I normally hate Sealed.

Now, when I say that, I’m being relatively serious. Of course I’ve been forced to play it in the past a number of times, at Prereleases, GPs, PTQs, and so on. But I’ve never enjoyed it and never finished one with an unblemished record. Not even a 3-0-1 in a Prerelease flight. In fact, I’ve almost exclusively finished these events with a negative record, and a thought of “Oh why did I put myself through that, do you really hate yourself that much, Dan?”

Innistrad though, is different—No longer does the thought of playing Sealed seem less preferable to washing my face with acid or taking a few hundred rolling pins to the shins. I actually can’t get enough of it and have played in every sealed event I’ve had the opportunity to in the past few weeks. So today we’re going to look at four recent pools I’ve seen, and you can even build them yourselves for practice and comparison. Before we do though:

Should I play or draw?

After speaking to a number of friends (most influentially, sometime pro playaz Marco Orsini-Jones and Stephen Murray), and my own experimentation, I’m convinced it is correct to play with most pools. Decks can be much more aggressive than I initially thought and are tapping out every turn for the first few turns, so the tempo boost is important—especially if you are playing with (or against) cards such as Mayor of Avabruck. At least, that’s me paraphrasing a more eloquent description that made sense and convinced me to try choosing to play. More importantly, since making that change, I’ve frequently encountered good quality opponents who chose to have me draw after I was on the play game one. If your opponent doesn’t want you on the play, you almost certainly should be.

Local PTQ been and gone?

Can’t be bothered to travel to the next nearest one? Or just want to maximize the number of events you can play in? Well, there are still a number of Magic Online PTQs left (about a dozen at time of writing)—including one on Christmas Day, if you happen to be stranded away from your family and friends, don’t have any, or don’t celebrate it. Just be sure to pre-reg well in advance (a day or two), as these fill up quickly I hear. Many have ranted about the prize structure being terrible, and I don’t disagree with that view, but 30 tickets is actually cheaper than a Prerelease sealed in the UK, and I am quite surprised they aren’t charging 35 or 40, given they know we’d all still play them. Still—you do get to play in your underwear (or less) if you so choose, a “benefit” I’m not sure you can put a price on…

My release event:

It’s my birthday (okay not quite, but close enough), and I’m going to play Magic, then eat and drink with friends. Today will be a good day!

To use the Sickbrew Sealed widget, click (don’t drag) individual cards from the pool into either the Junk, Pool, or Deck sections. You can click multiple cards at a time to move them all at once! Sort by cost, rarity, and color.

White has a pair of removal spells, a dragon (Dearly Departed), and a few other playables that don’t greatly excite me. Green has nine cards I’m happy to play, red barely four, but black looks like a must play—the ridiculous Army of the Damned, a trio of flyers, removal, and Moan of the Unhallowed and Typhoid Rats to gum up the ground. There’s also the possibility of Unburial Rites. Blue has Grasp of Phantoms, Silent Departure, and two Moon Heron, not enough for me to really consider it. Fixing in Traveler’s Amulet and some of the less-good equipment rounds out the pool. I decide to focus on G/B and greedily splash WW for Dearly Departed:

Typhoid Rats
Vampire Interloper
Ambush Viper
Darkthicket Wolf
Screeching Bat
Woodland Sleuth
Falkenrath Noble
Ulvenwald Mystics
Grizzled Outcasts
Somberwald Spider
Hollowhenge Scavenger
Dearly Departed

Traveler’s Amulet
Prey Upon
Victim of Night
Travel Preparations
Altar’s Reap
Night Terrors
Corpse Lunge
Rebuke
Smite the Monstrous
Moan of the Unhallowed
Unburial Rites
Army of the Damned

7 Swamp
6 Forest
4 Plains

I ended up 3-1-1 with this, IDing with Mills in the last round because neither of us wanted to beat prizes out of the other. (We played for fun, and I won, so 4-1 really.) Army of the Damned was as horribly unfair as expected, frequently winning me games out of nowhere I had no business winning, upsetting my opponents in the process. Sorry guys…

Alternatives? I instantly discarded Cobbled Wings, thinking it not good enough without a P/T boost or other ability, but with various four-power and bigger green guys, it probably would have been quite good. Likewise, at this point in time I was severely underrating Orchard Spirit, and possibly Lumberknot and Kindercatch. Color-wise, I think black was definitely correct to play, but I could have paired it either with just green, white, or red for a much more aggressive deck—as Tim Willoughby suggested:

Stromkirk Noble
Diregraf Ghoul
Typhoid Rats
Bloodcrazed Neonate
Vampire Interloper
Riot Devils
Feral Ridgewolf
Screeching Bat
Instigator Gang
Falkenrath Noble
Pitchburn Devils
2 Night Revelers

Silver-Inlaid Dagger
Vampiric Fury
Nightbird’s Clutches
Victim of Night
Inquisitor’s Flail
Brimstone Volley
Corpse Lunge
Moan of the Unhallowed
Blasphemous Act
Army of the Damned

9 Mountain
8 Swamp

Mills’ release event:

Mills hadn’t brought anything with him on the day save his wallet and phone, so dumped the following in my bag for safekeeping:

From which he played:

Darkthicket Wolf
Vampire Interloper
Skirsdag High Priest
Mayor of Avabruck
Ambush Viper
2 Villagers of Estwald
Hanweir Watchkeep
Orchard Spirit
Lumberknot
Ulvenwald Mystics
Abattoir Ghoul
Galvanic Juggernaut
Festerhide Boar
Manor Gargoyle
Morkrut Banshee

Prey Upon
Dead Weight
Traveler’s Amulet
Blazing Torch
Victim of Night
Corpse Lunge
Rolling Temblor

8 Forest
8 Swamp
1 Mountain

First up, I’m not sure if that Hanweir Watchkeep should be there (it seems a little out of place?), and it may actually have been a Spidery Grasp or Pitchburn Devils. Regardless, Mills’ deck seems along the lines of what I would have built with this pool, although admittedly the blue is pretty tempting with the self-mill subtheme and OHMYGOD Snapcaster Mage. Also, where’s the second Mountain to flashback Rolling Temblor? Is its omission an obvious mistake or secret genius? I still can’t decide.

In other news though, seeing (and playing against) this deck was the point at which I realized the following:

– Lumberknot is not total junk.

– Orchard Spirit actually just has flying and will always get played if I’m in green.

– Yes, I actually really do want to play first in Innistrad Sealed, despite what I’ve always been told about sealed deck (barring Zendikar).

MODO Prerelease:

Because I had 30 tickets in my account, had a PTQ to attend the next weekend, and simply couldn’t not play more Innistrad…

In my humble opinion, if you do not play base G/B here, you are probably high. I registered this:

2 Ambush Viper
2 Darkthicket Wolf
Gatstaf Shepherd
2 Skirsdag High Priest
Vampire Interloper
Orchard Spirit
Villagers of Estwald
Village Cannibals
Abattoir Ghoul
Grizzled Outcasts
Hollowhenge Scavenger
Stromkirk Patrol
Geistcatcher’s Rig
Moldgraf Monstrosity

Prey Upon
Traveler’s Amulet
Corpse Lunge
Spidery Grasp
Tribute to Hunger
Butcher’s Cleaver
Curse of Death’s Hold

Woodland Cemetery
7 Swamp
9 Forest

I went a heartbreaking 3-1 here, winning 2-0 three times as I chose to play first every game, and a High Priest came down in every one to utterly destroy my opponents. Then I offered my finals opponent a split, which he denied, and then crushed me. To date I am the only person to have lost the match after being denied a split on Magic Online. I filed a compensation request.

Alternatives? MY OPPONENT NOT DECLINING THE SPLIT?! Who even does that?! Regardless, Bitterheart Witch and Spider Spawning were absent from my game ones and were frequently boarded in (and were awesome), removing Stromkirk Patrol. Traveler’s Amulet in a non-land slot in a two-color deck is unnecessary worrying on my part, and wrong. Altar’s Reap and/or Brain Weevil would have assisted in my goal of triggering morbid on demand for the High Priests, and maybe one of them should have made the cut.

Milton Keynes PTQ:

The one PTQ I could attend this season was a short train ride away in Milton Keynes, my old pre-London haunt. Before I show you the sealed pool, big thanks to TOs Kev and Fin for securing such a clean, comfortable, and spacious venue, and for the exceptionally well-run tournament. For players such as myself who only play one or two PTQs a season, this makes it very easy to decide on yours as the one I will attend, even if it is a little further than others to travel. Wizards of the Coast, give these men more PTQs next year!

