While the rest of you were off enjoying the Ravnica prerelease this past Saturday, I was sitting at home on my computer being bored.
Fortunately for me, Magic Online randomly had a 4x prizes CBS Sealed Deck event and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my Saturday afternoon.
I know you’d rather be reading about Ravnica right now, and I apologize. I can however promise to have my initial thoughts on the new set ready for next week after I’ve had some time to draft and test out some ideas. For now, let’s return to the familiar world of CBS.
Building the Deck
A whopping 154 players entered this sealed deck tournament, which was quite a surprise to me since I figured everyone would be off at the prerelease. Despite this, I only recognized a couple of names, one of whom was Ken Krouner, so at least most of the pros were not playing.
I’m going to do the standard procedure for sealed decks, which is of course listing the card pool, letting you build it on your own, and then talking about why I built it the way I did. I’m also going to not list the utter chaff like Takeno’s Cavalry, so it will be easier for you guys to sort through the pool, but I will list anything marginally playable.
White
Torii Watchward
Split-Tail Miko
Patron of the Kitsune
Nagao, Bound by Honor
Lantern Kami
Kitsune Riftwalker
Kabuto Moth
Araba Mothrider
Indomitable Will
Call to Glory
Blue
Soratami Seer
Soratami Rainshaper
Soratami Cloudskater
Shinen of Flight’s Wings
Quillmane Baku
Moonbow Illusionist
Mistblade Shinobi
Kami of Twisted Reflection
Floodbringer
Floating-Dream Zubera
Mystic Restraints
Peer Through Depths
Murmurs from Beyond
Black
Skullsnatcher
Scuttling Death
Raving Oni-Slave
Nezumi Ronin
Myojin of Night’s Reach
Kami of the Waning Moon
Hand of Cruelty
Gnat Miser
Cursed Ronin
Blood Speaker
Pull Under
Call for Blood
Swallowing Plague
Eradicate
Befoul
Red
Shinen of Fury’s Fire
Pain Kami
Initiate of Blood
Frostwielder
Frost Ogre
Cunning Bandit
Battle-Mad Ronin
Uncontrollable Anger
Into the Fray
First Volley
Unearthly Blizzard
Lava Spike
Sunder from Within
Green
Sekki, Seasons’ Guide
Orochi Leafcaller
Orochi Eggwatcher
Moss Kami
Kodama of the South Tree
Kashi-Tribe Warriors
Humble Budoka
Dripping-Tongue Zubera
Burr Grafter
Briarknit Kami
Roar of the Jukai
Inner Calm, Outer Strength
Kodama’s Reach
Uproot
Dosan’s Oldest Chant
Other
Hall of the Bandit Lord
Tranquil Garden
Reito Lantern
Mandatory blank space for you to build the deck….
Alright, moving along.
The first thing I noticed about this card pool (besides the fact that it was very strong) was that Red just wasn’t gonna do it this time. I don’t even have anything worthwhile to splash besides Pain Kami (which is cumbersome), and the color is not deep enough to support the better cards like Frostwielder and Cunning Bandit.
With that out of the way, let’s take a look at Blue. There are definitely some strong cards there, with all of the Soratamis, Shinen of Flight’s Wings, and Mystic Restraints, but again, the color looks to be just a tad bit shallow. This set of Blue cards would probably make the cut in most sealed decks.
However, this isn’t “most sealed decks.”
This card pool is a monstrosity and my goal in building the deck was to get as many of the bomb cards in my deck as possible. If you take a close look at the White cards you’ll see the standouts in Kabuto Moth, Nagao, Split-Tail Miko, and Patron of the Kitsune. After that, the card quality drops off quite a bit.
Green and Black are both really strong, and Green provides the necessary means to splash the White cards. With that in mind, I built the following:
Orochi Leafcaller
Dripping-Tongue Zubera
Raving Oni-Slave
Hand of Cruelty
Orochi Eggwatcher
Nezumi Ronin
Kabuto Moth
Kami of the Waning Moon
Nagao, Bound by Honor
Kodama of the South Tree
Burr Grafter
Scuttling Death
Briarknit Kami
Patron of the Kitsune
Moss Kami
Myojin of Night’s Reach
Inner Calm, Outer Strength
Kodama’s Reach
Eradicate
Befoul
Pull Under
Swallowing Plague
Tranquil Garden
2 Plains
8 Swamp
7 Forest
I think that this build is the way to go with the card pool, though I did plan on sideboarding in the Blue cards if I ran into a deck with loads of fliers since I have trouble dealing with them without a Sniper.
