The next day, I woke up and had an early breakfast with my friend, CJ. We had some quality bro-bro bonding time and discussed our general musings on philosophy and women. At one point, Skyfall by Adele came up on the radio and we jammed out for a couple minutes before walking into the Embassy Suite USF Hotel. When I walked in, I scouted out the area to see what the vendors were selling and get an overall feel for the environment; the feeling of 'this is where I'd be for the next 10hrs' was a little overwhelming. Cue gasp for breath* I found the rest of the Casual Net gang (most of which were representing our new shirts!) and sat down to share some conversation and calm everyone's nerves and my own. Once the judges called everyone for seating, it was game time. I wished everyone good luck and headed to my seat. They handed each of us 6 booster packs to open, record, and gawk over who was going to get them. To my dismay, I had the misfortune of opening this beautiful gem..
Seriously? Seeing this was so painful. Everyone knows my friend, Carlos is obsessed with any penis/phallic-themed cards that WotC has ever printed and this has to be the most obviously penis-looking card ever printed.. They made it just for him. And here it stares at me in. In. Foil. Although I wanted to just simply take this card home and wrap it up as THE MOST AMAZING CHRISTMAS PRESENT EVER, I knew I had to ship it away in favor of a less erection-invoking sealed pool. Well, not before snapping this photo of course.
The judges then instructed us to pass our sealed pool to the right.. then the right.. aaaaand then the right one last time. The sealed pool I finally received was the following:
Rares (6):
Armada Wurm
Azor's Elocutors
Cryptborn Horror
Hypersonic Dragon
Loxodon Smiter
Search the City
Uncommons/Commons (78):
Armory Guard
Avenging Arrow
Azorius Arrester
Keening Apparition
Knightly Valor
Seller of Songbirds
Soul Tithe
Swift Justice
Trained Caracal
Blue (11):
Aquus Steed
Cancel
Crosstown Courier
2x Chronic Flooding
Dispel
Doorkeeper
Faerie Imposter
Runewing
Stealer of Secrets
Tower Drake
Black (10):
2x Deviant Glee
Destroy the Evidence
Launch Party
Perlious Shadow
2x Sewer Shambler
Slum Reaper
Stab Wound
Ultimate Price
Electrickery
Gore-House Chainwalker
Guttersnipe
Pyroconvergence
Splatter Thug
3x Survey the Wreckage
Tenement Crasher
Viashino Racketeer
Green (9):
2x Aerial Predation
Axebane Stag
2x Centaur's Herald
Drudge Beetle
Druid's Deliverance
Gatecreeper Vine
Korozda Monitor
Artifact (5):
Azorius Keyrune
2x Rakdos Keyrune
2x Tablet of the Guilds
Augur Spree
Centaur Healer
2x Chemister's Trick
Dramatic Rescue
Dreg Mangler
Essence Backlash
Fall of the Gravel
Grisly Salvage
Heroes' Reunion
2x Search Warrant
Skull Rend
Trestle Troll
Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage
Hybrid (6):
2x Golgari Longlegs
2x Judge's Familiar
Rakdos Shredfreak
Vassal Soul
Land (3):
Golgari Guildgate
Izzet Guildgate
Transguild Promenade
The most disappointing part of this pool was the fact that it didn't have the foil Armada Wurm and fate was just mocking me with a non-foil version. Although the foiling has no functional impact on the game, aesthetics are everything. The collector in me was dying, but I still pressed forward. Now on to the actual analysis!
After picking out my favorite Green, White, and Black cards, this is the list of 40 cards I decided to register:
2x Centaur Herald
1x Azorius Arrester
1x Keening Apparition
1x Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage
1x Gatecreeper Vine
1x Drudge Beetle
1x Seller of Songbirds
1x Dreg Mangler
1x Centaur Healer
1x Loxodon Smiter
1x Korozda Monitor
2x Golgari Longlegs
1x Armada Wurm
Spells (8):
1x Swift Justice
1x Druid's Deliverance
1x Ultimate Price
1x Avenging Arrow
1x Aerial Predation
1x Stab Wound
1x Launch Party
1x Knightly Valor
Lands (17):
1x Transguild Promenade
1x Golgari Guildgate
7x Forest
5x Plains
3x Swamp
The land distribution for these 3-5 color decks is the most important part of its construction. Should I play 17 or 18 lands? Since Return to Ravnica limited is a little slower than M13 because of the higher average mana cost of the commons/uncommons, it's not unusual to consider running 22 playable cards and 18 land. Looking at the mana cost distribution, the curve is very strong with a lot of creatures/spells at 2-3 mana, 3 spells at 5 mana, and only one spell at 6 mana, I can easily get away with just 17 land for this deck. The most important part of this mana base is the Golgari Guildgate, since it bleeds into Green (which is the primary color) and Black (which is the splash color), which is the strongest type of gate you can have in a 3-color deck.
