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Betraying the Secrets of Kamigawa

When Champions of Kamigawa was introduced, my typical slew of articles on sealed deck construction was noticeably absent. I could offer a myriad of excuses for my lack of literary offerings, from being too busy at work to insisting that I still wasn’t quite moved in and had plenty house organization left to do. The reality was that I just didn’t understand Kamigawa sealed. It wasn’t until the Betrayers Team Sealed tournament at the Prerelease that the answer dawned on me. The key word that you need to understand in order to succeed at Champions Sealed deck is synergy.

When Champions of Kamigawa was introduced, my typical slew of articles on sealed deck construction was noticeably absent. I could offer a myriad of excuses for my lack of literary offerings, from being too busy at work to insisting that I still wasn’t quite moved in and had plenty house organization left to do. The reality was that I just didn’t understand Kamigawa sealed. No matter the quality of my cardpool or how solidly built my deck, I was losing to everything. A Kashi Tribe-Reaver and an Order of the Sacred Bell could not hold up against a Callous Deceiver, a Guardian of Solitude, two Zubera and a Devouring Rage. A Kabuto Moth, Kitsune Blademaster and Nagao, Bound by Honor could not race two Battle-Mad Ronins equipped with No Dachis while my opponent was able to splice Blessed Breath onto Reciprocate.


It wasn’t until the Betrayers Team Sealed tournament at the Prerelease that the answer dawned on me. I had been zinged with a Glacial Ray spliced onto another Arcane spell for the fourth time. Two measly Mistblade Shinobi and a Shuriken locked down any hope of a creature staying on my side of the board. As my life total dwindled one and two points at a time, I pleaded in vain for my deck to conjure up one of the three remaining arcane spells with which to splice my own Glacial Ray so I could remove both ninjas and give my swarm of two-toughness creatures a chance to play.


Synergy. That was the key piece of knowledge I was lacking. I needed to start looking at the forest instead of the trees. Often I build sealed focusing on the individual cards, their abilities, and their power status. Good creatures and good creature removal, with care taken in regards to a stable mana curve. Sometimes I look for cards that go well together, provided they are solid enough to stand on their own. Do this in Kamigawa sealed, and you just might find yourself on the losing side of the table. Instead, it is important to maximize the synergy of the deck – looking at the forest before looking at the trees. Chad Ellis mentioned this idea briefly in his last Team Sealed article, but with the introduction of Betrayers of Kamigawa and sealed Grand Prixs just around the corner in March, I thought it worthwhile to offer a detailed example of what it means to apply synergy to sealed deck construction.


One of the challenges with a game as complex as Magic is that you cannot focus on a single subject. If you do, you might quickly find yourself walking headfirst into a wall. While I may be discussing synergy, there are still several other issues to keep in mind while constructing sealed decks:


Tempo

Champions of Kamigawa had a penchant for being devastatingly quick if you couldn’t conjure a creature before turn four. With the appearance of the Ninjitsu ability, it becomes ever more critical to either have a blocker or a solution for early creatures.


Evasion

Ground stalemates are still a fundamental issue with any sealed deck, and Kamigawa is no exception. Evasion will offer the necessary routes to victory and should always be considered highly. Again, thanks to Ninjitsu, built-in creature evasion can be even more potent.


Mana Curve

Since luck still has her say in how your Magic game develops, it’s best to keep her at bay by having a solid mix of cheap, efficient spells that gradually build into one or two powerful, expensive ones. This holds true especially when considering arcane spells, since the cost of the spell in addition to the splicing cost can add up to one expensive, uncastable spell instead of 1-2 reliable spells.


With all these aspects in mind, I am going to walk first through what I consider a rather straightforward build, with a few tweaks to account for synergy.


