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Introduction
This article describes the results of a Duplicate Sealed tournament I organized for some of the players in my gaming group. It was a 4-player round robin held in December 2002. I wrote a long report on this tournament and mailed it to our entire group back then. But lately after re-reading it I thought it might make an interesting article for StarCityGames.com. This article contains a listing and discussion of the card pool, decklists from each player as well as the two guys who built the pool, analysis of each of the six decklists, and finally brief tournament reports from each of the players. This is pretty long, but I hope it will provide some insight into deckbuilding by showing six different decks constructed from the same pool. I found it very educational myself seeing the wide variety of decks that came out of the same 90 cards, and also reading what each player had to say about why they made the choices they did.
First I'd like to acknowledge the players from that tournament who helped write this article. While I did the compiling and editing these guys wrote significant sections of it back in 2002. Chuck has been playing since 1994, while Todd, Al, and Dave all started around 2000. My friend Brent started playing in 1994 also. He is kind of the theoretician of our group and is a great resource for deckbuilding help, rules questions, and discussions of strategy. So I turned to him to help me pick the cards in the duplicate pool. We must have emailed at least 100 times back and forth discussing the card pool and bouncing ideas off of each other; most of it figuring out what would be balanced and what wouldn't work well.
Card Pool
The list below is the set of cards each player used for the Duplicate Sealed tournament.
Non-Basic Lands (1)
Forsaken City
Artifacts (4)
Obsianus Golem
Ticking Gnomes
Fellwar Stone
Celestial Prism
Gold (10)
Ranger en-Vec
Hull Breach
Soul Link
Quicksilver Dagger
Tor Wauki
Recoil
Captain's Maneuver
Silver Drake
Yavamaya's Embrace
Ebony Treefolk
Black (15)
Pit Imp
Basal Thrull
Restless Dead
Frozen Shade
Slinking Skirge
Gravedigger
Hollow Dogs
Spinning Darkness
Addle
Twisted Experiment
Fear
Waste Away
Drain Life
Fevered Strength
Psychotic Haze
Blue (15)
Dream Thrush
Walking Sponge
Wall of Air
Homarid
Stormwatch Eagle
Pirate Ship
Sea Serpent
Boomerang
Brainstorm
Opportunity
Dominate
Phantasmal Terrain
Rites of Refusal
Memory Lapse
Spell Blast
Green (15)
Ghazban Ogre
Scavenger Folk
Grizzly Bears
Quirion Sentinel
Yavamaya Elder
Root Greevil
Giant Spider
Erhnam Djinn
War Mammoth
Craw Wurm
Giant Growth
Aggressive Urge
Fog Patch
Rampant Growth
Desert Twister
Red (15)
Dwarven Scorcher
Mogg Toady
Ironclaw Orcs
Wall of Heat
Hill Giant
Ambush Party
Earth Elemental
Earthbind
Fissure
Flare
Ghitu Fire
Laccolith Rig
Last Ditch Effort
Stun
Mob Justice
White (15)
Icatian Infantry
Phantom Nomad
Samite Healer
Mesa Pegasus
Benalish Lancer
Venerable Monk
Sustainer of the Realm
Personal Incarnation
Frantic Purification
Divine Offering
Eye for an Eye
Healing Salve
Holy Armor
Pacifism
Topple
I think the three best cards in the pool are Ghitu Fire, Dominate, and Yavimaya Elder. The Elder's land digging ability is very solid in a format where you need to run three colors, which is almost a necessity with this pool. It turns out nobody did build a two-color deck. The Ghitu Fire is the best direct damage spell in the pool by a mile and can be a great finisher since sealed deck games tend to go long and have lots of mana available. And the Dominate is a way to completely break open a critter stalemate situation, which often happens in any kind of sealed deck play.
Other top cards in my opinion were:
- Pacifism, Waste Away, Fissure and Topple as the best creature removal options.
- Erhnam Djinn, Pirate Ship, and Personal Incarnation as the best "Fatties".
- Dream Thrush, Wall of Heat, Ticking Gnomes and Samite Healer for little guys.
- Boomerang, Power Sink, Addle and Desert Twister as the best utility cards.
