The major difference between various environments in Magic is the card pool at your disposal while you build the deck. In Constructed, this pool is very wide indeed. In fact, the only inhibitions you have are:

Choosing cards only from certain sets (according to the format – Extended, Standard etc.).
You can't use more then 4 copies of a card.

In Sealed, which is on the other side of the axis, the deck is built out of a random limited pool of 75 or 90 cards. In contrast, in Draft, although the final deck building is made out of 45 cards, you are exposed to a much larger number of cards than in Sealed. Whenever you participate in an eight-player draft you get to choose from 276 different cards (see appendix). This fact, in addition to the option of a possible collaboration between players (color division), significantly changes the deck building strategy. Why would the size of the card pool affect the way you need to build your deck?

You probably remember that in Constructed the quality of cards is much less important than the synergetic effect created by their combination. The game is won, not by the deck with the best quality cards, but rather by the deck that combines the cards in the best manner (in addition to the personal skill of each player, and the luck factor of course). The more narrow the card pool at your disposal, the less the synergy is available and the more the quality of cards in the deck is important. In Draft there is a semi-balance between them; however, in Sealed the scales turn towards the quality of the cards. This does not mean that in Sealed you shouldn't build your deck around a strategic idea according to the principles of Chapter 3. However, understanding that in Sealed you should give priority to quality over synergy will give you a several insights in regards to how to build your deck in this environment. These insights have to do with choosing the number of colors you will play, not focusing on the mechanism of the set, and the manner you should evaluate powerful expensive cards.

1. How does the Importance of the Quality Factor Affect Deck Building in Sealed?

1.1 Choosing Colors: the card pool at your disposal significantly affects the number of colors you wish to play. You are faced with a dilemma: On the one hand, you want to use the best cards at your disposal, while on the other you want to keep your deck consistent, allowing you to cast the cards you draw (operational synergy.) The more colors you play, the bigger your virtual pool, which raises your card quality while at the same time lowering the consistency of your deck due to mana issues.

In Constructed this dilemma is almost non-existent, as the huge pool of cards at your disposal allows you to play high quality cards without harming the operational synergy of the deck. In that way, you can play one color alone (as you have enough good cards in that color) or play several colors (as you have the means to reduce to a minimum mana inconsistency issues with mana fixers and/or card drawing). In Draft limiting yourself to one color would almost always lead to inclusion of unplayable cards. Playing two colors allows for a rather high consistency in casting cards, and a nice pool of playable cards (as shown in the last chapter appendix.) You could decide to play a third color to raise the total quality of cards in your deck, but this comes at the risk of not being able to play them. As it's almost always possible to build a good two-color deck, it is usually not worth it to play a third color.

In Sealed, the situation is different. Let's take a look: you have 75 cards, randomly divided between the five colors. If we say that about five of them are colorless (lands and artifacts) then it's an average of fourteen cards for each color. About half of the cards in any given color are at least playable, so that's five sets of cards with seven playable in each. Because there are colors that are naturally imbalanced, you can hope to get 16-17 cards that are at least playable out of two colors you pick. Add to that between 1-2 colorless, playable cards and you get nineteen playable cards in total (in average). This number is just not enough for your deck. Now you have two options:

Include unplayable or filler cards in your deck, whether situational, too expensive for what they do, or just too objectively weak.
Include 2-4 quality cards of a third color to your deck.

The advantage of taking the second option is evident; you give up on low quality cards in your colors for the best cards in a third color (providing that you can splash). And indeed, there is a very high chance that among the other three colors you will find that one of them offers high quality cards that you can splash. The gap between these splash cards and between the unplayable ones you are giving up on is a lot bigger than in the draft format. In addition, since Sealed is a much slower format than draft, the harm of not being able to cast a card in the starting hand becomes less significant, as you will usually have the time to find the mana to cast it (of course, that means the splash cards should not be ones you would like to drop early).

Conclusion: In the Sealed format you should seriously consider splashing a third color, but only if you don't have enough playable cards within the two main colors you chose.

1.2 Mechanical Synergy: Mechanical synergy requires building your deck around the mechanism in the set you are playing (threshold, affinity, arcane/spiritcraft, convoke, transmute etc.). This synergy, as opposed to non-mechanical functional synergy - which is based on crude harmony between the cards - needs a substantial card pool to build the deck from. Take, for example, the hated Ravager Affinity deck, during the happy days of Mirrodin. Its power is based on a substantial amount of cheap artifacts, which enable applying pressure early on in the game. The cards in this deck are mostly far from being exciting on their own (Welding Jar, Arcbound Worker, Ornithopter etc.) and would be considered almost unplayable in Limited. But including them with key cards, such as Arcbound Ravager, Cranial Plating, and Myr Enforcer, creates a very powerful synergy effect. The small pool of cards in Limited makes it harder to acquire mechanical synergy, but there is a distinction to be made between draft format and Sealed format. As shown in the previous chapter, in draft it is very possible to build your deck around mechanical synergy. In Sealed, the limited supply of cards does not provide you with "ammunition" in the proper quantity and quality to create a mechanic synergy that would be powerful enough. Example: the Dampen Thought deck can't exist in the Sealed format, as you will lack sufficient amount of arcane spells in your colors to back it up.

Conclusion: In Sealed, do not be tempted to build your deck around the mechanic in the set you're playing. The requirement for proof is on the cards: only if you got really lucky and got enough cards to achieve the synergic effect (with a win condition!), should you be willing to sacrifice on card quality for that purpose.

