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
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:
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.