Among the gold cards, my favorite is Yavamaya's Embrace. Nobody else liked it since it is so expensive. But again, Sealed games tend to go long. There were very few games I saw that ended before at least one player got to eight mana. And if you built your deck planning on running this guy, it should be castable. Once cast, it is about impossible to lose unless the other guy can remove the critter or the enchantment immediately. Other good ones were Quicksilver Dagger as the best card drawing method in the pool and Ranger En-Vec as one of only two regenerators. Also having two power and first strike makes him possibly the most efficient combat creature in the pool at only three mana.
I added the Forsaken City as a way to get all colors early. It is tough to reuse, but many of the cards are splashable and only need one colored mana so I thought maybe people would run it. I also included a couple Madness cards to make untapping the City easier, but nobody ran it. Oh well, not every card in the pool is gonna get used, and this one wasn't. Nobody ran the Celestial Prism either. I guess people were less worried about color screw than I expected they would be. Almost everybody had Green, which had a little mana help in it, so maybe people figured that was enough.
As far as the overall colors go, here is my ordering of them.
1. Green.
Best creatures = best color in sealed. The growth spells and land dig are also very important in this pool. As a core color the Elder, Desert Twister, and Craw Wurm are all very nice cards. And it is easy to splash with the instant pump spells, Rampant Growth, and few of the single G casting cost creatures all being candidates.
2. Blue.
Dominate, Opportunity, and Pirate Ship are all great. I purposely left out any good flyers since Blue would be too strong if I gave them in addition to this good stuff.
3. White.
Everybody who played hated it, but I think it is very solid if you use it for a main color with Personal Incarnation as a nearly unkillable 6/6, Sustainer of the Realm, and a few of the little utility critters. Or you can splash it for just the Topple, Pacifism, Icatian Soldier, and Samite Healer and get tons of utility for a 4-card investment, plus sideboard access to artifact and enchantment removal if you need it.
4. Red.
Great for splashing to get Wall of Heat, Ghitu Fire, and Flare. I didn't know about Laccolith Rig being so awesome if you put it on an enemy creature, so that is great too. As a main color it is a little weaker since the creatures are so bad. I did that on purpose, intending Red to get the best spells but worst creatures of all colors, and I think that worked out as intended.
5. Black.
Black has some nice stuff but no bombs. You can splash it or make it a core color, when Frozen Shade and Drain Life become good. But I just think it doesn't quite measure up to the strength of the other colors.
Here is Brent's analysis of the card pool.
Land - I think Forsaken City is pretty lame, but you might get people trying to use it. The problem with it is the extreme cost of pitching a card to untap it, which you simply can't afford. Not a bad card to include though, since I'd call it a skill tester to see if people will try it.
Artifacts - The best artifact here is Ticking Gnomes. The one-point removal is nice, and it's not hard to pay the echo on this to get a 3/3. Fellwar Stone is almost a must-include for anyone trying three colors, which I think is probably the way to go with this card pool. Obsianus Golem is decent, as it's big and going to prove difficult to kill. Celestial Prism has never been a very good card, even when you need it for the third color. Problem with it is that it costs too much to activate (you're at four mana, need the third color to play a 3U spell for example, but at best you can cast a 1U spell after using the prism). Yet another skilltester to see if people try it.
Gold - Almost everything here looks good. Hull Breach might be the weakest of the bunch primarily because there aren't a lot of artifacts or enchantments to worry about.
Black - No clear best card here, but I think Waste Away is pretty decent. Slinking Skirge and Gravedigger are both solid cards that are easily splashable. Hollow Dogs, Restless Dead, Twisted Experiment, Pit Imp and Fevered Strength are all solid cards for people wanting to play more black in their deck. If you commit enough to black, then both the Shade and Drain Life become viable options. There's not a lot of ways to gain evasion, so I think the Necrite is almost a dead card. Basal Thrull is somewhat weak, but can be used to sac and bring out a bigger creature sooner. Addle is hard to judge - a lot will depend on how many people play 2 vs. 3 or more color decks.
Black could be splashed for Skirge, Gravedigger, Waste Away and a few others. Black seems viable as both a splash or core color.
Blue - Dominate appears to be Blue's biggest bomb card. Opportunity isn't far behind, however. Also, the Pirate Ship is going to be very strong in this format. Those are the top three cards in Blue, and only Opportunity is a bit more difficult to splash. Both Wall of Air and Stormwatch Eagle are very strong in this format. Eagle is almost unkillable, while the wall can block almost everything and live. Spellblast will be okay in this format I think. Rites of Refusal might be. Dream Thrush looks like a strong play considering that it will help with 3 colors and with the Pirate Ship. Memory Lapse is borderline, as I don't see tempo as viable deck-type with the card pool. The Homarid, Sea Serpent and Phantasmal Terrain are all pretty weak.