Some cards that almost made it were Cursed Ronin, Torii Watchward, Humble Budoka, and Split-Tail Miko. My thinking on the two White cards was that I didn’t want to screw my manabase any more with need for double Black, double Green, and potentially double White for the Patron. It’s nice to have the Leafcaller to help there, but I decided that I may side in the extra two White cards in a slower matchup, but didn’t want to mess up my maindeck mana. Cursed Ronin was very close to making the cut, but I decided to drop it since it felt like it would bog the deck down and I’d want to be doing other things with my mana. Again, another potential sideboard card.
The Humble Budoka was a mistake and should’ve been in the main.
After playing out the tournament with the deck, the one card I was really unhappy with in the maindeck was the Myojin of Night’s Reach. Now you may think I’m crazy for playing this guy in the first place, but sealed deck tends to be rather slow and he will win almost any stalemate if I draw him when we are in topdeck mode. The other bonus is that he is great against a control deck because I can strip their hand before they get a chance to use all of their removal or whatever else they are planning. Finally, I do have Kodama’s Reach, so I don’t think it’s completely unreasonable to run one late game drop. If I could build the deck over, I would put the Humble Budoka in the maindeck instead of the Myojin just for more consistency.
Oh, and anyone wondering why I didn’t play Sekki, Seasons’ Guide? I don’t think the card is completely unplayable by any means, but I decided that if I was going to run an eight-drop, the Myojin was just better and it also let me run 8 Swamps to help get the double Black for Hand of Cruelty and my removal spells. As it was the Myojin didn’t work out so well in my deck and I can guarantee that Sekki would’ve been even worse.
The rest of the deck should be pretty self-explanatory.
Round 1 against skywalker
Game one my opening hand is simply amazing.
Forest
Forest
Orochi Leafcaller
Kodama’s Reach
Kodama of the South Tree
Patron of the Kitsune
Moss Kami
Essentially, if I draw a land or two, it will be very hard to lose. He starts with a Kitsune Diviner, which is mildly annoying for my deck, and then follows up with two fliers. We start to race but I have South Tree on the board and finish him with Inner Calm, Outer Strength and trample damage one turn before I would die to his fliers.
In game one he played a Takenuma Bleeder, River Kaijin, and three fliers, so I decide that now might be a good time to side into the Blue plan. If you take a look at my Green cards, they aren’t particularly good at stopping fliers and it will take some time to overpower him on the ground so I board like this :
Out – All Green cards and Forests
In – Soratami Seer, Soratami Rainshaper, Soratami Cloudskater, Shinen of Flight’s Wings, Moonbow Illusionist, Floodbringer, Mystic Restraints, and Split-Tail Miko, Torii Watchward.
I also changed the manabase to 8 Swamps, 6 Island, 4 Plains and kept the Black Myojin in the deck in case we reached a stall (very possible now that I have the same type of fliers).
I brought in the Torii because I needed to replace some of the Green fat men that were going out and Soulshift was also good against his build.
After all of that fancy maneuvering he started with a River Kaijin on turn 3 and then promptly got stuck on three lands. Meanwhile, I flew over with Moonbow, Flight’s Wings, and Rainshaper before he could get in the game.
Another reason it was a good idea to bring in the Blue cards here is that it also makes me less susceptible to his Kitsune Diviner which just owns the Green portion of my deck.
1-0
Round 2 against XaneHavenstar
This guy is above 1800, so I expect he is probably pretty solid.
I start with a turn 2 Dripping-Tongue and then a turn 3 topdecked Hand of Cruelty. He plays Kami of Old Stone, which I whiz by with ease and then Kiyomaro, First to Stand which gets Befouled. I build with Kami of the Waning Moon and Briarknit Kami over the next couple turns. He kills my Briarknit with Horobi’s Whisper but then I drop Scuttling Death. The Scuttles allows my Hand of Cruelty to survive in a battle with Kemuri-Onna by giving -1/-1 and he eventually succumbs.
