Don’t even think about calling this a comeback. This is a small cameo, a short on-screen drop-in. I’m passing by and saying hi. Maybe I’ll be back in the neck of the woods more. I have a hard time writing when I’m not playing with a large pool of high caliber players. After years of playing in Japan, I got spoiled. These days all I make it out to are Friday Night Magic and the local in-store prereleases. I spent many hours over the last year and a half volunteering for several civic organizations. Playing less atrophies your skills and makes writing hard. After all, I only want to tell you guys something if I know I’m right.
Happily, I found out I’m moving to Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, next month. Temple finally got around to telling me I got into their grad program. Philly’s the birthplace of Magic, so there’s got to be some decent players there. Jon Becker resides in that neck of the woods. (Yay!) Gadiel Szleifer lives there. (Uh… yay?) Seriously, I am a little nervous in that I’ve got to find the best places to play in a city of two million, and I haven’t heard of any stores to play there. Philly gets great GPs and PTQs, but the actual city itself… well, it’ll be a journey.
Speaking of journeys, we as a community are now embarking on a new one, M10. Yes, it’s a core set, but with new themes and dynamics that we haven’t seen before. With actual new cards, we have to diverge from the long tradition of mining old cards in older context and actually work with virgin material.
I had an opportunity to sit down and crack a Sealed pool at Scranton’s premiere Magic venue, the Unknown. This store has never had a giant player base, but it’s always got a mix of old hands and fresh faces learning the game and coming up with innovative ideas. Twenty-two people showed up to play in the main event, with quite a few new faces from the hinterlands of Pennsylvania cropping up as well.
Five packs later….
Blinding Mage
Griffin Sentinel
Lifelink
Pacifism
Palace Guard
Razorfoot Griffin
Serra Angel
Solemn Offering
Soul Warden
Undead Slayer
Veteran Armorsmith
Wall of Faith
Air Elemental
Cancel
Coral Merfolk
Convincing Mirage
Divination
Ice Cage
Merfolk Looter
Mind Control
Negate
Sage Owl
Sleep
2 Snapping Drake
Telepathy
Zephyr Sprite
2 Acolyte of Xathrid
Black Knight
Child of Night
Consume Spirit
Doom Blade
Dread Warlock
2 Drudge Skeletons
Megrim
Relentless Rats
Sanguine Bond
Sign in Blood
Tendrils of Corruption
Unholy Strength
Burning Inquiry
Canyon Minotaur
Earthquake
Goblin Chieftain
Goblin Piker
Ignite Disorder
2 Jackal Familiar
Kindled Fury
2 Lava Axe
Pyroclasm
Sparkmage Apprentice
Yawning Fissure
Awakener Druid
Craw Wurm
2 Elvish Visionary
Emerald Oryx
2 Entangling Vines
Mist Leopard
Oakenform
Regenerate
Coat of Arms
Dragon’s Claw
Mirror of Fate
Ornithopter
Build amongst yourselves.
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Years of playing Sealed have taught me that I have two styles of preferred decks. If I have a hyper-efficient, brutal aggro deck in the cards that can roll people over, I immediately gravitate to it. When I played at the Scourge prerelease, I was jumping up and down a few minutes into the deckbuilding process because I had fourteen 2/2s for two in the most expensive casting cost format ever. I love playing mean aggro decks.
If that option doesn’t present itself, I switch over to a new mindset: looking to stop my opponent. If I have four powerful ways to defeat my opponent, I then switch over to building a deck with the goal of negating my opponent’s cards. Instead of shooting at my opponent, I do my best to kick the gun out of their hand. Yes, I like designing control decks in Sealed.
However, there’s also another approach. Don’t worry about the philosophy, just play the good cards and make your attack plan up as you go along! I always want to play good cards, and I know I usually won’t have the luxury of being able to hone a pool to one of the two archetypes. I am happier playing a honed strategy with good cards over a loose strategy with great cards. That’s how I compose the plan of attack.
