I'm a casual Magic player (San Francisco area) from way back, having started playing roughly around Fallen Empires. Except for the much-loved yearly ManaFest/KublaCon convention, however, I haven't been to many Magic tournaments. In the last few months, I've picked up Magic Online, which has improved my game significantly at the expense of my wallet. However, the vast majority of my Magic experience for the last few years has been playing a wonderful little format called Type P (for Perpetual), which can briefly be described as"Sealed deck for ante, any random set of Magic cards legal." As a result, I know something about how Sealed decks from, say, Tempest block shape up against decks from, say, Invasion block.

But enough about that; I'll get back to it later, when I discuss my impressions of the format. Suffice it to say that I (and a couple of other Type P players) decided at more or less the last possible moment to head down to Match Play in Palo Alto. The TOs there were not particularly well organized, and didn't do a good job of getting the word out about the tournament. So I was expecting maybe thirty to forty people for the tournament.... As did Wizards, since it turned out that we would all have to fight for forty Rukh Eggs. We get there at 11:15, for a 12:00 start time, and the registration line (no one could pre-register, because of the disorganization surrounding the tourney up to the last minute) is out the door. The play area can"seat" sixty games, naturally capping the tournament at a hundred and twenty people. It soon develops that the play area cannot in fact seat sixty games, as a large number of chairs seem to have mysteriously suffered an existence failure... But somehow, we muddle along by stealing some wheelie chairs from the computer gaming area.

At length, we sit down and receive the packs that we will be using to construct our decks, as the lack of preparation rules out any possibility of using deck registration sheets.

I open the packs - and like everyone else at the tournament I spend a minute or two examining the new card layout and admiring the new foil cards I've ended up with (in my case, an Index and a Swamp). My two cents: The layout looks perfectly fine, nothing particularly objectionable about it. However, I don't understand why it needed to change in the first place (couldn't Wizards have"selectively foiled" the artwork of cards with the old layout just as easily as those with the new?).

Then we get down to business. The deck list was as follows:

Main Deck
1x Blaze
2x Goblin Chariot
1x Hill Giant
1x Orcish Artillery
1x Pyrotechnics
1x Shock
1x Shock Troops
1x Viashino Sandstalker
1x Volcanic Hammer
1x Aven Cloudchaser
1x Blinding Angel
2x Pacifism
1x Staunch Defenders
1x Suntail Hawk
1x Giant Cockroach
1x Gravedigger
1x Raise Dead
1x Serpent Warrior
1x Phyrexian Hulk
1x Wall of Spears
8x Mountain
6x Plains
4x Swamp

Relevant Sideboard:
1x Searing Wind
1x Aven Cloudchaser
1x Abyssal Specter
1x Western Paladin
1x Swamp

Other Cards:
2x Cinder Wall
1x Goblin Raider
1x Lava Axe
1x Reflexes
2x Holy Day
1x Holy Strength
1x Honor Guard
1x Ivory Mask
1x Samite Healer
1x Mind Slash
2x Plague Beetle
1x Raise Dead
1x Serpent Warrior
1x Vicious Hunger
1x Blanchwood Armor
1x Choke
1x Craw Wurm
1x Elvish Pioneer
1x Gaea's Herald
1x Giant Badger
1x Giant Growth
1x Giant Spider
1x Horned Troll
1x Lone Wolf
2x Moss Monster
1x Spreading Algae
1x Trained Armodon
1x Aven Fisher
2x Index
1x Inspiration
1x Merchant of Secrets
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Sea Monster
1x Storm Crow
1x Twiddle
1x Unsummon
1x Wind Drake
1x Shivan Oasis
1x Urza's Power Plant

Red is, of course, transparently obvious, with my best card (Pyrotechnics), my third-best card (Blaze), four other sources of damage, and multiple creatures with haste. One quick glance dispatches my blue (best card: Wind Drake), and after a bit of thought, I decide to go white-red, splashing black for added beef and graveyard recursion. White gives me double Pacifism, Blinding Angel, solid enchantment removal in Aven Cloudchaser, and Staunch Defenders, which breaks a weenie rush in half. (I only ran one 'Chaser maindeck to minimize the risk of having one stuck in my hand with Pacifism in play, and boarded in the other for problem enchantments.) Black saves me from having to run Honor Guard and Cinder Wall, and gives me good sideboard tech against various nasty Angels.

Time for a brief rant. As someone who's played Sealed deck fairly extensively with every block from Mirage to Onslaught, I can say with authority: Expect to run a third color. When you play with your Holy Days and Goblin Raiders in lieu of a third color splash, you are seriously weakening the power of your card pool. Yes, you will get color screwed less often, but the cards you're playing instead of color #3 won't win you the game anyway. Unless you have twenty-three solidly playable cards in your colors (and by"solidly playable," I'm not referring to twenty-third cards like Cinder Wall), run a third color. You'll do better in the long run, believe me.