In testing, I had the opportunity to practice a few sealed pools with a G/W/b shell and tested out the mana with several combinations. With about 4-5 Black cards, I had a lot of success running 3 hard Black sources (Swamps) and 2 soft ones or just 4 hard Black sources, so I went with a Promenade, Gate, and 3 Swamp distribution. The amount of Forests and Plains to include was the difficult part. Since Armada Wurm is the only spell requiring two White and the pair of Golgari Longlegs and Korozda Monitor that require double Green, I knew I wanted to run more Forests than Plains. With 2 nonbasic lands and 3 Swamps already determined, I have 12 lands to play around with. I locked in with 7 Forests and 5 Plains as a healthy number.
Some of the cards I initially thought were weaker were Avenging Arrow and Gatecreeper Vine. Since most of the creatures in the format have at least 2 power, the vine doesn't hold up to many attacks, so I thought it was simply just a mana fixer and a small amount of card advantage in the early game. One strong interaction is Gatecreeper Vine and the Launch Party in the main and some synergy with Slum Reaper in the sideboard (discussed a little later) so you don't lose board position in the mid game; this simple maneuver is usually enough to close out most games. As for Avenging Arrow, it's removal that's flexible and kills any-sized creature, but is extremely conditional, since the creature it kills has to deal damage that turn (either to you or a creature you control) and you can't use it to negate opponents' Giant Growths or Savage Surge. It also can't kill walls since the better ones being Lobber Crew, Doorkeeper, and Hover Barrier don't deal combat damage. It has its limitations and doesn't really help aggro decks push for more damage, but it was useful when I started to fall behind in the creature race against other aggro decks.
After spending about 30min constructing my deck, I dedicated about 5-10min to my sideboard plan. Side boarding is really important when it comes to high-level play and limited/sealed is no exception.
Sideboard:
Trestle Troll (against aggro decks and decks with fliers)
Soul Tithe (against Azorius tempo and against decks with Planeswalkers)
1x Aerial Predation (against decks with fliers..)
Slum Reaper (against non-Golgari and non-Selesnya decks)
Azor's Elocutors (against control decks)
Trestle Troll is one of those cards that are very good when it's in the right match up. Since it's not one of those card I wanted to see very often, I left it out of the main board in favor of Golgari Longlegs that's a more powerful choice against 'most' decks. Soul Tithe is really strong against decks that are trying to aggressively curve out with creatures, so sometimes it's a hard removal spell, but most of the time you're just trying to slow your opponent down while you a mass your forces on the ground for a power alpha strike. You can also use the tithe to force your opponent to pay for Paralyzing Grasps or Arrests they put on your creatures. As for the rest of the options, they're pretty much self-explanatory.
After registering the deck, I sat down with Nick, Emily, Robert, and Jules to see how their decks were looking. After Robert finished helping Emily put her deck together, he and I had a quick show match where my draws were too aggressive for him to keep up; I was feeling a little more confident now. When they called the start of Round 1, I wished everyone luck and sat down for what would be an excruciating long campaign of me vs. the room.
In Round 1, I was paired against a guy named Brad. He was a quiet fellow who clearly was just focused on his gameplay, so we didn't have the opportunity to share the usual, cordial banter of pregame jitters. In Game 1, he opened up with a Rakdos Guildgate, so I initially thought his deck would show an aggressive push, so I committed to a very early, defensive strategy. Unfortunately, that gate was poorly placed since the rest of his plays were all Green and White cards. This was a Selesnya mirror. The game drew out for turn after turn and about half of the time in the round had elapsed in this grueling Game 1. We both joked about the match up a little as each turn was pretty much 'land, pass' as we both continued to commit small creatures to the board and clog up the ground even further. I finally broke the stalemate with a Seller of Songbirds bird token. By his reaction to the creature, I could tell he didn't have the removal spell for it. I patiently waited and threw away a Dreg Mangler and scavenged the bird for 3 1+/1+ counters. I had a Korozda Monitor in my graveyard, but didn't elect to speed up the Bird clock because of the threat of Selesnya Charm in my opponent's hand. My Bird was content dishing out 4 damage a turn and my opponent made a last ditch alpha strike. After blocks, he gave the concession and we moved to Game 2.
