Sealed Dissected - Future Seeing, Episode II

Hey? What gives? Where did Ben go?

He’s taking a break for a bit. When summer rolls around, it’s time to ease off and enjoy deserved respite from toil. I imagine he’s somewhere in the tropics, sipping Root Beer Coladas or something of that sort.

Aw, man…

Them’s the breaks. But look at the upside. You’ve got me.

…

I’m Eli Kaplan. I write for this here site on occasion. I’ve pitched in when The Ferrett took a break before. I live in Japan and show up at all the local GPs. I blab about Sealed Decks on occasion.

… Can you tell me the secrets of how Japanese pros keep winning?

Not really. I may have made three Day 2 appearances at Limited Grand Prix, including a Top 8, but that doesn’t mean I’m privy to the inner loop, particularly in Constructed. When it comes to Constructed decks, I usually just get my tech from my long time group of friends. They usually qualify for Japanese Nationals on rating, but I’ve been coming up short on the Constructed end.

I have seen a lot of top level Magic play over the years from doing coverage for Wizards, though. So I have a few theories as to how certain players make it to the top.

Travel stories and cultural notes about the Land of the Rising Sun? I’ve got those. Quirky theme decks? I’ve got those too. But allow me to start off with my regular schtick this week by sounding off on one of the Future Sight issues, then getting into a 75-card pile.

Wizards wants us, the market, to give our two cents as to which of the Future Sight dual lands should see print in forthcoming sets. I’m glad they asked. Nimbus Maze seems like the one that most players would latch onto, due to its easy compatibility with Hallowed Fountain. That’s the reason why I think Nimbus Maze is the wrong land to print, because I like having to work hard to put a mana base together. The card’s too easy. On the other hand, it does give players an incentive not to go overboard on nonbasic land.

Grove of the Burnwillows has the most exciting tension, because if there’s one thing contemporary G/R decks despise, it’s seeing opponents gain life. What price will you pay to get reliable mana? In days to come, perhaps future G/R archetypes may lean towards controlling play, not straightforward beats and burn. In that environment, Grove of the Burnwillows may lack any impact. And I’d like to see G/R make a slight change of direction in the future, just to keep the game fresh. Even so, Grove’s mechanic makes it one of the leading candidates.

Horizon Canopy’s City of Brass-like drawback is rather awkward. Yeah, it replaces itself in the late game, but there are plenty of other cards out there that do a similar job. Edge of Autumn, for example. My level of apathy towards the card is a little too high to support.

Graven Cairns is fine, but it feels a little too much like Odyssey’s filter land cycle to get my blood flowing. It works, but it doesn’t feel new at all. Innovation counts.

So the final two choices end up as Grove and River of Tears. River of Tears punishes careless players for not paying attention to when they play lands. That’s the flipside of printing cards with positive abilities. Is giving players cards that penalize them for making timing mistakes desirable? Historically, Magic doesn’t print many mechanics that do that, as there’s a simple principle of games. Players want to have the ability to take actions and get involved. It’s a principle Timmies feel in particular. Restrictions take away from game play, except in situations where the restrictions breed the creativity to get around the problem by turning that negative into a net positive. (Overcoming a limitation yields great emotional rewards.) And River of Tears is a card that doesn’t feel like it’s possible to get what you want out of it most of the time.

As an object lesson in how to become a Magic player, River of Tears is a great card. It tests a player’s skill and forces them to become a more thoughtful, effective player. I respect cards like that. But do we need restricted lands? Lands are the cards that we need to use all the time; one-time restrictions on them, such as coming into play tapped or a one-time life payment, feel fine. But consistent, regular restrictions on lands feel like roadblocks. They’re not conducive to fun.

Long story short: I really like Grove of the Burnwillows. It’s worthy of seeing print in the Core set, a high honor. River of Tears is highly engaging and thoughtful, so I’d be happy to have it see print in the future, but I don’t see it as being printable in a Core set. Graven Cairns is fine if a little stale; Nimbus Maze isn’t on my good side, and Horizon Canopy’s downside is too great to make me happy. All would be decent choices, but Grove is head and shoulders above the rest of the pack.