Blue is a very splashable color giving you access to Dominate, Pirate Ship, Stormwatch Eagle, Spellblast, Rites of Refusal and Dream Thrush. Going heavier in blue gets access to Wall of Air and Opportunity, which may well be worth the higher commitment to the color.
Green - The key card in the whole format is in this color, and it's not obvious, so you've done a good job. Yamimaya Elder is a BOMB! This card is even stronger than Dominate and Ghitu Fire in this format, but it's not obvious at first glance. The fact he costs double green is likely to make some people avoid him. But he fixes your colors, allowing a 3-color deck to take off. The fact he lets you draw a card to boot is pure gravy. The best play is attack or block, put damage on the stack, then use his sac ability to fetch two lands and draw a card. Green has a couple other solid cards to work with. Desert Twister is the ultimate removal option and great pick for the format. And then there's Ernham Djinn - I'm not sure if he's better than those other two or just behind them, but that is the top 3 easily. Following up that trio is a host of balanced cards well worth playing including Giant Spider, Aggressive Urge, Rampant Growth, War Mammoth, Giant Growth and Grizzly Bears. If you're playing a heavy dose of green all of those are must includes. Craw Wurm, Fog Patch and Root Greevil are likely worth it but more borderline. Scavenger Folk, Ghazban and Quirion Sentinel are the weaker cards here. I rank Ghazban lower here primarily because it's going to be tough to bank on having a higher life total in this format.
Some green stuff is splashable, but the best cards here need double green, so green is much better as a core color if you're going to play it. Green isn't necessarily the strongest color, but it may wind up being the most played.
Red - The toughest color to judge. Ghitu Fire is a clear bomb. Fissure is solid, but requires commitment to Red. Wall of Heat and Flare are both decent and splashable. The Dwarven Scorcher, Ironclaw Orcs, Hill Giant, Ambush Party and Earth Elemental are playable for people using a bigger dose of red. Laccolith Rig is a decent card as well. Earthbind depends on enemy flyers, but is otherwise a weak card. Last Ditch Effort, Shatter and Mob Justice are all very weak. The Mogg Toady is probably the absolute worst of the Red cards.
Primary reason to play Red as a core color is for access to Fissure and to play more of the Red creatures. Seems like it may be more suited to a splash to get access to Ghitu Fire, Wall of Heat, Flare and if necessary, Hill Giant and Ambush Party.
White - Best card in White is Pacifism. Sustainer of the Realm, Topple and Benalish Lancer are pretty decent follow-ups. Those are White's four best. The other decent playable cards are Icatian Infantry, Mesa Pegasus and possibly Eye for an Eye. Samite Healer and Healing Salve are borderline. Allay and Divine Offering won't have a lot of targets. Holy Armor is fairly weak, but might be a fill card for someone wanting to run a lot of White. Personal Incarnation is not that great in this format primarily due to cost and lack of evasion. In creature stand-offs, he's not any help since you wind up taking the damage if he blocks or attacks. There's a cool combo using Soul Link on him, but that's pretty tough to rely on. The worst white card is Miracle Worker as it has so few targets to ever get used on (Pacifism and Earthbind).
White doesn't appear to be very splashable, mostly because many of the better cards have double white or require you to get a white many early for an early turn play (Infantry, Pegasus, etc)
Here's how I rank the colors.
#1 Green - Has mana fixing, solid creatures, and the ultimate removal spell
#2 Blue - Has some evasion, decent enough creatures and tricks
#3 White - Decent creatures, some evasion, two solid removal spells
#4 Black - Balanced creatures, some removal.
#5 Red - One great removal spell (Ghitu Fire), a couple good ones (Flare, Fissure). Creatures are a bit weak overall.
That is the end of Brent's analysis. I'll post his decklist and discussion of it at the end of the decklists section.
Decklists
Here are the decklists, along with analysis of each deck. Brent did the discussion of his own deck; I did all the rest. Each player discussed their own deck in the tourney reports they submitted which are at the end of this article. One interesting fact - only two of the decks (Dave's and mine) used the same colors; the rest were all different. Getting five different color combos out of six builds makes me confident the pool was fairly well balanced.