I decide to board in the Split-Tail Miko only since Torii Watchward isn’t going to make it through all of his 1/4s. He is still slow enough for the Miko to come in and I just gamble with it and don’t tweak my mana at all figuring it will still be good even if it comes during the late game.
Game two he chooses to play first which is dubious in sealed, and I’m forced to mulligan a hand with 4 Forests, Nagao, Split-Tail Miko, Dripping Tongue. The hand I draw isn’t much better, with Forest, Swamp, Swamp, Plains, Plains, Inner Calm, but I have to keep it on the draw. He plays a Shinen of Star’s Light and Moonlit Strider and the only non-land card I draw is Moss Kami. When I finally get to cast it on low life, he just Horobi’s Whispers it off the table and we’re on to game three.
For the final game my hand is much stronger with Swamp, Forest, Forest, Forest, Hand of Cruelty, Moss Kami, Kodama’s Reach. He starts with a turn 2 Nezumi Graverobber, which is bad for me, but I draw one of my answers, Swallowing Plague on my turn. Sadly when turn 3 rolls around, I still haven’t drawn a second Swamp and therefore can’t cast Swallowing Plague until I use my Reach to get a Swamp and Plains. I cast the Reach for my turn which lets him flip Graverobber, and he plays possibly the worst card for me on his turn: Moonlit Strider.
Now it will be almost impossible to kill the Graverobber unless I can somehow get him to mess up and use the Strider and then let me Swallowing Plague (if he doesn’t have five mana up). The whole situation is looking very problematic on my fourth turn when I cast Hand of Cruelty and pass the turn with Moss Kami, Inner Calm, Swallowing Plague, and lands in hand. I do however have three mana untapped, so I can use the Inner Calm to save my guy if he lets me fight the Graverobber. Instead, he passes the turn and plays Indebted Samurai and I do not like my chances in this game. The only thing I have going for me is the fact that he hasn’t played a fifth land yet. On my turn I play Moss Kami and pass back after drawing a somewhat useful Befoul, which will probably target one of his lands if necessary.
Just when it all looks hopeless, an amazing thing happens. He untaps, casts Befoul on my Moss Kami, and swings in!
Bingo, I block with the Hand and he uses Strider to save Graverobber. I untap and Plague the Graverobber off the board for five and go back up to 13 life. His turn consists of swinging with Indebted Samurai and playing Kami of the Painted Road with his fifth land. I peel Nagao off the top like a champ and have an amazing turn of casting him and using Befoul on the Painted Road. His turn brings a Gutwrencher Oni to join his Indebted Samurai, and he has three cards still in hand.
My turn is uneventful as I draw a land to go with the Inner Calm and other land in my hand already, and I pass back. He discards Shinen of Stars’ Light on upkeep and bashes with Gutwrencher. I block with Nagao and use the Inner Calm for two, allowing Nagao to survive the fight. He plays Kemuri-Onna, I discard a land and he’s done. I draw the Eggwatcher for my turn, which is better than another land, but he counters it by drawing a sixth land for Kami of Lunacy. Remember what I mentioned earlier about fliers and not being able to deal with them? Well I’m currently at 10 in this game and dead in three turns unless I find an answer.
I draw South Tree for my turn and play it, but he’s still on 16 so at the moment it’s not going to be fast enough. His turn consists of bashing with Lunacy and replayed Kemuri-Onna which nets nothing since I have an empty hand. I make a snake on his end step, untap, and pray.
And I guess the Magic gods must love me today because I peel Scuttling Death off the top and kill his Lunacy. He gets back Painted Road and the game drags on for quite some time.
It turns out that the deciding moment happens one turn when he misclicks his Painted Road to give Protection from Red after damage is already on the stack and it lets my Nezumi Ronin trade with the Kami. Because of this, he can’t kill me from 4 life and eventually gets run over by my snake tokens.
I really feel like I got lucky to win this match because my opponent made one or two questionable plays and then the huge misclick near the end of the game.
2-0
Round 3 against catsg
My deck really flexed its muscles in this round.
