THS: Sealed pool
November 26, 2013 4 Comments
Unfortunately, last week’s prep didn’t help me do well at the PTQ. I opened a weak pool — the person verifying the registration said he was happy he didn’t have to play with it — and then ended up with that pool after it was passed left 3 times. I also had some weak draws and ended up going 0-2 drop. But before I blame everything on bad luck, let me post the pool here and see whether I might have misbuilt it. (The pool’s also up at http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/theros-sealed-pool-2013-11-24/ which might be easier to work with.) How would you have built this pool? Post your builds in the comments and I’ll post my build later this week.
Artifact
Akroan Horse
Bronze Sable
Burnished Hart
Flamecast Wheel
Fleetfeather Sandal
Prowler’s Helm
Traveler’s Amulet
Witches’ Eye
White
Battlewise Valor
2 Cavalry Pegasus
Gift of Immortality
Glare of Heresy
Gods Willing
Observant Alseid
Phalanx Leader
Scholar of Athreos
Setessan Battle Priest
Silent Artisan
Traveling Philosopher
3 Wingsteed Rider
Blue
Annul
Aqueous Form
Lost in a Labyrinth
Meletis Charlatan
Mnemonic Wall
Nimbus Naiad
Prescient Chimera
Thassa’s Bounty
Triton Shorethief
Voyage’s End
Black
2 Asphodel Wanderer
Baleful Eidolon
Cavern Lampad
Fleshmad Steed
March of the Returned
Ordeal of Erebos
Read the Bones
Scourgemark
Viper’s Kiss
Red
Borderland Minotaur
2 Boulderfall
2 Demolish
Dragon Mantle
Fanatic of Mogis
Firedrinker Satyr
Flamespeaker Adept
Lightning Strike
Ordeal of Purphoros
Purphoros’s Emissary
2 Satyr Rambler
Two-Headed Cerberus
2 Wild Celebrants
Green
2 Agent of Horizons
2 Fade into Antiquity
Karametra’s Acolyte
Leafcrown Dryad
2 Nemesis of Mortal
2 Nessian Asp
Nylea’s Disciple
Nylea’s Emissary
Nylea’s Presence
Ordeal of Nylea
2 Shredding Winds
Time to Feed
Vulpine Goliath
Warriors’ Lesson
Multicolor
Horizon Chimera
Spellheart Chimera
Steam Augury
Triad of Fates
Land
Unknown Shores
MTGDissected 
Is it possible to get this into a form that could be imported into TappedOut or similar. Deck building is easy with visuals of the cards
I’ve posted the pool at http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/theros-sealed-pool-2013-11-24/. Hopefully that’s good enough since WordPress doesn’t upload .txt/.dec files. (I could change the file extension but that seems unnecessarily confusing, especially since the pool can easily be copied/pasted to TappedOut/MTGO if you strip out the section names.)
Artifact
Burnished Hart
Akroan Horse
White
Battlewise Valor
Gift of Immortality
Gods Willing
Observant Alseid
Phalanx Leader
3 Wingsteed Rider
Green
Fade into Antiquity
Karametra’s Acolyte
Leafcrown Dryad
2 Nemesis of Mortal
2 Nessian Asp
Nylea’s Disciple
Nylea’s Emissary
Ordeal of Nylea
Time to Feed
Vulpine Goliath
Warriors’ Lesson
Land
8 Forest
9 Plains
The heroic potential in this deck is insane, and I think it’d be foolish not to go that route. Green is also pretty good, with 2 asps, 2 nemesis, ways to ramp into their monstrous forms, and some good spells for heroic. There’s an argument for splashing blue (voyages end, naiad, and aqueous form), as they’re all great in the heroic deck, but it also provides inconsistency which can kill the deck, so I cut it (though it’s possible I’d put it back in if I had more time to think about it).
The build I played at the PTQ was G/W splashing blue for the Agent of Horizons.