On to the main event.

Time Spiral Block Sealed Cardpool

Eli Kaplan

Test deck on 06-03-2007

Time Spiral Limited

Creatures (48)

Lands (1)

1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Spells (26)

More astute readers may have noticed there were two Future Sight rares in the pool. One was foil. And yeah, it was the Pact. My eyes were smiling when I opened this pool. (Whether my brain kept the smile on my face is another story.)

Go build your deck. Instead of adding white space, I believe I’ll just add some choice bon mots from bash.org here.

<Steve> Even "The Magic 8 Ball" is smart, and knows Microsoft Sucks. It says "Outlook Not Good."

<Thel> "You have just received the Amish Computer Virus. Since the Amish don’t have computers, it is based on the honor system. Please delete all the files from your computer. Thank you for your cooperation."
* SephirothTheOneWingedAngel ([email protected]) Quit (gryphon.magicstar.net starship.magicstar.net)
* SporkBad ([email protected]) Quit (gryphon.magicstar.net starship.magicstar.net)
* Sir_Spankspeople ([email protected] Quit (gryphon.magicstar.net starship.magicstar.net)
* Ace|werk ([email protected]) Quit (gryphon.magicstar.net starship.magicstar.net)

<Lord-Data> god damnit. Try as I might, I cannot type in the Star Wars theme music in words.

<sh> I wonder if odor eaters compete for odors, since presumably they need them to survive.

<GreenGoblin> Ponyprincess, get ur brain checked!
<PonyPrincess> oh ya? well i did and they found nothing!
<PonyPrincess> wait, crap

Enough already. Time to crunch cards. As usual, I lavish attention on the new guys in town as well as less played but valuable oldies.

White
Solid: Amrou Seekers, Outrider en-Kor, Sunlance
Decent: Icatian Crier, Ivory Giant, Jedit’s Dragoons, Mana Tithe, Pallid Mycoderm, Saltskitter, Watcher Sliver
Poor: Detainment Spell, Foriysian Interceptor, Gaze of Justice, Lost Auramancers, Mycologist, Patrician’s Scorn

Sunlance’s almost never a dead card. Play it. Love it. Just be on the prowl when Cloudchaser Kestrel’s on the table.

I frequently see Saltskitters getting passed around as late as 13th or 14th pick in TPF draft. And most decks aren’t too high on them. Chances are that you’re not going to have many chances to block with him, and you need to have ways to dump guys into play at instant speed to get any advantage out of him. Where do we get that ability? Oh yeah, with the Thallids. Green can get surprising use out of Saltskitter. And if you’ve got Essence Warden, the Saltskitter can get downright ridiculous.

I hate Mycologist. It doesn’t get extra spore counters from the Sporesower. Yeah, it turns mass removal on your opponent’s end into a decent life boost, but that’s all it does. Pallid Mycoderm, on the other hand, can generate a massive army that can put almost any opponent away. So the Mycologist is sure to get the bench.

Lost Auramancers need to have some sort of reference to Islands on the card. Otherwise, the card’s disappointing. It’s not like we have any game-breaking enchantments we’d possibly want to search for.

Two efficient, cheap beaters. You call this a White army? This mealy-mouthed pile doesn’t have a prayer of being a main deck color. Maybe we’ll be able to pluck a few gems from the dross, but White’s never going to play a leading role if it keeps this level of effort up.

Blue
Solid: Brine Elemental, Infiltrator il-Kor, Shaper Parasite, Telekinetic Sliver, Viscerid Deepwalker
Decent: Cancel, Coral Trickster, Deep-Sea Kraken, Merfolk Thaumaturgist, Ophidian Eye, Pact of Negation, Sarcomite Myr, Stormcloud Djinn
Poor: Shadow Sliver

Infiltrator il-Kor frequently gets compared with Errant Ephemeron. If you are stuck arguing over the merits of which is superior in Limited, you’re safe to say that it’s worth playing in Sealed.