1.3 The rentability of playing expensive cards : it is a known fact that the size of the card pool from which the deck will be built will determine the pace of the format. An Extended game tends to be quicker than Standard, and Constructed will usually go faster than Limited. This is, of course, not always true (and if you got to see a Slide versus Slide game you know what I mean…) but it is true in general. The reasons for that are numerous: a synergy effect is more easily obtained, and there are better quality cards. It's easy to see that a Sealed deck is slower than a Draft deck. A fast deck with cheap aggressive creatures requires a critical mass of those creatures, as well as cheap removal and finishers. If you don't have this critical mass (as is very probable in Sealed, where the card pool is small), your opponent's slower deck will be able to stabilize most often and you will lose most of the time. At a certain point in the game, drawing a 2/2 creature for two mana is not an asset but a nuisance. This is why you should be less reluctant when including expensive cards with a large effect on the board: you have more time to play them. This does not mean that you should disregard the "Inflated price" phenomenon (see Chapter 1) – even in Sealed you shouldn't play with too many expensive cards (unless backed up with mana accelerators), but by all means allow yourself to have several of these, as long as they do have a powerful effect.

Conclusion: in the Sealed format you should appreciate the usefulness of an expansive card according to its sheer power more than its place in the strategic idea of the deck.

2. Other Practical Advice on Deck Building in Sealed

2.1 Managing Time: having more time for building your deck means better deck building. In Constructed, a player can dedicate days, or even weeks, for that (and there is a tendency to choose decks that were already built, tested, and winners of tournaments). In draft, the time is limited, but you are already committed to certain colors and know most of the cards that will be included in your deck (in draft, most of the deck building is done during the card picking itself). In Sealed the problem is more acute; you have one hour to study the cards, decide on colors, and decide on cards within the colors. This is a limitation, but an asset to whoever comes more prepared. If these are new cards (pre-release), then knowing the cards prior to the tournament will save a lot of time. Assessing new cards in Limited is not an easy task (the first and second chapters clarifies this very well) and thus takes a lot of time. Some preparation work prior to the tournament is in order. Several sites on the Internet publish the cards a few days before the pre-release, and this allows you the luxury of getting acquainted with the format.

2.2 Choosing the Main Colors: The most common way to choose colors is arranging the card pool according to colors while including the playable cards only (meaning excluding the unplayable and filler cards). Borderline cards should also be excluded at this initial stage, and only re-examined after the colors are chosen, or when there is a real dilemma about choosing a color. The sorted cards should be arranged with the "bombs" being on the top of each color so that they would have a heavy weight in the decision. This is a good time to get a feel for the depth of each color. Depth means the number of quality and playable cards in any of the colors (usually around 50%-60% of the total cards in that color). The minimal depth for choosing a main color is seven or eight playable cards. At this stage, you don't choose the colors… you're only setting aside the ones that don't have the minimal depth. In most cases, you get to disqualify two colors from being main colors in your deck.

Now you choose the ones you will play. This is done according to two criteria. The first is the quality of the cards in the remaining colors – for this purpose there is a great importance in the existence of "bombs." The second criterion is more important: build a deck with a strategic idea, according to the characteristics presented in the third chapter. The colors, and the cards within the colors, need to contribute to each other and enable a "master plan" with an inner reason (some call it a win condition).

2.3 Choosing the Splash Color: As said above, Sealed does indeed encourage adding a third color in the deck and especially in a 75 cards format, but it should not be done automatically. Remember: adding a third color has its price in deck consistency. It's important to verify that the risk is worth the reward, and this is why you need to evaluate the measure you actually need the third color in your deck. If you have 22-23 playable cards within your two main colors (an unlikely event), you should consider dropping the splash color altogether. If there is a need to choose that third color, how should you choose it? Again, standing one in front of the other are the criteria of quality against synergy. Splashable "bombs" are a very tempting deal, even if they don't necessary match the deck's idea. But you shouldn't overlook the ability of the third color to deal with the weak spots of the other two. For example, adding Black or Red removal to a U/W deck is a fine idea. To conclude, it seems that in regard to the third color, quality is the more dominant factor.

2.4 Sideboard: The wide pool of sideboard cards available (more than in any other environment) demands special notice. Experienced players are aware that in this environment it is not uncommon to change the color of the splash after the first game to another color that can give more effective cards against a specific opponent. On occasion you will see that players change one of their primary colors to deal with a specific deck – an impossibility in draft. Since it is hard to think about such large-scale changes during the small break in between games, it is recommended to think about different possibilities for changing the deck while you're still in the stage of the original design. You can plan "scenarios and reactions." What will you change when presented with certain conditions? This will allow you to be more flexible, and improve you chance of winning against different decks.

Appendix:

Suppose you're playing in an 8-player draft. You get to open three boosters with fifteen cards in each. Everyone opens booster #1 and passes the cards in a circle, until all the cards are picked - a rotation. In each rotation you will get to see the following number of cards:

15+14+13+12+11+10+9+8=92 (the reason it ends in 8 is that the next booster will be the one that you opened).

If so, in an 8-player draft you get to see a total of 276 different cards: 92*3=276. Notice that this is not really a pool of 276 cards to choose as you wish (like in Sealed), since when choosing one card, you are giving up on most of the other cards (you will get one more pick from this booster when it comes back). However, the possibility to choose cards out of a larger pool, aided by player collaboration (which is expressed by division of colors among them), gives you the opportunity to make a quality deck that is more consistent than a Sealed counterpart. To emphasize this point, let's suppose that in a draft all players choose their cards only according to their quality (and ignore consistency considerations). In this case, at the end of the draft, each player will have 45 cards in five different colors… worse than in Sealed.

I hope you've enjoyed my Guide to Limited. While involving, I believe it's an excellent way to approach the Limited game, allowing for improvement at a base level rather than focusing on the mechanics of any one particular set. Hopefully, your Limited game will improve… after all, that's why we're here.

Gadi Heimann