Here is the full list of cards:
This is a pretty bad pool in my opinion. Not for lack of strong cards, but for the spread of the colors.
White has Blinding Souleater and Phyrexian Rebirth.
Blue has Neurok Commando and Blighted Agent.
Black has Reaper of Sheoldred and several strong removal spells.
Red has Goblin Wardriver, Spiraling Duelist, and Hellkite Igniter, as well as Volt Charge.
Green has Viridian Emissary, Fangren Marauder, 2 Maul Splicers and a Quilled Slagwurm.
Artifacts has Pristine Talisman, 2 Lashwrithes, and Etched Monstrosity.
All 5 colors would add something to this deck, and that makes it incredibly difficult to decide what to do.
I am a big fan of Living Weapons. Not only do you get an Equipment card, but it comes with a free creature to carry it. Thus, I strongly feel like we should try and make Black work, to use the Lashwrithes.
Secondly, a 5/5 Flying creature with haste is pretty amazing. We should try and go red.
Having chosen those 2 colors, I created this deck:
| Deck | ||
|---|---|---|
| Creatures - 11 1 Septic Rats 1 Reaper of Sheoldred 1 Hellkite Igniter 1 Tormentor Exarch 1 Spiraling Duelist 1 Goblin Wardriver 1 Etched Monstrosity 1 Blinding Souleater 1 Hovermyr 1 Pestilent Souleater 1 Razorfield Rhino | Spells - 11 1 Spread the Sickness 1 Grim Affliction 1 Dismember 1 Morbid Plunder 2 Volt Charge 2 Mycosynth Wellspring 1 Pristine Talisman 2 Lashwrithe | |
This would be a fairly decent deck, but I didn't quite like the curve, and I really liked that we had 2 unblockable creatures in blue. I decided to add in Blue, and make Red a splash only for the Volt Charges and the Hellkite Igniter.
| Deck | ||
|---|---|---|
| Lands - 16 4 Mountain 5 Island 7 Swamp Creatures - 13 1 Septic Rats 1 Reaper of Sheoldred 1 Hellkite Igniter 1 Etched Monstrosity 1 Trespassing Souleater 1 Blinding Souleater 1 Hovermyr 1 Serum Raker 1 Neurok Commando 1 Wing Splicer 1 Blighted Agent 1 Pestilent Souleater 1 Razorfield Rhino | Spells - 12 1 Spread the Sickness 1 Grim Affliction 1 Dismember 1 Morbid Plunder 2 Volt Charge 2 Mycosynth Wellspring 1 Pristine Talisman 2 Lashwrithe 1 Numbing Dose | |
I'm sure that this is not the strongest deck that we could make out of this pool, but it was the best that I could come up with.
Septic Rats are phenomenal efficiency. 3/3 Infectors for 3 mana are great.
Reaper of Sheoldred is an amazing blocker. The 5 toughness puts him out of range of being killed by almost any single spell in the block.
Hellkite Igniter is another possible finisher. 5/5 Flying and Haste can quickly swing a losing game back in your favor.
Trespassing Souleater is unblockable. Equipping this guy with Lashwrithe will win you games in a hurry if your opponent lacks targeted removal.
Blinding Souleater is great, even though we aren't running white. Your opponent will try and kill this guy early, so he makes a great sponge to play before something like Blighted Agent.
Hovermyr will be one of the first flying creatures onto the field in a lot of games. Vigilance means you can attack with him every turn, and his 2 toughness means he can block a lot of early game threats.
The Serum Raker helps you knock things out of the sky if needed, or harass your opponent.
Neurok Commando will occasionally let you draw a card out of him.
Wing Splicer drops in a flying 3/3 golem, what more could you want?
Blighted Agent. This guy is amazing in this deck. You have several other early game threats that you should try to play out before this guy, hopefully soak up some of their targeted removal. If you can get him to stick, and attach Lashwrithe to him, the game suddenly has a very fast clock.
In the spells department you have access to several targeted removal spells, several spells with proliferate, and Morbid Plunder, which will help you in more games than you can count.
Don't forget that this deck runs very few mountains, so when you play a Mycosynth Wellspring, make sure you grab one.
In the games that I tested this deck, it performed fairly well. The decks that it lost to were ones that curved out very well, playing decent threats on every turn. I hate to say it, but those decks simply had access to a better card pool than this deck did. As I said above, I don't consider myself the best sealed deck builder, so I'm sure that someone out there can come up with a better sealed deck out of this pool.
After going back through this list, I notice that somehow a bunch of the cards had been left out of the pool that I imported. Mostly, a lot of the red and green cards. After noticing these cards, I believe a green/red deck would be much more viable than the one that I listed here. Spiraling Duelist with metalcraft is amazing, and I think the Green would have helped us "get there" more often. I'm not going to take down this list, but tomorrow I will try and make a red/green stompy deck, and see how much better that fares.
thanks D..a very good blogpost..really appreciate it :)
ReplyDeleteThe new and improved list is up now:
ReplyDeletehttp://ggxgames.blogspot.com/2011/05/sealed-deck-building-with-d_25.html