A day of Zendikar Sealed - Y.Hsiang

[J]-[UN]

Some time back in October I remember getting a weird card pool during PTQ San Diego (the kind where
your good cards are spread relatively equal across all 5 colours, but none of them having much in the
way of removal). I ended up using a Black/Green concoction which had pretty decent but unspectacular
creatures but had a couple of Hagra Crocs and 3 Harrows hiding in the woodwork (along with an Adventuring
Gear).

I ended up having a rather meh  3-3 (or was it 2-3) record with it, but what always bugged me was whether I had made the right choices in constructing my deck. Unfortunately for me, I neglected to record down the pool but in hindsight, that period was a time when Zendikar was still new and most players (who weren't playing Black) I noticed tended to play sealed with rather control-ish decks with slow creatures other than a few cheap weenies which inevitably ended up being chump blockers to baloths. If I could do the event all over again, I'd probably have just went for colours which could set up the quickest offence.

As the next sealed event is looming on the horizon, I decided to drag some friends along for a Zendikar sealed get-together. I was hoping to get a crummy pool with no rare bombs so as to tax my brain to the fullest ( in actuality I just wanted to get 2 or 3 fetches in my 6 packs. Needless to say...I didn't.Buuhuu ).

After cracking and sorting my pool was as follows :

Black                                  White
1x Hagra Crocodile            1x Steppe Lynx
1x Mire Blight                         1x Ondu Cleric
2x Crypt Ripper               2x Shephard of the Lost 
1x Vampire Lacerator              1x Journey to Nowhere
1x Bog Wraith                1x Windborne Charge
1x Hideous End              1x Kabira Evangel
1x Heartstabber Mosquito         1x Kor Sanctifiers
                           1x Emeria Angel
                            1x Kor Skyfisher
                           1x Landbind Ritual
                           1x Pillarfield Ox
                            1x Brave the Elements
                           1x Makindi Shieldmate
                            2x Caravan Hurder

Red                  Artifacts
1x Magma Rift               1x Expedition Map
2x Tuktuk Grunts            1x Grappling Hook
1x Plated Geopede            2x Blazing Torch
1x Burst Lightning            1x Explorer's Scope
1x Goblin Shortcutter            1x Blade of the Bloodchief
1x Highland Berserker            1x Trusty Machete
1x Bladetusk Boar
1x Shatterskull Giant
2x Unstable Footing
1x Runeflare Trap
1x Demolish
2x Goblin Warpaint
1x Molten Ravager
2x Spire Barrage

Green                            Blue
1x Rampaging Baloth            1x Reckless Scholar
2x Territorial Baloth            3x Kraken Hatchling
1x Baloth Woodcrasher         1x Gomazoa
1x Grazing Gladehart            1x Sky Ruin Drake
1x Turntimber Ranger            1x Umara Raptor
1x Mold Shambler            1x Windrider Eel
1x Turntimber Basilisk            2x Aether Figment
2x Vastwood Gorger            1x Spell Pierce
1x Quest for Gemblades         1x Caller of Gales
1x Khalni Heart Expedition         1x Into the Roil
1x Cobra Trap               1x Lethargy Trap
1x Relic Crush               1x Whiplash Trap
1x Zendikar Farguide            

Land
1x Oran Rief the Vastwood
1x Sejiri Refuge
1x Soaring Seacliffs
1x Turntimber Grove

A quick glance was all I needed to realise that I wouldn't be playing my favorite Black this time around
White and Green had a chockful of bombs and the entire Baloth family but I felt uneasy with the lack of removal and the relatively slow buildup. Red had plenty of decent removal and a very nice creature curve. I was also tempted to splash a bit of blue if I ended up going Green for the Raptor and Eel but as usual I ended up gunning for mana consistency (boo~).