White
Solid: Blinding Mage, Pacifism, Serra Angel, Soul Warden
Okay: Griffin Sentinel, Palace Guard, Razorfoot Griffin, Solemn Offering, Undead Slayer, Veteran Armorsmith, Wall of Faith
Poor: Lifelink
Yeah, I got excited when I saw the new incarnation of Skyhunter Prowler, Griffin Sentinel. I like Griffin Sentinel more than most people, because I love shutting down Grizzly Bears. Let them butt heads all day, and if they do happen to have a trick, they’ll rarely use it to get rid of the Sentinel. Griffin Sentinel also nulls the very important common two-drop, Stormfront Pegasus. You’ll see a lot of Chargers in draft, because it’s a super-efficient beater.
This cardpool doesn’t have many Soldiers, but even so, Veteran Armorsmith’s still a highly efficient creatures. I’m really eager to draft a ton of these.
I kept seeing Wall of Faith in sideboards at the prerelease, and I don’t understand why. For four mana, you pre-emptively counter all but the nastiest threats Green and Black can offer. Late in the game, this will shut down almost any non-evasive man.
A first-turn Soul Warden usually means a gain of 10-12 life in most games. That’s efficiency incarnate. This card makes me want to pack Sparkmage Apprentice into any deck with a major Red component.
Undead Slayer kills ten cards in the core set, five of them common. That’s enough potential for card advantage to maindeck. If you can’t find room to put this in your main deck, shame on you.
Yeah, there’s a good defensive land-bound army to go with good fliers. White’s been kind to us.
Blue
Solid: Air Elemental, Merfolk Looter, Mind Control, Negate, Sleep, 2 Snapping Drake
Okay: Cancel, Coral Merfolk, Divination, Ice Cage, Sage Owl, Zephyr Sprite
Poor: Convincing Mirage, Telepathy
Sleep’s insane. I loved Deluge in 10th and Odyssey, and this time it taps fliers, and it’s twice as effective! I can’t believe they printed this. This is my pick for the best new non-creature uncommon in the set. Think of Sleep as a temporary, one-sided Wrath of God, and you’ll have your head properly wrapped around the card.
Negate’s undervalued right now. I’ll play counterspells in Limited, but prefer two mana counters that stop nasty spells in the late game to three mana counterspells requiring two blue. People notice when you have Cancel mana open. They’re far more likely to walk into Essence Scatter or Negate blindly. Negate’s considerably improved in M10 from its origins in Morningtide. Lorwyn had more creature spells than most sets. M10 has a higher ratio of non-creature spells. Due to stronger and more common removal, Negate’s stock has risen.
Ice Cage is a scary card to play with. Yes, it’s almost as good as Pacifism. There are only two common creatures with activated abilities that unrelease a Caged victim from his cell, Prodigal Pyromancer and Blinding Mage. Ice Cage shuts down what I think is the most obnoxious rare, Ant Queen. But if your opponent’s playing Green, they’re likely to be playing a pump spell or two. When the prisoner breaks loose, all hell breaks loose. And so every draw step you give your opponent makes Ice Cage worse. True control decks won’t like Ice Cage, but if you’re playing an aggro-control deck, you usually need the cage for a turn or three, no more. It’s a valuable tool. Kudos to Wizard for printing such an exciting, dramatic card. Ice Cage will make games memorable, and that’s the sort of card Magic needs.
Three extremely efficient fliers (Air Elemental and Snapping Drake), one of the best removal cards in the format (Mind Control), a number of powerful tricks, card drawing and filtering… yeah, this Blue selection is awesome.
Black
Solid: Doom Blade, Tendrils of Corruption
Okay: Black Knight, Consume Spirit, Dread Warlock, 2 Drudge Skeletons, Sign in Blood
Poor: 2 Acolyte of Xathrid, Megrim, Relentless Rats, Sanguine Bond, Unholy Strength
Doom Blade, Planar Cleansing, and Lightning Bolt coming in to replace Terror, Wrath of God, and Incinerate have a subtle but significant effect on the format. Regenerators have a lot more room to breathe. Yes, Doom Blade’s better than Terror in that it hits artifacts. Go and look at the M10 set list and show me artifact creatures you want to kill. Yeah. Great, ain’t it?
