Sealed Deck Report - Your Move Games - 5/6/97 I've been playing Arena at Your Move Games, Boston-area hotbed for Pro Tour players, and have been working on my sealed deck rating at various local tournaments. So I was pleased to hear that Your Move is starting to sponsor a series of Tuesday night sanctioned sealed deck tournaments. Showed up for the first one last night and found the usual crowd of serious players (David Humphreys, Darwin Kastle, David Weiss, Ken Coleman), along with some Arena regulars and a few newbies applying for their DCI numbers. I'm hoping I get paired with one of the latter. Get a deck to register that contains a Cadaverous Bloom/Natural Balance combo. Not that I'd play it in sealed deck, but these are hot cards in T2 and they would be nice to go home with. Sure thing, I get my own deck back to play. On top of it, my friend and sparring partner Steven Lee, gets a deck with Squandered Resources! Is this an omen or what? Here's what I got. Land 5 Forest 4 Island 5 Mountain 4 Plains 4 Swamp Everglades Artifact Crystal Golem 4 3/3 Igneous Golem 5 3/4 Multicolor Windreaper Falcon 1GR 1/1 Spatial Binding UB Cadaverous Bloom 2BG Energy Bolt XRW Black Shadow Guildmage B Wall of Corpses 1B Gravebane Zombie 3B Urborg Mindsucker 2B Cadaverous Knight 2B Crypt Rats 2B Dark Ritual Funeral Charm B Funeral Charm B Necromancy 2B Blue Breezekeeper 3U 4/4 Breezekeeper 3U 4/4 Kukemssa Serpent 3U 4/3 Cerulean Wyvern 4U 3/3 Ray of Command 3U Thirst 2U Reality Ripple 1U Sapphire Charm U Undo 1UU Impulse 1U Time and Tide UU Teferi's Curse 1U Green Mtenda Lion G 2/1 Village Elder G 1/1 Warthog 1GG 3/2 Sabertooth Cobra 2G 2/2 Stampeding Wildebeests 2GG 4/5 Mortal Wound G Spider Climb G Spider Climb G Rowen 2GG Sandstorm G Worldly Tutor G Elven Cache 2GG Natural Balance 2GG Red Searing Spear Askari 2R 2/2 Raging Spirit 3R 3/3 Ekundu Cyclops 3R 3/4 Armorer Guildmage R 1/1 Goblin Recruiter 1R Fireblast 4RR Chaos Charm R Song of Blood 1R Song of Blood 1R Hearth Charm R White Resistance Fighter W Resistance Fighter W Infantry Veteran W Civic Guildmage W Wall of Resistance 1W Noble Elephant 2W Dazzling Beauty 2W Disempower 1W Favorable Destiny 1W Illumination WW Mangara's Blessing 2W Peace Talks 1W Ritual of Steel 2W Sunclasp 1W Righteous Aura 1W Retribution of the Meek 2W I definitely like the blue for the 3 big flyers, the Thirst, and the Ray of Command. I wanted to play the green for the Village Elder, the Warthog, the Stampeding Wildebeests and the Rowen. I've never gotten a Rowen in sealed deck before, but I figured the card-drawing power has got to be good. I'm a little worried that I don't have enough cheap green creatures to pay the upkeep on the Wildebeests, so I throw in every green creature I have. I like the black for the Necromancy, Guildmage, and Crypt Rats, and the red for the solid creatures and the Fireblast. I finally decide on red because that also gives me the Windreaper Falcon. I figure the Reality Ripple might work as creature protection, and the Mortal Wound to get rid of opponent's biggies. The Spatial Binding is tempting, but it's really no good by itself, and I don't think it's worth playing with only two phasers in the deck. I hold in the sideboard Sapphire Charm and the second Spider Climb against flyers, and Sandstorm and Chaos Charm against weenies. (In retrospect, the Mortal Wound didn't do me a lot of good, and I think I would have been better off with the Undo in the main deck.) I normally play with 17 land when I play 3 colors, but a few test draws showed me that I had a lot of 4- and 5-casting cost creatures, and I'd better go with 18 lands. In addition, I have a lot of things that might involve saccing lands, such as Village Elder, Fireblast, and Kukemssa Serpent. 18 lands turns out to be just about right. The final deck is: Land 7 Forest 6 Island 5 Mountain Artifact Crystal Golem 4 3/3 Igneous Golem 5 3/4 Multicolor Windreaper Falcon 1GR 1/1 Blue Breezekeeper 3U 4/4 Breezekeeper 3U 4/4 Kukemssa Serpent 3U 4/3 Cerulean Wyvern 4U 3/3 Ray of Command 3U Thirst 2U Reality Ripple 1U Green Mtenda Lion G 2/1 Village Elder G 1/1 Warthog 1GG 3/2 Sabertooth Cobra 2G 2/2 Stampeding Wildebeests 2GG 4/5 Mortal Wound G Spider Climb G Rowen 2GG Red Searing Spear Askari 2R 2/2 Raging Spirit 3R 3/3 Ekundu Cyclops 3R 3/4 Fireblast 4RR Match 1: David Humphreys (Of course, with my luck, my first match is with David, who is currently the #17-ranked player on the DCI list, with a rating of 1914! Well if I lose, I won't lose too many rating points...) First game: Draw 6 lands and one non-creature spell. Then draw a land. Not good. Still, my flyers come out quickly thereafter and I do some damage. Then I totally screw up (must have been a little nervous) by casting Thirst on his Noble Elephant and then forgetting the upkeep. Then he pounds in the lid of the coffin by casting a 7-token Snake Basket that finishes me off. Second game goes better. I sideboard in my Sandstorm against the Snake Basket. I get out a Breezekeeper and my flanker and think I have a chance. He casts Knight of the Mists to kill my flanker, but I Reality Ripple him out, so he has to sac the Knight. We're down to 8 life each. He has two 2/2 flyers. I attack with my Breezekeeper; he doesn't block and is down to 4. I cast my second Breezekeeper, figuring that he will do at most 4 damage with his flyers over the next two