Al
8 Island
5 Swamp
3 Mountain
Quicksilver Dagger
Tor Wauki
Recoil
Restless Dead
Frozen Shade
Gravedigger
Hollow Dogs
Addle
Twisted Experiment
Waste Away
Drain Life
Psychotic Haze
Dream Thrush
Walking Sponge
Wall of Air
Pirate Ship
Boomerang
Brainstorm
Dominate
Phantasmal Terrain
Rites of Refusal
Memory Lapse
Spell Blast
Al went for a control deck, which is very interesting considering how few staple blue control cards were available. He put in every counterspell in the pool, as well as most of the removal options in his colors (missing only Fissure and Spinning Darkness, which he obviously thought were too expensive for his splash colors). The selection of creatures is fairly balanced with some cheap ones and other more expensive and powerful options. It looks to me like this deck would be very consistent and steady. It would not get off to a blazing start and would not stall out. It has a good mix of casting costs so it should be consistently solid throughout the game. The one weakness it might have is if somebody jumped him with a very fast beatdown deck, but that was tough to build in this pool. One surprise is not running Sea Serpent when he has both the Dream Thrush and Phantasmal Terrain to give the enemy islands. A 5/5 for six with only one colored mana in the cost seems pretty solid to me for this format.
Chuck
6 Swamp
6 Forest
4 Island
Pit Imp
Basal Thrull
Restless Dead
Frozen Shade
Slinking Skirge
Gravedigger
Drain Life
Fevered Strength
Dream Thrush
Brainstorm
Ghazban Ogre
Scavenger Folk
Grizzly Bears
Quirion Sentinel
Giant Spider
Erhnam Djinn
War Mammoth
Giant Growth
Aggressive Urge
Rampant Growth
Chuck was clearly going for cheap and fast here. He skipped Dominate and Yavamaya Elder, which I considered among the three best cards in the format but they are fairly costly. He also left the Craw Wurm, Pirate Ship, and Hollow Dogs out, which are the biggest dudes in the colors he chose, opting for a larger number of lower cost guys instead. The choice of a 3-card blue splash was very interesting to me. I would have almost gone with a 2-color deck by adding Obsianus Golem, Yavimaya Elder, and Hollow Dogs and skipping those three if he likes Green and Black so well. You might even get by with 15 lands then since you'd have the Elder, Rampant Growth, and Fellwar Stone to help you get mana, in which case you could add one more spell, which I'd probably make Fear or Desert Twister. That build would be a bit slower but have a lot more late game power to it.
Dave
8 Forest
6 Mountain
4 Island
Brainstorm
Rites of Refusal
Memory Lapse
Spell Blast
Scavenger Folk
Grizzly Bears
Quirion Sentinel
Giant Spider
War Mammoth
Giant Growth
Aggressive Growth
Fog Patch
Rampant Growth
Dwarven Scorcher
Ironclaw Orcs
Wall of Heat
Hill Giant
Flare
Ghitu Fire
Laccolith Rig
Again, he's running the colors to support Dominate and Yavimaya Elder but doesn't run them. Brent and I both thought they were two of the biggest bombs available (Ghitu Fire being the third, which everybody who had Red did run), but both of the players with the right colors to use them didn't choose to. That's a huge surprise to me. Dave had a good selection of relatively cheap creatures, along with a little control element of the 3 counterspells and some removal. The Golem is the only really big creature. If I were running these colors (which I was, as you'll see in my decklist below), I would have gone with more fatties and skipped the counterspells.