For side boarding, I decided to go with:
+1 Trestle Troll and
-1 Golgari Longlegs
Since the ground got cluttered easily in Game 1, I felt the insect wouldn't have much of an opportunity to punch in. I also wanted to be prepared for my opponent's Seller of Songbirds or Eyes in the Skies I may not have seen in Game 1. For Game 2, I decided to go for a more aggressive strategy that would have been more successful in Game 1 had I read out what his deck did a little better. Luckily, Game 2 played out very differently. I over committed creatures to the board without fear of any Supreme Verdict or Street Spasm and went to work chipping away at his life total. I committed an early Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage because of the lack of removal I had seen in Game 1 and the card advantage engine went to work and made an army of Centaur tokens that closed out the round with a 2-0 victory.
Current Standing: 1-0
After the round, I went to go look for the other competitors on the team. Robert, Jules, Stephen (and I believe Chris?) had all won their matches. Emily was locked in a stalemate of Game 3 with a guy named Freedom that went into time in the round. Unfortunately, this story ends with her opponent stealing Game 3 on turn 5 with an array of bomby rares. Minutes after the end to this match, we sat down for pairings for Round 2. Low and behold...
I was paired against the same guy named Freedom, who seemed very excited to be playing Magic that Sunday. He and I had engaging conversation about Magic in general and we talked about how we started playing, how long, etc. I got the vibe that he was very impressed with his deck, so I elected to play a blitzy, non-committal strategy to draw out any bomb rares I might have to prep against in Game 2 and 3. In Game 1, I cluttered the board with an army of 2/2s and 3/3s and kept attacking relentlessly into his one wall that he layed down, which is a pretty favorable board position in the match-up, so I felt heavily in control all game. Fortunately, my blitzy/noncommittal plan baited an unexpected Supreme Verdict. After the board was cleaned, I committed a Golgari Longlegs and the Armada Wurm I had been holding that easily cleaned up the rest of his life total in one giant swing. I knew I had definitely shook him up after that game, since he was a bit quieter. Even though I saw a few flying creatures, I saw a Dispel in Game 1, so I decided not to board the 2nd copy of Aerial Predation. I also wanted to keep the Golgari Longlegs in favor of Trestle Troll because I didn't see a lot of removal nor a lot of cheap creatures to see a blitz counter-attack from him, so I just kept the list the same. I also made a point of shuffling up the deck and not looking at the sideboard going into Game 2. I knew my opponent was shaken up from the last game and I had the opportunity to exude a large amount of confidence in my main 40 cards. If my opponent notices this, it's a huge momentum crusher. Maybe I was being too hopeful that he saw it? He seemed like a bright kid, so I was banking that he did >:)
In Game 2, it was a brutal game for my opponent. He kept a 2x Island, 1x Forest hand with a small amount of action, but couldn't commit enough to the board to match the pair of creatures I laid on my own battlefield. Since he didn't have a single White mana source up, I knew I could over commit creatures to the board without fear of seeing a Supreme Verdict cast at the very earliest, two turns from now. And if he drew into double white-sources, he would have to commit creatures to the board to survive, so his own creatures would suffer some collateral damage from the wrath effect. Conveniently, I was ok with either arrangement, so into the red-zone my creatures went. After some swings, he finally stuck a Jace, Architect of Thought on the board and used its -2 ability, knowing full well that Jace wasn't going to live and was hoping to see a 5th land (preferably a white source). No such luck. After flipping 3 spells off the top and drawing for his turn, he revealed a 5th land (a 4th Island) and laid out the concession leading in a quick 2-0 sweep. We shook hands and I wished him good luck for the rest of his first PTQ.
Current Standing: 2-0
After the round, I met up with...
Since this whole story is pretty long (especially the next 6 rounds and the Top 8 draft), I'm going to break this article up into two parts. I really wanted to get the evaluation of the sealed pool and what I did in terms of creating the side-board out there early this week so everyone heading out to the PTQ in Tallahassee this weekend could get a chance to see what I was able to do with this pool. Until part 2, everyone!
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-David J.
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