Further M14 Sealed practice

I just completed two prerelease sealed events on MTGO. Playing pre-release events is the worst value possible on MTGO, but it eases the pain when you open Mutavault, Angel of Thune, and Scavenging Ooze...just missing Hydra for all of the money rares. I also 3-1'd and 4-0'd the events which was nice. Played a very close finals in the 4-0 match-up, but got there. Both decks had solid black components of Sengir Vampire, Doom Blade, Liturgy of Blood, and Corrupt along with the solid common creatures. The 4-0 pool had the Angel, but she did not factor into many games beyond drawing out removal. The deck did have 3 of the 2/2 Vigilance sliver with two hive stirrings. I wasn't sure if I would like playing these creatures in sealed without better sliver synergy, but they were relevant more often than not. Sometimes grizzly bears aren't great in sealed, but they are certainly playable here. I had a couple of the Blood Bairn's which made the stirrings a lot better.

In retrospect, the pool from the previous post I believe was best with the black cards. I think in sealed the nearly unconditional removal that doom blade and two liturgies bring is way better than the red cards. Most of the games that weren't decided by mana issues turned into long drawn out games that were decided by bigger creatures. The black removal goes a very long way if saved for optimal targets.

I forgot to save the 4-0 pool, but here was the 3-1 pool, let me know how you would build it differently in the comments or @bchap55 on twitter. I definitely was torn between blue and green here, but I wanted to try out how double cancel felt, and it was great in some games mediocre in others here. Green may have been the better choice.

M14 Sealed Deck

I won some packs at my local M14 Prerelease a few weekends back and have cracked them to work on Sealed Deck building! Here are the relevant cards that I opened in each color. I am trying out a picture based format, you will need to look up the cards if you aren't familiar with all of them.


Artifacts: 

I don't anticipate playing the millstones, but I could see going deep with a special pool. Ingot enables a splash and the ramp could be relevant. I don't love playing it in general as spending turn three not impacting the board is quite risky in this format. You have to be able to do some special things with the splash/ramp for Ingot to be worth.

Green:

Green is far too shallow to be playable here. Certainly some quality cards here and there, but not enough quantity nor bombs.


Blue:

Blue seems okay, if a little shallow. Clone is great obviously, and the whale provides lots of opportunities to HAUMPH. I also really like Time Ebb, especially in a deck with a solid creature curve. 

Red:

Red is pretty spicy, but also shallow. Look at those creatures, not much to get excited about there. The spells however are worth a look. Flames of the firebrand, Chandra and her outrage, shock, and geyser are all premium cards and reasons to play red. Hopefully there is a color deep enough to pair it with, preferably with creatures that can fit a curve.

Black:

 Black is solid, but again shallow. Premium cards include Doomblade and two liturgy of blood. I also like the four drop creatures and mark of the vampire. The other cards are okay filler.

White:

Here is some depth at last! Very solid creature curve, though Angelic Wall is not the best attacker.  Double Master of Diversion, Imposing Sovereign, Banisher Priest, Serra Angel, and Dawnstrike Paladin are all great reasons to play white. Other filler creatures are necessary and will go well with other colors.

Spell-wise, pretty much just the Pacifism is what I am interested in. 

I think it is pretty clear that we are going to have a base white deck. The number of playables just make it nearly impossible to do otherwise. I think Green and Blue can be dismissed as being not powerful enough. This leaves Red and Black to fight it out.

My first crack at a build is BW:

Black adds three nearly unconditional removal spells that fit the curve well. It also adds a few evasion creatures which may be necessary to winning if our Serra Angel is killed. Mark of the Vampire is great on those creatures and can be good on a random 2/2 combined with Master of Diversion and our removal.

Here is a crack at a RW deck:

The red adds those premium burn spells but the creatures are pretty underwhelming. Thunder strike seems decent with the Firecats and other 2/2's, but this deck looks like it could potentially have a hard time winning. I am just not sure if the non-Serra Angel creatures will do enough to kill my opponents.

I think I would lean towards playing the BW deck here as it adds a few more threats to go with solid removal. I would definitely want to play some games with the RW version though to see if it could get there. 

What do you all think? Post in the comments below or tweet me @bchap55 . I'm also interested in hearing your comments on this style of presenting a sealed deck. 

Thanks for reading!

Beginning

My name is Ben Chapman and welcome to my Quest for the PT Blog.

I am starting this blog for a few reasons. One, I want to chronicle my path to Magic's Pro Tour. Two, I think I can write entertaining content that other Magic players will want to read. Third, I think this blog will be an educational tool for learning the upcoming Theros limited format. Finally, I want to use this blog as additional motivation to achieve my goal. 

Why try to qualify for Pro Tour you ask? This answer requires some writing. First some words about my history with Magic:

I have played and loved the game since 1995. My first sanctioned event was the prerelease for Odyssey in September of 2001. I have played tournament magic at various intensities from that point until today. My best tournament result was a win of 2006 Regionals, which allowed me to attend 2006 Nationals.  This incidentally was the coming out party for @LSV and Paul "@HAUMPH" Cheon. While they were making history, I was punting matches with a Heartbeat of Spring deck that I hadn't played until the night before the tournament. I did 3-0 the Coldsnap draft, which I did test a lot for!

Other notable results include being one win out of the money at GP Worcester last year, making day 2 of the Two Headed Giant GP in Mass 2007, and various X-3 finishes at PTQs and other GP day ones.

I have not made top 8 of a PTQ...yet. This the first step of achieving what I hope to achieve this upcoming PTQ season.

Why have I not "broken through" thus far in my tournament career? I put it down to mainly not practicing nearly enough. The results above were achieved with minimal hours put into preparation. I honestly haven't deserved to qualify for the PT nor cash at a GP. I hope to change this soon, and I want to share my journey with you, if you wish to follow along.

I revisit the question again, Why try to qualify for the Pro Tour? Currently I have a steady job that is interesting and rewarding, but definitely not my passion. When it comes down to it, Magic is my passion and the path to doing more with Magic is success at the game's biggest stage.

How will I get there?

My format of choice is Sealed Deck/Draft. It just so happens that this fall, there are a number of PTQs, nearly all of which will be Theros Sealed. I am also strongly considering attending GP OKC this October and potentially GP Toronto in November for  additional cracks at qualifying via Limited.

I plan to draft and play sealed events fanatically on MTGO in between these events as well as crack some paper sealed pools with friends for preparation. Given my work schedule, I can get in 2-3 drafts a night on weekdays, which if I do consistently over this time period, will be considerable amounts more practice than normal.

I plan to use this blog to talk about the format as I learn it, share/discuss sealed pools and drafts, and most importantly recap the major tournaments I attend this season.

We do have a few months before Theros is released however. I am going to use this time to play M14 limited to try and sharpen up my game in general. I know I make many mistakes while playing, mainly because I play too quickly. My goal there is to consciously play a lot slower and try to figure out the best play at all times, which isn't always the most obvious. I also apparently have been drafting incorrectly, at least as far as the teachings of Ben Stark go. I definitely want to try to apply what he explains in that article and start drafting "the hard way".

In between blog posts, I will occasionally do some tweeting. Follow me at @bchap55

Thanks for reading!

-Ben