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Investigating
40 Card Formats – Sealed Deck

By
Richard Bland

Hello and welcome to the first in a series
of articles on how to succeed in limited.

This article will be centered
on a skill that will come in useful for the next Pro-Tour Qualifier season -
sealed deckbuilding

Lets start with a sealed pool, handily sorted by colour

WHITE

Absolver thrull

Beacon hawk

Boros fury shield

Caregiver

Faith’s fetters

Leyline of the meek

Loxodon gatekeeper

Nightguard patrol

Sinstriker’s will

Steeling stance

Wojek siren

BLUE

Govern the guildless

Grayscaled gharial

Halcyon glaze

Infiltrator’s magemark

Ocular Halo

Quickchange

Repeal

Surveiling sprite

Tattered drake

Torch drake

Vedalken dismisser

BLACK

Brain Pry

Cremate

Darkblast

Dimir House Guard

Necromantic thirst

Poisonbelly ogre

Undercity shade

Vesper ghoul

RED

Goblin fire fiend

Ordruun Commando

Rabble-Rouser

Sabertooth Alley-cat

Smash

Sparkmage apprentice

Utvara scalper

Viashino Slasher

War-torch goblin

Whiptail Moloch

GREEN

Crash Landing

Dryad’s caress

Farseek

Fists of Ironwood

Golgari Grave-Troll

Gruul Scrapper

Ivy Dancer

Moldervine cloak

Rolling spoil

Silhana stafletcher

Simic basilisk

Sundering vitae

AZORIUS

Azorius Ploy

Overrule

SELESNYA

Watchwolf

Selesnya evangel

Centaur safeguard

BOROS

Rally the righteous

Boros signet

ORZHOV

Orzhov basilica

SIMIC

Simic growth chamber

Assault zeppelid

IZZET

Izzet chronarch

Wee dragonauts

DIMIR

Moroii

Twisted justice

Perplex

Consult the necrosages

Circu, dimir lobotomist

Dimir signet

RAKDOS

Gobhobbler rats

Rakdos carnarium

GOLGARI

Gaze of the gorgon

Golgari signet

Have some time to mull it over.

...

...

...

Now, the only thing left to do is eliminate 50-ish cards
and sleeve up!

Here’s my method for doing so:

1) Remove all the unplayable cards from your piles

2) Look at each colour and decide whether it can be
played as a main colour (your deck ideally will have 2 main colours and 1-3
splashes)

3) Remove all but the most powerful cards from the
non-main colours.

4) Sort cards by manacost and
try and put a deck together with 2 main colours, bearing in mind that splashed
cards require mana fixing.

5) Repeat for other combinations of main colours, then
decide which is better (easier said than done)

6) Sort out the manabase

7) Sleeve up, and relax!

Here’s the pool again, without the chaff:

WHITE

Absolver thrull

Beacon hawk

Boros fury shield

Faith’s fetters

Loxodon gatekeeper

Nightguard patrol

Sinstriker’s will

BLUE

Govern the guildless

Halcyon glaze

Ocular Halo

Repeal

Surveiling sprite

Tattered drake

Torch drake

Vedalken dismisser

BLACK

Darkblast

Dimir House Guard

Poisonbelly ogre

Vesper ghoul

RED

Ordruun Commando

Rabble-Rouser

Sabertooth Alley-cat

Smash

Sparkmage apprentice

Viashino Slasher

GREEN

Crash Landing

Farseek

Fists of Ironwood

Golgari Grave-Troll

Gruul Scrapper

Ivy Dancer

Moldervine cloak

Rolling spoil

Silhana stafletcher

Simic basilisk

Sundering vitae

AZORIUS

Overrule

SELESNYA

Watchwolf

Selesnya evangel

Centaur safeguard

BOROS

Rally the righteous

Boros signet

ORZHOV

Orzhov basilica

SIMIC

Simic growth chamber

Assault zeppelid

IZZET

Izzet chronarch

Wee dragonauts

DIMIR

Moroii

Twisted justice

Consult the necrosages

Dimir signet

RAKDOS

Gobhobbler rats

Rakdos carnarium

GOLGARI

Gaze of the gorgon

Golgari signet

By looking at the cards we have left, we can see that
Black and Red are both unsuitable as main colours, leaving this pool:

WHITE

Absolver thrull

Beacon hawk

Faith’s fetters

Loxodon gatekeeper

Nightguard patrol

Sinstriker’s will

BLUE

Govern the guildless

Halcyon glaze

Ocular Halo

Repeal

Surveiling sprite

Tattered drake

Torch drake

Vedalken dismisser

BLACK

Dimir House Guard

GREEN

Farseek

Fists of Ironwood

Golgari Grave-Troll

Gruul Scrapper

Ivy Dancer

Moldervine cloak

Rolling spoil

Silhana stafletcher

Simic basilisk

Sundering vitae

AZORIUS

Overrule

SELESNYA

Watchwolf

Selesnya evangel

Centaur safeguard

BOROS

Boros signet

ORZHOV

Orzhov basilica

SIMIC

Simic growth chamber

Assault zeppelid

IZZET

Izzet chronarch

DIMIR

Moroii

Consult the necrosages

Dimir signet

RAKDOS

Rakdos carnarium

GOLGARI

Gaze of the gorgon

Golgari signet

From here we consider the 3 remaining colours:

Blue

Blue has many powerful cards, with a huge bomb in govern
the guildless. Other very playable cards include Vedalken dismisser, repeal,
halcyon glaze, and torch drake and in other colours, assault zeppelid, chronarch, morii, and consult the necrosages

White

White has a lower power-level than Blue, with
Faith’s fetters being the only standard card. It has planty
of alright playables, such as absolver thrull, nightguard patrol, and in
other colours, selesnya evangel and watchwolf.