I decided on an aggresive Red-White as my main strategy, opting to swap out Red for Green if I found my
creature offensive unable to break through and ended up with this :

Creatures (15)          Spells/Artifacts(7)                     Land(18)
1x Emeria Angel                    1x Blazing Torch                 9x Plains
2x Shephards of the Lost                   1x Trusty Machete       9x Mountains
1x Kor Sanctifier                      1x Grappling Hook
1x Kof Skyfisher              1x Journey to Nowhere
1x Steppe Lynx              1x Windborne Charge
1x Ondu Cleric              1x Magma Rift
1x Kabira Evangel           1x Burst Lightning
1x Highland Berserker
2x Tuktuk Grunts
1x Plated Geopede
1x Shatterskull Giant
1x Bladetusk Boar
1x Goblin Shortcutter

I really really REALLY wanted to try and squeeze in the Blade of the Bloodchief, a second Blazing Torch and my ever-favorite Explorer's Scope into the main, even possibly cutting down to 17 lands but there was simply nothing I felt I could leave out. In a format where the first player to miss an early-turn creature drop usually ends up with egg on his face, I decided to favour the Berserker over the stellar artifacts (God please forgive me). I decided to go for the Grappling Hook over the Blade since I was hoping to create blocking shenanigans to sneak damage through, as well as a confirmed boost to my rather weak creature-arsenal.


THE WHEEL OF FATE IS TURNING........REBEL 1, ACTION!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkOTCa-1YoI

My opponent's gets a nut pool with black bombs like Halo Hunter, Vampire Nighthawk, Disfigure, Marsh Casualty and God Only Knows what else. Surprisingly , he opts to go for a very aggro Red-White build instead.

First game I'm on the play and I curve out nicely with a Turn 1 Steppe Lynx, 2nd turn Highland Berserker, 3rd turn Kor Skyfisher (returning and recasting the Lynx after attacking) and a 4th turn Goblin Shortcutter allowing the Lynx to sneak through my opponent's lone blocker. My opponent's first creature is a 3rd turn Kor Hookmaster which locks down the Skyfisher.  He manages to somewhat stabilise by the 5th turn but by then it's already too late as he's taken too much early damage allowing me to swarm over him with unprofitable attacks. A kicked Burst Lightning seals the deal.

Second game I mull to 5 following an atrocious 6 land 1 artifact opener followed by an even more atrocious 0 land hand the next. However my 5 card hand is pretty much similar to my creature curve in Game 1 and I end up swarming over my opponent again despite his stalling with double Kor Hookmasters and using the Zektar Expedition 7/1 to block.

Third game I get a slow land flooded hand again and mull into 4 lands, a Shephard and Shatterskull Giant. My opponent starts the beats this time with a 1st turn Kor Duelist and a 2nd turn Highland Berserker. An off the top Kabira Evangel buys me some time from the weenie menace and our board starts shoring up with creatures, him with a bunch of small weenies, me with the evangel, a passive Lynx and the Shephard. Our Bladetusk Boars stare menacingly at each other but end up not doing anything else. The Giant and a couple other creatures ended up trading with my opponent. My opponent uses up most of his mana and casts another couple of small creatures then passes. I wonder aloud why he didn't just full swing as he could put me down to like 2 life and still have enough to break through the following turn for
lethal. He answers by casting a kicked Goblin Bushwhacker the following turn and hitting me from like
14 life to -5 the following turn ~_~

Fourth game we end up trading early creatures in an attempt to push damage through until the board stalls. I manage to knock him down to 8 life and a topdecked Windborne Charge sails my Goblin Shortcutter and Kor Sanctifier over the uselessly watching heads of his army for lethal. Heehee~

Fifth game plays out rather similarly....we deal a lot of early damage with quick beats, then end up stalled on the board when our larger creatures enter play. My Emeria Angel flaps uselessly with a lone bird token as I do not draw any further land. My opponent casts a kicked Bushwhacker and swings in with his whole army which I'm forced to block. I manage to survive with something like 2 life with both of us losing most of our army in the process, and proceed to gleefully topdeck a land for another bird token. Unfortunately (for me) my opponent follows up by even more gleefully casting the 2nd bushwhacker he had in his hand and manages to sneak through my defences for exactly...2 damage.

