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| Cobra |
![]() Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 8:27 pm |
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Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 1202
Location: Austin, TX, USA
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Hey all, I just joined an MTG Online sealed deck league to get a feel for the format, and I thought I’d post my pulls here -- get some input on my deck to start off with, and then maybe generate some longer-term discussion about the format with game reports and such. 
So, my opening card pool looks like this...
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Auratouched Mage
Bathe in Light
Benediction of Moons
Droning Bureaucrats
Ghost Warden
Guardian’s Magemark
Leave No Trace
Nightguard Patrol
Shrieking Grotesque
Veteran Armorer
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Drake Familiar
Flight of Fancy
Frazzle
Lore Broker
Quickchange
Runeboggle
Stasis Cell
Steamcore Weird
Tattered Drake
Vedalken Dismisser
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Clinging Darkness
Daggerclaw Imp
Infectious Host
Last Gasp
Orzhov Euthanist
Poisonbelly Ogre
Poisonbelly Ogre
Roofstalker Wight
Strands of Undeath
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Barbarian Riftcutter
Cleansing Beam
Fencer’s Magemark
Galvanic Arc
Ghor-Clan Bloodscale
Incite Hysteria
Molten Sentry
Pyromatics
Rain of Embers
Seismic Spike
Sparkmage Apprentice
Viashino Fangtail
Viashino Slasher
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Battering Wurm
Beastmaster’s Magemark
Elves of Deep Shadow
Elvish Skysweeper
Gather Courage
Gruul Nodorog
Ivy Dancer
Moldervine Cloak
Silhana Ledgewalker
Silhana Starfletcher
Stone-Seeder Hierophant
Ursapine
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Boros Recruit
Castigate
Consult the Necrosages
Drooling Groodion
Dune-Brood Nephilim
Glimpse the Unthinkable
Invoke the Firemind
Leap of Flame
Pillory of the Sleepless
Schismotivate
Seeds of Strength
Sunhome Enforcer
Thundersong Trumpeter
Wee Dragonauts
Wild Cantor
Artifacts:
Grifter’s Blade
Izzet Signet
Spectral Searchlight
Guild Lands:
Golgari Rot Farm
Orzhov Basilica
Selesnya Sanctuary
Now, my first few thoughts are "I love Moldervine Cloak," "I hate Pillory of the Sleepless," and "Three overlapping bounce lands, nifty." So I go for . I also end up with a small red splash because there are a few nice cards there, and with the Starfletcher and Searchlight I think I can include them without destabilizing mana base too much.
Also, I decide to lean towards evasion creatures for that Moldervine Cloak, and since I’ve got a lot of help with mana generation (3 guild lands, Elves of Deep Shadow, Silhana Starfletcher, Spectral Searchlight) I drop the land count to 16.
Here’s my initial build:
Creatures (15):
1 Ghost Warden
1 Veteran Armorer
2 Nightguard Patrol
2 Shrieking Grotesque
3 Droning Bureaucrats
5 Auratouched Mage
2 Daggerclaw Imp
Elves of Deep Shadow
Elvish Skysweeper
1 Silhana Ledgewalker
2 Silhana Starfletcher
3 Ursapine
6 Battering Wurm
Thundersong Trumpeter
2 Sunhome Enforcer
Other Spells (9):
1 Last Gasp
1 Clinging Darkness
3 Strands of Undeath
2 Galvanic Arc
2 Moldervine Cloak
Castigate
Seeds of Strength
1 Pillory of the Sleepless
3 Spectral Searchlight
Land (16):
Golgari Rot Farm
Orzhov Basilica
Selesnya Sanctuary
5 Forest
4 Plains
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
Thoughts?  |
| Last edited by Cobra on Sat May 13, 2006 4:55 pm; edited 3 times in totalhttp://cobracards.com -- Web's best deals on Trading Card Games. |
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| La_Sin_Grail |
![]() Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 10:43 pm |
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Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 806
Location: Maryland
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The cards I see as worth considering when choosing colors are:
Auratouched Mage
Shreiking Grotesque
Veteran Armorer
Flight of Fancy
Stasis Cell
Steamcore Wierd
Tattered Drake
Daggerclaw Imp
Lasp Gasp
Strands of Undeath
Galvanic Arc
Pyromatics
Viashino Fangtail
Fencer’s Magemark
Beastmaster’s Magemark
Moldervine Cloak
Gather Courage
Ursapine
Drooling Groodion
Pillory of the Sleepless
Boros Recruit
Sunhome Enforcer
Wee Dragonauts
Signet
Bouncelands
From there I would say to go G/R/B because you have ursapine as a win condition, and cloak or groodion for backup.