Now that that bit of pulpit pounding is finished, I can talk about the actual matches I played (yes, despite all the disorder, we did eventually manage to get some actual games in).

Match One: Mike Griffin, running G/W/B
He wins the roll (I'm on a horrible die-rolling streak - something like nine losses in my last ten matches), and chooses to play.

Game One: This game goes by quite quickly. He gains some early tempo advantage with Honor Guard, which is rapidly canceled out by a Serpent Warrior. The next turn I slap down Viashino Sandstalker and start swinging away. His deck seems to be overwhelmingly small creatures, which are eaten alive by the Warrior, the 'Stalker, and the Giant Cockroach I play the next turn. My white never shows up (a recurring theme today), but it doesn't matter.

Game Two: I board in Western Paladin for his white creatures. Once again I'm slightly color screwed, missing the double red I need for Orcish Artillery. I get out a Wall of Spears instead, which draws a Giant Growth from Mike, then Gravedigger it back (aside: I really wish they had used the Odyssey artwork for Gravedigger; it's much better) in the face of another onslaught of little chumps. Western Paladin hits the table the next turn, followed by Wall of Spears - but by this time I'm facing down Spitting Spider and Samite Healer, among others. Mike attacks, and I make the egregious error of blocking with only the Paladin and Gravedigger, meaning my Paladin merely trades with the Healer without taking down the Spider. It doesn't much matter, though, as Raise Dead gets the Paladin back, and I quickly gain board advantage. After he blocks two 2/2s with Canopy Spiders, Pyrotechnics butchers them and takes out a Grizzly Bear for good measure. I hammer twenty points of damage by him, then literally Volcanic Hammer him for three, Blaze for seven (thanks to a Defenders of his) and finish him with Shock Troops.

We split to grab lunch at this point, as it's already after 2 p.m.

2-0, 1-0

Match Two: James Hoggarty, playing U/R
I finally win a die roll, but it doesn't help much.

Game One: I keep a highly suspect hand containing only two mountains, draw a swamp in time to cast Serpent Warrior and Giant Cockroach, and then stall at four land while he ramps up to Air Elemental and Two-Headed Dragon. I don't stand a chance as large fliers beat my thick, overoptimistic skull in.

Game Two: I board nothing, as I've seen no enchantments and he isn't playing white. I keep another two-land hand, draw enough to again get out an early Serpent Warrior and Hill Giant, and then stall at four land with Pyrotechnics in hand as I watch him play a Two-Headed Dragon turn 6, then kill me with it in short order.

2-2, 1-1

Round Three: Brent, running R/B/W
He's a youngish-looking kid, probably around twelve or thirteen. I lose yet another die roll.

Game One: His quick Goblin Raider applies an unexpected amount of pressure, as my first couple of blockers (Goblin Chariot and Hill Giant) trip the light fantastic in combat with other creatures. I drop a slightly-dicey Serpent Warrior, take two more damage, then stabilize and drop a Staunch Defenders, breaking his momentum. Soon I'm swinging, he's chumping with various weenies, and before I know it I've killed all of his creatures and beaten him to within concession range.

Game Two: He opens with an Iron Star (yes!), and I have a fairly decent start with Orcish Artillery and Goblin Chariot. We trade a few creatures, but his inability to build up significant tempo costs him, as he's playing Venerable Monks to my Hill Giants and Phyrexian Hulks. Despite my pulling an amazing six mountains before seeing a plains or swamp, some fairly easy creature beatings ensue, followed quickly by a massive Blaze to end the game and the match.

Brent isn't a bad player, despite the Lucky Charm; he had it in his sideboard, but questionably sided it in to replace Chastise. I convinced him to take it out, and we play a couple more games, each of which follows the same general pattern, although the last game is a bit more difficult as he drops Worship and I have to dispatch his creatures with burn to seal the victory.

4-2, 2-1

Round Four: James, running R/B
I lose another die roll and go second.

Game One: He drops an early Throne of Bone (yes!) and then stalls at three land. I take some damage from a Scathe Zombies, but I'm beating him down with my first-turn Suntail Hawk, and Goblin Chariot halts the bleeding. I never see another color from his deck as the Chariot, the Hawk and Phyrexian Hulk thrash the few cards he gets into play.

Game Two: This time he has both colors and an early Raging Goblin gives me something to think about until turn 3, when the Orcish Artillery shows up. He's mana hosed again, and the Artillery simply dominates the board, killing three of his creatures while some friends show up, haul out the brooms, and sweep James's unfortunate deck into the 2-2 bracket.