As much as I like Shaper Parasite, we don’t have any bounce cards to abuse the card. In that case, we need to find a way to reuse it by moving it from another zone. I thought I saw an Undertaker one color away…

One of the nice things about the increase of non-instant Split Second cards with Future Sight is that it gives Deep-Sea Kraken a little more reliability when it comes to Suspending in. (For those of you who aren’t aware, if you play a Split Second card when your opponent’s Kraken has only one time counter on it, your opponent never gets an opportunity to play the Kraken after the last counter is removed.) I still am not enamored of the card, as your opponent has too much time to set up a Snapback, Gone, or Dark Withering to deal with the unblockable fattie.

Ah, Pact of Negation. Finally, a counterspell with a highly playable yet fairly priced mana cost. It’s a fine card for any deck with Blue as a primary component, but you definitely don’t want to splash it in Limited.

Sarcomite Myr grabs my attention only because it blocks Amrou Seekers and Skirk Shamans. You might even net a little profit on the side. It’s a fine, versatile 23rd card. Good job, Wizards. You guys made a fresh, highly engaging Grey Ogre that’s balanced. I want to see more of these guys.

We’ve got a lot of fine men, many with evasion. But they’re a skosh expensive and fragile. With no bounce and little removal, Blue is less saucy, but stands a chance of getting played.

Black
Solid: Corpulent Corpse, Death Rattle, Sengir Nosferatu, Undertaker
Decent: Cutthroat il-Dal, Haunting Hymn, Mindstab, Spitting Sliver, Viscid Lemures
Poor: Oblivion Crown

Delve is a superlative mechanic. The tension between flashback and delve would make for a fairly compelling block environment. Death Rattle is a fine choice to showcase the mechanic. It’s cheap, since most of the initial guys your opponent plays out won’t be their best men. Unfortunately, it refuses to hit the creatures in the most commonly played color, Green. Even so, I will never, ever leave this card in the sideboard if I’m playing with Swamps.

Looking at our pool, which creatures have synergy with Undertaker? Obviously, trading a land for a creature in the late game is always a great deal. But some guys get comparatively greater value from being recycled than others. Shaper Parasite, Nacatl War-Pride, and Bogardan Hellkite come to mind. Problem is, it’s so easy to get rid of the Undertaker. Almost any removal spell will do the trick. In a field of weak players who tend to be drawn to throw out removal spells early, you’ll be able to exploit Undertaker, but if your tournament’s got competent players, they’ll be able to minimize the window of opportunity.

Four power on a Shadow guy? Hello, Cutthroat il-Dal. This card is quite exciting, even if it has an annoying toughness of one. If your deck doesn’t mind playing spells at awkward timing, then Cutthroat il-Dal is for you. She hits very hard. But you’ve got to be playing a cheap deck to get full value. Flores would call this a "scalpel." It takes a lot of skill and precise usage to reap the rewards of playing the card, but the payoff can be well worth it.

Oblivion Crown is not nearly as interesting as Fallen Ideal, even if it has Flash. I’d have an extremely hard time recommending this card to anyone.

Well, we can’t write off Black. Sengir Nosferatu is an absolute terror of a flying beater. It is an honest to god bomb. We have some beats at the four- and five-drop range, and two discard spells. If we can find the right tools to pair up with Black, it may be a fine color, but it’s going to need some help.

Red
Solid: Bogardan Hellkite, Needlepeak Spider, Sulfurous Blast, Thunderblade Charge
Decent: Aetherflame Wall, Blazing Blade Askari, Coal Stoker, Empty the Warrens, Henchfiend of Ukor, Keldon Marauders
Poor: Dust Corona, Kobold Taskmaster, Timecrafting, Two-Headed Sliver, Volcanic Awakening

Thunderblade Charge’s exciting. It makes opponents highly skittish and defensive, as they won’t want to let a guy through. If you’ve got an evasion guy, recurring the Charge is utterly ridiculous and ends games fast. Don’t be fooled; using Thunderblade Charge optimally takes commitment and risk. Bad players may make poor alpha strike commitments and lose more than they’d gain from reusing the Charge. On the whole, Charge is a fine card.