Creatures (15):
– 2cc: Leafcrown Dryad; Phalanx Leader, Setessan Battle Priest
– 3cc: 2 Agent of Horizons; 3 Wingsteed Rider, Observant Alseid
– 4cc: Nylea’s Disciple, Nylea’s Emissary
– 5cc: 2 Nessian Asp
– 6cc: 2 Nemesis of Mortal
Spells (8):
– 1cc: Warriors’ Lesson; Gods Willing; Traveler’s Amulet
– 2cc: Nylea’s Presence, Ordeal of Nylea; Battlewise Valor
– 3cc: Time to Feed, Fade into Antiquity
Land (17): Unknown Shores, 8 Forests, 7 Plains, 1 Island
I felt that green and white had the best cards, but also that Theros was a slower format so I would have an opportunity to stabilize behind beefy green monsters and then win the game with a Wingsteed Rider or an Agent of Horizons. If I faced an aggressive deck, I expected that Leafcrown Dryad, Setessan Battle Priest, and Nylea’s Disciple would help me not get underrun, and I was also willing to block with Agent of Horizons, which is still a 3/2 for 3 mana in the early game, and lets me cast Nemesis of Mortals sooner if it trades.
Unfortunately, that’s not how it worked out. I went 0-2 drop. I did get underrun, partly because I chose to draw first, partly because I kept slow hands, and partly because both my opponents had multiple blue bounce spells. I faced bombs I couldn’t deal with: Bow of Nylea in both games of the first match, and Bident of Thassa in one of the games in the second match. I didn’t have much removal for my opponents’ bombs and I also didn’t have any bombs of my own (notice that I wasn’t playing any of my rares). The deck didn’t have great mana and I also had poor draws (I didn’t draw a Wingsteed Rider in either match).
Almost everyone who’s looked at this pool built a G/W deck, with some splashing blue for Nimbus Naiad, Horizon Chimera, and Voyage’s End, as well as the 2 Agent of Horizons. I chose not to run any cards that required blue to cast because I felt the deck’s manabase was already somewhat unstable, with green being the primary color and also providing Nylea’s Presence for manafixing, but with 4 of the 5 white creatures requiring WW to cast.
Some friends and I came up with a build today that I think is better.
Creatures (18):
– 1cc: Firedrinker Satyr
– 2cc: 2 Satyr Rambler; Phalanx Leader, Traveling Philosopher, 2 Cavalry Pegasus
– 3cc: Flamespeaker Adept, Two-Headed Cerberus; 3 Wingsteed Rider, Observant Alseid
– 4cc: Fanatic of Mogis, Purphoros’s Emissary, Borderland Minotaur
– 5cc: 2 Wild Celebrants
Spells (6):
– 1cc: Dragon Mantle; Gods Willing
– 2cc: Lightning Strike, Ordeal of Purphoros; Battlewise Valor; Prowler’s Helm
Lands (16): 8 Mountains, 8 Plains
We played both versions of my deck against one of their decks from the PTQ and the R/W version fared a lot better. While it doesn’t seem like it should work in a format filled with 1/3’s for 2 mana and 1/4’s for 3 mana, the curve gave the deck a fighting chance. In the absence of bombs and removal for your opponents bombs, you have to hope to underrun your opponent, which is what this deck did. The deck had 5 flyers plus a Prowler’s Helm for additional evasion, Lightning Strike and Ordeal of Purphoros for removal, Fanatic of Mogis for reach, and 2 Wild Celebrants to deal with the weapons of the gods, which you’re more likely to encounter in sealed than in draft since people open 6 packs. The 2 Cavalry Pegasus were only accompanied by 3 human that didn’t already have flying, but were happy to attack for 1 a turn even on their own, and were a good target for Dragon Mantle, Ordeal of Purphoros, or the bestow creatures. All those auras were also great on Two-Headed Cerberus, which, along with Borderland Minotaur and the Wild Celebrants, also increased my red devotion for Fanatic of Mogis. The deck felt solid, and perhaps even good enough to make top 8. I’ll definitely have to keep these lessons in mind at the Vancouver PTQ this weekend.