I began by Eradicating his Kabuto Moth after casting Kodama’s Reach. Searching his deck revealed that he had no way to stop the Patron of the Kitsune. After that, Briarknit Kami joined in on the fun and made short work of my opponent.
Game two I have Reach/South Tree/Scuttling Death which is far too much for his medium draw. I also have the Torii Watchward that I boarded in with Pull Under and Eradicate in the grip just in case. Not a tough match by any means.
3-0
Round 4 against mr.prospector
This guy is also in the mid 1800s so I expect some competition here.
I mulligan on the draw and play Raving Oni-Slave on turn 3. My opponent had cast a Kitsune Loreweaver on his turn and just holds back with it and mana up so that my Slave can’t get through. I drop Kami of the Waning Moon on my third turn though which ensures the Slave will get to work soon.
He passes again after having done nothing and my turn 4 is a pleasant Dripping-Tongue Zubera giving Fear to Slave and also Hand of Cruelty after combat. He plays Hundred-Talon Kami and I continue the beats with Scuttling Death giving fear. On my next turn I topdeck Burr Grafter and am able to push through for enough damage through the use of a sacrificial Dripping-Tongue Zubera (which was then Soulshifted by Burr Grafter and used for the final evasive attack).
He chooses to draw first and starts with Soilshaper while I play a turn 3 Kami of the Waning Moon. He plays Ghostly Prison and then Sosuke, which I immediately Eradicate. I get the White Patron out but his hand is pretty dangerous with a Strength of Cedars and Hundred-Talon Strike in it, so I can’t really get involved with any of his guys. The real trouble starts when he plays Feral Deceiver and draws a Serpent Skin to go on it so I basically can’t block it. I end up playing the game really well and lost anyway because he revealed lands for three straight draws with Feral Deceiver, which was just enough to finish the job. To his credit, I don’t think he made any mistakes from what I could see.
Game three I start off with a turn 2 Hand of Cruelty, which is amazing against his G/W concoction. The next few turns consist of a Kodama’s Reach for him, and Orochi Eggwatcher on my side. Scaled Hulk follows for him and I Befoul it. At this point all he has in play is Kami of the Ancient Law and my grip is full of gas with Swallowing Plague, Eradicate, Briarknit Kami, and Myojin of Night’s Reach. He tries to put up a fight but I simply have too much ammunition and steamroll him.
4-0
Round 5 against Teddy KGB
From what I’ve seen, this guy is a very solid player and plays a ton of Premier Events. I don’t know exactly who he is, but he’s definitely a tough opponent.
I start the game off like every game should with a turn 3 Kodama’s Reach. He plays Toshiro Umezawa, which doesn’t look very impressive in comparison to my turn four Briarknit Kami. He plays Mirror-Guard and I Pull Under it on my turn pumping the Kami and bashing for four. His turn essentially brings nothing as he plays Ronin Warclub, but then he does cast Hisoka’s Defiance on my Scuttling Death, making it a worthwhile turn after all. He plays Kami of the Empty Graves which gains the Warclub, but my next turn is absolutely sick as I play Kodama of the South Tree first and then Burr Grafter, both of which pump the Briarknit Kami and give it trample. The game ends on the next turn when all of my guys swing and my draw is just too good to be beaten.
Game two ended up becoming a real mess, and there was one turn where I really went wrong. I had pretty good control of the board and didn’t think enough one turn before I attacked, and played a land so that I could play a five drop and Inner Calm if necessary. Because of this, my opponent Consuming Vortexed my 7/7 Briarknit Kami that was beating on him and then untapped and cast Three Tragedies, knocking out my whole hand of Scuttling Death, and Inner Calm. Had I not played the extra land before attacking, I think I would’ve won this game by keeping the Briarknit and recasting next turn after Tragedies. I ended up drawing six lands in a row and losing to a Gutwrencher Oni with Phantom Wings on it. The reason I say that the Vortex/Tragedies turn mattered so much is that I had him at 4 life and I was way ahead on the board. If I untapped and replayed Briarknit, I’m pretty sure he couldn’t stabilize and would’ve lost in a turn or two.
So scratch one game loss up to a play error on my par.