Sixth game I end up mulling to 5 and getting mana screwed with 2 lands in play. My opponent beats face with a lone Kor Duelist and a late Goblin Shortcutter. I manage to draw a Kor Skyfisher on my 4th turn to stem the tide but I'm still only sitting on 2 lands. My opponent then drops a 6th turn Obsidian Fireheart. My next draw is....a land! Which I promptly end up sacrificing to Magma Rift the Fireheart before it lights bushfires on my Plains and turns my Mountain into a Valakut aimed right at its owner's ***. I manage to somewhat stabilise after but its too late as I had taken too much damage early and my opponent just swarms me over and over again with unprofitable but finally lethal attacks (deja vu anyone?).

With the score at 3 apiece, we decide to switch opponents. I find out that my opponent is running 3 Bushwhackers and multiple copies of Zektar Shrine Expeditions/Geopedes and other assorted nasties which luckily for me did not appear as frequently as they should have.



ROUND 2.........LEDYYYYYYYYYYY...........GO!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1lwjljyDFA

My opponent for this round ALSO has a nutty pool capped with THREE (3) Hideous Ends, Gatekeeper, Marsh Casualties and 2 Living Tsunamis to say the least. Just my luck I'm not playing Black.

He manages to steamroll me three times out of four games despite most of his creatures being sub-par (lots of Stonewall Pumas, Merfolk Wayfinder and other assorted 2/2s, 2/3s) due to the huge amount of removal he kept casting on my blockers and his Explorer's Scope filtering out a buttload of lands from his library (he had 5 lands in play turn 3 compared to my uhh...2).

Game 3 I came close to overwhelming him until he stabilised with a Living Tsunami which kept bouncing his Jwar Isle Refuge for lots of life. I fail to draw any of the burn/removal/Windborne Charge in my deck, any of which would have allowed me to push through for the win.

My lone victory in Game 2 was due to a perfect creature curve coupled with my opponent mulling to 5 :p

I decided against sideboarding in my green for this matchup as not only is it slower, my big baloths make for even jucier targets for all the Hideous Ends coming out the wazoo. That, and it would just give him more time to draw into them anyway :\

[J]-[UN]

ROUND 3............WHICH ONE OF THESE TWO WILL WALK AWAY A CHAMPION (actually neither since we both lost a round) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOSPaHEREcs

My 3rd round opponent managed to beat my 1st round opp's R/W monstrosity 3-1 so I was curious as to his deck's synergy since it didn't look very spectacular during deckbuilding. It was carrying a buttload of removal though via singleton copies of Bursts/Inferno Trap/Punishing Fire/Disfigure and Hideous End. Egad.

I begin Game 1 on the play and start the beatdown with Landfalling Plated Geopede. He manages to get in like 9 damage before the landflow stops. Emeria Angel appears just in time to save the day after some turns where I shore up on a few bird tokens, I manage to finally push through for lethal in 2 attacks, despite losing my Angel to his Geyser Glider which gained flying on defence thanks to a Verdant Catacombs.

Game 2 our ground-bound army ends up stalling again with neither of us being able to attack profitably. My Emeria Angel is countered by a Malakir Bloodwitch which I promptly Magma Rift. My opponent follows up with a Grim Discovery grimly 'discovering' back his Verdant Catacombs and Malakir Bloodwitch which he promptly recasts, sucking up another 2 points of my life, bringing me down to 11....precariously
close to the 10 life buffer I need to prevent his Guul Draz Vampire from going wild. We spend the next few turns drawing stuff and casting a couple of creatures and shoring up on bird tokens when I finally top-deck a stalemate breaker in the form of Grappling Hook. I quickly attach it to my Bladetusk Boar, send it in along with the rest of my forces and forcing the Bloodwitch to block the pig, allowing my Emeria Angel and her small horde of birds to finally sneak in. My opponent doesn't have enough to deal lethal on his last turn as he was forced to trade most of his ground creatures in my earlier attack. I get a scare though when he mark of mutinies my Bladetusk Boar with the Grappling Hook attached, which would have allowed him to retaliate for exactly lethal........until we both realise I had simply forgotten to put the boar in the graveyard :p

Game 3 is pretty much going my way as I have decent creatures on board backed up by a Journey, Magma Rift and Burst Lightning in hand to deal with any troublesome blockers. However a turn 6 Mind Sludge from him forces me discard everything other than the Burst which does a pathethic 2 points of damage to his face. He retaliates with a bunch of creatures which now seem far superior to my board without the removal to protect them, led by Malakir Bloodwitch which gleefully sails through my Shephard. I kick myself for not casting the Journey earlier and proceed to Game 4 after dying 1 turn before I would have managed to do lethal.