Green

Green also has a certified bomb in Moldervine
cloak, and 5 or 6 playable creatures and spells, such as Silhana
starfletcher, centaur safeguard, Gaze of the gorgon,
and Golgari-grave troll. With good access to the
powerful off colour simic and selesnya
cards, it seems certain that Green will be one of the 2 main colours.

After looking at the possibilities of including white, I
concluded that Blue was simply a better colour to pair with green, giving a
base to work from shown below:

Farseek

Fists of Ironwood (counting as creature)

Golgari Grave-Troll

Gruul Scrapper

Ivy Dancer

Moldervine cloak

Rolling spoil

Silhana stafletcher

Simic basilisk

Sundering vitae

Govern the guildless

Halcyon glaze (counting as a creature)

Ocular Halo

Repeal

Surveiling sprite

Tattered drake

Torch drake

Vedalken dismisser

Simic growth chamber

Assault zeppelid

Centaur safeguard

Gaze of the gorgon

The most powerful cards in other colours being:

Dimir house guard

Izzet chronarch

Moroii

Consult the necrosages

Faith’s fetters

Adding these to the deck, along with Boros
signet and Spectral searchlight gives this manacurve
- (C=creature, S=Spell)

1

2 CCSS

3 CCCCSSSS

4 CCCCCSSSS

5 CCCS*

6 CCS

*assuming average casting of repeal being 5

With 29 cards still in the mix, some non-creature spells
had to be cut, especially from the 3 and 4 slots.

Cut cards:

Ocular Halo (Is not as useful without white – and
can’t be retrieved by Chronarch)

Consult the Necrosages (A
medium quality card in splash colour)

Farseek (With 16 lands and 3 other accelerators already, it felt
unneeded as it could only fix U and B feasibly)

Simic Basilisk (Expensive, and no other grafters to abuse with)

New curve:

2 CCS

3 CCCCSSS

4 CCCCCSSS

5 CCCS*

6 CS

The manabase

For fixers, we have Boros
signet, Spectral searchlight, Silhana starfletcher and the Simic, Orzhov and Rakdos bouncelands.

Counting the colours

To best evaluate the proportions of colours in a deck,
count the number of cards in that colour (counting a double mana
requirement as 1.5) for guild mana, count it as the
more major colour of the two (counting enchanced
spells and activated abilities as .5)

BLUE: 10.5

GREEN:11.5

WHITE: 1

BLACK: 3

RED: 1.5

From this the final deck takes shape:

INTO THE DEEP END 1

// Lands

1 [DIS] Rakdos Carnarium

1 [DIS] Simic Growth Chamber

1 [GP] Orzhov Basilica

6 [RAV] Forest

6 [RAV] Island

1 [RAV] Swamp

// Creatures

1 [DIS] Assault Zeppelid

1 [GP] Torch Drake

1 [GP] Silhana Starfletcher

1 [GP] Izzet Chronarch

1 [GP] Gruul Scrapper

1 [RAV] Surveilling Sprite

1 [RAV] Dimir House Guard

1 [RAV] Tattered Drake

1 [RAV] Vedalken Dismisser

1 [RAV] Centaur Safeguard

1 [RAV] Moroii

1 [RAV] Ivy Dancer

1 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll

// Spells

1 [DIS] Govern the Guildless

1 [GP] Repeal

1 [RAV] Sundering Vitae

1 [RAV] Boros Signet

1 [RAV] Fists of Ironwood

1 [RAV] Gaze of the Gorgon

1 [RAV] Faith's Fetters

1 [RAV] Moldervine Cloak

1 [RAV] Spectral Searchlight

1 [RAV] Halcyon Glaze

1 [RAV] Rolling Spoil

I took the finished deck and played versus Chris’
BWG sealed deck:

Game 1

I lose the roll, and am forced to play first, I keep a
hand without green mana, but it has an Orzhov basilica and 2 islands, and a torch drake, so I keep
it. A searchlight off the top allows me to play moroii,
which promptly gets pilloried. I rolling spoil his only swamp, (killing his
centaur safeguard) and vitae the pillory and attack with a hasted gruul scrapper and the moroii He
fails to topdeck the swamp he needs, and playing 2
more creatures on the next turn earns a concession

Game 2

I keep a land & bounceland
hand on the play and drop lands while he accelerates with signet + civic wayfinder. I play out moroii,
which gets pilloried again, so I repeal him + replay just to eat a mortify *frown*. In the next couple of turns I fall to 7
from rotwurm beats. I once again spoil a swamp to
kill a centaur safeguard and make some saprolings to
chump his rotwurm with fists of ironwood, but a siege
wurm spoils my plans and I can’t put enough
blockers down in 1 turn to stop the inevitable

Game 3

I get a slow start on the draw, as his trophy hunter
strands my fliers in hand. The hunter is joined by a rotwurm,
and a nodorog, and even after I dispatch his hunter
and drop a tattered drake, a fetters allows him to
swing in for the win.

1-2

Not
that great a result, but my deck was slightly unfortunate with the turn 3
hunter with 4 fliers in hand in game 3, and the deck Chris had built was
powerful. I feel in a PTQ i would be able to go the
required 5-2 with it, despite the lack or real removal in the deck.

And that wraps up the first "40 card formats".
Would you have built the deck any differently? Is there any aspect of Limited
play that you would like written about? Please post with any comments,
questions or decklists in the forums.