Game three is much of the same, with the board gumming up pretty quickly. He gets out an early Jushi Apprentice and I cast Reach (noticing a trend here?) and follow it up with Scuttling Death and Patron of the Kitsune, which he has no direct answer to. He gets Phantom Wings on Gutwrencher again but I’m able to keep it at bay by attacking with Nezumi Ronin and some other small creatures on the ground and gaining life from the Patron to negate his attacks. Eventually I build up a good board position and draw Kodama of the South Tree along with a couple triggers to overrun him with snake tokens from the Eggwatcher.
5-0
Round 6 against magicmania
My opponent tries to get me to draw in game one saying that I can “just win later.” I think the reason he wants to draw with me is because he’s watched the replays and seen some of the goodies in my deck. I decline his offer and then proceed to get stuck on three lands and lose game one.
Doh!
I ask him if he wants to draw with me now and he obviously declines.
Game two I mulligan on the draw and get a solid opening of guys and South Tree and overpower him rather quickly. His G/W deck also has a large number of ground white guys and Hand of Cruelty is even better than usual.
Game three he mulligans after choosing to play first and we have a few skirmishes before my larger men come out and Moss Kami takes it home with the help of Inner Calm.
6-0
Rounds 7 and 8 are intentional draws into the Top 8
Well, the Top 8 draft didn’t go as well as I’d hoped it would. Ken Krouner also made the Top 8 of this event and drafted a solid G/W deck from what I saw.
The draft started out with me opening a terrible pack and taking Horobi from it. Yes, the Horobi. I’ve found him to be pretty good in B/W with Waxmane, Skullmane, and Healers, and also good in B/R with Unearthly Blizzard, so I figured I could possibly sneak into something like that as I really like BW control. I got shipped a Strength of Cedars and quickly grabbed that up followed by Kami of Fire’s Roar over nothing else good, and finally Kodama’s Reach fourth pick. At this point I still essentially had my options open and could go into a lot of different decks from this starting point. I rounded out the Champions packs and looked to be in G/R/b at the time, picking up a late Pull Under.
I opened an awful Betrayers pack that had exactly one other playable card in it besides the Torrent of Stone that I firstpicked. I got shipped Throat Slitter and took it in case I moved into Black or just ended up splashing it. The rest of Betrayers wasn’t really very exciting, though I picked up a couple Sakura-Tribe Springcallers, a Gnarled Mass, Scaled Hulk, etc.
Saviors was a train wreck as I got no Shinens of Life’s Roar that I was hoping for, though I did manage to fill my deck out very nicely and I was happy with how I drafted. Take a look:
Child of Thorns
Ember-Fist Zubera
Akki Underling
Gnarled Mass
2 Akki Drillmaster
2 Sakura-Tribe Springcaller
Kami of Fire’s Roar
Sokenzan Spellblade
Ayumi, the Last Visitor
Frost Ogre
Scaled Hulk
Oni of the Wild Places
Ashen Monstrosity
Kodama’s Might
Kodama’s Reach
Unearthly Blizzard
Torrent of Stone
Spiraling Embers
Seek the Horizon
Strength of Cedars
Feral Lightning
Shouldn’t be too hard to get the general idea here. Create a fat monster and fling it at the opponent’s dome with haste. I think the deck is solid overall for a draft of all good players (nobody was below 1800), though certainly not my best. I didn’t end up splashing the Black for obvious reasons, but mainly just because it doesn’t fit with the deck well.
I played Teddy KGB again in the first round of the Top 8 and this time he got the better of me. Game one I stalled on three lands with Springcaller and a bunch of fatties in hand and he killed me with Gibbering Kami and Honden of Infinite Rage before I could get back in the game.
Game two I get flooded instead of screwed and he played a bunch of 2/1 dorks for two mana that my deck should be able to crush. All in all, I think I was a big favorite in the matchup except for the fact that he had Kagemaro (never played it against me). Normally my guys should smash his and if nothing else, the games should be a lot closer than they were.
This was a fun tournament all together and after watching my replays I saw a couple spots where I could’ve played a little tighter which is a good learning experience. I realize that CBS is about to rotate out, but I hope that this was helpful and entertaining for you guys. Besides, if you’re a Magic Online player you won’t get Ravnica for another month anyway!
Nick Eisel
[email protected]
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