Speaking of fine cards, we have my absolute favorite Limited commodity, mass removal, in the form of Sulfurous Blast. God, I love this card. But you’ve been playing with this card for most of a year now if you’ve taken the time to read this, and you’re already aware of how ridiculous it can be.

Seeing as how we have a relative lack of Suspend guys in the pool, Timecrafting is probably going to be most useful as a tool to delay opponents’ Suspend spells. I don’t care for this card in the main deck, but you’ll probably find yourself sideboarding it once or twice in a seven round tournament.

Henchfiend of Ukor’s a much better card in draft than Sealed, where you can craft a deck chock full of R/B removal. If there’s nothing else on the board, Henchfiend packs a real wallop in the late game. But Sealed games tend to have larger masses of forces on the board, thus limiting Henchfiend’s usefulness.

Red is pretty sexy. We’ve got a mass removal spell, Bogardan Hellkite, and some decent mid-range guys. I particularly like the Aetherflame Wall, which stops annoying Looter il-Kor tricks or an early offensive drop. The Wall really blunts decks that only focus on brute force.

Green
Solid: Durkwood Baloth, Gemhide Sliver, Nacatl War-Pride, Search for Tomorrow, Sporesower Thallid, Sprout Swarm, Utopia Vow
Decent: Ashcoat Bear, Durkwood Tracker, Krosan Grip, Hunting Wilds, Mwonvuli Acid-Moss, Thallid Shell-Dweller, Thornweald Archer, Uktabi Drake
Poor: Ravaging Riftwurm, Sprout

Nacatl War-Pride is possibly the most exciting Green uncommon Limited creature to see print in years. As soon as he hits the table, opponents pray for removal, because otherwise his army’s going to be in tatters on the following turn. It’s like Lure and Thicket Basilisk printed on the same card! Yeah, yeah, I hear you complaining. War-Pride costs triple Green. So what? It wins you the game. It’s not quite as strong as Tromp the Domains, since your opponent gets a turn to try to deal with it. But the War-Pride will make many a player rue the day their opponent played it.

And who’s going to come in and deal the lethal blow when the War Pride comes in? A brigade of Saprolings, that’s who. The little Green men are brought to you by Sprout Swarm. Man, if Sprout Swarm had been printed earlier in the block, people would be tripping over themselves running to fawn over Green. But Wizards wisely kept the gem back to limit the abuse it would wreak on opponents. Sprout Swarm is, bar none, the best common in Future Sight. We even have a Pallid Mycoderm to make the card truly nutty.

Utopia Vow hasn’t backfired on me in the many games I’ve played with it recently. I’m glad to see it here. I still find myself impressed when playing with the card. Four months down the line, green Pacifism still blows my mind.

The format’s a little slower these days, so Durkwood Tracker’s a little better than he used to be. I’ve been very pleased with him in the last few weeks.

Thornweald Archers is the best defensive Grizzly Bear ever. He’s none too shabby on offense, either. This guy’s an absolute terror of a two-drop. Given the large numbers of playables in Time Spiral Limited, you probably won’t ever splash for him, but then again, who knows? The price is certainly right.

Hunting Wilds is an under-appreciated spell. Yeah, it can function as a mana accelerant, but beyond War-Pride and Bogardan Hellkite, we don’t have all that much to ramp up to. The real value is in churning out two hasty Hill Giants. Mwonvuli Acid-Moss in the pool allows us even more deck-thinning action, though the prospects of searching out all the deck’s forests before drawing Hunting Wilds makes me nervous.

Talk about exciting! Green’s army is tough and cool and cool and tough. Check out all the combat goodness. Hordes of Thallids make my day. We even have a flier. Mana? No problems here. We can really take an edge in tempo with all the acceleration. Hardcasting Durkwood Baloth is rarely going to be a problem. Unfortunately, there’s only one guy in the pool we really want to accelerate for, and that’s Bogardan Hellkite, which would marry us to Red. From my perspective, however, that’s a match bearing many fruits.