Todd
7 Forest
6 Swamp
4 Mountain
Restless Dead
Gravedigger
Hollow Dogs
Addle
Twisted Experiment
Waste Away
Drain Life
Scavenger Folk
Grizzly Bears
Yavamaya Elder
Giant Spider
War Mammoth
Craw Wurm
Giant Growth
Aggressive Urge
Fog Patch
Desert Twister
Hill Giant
Ghitu Fire
Laccolith Rig
I really like this decklist. It has way more beef than the rest, which to me seems very good since sealed deck games tend to last long and have lots of available mana. Yet he came in last. I think I see the reason why though. There is very little here that helps him survive to the mid or late game. I would have skipped the Hull Breach or Scavenger Folk and one of the big dudes in order to add a couple more low casting cost cards. Probably Wall of Heat is the best choice for that since he is a six-toughness blocker you can cast on turn 3. Quirion Sentinel, Basal Thrull, and Dwarven Scorcher are other choices for quick guys who could block early, hopefully trading themselves for an attacker. Even the Ticking Gnomes are decent in this role. Playing them turn 3 gives you a pretty big blocker, even if it does take your mana up on turn 4 as well. I think this adjustment would have added enough early defense to let the deck survive to the late game. And once it gets there the fatties in this deck should rule the day. I was happy to see some people try Twisted Experiment. I like the versatility of it letting you kill a 1 toughness dude, or pump one of your fatties big time. Putting it on a War Mammoth in particular gives you a six-power trampler, which the guy really needs to block and kill, letting you eliminate at least one creature and probably get some points through as well.
Ralph
This is the deck that I would have run had I played in the tournament.
8 Forest
4 Island
4 Mountain
Obsianus Golem
Ticking Gnomes
Fellwar Stone
Hull Breach
Quicksilver Dagger
Yavamaya's Embrace
Dream Thrush
Pirate Ship
Dominate
Ghazban Ogre
Grizzly Bears
Quirion Sentinel
Yavamaya Elder
Giant Spider
Erhnam Djinn
War Mammoth
Craw Wurm
Giant Growth
Aggressive Urge
Rampant Growth
Desert Twister
I wanted to base my deck on Green, but have access to both Dominate and Ghitu Fire, which makes my color choice easy. I decided to run all the available gold cards and three of the four available artifacts, which allowed me to go with 1 primary color and two small splashes. With all the mana acceleration in the pool being added to my deck, I figured I could get away with 16 lands, as well as use a slightly higher cost mana curve. I considered Yavamaya's Embrace to be the biggest "I Win" card in the set since stealing the other guy's best creature, buffing it, and giving it trample should break any stalemate in your favor, and if you're already in good shape it's game over. That is one reason I used all the land dig and the Fellwar Stone. The Wall of Heat, Quirion Sentinel, Grizzly Bears, and Yavamaya Elder are all there to keep me alive till the mid to late game when my expensive critters and bombs like the Embrace, Dominate, and Ghitu Fire become useful. I don't mind any of them dying quick (especially the Elder!) as long as they take attackers with them and slow the game down. The Ghazban Ogre is a pretty questionable choice, but I figured if I could play him turn 1 with the other guy critterless he is great, so I didn't want to pass him up. I knew he'd be a dead card in some games though. The other questionable choice was Hull Breach. There aren't that many targets for it, but some of them are quite dangerous (the critter stealers, Pacifism, and Fear are the ones I was most worried about) so I decided to use it.
Brent
Were I to build a deck with this pool, I'd use green as one of the core colors and likely splash red. The big question is what the second primary color would be. Blue is tempting, but white has some good options too. So the gold cards could be the swing factor here. In the green/blue/red build, that is Hull Breach, Quicksilver Dagger and Yavimaya's Embrace. The embrace is tough to cast at 8 mana - many games will end before you have that much in play. In the green/white/red build, the 3 gold options are Hull Breach, Captain's Maneuver, and Ranger en-Vec, which are all viable cards. The red/white one gives you another removal card, and the Ranger's regeneration may be king in this format. There's not a lot of easy ways to kill him!
Here's a rough look at what I'd consider building with the card pool:
Creatures (16):
Scavenger Folk (G)
Icatian Infantry (W)
Grizzly Bears (1G)
Mesa Pegasus (1W)
Phantom Nomads (1W)
Ticking Gnomes (3)
Venerable Monk (2W)
Benalish Lancer (2W, often 4WW)
Wall of Heat (2R)
Ranger En-Vec (1WG)
Yavimaya Elder (1GG)
Giant Spider (3G)
War Mammoth (3G)
Ernham Djinn (3G)
Hill Giant (3R)
Sustainer of the Realm (2WW)
Spells (7):
Ghitu Fire (XR)
Rampant Growth (1G)
Aggressive Urge (1G)
Pacifism (1W)
Topple (2W)
Captain's Maneuver (XWR)
Desert Twister (4GG)
Land/Mana (17):
Fellwar Stone - technically not a land, but worth about half a land in deck-building. This plus Elder and Rampant Growth should be enough to allow getting by with 16 land.
