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Welcome back to Ask Ken, the column that dares to be different. I'm your host, Kartin Ken. I played in the North American Challenge this past weekend. While I must compliment Tom Shea and Nat Fairbanks on a very well run tourney, I have to say that I was reminded why I don't like PTQs. Wake up at 6am, drive 2.5+ hours, sit in a room of smelly men for the better part of a day, then screw up and miss top 8 just to make the same long drive home. This tournament did have something most Magic tournaments do not: Young women experimenting with their sexuality in a public place! So thanks again to Tom Shea! That look I am getting from my editor can mean only one thing. This bit is old, let's open some mail.
Today's letter comes to us from Mike White. Mike writes:
Hey Kartin' Ken, I'm Mike from Newfoundland, Canada. I have a question for you about Sealed deck construction.
When you need to splash a small number of cards and you don't have any Myrs/Talisman of those colors or any Chromatic Sphere or other mana fixers, how do you do it? What do you do if in Sealed, for example, you're only decent red card is Fireball and you want to splash it by itself?
Thanks.
Well Mike, since we aren't all named Nash, adding mana to a deck is less than an exact science. With the addition of Fifth Dawn there is even more to consider. Before all this artifact craziness, the average Sealed deck was two main colors and a splash. These decks would play seventeen or eighteen land. The standard number of lands for the splash color was three to four.
Things are a bit trickier now. There are rewards for playing artifact lands that don't reside in any of your colors. It is possible you could be playing Black as a main color with only four spells. Before Fifth Dawn, it was fairly easy as you could often overload on your splash color since your main colors were often shallow as well. Now you have to consider off-color artifact lands.
If you have no mana fixing at all, play between two and three Mountains for that splashed Fireball. But that splash card better be on par with Fireball to warrant splashing with no fixers.
The source on the build,
KK
If any of you are interested, I was a miserable failure at the NAC. The highlight of my weekend was mulliganing to three on the play in the Affinity mirror, then screwing up twice to lose. Most players would blame the mull to three (actually most players would have kept a horrendous six-card hand), but I will own up to my mistakes. G'night everybody!
06/07/04
Welcome back to the phenomenon that is sweeping the world. I'm your host, Ken Krouner. I am extremely pleased with all the positive feedback I have been getting about Ask Ken...
"Great advice, thanks."
"Your column is a laugh riot, and your guest stars are spectacular."
"Damn baby, you got it goin' on!"
"Sir, could you please move you are blocking out the sun."
...You get the idea. Those groans of agony I hear can mean one of only two things. Either this shtick has finally gotten old, or it's time for a little Reader Mail! Hey! Alright! I get to keep feeding you this line until we both vomit.
Today's question comes to us all the way from Greece. John Pateros writes:
Hi Ken,
My name is John and I'm from Greece. I will be competing in PT Seattle and I would like you explain to me how we can share the colors in Team Rochester draft?
Thanks
Great question John, short and sweet. Fifth Dawn offers us a unique opportunity not seen since Invasion Block. This is the opportunity to draft more than two colors. I think a great way to split up the colors would be to put Multi-Colored Green on the left. The reason for this is four-fold:
1) Green is at its best in Mirrodin.
2) Green has the most access to mana-fixers.
3) Fifth Dawn is where you are rewarded for drafting multiple colors.
4) It puts you in the position to cut off any potential bombs that would be passed to the other team, and actually play them regardless of the colors.
The only potential problem with this theory is that it puts a rather large onus on the C seat. Blue has a few cards capable of helping your mana. It is possible that you could have two mages drafting three or more colors. You are probably going to want White in the middle, as it is the most consistently strong of all the decks. This would put Blue in the A seat and White in the middle and Green the C.
Black and Red show be distributed as needed to fill in empty holes in the deck. Remember this is all theory, so check your local listings before heading out to the theaters.
The source on Team Rochester,
KK
Keep it right here at StarCityGames.com for more of your probing questions, and out guest star of the week. G'night everybody!