I would end up with something like this.
Daggerclaw Imp for evasion and 3 mana for 3 beater
Last Gasp incredible removal
Strands of Undeath card adv. and protect enchanted creatures
Galvanic Arc so good
Pyromatics token/spot removal
Fencer’s Magemark great with saving creatures
Beastmaster’s Magemark enchantment power
Moldervine Cloak Rigged
Gather Courage nice combat trick- use as removal or shock for free
Ursapine win condition
Drooling Groodion win condition
Vaishino Fangtail Ping owns in limited.
Battering Wurm Big things with evasion are fun to cloak or magemark
Elves of Deep Shadow mana fix/one drop
Elvish Skysweeper own the skies
Orzhov Euthanist Kill things after pyromatics or combat and ok body
Silhana Ledgewalker untargetable by them with evasion.
Wild Cantor Mana fix/1 for 1/1
Grifter’s Blade crazy trick, equipment is good in limited
Spectral Searchlight ping or mana fix
Ivy Dancer make things unblockable
Silhana Starfletcher blocker/mana fixer
Seismic Spike blow up opposing karoos for HUGE tempo burst
6 Forest
6 Mountain
4 Swamp <<not much black
Golgari Rot Farm
Hope that helped Conor. Remember to never base colors off a single card unless it’s an auto-win and even then be careful. Green is for cloak AND ursapine. BLack is for imp AND gasp. Red is for Arc AND fangtail.
One last thing, I’ve never seen a deck win with four colors in limited. I’ve seen two five-color ones from local tourneys to GP Richmond that were good. Try to stick with three, and if not, go for the gold! |
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| Cobra |
![]() Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 10:26 am |
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Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 1202
Location: Austin, TX, USA
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Thanks, LSG!
I like your build better in terms of overall card quality, but won’t the creature count (only 12) be a problem? I seem to get a lot of dead hands (like enchantments without a decent creature to hold them) when I play fewer than 15 or so. White allows for more creatures, and includes better options for using that Moldervine Cloak and Beastmaster’s Magemark, than Red.
Also, I definitely like the potential of Seismic Spike and Ivy Dancer, but they seem more like sideboard cards... do you think this format has enough guildlands and forests to justify maindecking them?
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| La_Sin_Grail |
![]() Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 1:16 pm |
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Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 806
Location: Maryland
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I’m pretty sure spike should just be in- even if they don’t have any karoos (bouncelands), they’ll probably only have one source of a color. As for Ivy Dancer, I like him because green is a definate power color in sealed. Many decks play green, and at three colors on average, even if it were all equal ivy would be great more than half the time.
I know twelve creatures isn’t much, but many of them cost little mana, allowing enchantments to have plenty of targets fast. Also, with things like grifter’s blade and moldervine cloak, each creature will be a big one.
I’m really stupid and tried to run some obscenely low number of creatures at GP Richmond (I like didn’t notice how few there were)... I think I ran 5-6, and I placed 196th of 561, so I’m not too worried about low creature counts. |
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| Cobra |
![]() Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 1:43 pm |
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Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 1202
Location: Austin, TX, USA
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Two more questions to help further my MTG education... 
1) How did you arrive at your land counts? (I would probably have run one less Mountain and/or Swamp, and another Forest or two, but I’m a little shaky when it comes to building the mana base...)
2) Where does the term "karoos" come from?  |
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| La_Sin_Grail |
![]() Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 5:14 pm |
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Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 806
Location: Maryland
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Hm.... Karoos come from... I don’t even remember. It’s the most common term, perhaps second to bounceland for describing things like Golgari Rot Farm.
As for land counts, I said there wasn’t much black needed. Then I said green was more than red. Usually, you want about 17 lands in limited, so it just all fell into place. Plus, with starfletcher and Rot farm and searclight AND elves of DS, there should be very few mana problems in this deck. |
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| Cobra |
![]() Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 9:56 am |
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Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 1202
Location: Austin, TX, USA
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All right, first week of the league I played three games using La_Sin_Grail’s suggested deck, only slightly modified, and went 1-2.  The losses were the result of slow starts, following by my opponent dropping Wurms and other big creatures that I simply didn’t have answers for.