7 Forest
6 Plains
3 Mountains
Biggest problem here is the mana curve - not a lot of decent one- and two-drops. But I think almost every color combo is likely to have the same problem with this pool.
Results
After reading all that, I bet you want to know the results of the tournament.
Round 1
Al 1-1 Todd
Chuck 2-0 Dave
Round 2
Al 2-0 Dave
Chuck 2-0 Todd
Round 3
Al 2-0 Chuck
Dave 2-0 Todd
Final Results
Al 2 1/2 - 1/2 matches, 5-1 games. Alpha Berserk for prize
Chuck 2-1 matches, 4-2 games. Beta Sinkhole for prize
Dave 1-2 matches, 2-4 games. Maze of Ith for prize
Todd 1/2-2 1/2 matches, 1-5 games. Revised Volcanic Island for prize
Player Tournament Reports
Al
When I looked at the card pool it looked like everything was pretty even. Nothing stood out as being overly powerful yet nothing looked too weak. I felt that white had some good cards but didn't want to commit too heavily to the color so I decided against it. Red's creatures looked pretty weak but I didn't think I could pass up on the Ghitu Fire so it was a likely splash. Green looked like it had the best beef but even so I didn't know that the beef was all that great, and certainly not overly fast.
This left me looking at blue and black, colors I don't mind playing anyway, so I started looking at removal. There was quite a bit actually, from the Waste Away, which could deal with nearly any card in this pool, to Psychotic Haze, which could net a few card advantage a lot of times because I wasn't playing many one power critters. Actually I wasn't playing many critters at all. With B/U/r I had the following cards that could either be removal or slowdown:
Drain Life
Twisted Experiment
Flare
Ghitu Fire
Dominate
Psychotic Haze
Waste Away
Recoil
Boomerang
Pirate Ship
Tor Wauki
I also had Walking Sponge to deal with evasion/trample and Quicksilver Dagger. The Dagger was a game winner several times when it hit the table. I tried to set it on a wall usually, which meant it was safe from lots of removal and generally netted me a few cards and some damage.
Addle, Spell Blast and Memory Lapse dealt with threats. After a Boomerang/Recoil/Memory Lapse, etc the Addle could take their biggest threat away. I included a couple of walls to slow things down. But walls with 1 and 2 power do more than just slow the beating, they often hold off multiple critters as a couple of 2/2s and a 1/1 only get through for 4 in 2 turns and losing two critters against a Wall of Heat.
The primary path to victory was often a Ghitu Fire or timming; the Pirate Ship was very powerful. Sometimes it was a Dominated critter and others it was a Hollow Dog, maybe even with Twisted Experiment on it.
I included Frozen Shade, which was often pitched to Waste Away. After Dave pointed out the power of Laccolith Rig the Shade came out for it in game 2 basically every time.
Round 1: Todd: tie, 1-1-1
In the first game I got off to an OK start and held my own with a wall or two and then Dominated a worm of some sort. He dealt with it but my Quicksilver Dagger'ed wall of heat held him off and drew me extra cards while whittling him down. Rather than get over-eager I stayed one land ahead of him while timming because I knew his only hope was the Ghitu Fire and I had Spell Blast/Rites of Refusal ready to hold him off. In game 2 he got out quick and my 2 Island hand never really developed into more. Game three was another slow game for me, again keeping a 2 Island hand and not stabilizing quickly. His draw wasn't great either and we ended up drawing with him having board advantage but not enough to win.
Round 2: Dave: win 2-0
Knowing the card pool was really paying off and I used my counters only when I had to. Eventually I think I timmed him to death. Game two I brought in fear against the only non-black playing opponent. A Hollow Dog with fear worked well.
Round 3: Chuck: win 2-0
Chuck hadn't lost yet so this was for the Berserk. I'm not really sure what happened but I never felt really in control in either game yet Chuck didn't seem to be able to keep a lot on the board. He was the only player not playing red so I didn't need to worry about the Ghitu Fire. He had an annoying Ebony Treefolk that was the most troublesome but in one game I tried to kill it and he saved it with bounce. When he replayed it and only had BBGG left for pumping I Waste Awayed and breathed a sigh of relief. With all the mana he had that probably would have been game winner if he had forced it down, I could only have hoped to slow it until I found my Dominate. I think in one of the games he may have played a Hollow Dogs or some other good beef, and emptied his hand to do it, so I Recoiled it away.