turns, then I can go in with the two Breezekeepers. At this point he is at 4 and I am at 8. Then he plays his Ray of Command, and kills me with my untapped Breezekeeper and his two 2/2 flyers. (Here's a place where Undo would have been highly useful.) Matches: 0-1, Games: 0-2, but maybe the worst is over Meanwhile, Steven has been playing a long-drawn-out match with Darwin that is approaching the time limit. I don't watch at the time, but find out later what happens. They are both low on life and Darwin thinks he has it won. He attacks with what he thinks is the killing blow, and Steven pulls out a King Cheetah as a surprise blocker. Then it's Steven's turn when they call time, and he attacks for the win. Darwin is a little frustrated. Well, good for Steven, I think. And at least I lost to a top player, so I don't feel too bad, and now I'll get to play one of those newbies. But it's not to be so. Because, thanks to Steven, Darwin is now in the losing bracket, so guess who I get assigned to play? Yes indeedy. Darwin sits down across from me, I groan, and he smilingly points out that if my friend had not beaten him I wouldn't be in this position. Can't argue with that logic. Match 2. Darwin Kastle (rating something over 1800 and second in the Paris Pro Tour). Much to my surprise, I win the first game. It goes fast and I just develop a lot quicker. Wow. The second game is a different story. He gets a Dragon Mask out early, which I hate. The ability to give _any_ of your creatures a +2/+2 is just so strong in sealed deck. He beats me down quickly and I lose. Third game, luck goes my way again. I am at 19 and he is at 9. I've had the Rowen out for a few turns, so I have more creatures plus the Village Elder. Time is running out, so I don't have time for a careful analysis. I just keep attacking with everything and sacing forests to the Village Elder to keep my attackers alive. A Reality Ripple helps out, also. I'm quickly running out of land with which to cast things, but the creature advantage does the job. Just like Steven, I win on the turn that timeout is called. Later Darwin kindly points out that I could have done more damage with my Raging Spirit if I'd made it colorless so his Freewind Falcon (prot red) couldn't block it. (Duh!) Matches: 1-1, Games: 2-3 Match 3. Peter (don't know last name) a bit of a newbie. Peter played with lots of cool spells like City of Solitude, but not enough creatures. He had out a Raging Gorilla and some other weenies when I drew my Wildebeests. I don't like the Gorilla, which becomes 4/1 when blocking and could have killed the Wildebeests. So I cast something else threatening, provoke him to sacrifice the Gorilla to kill it, _then_ cast my Wildebeests with a Village Elder to pay the upkeep. The Wildebeests run all over the weenies, doing trample damage each turn. That and the Breezekeeper finished him off. Second game was similar. He really scared me when I had three good creatures out and he cast a Savage Twister, but my Cerulean Wyvern (prot green) survived it. I get the Rowen out, but draw nothing but land. Luckily, my opponent is not drawing much, either, and I win with the Wyvern. Matches: 2-1, Games 4-3 (looking better!) Match 4. Michael Feuell, an experienced player whom I've played (and lost to) before. He has a pretty cool deck but I just develop faster both games. In the first, I get out a third-turn Warthog, and he's playing black (first black I've run into all night). In the second, he gets out two Chimeras (the Tim-Wing and Lead-Belly). I know I can deal with the doubled Chimera with either Thirst or Fireblast, both of which I have in my hand, so I attack with something to provoke him into sacing one to enhance the other, and after the attack I Thirst the resulting 4/4 non-tapping flyer. We play a third fun game which he wins. In this one, I get slightly mana-screwed. I also get the situation I've been fearing all night - I draw the Wildebeest when I don't have any other green creature for its upkeep. I'm glad this happened in the game that _didn't_ count. Matches: 3-1, Games 6-3 Match 5: Steph (don't know her last name), someone I've seen play in Arena at Your Move, but never played before. Steph is a good player, but once again I develop faster, and win pretty quickly. She's playing black and blue, and I get out both the Warthog and the Kukemssa Serpent early, and finish off by adding her Talruum Champion to my attacking horde via a Ray of Command. She concedes the second game in order not to miss a ride home. At this point everybody's clustered around the table where David Weiss is playing the one guy with a no-loss record (whose name I didn't catch). If David can win this match, then the tournament winner will be based on a tiebreaker among the people with 4-1 match records (of which I am now one). But David doesn't pull it off, and they other guy wins the tournament with a 5-0 record. Final record: 4-1, Games 8 (really 7)-3, with my only match lost to the 17th-ranked player in the world. I didn't win the tournament, but I'm very happy with the result, and I must have done my sealed deck rating some good. Game winning cards were the Breezekeeper, Wyvern, Ray of Command, Fireblast, Village Elder (!), Warthog, Wildebeests, and Rowen (indirectly). Steven ended up at 3-2, losing only to the eventual winner and David Humphreys. It was a good night.