The cardpool:

God’s Eye, Gate to the Reikai



2 Blessing of Leeches

Cursed Ronin

Distress

Gibbering Kami

Okiba-Gang Shinobi

2 Psychic Spear

Ragged Veins

Rend Flesh

Seizan, Perverter of Truth

Sickening Shoal

Soulless Revival

Swallowing Plague

Throat Slitter


Consuming Vortex

Eye of Nowhere

Graceful Adept

Heed the Mists

Hisoka’s Defiance

Lifted by Clouds

2 Mistblade Shinobi

Petals of Insight

Phantom Wings

Soratami Mirror-Guard

Veil of Secrecy

Wandering Ones


Burr Grafter

Child of Thorns

Dripping-Tongue Zubera

Gnarled Mass

Hana Kami

Harbinger of Spring

Moss Kami

Myojin of Life’s Web

Orochi Eggwatcher

Sakura-Tribe Elder

Strength of Cedars

Venerable Kumo

2 Vital Surge


Akki Avalanchers

Akki Blizzard-Herder

Blademane Baku

Blind with Anger

Brothers Yamazaki

Cunning Bandit

Desperate Ritual

Ember-Fist Zubera

First Volley

Frost Ogre

Glacial Ray

Kumano’s Pupil

Mannichi, the Fevered Dream

Ronin Houndmaster

Sokenzan Bruiser

Stone Rain

Yamabushi’s Storm


Cleanfall

Devoted Retainer

Harsh Deceiver

Heart of Light

Kami of the Honored Dead

Kami of the Painted Road

Kistune Diviner

Masako the Humorless

Mothrider Samurai

Quiet Purity

Scour

2 Split-Tail Miko

Takeno’s Cavalry

Vigilance


There are some incredible cards in all five colors, but what catches my attention the most are the quality of removal in Black (Rend Flesh, Sickening Shoal, Swallowing Plague) and Red (Blind with Anger, First Volley, Glacial Ray). Since Black also has the two powerful ninjas available as well, it becomes a definite first color. Note that if the Red and Black removal were combined, there would be five arcane spells for the Glacial Ray to splice onto. Blademane Baku would enjoy those spells immensely. This is the concept of synergy that needs to be exploited. The other powerful tool in the deck is the ninjas – one which destroys a hand, the other of which destroys creatures. The density of removal in this pool allows for these ninjas to get through often. As such, one might consider also putting in a splash of Green to guarantee an unblocked Strength of Cedars and to use Orochi Eggwatcher to allow more chances for unblocked creatures to abuse Ninjitsu. In addition, the Strength of Cedars is also an arcane spell, which combines with Glacial Ray. The only caveat to that is it might be difficult to splice at seven mana, but the option is still there. Another option is to take into account Blue, which not only has two additional annoying Mistblade Ninjas (what good is an opposing dragon if it keeps bouncing?) and Veil of Secrecy, which not only supports Ninjitsu, but is an additional spell that has the splice ability. One could look at Lifted by Clouds as well for the same purpose.


I could lie to you and tell you the following build has been constructed with all the forethought I mentioned above. However, then I would have to attempt to cobble together a flawed rationale for why the following deck would be considered the best build. The fact of the matter is that it probably isn’t, and given the playing I have done with various builds since then, I would reconsider not so much the Black, but how Green or Blue might better synergize with the deck. Take it as a challenge to rebuild the deck when you’ve finished the article – I know I will.


So, in all its ugliness, here was my first attempt at a sealed deck build:


Cursed Ronin

Gibbering Kami

Okiba-Gang Shinobi

Rend Flesh

Seizan, Perverter of Truth

Sickening Shoal

Soulless Revival

Swallowing Plague

Throat Slitter

Blademane Baku

Blind with Anger

Brothers Yamazaki

Cunning Bandit

Ember-Fist Zubera

First Volley

Frost Ogre

Glacial Ray

Mannichi, the Fevered Dream

Ronin Houndmaster

Mothrider Samurai

Kitsune Diviner

2 Split-Tail Miko


7 Swamp

6 Mountain

4 Plains


I went heavy Black in order to support the Cursed Ronin and had to splash White for the two Split-Tail Miko. One of these guys is difficult enough to deal with on its own – can you imagine trying to deal with a repeatable four damage prevention shield? The card I would like to discuss the most in this build is Soulless Revival. I consider Soulless Revival to be one of those cards that only makes it in about fifty percent of Black decks, depending on its value to the deck as a whole. In the case of this deck in particular, the goal is to support arcane spells and to maximize the splice capability. Since Soulless Revival is both an arcane spell and can splice, it becomes a good card choice for this build. Also having the opportunity to get back Split-Tail Mikos, Throat Slitter and Okiba-Gang Shinobi keeps worthwhile threats on the board to be dealt with a second time.