Chuck
First off, looking at the cards I was kind of surprised at the strength of the card pool. Lots of relatively expensive cards in there. I had expected that there would be mostly "dog" rares and some flawed uncommons. Not really the case.
First, I had to figure how many colors to run overall. From the look of it, it was possible to run two colors, but then you ended up playing suboptimal cards in those colors (well, I thought they were anyhow)
As I looked at the pool, the first thing that I saw was that the white selection looked poor to me. Most of the stuff I would have looked at as being good required multiple white mana for play. If I was willing to run white with a splash of 1-2 other colors, it may have looked OK.
The red cards were something of a different matter. There were several really good options here, especially Laccolith Rig and Ghitu fire. I had a tough time ruling out red, but other considerations made the choice.
Blue was a bit more difficult. There were some useful creatures. I really would have liked to use Pirate Ship and Sea Serpent as they were two of the biggest creatures in the pool, but they did have the drawback of not being able to attack sometimes. I (wrongly) felt there wasn't enough control in the pool to make that work, and there was some card drawing. Overall, quite strong - but in a restricted environment I felt that this color just wasn't a maindeck choice.
Green was to me a good choice because of all the relatively low cc creatures, and the creature boost instants. The two cards I struggled with here, and didn't put it in were Craw Wurm and Desert Twister. Both were very good in their effect, but with a decision being made that we were in a position that 3 colors were needed to make a reasonable deck, I could not justify any 2 colored cc cards.
Black was also a reasonable choice because it was fairly strong as a creature base, some with useful special abilities- and these were what sold me. Flyer, pumper, regeneration - all of which seemed good. The inclusion of Drain Life was also a positive point.
Artifacts- I ended up using the Fellwar Stone and the Ticking Gnomes. Obsianus Golem was also a reasonable choice, but again I was somewhat concerned regarding top end cc.
Multi colored. This was actually the place that made my choice for me. I have always liked pump creatures and a 3/3 for 3 mana was very good in this pool. I felt there was a little too much enchantment removal for me to really want to run many enchantments. I think my choice here was OK, and my color choice allowed for some sideboarding with this.
So, I ended up with a green and black main deck with a splash of blue.
First round was against Dave.
Game 1 I played first. I got some quick damage in, but he soon stabilized with walls and large critters. We had a long standoff, and then I was able to get a flyer into play with some supporting critter boost spells. I killed his spider and then was able to use a Pit Imp to beat him down and out. A game end Ghitu Fire did bring me down to 4 life, but it was not enough.
Game two started out basically the same. In the mid game when we were at a standoff, I had enough in hand to try an attack and knocked out some of his bigger stuff, but lost a lot of mine as well. We started trading damage for a while, and got into time issues. At the end, it looked like he might be able to pull off a win because of a misplay on my part, but fortunately I had him down enough to finish him off with Drain Life.
The next match was with Todd.
This was not pretty. The gods of mana hose sat on his shoulder, and he just didn't get any cards worth squat. My deck had about as good a draw as I could get, and he went down quickly in both games.
The final match was for the winner of the tourney.
Al had a good start in game 1, with me having to mulligan, and then getting a land heavy redraw. I kept on a dubious hand and just was not able to get anywhere. He got out a quick critter and proceeded to beat me down, and any answer I had was promptly countered.
The second game started out looking good for me. Al apparently had some problems with the draw and had to mulligan down to 5 cards. I got out quick creature superiority and started to attack. Unfortunately he was able to stabilize and then draw an answer to anything that I could come up with. Until the very end, I had a chance if I drew the right cards, but that did not happen. (Honestly, I probably would have decked out anyhow)
Loss 0-2.
This ended up with me in second place.
The biggest problem for me was poor sideboarding. In fact the only time I did this was in the first series with Dave, where I pulled Ticking Gnomes for Fear, since he had no black. It did help, but more aggressive boarding may have helped in other matches.
I really made a big mistake in the final round when I should have put in the Craw Wurm and Desert Twister. A shift to more control might have been useful also.
Overall this was quite fun, and it showed that deckbuilding was probably the most important part.
Dave
My first tourney report - apologies for its brevity...