Game 4 we end up trading most of our earlier creatures and stabilise with the Malakir Bloodwitch on his side of the board and an Emeria Angel on mine. I start a birdhouse as usual but none of them can find a way through the Bloodwitch. On the ground, my Kor Sanctifier and Bladetusk Boar stare uselessly across the field as my opponent starts shoring up on ground creatures. I finally draw a Blazing Torch and send the Emeria Angel in with it. My opponent is unable to retaliate with the Bloodwitch as that would open the path for my 3 bird tokens to get a peck out of his *** along with the Angel. However I am increasingly threatened by the increasing ground presence on my opponent's side of the battlefield. After one attack, I decide to re-equip the torch to my Kor Sanctifier just in case I need to react to any combat shenanigans as I'm in danger of falling to an alpha strike.

That move nearly turns out to be a disastrous play on my part. With 9 mana available on what could possibly be my final turn to live, I topdeck a Grappling Hook which I promptly cast and equip to the Angel. However I am forced to spend my final available mana re-equipping the torch to the Angel to allow her to get through the Bloodwitch, knocking my opponent down from 8 life to 2. If I did not re-equip the torch to the Sanctifier the previous turn, I would have the single mana available to reequip it THIS turn and shooting him in the face with it for exactly lethal. I pass the turn knowing that all my opponent needs to do is to topdeck a land for one of his landfallers, any removal spell or any haste creature to take me down to exactly zero life.

Fortunately for me, he draws none of the above, but still decides to full-swing anyway. I end up scraping out of the melee with 1 life and proceed to mop up the next turn.


ROUND 4 (Dunno what to say oledi...)

I go up against my first round opponent again who was switched his deck to a very consistent R/B concoction containing all his aforementioned
black bombs and even more removal, sacrificing *very* explosive speed for consistent disruption.

Game 1 ends up being the closest of the 3 games I play with him, with me dealing the usual early beats before he stabilises via removals and bigger creatures like Sell-swords. I've only managed to knock him down to 8 life and he's been conking me with a very intimidating Halo Hunter and an Obsidian Fireheart turning my mountains against their master. Down to 3 life, I know only 1 card can save me and in true Gabriel Nassif style, I set aside two plains and two mountains, yell WINDBORNE CHARGE and windmill slam the top card off my deck on to the table.

A windborne charge and 8 damage later via a flying Goblin and a flying Cat, my opponent is left stunned and staring in disbelief. Pretty much how I looked like when I lost last week's draft in almost exactly the same way -----> O_____O

Games 2 and 3 end up being pretty similar, I do lots of damage early, he stabilises but I still manage swarm over him sacrificing a buttload of creatures in the process due to how much damage he's taken early on. His Nighthawk finally makes an appearance but is promptly sent on a Journey. Whee~


ROUND 5 (Ditto)

It was getting late but my 2nd round opponent decided to crack another 6 packs and ends up with a ridiculous pool with stuff like 3 Bladetusk Boars,2 Plated Geopedes, 3 Oran Rief Survivalists, 2 Glazing Gladeharts, Harrows, Bloodghast, Iona, 2 Hookmasters and a bunch of white weenies. However it was also ridiculous in the sense that his pool literally had no removal other than a single Burst, a single Slaughter Cry and a single Journey. He quickly settled on a R/G build with an insane 20 quality creatures (I personally would have gone White for the Hookmasters since the pool was so removal light). I decided to try out a G/W build and sided out all my red cards for the Baloths, Gladehart, Turntimber Ranger, Basilisk, a single Vastwood Gorger, Khalni Heart, Oran-Rief the Vastwood and a Harrow. I really wanted to squeeze in the Quest for Gemblades but just didnt know what to give the boot to, and I really wanted to stick with 15 creatures. I kick out the Lynx and ineffective Cleric to make more space for green beef.