6-2, 3-1

Match Five: Ben Strickland, running R/G/W
We talk things over before the match, and eventually decide to split the prizes we'll win roughly 60-40. Unfortunately, we have no idea what these prizes will be, as the TOs seem to be lacking somewhat in packs to award. We consider IDing, but eventually (read: after the match is over) decide to record the match as played in order to maximize the number of packs we win.

I'm sure some part of this is flagrantly illegal, but it's a prerelease, right? We have, however, made the Top 40, and will be receiving Rukh Eggs after all. We shuffle up and I inevitably lose the roll.

Game One: I basically never have a chance in this game. I lack early plays, and my Serpent Warrior ends up being killed in combat. He hits me to fourteen, then Pyrotechnics to the head while I have a creature in play, never a good sign. He follows it up with a Volcanic Hammer, and then Blazes me out the next turn.

Game Two: He drops an early Sanctimony, which messes with my game to some extent, as he ends up gaining not less than seven life from it. I Pacify a Glory Seeker, drop a Staunch Defenders, and begin whittling away at his life total. I'm forced to use a burn spell to eliminate his Nantuko Disciple, but have no answer at all to his Circle of Protection: Black, which stops enough of my creatures that Horned Troll can hold off the rest. Eventually, Phyrexian Hulk allows me to start ramming damage through, at which point he plays Wrath of God and resets the board. I rebuild quickly with Raise Dead, but another Horned Troll holds me in check until I get out Shock Troops, which die, return to my hand via Gravedigger, die again, and pave the way for a ten-point Blaze to the head.

Game Three: It's become clear that, in this matchup, whoever can hold onto Blaze the longest will win, as neither of our decks could be described as fast. Another early Sanctimony does him little good, as I have the turn 4 Cloudchaser I need. Pacifism takes care of Canopy Spider, Orcish Artillery and Shock combine to dispatch a Horned Troll, the Cloudchaser draws out his Blaze, and I beat him to ten and drop Phyrexian Hulk, earning the Wrath of God. I'm having another strange mana draw, having drawn every swamp before a second Plains, but I finally get it and drop in Blinding Angel and Staunch Defenders. COP: Black is annoying again, and a Samite Healer holds down the damage from my Angel to a pathetic one a turn.

I Pacifism another Canopy Spider to keep getting through. He draws a Nantuko Disciple the turn before I find my second Aven Cloudchaser, which eliminates the COP. Aven Flock causes me some serious grief as well, but I Blaze it out of the way, and with both Blazes used, the game will come down to creature advantage. Several turns later, after seeing my Angel slain with Pyrotechnics, then reanimated with Gravedigger, I manage to build up enough creatures for an alpha strike which drops him to one and forces him to block with Samite Healer, and he scoops. We end up with nine packs between us, so I get five, he gets four, and we both go home reasonably happy.

8-3, 4-1

Both of the other Type P players also end up 4-1, and so everyone ends up with a Rukh Egg and enough packs, should we so desire, to build another deck from the winnings. We grab dinner, head back and play a little P, then journey up to The City well-satisfied with the day's earnings.

I was not as bored by the format as I thought I would be. However, I was not forced to make many important decisions during games, as the best play was usually fairly obvious. I frequently found myself holding removal spells for turn after turn, as the potential targets were so unexciting. Good creatures, such as Blinding Angel, rarely survived a turn in play, as removal significantly outnumbered the creatures worth removing in most matchups. I won most of my games simply by having beefier creatures than my opponents, rather than by beating them with broken creatures (such as frequently happens in Onslaught Block) or any particular deck synergies.

Blaze was invaluable as a stalemate-breaker, while Pyrotechnics usually took out two or three creatures for overwhelming board advantage.

Red seemed clearly the class color of the set, with better creatures than black or blue, and better removal than green or white. In the common slot alone, Red fields Shock, Volcanic Hammer, Anaba Shaman, and Shock Troops, and with Pyrotechnics, Blaze, Lightning Blast, Guerrilla Tactics, and Orcish Artillery at uncommon and Inferno, Searing Wind, and Hammer of Bogardan in the rare slot, Red has little trouble dealing ten to twelve points of damage directly to the head in many decks. Often, games seemed to turn on luck, with one player drawing a key spell while the other drew land or non-land (depending on the situation). Board advantage is critical in 8^th Edition sealed, when one considers that against a red deck, your effective life total begins at around twelve.

The set seems slightly below average power by comparison to Block Sealed decks, but this theory has yet to be field-tested for accuracy. All in all, it was an interesting change of pace, but not a skill-intensive format. I have no plans to draft 8^th edition Online, preferring Onslaught Block because the quality of the packs one opens has less of an impact on the eventual quality of the deck.

Until next time, if next time ever comes, may all your Hammers be Bogardan and your Djinns Mahamoti...