One of the other reasons that I didn’t re-assess this build was that it had a propensity to consistently beat the other builds I could throw at it. Without much thought, it became the deck to beat so I could work on honing my skills at building better sealed decks from less-stellar cardpools.


Now that you’ve seen a rather decent pool, let’s take a look at something quite a bit more challenging. A word of caution: you will be exposed to various and possibly quirky deck builds, which may or may not trigger a bout of eye-rolling. These builds are purely for experimentation and to demonstrate a concept. They should never be used in actual limited play. You have been duly warned.


I present to you the cardpool of challenge:


Junkyo Bell

Ronin Warclub



Genju of the Realm



Call for Blood

Crawling Filth

Cruel Deceiver

Devouring Greed

Eradicate

Hero’s Demise

Midnight Covenant

Myojin of Night’s Reach

Ragged Veins

Rend Spirit

Skullsnatcher

Swallowing Plague

Takenuma Bleeder

Villainous Ogre

Wicked Akuba


Aura of Dominion

Dampen Thought

Eye of Nowhere

Jushi Apprentice

Minamo Sightbender

Mystic Restraints

Ninja of the Deep Hours

Phantom Wings

Shimmering Glasskite

Teller of Tales

Thoughtbind

Veil of Secrecy

Wandering Ones


Child of Thorns

Feral Deceiver

Genju of the Cedars

Jukai Messenger

Kodama’s Might

Sakura-Tribe Elder

Sakura-Tribe Springcaller

Strength of Cedars

Orochi Eggwatcher

Orochi Ranger

Petalmane Baku

Uproot

Wear Away


Akki Avalanchers

Akki Blizzard-Herder

Blind with Anger

Blood Rites

Brother of Yamazaki

Brutal Deceiver

Crushing Pain

Devouring Rage

Frost Ogre

Kami of Fire’s Roar

Kumano’s Blessing

Lava Spike

Ronin Cliffrider

Ronin Houndmaster

2 Torrent of Stone


Call to Glory

Empty-Shrine Kannushi

Ethereal Haze

Indomitable Will

Kami of False Hope

2 Kami of Old Stone

Kitsune Diviner

Kitsune Riftwalker

Latern Kami

Moonlit Strider

Quiet Purity

Takeno’s Cavalry

Terashi’s Grasp


For those sticklers who have already noticed that there are only seventy-four cards in this build, you can thank my husband. He was so enamored with the Goblin Cohort that he yanked this little guy out of my card pile and put it in his Red/Green deck without my knowledge. I didn’t notice it until I started typing in the decklist, after all my builds had been analyzed sans Cohort. I am sure those of you with Magic-playing children can sympathize. For the pool’s sake, assume you were the lucky recipient of a foil land.


In keeping with the concept of attempting to find the correct synergy of cards, I am going to employ a technique my husband uses when he builds his sealed decks. Instead of starting with culling the unplayable cards, I want to begin by highlighting the cards I would consider the most powerful, must-use cards and seeing how I can fit them in a deck. Good removal is always at the top of the list for powerful cards; large, hard-to-kill creatures with a reasonable mana cost and good abilities also fit this bill.


Scanning this pool, these are the top cards I gather:


Genju of the Realm

Devouring Greed

Eradicate

Rend Spirit

Swallowing Plague

Genju of the Cedars

Blood Rites

2 Torrent of Stone

Ronin Cliffrider


Before continuing, I want to point out two cards that did not make the initial cut – Devouring Rage and Strength of Cedars. Although Devouring Rage can be just as devastating as Devouring Greed in some cases, I find it much more fragile. You can end up committing your entire offense to a final blow, only to have the damage prevented by a creature removal spell or Ethereal Haze. Devouring Greed only has to worry about the possibility of a counterspell from a Blue mage. Strength of Cedars, while a good card in its own right, doesn’t have the finishing power of something like a Devouring Greed. I haven’t completely made up my mind about this spell, though, and one could argue that it belongs on the above list as well.


