finals to Erebos's Whip that I just couldn't quite race with my harpy army.

After taking a week off for someone's wedding, I got back in the swing of things with another sealed event:

More balanced, with no seed pack of one color.

Once again I was pulled toward Dimir, but I resisted due to too much reliance on the five-drop slot and not enough synergies with my heroic guys.

Instead, I went forward with a blue-white heroic model that had several quick heroes, plenty of ways to trigger them and a sweet-looking curve.

Notice I pulled another Thoughtseize, which helped to make up for the fact that I only 2-2'd losing hard to some green fatties and beating the guy who timed out and never showed up.

Next time, we'll jump into my first online Theros draft.

Theros Sealed: IRL

Jonathan and I trekked to Gorilla King Comics in Fells Point Baltimore for Theros pre-release day. Its a small, casual store that pulled together 10 people for the sealed event.

I will go on the record and say that I don't like the "pick your color" style of sealed that the pre-releases have become. I want to use these for sealed practice and these pools are less realistic. That being said, I understand why Wizards is choosing to do it this way and I would guess the format is here to stay. As for us, it just becomes a new challenge. Rather than scraping for playables in that color, we end up making tough cuts just to get down to 40 cards.

I admit I didn't know what the playable pre-release promos were, nor which color had the money bombs, so I chose green because I wanted to battle with some efficient beef. It turns out that outside of a 4/5 for 5, our pre-release card is not too hot:

I had big plans, but actual targets of Anthousa were zero.

Green was deep, obviously. White was pretty good, red was very good but shallow, while blue and black are not good enough.

Main deck

If you can't read the picture:

1 - Temple of Mystery

2 - Fleecemane Lion, 2x Battlewise Valor, Savage Surge

3 - Chronicler of Heroes, Nessian Courser, Opaline Unicorn, Agent of Horizons, 2x Fade into Antiquity, Time to Feed

4 - 2x Staunch-Hearted Warrior, Heliod's Emissary, Divine Verdict

5 - 2x Anthousa, Setessan Hero, 2x Nessian Asp, 2x Observant Alseid

X - Mistcutter Hydrya

8x Forest, 8x Plains, Unknown Shores

Sideboard:

Shredding Winds, 2x Last Breath, 2x Setessan Griffin

Green-white cuts

The five-mana fliers should have probably replaced the two copies of Anthousa.

Red possibility: burn, planeswalker, and not much else

Two of the best red cards were the instant-speed naturalizes. I chose to use the green sorcery version that exiles in case I ran into any gods.

This is a very non-Archer deck, with no evasion, little in the way of tricks, just efficient beef and plenty of late-game mana-hungry cards.

In match one, I was paired up with Jonathan Mu in a match where two men would enter and only one would leave. He chose the Path of Red, then brewed up a spicy red, white, splash black minotaur tribal deck. I was rolled. I was constantly trading with my guys, waiting for my beef to outclass his, but he kept dropping minotaur lords and haste duders with four or more power. I lost with extreme prejudice and headed over to the losers' bracket. I will ask Jonny to provide his list for our amusement.

In match two, I played against Daniel, with a red-green deck that had no chance. He played Xenagos, the Reveler, but was so new to Magic that he told me this was his first planeswalker in play. I can confirm this is likely true based on his play choices.

In match three, I played against Mark, with another red-green deck. This one was closer, and he monstrosified his red pre-release card, but I had already monstrosified my fleecemane lion and suited it up with vigilance bestow. I got in for a few free cards when Mark chumped my indestructible, vigilant guy despite having a blocker big enough to safely block as long as I didn't have a trick. (I didn't).

In game two, he made a two-drop, three drop, then Xenagos the Reveler and a haste satyr. I never recovered.

Sidebar: three of the same planeswalker in 50 packs opened? That seems unusual.

In game three, I got the dream curve and demolished him.

Match three against Zach, playing red-blue.

Sidebar #2: Zach and I had exchanged a little banter between rounds after he claimed my planeswalker was worth $30. I countered that it is only worth whatever I could get someone to pay me for it. He passed at buying it for $30, $25, and $20, so I believe I won that one. Anyhoo, there was a little tension in the air for this round. (Xenagos sells for $23 on eBay)

In game one, I mulled, then kept four lands, Opaline Unicorn, and Mistcutter Hydra. (From scouting, I knew Zach was nearly mono-blue.) I made a turn 4 4/4 haster that sent Zach's life from 20, to 16, 12, 8, 4, 0. Incidental, for-constructed, pro-blue can be a real bitch sometimes.

Our second game was interactive. Zach played scry spells, burn spells and two */3 chimera that eventually grew to 4/3s. Unfortunately for him, I had two main deck Asps that are 4/5 reach, so his large fliers did bupkis. We reached a standoff where in addition to my Asp, I had a Staunch-Hearted Warrior with no counters, and in addition to his fliers, he had a Crackling Triton, three open mana, and a Sealock Monster about to get big.

I could smell his desperation to get me with his on-board trick in response to me targeting my hero, so I played Time to Feed, forcing my hero, which would become a 4/4 to fight his 5/5. Before I could even say what I was targeting on his side, he grabs his merfolk, sacs it and says in response deal two to your guy. I very calmly play the Battlewise Valor I also had in hand to make my guy 6/6 with +2/+2 and two damage, who then fought the 5/5 sea monster. Blowout city. If Zach just thinks for a second there, he still loses his monster and is facing down a 6/6, but he threw away his shock guy for no value, since I had to act next no matter what.

Technically, that is only a two-for-two, but I killed a 5/5 (soon to be 8/8), killed a 2/3 that can shock anything, added 4 +1/+1 counters to my guy, scryed 1, and gained three life for the low cost of those two cards and five mana.

From that point on it was academic. For good measure, I blew him out again when he tried a triple-block on my 6/6 with his two fliers and another small creature. I had the Shredding Winds (and an extra Divine Verdict) in hand.

Jonathan 4-0'd the tourney and the two of us rolled into this store, went 6-0 against not each other, and took first and third places.

Lessons of the day:

1. Play the maindeck enchantment removal. 
2. Always choose blue. Green big dudes just aren't fun.
3. Force minotaur tribal in Theros draft.

Marshall_LR on Sealed Pool Construction

Our Dear Leader today takes on the basics of Sealed deckbuilding in today's article on the mothership: How I Break Down My Sealed Pool

There is nothing earth-shattering included, but it is a great primer for anyone just starting limited play.

Obviously in a massively-multicolor format (like Ravnica) this sort goes out the window, but for Core set and my guess for Theros as well, this will be a good start.

If you are interested in my (offline) organization for a Return to Ravnica Block Sealed pool, check out the graphic below. First, I remove all the chaff (just like Marsh), then I lay out these 15+ piles, with potential splash cards sticking out sideways from each pile.

Still haven't figured out how to make this work on MODO