Date: Wed, 13 Aug 1997 09:23:56 -0500 From: "Leonard D. Blado" Subject: Re: Pro Tour: Mainz Training > How most of you will know in December the Pro Tour will be in Mainz (about > 40 km / 25 Miles from Frankfurt (My Town)). The Format of the Event and > the Qualifiers (for Qualifiers near you have a look on the WotC Homepage) > will be Sealed Deck 1 Starter 5E, 2 Booster Vision. I think it would be > great to train a little: I created a Random Sealed Deck (used Macic > Suitecase). What would you build out of this Card pool? I think we all > can learn alot about Sealed Deck building this way... > > Here the Deck: [snip] First, let's take a look at the basic layout of creatures in your sealed deck: Black Creatures: 6 Black Knight, Bog Rats, Fallen Angel, Knight of Stromgald, Urborg Mindsucker, Wake of Vultures Blue Creatures: 8 Azure Drake, Breezekeeper, Dandan, Dark Maze, Labyrinth Minotaur, Prodigal Sorcerer, Rainbow Efreet, Waterspout Djinn Green Creatures: 6 Bull Elephant, Craw Wurm, Panther Warriors, Quirion Ranger, Tarpan, Thicket Basilisk Red Creatures: 4 Brothers of Fire, Hurloon Minotaur, Orcish Captain, Raging Gorilla White Creatures: 7 Infantry Veteran, Jamuraan Lionx2, Longbow Archer, Mesa Pegasus, Resistance Fighter, Shield Bearer Artifact Creatures: 1 Phyrexian Walker Without even going any further, we know we'll be playing Blue unless something truly extraordinary pops up amongst our spells. 4 large fliers, 2 excellent ground blockers, and a Prodigal Sorcerer makes for an incredible creature draw. In fact, with this draw, if we weren't constrained by land, we'd almost want to play mono-blue once we see the spells. Oh well. For a second & third color, we look to spells to decide the day- it's unlikely that red will be viable, since all of it's creatures are pretty awful for a non-red deck, but black, white, and green, all have things going for them. Black Spells: 7 Death Watch, Evil Presence, Fear, Funeral March, Howl from Beyond, Infernal Harvest, Weakness Blue Spells: 12 Aether Storm, Flood, Flight, Inspirationx2, Memory Lapse, Phantasmal Terrain, Prosperity, Remove Soul, Time and Tide, Unsummon, Updraft Green Spells: 2 Emerald Charm, Mortal Wound Red Spells: 7 Eternal Warrior, Flashfires, Heat Wave, Hearth Charm, Imposing Visage, Shatter, Tremor White Spells: 4 Crusade, Miraculous Recovery, Retribution of the Meek, Sun Clasp Artifacts: 2 Mana Vault, Obelisk of Undoing Again, blue comes out big- with Flood, two Inspirations, Memory Lapse, Remove Soul, and Unsummon. Heck, we even have a Flight and an Updraft that we don't need due to the incredible number of fliers. White, our strongest secondary color in creatures, is pretty weak in Spells, with only 4 spells, none of them particularly strong in Sealed Deck. Red, our weakest creature color, is even worse. Of the spells listed, only Tremor warrants a place in our main deck. Red is pretty much eliminated from consideration. Black has a more balanced spell complement, giving us a good endgame card (Howl), and creature removal with Weakness and Infernal Harvest. Green has a good spell complement- for green. Mortal Wound could be very useful, and the Emerald Charm isn't half bad. The last consideration is land, which is a nuisance. We know that we'll be playing blue, where we only have 4 Islands, and we know that we won't be playing red, where we has 5 mountains. The make-up of the remaining land tends to tilt me towards playing black as a secondary color. I'll chose White as the tertiary due to the superior creatures in this role- we've already got blue's large creatures on the ground, and the banding/first strike and additional flight should be helpful. Whereas most of the green creatures require double green, and the only 'mana elf' we have is the albeit useful Quirion Ranger. Just to stay on the safe side, I'll try to balance reasonably evenly between black and white. Final Deck: Creatures: (16) Azure Drake, Breezekeeper, Dark Maze, Fallen Angel, Infantry Veteran, Jamurran Lionx2, Labyrinth Minotaur, Mesa Pegasus, Prodigal Sorcerer, Rainbow Efreet, Resistance Fighter, Shield Bearer, Urborg Mindsucker, Wake of Vultures, Waterspout Djinn I had to exclude some creatures I really like- the Longbow Archers and both black Knights- based on their double mana casting cost and the fact that they're not terribly useful beyond the opening of the game... when I'm unlikely to have that level of mana. I chose to include the Fallen Angel since, at 5 mana, it's not going to be able to come out until (hopefully) I have the necessary mana. The pointless weenies, like the Bog Rats and Phyrexian Walker, I left out in favor of white's superior creatures. Spells: 7 Flood, Infernal Harvest, Mana Vault, Memory Lapse, Miraculous Recovery, Remove Soul, Weakness Most of the spells selected have to do with removal and control. I chose not to go with the Sun Clasp primarily because I had no confidence in producing two white might to both cast and use it on the same turn. Probably the biggest spell I excluded was the Howl from Beyond, and I did so primarily because if I have the creature, I don't really need it- I've got the self-howling Fallen Angel, and a lot of big fliers. This makes for 23 spells in all, leaving me room for 17-18 land. Starting from 4 Island, 4 Plains, and 5 Swamp, I'll take 5 land- 4 Islands and 1 Plains, for an 8/5/5 mix. The deck is primarily blue, but I don't want to be stuck with a bunch of uncastable weenies in the early game. I also want to ensure I'll be able to power the Flood and the Rainbow Efreet in the late game- both of them are gamebreaking cards. The resultant deck is probably a little weak on the ground- perils of choosing a fast offensive route over the slower green creatures. I only have 1 large ground based critter... the Dark Maze, and the rest of my defense is primarily the sheer size of my fliers and the various weenies. Also, the deck is very weak in terms of removal, but that can't be helped- virtually none was drawn. -Len Blado