Focusing purely on the powerful creatures and creature removal spells indicate colors I should be paying careful attention to – Red and Black. Genju of the Cedars is a powerful enough card that Green might warrant some attention.


What about Genju of the Realm? Keep that one in the back of your mind for now.


With the powerful cards in Red and Black at the forefront, it is time to see what synergy can be exploited. The first two that come to mind are the splice ability on the Torrent of Stones and the Devouring Greed. Torrent of Stones has a challenging splice ability, since we not only need Arcane spells, we need to have enough mountains to survive sacrificing two for each splice. In order to use the Torrent of Stones to the fullest, red must be a primary color. We’ve found one tree we want to focus on, now let’s step back and look at the forest (not the land type). Are there enough playable spells in red to make it a primary color?


We have:


Blind with Anger

Blood Rites (which also requires a solid Red commitment)

Brothers Yamazaki

Brutal Deceiver

Frost Ogre

Kami of Fire’s Roar

Ronin Cliffrider

Ronin Houndmaster

2 Torrent of Stone


With six very playable creatures and three solid removal spells plus Blind with Anger, Red has a strong enough base of nine cards that it can be supported as a main color.


The second consideration for Torrent of Stone is the need to have several Arcane spells, most likely on the order of six to seven to make good use of the splice ability. The two Torrent of Stones plus Blind with Anger make three arcane spells for Red, with the possibility of using Lava Spike, Devouring Rage, or Crushing Pain.


The focus on Torrent of Stone’s splice ability brought us back looking at the tree. Before leaving Red and hunting for more arcane spells in other colors, it is worthwhile to take stock in other creatures or cards that can make use of arcane. Kami of Fire’s Roar benefits from spirits and arcane by preventing creatures from not blocking. Keep this in mind in case any of the colors have good creatures or spells that want creatures to remain unblocked, such as ninjitsu-enhanced creatures.


Back to Torrent of Stone and arcane spells. If all this swapping is getting a mite confusing, imagine a little toggle switch in your head flipping back and forth with each card. Look at the card – look at the pool – look at the card – look at the pool. Tree – forest – tree – forest. Just don’t let any cartoon characters come up to you and start repeating tree – forest – tree – forest – tree – tree – forest. Those little devils have a nasty penchant for messing up your rhythm.


Since we’ve singled out black and green having cards worthy of attention, the first thing we want to do is see if we can synergize with the Red cards. It is worth noting the available arcane spells in both Black and Green:


Black:

Devouring Greed

Call for Blood

Swallowing Plague


Green:

Kodama’s Might

Strength of Cedars

Uproot

Wear Away


Green has the upper hand in regards to arcane spells since it not only has three very playable spells, but Wear Away and Kodama’s Might both have splice themselves. This makes Green a strong candidate to be paired with Red. However, Black has Devouring Greed, which was previously considered a powerful card. It is worth stepping back into the forest and determining if there are enough spirits to make Devouring Greed a strong inclusion in the deck. From prior experience with this card, my minimum limit is around eleven to twelve spirits.


In just Red and Black alone, there are only five spirits:


Wicked Akuba

Cruel Deceiver

Myojin of Night’s Reach

Brutal Deceiver

Kami of Fire’s Roar


This spirit count is by far much too low to support Devouring Greed. Since there is a possibility of playing three colors, it is worth looking at the spirit count in Blue, White and Green. Since we’re trying to look at the cardpool as a whole, it is also worth noting which colors have arcane spells and which cards benefit from spirits and arcane.


Blue

Arcane

Veil of Secrecy

Dampen Thought

Eye of Nowhere


Spirits

Shimmering Glasskite

Teller of Tales

Wandering Ones


Although Teller of Tales benefits from arcane and spirits, its double-base nature severely limits Blue as a splash color. Since none of the Blue cards stuck out as amazing (though I have come to know and love Jushi Apprentice), there is not enough justification to attempt to use blue as a primary color. Without Blue as a primary color, Veil of Secrecy also suffers in making it much more difficult to use its splice ability. As such, Blue as a color to play will be removed from consideration.