The sun was setting, the shopkeeper was falling asleep at the counter and it was quickly on to Game 1;

My G/W build is distinctly slower and I get knocked down to 10 life by turn 5. At the end of my opp's turn I'm forced to crack the Expedition early so I'm guaranteed to be able to cast my Rampaging Baloth. I fail to topdeck a land unfortunately, so my lone Baloth sits on my side of the field looking lonely and forlorn. He's good enough to stall the board for a couple of turns though allowing me to stabilise with Territorial Baloth and Vastwood Gorger. My opponent continues to attack in threatening lethal so I'm finally forced to send out the Territorial Baloth as a decoy for the Slaughter Charge I know he is holding. Sure enough he he uses the spell to kill the mini-Baloth as he still has enough to swarm over me for lethal in his next attack. Little does he know but I had a Windborne Charge waiting in the wings from my opening hand and my Baloth and Oversized Wurm sail over his forces taking a huge bite of 15 life in one swing....exactly enough for lethal.


We quickly moved onto Game 2 and this time the early game was a lot more interesting with a lot of early creature action. An Oran-Rief pumped Goat threatened to swell my life total to absurd levels but is quickly toasted with a kicked burst. I manage to snag a valuable 4 life by cracking my Expedition in response though in hindsight I'm not certain if that was the right play and whether I should have saved it for my landfallers. As though to mock me, I proceed to draw a Turntimber Basilisk followed by a Rampaging Baloth, both which gets pumped by Oran Rief. A kicked-pumped Mold Shambler takes out a Mountain but is otherwise relatively useless as his bladetusk boars have been constantly gnawing at my life total. We proceed to race, with my 7/7 Rampager going in unopposed VS my opponent's double boars. My opponent manages to draw and cast 1 extra creature more than me though and manages to win the race by 1 life after some funky mass last-ditch chump blocking. Booyah!


And that was it for today's sealed-orgy. Once again, Windborne Charge proves itself to be THE HOUSE instead of the 'meh' white combat trick most people dump in their deck just to make up the numbers.
I also noticed that I was never in the position where I would have wanted Blade of the Bloodchief over Grappling Hook or even Trusty Machete......though I'm sure it would have certainly screwed up a lot of early game combat (in my favour) I'm still uncertain as to what I should have kicked out for it. Every card I drew served its purpose (even Highland Berserker which allowed me to activate Kabira Evangel's protection to sneak in for 2 damage). I realise though it would certainly have made all those suicidal charges in my attempt to sneak damage through a lot more profitable.

Also, I was unable to test my G/W concoction against the R/B removal-heavy deck, which is a pity since it would have been a very hard matchup and I wanted to explore its weaknesses (and possibly how to shore up against it).

I'd also like to congratulate and thank those of you who had the patience to scroll through the veritable wall of text to reach this point Please feel free to leave your suggestions/pointers with regards to my sealed pool, I'm still unsure if going aggro R/W was more effective than the more stable G/W removal-light variant, or whether I should have snuck in some Blue for the flyers.

I'd also like to apologise in advance for any grammatical errors or sentences which just sound plainly convoluted as I've yet to proof-read this :p

Until next time;
-Yian

[rhazes]

Very good read...

if i m to vote for best report/article .... i ll vote u as top 3... only because this is a trial...

[J]-[UN]

Woh thanks for your quick response and kind words o_o

I actually wrote this not so much for the packs, but to show my support for Moose's event (more Magic related events can only help the community  )

Btw does anyone know how to insert tables or at least format columns properly using this forum? I can't get my pool/decklist aligned...

[m-magic rocks]

very interesting like a magic the gathering event coverage but green white fatties i think is better.

[J]-[UN]

The main reason why I didn't go G/W from the get-go was due to it being too slow, but mainly because there was barely any removal available (Blazing Torches tend to be too slow and most of the time you end up missing an attack cos you need to activate it).

In fact there were times when I was forced to race against intimidators before my board position was stabilised by big fatties since other than a singleton copy of Journey and Torch, there really wasn't anything I could do about them.

Also when you play a slow bomb heavy deck with little or no removals....you'll invariably come across decks which also feature their own bombs.....I certainly wouldn't want to end up facing a Kalitas or Obnixilis or Roil Elemental where the only answer I have is a Journey somewhere in the deck...