Deck decisions:
First pass through the cards and I changed my colors twice. Everything looked pretty even to me, except white - which seemed to require too much colored mana commitment to be consistent as a splash, and not strong enough to be a primary. I ended up choosing R/G/u for critters-finisher-control. I didn't expect to find a 'combo' in this card pool since it was well researched, but leave it to me to think of Laccolith Rig/Fog Patch - which, of course, I was not able to pull-off once.
Round one - Chuck
Long games. Ending in defeat. I was able to drop him below five both games with some large Ghitu fire. Game one, I had an early lead when I drew almost all of my Blue (splash) and was able to control until I drew into land while Chuck drew into meat. Game two was hitting time limit and Chuck gave me a big opening at the end, but I was too far behind to take it.
Round two - Al
Another long match. This time, I get to regret not siding in flyers (as I intended). Second game came close with another Ghitu to bring him in range, but he doesn't let me keep the quicksilver'ed wall that I needed for the last few points.
Round three - Todd
Luck was not with Todd for this tourney. Somehow, even with me being a bit mana hosed the first game, he was hosed worse and I pulled it off. First game ends with another Ghitu. Second was open season on Todd with critter beatdown.
Todd
Keep in mind I've never written one of these, so bear with me.
Todd's Official Tournament Report
Magic Duplicate Sealed
Deck: B/R/G "Big Stuff"
The first match-up was against Al. My mana drops were consistent, going all the way up to turn 6, before shuffling around a bit. Since I was running three colors, I wasn't complaining. Started out with a Scavenger Folk, followed by some Grizzly Bears, Hill Giant, Hollow Dogs, and a Craw Wurm. Unfortunately, I never got to use the Craw thanks to a Dominate from Al. He didn't get to use it either, as I threw a Desert Twister against it. My pounding against Al slowed down, bringing him to 9 life or so, and he was able to hold me off long enough to bink me to death with a Quicksilver Dagger and a Pirate Ship. The second game went better for me, ramping up quickly mana-wise to get my beef on the table - the Hill Giant and the Craw Wurm. The Wurm got killed (geez, that's twice now!), but I was able to bring it back with Gravedigger. I beat Al soundly this time, but that was helped by him being color-screwed. The third game started like the rest, with me consistently getting the beef out. Unfortunately, I could only bring him to something like 4 life before we ended our five turns. Result: 1-1 Draw
The next match-up was against Chuck. Turn one had Chuck playing the Ghazban Ogre. With that down, I had to be gutsy, so I Ghitu Fire'ed him for 1 point (I went first - played a forest and a Scavenger Folk) so I could get the Ghazban. On the whole, I did whopping 3 points to him the entire game. His Ticking Gnomes, Ghazban, and Dream Thrush overwhelmed my lack of creatures. The second game was even better. After mulliganing down to four cards (I got two lands and two non-creature spells), we started swinging. Or, more specifically, he started swinging. If memory serves, I did get a Giant Spider and a Hill Giant on the table, but they were used to protect my fanny, more than attacking. Result: 0-2 Loss
The last match-up was against Dave. The first game had us going back and forth for a while. And I do mean a *while*. One minute, I'd have the creature advantage, then he'd have it. With both of us under 10 life (I was at 9, he was at 8) we both knew it was coming down to who threw the Ghitu fire first. Unfortunately, it was him. Dave did an excellent bluff with keeping three blue untapped, keeping me from throwing my Fire at him, for fear of a counterspell. Little did I know that he didn't see a single blue card that entire game. DOH!!! The second game had me thoroughly frustrated at my performance. So, I decided to make the game a quick one - any creature I had, would attack. As with the first game, we traded blows consistently despite the fact that I had more land than I knew what to do with. My Grizzly was swinging away, until he got a Hill Giant out. I drew into a Twisted Experiment, so we traded "Big Guys". The last creature I saw was the Yavimaya Elder, which was used consistently in all games. Like I needed land. Result: 0-2 Loss
It was very interesting to play in a format like this, where everyone has the same pool of cards to pick from. Yet none of us could say that we were playing identical decks. Sure, there were some cards chosen by all of us, but there was enough variance to make things interesting.
Conclusion
That's the end of the reports submitted by the players - and thus of the article. I hope you found some interesting insights by reading how several different players approached building from the same pool of cards. My thanks to Al Venz, Chuck Butler, Dave Mortenson, Todd Eichmann, and Brent Davis for their contributions to this article.