My sarcasm in no way indicates that Doom Blade is a bad card. It’s a superlative card to splash. But understand that this isn’t a major upgrade to Terror. This helps Black against Esper decks in Standard, but in the specific context of M10, it isn’t better.
Dread Warlock doesn’t have fear. Artifact creatures can’t block it. But when there’s no artifact creatures to speak of, why bother with the keyworded version?
Man, I like Sign in Blood. Paying two life and two mana to turn one card into two is a solid investment. And while Black has a fair amount of evasion, one more way to get those last two points of damage through to win a game is appreciated.
Xathrid Demon’s gotta be pissed. His servitors are the worst bunch of goons I’ve ever seen. Twenty-One and Twenty-Four are way more competent than this crew. Since there’s no Worship in this set, there’s no time you’ll ever want to sideboard Acolytes of Xathrid in, let alone put them in the maindeck. Yes, I want a foil one because the art is superlative. But I’m not gonna play with it.
There’s removal here, but the creatures here are subpar and using these Black cards optimally requires a heavy investment. Black’s below my pay grade.
Red
Solid: Earthquake, Pyroclasm
Okay: Canyon Minotaur, Goblin Chieftain, Goblin Piker, Ignite Disorder, Kindled Fury, Lava Axe, Sparkmage Apprentice
Poor: Burning Inquiry, Jackal Familiar, Yawning Fissure
Ahoy, bomb rare sighted off the starboard bow! Earthquake is utterly insane as a splash card in decks with lots of fliers. And yeah, since we looked at White and Blue, there are a lot of those. There are few cards that I want to splash for more than Earthquake. Solidly Red decks will profit far less from Earthquake, but it’s still playable even in those builds.
Trivia fact: Japanese folklore attributes all earthquakes not to the wrath of the gods, but rather the wrath of a giant catfish that sits off the coast of Japan. If we ever have a chance to revisit Kamigawa, I want that catfish to be referenced in a card.
Every fiber of my body tells me Mark Rosewater going to write a few paragraphs in the next few weeks about how he finally got the ideal Red instant that gives first strike into print in a core set where it will be sure to prosper. M10, M11, M12… this card’s got legs. And it should, because glass-jaw hard hitters are a Red trademark. This support spell preserves Lightning Elementals on their second attack and will be the bane of many a Green mage.
Here’s the list of common Sparkmage Apprentice targets: Stormfront Pegasus, Merfolk Looter, Kelinore Bat, Prodigal Pyromancer, Viashino Spearhunter, Awakener Druid, any Ice Caged guy, and Illusionary Servant. Do you respect any of these cards? Then respect Sparkmage Apprentice. The guy also helps clean up embarrassing messes after fights.
Jackal Familiar’s fine when you’re playing a deck with eighteen or nineteen creatures. They’ll have enough companionship at that point. But there are so many good non-creature spells in this format that you’ll reach the threshold where they’re good. Don’t bother to release these hounds.
Two board sweepers are great. The rest of the Red cards don’t do much for me.
Green
Solid: Craw Wurm
Okay: Awakener Druid, 2 Elvish Visionary, 2 Entangling Vines, Oakenform, Regenerate
Poor: Emerald Oryx, Mist Leopard
Awakener Druid’s a quite solid four drop. Hasty 4/5 beats from your friendly neighborhood trees are good. I saw this card in a few players’ sideboards and reproachfully lectured them for neglecting such a great little guy.
If you’re playing lots of green in draft, pick up Entangling Vines. You frequently have little guys who chump later in the game, and this plus a chump can take care of most problems. Blinding Mage is the most commonly targetted offender.
Putting shroud on a 3/2 does not merit four mana. Mist Leopard is overpriced. The art’s use of color is excellent, but that’s really all that’s good about the card. [This guy seemed fine for me… — Craig.]