Because of all those big creatures I was seeing, I decided to try my original version -- it doesn’t have the red burn/ping that’s so useful against small creatures, but it does have a bit more discard and a Pillory of the Sleepless for larger creatures. (And it’s faster to the table, which is good if you feel that other decks outclass yours in the long run and you need to play aggro to win!)
So in the next two games, with , I went 1-1. Both good matches... didn’t see so many big creatures, and in fact I find myself really missing Pyromatics and Viashino Fangtail.
I get to add a Ravnica pack to my card pool this week, and it looks like this:
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Grozoth
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Clinging Darkness
Mortipede
Vindictive Mob
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Blockbuster
Dogpile
Ordruun Commando
Seismic Spike
Viashino Fangtail
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Bramble Elemental
Elvish Skysweeper
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Boros Recruit
Seeds of Strength
Twisted Justice
Land:
Selesnya Sanctuary
Grozoth? Ugh.  But there are some playable creatures in here, and now I’ve got two Fangtails  and two Seismic Spikes, so I’m definitely sticking with Red. |
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| Glavin |
![]() Posted: Mon May 22, 2006 3:05 pm |
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Joined: 22 May 2006
Posts: 11
Location:
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I agree with your build of BWGr, but there are some changes I would make. Cleansing Beam is a gamebreaking card. You don’t have any saprolings or anything, so it will usually not kill that many of your own creatures, and it can randomly completely turn games around. I also think that you made a mistake about not including Bathe in Light in your build, as it is a very strong card that can break stalls, save your creatures, or make combat a bloodbath. You can splash if you want, as you have a lot of good fixing.
Anyways, I would go BWGr with your current pool. My build would probably be something like
1 Auratouched Mage
1 Veteran Armorer
1 Shrieking Grotesque
1 Ursapine
1 Drooling Groodion
1 Bramble Elemental
1 Silhana Ledgewalker
1 Elves of Deep Shadow
1 Orzhov Euthanist
1 Battering Wurm
1 Silhana Starfletcher
1 Daggerclaw Imp
1 Gruul Nodorog
1 Wild Cantor
1 Sunhome Enforcer
1 Ivy Dancer
1 Last Gasp
1 Bath in Light
1 Spectral Searchlight
1 Cleansing Beam
1 Moldervine Cloak
1 Galvanic Arc
1 Pillory of the Sleepless
1 Strands of Undeath
2 Selesnya Sanctuary
1 Orzhov Basillica
1 Golgari Rot Farm
2 Mountain
3 Swamp
4 Forest
3 Plains
Ivy Dancer is perfectly acceptable to main deck in Sealed, as green is the most solid color, and is the most played color. Seismic Spike is really a terrible card in most formats. If you are really scraping for a LD card, then Barbarian Riftcutter is much better, providing a solid body if there is no land you want to destroy. LD is rarely a solid strategy in limited. I would normally stear clear. Otherwise, this looks like a pretty solid pool. |
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| Cobra |
![]() Posted: Tue May 23, 2006 4:57 am |
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Joined: 12 Jul 2005
Posts: 1202
Location: Austin, TX, USA
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I’ve actually become rather fond of the three-color version, because the mana base is just so solid, and because those Fangtails really are extremely good in Limited-format MTG games. Adding that extra color seemed to destabilize things without providing too many additional benefits.
I do like Cleansing Beam quite a lot, but consider it a sideboard option for when my opponent is playing mostly different colors than I am (or is creating a bunch of Saprolings or something).
Ivy Dancer got taken out of my current version for some reason, but needs to be added back in. 
I’ve actually had some very good results with the land destruction. Since everyone’s playing three colors or more, people’s mana bases are a little bit fragile. It’s pretty easy to deprive people of one of their colors (or at the very least, of double mana in one of their colors), and that means they’ll be holding some useless cards for a while. Plus, there have been several games where an early Spike has turned my opponent’s perfectly good hand into a mana-screw situation. That’s always fun... 
I do agree that Barbarian Riftcutter might be a better choice than Seismic Spike, though. He’s slower, which is obviously a significant downside for land-destruction cards, but he’s also much more versatile. And he doesn’t burn you. I’ll have to give him a try. |
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| La_Sin_Grail |
![]() Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 10:41 pm |
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Joined: 14 Aug 2005
Posts: 806
Location: Maryland
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| Also, in limited, the only format slow enough to play cleansing beam, the problem is you’ll have overlap between colors and all theri creatures won’t be the same color necessarily. However, two fangtails owns |
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