White

Arcane

Ethereal Haze

Quiet Purity

Terashi’s Grasp


Spirits

Lantern Kami

Kami of False Hope

2 Kami of Old Stone

Moonlit Strider


White has a tantalizing five spirits, and a cheap arcane spell in Ethereal Haze. Looking at the rest of available White cards, Indomitable Will and Kitsune Diviner are also very playable. White can definitely be considered a prime candidate to make use of Devouring Greed. To get an idea of what a Black/Red/White deck looked like, I put together this build:


Ronin Warclub


Cruel Deceiver

Devouring Greed

Eradicate

Rend Spirit

Skullsnatcher

Swallowing Plague

Takenuma Bleeder

Villainous Ogre

Wicked Akuba



Blind with Anger

Blood Rites

Brutal Deceiver

Kami of Fire’s Roar

Ronin Cliffrider

Ronin Houndmaster

2 Torrent of Stone


Ethereal Haze

Indomitable Will

2 Kami of Old Stone

Moonlit Strider

7 Mountain

7 Swamp

4 Plains


Before I reveal the results of playtesting, it is worth assessing the build for a few key elements noted at the beginning of this article. What is the creature count? What does the mana curve look like? How do you expect to win? There are only twelve creatures, which is a little low for this environment. Even with a lot of removal, I like hovering around fourteen. The Ethereal Haze could be replaced with Myojin of Night’s Reach to increase the creature and spirit count, or the Ethereal Haze and Indomitable Will could be replaced with a Frost Ogre and Brothers Yamazaki to keep the mana curve reasonable. The mana curve in order of increasing casting cost is 1-4-6-8-2-1, which is a little on the high side. If the desire is to maintain tempo (i.e., not cast your first spell on turn 4), more than half the deck, especially considering creatures, needs to have a casting cost of three or less.


The last, and most important question: how do you win? With lots of removal, one would ideally like to have several strong, early creatures that can withstand other early creatures while the removal can be used for opposing late-game monsters. The Ronin Warclub and the Indomitable Will seek to supply some of this beef, but many of the creatures on their own cannot create a good offense without heavy creature support. Kami of Old Stone and Moonlit Strider certainly aren’t built to be aggressive. Unless you have a creature-heavy opening hand, there are only two paths to victory: Blood Rites or Devouring Greed. Although the spirits from White provide synergy with the Devouring Greed, they don’t provide synergy with the aggressive nature of the Black and Red creatures.


My playtesting results support this conclusion. Typically, I could get a few points of damage in with the early creatures, but as the opposing defense started building up, the two Kami of Old Stone would clog up the ground while I waited for the Devouring Greed or Blood Rites to appear. About half the time, I was overwhelmed by my opponent’s offense before finding one of these two cards. Although 0.500 is an amazing batting average, it is a terrible win percentage. This build is not a good one.


There is still the last option of using green as the third color that has yet to be explored. Considering only the arcane and spirit cards, the following are available:


Green

Arcane

Kodama’s Might

Strength of Cedars

Uproot

Wear Away


Spirits

Child of Thorns

Feral Deceiver

Genju of the Cedars

Petalmane Baku


Green has one less spirit than White, which would provide only nine creatures if all the spirits in Red, Green and Black were used. This is far below my comfort level for Devouring Greed and sadly, it must be discarded. At this point in time it is worth reviewing what powerful cards are still available to tamper with:


Genju of the Realm

Eradicate

Rend Spirit

Swallowing Plague

Genju of the Cedars

Blood Rites

2 Torrent of Stone

Ronin Cliffrider


Eradicate and Swallowing Plague still require a fairly heavy commitment to black, which would prompt a consideration of merely replacing White with Kodama’s Might, Strength of Cedars, Genju of the Cedars. To support Blood Rites – this is all about synergy – I would include Orochi Eggwatcher. Here is one possible build:


Ronin Warclub

Cruel Deceiver

Eradicate

Rend Spirit

Skullsnatcher

Swallowing Plague

Takenuma Bleeder

Villainous Ogre

Wicked Akuba

Blind with Anger

Blood Rites

Brothers Yamazaki

Brutal Deceiver

Frost Ogre

Kami of Fire’s Roar

Ronin Cliffrider

Ronin Houndmaster

2 Torrent of Stone

Genju of the Cedars

Kodama’s Might

Orochi Eggwatcher

Strength of Cedars

7 Mountain

7 Swamp

4 Forest


This deck still suffers from a low creature count, on the order of thirteen creatures, not including the Eggwatcher’s ability. The mana curve is now 2-3-8-5-4-1, which is much more in line with a desired mana curve to maintain tempo. There are six arcane spells, three of which splice. This is definitely a better build than the previous one. Once again, we need to ask the question: how does it win? Blood Rites is still available. Orochi Eggwatcher can be used to allow a creature through with Strength of Cedars, or can swarm an opponent. Lastly, there are a couple of large creatures that can be used aggressively: Genju of the Cedars and Frost Ogre. Unfortunately, the reanimation ability of Genju of the Cedars has been limited by splashing Green, and the aggressive option is still a little shaky with so few creatures.


I playtested with this build a little bit, and the Black creatures desire aggression. Villainous Ogre is useless as a blocker, but becomes stalemated once an opponent puts out a Humble Budoka or Orochi Ranger. With Wicked Akuba only being able to pump damage after a successful attack, it can easily be thwarted if not dropped on turn 2. Skullsnatcher is effectively a vanilla 2/1 creature for this deck.


There is more synergy to be squeezed out of this card pool – we just need to look at the forest again. This time I am talking about the land type. Genju of the Cedars is most effective when it can be played on a Forest by turn 2 and start attacking on turn 3. This can only happen consistently if green is a primary color. That would mean that either Red or Black would need to be relegated to a splash color. Since Red has more cards that require a heavy Mountain base, let’s just consider the possibility of splashing only Black. Since Eradicate and Swallowing Plague are cards that should be used, there needs to be a way to support a double-base as a splash color. Fortunately, green has Petalmane Baku and Sakura-Tribe Elder. Both of these mana fixers will assist in allowing black to be a splash color.


Swapping the Black and Green, the final build I came up with is as follows:


Ronin Warclub

Feral Deceiver

Genju of the Cedars

Kodama’s Might

Orochi Eggwatcher

Orochi Ranger

Petalmane Baku

Sakura-Tribe Elder

Sakura-Tribe Springcaller

Strength of Cedars

Blind with Anger

Blood Rites

Brothers Yamazaki

Brutal Deceiver

Frost Ogre

Kami of Fire’s Roar

Ronin Cliffrider

Ronin Houndmaster

2 Torrent of Stone

Eradicate

Rend Spirit

Swallowing Plague

7 Mountain

6 Forest

4 Swamp


Creature count? Thirteen – still a little light, but now a bit more buff is available with Feral Deceiver, Genju of the Cedars, and Frost Ogre. The mana curve is 2-3-6-7-4-1. This one is slightly on the high side as well; however, Petalmane Baku, Sakura-Tribe Springcaller and Sakura-Tribe Elder provide an offsetting amount of mana acceleration to assist with the higher mana curve. How does this deck win? Through the same methods as the R/B/g deck, except the aggression tactic is stabilized by a larger creature base and larger creatures. This also gives more opportunity for an unblocked creature to deal lethal damage with Strength of Cedars. Playtesting showed this additional aggression route, which wasn’t previously available in the other builds, won about half the games without relying on a single powerful card for the win. Also, with Blood Rites showing, Orochi Eggwatcher became a target of removal, reducing the amount of removal available for the larger creatures.


Analyzing cards to this depth takes quite a bit of work the first time around, as you can see from this example. However, notice the improvements to the deck through each successive build by making a few adjustments. In this format, I think every card choice does count. To make those correct choices, it is important to look beyond the cards and see the deck as a whole. With practice, these synergies will become much more apparent, and will hopefully improve your Kamigawa sealed experience.


In the meantime, I offer a challenge. Remember the Genju of the Realm I completely ignored? This is a very powerful card, that, if the synergy is there, a winning deck could be built around it. The question for you is: does this pool have a strong build to support this card? Whether the answer is true or false, consider it an exercise in synergy.


Laura


P.S. I mentioned a while back that there was card named after me. For those still curious, it is Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro. Sachi is my maiden name (pronounced sack-key, despite whatever Japanese pronunciation sources you may refer to). Feel free to pass along any spares to me as a peace offering.