If you’re playing a deck with six two-drops, play Oakenform. I appreciate enchantments that give +3/+3 or more in those situations. When you’re in the late game, Oakenform makes Grizzly Bear relevant again.
Ugh. What a sorry bunch these Green cards are.
The artifacts aren’t any better. Coat of Arms is annoyingly symmetrical and costs a lot, so I want nothing to do with it. If Wizards wanted to make Mirror of Fate a playable card, it’d have some activated ability added onto its text that allows players to exile cards in their own library.
Ornithopter? Dragon’s Claw? Feh. Ornithopter is a skill tester.
We’ve winnowed our seventy cards down to the twenty-two or three that will grace our library. And yeah, this isn’t the hardest deck to build. The strongest colors are Blue and White, for a plethora of hard-beating fliers and some nice removal. We have two board sweepers in Red. There’s enough high toughness guys to keep the opponent at bay on the ground, and enough removal to keep bomb creatures from a threat.
Here’s the build:
1cc: Soul Warden, Zephyr Sprite
2cc: Blinding Mage, Coral Merfolk, Merfolk Looter, Sage Owl, Ice Cage, Negate, Pacifism, Pyroclasm
3cc: Griffin Sentinel, Palace Guard, Undead Slayer, Divination
4cc: Razorfoot Griffin, 2 Snapping Drake, Wall of Faith, Sleep
5cc: Air Elemental, Serra Angel, Mind Control
Xcc: Earthquake
7 Island, 7 Plains, 3 Mountain
Why didn’t Veteran Armorsmith make the cut? He lives through Pyroclasm, so why shouldn’t I play him? There’s only one other soldier in the deck, for one thing. Armorsmith’s ahead of the curve in every way, but unless I’m playing with 10 Plains, it’s usually going to hit the table on turn 4 or 5. That isn’t when he’ll have an impact. Feel free to drop a line in the forums if you agree or disagree with not playing Armorsmith.
If I want to play my Red splash reliably, I want to play with three or four Mountains. Two ways to draw extra cards is enough, so I’m happy with running three.
The deck performed admirably in four rounds of swiss and a semi-final, dropping only two games to a vicious Black/Green/White concoction with Baneslayer Angel, Serra Angel, and Protean Hydra in the last round of the swiss. My favorite match of the Swiss pitted me against a long time friend and occasional teammate Steve Juseck in a U/W mirror match. Sleep grabbed me a win in the first game, and in the second game my Sleep resolved, and his followup Sleep didn’t. Thank you so much, Negate.
I sneaked into the top 4 on tiebreakers and was able to beat back a savage Black/Blue/White deck that managed to cast both Blinding Mage and Royal Assassin both games. Unfortunately for him, I had a Red sweeper in hand both times, and Sleep got the job done there. Steve also managed to make the finals with his Blue/White control, and we agreed to draw and go home.
Soul Warden was an excellent choice for the deck, even when it was the only creature I committed to the board before dialing up brutal Earthquakes. Palace Guard also performed superlatively, managing to negate four and five mana cards, or two cards at once while living to tell the tale. Ice Cage managed not to bite me in the rear against the aggro decks, but I wisely chose to side it out in the U/W control matchup.
The sideboard MVPs were Ignite Disorder and Solemn Offering, which came in to handle Pacifism, Entangling Vines, and Mind Control. My bonehead mistake of the tournament came from failing to notice that Ignite Disorder was an instant, not a sorcery. Letting Serra Angel through three times in one game while I had this in hand along with a Griffin Sentinel on the table was humiliating. I still won the game, but I was kicking myself for half an hour afterwards.
I won’t make any sort of judgment about M10 on the whole. A small taste only whetted my appetite for more. Hopefully, you readers will have as much fun as I do exploring the set in weeks to come. If you’re in Philly and have some tips about the local Magic community, please email me with some info. Pretty please?
Eli Kaplan
japaneli at hotmail dot com