The first thing I did with this pool was to double-check I’d actually opened enough rares, as it seemed like there weren’t any here. Oh there they are; three of them are lands. Black has a decent removal spell (Sever the Bloodline) but little else; blue doesn’t really do anything in my mind, and while red has Geistflame and Brimstone Volley, that’s as far as it goes. White is pretty decent though, and green can plug the gaps with some alright creatures and the excellent Travel Preparations, a color combination which allows us to use Gavony Township too. Sadly no Darkthicket Wolf or Prey Upon though. The two red spells and flashback on Rally the Peasants are easily splashed thanks to Clifftop Retreat, and our deck now has something of a plan—choose to play, attack with two-/three-drops, finish with Township/Travel Prep/Rally. The only problem is there are other decks in the room that are like this one, only with Garruk and Devil’s Play, or a pair of angels, “just in case.”

Cloistered Youth
2 Avacynian Priest
Gatstaf Shepherd
Voiceless Spirit
2 Orchard Spirit
Village Bell-Ringer
Fiend Hunter
Villagers of Estwald
Galvanic Juggernaut
Thraben Sentry
2 Woodland Sleuth
Grizzled Outcasts
Somberwald Spider
Gallows Warden

Geistflame
Travel Preparations
Moment of Heroism
Bonds of Faith
Brimstone Volley
Rally the Peasants
Smite the Monstrous

Clifftop Retreat
Gavony Township
7 Forest
6 Plains
2 Mountain

TOURNAMENT REPORT

Round 1, I play against eventual top 8 competitor Mark Theobald and his U/B deck. I win a close game 1 in which I see double Silent Departure and then lose the next two, as he’s able to hold off my early beats. Note that Silent Departure makes playing anything costing more than three probably horrible, and your opponent counting and recounting his seven lands means he has Army of the Damned in hand. 0-1

Round 2 against a first-time PTQ player with a U/W deck. I win game 1 without taking any damage, and my opponent is missing a few things like Delver of Secrets triggers, but does sting me with a Frightful Delusion I didn’t have to play into. Game 2 we realize on turn 5/6 that he cast Cloistered Youth off a pair of Islands turn 2. A judge rules it stays in play, and we are both idiots, and I decline his offer of an appeal because I’m not sure if it will game loss my opponent into never playing competitive Magic again, and I’m not about that kind of cutthroat behavior. 1-1.

Round 3 against good friend Graham Baker, with a superior U/W/b deck (Skirsdag High Priest and lots of good fliers), I kindly lose in two very quick games, allowing him to go and move his car which is on a meter. 1-2.

Round 4 I beat a U/B/r deck in two, making some interesting plays such as flashback Geistflame on my own Avacynian Priest (with Curse of Death’s Hold in play) to untap my Claustrophobia-enchanted Galvanic Juggernaut. Saucy, and finally not playing like a chump after earlier mishaps. 2-2

Round 5, my B/R/G opponent (with Kessig Wolf Run) has no real removal (just two Geistflame), so is unable to deal with my evasive beats. 3-2.

Round 6, lovable ginger Charlie Grover’s U/R deck has a terrible matchup against mine, as (in his own words) “it just durdles around too much early on.” I win in 10 minutes and go swap Carrie Oliver some Kird Apes for Amsterdam. 4-2

Round 7 is against 2009 Team GB member Peter Mottram’s G/B/w with Gavony Township. I win game 1, then punt the second with an awful attack after playing the early turns super tight. Game 3 I mull to five on the play, while he keeps Forest, Avacyn’s Pilgrim, 2x two-drops, three other cards. I snap Brimstone Volley one of his guys when he tries to double-block with both two-drops and trade with my Unholy Fiend, and the game quickly ends in my favor when he doesn’t have a third mana source after that.

5-2, 19th place out of 122, a result I’m more than happy with given what I had to work with.

Alternatives? Like with the MODO pool, I’m not sure there is another deck in this pool other than the one I built. However, these “build it yourself” widgets aren’t here just to look pretty—give them a spin yourself and tell me what you would have played for each pool in the comments!

Dan Barrett
@dangerawesome
danskate [AT] gmail