Everything Else
Mystic Enforcer’s an awesome card in Constructed and Limited alike. Unfortunately, it’s stuck in one of the least played color combinations at the moment. Black guys don’t enter the red zone all that much in TPF Sealed, so the Enforcer’s protection doesn’t usually offer all that much extra value. But a late game 6/6 flier is undeniably good. Is Enforcer splash-worthy in draft? Probably not all that often. But Sealed is a different animal, and if you’ve got the manabase, you need to give it a try.

When do you play Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth? When you’ve got Black as a main color, obviously. If you’re splashing cards with BB in the cost, Urborg makes that possible, but at the same time you’re opening yourself up to handing your opponents turbo-charged Tendrils of Corruption. It also smoothes out your opponent’s mana. I rarely want to play decks splashing double-Black cards, so I’ll almost never play Urborg to help splash in Limited.

Here’s my build.

1: Durkwood Baloth, Search for Tomorrow, Sunlance
2: Aetherflame Wall, Gemhide Sliver, Thallid Shell-Dweller, Thornweald Archer, Utopia Vow
3: Uktabi Drake, Thunderblade Charge
4: Coal Stoker, Mystic Enforcer, Needlepeak Spider, Pallid Mycoderm, Sporesower Thallid, Hunting Wilds, Mwonvuli Acid-Moss, Sprout Swarm, Sulfurous Blast
5: Durkwood Tracker
6: Nacatl War-Pride
8: Bogardan Hellkite

9 Forest
6 Mountain
3 Plains

We’ve got all the Green goodness in here coupled with Red’s removal and Dragon. 18 land is admittedly a lot, and then we’ve got Hunting Wilds, Search, Gemhide, and Acid-Moss to supplement it. But the search also thins our deck and increases our chance of playing our bombs or recurring Sprout Swarm. The splash for White gives us more oomph with our Thallid engine as well as a dash of removal and a late-game beatstick. I’d grade this as a strong deck.

I spent a few hours testing this build with a good friend and contributor, Yuusei Gotou. He has a tendency to play with more tricks and synergy than I do, and we usually go about 50/50 in games. He’s a far better Constructed player than I am, and I usually get my 60 card decks from him these days.

Here’s his build, if you want a second opinion. (And you’ve got a fine if outdated sense of fashion, too.)

1: Durkwood Baloth, Search for Tomorrow, Sunlance
2: Coral Trickster, Gemhide Sliver, Thallid Shell-Dweller, Thornweald Archer, Utopia Vow
3: Amrou Seekers, Deep-Sea Kraken, Merfolk Thaumaturgist, Outrider en-Kor, Shaper Parasite, Uktabi Drake, Thunder Totem
4: Mystic Enforcer, Pallid Mycoderm, Sporesower Thallid, Watcher Sliver, Hunting Wilds, Sprout Swarm
5: Durkwood Tracker
6: Nacatl War-Pride

8 Forest
6 Plains
3 Island

A splash for Blue? Leaving Viscerid Deepwalker, Brine Elemental, and Infiltrator il-Kor on the sideline? To quote Henry Rollins and William Shatner, I can’t get behind that!

I can’t say I really care for the Blue build, to be honest. He was right not to include the Pact of Negation, though. Getting two Blue mana isn’t easy with this deck. He’s got a lot of decent three drops, whereas my deck has more bombs and late game goodness.

Maybe there’s another, better build out there that uses red, blue, and black. Tons of removal, decent guys… The problem with that approach is that the mana’s ugly. Forumites, tell me if any of you guys find that combination appealing. I simply don’t have the energy to go further at this point. Between movies, new Standard, farewell parties, and work, my plate’s full.

Sound off in the forums. I’ll do my best to respond to as many comments as possible.

Eli Kaplan
japaneli on Magic Online